Tiki Kart 3D

Tiki Kart 3D is another freebie available in the Android Market this is pretty slick. Based on its name you can probably guess that it's a clone of the insanely popular Mario Kart series. Given that it's free I'm not going to try and do a full review as I don't have to sell you on it, but I did want to give the game some attention. The game also plays smoothly, doesn't appear to be packed with ads, and hasn't been hitting me up for any cash upon loading it (I've run a few races and have really enjoyed it, but can't say that it doesn't go freemium later on... just that they're not too stingy with the free part of things up front).

The game is controlled via tilt controls and it works well on my tablet. As with many of these games, you can collect power-ups (via collecting pineapples in this case) to assist with hindering the competition or giving yourself that extra boost. The game plays smoothly and controls well and has many options. I could go on and on, but it's New Years day and I've got places to be. All I'll say is that if you like the Mario Kart series or lighter race games then this need to be on your download list.

Blobby Volleyball

I'm avoiding covering freebies given that there's no cost for you, our reader, to 'review' such games on your own and see if they fit into your gaming lifestyle. However, if there's a game that I feel particularly strongly about then I'll cover it. Blobby Volleyball made the cut. First, when I saw it I was so pleased as it remined me of one of the few (and I mean few) games I had on my old Pocket PC that I really enjoyed. The name of that game was Simbsoft Volleyball, but this is almost a mirror image of that game and I'm glad to see it. I'd easily have shelled out an obligatory buck for it. And I haven't seen any ads in the game either so this one is truly a labor of love for the developer.

What's the sport? One on one volleyball in which you control a pear shaped blob in a game of beach volleyball. Quite simply, you hit the ball back and forth over the net until one side fails to return the ball within three hits per volley. Only the server can score so initially you may be fighting for control of the server if you are the receiver, and, as said, if you can't return the ball within 3 hits or the ball hits the ground before that then you lose the volley. Controls are entirely touch based. You slide your finder back and forth along the bottom of the screen to move your blob left and right and then there's a line (that doesn't appear to be visible in the screenshot) that you can slide your finger above to make your blob jump. The graphics... well, I've already said the game is the spitting image of a game that I had on my Pocket PC 6-8 years ago so there's little need to say more there. The graphics are fine, but when the title has 'blob' in it that should set expectations. As for controls, that's probably my only complaint with the game. I was used to the Pocket PC version in which I just drag on the blob itself to move and jump around the court. The system of staying below the line is a little alien to me, but shouldn't be a problem if you don't have the 'old' controls burned into your brain.

Blobby Volleyball offers three difficulty levels that really are easy, medium, and hard along with a couple other game modes and multi-player mode over bluetooth or WiFi which I haven't tried, but is a pretty cool extra. This really it a nice, little sports title that has plenty of challenge and options in it. And for free this should provide some solid New Years entertainment. 4.5/5 stars overall, and a 5/5 for me on a personal level. This will probably be among my most played games in the coming monts if my addiction to its Pocket PC sibling is any indication.

NFL Pro 2012

The last week of the NFL's 2011-2012 regular season is upon us and shortly after will be the playoffs. I made my SuperBowl prediction two weeks ago and, unfortunately, I'll only be seeing my favorite team in action after this weekend in football games such as this one. What? You want to know my SuperBowl pick, too? Well, read on and I'll reveal that along with a review of this game.

NFL Pro 2012 is taking advantage of the new freemium concept. A concept I lothe, hate, and despise. I don't blame software developers for it. If you, the customer, will support it and it generates the big bucks then I suppose I'd do it too. Instead of charging you $5 for a game I can charge you $1 per player, $2 for new stadiums, and... whoa... I can even charge you for the plays?? Suckerz!

NFL Pro 2012 gives you 100 free credits to work with. Now, let's step back from the freemium aspect of the game and look at the game itself. It's great. Other than insanely slow load times (plan on eating a meal while the game loads... ok... exaggeration) of about a minute or so from start to actually playing a game it's really well done. I particularly like the simpler, but cleaner graphics over Madden '12. On a 4" screen (which apparently is my only choice as GameLoft games generally don't support tablets) I'd rather have less detail and be able to see things more clearly. Controls are decent too, although we revert to onscreen joypads and buttons for many actions. And then there's a nice tutorial that gets you going quickly while running some practice plays.

