iPhone App Reviews

App Review: Everlands

Tony Mei | Jul 4, 2010 Games

User rating: (12 votes, average: 3.42 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Turn-based strategy games are quite popular on the App Store, beloved due to their addictive and thought-provoking qualities. But every now and again, there comes along a genre-shaking game that just blows me away. Everlands, developed by Hexage.net, is one example.

Everlands’s basic plot revolves around the evil spirits taking control of animals, and the brave plethora of creatures that must come together to stop the evil and cleanse their possessed brethren. While this more juvenile, lighthearted storyline seems out of place in a genre filled with macho heroes, futuristic weaponry and vehicular combat, it blends nicely into the game and serves as a much welcomed change of pace.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: $1.99, casual, Games, strategy

Warlords: Call to Arms

Tony Mei | Apr 11, 2010 Games

User rating: (8 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)

 Loading ...

The app store is filled with strategic warfare games by talented developers, the now obscure but once insanely popular game Cartoon Wars comes to mind, but it’s rare to finding such an exceptional and enjoyable game that is Warlords: Call To Arms by Greyhound Games. In short, everything about the app screams iPhone and iTouch gaming perfection, from the strategic and fast paced game play to the slick and pleasant graphics and sounds.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: $1.99, Games, strategy

Holochess

Michael (Admin) | Sep 11, 2009 Games

User rating: (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

I like when developers get all inventive and crazy with their game ideas! There are already plenty of entries in the match 3 and shmup genres, so when MeYuMe came up with Holochess I got kind of curious.

As the name implies, Holochess is kind of like chess with its wacky rules and strategic play, but it also looks very cartoony and you get to blow up your opponent’s pieces which are both nice bonuses. The board bears some resemblance to the Dejarik game that Chewie plays with R2D2 on the Millenium Falcon (do I really need to name the movie?), and Dejarik happens to be one of the two sets of rules – Courtier being the other – that Holochess comes equipped with.

Courtier starts you off with six pieces and the object is to capture the other guy’s King, just like in normal chess, and pawns are eliminated by double-teaming them on either side. Dejarik starts with four pieces and there’s no King, so you have to win by eliminating pawns with diagonal moves or by lining your pawns up in a neat little row on the board’s center ring.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: $1.99, strategy

Sentinel

Chris J. | Mar 5, 2009 Games

User rating: (9 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

It’s always a pleasure reviewing an app that has the time and money invested to make it a truly quality game. Sentinel is a tower defense game that rises to the top with spectacular graphics, great sound, and intuitive controls. Origin8 Technologies Limited has put a lot into developing this app, and it shows.

If you’re not familiar with the tower defense game genre, here’s a short primer. You are guarding your base from the hordes of enemy who will follow a convoluted path of attack. Place towers to fire on the enemy and hopefully stop them from reaching your base.

The controls are simple and easily learned. Drag and drop to create towers, and tap existing towers to either upgrade or sell.  Use two fingers and spread apart to zoom in for a better look at any area then scroll around the battlefield with one finger.

There are three different maps of increasing difficulty. Beating a map unlocks the next map. One interesting feature on the maps in Sentinel was multiple entry points for enemies. The second and third maps both had more than one path enemies could take to get to the base, making the defense more challenging.

Included on the maps are barriers. These are blockades on the path which enemies must destroy to pass. If kept intact, the barriers will add to your score and possibly make defense of your base a little easier.

For the most part Sentinel is a lot like most other traditional tower defense games out there, which is its main weakness. The tower choices are your basic weak and fast attack tower, cannon-type tower, slow enemies tower, strong and slow attack tower, and sniper tower. Enemies also fall into the usual types: slow walkers, fast swarmers, flying, and boss.

One addition is the ability to have up to three repair robots. These robots will repair damages to the base or barriers. When not repairing, they will mine resources to add to your money.

I admit that I am not the best at tower defense games, but I had hoped to make it all the way through on Easy mode. On the third map I was destroyed just I made it to Wave 100 (out of 120). It is a little frustrating to make it that far then have to start over from the beginning. It would also be nice to have a checkpoint or two along the way considering how long it takes to get that far.

