Wednesday Release

So hey I jailbroke my ipad air last week, been enjoying the ps3 controller compatibility on any games that support iOS 7's controller functionality. And a day or so back I found another app on cydia's store that I just had to have that records everything going on your ipad screen. Epic! I can youtube review games now! Sooooo much better and easier for me to describe what the games are about this way. And yep, I originally decided that todays Wednesday release blog entry would be on youtube. And this is how it went down.

First attempt, accidentally closed the recorder mid recording session. Recorder then refused to relaunch, continually crashing. Had to reinstall from the cydia app store. Second attempt, half way through recording I noticed my headphones that I was talking in to were not plugged in to the ipad. Third attempt, Completed the entire video and during replay half way through the video audio cut out because the protective case on my ipad air nudged the mic plug out of the ipad just enough to kill recording.

Fourth attempt. I removed the ipad from the case entirely, got to the last game I was going to cover and then my cellphone sitting a foot from me started ringing, and my phone ringing is of the epic bomb alarm sound. I figured I have apple's video editing software on this ipad so I'd start a second video, finish the game review and splice both together. Problem is, when I went in to the recorder to save my first recording the recorder app crashed again, and rebooting the ipad made the app completely dissappear from my screen which means I'll need to reinstall it. Again.

Folks, this is what life is like when running jailbroken apps on a jailbroken device. There simply isn't the quality control present. I'm back to plan a. Enjoy the ps3 controller app on my jailbroken device until a proper sized controller arrives at which point I'll no doubt unjailbreak in a heartbeat.

Anyways. These are the games I downloaded last night:

Bloodstroke
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bloodstroke/id638100057?mt=8
Universal, 2.99usd, 55mb download.

Very very cool top down hack'n'slash with great graphics. Your a body guard and your job is to protect your client. Your client happens to be a scientist wanted by damn well everyone in the country so each stage generally involves your client running from point a to point b with you heading off the flood of bad guys who want to kill him. Left bottom is your analog stick used for movement, bottom right is your ranged attack. You will automatically hit anyone in your melee range, using your ranged attack shoots the hostile closest to you. Above that button is your utility attack, grenades, rocket launchers, etc. All do aoe damage. Above that is a medical pack that heals the client. And above that you can drop in resupplies of the previous two at a cost of ingame currency.

Game play is straight forward, get him to his destination and get cash for doing so along with a 1/2/3 star rating system for how well you did. Cash is also earned via achievement screen, get money when you get achievements. Cash is spent on upgrading your weapons and the clients survivability. You do not earn any money for stages you have already completed. This near eliminates any replayability in my opinion and also means you can potentially walk yourself in to the iap screen wall if you poorly spend your cash. And lets talk about iap.

The iap in this is straight up currency packs which... I don't like at all. I just paid 3 bucks for this game and now thanks to no grinding of completed stages your trying to force me in to that iap tab? If you want me to spend cash post game purchase there are only two ways this will be accomplished. Permanent iap options, coin doublers, etc. Or keep adding content via patches. I tend to give a dollar or two for patches with content I like. Aside from that, nope.

Sound is great, asian feel, combat sounds great. Graphics, the art style is unique, almost like your running around on a oriental painting heh. Very cool. Controls work well.

In the end, I do recommend this game. Its fun and great for some casual mayhem. Avoid the iap screen though, we need to get a message to these developers as to what we will and will not accept from them.

Next game, a match three rpg.

Wizard Quest
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wizard-quest/id673017009?mt=8
Universal, .99usd, 44mb download.

This game is at its heart a match three battler. You will begin stages with your mage at the bottom of the screen and he will slowly walk towards the top. As the screen scrolls random objects appear and its your job to match 3 or 4 or 5 or so to clear them. Any objects that reach the bottom of the screen subtract from your wizards hit points. Straight forward. Now, at the end of each stage is a boss fight. When fighting the boss you'll be splitting your actions between matching items that harm/hinder the boss and matching items to heal the wizard. Successfully killing the boss ends the stage, rewards you with exp which in turn levels you up and unlocks many many things for purchase inbetween stages. The map inbetween stages is top down with icons representing where you can go. Each stage lets you know what rewards you can expect for completing, there's lots of facebook logos everywhere but so far no forced facebook activity aside from a quest rewarding you for logging in. There is a crafting system present which involves collecting things on your stages. You'll spot chests that are opened by matching any three of anything next to them.

Graphics are snes era. Nothing epic but really the game has a old school charm and probably runs on every damn device in the world.

There are standard iap currency packs and... unusually you actually have to level up to unlock certain iap purchasing options. Odd.

There's alot to this game, I'll be pestering one of my co-workers about it since he on the leaderboards is about 6 times further than me heh.

The next title, endless runner.

