Introduction

Half Breed, by iNoko Studios, is an alien-themed shooter that just landed on the Android Market today. As the title indicates, you play the role of a mysterious being who wakes up to find that he is now half-man and half-alien. If that wasn't enough, this creature has a whole arsenal of crazy powers, and is bent on seeking revenge against the people who made him this way.

Gameplay

There are two different game modes in Half Breed, story and multiplayer. Unfortunately, multiplayer isn't true online gameplay, as the only way to take advantage of it is to play with a friend over a Wi-Fi connection. Even then, all you really do is run around and defend each other from waves of aliens, so it gets a little boring after a few games.

Story mode is where it's at, though, and the gameplay is highly addictive. Judging by the opening cut scenes, the main goal is to find out what happened to the main character. However, after playing through several levels, I began to notice that there were was no true story developing. In fact, there isn't even a plot - no backstory, no information on what you are doing, no in-game text at all (other than the opening cut scenes, of course).

That being said, the game is still exciting to play. The graphics definitely have a retro touch, but I feel like that adds a bit more fun into the mix. The controls are much like other touchscreen shooters - the left joystick controls direction, while the right controls your main attack power. The buttons above and to the left of the right joystick control defence and special powers. You can then choose which powers fill those buttons from the pause menu.

Each level has an army of aliens, turrets, rockets, and other scary things waiting to take you on. Successfully fight through these obstacles and you'll ultimately come across a boss. After defeating the boss, the power it had will be added to your inventory and can be used in the next level.

Issues

Half Breed is brand new to the market, so I didn't expect to see a flawless game. The first thing that caught my attention was the fact that this game is entirely free to download, but there is a store option in the main menu that indicated I purchased both the full game and a power pack. I did no such thing, and no charges were made to my account, but that leads me to believe that either the developer did this as a launch promotion and forgot to mention it in the game description, or it's a major bug that wasn't intended at all. In addition to that, the right joystick tends to move itself just off-screen during boss battles, which is very frustrating.

Conclusion

While Half Breed isn't the best shooter on the Android Market, it is definitely worth checking out, but users should beware that the game is currently a bit buggy. I'm not sure if it will eventually cost money, but you can download it free for now. If a price does show up, it may not be worth it until the developer does a bit of work.

Check out the trailer and grab the app below.

[EMBED_YT]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WIT85iREhnA

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