At $4.99 this is one of the higher-priced games out there. Looking at the app, it is easy to see the reason for the price tag. Development of a quality app costs money, and Sentinel is definitely a high-quality app. If you enjoy tower defense games, Sentinel will certainly not leave you disappointed.

Tags: $4.99, Chris J., strategy

7 Cities TD

Michael (Admin) | Jan 14, 2009 Games

User rating: (9 votes, average: 4.22 out of 5)

 Loading ...

I don’t know why, but I’ve always had a boner for Tower Defense games… that’s what the “TD” is for in 7 Cities TD. In the Tower Defense format your sole objective is to stop the enemy from moving across your turf. They don’t try to kill you, you just kill them before they reach their destination. A while back I had some fun with another “TD” game called Galactic Invasion, and 7 Cities TD is right up there even though it’s waaaaay different in both looks and gameplay.

7 Cities has seven different maps, hence the name, and they all seem to involve winding rivers where you can strategically place your towers of death as critters and pirate ships parade by. Neptune Entertainment not only lets you upgrade your weapons (as do all pretty much all TD games) but you can also earn other powerups and weapon abilities that make this a pretty fun time waster.

I could go into a whole thing about Blue Gems and Red Gems and the Skill Unlocker, but (a) I’m drinking right now and I’d probably explain it wrong because beer makes me stupid, and (b) all you really need to know is that there’s more to this game than just upgrading your firepower.

One thing that strikes me as a little weird in this game is that each map is treated as an individual game, so the high scores are also tallied as such. In other words, if you conquer the first map, you’ll be asked to put your name on the high score board before advancing to the next map. Now that I’m thinking about it I guess it isn’t that strange, but part of me was expecting each map to be treated as a level, and my high score wouldn’t be tallied until after getting a thorough ass-whipping by those damn pirates. Eh, whatever. At least Neptune put up a global 7 Cities scoreboard so you can flaunt your gaudy scores in front of the world. Good move! I hate when developers forget to do that, but I do wish I could put in a longer name (ie: iphoneappreviews).

As complaints go, I don’t have much. The graphics are high quality, but visually it’s all pretty blah because the towers you’re placing on the map kind of blend in with the scenery. Outside of that small detail it’s a very solid game that’s easy to learn and apparently hard to master since I haven’t gotten past the third map yet on Normal difficulty.

It looks like a lot of effort went into 7 Cities TD and there’s lots of playing time to be had, so I don’t think $4.99 is asking too much. It’s a quality game and if you, too, have a boner for Tower Defense it should provide plenty of entertainment.

Tags: $4.99, strategy

Arkanigon

Splash Jackson | Dec 15, 2008 Games

User rating: (1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect when I got my hands on LPS’s Arkanigon. I had played some other “fighter” games for the iPhone but wasn’t impressed enough to keep playing them. After reading the iTunes description of the game, I got the impression it was a Tank Wars style of game where you strategically launch projectiles at your opponent, hoping to obliterate them out of existence. I was right in a sense, but what I got was something entirely different. It’s like those animes where the hero and villain are standing some distance apart, shooting their super-powered projectiles at one another continuously while hurling witty insults about things the average person would know nothing about; that’s what Arkanigon is. You won’t see the fighters meet in the middle to bitch-slap one another on the face; these characters are above that type of comerodery.

When you first open Arkanigon, you are greeted by an intro video that depicts the story and background of the Arkanigons. After you get the skinny on the game, you are taken to a loaded start menu. Seriously, there are TWELVE menu options to choose from! I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many choices in an iPhone game! You can choose from: Getting Started (tutorial), Prologue, Story Mode, Two Player, Save/Load Game, Story Endings, Settings, Characters, Human vs. CPU, CPU vs. CPU (in case you are too lazy to play), Music Player, and Credits. That is a lot of options for a dollar game! I give LPS kudos for including so many features.

