AG Drive: Extreme, G.

AG Drive (3.99) is a game that demands your attention and focus, a hardcore racer for the hardcore racing fan. Boosts, upgrades, twisting tracks, sharp turns, and stunning visuals will overwhelm your cerebral cortext if you're not ready. As fun as MMX Racing is, AG Drive is the more robust game and spectacular, hands down.

Steeped in the legacy of F-Zero and WipeOut, AG Drive reminds me most of  Extreme-G on the N64, due primarily nostalgia and not design choices. Extreme-G is the first and only racing game I've 'beat' - unlocked the all the cars, came in first in ever race, and so on. Sure, it was due to a handy cheat-code and strategy guide and assistance of my friend Brendan, but such is memory.

Like Extreme G on the N64, AG Drive delivers a blistering sense of speed in a futuristic world that exists primarily as an excuse to create elaborate race tracks that violate the laws of physics gleefully. Twists, turns, jumps, boosts, and loops are all present and accounted for.

Those jumps, boosts, and loops come at your eyeballs via a silky-smooth 60 frames per second, with millions of polygons rendered per frame, per second, if the press release is to be believed. Even if you don't, there is no denying the game is a visual marvel, and 100% solid in terms of visual and graphical oomph. If Bungie wanted to buy up this game and release it as a mobile 'Destiny'-branded racer, the only thing you'd need to change is the name - the game is that polished visually.

Handling is a slightly different story. There are options for touch controls and tilt controls. Tilt controls work great, but take quite a bit of time to get comfortable with - but considering AG Drive is a hardcore racer in every sense of the word, getting a handle on the handling (and upgrading your vehicle to have better handling) is part of the challenge. It's not that the controls are bad, it's that you'll feel bad at them for quite some time.

The touch controls are flat-out bad, with the buttons being too small on a typical iPhone screen, resulting in missing turns or under steering or over steering and missing an important boost jump. If you're playing on your phone and don't mind taking a bit of time to learn the tilt controls - you're in for a great time. However, if you're on an iPad and don't want to flail it around like a toy airplane, you'll find the virtual button control scheme occasionally frustrating due to a lack of finesse.

When you toss in upgrades, multiple tracks, time trials, leaderboards, and other bells and whistles, there's no way AG Drive isn't a must-play for hardcore race fans eager for a speed-fix on iOS. It's an evolution and an eye opener for what the platform is capable of if a studio is willing to devote time, resources, and passion to creating a premium product - heck, Zorg Entertainment's founder sold his collection of 1980s Transformers to fund this thing.

While AG Drive isn't more than meets the eye and won't change your mind if you're not already a racing fan, what *does* meet the eye is spectacular, bright, exciting, challenging, and everything a fan of F-Zero or Wipeout HD would hope it to be - nothing more, nothing less.

BEST IOS GAMESG: Dead Ahead Of The Game.

If you combined the animation of Invader Zim, The gameplay of the NES Classic Excite Bike, a bit of Akira and Terminator 2: Judgement Day,  and some classic side-scrolling beat em’ up tropes, you would have the core of Dead Ahead.

Following a fairly haunting cut-scene that plays on start-up, you’re presented with a motorcycle, a weapon, and an endless stretch of road. But Easy Rider this ain’t. That endless road is filled with debris, broken down cars, trucks, buses, potholes, the occasional jump, and, oh yeah, hundreds of sortadorable zombies eager to nom-nom on your face parts.

And I mean sortadorable. Dead Ahead’s anime-influenced art style is an absolute treat, packed chock-full of numerous little details give the game a pungent personality. From the way your character’s shirt flaps in the wind, to the hilarious way in which the hordes of undead will waddle-run after you, flailing their arms in front of them like a toddler eagerly reaching for a bottle, to how each of the different kinds of zombies: Cops, nurses, bikers, construction workers, etc have different little animated nuances, it’s easy to get distracted admiring the game’s ability to mix the endearing and the disgusting with ease.

Which can be problematic since the actual game part of Dead Ahead is excellent in it’s own right. It’s a capital V, capital G, Video Game that would have been right at home in a 1990’s arcade cabinet, perfectly content to nom-nom-nom on quarter after quarter like the zombies on screen. The mechanics are tight, with your main controls being the ability to move vertically on a 2D plane by moving your finger up and down on the right hand side of your iOS device, and a shoot and boost button on the left. You’ll use these buttons quite frantically, shooting the zombies that come up behind you, then hammering the zoom button to plow through zombies ahead of you as your boomstick reloads, all the while navigating around road obstructions across 5 seemingly endless levels.

These three elements: shooting zombies, plowing through them, and avoiding roadblocks would probably make for a decent free-to-play game, something to be played for twenty minutes and forgotten. But the beauty of Dead Ahead is in the way it combines these perfectly serviceable elements into an addicting sort of poetry, thanks in part to an objective system that ties directly into how you progress through the game. Being challenged to make it 1500 meters without using boost, or score 20 kills with a pistol before dying in order to go up a level extends the replay value exponentially.

