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Added: 17.01.2014 22:00 | 5 views | 0 comments
Gamebooks have made a big comeback on mobile devices recently. But for all the nostalgia and entertainment they provide, I can't help but feel most of them are a wasted opportunity. On a multimedia touchscreen device, why limit yourself to static pictures and text? Road of Kings attempts to take the concept to a new level by mixing in elements of rouge-like adventure games. You play a barbarian warrior who has 100 days to amass a fortune of gold big enough to buy yourself a chieftainship. The action takes place on a top-down hex map of a fantasy kingdom. There are towns to visit, ruins to explore, and monsters and other heroes to encounter, which you can either fight or have join your party; if you choose the latter option, you must then feed them by buying food or risking hunting in the wilderness. |
Added: 17.01.2014 20:00 | 6 views | 0 comments
Overlive is a promising mix of things. On one hand the game is a tap-and-shoot zombie shooter, and on the other hand it's a choice-driven narrative full of decision making. Unfortunately, neither one of these elements stands out memorably. The combat scenarios involve simply tapping at static images to shoot, or swiping a finger across the screen for a melee attack, and while the writing was grammatically sound, by the end of my playthrough I was left with more dead-end subplots than I cared to remember. In the game, players are tasked with escaping a zombie-filled city before the local nuclear power plant has a meltdown and blankets the area with atomic radiation. Instead of simply tossing players a shotgun and pointing them in the direction of the best way out of town, Overlive has players scrounging the city for a vehicle to use to escape the blast radius of the power plant. While on the hunt for a vehicle, players encounter a number of survivors and begin to unravel the mystery surrounding what really caused the apocalypse. |
Added: 17.01.2014 19:00 | 5 views | 0 comments
Italy's not exactly considered a hotbed of video game development, but if Lost Yeti is any indication, it should be. This adorable retro puzzler hearkens back to a time before boob physics and ultra-realistic violence, when games were made for and played by everyone. With its pixelated, primary color approach and simple but challenging mechanics, it's like the charming descendant of games like Dig Dug and Burger Time. If not for its maddeningly repetitive (although admittedly fitting) music score and cruel "coming soon" level tease, it would get high marks all around. Lost Yeti begins as a troop of yeti (yetis?) is crossing the glacier-scape doing whatever it is yeti do. Among them is a wee, easily distracted, buck-toothed youngster. He spots a tasty popsicle, veers off the path, and--the horror!--finds himself lost. Fortunately, he has you to guide him back to safety. The gameplay here is based on three precepts: 1. Get the yeti (within an enclosed area) from his starting area to a safe zone; 2. Once the yeti starts moving, he doesn't stop until he runs into an enemy or reaches the safe zone; and 3. Every time the yeti hits a wall, he turns ninety degrees clockwise. |
Added: 16.01.2014 17:00 | 8 views | 0 comments
The movement of a ninja needs to be tight, swift, and precise with each delivery. There's no use in sticking to the shadows and sneaking up on your enemies if they're going to be able to disarm you and discard you without a second thought. That's why any ninja-based game on a mobile touchscreen device is a gamble - it's tricky enough as it is to make a platforming game feel right on a touchscreen, so to recreate the feel of stalking your prey as a ninja is really rather difficult. Remarkably, new ninja-based platformer Shadow Blade manages it with grace. While the controls feel a little unorthodox to begin with, they quickly prove ambitious and well considered, with flicks and gestures becoming your window into a world of great set-pieces, wall-jumping, blood-spewing, and rushes to the finish. You play as a ninja student who is attempting to return to his master with important information. Unfortunately there are numerous obstacles and enemies standing between points A and B, and he's going to need to hack and slash his way through the lot of them. Of course, that can only be good news for us - I mean, we need some baddies to make this fun, right? Shadow Blade wants you to feel slick. To this end, the game comes with a control scheme that's a little bit different - you can opt for the regular d-pad style controls, but you'll want to go with the gesture and swiping control set, because it feels really damn good once you properly get into it. |
Added: 16.01.2014 15:00 | 4 views | 0 comments
