Illuminations Review

You can probably remember all the hoopla caused by the start of the Olympics last year. Far more amusing were the news reports suggesting that the fireworks at the opening ceremonies were, at least partly, faked.

Like the Beijing opening ceremony, Illuminations is a virtual firework display - although in this game you have to destroy the fireworks with missiles.

Red enemies want to dull the impact your colourful display has on the crowd, though, so it's a matter of balancing explosive entertainment and security. In short, it is an accelerometer-controlled 2D shooter.

Even though the backgrounds are rendered in 3D, they are just that: backgrounds. All you have to worry about are the flying red enemies and the little firework kernels making their way up the screen.

Shooting kernels will increase the crowd excitement bar, which essentially acts as your health gauge. Conversely, getting hit by enemy weapons decreases it. If it runs out, it's game over.

You always shoot in the direction you're facing and, thankfully, you can calibrate the accelerometer so that it defaults to your favoured angle. The level of inertia inherent in your ship's movement means there's a learning curve to the controls, but they allow you to slide and shoot effectively.

Pressing the left and right sides of the screen fires and uses bombs, respectively. There are several different weapons to pick up, dropped by certain firework kernels, whereas bombs destroy everything on the screen but don't gain you any points. All the destruction does set off a nice visual effect though.

Despite the impressive presentation, Illuminations doesn't have quite enough rocket fuel to go the full distance. The game moves at too slow a pace to conjure any sort of significant challenge.

Although it does get progressively more difficult, it happens slowly and you're more likely to die thanks to a lapse of attention rather than a particularly intense battle against the flying red firework-ruiners.

It's stuck between wanting to be a game you play to finish all the levels and a game where you're constantly at threat, but are hanging on to grab a few more points to beat your high score.

It falls short of both. There are more than a hundred levels, but once you die you have to start from level one each time.

Sessions can quite easily go on for more than half an hour, so personal score-beating becomes quite a significant time investment. It's far too much of an investment for a style of play that suits casual sessions of five or ten minutes at a time.

Illuminations dazzles with its sights and sounds, but just like CGI fireworks the effect lasts only so long.