Pirate's Treasure fires iPhone twin sticker shooters a broadside
Minigore with pieces of eight
Despite the enormous number of twin sticker shooters available in iDevices, I can't say I'm convinced that many developers have really pinned down the genre.
By which I mean few developers have managed to seamlessly combine good character rotation and movement, with the sort of fast automatic fire and monster spawning and speed that doesn't result in those horrible moments when you can't quite find the right angle to shoot the hordes that threaten to overrun you.
I'm hoping developer GameLab gets it right in Pirate's Treasure though, because the game looks like it could be a winner in other respects.
A rum showGraphically, it looks great with colourful environments and a good variety of enemies ranging from flies and beetles to mummies and zombies, and then there's the character of the pirate himself who shouts out nautical dialogue as he gains success.
Perhaps you can think of it as Minigore meets Captain Jack Sparrow.
Or perhaps not. Pirate's Treasure seems to be set up as more of an achievements based game as you complete specific missions - such as survive for a certain period of time, or kill a certain number of enemies - to gain gold keys that will enable you to unlock more dungeon doors to more missions.
Along the way you collect the gold coins you'll use to customise your character with new abilities. The one I'm looking forward to is the octopus ability, which means you can charge into your enemies, tentacles a-waving.
To that extent, the game has lite role-playing elements, spread over the 50 levels of the Campaign mode.
Raise the flagWhat looks particularly impressive about Pirate's Treasure though are the little details. For example, when you're about to die, the Grim Reaper turns up and gives you a good scything. Inbetween missions, you also get to play with a mini-slot machine to win more gold.
Published by Chillingo, Pirate's Treasure is out now, priced £1.99, €1.59 or £1.19 for a limited period. You can see how it plays in the following video.
