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Number of Results: 15

Scotland Yard (Ravensburger + FDG) – $4.99

Board games are slowly but surely finding a nice, comfortable home within the AppStore. Classics like Monopoly, Life, Scrabble, Clue and loads more, along with not so well known games like Tigris & Euphrates, Catan, Tikal and others are winding up on iDevices, finding new fans, bringing back great memories and creating enjoyable family time without having to deal with setting everything up, cleaning up, or worrying about ‘misinterpreting the rules’ (damn Patriots). Now, another game that’s new to me, but that some of you guys/gals might remember from your childhood, is Scotland Yard. The original publishers of the game in Canada and Germany, Ravensburger (who’s also released FiTS, Ramses II and more on the iOS), is responsible for bringing Scotland Yard to the AppStore. 
For those of you, like me, who aren’t familiar with the game, it’s a simple premise. You either play as Mr. X, who is running from Scotland Yard, or as Scotland Yard, who is chasing down Mr. X.  The board is made up of different stations, each linked together by colored lines. These colored lines show the means of travel between each of the stations. Taxi’s are yellow, busses are red, and the subway is blue. You’re given a certain number of tickets for each of the different means of travel, and use them to move about the city. 
Mr. X does have a couple of advantages. He is hidden from the Scotland Yard pawns, except for on specific turns, when the other players will be able to see where Mr. X is. The game shows you what means of travel Mr. X is using, and the police will have to use that to try and track him down. However, Mr. X is also given a certain number of invisible tickets, which let him travel without the game showing the police is he’s on the bus, a taxi, or the subway. He also has a couple of double moves, which let him move twice in one turn. Along with those perks, Mr. X can also travel in the water if he hits certain spots next to the river. Combining all of these special abilities will be necessary to escape Scotland Yard.
As you can imagine, Scotland Yard is set up perfectly for online multiplayer games, and it is included. Async multiplayer via GameCenter along with Wifi/Bluetooth modes are available. You can also play with more than one player on one device. There is also solo local play with Easy, Normal and Hard difficulties.
With Scotland Yard being Universal, and with all of the multiplayer modes, the price-tag of $5 is very fair, especially when the original physical board game can costs anywhere between $25 and $40, and involves all of the setting up, clean up, and trying to find players who can sit around the board with you. Adding to the gameplay and replay value are 15 GameCenter achievements, some of which will require some very skillful gameplay. So you can add Scotland Yard to the list of board games that play fantastically on the iDevice, and cost a fraction of the price of the physical versions. The enhanced graphics, easy to learn gameplay, and high replayability make it a game that has the chance of staying on your device for as long as you own it. Also, being released by Ravensburger and FDG (Clear Vision, Cover Orange, Blueprint, Beyond Ynth, Tentacle Wars, and more) – you can be sure that it’s a high quality game, and that if any problems arise, they will be dealt with ASAP. Scotland Yard is highly recommended if you’re a fan of the genre, or if you’re looking for a game that the whole family can play. 
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May 22, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Gene Effect (Lightstorm3D) – $4.99

I’ve been a sucker for exploration games since I started gaming as a child. When I got Metroid II at the age of 10, and spent months playing it, I was hooked. From then on out, any game that had exploration as a main mechanic hit the huge part of my brain dedicated to gaming. Over the years, I’ve also become very interested in aliens and cyberpunk literature as well as manga. My father was a chemist, so science; biology, geology and math have all been a huge part of my life as well.
None of this really matters, except that Lightstorm3D has just released a game called Gene Effect, and it encompasses environmental puzzles, exploration, and an amazing back-story of researchers and miners finding teleportation devices hidden on Mars during mining expeditions around the year 2050. Basically incorporating everything I surround myself with. So it’s no wonder I’m instantly fascinated by the game.
The story starts in 2033, with the first manned NASA mission to land on Mars is started. Once they land in 2034, build a base camp, and start their 16 month stay, the crew explores a 75 mile radius around their camp, collecting soil samples. After returning, a coalition of industrial nations and private investors found the GSA – Global Space Alliance, who’s main objective is to colonize Mars, and start mining the planets resources. Some time later, teleportation devices were found while mining, and a huge expedition for more starts up. While in a mine, one of the mining crews crashes, and this is where you come in, sent into the mines to find the ship and crew. The story has a LOT more to it than that, but what fun is ruining it for our readers? There’s an entire Chronicle section within the game, which gives you quite a bit of a backstory, and grows as you unlock more information throughout the game.

