Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.
My Thoughts
This game is a open world action rpg, very much feels like a combination of skyrim and kingdoms of amalur. You will spend your time running around, killing things, questing, looting, selling loot, buying new equipment, geming equipment, tossing spells, shooting arrows, leveling up, assigning attribute and talent points, improving your skills with various weapons and all on a handheld device. The game runs really smooth, has a few bugs here and there but nothing game stopping.
Audio feels very much skyrim like. Deep, relaxing, most npc conversations are voice acted.
Graphically this is one of the better titles. There are a few games that beat it but not many.
Controls, standard fare here. Bottom left movement analog stick. Bottom right, attack buttons. Middle area is for looking around. top center is the compass, tapping on it opens a minimap. Top left goes into the inventory/menu systems. Top right toggles first person, third person and stealth. The menu systems work smoothly, everything from settings, save, maps, journal, backpacks, stats and talent screens are at the ready.
My overall feeling is that this game just upped the bar all other rpgs on the iOS will strive to reach. The game plays great, the bugs aren't overly offensive, there's plenty to do and you can do and be all you want in the game. Skyrim in my pocket :)
Far Cry 3. Take skyrims open go anywhere you like atmosphere and quest system. Take dead islands talent tree system and tropical feel. Toss in a good old smattering of fps'ing goodness. Add in the awesome far cry series stealth/camo system.
I spent the first 5-6 minutes watching a great intro and escape of the camp that took me, really really gives a great feel to the whole thing. 8 minutes in, I have definite motivation for killing every damn bad guy on this island.
20 minutes in I am largely cut loose from the tutorial feel and am free to do what ever I want. Main quest, lots of side quests, things to collect everywhere, animals to hunt. Bad guys to tear up. You name it. The shops in the area give discounts based on how many radio towers I've fixed so I've set about tearing up the island in a jeep hitting each tower as quickly as possible.
I did this for about 25 minutes then hit a ceiling on my wallet. Solution? Map open, custom marker for the nearest known pig grounds, 5 minutes driving... ran over a bad guy who was yelling at me in some other language, reached the hunting grounds, killed two pigs, my shots alerted a near by outpost, got in to a gun fight with a half dozen or so baddies, skinned my pigs, upgraded my wallet, took over the outpost, watched the good locals drive in and take it over, patted myself on the back for unlocking a new quick travel point.
Main villages and outposts are available for quick travel, everywhere else its on foot or behind the wheel of what ever car I can steal. Speaking of driving, there are race events and package deliveries and the like. On the list of things to do : upgrading wallet, ammo pouches, crafting arrows, making medicines, liberating outposts, shooting random asshats, rescuing friends i was vacationing with at the beginning of the game, powering up radio towers, delivering packages, lots and lots of sidequests, etc.
No loading screens with the exception of fast travel. Visually stunning, feels to me like dead island with better character models.
Imagine for a moment, if you were the attacking force in any tower defense title you've ever played. More than that, your one sole unit trying to make your way across the well defended battlefield of your enemy. Thats what this is. The first two iBomber titles were defense genre, you placed your turrets, upgraded them, dealt with wave after wave of incoming enemy forces and in general made life a living hell for the enemy force trying to wipe you off the map.
iBomber Attack puts you on the offensive, no more will the enemy attack your bases! You are taking the attack to them! You control one sole tank that is equipable with everything from flamethrowers to bomb strikes and gatlinguns and back again. On top of that the tank is fully upgradeable with a badge currency earned from completing missions. You start at one side of a battlemap and work your way across, left analog controls where you go, right analog controls where you shoot. Default weapon is the cannon with unlimited ammo, optional weapons are bottom middle of screen and selectable. The selected weapon replaces whats fired with the right analog stick. Each mission has primary and secondary objectives as well as intel to collect and plenty of enviroment to destroy along the way. In between missions you will spend your earned badges upgrading the tank to make it harder to hit, faster, harder hitting, etc and you'll spend gold earned on ammunition for special attacks and special weapons. IAP is here but it is entirely optional, no iBomber title has ever forced the IAP in any fashion.
Sounds are explosive, music is patriotic, controls work well though I wouldn't mind a bit more control over how fast I move around. Its a bit too easy to go from full stop to full throttle and a bit too difficult to find the slow speed. Two difficulties are present and the only difference is how hard the enemy hits. Gamecenter leaderboards and achievements are enabled, not many achievements but they do reward plenty of points and none are overly difficult to obtain.
There are 24 very large stages, the game beings back some heavy nostalgia for me from the old days of the 8bit nintendo, a game called Jackal. God I'd love to see that show up on my 3ds eventually. Here's a video of that old game in action :
I got unhealthy amounts of gameplay in to that game as a kid, I'd play it right now if it were available. -hums along to the song-
Anywho, iBomber Attack. iBomber Attack, great game, worth the pennies asked, controls spot on, music enjoyable, plenty of explosions, get it now.
o7
Need for Speed Most Wanted
Take gran turismo, add in a splash of need for speed most wanted(psp), toss in a dash of midnight club: la, mix it all up and you have a game that while incredibly fun dosent quite beat any of the three. Important, I said incredibly fun. And it is, I am enjoying myself a whole lot here. There are lots of cars, the graphics are amazing, controls do their job nicely, the music isn't offensive and there feels like plenty to do here to keep me busy for a long while.
