Look-Up

So here’s a pretty slick new game released by Soulbit7 that brings a classic alien invasion directly into your personal living space. In Look-Up you must join Earth’s resistance and fight off pesky alien invaders by shooting down UFO fighter crafts before they get all up in your grill! Wherever you look a UFO’s right around the corner, though in this one it’s not just “around the corner”, you’ll need to scan a full 360 degree’s to ensure mankind’s survival.

First off I must warn you: Do not play this game in public unless you want to be utterly ridiculed. Why? Because this game uses augmented reality, which basically means you play the game in your real surroundings. The game relies on the iPhone’s camera to display a backdrop as a setting for battle. This brings a realism to gameplay that is simply unmatched. Defend Earth from invading UFO’s in your living room, outside, or in the office – wherever you are, they are coming to get ya! I mentioned earlier not to play this in public because you must fully interact with this game by shooting UFO’s all around you. Rapidly scanning your surroundings by panning up, down, left and right with frantic jolts of the iPhone will have the casual bystander startled to say the least.  BUT, this sure does make for some interesting gameplay!

Look-Up allows you to choose from two play modes: 360 or 180. 360 mode requires you to stand up and play in a full 360 degrees: twirl all the way around and scan the skies for invaders. 180 mode is geared more for sitting down and defending a frontal attack, this only uses 180 degrees of playable space, (starting from about your waist area, up to above your head). In terms of game modes, Look-Up has three: “Invasion” mode featuring 9 levels in which you need to battle against the alien invaders, opening up new features along the way, “Hold M’ Up” mode for non-stop shooting action that basically tests how long you can survive, and finally “Multiplayer” mode: enlist an army to fight the wave of alien attackers by linking up with friends via bluetooth.

I really liked the overall look and theme of the menu graphics and sound effects, which all seem to be spot-on in delivering a “sci-fi like” experience. The interface is pretty basic and user friendly. The sight (target) area is directly in the middle of the screen, followed by the right red button for regular weapon fire, and the left blue button for Tractor Beam and H-bomb Launcher. The energy bar is also displayed in the center  of the screen along with the enemy tracker which indicates the amount of UFO’s engaging in the attack. You’ll find the enemy tracker to come in handy as most of the time the UFO’s are hovering over head or flying in from the side for a surprise attack out of sight.

One feature that seemed to be missing was the ability to pause the game. Also attempting to lock-in on your target at times can be a bit cumbersome and erratic. Some UFO’s are in plain sight so adjusting accordingly to line up the target and take them out works as expected, though other times they seem to disappear, or rapidly move outside the norm, making targeting tough. At times it seems the UFO will always hover “just outside” your target range no matter now fast you move the sight into place.

But all in all the gameplay is pretty entertaining and engaging. This augmented reality genre is becoming a great new avenue for game developers and Look-Up’s UFO theme and gameplay fits this style perfectly. Scanning the skies for invading aliens and using your actual surroundings as part of the game is a really slick concept. I look forward to future updates and would definitely recommend this game if you are into augmented reality gaming or shooter-style games.

Posted by Steve
on Aug 15, 2010
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look-up trailer from Soulbit7 on Vimeo.