Intro

Tunnel Shoot is the latest line up from the bad boys at Backflip Studios, in collaboration with Team Phobic. After some great games such as Ragdoll Blaster and Paper Toss, I was anxious and excited for what they had next in store.

Gameplay 7/10

In Tunnel Shoot you play as a ship swerving and meandering down a never-ending luminous tube for which you are presented with enemy objects and obstacles you destroy or dodge. The idea is to make it as far down the tube as you possibly can, whilst racking up a highscore, hopefully.

Gain points as you destroy enemies and make your way further down the tunnel.

The gameplay can be addicting, but not overwhelmingly so. You are equipped with a trusty blaster of some sort which you use to quite comfortably blast away the enemy tide. Even though the enemies can come at some volume it is not that hard to pump through them, especially with a weapon which kills in one hit. Furthermore you can use a bomb which destroys all obstacles and enemies ahead. This provides to be very effective but nonetheless irrelevant because of the easy difficulty. The hardness ramps up, but at a slow rate and only after a few minutes are you forced to do some more complex maneuvers.

I love the concept of Tunnel Shoot and how you are able to fly all around the tube, but I don’t think that the developers have used this idea to good effect. There are some good avoidance objects for which you can’t destroy (apart from using the bomb) and so you have to orientate yourself to pass through the gap, but for me there wasn’t enough of this. I would have loved to see some more intricate avoidance objects that could make the game more dynamic and challenging. At the moment is feels to much like you just have to press the fire button to defeat the enemies, and there is no skill involved.

Graphics 8/10

The graphics are very good at first glance, but when you get down to the nitty gritty of thing they’re not amazing. The enemies are just colored abstract objects and tunnel itself lacks a bit of detail. Nevertheless, the graphics are certainly commendable and don’t let the game down that much. I like the detail on the ship and also the avoidable objects in the game.

There are loads of different enemies to destroy.

Controls 10/10

The control scheme is tilt only which works surprisingly well. The tilt is responsive and definitely doesn’t interrupt the gameplay, nor makes the user frustrated. To fire you tap or hold one thumb on either side of the screen for the normal blaster or tap both sides to fire a bomb. This is very intuitive and works well on the iPhone screen. You can certainly tell this has been designed for an iPhone.

Sounds 8/10

The sounds are great, with a healthy set of music and sound effects. Each object or enemy has a different tone when you destroy it which gives a variance in sound but sometimes the sounds can be a bit too harsh. The music is good and matches the retro supernatural feel of the game. It also keeps the game interesting.

Menus 8/10

Although the menus are lacking and the iPhone themed selections in the options menus are horrible, I love how the background reacts to your tilting and also how the options feel responsive and easy to select.

Longevity 7/10

Tunnel Shoot has good variance in level design with no play through being the same. Nonetheless I can’t help but feel that you are just playing the same thing again and again as you notice reused sections over and over.

Your weapon provides extremely effective against opponents.

Tunnel Shoot comes with Plus+ support with a reasonable set of awards, but a good leaderboard system which is crucial in a highscore game such as this one. Overall, I can see this becoming addicting, but if you just don’t get into it then this will have a short lifetime.

Cost 10/10

$0.99/£0.59 is a perfect price for Tunnel Shoot and despite it’s misgivings, is worth it for the money.

Conclusion 58/70 – 4/5

For the price point, Tunnel Shoot is a perfect highscore game with great tilt controls and an innovative concept, but I feel that it has not quite hit the mark for addicting gameplay. Nevertheless, it is worthy a purchase.

Tunnel Shoot on the App Store.