Gran Turismo Influence
. Graphics, the turismo on the psp has the flat out best graphics of any racer on sony's handhelds to date and this game definitely takes that and runs. The graphics are one step behind the concole counterparts to this game, same with visual vehicle damage.
. Upgrades, the lack of visual customization reminds me of turismo. In this game you don't actually buy any of your upgrades. Each race in the game rewards certain upgrades depending on how you place, once you earn the upgrade, you simply choose it from a menu and walla, upgrade complete. There's no garage in this game, everything happens on the fly in the game.
Need for Speed most wanted (psp) Influence
. The ranking system. You race against random folk, accumulate enough points, unlock a new top 10 most wanted person, race them. Where this differs is 1, you dont have to race to earn points. Smash things, hit cars, jump ramps, escape the police, smash billboards, etc all earn rep points. 2, After you beat your opponent in a legitimate race, you then have to total their car inorder to earn said car and advance up the ranking.
Midnight Club: LA Influence.
. Illegal racing, open city streets, massive city to wander around, pedestrian traffic. Where this differs, the pedestrians are morons. If youre stopped in the middle of the street surfing menus and a pedestrian car comes up, he will not stop. He will ram you, smash the crap out of your car, wail on his horn and rage till you move. Similar thing happens if a cop cruises up except he'll rage and then arrest you.
So anywho.
The story is short and simple. You race around the city making a mess of everything, winning and what not. You earn points. When your points surpases the 10th place person, you unlock them for racing against. When you beat them, you then literally beat them till you total their car. Once this happens, you earn their car and rise up the ranks. Rinse, repeat, walla. Thats all you need to know. There isnt a whole lot of story here folks, just a whole lot of really fast racing.
Visuals. Gorgeous graphics, no real visual framerate issues, amazing scenery. As stated above the graphics are a step behind the consoles but leaps and bounds beyond the gameloft racing games which are its only current competition on the vita. Vehicles take visual damage as you abuse them but actual parts havent fallen off so far. Once you load in to the city you will only see loading screens for races and car changes. Crusing around generates no loading screens.
Gameplay. Race cars. Smash Cars. Jump things. Run from police. Upgrade Vehicles.Thats what you do here. The menu system is straight forward. Right arrow key brings down the menu where you choose from your unlocked cars, make upgrades, choose races, etc. The map is fully detailed, takes a moment or two to load though. Vehicle upgrade unlocks are singular to the vehicle you unlocked them in. Unlocked nitrous on your masariti, want to drive your tesla around? you'll need to unlock the nitrous there too.
Sound. A blend of modern music types, nothing annoying. Vehicles have unique sounds to their engines. Nirtous sounds a bit weak.
Fun Factor. I'm really enjoying myself. The game falls a bit short of topping any of the titles I referenced above. Turismo is a better simulator. Midnight Club is a better street racer. Need for Speed Most Wanted (psp), well I stand corrected. This game tops every need for speed thats ever been on a psp. I'll keep playing this game until rockstar puts out a new midnight club. God I'd love a new midnight club.
I've been waiting for the day I could make a post such as this. I enjoy my vita greatly and am continually stumped by the lack of attention it receives from developers. The only thing I find absolutely annoying about the handheld is the back touch screen. The following came out this week and immediately ended up on my Vita.
Assassin's Creed Liberation
Feels and plays exactly like a full console assassin's creed... with some of the vita's more quirky gameplay mechanics.
Ragnarok Odyssey
Monster hunter meets phantasy star visuals? Sold!
Need for Speed Most Wanted
A literal console port, slightly reduced graphics but everything from the console's is here :) Finally, my racing urges are satisfied...
Appologies for the lack of details for each title, I'm still in varying early stages for each game. Will blog more on them as I get further engrossed. That said, thank god we finally have triple a titles on the vita! Woo hoo!
