Sinister Planet for Android is free today from the Amazon Appstore.
If interstellar planetary shooters are your thing, then you will be pleased to know that Sinister Planet is there for you. 25 waves of aliens, two modes of play and some fairly funky controls.
Left virtual thumb stick controls the ship, sort of, and is positioned at the bottom left corner of the screen. The right virtual fire button is placed at the top right of the screen. This diagonal control orientation may be disorienting to some. On top of the sideways controls, the left stick functions to not only control the direction the ship is facing, it also controls the ships thrusters or velocity. The center of the virtual stick is the zero position and the further away from the center increases the speed the ship travels. Very frustrating scenarios play out due to this awkward combination of controls. If only the ships thrusters were fixed to a separate virtual button, the controls would be top notch.
And having the virtual fire button on the top right may mean for some that they are holding the Android device at an angle or covering a portion of the right side of the screen by their own thumb. This is why I am an advocate for custom controls a la the id games on iOS like Wolfenstein. Total custom control layout and sensitivity. This is the way to create memorable user interfaces on a touch screen.
Moving forward, hopefully the developer will update the game to include customized controls settings, though for now you're stuck with funkiness.
Sinister Planet -
