6th Planet iPhone Review – Comic and Game Fusion!

You Love Comics? You Love Games?

As you can see from the title screen, 6th Planet by Monkube ($2.99) is a bold combination of a game and a comic book. Mixing mediums doesn’t always work well, but when it does you often get something great. In this case it definitely works — 6th Planet really pulls it off and creates something you will love.

At the core of the game, 6th Planet is a moon landing simulator. I’ll admit, I’m often very skeptical of moon landers — they’ve been done poorly so many times. Apparently, 6th Planet is the moon landing game for people who hate moon landers, because I had a great time with it. To fully understand what this app has to offer, you need to think of it more as an experience than just a game.

Built around the moon landing concept are creative and intriguing visuals, not just in the gameplay itself, but in the incredibly well-made comic book that is laced throughout the game. It really is a top-notch production comic. Whether you love the story of the comic, and it’s political pacifist vs. warmongers storyline (and won’t let phrases like, “…even our own senate, warmongering as always…” bother you), or not, you’ll still appreciate the way it ties in with the game. The comic definitely makes the gameplay more engaging.

Add another layer to the package: an immersive soundtrack. I played the first few levels with sound off, but once I started playing with my headphones on my enjoyment of the game doubled (at least)! The surreal audio definitely sets the tone. You could purchase all 10 tracks in iTunes for $9.90, or just enjoy them inside the game for $2.99.

The core mechanics are solid. Physics are tight in this app — you’ll never have to worry about your spacecraft moving in an unpredictable manner. Your craft has a true weight and momentum feel, and the propulsion system is a lot of fun to play with. By the end of the game you’ll be navigating your lander through some of the tiniest passages without even breaking a sweat due to the smooth difficulty ramp-up throughout the 50 levels of play.

While you can’t intentionally skip levels, 6th Planet has a very clever way of allowing you to focus more on the story or more on the gameplay. If you get a silver medal or better on each level you’ll unlock more levels, if you don’t… you still move on and get to enjoy the story. You won’t have to pass every level to get to the end of the game, but you will have to at least complete each stage in order to move on to the next story segment or level. It’s a great system that works very well.

Overall, 6th Planet it a fantastic game and is very easy to recommend. The gameplay is good enough to stand on its own, in fact, the game actually got more enjoyable the deeper into it I went (stages 48, 49, and 50 were my 3 favorites). Monkube didn’t stop there: every aspect is well developed to deliver much more than just a “good game”, it’s an excellent total experience.