So much for my sleep / work schedule tonight, oh well I was having chest pains for most of the afternoon and decided to get some rest. The pain is much subsided so I'm not too worried. Besides, the pain mysteriously began shortly after my brother and I decided that we were 2 and a 1/2 seasons behind on family guy and started a hulu-a-thon. Cried many times from laughing so hard, it rocked :)
On topic, I have a bazillion games on the iOS and probably 1/10th of them installed on the ipad atm due to room constraints but here's the ones recently added to my stable.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/arc-squadron/id512808632?mt=8
.99cents, universal, 310mb, gamecenter enabled, ios5.0 or later required. Think star fox in our hands, nuff said. Seriously, I'm not going to go further in to it, this rocks. iap present and optional.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibomber-attack/id538751326?mt=8
2.99, universal, 240mb, gamecenter enabled, ios4.3 or later required. This is the third title in the ibomber universe but the first to break away from the tower defense genre of the first two. You are on the attack, you work your way across massive stages blowing everything up and in general kicking ass! Reminds me of an old 8bit nintendo game that... damn it whats the name of that game. Now its song is stuck in my head. -goggles- Ah hah, Jackal :) Man, that needs to show up on my 3ds. Anyways... solid game here, great gameplay, check it out. There's a lite version on the app store, check the above link and look at related sidebar. iap present and optional.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/n.y.zombies-2/id534558776?mt=8
1.99, universal, 436mb, gamecenter enabled, ios4.3 or later required. Zombies rock. Period. This is a fps survival title, stage based, varying missions, decent graphics, dual stick and tap controls, talent point system for upgrading everything, love it :) iap present and optional.
I'll look in to reviewing one or more of those as the week goes by. My WoW and Skyrim addictions are mellowing out finally heh.
-hums along to the trailer- God that trailer never gets old, has the single best version of drunken whaler I have ever heard. On the note of game play visually it feels like bioshock meets halflife 2. Gameplay feels like those two meet thief. The missions are massive, the all have many side things to do along the way and there is absolutely no direct way about accomplishing anything. The upgrading system is a combination of cash found when on missions for standard equipment/ammunition and special 'hearts' and 'totems' for upgrading abilities like teleportation, time control and whatnot. I hear the game is about 19hrs on a normal play through. I spent about 5 hours yesterday on the first mission heh.
As I stated above, gameplay is up to you. Want to kill everyone? Go for it. Want to be the ultimate good guy and kill no one, knock yourself out. Me? I kill when forced, avoid / pickpocket my way through most, knock out those I can and explore every damn inch of every stage!
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.
Description
Symphonica is an entirely new breed of music game. Its breezy controls and tightly integrated gameplay give you a taste of what it’s like to be an up-and-coming conductor via a wholly unique gaming experience. Give Chapters 0 through 3 a try for absolutely free!
Featuring character design by Chinatsu Kurahana.
Supported platforms: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and newer, iPod touch 3rd generation and newer
> Story
Einsatz, the city of music, founded by the legendary conductor Carlos and his companions and brought to where it is today by its citizens, the Audience. Talented musicians from around the world flock here with dreams of performing in King Hall at the top of Concerto Tower, which stands tall over the city.
Takt has come to Einsatz to pursue his own dream of becoming the world’s best conductor. Little did he know that he’d be in charge of the ramshackle Fayharmonic, an orchestra on the verge of collapse. Leaning on Takt as their last hope, the Fayharmonic and their new conductor set their sights on King Hall.
Thus begins the tale of Takt and his companions in song!
> Game Highlights
1.Not Your Usual Music Game
The lack of specially designated tapping “hot spots” gives you more freedom, allowing you to feel more of what it’s like to be a conductor.
Never-before-seen features like tempo shifts and real-time, control-linked volume changes put a fresh new spin on the music game genre (patent pending).
2.Tightly Integrated Gameplay and Story
Unlike games that let you pick and choose only the songs you like, Symphonica puts you in the role of a conductor honing the skills of his musicians. In this novel approach to the genre, the music game portion is organically integrated with the story, so you’ll be drawn in by the gripping plot while performing stunning classical pieces.
3.Go Even Further
Perform at higher score levels to increase your orchestra’s Fame and add new pieces to your repertoire.
Plus, once you’ve cleared a given song with a certain number of points, you can test your skill with a more challenging version of the song. It’s perfect for experienced music game aficionados!
4.A Treasure Trove of Classical Masterpieces
Featuring nearly 50 instantly recognizable songs (20 full performances and approximately 30 rehearsal pieces), including Dvorak’s New World Symphony and Beethoven’s Fifth. You might not necessarily know a piece’s name, but once you hear a few notes, you’ll be humming the whole thing!
- Pricing -
Chapters 0 through 3: Free
Chapters 4 and beyond & bonus episodes: $2.99 each
Chapters 4 through 7: $6.99 (4 chapters)
Chapters 8 through the Epilogue: $6.99 (4 chapters)
Set of bonus episodes: $6.99 (4 episodes)
All chapters plus bonus episodes: $14.99 (12 chapters)
My Thoughts
This is the pricing model of square enix's that I like. I get 1/4 the game free, I can either buy the rest of the game in 1/4 segments or get a discount price by purchasing the 3/4 of the game at one time. Square is continuing their romph in the musical rythym segment with this title in which you are the conductor and you make swipe jestures on your touch screen to the pace of a single chord that runs the top length of your screen. Taps, swipes up down left right, double taps and more are your method of conducting. The game play is largely flawless with the exception of the occasional non recognition of my swipes. The music is top notch, all classical. Graphics on par, everything is enjoyable. Missing is gamecenter (-.-) but the game is enjoyable to a point where I don't really mind. Note, you can swipe/tap anywhere on the screen, no need to hover over the notes in this title.
