Showing posts with label 3-Star. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3-Star. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
0
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Ric RAT
Space STG II Review
★★★☆☆
Build your infrastructure, develop technologies, and unleash your fleets of DOOM upon the galaxy in this complex space-themed RTS. How quickly can you queue?
Title: Space STG II | Developer: Grzegorz Mackiewicz | Genre: Action/Arcade |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.2.4 | Size: 5.9MB | Price: $2.99
Click QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.
Space STG II, for the newcomer, hits you like a technicolor train wreck. With its glaring spelling and grammar errors, cheesy sound effects, bright and dissonant circa-1996 Photoshop graphics, a meandering spiderweb-like ui, and a learning curve reminiscent of Civ2, one would be tempted to simply toss it aside as a half-baked and unnecessarily complex game... But if you give the barely-informative tutorial a couple shakes, and then peep my custom STG II Player's Guide (based on his original), you may just find a diamond in the rough.
NOTE: Space STG II is free on the Marketplace, but only includes 4 of the 40 missions and your development-point options are severely limited. To purchase the full version, visit the developer's website and follow the instructions to get the activation code. STG II "full" is not hosted on the Android Market.
STG II plays like a disorganized version of Civilization, in space, and in roughly 1/100th of the sandbox size. Like a Civ game, you're plopped on a planet sporting a beginner's load of raw materials and a smattering of starter-ships. Your basic goal is to expand your colony and conquer the other planets trapped within the closet-sized map. To accomplish this objective, you'll need to start building!
Each planet has a total structure-capacity called "area", as well as a maximum output of energy used to power the buildings. Area is a fixed limitation, while energy can be increased by building power plants. Each building, of course, has an additional cost of raw materials - namely, metal and crystal - which are continually generated every 6 seconds in a quantity based on the number of mines you have built. Since this game is very domination-focused, plan on needing much more metal than crystal (for ships). In addition to metal and crystal, building a laboratory will generate another resource called "graphen" which is used for technology upgrades and purchases.
Just as you're starting to construct your second mine, you'll probably start getting attacked by enemy forces. This is a real-time strategy without a pause feature, so prepare for feverish micro-management. In fact, that's just about all you do in STG II - feverishly micro-manage multiple planets until, POP! you've conquered the last remaining planet and are dumped back on the mission screen. Congratulations! But, I digress...
You'll need to construct buildings in-parallel with your ships, which brings me to the second part of the game. Beginning with fighters, there are several types of ships which can be unlocked via "development points" between missions. Transporters shuttle resources from one planet to another, but must be "upgraded" in order to automatically return home again. Colonizers allow you to build on newly-conquered planets and can be re-used. And rocketers, warships, and bombers can be used to bombard structures on enemy planets as well as attack enemy ships. Ships also cost resources (duh), and queue in an irritating sort-of way... While most major RTS games churn-out one unit at a time regardless of how many you queue, STG II likes to make you wait until the entire queue is finished. This odd mechanic forces you to even-more frantically micro-manage your fleets, especially when you're being attacked and every unit counts! What's more, there's no notion of waypoints to streamline unit-grouping.
The unfortunate bi-product of the lack of automation, pausing, waypoints, proper queuing and delivery of units, and a teeny-tiny map is a game where feverish micro-management takes center-stage. You'll rarely find yourself spending time in the actual "map view" ordering ships around as you constantly need to be queuing the next development cycle. While this demand for your undivided attention has the effect of making the time pass-by very quickly, I worry that it's less about the enjoyment of the game and more just the lack of automation that's the culprit. While you're nose-deep in development, spanning across multiple planets, all of a sudden you'll be dumped to the mission screen and congratulated on your success! All the while, you've been so busy with micro-management that you forgot what the actual objective was. But hey, you made it.
One last thing to mention, and this seems to trip a lot of people up, are technology upgrades. After every mission, you're given development points based on your general success. You can spend these points to unlock new ships, ship upgrades, and technologies. Once purchased, you'll need to build a laboratory (in the next mission) to purchase the unlocked technologies before they can be used. In some cases, you'll need to purchase and then activate them. For example, you can unlock the "probe" technology, but then need to build a laboratory, buy a probe, then activate it to send it off. Like many aspects of this game, the acquisition and use of technology is unnecessarily complicated and could use some serious work.
The Good
Once you get over the hump of the learning-curve, STG II is quite immersive and offers much more depth than most Android RTS games I've seen thus far. With a deep tech-tree, multiple ships, upgrades, and plenty of things to manage, it will keep you on your toes from beginning to end. The computer AI seems relatively intelligent, in an artificial sort of way, and provides a tough challenge - even on the standard difficulty. However, in the late-game it seems to half-ass it a bit by sending scattered and weak attacks.
The Bad
This game seriously, seriously needs some play-testing and QA work. STG II is rife with spelling and grammar errors, poorly-produced sound effects, voice-overs that I can barely understand, a labyrinthine ui, and puts entirely too much emphasis on micro-management vs the actual gameplay and strategy. You'll ultimately find yourself compulsively cycling-through planets to queue up new ships, then getting stuck trying to weave your way out of the messy ui and return to the battlefield to intercept enemy fleets. And if you make a targeting error, as those of us with FFS (fat-finger syndrome) tend to do, you'll have to sit and watch as your planet is bombarded while your fleet wanders-off to buy a pack of Doritos at a nearby asteroid. Frustrating.
The Verdict
STG II is a good game with tons of potential. If handed-off to a team of play-testers, or perhaps a quality game development group, it could easily become a top-notch RTS on the Android platform. Unfortunately, it currently feels half-baked and loose at the seams. There's plenty of development options, but no real "path" or a feeling of priority. If you enjoy a heavy dose of micro-management, you may glean some enjoyment out of this game, but for the most part... micro-management IS the game. Most current RTS games on the market (PC) have come up with ways of deprioritizing and automating this aspect of the game in favor of the more strategical elements - gathering units of varying specialty and attacking key targets. STG II could learn a thing or two from the big boys.
read more
Title: Space STG II | Developer: Grzegorz Mackiewicz | Genre: Action/Arcade |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.2.4 | Size: 5.9MB | Price: $2.99
Space STG II, for the newcomer, hits you like a technicolor train wreck. With its glaring spelling and grammar errors, cheesy sound effects, bright and dissonant circa-1996 Photoshop graphics, a meandering spiderweb-like ui, and a learning curve reminiscent of Civ2, one would be tempted to simply toss it aside as a half-baked and unnecessarily complex game... But if you give the barely-informative tutorial a couple shakes, and then peep my custom STG II Player's Guide (based on his original), you may just find a diamond in the rough.
NOTE: Space STG II is free on the Marketplace, but only includes 4 of the 40 missions and your development-point options are severely limited. To purchase the full version, visit the developer's website and follow the instructions to get the activation code. STG II "full" is not hosted on the Android Market.
STG II plays like a disorganized version of Civilization, in space, and in roughly 1/100th of the sandbox size. Like a Civ game, you're plopped on a planet sporting a beginner's load of raw materials and a smattering of starter-ships. Your basic goal is to expand your colony and conquer the other planets trapped within the closet-sized map. To accomplish this objective, you'll need to start building!
Each planet has a total structure-capacity called "area", as well as a maximum output of energy used to power the buildings. Area is a fixed limitation, while energy can be increased by building power plants. Each building, of course, has an additional cost of raw materials - namely, metal and crystal - which are continually generated every 6 seconds in a quantity based on the number of mines you have built. Since this game is very domination-focused, plan on needing much more metal than crystal (for ships). In addition to metal and crystal, building a laboratory will generate another resource called "graphen" which is used for technology upgrades and purchases.
