Claustrum Lite

I've decided to ditch the whole 'Freebie Friday' concept as I felt I wasn't giving enough space to good games. After all, if a game is good shouldn't it be worthy of a full length review instead of a footnote regardless of price? Furthermore, we're seeing more and more ad supported games that blur the picture between free and paid.

Last week I pulled down a free Qix clone called Claustrum Lite. I presume a full, paid version is coming based on the title, but so far I don't see a Claustrum. The developer seems pretty active on his blog with regard to development and it sounds like the game is still in beta.

In this game you're basically trying to cut off areas and trap the little doohickie thing in a small enough area. Once a predetermined percentage of space has been cut off you'll score points based on by how much you exceeded this predetermined amount and more on to the next, presumably harder level. The game itself seems to play pretty well. My problem with the game is that if I recall the original Qix had a timer, and this does not. What that means is my strategy of cutting off a sliver of space along the top, waiting for the doohickie to enter that space, and then quickly slice it off worked very well for scoring points. I played through at least four levels doing that to perfection scoring more and more points each time. Sure that strategy makes for a boring game as in some cases I have to wait a couple of minutes for the stars to align themselves property and have the doohickie enter my trap, but that also points to a broken game when it's that easy to rack up a score. Am I doing something wrong or is this because it's beta?

I find the dev's blog quite interesting and perhaps it's not fair to review this game yet. I'm happy to update it once the game is finished. I did find the dev's blog comments interesting as one of his reviewers claims that the game doesn't work on the Droid when it does (and I can vouch for that). It is frustrating to have such inaccuracy posted and he's generally interesting in trying to resolve the problem with someone he cannot contact. By the same token it's not every end user's job to contact the dev and work through a debugging session (not that the Dev implies that it is). Welcome to the jungle of software development!

In summary, this game could be good, but it's not there yet. I see one thing being worked on is an enemy that roams the perimeter so that one can't sit still (part of my aforementioned strategy). Maybe that's what the original Qix did and there wasn't a timer? Actually I just found a Flash version of Qix here and it does rely on enemies that traverse the perimeter to halt my strategy and not a timer. Things will definitely be looking up if that gets added.

10 Coins

Yesterday I reviewed 3-Point Shootout 3D and today I'm reviewing 10 Coins from the same publisher (Steap Ahead Studios). As stated in yesterday's review I'm doing this because if you're into this style of game then 10 Coins is your better choice.

First, 10 Coins is based around everyone's favorite street game. I find that hard to believe given that I've never heard of this game before. The screen shots made it look like pitching pennies and it is similar to that, but in this case you start with a bet. Then a stack of coins is placed and you throw a disc at them attempting to cover coins with the disc. Any coins that you cover are yours and the player that collects the most coins win. Simple enough!

What sets this game apart is the control scheme... you move your finger around to control your aim as indicated on the aiming dial. Then you press a button to power your shot... much like many of the golf video games. This yields far more interesting control over the disc. I'd also have no problem with swiping controlling everything if the speed of my swipe controlled its power... in fact that would be a nice option. I just don't get why nobody (correct me if I'm wrong) does that.

The game offers solo play with 3 difficulty levels and hot seat play against a pal along with a tutorial mode. It also offers global high score leaderboards. For about a dollar and a half this game has provided much more enjoyment when it comes to aiming and tossing something at a target. It's certainly not a stellar hit, but it has been enjoyable to play. Check out the video for more detail...

Verizon Mailing

Today I received some mail (not email) from Verizon thanking me for purchasing my Droid. The bulk of the message included two color brochures (one for the Droid and one for the Droid Eris) explaining how to set up email. Now I purchased my phone on Nov 6th... 2 1/2 months ago. In addition to my voice plan I'm forced to pay $30/month for data whether I want it or not (and I want it).

Does anyone else find it amusing that 2 1/2 months later they've decided to try and help me set up email as if that wasn't done on day one? Are there really people getting this mailing 2 1/2 months later thanking Verizon for finally sharing how to set up email?? Do people spend this much money on a phone and are suddenly surprised it can do email???

