Defense Homeland is my first real-time strategy game for the Android and it's great to see a variety of genres available. The developer claims a new mission or feature will be added every week, but we'll see about that as I know from experience that that's a lofty goal. So what do we have right now?
Currently there are 9 missions and four skill levels (with level two being the default and the one I played on). One of the nice things the developer did though is to allow them all to be unlocked versus having to play through them. So far I've played through two of them and tried a skirmish. However, the first thing I noticed was a lack of instructions. Why is it that so many of these games elect to not provide documentation on how to play it? I don't know if I'm missing anything. In this game you can select units individually or you can group them into one of two troops. The select button is in the lower left and is touched followed by dragging a rectangle around the units that you want to command as a troop. Next, click one of the two troop buttons next to it to assign them a troop number (1 or 2). Now you can select them all by touching that same button. The top two buttons are used to build buildings and units (and they don't come into play in the first two missions).
The first mission is a confidence builder... very easy. Cruise around, pop everyone off, and you win. The second mission not so much. In fact I was able to kill everyone but one unit in the second mission after many tries and that made me feel good enough to write this review, but I couldn't find that last enemy so I blew up the oil well wondering if that's what it wanted me to do. And no it did not. Spoiler (or skip to the next paragraph): My trick for winning was to blow away the three heavy tanks/missile launchers and then use guerilla warfare with my tank as its range exceeds that of infantry so slowly I was able to pop everyone else off.
The graphics are good for what they can be with a game of this kind of detail on a mobile device. After all, how detailed can you be with men made of six pixels and if they went much bigger then you wouldn't be able to fit much on the screen at once. The tanks look pretty nice and units seem to be pretty easily distinguished. The sound/audio is well done, too.
I did experience a few issues, but they don't seem to be consistent in terms of reproducing them. First, one time I loaded it... tried to do a new game and the list of campaigns didn't appear (only the select text above it). Using task killer fixed that. Next, I did have occasional problems moving to unoccupied space means I could select my unit and click on an enemy and off they march... click on empty space to flee and nothing. Finally, the AI doesn't seem to be that good... units watch as I pick off lone soldiers, units pursue for a short while and call it off leaving me in complete control of tactics (and consequently allow the aforementioned guerilla warfare), but with that said even the second mission on the second skill level is a challenge.
As stated I didn't get to any missions where building an army was involved, but I did try the skirmish mode in which that is used. Unlike most PC games of this type building a unit is instantaneous... click that I want a new infantry unit and out he walks. Building a new building was confusing at first as I'd click the build button, sel;ect a building, and this red circle would appear and nothing would happen. I needed to drag when I saw the red circle to where I wanted to build. Didn't take long to figure that out, but still it would be nice to have instructions as, once again, I don't know if I'm missing anything. Their website does offer descriptions of the different unit types, but the game doesn't even tell me to go and look there.
After all is said and done though this is a solid effort for a pocket RTS game and at 3 UK pounds or a bit less than $5 US it's well worth it. I'm hoping they continue to grow the game as they indicate they plan to, but it's worth the money right now (which leads me to a pet peeve... games that are in beta, but are charging me to be their tester?). 4.5/5 stars which could easily become 5 with a bit more polish. Check out the video (above) for more info.
I'm a fan of classic arcade games, but the $7 price tag of Pac-Man in the Market has caused me to stop every time I've considered purchasing it, but tonight the desire to try it overcame me and I did so. Pac-Man is a simple game and its beauty is in its simplicity. All you need to play is a 4-way joystick. You control the 'pizza minus a slice' shaped Pac-Man around a maze gobbling up dots while being chased by 4 named and colored ghosts. However, in each of the four corners is a blinking power pill that turns the tables and allows Pac-Man to gobble down the ghosts, too. Oh, and there's fruit (and other treats) that occasionally appear to round out Pac-Man's diet.
First off, after downloading this $2 Netmite title I then had to download the J2ME Runner app they offer in order to run this game. Now, there's no charge for that, but it should tell you that the game is going to be a quick port from other, less capable phones. Once I was ready to go I got the title screen up with some music and had to figure out the controls. If you have a DPad in portrait mode that will work, but in landscape mode the screen becomes distorted (but it does still work). You can also swipe and double tap the touch screen to simulate the DPad to take control of the menu and the game.