The story is a huge part of the game, but the game lacks any sort of cut-scenes. So you’ll have to read if you want to find out more. This isn’t required to actually complete the game, but it definitely adds to the incredible immersion. 
Now, the gameplay can be incredibly immersive by itself as well. You’ll control your mining ship with a virtual joystick and two buttons, one for your repulsor, which you can use to blow up rocks with a seismic blast, clearing paths, and uncovering hidden objects, and another button for T-Drone (Termination Drone), which launches missiles to clear out extremely hazardous areas before entering. The physics are another fantastic aspect of Gene Effect, with great collision detection, collision speed and damage detection, weight of the mining vessel, impact reactions, falling rocks, and even gravity manipulators having been tweaked to convey realism and increase the immersion in this sci-fi world. 

Each Mission has certain objectives which you’ll need to achieve either before progressing to the next area of a level, or completing the stage. These range from collecting DNA samples, to finding different resources like Koronite (the main orange material which you’ll be collecting a ton of), and taking it to certain drop off areas within the levels, or collecting red, blue, and yellow crystal energy to start up reactors, as well as searching for sensors to unlock doors, and more. 

As you progress through the game, the story opens up drastically, as do the levels. At the beginning of the game, levels can be completed as fast as 30 seconds, but very quickly expand to levels with speed run times of 7 minutes or more, and will usually take around 20 minutes to complete your first time through. A pretty major drawback of this is that there’s no multitasking support, and no mid-level checkpoints, which means that this is not really a pick-up-and-play game. Luckily, there’s plenty of quick pick up n play games available, with incredibly immersive, sit-down for a 2 hour gameplay session games are few and far between, which definitely makes Gene Effect stand out within the AppStore.
Adding replay value to the game, each stage also has a set of medals which you can earn for getting a high-score. There’s bronze, silver, and gold medals available for each Mission, as well as medals for perfect navigation, which is completing a level without crashing into any objects, and time, which you’ll receive for completing the Mission quicker than the allotted time. If you can grab the gold medal, and get both medals, you’re awarded a special full completion medal. There are also hidden relic items in every level, and 12 hidden artifacts that you can use to upgrade your ship scattered throughout the game.

 The graphics and animations, as well as the lighting effects, are incredible. The extreme attention to detail, especially with the environments, with the plant-life, and backgrounds for the caves, as well as movement of plant-life and all of the mechanical devices within the world of Gene Effect are insanely impressive. Sadly, there’s another drawback with this at the moment. The game is only built for the iPhone/iPod Touch, which means that you’ll be playing on your iPad in 2X mode, making the game pretty pixilated. The good news is that an update which will make the game Universal is in the works for the future, as are more lighting options and performance and graphical tweaking. But as it is now, the environments look incredible, and make Gene Effect a game that you’ll want to show off to friends.

Lightstorm3D has definitely shown that they know exactly what it takes to make an amazingly immersive, incredibly depthy game with Gene Effect. The story, gameplay, graphics, controls, music, everything about the game really stands out as top-notch. Even without having GameCenter integration with no online achievements, or leader boards, it has a great amount of replay value that will drive completionists batty. Fans of exploration, sci-fi, mining, action, adventure and even puzzle games would do well to get this on their device as soon as possible. Gene Effect is definitely a game that stands out as a true console-like experience in an AppStore full of casual pick-up-and-play flash games. The $5 price of admission is well worth the journey you’ll be privileged to experience, and is highly recommended to all gamers looking for something more from the games on their iDevice. I sincerely hope iOS gamers will be able to see more from Lightstorm3D. It’s games like this that give me hope that the iDevice will grow into a serious gaming platform in the near future.
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May 6, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Legion of the Damned [Offworld Games] – $4.99

