Hip music. God, I love hip music.

Neon Blast is an arcade style, sideways scrolling game that would feel right at home in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or some 80’s movie with a kid – in bright shirt with tacky, geometric designs, no doubt – tapping away ferociously on big, cumbersome controllers, with crudely lined spaceships blowing up on his brand new cathode ray tube television screen. And, don’t forget the hip music accompanying the “pew pew pew” sounds of the spaceship’s blasters.

This game obviously thinks it’s great. No game has such epic music for the menu screen, music that makes me think of an 80s discotheque, with bleached blonde permed tresses, unflattering under-the-cheekbone mauve blush, and a penchant for paleness. And, certainly, no game politely requests on the loading screen for you to “please power off, and then restart your device for best game performance.” Yea, right, for a simple arcade game? Do you really think you’re that intensive a game?

Ego aside, Neon Blast by Ontrack Studio is a great game, fun and trendy looking, and fully embracing of its 80’s throwback scheme. The entire game is cleverly designed as bright, neon lights, with just the right amount of glow to your ship’s dark blue outline, and the enemy’s spaceships’ pink, red, and yellow. The music changes from the menu screen’s bright pop flare to one more foreboding and dramatic when playing, but still with an undeniable cool factor. You control your ship either with a joystick or by tilting your iPhone – the joystick being the easier of the two – and two buttons, green and red, allow you to shoot downward-falling, gravity-assisted bombs, and straight projectile shots, respectively. You are given three, scant lives, indicated by the three small ship indicators at the bottom of the screen, proven the more scant by your shield being quickly demolished by the onslaught of your many neon foes. Keep track of both your fuel and shield levels, and make sure you hit some of those recharger orbs at the screen’s bottom whenever you’re running low on either of them – you definitely want to conserve those shields to save your life, and maintaining your ability to move your spaceship around is definitely helpful, as well.

I was, at first, pretty miffed with the Game Over screen, because I didn’t realize the upper right grey bars accessed the Main screen. I was thinking, “I get it. I messed up, I died, I need to start from the very beginning. There’s no need to force me to exit the app and restart the app just to make it back to the Main screen, all the while watching a continuous clip of gameplay, as if to mock my demise. You’re not so epic a game that it requires the player to shamefully exit and return.” Thankfully, all these thoughts were in vain, because you can access the main screen. Phew.

If you like an 80s feel and arcade style games set in space, this is the game for you. Honestly, I could just leave the Main Screen on all day and just listen to the music. Such great mood music…

We only have one promo code from the developer so please nab it quickly! And, please, please, leave a comment?

Promotion Codes:

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*When using the promotion code to download for free, it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. Out of courtesy, please leave a comment below mentioning you’ve used the promotion code.