There is gobs of story here, its like taking the amount of story in your typical modern final fantasy and attaching it to guitar hero 'lite'. Each chapter includes a good 10-15 minutes worth of reading with usually two 20 second training sessions and one full blown orchestra performance. The characters are very well drawn in the story segments, light and cartoony during the performance.
Your performance is based upon a combination of accuracy in tapping, amount of missed notes and your combo multiplier. All songs have multiple difficulties and during the 12 chapter story you will be playing the easy mode of each song. Once a chapter is complete that song becomes available in concert mode. A 'S' score or higher is required to unlock the higher difficulties of the songs in concert mode. Generally, 3 mistakes or less will get you a 'S' score. 2 mistakes gets an 'SS' and 1 mistake sometimes gets a 'SSS'. Sometimes probably determined by the length and complexity of the song played.
There are 20 songs in total. 11 are unlocked through the main story, 4 through bonus stages and the remaining are unlocked by fame level. Your fame level is the equivalent of your experience level in rpgs. you gain fame by performing well. Get enough fame and you level up. Level up and you get new song(s). As stated above earning an "S" is required for unlocking the higher difficulty levels of music but you also need to complete the entire main story if you want to be able to ever play on the hardest difficulty. You can not farm your fame up though. There is a fixed amount of fame available for each song on each difficulty. So if you play a song and "A" (and gain the fame for C, B and A) score it then return again and "SS" score it you will gain the amoung of fame for the S and SS score. This prevents song farming and forces you to practice and improve your abilities on all the music here. And to be honest, given the song list... totally worth it :)
The Song List:
1, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Mozart
2, The Nutcracker, "Waltz of the Flowers", Tchaikovsky
3, Symphony No9, "From the New World", Dvorak
4, Carmen Suite No1, "Les Toreadors", Bizet
5, Serenade in C major, Op48, Tchaikovsky
6, Symphony No6, "Pastoral", Beethoven
7, William Tell, Overture, Rossini (hardest song in my opinion!)
8, L'arlesienne Suite No2, "Farandole", Bizet
9, The Planets, "Jupiter", Holst
10, "Pomp and Circumstance", Elgar
11, A Midsummer Night's Dream, "Wedding March", Mendelssohn
12, Tannhauser, Overture, Wagner
13, "Vltava (Moldau)", Smetana
14, "Raphsody in Blue", Gershwin
15, "Orphee aux enfers", Offenbach
16, Symphony No5, Beethoven
17, "1812 Overture", Tchaikovsky
18, Bwv 1068:II, "Air on a G String" by Bach
19, Espana by E. Chabrier
20,
There are 20 tracks in total according to the status screen, I'll fill in the final three when I unlock them. The songs are largely their full length versions though the wifey does point out that the long slow drawn out beginning of raphsody in blue was cut short.
This is one really relaxing enjoyable game and in my opinion totally worth the asking price. If Square can get gamecenter added and you know add even more music over time they'll have a long term hit on their hands. The ending credits in the main story suggest more content to come -fingers crossed-
Update 1 : Any songs you have completed/unlocked are available under music in game and can be played to your hearts content. Great for plugging your device in to your car for a long drive... sweet!
I have three gaming obsessions and this blogs description now covers all three. Gamecenter... iOS. Trophies... my vita. Achievements... steam. I'm not all that interested in the consoles mainly because I prefer my gaming mobile. iPad, Vita, Laptop.
Been a little over a week since my last post, my bad. World of Warcraft's 4th Expansion, Mists of Pandaria launched a week and a half ago and I've been knee deep in panda's, leveling, new zones, you name it. A summary? This expansion rocks. It improves the game in almost every way and with very few exceptions I am enjoying the new content emensly. The new zones are large and varied. The story rock solid. There is humor all throughout, plenty of tongue in cheek moments. They paid special attention to the cooking profession and added an actual farm where you can maintain crops and whatnot. Think farmville done right. In all honesty I wouldnt be suprised at all of zynga borrowed a few ideas blizzard put in to action with WoW's farm system for use on their freemium crap.
My only annoyance? In my humble opinion blizzard has ruined my druid for me. For the last three expansions and the original version of the game, Druids were multi taskers when using the feral spec. The only difference between a feral cat and a feral bear druid was three talent points so when dungeoning, raiding or pvping it was a quick form shift and bam good to go on another role. This changed with pandaria. They have added a fourth specialization to the druid (only class in the game with more than three), feral(kitty) and guardian(bear). In concept and in a group and when not in pvp I imagine this does very very well. The druid as a bear will be paying more attention to their damage mitigating abilities, healers will be keeping a closer eye on them too. Druid kitties don't need to worry about the 'quick, bear up, a tanks down!' as a feral kitty has no tanking ability anymore worth squat.
