The virtual joystick is extremely well done, allowing for both dramatic turns (by “dragging” with your thumb) and fine tuning your aim (by “rolling” your thumb). It gets even better when you buy a real ship instead of the one you start with.

The game really opens up after the 12 linear campaign missions, allowing you free reign of 500 planets and space stations. How many other iPhone games feature this kind of open ended gameplay? You didn't even touch on this in your review.

Did you even complete the campaign? Statements like “The levels, much like any other game of this type, get progressively harder” make it appear you're only familiar with the campaign levels.

It seems you wanted to play an arcade on rails shooter like PDO. I've been a fan of the series since the original Panzer Dragoon on the Sega Saturn 10 (or more, I'm getting old quickly!) years ago. To quote Fishlabs: “GoF was never meant to be an arcade shooter. It is rather simulation-style and we wanted to challenge not only your eye-hand-coordination skills but also your brain. Play smart. Pick your upgrade weapons wisely and read the various attack patterns of your opponents. It is suicide to go into a frontal combat if your opponent’s weaponry is way superior. Use the booster tactically and try to evade hostile fire. You will feel great satisfaction if you took down an enemy though he had a better ship but you played smarter.”

I myself am more of an arcade gamer than simulation player, but personally I find this game hits the balance nicely.

As far as your comment 'The game just isn’t anything that I haven’t seen before' I'd challenge you to find an app with 20+ hours of gameplay, 500 planets and complete choice on ship upgrading. For people who aren't fans of this genre, 500 destinations would be a tedious chore, but those that like these sort of games should get a lot out of GoF.

I'd direct 148apps readers to these reviews for a more balanced (and generally positive I'll concede) spin on the game:
http://au.wireless.ign.com/articles/969/969197p...
http://www.videogamer.com/iphone/galaxy_on_fire...
http://appgamer.net/reviews/2009/mar/30/galaxy-...
http://www.iphonegamenetwork.com/galaxy-on-fire...

I'm not trying to come off as argumentative, but of all the iPhone gaming sites, 148apps is my #2 daily read. I find this review doesn't fit in with with the quality and depth of reviews usually posted on this site. Then again, not everyone will agree on everything!

As an aside, as gamer who spend months playing Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 and in arcades in the early 80s, I find the 148apps Space Invaders review rather inflated and overlooks the simplicity and flaws of the game (yes, I realise that they're written by different reviewers).

To Ryan,
In this type of game, 3D space shooter, I don't have a solution for the joystick control problem… I only know that it is a problem. It's no surprise to me that the top selling games on the iPhone have innovative control schemes and not a joystick layout.

What I like about the joystick is the ease of movement, but I thought for a while that GoF would be a better game if it were a rail shooter, a la Panzer Dragoon Orta. The problem with this is that one of the selling points of the game is that it is open ended. In my opinion, rail shooters are much more accommodating to the iPhone layout, but that's just my opinion.

For GoF, I would like to see a touch based shooting system. You could still fly around with the joystick (or accelerometer), but I feel that touching the enemy unit to shoot it would A. provide a much better aiming system, B. allow for many more enemy units to be on screen at a time, and C. be a way cooler use of the iPhone touch screen. Just think of all the muti-touch possibilities there would be in a game like this (secondary weapons requiring two fingers, swipe for shields, etc.)

For what it is, I probably could've given the game a star more… but I think that the control layout for the game just didn't take advantage of the uniqueness of the iPhone. It was one of those experiences for me to where I thought that the game could be so much better than it was.

To Skip,
If I had played and “reviewed” the lite version, I would've definitely given the game a higher score, but I was playing the full version. For $5.99, I didn't think that the game offered much more than some of the other games out there. For reviewing, I try to base the score on the amount of fun I had playing this game vs. the best game on the iPhone at the time. I've had many more enjoyable experiences playing other games than this one, so I definitely do not think that this title deserves 4.5 or 5 stars. I limit those to the “must have” games on the system. 3.5 and 4 star games are typically games that are really fun but are missing a certain something. 2.5 and 3 star games, which I maintain GoF is, are games that show promise, but have a glaring flaw, which in my opinion GoF has. There are so many more possibilities for a game in this genre (some of which I posted above) that the developers just missed out on.

As cool as the open ended gameplay and RPG elements are, the game is only as good as the gameplay allows it to be. With a proper joystick, sure, this game would be great, but there is no joystick… the screen is flat. Use the screen, allow for multi-touch gaming.

What I want to see in an iPhone game is a game that could not be replicated much better on the PSP. GoF on a PSP would be awesome. The control scheme would work, and everything would be honkey-dorey. Give this game multi-touch and touch aiming and it would be a classic iPhone game, not just a ported game that made do with the lack of a real joystick. I don't want to wish, at any point, that I was playing this game on another system. The iPhone is way too advanced to make me with that I was playing a game on a PSP. I promise that developers will start catching on… iPhone gaming will be much much better than this in the future.

In addition, the open ended gameplay which this game provides (lacking in the majority of iPhone space shooters which are simple level based games) is barely even touched on in this 'review'.

The graphics, storyline and overall immersion are more than the average game of this genre usually provides. I spent countless hours on this on my SE k800i, and was amazed at what this game brought out of that little phone. The graphics were further updated for the iPhone version, albeit a little below what I was hoping for, as a port, this game is more than 'Stale'.

I honestly wonder whether the reviewer played past the basic levels and into the real 'meat' of the game. If so, perhaps the style of game wasn't to the reviewer's taste. Fair play if so, but not every gamer wants to play a hand holding level based space shoot-em-up. As an Elite 'lite', this game is much better than this review would have you believe.

What, exactly would your alternative be on a touch screen accelerometer-enabled device with no hardware joystick?

I'm not sure what you're doing that requires you to “have the phone over my head, looking straight up to play,” but that is a gross over-exaggeration and just plain wrong. I routinely play Galaxy on Fire rather successfully using the accelerometer controls with a baby in my arms. Twists of the wrist – not whole body gesticulations – work just fine. In fact, I find the accelerometer-based space combat of Galaxy on Fire to be one of the more satisfying control experiences on the iPhone.

I understand that there are different perspectives with any game, and can respect a contrary opinion. I found this review, however, to lack ay substance behind the criticisms, and it certainly tarnishes the credibility of 148apps.

My one big criticism about it though is that all the missions are fighting missions. Hopefully a sequel will include some pure trading and mining missions, along with other non-violent things to do. Space sim fans should definitely check GoF out, though, but others need not apply.