AirAttack Review

AirAttack is an airplane shooting game that is situated in the "bullet hell" genre. As you guide your poor little plane around the screen, everything is shooting something at you. The bullet quantity isn't nearly as bad as some other games in the genre, but it's still tough.

As you would expect, you use your finger to guide the plane in an effort to dodge the swarming bullets, missiles, flames, and strange blue and green things that are probably following you around the screen. Your weapon shoots automatically, so there is no need to worry about unleashing havoc on your enemies. In addition, you are given a number of other weapons that you can purchase at checkpoints as well as a bomb that has infinite ammo.

Checkpoints show up a few times in each mission throughout the 8 mission game. They are typically situated right after a huge firefight, and conveniently come right when you think you are going to die. Each checkpoint upgrade area lets you spend money that you get for killing certain things on all sorts of upgrades to your plane, from wing men to extra lives to "lighting" (I think it was supposed to be spelled lightning).

The game mechanics work well in AirAttack (although double tapping the bomb to fire it usually moves my plane to somewhere I don't want to be), but the story or plot (or lack thereof) is confusing. Usually games like this feature an easily identifiable enemy, whether it be aliens or Russians or Nazi's. AirAttack has you killing Nazi's for the most part, but you also fight UFO's, maybe the Japanese, and possibly someone from the middle east. I say possibly because you are given bonus points for bombing buildings, and there are definitely some buildings with middle eastern architecture that are in your line of fire.

If you are into "bullet hell" shooters, AirAttack is a great genre game. It's not so great that it transcends genres, but it is a solid game nonetheless. For less than the price of a ridiculous bottle of Fiji Water, you too can be blowing the tar out of possibly every enemy that the US has ever fought against.