Bionic Surfer, from developer Robert Casperson, is a conventional side-scrolling shooter and your mission is well-worn: Run, jump over or on top of obstacles, collect power ups and fire a variety of weapons to annihilate the bad guys.

That doesn’t mean Bionic Surfer is your run-of-the-mill side shooter, however. This is a pretty good game. In fact, one of the better ones you’ll find for a mere $0.99 (currently the sale price). If you want to try before you buy (or if you tend to be tight with a buck), there’s a free Lite version too.

The back story is that aliens from Kaon have teleported themselves into human settlements, ready to cause misery and mayhem, just because they can. The only person standing between the human race and the space invaders is the shirtless, Bionic Surfer dude.

Bionic Surfer has five worlds, each with three areas to clear of enemies, plus a boss to defeat at the end, before you can go on to the next world.

Bionic Surfer’s controls work well and are visually easy to understand and to use. Arrows point left and right and up to jump. Tap the rocket icon to fire your laser blaster and other heavy weapons (nine in all) to “git sum.” Pretty straight-forward controls, I know, but they’re responsive.

Along the way, a giant talking head—a general of some kind–will give you instructions on how to proceed and what you must do to complete each level. The game plays smoothly and I didn’t encounter any glitches.

The graphics of Bionic Surfer, especially the background, are nicely rendered and richly detailed. The game uses a bit of rag doll physics, which come into play when you destroy enemies. Overall, a good-looking, well-done game. This one gets a thumbs up from me.

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app category: Arcade, Editor's Picks, Games