On the Line
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id795845788?mt=8
Universal, .99usd, 48mb download

On the Line is a very straight forward endless runner in which a white line appears and generates on the screen, its your job to stay in it and not touch the edges as the line goes in random directions and gets faster / more complex the longer you last. The goal is to score distance both for leaderboard fun and the fact that each run, the cm distance traveled is applied to something your building. Completing 100% of what your building gets you an achievement and moves on to a higher cm requiring next project. The further you get in to a project, the quicker the maze gets as you play.

Very simple, but oddly enjoyable to boot. Zero iap. Music is techno.


The last game today is a fruit ninja one off.

Draw Slasher
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/draw-slasher/id670757356?mt=8
Universal, 3.99usd 356mb download.

Ok, imagine fruit ninja. With zombies. You are a ninja, and zombie monkey something or anothers are attacking your home town. To fight them you simply draw across them. The way you draw determines your ninja's slash attack. Swipe, swipe, swipe. That easy. I like the graphics, simple and artful.

A bit of drama about this game however. Its the fourth or so remake of a very similar game on the app store made by the same developer. What he did was put three of these titles on the app store over the years, each time graphically improving and adding content. Then when the vita came out he made the fourth version of this game on the vita and its the best graphically and content wise. Now, he has ported the vita version back to its roots on the iOS. Why the drama? Well over time the community on forums like toucharcade have felt that the re-releases should of simply been patches on existing games instead of entirely new titles requiring new purchases and loss of progress. And for more drama? When the developer was called out on ta's forums last night about this being a re skin of all his previous games also on the app store, the developer promptly removed all the previous incarnations of this game from the store.

Drama.

Anyways, as I've never played this title on the vita or iOS, I find it enjoyable enough. Its relaxing and has a very very simple control scheme. The game does also have three modes of play. The first is story and it does just that, tells the story of your ninja. Challenges mode has various unique requirements to the game play, additional challenges unlock as you accomplish existing ones. Arcade mode is essentially endless mode.

Zero iap, no upgrading system. This is simply a decent arcade smasher.

There were two other games I originally downloaded but have since uninstalled. The first was the new dungeon keeper from electronic arts. This game is nothing more than a clash of clans clone using the art style and units of our beloved dungeon keeper 1 and 2 from the late 90's. Its a cash grab and has nothing to do with our beloved games of yonder years. Take that fact and then toss on that I couldn't even get it to run, well... game uninstalled. I do not recommend it. If your interested in your traditional dungeon keeper experience, both are available on gog.com and I also highly recommend you support the following title :

War of the Overworld
https://wftogame.com/

Its on steam early access for about 20 dollars, 35 dollars for collectors edition. The game is expected to have an official release first half of this year.

The other game was a endless runner marvel super heroes brawler. The reason its not listed? Fatal exception errors and crashes galore. Your luck may very if you grab it. I wish you well.

o/

Randomness

Damn it, too many games, too many distractions. Lets see...

Final Fantasy 4: The afteryears just went on sale and historically square enix always puts their latest final fantasy outting on sale right as the next final fantasy hits the app store. -stares hopefully at japan's release of ff6 afew weeks back-

Eve Online : The single largest battle took place monday morning through tuesday early hours, 18 hour battle. To put this in perspective, this battle lost over 70 titans. The second largest? 10. themittani.com has all the details and outcome reports and even a decent video.

Bardbarian : update hit, all bugs on my screen fixed, woo hoo! This'll probably end up being my game of the month.

I've taken Black Flag from 55% to 84% completion, yarr!

There's alot of really interesting games hitting the app store tonight, I'll definitely update when they arrive.

Game Updates

This year is off to a good start, I've already 'beaten' two games. Two more to go and I'll have beaten last years record, sad I know.

Angry Birds Go!
All four chapters finished, all birds unlocked. In the end I spent 5 bucks on the coin doubler and 2 on the jenga mini game. Observations follow :

. Unless you plan on spending real money on the iap currency cars, just burn those iap gems you earn throughout your game play on ingame coins. The price tags on the iap currency cars are way to high to realistically safe up for. I'd suggest either spending them all on upgrades in the fourth chapter or use them to get you in to a car at the beginning of each chapter as you go.
. Fourth chapter is a grind, you'll be spending alot of time repeating win-able missions. This is a racing game however and grinding is to be expected.
. The very final bird unlock is probably the easiest bird unlock in the game once you understand one very important thing : the things he drops behind him are not to be avoided. Hit them all. They are speed boosts that stack.
. At time of completion, my fourth chapter car was missing 3 upgrades.
. Unless you can handle hard difficulty in versus (not likely unless you iap/real money buy your cars), just go in to the normal race mode against 5 opponents. Pay out there is better than medium versus if you include coins and whatnot.

Assassin's Creed Pirates
All current chapters main storylines complete, currently sitting in a 100k price tag pirate ship with great stats. Observations :

. One of the 100% sync requirements for assassination side missions changes in the later stages. It become 'kill with only mortar shots'.
. The final chapter on the travel map isnt available right now, coming soon.
. Cash flow from grinding side missions ramps up dramatically in later stages.