In solo practice? As a bear my dps is in the toilet. Everything takes for god ever to kill, period. In kitty form? I'm excessively squishy. In pvp? My enemies keep me stunned and whittle down my hit points, with pandaria the mastery for bear druids is simply more armor. No damage mitigation. No proc'ing bonuses, nothing.
So, in summary. My bear druid is very boring in solo level 90 content. My bear druid is very quickly killed in pvp situations. My bear druid is button usage heavy with what feels for me to be very little reward for my effort.
How am I handling this? Doing my dailies each day and then hoping over to my death knight who feels like she kills things 3 times faster and her mastery bonus makes her damn near invincible compared to my bear druid when at the same level.
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That said, my initial craze rush for WoW is sated and I'll be spending more time on the ipad and iphone again, especially when at work on mids.
Well its finally here and its in my hands and the iPhone 5 is a really impressive toy... I mean phone, yea! The phone is taller, weighs less, up to two times faster, has double the ram of its predecessor, 4g internet speeds, very very cool!
Visually, gone from the backside is the fragile glass though to be honest that bums me out a little bit. Apparently alot of people had breaking issues with it but I never did. I loved its clean look heh. Of course the finish on the i5's backside is really nice too, but its that type of material that loves finger prints just as much as it dosent want to give them up. On the i4 you could swipe your finger and the smudges were gone. On the i5 you'll probably end up getting a cloth or something. The sides are metallic but feel more rounded on the sides. The top has some sort of reduced glare built in to it. Not a overwhelmingly large reduction but it helps. Oh and the black model is literally black this time, top to bottom, no shiney silvers or polish.
The screen as we all know is a half inch taller though the phone itself not quite so much. They reduced the top bottom bezels a little bit as they increased screen size in an attempt to keep the phone from getting too much bigger. Apparently the pixels in the screen have been reworked to be brighter or some such.
Hardware specs. Apple says the processor is at least two times as fast and a few websites have reported 1gig of ram. And it shows. Everything loads fast, navigation is silk smooth, very very cool! Touch Arcade snagged asphalt 7 and loaded it on a 4s and 5. The 5 loaded 7 seconds (twice as fast) faster than the 4s.
Comfort, I was expecting it to be ackward holding this thing as a phone and when I first opened the box the height increase looked odd to my eyes but she holds fine, I no longer have a spare finger along the bottom, all my digits simply rest on the sides. Probably a good thing too, no chance of my smudging the antennaes anymore heh!
The lightning connector is really really freakin small but can fit in to the iphone5 either way you turn it. Its also a deeper connection in to the phone so the accidental cord tug popping half the old connector out days should be done and gone.
Over all this is a really really nice phone, best one from apple yet! Can't wait to see all the game studios catch up to the screen size increase. The games already making use of it are really really well improved visually, more realestate on the screen of a 3d game is always a plus. Note, games that do not yet have this support of screen size will instead have borders along the top and botton of the screen, much like watching a whidescreen movie on a tv at home. These borders are non responsive in regards to gameplay and should be treated as extra large bezels on the phone for such games.
Also of note, there is a massive list of game studios putting their games on discount to celebrate this phones arrival, here's a link to touch arcade's discount list :
Get ready for off-the-hook break beat action. Surrender to the rhythm and tap like hell. Brave furious battles that combine stunning graphics and amazing background music!
■ Story
Where are you, Dad?
Salem, Massachusetts
Present day
Serenity is just your average college girl, but when she suddenly loses contact with her father Dr. Aleister, she sets out to find him at the Salem State Hospital & Asylum where he works.
Serenity arrives to finds she barely recognizes the hospital anymore. Stepping warily into the shattered ruins, she meets a talking teddy bear.
Introducing himself as David, the talking teddy bear claims to have once been human, but when Serenity asks him about her father’s whereabouts, countless demons suddenly appear.
Just before her father disappeared, he had sent a mysterious app to her smartphone.
Known as the Demons' Score, the app is a powerful program that enables her to take control of demons that possess her body.
Where has her father gone? How will she ever find him? And what’s up with that talking teddy bear? Serenity’s battle to the tune of Hell’s minions is about to begin.
■ Game Features
• Break beat action in which you battle demons in time to the rhythm.
• Stunning graphics driven by the Unreal Engine.
• Thrilling battle scenes and a story that sucks you in.
• Fierce battles with boss demons, all portrayed using dramatic camerawork.
• Once you complete a stage in Story mode, you can purchase the powers of boss demons that you defeated.
• You can change the demon powers Serenity controls by having different demons possess her.
• Having different demons possess Serenity expands gameplay and battle scenes.
• Serenity's costumes change according to the demon that is possessing her.
• Abilities, voices, and special attacks vary by the possessing demon.
• Satan's (US$9.99) difficulty level soared up!
With severe survival conditions, you can enjoy the game even more stoically.
• Helpful items are also available in case you get stuck.
• Enjoy two game modes: Story Mode and Free Mode.
