The Red Star has had an interesting history. Starting off as a graphic novel by Christian Gossett, it was originally set for an XBox release. Development went as far as releasing a demo for Official XBox Magazine’s demo disk, though the release was canceled soon after. It would then be ported to the PlayStation 2 in 2004 and go into hiatus until this March where it was released as a PSP Go download only title.
Now, it has been ported over to the iPhone, with sadly, less than stellar results.
Gameplay:
As with all games, strong gameplay is essential for the success of any title. If a game is difficult to control, people just aren’t going to be able to enjoy it. Even though the game looks pretty (as will be mentioned later), the interface on the iPhone greatly hinders The Red Star.
Instead of opting for a static position D-Pad on the touch screen, players are forced to use their thumbs anywhere on the screen to direct the motion of their character in this side scrolling beat ’em up. On the right side of the screen lies a “button” to shoot, melee or use special attacks.
Unfortunately, aiming any of these becomes a deeply frustrating process as a player will often find their left thumb gravitating towards the center of the screen to keep moving from left to right only to find they have completely covered their character and have no idea what direction they are facing (on top of blocking much of the left half of the screen with their left hand as well, giving a huge blind spot).
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