Both games I still have a whole lot of achievements to persue, no rush though. Too many other games staring me down heh.

o/

PS3 Controller for my iPad Air?!

Happy monday everyo.... wait, its tuesday. Federal Holiday. Ok, happy annoying day already almost over. I don't like tuesdays. Mondays are first day of the week. Wednesdays are half way to victory. Thursdays are the day before victory. Fridays, check! Tuesdays though? Tuesdays suck. You hear that tuesday? I hate you.

But thats not the subject of this blog entry. A day or so back a wonderous thing happened to the iOS gaming community! Back when iOS 7 hit, apple gave the industry an entire suite of controller support options official like. This means game developers could easily add any or all of the configurations apple offers officially to their games. And controller manufacturers could easily select from 3 or 4 controller layouts and go with it. Win, win. And in the last four months 180 games have jumped on the controller bandwagon and 4 controllers have been released with at least 4 more in development.

But... I don't like any of the current controllers. Three of them are iphone only and the fourth looks like a xbox 360 controller but only about 60% the size of an xbox 360 controller. And I have really big thumbs. So naturally to date the controller thing with the iOS hasn't been of any real interest to me. Until a day or so ago. Yesterday to be exact.

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/01/19/controllers-for-all-a-must-have-tweak-that-brings-ps3-controller-compatibility-to-ios/
What? What?!

ps3 controller, bluetoothed to my ipad air? Finally, a reason after five years to jailbreak again. Last time I jailbroke a device was back before at&t allowed hotspotting/tethering. Once they allowed it, all my devices since have been on the up and up official wise. Until today. I've jailbroken my ipad air. Connected the ipad and the ps3 controller, and it is glorious! Fast reaction speeds, soooooo much fun to be had. Here's how you do it :

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/12/22/how-to-jailbreak-ios-7-windows/
(note, make sure your able to jailbreak! that link above specficially states "Note: Again, this jailbreak is only compatible with compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini models running iOS 7.0 through 7.0.4. That means it won’t work on the AppleTV or any devices running iOS 6.x. Also, you’ll want to make sure that you backup your device using iCloud or iTunes. And for those of you who have updated via OTA, you’ll want to back it up in iTunes and do a full restore before applying evasi0n7."

1, Download evasi0n from http://evasi0n.com/ to your computer.
2, Plug your idevice in to your computer.
3, Run it as administrator.
4, Follow the instructions on evasi0n.
5, Once its finished go in to cydia, find 'controllers for all', buy it. You'll need an amazon or paypal account to do so and cydia will also require that you make an account with them.
6, Once you install controllers for all, on your computer go to http://orikad.com/sixpair_instructions.html and install sixaxispair on your computer.
7, With your i device and your ps3 controller both plugged in to your computer, run sixpairaxis.
8, Disable bluetooth.
9, Settings -> General -> Bluetooth, type that long code in to the sispairaxis prompt and hit update then once done hit close.
10, find a ios game that supports ios7 controllers, launch it. hit the ps3 main button on the controller once in game, enjoy.

Note, its not my fault if you break your idevice and I highly recommend you backup in advance to be safe. But beyond that, it is quick, painless and worked for me. evasi0n failed to complete one time, i closed it, rebooted the ipad, relaunched evasi0n and smooth there on out. You will have to keep bluetooth turned off when using your ps3 controller because its technical and i don't know the specifics but basically you can't use both at the same time.

Yep, it works, very well too heh. Enjoy :)

Eve Online

Eve Online
I spend my weekdays up in high security space, caldari state area parked at a level four mission agent for the caldari navy corporation. Run afew missions a day if so inclined, just working standings and whatnot. All the real money is down south in Providence. Providence is a nullsec region, meaning its completely player owned and there is potential player versus player conflict around every corner. But because its a nullsec region all the npc kills and asteroid belts and well everything is highly highly profitable. To the note of me making 700 million in bounties last weekend only playing casually.

So that said, I prefer nullsec but go to high sec because its just not safe down in nullsec during the work week.

Anywho, clone jumped down to my nullsec system in providence, pulled out my 750 million estimated navy scorpion and went to killing npc baddies. Got about an hour in to my romph when about 15 hostiles entered the system. Now my first reaction is to dock at the systems station, and to be honest its something I need to train myself out of. Why? Well exactly what happened is why. I warped to station and when you warp to a station or a gate 90% of the time you arrive a kilometer or so from the object you want to use. In this case I arrived 700 meters from the station which... is where all 15 hostiles had gone. What they decided to do was as a group quickly go to the station and wait for all the carebears like me to drop what we were doing and head to station soon as hostiles arrived in system.