Just as you're starting to construct your second mine, you'll probably start getting attacked by enemy forces. This is a real-time strategy without a pause feature, so prepare for feverish micro-management. In fact, that's just about all you do in STG II - feverishly micro-manage multiple planets until, POP! you've conquered the last remaining planet and are dumped back on the mission screen. Congratulations! But, I digress...
You'll need to construct buildings in-parallel with your ships, which brings me to the second part of the game. Beginning with fighters, there are several types of ships which can be unlocked via "development points" between missions. Transporters shuttle resources from one planet to another, but must be "upgraded" in order to automatically return home again. Colonizers allow you to build on newly-conquered planets and can be re-used. And rocketers, warships, and bombers can be used to bombard structures on enemy planets as well as attack enemy ships. Ships also cost resources (duh), and queue in an irritating sort-of way... While most major RTS games churn-out one unit at a time regardless of how many you queue, STG II likes to make you wait until the entire queue is finished. This odd mechanic forces you to even-more frantically micro-manage your fleets, especially when you're being attacked and every unit counts! What's more, there's no notion of waypoints to streamline unit-grouping.
The unfortunate bi-product of the lack of automation, pausing, waypoints, proper queuing and delivery of units, and a teeny-tiny map is a game where feverish micro-management takes center-stage. You'll rarely find yourself spending time in the actual "map view" ordering ships around as you constantly need to be queuing the next development cycle. While this demand for your undivided attention has the effect of making the time pass-by very quickly, I worry that it's less about the enjoyment of the game and more just the lack of automation that's the culprit. While you're nose-deep in development, spanning across multiple planets, all of a sudden you'll be dumped to the mission screen and congratulated on your success! All the while, you've been so busy with micro-management that you forgot what the actual objective was. But hey, you made it.
One last thing to mention, and this seems to trip a lot of people up, are technology upgrades. After every mission, you're given development points based on your general success. You can spend these points to unlock new ships, ship upgrades, and technologies. Once purchased, you'll need to build a laboratory (in the next mission) to purchase the unlocked technologies before they can be used. In some cases, you'll need to purchase and then activate them. For example, you can unlock the "probe" technology, but then need to build a laboratory, buy a probe, then activate it to send it off. Like many aspects of this game, the acquisition and use of technology is unnecessarily complicated and could use some serious work.
The Good
Once you get over the hump of the learning-curve, STG II is quite immersive and offers much more depth than most Android RTS games I've seen thus far. With a deep tech-tree, multiple ships, upgrades, and plenty of things to manage, it will keep you on your toes from beginning to end. The computer AI seems relatively intelligent, in an artificial sort of way, and provides a tough challenge - even on the standard difficulty. However, in the late-game it seems to half-ass it a bit by sending scattered and weak attacks.
The Bad
This game seriously, seriously needs some play-testing and QA work. STG II is rife with spelling and grammar errors, poorly-produced sound effects, voice-overs that I can barely understand, a labyrinthine ui, and puts entirely too much emphasis on micro-management vs the actual gameplay and strategy. You'll ultimately find yourself compulsively cycling-through planets to queue up new ships, then getting stuck trying to weave your way out of the messy ui and return to the battlefield to intercept enemy fleets. And if you make a targeting error, as those of us with FFS (fat-finger syndrome) tend to do, you'll have to sit and watch as your planet is bombarded while your fleet wanders-off to buy a pack of Doritos at a nearby asteroid. Frustrating.
The Verdict
STG II is a good game with tons of potential. If handed-off to a team of play-testers, or perhaps a quality game development group, it could easily become a top-notch RTS on the Android platform. Unfortunately, it currently feels half-baked and loose at the seams. There's plenty of development options, but no real "path" or a feeling of priority. If you enjoy a heavy dose of micro-management, you may glean some enjoyment out of this game, but for the most part... micro-management IS the game. Most current RTS games on the market (PC) have come up with ways of deprioritizing and automating this aspect of the game in favor of the more strategical elements - gathering units of varying specialty and attacking key targets. STG II could learn a thing or two from the big boys.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
0
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Ric RAT
Mana Chronicles Review
★★★☆☆
Wipe-out legions of demon-spawn using your wits, magic abilities, and a whole lot of tap-tap-tapping in this side-scrolling, hack'n-slash RPG from Spearhead Entertainment.
Title: Mana Chronicles | Developer: Spearhead Entertainment | Genre: Action, RPG |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.23 | Size: 29.1MB | Price: $2.24
Click QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.
Mana Chronicles is what you'd get by cross-breeding an old-school, side-scrolling arcade game - say, Final Fight - with a very easy, paired-down fantasy game. You'll spend most your time repeatedly tapping the attack button while trying to line-up your character on the same plane as your enemies, while trying to stay facing the right direction.
Mana Chronicles is more arcade than RPG, so don't get too excited about leveling or accumulating trinkets. You won't be leveling your character and assigning points to stats, but instead will auto-level when you've gained enough experience. As you wade through the hordes, you'll find item-drops and treasure chests which allow you to customize your character. You'll discover a smattering of swords, armor, and jewelry during your brief adventure (this game is really easy) which you can equip for various bonuses. Equipping an item is as simple as tapping the new item, and looking at which stats go up and which will go down. I didn't find any items that had special abilities or magical properties during my time with this game, aside from these straight-up stat bonuses.
Your character, once you've killed enough enemies, will be able to launch a special-attack whose effects depend on which sword you're carrying. Some bosses, when killed, will become part of your soul, allowing you to temporarily transform into them during battle for a large (but short) power-bonus.
Controls
Mana Chronicles feels like a game run through an emulator. There's an on-screen d-pad on the left, which you'll use to move around, and a small control on the left that contains a large attack-button, as well as buttons to trigger your special abilities. While the controls themselves were responsive, I often found myself running just a bit too far, or facing the wrong direction while swinging, or getting stuck in a multi-attack when I really need to move. In order to hit enemies, you need to be almost exactly on the same horizontal plane - a difficult task to achieve, at times.
Graphics
I'm not sure what happened here, and after all the build-up to the game's release, I was sorely disappointed. For one, the game doesn't scale to my Evo's screen, leaving black borders on the sides. But even worse are the graphics themselves, which look to be on-par to a Nintendo console. The game play graphics are okay at best, but the Inventory panel is simply awful - text is horribly rendered and hard to read against the background, and the Health/Experience area is cluttered with over-sized stats.
Sound
Mana Chronicles sports tinny, low-quality synthesized sound effects - again, very Nintendo-like in its presentation. The background music is decent, and goes well with the Japanese RPG theme.
Options
Mana Chronicles is a fun little action/RPG, but I found it to be entirely too easy. You can essentially stand in-place, and wait for enemies to run into your sword. When it comes to the bigger baddies, hit them a couple times, move out of the way when they strike, and repeat. With the screen-scaling issue and poor graphical quality leaving a particularly sour taste in my mouth, I find it hard to stomach the $2 asked-for by the developers. There really isn't enough to keep you busy for long, and the lack of depth and variety make it a rather "meh" title. Still, there aren't many games in this genre yet for Android, so kudos for trying.
Get Mana Chronicles on AppBrain
read more
Title: Mana Chronicles | Developer: Spearhead Entertainment | Genre: Action, RPG |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.23 | Size: 29.1MB | Price: $2.24
Mana Chronicles is what you'd get by cross-breeding an old-school, side-scrolling arcade game - say, Final Fight - with a very easy, paired-down fantasy game. You'll spend most your time repeatedly tapping the attack button while trying to line-up your character on the same plane as your enemies, while trying to stay facing the right direction.
