A Gaming Diary
Posts tagged carcassonne
Carcassonne (iPhone)
Jun 9th
Still no idea what’s going on with Internet matches – in one current one with multiple players some people have moved, but some players don’t see those moves, but others do – but it’s fun when I actually do get to play.
Ten iPhone Games To Play In June 2010
Jun 8th
Here’s a list of ten games to play during this month. They won’t be the ten best iPhone games – any list without Angry Birds, Doom and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is not a list of the greatest iPhone games – but they’ll be selected based on a mix of quality, novelty and relevance to the month’s events.
Carcassonne
Mostly excellent conversion of the classic board game. The interface is lovely, playing against the AI is fun and it’s a wonderful conversion. It’s let down a bit by what appears to be a completely broken online implementation – many games I’ve tried to play have been full of baffled chat messages and no actual game – but when it works it’s excellent. Easy to pick up, but brain-twisting in the best possible way as you try to make long-term plans based on hopes and educated guesses. Buy it as a single-player or local-multiplayer game with a possibility of bonus online multiplayer against friends and you won’t be disappointed.
Civilization Revolution
The App Store is built on novelty. Games appear for pennies, are the best thing ever for ten minutes, then disappear. Civilization Revolution is different. It eats both hours and battery life with equal abandon and is almost impossible to put down once you’ve started a game. You start with a small, wandering prehistoric tribe capable only of building a small settlement. You end up with tanks and fighter plans and nuclear weapons as you struggle to dominate the world through your military, cultural, economic or scientific might. It’s all incredibly absorbing and doesn’t deserve to be left to rot as you devour the latest, greatest arcade novelty.
Cubed Rally Racer
Of course, there’s a lot to be said for arcade thrills and Cubed Rally Racer is one of the best of the newer games on the App Store. Essentially it’s an isometric driving game, where the aim is simply to make it to the end of the randomly generated course with as many points as possible. You simply choose how long you want the course to be – ten sections for a commercial break, twenty-five sections for a serious challenge – and then try to get to the finish line without crashing. Hard to put down, seemingly infinitely replayable, this is a serious bargain.
Dungeon Solitaire
Fed up of traditional Solitaire? Has even Spider Solitaire got tiresome? Try this. It’s very much a Solitaire game – it’s all based on a deck of cards and the shuffle is as important as the strategy – but you’ll also have to engage your brain. It’s a great game with the default deck, but there are numerous expansions that add new cards, often with new rules. It’s nothing like Magic The Gathering, despite the screenshot suggesting otherwise, but it is the best Solitaire game I’ve ever played.
FIFA World Cup
This would not feature in a list of the ten best iPhone games, but you can’t really get more topical. And if you do get swept up in World Cup fever and want to play with real players on your iPhone, then EA have had the decency to put a decent game in this bit of merchandise. Nice features like arrows showing where your passes will go and excellent replays mean that this is a very solid game. Will you be playing long after the World Cup is over? I doubt it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good game to have right now.
iNetHack
It’s always good to get free games. It’s especially good to get free games when they’re absolute classics. Initially baffling, if you can work your way inside NetHack, you’ll be rewarded with a deep, endlessly-replayable roguelike. You move through the dungeon, killing monsters, trying strange potions, attacking shopkeepers by mistake and, inevitably, dying. Just don’t get too attached to your pets.
Orbital
An absolute, stone cold classic. This should be preinstalled on every iPhone. Today, for example, the queue in Spar was huge, so what did I do while I waited to buy my Mini Cheddars? Yes, I played Orbital. Three game modes, all worth playing, all sorts of high scores and a cold, yet beautiful, aesthetic. Absolutely essential.
Robot Unicorn Attack
This is one of those arcade novelties. Maybe you won’t play it forever. Maybe it’s not as good as the free Flash version. Maybe it’s overpriced at £1.79. Whatever. Right now, today, this is great fun. And it makes a change from Canabalt.
