Shadowgun Review: a Beautiful First-Person Shooter for the iPhone and iPad, but is that it?
| App Name: | Shadowgun |
| Platforms: | Universal (Optimized for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch) |
| Publisher(s): | MADFINGER Games |
| Version Reviewed: | 1.1.2 |
| Genre(s): | Games |
| Release Date: | Updated January 3, 2012 |
| Price: | $4.99 |
| Download |  |
Have you ever wondered if the amazingness that is Gears of War could ever translate to the iPhone gaming platform? It would appear that the crazy scientists at Madfinger attempted to solve that question with Shadowgun. Madfinger generated a lot of buzz early last year when they released some bits and pieces of what Shadowgun would look like, and the general consensus was that it could potentially be one of the prettiest, best looking mobile video games in the App Store. The question on everyone else’s mind though was if would it be anything more than that.
The obvious comparisons to Gears of War are there: it’s a third person cover-based shooter set in a sci-fi inspired world of man verses mutant/machine combos. Shadowgun tells the tale of John Slade, a space-faring bounty hunter who’s covered with big muscles and is a firm believer in the philosophy of shooting first and never asking questions later. Hired by a galactic conglomerate to recover rogue mad scientist Dr. Simon, Slade and his comely female robot are shot down before he can land his spaceship and he has to fight through Simon’s mountain fortress. Just a typical day in the neighborhood, really.
As far as gameplay goes, players move with a left virtual thumbstick, and fire & reload their weapons with a pair of right-side virtual buttons. Players will blast their way through ten levels, dispatching waves of standard enemies as well as larger bosses.
So what’s good?
The obvious thing to state would be the absolutely gorgeous graphics and immersive world Madfinger created here. As far as iPhone gaming goes, this one in particular is just a few shades below Infinity Blade II in terms of graphical power and design.
The character acting is fairly believable, which is a shocker due to the fact that voice acting tends to appear to be the least of concerns for most developers when building such a game like this. The action is seemingly never-ending, with very full lulls in the story that keep the player from shooting or blowing something up.
What’s not so good?
Madfinger’s Shadowgun wants to be Gears of War so bad that it can taste it. In many ways, it succeeds in this noble ambition. It has a gritty sci-fi setting. There’s lots of action, coupled with a totally over-the-top plot. There’s a ridiculous amounts of gunplay. But what doesn’t it have? Well, it doesn’t quite have the level of polish that it needs to meet its goal.
Firing your weapon generally works, but there are a few problems that you might run into often enough for it to get on your nerves. The targeting sight lights up when you have trained in on a foe, which means that you can shoot them easily from where you are. But unfortunately, the aim is not always as lined up as you would think it is. I had more than a few moments of frustration brought on by thinking I was trained in on an enemy just a few feet away, only to find out (rather unfortunately) that my aim was not as good as the controls led me to believe. As a result, I lost a lot of ammo and crucial time trying to kill an enemy that was well within my range, but for whatever reason, the controls thought otherwise.
Taking cover works pretty well, for the most part, but there are occasional glitches in which Slade is not able to maneuver his way out from behind the cover he sought, leaving him vulnerable when an enemy might come around the corner to confront him, but he can’t move. This only happened a few times, and it might very well be attributable to my sub-par gaming skills more than the game itself, so take that for what it’s worth.
Conclusion
While it’s entertaining enough for most gamers, the glitches I ran into were enough to frustrate me to the point of putting my phone down for a breather. On the flip side, I would find myself itching to pick it back up not much later in the hopes of things working better this time around. Perhaps in a later update we will see some fixes to the problems I ran into, as I’m sure that will be just the case.
Over all, Shadowgun is an entertaining first-shooter experience with wonderful graphics and a decent enough plot, but the price tag is a little high, in my opinion; though I can be a bit stingy when it comes to my games. Coming in at $4.99, I expected the gameplay to be a little more seamless than it was, but it was still more than serviceable.
Compared to other fairings in the App Store, I would say that Shadowfun stacks up rather nicely, and would be a decent addition to any hardcore gamer’s iPhone arsenal.
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