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A Gaming Diary
MAGICAL TOWER DEFENSE LITE (iPhone)
Oct 19th
Don’t blame me for the capital letters, blame the developers. You might wonder why I bothered downloading another tower defense game. Don’t I have enough of them already? Well, yes, the App Store’s full of them, but not many of them have such a charming description.
This game is only one of TOWER DEFENSE’S games, but characters are more cute than others games.
Only the hardest heart could read that and not immediately press the download button. Or, in my case, read that, search for the free demo version, then press the download version. It may be charming, but I’m not stupid.
Anyway, it successfully are my entire lunch hour, which was meant to be filled with Hook Champ, Slay, etc.
It’s just another fixed-path tower defense game but, yes, the characters are definitely more cute than others games. Well, all apart from Crystal Defenders, which this game resembles on a very superficial level. There’s a good selection of units, each described in perfectly readable Engrish, a decent control system and by killing units you can fill a power bar, enabling you to unleash a very handy fire storm.
It seemed like very good stuff, especially as I was having a lot of trouble working out a good combination of units to finish off the fifty waves of enemies the game was throwing at me. All the units seemed to be useful, apart from the cheap archery units who seemed completely useless – so useless that I couldn’t quite believe they were as bad as I thought they were. I therefore decided to try the level only using those units and my special power to see how quickly I’d die… and I promptly beat all fifty waves with the loss of just two lives.
Hmm. That’s put me off a bit. In this type of game, only using one type of unit shouldn’t work. Still, the congratulatory message at the end of the level did promise me that levels in the full version of the game are much more interesting.
So, in conclusion, it’s definitely cute and easy to play, but the balance might not be quite there. I’m still going to put the full version on my watch list, though.
Hook Champ (iPhone)
Oct 19th
Straight out of… nowhere. I love games like this on the iPhone. Something you’ve never heard of, with no hype or, indeed, much marketing of any kind appears on the App Store, someone tries it, likes it, lets the Internet know and soon enough there’s a front page article on Touch Arcade and lots of people like me rush to download it at the launch price of 59p. (I think it’s going to be £1.79 at some point but – spoiler alert! – it’ll be worth that price, too.)
Think Indiana Jones meets Bionic Commando in a stylish pixel art setting. You can run left and right through the side-scrolling levels, but most of the time you’ll be using your whip/grappling hook to swing across the levels, collecting coins and trying to reach the exit before the nasty monster chomps you into little bits.
It’s a bit tricky at first – and I still can’t get on with the Pro control scheme – but the controls soon become familiar. That doesn’t make the game easy, though. You’re left with a tough challenge, estimating angles – the whip always shoots at forty-five degrees – and working out the best time to let go of one swing and start on another.
It’s hard, satisfying, has global and local leaderboards for every level and a shop to buy upgrades and new abilities with the coins you collect.
It’s a great arcade challenge, with each death spurring you on and each impossible section forcing you to come back and work out new techniques. Less immediately thrilling and more frustrating than Canabalt, but more structured, with a proper difficulty curve and nearly as satisfying.
Crazy Snowboard (iPhone)
Oct 19th
I have to admit, the name put me off. As a general rule, anything that describes itself as “crazy” is something to be avoided. If it had been “Wacky Snowboard” or “Zany Snowboard” then I’d probably have been unable to even download the Lite version.
But I did download the Lite version of Crazy Snowboard. I’ve been wanting a snowboarding game and this seemed to fit the bill. There’s no racing yet, but I like the mission structure. Some levels ask you to perform tricks, some to slalom through gates, some to jump through rings. That sort of thing.
The Lite version was fairly good fun, but a bit too slow. Good enough for a 59p purchase, but not the £1.79 they were actually charging.
That was Friday. The very next day the price of Crazy Snowboard dropped to 59p. It’s like fate, or something. Except, you know, not really. The reason I’d heard of Crazy Snowboard is that it got a big Halloween update on Friday and the price drop was to promote this.