Strategy Games. Developers seem to quickly be realizing how great the touch screen and the strategy genre go together, and there’s a lot of iOS gamers who are very glad that this is finally happening. Offworld Game’s Turn Based Strategy title, Legion of the Damned was released late last year, getting lost in the onslaught of games that hit the AppStore around Christmas time. But this well thought-out, nicely voice acted TBS game is one you should definitely think about snagging. 
Legion of the Damned has some great gameplay, but this gameplay is also accompanied by a great story. The game starts off in prison, with an inmate being picked up and taken to the  execution chamber. Here, the inmate is given the chance, like all executed inmates, to be re-animated and added to nations army, The Legion. The inmate is then executed in the same manor in which he murdered an innocent girl. 
If this is sounding familiar, it should. Legion of the Damned has a great story because it’s written by the author of the book, Legion of the Damned, William C. Dietz. To give you an idea of how big this is, Dietz has written tie-in novels for huge AAA games, such as Halo, Starcraft, and Mass Effect, as well as others, and has a fairly extensive list of original titles under his belt. 
Not only does having a top-notch writer play into the story, but Offworld Games also hired 6 voice actors to do the dialogue in the game. There are some parts in which the voice acting is a little cheesy, but for the most part, it’s very well done, and coupled with the fantastic comic book type cut-scenes, adds a great level of immersion to the game. 
There are 3 modes in LotD; A 16 stage Campaign Mode, an online Multiplayer Mode that supports up to 4-players, which also supports 4-player local Multiplayer as well, and a Skirmish Mode, supporting everything that Strategy players could hope to see in a game these days. Making it even more interesting, Offworld has included a Custom Map Builder. Yeah, everything that Strategy players could want. 
The gameplay is played out on hex-based maps, with each of your  different characters utilizing different skills. In order to complete the Campaign, you’ll need to figure out how to best make all of your characters work together, filling in for the others weaknesses with their strengths. This is definitely not a ‘build the strongest character up and spam the enemy’ type of game. You’re given 8 turns to capture as many flags as you can, or take out every one of the enemy soldiers. If the enemy has more flags in their control by the end of the 8 turns, or kills you off before then, you’ll need to replay the level. 
Your main characters, the criminals-turned human-cyborgs are able to scout out the map, as well as attack the enemy, but they are fairly week defensively, and are very susceptible to mines. This is where your crawler machines come in handy, being able to defuse the mines. Moving them ahead of the group is something you’ll need to consistently do to complete the campaign levels. Then there’s your strong cyborgs, which can hit enemies without actually seeing them. However, if you send your humans forward, they can lock on to enemies, allowing the strong cyborgs to attack with full power. Each has different damage versus infantry, armor, and a fear effect. The Fear Effect results in causing the enemy to either retreat, or hold strong and fight back against you. 
As for the stages, they’re generally the same type of environment. Grasslands with some trees, and water here and there. It’s about the same level of graphics as you would find with Wesnoth or Eustrath. To zoom in and out, you’re given a tab on the right side of the screen which you can move up or down. This takes a little getting use to, as most strategy games just have you pinch to zoom. 
Right now, Offworld is working hard on fleshing out the online play with player profiles, invites, and more. Being priced at $5, but not being Universal, or including Game Center support [online play is handled by registering through the LotD site, and there’s not many online players ATM], it’s still a great buy. The skirmish and campaign modes are fantastic, and the gameplay has enough original mechanics to keep it interesting. Even if you’re not interested in the campaign or story, the skirmish mode is great, and even though there aren’t many online players, you can be sure that there the few that are there are willing to play. The game doesn’t look too bad in 2X mode on the iPad, but it’ll suffice, as the developers have said that a Universal and Retina update is also in the works. If you’re a fan of the genre, Legion of the Damned is definitely a title you’ll want to check out. Especially if you’re looking for a great story driven strategy game, as it’s easily one of the best available in the AppStore. 
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May 4, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

‘Call of Cthulu’ Review

Call of Cthulu is a H.P. Lovecraft inspired turn-based strategy game which thrusts you into the untold story of World War I. Not to spoil the story too much, you play on the side of the Allies, alongside such characters as Professor Brightmeer, Sid Brown, and several others, to take out the cultists leading the German army. The gameplay is based on Call of Cthulu RPG, and while the game is heavily story-based, it feels much more like a normal Turn Based Strategy game than an RPG.

iPhone Screenshot 1

Controls/Interface: 3.5/5

For a Turn Based Strategy game to work, it has to have quality controls and a workable interface. In ‘Call of Cthulu’, the controls work solidly, though they feel somewhat unintuitive at times. To move your character, you tap on them and then tap the place you want to go. Attacking requires you to select your character then tap and hold on the enemy you want to shoot at. These mechanics work fairly well, though will occasionally not do exactly what you to (i.e. it will infrequently take several tries for a tap to be recognized). One minor annoyance with the mechanics is that you can’t move around or select anything else while your character is in motion; you have to wait for the character to get all the way there and stop to select another character. This is only really annoying when you have to move your characters over a longer distance. The only glaring problem with the controls, however, is that when you accidentally make a mistake or realize you went too far, there’s no undo button available. Any minor control pains and nuances could be heavily alleviated and eased with this addition. Especially with the importance of action points, even the smallest mistake can feel brutal. Other than that fact, the controls usually work very well and feel solid enough. There are also several options like rotating the field of play that can make the game feel more intuitive. The interface feels fairly good as well, albeit a little bit scary to inexperienced players. Especially on the character screen, the sheer number of skills and numbers can leave the player confused and uncertain of what to do. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as most of the skills are easy to understand, albeit a bit difficult to interpret their usage in-game. Though they work decently for the game, the controls and interface still have some room for improvement.