• Select the difficulty level you want to play. Easy, Normal, and Hard are available, but to enjoy the entire story, you have to... (You'll just have play to find out!)
• Your scores in Free Mode can be sent to the online rankings at the Game Center.
• Saved data can be synced with iCloud.
* Your Soul Eaters (a special item) are not stored on iCloud.
* You must be running iOS 5.0 or later to use iCloud.
Try to completely conquer each stage by gaining the powers of Hell!
I Say
Alot of people are going to either refuse to buy this game because of its iap system or they are going to be misled in to buying it thinking they are paying premium pricing for a premium title only to discover what lies within. What you get for your 6.99usd is the normal and medium difficulties for the game, the outfit your character starts with and the outfit awarded for beating the first boss. Each additional boss rewarded outfit costs an additional 2.99usd (3.99usd for the upper sets) and Hard difficulty will set you back an additional 9.99usd. The game is fully beatable without spending beyond the initial investment but it won't have as much replayability without the additional difficulty setting and there will be a bit of grinding as you won't benefit from the improved stats on the better equipment.
Square Enix seems to be in a state of confusion as to how they want to handle their games iap. We have seen games set at console/handheld quality and pricing. We have then seen games where the initial chapter is free with additional chapters costing iap. And now... this. The fact that the game is enjoyable and fully beatable without the iap purchases being forced down my throat is the only reason its still installed on my ipad... but even those perks won't keep it around for very long because the gamecenter is leaderboards only.
Anyways, lets move beyond the iap blah blah and talk about the game. Square Enix also lately has been trying out variations on control schemes for their games and this title is as different from the rest as it gets. Anyone who has ever played Elite Beat Agents will be somewhat comfortable here. Circles appear at various points on your screen and your action towards them depends on what the circle is up to. Arrows mean tap when it hits optimal point. Swords mean swipe in the direction of the blade. Double circles mean two finger tap and so on. The tutorial is quite decent and is actually shown in the video above. This control scheme lends to a frantic and entertaining gameplay experience though it does bring out one long existing problem with touch games, your hands will spend most of the time covering up the screen so you won't be paying attention to the games graphics at all. Not to worry though, 90% of the combat is the characters mindlessly swishing weapons, shooting guns and taunting eachother.
Completing fights awards you experience, leveling up increases your hit points. You spend real money to buy new outfits as you beat bosses. The outfits boost your exp gain and hit points. Thats the summary of the rpg experience of this game.
Voice acting, its a japanese company translating a japanese game in to english using voice acting that is... heh. Yea. Anyone who's played a japanese port to usa shores knows what I'm talking about. Apparently Japan thinks we talk in deep grunty voices, high pitched excited voices and our females sound like they could cry at any moment, all the time. There is a limited variety to whats said in the game and each suit gives your character the voice of the demon you killed to get it. Most demons are male so you'll have to get used to your female character sounding like a guy most of the time. The selection of things they say is also somewhat limited so pretty soon you'll of heard everything a suit can possible have to say during combat, a hundred times. The exception to this is inbetween combat when the story plot advances and you talk to your companion or you talk to the boss. Regarding music, the song played in the tunnel sequence leading up to a boss is unique to the outfit you are wearing. The music played during the boss fight is unique to the boss and the outfit he rewards upon defeat matches that music.
Visuals. The visuals remind me of infinity blade 1. The enviroments are detailed, not offensive to the eyeballs but the characters looke 'shiney'. I'm a guy here so forgive me for observing that the main characters boobs look like semi melted wax most of the time. There's no physics here so dont expect jiggling, waving hair or tossled outfit trims.
The Story. Your father found a demon song (score), his secretary played it, a portal to hell opened, demons came out, your fathers secretary was turned in to a teddy bear and is your companion throughout the game. The main character enters the facility intent on rescueing her father and thanks to an app on her iphone she can apparently naturally fight, fly and absorb defeated boss demons. Each 'stage' involves a flying tunnel sequence where you shoot a bunch of lesser demons, get kicked back to the start of the tunnel, kick down the doors, have a long conversation with a demon, kill it, have a conversation with the teddy bear, go to the victory screen, have a new expensive outfit flaunted at you, hit next and start the process all over again.
Funny, reading that paragraph makes the game feel miserable. It isn't and I do enjoy the game that my money lets me play. It gets real fast paced later on in the game and over all its very rewarding. Missing moves deducts from your hit points, hitting moves replenishes your hit point bar. The string of moves flows with the music and the plot isnt totally horrible. It looks like the game can be completed without purchases beyond the initial entry fee though the map appears to be skipping certain stages which means those stages are limited to medium and hard difficulty or those stages only popup with certain outfits. Not sure which.
My plans? I'm going to play the game until i either beat it or something else comes up with achievements and i need the space. I won't be buying every outfit that shows up but I will probably buy the very last very best outfit when/if it becomes available.
