iBomber Defense iPhone Review

If you have ever played iBomber you will know you take the role of flying a plane with a birds eye view of the ground below which you bomb. Now in iBomber Defense you play the reversed role whereby you place the turrets and anti air units on the terrains to blast the planes, vehicles and boats into non existence. Essentially this is a tower defense game.

The main campaign consists of 22 levels with waves consisting from 20-40 in each which take place across North Africa, Russia and Europe. Levels all take place on different terrains which makes you really think strategically. Some levels take place on very high ground, some on very low and then there is the variety of enemies which will be presented in each wave to take into account which makes you completely rethink your strategy each time. So plotting your towers and defences really needs a hard think about. All this keeps the game fresh and interesting.

Enemies from planes, to ground units and boats will attack your defences which means the money you earn from destroying the enemy will have to go into repairing your towers ect otherwise they'll come crumbling down. Of course just like all tower defense games you can upgrade all of your defense with money as well. All this is pointless if you let too many enemies into your base because it's game over however it's not always game over. iBomber Defense has a very cool feature dubbed as 'rewind' giving you the ability to essentially go back in time within the game which then allows you to tighten up your defense before doing those waves again. This is a feature that has seriously helped me out when I thought I was on the brink of doom.

The controls are very simple. To build a defense you just tap on it with your finger at the bottom of the screen and drag it out onto the terrain and place where ever you want. The defenses available aren't as many as we have seen in some tower defense games but none the less they are all very tightly done. Such as Machine gun towers, Cannons, AOE, anti-vehicle, AA launch (anti air), Sabotage towers etc... To upgrade you again tap on a tower and you have the ability to upgrade it if you have enough cash. The controls are very simple allowing the game to played at ease.

The graphics are very brightly cartoony like with all iBomber titles. I love the bright block colors it gives the game a really fun feel to it. Terrains are very different in appearance depending on the destination such as Russia and Europe whereby some terrains featured in levels will be dessert based and some will be based upon the sea meaning a more planes and boats. Enemies are very well designed and the physics are the best we've seen in any tower defense game for the iPhone and iPad.

In terms of sound quality weapons all sound very rich and same goes for the explosions ect of the enemies. The iBomber sound track is also here which is always a good thing but there really isn't much with sound you can do in a tower defense game.

Overall iBomber Defense is our favourite tower defense game on the iPhone and iPad. With 22 action packed levels, easy controls, crisp graphics and some serious strategic thinking it's a great addictive game to play this holiday.

Online Games - Now More Popular Than Ever Before

Simply saying that online gaming has become popular is a massive understatement. It had been popular for a while, but in the past couple of years its popularity has reached previously unheralded heights. It's not just the number of gamers that has been increasing either, it's the number of games and gaming websites too. Type 'online games' into Google and you'll see that there are more than 200 million results!

So, why is online gaming becoming increasing popular? Well, you can put it down to a few things. One is better technology, another is improved graphics, and a third is increased interactability.

It seems like a lifetime ago now that Pong, Pac-Man and Frogger were the leading lights of the gaming world, but in actual fact it was just a decade or two ago. In the world of technology though, that is more than a lifetime, it's an entirely different era! It's not that games programmers didn't have ideas for the types of games that we enjoy playing now, it was rather that they had no way of implementing their ideas. The coding languages that form the basis of current games simply didn't exist in the past, and the processors in computers just not fast enough to process anything more than simple commands. Now though, technology and programming languages are at a level whereby the imagination is the only limitation, and this has shown itself in the great games that are consistently released.

As for graphics, slow moving, uninspiring blotches that jerked across the screen have been made a thing of the past. Today with the modern technology that is out there, some of the three dimensional games that are being offered online actually more closely resemble a movie than a game. The graphic capability with Flash and Java Scripting and AJAX programming allow a near photo-realism. This is especially true if you are lucky enough to have an extremely high-speed connection like a T1 or a T3 line.

Everyone knows that great graphics don't always equate to a great game though. The criteria for a great game is that it is interactive and rewarding, and this is where online games have really come into their own. Playing online against real people is, for the vast majority of people, far superior to just playing against a computer. Before, Internet connections were just too slow to allow gamers to properly compete against each other online, but now you can compete simultaneously against 20+ people from around the world with no problems at all. This has greatly extended the amount of time that you can play a game before getting bored of it, and literally every time that you play a game you don't know what to expect.

