Platypus - Possibly the best game made for a mobile device ever

Platypus is the new and exciting game from Astraware, out on the Wednesday 16th April 2008. This game is definitely a must have, so make sure that you get it when it comes out. If you like your old school games with a modern twist then this game is right up your street…can we say Space Invaders meets the 21st century? I think we can and we will, this game is a take on the old classic in which you have to blast your way through a number of high tech baddies in order to reach the end of each level. Along the way you will come into contact with a number of reasons as to why your space ship, a.k.a. the F-27 Platypus, has guns and figure out the best form of play to get as many bad guys as you can.

A neighbouring city called Collosatropolis has reached its summit of expansion and due to the amount of buildings which have taken up the space there is no where for the inhabitants to park and the air has become so poisonous due to the fumes then they have decided that they will try to push their way into your country…Mungola. As a Mungolan you are consider simple and your defence systems are almost non-existent as your love for industry. The only form of defence or your side is the F-27 Platypus, which is antique compared to the Collosotopolans space ships. You have been chosen to fly the Platypus in a bid to keep the opponents out of you quite and idyllic country before they to turn into Collosatropolis.

Don’t worry too much, you have a number of lives that will increase according to your scoring, just don’t try to get too much damage to your ship, don’t forget your country are depending on you! At the end of each level you have a review of how well you did and a percentage of how many of the opposition you managed to blow up. Should this be a higher percentage than the higher the bonus you get and the more points you receive. You also manage to get points from the ships that you blow up and sometimes, depending on the type of ship you are awarded with collectable items, such as bananas and cherries which will also allow you to gain more points on the game.

The graphics of this game are really good, and be careful not to get motion sickness from it. As your “Platypus” glides through the air the background moves along with you so that you appear to be flying. The other opponent’s ships are hard to miss but be careful for the objects which lie in wait for you to crash into them. There are some buildings which appear to be in the background, when in fact you will crash if you bang into them, try to aim your shots at any passing buildings in order to make sure that you can fly past them without damage to your “Platypus”. You will also need to be aware that some ships will take longer for you to destroy as they may need more than one direct hit in order to get rid of them. These are mainly the larger ships, and the ones that can do most damage to you unawares. Watch out for what is behind you when you are flying as there are a few sneaky ships which will creep up on you. These will fly faster than you though, so carefully move out of their way until they have passed and then commence your own surprise attack on them.

Coloured stars- sometimes a coloured star will appear on the screen; be sure to collect these as they affect the speed, direction or strength of the fire power of your ship. But be warned, these will be timed and as soon as you find another star collect these in order to gain more time with the special powers that they poses. Yellow stars allow your shots to come out at different angles so that you can catch opposition’s ships without directly aiming for them. Blue stars alter the speed in which your shots come out, doubling up the time means that those ships that need a few shots to explode will be destroyed in half the time. Green stars turn your shots into a sonic wave and help to get rid of the opposition’s ships in quick time with fewer shots used. The Red star allows you to gain an advantage over most of the opposition’s ships by turning your fire power into missile power; these will help to get rid of other ships quickly and with less effort as they find their way themselves without guidance from your own ship.

Each level brings new and exciting task along with it, it does ease you into it with the first stage of each level introducing you to the newly introduced aircraft before the game starts to get on a level of multi-tasking! I am currently on the 3rd world, of which there are four and the first level of this world. All in all there are 5 levels to each world, the last one presents your biggest challenge. This is the boss level! Here you are faced with the largest ship of the world, and as progress through each world the bosses get harder to destroy and have more weapons on them, a good sense of awareness is definitely needed in this game. Dodging the bullets and being careful not to crash your ship, is more hard work than you could imagine. Awareness is the aim of this game, and a skilful shooting head is a must. Your Platypus has automatic fire and so all you need to make sure is make sure you have a good aim!

Moving your stylus across the screen will help you to control where the ship is heading so all you really need to do in order to stay alive is point the F-27 Platypus in the right direction and away you go, hopefully there won’t be too many Collosotopolans getting passed you to destroy your idyllic Mungola.

Platypus has all the attributes to make this the best game on a mobile device. What Astraware have done is create a game that not only makes for great gameplay but leaves you coming back for more. It will keep you both entertained and addicted and has to go down as one of the best mobile games ever.

Platypus will be available tomorrow from Astraware's website - http://www.astraware.com/platypus It is available for both Palm OS and Windows Mobile.