The game plays very smoothly on my Droid. I haven't seen any real slow down issues. Obviously the players are kind of tiny, but they're basically what I'd expect for a 6 on 6 hockey game on a 3.5 inch screen. It all looks good though (the screenshot is from the iPhone version, but it's pretty close... the Android version has letters on the virtual buttons on the lower right).
First off, Asphalt 5 has stunning graphics. It's graphics are likely the best I've seen in an Android game. But once you look past the eye candy the game itself is solid and the usual choice of cars and tracks exist with some having to be unlocked by winning races. One difference, though, is that there's oncoming traffic because you're street racing (which translates to moving obstacles). You can also hit other cars and 'eliminate' them if you do it right and that's all covered in the help.
This game is based on those old sports games with a bunch of magnetic players and a metal marble. Remember those? Neither do I... never heard of them, in fact, until seeing these 'emulators' appear. In a nutshell you've got a bunch of players attached by a spring to a board and you pull them back and release them to shoot or pass the ball. How far you pull back controls the power and accuracy of your shot. The ball then either ends up in the goal or rolls around until it gets captured by the magnetic pull of a playing piece and comes to rest at which time the process repeats itself until goals are scored and the game ends. The only wrench in this formula is tilt... as you play you accumulate tilt and at any time when your tilt bar is full you can press the tilt button (or shake your phone) and havoc breaks loose... the ball is freed and where it goes nobody knows, but if you didn't have the ball to start with then that's better than nothing. Oh, one other note... the tilt bar is more of a tilt pie graph and it took me a while to figure that out. The icon itself gradually goes from translucent to opaque and that's when you can give tilt a go.
The premise of the game is that you 'own' a planet in a system of planets. Each planet produces new units for military conquest based on its size... capture a big planet and watch it grow fast... settle for a tiny one and watch it grow at an anemic rate. From there your mission is to conquer the galaxy.
My Paper Plane is from Wavecade, the same company that brought us Pokanoid Deluxe. It's a freebie so don't expect much depth, but there's potential here for something bigger if the developer is so inclined. And it's still an enjoyable diversion as is.
First, the developer does the right thing by offloading most game data to the SD card. In fact, that was probably the catalyst that inspired me to download this game. But then the game has this goofy method of having a Lite Demo and a separate key app to unlock it versus a separate full version. This results in it consuming two icons worth of space in my programs. But that's not a problem with the game itself... and perhaps problem is harsh. This game isn't horrible either... it's just "meh".
Pong was one of the first video games and is a classic. I'm sure everyone knows what it is, but just in case... one the left and right sides of the screen are paddles and you move them up and down knocking a ball back and forth until it gets by one of these paddles which results in a point. Players play to a predetermined score. My first experience with pong was through the Video Olympics cartridge on the Atari 2600 although I'm sure I played in store demos prior to that... I was 9 and the memory is a bit weak.
In Alien Assault there's a gun at the bottom of the screen and it pivots back and forth for aiming. The sirens blare and the alien hordes arrive. You touch the screen where you want to fire and then the gun rotates and fires a shot. And then the waiting begins for the shot to finally reach its target. Usually, by then, the incredibly slow flying ship has moved out of the way of the incredibly slow shot which is a puzzle in and of itself. Somehow these aliens have the technology to travel to earth in the traditional flying saucer variety spaceship, but once they are here apparently they are mesmerized with the need to sight see... at least rubbernecking is the only explanation I have for their lack of speed.
In Fire Helicopter you are a helicopter putting out a raging forest fire. You start off at your base with a full load of water and press the throttle (lower right of the touch screen) to rise and release it to fall much like in SFCave and tilt your phone left/right to move in the corresponding direction. You'll need to monitor your fuel gauge, though. When you approach an area of forest fire press the water button to begin dousing it until you deplete your water supply or extinguish the fire. Refilling on water can be done by returning to base or hovering over a body of water and sucking it right out of the lake. A refill on fuel can only be had at your home base.