I arrived 700meters from the station, all 15 of them pounced on me. Locked down my engines, guns, everything and then blew me up. So much for that 750 million dollar ship. Ahh well, I have a basic ship in station as well, valued around 200million. When I get back in game later, I'll work with that. I will say this though, every time I lose a tech 2 or faction ship in space... which my navy scorpion was the ladder I am reminded why I really shouldn't be flying those ships down in nullsec to begin with. Check this out. A navy issue scorpion battleship costs anywhere from 500 to 800 million depending on the market (which is entirely player run, everything is player made or looted). You can insure your ship so that a loss isnt a total loss but the insurance system in eve online is based off the tech 1 versions of any ship being insured. So... a standard issue scorpion battleship is worth about 100 million. I had max insurance on my 750 million dollar navy scorpion, and when it blew up my insurance payout was.... yep 70 million. Tech 2 and faction ships are extremely good at what you want them to do. My navy scorpion did everything my standard raven does... only better in all regards. But... at a steep price cost should/when it is lost.

Its just a game though and I do have the raven down there so I'll just make the entire loss back in a day or so and continually try to force my self to ignore the temptation to bring the big shiney toys down there to providence. After all, the standard versions of those ships do almost as efficient a job and only cost a fraction the price tag.

iOS: Bardbarian

Bunch of games hit this week, only three hit my download list and this one is probably the most hilariously fun of the bunch heh.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bardbarian/id766414929
.99cents, universal, 68mb. Light on the iap.

Loading this game for the first time brings back memories of the first time I saw "A Knights Tale" in theatre. The wife and I decided to go see a movie, didn't know anything about any of the movies showing at the time and figured, what the heck lets go see a period piece.

And 20 seconds in we realized two things. 1, the movie was nothing remotely close to a period piece. 2, the movie was going to be epic.

This game is like that. When you download the game your eyes instinctively skip over the Bard in the name and read barbarian. You see the app icon and think, barbarian. Infact if you dont read the description you'll be stepping in to this game expecting some light graphic hack'n'slash rpg. And you'd be very very wrong. Loading the game for the first time, you see a barbarian, a call to duty and then the first raised eyebrow happens when the barbarian decides not to take up weapon and smash skulls in defense of the village. And then his weapon of choice... what? And then... the music starts.

What we have here is a endless hack'n'slash mobile tower defense hybrid of sorts. You are the barbarian but the barbarian has decided he no longer wants to swing weapons. Instead he turned one of his weapons in to a guitar and wails 80's era rock god solo's. How the village is defended comes from companions the barbarian summons using energy he builds up by simply wailing on the guitar. (standing still makes the energy generate faster btw) With these companions in tow you run around analog style getting the guys within range of enemies moving from right to left on the screen. Your goal is to keep them away from the village crystal. You earn coin as your companions kill, you spend the coins upgrading the barbarian, the village and your companions. The entire game takes place over the course of a day, four stages, morning noon evening and night.

IAP is present but entirely optional and if you pick up the golden axe (.99cents) coin doubler the other iap is completely unnecessary.

Music is awesome, god rock guitar wailing and solos. Lots of fun heh.

Graphics work very well with the theme and no doubt keep the game working on a great deal many ios devices.

Upgrade system. You'll earn coin as you kill baddies and when you eventually die/fail you will go back to the shoppe to upgrade everything before making another attempt at defending the village. Upgrades are spent in three catagories. Companions, Bardbarian and Town. The companion upgrades improve and unlock additional companion types of which there are about 15 and each companion can be upgraded 5 times. The bardbarian's upgrades involve health increases, formation of companions, speed, buffs, energy regeneration, etc. Town upgrades bring out more participation from the villagers, loot pets, crystal health, etc.

Aside from the main four stage story there is also an endless mode where you go at it with increasingly difficult spawns trying to simply survive as long as possible. In order to keep things fair the developers decided that in this mode you have no control over companion composition in your group, they spawn around the area randomly. Same with foods, and you have no buffs or energy regeneration. Keeps it hard, and the leadboards at least somewhat 'fair'.

Anywho, the game is 99cents, the golden axe another 99cents. Those two purchase combined guarantee you a enjoyable trip across a really funny smart playing awesome music game. Enjoy.

Gamecenter, yes. Achievements, yep. Leaderboards, yeppers.

o/

Whats on TV

Caught up on my shows.

Supernatural : Best episode of this season yet, everyones their very best you find out exactly who the angel is who is in Sam, why this angel was in prison too. Crowley is hilarious, useful and proves that hell still fears him, with good reason.

Revolution : Good episode, story progresses all round.

Family Guy and Simpsons were both boring.

Sleepy Hollow : Find out why the misfit sister was in prison all those years, find out how connection to this whole mess and witness this shows take on exorcisms. Very cool special effects...

Agents of Shield : Character development, story progression, worth watching.