When you toss in boss zombies, a hefty selection of weapons, and a few upgradable bikes to try out, it’s easy to drink Dead Ahead’s Kool-Aid. But, surely there must be a catch. Is this Kool-aid loaded with the empty calories of pay-to-win carbs and IAP sugary-substitute nonsense? No. It seems developer Mobirate has gone the noble route with Dead Ahead, literally providing the entire game free of charge, and hoping that the gaming community will choose to buy something as a show of support. I’ve put about five hours into Dead Ahead, and outside of a few advertisements, I’ve advanced in the game completely unabated. The game’s only currency is coins, and you’ll earn plenty just from playing - though you can buy some with real cash-money if you’d like. Similarly, a wicked cool looking Akira style bike, along with the two most powerful weapons in the game (who are actually additional riders on your bike), are only available via in-app purchase - which is perfectly fine considering the karma Dead Ahead earns in every other facet of the game. A guy’s gotta make a living, right?

Ultimately, Dead Ahead scratches an increasingly elusive itch that arcadeish classics like NARC, Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Battletoads, and X-men used to pinpoint like the fingernails of a goddess. The addicting, I know I can do better nature of the difficulty, the power-ups, the style, and a certain simplicity of design that did a few things excellently, instead of many different things decently - created some truly exquisite games.

But, for better or worse, gaming has evolved in complexity. Simple pinpoint back-scratches became antiquated in favor of more elaborate, but ultimately less satisfying massages. Even the re-releases of those arcade classics lost something in the translation, so it’s kinda of profound that Dead Ahead nails it so flawlessly. I’m tempted to use a cliche about how Dead Ahead is greater than the sum of its parts, but in truth, the parts are excellent on their own, and the fact they fit together so well is gravy.

Freebie: Galaxy on Fire 2 HD for iPhone and iPads

I’m a Trekkie, tried and true. While not as obsessed as some, I enjoy the sciencey bits, the theoretical discussions between space and time, and the way “Star Trek: The Next Generation” employs real scientific consultants to fact check all sorts of data and concepts that were subtly inserted into the show. So as a kid I was always a Jean-Luc Picard kind of guy in a Han Solo world. 

Of course, it became a tough choice as time went on. Classic space games like “Elite 2” and “X3: Reunion” with almost-limitless-as-space depth whisked past my peripheral vision - too obtuse to truly dive into.


Which brings us to the completely free “Galaxy On Fire 2”, the first game in the space pirate/trader genre that I’ve truly sunk my teeth into since the Sega Genesis’s “WarpSpeed”, and I’ve enjoyed it quite a great deal. 

The name of game here is accessibility. While “Eve: Online”, and the aforementioned “X3: Reunion” are teeming with content, options, and hundreds of little bells and whistles, those games are fairly intimidating - literally hours of learning and acclimating to the nuances of ship control are needed to even have a fair shot at success. To quote Sweet Brown, (most) ain’t nobody got time for that.

By comparison, “Galaxy On Fire 2” does what the best IOS games do, and boils down the genre to its essence, refines it, and mostly delivers where it counts. The setup is pretty standard pulpy space-adventure faire. You are the quasi-british sounding Keith T. Maxwell, space-pilot extraordinaire, and on a routine journey find yourself flung deep into space and time. Light-years away from home, and decades away from his own time, with the help of some friendly aliens, Maxwell eventually gets a ship and finds himself in a fight for the Galaxy as the not-at-all-like-the-Mass-Effect-Reapers “Void” threaten to take over the universe.

Galaxy on Fire 2 Photo credit: FishLabs

Truth be told, this setup is a little cheesy, and I doubt the story-line of the game is going to keep anyone white-knuckled glued to their iPad or iPhone. Though to be fair, “Galaxy On Fire 2”’s cast and voice acting is reasonably assembled and contains one or two genuinely funny moments. 

The entirety of the main campaign is voiced, and Maxwell and friends are at least pleasant, if not three dimensional. Character names are introduced and forgotten, and you’ll come to refer to folks as “this dude” or “that chick” or “Some a-hole” if you’re feeling particularly sour. This is okay though, while a gripping narrative is always welcome, “Galaxy on Fire” embraces this pulpy, Flash-gordon-meets-Han-Solo vibe, where nothing is taken particularly seriously, and the dialog is there mostly to move you along to the next mission.

Speaking of the missions (and that’s probably what you’re here for in the first place). They are disappointingly unvaried. You can spend hours taking on escort missions, flying cargo from one planet to another, clear out asteroids, and escort ships, yet there hasn’t been much in the way of a harrowing experience. No tight quarters to fly through, no boss-battles…per say, but this could be because I saved up all my credits for an expensive laser weapon that made every battle I took part in the intergalactic version of duck hunt. Occasionally a mission will require you to disable an enemy ship with an EMP blast, or fight through hordes on your way to a wormhole, disable the guns on a capital ship, and there are momentary distractions like asteroid mining, but alas, so far anyway, nothing has felt climatically different to separate “big” missions from smaller ones.

Galaxy on Fire 2 Photo credit: FishLabs

Don’t get me wrong though, the gameplay is certainly of quality, and far exceeds any expectations of what you’d have an IOS game - and if this game sounds like it’s up your alley, it will consume your soul for about 3-4 hours before things start to feel a touch repetitive. 

There’s a bevy of upgrades to buy, weapon diagrams to craft, seemingly endless side-missions, and the ability to purchase and sell goods for hefty profits depending on what part of the galaxy you’re in makes for a thoroughly compelling experience, but I guess the problem is, you’ve seen one space battle, you’ve seen em all.

