Well, yes and yes, if you’re not careful. And with Japanese game companies starting to turning towards mobile due to the practicality of it with their country being such a mobile culture these days, it’s something that may spread over this way. So getting used to it might be beneficial, just like getting used to handheld platforms might be as well.
So, I’ll start off by saying that I have been mobile gaming for the last couple of years for a number of personal reasons. Physical ability in my hands being one of them, which is why I’m sporadic with my online activities. As such, I’ve run through quite a few of them. And, while I may no longer be playing some of them, I still have positive things to say about them for sure.
These games are also ones that can be progressed through with relative ease without investing any money in them, aside from the very first. Likewise, they will provide very little opportunity for player conflict. Where it may be able to happen, I will specify! After a very poor experience dealing with Empire: Four Kingdoms, which is a massive mess of money requirements and bullying, this is important for me to make clear.
Also, I don’t believe in completely playing free if you can afford to pay a little towards something you play a lot. However, not everyone has extra money they can spend on a game, so finding a game that was developed with that understanding is always most welcome to see.
Plague Inc.
A game where you are any variety of infectious diseases, from a basic virus to an all-out bio-weapon, this game provides DOES make it possible to infect Madagascar, but that’s not something that makes it easy. Each infection type infects differently, and while ready hilarious headlines that are clear shout-outs to all the nerd types that might play this game—Whovians and MGS fans will likely get a particular kick out of it—you have to pay attention to what the world’s governments are up to and you get to choose whether you play it safe and keep yourself hidden until the time is right, or go all out right out the gate and hope to kill all of them before they figure out how to kill you.
PROS
This game is great for strategy lovers and anyone willing to kill 10+ minutes depending on the infection method and the strategy they use. There are eight infectious types, and each of them behave differently and are discovered in different ways, with each method coming with a total of three difficulties.
The music, while the same track with SFX over it, isn’t obnoxious and makes it feel like you’re sinister and puts you in the mood to kill billions of people.
For reasons I’ll discuss in the ‘CONS’ section, while the base game is free, you can get the full(ish) version for .99c. This is highly recommended because, as you go through the game, you unlock a variety of boosts to help you plan your attack, and in the free version of the game, you don’t… get to use them. Blech. But if you shell out that dollar for the full(ish) version, you will, making the game much more possible to beat. Reading forums, no one I saw has claimed to beat much anything past the first infection on Easy without paying.
CONS
While this is going to sound like a deal killer, I want to emphasize that the game is great fun. However, I don’t want anyone who might decide to check it out (in the free version first! Don’t pay until you know you’ll like it!) to feel misled.
There is a second section to this game where you can play various scenarios. At the time I downloaded it, I received the Christmas scenario, wherein you are charged with infecting the world with joy. However, beyond that, you need to pay additional for these scenarios. If you want them, you either pay a small (though at times more costly than the normal game itself) fee, or you can pay a whopping $11.99 for it. (NOTE: at the time of writing this, I noticed they are claiming to reduce it to $9.99, but still.)
Don’t be fooled! If you go for the .99c version, it will tell you it unlocks ‘everything’. It unlocks everything as far as the base game is concerned. Consider the scenarios part of a DLC [Downloadable Content].
Also, users have reported their content doesn’t transfer to new phones despite the game saying it’s possible. I still have my wonderful, highly damaged Galaxy S4 with its cracked screen and smooshed corners. I can’t confirm it, but I want to warn you!
PLAYER CONTACT
There is no player contact. This is a single player game.
OVERALL
Overall, the purchasing issue isn’t that big of a hindrance. Where many games on your phone will rig it in an attempt to get you to sink in indeterminable amounts of money into them, at least Plague Inc. is honest about where your money is going and what you’re getting for your dollars.
Summoners War
These screenshots of this one are pretty old and were taken when I was showing a friend because I personally uninstalled it after having spent a lot of time on it. It was more a personal thing, looking for other games, but it remains one of the most impressive games I’ve seen. Featuring actually 3D graphics and a ‘monster collecting’ theme, you play with up to five creatures, depending on the scenario you’re playing, to battle other monsters and gain rewards, more monsters, and experience points.
The devs of this game make sure to provide ample opportunity for players to advance through the game and earn their version of currency that you can spend to buy exclusive items to help with your advancement. You can also purchase mana stones (this game’s version of gold) and gems at various price points if you don’t want to farm, giving you an edge on your fellow players, but patience and farming will provide you the same advantageous.
PROS
The graphics belonging to Summoners War are rather stunning in the world of mobile games. 3D with special camerawork to highlight various combat moves, a wide range of creatures to collect and evolve, you definitely get enough to keep you busy visually. The music and SFX aren’t overly annoying, which definitely helps, although they’re non-vital so you can play this game on silent.
