Developer: Blowfish Studios
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
Razor: Salvation pits players against the dual-threat menace of invading alien forces and zombies. Players must try to keep survivors safe, while eliminating aliens and keeping the infected enemies away from the ship, as if they get near, it’s instantly game over. The good news is that the player is loaded for bear in their stationary dropship. Rockets, mortars, grenades, and a railgun are available, and if those aren’t enough, then perhaps the Redeemer and Hellfire will take care of things?
There is plenty of action in the game, and its sessions are perfect for pick up and play gameplay. The graphics are well-detailed, which should be expected from the developer of Siegecraft. The game does feature the always-welcome combination of iCloud sync and universal support. Upgrade progress and unlocks will transfer between devices. I’m glad to see more games implementing this support.
The problem I had with Razor: Salvation was that it just never quite felt right. Part of it may have to do with the controls. Having to deal with enemies coming from all directions, yet having controls that make it difficult to circle around to where the enemies are coming from makes it a challenge. The position of the player seems to make it very difficult to even get engrossed in the action, because everything is so far away. Enemies come in so slowly that the game feels like it drags on, despite being built around short sessions. This makes it feel like failure is based around the game deciding that the player should fail now, not that the player reached a point where it felt like they should fail. I always feel like death is a sudden occurance.
The controls are difficult to use; even with sensitivity cranked up to the max they still make it difficult to turn around and aim at enemies. It’s also way too easy to activate one of the special weapons, which are not cheap to buy more ammo for. It’s just overall clunky. The game also crashes fairly frequently on the iPod touch 4th generation.
I was extremely disappointed by Razor: Salvation. I enjoyed Siegecraft, but a lot in this title just feels half-baked.