App O' the Mornin': Bird Strike

Bird Strike was on my Touch for a little while before I really spent much time with it. It seemed to a bit Doodle Jump-ish, and I didn’t feel a burning need for a bird-themed Doodle Jump.

In fact, it’s not much like Doodle Jump at all. Both fall into the brand-new App-created subgenre of Vertical Climbing Platformer with Tilt Controls (note: this is a not a real subgenre), but the similarities end there.

In Bird Strike, a rather nervous-looking blue bird named Gerald needs to be launched into the upper atmosphere, but he must find the rockets to carry him, grab the lemons suspended in midair, and dodge the obstacles in his way. It would have been easier to launch Gerald on his journey somewhere other than urban alleys, but not nearly as fun as dodging all of the construction, beams, laundry lines, and other obstructions on the way up--and then pulverizing it all on the way back down.

And please don’t even ask why lemons are suspended in midair, where they can be conveniently grabbed for extra points. If you have to ask questions like that, then you haven’t been playing enough apps.

Gerald begins the game perched on a wire, which you can drag down and then release to shoot him in the air. He only flies for a little while until gravity begins to take over, so you need to use the tilt controls to steer him over rockets. Each rocket is just powerful enough to propel him to another rocket. If you grab all the rockets, snag all the lemons, and avoid the obstructions, Gerald will make it all the way into space … where orbiting alien invaders shoot him with a paralyzing beam. He then plummets back to earth, trashing all the obstacles and racking up more points along the way.

There are four locations, and each location has three to four levels. Each level is like a high-speed horizontal obstacle course with an almost puzzle-like quality. The folks a PikPok have done a great job with this one, and appear to be supporting it with updates and extra levels, all for the low-low price of $1.

You can find it here. (Warning: link will open iTunes.)

UPDATE: An astute reader pointed out what your nearsighted reviewer missed: those are seeds, not lemons. Now that I look at it again, I don't know why I ever thought they were lemons.  Just because they're yellow?