The Halloween update added a new board and skeleton-costumed rider and some new missions set on a spooky slope filled with gravestones and zombies. I’ve only done one of the missions on the spooky slope so far, which required me to run down fifteen zombies. Nice.
I’ve actually spent far longer in free ride mode than doing missions. It’s just a joy to ride down the slope, especially as the full version of the game is significantly faster than the Lite version.
Highly recommended at 59p – I moved it to my first page of games on Sunday, which is the highest form of praise.
Slay (iPhone)
Oct 19th
Nobody told me that Slay was out for the iPhone!
Well, not until Saturday, at least.
Slay is an old PC game I remember playing years ago. It’s at least fourteen years old, maybe more. It’s a simple but stragetically interesting hex-based game of conquest. It was great on the PC, but looked rubbish. Fifteen years later, it’s on the iPhone, still great, still looking rubbish. I does look better than the PC version did back in the day, but that’s the very definition of faint praise.
You shouldn’t run away, though. The graphics are clear and let you see what’s going on at a glance, which is far more important than any fancy stuff. The game’s completely unchanged, with mechanics it would be pointless to describe in detail. In short, though, you create men to capture territory, castles to guard it and upgrade your soldiers when you can afford to.
The game’s survived because it’s a masterpiece of design and the iPhone version works exactly as it should, even down to having an undo button just in case you click the wrong hex. (Which you will.)
I also like the structure of this version. Instead of choosing a map and then a difficulty level, there’s just a list of over four hundred levels arranged in ascending order of difficulty. Excellent.
I urge you to try this game if you’ve not done so already. It takes a few minutes to learn the rules – remember to make sure you can afford a new unit before creating it – but once you have, you never forget them. I managed to leap right in even though I’ve not played for many years.
There’s a Lite version to try, but it seems to be an older version of the game than the current one. Still, the core gameplay is exactly the same, so it’s a good way to learn the ropes.
Racer (iPhone)
Oct 19th
Racer got a big update over weekend. Two new game modes and unlockable cars.
To be fair, mind, the two new game modes are pretty much the same. Career mode has you collecting stars while avoiding traffic. Get enough stars and you move on to the next level, sometimes unlocking a new car. Slalom mode has you collecting stars, but isn’t split into levels. Like the existing modes, it simply gradually gets harder the longer you play.
There are some complaints from people about the starting car being made less responsive to make the unlockable cars more appealing, but I can’t say I noticed any difference. (It’s been quite a while since I last played the game.)
It’s still sweet little gaming treat – it sits happily in a coveted position on my first page of games – and I like the extra modes.
(Especially as the scoreboards got reset when the game got updated, so I managed a fairly respectable position on one of them.)
Soosiz (iPhone)
Oct 19th
If you can remember back to last week – an age when it comes to iPhone gaming – you might remember that I was very worried about the second boss level. You see, the first boss level was a fairly long and dangerous level, with the boss at the end and no checkpointing.
Well, I’m pleased to announce that the second boss level is only that – a level with a boss fight. No preamble, no long trek to get to the boss, no need for checkpoints. This would make multiple retries a lot easier to bear, but the boss was actually so easy I killed him first time. That might be disappointing for some, but it was a giant relief for me.
And so from the mushroom-filled second world I headed off to world three.
It’s in space. I have a space helmet and everything.
This game is glorious.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Oct 19th
Yep, I got BURRITOed. Excellently, though, I then managed to make WIZ on a triple word square for many lovely points.
Other than that, it was a pretty unsuccessful weekend, the nadir of which came when I swapped six vowels and got six back. I said, “Oh bother!” or words to that effect.
Wheelman (360)
Oct 19th
I suspect that in the office of the developers of Wheelman there was a whiteboard. And on this whiteboard, written in big red letters were the words: “MAKE MOVIE-STYLE CAR CHASES!!!” I’m guessing about the number of exclamation marks. And I suspect that MOVIE-STYLE was underlined several times.
