Trigger Fist Review

I love Counter-Strike: Source for the PC. Love it. I've been playing it for years (I'm even an admin in a clan) and whenever I need to unwind, I hop online and do my best to humiliate someone with a sneaky knife kill in the back. My kdr (don't make me explain that to you!) isn't too bad but like every gamer, I'm always looking to improve. Now I can have my multi-player frag fix with Trigger Fist, a new online shooter that does an awesome job of keeping up with the PC big boys.

Trigger Fist was a surprise. I find that most iOS shooter games have control issues, but developer Lake Effect Applications simplified the experience by taking out the worry of right stick vertical control. Instead of having to bother with aiming up and down, you only have to worry about looking left and right. It's amazing how that one control fix will help beginners who want to get into shooters and keep the attention of veterans who like to mix things up.

Controls are tight, yet simple. Bottom left stick moves your soldier, while swiping left or right with your right finger turns him. The red circle is your fire button. Reload by pressing the weapon icon, switch weapons by swiping the weapon icon left or right, or up and down. Throw a grenade by tapping the grenade icon, and jump over obstacles by tapping the fist icon. You can also crouch by swiping down, and stand back up by swiping up.

Once you've gone through the tutorial it's time to lock and load and take on some noobs. Trigger Fist has four modes that can be played online through their global matchmaking servers, with friends, over Bluetooth, or just a singleplayer experience with bots. You can also play offline with computer AI enemies that are no slouch. Connecting with other players was quick and lag free. I had no connection issues while playing, no frame rate hiccups and the game ran as smooth as can be. Very impressive, because usually online play like this over a mobile device can be a coin flip if it actually works well or not.

Choose between Free-For-All Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Sacred Goat, which is just as silly as it sounds. The goal in Sacred Goat is to carry a goat on your back for 90 seconds without being killed. Which is really hard to do because you will die in this game. A lot. I suck at Trigger Fist but the more I play it, the better I'm getting at it, which makes me want to play it even more. There are six maps to choose from but I prefer open environment maps more than ones that take place in enclosed areas.

Trigger Fist is a pretty intense experience. Enemies are everywhere. I wish the maps were bigger and the radar gave you more information besides the direction of gunfire. The more you play, the more weapons and perks you unlock. You don't have to buy new weapons through in-app purchases, you can earn them simply by playing the game and shooting everything in front of you.

You can't form clans (yet, hopefully in an update) but you can invite friends to play. The touch controls do take some getting used to, but since everyone else is trying to do the same thing you're doing you probably won't be the worst person out on the battlefield. At least that's what I tell myself when the game starts and everyone is at 0-0. It's a different story three minutes into the match and I'm at the bottom of the scoreboard.

Graphics are fantastic. It's easy to tell who is a teammate and who is an enemy by the icons over their head. It's so cool seeing how developers are able to make iOS shooters look more and more like a PC or console game. Sound effects were great, the lighting and shading was done really well and maps had some nice detail to them. The music was pretty generic though. Minimal load times help move things along.

Anyone who likes shooters will be really impressed with Trigger Fist. Online play is really smooth, the game looks great and it's just a lot of fun. Imagine if you could actually talk during the game with other players during an online match like in console and PC shooters? Actually, I don't want that feature. That's all I need are little kids yelling, "Boom! Headshot!" everytime they blast my face off.