A Gaming Diary
iPhone
Big Top Ten (iPhone)
Jul 22nd
My vote for maths-based puzzling doesn’t go to Down To Zero, though, but to Big Top Ten. I’ll take the Edwardian music hall look over the utilitarian computer stylings of Down To Zero any day of the week. And any game that says “Jolly Good” in big letters when I make a good move gets extra bonus points from me. And makes me fall in love with it just a little bit.
The aim in Big Top Ten is to drag the cursor around the screen so that all the numbers you touch add up to ten. So you could just put your finger on a 3 and drag it down to a 7. Easy. Of course, though, more points – and more time – come from longer strings of numbers. You get some negative numbers to help make long strings and you’re going to want to use them.
Not that there any in that screenshot. There is, however, a bomb. Yes, you get power ups that are activated by including them in part of your string. If I wanted to make a half-decent move on that board, I could start with the 1 in the lower left, drag my finger up to the 1, right to the 2, to the bomb, down to the 3 and then right to the other 3 down there. That would make ten, I think. Of course, it’s easy to see when looking at the board now. If I was actually playing, with the clock ticking down and the panic rising, I’d probably just start at the bomb, then go right to the 6 and up to the 4.
I’m not especially good at the game yet, I don’t think. (Hard to know without online score boards. Hint, hint.) You have to really, you know, think, which is not something I’m very good at even when I’m not under pressure. It is, however, a game I’m getting better and better at. It’s also improving my ability to see numbers that add up to ten, which must be useful in real life, right? Right?
So, yes, it’s yet another number puzzler, but it’s great fun and polished in a way that very much appeals to me. Tally ho!
Down To Zero Lite (iPhone)
Jul 22nd
The concept is as simple as can be. There’s a bit pile of numbers and you click on one, then drag the cursor to other numbers. The other numbers have to equal the first number you clicked on, so when the subsequent numbers are subtracted from the first number, the result is zero…
I didn’t explain that very well, did I? Whatever, I’ve got too many games to write about. I don’t have time to worry about making my posts clear, concise, interesting or in any way readable! A pox on you, Apple, and your easy access to cheap and free quality games!
And make no mistake, this is a quality game. Here’s a screenshot.
Yes, you can just drag the cursor over two numbers that are the same to clear them. Probably not the best way to go about things. Anyway, try the Lite version. It’s got a single quick-fire game mode and it’s worth looking at.
Baseball Superstars 2009 (iPhone)
Jul 22nd
I’ve finished four seasons as my little batter chap now. The third season was the best so far, with my team winning the title and everybody happy and some bonus money for me and a general sense of hurrah!
The fourth season was a disaster. My batting average fell from a bad .278 to a pitiful .261. My team kept losing, which meant my morale plummeted, so instead of going out and training in my time off I had to go on dates to try and improve my mood.
However, every date failed, so my morale stayed at about zero for most of the season and my performance on the field suffered accordingly.
That nightmare season is over now, though, and morale resets at the start of each season so I’m hoping for better in my fifth season. I really wish I could get my popularity up, though. To extend your career past its tenth season you need a popularity rating of over six hundred, I think, and mine’s only about 140. Not good at all.
Isotope (iPhone)
Jul 22nd
This is beginning to get difficult. And I’m not sure the boss health bars work properly. I’m almost positive I shot one boss for ages after his health was on zero without him dying – but it’s hard to keep an eye on health bars when you’re trying to shoot at something that’s doing its best to kill you dead.
I’d love to give you an action shot showing the pretty explosions and swarms of enemies, but when that’s happening I don’t have time to take a screenshot. So here’s a screen of a room where I’ve killed all the enemies except for a couple of little guns. Hey, at least there’s two – two! – bullets on the screen in this shot.
Also, the other day the developer gave out a bonus level in a way I’ve not seen before. It was a web link which, if opened in Safari on your iPhone, started the game with you all set up to play the new level. I don’t think it’s saved anywhere that I can see, you just have to follow the link every time. The developer warned that it was a hard level for leveled-up ships, but I thought I’d have a go anyway. The screen soon filled with bullets that could kill me with one hit and my guns seemed to have little effect on the baddies. I tried a couple of times, but it’s obvious I’m not ready for it. I didn’t cry, though. I took it like a man.
