A Gaming Diary
Archive for October, 2009
Kill All Bugs! (iPhone)
Oct 27th
I’m a little over a third of the way through the levels now. It’s fairly compelling, in a puzzle-like way, but it desperately needs a fast forward button. Or, if there is one hidden away, to make it more obvious.
I do like the way there’s some terrain that only certain bugs can cross. The first time I saw some bugs crawling over the mountains I’d previously considered to be a safe barrier was a great panicky moment. I also very much like the way day can turn to turn night and the lights in the cities come on. It’s very atmospheric.
There’s a lot this game does right, actually. It’s definitely not your standard tower defense in the campaign levels, though it’s a lot closer to one in survival mode. I just wish it was a bit faster, that’s all. Definitely worth considering, but be prepared to be very patient.
Max Injury Lite (iPhone)
Oct 27th
Another update, another new level. The Lite version of the game now includes three levels, not the one that was available when I first downloaded it. That’s really, really excellent of them.
So excellent, in fact, that it’s almost made me want to buy the full version, just to support such lovely developers. Almost, but not quite. I’m not really sure why, but I think I’m scared that if I get too many levels in one go I’ll just play each one a few times and never bother really concentrating on a level like I do in this Lite version.
Slightly crazy logic, probably, but that’s how I’m thinking.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Oct 26th
And finally, for now, there’s a good move I made in Words With Friends.
Pang Mobile (iPhone)
Oct 26th
When I was wee young thing I used to go and see bands at the Harlow Square, a popular hang out for teenage indie kids. As well as seeing the likes of Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Wat Tyler and The Senseless Things, there was also a Pang arcade machine. I don’t actually remember ever playing it, though I guess I probably did, given the fond memories I have of the game.
At £2.99, I was able to resist the temptation to have the game in my pocket, but I couldn’t say no at 59p – and it was well worth the price for the fuzzy nostalgic glow I got from the game.
It’s also still pretty good, by the way, and holds up much better than a lot of games from the same era.
Borderlands (360)
Oct 26th
It’s like someone made a game just for me. It’s like World of Warcraft, but without other people. And with a cartoonish, cel-shaded post apocalyptic vibe. And with proper shooting instead of MMO clicky clicky combat.
It’s brilliant. You get shoot things and hit things and there are billions of different guns and it’s all incredibly satisfying and fun and makes time fly by and I love it to bits.
I would write more, but my head is killing me and I still have to write about Pang and pay my water bill.
Kill All Bugs! (iPhone)
Oct 26th
Open field tower defense game with a B-movie flavour. Giant bugs are attacking your cities and you have to stop them. In time honoured fashion, you do this by placing towers in their way. There are a few of changes to the standard formula, the most obvious one being that you don’t upgrade towers. Once they’re down, they’re down. You can sell them, but that’s it.
Also, you can completely block the path to the cities if you like, but then the bugs go into rampage mode and eat through your towers, which doesn’t make for a winning strategy. It’s all very simple so far, with game concepts introduced incredibly slowly. I’ve done the first few levels and had a go at survival mode. I set it on easy and it really was. After half an hour or so I was so bored that I destroyed my maze and built another experimental one that turned out to be rubbish. When I finally died I was more relieved than anything.
Still, I need to give it some more time. It’s definitely got potential, but I’m undecided so far. A few more levels and a go at the medium difficulty survival mode might help.
Star Defense Prelude (iPhone)
Oct 26th
This is the Lite version of Star Defense, basically, but I believe it acts as a prequel to the main game. It’s a fixed path tower defense game, with the twist being that the levels are set on small, spherical asteroids, so you have to rotate them around to see different parts of the level.
At first, this is exceptionally annoying and feels like a willful way to make the game harder simply by limiting your information, or maybe just an example of technology being given precedence over game design. After a few minutes, though, you get used to it and it starts to make sense. Yes, it does make the game harder than if you could flatten it out and see the whole level at once, but learning the path and rotating frantically to get where you need to be becomes part of the fun of it all.
It’s all pretty standard, with the normal selection of towers and creeps with the usual statistics and resistances, but it feels a lot more involving than many other games of its type. I didn’t often find myself sitting back after having set up my defenses and waiting for the creeps to get slaughtered. I was always spinning around, trying to find the optimum spot for new towers and making hard decisions about whether it was better to spend a lot of money on upgrades or small amounts on new low-power towers.
Basically, it works and after the bad first impressions I’ve become very fond of it. The full version of the game is currently 59p, but I won’t be playing it until I’ve beaten the single level included in this version on Medium difficulty. I can get to the final wave, but can’t quite hold on long enough to win.
Sentinel: Mars Defence (iPhone)
Oct 26th
I was in a very tower defense mood over the weekend and divided my time between three of them. The first I’m going to write about is Sentinel, which I’d played before and found very uninspiring, but completely functional. There didn’t seem anything that wrong with it, but it didn’t seem to elevate itself above the standard, either.
Further play this weekend cemented those impressions. I like a lot of what it does, but ninety waves per level seems a bit a much and when you first play a level it’s very, very hard to work out where the creeps will go and where you can build towers. Still, it’s obviously designed for multiple plays through each level. I just went through all four of them on easy mode, just to get a feel for them and to open them up. I’ll probably go back and play through them on medium before before starting the sequel which I bought because, yes, it was on sale for 59p.
It’s a thoroughly decent game with a couple of small problems, but it’s not something I can see myself ever falling in love with. And yet I keep coming back.
Lucky Coins (iPhone)
Oct 26th
The closest reference point might be Peggle. You fire a coin from the top of the screen, it collects stars, horseshoes, clovers, etc. on the way down. Get enough and you win the level.
It’s not epically great, or anything, but it was free. Not bad enough to feel like I wasted my time playing it, not good enough to make think I’d have paid for it. Closer to the latter than the former, though.
I really don’t have much to say about it and I’ve not played it since Friday, which feels like weeks ago. It’s hardly worth blogging about it at all, but I have my rules.
Geared (iPhone)
Oct 26th
It’s not a bad little game at all. After getting off level 45 – I got horribly stuck, left it for a few hours, the completed it straightaway, as often happens with these things – I’ve not got held up very long since.
I’m up into the sixties now and I like the game a lot, but I’m not quite loving it. I’m just not overly fond of the way too many puzzles rely on pixel-perfect positioning, rather than solving skills. Still, it’s 59p for a generous number of puzzles and and very nice interface, so you can’t really go wrong.