iPhone Screenshot 2

Graphics/Music: 4/5

The graphics in the game look fairly nice. However at times, the graphics do appear a little on the blurry side; even on retina-enabled devices they don’t look perfect. However, they do get the job accomplished and feel particularly fitting for the game. Some graphical effects like smoke and twitching makes the game feel more vivid and real, even at times when the game is stalled. The music and sound effects fit the game very nicely as well. The music feels very ghostly and somewhat sinister, with thunder and thumps in the background. Sound effects are as they’d be expected to be, with nothing really out of the ordinary. The music to the game leaves little to be desired, but the graphics do have a small margin for improvement.

iPhone Screenshot 3
Gameplay/Story/Extras: 4.5/5
In short, the game is fairly fun and enjoyable. It’s very satisfying when you hit an enemy, and the idea of accuracy and missing makes the game feel a good deal more fresh and different. It also makes the game much more exciting and thrilling, keeping you on your toes throughout the game. Another nifty trick is the speed-up button, which allows you to quickly speed through movements and enemy turns. The storyline also feels exciting and interesting. To those that hate RPGs, its not overbearing, but to those that do it provides an alternate approach to the First World War. This whole idea is carried out very nicely throughout the course of the game. While the game plays much like other turn-based-strategy games, it brings enough new to the table to make it feel both fun and unique.

Overall: 4/5
‘Call of Cthulu’ provides a solid and enjoyable TBS experience. For any fans of strategy games, it’s a nifty addition to one’s collection. However, frustration will be multiplied for those that are very inexperienced in the genre or dislike it altogether. However, for what it does, Call of Cthulu is a very enjoyable and fairly unique approach to the genre.
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March 2, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

‘Reckless Racing 2’ Review: Curse You Cletus!!

Polarbit and Pixelbite are back with the sequel to one of the greatest racing games of all time. Back when the first Reckless Racing burst onto the App Store, we all fell in the love with the ease and beauty of drifting around corners. Although the sequel loses some of its power sliding glory, it more than makes up for it in every other aspect.

Content 5/5

This is where Reckless Racing 2 shines. For one thing, you will never get bored of playing this game. There are 4 game modes available, including Career, Arcade, Single Event, and Multiplayer. As compete in races, you earn money to spend at the shop. Apart from the variety of game modes, the shop is outstanding. There are more cars than you could ever fit in someone’s garage, and the upgrade system goes deeper than any other racing game on the App Store. On top of that, for small cost you can switch up your style by repainting your car, tinting the windshield, and even changing your rims.

Gameplay 3/5

Gameplay in RR2 varies somewhat with each game mode, but for the most part it feels the same throughout.  The basic gist is that you race laps around these crazy courses that are full of obstacles and try to finish in first place. In Career mode, you compete in various Cups (ie. Reckless Cup, Roadrunner Cup) that consist of 3-6 events each. In total, there are 12 cups which makes for around 50 races in one career.  Races come in three types; Race, Hot Lap, and Eliminator.  Although there is nothing groundbreaking here, the different race types help to bring some replay value to the game.  In Arcade mode, you compete is various single event challenges. Single Event mode is sort of a practice mode where you can choose one of the 3 race types and try to get your best times.  The real key stone in the game is the Multiplayer mode.  The way Multiplayer works is you hop into a lobby and you choose to either host your own room or join someone else’s.  You can easily compete with your friends or with anyone in the world who is playing Reckless Racing 2.  Multiplayer is available for all of the game modes, so go wild with the competition in whatever form you like.

Controls 3/5

If you’ve played the original Reckless Racing, you are familiar with the ease at which you could power slide around corners. My favorite control scheme in the original had to be the full wheel because it gave me the most control over the car.  However, in RR2 things feel a bit different.  On the bright side, there are 5 different control schemes to choose from, ranging from on-screen buttons, to steering wheels, to plain tilt.  The way that the controls can be customized to your comfort is great, and this aspect helps you enjoy the game in its full glory.  Unfortunately, despite the custimazability, for me some of the control schemes just didn’t work as expected.  My biggest disappointment has to be that the full wheel isn’t what it used to be.  For the most part, the wheel options were just too twitchy for me and it was difficult to travel in a straight line.  Despite that fact, the on-screen button option works perfectly and I haven’t seen the need to use any other set-up.

Overall 4/5

Reckless Racing 2 is everything you could ask for in a sequel, plus some.  Despite its setbacks, it’s nearly impossible to not enjoy your time on the track.  Gorgeous visuals, easy to use controls, and tons of content make this the best racing game on the App Store.  Race your way to the top (cliche right?) of the leaderboards and build up your dream car collection. At the premium price of $4.99 I heartily recommend Reckless Racing 2.

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February 4, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >