Weekly Recommendations

Good game release list this week, two thumbs up!

Hell Gate
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hell-gate/id917957714?mt=8
Free, Universal, 124mb download, no Gamecenter.

Top down action rpg. Tap and hero runs in that direction, slashes everything in his path. Abilities to learn and level up, great to collect and combine, level ups to be had. Translated from Japanese so it's hit and miss, but I find such translations a,using to be honest heh. Free, iap options and a energy bar is present but the game seems quite friendly with giving you iap currency.

Tutorial annoyed me, couldn't by pass it and when the damn game asked me to rate it tapping no or yes conflicted with tutorial which would only let me tap my backpack that I couldn't tap because of the rate me button heh. Ahh well. Decent enough game so far, online required.

Stormblades
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stormblades/id961615948?mt=8
Free, Universal, 148mb download, no Gamecenter.

Infinity Blade genre with improved/simplified combat controls. Stage based, no downtime/exploration in between fights. Purchase/upgrade system present but you will only be working with your weapons.

Fantastic graphics and controls are very forgiving. I LOVE the way enemy armor chips away as you hit it making opponents more susceptible to your hits. Online optional, your trophy count counts towards a world wide ranking system if you do have Internet.

Stan Lee's Hero Command
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stan-lees-hero-command/id941294589?mt=8
Free, Universal, 249mb download, no Gamecenter.

Action adventure with upgrade system for powers and stats. Fight across stages with various goals, collect purple currency that is spent on stat improvement. Unlocking new powers appears to either come with time as you play or iap currency if your so inclined. Iap currency is awarded via achievements. Currently three heroes to choose from, one free your choice when you launch game for first time. Other two bought with iap currency. Iap currency is really well proportioned to be honest. Energy bar present as well as timers on stat improvements. Dual stick control system, no internet connection required.

Kingdom Tales 2 HD
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id960639511?mt=8
Free, iPad only, 358mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Kingdom Tales 2
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id960636244?mt=8
Free, iPhone/iPod, 383mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Plays almost exactly like jack of trades, another game from G5. Fixed maps, roads, clear debris build buildings, upgrade them, collect resources, reach quest goals for each stage, star ratings, etc. various difficulties.

Free to try, 5 bucks unlocks full game, no iap and it isn't universal. Also has difficulties, lowest difficulty removes the traditional stage timer that those jack of trades series had.

Goblin Quest: Escape!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id897517248
Free, Universal, 120mb download, no Gamecenter.

Action Adventure game. The boss of this dungeon has finished building it but wants it fool proof against heroes. You as a lowly goblin are tasked with running his dungeon so he can improve it. Analog controls with no combat what so ever. Full upgrade system for consumable potions and whatnot as well as equipment with permanent benefits. Only iap is the advertisement unlock at 1.99usd. Dual currency but secondary currency is awarded for completing stage goals, or purchasable with standard coin found in every dungeon. All dungeons completely farm able for standard coin.

Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id916585802?mt=8
4.99usd, Universal, 252mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Single tower, tower defense. Seems entirely gesture based combat so far. Tap targets, finger swipes in simple designs based on spells you want to use. Earn coin from killing bad guys, spend coin on equipment and tower upgrades. Absolutely hilarious story and cut scenes. Not entirely sure I like the double dipping of IAP and premium pricing. Honestly I probably wouldn't have this one on my ipad if I had known how high the iap packages go. On itunes it only goes as high as .99cents. In game iap packs goes as high as 50 dollars.

That said the iap currency seems to be being awarded as stars are earned on stages and things have been unlocking for free periodically as I play. Who knows, could work, will follow up on this one if it doesn't end up deleted.

Revisited : Alien Isolation

Just completed a second play through of this awesome game after taking a break for afew months. This time I used Steam's streaming feature so that my sister who may or may not ever play this game completely through could watch it from across the country. Very cool, she described it as watching a really long movie!