So, what about the future of online gaming? You can be sure that all of the points mentioned above will only continue to improve and, as such, the gaming industry as a whole will continue to grow and bring in more and more gamers, which can only be a good thing for those of us already hooked on the world of online gaming.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 iPhone Review

Battlefield Bad Company 2 was a hit on the PS3 and Xbox 360 so seeing it being brought into a portable game should be interesting.

With the launch of N.O.V.A. 2 on the same day of it's release Battlefield Bad Company 2 had some serious competition where FPS's are concerned. The main campaign packs 14 short missions in 5 different battle zones from desert and snow environments to the jungle.

With a decent selection of weapons and explosives from pistols to machine guns to bombs keeping the campaign fresh is a real relief for this title. You can drive tanks around and fire out of helicopters also. Missions are quite varied with different tasks being spread out in each. Some missions you are ordered to meet the enemies with all guns blazing but in others you are told to sneak up on them in stealth. A combat system implemented helps you out by basically just hiding you behind obstacles.

The controls outright suck. There are few different controls setups to choose from but all didn't work that well and defiantly didn't feel natural. I used the control setup which had an onscreen fire button but didn't have an onscreen joy stick because again it sucked. Instead I just swiped the left hand side of the screen right, left, up and down which worked awfully and sometimes didn't respond at all. The precision of movement wasn't that great with aiming of the gun either. Especially when looking through the iron sight, it just felt sluggish. Then there's the vehicles which you can drive like the tank being controlled like in Brother and Arms 1. Having bad controls really lets down the whole game.

The graphics look pretty decent but textures up close are not that detailed which is unexpected for an FPS at this time on the iPhone. The environments look good but some have had more work put into them visually than others which is a huge shame. Guns look well polished and the physics put into shooting etc. is pulled of well. Vehicles look good and enemies die and react mildly realistically. But it feels as if there could have been way more polish put into the overall graphics.

The sound is just dire. Now I'm not sure if this is an iPhone 4 problem but in the cut scenes voice acting is so quiet. And this goes right across the game with explosions and guns shots all seeming lifeless, it's as if a tin can is over the top on all sound effects.

The multiplayer is unreviewable due to us all being kicked off the servers which never allowed us to try the different modes which were on offer and this is defiantly a universal problem.

Overall Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a really weak game. The campaign has some really nice elements but bad controls, not polished enough graphics, awful audio and multiplayer which doesn't work makes a this game not recommendable.

Advantages of Playing Online Games

The disadvantages of the internet in general and online gaming in particular are known to everyone. However, when it comes to development and improvement of thinking abilities, it turns out that playing online games has many benefits.

We all know that playing computer and online games is fun. Therefore, we cannot take our eyes off our PC screens even if the phone is ringing, our favorite TV show is about to begin or our dinner is burned on the stove.

All of us have already heard bad things about this amusing pastime. We all know that online games are addictive; they can cause you and your children to spend valuable time in front of the computer on the expense of work, school and family obligations. Playing video and internet games on a regular basis can isolate you from human companionships, distort your sense of reality, shorten your sight, damage your back and basically mess up your life.

Let's put it this way: if you or someone you know is doing nothing but playing online games, it is something to worry about. However, most online gamers tend to adopt a less radical approach towards their habit. Then, when talking about milder cases of addiction, online gaming is less harmful habit than watching Dr. Phil, for example.

Actually, the habit of playing online games has many advantages that the habit watching bad TV is lacking. Recent research has shown that playing puzzle and word games decreases the risk of Alzheimer disease while watching daytime television increases the risk.

Many other researches have proved the positive effect of playing online games on the youngsters' mind. Word, puzzle and trivia games enriches the children's speech; classic computer games such as Tetris benefits the kids' ability to focus, analyze shapes, think and plan ahead; board games like backgammon and chess can help in the area of thinking skill and so on.

While watching TV is completely passive, you are required to do nothing but stare, overhear and open bags of chips, playing computer games, still not an Olympic sport, require you more often to recall that grey substance inside your head.

Additionally, playing online games is less solitary act than most people think. First, many types of games, including shooting games, sports games, backgammon, billiard and chess, are two or multi player games in which players can compete against each other. Additionally, most gaming sites add several features that encourage interaction between gamers including forums, chats, multiplayer games and tournaments, etc.

The bottom line is that online gaming, if taken in a reasonable dosage, is the opposite of harmful. Thanks to many of the online games advantages and their contribution to thinking skill development, parents can allow their children to play them, and play them themselves.

