A casual side scrolling shooter that tallies your performance from IndieAn.com

Aero Wings ($0.99; Free)

With their first successful run in Heavy Mach, IndieAn.com is back with another fighting game that’s easily summed as Metal Slugger in the big blue skies! It’s every bit as fun and graphically enriched, and something you should at least download the lite version for.

My Take

As a fan of their Heavy Mach aka Neo Geo’s Metal Slug, comes another good game in the same art format. It’s definitely well done for a casual game. Aero Wings is worth the dollar price tag, and it delivers a solid app for the price.  It’s a little slow and the side scrolling is forced on you, but it’s just as if I was playing a Mario World level as if you can’t blow through each stage.

With that in mind, the slowness comes from all of us playing those high intensity shooters.  By no means do all shooters need to give me a borderline epileptic seizure.  This one is slowed down for a reason.

Presentation

Clean graphics, seriously along the same lines of Neo Geo’s Metal Slug series (see Heavy Mach, the developer’s other app).  Setting aside my positive biased opinion, the large or bloated planes, and weaponry is a lot easier on the eyes.  Since the screen is the limit and most of us won’t be hooking up their device to a 1080p screen.

It’s a clear indication that applications that stick not only with a themed presentation, but as an end consumer, I know what to expect for the next title submitted from them.   It might not be for everyone, but it’s consistent throughout the game.

Game Play

Basically, you are in a cherry red propeller airplane on the left and your job is to gun down your enemies in each stage while keeping your plane’s damage to a minimum.  Along the way, you are collecting coins dropped at random after a kill to go to the shop to upgrade your arsenal.  Needless to say, your job is to tilt control your fighter while the game auto-scrolls you through the stage.  I’m a little too impatient for the stroll, but there’s a reason why it’s at the pace given.

You are graded on your destroy total, accuracy rate and damage rate.  Included is the high score, which is to me not as important as the other stats.  The thing is, you can hold down your machine gunner fire button and create a steady stream of bullets, but your accuracy will suffer (see my screenshot).  The other two weapons are straight shooting missiles and homing missiles.  both of those are limited but with each plane shot down, there is a possibility of gaining more missiles.

The only enemy fire are these little pellet looking bullets, but as stated with the stats, your damage percentage affects your grading at the end of the stage.  There are 50 stages to get through, once beaten you are able to go back and better your score and stats.

The Cons

This is my only beef with the game:  As the coins are released, they gravitate towards the plane like I have a tractor beam attached to my fighter.  That’s the same for the extra missiles and health.  I would if I was the developer, slow down the coins and such and make them fall to the ground, possibly bounce up a little.  Right now there’s no temptation to detour from your flightpath to collect the goods.

Finally, I might be stretching the dollar a little by asking for auto-save for unexpected exits from the game.  I don’t think this game is made for global high scores since the objective based on perfection and accuracy, but if I happen to get an A+, I would love to brag about it on Facebook or something.

Conclusion

Other than my little complaint, it’s a good title, one of those 99 cent apps to get and play.  Be sure to get the tilt controls down and lay off the fire button unless you are one of those students who are okay with average grades. It doesn’t blow me away but it is one to consider purchasing.  Lastly, there is a lite version to try the game out, but come on, it’s a dollar.  It’s worth the hit on your wallet.