The iPhone has encouraged one of the biggest explosions of casual gaming ever seen, so pity the poor 'hardcore gamer' who misses games that are so hard most people can barely play them at all.
Glandarius Wing Strike is a hardcore vertical shoot 'em up. Instead of using tilt control, or a virtual joystick there is an unusual one finger control method. You can only move your space craft side to side, and you have to tap the screen to fire bursts of laser. Holding your finger will lock you secondary homing lasers onto targets.
Enemies move and fire like in many shoot 'em ups. Glandarius Wing Strike is the type where enemy bullets are slow moving balls that fill the screen, giving you intricate paths to fly through to keep safe. What's odd is that you only move left to right, so avoiding bullets is even harder.
This looks like a modern, flashy shoot 'em up, with nice graphics that never get confusing. The main criticisms are firstly that playing with your finger over your craft invariably obscures some of the screen, and secondly the drag and touch one finder control is definitely an acquired taste. The control works, but certainly lacks the precision hardcore fans usually insist upon.
If you can get used to the control system, Glandarius Wing Strike is a pretty good, if difficult shoot 'em up.
