Ziggurat (iOS)

Well, shit.

We've spent years fending off alien invasions. Sometimes, we've even gone seeking the bastards out, destroying them before they've had the chance to get to us. Call those ones "pre-emptive attacks". We've done whatever has been necessary to ensure the continuation of the human race.

But it's all been for nothing. It all ends here.


BRIIIIIING IIIIIIIT OOOOOOONNNNN!

And where is "here", exactly? It's on the very highest point of a ziggurat, an ancient temple complex. Basically, you've scarpered up here to take the high ground, in the hope of taking out all the alien attackers.

It's futile, of course. Sheer weight of numbers means you'll be overpowered and killed. It's inevitable. It's happened to everyone else on the planet...


Die, alien scum! I might have said that before.

And so, the scene is set for Ziggurat, an iOS game of immense simplicity. But I like simple. There are times when simple fits the bill just nicely,

You can't move in Ziggurat. Instead, you slide your finger left and right along the bottom of the screen to aim your gun at the incoming hordes. And then you let go, and let 'em have it. And that's it. You do that until you die.


Now that's what I call a close encounter. What?

Like I said, simple. And therein lies its beauty. It's a perfect little time-killer. At first, you won't last long at all, as the initial confusion over how the control method works sees you die stupidly. But it doesn't take long to get the hang of it, and then you might actually last a few minutes (I'm averaging eighty seconds per go at the moment).

You're not really supposed to last much longer than that. You're obviously good, if you're the last surviving human, but you're not that good. They're gonna get ya, simple as that. All you can do is take out as many as you can, in the hope of putting up a number that will impress your friends. I reckon over a hundred is a job well done. Over five hundred would be extraordinary... nobody's cracked a thousand yet...


R.I.P. The Human Race: 50,000BP - 2012.

I think that Ziggurat is well priced at 69p. There's not really much to it... it's got about as much depth as the endless runner games. But it's also about as much fun as they are, and although it's best suited to short bursts, there's still a good chance you'll keep hitting restart for one more go...

Aliens vs Predator Classic 2000 (PC)

I think it would be fair to say I'd need more time with this game to appreciate it. I didn't have very long today, but I thought this would be easy enough to get into... load up, pick one of three species, and kill lots of things. So in that respect, I found it somewhat disappointing.

Aliens vs Predator, this original version, is interesting for the fact it lets you play as either the classic Alien (from the films, of course!), the Predator, or as a Colonial Marine. I started off with the Predator, thinking that would easily be the best. Not so. You start off armed only with what looks like a dog's paw and your invisibility cloak, which amounts to nothing as the frightened marines will shoot you dead whether you're invisible or not.


These 3D glasses will never take off...

Still, after a bit of sneaking around I was able to kill all the marines in my immediate area. And then... nothing. There were about six rooms available, and I couldn't find any way out. There was a walkway high up, but I couldn't use my grappling hook so I couldn't get up there. Stuck. Bah. So next, I tried the Alien.

I started off in what looked like an Egyptian pyramid. I slid down something that looked like I would imagine a birth canal might look like, into another room... with no exits. What? So with the Alien, I had a total of two rooms and no enemies. This was turning into more of a puzzle game than a FPS!


Die, alien scum! Oh hang on, I've used that, haven't I?

And so, it was on to the more boring and traditional human character. At least, now, I was given a game to play!

It's a very typical FPS, albeit made more tense by the atmosphere that's generated by the standard elements you'd expect. The high-pitched beeping of the alien tracker will always, always set you on edge, and when you round a corner and there's one right in your face, it's jumping-in-fright time. And that's always good.

Still, that alone wasn't enough to keep me in the game. I might go back to it at some point, but I have other FPS fish to fry, and unless someone tells me how to get into the Alien or Predator versions of this, then it'll sit in the Steam "My games" tab, untouched until 2020, more than likely.