Mobile Games Roundup
Infinight! Infinity! Zombie! Evil! Pew!
Normally I like to balance the selection of these roundups between the formats, covering an iPad exclusive, an Android title, maybe a couple of iPhone games and a Windows Phone 7 offering.
But this time round, the WP7 selection was so shockingly awful I couldn't bring myself to shoehorn in any of the recent games just for the sake of it. When faced with dregs like Deer Hunter 3D, Castlevania Puzzle, Bubble Town 2 and Zombie Attack 2, you have to wonder how Microsoft expects gamers to get excited about the format.
As I type, the rather adorable I Love Katamari is being added to the WP7 store to restore some balance - but it's questionable whether you'd want to pay the £5.49 asking price.
By way of amusing contrast, this week's line-up offers ridiculous value for money. In fact you could buy all five for £5.36, and end up owning three 8/10s along with a 9.
Infinity Field
Now that Bizarre Creations has shuffled off to the great developer conference in the sky, who's left to carry the Geometry Wars torch? Step forward ForzeField Studios, the new undisputed heroes of unblinking twin-stick shooter madness.
Following the fine template laid down by Bizarre, Infinity Field follows its lead with half a dozen hugely enjoyable survival modes. There's also a monumentally taxing 36-mission campaign mode and, to cap it all, head-to-head multiplayer on a single iPad.
Apart from somehow managing to be a game that looks every bit as beautiful as the title it so obviously reveres, and despite the perennial handicap of virtual thumbsticks. Infinity Field plays remarkably well.
The game's Survival mode is doubtless where most players will engage most of their epic fury - trying to hold out against the unremitting onslaught of Infinity mode, luring the undead into explosive bombs in Zombie or pulling off unlikely feats of pacifism in Unarmed mode.
Elsewhere you'll be trying to scoop enemies into your red line of death in Snake mode, fighting a criss-crossing blizzard of death in Cruces or figuring out which weapon's the best in the off-the-hook Insane mode. As you might expect it's monstrously tough, but keeps dragging you back for more.
The fact that all this has been put together by a 16 year-old Spanish programming genius is the kind of humbling fact that makes publishing behemoths like Chillingo weak at the knees, while grown men quietly have mid-life crises. You could just try and beat your derisory leaderboard position, a task equally valued by society.
9/10