Mana Chronicles is more arcade than RPG, so don't get too excited about leveling or accumulating trinkets. You won't be leveling your character and assigning points to stats, but instead will auto-level when you've gained enough experience. As you wade through the hordes, you'll find item-drops and treasure chests which allow you to customize your character. You'll discover a smattering of swords, armor, and jewelry during your brief adventure (this game is really easy) which you can equip for various bonuses. Equipping an item is as simple as tapping the new item, and looking at which stats go up and which will go down. I didn't find any items that had special abilities or magical properties during my time with this game, aside from these straight-up stat bonuses.
Your character, once you've killed enough enemies, will be able to launch a special-attack whose effects depend on which sword you're carrying. Some bosses, when killed, will become part of your soul, allowing you to temporarily transform into them during battle for a large (but short) power-bonus.
Controls
Mana Chronicles feels like a game run through an emulator. There's an on-screen d-pad on the left, which you'll use to move around, and a small control on the left that contains a large attack-button, as well as buttons to trigger your special abilities. While the controls themselves were responsive, I often found myself running just a bit too far, or facing the wrong direction while swinging, or getting stuck in a multi-attack when I really need to move. In order to hit enemies, you need to be almost exactly on the same horizontal plane - a difficult task to achieve, at times.
Graphics
I'm not sure what happened here, and after all the build-up to the game's release, I was sorely disappointed. For one, the game doesn't scale to my Evo's screen, leaving black borders on the sides. But even worse are the graphics themselves, which look to be on-par to a Nintendo console. The game play graphics are okay at best, but the Inventory panel is simply awful - text is horribly rendered and hard to read against the background, and the Health/Experience area is cluttered with over-sized stats.
Sound
Mana Chronicles sports tinny, low-quality synthesized sound effects - again, very Nintendo-like in its presentation. The background music is decent, and goes well with the Japanese RPG theme.
Options
You're given a toggle for background music on the intro screen, and can view a one-page tutorial that introduces you to the general screen components. Every stage you complete will be assigned a letter-rating, encouraging you to re-visit them and try for a better score.
VerdictMana Chronicles is a fun little action/RPG, but I found it to be entirely too easy. You can essentially stand in-place, and wait for enemies to run into your sword. When it comes to the bigger baddies, hit them a couple times, move out of the way when they strike, and repeat. With the screen-scaling issue and poor graphical quality leaving a particularly sour taste in my mouth, I find it hard to stomach the $2 asked-for by the developers. There really isn't enough to keep you busy for long, and the lack of depth and variety make it a rather "meh" title. Still, there aren't many games in this genre yet for Android, so kudos for trying.
Get Mana Chronicles on AppBrain
Thursday, December 9, 2010
0
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Ric RAT
Armored Defense Review
★★★☆☆
Fend of waves of tanks... and tanks... and more tanks, in this tower-defense style strategy game from ArmoredSoft featuring somewhat improved graphics, and plenty of levels to keep you busy.
Title: Armored Defense | Developer: ArmoredSoft | Genre: Action, Strategy |
Players: 1 | Version: 2.12 | Size: 12.2MB | Price: $4.56
Click QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.
Tower-defense games, if you're not familiar with the genre, are an industry standard in the mobile gaming world. Each map is static with set entrance and exit-paths for enemy units to follow. You'll be purchasing turrets, placing them strategically, and upgrading them as you get more money... all with the hopes of killing everything before they reach the other side.
Armored Defense is yet another installation in the rather vast library of tower defense titles, and it's a modern-style, military themed version. There are three maps - three - in this game, and each map will run you through seventy (that's 7-0) stages of more and more enemy tanks. Some tanks are big, some tanks are small, some tanks stealth, some tanks are fast, and some even turn into smaller tanks (I assume, carriers) when they explode! Your options for blowing-up said tanks are turrets, with the option of mounting one of them on a train-track for mobility. In addition to turrets, you can place land mines which slow-down enemy units, and call in an air strike which drops a bomb (after 5 seconds) on a group of enemy units. Like every tower defense game, you'll be upgrading your turrets to increase range and damage.
I played-through twenty or so levels on each of the three maps, and found it to be somewhat entertaining, though I found myself wanting of variety. Interface-wise, the game provides you with a handy play/pause button - which is nice for planning and deploying new turrets. Unfortunately, you really have no clue what each turret's capabilities are unless you happened to have been smooth enough to write them down during the tutorial. There are no on-screen overlays when you select a turret, so hopefully your memory's better than mine. Deploying turrets is rather interesting as well, as you'll be tap-dragging them into position (as opposed to most TD games that have you tap to select, then tap to place).
Speaking of the tutorial, the text is riddled with bizarre phrases and spelling issues (like "invaiders"), and struggles to convey actually helpful information. Fortunately, the game itself is pretty straightforward, and with the limited number of turrets and upgrade options, the most complicated thing about Armored Defense is creating a new game (see Options).
Controls
When the round begins, you'll find yourself pausing the game, tap-dragging turrets on to the map to deploy them, tapping a few for upgrades, and then tapping Play to start. During the course of the game, you can play/pause to your heart's delight (via the on-screen buttons), fast-forward, and zoom up to three zoom-levels if you want to get a bird's-eye view of the action. Unfortunately, you can't really do anything but watch in two of the three zoom-levels. Because of the tap-drag mechanic, those of you with big fingers may find it difficult to place turrets accurately. There's also no option for retracting air-strikes if you mistakenly start to place the crosshair.
Graphics
My first impression of the graphics in Armored Defense took me back to an old PC game, Total Annihilation, which used somewhat simplistic textures with the hopes of emphasizing game play. Honestly, I don't understand the Market comments in this department. The graphics in this game are ok - nowhere near as detailed or colorful as Grave Defense - and the units themselves are regularly running over and under each-other. Because of the lack of collision-detection, or at least pathing where the units stay apart from one-another, I'm left feeling like this game is unfinished. Lastly, the menu overlays (transparent borders, especially) are heavily pixelated and look poorly designed.
Sound
Turret sound-effects are decent, as are explosions, but that's all the sound you'll get in Armored Defense. There's no background soundtrack to speak-of, and you'll find no tapping/placement effects as you navigate the screen. This game could definitely use some polish in the sound-department.
Options
I can safely say that I'm confused as to the Market reviews of Armored Defense. With people raving about the graphics and the game play, you'd think this game would be top-notch. After getting lost in the tutorial, suffering through the many (and easily correct'able) spelling and grammar errors, and then being stuck in a career spanning 210 stages of the same map... I have to say, I completely disagree. This game has good potential, but strikes me as unfinished and over-priced. For the steep $4.50 price-tag, there's plenty of other solid tower-defense games out there to keep you busy.
Get Armored Defense on AppBrain
read more
Title: Armored Defense | Developer: ArmoredSoft | Genre: Action, Strategy |
Players: 1 | Version: 2.12 | Size: 12.2MB | Price: $4.56
Tower-defense games, if you're not familiar with the genre, are an industry standard in the mobile gaming world. Each map is static with set entrance and exit-paths for enemy units to follow. You'll be purchasing turrets, placing them strategically, and upgrading them as you get more money... all with the hopes of killing everything before they reach the other side.
