5punk

I got bored with doodle god very quickly. It was a bit like combining spells in magika but without the satisfaction of exploding goblins.

Oh, also. shit just got, as they say, real.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO-y5wzmK4E[/media]

I've got a whole raft of iPad games now, plus a couple for my Win phone, so here's a quick round up:

Plants Vs Zombies
Almost identical to the PC version, the only issue with it is that dabbing away with your big sausage fingers isn't as intuitive as a keyboard and mouse. Still an awesome game, good enough for me to buy it again.

Sentinel 3
A serious looking sci-fi tower defence game with some RPG-esque progression. It's mostly unremarkable, but you get a commander in a mech who can't walk but can jump between set points to bolster defences. In practice this tends to you leaving him on one point as a rather powerful stationary defence and concentrate more turrets on the other lines. It's entertaining enough though, and fairly hard.

PushCars HD
A simple little puzzle game which involves you setting a direction for various cutesy cars on a city map so that some crash and others escape. It's not what I'd describe as mind blowing, and the music is rather annoying, but it's entertaining enough and I don't remember paying anything for it.

Weird Worlds
I've mentioned this before. It's a randomly generated space exploit where you explore worlds to loot and fight over. All its mechanics are pretty basic, but it's very compelling and the random maps make it far more replayable than it should be.

Tower Madness
This is the best tower defence game I've played on the iPad as yet. It's a bit comical and cartoony, and one you work out which tower is rather overpowered it kind of makes the others redundant, but the balance is very well done and even when failing I find myself thinking "if only I'd done that" and trying again. It's free and funded by purchasing additional towers and maps, but there are more than enough maps with it and only one tower is really worth considering (but pretty much essential later on).

Windosill
This is one of those bonkers little room games where you have to manipulate things in order to find the exit. In this case it's getting stuff to produce a block to open a door and let you push your little toy train to the next one. Yeah, these things never make much sense. It's fairly short and not that hard (probably no bad thing actually, any harder and I might have given up), and I can't quite shake the feeling I paid over the odds for it. The game journos loved it for some reason.

SB:Survival HD
I've forgotten what SB stands for, but this is an overhead, turn based alternate second world war dogfight game. If you've ever played Sean O'Connor's Critical Mass you will be familiar with this. If not it's a simple premise - drag an arrow to where you would like your plane to move that turn, within its turning/speed limits, and try to get enemy planes in your sights. It's not hard to get individual planes, but it's a lot more tricky to survive during big furballs. There's a nice variety of enemy planes, and the free version offers a lot, but it's a bit of a one trick pony. If you like that trick it's worth a look though, and if you turn off your wi-fi it won't bother you with ads.

Cut The Rope
I imagine quite a few have heard of this already. It's an interesting little puzzler which feels Angry Birds like in its graphics and sound. The gameplay bears no resemblance though. The basic objective is to get a sweetie into the mouth of a little green monster called Om Nom. You don't manipulate the sweetie directly though, only by the objects around it. Largely these are the titular ropes on which it can swing and be detached by cutting, but there are lots of different mechanics and skills introduced throughout the game. There looks to be plenty of content, and most of the levels are easy to complete. However, the point is more to get the full three star perfect result for each level, and that is substantially harder. You can play a browser demo of it here.

Hunters HD
This rather high production (for a mobile) game is rather reminiscent of Space Hulk. You have a team of sci-fi corporate mercenaries who enter rival facilities and shoot people in order to complete some objective. There's an experience system with talent unlocks, and plenty of equipment to.. erm equip. It's not easy, although nowhere near as hard as its inspiration (I've only ever lost one guy in any single mission so far and he didn't stay dead). Bonus objectives are much harder to get though. There are some odd decisions made with it though, considering it costs £4 or so with no free version I noticed. Firstly, you still get in-game advertising. It's not forced on you, you get a nice little bit of kit instead for following the unintrusive link in the mission screen, but it still feels odd to have advertising in a game I've paid for. Secondly, it limits the number of missions you can play and equipment you can buy during a certain time period. It touts this as constantly updating its content, but for me it just seems needlessly limiting - I paid a good price for the game, surely I should be able to play it as much as I like?

