With Apple’s App store selection growing at a startling rate its very hard for developers not only to create a game that can stand up in front of others, but also to create a game thats addictive enough for players to keep coming back.

Berzerk Studio has entered the App store with their game Frantic Frigate. The mechanics of the game are very simple, the player moves their pirate ship through endless waters, shooting down sharks, rival ships and floating treasure chests. The Gold collected from the downed opponents can then be used to upgrade the players ship with better weaponary, fast sails and more health to take on harder waves of enemies.

The ships controls are layed out with three simple options which the player can choose at the start of each game; touch, tilt and Joystick. Each enables the player to play the game in a different way. In testing all three touch and tilt seemed to work best, the joypad seemed to stick and made the ships movements even slower. That being said a simple sensitivity setting could easily fix this.

The players ship automatically fires at near by enemys allowing the player to concentrate on steering. This is a great little feature as it causes a simple control system which doesn’t bog down the player.

There is no difficulty settings to the game meaning that all players will have the same challange. Though this works well to the leaderboards it can cause the game to become a little frustrating, especially because everytime there is a game over the player loses all the upgraded progress on their ship. This doesn’t take away from the overal experience but for a game which feels more directed to a younger audience, it can feel a little discouraging.

Unfortunately the game doesn’t feature any multiplayer, there is online leaderboards which supports both Apple’s Game Center and OpenFeint, this is rightfully added as it really pulls players into rivalling their friends highscores. Also added to this is the medals (also known as Achievements on Game Center) These are needed to the game as it gives the player stronger goals to drive towards instead of the slightly simple overal adjective of the game.

Frantic Frigate is a clean, simple, fun game. Although there are a few issues with it, none are big enough to ruin the experience when playing it. The game looks great with a bright, vectored style which, together with highscores and achievements means it’s highly addictive. Its a shame it doesn’t include any kind of multiplayer or a easier difficulty curve, but these are only small details.

£2.49 can seem like a bit of a steep price for this game on the iPad (especially with the iPhone version is free) but if simple, charming, actions games are you sort of thing, then this is money well spent.

7/10

Developer: Berzerk Studio 

Price: £2.49

Also available on: iPhone/ iPod Touch