Armored Defense is yet another installation in the rather vast library of tower defense titles, and it's a modern-style, military themed version. There are three maps - three - in this game, and each map will run you through seventy (that's 7-0) stages of more and more enemy tanks. Some tanks are big, some tanks are small, some tanks stealth, some tanks are fast, and some even turn into smaller tanks (I assume, carriers) when they explode! Your options for blowing-up said tanks are turrets, with the option of mounting one of them on a train-track for mobility. In addition to turrets, you can place land mines which slow-down enemy units, and call in an air strike which drops a bomb (after 5 seconds) on a group of enemy units. Like every tower defense game, you'll be upgrading your turrets to increase range and damage.
I played-through twenty or so levels on each of the three maps, and found it to be somewhat entertaining, though I found myself wanting of variety. Interface-wise, the game provides you with a handy play/pause button - which is nice for planning and deploying new turrets. Unfortunately, you really have no clue what each turret's capabilities are unless you happened to have been smooth enough to write them down during the tutorial. There are no on-screen overlays when you select a turret, so hopefully your memory's better than mine. Deploying turrets is rather interesting as well, as you'll be tap-dragging them into position (as opposed to most TD games that have you tap to select, then tap to place).
Speaking of the tutorial, the text is riddled with bizarre phrases and spelling issues (like "invaiders"), and struggles to convey actually helpful information. Fortunately, the game itself is pretty straightforward, and with the limited number of turrets and upgrade options, the most complicated thing about Armored Defense is creating a new game (see Options).
Controls
When the round begins, you'll find yourself pausing the game, tap-dragging turrets on to the map to deploy them, tapping a few for upgrades, and then tapping Play to start. During the course of the game, you can play/pause to your heart's delight (via the on-screen buttons), fast-forward, and zoom up to three zoom-levels if you want to get a bird's-eye view of the action. Unfortunately, you can't really do anything but watch in two of the three zoom-levels. Because of the tap-drag mechanic, those of you with big fingers may find it difficult to place turrets accurately. There's also no option for retracting air-strikes if you mistakenly start to place the crosshair.
Graphics
My first impression of the graphics in Armored Defense took me back to an old PC game, Total Annihilation, which used somewhat simplistic textures with the hopes of emphasizing game play. Honestly, I don't understand the Market comments in this department. The graphics in this game are ok - nowhere near as detailed or colorful as Grave Defense - and the units themselves are regularly running over and under each-other. Because of the lack of collision-detection, or at least pathing where the units stay apart from one-another, I'm left feeling like this game is unfinished. Lastly, the menu overlays (transparent borders, especially) are heavily pixelated and look poorly designed.
Sound
Turret sound-effects are decent, as are explosions, but that's all the sound you'll get in Armored Defense. There's no background soundtrack to speak-of, and you'll find no tapping/placement effects as you navigate the screen. This game could definitely use some polish in the sound-department.
Options
In another difficult-to-understand UI situation, you're provided a myriad of difficulty and ranking options when you start a new game. These options are barely explained in the tutorial and you're mostly left to figure it out yourself. You can select between Rookie or Veteran mode, and from there you pick from three careers - Volunteer, Regular, and Elite - all of which use the same maps, and take you through seventy stages of tower defense. However, within each career are three sub-ranks - Soldier, Officer, and General. What does this mean for you? To complete an entire career, you'll be plodding through 3x70 = 210 stages of the exact... same... map. Have fun.
In addition to difficulties, careers, and ranks, you can browse your statistics and toggle sound on/off.
VerdictIn addition to difficulties, careers, and ranks, you can browse your statistics and toggle sound on/off.
I can safely say that I'm confused as to the Market reviews of Armored Defense. With people raving about the graphics and the game play, you'd think this game would be top-notch. After getting lost in the tutorial, suffering through the many (and easily correct'able) spelling and grammar errors, and then being stuck in a career spanning 210 stages of the same map... I have to say, I completely disagree. This game has good potential, but strikes me as unfinished and over-priced. For the steep $4.50 price-tag, there's plenty of other solid tower-defense games out there to keep you busy.
Get Armored Defense on AppBrain
Monday, December 6, 2010
0
Monday, December 6, 2010
Ric RAT
Ghosts'n Zombies Review
★★★☆☆
What do nuns and priests tell their congregation about ghosts and zombies? SHOOT THE @#$%ers dead! Er... dead-again. With grenades.
Title: Ghosts'n Zombies | Developer: TipCat Interactive | Genre: Action, Casual |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.3 | Size: 15.8MB | Price: $0.99
Click QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.
Ghosts'n Zombies has but one, vastly simple premise - shoot stuff. In this 2D, side-perspective shooter, you'll find yourself running back and forth, taking pop-shots at various ghouls and creeps over increasingly difficult waves.
There are, in-total, nine levels to blaze your way through in this game - each level composed of six stages. By tilting your phone in landscape-mode, you'll run side-to-side while tapping to shoot. The more ghosts, bats, and other floaty-things you manage to knock-out in one shot, the bigger your bonus will be of crystals and filling your power-up meter. Crystals continually rain-down from above as you kill things, and picking them up gives you more ammo - something which you'll rarely find in short-supply.
As you collect crystals and succeed in killing-combos, you'll quickly find your power-up meter filling. On the first meter fill-up, you'll get temporary grenade-power! If you're a patient type, wait for another fill and grab the flame-thrower. In addition to power-ups, various random-drops and stationary items will assist you in your quest for demon-destruction. For example, a little cross will zap everything on the screen, and many levels will have you using rocks to hide-behind, or stalactites to break-off on your enemies' heads.
Controls
Tilting the phone from side-to-side will run your character left and right. Holding your finger on the screen aims the crosshair, and taking your finger off the screen again will shoot your weapon.
Graphics
Ghosts'n Zombies sports a familiar, Halloween'ish, cartoony feel. The graphics are good - crisp lines and colors - albeit a tad drab and un-detailed. The characters themselves are nicely done.
Sound
Sound has got some major issues on my Evo. The rocker-button on my phone has zero effect as far as raising or lowering the volume in-game, and I had to first adjust the volume in my media player before playing the game. In addition, there's no background music and the sound-effects themselves are a bit cheesy. A couple times, I even found the sound-effects continuing after quitting.
Options
Ghosts'n Zombies is an entertaining distraction at-best, which is made only slightly better by its inexpensive price-point. The sound issues, as well as the inability to drop-back to the main menu without quitting entirely, tend to border on the annoying and detract from the fun-factor. Also, this game is rather easy - even at the later levels. However, if you can get past the technical issues and just want a super-casual shooting experience, Ghosts'n Zombies may just work for you.
Get Ghosts'n Zombies on AppBrain!
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Title: Ghosts'n Zombies | Developer: TipCat Interactive | Genre: Action, Casual |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.3 | Size: 15.8MB | Price: $0.99
Ghosts'n Zombies has but one, vastly simple premise - shoot stuff. In this 2D, side-perspective shooter, you'll find yourself running back and forth, taking pop-shots at various ghouls and creeps over increasingly difficult waves.
There are, in-total, nine levels to blaze your way through in this game - each level composed of six stages. By tilting your phone in landscape-mode, you'll run side-to-side while tapping to shoot. The more ghosts, bats, and other floaty-things you manage to knock-out in one shot, the bigger your bonus will be of crystals and filling your power-up meter. Crystals continually rain-down from above as you kill things, and picking them up gives you more ammo - something which you'll rarely find in short-supply.
As you collect crystals and succeed in killing-combos, you'll quickly find your power-up meter filling. On the first meter fill-up, you'll get temporary grenade-power! If you're a patient type, wait for another fill and grab the flame-thrower. In addition to power-ups, various random-drops and stationary items will assist you in your quest for demon-destruction. For example, a little cross will zap everything on the screen, and many levels will have you using rocks to hide-behind, or stalactites to break-off on your enemies' heads.