Second play through was just as entertaining as the first but less scary jumping out of my seat action. My first play through I would describe as learning to dance, where every time you step on your partners foot they punch you in the face with their second set of teeth heehee! This second play through was more akin to a waltz. I waltz'ed across stages moving where I need to be and my sister was constantly amazed at the random nature of the ai. Occasionally other survivors would tap in during the alien and mine's dance but that always resulted in screams, cries, random gunfire and the alien rejoining me as soon as possible.

Another thing, I don't like hiding in lockers. If the alien is in the room I hide behind things, slowly move around things to keep Line Of Sight broken for the creature. I don't like hiding in lockers because your pretty much a sardine, if the alien opens the locker, its game over. If I am hiding behind things my flamethrower is a two button tap away and I almost always survive alien misencounters this way. Hiding in lockers is waiting to die. Nuff said.

The developers behind this masterpiece have been signed on for another game, no ones saying if its another alien title or something else. Fingers crossed for more alien awesomeness!

Here's some more random photo's I snagged, their over the course of two play throughs so not exactly in order. I separated them by play through, enjoy :)

First Play Through

Second Play Through
I had certain shots I wanted that I missed the first time, knew where to look this time around heh.

I finally got around to doing the two stand a lone DLCs Crew Expendable and Last Survivor. I REALLY liked Crew Expendable, I always felt that Dallas romp around in the ventilation shafts in the movie felt short like there was move to it that we didn't see and you definitely see it all in this DLC. Plus what happens in the last 25 seconds of the DLC, something that never occurred to me but makes complete sense looking back. Ash is an asshole.

The second DLC Last Survivor, didn't enjoy that one quite as much. Lots of little discrepancies between the movie and the DLC though as I understand it this isn't a retelling of what happened, its more akin to a simulator run by the company testing the validity of what Ellen claims happened. Thus the inconsistencies between the film and the dlc.

More Crew Expendable please, and a resolution to what happens at the end of Isolation would rock!

o/

Weekly Recommendations

Whoa! Bunch of grabs, one of which is more expensive than all the rest combined. Its a Sid Meier though so that's to be expected. Then there's another giant from Gameloft. I'll also be adding one title that I picked up last week but never got around to posting about. Off we go!

Dungeon Hunter 5
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dungeon-hunter-5/id885823239?mt=8
Free, Universal, 712mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Gameloft's action rpg giant is back for its fifth installment and I get the feeling they finally did it right. This game is very diablo 3 esk with a card system for gear and upgrading for your characters. Top notch graphics, great controls, haven't hit a pay wall yet. Energy system in place for running dungeons, regenerates passively over time. The game requires an Internet connection and you can actually see other players in the town hub in between your dungeon runs. Fusion system lets you combine equipment in to your existing pieces to level them up. Evolution lets you change gear in to entirely new pieces.

There's alot here. And its free so no harm checking it out, eh?

Sid Meier's Starships
https://itunes.apple.com/app/sid-meiers-starships/id880424461?mt=8
14.99usd, iPad only, 532mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Heavy strategy. Turn based combat. Fully economic system, galaxy spanning. Find planets, befriend them, do missions, upgrade ships, upgrade planets, The game is... story light. You set the parameters of your play session and then play it out usually with a goal of beating all the ai opponents senseless. What that means for me is I'll eventually complete a play through and then never play it against because I will have already beaten what story there was.

Still, everything is here to keep any Sid Meier fan or turn based strategy fan content for a good long while :)

Sick Bricks
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sick-bricks/id934524665?mt=8
Free, Universal, 49mb download, no Gamecenter.

Real world toys implemented in to a lego esk style action adventure via your devices camera. run around smash things, swap in your various heroes, kill baddies, shoot up furniture for lego bits, use bits to build parts of town drive cars, level up, learn new abilities, find and improve gear.

