Mobile Monday: Peripheral Special – Elite CommandAR, Foam Fighters

You know what day it is? It’s Monday again and that can mean only one thing here at GodisaGeek.com: It’s time for another edition of Mobile Monday, the article where we take a look at four mobile games and let you know if they’re worth your time and money.

This week we’re taking a look at two games that make use of two different peripherals; Elite CommandAR: Last Hope and Foam Fighters, both of which are developed by WowWee Group Limited with the peripherals themselves being developed by AppGear.

Read on to find the full reviews of each game and don’t forget to come back next week for more Mobile Monday reviews. While you’re here, if you have played any of the games listed, or even just want to come back once you’ve had a go to let us know how you got on, we’d love to hear from you in the comment box at the bottom of the page.

Get downloading and get playing!

Titles are available on iPhone and iPad unless specifically stated otherwise. If you like what you read, click the small black “App Store” button to load iTunes up and purchase the title!

ELITE COMMANDAR: LAST HOPE – GUN PERIPHERAL:

ELITE COMMANDAR: LAST HOPE:

There aren’t many games for the iOS platform that require a peripheral to play, a lot of that is because iOS games sell like hot cakes because they’re so cheap and adding a peripheral into the mix takes away the whole “cheap” aspect of the games. With that in mind you would be forgiven for totally bypassing the games that require the use of peripherals in order to actually be able to enjoy them, is that a mistake though? Is having a set of games for the iOS devices that require a peripheral the first step towards having a real controller to play with? It’s an exciting thought. The first game that we’re going to be looking at today is a game developed by WowWee Group Limited that requires the use of a special toy gun peripheral which has an RRP of £20, but is the game any good?

Just like any First Person Shooter, the aim of the game is to get to the end of the level without dying and killing as many of the enemies as you can along the way. Where Elite CommandAR: Last Hope is a little bit different is that it plays more like a light gun game, such as Time Crisis or Point Blank, than a normal first person shooter. The story that you’ll get introduced to at the start is a little but standard and bland but it’s not the story that you’re looking for when you start up the game so you never really feel like you’re missing out just skipping everything and getting to the shooting.

The only part of the gameplay the feels a little bit odd is the fact that in order to open the doors you’ve got to shoot the locks off. This is because there’s literally no other way to perform actions, the buttons on the peripheral itself don’t exists, so because the whole game revolves around aiming at things and shooting them, the whole game is on rails. If you see a health pack over in the corner of the room, you don’t have the option to walk over to it and pick it up, the only way the player can collect them is to shoot them. It’s simple, if a little bit limited.

There’s really nothing to talk about when it comes to the controls of Elite CommandAR: Last Hope, if you can aim a weapon and pull a trigger, then you can play the game. Due to the fact that all of the controls are pure based on whether you can move your own body in a particular way, almost anybody will be able to pick up the game and start playing without any problems whatsoever. Much like how the Nintendo Wii is so popular because it allows people who don’t usually play video game to give the titles a go; so does Elite CommandAR: Last Hope.

While the peripheral is solidly built and entertaining to use, £20 seems a bit steep considering that you can only really play one game with it at the moment. If it was about half that price, or if there were a better choice of games to choose from it would be easier to recommend, as it stands it’s something that’s worth getting of the idea interests you, or you know someone who would play the game over and over again. Elite CommandAR: Last Hope itself is a good start to using this technology, the story leaves a lot to be desired and the visuals could have done with a lot more work done on them but the concept is solid and the controls feel exactly how you’d expect. As far as bundled games go, you could have done a lot worse than Elite CommandAR: Last Hope.

FOAM FIGHTERS – ARM PERIPHERAL:

FOAM FIGHTERS:

Where Elite CommandAR: Last Hope aims squarely at the First Person Shooter and light gun crowd, Foam Fighters is going for those players that enjoy a good flight sim every now and again. Developed by WowWee Group Limited, Foam Fighters puts you in the cockpit of one of the little foam planes that you may have happened to buy and sets you loose on the battlefield to pick out the enemy fighters and save the day. While a peripheral isn’t technically needed to play Foam Fighters, it will certainly add to the experience, as well as enabling you to play through the game using a variety of different aircraft.

Just as in any flight sim you may have played, the objective of the title is to complete the missions that you will be set, they can range from bombing runs over warships, trying to sink them all before you get shot out of the sky, or dogfights against a slew of oncoming enemy planes. When you complete your mission you’ll be given a nice splash screen to look at for a couple of seconds, informing you of your victory, before you’re whisked away to perform some more feats of aerial wonder.

The Foam Fighters peripheral, essentially an arm on the end of a suction cup, comes with a couple of planes to get you started. When you start the main campaign mode you’ll notice that all of the planes are locked (apart from the practice plane) and in order to unlock them you’ll have to scan the little logo that’s on one of the wings. You’ll be able to do this from the Campaign menu, where a little window pops up that shows what your camera is seeing, point this at the wing of the plane that you want to unlock and, just like magic, that plane is now available for play. It really is a nice little system.

The controls in the game are all based around the accelerometer, tilt the phone left and right to make the plane bank in those directions and moving the phone up and down will cause the plane to ascend and descend, tapping (and, more often than not, holding) the screen is what will cause the various planes to fire their main weapon. It’s all very intuitive once you’ve played for a little bit. The only real downside is that it’s not a game that you’re going to be able to play while you’re out and about. I can’t see many people sitting on the bus, waving their phone around, without looking like they’re an escapee from a psychiatric ward.

While Foam Fighters is an enjoyable game, and works very well on the iPhone, I can’t see why using the peripheral would increase a player’s enjoyment of the game. The ability to unlock more planes by “scanning” them is a nice touch, it will certainly get a certain type of player buying foam planes that they would otherwise have avoided, but attaching the mechanical arm to your phone every time you want to give the game five minutes of your attention just seems unnecessary. So much so that I kept taking the practice plane out for a spin more often than the other planes, I simply couldn’t be bothered attaching the peripheral for the sake of a couple of minutes of gameplay.