A Gaming Diary
Posts tagged minigore
Minigore (iPhone)
Dec 11th
Hooray for Minigore, king of the twin-stick iPhone shooters! No, really, it is. Other games may offer more in terms of content, but none of them feel as right as Minigore. It’s a simply brilliant game. I do love it so.
Anyway, I have set myself a goal. I want to get 100,000 kills before Christmas, so I can unlock John Gore’s Christmas hat outfit while it’s still relevant.
Of course, if I start getting sick of the game then I may give up – I’m not going to punish myself to fulfill an almost meaningless goal – but I’m going to be playing a lot of Minigore. At least it’s only a goal based on time spent playing, rather than any sort of skill.
Anyway, I’ll be sure to keep you posted on my progress. I’m sure you’re all terribly excited.
Minigore (iPhone)
Dec 7th
New Minigore update! Hooray! This one adds unlockable characters (some with in-game kills, others will real money), new enemies, a day/night cycle and new weapons. Pretty major update, all in all – and a good one. The picture below shows the new wormy enemies that come out at night.
As is traditional, though, the update seems to be bugged. I just unlocked Insane mode at 4,900 points, not the required 6,000 points.
Here’s the screen showing the achievement.
And here’s my high score table after the game.
Still, I’d have been really annoyed at dying on 5,982 points if I hadn’t hit that bug – and Insane mode is great fun, so never mind.
Ten Best iPhone Games, November 2009
Nov 23rd
I’m often asked for iPhone game recommendations, so I’ve decided to post my list of the ten best games available for the platform. The plan is to post a list every few weeks, so please click the “top ten lists” label below to make sure you’re looking at the latest version if you’ve come to this post through a search engine. This list is in alphabetical order and consists of my own personal choice of games, based purely on how much I enjoy them.
33rd Division
A line-drawing game in the tradition of Flight Control and Harbor Master, but with a stealthy twist. Your job is direct soldiers to safe spots on the map, but without them being seen by the enemies. You can’t just draw a path, but must adjust it as the enemies patrol and lie down to stay out of sight. It’s tough, rewarding and incredibly exciting, distilling the essence of stealth into a fast-paced arcade rush.
Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies
A direct port of the Zombies game mode from World At War on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, CoD: Zombies really shouldn’t work. A game designed for high-definition hardware and a fully-featured controller – on the iPhone? Incredibly, it’s a total success. There are three different control schemes, all of which work well. The graphics are astounding, with the zombie animations especially noteworthy. And the wave-based survival gameplay simply never gets old. Even without considering the online cooperative multiplayer, this is one of the ten best games on the iPhone. At the time of writing only one map is available, as more are added this game will only get better.
Canabalt
Superb conversion of the web-based Flash game, Canabalt is a pure rush, controlled simply by tapping the screen when you want to jump. It’s wonderfully presented, perfectly simple and hugely addictive, with the randomly-generated levels meaning you can never be sure quite what’s ahead.
Civilization Revolution
Civilization Revolution was a great game on the Xbox 360. The core of the game was the same in the DS conversion, but an awkward interface made it difficult to enjoy. The iPhone version of the game, though, is a triumph. It may not be as pretty as the 360 version or have the AI tweaks that top players want, but it’s much easier to control than the DS version. It’s more of a game than the the more simulation based PC Civilization games, but that doesn’t stop it being a great way to build an empire.
Doom Classic
It may seem to be overkill to have two first-person shooters in this list when no tower defence or racing games have made the cut, but it’s not my fault that both CoD: Zombies and Doom Classic are deserving of a place in this list. Arguably the best game ever made, Doom has never really translated well to handheld consoles due to control difficulties. The iPhone version, however, controls beautifully and makes this the third-best version of this classic game (after the PC and Xbox 360 versions). The level design, weapons and enemies are still as wonderful as ever. If you’ve ever loved Doom, this is the version to carry around in your pocket. If you’ve never played, now’s the time to start.
iDrop Dead: Flower Edition
A physics-based puzzler where your job is to inflict as much damage as possible to cute cartoon characters. Tear their limbs off, expose their skulls and blow them up. This is a game, though, not an animated joke and the level goals are well-judged and careful consideration and well-timed flicking is needed to get them all. Forget Ragdoll Blaster and Max Injury, iDrop Dead is the pinnacle of the ragdoll genre and the Flower Edition contains the most content and is well worth paying for over the free versions.