Control also plays a big factor in making “Galaxy On Fire 2” a quality experience. It’s actually the first game I’ve played on an IOS device that uses the tilt controls expertly. As a longingly jealous youth who spent his adolescence envying people who played games like “Free Space 2” and “Wing Commander” with fancy, 80 dollar joysticks, only to come of age when that sort of thing was passe, to finally experience that sort of control was simply thrilling. And while you’ll look and (possibly feel) like an idiot as you sit on your couch, or a bus, or at work, tilting and twisting and dipping your device as you pilot your spaceship of choice, it’s intuitive and deeply immersive. 

The other commands available compliment this control scheme. Both fire, auto-pilot, and speed boost are all located on the bottom left, and right of the screen, within perfect reach of your average thumb that’s pulling double duty stabilizing your iPad that’s currently being winged around at all sorts of angles. really the only foible here comes when trying to reduce your speed (which requires swiping downward), as inevitably the pressure from your thumb will move the ipad at an angle that will directly affect your ship’s trajectory.

By the way, “Galaxy On Fire 2” is completely free, which is astounding. Not only does it feel like a premium product, it feels like a premium console product. It’s graphically beautiful, there’s tons of (somewhat samey) content to explore, and the audio is top-notch as well. So, while “Galaxy On Fire”’s flame may dim after a few hours of gameplay, it’s still an exceptional product, and one you’ll always find yourself jumping back into, eager to stoke the flames. 

  
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MMX Racing is Toy Trucks for Big Kids

Remember Monster Jam? With Big Foot and Grave Digger and all those poor, soon-to-be-crushed-and-re-crushed junk cars and crazy over-the-top pro wrestling-esque promos? Yes? Good.

No? No biggie. Monster Jam's essence, if not brand name, has found its way into MMX Racing, a monster-truck racing game that loses the steering and gains a whole lot of fun and accessibility in the process.

Clocking in at just under half a gigabyte, a great deal of that install size goes to MMX Racing's intense, high-res visuals. Tire treads, paint jobs, the sunshine, and even the asphalt are spectacularly rendered and mighty impressive - and the audio compliments this - the revving of the engines sounding suitably beefy.

But MMX Racing becomes a must-play because of what it doesn't do. By removing the need to steer, your focus is on the sounds, the sights, timing your acceleration just right, and most importantly, feel. In real life I've never been able to tap into this "feel" thing when it comes to cars - it turns on, it moves forward, and if it makes a funny noise I ignore it or ask someone smarter than I am.But in MMX Racing, I got that feel all right.

How your tires leave a jump, how your massive vehicle sails through the air, and how it lands all have roots in gameplay choices that begin and end with how you handle the gas pedal, and becoming one with your truck's various idiosyncrasies. 

Also, Dune Buggies!

Currently multiplayer races are just rolling out and are a struggle if you're a newbie, and the developers promise car-crushing challenges, more cars, more customization options - so basically more of everything. The business model is microtransaction based, but I've yet to be forced into buying 'race tickets', and even if I was, a few bucks for a lot more racing, or simply waiting for them to refill, is a small price to pay for such an elaborate and dare-I-say-eloquent package.

Yes, eloquent. In much the same way a great pro wrestling match resembles a stellar dance number, MMX Racing delivers the sights, sounds, and above-all-else thrills of monster truck racing by streamlining these massively complicated beasts into a single button and a stretch of track with epic jumps as far as the eye can see.

Tapping Dead a DK Barrel of Challenge

The Tapping Dead, a retro, free-to-play, one button platformer with a passing resemblance to classic arcade games like Donkey Kong and Burger Time Boasts 150 levels, five playable characters, and a steep difficulty. The Tapping Dead hopes to separate itself from similar games with its unique aesthetics. Does it?

Well, yes, actually. The description for the The Tapping Dead on the app store claims that it’s easy to use, easy to learn, and easy to die (followed by a mwahahahaha) - and they ain’t kidding. This game is tough.

In a given level you’re presented with a complex room filled with zombies in mine carts, zombies tossing rotten flesh, and zombies doing all sorts of other dastardly things that you need to avoid...by waiting. The Tapping Dead’s one button namesake stops your character in his tracks. Going down a ladder, in between the blast radius of falling projectiles, or right in front of a shopping cart if you’re feeling suicidal, you push and hold that button, you’re not going anywhere.

The mechanic works great, and I’ve had countless harrowing moments where I’d stop just in the nick of time to avoid an enemy, or just barely miss that nick of time, curse at myself out loud from the near-privacy of a bathroom stall, and fiendishly start the level again, endeavoring to get the timing just right.

The focus on proper timing is all the more important thanks to The Tapping Dead’s freemium model. Each of The Tapping Dead’s 150 levels feature a coin that be collected by making it through a level speedily. If you spend too much time stopped, the coin disappears until you restart the level - and these coins are needed to buy hearts. Hearts correspond to your lives, and seeing as how each level has a literal buffet of misanthropic creatures waiting to say hi teeth first, you will die and you will run out of hearts pretty frequently. Once you’re out, you can buy more with coins, or wait for your lives to replenish to the tune of one every twenty minutes. If you simply can’t wait, you can buy a coin pack for a dollar or two.

And this feels mostly fair. Like the arcade games of old, the better you are at The Tapping Dead, the less likely your need to spend cash money on it will be (a point echoed in the most recent TA Podcast). During my first two days with the game, I found myself consistently out of lives and constantly tempted to drop a dollar on a coin pack so I could keep going - but as I earned more coins and kept playing, I found myself running completely out of lives less frequently, and a bit more confident in my Tapping Deadabilities, too.