Controls
Tilting the phone from side-to-side will run your character left and right. Holding your finger on the screen aims the crosshair, and taking your finger off the screen again will shoot your weapon.
Graphics
Ghosts'n Zombies sports a familiar, Halloween'ish, cartoony feel. The graphics are good - crisp lines and colors - albeit a tad drab and un-detailed. The characters themselves are nicely done.
Sound
Sound has got some major issues on my Evo. The rocker-button on my phone has zero effect as far as raising or lowering the volume in-game, and I had to first adjust the volume in my media player before playing the game. In addition, there's no background music and the sound-effects themselves are a bit cheesy. A couple times, I even found the sound-effects continuing after quitting.
Options
You can toggle sound-effects and music, and there's a Survival mode which runs you through six insane-making levels of larger and larger waves of enemies. Sadly, even the Evo has a hard time handling all the action on the screen toward the end of each stage once things get particularly hairy.
VerdictGhosts'n Zombies is an entertaining distraction at-best, which is made only slightly better by its inexpensive price-point. The sound issues, as well as the inability to drop-back to the main menu without quitting entirely, tend to border on the annoying and detract from the fun-factor. Also, this game is rather easy - even at the later levels. However, if you can get past the technical issues and just want a super-casual shooting experience, Ghosts'n Zombies may just work for you.
Get Ghosts'n Zombies on AppBrain!
Friday, November 19, 2010
0
Friday, November 19, 2010
Ric RAT
Cows Don't Fly Review
★★★☆☆
The title's a lie, since cows can fly! But they definitely can't swim... Roll and hop your strangely-shaped cow toward the portal, physics-style, using Bongo-gravity as your guide. But, don't forget the stars!
Title: Cows Don't Fly | Developer: HyperBees, Ltd. | Genre: Action, Casual |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.0 | Size: 12.7MB | Price: £1.49 ($2.41)
Click QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.
The title is an odd one, but so is the game... Over the course of 15 cartoonish levels, you will need to navigate your square-shaped cow-thing to the portal; which is opened by gathering stars. Cows Don't Fly is a physics-style action game, and you will be using the relative gravity of these large, bubble-licious circles, called Bongos, to keep you from falling into the water below. Sounds simple, right? Hardly.
Controlling your cow-peg is a pain in the ***, and it's the physics that make this game quite challenging, if not downright frustrating. Cows Don't Fly fully utilizes your phone's accelerometer to control your bovine companion. You'll be tilting your phone right to roll your cow clockwise, and left to roll him counter-clockwise. Tapping anywhere on the screen will make your cow bounce, and holding the tap releases him from the Bongo-gravity, whereupon your cow will start to glow and "fly". Sadly, you can only fly down the screen (more like falling, really). Once you let-go of the tap, you'll be sucked-into the gravity field of the nearest Bongo.
Keeping those controls in-mind, each level is full of these huge, single-colored Bongo-spheres, and at the bottom lies a pool of deadly, razor-sharp, suffocating... water. Cows can't swim, but they sure can roll! In order to get to the free-floating stars, and eventually the portal, you'll need to rotate-around, bounce-on, and orbit these Bongos as you might in a platform arcade game.
All Bongos aren't created equal. In my time playing, I discovered a few Bongo-varieties. The basic blue Bongos just sit there, smiling, as you use them to bounce on (kinda like some people I know). Green Bongos give you a little more bounce for your ounce, and red Bongos get straight-up pissed when you touch them (ie. they'll drop you into the water if you hang-on too long). The yellow Bongos will rise and fall if you rotate around them just right, allowing you to get closer to your next Bongo, star, heart, or the portal.
Speaking of hearts (lives), you've got a fixed number of them in each level, and running into the mean-spirited, dark purple, spiky block-things will hurt you! Unfortunately, there's really no way to make mid-course corrections (cows don't have stabilizing rockets). Should you find your cow barreling toward one of these spike-blocks, you're pretty much screwed. There's also the wet-factor... most levels only involve a stagnant pool at the bottom of the screen which, if you fall into, will kill you outright. A few levels, however, put the heat-on by slowly raising the water level as you play. You'll be restarting each level many times, so get used to it.
Finally, if you get bored (or too irritated) by the standard game, you can enter "Challenge" mode - a continual upwards-climb that nets you more points the longer you keep your cow alive. Your high-score will be posted to the Open Feint leader boards, if you so desire, where you can compare your cow-hopping skills to other people around the world.
Controls
Tough, tricky, frustrating, and innovative are all words that come to mind. The controls in Cows Don't Fly really make-and-break the game.
While responding pretty well to phone-tilting, it's too bad your cow isn't more responsive. The short delay that happens as your cow registers a change of direction is almost always just enough to kill you. I also ended-up getting really frustrated at how I was perceiving movement when your cow's on-top of a Bongo vs on the bottom. Your instinct will be to tilt-right to rotate your cow right, but in reality, tilting-right moves it clockwise. So, when your cow's on the top of a Bongo, you'll move as-expected... but when on the bottom, tilting right moves you left. It's a tricky paradigm that you'll have to master before you get anywhere in this game.
Regarding so-called "flight", tilting your phone down will accelerate your cow's downward-speed, so you'd assume you can tilt your phone away from you to get him to fly in the opposite direction, right? Not true. Your cow, being fat and heavy from too much grass, always falls (or flies) down. This took me a while to figure out. To end your flight, let-go of the screen and he'll be sucked back into the orbit of the nearest Bongo again. PS: Here's a tip - tap with your index finger instead of your thumb; it's easier to see the screen that way.
Graphics
Cows Don't Fly feels like playing a game in a children's story book; the graphics are cartoonish and simple, which works ok. However, I wasn't so impressed with the low-quality color depth. In other games that used vector-like illustrations, the edges are usually smooth and the colors solid and vibrant. It would seem, in this game, that they skimped a bit on the quality. Over-all, it feels like the developers used a basic 256-color palette when they should've used a 16-million. Definite ding on the score here...
Sound
The background music is fun and festive, again reminiscent of a children's story. There's one solitary track, which gets a bit repetitive, and the sound effects themselves (especially the "tap" when your cow hits a Bongo) are a bit... unrefined. Could use some polish in this department as well.
Options
Verdict
Cows Don't Fly is a fun, challenging little game that will provide some serious frustration until you get used to the controls (give it a few levels). The physics are interesting, and I always love games with these bizarre styles! I would definitely bump this to a 4-star game if they bring the graphics up-to-snuff and give the sound-effects a little more polish. Is it worth $2.40? Not yet, but stay-tuned for updates and discounts.
Get Cows Don't Fly on AppBrain!
read more
Title: Cows Don't Fly | Developer: HyperBees, Ltd. | Genre: Action, Casual |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.0 | Size: 12.7MB | Price: £1.49 ($2.41)
The title is an odd one, but so is the game... Over the course of 15 cartoonish levels, you will need to navigate your square-shaped cow-thing to the portal; which is opened by gathering stars. Cows Don't Fly is a physics-style action game, and you will be using the relative gravity of these large, bubble-licious circles, called Bongos, to keep you from falling into the water below. Sounds simple, right? Hardly.
Controlling your cow-peg is a pain in the ***, and it's the physics that make this game quite challenging, if not downright frustrating. Cows Don't Fly fully utilizes your phone's accelerometer to control your bovine companion. You'll be tilting your phone right to roll your cow clockwise, and left to roll him counter-clockwise. Tapping anywhere on the screen will make your cow bounce, and holding the tap releases him from the Bongo-gravity, whereupon your cow will start to glow and "fly". Sadly, you can only fly down the screen (more like falling, really). Once you let-go of the tap, you'll be sucked-into the gravity field of the nearest Bongo.
