Evil aliens have stolen life-giving crystals from a peaceful planet, leaving it for dead. And now it’s up to a little space hero named Orbit to travel to planetoids to get all the crystals back.  Orbit’s Odyssey is an action game where you walk around little round planets and satellites, collecting coins and crystals while avoiding aliens.  It’s available to download on iOS, Android, and Amazon Appstore, but reviewed on iPad here.

When you start, the little planet that you are on will rotate counter-clockwise. And if you stay still, you’ll travel along with it.  When you tap and hold on the touch screen, Orbit will run forward and go clockwise.  Scattered about the planet are coins, and if you pick up all of them, you can nab the crystal and beat the level.  In later levels, you can grab the crystal right away, but you’ll earn more stars if you collect the coins first.  It may sound easier, but it’s not.  Stars unlock new levels, though, so you’ll want to earn as many as you can.

Obstacles you must deal with include teleporters, which will whisk you to the other side of the sphere or a different planet entirely when you walk into them. And watch out for aliens who march around the planets.  Touch one of them and it’s Game Over!  Don’t linger too long or they’ll multiply, making it harder and harder to travel around.  Finish levels to unlock new characters to play as, like a walking chocolate chip cookie named “Cookie,” but I don’t think any of the characters play any differently.

This game actually reminds me of two other planetoid-hopping games I’ve played in the past: Star Trigon and Mighty Milky Way. And I actually like those games better, but I’m sure nobody’s heard of them.  The simple controls make this game easy to learn, but it gets hard to master after a while, especially after the third world where things get crazy hard!  It’s an OK game.  Not great, but not bad either.

Kid Factor:

If you touch an alien, they’ll zap you with electricity and you’ll just sit down with a frown on your face. And that’s about as violent as it gets, so very minimal.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the instructions, but the ‘one button’ controls make it easy to learn just by playing.  Young gamers may get bored of the simplicity of the gameplay and frustrated at the difficulty of later levels, though.

Tags: Game Reviews