As the first release from Crazy Cricket Games, it’s refreshing to see a new studio hit a pretty good balance between freemium and free-to-play. As a for-profit company releasing a free-to-play game, it’s understandable to put the monetization elements at the forefront - as they do. Every time you run out of hearts the ability to buy a coin pack pops up before you can pop back to the main menu, but by and large I never felt like I had to spend any money on The Tapping Dead at all. Which is great for players, but perhaps not the best thing in the world for the developers. If you're one of those socially conscious gamers who like to support

The Tapping Dead is pretty compelling stuff. This is the kind of game that’s wonderful to have on your phone for a bathroom break, short bus ride, or a conversation you don’t particularly want to pay attention to - something you spark up when you don’t have time to tackle some of the more in-depth experiences offered on iOS, but still want something challenging. That said, The Tapping Dead is a surprisingly high-in-quality diversion. The one-button mechanics are solid, the graphics are charming and may even dust up some nostalgia from the back of your mind, and you get a lot of undead bang for literally zero bucks.

You Don't Know Jack Mobile: The Game That Got Me Laid.

I fondly refer to the 'old' You Don't Know Jack as the game that got me laid.

If you took Rolf the Muppet’s personality and overall vibe and put it into a sexy possibly Latina chick, it would be a girl I dated years ago, whom I wooed with a trip to the Dave & Buster’s trivia wheel, the sly maneuver of giving my prize tickets away to a kid (after getting her an adorable stuffed penguin - Gerald), and not much else. 

On a second date, trivia came up again, I mentioned owning “You Don’t Know Jack”, and her eyes lit. Suddenly a girl was coming back to my place to play video games. She was serious about this too. A competitive spirit that had eluded all my friends and most of my acquaintances was present in this angel of a woman. I needed to win, and she did too and that was fucking sexy.

So years later when I saw that very same girl’s Facebook page light up with stats and updates about her “You Don’t Know Jack” scores, I was intrigued. Turns out a mini phenomenon had swept the nation. You Don’t Know Jack was mobile! There were people, all across the country, playing this game? And they wanted to win? And they liked the jokes? And I can play DIRECTLY against people on FB whom I base my entire life worth upon my sense of superiority over? 

At this rate You Don’t Know Jack is going to be the best man at my wedding.

You Don’t Know Jack presents itself as an irreverent trivia show. There are fake sponsors like “The Warehouse Supply Warehouse” (with all your warehouse supply, supply needs), and Nacho-pedic Beds (and pillows). The writing of the questions and associated jokes is strong, and while there are a few groaners, the quality of writing is superb considering the bone crushing amount of content Jellyvision has pumped out - including celebrity hosted episodes, holiday ones,and more.

Hosted by the tastily named Cookie Masterson, each game is broken down into 5 questions (and five associated wisecracks by Cookie). The topics range in variety from pop culture to movies, to sports, to science, to english and grammar, and a variety of others. The faster you answer the question, the more money you earn, and you lose more money for a wrong answer if you buzz in quickly, too. There are a few other trivia formats that occur occasionally through a game, as well, such as a “Dis or Dat” which has you associating a phrase with one thing or another, and the accurately titled “put the choices into order and buzz in and see if you are right….Question”.

The person with the most money at the end of the game wins coins (used for purchasing more “episodes”) and bragging rights. Yes, you can *actually* brag on your friends Facebook walls if you enjoy the taste of victory with a side of petulance.

On the subject of petulance, it’s entirely possible you’ll hate this game for the reasons I like it. The so-bad-they’re-good jokes tickle my fancy, while it may grind yours like sandpaper. The graphic heavy A/V presentation could tax older devices and lead to lower scores, and folks can buy ‘Point Boosters’ for a round that allow them to get 3x, 5x, or 10x the points for a correct answer.

Look, if fancy yourself a trivia hound, you owe it to yourself to give “You Don’t Know Jack” a spin. It’s completely free and playing your first few games will cost you absolutely zero dollars, and barely 10 minutes of your time. It’s engaging, it’s funny (to me), and hell, you may even get laid .

-Rating-

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The Respawnables Is Your Handheld "Battlefield"

Shooters on iOS hedge their bets when it comes to control. Simulating the dual stick scheme that's standard on consoles is a tough due to the lack of tactile feedback and slippery nature of touch controls. With attention spans growing ever shorter and patience growing thinner by the moment, making a game that doesn't require much twitch-based movement is a safe way to prevent a new player from jumping off the learning curve.

Digital Legends' 'The Respawnables' isn't interested in hedging bets. The studio has worked on games like Battlefield Bad Company, and it's clear this isn't their first rodeo when it comes to multiplayer-focused mayhem. Primarily because they have a wrangle on console-esque controls that's rare in these here parts. I won't go into detail because the game is free and they're self explanatory - but rest assured, they shan't fail you. Navigating an arena, locating a target, and blasting their face off is appropriately challenging but in the good way. When you see an enemy your gun will loosely lock on, allowing you to aim at their head or torso with a bit more precision.

The graphics ain't half bad either. Respawnables is cartoony and bright and clearly influenced by the likes of TF2 and Battlefield Heroes - with exaggerated expressions, big ole guns, and even 1960's Batman-esque "Pow!" and "Bang!" lettering popping up around explosions. As far as a game focused on slaughtering your fellow man goes - it's a pretty colorful and chipper affair.

