Archetype

Archetype delivers one of the most robust, beautiful, and most importantly fun FPS experiences that can be had on the iPhone.

Archetype is a great little multiplayer shooter, perfect for jumping in and out of a few times a day to satisfy (virtual) bloodlust. And, in my experience, it works well both over-the-air and via WiFi.

Archetype isn't quite the full package as far as online multiplayer FPS titles go, but it's still one of the best and close enough to perfect you can almost taste it.

It's not necessarily better on all accounts than Eliminate though, instead I would say that it offers a great alternative experience.

It does deliver a thrilling dose of multiplayer combat. [Oct 2010, p.84]

Archetype feels just incomplete. What is here is fun, albeit very generic, but there just isn't much here.

On one hand: good controls and decent match-making. On the other: boring levels and some connection issues.

Given the technical quality and the excellent matchmaking, Archetype is definitely worth a try for all FPS fans out there. The controls are great, the action is fluid and there is a good number of well-balanced weapons. The matches via Wi-Fi work very well and we experienced very few latency problems. Unfortunately, you can only play team deathmatch on five maps, so the game becomes repetitive very soon.

Archetype is a great-looking and fun shooter, but it has improvements to make before becoming the essential iPhone shooter.

There are far better shooters on iTunes than this, at the end of the day. They may be more expensive, and they may have dodgy business models, but they're simply better.