Shadowgun is easily the best-looking iPad game this year, with some of the best graphics that iPad gamers have likely ever seen. It's a great accomplishment, and we hope a bellwether of things to come as more developers get hip to the Unity game engine. There are some corners cut that you'll notice in terms of explosions and lighting effects; whether this is an issue with Unity or an example of not squeezing all the potential from the engine, we don't know. Mind you, these are the minor observations one makes when things are generally awesome. Voice acting is one of the awesome aspects of Shadowgun. Sure, it's all very reminiscent of Gears of War or some other squad combat game you've played on your big console, but this is the iPad! It's great to find a game that packs strong voice talent, and includes good storytelling, done through scenes that break up the action. Weapon and enemy sounds are well done, if lacking a bit in variety. You seem to bump up against the same types of enemies too frequently, at least early in the game. The landscape you're exploring is similarly repetitive. Here's hoping we don't get the drab, urban future that so many games (Shadowgun included) are predicting we'll have before too long.

All shortcomings aside, the presentation of Shadowgun is good enough to make people rubberneck when you play this in public, wondering why the game you're playing looks good enough to be a rendered trailer. Perhaps because of the intense graphics, we noticed a few memory-management issues that cause the game to crash. Recent updates appear to be addressing this issue, and we hope that long loading times can also be addressed.

Mission-based combat games are nothing extraordinary on the larger screens, but bringing a heavy shooting game drawing inspiration from classic console titles to the iPad is a great move. Shadowgun tends to overreach at times, but it scores about 75% of the time. The story places you alone against a large force of humanoid hostiles, plus some robots and bug aliens. There's no squad here, so you have to take down enemies yourself using a combination of strong offense and smart defense. The first time Shadowgun shows off its cover mechanic, you'll be psyched. "You mean I don't have to fire up the XBox 360 to get my alien-combat fix? Awesome!" The enemy A.I. performs well enough to make you feel like you're in the heat of battle, but the missions are very linear, without any room for deviation. Even the paths you follow tend to be narrow, guiding you into the next encounter. There are some light puzzle elements, in the sense of flipping switches or doing anything in sequence, but the mainstay for Shadowgun is that two men enter and only one leaves.

Each area you explore contains waves of bad guys, who will take cover and fire at you, or wade straight in to attack your position. There are some static enemy gun emplacements, and that formula stays with you throughout the entire game. The cover mechanic is fun enough, and Shadowgun even includes cover that can be destroyed; this obviously works for and against you... There are special objects scattered through the level you can collect to unlock concept art and reveals from the main menu, but otherwise, you'll be mostly searching for ammo and the next doorway or keycard. Almost everything here is derivative across the entire gaming landscape, but we can imagine that Shadowgun will introduce some iPad gamers unfamiliar with a series like Gears of War to more intense shooting action. As a starting point for core gaming to evolve on mobile, Shadowgun sets a fairly high bar.

Aside from learning the controls, which aren't terribly intuitive, there isn't much in the way of a tutorial for Shadowgun; you're dumped right into the action. The first thing you'll notice is that the enemies tend to be fairly predictable. They pop out of cover right on schedule, and rarely rush your position. Even when they do rush your position, they'll take cover on the opposite side of a crate you're using to blast away at them... not too smart. Bosses and special enemies, on the other hand, trade predictability for sheer force. The first big battle was a bit of a disappointment; rather than anything interesting in the combat, all that was required was a better hiding spot. After learning enemy patterns, the running and gunning of Shadowgun is mostly just hiding and gunning. Ammo is plentiful, and puzzles are very routine. Now, this is from the perspective of a gamer who has spent some time playing core FPS titles and games like Gears of War, who we think may not be the target audience.

Shadowgun will be perfect as a casual shooting/action game for mature mobile gamers who wondered what all the excitement was about when their kids brought home God of War or something similar. The trade-offs in A.I. make Shadowgun feel like something from the older generation of action/shooting games, which we all adored for PSOne, but which we aren't necessarily signing up to play again. All the trappings of the genre are here, but the challenge level is seriously diminished.

Shadowgun takes an interesting approach with controls. It combines touch-sensitive buttons with contextual controls for moving, shooting, and reloads. The left-hand side of the screen defaults to movement, with a fixed circle you can use as you would use the control stick of a game controller. On the right hand is another fixed circle, but this is really just an on/off control for firing your weapon. Below the firing button, you can swipe to change your view, which also moves the reticle you use to aim. Just above the button is a second point you can tap to reload. Reloads will happen automatically when you run through a clip, but it's helpful to choose times when your enemy is firing and you are tucked away behind cover. This all works reasonably well, once you get your muscle memory engaged, but the swiping/tapping controls on the right-hand side tend to get mixed up in the heat of battle.

Collectibles, new weapons, larger groups of enemies, and boss battles keep things flowing in Shadowgun, but the demographic issue mentioned earlier persists. If you're looking for a light shooting/action game on iPad to kill time until you can get back to your console, Shadowgun fits the bill. It's perfectly suited for gamers who aren't looking for all the encumbrance of big-ticket console action games, but want a taste of more action on their iPad. The high-end styling and presentation of Shadowgun bodes well for this development team's next title, as well as the bright future of action games on mobile.