Dracula : AWESOME! Go watch it!

Almost Human : Hilarious and great, solid episode!

There we go, kept the spoilers out and gave my recommendations. Go watch all of them on hulu except family guy and simpsons, those were really boring.

o/

Updated Email

Doh! Apparently my google account is so old that the email it was tied too hasn't been used in over 9 years. Email updated.

Ty for heads up :)

iOS : Assassin's Creed Pirates

A pirate simulator that has you pillaging, plundering and racing you way across many areas of the south seas. You'll earn coin and exp that ends up going towards new ships, ship upgrades, hiring new crew the last of which rewards you with perks that you level up and assign to your ship.

Summary complete, two sentences.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/assassins-creed-pirates/id692717444
5 bucks, Universal, 800mb. Zero IAP.

Assassin's Creed Pirates is a really good pirate simulator with a really bad name in my opinion and its the name - game issue that annoys most people on forums and review sites. This game has you playing a young and upcoming pirate who meets up with more experienced pirates whos names are familiar to anyone who has played Black Flag. One of these pirates gives your character his first ship and off starts the story of the game. The closest thing I've seen so far is a rather friendly monk who always seems to be giving my character things to do (and who i suspect will end up being an assassin).

The controls. There are several systems in place here depending largely on your preference. When in open water you can sail from the view of your ships wheel. In this mode swiping left or right across the top of the screen pivots the camera accordingly. Sliding your finger left or right across the bottom of the screen turns the ship left or right. Bottom right corner has your speed controls. Additionally, double tapping the screen recenters the camera facing forward and pinching the screen zooms out. If you tap the bottom left map you scroll out in to top down map mode. Draw lines that your ship follows, Fast travel to light houses unlocked, engage enemy ships, start events, etc. The only thing you will not see and can miss out on when in top down mode are messages in bottles, a collectable in the game that rewards cash for completing collections and also counts towards 100% sync with the stage your in.

When in combat the controls naturally change. Default camera becomes standing behind your cannons staring out at the enemy ship who moves left and right randomly. You will have several abilities along the left and bottom of your screen during this. When abilities complete their recharge, you use them. Each has a different mechanic and I've currently unlocked 5 abilities. Left side of the screen will be abilities earned through the perk system that affect the fight over all. When the enemy's attack recharges you will go in to one of two different combat situations. If the camera pans out you will be hitting left and right arrows to dodge the enemies attack. Every 5 successful dodges you will unlock a stun shot that ends the enemies attack turn early returning you to your attack screen. The other possible enemy attack is best described as fruit ninja. Slice the cannon balls, tap the barrels, do nothing to the crates.

There is alot to do in this game. Ship races, assassination contracts, package retrieval, random red coat ships to sink, random civilian ships to sink, treasure maps to chase, slaver ships to harrass, random drowning folk to rescue, lighthouses to unlock, ships to buy, crew to recruit, ships to upgrade, crew perks to upgrade and assign... there's alot here.

Doing any of the above and / or progressing the main story will award coin, experience and resources. The experience levels you up which unlocks additional sailors in the tavern for hire, unlocks additional perk slots on your ship and unlocks additional ships for purchase. Sailors hired bring with them perks that you assign to your ship. Perks can be passive or active abilities and affect everything from speed and agility to combat and back again.

And on top of all that your ship itself can be upgraded. Each ship has different speed, attack and tank stats and all three can be upgraded multiple times. There is no best ship in this game, instead there are best ships for various roles. Doing a boat race? Pull out the fastest ship you have. Killing civilian ships (which have a timer)? Get your dps boat out. Dealing with a storyline boss? Probably want a heavy tank boat.

Ship Races, Assassination Contracts and Package Retrievals are all proper mission based mechanics, loading you in to instances with additional optional goals on top of the main point of what your being told to do. Completing these optional goals completes syncronization for that particular event. Folks familiar with the assassin creed franchise will recognize this optional goal system. Those not familar, well your actually playing a character in the future who is using technology to explore his ancestors past. Your ancestor had a certain way he did everything and the more accurately you do things his way... ie complete the optional objectives, the more in sync you are with your ancestors past. In this game synronization only counts towards achievements and completionists, nothing more. Additionally, you dont have to complete all the optional objectives in one run to get 100% sync so feel free to run the event more than once, each time chasing one optional goal. These three events award you with cash, exp and resources needed for upgrading your ship and the rewards are in no way affected by how many if any optional objectives you complete. And their all repeatable so grind away.

Ship Races will have you racing across a obstacle course dodging mines and ships while heading towards large blue markers. Each marker increases the clock by 5 seconds. Optional objectives are "Take No Damage", "Use no speed boosters" and "Have xx.xx amount of time left on the clock at the end".

