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The FPS market for the iPhone has so far been limited to ports of existing games like Doom or Wolfenstein, which are great, but lack that innovative feel that you’d like to see from a shooter specifically designed for multiplayer on the iPhone. Well the wait is over because Eliminate, NgMoco’s free FPS for the iPhone has arrived and boy did they absolutely nail this!
I won’t write an in-depth review of the game here because Toucharcade did a fantastic job here, but I will give you my initial impressions after playing some matches and poking around in the upgrades interface.
First of all, the control scheme is fantastic, I dont know how many iterations of this they had to go through before they found one that worked, but they managed to distill it down to something that feels natural even on a small screen where your fingers block part of your view. In fact I never felt that my hands obscured any important parts of the action during a match. The left finger controls lateral movement and the right controls aiming and firing, with a tap at the bottom of the screen to jump. Most importantly though, they added a small flick gesture to the right hand control that lets you quickly turn in space with a tap to stop your rotation, this is invaluable in any FPS where what’s behind you is usually what kills you quickest.
The matchmaking itself is quick and painless and I’ve never had to wait more than a few seconds to be dropped into a map and begin playing. The initial maps seem to be the right size for the 4 player games that I’m in mostly and they never feel overly large or too cramped. I expect to see larger maps appear as they optimize the code to support more players in each match.
The upgrade system is absolutely fantastic. With the ability to not only purchase new items, but also upgrade individual stats of your existing items, like aiming, speed or armor protection, the depth of the game grows exponentially. You’re not just facing a number of generic opponents, but enemies that have specifically tuned their characters to their style of play. This makes every match feel wildly different even though you technically all have access to the same weapons and armor. You can also eventually customize the color scheme of your armor for a more individual look.
The way that NgMoco decided to handle the upgrades is pretty damn cool as well. You have a limited amount of energy available to you each 4 hour period, you use up energy each time you play a match. While you have energy available, you accrue credits for kills and playing in general, which can be spent on armor upgrades etc. You can purchase extra energy with real money to play and gain more credits immediately, but you cant just buy credits directly unless you spend energy on them. It’s an interesting revenue model that manages to have the side effect of keeping the game fun for those who are more casual players, enabling you to play a few matches a day and get the same benefit upgrade-wise as someone who plays incessantly.
To top it off, NgMoco’s Plus system, sort of like Xbox Live for the iPhone, connects you with your friends and players of their other games like Star defense so you can match-make with a list of friends, not just random strangers. Plus is implemented in an extremely slick way, popping out from the side of the menu screen, alowing you access to your profile and friends list etc. Very cool.
It’s hard not to be impressed by Eliminate, I’ve been playing it quite a bit since release and find myself enjoying the fact that I can play for just a few minutes at a time anywhere to get my FPS fix. I highly recommend picking up Eliminate as it’s free and one of the better examples of an FPS on the iPhone yet. If you’d like to add me to your friends list, my Plus ID is gre9del. See you out there!
Eliminate [App Store]
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