I’ve played my fair share of time management games in my gaming years but I can’t remember one that was based on controlling the emergency services during critical situations, unless you count the alien attack in Sim City!
This is what you get to do in Emergency, the 13 situations that you have to manage range from train and plane crashes, gas explosions, burning submarines and even an alien invasion and you have a whole range of emergency services at your disposal, from the day to day services such as the police, ambulance service and fire brigade to helicopters and the secret service.
Each of the 13 campaigns are introduced with a short animated video showing the incident taking place, don’t worry, while the scenarios are pretty intense the videos aren’t too graphic, although whether you’d want younger children playing this game is up to you as the themes are obviously pretty dark.
Once the campaign starts you can’t stop, or even slow down, as there are lives at stake here and one false move could see one, if not all of the injured become fatalities. As with the introduction videos none of this is graphic in nature as its all completed in a Sim City like environment.
There are continuous themes throughout most of the levels. Put out fires, rescue people, tend to their injuries and get them to hospital, this is all interspersed with scenario specific actions such as cutting people out of train carriages, stopping and arresting terrorists and of course the alien destructions.
Actions are controlled by tapping on the person or vehicle and then selecting the available action. Some people and vehicles have multiple actions available but only the ones that can be used at the time are highlighted which helps direct you. And over the initial levels you are also guided by a help system.
As with most time management games the basic activities are pretty similar throughout the levels but with the campaign specific actions thrown in create a nice variety that keeps things moving along nicely and the difficulty level keeps raising also to keep the challenge level raising too.
The graphics look good and there is certainly no problem telling what is what and interacting with the people and vehicles even when they are close to each other which is all via touch controls.
Medals are awarded throughout the game based on points earned and these are earned through completing the various objectives in each level and based on how quickly you complete them too. It’s the speed that is the biggest challenge and while you may be ok with just scraping through with a bronze medal as you take your time completing each task if you do things too slowly you could end up with a catastrophic event on your hands as a gas line explodes!
I’ve very much enjoyed playing Germany’s number #1 rated App Store game, it could certainly do with more levels, but the variety between the different scenarios is fun, if fun is the right word when dealing with catastrophic events.
At $3.99 it’s not cheap but if you are a fan of such games you can’t go wrong with Emergency for iPad and comes highly recommended.
[rating: 4/5]What we like
What to know
With all that has been going on in the Gulf of Mexico with the BP oil spill it’s difficult to remember sometimes the beauty that goes on below the surface of some of the worlds oceans. Well, in case you are in need of a reminder then you can’t go too wrong with MarineBlueHD from developers IndiaAn.
MarineBlueHD is an underwater shoot-em up with faced paced action and lots of explosions! The underwater scenery looks very nice and the overall water effects gives a great impression of being deep underwater.
Unfortunately there is only one location so while that location may look good there’s not much variety to the environment or the repetitive music that is on a 3 second loop that eventually ends up being only slightly less annoying that a stadium full of vuvuzelas!
Once you get into the under sea action the initial few minutes of game play are quite fun. From your stationary submarine located at the bottom of the screen your task is to simple blow everything that moves out of the water with your torpedoes. You don’t have to worry about direction and power though as all you need to do to launch your weapon is to touch the screen where you want the torpedo to explode.
This makes things pretty easy to hit with the only thing that you’ll need to take into consideration is the the movement of the schools of fish and other underwater creatures. There is also no limit on the number of torpedoes either so you can repeatedly tap the screen without fear of ever running out of weapons.
Combo’s can be earned by hitting multiple targets in quick succession and power-ups can also be gained, these include piranhas, extra time and freezing the fish all helping you to maximize your points.
There are no levels to progress through it’s just a simple race to get the highest score possible before the time runs out. There is OpenFeint integration too but only partial integration with no achievements possible but just 3 leader boards for highest scores, most combo’s and most hits.
Even at just $.99 for the iPad MarineBlueHD is going to leave you feeling a little short changed, while the action is frantic the longevity of the game is way too short.
Price: $0.99 (iTunes Store)
Category: Games
Released: Jun 08, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.0.0
Size: 13.6 MB
Language: English
Seller: 해준 Byun
© IndieApps
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.1.2 or later.