Across Age 2 has a lot to live up to. Its is one of iOS's earliest action-RPG success stories. Despite a shaky start upon its 2010 release, subsequent updates and expansions--in the form of Across Age DX--improved the original's controls and added an entirely new dungeon to the 10-hour+ adventure. Its combination of character-switching, time-traveling, and 16-bit-era charm formed the basis for a series that would pride itself on nearly non-stop action interrupted only by the occasional switch puzzle or drunken pirate quest. All of these features have returned to duty in Across Age 2, along with a number of upgrades that improve upon even Across Age DX. The story is richer and less cut-and-paste "collect the items and stop the bad guy" linear; characters are deeper and not limited to Ceska, Ales, or one-off caricatures; and gameplay has been expanded through additional items, puzzles, and strategies. While these enhancements technically make Across Age 2 the best entry in the series, they are minor changes in a game that relies heavily on its predecessor's features, too intimidated by its success to fall far from the tree. The result feels more like Across Age DX2 rather than a brand new game in an expanding series. |
Added: 15.01.2014 15:00 | 6 views | 0 comments
Back when mobile gaming was just really starting to take off, a little stunt-based racing game called hit the scene in 2010, and quickly captivated gamers with its addictive level of challenge and wildly abstract track designs. Well now it's a few years later, and developer True Axis has returned to give us the enormous and long-awaited sequel that we were hoping for. And while the end result isn't perfect, it's still filled to the brim with rewarding ways to play, exciting new vehicles, and a crazy cool level editor that will quite literally have you gliding on air. While Jet Car Stunts 2 might seem like your typical racing game at first glance, a "racing-platformer" might be a much better description for what the experience actually entails, as the game is much more GripShift than Wipeout HD. There are a number of different level types that cycle in and out to always keep the gameplay feeling fresh: from time attack courses and full-on races, to an open playing field that tasks you with performing as many different stunts as you can within a given time limit. But my favorite type of levels have always been the quintessential Jet Car Stunts platform levels, in which you quite literally have to hop from platform to platform and deal with all the other obstacles and pitfalls that get in the way as you drive. |
Added: 15.01.2014 13:00 | 7 views | 0 comments
Sometimes all you need is to hear a game's name and see a few awesome screenshots to know that it's going to be cool. Yes, it's the digital equivalent of judging a book by its cover, but it does work on occasion. Other times, you end up with something like Archangel, a dungeon crawler that boasts attractive graphics but misses the mark with so many other things that it ends up a depressingly dull experience. Let's get the positives established up front. Black Tower Studios and Unity Games definitely came up with a decent enough concept, placing you in control of a vengeful archangel who looks like he means business. He's got the big wings, a menacing weapon, and a shield: all the things you'd need to rough up anyone defying the will of Heaven (though technically the Powers are ; just saying). But as soon as you're done admiring how awesome everything looks during the opening cinematics, the doubts start creeping in pretty quickly. The animation doesn't do justice to the character designs, as everything moves very stiffly. It's almost like the forces of Heaven and Hell don't have as many joints as us mere mortals. The beautifully rendered scenery also gets in the way, making it hard to see more than an inch or so in front of you. That wouldn't be so bad if it was used to create some tension or something, but the bad guys simply stand there and wait for you to approach. You do that by tapping to get the archangel to move from one point to another, meaning you'll be tapping a lot to get him from one end of the dungeon to another. A virtual button is used for attacks, which can increase along with movement speed after defeating strings of enemies without taking too much damage in return. |
Added: 13.01.2014 20:00 | 6 views | 0 comments
Alpha 9 is a new grid-based word-spelling game with a sleek minimalist design and a vast dictionary full of fun words that are just waiting to be formed to score the biggest point clusters. Because why spell things at all if you don't strive to make those impressive eight-letter beasts, am I right? But despite showing off a few neat gameplay mechanics and a calmingly cool atmosphere, the lack of progression or long-term playing incentives leave this one feeling more like a breezy spelling test, rather than a full-fledged spelling bee championship. Think of a giant board of , only with each tiny individual square containing a letter that you'll need to use in order to form all of the words that your brain can possibly muster. Making words of four letters or more will clear out an entire horizontal row, while lining up three of the same letter in a vertical column will create a wildcard tile that can be used as any letter when creating your words for big points. When you're really on a roll and have cleared away more letters than you have new words to spell, you can always hold two fingers on the screen to make more letter blocks start piling on from the top at a much more rapid rate. |
