Dark Nebula – Episode Two review

1337 Game Design have released the 2nd coming of Dark Nebula for the iPhone. It’s rare that a sequel to a flawlessly good game can outperform its predecessor, though in Episode Two, Anders Hejdenberg has figured out the right formula yet again. Looking and sounding like a full hollywood blockbuster film, Dark Nebula Episode Two sells for $0.99 in the App Store, which is seriously underpriced for what you get in my opinion.

In Dark Nebula you are moving a ball across a platform through a sick and twisted array of unearthly obstacles and platforms, across worlds filled with green jungles and deserted wastelands, to its final destination spot. If you played labyrinth with aliens on Mars, this is probably what it would look like. The overall feel of the game is very tense, engaging, addictive and the physics based controls are tightly fine tuned. Part 2 has 19 levels, six environments and there are 25 enemy and obstacle types. You’ll be glad to know the levels have checkpoints because you’ll need them when it gets to the harder ones.

Unlike most tilt based games for the iPhone and iPad, Dark Nebula Episode Two has a very responsive engine that feels amazingly realistic and natural. Graphics and gameplay are off the charts and beyond anything I can describe here in words, though I found myself saying things like “OMG, this is amazing” followed by “Ahh I almost got it that time!”. To raise the stakes, the second release adds a new action mode where you fight various blade powered bots with a spinning laser halo. There are now also some crazy moving platforms. These things are your ride across parts of the world and you have to run and jump back on them or you’ll basically get stranded. You still have the original light speed canon shots, jump launchers, tiny platforms, chainsaws, and laser shooters.

Grab this game, and set aside a few days this month to finish it. It’s a tough journey but it feels great when you reach the destination. If you have not played or heard of Dark Nebula before or played Episode One yet, make sure you also get that game as well.

Here is a video demo of the Dark Nebula – Episode Two app on the iPhone

AppSafari Rating: 5/5

AppSafari review of Dark Nebula – Episode Two was written by Joe Seifi on August 17th, 2010 and categorized under Action, App Store, Featured, Games, Platformer. Page viewed 5908 times, 1 so far today. Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page.