3D flying shooter Pirate Wings has made its way to the BlackBerry PlayBook. The game has been available on iOS for quite some time, and this is a direct port of that version (as noted by the "turn your iPhone" notice I got during the tutorial). Pirate Wings puts you inside a Star Fox-like ship while you race around 3D environments collecting powerups and firing off missles and mines.
Features include:
- Races mode with 9 race circuits, 3 different environments (Canyons, Underwater world, Outer Space), 5 characters and 12 ships available for 3 levels of difficulty. Use your lasers, missiles, mines and boost to finish first.
- Story Mode where you'll discover the incredible adventure of Raoul, a canyon pilot who will ally with the space pirates to avoid the trap of the defiant commander Burp in 13 original missions.
- Ghost mode to improve your lap time and compare your scores online.
I'm really digging the game thus far. The controls are a bit tough at first, but once you get the hang of it they aren't too bad. We'll have a full review coming along shortly, but if you want to check out Pirate Wings for yourself, you can grab it for $4.99 in BlackBerry App World.
Reader comments
Pirate Wings now available for the BlackBerry PlayBook
I don't think I would pay $4.99 for a game - but I'm not much of a gamer. However I have happily paid that much for other apps I use and think it is money well spent. I think it's great that these games are coming to the pb.
I have to agree though that I would be a little ticked that the dev didn't bother to remove the iphone reference. That would tend to point to a combination of laziness and greed.
for the price of 2 chocolate bars more you can play this excellent game on your playbook.
Its a good game, and its worth 5 dollars.
I'm always amazed at the number of people that will whine over a couple of dollars. If you don't like the price, don't pay it. It's that simple. Why are some of you taking the price so personally?
and this is why i sideload.....
And you are part of the problem
I tend to think that $4.99 is not a bad price for an application. In a world where people pay almost five bucks for a coffee at Starbucks what is wrong with the same for an app? If you don't want to buy it then don't. If the developer has poor sales in comparison to the other platforms then they will get the hint that either the price point is to high or the app sucks.
There is also the application itself to consider with regards to pricing. If I just record some fart sounds and make that an application then I do not deserve to charge five bucks for it. If on the other hand, I have a game that a few years ago would be available only on say a PSP then maybe it deserves a higher price.
I write code for a living and I think that developers should push the other operating systems to increase the cost of the applications. To me it appears that the other platforms don't seem to care that much about developers if they are only willing to sell the developers applications for virtually nothing or give them away for free. While at first it was the hardware that created the app market, I think it could now be argued that a great app can in fact help drive hardware sales. I personally saw this with Angry Birds where I had friends base their hardware decision on the availability of this game. To me this was crazy but who am I to judge. I prefer the amazing communications ability and BBM of my BB to stay in touch with my customers, friends, and family.
The fact that in this case it is ported and has references to the iPhone...this is not so cool and shows no effort on the developers part. I at least want my customers to see that I care about them and that is just pure lazy!
Finally, as a Playbook and BB owner, I am willing to pay more for the same application available on another device if this means that app developers will still support the platform I choose.
"No effort" and lazy cut both ways --- it also means that RIM did such a good job with the porting tool so that this particular game developer was able to do this port half asleep.
Cool, another good game for the PB. If you don't like it don't buy (simples) :-)
Right, wrong or indifferent....IMO these games are slightly over-priced, and appears to be a money grab by the developer. Also, the developers are reading the blogs about how blackberry users will pay for 'good' apps and, how developers make more money through App World, so they are charging $4.99+ for apps.
@detective m downs, I totally agree with you! Alec sanders on the keynotes all he does is brag about how much money developers make on app world, of course they do,because it is a obligation on RIM'S app world, isn't like they got free fare options, he even brag about isn't not about quantity but is about quality, and he even got the nerves to mention the last playbook os 2.0 February update, which we all know it was full of quantity and NOT quality! SO he's message is clear “come here to RIM developers and rip us off and we will pay you“ because we don't develop native free options to our costumers SO they HAVE THE OBLIGATION TO PAY!!!!
The minute a competitor sells a native version that is more responsive than the Android version --- then sales revenue would drop off a cliff for the Android version.
+1
+1
I don't care how good the game is, if the developer is so lazy that they have "turn your iPhone" in the game, then it's not worth buying it in my mind.
I thought apps had to remove all signs of words like Android, App Store before being released to App World. Maybe they aren't being as strict with iOS ports...