Gameplay is fluid, and provides you with an auto-combat function so, if you’re confident your monsters will win a level, you can let them run without really watching them. The more powerful you make them through evolution and through the application of runes that, when placed strategically, according to your monster’s strengths and weaknesses, and upgraded through the use of mana stones, the more confident you can feel about just letting them do their own things. The AI isn’t incredibly intelligent, and since the combat system is based on the balance of elements the monsters represent, they will target whichever enemy is weakest to them. This may result in them attacking different creatures when it’s not advantageous, but you can tap an foe and target them, causing the AI to attack it only. The healer monsters are programmed well to respond with healing when they’re needed and no sooner (usually), and the creatures with boosts or dampening abilities use them as soon as they’re available. Anything above basic attacks have set recharge times that decrease as you develop that monster further.
Many PVP, server-based mobile games have energy allotments to prevent players from playing too long, and have set recharge times and max energy levels. This is also a way to get players to sink more money into their game in order to be able to play longer. Summoners War is one of the few games that actually allows your max energy allotment to increase as you go through the levels, and upgrade even beyond that in order to be able to play a long time. Daily gifts also reward energy on occasion, between gems and mana stones also being part of the daily gift deal, more energy costs minimal gems, and so being able to play for long periods of time is not difficult for this game at all. And you will easily find yourself wanting to play for quite a while as you get further along.
CONS
To be honest, it’s a fair and well-rounded game. The only complaints I have would have to start with things like rune upgrading. While obtaining mana stones isn’t too hard—farming stages, daily log-in gifts, and automatic mana generators help—runes take so much money to upgrade, are so pivotal, and there are six of them per monster. The higher the level of the rune (1-6 stars), the more each level of upgrading costs. On top of that, there is a ‘chances of success’ deal. The higher you’re trying to upgrade to, the lower those chances decrease. You can easily spend 500,000 mana stones trying to upgrade to level 13 or 14, and the max level is 15.
The other gripe I have is that gameplay can become horribly unbalanced between stages. You have stages, and within those levels, and things are pretty balanced there. But without notice, when you move to the next stage, it can be tragically more difficult and require farming and other methods that can last a while for your monsters to be able to move on.
PLAYER CONTACT
There is a chatroom for people on a specific server, and, if you join a guild, a chat for that. But there are no PMs. You can friend other players and send ‘hearts’ every 24 hours that help go to summoning new monsters for various uses. You can also see their last logged-in time so, if they’ve stopped playing, you can defriend them and open one of your 50 max spaces for someone new.
There is also literal PVP battling, but beyond your opponent receiving a notification of win or loss, there is no way to contact one another privately and there is no guarantee they’re in the same chat as you. This limits a good number of issues these sorts of things can generate.
OVERALL
Summoners War is a well-rounded game and deserves its high ranking in the app markets.
Hellfire
Beautiful artwork and atypical graphics for a battle card collection game, Hellfire is a delightful game. Based around four elements—earth, water, fire, death—this game is about strategy as much as it is about collecting and evolving your creature cards. Whoever the devs of Hellfire use for their artwork, these people are absolutely incredible.
With daily log-in gifts and weekly events, while it might feel like leveling your cards is an uphill climb unless you decide to spend money on their ‘gold’ to purchase better cards, hang in there! Those weekly events open so many doors as you participate.
While you have to spend 15 energy a level in the basic game, you start with and maintain a max of 100 energy, and it replenishes hellaciously fast. I haven’t spent time counting how long, but after I clear a level of a few minutes, I usually have 1-3 of that energy back.
The actual gameplay can be a bit dizzying if you have motion sickness or like problems. The screen shakes during delivered and received attacks, and the camera moves with your ‘ball of elements’, but you can disable this all through the settings.
PROS
Daily gifts and weekly events provide you with all you need to advance in the game rapidly. It doesn’t feel like it when you’re between events or in a position you can’t participate in the events right away, but spending time on normal levels while waiting for the recharge also helps you gain more cards with which to power up your chosen combat cards.
Each time you level up, you can add more ‘allies’ aka fellow players. Taking allies, or allies taking you, into battle rewards both involved players gems, which contribute to getting more cards. You do not have to be present when someone selects you, your main card being the basis of your ‘element’ and how you ultimately auto-attack while in battle with them.
Back to the artwork, because I can’t get over at how beautiful it is, you can evolve each card a total of four times. Each step of evolution provides a varied picture of your card, and it’s actually a pretty big blast to watch how they change.
The game is fast as far as mobile games go, especially ones playing on a server. While there will always be lulls, they’re rare. This makes it possible to do things like drain your energy allotment quickly if you so desire, or rapidly upgrade so you can get back to weekly events.
CONS
The interface of this game is a damn mess. There is no separation between places where you can buy cards with real-money paid gold, or with in-game earnings, and in-game earnings are way at the bottom of the screen. The screen is hyper-sensitive at times, so having to scroll through that nonsense is a pain.
