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Review: Flight Control Rocket

Almost 3 years after Melbourne-based developer Firemint released their smash-hit Flight Control on the iPhone, they have come out with a title which definitely rivals the best in the casual games market. Flight Control Rocket takes the iconic aircraft-landing game into space. But more than a new location, it adds so much to the experience.

Players control the landing paths for fifteen different kinds of spacecraft on a mothership speeding through space. What sets it apart from it’s predecessor is the quick pace of the game. No longer do these flight machines continue along at their current speed — they speed up, split up, fire mini-ships and a lot more besides. Some come in long chains or need to be manually unloaded from a carrier ship. There is a lot more to think about, and fast.

There are two game-modes at present — Infinity and Odyssey. The first being an open ended series of ships to land, earning you multipliers for landing spacecraft of the same colour consecutively. The trade-off being do you go for the high multiplier, or try and get that swarm of green squid craft off the screen. In Odyssey, what matters is the time between successive landings. Only close, well-timed approaches will improve your multiplier, which resets if nothing docks for a couple of seconds. This mode is a series of timed stages of increasing length and difficulty.

Both play styles end when you run out of lives. That’s right. You have lives now. You’re afforded three collisions per game and you can opt to play on for another three, if you’re willing to part with the gold. During gameplay, coins will drift past occasionally. Tapping on these will net you a tidy profit, as well as those you earn from landing certain ships.

The coins you earn can be used not only to extend your game, but to purchase items from the in-game store. Of the most useful are the bots. A maximum of three of these little helpers can be recruited per journey, each of which has a different benefit to you such as increasing your score for playing in “hard mode”, helping you earn more coins or even auto-landing certain spacecraft for you! Equipped bots earn experience points every flight, which enables them to level up and be more effective. Be aware, they all have finite ‘charges’ available meaning you’ll have to wait some time or spend more gold to use them again.

It’s hardly worth mentioning that this is a stunningly presented game. We’d expect nothing less Firemint. If you’ve picked up a new iPad, you’ll be happy to know that Flight Control Rocket comes optimised for the iPad retina display. The soundtrack is fun and fits the game perfectly, fading in and out as not to be annoying.

You can pick up the universal Flight Control Rocket app right now from the iOS App store for $0.99. Its a truly rewarding experience on either device — it just depends whether you like the larger playing area or the shorter distance to draw to land those spaceships efficiently. Sorry Android users — no word as to a release date for you as yet.


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