Developer: True Axis Price: $3.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 3GS

Space Tripper is a unique take on the classic side scrolling shooter, unfortunately the game’s controls get in the way of its inventive gameplay. In Space Tripper, players guide a ship around walled arenas. Within these arenas, enemies appear and the player must destroy them all in a limited amount of time. To do this, players must be quick, agile and aggressive; things that are made all the more difficult by the clunky tilt controls.
Space Tripper users tilt controls to allow the players to guide their ship through the fray of enemies and enemy projectiles. However, even with the ability to adjust the sensitivity of the tilt controls, the controls just don’t allow for the fine control that this game requires. Space Tripper is an unforgiving game and even on the easiest difficulty setting it is difficult to avoid enemies and attacks. However, one interesting choice by the developers does make the difficulty more manageable. If players want to post their high scores, then they are limited to three lives, but if they don’t care to post their scores then players can use unlimited continues to tackle the Space Tripper‘s difficult levels.
Each level in Space Tripper has a different layout and the different form factors force players to adjust their approach to each level. This keeps the game moving from level to level, and since it may take a while for players to progress it means that it won’t be more of the same in each new level. Each level has a different visual style as well. Some levels have huge boss type enemies that are really well designed and bring a great flair to Space Tripper.
This game has a lot going on and lots of it gives Space Tripper its unique flavor. However, the game’s controls and its difficulty don’t mesh well and make it very hard to enjoy all of its finer points. Combine that with what is fairly high price tag for an app of this type, players may want to think seriously before adding this to their collection. There are extra challenge and score attack modes that extend the life of the game, but you have to unlock each level by beating it in the campaign to access it in these extra modes.