Flight Control stands tall as one of the early and enduring App Store juggernauts, so the emergence of a sequel -- the outer-space themed Flight Control Rocket -- isn't a huge surprise. Rocket builds on the familiar line-drawing formula from the original entry by having you quickly trace flight paths for ships to land on a futuristic carrier, which takes up a large section of the screen and offers different landing spots for like-colored ships.

The goal, as always, is to keep the vessels moving and landing as long as possible without collisions, but while the main objective remains the same, nearly everything around it has changed. In some ways, it's a welcome shift. Including 15 distinct ship types gives the game a notable bump in challenge and variety, as you'll have to deal with squad formations, ships that send ahead (or leave behind) recon drones, or perhaps a decoy that splits into two ships upon touch.

Other changes are sadly less welcome, however, and most of them spawn from Flight Control Rocket's curious new impression of a free-to-play game, despite the $0.99 price tag for the universal app (which is optimized for the new iPad). In the primary endless mode -- the only one available from the outset -- you're given three lives to expend on accidental crashes, but once those are gone, the game doesn't simply end and toss up a total score. Instead, you're given the option to continue by spending coins, which can naturally be purchased with real cash if you haven't slowly accumulated enough through normal play.

Eliminating the one-and-done approach means high scores carry no weight in Flight Control Rocket; it's potentially more about who spends the most, rather than who has the greatest skill. While the core game remains fun, that shift robs Rocket of much of its longevity, as the motivation to keep playing is thin.

Elsewhere, the secondary wave-based play mode is also unlocked via coins, plus you're given score-boosting robot helpers that are quickly stripped of their usefulness unless you buy virtual batteries -- or put the iPad or iPhone down and wait for a period of time. What was once a charming and original experience is now a brazen business model first, with a slick and colorful skin built atop it. Enough of the Flight Control approach that we know and love is here to make it lightly entertaining, but it's nowhere near as enthralling as its predecessor.

The bottom line. Flight Control Rocket takes the beloved touch screen experience into space with slick aesthetics and new ships, but the freemium-esque model sucks a lot of the longterm appeal from the game.