RayForce Review: Fantastic Shoot-em Up Title

RayForce Review

RayForce, a classic shooter that was originally released in 1993 has been brought back to life for your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

I am a complete sucker for shooters as I usually end up pouring hours into them and trying to attempt new high scores to put on the leaderboards. When they announced RayForce was available in the app store I immediately knew I had to get it.

This was my first time playing a shoot-em up on the iPod Touch, and I was curious to find out how well this would work using the touch screen. I will admit that it was difficult to get use to at first. I kept getting shot down and it was tough to see where it was coming from when I got hit. But like any game it just took some getting use to and thankfully some additional options in the options menu helped. While playing on iPhone mode, you can choose the zoom option which makes the game full screen or you can select the original view which makes it much smaller. It’s slightly more difficult to see on the original view since it is smaller, however, you are provided with an open touch area below the screen which allows you to see the entire field most of the time. This option allowed me to see all that was going on and made it more enjoyable for me to play.

However, now after playing through it multiple times I have learned more about the game and I am able to play it better. I am also able to play it on zoom(full screen) again now that I know what to expect and have learned how to use the controls better. It’ll probably take you some time to get use to it, but once you do you are in for a treat as this is one of the best shooters I have played. I must also add that when dealing with the controls you probably would just find it best to stick with the automatic shot instead of shooting manually, as that will just become too difficult. If you want the challenge go right ahead for sure, but this game is already challenging enough without having to tap the shoot buttons on the screen. Also, this is the only shooter I have used automatic shot for, although I’d imagine I would choose that option on any touch screen shooter.

RayForce is great due to it’s challenging nature in that you will have to spend a lot of time replaying this game in order to get down enemy patterns and how they shoot at you. This is especially true in the later stages. You will certainly need to play those over and over again to get a good feel for the enemy shot patterns. This is probably one of the more difficult aspects of the touch screen feature, such as when you are moving your ship and avoiding the many bullets coming at you. One of the good things that will help you learn those later stages is that you can select any stage you want to play at the beginning and just play that stage. You won’t have to start over from the beginning in order to learn the final two stages better without having to master through the first few stages either. Although that’s the best way to play if you are looking to get high scores.

RayForce has Game Center support so that you can compare your high score with others but most of that menu is in Japanese so that you will have to kind of guess at which each leaderboard stands for. There are also achievements that you can complete, but they are way too easy and very quick to achieve outside of three that will give you a hard time. Those being to rack up a high score of 1,000,000 points, 2,000,000 and 4,000,000 points. Good luck!

Overall, this is a great game even with the learning curve when using the touch controls. The enemies are fun and the bosses are fantastic which will certainly give you an excellent challenge. It has some nice visuals, and the soundtrack is enjoyable also. Some may not like the $11.99 price tag, but if you get a chance to grab it and you like shoot-em ups – I would definitely recommend you doing so.

Score: 4/5