Minotron (2011), a remake of Llamatron (1991), itself a more newbie- and home user-friendly take on Robotron (1982), is brilliant. Unlike the original coin-op quarter-stealer, Minotron is designed to allow you to pass many levels, and you can also continue at your highest completed level so you're always making forward progress. Assisted and simplified modes offload the shooting tasks if you'd like a more relaxed game, but the normal and difficult twin-stick modes are the real experience. I like what the Yak has done here: instead of planting a virtual stick in a fixed position, or making you choose between lefty or eighty modes, you can adjust your play style on the fly. The FIRST touch moves the player, and the SECOND controls the aiming and firing. It's as if old Robotron used motion controls instead of plywood-mounted joysticks. Awesome, and should be a standard copied by other games. The pixel aesthetic borrows from other 1980s tropes, like Berzerk (the game), Pink Floyd, TRON (the movie and game), Bill & Ted, Yello, and the mighty Mattel Intellivision. Add in a screaming Mandelbrot enemy, an how could you want for anything else? Oh yeah, there are also tons of sheep, goats, camels, and llamas to rescue. So furry, so much fun. Buy it!

In general I'm finding myself liking this game so far but I'm gonna ding it one star because it does something terribly wrong, IMHO: SOUND. Yup, in general the sound blows the experience for me. Mostly because the game looks like you're playing an Atari 2600 on a bad TV, but to me sounds like those DOS games when VGA cards and Sound Blasters were new and people started swiping random sound bytes for digital samples just because they could. (Anyone else remember the game "Beer"? Aw Yeah!) My second gripe would be with the controls. Not that they are bad (they are exactly what I was expecting after having played Minotaur Rescue a lot) but the dual-stick shooter fan in me yearns for fixed control spots. Sounds negative, but I'm only going to ding the game one star for the above - it's lots of fun once you get past that, and I'm glad to see another Llamasoft title in the App Store. EDIT: The original Llamatron 2112 is indeed one of these titles, and I shoudln't be compaining, but it'd be nice to turn off the sounds and just zone out to the KLF or whatever...

You can't beat minter for a game that feels just right

This game is really fun and also a little insane. In an insanely fun way. If you like retro games - really retro - you will probably like this.

Loved this game on the Atari ST back in the 90s, love it now. Think of it less as a port of Robotron 2084 and more of an absurdly brilliant beastie of its own. The controls take a little getting used to, but are MUCH more intuitive than Minter's earlier iOS game, Minotaur Rescue.

This game is a great remix of Robotron. The audio is nice and noisy and the haze of fx only adds to it's nostalgia. This is a solid game style that should keep cranking then out! Next up is a berserker/adventure style!?!?

Installed wouldn't run, deleted and reinstalled wouldn't run. Deleted, powered off and reinstalled wouldn't run. Deleted and reset device and re-downloaded and wouldn't run. I quit. Waste of two bucks.

Hilarious nostalgia soaked graphics and sounds, simple precise controls. A lot of fun!

This thing is a good as Chicago hotdog with everything on it! GET IT!!!

This is the mutts nutts. Can't stop playing.

I so want to love this game. As a minter fan since day one, this is eye-blisteringly amazing to see on this iPad. Pure joyous crazy stuff, and I so want it to work for me. But the controls are havin' none of it. I know people are getting it, and are racking up the scores. However, the Minotaur has a habit of slowing down, it's impossible to stop moving and fire in a chosen direction (I know thats deliberate due to the control mechanics). Grrrr. Please put some different control options in so that it can feel like a real game of skill. Infinity Field gets it right, but that's largely because of the scrolling playfield so the thumbs never obstruct. Nevertheless, I'll persevere, and if the epiphany comes, I'll add the stars back. It's to wonderful not to keep trying. One can only hope for space giraffe.

So weird and awesome. I can tell I'm going to really get into it.

I'd give this game a 3-star rating on the iPhone, but 5 on the iPad, so we'll compromise and say 4 stars. Even once you've gotten used to the controls, the iPhone screen is just too cramped for me to play effectively: I'd keep running into enemies that were slightly obscured by beasties or my fingers. On the larger (even if lower-res than the retina display) screen of the iPad, it was much clearer what was where, and I was quickly and happily racking up high scores.

Gimmicky and awkward "temporally separated controls" plus abundance of obviously flatulent sound effects and other unfunny elements, ruin what could have been a sublime take on Robotron 2084, the game imitated by Minotron. I gave it a chance, but Minotron just didn't cut it for me, and this was not just on account of it cutting too many.