Last Cannon, a terrific new game by Shadiradio that is part-Space Invaders, part-Paratroopers, and a whole lotta iPhone fun, was released in the app store at the end of April. This arcade shooter/puzzle is certainly one of the more polished titles we’ve seen, with a unique spin on some of the more traditional gaming genres.
The world’s population has been wiped out, and the Earth lies in ruins. Knurdlings, little orange and blue alien guys, drop from the sky in an effort to seal your fate by stealing your four remaining flags. Your only defense: Last Cannon. Using accelerometer controls, tilt your cannon’s precision beam at the falling Knurdlings and fire your limited rocket supply at the oncoming swarm. Rockets will destroy similarly-colored Knurdlings in the immediate vicinity. Chain several together to increase your score and receive more rockets to boost your ever-dwindling supply. Explode a rocket early to destroy Knurdlings of both colors. Wishing that a few of those blue guys were orange for a greater chain? Fire your color-change beam at them to make it happen. When things get too hectic on screen or Knurdlings are threatening to nab a flag, it’s time to detonate a Super Bomb to clear the screen and send that alien scum packing. As each flag gets taken, the screen clears, providing another opportunity to start with a clear sky…. for a brief moment. Once your last flag is gone, so are you.
This is one heck of a pick-up-and-play title. Last Cannon oozes polish, from its smooth cannon controls to its nighttime aesthetic. The background graphics are some of the most pleasing we’ve seen in an arcade shooter, invoking that deserted street feeling that drives home the last man standing feeling of having to fight off the invasion by yourself. The soundtrack serves to enhance the creepy alien invasion, with trippy ethereal sounds and warning buzzers. Even the menus have a slightly creepy unattended-music-box type feel that, in the context of the game, works really well. The tilt controls are spot on for the cannon, and the touch buttons for firing rockets, beams, and bombs are large enough not to miss when things get crazy.
The difficulty ramps up pretty quickly for an arcade shooter. While similar to a Space Invaders type game, Last Cannon’s Knurdlings do not follow a fixed pattern with a constant drop rate. Instead, they appear randomly, move back and forth in a jumbled pattern, and start plummeting randomly, either one by one or in groups, making our job a lot more difficult. They even throw in some type of green orb/bomb that requires several rockets to destroy, taking precious time from all of the Knurdling-blasting.
Options include tilt sensitivity for customized gameplay, and there is a local leaderboard displaying top 5 scores, though Shadiradio has included a global leaderboard in the newest update currently awaiting Apple’s approval. Last Cannon has that addictive quality that we all love in an iPhone game, with just enough difficulty to keep us playing again and again to beat our previous high score. As a $0.99 game, this one should be an instant buy for anyone remotely interested in these types of games. Last Cannon has proved itself worthy of a 5-Dimple rating.
Last Cannon gets our AppSmile 5-Dimple rating:
