Aug 10, 2010

Crush the Castle by Namco

Note: Crush the Castle is temporarily on sale for $.99 down from $4.99.

When I reviewed a game called Steel Shot in May I was completely unaware that a game called Angry Birds was topping the charts on the iPhone. Since then I've tried Angry Birds and while Angry Birds is a far more polished title in the same genre my core criticism of the game remains for both. Crush the Castle is yet another game of this type.

In Crush the Castle there are castles stacked high and filled wth nobles. You are equipped with a trebuchet and hurl rocks at the castles as you attempt to knock off all of the residents. The game features many kingdoms each with many castles and you're goal is to bring them all to their knees in as few shots as possible to maximize your reward. Each castle first shows you the castle and then scrolls on over to your trebuchet. It's all touch screen from there... tap to release and trebuchet's arm and tap again to fire your payload. You then spectate as the rocks fly and meet or miss their intended target. As nobles are crushed they bleed red, but there's no animation... only screams of death. The nobles themselves wobble like chess pieces.

The graphics are decent as is the sound, but nothing spectacular. The controls work although the sling shot in Steel Shot (and Angry Birds) is much easier to work with than the trebuchet. That said, this game does nothing to cure my feeling that this is like archery with the caveat that before taking the shot I am spun in a circle after being blind folded. Actually I think this game makes me appreciate the sling shot in Steel Shot.

Crush the Castle is nice in that it features additional types of ammo as the game progresses such as '3 rocks that split in the air' (cool) and 'bigger rocks' (not so cool). All in all, while I can't say that I'm a fan of this type of game there are aparently countless fans. And if you buy one I'd say it's a pick 'em between this and Steel Shot until Namco ups the price back to $4.99 and then it's Steel Shot all the way. 3/5 stars.

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