Card Crawl
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/card-crawl/id950955524?mt=8
1.99usd, Universal, 74mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

A fun and challenging card game that's entirely single player with zero IAP. This is how it works. Your opponent has 54 cards and you have 13 hit points. You also have a left hand, a right hand and a backpack slot. Your opponent lays out four cards in front of you that are randomly chosen from his deck. You need to interact with these cards. Weapons, shields can be placed in your free hands. Potions and abilities can be placed in backpack slot for future use. Using your weapon card to attack a monster card consumes the weapon card and removes or reduces the hit points on the monster card, depending on whether the weapon card has more hit points than the monster or not. Using the shield card on a monster, the shield card absorbs up to its max health from the enemy attack and whats left over hits your avatar card. Potions placed in the hands consume potions to heal. Coin cards are your score card. More coins you have at the end, higher you rank on the leader boards. There is a card consuming monster thingie that eats coin/potion/ability cards. He yaps you for potion/ability cards you feed him, he thanks you for coin cards. Translation, try not to feed him coin cards, its wasted score points.

It took about 6 tries to win my first hand and the next sentence I type is the best advice I can possible give you : You have to attack throughout the opponents 54 cards. If you push too many opponents back you will find his last few pulls full of opponents with you having no way to absorb the monster cards incoming damage. Once I stopped trying to max my score and started focusing on killing along the way, I've started winning.

Winning gives you keys that you spend in the collection screen. In this screen is 20 ability cards and as you win you will be able to unlock more ability cards. If you just hit the 'normal' button on main screen the game will randomly assign you 5 ability cards you have unlocked. If you go in to 'constructed' you can choose which five ability cards you being in to play. Note, there are separate leader boards for each of these two types of play.

I prefer my ability cards to heal me in some way or permanently dispatch enemy cards. I don't like using 'push back' type ability cards because I'm just going to have to deal with those opponents later anyways.

Very cool game, two thumbs up.

Paper Monsters Recut
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-monsters-recut/id942473930?mt=8
4.99usd, Universal, 187mb download, no Gamecenter.

Paper Monsters, I declared the original version of this game to be 'the' super marios of the iOS Appstore, and this follow up title continues to fit the bill nicely. Left side bottom finger drag to move. Right side bottom to jump. This release is much much larger than the original. Lots of stages, environments, etc. Every stage has three paperclips that are currency for unlocking additional stages. Silver buttons convert directly in to score. Stages have no time limits. Every stage has a Gold button hidden in it that you use unlocking minigames. You have 5 lives for each stage play through. Double tap jump to double jump. In between stages is the over world, this place along with the pause button both let you move from stage to stage and various mini games.

Sorry if I don't say alot about Paper Monsters but seriously, the game sells itself on its fantastic visuals, spot on controls and plethora of content. Glad to see it return from its romph on the Wii U heh. Controller support enabled, plays fantastic with my xBox styled moga controller :)

Angry Birds Stella POP!
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id937718942?mt=8
Free, Universal, 60mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Stella is your typical match 3+ type game. Got ball thingies along the top, slingshot colored balls to their matching types to eliminate them. You'll usually be working to make pigs fall from the top to the bottom, puzzles vary from fixed positions to rotating to multi screen height. Feels well done and polished. The free to play aspect here is that failing a stage takes one of your hearts. Hearts take time to recharge. As well when your completing stages your earning gold. Gold is spent on extra balls on stages that you run out on. All stages have a fixed number of balls you can sling at your enemy.

Dig a Way
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dig-a-way/id929120156?mt=8
Free, Universal, 121mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

This game is the only download I grabbed from last week. Its a action puzzle game where your main goal is to dig from start to finish with the side goals of collecting coin and collectibles. Collectibles are placed in a museum that earns you coin passively daily. Coin is spent on outfits so far. In the stages you can not dig up no can you climb. So you need to plan your movements so that you don't miss anything. The only two iap in game is through several outfits that you can either collect coin to buy or spend real money on (.99cents per outfit) and additional adventurers at .99cents a chapter or 1.99 for the bundle. Buying the bundle will save you 1 dollar.

Graphics are charming, controls work fine. Left, Right and Down arrows move/dig in the appropriate direction and double taping left or right will dash you in that direction.

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So there you go, my grabs this week o7