Are you ready to be blasted into a billion pieces?

Platform: IOS.

Price: Free/freemium.

Developer: Armor Games.

Pros: Highly addictive, ship customization allows for hundreds of combinations, hilarious dialogue and great replay value.

Cons: Occasional crashing, positioning means your thumb gets in the way and the best extras are not free.

Have you ever wanted to be at all-out war with what can only be described as a bunch of 14^th century French renaissance robots who call themselves the imperial royal family? Well today is your lucky day! You can have just that with Armor Games’ latest contribution to the mobile games market: Gemini strike.

Gemini strike is a vertical scrolling ‘shoot em up’ RPG set in the not too distant future where you use your thumb to dispense justice in the form of laser beams although sometimes your thumb does get in the way of navigating your way through mines, asteroids or your enemy returning fire.

You begin your journey as a pilot for the Alliance republic or if I’m being rather technical I suppose you play as a clone of a pilot in the Alliance republic. The Alliance had a great idea which was that instead of wasting all that time, effort and credits on training new pilots why not just find their very best pilot and clone him several million times. It was inspired now they would have a crack fleet of the best the Alliance could offer in control of every ship and most importantly it was cheap. The real you or though I suppose as a clone your almost identical is probably sitting on a beach somewhere with a colourful drink in one hand and a pretty girl in the other.

So as I was saying you play as a pilot’s clone in the Alliance republic who are waging all-out war on the Imperial royal family for a very vague sort of reason that isn’t entirely clear, but as with most royal families throughout history they have committed various atrocities and so this is good enough.

Gemini strike is a typical freenium title in that it has two different types of currency gems and credits; you can use the former to upgrade the different weapons and items that can be attached to your space fighter and to unlock cargo crates that you plunder along the way to victory.

The latter of the two currencies credits can be used to buy different space fighters of which there are many. Also, you can buy premium, but very illegal weapon and item upgrades on the black market which becomes available as you progress through the game.

One of the great things about this game is the sheer level of customisation that is available to you. There are over 20 different space fighters that can be purchased in game along with hundreds of different weapon and item combinations which really add a certain element of uniqueness which I think is the key to the success of any mobile title.

The replay value of the game is in these upgrades I found myself going back to previous levels of the game in order to collect more gems to upgrade my fighter because it just had to be the best in the fleet. Another great element are the side missions which can be done alongside the main campaign which come in the form of hijacking cargo or a nice bit of bounty hunting, all without your commanders knowledge of course.

These side missions can be very rewarding as you can gain credits from them because if you’re not willing to part with your cash for them, and the prices can be pretty steep, then the daily bonus, completion of bosses and bounty hunting missions are your only option.

One of the first things you should do when you can is to add as many people as possible as they will become invaluable at assisting in your missions and you can assist them also to the tune of gem rewards which are always welcome. You can also invite your friends using Facebook and Twitter so you can keep tabs on who has the best fighter, who has completed the most missions and upload videos of your latest conquest.

There are a few negatives to the game. As I played through there was occasional freezing that meant restarting the app, but I didn’t lose my progress; my thumb, as I have kind of fat fingers got in the way a little when I was navigating my space fighter around obstacles. Of course, the price of buying credits to get the best ships, but after all nobody is perfect.

Gemini strike is a great little title with bags of playtime and an addictive quality that will rival most dungeon crawling games on superior consoles. With its replay value huge customisation weapon and item facility, and the fact that we have more than just the campaign to keep us busy I can whole heartedly recommend this for both the hard core and casual gamer to while away the hours spent sat in stuffy lecture theatres.

Overall score: 4/5

A last word from me:

Check out the dialogue in Gemini strike; it is hilarious and certainly added another dimension to the RPG feel of the game.