Ok, so my first game... Redskins vs Giants. I receive the kickoff and have a reasonable return. I'm able to pass and run the ball down the field on my first drive and take it in for 6. And then comes the extra point. I still don't fully understand kicking and after a delay of game penalty I'm credited with a miss which I don't think is in the NFL's rules (I should lose 5 yards and get to re-kick?). But back to kicking... during a kick (field goal, kick off, ...) a bar appears and I can't find any instruction for this. It seems I have to drag down on the right side (where the bar is) and swipe with my finger on the other side of the screen to get a kick to happen. However, I'm always hooking to the left so I must still be doing something wrong although I am doing nice, deep kickoffs and punts.

The game itself plays nice and smooth on offence. Pick a play. Players icons go from red to green when they are open for a pass. A back can sprint, spin, and do a power move. The QB can scramble. Aside from the onscreen joypad it's a pleasure to play. And on defense you just click on a player to take control of him. The sad thing is that I like this better than my experience with Madden '12 and it's great that we have two football sims on Android.

But the freemium crap? I checked and I can buy up to $50 worth of points if I want to buy in bulk. In a nutshell, you probably have enough points to play a game or two for free after downloading the game and as you play you are able to earn more points. I didn't spend any time considering the purchase of a player with my points as I was too busy just buying plays. The game gives you the short plays for free, but if you want to do a medium or deep pass then you've got to pony up some credits and purchase that part of the playbook. You can either buy a play for one down, for the during of a game, or buy them forever to use in any future games. I learned quickly that it's best not buy buy them for one play unless you're just peeking at the plays in that part of the playbook so stick with buying them for the game or forever. You can also unlock plays by attaining levels of progress in the game. I didn't tally up how much it would cost to unlock enough plays to enjoy the game and really, really, really wish there was a way I could just pay GameLoft's usual $7 for the game and play it all.

So all in all, despite the couple of shortcoming such as not fully understanding the kicking game and the onscreen joypad/buttons I really think this is a great football game marred by going freemium. I'd give it a 4.5/5 if it wasn't for the freemium, and I'm not going to reduce that because it's freemium. Just know that it's not free, but rather free^*. As for my SuperBowl pick this year: it's San Francisco. And if you win any money with that selection feel free to share.

Chess: Battle of the Elements

I've had a renewed interest in chess lately as I've been getting a bit tired of the EuroGames that I've been such a fan of over the past many years. Chess, the game of kings, appeals because of the pure strategy nature of the game. My problem with it has always been my lack of patience. A lack of patience when it comes to planning and plotting several moves ahead which is mandatory if I'm ever going to achieve any degree of proficiency with the game. Mix that up with a $.99 cent sale (that is still going on) by Polarbit and you've got me buying Chess: Battle of the Elements despite owning countless chess games already on a variety of devices.

The key reason I purchased this game was for the chess puzzle portion of the game. In fact, if you're looking for a chess game with superior AI then you're looking at the wrong reviewer. I can't and won't comment on CBotE because I'm just not able to take it to task. It does play chess properly though and has nice elementally themed graphics, a good UI, and will display the chess board in either 2D or 3D although I stuck with 2D as I found it difficult to differentiate between the pieces in 3D mode.

The game features many (and I mean MANY) chess puzzles and I'm working my way through them. To assist the neophyte the game will display each piece's valid moves after selecting a piece. I do wish it would show me valid moves positionwise and then somehow mark invalid moves based on moving into check just to help with learning, though, but that's a minor point. For each puzzle you have a number of moves that you can make (1 in the early going) to put the opposing king in checkmate. My one big problem with the game here was the having thought I had solved the first puzzle the game refused to let me make that move. Tap... nothing... tap... nothing. 'This is one heck of a puzzle' I thought. And then it dawned on my to try it on my phone (instead of my tablet) and it worked. So, this game isn't compatible with the Asus Transformer and I suspect probably isn't compatible with other Android 3.x tablet devices. Disappointing as I've grown accustomed to doing most of my gaming on my tablet given that I'm not a big traveler. (I also see this has been a known issue for some time so don't hold your breath waiting for a fix).

At $.99 this is a great little chess game for beginners. It has good built in help/rules. It even provides hints as to which piece to move in puzzle mode. Given that I'm 'new' to chess I actually got stuck on the third puzzle and, from a learning perspective, it would have been awesome if there was some basic text explanation regarding the puzzle, but that's probably asking a bit much given the quantity of puzzles. I do wish it would wait and not just snap back to the main screen upon solving a puzzle so I could review the board after working through a trial and error solution. In the third puzzle my problem was not understanding that I could move a piece to threaten the opposing king and leave it also vulnerable to said king providing that I had also protected it. Makes perfect sense now and those of you with chess experience are thinking 'duh!' in reading that, but, once again, I'm a learner. So, all in all, provided that you're not buying this for tablet use and you're not expecting to play in 3D I think I can safely recommend this chess game. 4/5 stars.