Highborn HD
This is a fantasy strategy/RPG with World of Warcraft styling and Advance Wars gameplay. In fact, the RPG aspect is pretty light, limited only really to a selection of non-upgradable heroes. Regardless though, it's a very good turn based game from what I've seen. The problem I have with it though, and it's a big one, is the price. The free version you get is the tutorial plus one mission. Fair enough, a good enough taster to upgrade it for £4, until I find that the upgrade is only for another chapter (of three), with only seven mission. That is, in my opinion, a despicable rip off compared to other similar games.

Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land
This is a turn based tactical 'RPG' in the same vein as Fallout or Jagged Alliance. Set in the First World War trenches, the story follows a mythos-hunting, turban-sporting professor and his party of investigators and soldiers, who are working to stop some unspeakable horror feeding on the death and destruction of the war. As an RPG it is very light - the rules are stripped down versions of the D100 Chaosium pen & paper game, modified for a combat game. It works quite nicely though, and along with equipment upgrades the progression holds a solid sense of growing ability. The roleplaying side of the game is limited to little pieces of dialogue as you complete your objectives, and while I liked the premise of the story the execution felt a little B-movie. That's not all bad though, and the game is really about the combat anyway. It does implement sanity in an interesting way - running out can cause variously freezing on the spot with terror or going mental and getting double your action points. A tactic I used on several occasions was to deliberately let a gunner go insane near the end of his actions, driving him into a frenzy and giving him a load more action points, then psychoanalysing him to make him sane again, removing the accuracy penalty from being mental but keeping the action points. Aside from that though, it's a well constructed game in an interesting setting, although it did feel a little short with maybe only 20 missions. Makes me want to run a beardy version of it.

Combat Mission: Touch

This is the mobile (possibly iPad only) version of the brilliant Combat Mission series of tactical games. It was never going to stand up to the PC versions in terms of graphics and scale, with the limited processing power of a tablet, but it does a decent enough job at representing small skirmishes, and it does feel like CM. The orders system isn't bad, pretty close from what I remember to the las CM I played on PC. However, the game is utterly let down by its AI. My own troops blunder into withering fire when unexpectedly encountering an enemy, rather than taking cover. Morale seems to have little to no effect on either side. Worse than friendly AI though, enemies seem to rely on nothing more than getting more horses than a player does in the same position, and their luck seems to be outrageously weighted. Tactics seem limited to rushing the objective while on the attack.

As an example, I sent three half tracks rushing down a flank, where they met an M10 tank destroyer at close range. The AI blindly trundled on towards it, and my evasive orders next turn (one to decamp its panzershrek equipped infantry, the other to rush past it at full speed, the third already in flames) didn't have chance to take effect as the pair were destroyed in two shots.
Switching sides, the AI rushed one of its three half tracks past the exact same position, where I had placed on of my pair of M10s (note; they had four when the scenario was reversed). The tank killer only stopped the half track two turns after it had disgorged its infantry. The remaining two, meanwhile, rushed down the road in the middle of the map, over a bridge, and onto the objective. All in full view of my other M10. My tank killer only managed to destroy one when it rattled past at point blank, and then proceeded to track the other one with its whole hull, presenting its rear to the two Panthers also trundling merrily down the middle of the map (note; I only got one Panther when the scenario was reversed). Unsurprisingly, the M10 was killed. However, it's brother, having long ago finished its half-track nemesis off, had worked its way behind the Panthers. Whereupon it proceeded to fling inaccurate fire unmolested at them from medium range for the rest of the battle.

A poor show from a great series.

Sid Meier's Pirates!

This has just been released for Windows Phone, and being a massive fan of the original I tried the 5 minute demo and promptly bought the full version. Does a great job of bringing the game to touch screen, still great fun romping about in a boat shooting people, and has a great deal of gameplay for a mobile game. The world map is now pinch to zoom which is a nice touch, and the sword fighting makes use of swipe gestures instead of key presses, which is good fun once you've had a couple of fights and got your head round it.

