Review: Slingers

Slingers is  brand new game from Banshee Soft.

You play the part of a soldier tasked with protecting your base by trying to destroy your enemies Nuclear Reactors before they do the same to you.

You start by building your base. You can build walls to protect and hide your nuclear reactors before battle commences. Once you start the fight you cannot rebuild your defences (atleast not in the earlier levels as for the later ones I am unsure).

Combat is played out as you sit in your base firing your weapon which is a sling shot that fires bombs at the enemy base (which can be seen in the distance). You need to destroy their base before they can destroy yours.  There is a river in front of you, and if you destroy boats going accross you get power ups, you also get power ups by destroying blimps that you see flyng past in the distance.

Your sling shot is pre loaded and you simply pull it back (by dragging your finger on the touch screen) and releasing it, how far you pull back the sling shot and the direction in which you pull it depends on the direction and range of your attack. Most power ups are activated automatically as your next shot however there are others that can be used as and when required.

Your mission progresses when you have destroyed the enemy base, this is done by destroying their three nuclear reactors (before they destroy yours).

Graphically the game initially exceeds what you would expect from a 59p ($0.99) app however after a few plays you notice some out of place nast graphics (looking at you enemies trying to escape the enemy base). Having said that that this type of thing does not usually affect my enjoyability, its just a little weird to see a mixture of very good and bad graphics on the same screen.

The audio is really great , a rousing soundtrack and the sounds of explosions are different depending on your ammo and suit the game brilliantly.

Game play wise there is a feeling after playing once that you might never pick it up again, indeed the first time I played it I put it down and only tried it again for review purposes. My main problem was the accuracy of the sling shot and feeling like I was not in total control, there is an initial feeling that you have to fire as many shots as possible as fast as possible. Additional play time proved very rewarding indeed. The trick behind being successfull is realised by aquiring as many power ups as you can and using them wisely.  In the throwing of normal bombs can be hit and miss but if you get a nuke its very much worth it taking the extra time to make sure you hit your target. I quickly played through a number of levels and eventually enjoyed it so much that I forgot to take more notes during play time for the review (oops).

Looks:       There is an unfortunate mix of good and bad graphics but it has little ill effect on this app.
Controls: A little difficult to master but intuitive after a few games, before long you will be very used to it.
Sound:      A great soundtrack and nce in game noises, well suited fr the game.
Overall:   This really is a slow burner however with a few slight issues I would still reccomend this game to anyone, but you need to put a little effort in the get the controls right.  At the price point its a bargain and I will be looking forward to this developers future games.