This has two advantages - firstly it's easier and less resource intensive to deliver great cartoony visuals then it is to do mediocre photo-realistic ones, and secondly it gives the carnage a G.I Joe vibe.

A vibe that gets a bit offset by roughly two zillion armor, weapon, clothing, and projectile upgrades. If you're obsessed with tricking out a character's build - this is the shooter for you. You earn exp, cash, and gold from single and multiplayer combat and turn around and use that cash on upgrades, etc - it's classic hamster wheel gaming, and you'll play until your next weapon unlock...then play a little longer just to see how it works.

This all plays wonderfully without a hitch single-player, and over WiFi against other real opponents, there was a little lag, but nothing severe enough to inhibit the fun. Of course going up against real players is a bigger challenge, so expect to die more often then against AI robots.

Then there's also the strange fact this game features...well...The Terminator. And Men in Black. And...Elysium?! Yeah! Within moments of my match online I was blasted to pieced by a Noisy Cricket of all things. How you get these weapons and avatars naturally revolves around premium currency that takes quite a while to earn... or you can pony up real cash.

Is it worth the cash? Well, like anything, that depends on your outlook. I am of the mind that if you love shooters and can't get enough CS: Go or Team Fortress 2, dropping two or three bucks for some premium upgrades would be a mitzvah for the developers who released this dang thing for free, and give you some sick new duds.

Speaking of duds, The Respawnables is anything but. Exciting and accessible and mercilessly deep, much like the title suggests, you'll keep coming back to it over and over again.

BEST IOS GAMES: Plundernauts The "Firefly" Game You Always Wanted.

I don't know my robot parrot's real name in Plundernauts, but as far as tutorializing companions go, she's great, and in my head, her name is Kaylee, named after the spunky, handsy, frisky and bright engineer from the cult-classic sci-fi western TV show Firefly.

Plundernauts actually has a lot in common with Firefly; From pirates to ship design to salvaging parts to upgrade your junky 'boat' into something respectable. It's 'used space' through and through, and the cell-shaded graphics, sweeping orchestration, booming explosions, and razor sharp laser blasts set the tone expertly for this action/strategy space-combat game.  It feels like high-seas adventure in the grandness of space.

While the tone's Firefly, the gameplay is all Star Trek: StarFleet Command. That game gave you control of a federation ship and had you juggle targeting arcs, engine output, crew management, and perform evasive maneuvers to blow Klingons and Romulans into space debris. The 'Command' games were fun, but like most Star Trek games, missed the forest for the trees. Star Trek is many things, but it is *not* exclusively about blowing enemy spaceships out of the water. StarFleet Command gave you the excitement, but none of the drama or philosophy the series was oft-praised for.

Plundernauts doesn't need to give a flying Ferangi about diplomacy or philosophy or diplomacy, and as a result the tactical strategy of sliding your finger across a map to turn your ship juuustttt the right way in order to get off that one last torpedo shot, is enthralling. I'd argue it's the best space combat game on mobile, and that includes Galaxy On Fire 2 HD.

The game is avoids complex plot points, ensuring almost all your time spent with it involves preparing your ship for battle via upgrading your weapons and crew and technical modifications, or actually battling. The isometric perspective is perfect for mobile platforms, allowing players to focus on maneuvering and tactics,and less on orientation, as a first-person combat sim likely would. The over-world map is set up a bit like Star Fox, and the game helpfully reminds you which planets and enemies you've conquered via little outpost flags.

For the price of absolutely nothing, you get a whole lot of everything in this here space adventure. Tactics, charm, excitement, strategy, and literally, an entire universe in your pocket.

Chesslike, Like, A Cool Idea.

I experienced the vitriol of a purist well before I knew the term. In second grade I attended a community Chess club event with a friend, and after he got bored and I felt bad, I suggested we re-arrange all the pieces on the board how we want, and play from there.

You would have thought I drew a picture of the prophet Mohammad. Within moments an adult guilt-tripped us out of it - we can do what we want, but whatever we were doing, certainly *wasn't* Chess, and certainly didn't have value. 

Well the joke is on that guy, because Chesslike: Adventures in Chess is a heck of a lot of fun, and a hell of a value for $1.99.

The premise is pretty simple - mash up the concept of a dungeon crawler with the movement and tactics of Chess. Collect items to change what piece you are, descend downward, open locked doors, avoid or capture enemies, and see how far you can go (and in how few moves).


Coded entirely in HTML5 (and actually available on the web, too) Chesslike avoids fluff and bombast and throws you into the action quickly. It also helpfully refreshes you on the various moves certain pieces can make, and also highlights titles on the board where you can move.

During my couple of hours with the game I ran into an occasional menu glitch and seemingly got stuck, but it turned out that I simply was in the middle of summoning a piece I had previously captured - which arguably could have been better explained.

Most importantly Chesslike reconnected me with the world's oldest and most popular turn based strategy game - and made it feel fresh. Spending five minutes jaunting through a dungeon is a far more accessible experience than loading up an entire game of chess on your phone, only to go up against expert players or genius-level CPU, and could hypothetically serve as a decent starting point for kids and friends who find chess intimidating.

