Laser Panic review

Games like Laser Panic put me in a bit of a quandary about this whole review business. On one side of things, reviews often provide the utility of like a shoppers guide or recommendation, but there's also the part of this business that's about examining and critiquing a game's artistic merit (a side of this we do not see nearly often enough and I am guilty of not upholding as much as I should). Laser Panic doesn't really fit comfortably within either of these modes of examination since--as a value proposition--it is freely available, and on the artistic front, there's some neat game design ideas going on it, but you're very much getting what you're paying for.

Laser Panic is an arcade game where you control a spider-like robot by dragging on the screen to make it skitter around various levels. Your goal is to open an exit by collecting a certain number of yellow diamonds that spawn into the level while also being careful of avoiding enemies that look like laser spheres, hence the name I guess.

In addition to simply steering clear of these enemies, little green rocket powerups also appear that you can pick up to have them automatically fire at these foes, destroying them instantly. Once you have collected the requisite amount of diamonds, you can go through the exit door to be greeted with a new level layout and repeat the process.

Where Laser Panic gets interesting is how all of these basic ideas intertwine to create a surprising amount of depth for what otherwise might feel like a basic spin on Pac-Man. To just quickly list some of the wrinkles with its systems: your movement is fully analog, enemies can attack diamonds to convert them into new enemies, rockets have a blast radius giving them the ability to kill multiple enemies at once, and killing enemies builds up a green currency that gives you more lives.

These tweaks don't change the basic premise of running around a maze dodging enemies, but it can totally transform the way you approach this challenge given different situations. Maybe you want to manipulate the enemy AI into grouping around a diamond before you launch a rocket, or what might happen if you can squeeze just around an enemy to steal a pickup from them? Perhaps you hold off on picking up a rocked until two enemies start to cross each other's path. These are things you start thinking about and then taking advantage of thanks to Laser Panic adding some dimension to these mechanics.

Now is the part where I stop giving Laser Panic so much credit. As genuinely surprised I am to find a completely free (and ad-free) game with so many thoughtful ideas at play, it also feels like these cool ideas don't quite have a full game built around them.

This might sound nitpicky given the game's price tag and it's arcade tuning, but even with those in mind I still feel like Laser Panic is missing something. At a certain point as levels get more difficult, it just feels like there is little left to do besides hope you banked enough lives to muddle through. I don't think Laser Panic needs to have some kind of bloated progression system or rpg mechanics (in fact it should not), but I can't help but feel like there's some ingredient missing even though I'm not sure what it might be.

Laser Panic conceptually is very interesting and exciting, which is not something I typically find with free arcade games on the App Store. That said, I am not sure the whole concept is as fully fleshed out to make it truly special. Given the price, Laser Panic is well worth downloading just to witness how much it does with so little.