Assassination Contracts have you kill an enemy ship after navigating a top down map dodging around enemy ships and whatnot. When on the top down map you simply draw your finger aross the map leading your ship to the enemy. If you hit a patrol, you have to kill it. Red squares on the map slow you down, green squares speed you up. The enemy combat is normal stuff. During this whole thing your on the clock but doing it under the clock isn't required for reward, just for 100% sync. Optional objects have you take no damage, engage no patrols and complete the contract under xxx.xx amount of time.

Package Retrieval missions are provided by a curiously friendly monk who engages your character with mysterious banter and I strongly suspect he'll eventually reveal himself to be an assassin. He has you retrieve one or more packages that are always protected by at least one enemy ship and then bring the packages back to him. Optional objects, only two here. Take no damage and beat the clock.

Engaging any mission above or any random ship leaves resources floating in the water, grab them for cash and ship upgrading materials. Also from sinking enemy ships you have the chance loot of a treasure map. Sail to the big golden ring on the top down map mode and then hit the spy glass icon to look around till you see a chest and loot it. Looting it awards collectables that go towards quite afew collections in the game.

Slaver encounters are random and have you popping shots at the slavers sails, default combat camera angle here. When you do enough sail damage the slaver throws his slaves overboard and you have a timer to retrieve them all.

Random drowning sailor encounters are also random and simply give you a timer to pick up the sailor before he goes under.

Graphics, quick summary. Gorgeous. There you go. Only game I currently have installed on my ipad air with better graphics than this would be Infinity Blade 3.

Sound, rock solid down to your crew singing chanties randomly.

As stated above the game is divided in to stages, each of which is large and has lots of the above to do. Moving between stages requires you to spend food resources that you earn everywhere you do anything on the stage your on. Moving along the stages also progresses the storyline, the first boss of which is on the start of map 4. There are no ingame cinematics but there is plenty of banter between the pirates. Given what I've seen of the story so far I suspect whats going on in this game is pretty much background filler for the main game Black Flag showing you what those various pirates were up to when not on screen.

The entire game takes place on your ship and there is no boarding mechanic which is a shame, I could imagine the camera going top down between ships with your crew fighting below while you from the crows nest pistol shoot enemies. There's alot of potential in this game and they've already added to it once. Fingers crossed for more.

I give this game four stars. Its missing a star for several reasons. The name assassin's creed dosent belong, at all. They could of called it "Yarr Pirates Yarr" and the community as a whole would be all over this game right now. Another issue I have is the introduction of the fruit ninja mechanic with the first big update recently. They say they added it to add challenge. It isnt challenging. Its annoying. It lasts entirely too long, soaks up a good 30 seconds on your clock from start to finish making timed missions annoying, it cant be prematurely interupted like the other form of enemy attack either.

That said, ignore the name and deal with fruit ninja and you have an amazingly full plate of pirate fun on our ios devices. Toss in zero iap and its a steal at 5 bucks considering it has in it roughly 40% of what black flag for console and pcs have to offer at 50 bucks.

Despite the length of this review, expect plenty of followups because I'm pretty sure that even four stages in I havent seen everything offered on this plate yet.

o/

Gamecenter yes. Achievements yes. Leaderboards yes.

Hello Monday, now go away

Mondays. Meh. How was everyone's weekend? I tend to not iOS game on the weekends, it's all absorbed by the wife and the PC. So this past weekend? Wife was in WoW and I was in Eve Online.

I've got afew games to cover, will do so tonight, see you all then!

o/

Followup : Angry Birds GO!

Observations
. The ingame currency carts turn in to the iap carts as you upgrade them.
. They do not appear to upgrade in to the real money cash carts.
. Getting in to the fourth chapter of the game will require a 20-24k investment just to buy a cart.
. The King Pig is best for challenges requiring certain scores or certain amounts of time airborne, use his balloon ability at the height of a jump for a seriously extra lengthy airborne trip.
. Best way of earning money? Versus. Choose a difficulty your comfortable with, tear up the tracks!

As stated above, I'm working on buying a cart for racing in the fourth chapter of the game.

Angry Birds Go!

Angry birds go is an enjoyable soap box cart styled racer in which you race to unlock various birds and pigs from the series each of which has their own unique special abilities that assist you in collecting coin and iap that is spend on new carts and upgrades.

Summary complete.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds-go!/id642821482?mt=8
Free, 94mb and Universal.

This game is more like a soap box derby than any other racing game that I've ever encountered on the App Store. You don't have engines, you have your sling shot at the beginning of the race and an entire down hill track that naturally causes you to find speed as you go. You gain speed as we'll through certain birds special abilities and occasional booster arrows on the track. You can lose speed by hitting things or being hit by other birds so yes it's possible to hit a jump and fall to your doom because you didn't have enough speed to cross. The good news for that is most jumps have a arrow booster in front of the jump so you just need to aim right.