Minigore
There are a lot twin-stick shooters on the App Store, but Minigore is the best. It may not have the RPG-like aspects of Alive-4-ever or the maze-like levels of Against The Fire, but it surpasses all other examples of the genre in pure frantic shooting fun. It’s fast, furious, relentless and tuned to perfection.
Orbital
Fantastic game that tests your aim and your brain. The mechanics are hard to explain, but obvious when you play. It’s a brutally hard game, but never unfair. Like many great games, you may develop a love-hate relationship with it – but you’ll keep going back.
Soosiz
The sound-bite description is Mario Galaxy in 2D, but with its cute visuals and small, but increasingly challenging, levels Soosiz soon leaves its inspiration behind and proves itself to be its own master. It controls perfectly, features a surprising amount of variety and has a enough levels to keep you going for a long, long time. It’s a joyous, bouncy experience, reminiscent of the best 16-bit platformers while being completely modern.
Str8ts
Sometimes you need to kick back and feed your brain, not your reactions, and there are a number of grid-based number puzzles for such occasions. There’s Sudoku, obviously, and KenKen, but the best of them is Str8ts. It’s impossible to say why, but Str8ts is simply the most satisfying puzzle game there is. It’s always logical and if you’re stuck, it’s only ever because you’ve missed something. The ratio between baffled staring and eureka moments is just right and when things flow, it’s glorious.
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 21st
Another day, another Minigore update. This one’s mainly to fix the terrible bugs in the last version, but also adds some extended music and adds power-ups to the radar.
You see that picture? I risked life and limb to take that. You see the little icon on the right of the screen there? The one with the yellow circle around it? It shows that there’s a crate over in that direction.
So, nothing very new then, but Minigore remains a fantastic piece of shooting action that should probably come preinstalled on every iPhone to prove to people that virtual controls can work.
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 20th
It’s been a few days since I played Minigore, which is a few days too long. Played it at lunchtime, though. Good news, too. I got a new high score.
Witness.
Best by quite a long way, but still a fair way off unlocking Insane mode. (You need 6,000 points for that one.) And I like the way the high score table hides my blushes/horribly broken corpse.
I’m glad I’m not Amish.
What comedy show had a sketch about a new religion that didn’t use technology invented after 1981 (or so) and had people having to play on an old Atari console and, I dunno, use a rotary phone or something? That was very funny at the time, which was probably around 1990 or thereabouts. Anyone?
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 15th
Got myself a new high score last night. Not especially impressive – about 4,362 or thereabouts – and a long way off unlocking Insane mode, but I was pleased.
Fantastic game, it really is. You go online and there are all these people moaning about the lack of “depth” in iPhone games like this, but here’s a game that’s a shallow as a Saharan puddle and is one of the very best games on the platform. Really, honestly, who needs depth when you’ve got THRILLS! and EXCITEMENT! and HEART-POUNDING TENSION! and OTHER THINGS WRITTEN IN CAPS AND FOLLOWED BY EXCLAMATION MARKS!, eh?
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 13th
A lunchtime spent playing Minigore is a lunchtime well-spent. (Should that be hyphenated? It feels like it should be.)
Sometimes, though, Minigore makes me sad, because I know that however many furries John Gore shoots in the face, eventually they’re going to overrun him and kill him, the poor box-headed bastard.
And then I realise that that’s a bit like life. We spend our days “shooting furries” (literally in the case of Blake Shelton, less literally when you’re a software developer living in Kent), but eventually we die.
And then I realise that, far from making things pointless, like all French people think while smoking cigarettes in coffee shops and getting unsatisfying blow jobs from philosopher-groupies under the table (subs please check), that it just means that that the fight is the thing, the point and that life is made all the more meaningful, not because we can someday “win”, but absolutely because someday we’re going to “lose”.
And then I remember that that was the message of the TV show Angel, which seemed to spawn countless numbers of (mostly Canadian) vampire detective shows, but we shouldn’t hold that against it.
And that reminds me that I have to spend this weekend watching season one of Dollhouse, because it’s filling up my Sky HD box and season two starts soon.
