Touch Arcade:
Back before John Kooistra was allowing players to beat the crap out of boxes in Fastar! [99¢], he was bringing clever game concepts to an App Store that was still in its infancy. His first iPhone game, Blue Defense! [$1.99], felt like a mixture of Robotron and Missile Command. Waves of enemies descended upon a planet full of people, and you were left to fend them off with a never ending supply of cannon fire. Your weapon was constantly shooting, and you tilted the device to spray bullets at the incoming threat. What really made Blue Defense! unique was how the view would dynamically zoom in and out, and change from portrait to landscape on the fly with each progressive wave. There was an elegant simplicity to the concept and visuals, and the title really showed what kind of games were possible with Apple's device. If there is such thing as an App Store classic, then Blue Defense! certainly qualifies as one.
TouchGen - Back in 2008 I was dubious about turning my spanking new iPhone into a gaming device. I was new to the App Store, and the ordinary gaming sites I used to frequent like IGN and Gamespot didn’t report much about the Apple phone. I found TouchArcade, and they had a review for Blue Defense! posted on November 12 2008. I was highly dubious getting the game as I hadn’t converted from my Nintendo DS yet. A dollar later I was playing the first game that really made me understand that the iPhone could be used for gaming. Now almost two years later the sequel is here.
AppSmile:
Blue Defense: Second Wave!, a castle-defense style space shooter from Cat In A Box Games, is now available from the app store. Following in the style of the original Blue Defense, Second Wave offers some additional control methods and a bunch of game modes to keep you busy as you blast invading forces and climb the leaderboards.
No Dpad:
When John Kooistra proposed to create a real-time strategy title for the iPhone, I wondered why he should waste his time. I thought, “If EA cannot — with all its infinite resources — create an RTS that works on the iPhone, who does this guy think he is?” And yet he went on to create Red Conquest, one of the best RTS titles on the device. When Kooistra told me he was working on an Action RPG in which the only enemies were squares, I thought, “That can’t possibly be fun. Kooistra has lost his mind.” And yet, FASTAR! is brilliantly entertaining. And when Kooistra told me he was working on a sequel to Blue Defense — his early app store classic, and a game that was already perfect — I thought, “What’s the point? How could he possibly make a game better than the original?” Having played that sequel, however, I stand corrected.