Are you going to spend hours and hours and hours with your nose a half a foot away from your phone trying to reach the next level in this game? Probably not. But it's a great lingerer, worth pulling out during a  five minute break at work, while waiting for the bus, or if you want to bend your mind around backwards a bit (the user created levels are killer).

It's funny, when I think back to the chess club I remember wanting to to take those 'chess challenges' I saw in the newspaper as a kid, the ones that shared real-estate with my precious funny pages, and say "What about these! Don't these have value?!". Now, if he isn't dead and I end up seeing him again, I'll show him this game, the people playing, and its creativity, and simply utter "Check".

 

Pixel People Pleases Passively

What happens when you combine the city building of “Sim City”, the art-style of “Pocket Planes” and the pointless, but still somehow fascinating Commodore 64 game, “Little Computer People”? Well, despite a fairly hard-bitten premise involving the destruction of the world as we know it, and the daunting task of rebuilding it via cloning and splicing of human genetics, you get “Pixel People,” a new free-to-play city-building iOS game that’s adorable as it is compelling.

With the premise out of the way, the game beings properly once you place your first house - your pixel people need a place to live, after all. From there you take clones and combine two skills to create a third - which is the game’s main draw. It’s charming the way “Pixel People” breaks down the human condition into such simple, yet true, terms. If you combine a “Writer” and a “Dreamer” you get a “Poet” (that naturally occupies a cafe). An “Architect” and an “Artist” gives you an “Interior Designer”. “Detective” and “Writer” gives you a “Reporter”, “Athlete” and “Sheriff” yields you a “Coach” and so on. There’s literally a 150 combinations, and if you’re the type to wonder what makes up the character of the human soul, you’ll find much delight in the combinations and their associated punny names - The calligrapher named Otto Graph had me chuckling in public.

Pixel People is not unlike that of a model train set. You’ll grow incredibly attached to your city. You built it, after-all. Every house, every road, every place of business becomes etched into your mind, and the beautiful high-res, retro, art style makes every new discovery pop. You’ll remember where you were the day you placed your photo studio, when your sports stadium finally finished construction, the weather on the day you moved Town Hall, in addition to remembering the location of pretty much every building you place.

But despite its many charms, I struggle to call “Pixel People” a game. Sure, you interact with it, and you can do well and poorly at maintaining your city’s growth, but there’s very little at stake here, and very little pressure to succeed - meaning “Pixel People” feels a lot like tending to some sort of bizarre, industrious garden. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Gardening is a pastime that rewards time and patience and a nurturing diligence, all of which translate pretty well into the landscape of passive mobile gaming. You have to click buildings after they run out of “energy” in order for them to continue producing cash, little hearts pop up that you can click and hold in order to gain various cash, and adorable animal bonuses, and money, literally, grows on trees.

You’re tending to this city to watch it grow, but the problem is, well, gardens at least blossom. Quite frankly, despite the aforementioned charm, nothing happens in your “Pixel People” town. “Sim City” and “The Sims” are classics is because you nurture both your people *and* their actions. I’m not saying “Pixel People” needs to include a fail state or a difficulty level, but tangible things need to happen in this city you already feel incredibly attached too, if developer LambdaMu wants it to achieve the greatness that is barely escaping it.

The Stadium needs to have games that give you extra money. The players there should buy Lamborghini from the car dealership, and the TV station should do commercials for both. That seems complicated to program, sure, but it could be accomplished very easily using its default graphical style, and give you simple option choices that further enhance your gameplay. Having these charming characters visually interact in memorable ways is the brass ring here.

I want to build my town and want it prosper socially as well as financially - I want it to feel alive, otherwise I end up feeling silly that I’m spending all my time keeping an eye on a fictional town filled with completely static citizens.

Despite that flaw, “Pixel People” is an absolutely phenomenal time-waster that will cost you exactly 0 dollars, and it’s worth every penny. It’s pleasant, addicting, cute, funny, and the splicing together of citizens via personality traits is endlessly fascinating. While it isn’t really a *game* in the most standard sense of the word, and the city itself is lacking in some interactive elements that would truly send it over the top, there are exactly 150 reasons to give “Pixel People” a chance.

Type:Ryder Porno For Printing Presses

I’m a writer. You know I’m a writer because you’re reading this, and I wrote it. I know I’m a writer because I go nuts when I don’t write, wondering why I’m not writing. I also wonder what other people are writing, and if it will be better than my writing. I read reviews of games I’ve already written about, and write about their writing in the comments section. Writing, and thinking about writing is one of my favorite things to do.

So a mobile game called Type:Rider, by one of my favorite game studios, would presumably be write (ha ha) up my alley, and first impressions are great. The visuals are a marvel; atmospheric and endearing in the Braid “mold”, with lots of neat little details that are fun to look at and fun to show to your friends who scoff at mobile gamers. You control two little periods on a harrowing journey through the history of typography, from cave paintings, to printing presses, to printers. The journey primarily requires platforming expertise, patience, puzzle solving, and precision.

And precision is the sticky point. Type:Rider uses an innovative scheme that has you tapping one side of your device to move forward, and then tapping the other side to jump. It’s one of the more creative ways I’ve seen virtual controls handled on a mobile platformer, and in the early stages of the game, they work wonderfully. But once the game ramps up, and you’re challenged to make tricky jumps, accurate landings on curved surfaces, and hit buttons in a specific order, you’ll find yourself arguing with your iPad, fingers, and finally, the game as you’ll be unsure what you’re doing wrong and what direction your technically ‘facing’.