Before you go jumping into battle (like I did), I recommend you take the time to read the Getting Started tutorial, watch the Prologue, and read the Character profiles. This is almost essential prior to playing the game, otherwise you’ll be scratching your head like an ape looking for his lost banana. Seriously, read! Once you read all the information, you will be more aptly prepared to actually play and enjoy the game for what it is.

Now, this is where I’m guessing most people seem to be staying away from buying this game (it only has 2 reviews in the app store): the gameplay is either love it or hate it. You will probably enjoy the crisp backgrounds and the funky illustrated characters. You may not like the actual gameplay motion graphics. Like I stated before, these fighters are not going to run into head-on battle or explode into super huge flames when struck by an attack. They will stand there, hair blowing in the wind, and move their arms (and bodies occasionally) to launch an attack. This could deter you from the excitement of the game, but then again, it isn’t your typical fighting game. One suggestion that could make this game more exciting is enhancing the actual attack graphics. As it stands, an attack is generally a bland colored ball (blast) that flies slowly at the character to drain their HP. With a game like this, the attack graphics should be full of energy, power, and enough flashing light that could send any anime-obsessed child into fits and seizures.

The actual gameplay is more satisfying than the graphics. Once you either select story mode or VS. mode, you are transported to the arena where the battle almost instantly begins (and I mean you have no countdown or any indication the battle has started other than by launching an attack or being hit by one). To attack (or defend), you have a wide variety of touch screen fighting options: single tap, double tap, horizontal swipe, vertical swipe, DOUBLE horizontal/vertical swipe, cross swiping, and swipe-tap combos. This is where it becomes important to read character profiles, as each character has their own unique powers that are assigned to the various attacks. If you don’t come prepared, you will be tapping and swiping furiously (like an ape that lost its banana), and you may lose and get frustrated. However, if you take the time to learn your character’s (and enemy’s) moves, the game will be more rewarding.

The one thing that was kind of frustrating with the gameplay was the “cool time” that follows after launching a heavier attack. Basically, it means you have to wait “x” amount of time before you can launch that attack again; how long you have to wait is unclear, and the only way you can tell is by trying the attack again. This can cause you to lose an opportunity to attack while you get wailed on by the opponent. There is no cooling time for energy shots, but those attacks won’t take you far. If you want to beat the game, you need to master the special shots and “kanji” spells that do things like freeze your opponent or drain their energy. Defense is a big part of the game as you can set up a force field that helps relieve some of the damage from shots or can reflect a shot entirely.

In terms of difficulty, well let’s just say this: I was “taking names” for three rounds, and then by the fourth round, I was getting my ass handed to me by Jimmy (little punk). If you know your opponent well enough and how they battle, it will give you an edge up when the game gets harder (can’t seem to stress this point enough!)

The soundtrack that is in the game matches the theme of the story, giving you that sense of action, power, and eeriness that accompanies superhuman stories. The in-game fighting sound effects, however, are nothing spectacular, but they do the trick of letting you know when an attack has been launched.

I won’t go too in-depth on the other features of the game, but I will say that there are enough options to satisfy the player and justify the game as a whole. Two-player mode is fun if you are playing with someone who knows what they are doing (or if you just like to humiliate unsuspecting victims), but the finger-room cuts in half in order to share the board with the other player. And if you are just too darn lazy to lift a finger to battle, you can set up your favorite characters to battle one another while you stuff your face with devil cakes and ding-dongs (it may be more entertaining than some of the crappy cartoons that are on TV nowadays). The music player and story endings features are nice add-ons if you enjoy this type of bonus content.

I would say the key to enjoying this game is to get involved in the story lines of the characters. Otherwise, the game will be pretty bland. For $0.99, the game is justifiable as long as you know what you are getting into, and if you need a game to kill some time, this one will do the trick. I would hope for an update of the battle graphics and sounds to really up the gameplay excitement, but as it stands, strategy and story are key to keeping you engaged in Arkanigon.

Tags: $.99, action, anime, strategy, tournament