https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds-transformers/id869231055?mt=8
Free, universal, 95mb download, gamecenter enabled.
I don't think I ever actually wrote a review on this one. Sorry bout that. Summary : Auto runner in stage format, you'll play as AutoBirds and DeceptiPigs while fighting off these giant robot eggs that are trying to assimilate everything. In each stage as your transformer moves from left to right on the screen you'll be tapping on enemies to shoot them, tapping on traditionally built structures of wood stone and ice to break them, attacking large assimilated structures in the background, all sorts of fun. The sound track is amazing, controls work well.
On the negative side, this game is timer hell, the difficulty ramps up like crazy throughout too. By timers I mean, timers to upgrade your bots, timers to unlock stages (the bots assimilate, when complete they literally make the stages for you to beat), timers to heal your bots (they don't auto recover hps between stages). This means you need a lot of patience or alot of iap spending to progress in this game.
Ok so, dealing with the difficulty. This game I'm going to recommend highly that upgrading your bots always take priority over opening new areas. If you always try to open things as quickly as possible you will shortly run in to large walls where all the available stages are too hard for you. I prefer to always have something to do so if I am always upgrading my bots over unlocking new areas I'll always be able to handle the available stages.
Things also get pretty expensive pretty quickly and the pay from the stages is almost never good enough. You can watch 3 to 5 videos a day to double pig kill count (you need x amount of pig kills to unlock each new bot when you discover them on the map) and double the coin won on a stage. I only watch a video if the stage pays out more than 1k before the video. Also, keep an eye on all the un assimilated areas of the map, they idly generate coin.
Now, next problem is the timers. You can speed these up with blue crystals and to be honest it isn't exactly a bad idea since there doesn't seem to be any other use for the iap currency in the game aside from speeding things up. Alternatively you can play in offline mode and flip your devices clock forward to wrap up timers in a better fashion. There are drawl backs here as well. I tried this once or twice and have noticed the next time I went online the game penalized me by damaging all my bots hit point levels to varying amounts. Not bad, especially if you farm up some good pocket change in offline mode before going online. But folks on the forums have reported occasional level loss of one or more bots and its rumored that the game does not let you progress on the map if offline. I can't personally confirm either of the last two possibilities.
Now, lets see. Progression. You will be working you way across the game world unlocking it in increasingly expensive chunks. These chunks have a level up requirement before you can even see their coin cost. Top left corner is a title and 5 star bar along with a number under it. The title is nothing more than a cute award you receive every five levels. I'm an archivist atm -muscle flex- The star bar, every 5 earns you a new title. The number under that is your level and your level is the requirement for expanding across the map. Leveling up your bots directly increases your level, the star count and as a result your title.
Once you have the level requirement for an area on the map, its coin cost is revealed to you. Once you pay the cost you'll see whats under the cloud. Almost always a new stage and often a new bot encased in ice. Unlocking the bot requires pig/bot kills, this is earned in the stage gameplay.
Leveling up your bots increases their hit points, their dps, their vehicle form speed and increases charges you can carry for their special abilities, each bot has a different special abilities that you charge by smashing assimilated objects in the background of each stage.
This game is facebook integrated and if your friends on facebook play, you can bring their bots in to your stages. Summoning them mid stage does an aoe bullet time explosion and the bot hangs out with you for a brief period of time. At the end of the stage you can high five them if you want, but pigs will never high five a bird and vice versa. On the world map there is an icon two down from your level where you can collect iap currency rewards everytime your friends use you in a stage.
Along with the core game there is the jenga mini game that just like in angry birds go is a good time passer that earns you in game currency for knocking things down. Problem is its 10 bucks. Now that itches me sour to be honest. I refuse to buy consumable iap in freemium games 95% of the time. And this games only other option of supporting the devs is a overpriced mini game. Now I haven't purchased it so I don't know how well it pays but I do know how well it paid in angry birds go and in that game it paid crap.
I'm still on the fence about supporting these devs. I want to. This is a highly enjoyable game for me. The burst gameplay mechanics keep me from burning out and the stages are almost always fun. I like almost all the bots and despite the cost of progression I am still making progress. I just don't want to buy consumable iap... and I don't think this is worth 10 dollars.
-shrugs-
Ahh well, As for progress, all my bots are level 5 or higher, the next coin expansion wants 60k and there is only one at this price range, I suspect there is a boss behind it. There are 2 areas asking for me to be level 60, I'm level 48 right now, title Archivist.
Will continue updating on this game, Wish it had a 4 dollar coin doubler or something that I could support these guys with...
o7
