Bulletrisk is a slick and fast paced reverse shooter for iOS, where the aim of the game is to fire as many bullets at your ship as you can without getting hit. You’re taking risks of a bullet-y nature, hence the name.
The gameplay itself is a great example of risk/reward. The more bullets you fire at yourself the less time you have to avoid them, and vice versa. You move your ship by dragging your finger along the bottom of the screen, and fire bullets by tapping the top. Each run lasts 60 seconds and you can get into a game straight after you load up the app, which is perfect for commutes. After each run you’re awarded a grade from F to AAA (but I have it on good authority there may be a Super Secret grade for those in possession of tremendous skill).
It is hard to know what multiplier you’re on, with you having to take your eyes off the action to look at a tiny number in the corner of the screen; the same applies to your shield, with no visual indication that you’ve been hit apart from a number changing in the other corner. Looking at these is difficult in the heat of the moment, and better placing of these key statistics would have been very welcome indeed.
The graphics sometimes look a little out of place, with a rainbow at the top of the screen looking strange against the starry background. I also took issue with the stylised multi-coloured text when I first saw it, but it grew on me. Fortunately, the game runs super smooth on an iPhone 4S, with no lag even with the screen covered in bullets.
When you start up the game you’re given three options: Play, How to Play and Options. The tutorial is a great video that gives you everything you need to play the game quickly and with minimal bullshit. In Options you can change the colour of your ship (which, as an aside, is weirdly suffering from explosive diarrhoea) and switch the music off/on. The latter may not seem like something worth mentioning, but I like to listen to my own music when playing certain games and this option is always welcome.
I did run into a recurring bug where the menu wouldn’t respond and then load up the tutorial, but it isn’t ‘gamebreaking’, per se. As for the other faults, the lack of a leaderboard was disappointing for a game that relies so heavily on high scores. There’s also the issue of ads: when you load up the game, you’re greeted with a banner of ads which is annoying for an app you paid for. Having said this, the ads aren’t too intrusive: they disappear after touching the screen.
CONCLUSION
With all said and done, this game is fun as hell and is perfect for commutes. Sure, it could use some polish and a more co-ordinated art style, but for £0.69/$0.99 it is a must buy.
THE GOOD
– Quick to load and play
– Easy to control
– Incredibly fun
THE BAD
– Somewhat janky graphics
– No leaderboads
– Poor positioning of key information
THE UGLY
– A ship suffering from explosive diarrhoea
SCORE
INFORMATION
Bulletrisk is out now on iOS for £0.69/$0.99.
The game was kindly provided by the developer.
NOTE: We have spoken with the developer and told him some of the criticisms that we’ve put forward in this review. We have been told that a version 1.1 is on the way, fixing some of them: a video of the new build can be seen here. The score we give the game now is only representative of version 1.0.
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