G-Prime, by Brain
Drain, $9.99
Reviewed July 2002
If Galaga were made in the year 2326, it'd
look like G-Prime. Developed by Brain Drain, G-Prime is almost
identical to Galaga in game play. But make no mistake, this
isn't deja vu. G-Prime's graphics, sound effects and style
clearly belong in another century.
Turn your temporal machine to 2326 and
you are in a race for your life (that's always nice). You're
the top smuggler in the galaxy, and your cargo is NeoCrystals.
Your destination is a place called G-Prime. The only thing
that stands in your way are the Xendian blockades set up
to destroy you. If you want to make to the G-Prime alive,
you'd better put your lucky helmet on.
In G-Prime, you won't see the old insects
shooting at you (I've always wondered what insects used as
rockets  ),
what you will see are mean looking and sharp shooting space
warships. Coming in waves, much like in Galaga, you can identify
their patterns from memory. There are different levels of
enemy as well, some warships take 1 hit to die; others take
many. Some ships don't bother to shoot you because they are
the suicide ships. Some ships wait until they get very close
to you and then shoot their rocket. You will have very little
time to move out of the way. Even though the game is modeled
after Galaga, the AI certainly has gotten smarter. You can
move in all directions: left, right, up and down, unlike
the Galaga's horizontal movement. You can use the D-pad or
the stylus to control your ship. Personally I like the stylus
control better when it comes to a game where you need to
move all directions while firing at the same time. The enemy
movement patterns are quite easy to identify, though in the
later levels they come so fast and in such mass it doesn't
really matter if you can see the pattern or not. This chaos
insures some thumb-numbing shooting and requires precision
flying.
There are virtually unlimited levels in
G-Prime, well 999 levels. (I couldn't make it that high.
If you do, make sure to contact Brain Drain. I'm sure they
will use you as beta tester.) For every three levels you
complete, the game will reward you with a Hyperspace level,
equivalent to the bonus levels in Galaga where the enemies
are on the run and they don't shoot at you. You start with
4 spaceships and you'll be rewarded with more ships by either
gaining points or shooting down the enemies who are towing
bonus ships. Other than the Extra Ships, there are other
power-ups such as Extra Firepower, Health and Shields. Enemy
boss ships are towing all the power-ups. You must shoot the
boss ships down and collect the prizes. There is a health
bar as well as a power-up bar at the bottom of the screen.
Unlike Galaga, you won't die taking 1 hit in G-Prime, which
is a big plus for keeping the game flowing. Every time you
take a hit, your health bar goes down; you die when it goes
empty. The power-ups you pick up won't run forever either.
You won't see the "Tractor Beam" play (your ship
gets captured) like in Galaga here. But you will see a new
element in G-Prime: the minefield. When the enemies drop
3 mines in your path, they form a wormhole where more enemy
ships will appear from for as long as the minefield is holding.
So you could be in for a very long fight.
The sound effects in G-Prime are big improvement
over Galaga. The Sci-Fi like sounds and music tracks ring
in your ears in a blissful futurism. You have the option
to turn them on or off. You can also choose 2 difficulty
levels. The game takes very little space, and supports both
ARM and MIPS. I played it on a Toshiba e740 and it runs very
nicely.
Playing Hints and Tips
Don't ever let more than 2 mines
in the field, because 3 mines form a wormhole where more
enemies will come. Shoot the mines down.
Pay attention to the enemy flight patterns.
You will go a lot further if you know where to duck from
the enemy fire.
Shoot the little ships first and
as fast as you can. Leave the boss ships to get power-ups
for you. |
