Welcome to a world that pulsates with a hyperactive energy, weaving through every pixel, every last synthetic breath. A world where everything is aligned, synced to provide an immersive, breathtaking experience that immediately turns your blood into rocket fuel as you take the cold, sterile atmosphere in. Deftly maneuvering throughout it's torrid playing field takes skill, concentration and reflexes. This game will push every last one.

We cannot stress enough how much a bargain this game is right now. If you have not purchased Circuit_Strike.One yet then we urge you to do so immediately. It is perhaps the most fluid, awe-inspiring title that has come out yet from the App Store, and 59p is an insane price for it. Hats off to Chillingo who have published the game!

Everything is aligned, synced to provide an immersive, breathtaking experience that immediately turns your blood into rocket fuel as you take the cold, sterile atmosphere in.

So how does it work? Well, much like Asteroids, you have a ship that you must fly around the screen, destroying simplistic wireframe constructions - they can take the form of enemy craft, or turrets that spew out a large number of bullets. The main objective though is to destroy the shield generators that appear on the outskirts of the level - once you have done this you must destroy the 'Data Core' defense system before it goes into self destruct. This doesn't make much sense really as both cases involve the core exploding! Nevertheless, if you fail to destroy the core within the brief time limit, you lose.

You can utilise 'hacks' too, such as a 'wall hack' - which basically is a clever way of doing wrap around. The major one though is the bullet time hack, because not only does it slow the game speed down, it makes you invincible in the process. However, it's supply is very short, and so you must gather what's known as ghost data from enemy craft and turrets - to extend your time. The first thing you'll notice is that you get two control mechanisms - the basic one is easy to get to grips with - an analog stick in the left corner, fire and move in the right & shaking activates/deactivates your bullet time. The advanced control is more difficult but provides a finer level of precision once you get used to it - we didn't so we stuck with the basic controls for our time with the game.

The true differential in Circuit_Strike.One is it's clever audio/visual syncing. The background flashes in time to the hypnotic techno music, which becomes increasingly more complex the closer you come to finishing a level. When you do destroy the final generator the soundtrack reaches a dizzy high, and the system admin will try and disorient you with as much visual noise as he can to distract you from destroying the data core. In a word? Awesome.

Flashing lights and neon colours aside, even on easy this title is extremely hard. You will need to utilise every last drop of skill in your bones if you want to make it through some of the harder networks - although the enemies rarely fire, they are more suicidal and will try and ram into your craft to wipe it from the playing field. You die on contact, and because you only get three lives, they can be erased pretty quickly when you factor in the sheer chaos that happens on screen.

It's common for a game to last between 5-10 minutes, sometimes less. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of the game is it's online high scoring and faction system. You can ally with other players to help your faction get the most points, but be careful because once you've made your choice you have to stick to it. Otherwise you can play as a 'freelancer' who isn't attached to any faction. Even if you choose not to use the online component, there's a healthy variety of achievements which you can obtain, and three difficulty settings.

You will need to utilise every last drop of skill in your bones if you want to make it through some of the harder networks.

The only negatives we can find for the game is it's lack of in game auto save, and minor lag when playing on anything other than an iPod Touch 2G. We wouldn't expect a title like this to support iPod music, but perhaps that's something that the developer can look into later on - how cool would it be to have a wider variety of songs, supplemented by your own music? We can only hope.

Games like Circuit_Strike.One come along and completely change the perception of what an iPhone game should look like. It's edgy presentation, complete with l33t put downs, and revitalising retro gameplay mechanics completely cement the idea that the iPhone is a legitimate gaming platform - as if we had any doubt in the first place. It blows us away. Download it without hesitation.

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