Sunday, June 29, 2014

Last day of the Steam Summersale!

And its a really big list of premium games. I own most but did pick up one. For my collection I grabbed Wasteland 2. I'm told and it does look like a spiritual successor to the old Fallout 1 and 2 games. The perk? I also got wasteland 1 and the bards tale for free.

Today's the final day and here is the summer sale list after the break.


Random Progress

-waves- What follows is just general progress with the random games that managed to hold my attention for an entire week. Very rare occurance, trust me. I'm flakey like that. Big article so click below to read it in full. Or this summary : My pc addiction is letting me down, my iOS addiction is suprisingly holding my attention and I'm definitely very good at builder/strategy titles :P


Saturday, June 28, 2014

Supernauts

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/supernauts/id504504940?mt=8
Free, 82mb download, universal, gamecenter enabled.


Its been a good week for builder type games for me. Here's another one that initially slipped under my radar until I happened to watch a video for it somewhere and got curious. The premise? Ice caps are gone, the world is flooded. Super heroes are supposed to rescue survivors (you usually have to do it yourself, lazy super heroes...) and bring them up to these floating land masses. Your job is to build homes, towns, recreation, you name it.

And by build, nothing is held back here. You can literally draw and place every single block, make it as amazing or normal as you like. You'll be building alot of brick producing and converting units. Different quality bricks affect moral up on the floating island. There's plenty of quests to keep you occupied from building to selling to neighbors to going down and rescuing people yourself.

Graphically this game reminds me of The Incredibles for some reason. Over the top hero look I suppose heh, not a bad thing mind you.

There are timers everywhere. Making clay, turning it in to various brick types, expanding your island, lots of timers. But there so far is plenty enough to do that I haven't felt inhibited in any way so far.

The main means of leveling up increases your brick count for each type, how much land you can have and unlocks lots of new things to construct as well as allowing you to rescue more people. So far all the questing has awarded me with iap currency which is nice.

My only gripe so far would be the two finger mechanic for rotating and zooming in / out. It seems somewhat unresponsive, have to move your fingers in the appropriate direction quite abit to get the results to even start.

That said, this is so far a really nice game. There is apparently the ability to form crews with friends. I think we can jointly work on the same property, I'll look in to this further in a later update.

Anywho, if you'll excuse me I need to put on my cape and go rescue some middle aged looking woman standing on a pyramid heh.

o7 Swoosh...

Stronghold 3 (iOS port)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stronghold-3-the-campaigns/id767537984?mt=8
4.99usd, iPad only, 613mb download, no gamecenter.

iap rundown :
. 2.99usd, 30 mission military(combat) focused campaign

Where'd this one come from? Seriously, it just suddenly appeared. Don't believe me? Go read touch arcades forums. Everyone was like "What?!" and "Really?!". I feel the same way.

Not in a bad waythough. No sir, I love pc/console ports to the ios because it always proves it can be done right. I hate remakes, (EA, dungeon keeper... you need to die for that). Thankfully this is a complete port of the original pc title. Now, that said lets talk about Stronghold. Stronghold was a rts series that took it to a whole new level. When everyone else was running around in command & conquer's, warcrafts and starcrafts, all low on the economy side heavy combat games Stronghold had a massive economies, peasants, relations to maintain, needs to provide for, and that was without the combat perspective which was much more involving than just about everything else out there. The game was 3d, none of the others were. All round it was the big daddy that the rest took awhile to catch up to.

Now the ipad version is a direct port, same graphics, same voice work (yea square enix, we are more than happy to download extra large games for the voice work! give me the voice overs that dragon quest 8 originally had damn it!), all on a touch screen interface. Tapping controls a majority of the game with the exception of using two fingers to move around, rotate the camera 360degrees, zoom in and zoom out. Honestly, I've seen more than afew games lately using the two finger technique and to be honest its not the best system for moving the camera around. Its entirely two sensitive. Two fingers moving, if they dont move 100% exactly the same direction at all times the game interprets it as rotating or zooming instead. The controls need work, but its manageable.

Sounds are spot on, villagers, the tutorial guy, everythings there and its excellent!

The actual gameplay. The game comes with the economic focused campaign. Yes things will attack your keep but the combat isnt the focus. Its more about the economy, keeping folks happy,building your kingdom. Think of the economic campaign as easy mode. Take your time, build and enjoy the trip. Build homes to house your peasants, a stockpile to hold resources, lumber mills because wood is needed for most everything, farms for food, its a solid experience. You can literally place buildings anywhere that there isnt a building already present, no big grid system here. Buildings can by rotated to a direction you like and buildings do have preferences as to location. Examle, the peasant homes can house more people the closer you build it to the keep because peasants like to feel secure.