Keeping those controls in-mind, each level is full of these huge, single-colored Bongo-spheres, and at the bottom lies a pool of deadly, razor-sharp, suffocating... water. Cows can't swim, but they sure can roll! In order to get to the free-floating stars, and eventually the portal, you'll need to rotate-around, bounce-on, and orbit these Bongos as you might in a platform arcade game.
All Bongos aren't created equal. In my time playing, I discovered a few Bongo-varieties. The basic blue Bongos just sit there, smiling, as you use them to bounce on (kinda like some people I know). Green Bongos give you a little more bounce for your ounce, and red Bongos get straight-up pissed when you touch them (ie. they'll drop you into the water if you hang-on too long). The yellow Bongos will rise and fall if you rotate around them just right, allowing you to get closer to your next Bongo, star, heart, or the portal.
Speaking of hearts (lives), you've got a fixed number of them in each level, and running into the mean-spirited, dark purple, spiky block-things will hurt you! Unfortunately, there's really no way to make mid-course corrections (cows don't have stabilizing rockets). Should you find your cow barreling toward one of these spike-blocks, you're pretty much screwed. There's also the wet-factor... most levels only involve a stagnant pool at the bottom of the screen which, if you fall into, will kill you outright. A few levels, however, put the heat-on by slowly raising the water level as you play. You'll be restarting each level many times, so get used to it.
Finally, if you get bored (or too irritated) by the standard game, you can enter "Challenge" mode - a continual upwards-climb that nets you more points the longer you keep your cow alive. Your high-score will be posted to the Open Feint leader boards, if you so desire, where you can compare your cow-hopping skills to other people around the world.
Controls
Tough, tricky, frustrating, and innovative are all words that come to mind. The controls in Cows Don't Fly really make-and-break the game.
While responding pretty well to phone-tilting, it's too bad your cow isn't more responsive. The short delay that happens as your cow registers a change of direction is almost always just enough to kill you. I also ended-up getting really frustrated at how I was perceiving movement when your cow's on-top of a Bongo vs on the bottom. Your instinct will be to tilt-right to rotate your cow right, but in reality, tilting-right moves it clockwise. So, when your cow's on the top of a Bongo, you'll move as-expected... but when on the bottom, tilting right moves you left. It's a tricky paradigm that you'll have to master before you get anywhere in this game.
Regarding so-called "flight", tilting your phone down will accelerate your cow's downward-speed, so you'd assume you can tilt your phone away from you to get him to fly in the opposite direction, right? Not true. Your cow, being fat and heavy from too much grass, always falls (or flies) down. This took me a while to figure out. To end your flight, let-go of the screen and he'll be sucked back into the orbit of the nearest Bongo again. PS: Here's a tip - tap with your index finger instead of your thumb; it's easier to see the screen that way.
Graphics
Cows Don't Fly feels like playing a game in a children's story book; the graphics are cartoonish and simple, which works ok. However, I wasn't so impressed with the low-quality color depth. In other games that used vector-like illustrations, the edges are usually smooth and the colors solid and vibrant. It would seem, in this game, that they skimped a bit on the quality. Over-all, it feels like the developers used a basic 256-color palette when they should've used a 16-million. Definite ding on the score here...
Sound
The background music is fun and festive, again reminiscent of a children's story. There's one solitary track, which gets a bit repetitive, and the sound effects themselves (especially the "tap" when your cow hits a Bongo) are a bit... unrefined. Could use some polish in this department as well.
Options
Not much in the way of options, but I don't think any are really needed. You can toggle the music, and play the Open Feint "Challenge" mode. That's about it!
Verdict
Cows Don't Fly is a fun, challenging little game that will provide some serious frustration until you get used to the controls (give it a few levels). The physics are interesting, and I always love games with these bizarre styles! I would definitely bump this to a 4-star game if they bring the graphics up-to-snuff and give the sound-effects a little more polish. Is it worth $2.40? Not yet, but stay-tuned for updates and discounts.
Get Cows Don't Fly on AppBrain!
Monday, November 15, 2010
0
Monday, November 15, 2010
Ric RAT
Lettered! Review
★★★☆☆
Tilt and slide to create word combos in this noir-styled word-finder from Resounding Games. While not entirely polished and shiny, Lettered! is sure to keep you wordies occupied for hours on-end.
Title: Lettered! | Developer: Resounding Games | Genre: Word, Brain |
Players: 1 | Version: 10.11.1 | Size: 692KB | Price: :-20.00 ($2.98)
Click QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.
The basic premise to Lettered! is familiar - link letters together to create words, and each word is only as valuable as the sum of its parts; the longer the word, using the most awkward letters, will garner the most points. Toss-in a slick, noir-styling and the ability to slide letters around using the accelerometer... well, it's not exactly your father's crossword puzzle.
The first game-type in Lettered! is called Trickle. Depending on the board-size you choose (3x4 to 6x7), you'll be tossed a smattering of letters to start-out with. As you wait, staring at your "D" and "H" wondering just what vowel you could possibly use to create a three-letter word (the minimum), a new letter will soon descend from the heavens and land upon thine board. If you get a letter that allows you to create a word, great! Tap-and-swipe the entire word, from first letter to last, to clear it from the board. The catch: each sequential letter must be adjacent to the previous. Meaning, all the letters in the word must touch! And, in-order. You're allowed to go up, down, and diagonal with your swiping, as long as the next letter in the word connects to the previous.
What happens if you have the most amazingly-awesome word EVARR, but the last couple letters are on the other side of the board? Tilt! This is where Lettered's accelerometer feature becomes handy. You can tilt your phone this-way and that to slide letters around, with the hope of joining them to your others (oh, happy-reunions). If you find that the tilt-shuffle isn't enough, you can also tap and "lock" letters in-place so they won't slide with the rest. When it comes to locking, however, you are limited to a maximum number of locks before you must unlock a letter.
Why do I feel like I'm writing a Dr. Seuss story?
This is the essence of Trickle - make the most (valuable) words possible while using the slide/lock functionality to help you rearrange things, hopefully for the better. And that's my beef with the tilt-aspect of this game - it sounds cool, but under the pressure of a clock and ever-increasing speed, I just don't have time to think about locking, unlocking, tilting, shuffling, and planning my words! Fortunately, there's another option...
Timechase! Boy, the devs of this game are really exclamation-happy. This second game-variant suits my slowpoke word-combining skills vastly better than the prior, allowing you to set the Time option to Infinite. Perfect. The default game of Timechase starts you out with a loaded board; no "falling tiles of impending disaster" in this version. Like Trickle, you'll swipe words on the screen as you discover them, but unlike Trickle, everything stays-put. You continue searching for words until a) you get sick of it, or b) you set the timer and it runs-out. Personally, I like this variant much better than Trickle, but then again, I've never been good under pressure. If you really want the added stress, enable the timer and choose the "open board" option - allowing you some room to slide things around while you sweat.
At the end of each game, you're shown your most fancy-pants words as well as your final score, which you can then use as ammunition to belittle your less-intelligent and word-savvy friends.
Controls
Linking letters to create words in Lettered! is akin to the newfangled "swipe" keyboard for Android; you tap-hold the first letter, then drag to each sequential letter in the chain. Once you reach the final letter in the word, let-go and it will score the word as a whole. The accelerometer feature works well and is responsive, however it won't let you slide a tile part-way across the screen; it's all or nothing. What's more, if you lock a letter, slide, and unlock... the letter will slide anyway! I expected the letter to stay-put after I unlocked it. Strange.