I’ve only spent half an hour or so with the game (thanks to The X-Factor, Harper’s Island, Eastenders and season one of Dollhouse eating my weekend), but that half hour was a gigantic feast of car chase excellence, with handbrake turns around sharp corners, huge leaps from road to train tracks, jumping from car to car, ramming cops off the road and pedestrians leaping out of the way at the last second.
You know, pretty much everything that makes car chases so thrilling. If it’s the game’s aim to make you feel part of an amazing action movie, it does the job admirably. How this will translate into several hours of gaming remains to be seen, but the core chase mechanics are definitely present and correct.
Cocoto Kart Online (iPhone)
Oct 16th
The law states that anyone in possession of a gaming console must own at least one cart racing game for that console. I’ve had my iPhone for a few months now, so was worrying that I might get a nasty fine from the authorities if I didn’t buy one soon.
I settled on Cocoto Kart online, because it’s the cheapest cart racer out there – 59p! – and because the kids over on the Touch Arcade forums seem to like it.
Played several races last night and I’m not sold on it yet, but I’m not yet ready to delete it.
Good Things
It’s fast. No starting out at walking pace and gradually working your way up to reasonable speeds. It’s no Wipeout or anything, but it’s good and speedy.
The tracks seem to have some nice shortcuts and I’ve seen more than I can work out how to get to.
The online works fine. I tried out a quick race over the Internet and didn’t have any issues, though I was soundly beaten.
Bad Things
It’s far too hard in single player. Even the first “easy” races are completely unforgiving and coming in anything other than last is an achievement worthy of a post on Twitter, at least.
There doesn’t seem to be any in-game help or advice, as far as I can see. I may be blind, but I did go looking. You boot the game up, it asks you to choose a character without telling you what the differences between them are. You have to work out the power-ups and the controls for yourself. Of course, it’s mostly pretty obvious, but some guidance would be lovely.
Most importantly, I’m not sold on any of the control schemes yet. The tilt controls seem like they work, until I find myself unable to get round corners. The d-pad controls I tried for half a race but liked even less. I think the controls might actually be fine, but just require a lot more skill than I’ve got right now. More breaking, turning into corners at the right time, that sort of thing. I just can’t really tell right now.
Some help pages and an easier single player would help a lot. Right now, you’re left with what seems to be a very hardcore cart racer. That may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it feels like a game for and by people who have played Mario Kart far too much and want a stiffer challenge.
The reception many people have given it suggest that there’s not a bad game in there, but it’s going to take some more digging to find it.
Orbital (iPhone)
Oct 16th
Went back to Orbital after some time away last night and tried to get a new high score in Pure mode. I upped my high score on the new phone, but it’s pathetic next to the score I had on my old phone. Anyway, the game’s great fun and is well worth buying.
Do you see what I did there?
Shoot me now.
Actually, the most interesting thing about Orbital is probably the rhythm of it. You can’t control the cannon at the bottom of the screen, so you need to wait for it to be pointing in the right direction. All the waiting should make the game feel relaxing, but the knowledge that a single badly-placed shot can end your game makes the game feel… oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I get impatient and wish I could aim the cannon myself. Sometimes I get unsure of myself and find myself unable to shoot. Sometimes I get tired of waiting and shoot the ball of in whatever direction the cannon happens to be facing. There’s really no coherent feeling to the game. Sometimes it grabs me by the balls and squeezes, sometimes it feels like I’m standing at a counter waiting for an especially slow fast food order – often both in the course of a single game.
And yet it never loses the “one more go” factor, because you always, always, always know that you messed up, either through incompetence or impatience. The game is very harsh, but it never feels like it wants you to fail. Some games have a relationship, even a rapport, with the player. Orbital is just there, cold as outer space and completely unconcerned with whether you live or die.
