App Store Double Trouble: Buzz Killem and Smash Hit

Most of the games on the app store are complete garbage.  They are either all knockoffs of something more popular or are stuff with in-app purchases that just ruin everything.  Recently however, I have come across 2 titles that are a ton of fun, free and most importantly, not drowning in pay gates so I thought I'd take a moment to introduce all you iPhone users to some actually good games to kill your train journeys with.

The first is a game called Buzz Killem

Buzz Killem is a simple platforming and shooting game where you go around one of a few arenas shooting aliens.  The idea is that every time you start a mission, the game gives you three objectives such as "Kill X of Y" or "collect X power-ups" or something like that.  When you complete the objectives you get gold and with that gold you can buy new weapons or upgrade the shit that you already have to increase your killing efficiency.

The game is controlled with 2 sets of buttons located at the bottom of the screen.  A left and right for moving and an A and B button for shooting and jumping.  It's simplistic and it works pretty much perfectly for this kind of game because I find that iPhone games that try to have real controls end up being a bit of a mess.

The game has a couple of flaws that I've noticed so far.  The objectives for each mission can be a little bit samey and can therefore get a little bit dull.  But then again if you're only playing this one in short bursts during boring train rides then it's not too much of an issue.  A big issue would be the bug that occurs sometimes when picking up a Jet Pack.  The idea of the jet pack is to allow you to control your jumps a little more except every now and again you'll pick up a pack and just rocket up into the air and die instantly and there's fuck all you can do.  This can be rage inducing if you were just on the brink of clearing an objective but it's not like it's impossible to avoid it so sometimes it's better to just not take the risk.

There's also a levelling system that unlocks outfits which all have different abilities and none of these features which are unlocked thought levelling up are locked behind any kind of pay gate.  In fact, the only in-app purchasing that I've noticed inside this game is extra gold in case your extra impatient about unlocking weapons or whatever but I doubt anyone would really need that.

Next up on my little app store romp is Smash Hit

Smash Hit is a very simple game.  It gives you a bunch of marbles then puts a bunch of glass objects in your way and tasks you with getting to the end.  You tap the screen to shoot a ball and there are little things you can smash that provide you with extra balls as you go.  Smashing into a piece of glass means that you lose ten balls and if you lose all your balls then the game is done.

It's simple, fun, addicting and has some really good music in it too surprisingly.  It's the kind of game that I could imagine being on the DS if they added some extra features to it or something.  The only annoying thing about this game is that it tells you every so often that it's making checkpoints but then you discover that if you want to actually use those checkpoints then you have to own the "premium" version of the game.  It's not so bad but it's a little tedious to have to start the game over from square one every time you die.


So that's it folks, fire up your iPhones and download these two titles.  Now you have something mildly entertaining to do while you take a shit or wait for a bus.