Angry Birds Review

                                 

At its heart, Angry Birds is a 2D, physics-based puzzle game which features no end of personality and fun.  Although there are plenty of competitors in this genre, this entry stands out from the pack in a lot of great ways which I’ll detail later.  But first, the “tl;dr” version of the review:  This is a must-own game if you like lateral thinking and knocking stuff over.

Over the course of this review, I will discuss not only the game itself but some of the depth that I discovered during many hours of play.  In that sense, the article will serve as a hybrid between a review and an Angry Birds guide of sorts, helping the new player understand why this is such an appealing piece of software.  If you enjoy the article, you might also want to check out my other reviews as well.  Enough of that, Let’s dig in!

Premise and Gameplay

The premise of Angry Birds is simple:  Birds hate pigs so much that they choose to take their own lives in dive-bombing operations against their enemies.  Through a series of increasingly complex scenarios, the player is tasked with launching the birds out of a slingshot and into the protective structures that stand between the pigs and certain death.  The pigs are destroyed when they are hit by either birds or structural debris, and you complete the level when all the pigs are dead.  There is a “story” here which is told through some amusing still-frames, providing justification for the game world and acting as a palette cleanser between level sets.

For instance, the most basic unit is the red bird, an over-glorified rock which simply launches into obstacles and causes damage.  You will later unlock units like the yellow bird, a unit that allows you to tap the screen a second time after its initial launch, causing it to shoot linearly toward whatever part of the screen it is pointing at.  When you combine special unit abilities with the physics engine, new strategies and variants open up to the creative player.To begin with, the player controls only one type of bird and there is only one structural material to break through.  Things get more complex once the player is comfortable with using the slingshot, breaking through walls, and killing pigs: New unit types enter the equation, each sporting a different ability that can be employed against the pig fortress.

As an example, I often found myself launching the yellow birds up high rather than directly at the pigs – this allowed me to precisely dive-bomb weakened structures from above rather than attempting to break through the front walls.  Additionally, you’ll realize pretty early on that certain structures are weaker to specific units.  For instance, I found that using the bluebird unit’s splitting ability like a concentrated shotgun blast worked nicely on glass barriers.  This is the real beauty of the game:  Each person will adopt their own Angry Birds play style and strategies.

The real star of the show, the glue that makes all of these elements work, is the physics engine.  I’m a total sucker for throwing something at an in-game object and then sitting back, cackling while the results of my decision play out.  Any given structure in Angry Birds is essentially a house of cards, precariously perched on cliff-sides under tumbling debris and made even more dangerous by shaky foundations.  The physics calculations involved here are impressive to say the least, allowing these buildings to come crumbling down with (mostly) realistic consequences.  If you enjoy this sort of thing, check out Boom Blox on the Wii and Red Faction: Guerillaon the 360/PS3/PC for more physics-based chaos.

So what system should you be playing this game on?  In my opinion, a touch interface is the ideal way to interact with the game.  Using your finger to determine how much and at what angle the slingshot is pulled back is a tactile way to get the player involved with tweaking his approach.  For my money, the muscle memory involved with the iPad’s touch screen is just more satisfying than using a mouse.  That being said, Angry Birds for PC is available and is definitely worth your money if you don’t have access to the touch version.As you might have already gathered, the real depth in theAngry Birds app emerges from actions which seem fairly basic when considered in isolation, but expose their true potential in unison with other game elements.  Change the angle at which you shoot the slingshot, and now you can take advantage of the features inherent in the physics engine, including bouncing, rolling, etc.; engage your bird’s special ability at a different point along its flight path and take note of how the result differs from previous attempts; use a weakened structure to kill a pig rather than brute forcing it with waves of angry birds; the possibilities are many and varied.

Graphics and Sound

I’m lumping graphics and sound together because even if they are more than competent, they’re clearly not the main focus.  The sounds range from satisfying breaks and falls to hilarious emotes from the birds as they fly enraged toward their victims.  The graphics are totally appropriate, rendering the animals as lovable (if not psychologically unhinged) caricatures of their real-life counterparts.  There’s not much more to say here; the aesthetics do a great job of establishing the scene and then stepping aside to let the player focus on the real meat of the game.

Overall

My overall impression of the Angry Birds game is obviously very positive, and yet there’s so much more that I haven’t detailed in this review.  There’s a ton of replay value here thanks to the sheer number of levels that you can access as well as the availability of unlockables.  Additionally, the player is scored based on how many birds are left in the arsenal upon level completion so there’s always the drive to go back and improve your strategy in order to waste fewer birds and get higher scores.

