War of the Worlds

-Gameloft (2005)

-played on a Sanyo 8200

Summary:

Aliens must destroy humanity before the Earth’s infectious bacteria puts an end to their plan.

My Thoughts:

When I fired up War of the Worlds I was expecting to play as a little Tom Cruise fighting off alien tentacles with a baseball bat. Given that most movie tie-in games suck, especially mobile versions, it was a warranted assumption. Imagine my surprise when I found myself playing as one of the aliens, destroying buildings and military vehicles, killing off puny humans, and having a great time doing it.

After my initial shock of my in-game persona, I found that the game is one of the best licensed movie games on the mobile platform. The graphics are excellent for a cell game. The backgrounds of the stages give you a fairly good feel of the destruction that the aliens have wrought on the planet. Between each stage there is a newscast that describes what is happening to the planet, or where your particular tripod is going and what it will encounter.

Even though you are an alien walking through a city, this would still have to be classified as a side-scrolling shooter. I don’t know of any other genre this could really fit in. Controlling the massive alien tripod is easy. The game automatically scrolls and you can move the tripod back and forth and can move its head up and down to aim its death beams. There are three cities that the tripod helps destroy: Osaka, New Jersey, and New York. Each city is comprised of three stages and contains separate boss stages. The boss encounters are varied. One is just to destroy a skyscraper in a limited amount of time. Others are to take out a huge attack tank, a submarine, and an old 1940s bomber. Still another boss is to destroy a ferry with scared people on board by making helicopters crash onto it.

The alien’s deadly beams will become more powerful as you obliterate more human resistance such as helicopters, jets, tanks, and mines. The tripod can also use a lightning bomb to clear the screen of enemies. What’s more, the tripod can capture humans that scamper away in fear. Your alien friend is also awarded more points for causing explosion combos. Destroy a land mine and it will fly up into the jets flying above. There are certain vehicles in almost every wave that will set off a combo as well. My personal favorite combo is picking up school buses and throwing them into a squadron of helicopters, causing a chain reaction of explosions.

There isn’t much not to like about the game except that I only wish it was longer. I highly recommend checking out War of the Worlds if you like shooters, want a good game on your phone, or like using kids as weaponry.

Score: 8.5

-Shawn       

Back to mobile reviews