Tractor Beam vs Pivot Strike
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Tractor Beam
Pilot a ship through an asteroid field using only a tractor beam. Slingshot your vessel and use the beam to manipulate asteroids, creating a unique and challenging arcade experience. Enjoy dynamic music or play your own.
- Tractor beam mechanics
- Asteroid field navigation
- Multi-touch gameplay
- Procedurally generated music
- Portrait and landscape modes
- Three difficulty levels
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Your engines are down. Use your tractor beams to move. "Some of the most fun we've had with $0.99 on the iPhone and we still can't put it down" - Slide To Play Tractor beam is a powerfully simple and addictive arcade game inspired by the classics. Unarmed and out of fuel, to survive you must slingshot your ship through an asteroid field using only your tractor beam. But the beam will also send the asteroids on a collision course with your ship, making for a unique challenge as you press onward to earn points. Tractor Beam can be played in either portrait or landscape orientation, and multi-touch gameplay allows for more than one beam and complex strategies. The procedurally generated background music is never the same twice, or choose to listen to your own music from within the iPod application. - Classic arcade look and feel - Multi-touch gameplay - Three levels of difficulty - Dynamic music is created on-the-fly - Allows for music from other applications
Pivot Strike
A unique arcade shooter where players control two ships with a single touch. Strategically pivot and line up your ships to maximize firepower and absorb enemy bullets. Earn trophies by achieving high scores.
- One-touch ship control
- Strategic pivoting mechanics
- Dual ship combat
- Bullet absorption
- Trophy system based on scores
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Pivot Strike is very unique, one touch to drag your ships around, tap the screen to pivot the ships. When lined up your ship in the lead has double the fire rate, when side by side both ships can fire but at half the fire rate. The Blue Ship destroys blue enemies and the Red Ship destroys red enemies, the Blue Ship can absorb red bullets, the Red Ship can absorb blue bullets. Three trophy system that unlocks based on the players scores.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Tractor Beam at 82% against Pivot Strike's 0%. Tractor Beam also leads on rating (5.0 vs 1.0) and update cadence (every 6 months vs every 19 months). Pivot Strike's advantage is price (Free vs $0.99) and iOS requirement (7.0 vs 9.0). On ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Pivot Strike is free to download; Tractor Beam costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Tractor Beam holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Tractor Beam has 6 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 82% of Tractor Beam's written reviews are positive against 0% of Pivot Strike's.
Tractor Beam ships an update every 6 months, Pivot Strike every 19 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Tractor Beam | Pivot Strike |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (6 ratings) — better | 1.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 82.0% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months — better | Every 19 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 | 7.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 21 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | +9 |
| Developer | Manufacturing Content | Giuseppe Calcagno |
Customer experience
Tractor Beam
Pivot Strike
In-app purchases
Tractor Beam
No in-app purchases
Pivot Strike
No in-app purchases








