One good turn deserves another.

Blue Defense! turns shoot 'em ups on their heads. The game borrows heavily from classic arcade shooters yet differentiates itself with clever motion controls and shifting perspectives. Instead of manipulating a tiny, nimble ship you tilt the iPhone itself to fire a steady stream of bullets from a static planet. Depending on the level, you'll either fend off enemies in a top-down perspective or from all 360 degrees. Your health is measured by your planet's population, some 6.7 billion souls. Each enemy ship that slips past your defenses will cause the iPhone to rumble and slowly decrease your population until it's game over.

The game's strength lies in its brilliant use of perspective. Each new level alters your field of view by either zooming out, shifting to landscape mode, or centering the planet. It's up to you to keep up with each level switch. While we would have preferred randomized levels instead of a set level order, the later ones still kept us on our toes.

We found few shortcomings with Blue Defense. The game's lack of sound effects bothered us but was overlooked given the context--no one can hear you scream and all that--and the ability to keep iPod music running as you play. The inability to upload high scores to the internet, however, feels more like the stone age than the space age.
 

Blue Defense! draws from so many arcade classics that it's tough to define, but the way it effortlessly shifts from style to style and handles motion controls make fresh in a decades-old genre. It's a bullseye for any shooter fan.

Blue Defense! 1.1
COMPANY:  John Kooistra
CONTACT: http://sprite.digitalseraph.net/
PRICE: $0.99
REQUIREMENTS: iPhone or iPod touch with 2.0 software update.
Rumble feedback integration. Clean art style. Variable gameplay.
No Sound. No online ranking.