iOS : iBomber Attack

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibomber-attack/id538751326?mt=8
Univeral, 99cents, 240mb, Gamecenter Enabled, Dual Stick Shooter

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

Vita : Need for Speed Most Wanted

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.

o/

Now Playing Vita

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!

o/

Now Playing iOS

Morning...

-yawns-

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.

o/