Review time again.  Up this week, scrolling arcade shooter, Sky Force, by Infinite Dreams.  Sky Force is a vertical shooter where you pilot a small, futuristic looking spacecraft and fight off waves of incoming enemies, who are based both in the air and at ground level.  Here’s the official description from the Android Market-

Now also compatible with Droid.

High quality game!

Legendary classic arcade shooter now available for Android! 3d interactive objects, outstanding graphics, special effects, soundtrack and 100% pure gameplay. Amazing environments, tons of enemies to shoot and good old Earth to save.

Taking the game for a spin on an HTC Hero, the first thing I noticed was that it seemed a little laggy, with the animation seeming to jerk along a little.  It’s not unplayably slow, but it’s definitely not smooth.  Given that this is a game that’s been around a while and was playable on some older hardware than the Hero in non-Android versions, I don’t see this as being a hardware limitation.

Gameplay revolves, as you’d expect, around shooting the enemy waves out of the sky, avoiding getting shot out of the sky yourself, and picking up power-ups to make the first two tasks that little bit easier.  There are also other pre-requisite requirements to be met in order to complete each level, such as destroying a set percentage of battlefield objects, or rescuing a set number of humans scattered around the arena.  The game can be controlled either via the phone’s accelerometer or using the touchscreen.  I tried both methods, but found using the touchscreen frustratingly fiddly and unresponsive.  It’s much simpler to use the accelerometer.

At the end of each level, you have to negotiate a boss fight.  These boss fights are of the standard sort of fare, but for some, you only have a certain amount of time to defeat the boss before it leaves the battlefield, which brings a welcome added layer of pressure to the proceedings.

The game’s graphics are decent enough, the background landscapes and game objects are well rendered, but they’re nothing to write home about.  The game’s looks are definitely superior to a lot of the home-brewed chaff that’s cluttering up the Market at the moment though.

Overall, this game is ok, but the fact that it’s performance lags so badly makes it hard to recommend.  I suspect that this Android version is a direct port of an older version of the game, and that it hasn’t yet been optimised for use in Android, and, judging by what I’ve seen, the developers are continuing to update the game, so it may be that future versions work more fluidly, but, considering that the game is priced at £1.99 at the moment, I’d shell out your hard earned on this only if and when the game’s performance improves.  I should point out though that a number of DROID and Nexus One users are reporting no lag issues at all, which I guess is to be expected considering the superior hardware they are packing compared to the likes of the Hero, but in my opinion all Android phones should be capable of running an old title such as this without breaking sweat.

The game is available now on the Android Market, priced at £1.99.  There is also a free, Lite version available if you’d like to take it for a test drive first.

Some random user comments from the Android Market-

Expensive for old game would be happy if ya could port the sequel.  SkyForce Reloaded – (3 out of 5 stars)

Old favourite but too laggy on the Hero (2 out of 5 stars)

Game plays great on Droid.  Would be 5 stars if you could save progress (4 out of 5 stars)