The combination of twin-stick shooting and upgrading your ship is satisfying, but gets tiring soon, being too shallow...
Twin-Stick Shooting: blasting giant rocks and marauding robots is pretty satisfying
Plenty to Upgrade: the key hook is pouring your earnings into better equipment. It's not new, but it's addictive.
Light Hearted: Though rarely funny, it does have a lot of charm
"Missions" are worthless: optional content is very shallow
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A lot has been made of Space Miner: Space Ore Bust this year, as it graces more than one "Best of 2010" list (Touch Arcade, most notably). Created by Venan Entertainment, Space Miner is part "twin-stick" (using phantom sticks on the touch screen) shooter and part equipment upgrade fest, not unlike some XBIG releases by Radiangames. Most of the time, you'll be in different space sectors breaking apart a variety of colored ore for profit, as well as performing a few different "missions" for people you encounter in the (very minor) storyline. It's got a lot of charm for sure, and the ore-mining can be enjoyable, but Space Miner probably won't blow you away.
Playing as a young pilot who's got a junker for a mining ship, early on you'll help your crazy uncle out who owns and operates a local space mining station. Since your uncle soon gets into trouble, you'll get sucked in to help him out by mining a bunch of ore for profit. Of course, your uncle really won't see a dime, since all your earnings can be used to upgrade your mining vessel in a variety of ways. The upgrading system works pretty well (for a while), as new technologies are introduced as your Rank increases, and you can scavenge upgrades while out mining too. Your ship needs a host of items, from weaponry and shields to ore suction and engine power. All told, upgrading is the primary motivating factor in Space Miner, and until the late in the game (3 hours or more) it'll satisfy. After that, you'll need to play for completion over upgrading.
Given that the heart of the game involves earning money from mining, you'll be glad to know that the core gameplay mechanic of mining space ore (otherwise known as twin-stick shooting) works great on the touch screen for the most part. As in other games, phantom controls appear on the bottom corners of the screen, one which turns you and the other which can either move you forward or fire your weapons (or both if you have big fingers!). As with most touch-screen controls, while at times your fingers migrate away from where you want, for the most part they work just fine. More importantly, the interactions on the screen correspond well to your controls, giving appropriate weight and feel as you play.
Other than mining lots of ore and shooting many attacking space robots (as the story progresses), you'll occasionally be given a chance to perform "missions", which involve instances like salvaging a number of stranded space tourists across a given sector, or protecting a ship from robot attackers. I found these instances to be the least appealing part of the game, as they were typically overly short, too easy, and didn't provide ample monitary inscentive for the most part (compared to mining ore). They're also very repetitive, which gets to make them a chore. Thankfully, you can skip them altogether for the most part, which i recommend doing after playing a few of them for storyline purposes.
Aesthetically, Space Miner has a variety of different audio tracks ranging from spacey to bluegrass, helping to give the game more charm than it would have otherwise. The artwork is passable, though visually it focuses much more on practical aspects like the different colored ore than it does giving you a sense of awe and wonder. Then again, Space Miner tries to be light hearted though and through, and the artwork just follows suit here. Unfortunately, I didn't find Space Miner to be terribly funny. It was hokey and amusing at times, but more often than not i just touched through the speaking bubbles to get back to mining some more.
All in all, Space Miner is a fine game that provides a few hours of twin-stick shooting and upgrading pleasure. It's charms may hit or miss, though its hard not to appreciate it's light hearted nature, but it won't move you in any profound way. Still, it's fairly addictive for at least the first half of play, and is worth the asking price. A perfect game to fill in the gap if you're been looking around for a while for a palette cleanser.
7.7/10