The problem is that the character (well, characters) you control function as wheels. They have momentum, then turn, they run up walls, and so on. As a result, when you hit a particularly tricky jump or get stuck hanging on a “U” or another letter, you’ll find yourself hammering both sides of the screen to just get out of the situation, and you’ll often end up beating a tricky portion of the game, or (literally) wiggling your way out of a jam, thanks to pure dumb luck.

It’s not that the control is bad, it’s not. You can make your way through the game and make all those tricky jumps and beat those irksome puzzles after some trial-and-error, but I *hate* trial and error. It cheapens accomplishments and rubs salt in the wounds of failure – “the computer cheats” isn’t a phrase I should be thinking about in such a gorgeous game.

And hoo my is it gorgeous. Type:Rider delivers a sublime A/V package with soothing music and whimsical tones that peak the curiosity of the player. You’ll jump into rotating “U”s, push buttons on a typewriter to solve puzzles, and roll your way through pages of the Gutenberg bible with a smirk, wide eyes, and warm heart. You eventually run into a stage that feels like a Picasso painting, and you’ll bound off all manner of dynamic and abstract shapes on your way to the end of a level.

By the time you’re careening through a mine-cart roller coaster, jumping to avoid being shot by an unseen sniper, your $2.99 purchase will be validated ten fold. If you choose to dive into obtaining the various collectibles that allow you to read about the history of typography, the experience is that much more enriching, and educational for the kind of person looking for a bit context.Speaking of context, If I had to guess, someone on the staff at BulkyPix has an incredible love for the history of the written word, an unmatched passion for the thing we now take for granted with ‘u’es ‘bcuz’es, ‘b4s’ and Facebook memes that care for grammatical accuracy as much as I care for light Ranch Dressing on a salad.

In that regard I have nothing but praise for this title. I have problems with the control and don’t really see the moving parts coming together in a cohesive way that emotionally moves the player (like say, Quell:Memento), but the thing with passion projects is that sometimes they’re not for an audience, they’re for you – and this game oozes passion like HP Printer ink.

Which is to say that while I do not share BulkyPix’s passion for typography, I do appreciate it. But I can’t help but feel this is a game about textiles in a world where most people care about fashion. I don’t care how words *look* I care what they mean, I care how they’re strung together in an overlong sentence to make a point, or how something as simple as “…” can shoot fear through the heart of an online conversation.

However, if Type:Rider, through solid platforming and pretty visuals, turns someone on to the fascinating history of typography and written communication, who am I to say that janky platforming, and a lack of interest in its source material, is a reason to not seek this game out? If this sounds like your kind of game, have at it – you won’t be disappointed.

But beauty absent precision is pornography. Type:Rider is really good porno. Great porno, even. For all its beauty and imagination, I find myself…underwhelmed – then again I look at someone like Jenna Haze and ponder what they’re like as a person. The game isn’t quite what I expected, and while that doesn’t make it bad, opportunities appear littered all over the floor.

But you really shouldn’t judge a game on what it doesn’t do, and instead take it for what it is. Type:Rider  *is* a gem of a game to play and marvel at and grow occasionally frustrated with as its immense charm eventually wanes and you’re stuck hugging the middle part of an “E”, or the round part of a “G” while the letters “W” “T” and “F” creep into your head in your favorite Typeface.

Dragon Quest V's Dowry A Doozy.

Developing an iOS port is a lot like stuffing a six-course gourmet dinner into a microwavable box. The ingredients are the same, but the presentation, atmosphere, preparation - something, is going to get lost in the process. Dragon Quest V is such a gourmet meal; a sweeping epic and a shining beacon of classic JRPG perfection. It's a forebearer of Pokemon thanks to its monster-hunting gameplay, the story is well written with emotionally resonate moments and features universal lessons regarding the nature of adulthood, it's full of swashbuckling, dozens of weapons and armor and items, and a lot more. It's superb. But like running 'Sophie's Choice' on Nickelodeon TV, the content is too heavy for the platform.

 If you're the sort of gamer who bemoans a lack of 'console quality' experiences on iOS, well, here you go.
The game has been ported deftly and with care. Multiple control schemes, auto-saves, touch-based menu navigation, the gang's all here, as they say. But it feels like a big screen epic brought to Betamax. Dragon Quest V is a game you almost need to play 2-3 hours at a time to fully appreciate, and a couch, mountain dew, and big screen TV can't hurt either.

It needs the player's focus to be fully appreciated, and most iOS gaming is done on the go or while the potential to be distracted is high. Dragon Quest V is a marathon. It's a game from a different time for a different platform - it's pacing is slower, breadth wider, and intricacies numerous. Conversations are expertly written, but go on and on. Battles are turn based and drawn out. Dungeons arduous, towns labyrinthian in nature. Dragon's Quest V needs room to breathe, and considering so much iOS gaming is done on the go - it can't catch its breath.

Worse, the complexities of the game lend themselves to investigating every nook and cranny, clicking on every item, and random battles, and since you're doing a lot of tap and dragging with your thumbs, you'll occasionally miss stairs, head down a wrong path, or cover the screen. There's a lot of wandering in Dragon Quest.

