AirAttack HD

'What if' storylines pitting historical foes against each other in alternative realities is a well-worn technique in games.

‘What if the Nazis and the Allies had fought using futuristic technology?’ is one such question.

‘What if seminal arcade shooter 1942 was rehashed with shinier graphics and could be played on your mobile?’ is another.

The answer to both of these posers is AirAttack HD.

The setup of Art In Games's shmup should be familiar: you control a fighter plane along a straight path littered with enemy aircraft, tanks, battleships, and trains.

The only novel elements here are the flying saucers bearing Nazi-like battle insignia, and huge steel robot men that fire lasers out of their eyes.

Gunfire and missiles pepper the screen in ways that will please the bullet-hell enthusiast in all of us. Naturally, you are expected to retaliate in kind, using a mix of cannon fire, rockets, flamethrowers, and, errr, lightning.

The touchpad or the D-pad controls movement, while the L or R trigger is used to drop bombs on enemies and buildings for cash, points, and power-ups. You can spend cash in one of the floating airshops to upgrade your fighter, such as adding two wingmen to fight at either side of you.

Unfortunately, there's isn't much else in the gameplay to distinguish this from its many competitors and ancestors in the vertical-scrolling shoot-'em-up world.

Saying that, the Xperia Play-optimised controls are a slight improvement on the iPhone original's virtual buttons, but it's worth turning off the troublesome ‘relative touch’ option in the menu, since it makes the plane feel slippy.

Overall, AirAttack HD is functional and good looking, and will satisfy those hungry for some truly old skool mechanics.

Sadly, though, many will be left asking: ‘What if Art In Games had just tried something fresh?’