Out Now : Warhammer 40k: Storm of Vengenance

Warhammer 40,000: Storm of Vengenance
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id721606419?mt=8
4.99usd, 69mb download, universal

Top down strategy title. Five lanes. Five squares on each side.Left side is you, right side them. You use the squares on your side to place resource generators and unit generators. As units generate you place them on a lane. Placed units walk to the right side shooting whats at the end of their path. They also shoot enemy units on other paths so long as the enemy units are infront of them. Knock out three enemy squares to win.

Winning grants experience, level ups grant talent points to spend on active buildings and passive 'spells'. Unit producing buildings can be put in passive mode during a fight, when in this mode they generate a second currency which is the currency used by your passive 'spells'. Active building talents let you assign abilities to the soldiers that they spawn. For example, you can learn and set a unit producer to spit out soldiers with a one time grenade ability that they can literally use/toss anywhere on the map. The more abilities you tell a unit producer to add to its units however, the more it costs to produce and the longer it takes. The currency to spawn a new unit isn't used before the construction of the unit starts, it is consumed when you actually place the unit on the map so just because a building has finished its job, dosen't mean you can make use of what it produced. There are several squares bottom left corner that you can place units in until you need or have the resources to use them.

Thats it in a nutshell to be honest. The story can be played from either side. There are currently several iap dlc's available, all are new units. This game is heavily story driven, multiple stages to work at the same time as a sort of grind to get better abilities and level ups.

Gamecenter, yes. Leaderboards, yes. IAP, yep in 2 to 4 dollar packages for powerful units.

o/

Out Now : FTL

FTL : Faster Than Light
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ftl-faster-than-light/id833951143?mt=8
9.99usd, 173mb download, iPad 2 or newer only.

I'm on a space game kick so I naturally grabbed this one. Loads quick on the air, woo tutorial. I remember playing this game once a long while back on the pc. Got killed right quick, tutorial engaged. Tutorial does its job, explains various components of the main top down ship view screen. Aww crap, engine broke. Tutorial explains how to fix it. Shows up to select mutiple crew and repair things, nice. The controls work REALLY well so far. Oh no, a fire at one of the airlocks! Vented oxygen to that room, good to go. Jumping consumes fuel, naturally. Galaxy man is shiney. Enemy ship, spool up the guns!

Combat is entertaining, tapping weapons, choosing target rooms on enemy ships. I knocked out their shields and then knocked out life support. The enemy died in the shield generator room from lack of oxygen while trying to repair the shields. Neat! Got some fuel, some ammo (lasers use no ammo but missile launches do) and a new weapon type. Ahh you gain scrap which is used to upgrade the various ship systems. Tutorial explains how to power up and down and upgrade equipment and then thats the end of the tutorial. Space is my oyster... or more likely space will be the bully in my playground beating me up alot.

Unsure if you'll like this game? Its a strategy game where you spend your time between resource management and attack and lots of humor. Star Command would be the closest competition to ftl, though star command is definitely more streamlined. Star Command is also story driven, there is story to ftl but ftl is more about seeing how far you can go in to the game before getting exploded or running out of fuel.

Good game so far. Achievements, check. Leaderboards, no. Gamecenter, yes. Zero iap.

o/