I completed the tutorial, took about 15 minutes. Construction appears instant. Everything works so far, no complaints. This is alot more complex a game than most on the store so I'll have to follow up later as I delve deeper but for 5 bucks, this is a steal.






Storm Casters

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storm-casters/id833486946?mt=8
1.99usd, universal, 71mb download, no gamecenter.

In this game you play the role of a youth who escapes from their home village after its burnt to the ground. Shortly after your escape you meet up with someone powerful who immediately grants you the ability to avenge your friends and family, and then dumps you in to a dungeon to get to it heh.


Friday, June 27, 2014

Master of Craft

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/master-of-craft/id883564008?mt=8
Free, universal, 54mb download, no gamecenter.

Thoughts
Well this is actually entertaining. Monsters are invading the kingdom all over the place, the capital city and immediately nearby towns are safe due to their resources available and location. They've developed the technology to make impressive monster killing weapons and are doing it effectively. The problem is the capitals ability to defend everyone is finite and unfortunately many smaller villages on the outskirts of the kingdom are suffering pretty bad.

The king resolves this by sending volunteer engineers out to these far away villages. The goal is to teach the village to defend itself, to produce weapons and armor. Doing so will attract heroes who do the fighting for the villages. You are the engineer, you arrive to a basic little meh of a thing called a village. And its your job to make it awesome!


Real Racing 3 Progress

My addiction to real racing 3 is never ending it seems and I can honestly say its to blame for my lack of updates of late. "I'm going to update the hell out of my blog tonight!" followed two days later by "One more race..."


Assassin's Creed Pirates Updated!

Anyone who surfs my blog already knows how I feel about this game (hint : i really like it). Today Pirates got another update with even more content.


What's New in Version 1.4.0
FREEDOM UPDATE!

- Explore a new chapter appendix in La Isla de la Juventud. Destroy the jail fortress to free the slaves and unlock an exclusive reward to refresh your daily challenges!
- Customize your ships to your taste! Try out the brand new customization feature and rule the seas with a brand new look!
- Enjoy the new Daily Reward system! Come back each day to earn increasingly valuable rewards.
- Experience more dynamic naval fights! Battles become faster, tougher and more balanced. You can now use your Spider shots to break any enemy attack.
- Connect with your Facebook profile and get a special reward!
- Catch 8 new unique fish with the new Legendary Hook!
- Jumpstart your adventure with the brand new Starter Pack, including an exclusive ship and a legendary crewmember!
- Collect random loot during your journey through the Caribbean seas!
- Enjoy tutorials and new information to enhance your adventures!

Funny that an iOS game that had most of its console/pc counterparts features has received twice as many content updates to it post release as its counterparts. Anywho, still highly recommended, go get it.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Midweek Release

Found some games of interest, woo!

Stronghold 3
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stronghold-3-the-campaigns/id767537984?mt=8
4.99usd, 613mb download, iPad only, no gamecenter.


Realtime Strategy. No not what the appstore things is a RTS either. Not a clash of clans clone or some tower defense game. This is a REAL RTS. Building forces, building defenses, collecting resources, attacking your enemies, no iap walls, no energy bars. None of that crap. This is a direct port of the original pc game. Only iap present is a dlc for the military campaign. The economic campaign is included with the 4.99 asking price.

Storm Casters
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storm-casters/id833486946?mt=8
1.99usd, 70mb download, universal, no gamecenter.


Top down hack ' n ' slash with a dose of card collecting and battlers for kicks heh. Complete rpg mechanics present, the iap is strictly optional for those who want their cards now. The fact that cards are not consumed on use makes this a really decent title too!

Master of Craft
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/master-of-craft/id883564008?mt=8
Free, 54mb download, universal, no gamecenter.


Build your town, produce weapons and resources, nifty little city builder thingy heh.

Guild of Glory
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/guild-of-glory/id884935625?mt=8
Free, 27mb download, universal, gamecenter enabled.


City builder. PvE and PvP content. This could be a clash of clans clone, or something else. Not sure just yet. Will look further in to it. Charming graphics though, old school ish.

