A Gaming Diary
Archive for September, 2009
Sliding Heroes Lite (iPhone)
Sep 24th
This one’s just odd.
You have little RPG-like characters that you tilt around the level, bashing into monsters to kill them and open the level exit. Clerics are tanks, mages weak but with powerful ranged attacks, etc.
It’s a real strange concept and it doesn’t really work. For example, you can choose how many characters to deploy and having more than one character on a level at once is a recipe for disaster. You can’t have calibrate the neutral state for the tilt, so you have to hunch over a horizontal iPhone to play.
I suspect it’s pretty rubbish, really… but it’s got an indefinable something that makes me want to play it again, despite myself.
Horror Racing Lite (iPhone)
Sep 24th
Top-down racer with weapons. Has a “horror” theme, but it’s more Monsters Inc. than Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (Thinking about it, I’d love a cart racer starring Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, etc.)
Instead of moving left and right you turn the wheel to point where you want to go. Sounds reasonable, but doesn’t work for me. I keep on going the wrong way and end up driving round the track on my own, bashing into everything on the way. A lot of people online seem to be quite happy with the controls, though, so don’t take my word for it.
Lumines Lite (iPhone)
Sep 24th
Tried the demo another couple of times.
The controls simply don’t work properly.
I’ve tried hints and tips from people who say they do, such as only swiping down the right hand side of the screen or whatever, but that doesn’t help.
It’s just broken. So glad I didn’t spend any money on it.
Squareball (iPhone)
Sep 24th
It’s amazing how many games you can fit into a lunchtime when they’re all bite-sized treats like Squareball and the millions of others I got through after eating my sandwich. Not that all of them were treats, but I’m coming to that.
Anyway, I finished level three of Squareball on my last life.
And then finished level four without losing a single life. I rock.
Level five, though, is proving somewhat tricky.
No, I appreciate that doesn’t look hard, but it’s about the only place I felt safe enough to take a screenshot.
By the way, I solved my sound problem. It seems the game uses your ringer volume if the music is turned off, so I just turned the music on and turned the game sound down. Simple…
Puzzle Quest (iPhone)
Sep 24th
Had a quick go of Puzzle Quest at lunchtime.
Just to show you how small everything is, here’s a shot of the map.
Probably should have shown a screen with more text on it, really, but never mind.
To reiterate, it’s a long way from unplayable, but it’s not quite comfortable, either.
Lumines Lite (iPhone)
Sep 24th
It’s Lumines.
On the iPhone.
I normally play with the sound off, but that would be doing Lumines a disservice, so I hooked it up to my car stereo to play this morning. Sounded nice, looks okay, if a little “dirty” compared to the PSP version, controls like a car with two flat tyres.
Well, no, that’s slightly unfair, it controls like a car with one slightly flat tyre. It mostly works, but doesn’t quite respond as it should. Which, for Lumines, is a major, major failing. More than most other falling blocks games it relies on precision and timing – and they’re not possible in this version.
It did start feeling more comfortable as I played more, but it never felt quite right. I’ll have to play it some more, see if the controls click at any point, but it’s not looking good.
Also, the “full” version of the game only costs £1.79, but it seems to be very light on content and set up for masses of in-app purchases in the future, so beware. There’s already one extra paid-for skin for download, apparently.
Puzzle Quest (iPhone)
Sep 24th
Puzzle Quest is a great game. I’ve only played the DS version before, but it’s been ported to just about every platform under the sun. It’s an RPG with match-three battles, basically, but I doubt there’s anyone reading this blog who doesn’t know it.
Anyway, I love the game, but had heard both good and bad things about the iPhone version, so decided to try out the Lite. It seemed fine, if a bit cramped on the iPhone screen, so I played until the end of the demo and then wanted to play more. Unfortunately, the Lite version doesn’t let you restart after you finish it, so I had to buy the full version. Yes, I had to. If you’ve played Puzzle Quest, you’ll understand.
Buying the full version isn’t that simple. You can buy Chapter One for £1.19 or Chapters One & Two for £2.99. Um, right. You can’t seem to buy Chapter Two on its own, though, so if I just bought Chapter One I’d then have to buy both Chapters One and Two at later date. Unless you can update from within the app, but I think Puzzle Quest predates in-app purchases. So I played it safe and bought the Chapters One and Two bundle.
I’ve played it quite a bit now. It’s still the same great game, but the text is quite hard to read and buttons seem to be quite hard to push at times, as if the actual area you can press is smaller than the graphic of the button, or something. After playing for half an hour or so without a break I’d realised I’d been staring so hard at the screen that I’d given myself that fuzzy head feeling that’s one step away from a headache, like when you’ve been trying to force your eyes to see a Magic Eye picture.
I really think the developers should have put their RPG font away and just gone with a less atmospheric but more readable normal font for this version of the game. It’s a successful port, then, but not an unqualified success.
Squareball (iPhone)
Sep 24th
I completed level one! Hooray!
And level two! Hooray!
And I’ve almost completed level three many times, but just can’t quite do it.
This game is hard. But it’s good hard. It makes you make a determined face like a Muppet and fills you with the desire to beat it into the ground.
One odd thing, though. I was quite happily playing it with the sound off, like I do all my games, when it suddenly started beeping at me. All of a sudden the sound effects decided to use to the ringer volume, not the game volume. Deeply strange. Was still happening after I quit out and came back in. I guess the iPhone might need a reboot, or something.
iDrop Dead (iPhone)
Sep 24th
I forgot to take a screen shot for this post, but I’ve now finished all the goals in Normal and Time Attack modes. The other modes don’t have goals, so although I could run through the “single swipe” mode to get high scores, without anything to measure them against it feels a bit empty. I think I might be done with this until it gets updated, but I’ve already got great value for my 59p.
Against The Fire! (iPhone)
Sep 24th
This is getting really quite tricky now. Several runs are needed to learn the layout of the level and where the power-ups are, so I can find the citizens and enough oxygen to make it through the level without dying.
It did initially seem like a game I’d polish off quite quickly, but I’m only up to level twenty-four of fifty, so I dread to think what later levels are like.
It’s good stuff.