The game is very approachable, adhering to the “easy to learn but hard to master” gold standard of game design which I’ve mentioned elsewhere on the site.  It’s appropriate for anyone that’s old enough to use the device it’s being played on, so the appeal is wide-reaching.  This game’s audience will consist mainly of people who like to size up situations and experiment with physical reactions.  Put another way:  Who doesn’t enjoy the opportunity to make a huge mess without real world consequences?

Brink: Summary

Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Splash Damage

Release Date: May 10, 2011
MSRP: $59.99
Available on: PS3, PC, Xbox360
T for Teen: Blood, Language, Violence

A man-made floating city called the Ark, made up of hundreds of separate floating islands, is on the brink of all-out civil war. Originally built as an experimental self-sufficient and 100% "green" habitat, the reported rapid rise of the Earth's oceans has forced the Ark to become a refuge for humanity. With 25 years of social unrest, the inhabitants of the Ark have reached their breaking point. It's up to you to decide the future of the Ark and the human race.

Brink is an immersive shooter that blends single-player, co-op, and multiplayer gameplay into one seamless experience, allowing you to develop your character across all modes of play. You decide the role you want to assume in the world of BRINK as you fight to save yourself and mankind's last refuge for humanity. Brink offers a compelling mix of dynamic battlefields, extensive customization options, and an innovative control system.

Dead Space 2 Review

Dead Space was a game that rocked the foundations of horror video games for a long time. With its innovate AI that would stay hidden and pop out at you when you least expected it. It even continues the particularly weird and at the same time awesome storyline from the previous game. Dead Space 2 does include a few things to mix it up but keeps true to the first video game in the series. Most first video games where the main character just killed off an entire armada of enemies and lost everyone they know and love in the process portray the main character as unaffected in the second game. In Dead Space 2 however Issac(the main character) is torn apart by the previous games events and the death of his girlfriend. Several game play elements actually have to do with the fact that Issac may be losing his grip on reality. Despite that fact he still fights on anyway but at least they acknowledge it and make it a part of the game unlike other video games.

We will start Dead Space 2 on a good note by reviewing the main portion of the game or single player as some would call it. For the most part you will playing in dark environments with a light at your side and the hope that the necromorph's (zombie alien things) don't come up from behind to get you when you least expect it (they will). Often times you will hear them but not see them putting you on the edge and starting your cautiousness. It would be a lie to say that you won't spend a lot of time looking for the enemy in one room and not finding them. Then just as you are about to move on they come from behind you and attack when your guard is down. This is just one classic example of how smart the AI actually is in this game. Adding to that is the music which adds to the intensity and excitement of the unknown darkness that often surrounds you. Dead Space 2 even has a unique health bar that is located on your characters back which was used in the first video game. Basically Dead Space 2 his game is what all horror movies and horror genre video games should look at when they develop from now on because this game does it very well.

The armor of this game looks just as amazing as it did in the Dead Space and thankfully they decided not to give us the most powerful armor in the game if we purchased it the first day it came out, as they did in Dead Space. However for the first part of the game you will not be wearing armor and will look like just any other person until you get your armor back and can look totally awesome again. In a way this does make sense because in real life you could not be possibly be wearing that heavy armor all the time, so it seems like a good choice by the developers to have you get your suit as the first task in the game. A lot of the weapons from the Dead Space make a comeback in Dead Space 2 with a few changes to them(mostly for the better), all of them remain pretty unique and you may actually have to change weapons sometimes and not just blast one gun the whole game like most other shooting games. To add even more worth to single player the upgrade systems and purchasing system is very well done and you cannot just buy everything too early or not have the ability to buy things due to money restrictions later in the game.

Much like the Bioshock franchise the of Dead Space developer's decided that crappy multi player was better than nothing. So they put in a few maps together and whipped up a few game types where the humans have to do things and the necromorph's on the other team try to stop you. The multi player is fun for a little while but it has no real lasting appeal for most people. For the most part this game really shines because of its single player and multi player seemed like more of a last-minute idea that they decided to implement because they thought it would be fun. If Dead Space 2 did not have multi player however it would definitely be worth less money because adding in multi player gives you some more replay value even if it isn't a lot.

Overall Dead Space 2 is a bit better than the previous game and uses a lot of the same mechanics. This is not a bad thing because the Dead Space was very well done and this game just sought to improve upon it as most sequels do. The weapons are very well done and the armor looks as even better than it did in Dead Space. The purchasing system in the game is very well done again just as it was in the first game. The horror aspect remains largely the same from the first game which is also a great thing. The biggest element is the story changes that take place and the fact that Issac may be going very well be going insane due to the events in the first game. Multi player does not add much value to the game but as the developers probably thought it is certainly better than nothing.

