At first glance, Tunes Attack ! sounds like it should have a leg up on competing apps like Tap Tap Revenge and Rock Band because it allows you to play your own music, but its scattershot approach to gameplay and stuttered pace end up hurting the gameplay, instead of benefitting it. With three different game modes (Scooter, Concert, Space), Tunes Attack ! would have been better off focusing less on quantity and more on quality and presentation.
Play your own music
The key feature that got me to try Tunes Attack ! out was its promise of allowing me to play my own music. Of course, because the iPhone ‘s system is so locked down, there is a bit of a caveat here. You have to manually transfer songs over wi-fi from your computer before they can be played in-game (a three-minute song takes less than 10 seconds). However, once your music is on the iPhone, it can be a blast to play in Concert mode.
Scooter, Concert, Space
It ‘s obvious from these three mis-matched titles that this game doesn ‘t take itself too seriously. That ‘s not to say that the developers didn ‘t work hard on it, but the world of Tunes Attack ! is completely ridiculous. You start off delivering pizzas on a scooter, then get picked up by a record label and play a concert, until you finally get drafted by the military to fight off aliens with your music.
That ‘s the gist of the campaign mode as far as I ‘ve played it, and it ‘s about as ridiculous as it sounds, although it is told through some nicely illustrated static cut-scenes.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, the game tends to lose focus while trying to juggle all of the different elements. Concert mode is alright, since it ‘s the same TTR/Rock Band gameplay you know and love, but the Scooter and Space sequences never feel quite right. The Scooter has you dodging vehicles and ramming your clients to deliver their pizza (ouch), while Space missions require you to dodge and fire at aliens from a rocket ship. These two sections feel tacked on, despite the way they’re tied into the music.
Every game mode you play in Tunes Attack ! is governed by the beat of the song you ‘re listening to. This means that the default electronic tracks, with their erratic beats, will cause all of the action in Space and Scooter misisons to skip along, as if the game were lagging. I found this very distracting, and I found it a little stressful to watch after a while, since strobe lights would also light up in time with the music.
The End?!
One last thing that absolutely has to be fixed is the very abrupt ends to each level in campaign mode (this problem does not exist if you manually select one of the three game modes from the Play menu). Instead of timing levels dynamically to the length of a song, every level runs on an exact timer, meaning you can finish a level just as you ‘re about to start the chorus on a new song. The best thing about music games is actually playing out the songs you love, so the worst thing that a music game can do to you is end a level mid-song, just as you ‘re getting into the groove of things.
Conclusion
I think Tunes Attack ! is an interesting departure from the usual best-selling music gameplay we ‘re used to, but it feels like the developers simply put too much on their plate here. I found Concert to be the most fun by far, but Scooter or Space might have been more fun if either one of them had received the polish that was, instead, spread amongst all three modes.
The timing for a level also has to be more in sync with the current song. I realize that the latter could prove difficult to fix (some songs are three minutes, while others can last 19), but suddenly cutting the game off while the chorus to ‘Lisztomania ‘ (by Phoenix) starts, is definitely not the way to do it.
If you’re really itching for a way to literally play through your own playlist, then Tunes Attack ! may be worth a look. However, if you’re looking for a polished music gaming experience despite being limited to set tracks, I’d suggest you look to Tap Tap Revenge 3 or Rock Band instead.
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Tunes Attack ! is available for $2.99 on the App Store.
The app was provided by nemoid for review on Just Another iPhone Blog. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
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