It has nothing to do with being strict or not.
This is clearly a porting mistake where they didn't change the iphone reference. You can't catch them all.
I know it is expensive, but playbook isnt as popular as other tablet platforms. So we have to pay a little bit more for things. As long as rim and other developers keep supporting it, i'll use it. www.soloelec.info
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Really? So what will be the next RIM add?...“ With the playbook, you get less conten,pay for free apps and you pay even more for paid apps ” I wonder how many people would actually make lines to buy such a device? (like apple does when comes with a iPad) I don't know what RIM is thinking, they won't survive just with bb loyalists.. This is ridiculous
It is ridiculous to blame RIM when they have nothing to do with app prices set by 3rd party developers.
Exactly. It's a greedy developer who did absolutely nothing but port the game over. As noted in the review above, the game even references the iPhone. This is a clear example of a developer trying to gouge BlackBerry users with minimal work on their part.
What is ridiculous is you defending RIM! They may not have control of pricing the app, but they do have the last word in allowing the app in app world, they just can say no! To the port or pay the difference to the developer themselves!! At the end of the day, is only RIM fault being late in ecosystem innovation and that's why they are late on the apps dance!! And now we need to pay extra for theirs mistakes?? Get out of here... Lawyer
The cat has been let out of the bag 12 years ago when Amazon managed to charge different prices for the same book or dvd to 2 different customers at the SAME time.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/49569/Amazon_charging_different_p...
You buy a roll of toilet paper in a walmart in New York and the walmart headquarter in Arkansas would know about it 5 mintues later.
There are a massive amount of sales data available to app developers to analyze and enables them to set prices like seafood prices. It would be stupid for the app developers not to use these analytics to their maximum advantages.
+1
@samba, the amazon situation is kind a bit different... And don't get me started with the wallmart toilet paper difference from NYC to Arkansas... Unfortunately for RIM people don't go online to do research (or at least almost nobody ) to look for a toilet paper price and features or benefits... But they do on tablets and phones, and most of the people get sensitive and don't take likely reviews of free apps for purchase or over pricing apps on a specific platform!! Don't make dumb examples in this situation, is just unacceptable for consumers from 2012 when almost everyone knows android and ios got the same apps for free or for less!! I think RIM need to stay focus on those third world countries just like they have been doing!! Because in here on USA we know what time it is!
There is no difference.
Walmart has one of the largest supercomputers in the world to crunch their sales data. Major data breaches like TJ Maxx happen because these companies want to keep these sales data (but don't know how to secure them) so that they can analyze them later.
There are very few apps on the appworld that have different pricing than other platforms. You have to compare it with the HD versions of the same app.
Apple, Google and RIM all give very timely and detailed sales data to the 3rd party developers --- and they can all set prices like seafood.
Let's face it.. App Wrold needs more apps and games.. who cares how it gets there. If it's too expensive . then don't buy it... the price will eventually go down. It all depends when you plan to make the plunge. Some people don't mind paying the "extortion" :) prices and others just won't. To each his own.
Any developer want to make money, RIM shouldn't allow them to price the apps more than the actual price of the competition! When a developer get to the point of port the app to the playbook, they wont change their minds or pull off the port because RIM tell them NOT to raise the price! If they even consider the port is because they need the extra money.. So is RIM'S job realize of things like that and not allow them to do so, after all, they are not going anywhere..they just want money from more people!. Unless “the blackberry people ” feel like they wanna brag about they pay for free apps or they pay even more for paid apps.. If is so, let it be..or just keep defending your os ,and I guarantee you will have to look for a new os to defend, because RIM will be dead in less than 2 years from now if they keep doing things like this...or allowing them to happen
There is nothing to defend because you don't make sense.
You go to amazon.com and try to buy a dvd --- it may be a different price right now than an hour ago. It may be a different price if you use a different browser to visit the amazon website.
There is so much sales analytics data available now that app developers can literally set their prices like seafood prices. It won't take the app developer eons to realize that they set the wrong price and they couldn't sell their apps.
@samba, dude... That's not a pricing mistake.. You really need to trust me on this one!! Are you one of those new attorneys RIM'S happen to hired?? Or you just love to do it for free? Lol
How would you know it's not a pricing mistake?
This is the first 5 apps that Stonetrip has EVER put on appworld --- they have zero existing sales data to analyze with.
