Smash your way through alien attackers

Gum Drop is an arena shooter with a twist – you don’t shoot! Instead, your space craft is armed with a big ball connected to you with a tractor beam. You then use momentum to swing this around you, and smash it into enemies.

This top down would be shooter has bold graphics, with pretty backgrounds and bright enemies. Every level you have to protect your base from attackers, using a combination of your swinging flail-like weapons and other objects you fin to throw. You can hold enemies with your tractor beam while you swing at them too. There are a variety of power ups to be found like missiles and bombs.

Movement is handled with the keyboard, and is pretty simple, and aiming and use of the tractor beam is with the mouse. Because the mechanics of the game are unusual, it takes a while to get to grips with them. Holding down the right mouse button will swing your balls round your craft, so you can time your approaches to enemies to get a maximum power smash.

The sound and graphics aren’t incredible, but it’s attractive anyway. The main problem with Gum Drop is there are perhaps too many controls, and there are some abilities – such as feeding your base objects to be turned into new weapons – which seem long winded and complex in the midst of battle.

With it’s interesting swinging action, Gum Drop is a really different spin on the arena shooter genre, even if it’s not perfect.