Top Ten Android Games after Two Years of Android Gaming

It's been over two years since I purchased my first Android device and gaming sure has changed on this platform. I remember being quite disappointed with Android gaming when contrasted to what was available on iOS, but I stuck with it and two years later and we've got games like Grand Theft Auto III making a showing on Android. However, and I've been wanting to do this for months, I think there are some titles that deserve a second look and I want to bring attention to them again given that this blog format really kind of stinks for a review website (and hopefully that will change soon so that reviews are better indexed in early 2012). I really need the ability to find reviews based on ratings and such.

I'll also note that these are presented in alphabetical order as I have a hard time with top tens. How can I really compare a race game to a strategy game to a puzzle game and create a numbered order to them? These are simply games that are available, have made it onto my phone/tablet, and that have stayed there. They also have to be a few months old and of sufficient quality that I keep coming back for more. The only thing that matters here is fun and do I keep playing it month after month is my litmus test.

Angry Birds - Angry Birds really doesn't need any extra publicity given all of the plush toys available for both children and dogs and the recently released board game version, but it gets play every day at our house now that my two year old requests it by name. Ok, I play it too. We're playing the Christmas Season 2012 levels right now that are a part of Angry Birds Seasons. I don't think Angry Birds is amazing, but it has maintained longevity and is so well polished that it's got a place in my top ten.

Deadly Dungeons - I enjoy a good adventure, but there's something about the mobile platform that causes me to not want to play a deep adventure game and prefer a dungeon crawler that I can pick up and put down at will. You know... the kind of game you can play for five minutes while the wife uses the ladies room and you're left waiting outside. Deadly Dungeons fits that bill best for me and I appreciate that the developer has continued to maintain the game and is currently working on an expansion.

Flick Kick Field Goal - I'm glad we've got a couple of full football games on Android, but neither has really been a staple of my entertainment. Flick Kick Field Goal, however, has. I like the variety of modes and that need to play 'just one more game'.

Flight Control - Flight Control was a game I adored on my iPod Touch and was deperate for a good equivalent on Android. Many similar titles came and went and some were quite good, but the original Flight Control (which I don't appear to have ever reviewed) is the one that I've kept around. I even played it again this morning.

Galcon - Another game that I first became familiar with on iOS and that had a few clones on Android before making the leap. Galcon is a real-time risk game with lots of modes of play such that you'll eventually hit that point that's 'just right' in terms of difficulty. And what a rush... the real-time element with ships flying back and forth really creates quite the frenzy of action in a game that's all about strategy.

Homerun Battle 3D - Homerun Battle 3D is a game that shows off great use of the accelerometer control in mobile devices. In fact, I'm still wondering why nobody (including Homerun Battle 3D maker Com2US) uses this kind of control in a full baseball game. Nonetheless, this was and continues to be a blast to play.

Panzer Panic -This game has to be the one game that I just can't comprehend why it doesn't get more attention. It may be my absolute favorite game if I had to pick one. I love dragging the little tanks around and flicking ink blots at other tanks... I love the debris that accumulates on the playfield... I love trying to coodinate multiple tanks at once although often I find myself keeping two out of harms way and playing with one. This fantastic game is so underrated. Yes, I'd like more in terms of objectives out of this game engine, but the skirmish mode has been enough for me to keep it around.

QB Attack Deluxe Football - This game, like Panzer Panic, never seemed to get any attention. It also seems to have been abandoned by its developer at version 1.0 which also makes it one of the games that most depresses me. In a nutshell, it's a timing game where you're trying to complete passes to receivers and it's done very well. I've easily gotten my $1.49 worth of play out of it and much more and it's still well worth it even if the dev has abandoned it. It works great on my tablet, too (as do all of the other games in this list). PLEASE continue work on this one or send your source code to me so that I can.

Roll Or Don't - A port of the old Sid Sackson board game classic called Can't Stop that is well done, has solid AI, and continues to get playtime on my phone. Not familiar with Can't Stop? It's a push your luck game that I describe more completely in my review.

Slitherlink - Slitherlink is a puzzle game that is different, but requires similar logic skills to puzzles like Sudoku. I burned out on Sudoku in the years before I got an Android and this has perhaps filled the need for such a puzzle game.

There you go... and I believe for under $20 you can own them all and I doubt you'd be sorry with any of them.