Written By: Daniel Scott

Mythpeople/10 Tons’ reckless shooter is retro-perfection.

Belowscape ($0.99 – On Sale)

The relentless legions of glowing rectangles, circles, pentagons and whatnot are after a lone ship in the depths of the retrospace. Belowscape casts you to pilot that heroic ship. Dodge, thrust and let the photon blasters sing to send those geometric things to the abyss. In another vector graphics themed game, Belowscape is already a beast in terms of graphics. Couple it with it’s fun and easy to pick up gameplay, Belowscape is a gem.

My Take

I am a sucker for a good classic shooter. Back in the day I played any shooter, any chance I had. While playing, I did my best to stay put in the center to handle the boulders and enemy fire as it came my way.  Eventually I had to move some to end a level, only to get smashed by a fresh set of boulders. Belowscape is essentially an Asteroid-like clone with accelerometer controls and touch firing for the weapon. Although Belowscape has similar game play, I was glad to dive into this one due to the vector graphics I grew up on. I still think they work artistically in 2009.

PS, I am biased in favor of these games, I owned a Vectrex, a console with a built-in monitor and good vector graphics.  It was poorly marketed and too expensive for its time, it still had the bragging rights to front a true arcade feel over it’s competition.  Solar Quest was a not so popular shooter for the system but the enemies did follow you around unless you destroyed them. Belowscape is in the same lineage, shoot the enemy down or they will continue to come at you until they take you out.  In other words, it’s you vs. everything else, and they gravitate towards you until you die.

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Game Play

As stated, it’s just a shooter, but the options make this game much better.  My gaming ventures are usually right before bed or on the sofa, winding down from a long day working.  I can’t play tilt based games too well lying down, so in the options menu I am able to adjust the game to my liking.

The default controls are tilt-based, and it can be changed to touch target, left or right (virtual) joystick. Good notion to make for the southpaw audience.  Firing has four setting as well: Touch target (default), tilting, and again left or right (virtual) joystick.  Also you have control on the display to turn on (or off) virtual joysticks, motion blur FX and Camera Follows the Player. The third option can get you a little dizzy but I like it on so the ship stays somewhat centered during the game.

After you get adjusted to the controls, you have an option of “survival” (3 lives) or “rush” (1 life) to choose from. Shoot for your best score and post it online.

As I always say, online high scores are the best thing since sliced bread.  Wherever we are located it is noted by our country’s flag.  I’m feeling like it’s the olympics… an amatuer gamer, representing my country with my skills. So where’s my medal sir? Oh wait, my score is #882 on the list, sheesh.

The Cons

One part that is completely different from Asteriods and other space shooters is you are isolated to one screen (see Bally’s Omega Race, same feel).  That’s fine but in the future I would like to play it in a run-through screen.  That would definitely add to the game play.

Secondly and this one is minor:  When I enter my name, I don’t have the choice of a space between my words or upper/lower case.  I’m stretching it a bit, but it would be nice to type in Hugh Jazz instead of HUGHJAZZ.

Conclusion:

It’s 99 cents until 4/30, get it!!   It’s worth your hard earned dollar.  The game play outweighs the graphics. This one is golden waiting to fill the gap in your library.