There’s no reason to really look at their off-app FAQ if their lack of explanations and guidance aren’t enough, because it’s not much better. Fortunately, you can fairly quickly learn for yourself what the game fails to explain.
PLAYER CONTACT
None. There is no player contact outside of the above system I explained. No chat room, no PM system, nothing. You don’t need to worry about it. There’s no person versus person battling either, only working together.
OVERALL
Hellfire is an experience you should delve into if only because of its incredible artwork and smooth operation. You might have a few peeves develop, but it’s a solid game and there’s no reason you should let those stand in your way.
I really love that damn artwork.
Iron Knights
While there is the slight evidence of a language barrier, the devs of Iron Knights made a wonderful game. A combat game with strategy involved in developing a team of four backing your character, and the ability to level and fuse your weapons, armor and backup creatures into newer and better ones, these all contribute to the stunning presentation of 3D graphics that make up this game.
While you’re initially assigned a male character regardless of your preference for gameplay, at level 10, you are able to switch to the female character. The outfits/armor for both vary widely and make a lot more sense than its peers, and overall it’s a pretty and stable game. See the pros and cons because if I go on here, there’ll be no point to those!
PROS
Whenever you max the level on a new ally for the first time, you get gems. When you do daily log-ins, you intermittently get gems. When you complete quests/goals, you get gems. When you complete the first level of each stage the specified amount of times, you get gems. If you want to pay money, you get gems. However, this game proves that you can offer gem/gold packages to help get the edge on other players for real world money without forcing the player to have to do that, so long as they’re willing to commit the time and energy.
With fifty friending spaces, you can send and receive ‘horns’. When you take a friend into combat (the friend being played by an AI), they receive ‘horns’ and you can do each of these things every 24 hours. Horns, and medals that you earn daily through goal achievement and participating in various arena fights, and gems ALL help you advance in this game, and you get plenty of all! Gold is the hardest thing to maintain, so you definitely need to farm, but with the right balance and leveling, getting gold within a few levels to do some things isn’t too hard!
I really enjoy the fact that there’s just so much to do. And, unlike many games of this type, many of the things you can do have a set number of tries and more cannot be purchased. You must wait until the next day, giving all players a very fair playing ground when it comes to that.
While you only start with 10 energy max, you can purchase an additional 10 max, and nothing that costs energy (basic levels, special monster and boss battles) cost more than 2 points, and it takes 9 minutes to re-accumulate one point. So you can waste an hour or so if you’d like just on energy costing parts of the game if you’re killing time, before relying on the many other things you can do (PVP, special ally coliseum fights, farming elemental crystals, fighting specialized bosses by yourself—if you play the game, this will make more sense!) while more energy charges!
Also, auto-play allows you to let the game run without having to focus too much on it if you need to multitask!
CONS
Man, I’m hardpressed about this game. It gives so many advantages that it’s hard to complain.
I guess I should say something to be fair, though. When you go to by equipment or units/allies, you can spend either horns or gems. Now, you get the option to spend X amount on one, or XXX amount on 10 of whatever you’re purchasing. This is the only place that the game is pretty unfair, because the odds are balanced towards low level acquisitions, to try to get you to try your luck for more. To be fair though, they give odds for every ten purchased, one of those will be an upper-tier item/unit.
Where this becomes disadvantageous is when it comes to upgrading. Your character’s weapon and armor work on a percentage of success. If you upgrade a four star item with another four star, your chances of upgrade is 100%. That same 4* with a 3* is 50%. 2* is 13% and 1* is like 7%. While it will give a slight boost for the next chance you upgrade, it can be horrific if you have a 5* or 6*, because the odds are even worse the lower the item you’re using to upgrade it, and those 5 and 6 star ones are super rare, so having something to get 100% chances with is just as rare. It costs a lot of gold, so we go back to the farming needs.
The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is it’s a fairly slowly loading game, and they have difficulties streamlining group events, such as multiple player attacks on Monster Bosses. In this event, a player discovers one at random and sends a request to his or her friends for help, and you have about 3-4 hours to help kill the boss. The system is unable to factor in simultaneous player damage since players are not in the same screen with one another when fighting this boss, so if someone delivers the finishing blow before you, it jeopardizes the reward you may get.
PLAYER CONTACT
Limited to a chat on the server, and a chat for your guild, there are no PMs. Guild leaders may use the guild screen to broadcast a short message that guild members will see when they’re accessing that screen or the guild raid screen, but otherwise, it’s minimal at best.
OVERALL
I really like this game. It’s fun, they make it clear how to play the game, and it’s small shortcomings don’t negate from the fact that this is a very, very fair game for anyone who wants to play! Money just helps you get a bit ahead, but if you play smart, you only have to spend that money to support the devs.
No comments:
Post a Comment