Welcome to our next exhibit, bearing the moniker "a developer's fall from grace". iFighter comes from the very same Chinese development team previously responsible for Super Laser, thus for one of the best original iOS shooters. Their second attempt, however, doesn't hold a candle to their previous effort on virtually every level.

The tragedy begins with the overall derivative design full of bland and uninspired backdrops, samey enemies (think planes, tanks and planes and planes), forgettable music, desperately trying to sound heroic in a Medal of Honor way, and cheap sound effects dominated by the sound of shots connecting, suspiciously reminiscent of somebody sinking his teeth into something crunchy. iFighter also doesn't make any attempt at bringing anything interesting to the scarcely decorated table in terms of gameplay mechanics. Weapon variety confines itself to straight and spread shots, secondary weapons apparently hadn't been invented prior to WW II, smart bombs clear the entire screen and scoring solely relies on stars and medals left behind by defeated enemies. The only slight semblance of originality is how additional wingmen are stored and automatically called in whenever one of your two previous wingmen has been downed.

Adding insult to injury, controls and level design further derail the game from an entirely mediocre experience to a near complete mess. The first few stages are a perfect example for how too low a difficulty easily saps any joy out of a game, as enemies barely shoot and are done for within seconds. Still, later stages manage to expose the controls' shortcomings, culminating in frustration. As usual, motion controls simply don't work properly, but this time touch controls leave something to be desired as well. Relative touch controls (your plane mirrors your finger's movements) are hampered by the playing field spanning about two screens of breadth, which leaves you stopping in your tracks when moving left or right at anything speedier than snail's pace. Touch controls that have your plane home in on your finger's position on the other hand don't go along with the level design too well, as you'll constantly obscure your view on enemy bullets. Another cause of pain are some of the bosses. These ships or planes are long stretched constructions slowly moving up and down. Instead of doing so after you have successfully destroyed their lower parts, they move faster than you could dish out enough damage, forcing you to dodge to the side, waiting for what feels like an eternity until they finally move back into position for you to attack them.

Some games simply beg not to be thoroughly enjoyed. Magnetar already starts off by arising one big "What the heck" kind of question: What made the two man team behind this think it would be a good idea to only allow for accelerometer controls? There is no option for touch controls so you are left with tilting the iPhone to move in all directions which feels especially awkward for movement on the y-axis. It doesn't exactly help that you begin each of the five worlds which are split up into 4 stages each with one of the puniest peashooters in all of shmup history, making it a hassle beyond belief to hit anything let alone clear the entire screen. What's more, some homing kamikaze enemies that tend to appear in groups of three require you to move up to dodge them (remember what I said about the y-axis?) and the asteroid rain in stage 2 is insanely hard to survive on medium difficulty. After (probably) dieing in a crash with one of the asteroids you are sent back to the beginning of the stage, so the life bar really does next to nothing to avoid frustration.

It is after switching over to the easy difficulty setting that the game finally starts to make a good impression, or, rather it starts doing so after you are required to delete your medium difficulty save file in order to play on easy as there are no multiple save files and as you cannot simply swap difficulty settings on the fly. Now that the number of asteroids and their damage soaking ability have been toned down it is time to pick up weapon upgrades and get used to the controls up to a certain degree. Once the standard weapon has been upgraded to a double laser cannon and you have spent some more time with the accelerometer Magnetar becomes quite bearable, or you might want to say, fun, if a bit on the mundane side of things.

The background graphics are technically quite impressive as is the design in some instances like when a giant Tyrannosaurus skeleton is illuminated by green minerals, but unfortunately the backgrounds ultimately repeat too often and enemy design is lacking and it doesn't quite fit in with the style of the backdrops. The music, while being all electronic, tries to differentiate itself a bit more from the crop. World 3 for example has a somewhat deranged vibe to it, making it a perfect fit for any kind of asylum stage in other games. World 2 on the other hand can't decide on whether it wants to imitate Euro Dance or a child's song, although one might argue that these aren't all that different from one another to begin with. Overall the music isn't exactly memorable, yet manages to crawl into your ear and stay there for a while occasionally. The one thing Magnetar does gameplay-wise to set itself apart are the missile button and the laser button both located at the bottom of the screen. Tapping either activates the corresponding special weapon and depletes a small amount of the blue energy bar which slowly refills automatically. Especially the homing missiles are highly appreciated when you are otherwise stuck with the standard weapon.