Graphics
I really like the gritty, film-noir style, black-and-white, inkblot graphical style used in this word game. The tiles look like ransom letters, and some of the splotches on the screen float nicely above the main interface, providing a sleek little two-level effect.
Sound
And here's where this game loses a potential 4-star rating... There's no sound whatsoever. Call me new-fashioned, but in this day and age, a game with no sound-effects, let alone background music, just seems unfinished. I would have liked to hear the tiles slide around and "click" into place, and long for some swanky jazz-like synths to keep me company while I brain-it-out. Tough luck.
Options
Verdict
Lettered!, if anything, has suddenly turned me into a rather verbose reviewer - almost embarrassingly so - but, I digress. This is a fun little word game, and will definitely appeal to wordies of every shape, size, and style. I'm especially a fan of the Timechase variant, minus the time and the chasing. It's unfortunate, however, that the game needs a wee bit of polish to bump it to a full 4-star rating. Toss some sounds in there, and I'll re-consider. The nearly $3.00 price-point is a bit steep for such a simple game (especially with no sound), but if you derive your gaming pleasure solely from the quality of letters you can assemble... just pretend that fourth star is actually there.
Get Lettered! on AppBrain!
read more
Title: Lettered! | Developer: Resounding Games | Genre: Word, Brain |
Players: 1 | Version: 10.11.1 | Size: 692KB | Price: :-20.00 ($2.98)
The basic premise to Lettered! is familiar - link letters together to create words, and each word is only as valuable as the sum of its parts; the longer the word, using the most awkward letters, will garner the most points. Toss-in a slick, noir-styling and the ability to slide letters around using the accelerometer... well, it's not exactly your father's crossword puzzle.
The first game-type in Lettered! is called Trickle. Depending on the board-size you choose (3x4 to 6x7), you'll be tossed a smattering of letters to start-out with. As you wait, staring at your "D" and "H" wondering just what vowel you could possibly use to create a three-letter word (the minimum), a new letter will soon descend from the heavens and land upon thine board. If you get a letter that allows you to create a word, great! Tap-and-swipe the entire word, from first letter to last, to clear it from the board. The catch: each sequential letter must be adjacent to the previous. Meaning, all the letters in the word must touch! And, in-order. You're allowed to go up, down, and diagonal with your swiping, as long as the next letter in the word connects to the previous.
What happens if you have the most amazingly-awesome word EVARR, but the last couple letters are on the other side of the board? Tilt! This is where Lettered's accelerometer feature becomes handy. You can tilt your phone this-way and that to slide letters around, with the hope of joining them to your others (oh, happy-reunions). If you find that the tilt-shuffle isn't enough, you can also tap and "lock" letters in-place so they won't slide with the rest. When it comes to locking, however, you are limited to a maximum number of locks before you must unlock a letter.
Why do I feel like I'm writing a Dr. Seuss story?
This is the essence of Trickle - make the most (valuable) words possible while using the slide/lock functionality to help you rearrange things, hopefully for the better. And that's my beef with the tilt-aspect of this game - it sounds cool, but under the pressure of a clock and ever-increasing speed, I just don't have time to think about locking, unlocking, tilting, shuffling, and planning my words! Fortunately, there's another option...
Timechase! Boy, the devs of this game are really exclamation-happy. This second game-variant suits my slowpoke word-combining skills vastly better than the prior, allowing you to set the Time option to Infinite. Perfect. The default game of Timechase starts you out with a loaded board; no "falling tiles of impending disaster" in this version. Like Trickle, you'll swipe words on the screen as you discover them, but unlike Trickle, everything stays-put. You continue searching for words until a) you get sick of it, or b) you set the timer and it runs-out. Personally, I like this variant much better than Trickle, but then again, I've never been good under pressure. If you really want the added stress, enable the timer and choose the "open board" option - allowing you some room to slide things around while you sweat.
At the end of each game, you're shown your most fancy-pants words as well as your final score, which you can then use as ammunition to belittle your less-intelligent and word-savvy friends.
Controls
Linking letters to create words in Lettered! is akin to the newfangled "swipe" keyboard for Android; you tap-hold the first letter, then drag to each sequential letter in the chain. Once you reach the final letter in the word, let-go and it will score the word as a whole. The accelerometer feature works well and is responsive, however it won't let you slide a tile part-way across the screen; it's all or nothing. What's more, if you lock a letter, slide, and unlock... the letter will slide anyway! I expected the letter to stay-put after I unlocked it. Strange.
Graphics
I really like the gritty, film-noir style, black-and-white, inkblot graphical style used in this word game. The tiles look like ransom letters, and some of the splotches on the screen float nicely above the main interface, providing a sleek little two-level effect.
Sound
And here's where this game loses a potential 4-star rating... There's no sound whatsoever. Call me new-fashioned, but in this day and age, a game with no sound-effects, let alone background music, just seems unfinished. I would have liked to hear the tiles slide around and "click" into place, and long for some swanky jazz-like synths to keep me company while I brain-it-out. Tough luck.
Options
In either game-mode, your granted powers over options such as difficulty, time, board size, and minimum word-length. In addition for you AMOLED screen owners, Resounding provides a fancy "Night Mode" setting that won't alert bears to your presence should you find yourself obsessing over letter-combinations while camping. I don't have such a screen, so I cannot attest to its abilities.
Verdict
Lettered!, if anything, has suddenly turned me into a rather verbose reviewer - almost embarrassingly so - but, I digress. This is a fun little word game, and will definitely appeal to wordies of every shape, size, and style. I'm especially a fan of the Timechase variant, minus the time and the chasing. It's unfortunate, however, that the game needs a wee bit of polish to bump it to a full 4-star rating. Toss some sounds in there, and I'll re-consider. The nearly $3.00 price-point is a bit steep for such a simple game (especially with no sound), but if you derive your gaming pleasure solely from the quality of letters you can assemble... just pretend that fourth star is actually there.
Get Lettered! on AppBrain!
Saturday, November 6, 2010
0
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Ric RAT
Terminal 5 Review
★★★☆☆
A little blue robot wakes up in an underground maze full of spikes, lasers, and locked doors. You job is to upload a sequence of commands, cross your fingers, and hope he makes it to the exit in one piece!
Title: Terminal5 | Developer: +1 Labs | Genre: Brain & Puzzle |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.0.3 | Size: 2.7MB | Price: €1.99
Click QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.
Terminal 5 is the name of an obscure dungeon-like maze, most likely nestled somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, where the US army tests robot AI using tax-payer dollars. I kid. But it really is the name of the maze your little blue robot has found himself stuck inside, and (unlike AI) he cannot escape on his own. Send the 'bot a sequence of up to eight move-commands, and hit "play" to see if he makes it... or more likely, runs repeatedly into a wall.
Your goal in this interesting little puzzler is to navigate your robot successfully to a little green plus-sign (the exit) while avoiding things that might bring him to an early demise, such as spikes and lasers. Each level in the set of twenty-four brings increasingly more difficult and complex maps (and headaches). In my time playing, I uncovered the secrets of various tiles as well as traps. The most common floor-feature are tiles called "conveyors". When stepped on-to, a conveyor will spit you out the other side. Certain conveyors will also rotate your 'bot 90 degrees, either left or right. You'll need to learn how these conveyors work in order to master this game! I'll give you a hint: you don't need to face the direction of the conveyor in order to move the way it points, and you will stop at the next conveyor if moved there from a previous one. In other words, if a straight-line conveyor dumps you on another straight-line conveyor tile, you won't continue to auto-move. Tricky. In addition to conveyor tiles, doors will bar your path. Doors can be toggled open and closed via switches located on the map, and all work in unison.
