Game Reviews

The days when young Tom Cruise climbed into his B-something-or-other jet and went to take on some bogeys has been reformulated into an App Store game application. As if Paramount Pictures haven’t milked-out this movie for what its worth, Top Gun is a fighter jet game that gets you dipping, dodging and barrel-rolling out of the way of missiles to crush your opposers with your own Scuds and Browning .50 caliber rounds all on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.If there is one thing that we had to chose to represent what we love about this game, it would have to be the controls. All the movement of the game is totally utilized through the iPhone’s accelerometer. The controls are extremely responsive and so natural! Just tipping your iPhone in any given direction makes the aircraft react. It gets real intense when you are dodging missiles and kamikazes. As far as weaponry, the controls are displayed on the screen. Dedicated buttons for the plane’s machine gun turret and guided missiles are accompanied by crosshairs in the center of the screen for targeting your enemy. The pause button is located at the top right of the screen, revealing a set of options that allow you to calibrate the positioning the iPhone so you can receive the right position for your bird. You can even swing your iPhone from left to right and do a barrel-roll.The graphics and sound of the game are really good. The frame rate of the game is something like Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The aircraft is smoothly detailed and presents an acceptable amount of jaggies in all graphical renditions, which we personally can more than live with. Explosions in the game after you have taken out an adversary look really good and smoke trails from rockets look good as well. The turret rounds look like you would see them in a movie. As far as sound goes, everything matches up with what you see visually. Explosions sound like explosions, turret rounds sound authentic and missile noise fade out as they get farther from you and closer to your target. The soundtrack is the original one from the movie, including the “Top Gun Anthem” by Harold Faltermeyer & Steve Stevens and “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins. No audio dialog for the characters, so you are gonna have to read to keep up with what’s going on.Overall, the game plays smooth! When you get many subjects on the screen, though, the game tends to lag a bit. You might find yourself using your missiles more than your gun for taking down bogeys. There is no toggle to turn up the game’s intensity to really have your iPhone dancing in your hand. However, in the first few levels, you kind of cruise the game. As you progress through the story,