Tractor Beam vs Zylon Defenders
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
Zylon Defenders
Experience a modern take on a classic space combat simulator. Engage in thrilling first-person space battles inspired by a legendary 1979 title. Explore the cosmos and defend against alien threats in this immersive simulation.
- First-person space combat
- Real-time simulation
- Modern reinterpretation of classic
- Space exploration
- Alien defense
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A modern reinterpretation of Doug Neubauer's legendary 1979 real-time first person space simulator, Star Raiders.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Zylon Defenders at Free against Tractor Beam's $0.99. Zylon Defenders also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 82%) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 6 months). Tractor Beam's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.8) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 18.6). On ratings volume, 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
Zylon Defenders 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 4.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6 and 4 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 82% of Tractor Beam's written reviews are positive against 100% of Zylon Defenders's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Tractor Beam ships an update every 6 months, Zylon Defenders every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Tractor Beam | Zylon Defenders |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (6 ratings) — better | 4.8 (4 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 82.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 18.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 266 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Manufacturing Content | Jeff Glasse |
Customer experience
Tractor Beam
Zylon Defenders
In-app purchases
Tractor Beam
No in-app purchases
Zylon Defenders
No in-app purchases