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 12th
Now I’ve unlocked Expert mode, this is just brilliant for a quick fix. The controls are spot on, it’s fast, furious and full of personality. I adore this game, it’s just a shame that I had to jump through hopes so I could enjoy it the way I wanted.
After praising the game’s use of OpenFeint in a previous post, though, I’ve discovered a problem. I still don’t have the achievement for unlocking Expert mode, despite getting it days ago. D’oh.
Incidentally, my wife saw me playing and asked if I’d customised the main character to look like me. I had to tell her that, no, it’s just a coincidence that John Gore is large-headed beardy chap. All he needs is long hair and a black cowboy hat.
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 9th
Yes, you’re seeing that right – I have unlocked Expert mode! Managed it on my second go this lunchtime.
The game is now brilliant again. It’s funny how things that annoy you become things you love about the game when you start enjoying it.
For example, when trying to reach the 2,000 points I needed to reach Expert mode, I was getting really very irritated with furries appearing from out of the shrubbery and killing me. Since unlocking Expert mode I now love the way that to stay alive you really need to stay in open space so the enemies can’t hide, but that you also need to keep moving. The balance between trying to stay away from cover and keep away from approaching enemies is one of the things that makes the game great.
Oh, and it is great. Now I’ve unlocked it, I can see that Expert mode works better than the original. It doesn’t start off like Normal mode but ramp up faster, oh no. It gives you 2,000 points and starts you off at that level, with enemies coming thick and fast the moment you start playing. It’s great.
Oh, and for the record, it’s so frantic that I don’t even mind having three lives instead of two. I worried that the extra life would extend the game too much, but that hasn’t happened.
Basically, the Minigore I loved is back, but now it’s better. It’s just a shame that it was unlocked at the beginning and that I had to suffer through several fairly dull attempts to get it back.
Unfortunately, now I won’t have time to take screen shots any more.
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 9th
Minigore got updated yesterday. It was sold as an episodic game, but bad luck and bugs have conspired to make it seem like an age between the release of the game and the first update. It’s finally here, though, so let’s have celebration.
Or not, as it happens.
There are a couple of big bugs in this update, for starters. If you flip the screen orientation in the options, the game will freeze and will need to be reinstalled. If you choose not to use OpenFeint the first time the game asks, then you’ll never be able to use it.
I didn’t get hit by either bug and I liked what I saw when I first started the game. There are now little icons round the edge of the screen showing where the enemies are, which makes them easier to track down during the slow early stages of the game and provides a useful indication of danger later on.
This is a good change. The update also includes the latest version of OpenFeint, which is far better than earlier versions. I, as you’ll know if you’ve been reading this blog, have had my problems with the OpenFeint system, but Minigore seems to use it well and actually uploads your scores when you go online if you were offline when you got them. Good work, Minigore developers, may other developers follow your lead.
The bad news is, though, that this update has pretty much broken the game for me. The problem with Minigore is that it starts far too slowly. In a fast arcade shooter like this, you shouldn’t have to spend the first few minutes of the game hunting down enemies. You should be the hunted. The new system for showing off-screen enemies helps with this, but it’s still a pretty boring game for the first few minutes. I don’t much like it.
Of course, this can all be solved by switching to Expert mode, which ramps up the difficulty much more quickly and turns the game from a slog into an enjoyable shooter. Except it doesn’t any more. Now, you need to earn 2,000 points in Normal mode to unlock Expert. Which means I’ve had to play eight games of boring Minigore so far to try and unlock good Minigore. My best score is 1,868, so I haven’t managed it yet. It’s getting very old, very quickly. I’m having to play a game I don’t like to try and unlock a game I do – and which I could play quite happily until the update hit.
There’s no option to play the old version. The game I liked has just been taken away from me and replaced with a game I don’t.
The other major change is for the worse, too. In the old version you had two lives, in the new version you’ve got three. No, no, no. Minigore works best as a fast, frantic short-lived blast. Extending the length of a game isn’t making it better in this case, it’s making it worse. I don’t want games to last ten minutes, I want to be struggling to last two.
I’ll probably keep plugging away at boring old Normal mode to unlock Expert mode, just because I want to get back the game I liked so much. Even then, though, the extra life may well extend the game past the exciting stage and into slog territory. I’ll just have to see.
Minigore has had a coveted place on the first page of my iPhone games since it was released, but I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to last.