To each his own, the Trinity and the Corsair are the most popular and accessible ships. Be sure to tap the video icon in the Ship Selection screen to see a short clip of the ship in action. I might just add a missile drone, coz well, drones are cool and missiles are cool.
We are now showing a certain range with a big cool circle. Looking at it now I realize DU2 uses circles too, but we honestly got there via a totally different path
DU2 opened me up to bullet hell shmups which never clicked with me before, but right now, i am pretty sure, that Phoenix HD is my favorite out of them. Thanks for a great game, and news of upcoming updates make sure that Phoenix HD will stay a favorite for a long time.
It's pretty tough to beat. It just offers so much. If I could snap my fingers and have the perfect shooter, many elements from Phoenix would appear in it just as they are now.
The ship variety alone, and the endless gameplay makes sure every game is different. DU2 is also fantastic, but i prefer the randomness factor in Phoenix.
I don't get to shoot; the game does that for me. That's very odd to me, especially on iCade. Blazing Star and Raiden are much better experiences using both touch and iCade. I've never been a fan of auto-shoot. Call me old school.
I just played an hour of Blazing Star, Raiden, Phoenix HD, Danmaku 2, Storm Strikers, and Airattack HD. All on my icade core. All have options for autofire, or default to autofire. Most let you switch to either autofire or not. Phoenix hd does not. My impressions. Icade core play is about 3x funner than touch controls. However, it is harder to get high scores. Touch controls I always play on hardest mode. With my icade core, I usually play on normal. Icade core does use a lot of battery due to bluetooth wireless. Phoenix hd, is funner on icade core, but touch controls are very close in funness. This game controls well in both icade and touch. I'm not sure if you knew, but the buttons do control secondary functions, so it adds to the game. Usually I prefer auto fire with both touch and icade. With my icade core, it is really fun to play for 5 minutes with auto fire off, but after a while, button mashing is no fun for me, so I will turn autofire back on. You can always just fake it, and keep hitting one of the buttons on an icade core just to mimic autofire off. Actually, if you kind of believe its not, it will mimic the experience quite well. Icade code controls in Phoenix HD and Danmaku 2 play really well in terms of accuracy, better than the other games, in my opinion. Danmaku 2 really gets better play with an icade core. It is ok for me with touch, but with icade core, it just becomes a totally different game. Icade core is so much funner than touch, not even close. Raiden is the same way, kinda cruddy touch controls, but man, it rocks with my icade core. I get a real sense that I am in the arcades. Don't play much with touch, but with the core, it rocks. Plus the funky framerates are less of an issue with the icade core, cause you are so frantically hitting the joystick, that the jiggling on the screen seems natural. Icade core is a must for this game. Blazing star plays well in three configs - icade core, touch, and stylus on a tripod. Kinda like all three. However since it was designed for a slow joystick, it shines on the icade core. But touch and stylus are also great. This game is good for hdmi too cause the graphics aren't high res. Storm strikers 2, I would never play on my ipad cause it's 2x and the framerates too in this game are funky. But as is the same for Raiden Trilogy, the icade core saves this game. Seems like games that have a little jerkiness with, play so much better with the icade core, cause everything is jerking around when you have your ipad mounted in the icade core. Storm strikers 2, just rocks with an icade core and hdmi tv, just wish now that my dream will be granted, and Danmaku the original will add icade support. Icade is a must for storm strikers 2, without it, I probably wouldn't play it much. Airattackhd, is an old game that I never bought in the past, but just started playing recently cause of icade core support. It is a pretty fun game, but shines with icade core support. This game too like Storm strikers 2, probably wouldn't play this much without icade core support. Plus this game looks pretty on hdmi tv as pictured.
Well moving from an old school system to a new one, there are bound to be some changes and compromises. We wanted no buttons on Phoenix HD, first and foremost. If you add a 'shoot' button, there should (in my opinion) be a reason to stop shooting. Like with Tyrian, when your shield will only reload when your ship doesn't have to send its power to the guns. Or like our first game Flare Elite, where an important gameplay mechanic is to stop shooting to attract health particles from the screen. (warning: Flare Elite is super old and hasn't been updated, ever, so no iCade support. Still lots of fun though and hard as nails!). There is no reason not to shoot in Phoenix, so we decided it should be automatic. Phoenix was initially released in 2010 and the feedback on auto-shoot has been very positive so we never felt we had to re-visit this mechanic. Even when we implemented the iCade controls it seemed weird to add this button which you had to hold all the time. There is no skill in holding a button, or well, not for most people I'm not sure how to express the difference in fun between Touch controls and the iCade. The iCade generally offers a more relaxed gaming experience for me, especially on the iPad. You can rest your wrists on the stick and buttons, you don't have to hold the device up all the time and hover with your other hand above the screen. This allows you to be a bit more engrossed in the game. Touch controls give more refined controls as one would expect. In the end it differs for everyone so all feedback is welcome, I promise you we read and consider everything!
I don't even think it is an issue so much of 'old school' in terms of buttons to shoot. Auto fire is not a new concept at all. Some games use it, others don't, depending on what works best. It's been around for a while.
Dunno what the gripe is with auto-fire. In the arcades, 99% of the time, you keep pressing that button. Auto-fire on the touchscreen is one thumb prevented from covering a part of the screen.
You'll die very quickly if you don't have auto-fire. I'm old-school too. That being said, it shouldn't be that hard to implement.
Air Attack really shined with the interaction between the fighting in the sky and the bombing of the surface. Along with the detailed environments and slow pace, it was a solid title. The problem for me was the main weapons and how utterly generic they were. The game needs more forward firepower. If I remember correctly, they were promoting Air Attack 2 within the game. This would be awesome if that is actually happening. OK, back to Phoenix. El, are you doing tweaks to the other ships by any chance?
Currently not. We have some ideas about the existing ships, but there is a couple of other risks. For one, changing someone that is already in the game will _always_ piss off a lot of users, even if it's for the better. Our main idea for the Corsair and Mirage would be to pull them more into the extreme and put more emphasis on their special abilities. Like we removed all weapons from the Shogun instead of the grazing mechanic, we would remove most of the traditional weapons from the Corsair and Mirage as well. The Corsair would receive multiple lock-on type weapons with different characteristics while the Mirage would receive more weapons and mechanics regarding movement. Maybe they should be variants of the ships (Mk II), but then, how do we present that. For now we have plenty other improvements that we think are more valuable and will bring more to the game for you guys, the players. So we do those first, while iterating and brainstorming on other stuff
MK II would be fine by me, always love new ships to play with. Implementing them now...that I don't know. I'd pay for them personally but that's me.
