At first glance it appears that despite his name Captain Antarctica is not your usual game hero. However, it’s soon apparent that with a plethora of upgrades and gadgets Captain Antarctica is no ordinary penguin and is ready to take on the task of rescuing his family and friends.
You responsibility in this task is to steer Captain Antarctica though underwater caverns to defeat the multiple bosses across 6 initial chapters, (chapter 7 is listed as “Coming Soon”). While 6 chapters may not seem like a lot of value for the $1.99 price tag each chapter is full of challenges.
The ultimate objective of each chapter is to negotiate your way through the dangerous underwater caverns and all the dangers they hold. From a variety of dangerous sea creatures to more volatile dangers such as mines and torpedoes there are dangers around every corner to hinder your progress.
Controlling Captain Antarctica through these dangers is done either via the accelerometer or via the touch screen, personally the most successful control system is the accelerometer but it’s nice to have the choice.
Each of the chapters include multiple Experiments (challenges), this means that you’ll need to repeat the chapters multiple times to complete them, the early chapters contain single digit challenges, however by the time you reach the final chapters will be double digit experiments for you to complete.
You are aided in these challenges by the option to purchase power-ups and upgrades to your existing skills. You have magnets, shields and jets and of course extra lives at your disposal and they can be purchased by coins.
You earn coins by completing the experiments in each level, but you can also purchase coins via in-app purchase. The balance between gaining coins in game and having to buy them to progress is fairly balanced so if you don’t want to buy them you don’t have to.
GameCenter integration is hit and miss, sure there are 32 achievements to unlock but rather than having leaderboards for each chapter there are just two for total coins and total distance traveled.
The game is great looking game to with bright, colorful two dimensional graphics which despite their 2 dimensionality provide great depth to the game and the jaunty music is well pitch to the game.
Captain Antarctica HD is a fun arcade game which has that vital ingredient of convincing you to need just one more try before you put it down and will appeal to players young and old alike.
[rating: 4.5/5]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.