So when finally having made peace with the control scheme and looking past the slightly boring enemy formations Magnetar has become a neat little time waster and the story ends on a positive note, right? Well, stage 4-2 begs to disagree by dragging the controls back into the spotlight. Instead of asking you to dodge enemies which is eased due to your life bar, this stage sees you dodging rows of blocks, some of them even moving and all of them draining a sizable amount of health upon contact. With the controls in mind this section is so utterly ill-conceived one can hardly not turn back to the sentence serving as the first paragraph's introduction. Magnetar simply doesn't want to be loved and maybe we should leave it at that.

Just like Magnetar, Blastian can only be controlled via tilting your device. Given how simplistic the level design in Blastian is, though, you won't really miss touch controls here all that much, as mere swaying to the left and right along the lower end of the screen usually gets you through any situation. Most of the 80+ stages take place in open space with space mines, alien worms, flying saucers or asteroids waiting to be shot, and as long as you don't let your shield bar run out, you'll have your ship equipped with devastating weapons in no time, making survival extremely easy. In fact, you'll be able to rip apart most hazards even before they can get close.

During this time, Blastian is the perfect shooter for relaxing. I know that this is said about a lot of not-quite-great games in this article, but this description fits especially well for Connect2Media's app, because the action still manages to stay intense and because you'll constantly have explosions popping up, which feels strangely rewarding, no matter how cheesy they actually look. Plus, the final stage of each of the nine worlds always has you blast ground targets on a planet surface, where indestructible mountain tops finally require some more input.

After a while, though, you'll easily grow tired, as enemies are re-used and the difficulty is kept low due to smart bombs, 1945-esque loop-the-loops and a devastating super weapon automatically activated after entirely wiping out five waves of enemies (not even necessarily in direct succession).

What's more, if you for whatever reason do lose a life or simply close the app and later on pick up from where you've previously left, your arsenal is reset to the standard pea-shooter. Surviving long enough under these circumstances to regain your near-invincibility or to at least be able to properly defeat the sturdier enemies can be something of a Herculean task. Starting the entire game from scratch meanwhile isn't a viable option, as it lacks variety too much to provide any amount of replay value beyond blasting through the campaign once. Stay alive, play through the game in one sitting, and you'll be able to gain some simple joy out of it, but otherwise, you'll hardly want to stick with Blastian.

Downloading over 83 MB worth of 2D shooting automatically raises expectations. You expect this relatively massive size to be indicating a massive collection of great tunes, or a couple of impressive videos, or high-resolution retina graphics, or a staggering amount of stages to conquer. Or best of all: All of these combined into a potential classic-to-be. Well, Eurasia Soft's The Orbital Hive takes a different route, leaving the reasons behind its size shrouded in mystery, as its meagre three stages visually resemble the original Raiden (toned down in quality a bit further). The sometimes jolly, sometimes calm and atmospheric soundtrack meanwhile is fairly nice, though it can't possibly be that big in size, considering there's only four tracks (one per stage, plus a dedicated boss fight tune).

Anybody looking for an options menu on the promising (i.e. professional) title screen is out of luck, which leaves you with accelerometer controls only. Steering isn't that much of an issue, as merely swaying to the left and right should usually suffice and is easy enough to pull off. Dropping smart bombs by swiping the screen, meanwhile, works nowhere near as reliable as this kind of a last resort has to. You'll often find yourself swiping multiple times while increasingly panicking before finally succeeding.

Success in general is hard to achieve in Orbital Hive, as the game hasn't been properly balanced. When the game plays it fair, your trip through jungle villages, a modern city and space is fairly fun and rewarding, which is mostly due to the varied enemy forces (all kinds of tanks and planes) and a great feedback for every hit. Large enemies begin burning more and more with each hit, and tanks first lose their cannon, before eventually exploding. Unfortunately, though, you'll often find yourself facing off against enemy hordes too big to entirely wipe out with your measly gun, which then results in being shot from up-close, unable to dodge in time. The screen also scrolls to the sides, never displaying the full breadth of the playing field at any given time, with some foes apparently waiting for them to be onscreen before commencing their attacks. So you sway to the right for example and as soon as an enemy comes into sight next to you, you are immediately being greeted with a stream of bullets, before you can even react to its mere existence.

Weapon upgrades are limited to straight-flying missiles, a faster-firing machine gun and a powerful laser, but a single death downgrades your plane to the measly peashooter machine gun it starts with, making it nigh impossible to save mankind after the loss of a life. This isn't to say it'd be easy eve if you manage to stay equipped with a strong arsenal, though, as death awaits in nearly ever corner in Orbital Hive.