All in all, a great game for a phone!

(This review's target audience is essentially Dog Pants as I don't think anyone else has a Windows Phone).

Glad you mentioned it. I need a decent game for my phone and loved the original Pirates. I shall investigate.

I believe there is an iOS version that is near identical, but ive not checked it out myself. I may do that.

eRabbit wrote:Sid Meier's Pirates!

This has just been released for Windows Phone, and being a massive fan of the original I tried the 5 minute demo and promptly bought the full version. Does a great job of bringing the game to touch screen, still great fun romping about in a boat shooting people, and has a great deal of gameplay for a mobile game. The world map is now pinch to zoom which is a nice touch, and the sword fighting makes use of swipe gestures instead of key presses, which is good fun once you've had a couple of fights and got your head round it.

All in all, a great game for a phone!

(This review's target audience is essentially Dog Pants as I don't think anyone else has a Windows Phone).

Bollocks, that's my smartphone resistance knocked down a bit further

Looking at a few PC ports to tablet, some have translated really bloody well.

World of Goo, i think has been mentioned already, plays flawlessly.
Anomaly: Warzone Earth simplifies things a little compared to the PC counterpart but is a sterling tower attack kind of game all the same.
Spacechem, well, it's Spacechem! minus the story chunks which were nothing more than text anyway, it's the same chemically induced fun.

I'm mentioning Sword & Sworcery EP again since it was just released on PC and Mac. Brill game, maybe a little slow paced for some and i've heard that it's very easy to see its originally intended platform on the PC version but I found it a great wee adventure tied together with some top-notch music.

Also, Where's My Water. It's been out for a while now, a casual puzzle game where you have to dig trenches on a 2d plane to get liquid to it's destination. It introduces new mechanics at a fairly good pace, poisons, corrosive gels, explosives, mould, etc. One of those games you can pick up and play for a few moments to avoid having to look at anyone on the bus.

Legoshoes wrote:Also, Where's My Water. It's been out for a while now, a casual puzzle game where you have to dig trenches on a 2d plane to get liquid to it's destination. It introduces new mechanics at a fairly good pace, poisons, corrosive gels, explosives, mould, etc. One of those games you can pick up and play for a few moments to avoid having to look at anyone on the bus.

I can vouch for this game being brilliant, despite being Disney. It has literally hundreds of levels, none of which are particularly difficult but all of which leave you feeling varying amounts of clever afterwards.

Indeed, it's a good little time waster.

http://www.armedpineapple.co.uk/2012/02 ... -corsixth/

I'll leave this here.

My wrists fear that game on an Android :O

Saving it for later

You are a bad bad man

#doesn'tevenhaveasmartphone

Berk
Did you post that so I would hold my phone up to the screen and look like a dunce because it doesn't work

Soonarmar wrote:Berk
Did you post that so I would hold my phone up to the screen and look like a dunce because it doesn't work

Any dunciness is between you and your phone, however your replying has reminded me and forced me to download from said QR code.

Bugger.

I'm not bothering with Corsix on my phone. However, you've reminded me the Playstation version should work on my emulator!

100 floors, nice little puzzler, slightly evil, fun.

Feed Me Oil
A neat little puzzler which reminds me of World of Goo in graphics and concept, and Where's My Water in gameplay. Position various devices such as magnets and fans to guide a stream of oil into a receptacle (which looks like some form of mouth) when you release it. It's pretty good, if a little on the hard side for me. Cost a couple of quid or so I think.

Crimson Steam Pirates
A sort of steampunk version of Pirates! Control your ship by dragging its destination point, where it will move at the end of the turn and autofire at enemies in range. You accumulate more ships and extra crew which gives the ship they're on abilities and help in boarding action, but it's all very much defined by the linear (and crap) story. The free version gives you half a dozen or so missions with a taster of a few ships and a little zeppelin, and the full version is about £1.50 per chapter (of which there are three, the first being the free missions). Not bad, definately worth the free download, probably worth checking out chapter 2.