All the tracks have multiple routes some of which are or are not available depending on the type of race your attempting. There are five total course types. The traditional which has you race against 5-6 other birds. The timed race where you just need to cross the finish line in a timely manner while dodging everything littering the course. The fruit bash, smash x amount of fruit before the end of the course, this type usually has opponents on the course with you who can and will attempt to grab fruit before you. A versus mode that let's you race one on one against other birds. Lastly there are the boss tracks. In order to access the boss track you need to complete one traditional, timed and fruit track first for the series your in. Boss races always require you to win three times and reward you with your opponent as a new bird for racing. All other types of track have a different reward, complete a type 5 times and you unlock challenge mode. Challenge mode simply has three goals for each tier. Complete the goals and you advance to the next tier.

Controls are very nice and come in tilt and arrow models. The arrow system is particularly nice in that the arrows are is simply on the left and right sides of the screen, tap them to turn. Every bird has a unique ability. Some are more geared towards beating other birds, some are better for the boss fights and others designed for fruit mode.

The vehicles. There are of four currently series, each of which has as many as three tournaments and each of those has its own batch of race types and a unique track. Each series also has it's own vehicles. Yes this means all the work you put in to maxing out your vehicle in the first series you don't get to bring along for the second. And above that the game dosent even award you a starter car when you unlock the new series, you have to save up for it. Each series has 2 in game currency vehicles, 2 iap currency vehicles and serveral strait up cash options. All vehicles have different traits and all are upgradable. When you max our your vehicle you upgrade the entire vehicle to its next tier, each vehicle has 3 tiers, ideally you should be moving up a tier for each tournament you advance in too. The vehicles handle well, are fun to drive and the birds very much animated on them.

There is another game play mode called jenga. This is probably the closest this game gets to the traditional angry birds game play mode, sling shot, a ramp and a wall of blocks, pigs and explosives. Your goal? Aim right, draw back just enough and knock out all the pigs. The rewards for doing so are in game currency though not much and progress towards an achievement or two.

Let's talk about the iap. This game has my favorite types as well as the types I'm not all that fond of. On the favorite side there is a 6 dollar coin doubler and a 2 dollar jenga unlock. I like these. One time purchase long term enjoyment. As for the ones I don't like their are lots of coin packs and each race series has several very expensive golf carts. Then of course there are the despicable strait up cash model cart options. And of course the real money and iap ones are better than the in game currency choices. My advice? Pick up the coin doubler and jenga unlocker, ignore every damn other iap option. Their entirely too expensive.

Will you enjoy this game? If you approach it from the "I should be able to play as long as I want until I don't feel like playing anymore or beat the game" you will despise Rovio for putting this game out in its current format for there is one other iap tempter to harass you continually. Each bird has an energy bar. Yep, each bird can be used 5 times and then takes a little over an hour to completely recharge their 5 uses. Early on this means pretty slow game play. Later on, not so much so. I've got 5 birds ATM and by the time I've spent all their charges I'm usually ready to go play something else anyways.

Take this game as I take it. Log in once or twice a day if you please, play till you bore or run out of charges and then just go okay something else. You'll enjoy it from that casual approach. The hardcore approach is best left to the big spenders.

My progress: I'm in the air series working on the second bird unlock.

Midweek Release Roundup

Looks like the app store is resuming its normal flood of apps. Last week was piddling, this week not so. TouchArcade and PocketGamer have a dozen or so games on their lists, the following caught my eye candy meter and will likely see more in depth reviews here over the next few days.

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=215218
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id663811684?mt=8

Battle Supremacy
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=215214
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id725222149?mt=8

RoboCop
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=207791
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id613322858?mt=8

Castle Doombad
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=215231
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id622788881?mt=8

All four of the above have gamecenter and achievment support. All four are also universal. I'm also on the fence about the following title, I love me a good hack ' n ' slash but I don't like it when a studio changes up the control scheme. Quit trying to reinvent the wheel. This game uses jesture based mechanics to move and attack enemies, not sure about it...

Archangel
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=215216
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id736358018?mt=8

Will follow up with impressions on all of the above over the next few days.

o/

Alien: Isolation

Just unveiled today, Sega has a new alien game up its sleeves and unlike colonial marines, isolation looks much more promising. Where colonial marines focused on the second movies way of alien hordes and marine assault rifles isolation is from the perspective of the first movie.

Just you
Just one alien
No guns, rifles, grenades or flame throwers.

It looks scary as hell and that's something I'm personally looking forward to. I haven't sat on the edge of my seat jumping at a game since dead space 1 and fear 1.

The story as we know it. Amanda Ripley, Ellen's daughter is in her twenties when the corporation brings news to her that the black box recorder from the Nostromo has been found at a large trading station and they would like Amanda to join a team their sending to recover it. What they find when they get there is that the big unpleasant alien from the first movie that apparently didn't die when Ellen turned her ships engines on it is still alive, in the trade station and eating civilians.

