Space Colors

In space, no-one can hear you scream, which is probably just as well if Space Colors is anything to go by.

The game dumps you in the infinite inky black with only a seemingly endless horde of psychotic aliens for company. Most of your time is initially spent desperately trying to not get blown to pieces.

A cel-shaded homage to old-school vector titles, Space Colors plays a lot like a neon-infused version of Elite on fast-forward.

Your task is to obliterate everything - enemy craft, asteroids - and build up experience and funds. Cash (earned in-game - there's no IAP) can be spent on ship upgrades that improve your chances of survival.

The controls are intuitive and mostly impress. You tap to move to a location or hold to continue in that direction. Subtle shifts of a finger enable your ship to swoop and strafe.

You can tap an enemy to lock on to it, allowing you to fire your lasers at it even when you're running away like a giant space chicken.

However, unlike the open-ended Elite, Space Colors is very bite-sized in structure. It's based around missions that are randomly dished out when you select a planet from the galactic map.

These are the game's weakest aspect - mainly because they're so uninspiring. Many missions simply involve navigating to a specific location, or finding and delivering a ‘space crate', like some kind of interstellar flunky.

Occasionally, you'll be tasked with blowing up specific craft, which is more exciting, if only because it forces you deep into enemy territory and lets you engage in neon-laser space battles.

For the most part the missions seem like an excuse to get you moving about the place and blowing things up, and the game could really have done with an endless mode for those who aren't keen on its overt and abrupt stop/start nature.

The opening missions of the game are purely about increasing XP. These involve several minutes of blowing up asteroids, taking out enemy scouts, and hunting down and annihilating bigger foes like carriers, deadly turrets, and alien bases.

When you're in the thick of the action there's a palpable sense of exhilaration as you dart between laser fire, and you'll emit a whoop of glee when a stubbornly resilient space turret finally explodes.

At first these lengthier missions are hard-going - your ship is weak and the enemies are many. However, once you get enough money to upgrade your health and weaponry, and figure out how to defeat your foes, Space Colors flips around and suddenly become a bit too easy.

There's a point when you realise that even the biggest ships can be beaten by locking on and slowly circling while pelting them with hot laser death.

And while there's always the risk of being a bit too cocky and having your progress wiped (bar purchased ship upgrades), the repetitive nature of Space Colors means it can become tiresome surprisingly quickly.

Despite its shortcomings, Space Colors always remains fun, and it's worth having installed for a quick blast. But its structural shortcomings mean it's good rather than great.