Hit up toucharcade for the full list, there were more game releases last night than the entire month of june combined. Epic stuff. Oddly, I fell in line with just about every rts game that hit heheh. Fun stuff. On another note, added a new link on the right side, myrealracing.com Its where pretty much all the rr players went after ea shut down the official forums. Great group, lots of... useful... tricks in certain areas of that site... -wink wink nudge-

o7

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Summer Sale, Day 2, Flash Sale

Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, 24 bucks.
Bioshock Infinite, 15 bucks.
Grid 2, 15 bucks.

Plus some warlock strategy title, screenshots remind me of civilization v.

Summer Sale Day 2, pt 2

Woo, Planet Explorer is on flash sale on steam for... about another two hours. Open procedurally generated world exploration game with building and whatnot.



Spiffy :)

Friday, June 20, 2014

Summer Sale, day 2.

Not all that remarkable from my side of the screen. Half the games I own from previous summer sales, the other half I just couldn't justify spending money on because their the type of games I always end up playing once, maybe twice and then never again. Ahh well, there's always tomorrow.

Same with GoG.com's sales event.

There are alot of solid games though, everyone should go check both out.

Let the summer sales begin

Both Steam and GoG have launched their summer sale bonanza! I only saw one game on GoG that I wanted, Children of the Nile. Total nostalgia, I loved all tilted's games back in the day. Going to wait though, I prefer my games on steam and am hopeful it will show up on their summer sale. If not and I miss out on GoG's 3 dollar price, well its normal 7 dollar price tag isn't to hard a swallow.

Over on steam I grabbed Divinity Original Sin.


Another old school 90's game, upgraded and made super shiney its a turn based rpg, very big, very very big. Its in early access but actually launches... well apparently it launches today heh.

http://store.steampowered.com/
http://www.gog.com/

Both store pages, enjoy!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Midweek Release Roundup

Finally, its felt like a draught lately as far as my interest has been concerned on the app store. Picked up three games last night, all three are enjoyable so here's the skinny :

PlunderNauts
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plundernauts/id722529542?mt=8
Free, 97mb, universal, no gamecenter despite their claim.


Fun little game, draw your finger on the screen to plot your ships path of travel, tap enemy ships when your various guns are facing them to shoot at them, use various crew and equipment abilities on the right side of the screen, work your way across the entire galaxy plundering pirates one planet at a time till you reach the dreaded Metal Beard. Loot system drops equipment for your ship, there is also the market that refreshes every few minutes. Iap present but so far optional. Love the graphics of this game and the over the top explosions and attitudes of the npcs heh.

Wings on Fire
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wings-of-fire/id697849419?mt=8
Free, 48mb download, universal, gamecenter enabled.


Endless runner, you pilot an air plane dodging obstacles, collecting coins and fuel, dodging enemy aircraft, fighting bosses etc. You earn exp based on travel length and goal accomplishment. Goals refresh randomly as you meet their requirements. Full upgrading system present, all aspects of your aircraft and all aspects of gameplay (gem drop rate, buff durations, fuel quantities on map, etc). There's also multiple aircraft to run through. Iap present but dosent feel completely necessary so far for me, there is an add remover for 2 bucks and a permanent coin doubler for 3. Interestingly your aircrafts armor does not immediately repair inbetween attempts, you do have to repair it manually otherwise you'll eventually end up with an aircraft that explodes at the slightest touch of anything on the track. Been awhile since I had an endless runner, so here's mine.

Godfire
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/godfire/id669376184?mt=8
6.99usd, 1gig download, universal, gamecenter enabled.


Well here it is, the game everyones been talking about for the last week or two. Been in development for almost two years now and well its pretty much completely been worth the wait. What we have here is the closest thing to god of war thats ever been on the iOS. Story driven stages, you will almost always be working you way from point a to point b smacking around groups of enemies with bosses at the end of each stage. You can block, dodge, light attack, heavy attack and charge attack. You are always auto locked on to the nearest enemy. You collect currency that heals you as well as lets you upgrade your equipment. All equipment is upgraded so far via in game currency. Your character himself is upgraded through iap currency that you can buy or find around the game. With the exception of three weapons, all equipment is in game currency. Alot of mixed opinions going around on this pay model to be honest. Premium with Freemium inside. Kinda like double dipping.

Ahh well, Its still a solid game, gorgeous graphics, solid sound and I havent felt iap pressured in any way so far.

There you go, my grabs for the week. I've slipped on my updates lately, part time distractions, part time real life stress, all seems to of been resolved in the past two days. Fingers crossed I keep this blog updated :)

o7