So. Civilian station. One alien. No/Very few guns.

Damn I can't wait!

Also feels like the latest tomb raider to me... Looking forward to more info :) oh and this one is strictly single player.

PC : Skywind

... Morrowind rebuilt from the ground up in to the Skyrim game engine... 0.0 Bethesda needs to contract hire this group and make sure this becomes all it can be and get it to the public.

What I'm up to... (tv shows)

Bit of tv shows, lot of gaming, you know... the important stuff. Just a quick warning before you read any further. I don't see any form of 'spoiler' tag / block / hiding options on blogger.com so don't read any further unless you want a whole lot of spoilers.

TV Shows and my thoughts on them
. Supernatural. Angels are staking territory on earth, alot of bloodshed and Castel is angel powered once again. I still think this series is going to end with Sam and Dean rebreaking the seal on the prison holding Micheal and Lucifer and then Lucifer is going to deal with his side while Micheal reopens heaven. Dosent matter what 'spell' is keeping heaven's doors closed, Right hand of God has probably got the chutzpah to kick it down. As for Crowley, I think he's intentionally tapping the prophets blood to gain abit of forsight.
. Revolution. I see they figured a non spirital way of explaining Aaron's new found powers and I figured it likely that the little bots would of found some form of self intelligence. I watch this show lightly to be honest, way to many side swapping and whatnot going on. I think their still trying to refind the awesome that was the last two episodes of season one.
. The Following. Nuff said. I can't wait to see how they top season one.
. Family Guy. Everyone needs a good laugh hah! They say they always intended for Brian to come back, I think the public's negative outcry regarding Brian's death forced the show to do a 180.
. Sleepy Hollow. Icabod finds out what became of his son though given Icabod's ability to get up out of a grave and whatnot suggests his Son will reappear in the series at some point. They released a golem, they killed the golem, the golem killed pretty much everyone who ever wronged Icabod's son first.
. Agents of Shield. Well thats one hell of a holiday season end, can't WAIT to see Colsen's 'death/ressurection' explained. Loved the turn around of the villian from the first episode, hope the stabilized syrum in him was enough to keep him in one piece during the explosion...
. Arrow. More dc comic super heroes abound woot! Psst, the geek is flash. Alot of Arrows past comes to light whether he likes it or not, I believe we now know the outcome of everyone from his flashbacks. Finally someone gave Arrow a mask, bout time.
. Dracula. I am really loving the scheming an plotting going on in this series! Its interesting watching familiar characters in a fresh original take on the story. Just watched latest episode today, pretty much Dracula/Grayson's entire world gets tossed on its head from his persuit of humanity, refusal to entertain his vampire side, the Order's total shutdown of Grayson's free energy scheme (well played btw, order. well played) and Mina. Mina... man.
. Almost Human. The show continues to impress and Dorian manages to prove just how annoying he can be. Good twists, solid episode.
. The Simpsons. I watch it out of habit, isn't nearly as funny as it was a dozen seasons ago though.
. South Park. Confession, prior to two weeks ago I had only watched three episodes of this show, ever. The World of Warcraft one, the Facebook one and the Guitar Hero one. After I read about the xboxone vs ps4 three parter where the kids choose sides and went to war Game of Thrones style I've sense watched this entire season and am now working on the season before.

Those are what I'm actively watching on hulu. Sure there are other greats out there, but not available on hulu so bummer.

-blows dust off blog-

Man its been awhile, one never realizes how much time has passed until returning to a forgotten project heh. I always mean to keep this up and running and never seem to do so. I'm flakey like that, always easily distracted by something else. Entirely too indecisive as well, never can make up my mind. Take this blog for example. I post game commentary on two facebook pages, a forum, in a friends podcast and here. Focus... focus... heheh.


Anywho, holidays are clear, fresh year brings with it fresh resolutions. In regards to gaming I made three resolutions and they are as follows:
. Play more games that I buy. I have a habbit of eye candy shopping and then never even bothering to play the damn game I bought.
. Finish more games that I play. Continuation of the above bad habit, I'm always distracted by some new game and very rarely finish a game I start.
. Third resolution is for this blog. Minimum of one update every week, for the entire year.

Number three is a hefty goal, but given the variety of gaming I'm involved in and the variety of platforms my blog here covers I'm nervously confident that I'll be able to accomplish this one. Number one I'm sure I can accomplish, I'll just play every game the second its downloaded. Number two... makes me more nervous than any other.

-fingers crossed-

So, recap of what this blog will cover.
. PC
. Vita
. 3DS
. iOS
. Consoles.

I grouped the consoles because I honestly don't see a whole lot of coverage there coming from me. I prefer my games on the go and its more and more difficult to justify consoles when I have an epic and portable pc and the handhelds get more and more powerful every year. We'll see where that goes.

Anywho, thats the jist of this entry. Actual game stuff to follow.

/salute