3-Point Shootout 3D

3-Point Shootout 3D is a game in the same vein as Mini Shot Basketball which was reviewed a month or so ago. In this game you're goal is to shoot as many baskets as possible in a fixed amount of time. While Mini Shot Basketball's graphics attempt to emulate those basketball games you find in arcades or at Chuck E Cheese's this game tries to reproduce the feel of a real basketball court and has you making baskets from 5 different angles. The graphics are pretty and the crowd cheers you on, but ultimately the game suffers the same demise that Mini Shot does and that's that the controls are just plain boring. In order to make a basket all you need to do is draw a straight line of reasonable length towards the basket. Quite frankly, the five shooting angles are meaningless aside from prettiness. I played around with shorter lines and longer lines... flicking faster and slower... and intentionally missing to the left and right. There's certainly plenty of opportunity to not make a straight line and miss wide of the net, but the speed of your flick doesn't seem to mean much of anything as best as I could tell as it it doesn't seem possible to miss short or overshoot the basket. I did determine that, as stated, the flick does have minimum length requirements.

My other issue with this game has to do with swish shots and that's that visually I can't tell that those are going in the basket other than seeing my score increase. While the game does a good job of animation as the ball bounces on the rim there is absolutely no feel for it going through the net. But what do I expect for a game that costs under a dollar? My ultimate recommendation, however, is that you save your dollar for something better. This game grows tiring rather quickly. And if you MUST have it please wait until after tomorrow's review of the same company's "10 Coins" game. It costs a tad more, but is in the same genre as this one and is MUCH, MUCH better.

ToonWarz

I've been wanting to review this game for about a month now. First Person Shooters have been among the most popular genres on the PC and several exist for the iPhone, but the Android has basically been left out of the party. Sure, Doom and such were ported (and removed) from the Android Market. I tried Doom out when I first got my Droid and setup was a pain and it just didn't work well. So mix First Person Shooter with Polarbit and naturally you're going to get a quality game.

Now, I have to admit that I have not played ToonWarz extensively. In fact I've barely scratched the surface of the first mission. That's because the controls on these games when moved to a mobile platform stink. On screen joysticks just don't cut it... I NEED my tactile feedback in order to do all of the things (move, look around, control a gun, jump and duck, ...etc) I'm required to do in these games. ToonWarz offers two control schemes and lets you use the accelerometer to aim or move. I used it for aiming and found it to be far less sensitive than I needed it to be even when I cranked sensitivity to the max.

The game itself is Polarbit quality every step of the way. In the first mission you land and have to find the supplies (armor and sniper rifle) that were dropped with you and went astray. The game holds your hand nicely and even I wasn't able to botch the easy task of finding them. Your sniper rifle is equipped with 5 shots and as soon as you turn the corner there's an enemy soldier firing at you. I suspect that the mission is of primary importance... i.e. don't waste time trying to pick off every enemy you see as I initially did, but instead focus on the task at hand and that's finding the keys.

So I head east and cross the river and now there's an endless stream of samurai dudes running at me slicing me to bits with knives. The graphics are great, but not detailed enough to know for sure... maybe they're clubbing me to death? This is as far as I made it into the game because being unprepared I use my equipped sniper rifle on these point blank targets and I had played for close to an hour at this point.

The game features lots of extras... as stated I'm only on mission one of four and then there's online multiplayer. Talk about packing a lot of punch in a little package. I wish... oh, how I wish... the game had better controls as it is very well done. And, once again, I'm not knocking Polarbit. Droid's don't come with dual, analog joypads. I have to be honest, though and that's that I think I'd rather play other games on my Droid and leave the first person shooters to my Xbox 360 or PC as a mouse seems to be an ideal controller for such games. I'm sure I'll keep playing a bit more just to see if I can build some degree of comfort with the controls. Fortunately there is a lite version for you to try before you buy so you can determine if you feel the same way. As for me this is a five star game ruined by poor controls despite the best efforts of the developers. I'm glad we have a solid FPS on the Android now to fill the void, but I can't honestly say that it'll be heavily played by me.