I spent a lot of my youth on some very early consoles – Atari 2600, Intellivision, Vectrex – while my friends were busy with their shiny Super Nintendos. I have since played my way through many a modern console, and many a genre, but suffice it to say, I’m quite familiar with and nostalgic for classic unbeatable, high-scoring, and occasionally maddening arcade titles. The iPhone and iPod Touch provide an interesting platform and paradigm for gaming – no buttons means that controls need to be innovative (compared to what we’ve been using since the 70s) and the pocketable nature means that games generally should tend toward the casual, pick-up-and-play variety. What do those two things have to do with one another? Everything, when One Man Left’s title Tilt to Live is up for review.

A brief introduction – Tilt to Live is a game where you tilt your device to move around. You move around to avoid or kill red dots that continuously spawn on screen. There will always be three weapons on-screen for you to use. Weapons are not collected and then used later (remember, the only control is tilting to move), rather they are run into and immediately activated. If a weapon hangs around on-screen for too long, it disappears and is replaced. Which weapons spawn when and where is seemingly random. Scoring is primarily done through the killing of dots, and the more massive the kill, the more combo points you receive.

With the basics out of the way, I’d like to say that Tilt to Live is a shining example of what arcade iPhone gameplay should be, a perfect blend of arcade sensibilities and pick-up-and-play speed. To be honest, I questioned the pick-up-and-play nature of the game, until I actually observed the time I spent on any given play. Even my best games only lasted me 2.5-3 minutes! But due to excellent pacing, games rarely feel as short as they are. The first wave of dots is small and slow, lazily following you around the screen. But more and more come, and soon they’ll be coming in tight formations and joining together to form a game of pong that you don’t want to get in the way of! The timing of this progression is spot on, I never felt like I was stuck in easy mode, nor did I feel unprepared for the stampede I was about to take part in.

The graphics are basic, but still exceptionally pleasing to look at. The sound effects fall into the same boat – not groundbreaking, but still quite astounding for a game which is so focused on gameplay. The weapons are all fun to use and fun to unlock. A word about this – more powerful weapons are unlocked as you continue to replay the game and win awards. Once unlocked, they could come up at any point during a game – powerful weapons are not reserved for the latter movements of the game. This works well, allowing you to learn to excel at the basics before you graduate to bigger weapons and better strategies. The awards are numerous and humorous, adding an extra motivational level of replay value to a game which is otherwise focused on beating your high score, and those of your friends. Speaking of your friends, online leaderboards are in place using AGON Online, providing for some convenient competition. One final thing that just feels right about this game is the collision detection. It’s ‘forgiving’ in the sense that you can easily thread the needle through a tight dot formation, but grabbing your next weapon is never a chore.

Now we come to the lesser points of this game, which are few and far between. The controls can be a bit strange at times – the game allows you to calibrate it to any position, but some simply don’t work that well. Some positions feel more like you’re tilting the device at all times, whereas some require tilt for vertical movement, but more of a steer for horizontal. Fortunately calibration is easy, and you can see how any given calibration will work before getting into the action. I realize this is largely due to the axes that the device’s accelerometers recognize, but I was still bummed at the difficulty I had playing in bed. This is quite minor, and for the most part control is very responsive. The one complaint that truly has me pulling out my hair at times is the nature of pausing. To pause the game, you tap on the screen. Anywhere. Even the very, very edge, right next to where you’re holding the device. So, during a particularly intense moment of play, when you really make a squeeze at the device, you’re bound to accidentally pause. To resume, you need to tap a particular button, which generally means that when you resume, your tilt won’t be the same as it was before you paused. I have run into this countless times, and I think One Man Left could cure it by simply shrinking the recognized tap boundaries, just a little!

The bottom line is that Tilt to Live is iPhone arcade gaming at its finest. It makes great use of limited controls, it has just the right pacing for both the serious gamer and the casual, and most importantly – it’s a world of fun. The game is available now on the App Store for 1.99.

*This game review was written based off of a copy of Tilt to Live supplied by One Man Left for review purposes.

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