Globall (iPhone)
Jul 22nd
After pretty much dismissing this as “fun, but not fun enough” last week I went back to this and found myself liking it more. If you want a game where you have to hold your iPhone flat and roll a ball around, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I’ve also got more used to the power ups and scoring system and, although I’m not bothering to take advantage of the multipliers, I can see how they’re set up well to make levels rather more interesting if you’re going for a high score.
After every level the game uses your position to work out how far away you are from a person with a better score than you. In my case, I’m always the best player within two miles, which means I’m probably the only person in Marden playing the game, but that someone in Staplehurst is playing “properly” and using the score multipliers. At a guess, you know.
Baseball Superstars 2009 (iPhone)
Jul 20th
Yes, so I took the plunge and downloaded the full version of Baseball Superstars. I’ve got to something at lunchtime, after all.
I’ve set myself up as a batter on the Dragons. I’m not doing too well so far. The screenshot below shows how I’m doing most of the time.
I am getting better, though. Partly due to training to raise my stats (when I’m not using my spare time to go on dates to recover morale), partly due to getting better at the game and partly because of the lucky purple helmet that I spent an entire year’s salary on. Sometimes I’m even getting screens like the one below after a game.
But not very often.
geoDefense (iPhone)
Jul 20th
I paid for the full version about two minutes after posting about the Lite version on Friday. I’ve had several “quick goes” over the weekend, most of which have been rather longer than I intended. It’s not a new experience, but it’s a very decent tower defense game, perfectly suited to its iPhone home.
It’s also very, very difficult. I’m doing the “Easy” levels, which are anything but. It’s the right kind of difficult, though, spurring you on rather than making you give up. I’ve noticed that I tend to stop playing once I beat a level and move onto another, not while a level is still beating me. That’s a very good sign, if you ask me.
Isotope (iPhone)
Jul 20th
This is a game that really, really shouldn’t work on an iPhone. it’s a twin-stick shooter on a system with no sticks. Doomed to failure, right?
Well, surprisingly, no. The virtual pads are responsive and you can set them up to follow your thumbs around, so you never lose them. It’s an intelligent and workable system. It’s never going to be as natural as, say, an Xbox 360 pad, but the game knows this, giving you small amounts of enemies to hit and making them more difficult, rather than just throwing a million easy enemies at you. Sometimes, yes, I feel like the controls let me down, but less often than in, say, Geometry Wars on the DS.
What really gives the game legs, though, is leveling system. Like an RPG, you gain experience points and money as you play. Money is used to purchase new levels, ships and upgrades, experience is used to improve your stats. It’s a system that means that unfair deaths aren’t as infuriating as they otherwise might be, because every go gets you experience and money.
I played the Lite version for a long time. I then upgraded and I’ve played the full version a lot. It’s a brilliant, unexpected gem of a game. There’s a very generous Lite version of the game available and I thoroughly recommend giving it a go.
(If you do buy the full version, though, don’t delete the Lite version first. Once the full game is on your iPhone, start the Lite version and find the menu option to transfer your progress – that way you’ll start the full version with a huge load of credits.)
Ragdoll Blaster (iPhone)
Jul 20th
I’ve gone right off this now.
I was stuck on the level above for a while. I could get the ball out of the maze, though it always took ages and wasn’t much fun, but then missed it on the way out. Until, eventually, the ball fell out of the maze and it said I’d won the level. No idea how the ball managed hit one of my ragdolls, but I guess it did.
Now I’m on this level. I don’t know what to do and can’t be bothered to play around and work it out. I’m just not interested at all any more.
The caveat being that I probably will go back at some point, I’ll get past that level and I’ll do a few more and then only stop when I get stuck again and then claim I hate the game again – which I will, at the moment I’m typing. I should probably delete it and stop the pain, but I’m not sure I that I really want to.
Edge Lite (iPhone)
Jul 20th
Of course, some developers can’t release their games at any price. Witness the poor sods at Mobigame, who incurred the wrath of a chap called Tim Langdell, for daring to call their game Edge – a word he has trademarked. They offered to rename their game Edgy, as soon as he received the offer he registered that as a trademark, too. At the moment, Edge has been removed from the App Store. It’s a genuinely insane situation and I hope someone writes a book about it one day.
However, the Lite version is still available and is well worth a download. The biggest tragedy of this whole thing is that Edge seems like a very good game. Not, perhaps, the all-time classic people are wanting to paint it as, but a throughly decent little puzzle game that I’d happily pay 59p for.