My suggestion to squarenix? Squeenix, your full price and your pay by chapter models are nice, this pricing model sucks. The most offensive part about this pricing model is that this game in japan costs 14 bucks and has no iap in it. Your on a great roll, finally paying attention to the iOS but a warning, the iOS community will only pay so much attention to you if you keep treating us like wallets waiting to be plucked.
They Say
Lili is a quirky adventure RPG hybrid with stunning visuals, silky-smooth graphics and a cinematic storyline. Tuned for new devices, Lili is one of the most visually-stunning games available on iOS.
On the mysterious island of Geos, Lili will meet a number of hilarious locals, explore beautiful environments, solve some puzzles, and even challenge an oppressive regime or two along her way. Lili uses an amusing "non-combat" system for dealing with enemies, and sorts out a few personal issues along the way.
FEATURES: Jaw-dropping console quality 3D visuals Support for new larger screens Full Retina support Innovative controls designed specifically for touch devices Free roaming RPG world Hilarious story, characters, and quests Whimsical gameplay, appropriate for nearly anyone Loads of items and outfits to collect and upgrade Difficulty option specifically for kids
I Say
What we have here is a non combat focus exploration game based around collecting flowers, completing quests and buying equipment/upgrades as you go. The story is pretty simply, Lili as a class assignment comes to what is supposed to be a deserted island to collect flowers. What she finds is a full town filled with two different 'races' of creature and plenty to do beyond her original goals.
The races consist of spirits and the constructs they've created to do all the menial labor. The spirits are snobbish and abusive of their creations and after one steals from Lili and she finds out that the rarest of flowers spawn literally on the spirits she decides to start collecting.
This game is largely about exploration, your looking around corners, exploring buildings, chasing spirits around, completing quests, selling flowers for coin, spending the coin on equipment and upgrades. IAP is present in the form of currency for the impatient but I havent seen anything to date that forces you in that direction.
Controls are simple. Tap to walk. Double tap to run. Hold your finger down while moving to turn. Hold your finger down while not moving to look around Lili. Tap on doors, chests and pots to break them. Hold down your finger and drag on flowers to pluck them. The Camera works well enough 95% of the time though it does have one annoying habit of getting twitchy and jerking around if you walk her in to a corner. This happens because the area of the screen you tap on does not determine the direction she walks in, it just sets her walking. So taping behind her when she's facing a wall will send her bumping repeatedly in to the wall. That is the only real annoyance with the controls though.
The 'combat' in this game involves collecting flowers from the backs of the spirits. You chase them down and jump on their back. From there you drag flowers off them while then freak out running around the place trying to get you off. Dragging flowers lengthens the timer that you can spend on their back. There are spikes to avoid draging over, enrage moments where they sprout bombs and the like. Once you finish you get a star rating based on how many flowers you plucked and that spirit becomes a permanent spawn in town and on your map so you can try to perfect your plucking skills.
Speaking of skills, Lili has three. Speed, how fast she runs. Grip, determines how long she will stay on a spirits back. Stealth, how close she can get to the spirit before it notices her and starts running. Skills are upgraded at the trainer and the currency he requires is flowers.
Flowers come in two varieties. White (normal) and Red (rare). There are also keys that you use to unlock doors and coin that you use to buy equipment. Coins are found in chests, pots and can be acquired by selling flowers to the shop keep.
There are lots of quests to complete and most quests involve finding something laying about the town thats found randomly. There are dozens of items each with backstories and most with a construct that has a need for them.
Graphically this is an amazing experience. All the little details were given great effort, flowers sway, branches and leaves move about, everything is very well animated, even lili herself. I found myself running around at sharp turns more than once just to see the liquid in a bottle on her belt swish about.
Sound is nice though aside from a few generic comments there are no voice overs. Much reading will be required when you have Lili engage constructs and spirits in conversation, and everyone can be talked to.
This in my opinion is a fantastic game for all ages, it even has a kid difficulty setting heh. It feels like a nintendo zelda game without all the swishing and fairy harrassment so far. Fully worth the asking price, I'll no doubt be blogging about this one as I get further in the game.
Wednesday night is considered to be the unofficial new release date of the week for the iOS app store. All games that follow are available some time between now and 1130pm EST... usually.
Free up some space friends, apparently this package is at a minimum 700+mb download and we all know how apple handles updates to anything app store, same applies here. Will likely need at least double that during the install process to complete. Also, battery plugged in shouldn't be to much of an issue for us, my ipad lost about 7% total battery during the entire process.
Hit settings, general, update button and go get something to eat, takes 30 minutes to an hour depending on your device. Oh and once thats done get ready for a flood of app updates for all your games...
In all honesty I like iOS updates for that reason. I watch my games... of which I have entirely too many and the ones that don't receive an ios update after say... 45 days I consider to be dead and usually uninstall to make room for more games.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later.
What They Say
Lead your clan to victory! Clash of Clans is an epic combat strategy game. Build your village, train your troops and battle with thousands of other players online!
