Seal Force Review

By , on January 10, 2012


Seal Force
Download on the AppStore
3 out of 5

PROS

  • Launching out of the mouth of a whale is always good for a chuckle at the start of each play.
  • The balance between coins earned and the price of upgrades is better than most games of this type.

CONS

  • Only having control of one seal at a time, while creating tension, is quite frustrating... especially when the game speeds up.
  • The upgrades aren't enough to keep playing.

VERDICT

Complete in tow with mission system and upgrade store, this color-coded action game quickly bombards you with obstacles. Some may rise to the challenge, but others will feel baited.


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So who else always thinks of Steven Seagal with a black nose and flippers every time they hear the term Navy Seal? No one? Ah well. Seal Force is a highly trained amphibious unit tasked with stopping the evil mastermind Krillian from polluting the oceans. What's more, they launch their missions out of the mouth of a sperm whale. How's that for advanced?

As the game begins, you think you're going to get an animated TV show version of Jetpack Joyride, and you'd be right in spirit. This game has all the trimmings you'd expect it to. Mission based objectives, and an upgrade shop that you can either earn the cash for in game, or pay more money to expedite your unlocking. It even has the endless runner feel, but that's where the comparisons end. See, Seal Force is kind of like a three pronged moving Dr. Mario. Each seal can only destroy incoming plankton of his own color, so a line needs to be drawn to intercept the whale food before it breaches your defenses and ends your mission (along with a pun-tacular “You are krilled” message). Once the plankton have been intercepted, they blow up, and any chain reactions add to your score, which nets you more clams once the game is over (the currency is clams. Get it?).

This would be a fast, frantic, and fun experience if you could move more than one seal at a time. With incoming missile fish and the plankton changing up their color patterns at a quickened pace, you really feel hampered by only letting one seal attack at a time. The united front power-up allows you to attack with all your seals simultaneously, but instead of that elated feeling a power-up usually gives a player, you just wonder in bafflement why the game couldn't have been like this from the get go.

And that's really what holds this one back for us here at AppSpy. The presentation is excellent and the gameplay idea is quite clever, plus they've balanced the store prices quite well. It's the one design choice to hamper your team's attacks to one at a time that is the hurdle here. Others might disagree, and if that is the case, this game should amuse and delight.

Screenshots

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