FC Rocket Review : The sequel to the grindfest Flight Control

Flight Control: Rocket carries on the same line drawing gameplay made popular by its predecessor Flight Control where you have to trace flight paths on the touch screen and land it on the designated runway of the ship.

The developers have kept the core of the gameplay intact but have improved many minute things which used to cause a hindrance in the prequel. Although the game still has grinding, many new modes and bots make grinding fun and provide new challenges.

Gameplay

The earth based airports have now been replaced by a Space carrier with runways. There are 3 colored runways – Pink, Yellow, Green. The goal is to trace flight paths of the incoming ships to the same colored runways and keep on scoring combos all without colliding the ships.

The improvements over the Original Flight Control-

Variety of ships like Yellow Snake , Yellow Dropper, Green shooter, etc
Collecting coins which is the in game currency
Introduction of helpers – Bots
New modes
New Motherships
Gameplay changes like Increase in speed of the incoming ship when routed to the runway, better crash detection

Friend in need is a Friend indeed

Helping Bots are the new addition to the series, they provide many unique abilities like Critical strike, extra coins, extra life, etc which adds a lot of customization and variety to the gameplay.

There are total of 11 bots waiting to be unlocked. There is an achievement to collect all the bots. Unlocking all the bots will take hours of playing, not just that the bots have to be leveled up too. Each robot requires battery to work which deplete after usage, the battery recharges after 1 hour. If you can’t wait for that long you can buy extra batteries which need Coins.

Voyages of the Starship Enterprise

Motherships are the space carriers where you have to land the incoming ships. Some Motherships are unlocked just by completing a specific goal like landing ‘x’ amount of ships while others need to be bought by Coins earned during the game. Although they don’t offer any benefit in gameplay terms but they provide a variety in aesthetics.

I would suggest you to save coins and spend that money on bots instead which offer gameplay benefits as well as those achievements ;) Mothership Hawaii is pretty much the best for every mode.

New modes

Journey To The End Of Infinity

Similar to the only mode of its Predecessor.
It has a combo system which works only when you land same colour ships, the combo breaks when you land a ship of different colour.
Occasional appearance of huge carrier which has lots of small ships named Starsurges.
Starsurges carry coin

Intergalactic Odyssey

No colour coded combo instead it in now limited to 5x

Combos reset quickly unlike in Infinity mode which remains for unlimited time
Bonus game after every level
Bonus levels contain ships with coins, the easiest way to earn coins

Interplanetary Rescue

Same combo system as that of Infinity
The goal is to collect Adrift Astronauts by flying the right colour ship over to them.

The toughest mode of all 3 which provides no benefit in terms of coins.
Collecting Astronauts becomes quite cumbersome when many ships arrive.

Coins and In App Purchasing

FC Rocket on iOS is Free to Play or say “Play to Win” where you could buy out extra lives by real currency. Fortunately the Windows Phone Version is Rs.160 ($2.99) upfront and total absence of micro transactions. Although buying all the robots will take lots of grinding

Achievement Hunter

The achievements are fairly easy except those of buying all the 11 bots and maxing out which will need a grinding. The other achievements could be gained just by a normal play. If you are struggling with achievements then Arsenic17 has an awesome guide on X360 Achievements

Performance

The game was reviewed on Lumia 920 which has 1GB RAM. There was no lag or crashes whatsoever. Battery consumption is less compared to other games. Also, the phone doesn’t heat. Due to these benefits the game could be the best companion while travelling.