★★★★★ “This game is phenomenal”
★★★★★ “If you were looking for a game to play that's fun and strategic this is better than any other game out there”
Clash of Clans is an addictive mixture of strategic planning and competitive fast-paced combats. Raise an army of Barbarians, War Wizards, Dragons and other mighty fighters. Join a clan of players and rise through the ranks, or create your own Clan to contest ownership of the Realm. Driving back the goblins is just the first step - your quest isn't over until your clan reigns supreme over all others!
= FEATURES =
✔ FREE TO PLAY
✔ Build your village into a undefeatable fortress
✔ Battle with players worldwide and take their Victory Points
✔ Join together with other players to form the ultimate Clan
✔ 10 unique units with multiple levels of upgrades
✔ Defend your village with Cannons, Towers, Mortars, Bombs, Traps and Walls
✔ Fight against the Goblin King in an epic campaign through the realm
Having any problems? Any suggestions? We would love to hear from you! You can reach us at support at clashofclans.feedback@supercell.net
Note: A network connection is required to play
What I Say
This is a sweet game, despite the iap presence. At the most basic level you build your town and smash other players towns. You will amass coins and elixir that you spend on troops and upgrades for your many buildings. Eventually you will log out and be attacked by another player, usually resulting in the loss of your town. The next time you log in the town will repair itself over roughly a minutes time, and then you'll start the process over again.
All your construction options are nicely organized by resouce producing, defensive, offensive and decoration catagories in the build menu. Buildings can be moved around after being placed, even if their under construction. Selling buildings refunds you partial building costs, as does cancelling construction. Everything is upgradeable, even your walls.
Visually this game is pleasing, looks to be full 3d rendering. As of todays update your units change visually depending on their levels. All buildings have level based visuals as well.
Sound is enjoyable. The music appropriate to your situation and the combat sounds of swords clashing and spells flying is awesome!
There is iap present though it isnt forced upon you. You really can play this entire game without spending a dime, the only cost will be patience on your part. Additionally you will randomly receive iap currency (gems) for taking down the rocks and trees on your map. The trees respawn over time so keep dilligent and you can amass a nice fortune of gems. I suggest spending them to offset the initial construction cost. Never use them to speed up construction in progress, all your doing there is buying your lack of patience. Rather buy a nice new building sooner!
This game is online at all times so if the server is down for maintenance or your out of internet range, no play for you.
There is a lengthy single player portion to the game involving various goblin bases that you are tasked with destroying. The rules of victory apply in you versus goblins as well as you versus players. You need a star to win. Killing their main building equals instant victory, one star. Killing 50% of their buildings equals instant victory, one star. 100% of their buildings is required for a three star victory. Also note, when a player attacks you if they get one star you get a free 12hr shield preventing anyone from attacking you. If they get three stars, you get a 16hr shield. Win, win!
A player attacking you can not loot your entire supply of coin and elixir. Only a percentage of it is available, looks like roughly 25%.
Some tips :
. If you are looking to save coin and elixir for construction purposes, place your main building outside and away from your defenses.
. If you are looking to rise in leaderboards, kill your enemies main building Top priority.
Both those tips are related and here's why. When a person is looking to rise up the leaderboards they are going to go after the main building of their enemy above all else. Killing it equals instant victory. If you are looking to save up your currencies, by placing your main building off by itself your offering potential opponents an eash victory. More often than not they will spend just enough forces to kill your main building and then move on because doing so saves them troop costs and time elsewhere.
. Wall up your defensive buildings. The longer it takes a player to get to them, the longer it takes a player to kill them.
. Wall up buildings in groups of two and three, this forces the player to go through more walls over time and losing more of their troops in the process.
All in all, this is a well polished game that currently is receiving a good amount of attention from its development team. Update three just hit, I'll finish this write up with its patch notes. Enjoy :)
Whats New in 2.44
✔ Full support for iPhone 5 and 5th generation iPod Touch
✔ Big new feature: Spells! (Spell Factory unlocks on Town Hall level 5)
✔ Introducing three spells: Lightning, Healing and Rage Spell
✔ Replays added to Battle Log! Now you can see what happened when someone attacked your village
✔ Added Wizard Tower unlock to Town Hall level 6 and another Hidden Tesla to Town Hall level 8
✔ Matchmaking now gives you better matches and works faster
✔ Troop upgrades are now visualized
✔ Many visual effects were improved
✔ Support for iOS 6 Game Center challenges
✔ Shop and Battle Log redesigned for iPhone and iPod Touch
✔ You can now view helpful hints while the game is loading
✔ Added 3rd upgrade level for Dragon
✔ Fixed the troop donation bug
✔ Troop training and housing mechanics improved
✔ Canceling building upgrades does not give the full price back anymore
✔ Building Walls is instant but requires available worker
✔ Combat balance tweaks
✔ Confirmation popup when speeding up building construction and upgrading
✔ Players gain a very short Shield if disconnected from the server unintentionally
✔ Server now runs battles to the end if user gets disconnected during battle
✔ You can now view the clan before you accept the invitation