The best iOS games respect your time and the platform equally. Say what you will about Farmville and Clash of Clans and Words With Friends and Trivia Crack, but they're snappy - well aware that most players are taking a brief reprieve from their day-to-day responsibilities, not sitting down for a long-term game session with a device and screen barely the size of a clenched fist.

ShadowRun: Returns and Battleheart: Legacy are two of my favorite RPGs on mobile, the former being a port. Shadowrun was smart to keep the focus on the tactics, tough choices, and customization, like a one-man X-Com, and Battleheart: Legacy streamlined MMO gameplay into a rich and exciting and charming single player RPG with many branching paths and exciting battles presented in fun-sized chunks. They are complex and rich and feature great depth, but also streamlined.

Then there's also the fact Dragon Quest V: Hand Of The Heavenly Bride is 18.99. One of the things my former boss and unsuspecting mentor Roger Ebert never did was concern himself with cost. It was never if a movie was worth the money - it was if it was worth your time. But at the same time if the home video release of Pulp Fiction was 72 dollars, I think he would have brought it up. 

Look, I'm glad I played Dragon Quest V, and I'd be nuts not to recommend one of the best RPGs of the 1990s. If iOS is your only gaming option, you have a sick apple TV setup, and a controller, you're probably golden. And for the sake of posterity, getting this game on the appstore is a good way to ensure it remains available for the foreseeable future.

Whether or not Dragon Quest V is in your future depends on you. It's not Dragon Quest's fault that it's old, and a LOT of hard work went into this game, twice now if you think about it. Alas, even the best hemmed dress will look funny on a hippo, and due to the price tag and platform incompatibility, Dragon Quest V feels a little like a turkey.

Hand Drawn Meets Mobile-Era Dawn: Dragon's Lair 2 Released.

Dragon's Lair and its sequel were a pain in the ass. The beauty of the animation gave way to trial-and-error gameplay that was extra frustrating due to the fact every error would cost you a quarter or two.

Such is the point of the video arcade, I suppose. In fact, many classic arcade games fail to do very well when ported to consoles or iOS simply because the lack of quarter muncher removes the challenge - infinite lives and infinite continues are simply a button press away.

Still, Dragon's Lair 2 is a beaut, and it's certainly a great game to have to show off to kids or family members who wanna get a little wowed by some quality animation and creative puzzle solving.

At the very least, there's nothing else like it, and heck, I thought Dragon's Lair 2 was made with all holograms. Looks like I was wrong. 

Print Media (Is Not) Dead: Magazine Mogul Impressions.

Magazine Mogul is a delight, but fans of developer Kairosoft, won't be surprised.

If the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Wil Wright kept making games beyond Sim City on the SNES, those games would almost certainly feel like something the modern day Kairosoft does.

Their output over the past few years has included primarily simulation games like Game Dev Story, Grand Prix Story, and the Pokemon-esque Beastie Bay. There are thousands of simulation and Pokemon-a-likes on the AppStore, but what sets Kairosoft apart is their aesthetics.

Even if you could care less about magazines, it's impossible to argue that the animation, music, art, and overall style of this game is superb and delightfully wholesome - And well worth the 4.99 asking price.

You smile a lot while playing a Kairosoft game, and it's clear that's almost the entire point. Crusader Kings II, this ain't.

I smiled quite a bit during my first couple of hours Magazine Mogul. I made like any good internet commenter and decided to poop all over that wholesome thing with my first endevor in Magazine Mogul: ButStufWeekly. A magazine for the busy businessman who wants to cook at home - which turned out to have a HEAVY female readership. Weird!

Magazine Mogul's goal is to create a synergy between audience and subject matter, and the options are entertaining and endless and complex. Subject matter and audience isn't enough - you also have to worry about demographics. For example, while a video arcade offered more money to appear in ButtStuf Weekly, a local noodle shop fit in better with the overall readership, and lead to better over-all results. Over time, you can expand and hire copywriters for your ads, send out photographers to scout locations for reporting, and more.

Thus, the first issue focused on how stud muffins like Dorian Gray like their Spuds. Issue #2 is how they get a rise out of ladies via their handy breadmaking skills, and Issue #3 may well cover the fine art of Snackfood.  Regardless - Magazine Mogul is charming and challenging and fun - maybe even teaches you a bit about how to put together a publication. It's one thing to have something to say, but a whole other bunch of things to get anyone to read it - and pay to do so.

If you have questions - drop me a line iOSGameGuy@gmail.com, and stay tuned for more coverage of Magazine Mogul.

Hitman Go Is All Class.

“Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.”

 - Frank Lloyd Wright 

The Hitman Series is a weird one. The first game came out over a decade ago, and there’s been four sequels since, all with interchangeable subtitles like “Absolution”, “Blood Money”, and “Silent Assassin” that conjure up a mind’s eye view of generic power fantasy blech.

In reality Hitman games are pretty heady - or at least want to be. From all kinds of religious subtext and orchestral arrangements, to trippy content and no-win plot scenarios, Hitman’s failing seems to be one of half measure. It can’t be the post-modern, dour, slow-burn thriller like the movie “Drive” is, and it doesn’t want to be the ballsy over-the-top campy game like “Max Payne” either. As a result the games live somewhere in the middle; truly bizarre titles with a variety of interesting - if not completely compelling, narrative ideas.

I bring this all up because despite what you may think, it has quite a bit to do with Hitman: Go, a simple, addicting, challenging, elegant, board game recently released for tablets.