You begin each map with a fixed number of move-orders (straight, left, right, and turn-around), action sets (number of times you can submit a sequence of moves), and lives. A life will be lost by stepping on a spike tile, including turning-around on the same tile if you're already there, as well as being blasted by the laser. Sometimes, however, taking a hit is inevitable in order to make it out of the level.
Take a bit of time at the beginning of each level to plan-out your route, and submit the max number of move-orders in a sequence so as to minimize the number of action sets you use. If you play your cards right and get your 'bot to the exit in the least amount of time, using the least amount of actions, you'll get a nifty medal! Schwing.
Controls
The controls in Terminal 5, in my opinion, are what seriously ding its rating. Tapping to select move-orders works fine, unless you tap slightly too-fast; then your orders won't make it into the queue. Try not to make any mistakes in the eight-order string as well, because there's no way to undo your last order, or any other single order in the sequence. If you mess-up, your only option is to wipe the whole sequence out and start over! Hopefully, you remembered everything you'd just planned. The "go" button is a tiny little arrow located at the top of the sequence bar - I think it should be a bit bigger, if not more obvious as well. The map can be dragged-around for positioning, but strangely you can drag the map even if tap-hold-dragging over the command area of the screen. You can rotate the map using another tiny, un-obvious rotate button, and (on my Evo) you can double-tap to zoom in and out. Unfortunately, there's no pinch-support for scaling. I would love to see a scaling-zoom function. Finally, there's no option within a level to restart it; you have to instead back-out to the menu, and then restart the level. Annoying.
Graphics
Terminal5 sports rendered polygon graphics, something you don't usually see in Android games. The map spins-around at the beginning of a new level, and looks all nifty and 3D'ish. Sadly, the textures are rather bland. For example, the walls are a solid grey. The game could definitely use a little polish in the visual department.
Sound
This game has no background music, so don't freak-out and try to raise your phone's volume over and over again. The sound effects during the game are good enough for government work. You'll hear the "bzzt" sound of your 'bot milling about, switches being toggled, etc. but it's a fairly quiet game. Again, a little polish could be used in the sound department as well to give this game a bit more atmospheric depth.
Options
You can switch the language to German, if you'd like - an interesting feature - as well as toggle sound-effects, change the game speed, and reset your campaign. There is also a very helpful tutorial that does a great job of explaining most of the game mechanics, so be sure to check that out.
Verdict
For all you right-brained, over-analyzers out there who love to plan and strategize, this game may just tickle your fancy. At first, I found it rather challenging and it repeatedly lost my interest - you are, after all, just moving a robot around - but once I got the hang of the conveyors, I started to enjoy myself more. All of the control/interface quirks, lack of background music, and general lack of polish, kept it from getting a 4-star rating; all of these things could easily be fixed in an update. Is it worth $2.80? Not yet, but definitely will be once these annoyances are patched. Still, the mechanics and gameplay are solid for this type of game.
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Title: Terminal5 | Developer: +1 Labs | Genre: Brain & Puzzle |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.0.3 | Size: 2.7MB | Price: €1.99
Terminal 5 is the name of an obscure dungeon-like maze, most likely nestled somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, where the US army tests robot AI using tax-payer dollars. I kid. But it really is the name of the maze your little blue robot has found himself stuck inside, and (unlike AI) he cannot escape on his own. Send the 'bot a sequence of up to eight move-commands, and hit "play" to see if he makes it... or more likely, runs repeatedly into a wall.
Your goal in this interesting little puzzler is to navigate your robot successfully to a little green plus-sign (the exit) while avoiding things that might bring him to an early demise, such as spikes and lasers. Each level in the set of twenty-four brings increasingly more difficult and complex maps (and headaches). In my time playing, I uncovered the secrets of various tiles as well as traps. The most common floor-feature are tiles called "conveyors". When stepped on-to, a conveyor will spit you out the other side. Certain conveyors will also rotate your 'bot 90 degrees, either left or right. You'll need to learn how these conveyors work in order to master this game! I'll give you a hint: you don't need to face the direction of the conveyor in order to move the way it points, and you will stop at the next conveyor if moved there from a previous one. In other words, if a straight-line conveyor dumps you on another straight-line conveyor tile, you won't continue to auto-move. Tricky. In addition to conveyor tiles, doors will bar your path. Doors can be toggled open and closed via switches located on the map, and all work in unison.
You begin each map with a fixed number of move-orders (straight, left, right, and turn-around), action sets (number of times you can submit a sequence of moves), and lives. A life will be lost by stepping on a spike tile, including turning-around on the same tile if you're already there, as well as being blasted by the laser. Sometimes, however, taking a hit is inevitable in order to make it out of the level.
Take a bit of time at the beginning of each level to plan-out your route, and submit the max number of move-orders in a sequence so as to minimize the number of action sets you use. If you play your cards right and get your 'bot to the exit in the least amount of time, using the least amount of actions, you'll get a nifty medal! Schwing.
Controls
The controls in Terminal 5, in my opinion, are what seriously ding its rating. Tapping to select move-orders works fine, unless you tap slightly too-fast; then your orders won't make it into the queue. Try not to make any mistakes in the eight-order string as well, because there's no way to undo your last order, or any other single order in the sequence. If you mess-up, your only option is to wipe the whole sequence out and start over! Hopefully, you remembered everything you'd just planned. The "go" button is a tiny little arrow located at the top of the sequence bar - I think it should be a bit bigger, if not more obvious as well. The map can be dragged-around for positioning, but strangely you can drag the map even if tap-hold-dragging over the command area of the screen. You can rotate the map using another tiny, un-obvious rotate button, and (on my Evo) you can double-tap to zoom in and out. Unfortunately, there's no pinch-support for scaling. I would love to see a scaling-zoom function. Finally, there's no option within a level to restart it; you have to instead back-out to the menu, and then restart the level. Annoying.
Graphics
Terminal5 sports rendered polygon graphics, something you don't usually see in Android games. The map spins-around at the beginning of a new level, and looks all nifty and 3D'ish. Sadly, the textures are rather bland. For example, the walls are a solid grey. The game could definitely use a little polish in the visual department.
Sound
This game has no background music, so don't freak-out and try to raise your phone's volume over and over again. The sound effects during the game are good enough for government work. You'll hear the "bzzt" sound of your 'bot milling about, switches being toggled, etc. but it's a fairly quiet game. Again, a little polish could be used in the sound department as well to give this game a bit more atmospheric depth.
Options
You can switch the language to German, if you'd like - an interesting feature - as well as toggle sound-effects, change the game speed, and reset your campaign. There is also a very helpful tutorial that does a great job of explaining most of the game mechanics, so be sure to check that out.
Verdict
For all you right-brained, over-analyzers out there who love to plan and strategize, this game may just tickle your fancy. At first, I found it rather challenging and it repeatedly lost my interest - you are, after all, just moving a robot around - but once I got the hang of the conveyors, I started to enjoy myself more. All of the control/interface quirks, lack of background music, and general lack of polish, kept it from getting a 4-star rating; all of these things could easily be fixed in an update. Is it worth $2.80? Not yet, but definitely will be once these annoyances are patched. Still, the mechanics and gameplay are solid for this type of game.
Get Terminal 5 on AppBrain!
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