Slay
If Civilization Revolution seems a bit too much, play Slay instead. Games are quicker, military conquest is the only option and, well, it’s not even remotely the same, apart from being turn-based and based on conquering territory on a map. It’s been around for many years, but the fact that it’s the same as the ancient PC game shows how well the mechanics have stood the test of time. Easy to overlook if you’ve not played it, this really deserves your attention.
Trucker’s Delight: Episode One
And let’s finish off with another novelty. Beautiful graphics, simple yet addictive gameplay and a fairly worrying backstory based on a music video. I played it solidly for two days and haven’t been back since. I keep meaning to, but somehow things get in the way.
Carcassonne (iPhone)
Jun 7th
Still no idea how you pronounce it, even after all these years.
One of my favourite XBLA games was the conversion of board game Carcassonne. (I’m using the past tense, as I don’t seem to have played it in about two years.) I even got all the single player achievements, which is very unusual.
Anyway, the iPhone version’s here now and it’s fantastic. The menus are a bit strange at times and Internet games seem to start randomly – I had a horrible time trying to start a game with a friend, but we got there in the end, though we’re not sure how – but the actual game interface is wonderful.
It’s a decent single player game, too. (I have trouble beating the “Easy” opponent, embarrassingly.) And there’s a “Solitaire” mode I’ve not yet investigated.
If you like Carcassonne, this is an excellent version. If you’ve never played it, there’s a tutorial here and it’s one of those “easy to learn, hard to master” kind of games. Highly recommended – I’ll let you know if I ever figure out what the problem with starting Internet games is/was.
360 Catch Up (360)
Nov 15th
Last night I caught up on a load of Live Arcade demos. They were all rubbish, I’m afraid to say. Okay, I don’t want to spend points, so I was going in with an attitude, but still. Screwjumper: rubbish. Shrek and Roll: less rubbish, but not worth money. Mutant Storm Empire: like the last one, but zoomed in and somehow rubbish. Etc.
I also tried the Two Worlds demo. It’s Oblivion, but rubbish. It’s too hard, the interface is impossible to read and the wolves look like pigs.
So I went back to Pinball FX, because it had a new table to download – for free! Pretty good table, too, though the game’s still too fast and I can’t work out what’s going on most of the time. Fun enough, though.
Then it was time for some Carcassonne. I’m slightly grumpy about it now being free after I paid 800 points for it, but I’ve had fun with it. Last night I got the final single player achievement, which was nice. Not sure if I’ll bother with multiplayer.
I also deleted a load of old Live Arcade games because I never play them and they were taking up space. I can always download them again if I miss them. Prince of Persia: bye! Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: I have you on PSP now, bye! Cloning Clyde: I’ve not looked at you in months, bye! Alien Hominid: you’re way too hard, see ya! Assualt Heroes: you’re not as good as I thought! Gauntlet: have I played you since launch week? Etc.
Carcassonne (360)
Oct 16th
I started this up for the first time in ages while the wife was having a shower and thought I might buy the expansion packs they’ve released for it. However, it turns out that they’re three hundred points each. That’s over two pounds. Each. For, what? A few more tiles and a couple of rule changes? I could almost buy Every Extend Extra Extreme for that kind of cash.
A hundred points each and I’d have been curious enough to use some of my points, but three hundred is just too much for me, I’m afraid. I could see those prices being good enough for addicts who really want some twists to their favourite game, but I just don’t play this enough.
Carcassonne (360)
Jul 9th
Tried playing without using The River expansion today and still lost about as many games as I won. I guess Medium is just about the right level for me, then.
Carcassonne (360)
Jul 8th
Ha.
After all my big talk yesterday, the AI was killing me on Medium today. The only difference between today and yesterday is that I was using The River expansion today, but that shouldn’t have made any difference, I wouldn’t have thought.
Carcassonne (360)
Jul 7th
AI doesn’t seem to be much of a challenge on Medium, either. I’ve lost the odd game, but not many. I’ll try Hard, but that’ll probably kill me dead.
Carcassonne (360)
Jul 4th
Had a quick game against the 360. Won very, very easily despite managing to complete a monastery for it by mistake. Might have to take the difficulty up a notch… or, you know, just enjoy winning.