Sometimes, simple works best, especially in games. Atomic Bomber takes a page from arcade games of the last century, and keeps you entertained without straining your brain or your fingers.
The setup is straightforward. You're flying a bomber over enemy territory. Luckily, you've got an unlimited amount of bombs. On the ground are moving tanks, stationary bunkers and – drum roll please – nuclear facilities that contain weapons of mass destruction. The trick is to accurately drop bombs on these targets as you fly over.
There are only two controls – you steer the bomber by touching on the screen the direction you want to go, and you release bombs by thumbing the bomb-shaped button. You're measured on accuracy, and at the end, you'll see your ranking among everyone else playing out there in the world, so don't deploy your bombs randomly.
The gameplay gets more exciting when the enemy fights back with surface-to-air guided missiles and MiG fighter jets. But, no worries, when you direct hit on a nuclear plant, a WMD bubble floats upward like an ascending spirit. If you fly over the bubble, you arm your plane with the atomic bomb of the game's title. The best moments of the game are when you nuke the enemy back to the Stone Age.
The game is free and fun, but if you want to keep your weapons upgrade after a crash, you'll have drop $1.59 for the full version.
spikerobinson
Could be a great addictive game but it has some really frustrating flaws. When you transition between waves you appear right in the middle of new terrain and enemies. It's quite common to fly straight into a hill or a missile launcher / AA gun before you have any time to react. There needs to be a "run in" on each Wave where you have clear terrain underneath you.
The side scrolling is also flawed, you can have no hill on one side of the screen and when you scroll off to the other side of the screen there's a hill there, so you crash - the terrain height is not continuous.
The area around the Bomb button is sensitive so often when you drop a bomb you also change direction flying toward the lower left ground, often with fatal results.
A related problem with the side scrolling is that a click on the edge of the screen can have vastly different effects (180 degrees different) if your bomber is near the edge and about to cross over. It might be better to have the sensitive direction control zone outside of the visible playing area to avoid this problem.
The SAM mechanics are also slightly unrealistic as they will do a top-down attack on you - obviously they are quite advanced SAMs. And the maneuver capability of the bomber is unreal, it can spin on a dime. It would be nicer if it had more realistic aerodynamics. But those are not big problems really.
It would also be nice to have some instruments or at least to know if you are in level flight. You can be on a slightly descending angle and it's hard to tell until you whack into the ground. "Controlled Flight Into Terrain" is a major mode of death in this game.
The thing that makes it unplayable is the regular occurrence of random unavoidable death at Wave transitions. Fix that and it would be a great and very playable game.
The upgrade to full edition allows you to keep your weapons after death which is fair enough. The free version is playable but there's not much point playing after you lose a life, since you lose all power ups and are useless. So in the free game, just crash into the ground to restart after you lose a life.