The only thing you can say is that Stonetrip is watching Rovio charges $4.99 for Angry Birds on the Playbook and charges less on other platforms. But Rovio ain't sharing their proprietary sales data with Stonetrip.
2 years....that is being optimistic.
RIM does a lot of things better than the competition but once a company rips off customers on empty promises and endless waiting it won't survive that long.
RIM has plenty of cash and is cash-flow positive. Even the worst case scenario would be a long long long slide.
Having plenty of cash does not impede the fact that RIM as we know it could be gone in two years. Having plenty of cash just lowers the enterprise value to be bought out and totally restructured, possibly into a hardware company of sorts.
Not when the Canadian government is giving mixed signals of whether it would ever allow RIM to be bought out by a foreign company. The finance minister said yes for a foreign buyout, but the prime minister said no.
Why is this concept so hard for you to understand: RIM has not, will not, never has, can not, tell another company how to price their apps on App World. Good lord, it's even in the App World contract whereby it clearly states that it is the developers who set the prices on their products - RIM does not do this nor are they responsible for doing this. Your shrieking to the high heavens that RIM is responsible for this is misguided and simply wrong.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you regarding the fact that the price differential between platforms seems suspcious or, to be more blunt, a rip off for Blackberry customers. I do disagree as to who you are blaming. Your anger should be directed to the developer.
Now, if you excuse me, I'm off to brag to people about the fact that I have a Playbook and can actually afford apps. Afterall, as you said, I'm a "blackberry person".
@darlaten, if you read carefully you may read I'm not blaming RIM for the pricing.. I do blame RIM for allow those apps in app world!! It doesn't matter what the app world terms says, , if RIM doesn't aprove the app to go on sale now the app doesn't go anywhere!! If that happens, do you think the developer wont try to deal for less money? We are talking about playbook here darlaten, if that developer want to port that app to playbook he either wanna try a new platform or just wanna make some extra money.. At the end of the day will still more money than work for just android and ios, the developer doesn't have nothing to lose but money to make!! SO how isn't RIM'S fault take advantage of that situation.. But noooo, we end it up paying the price!
Are you telling me that RIM should have rejected Angry Birds for the Playbook because Rovio was planning to charge $4.99 for it (whereas they charge $2.99 on other platforms)?
So you're telling me rovio would say no to RIM after considering the port to the playbook? They would have back then 500k new costumer a 2.99$ per head, do the math! No one reject 3 million dollars, I don't care who you are!! They are just punishing RIM for not be on time for them I guess for not support them and the new world of apps back in 2007!
Do the math, Nokia is paying Rovio to do the port on the Lumia. Rovio getting paid even if there is no sales.
Do the math, Rovio ain't going to care about measly $3 million --- their whole company is throwing bodies on a couple of new iOS games before the IPO next year in Hong Kong. Getting a couple of new Angry Birds games on the iphone before the IPO is going to increase their IPO pricing by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Do the math, all non-ipad tablets are duds (including the Kindle Fire sales dropping off the cliff). It's not like the presence of native email client aided Xoom sales --- the Playbook outsold them.
The Playbook was going to be a sales dud --- no matter what happened. Presence of native email client wouldn't have helped sales. Your top down communist app pricing edict would not have suddenly helped RIM sell a few million more tablets either.
berryaddict338 - You're not grasping the idea that RIM does not control the pricing per product within App World. RIM is not going to reject an app into an app-desperate market because they think the pricing is too high for your liking. If Rovio said they would only put Angry Birds into App World if they could charge $9.99 for it, RIM would allow it. It's not as simple/dumb as you make it sound.
Also you're assuming pretty much every PlayBook owner would buy it... which is nowhere near the truth and yes, $3 Million is not a make or break for Rovio.
If you're a PlayBook owner (like me), you would know/accept that because there are less units of your tablet in the market, Rovio will tend to charge more per download to make up for the disparity in volume that they receive in iOS and Android's respective app markets.
$4.99 is not a ton of money given the work that goes into creating a quality app. Lots of people spend more than that on their coffee in the morning.
Also, in what world is 500,000 * 2.99 = 3 million.
Like other games released by Stonetrip recently, Pirate Wings for PlayBook costs much more than for iOS: $4,99 vs. $1,99. That's why I won't by any game from the list till they'll set adequate price for 'several year old' games.
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To rich for my blood for a ported game. Drop the price and I will Reconsider.