StarCannon for iOS

StarCannon is a remake of classic arcade shooters of the past, with 2D shoot-'em-up action and challenging boss fights. The graphics are smooth even on the older iPhone 3G. The controls are mostly effective, but can sometimes feel sluggish using a touch-to-move system rather than an onscreen joypad. Your ship fires automatically as long as you are touching the screen so you can play the game using only one finger or your thumb.

You can acquire three different weapons as you play and, just like top-down arcade shooters of the past, StarCannon lets you upgrade each weapon with more streams of bullets and higher fire power. To help you when the game gets really chaotic, you have an option to slow down the action for a short time. Some aliens drop purple tokens that fill up your bonus bar. Once it's completely full, simply hit the button in the lower right to slow down the action, giving you more time to rain down destruction with your weapon of choice. Even if you're out of bonus energy, you have one more option with the devastating Super Bomb that will take out every enemy on screen. In true arcade shooter tradition, at the end of every level, you'll need to take on a powerful boss alien and even in the early levels, we found it to be very challenging. Anyone who enjoys classic arcade shooters will appreciate StarCannon.