TLDR

Good Stuff 

• Single Player!
• Horror elements of the game (music,enemies, etc) are top-notch
• Unique weapons, a lot of them are from the first game though
• The money system is very well done
• Armor looks even better than it did in the last game
• Well thought out story and somewhat unique gameplay
• Smart AI

Bad Stuff 

• Multi player
• Multi player?
• Getting jumped all the time by enemies can get a little frustrating

Plants Vs Zombies : Happy Birthday!

When Plants vs. Zombies was originally announced on April 1st two years ago, PC gamers everywhere (myself included) were unsure if Popcap's newly revealed game was part of an elaborate April Fool's Day hoax or not. A little more than a month later, the game was released and not only saw universal acclaim from the gaming media resulting in an 88 on Metacritic, but also earned the title of Popcap's fastest selling game of all time.

In Plants vs. Zombies, Popcap takes the standard tower defense formula and greatly simplifies it. Instead of a path to build towers along, you drop seeds in your yard which then grow in to plants that have various offensive or defensive capabilities. The yard is organized in a grid, and zombies move straight across the row they spawn on, munching (or in some cases jumping or flying over) anything that they come in contact with.

A gauge on the top of the screen shows how close you are to the end of the level, with flags indicating when big waves of zombies are going to come. When you clear a stage, you're often awarded with the seeds of one more of the nearly 50 included plants. This seemingly constant progression does a great job of keeping you interested, as it always seems like you have a new toy to play with. To shake things up even more, mini game levels are mixed in, including a bowling game of sorts, a whack-a-mole game with zombies, and others.

Originally designed to be played with a mouse, Popcap did an excellent job of porting Plants vs. Zombies to the iPhone. The resource required to build your defenses is sunlight, and in the PC version feverishly moving your mouse around to click on the small suns falling from the top of the screen got tiring (especially when playing on a laptop with a touchpad). On the iPhone, the sunlight mechanic is also in place, but seems to work so much better when you only have to tap the falling suns to collect them.

Interface elements have been made smaller to dedicate more screen space to your yard, and some things have been moved around. Your available seeds have been moved from the top of the screen to the left, and to plant one all you need to do is tap it then tap the grid square of your lawn where you want it placed. Alternatively, you can tap the seed icon then drag your finger around your lawn. This causes both the X and Y axis of the square you're currently selecting to light up which effectively put an end to me accidentally placing seeds in squares I didn't mean to.

Plants vs. Zombies is absolutely loaded with high quality animations, excellent cartoonish zombies, and silly dialog between your neighbor/shopkeeper Crazy Dave and even notes from the zombies themselves. Throughout the game you'll defend your front lawn during the day, at night, then defend your back yard which introduces water plants that can only be planted in your pool.

As you advance through levels you will come across many more zombies than just the standard run of the mill mindless brain-muncher. There's a Michael Jackson zombie that causes others to rise from gravestones following a Thriller-like dance. There's also zombies that have armored themselves with screen doors, traffic cones, buckets, football pads, and other equally ridiculous equipment. 25 different zombies in all are included, and one end-boss. Each zombie even has their own profile inside the in-game almanac, and they're really worth a look once you unlock it.

Plants vs. Zombies performs well on both my iPhone 3G and 3GS. I did experience some slowdown when there were tons of zombies and projectiles on screen, but overall this didn't cause a problem playing through the game as the only time there was enough things happening on-screen to cause slowdown was at the very end of some levels where you already have your yard fully covered and are just waiting for the last wave of zombies to die.

On the iPhone, Plants vs. Zombies only includes the main story and a quick play mode that is unlocked once you've beaten the game that will allow you to play a few different scenarios and the various mini games you came across in story mode. The endless survival mode from the PC version is nowhere to be found, which is very disappointing, especially since I imagine quite a few people excited about Popcap porting the game to the iPhone have already completed the story mode on the PC.

There is only one difficulty level, and if you're a veteran of tower defense games, Plants vs. Zombies will likely be very easy for you. Personally, I love the tower defense genre, and being able to make it all the way through Plants vs. Zombies without much difficulty at all hasn't stopped me from playing through the game multiple times on my computer, and I'm enjoying the iPhone version just as much. I'm not sure what it is about Popcap games, but similar to Peggle and Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies never seems to get old.

The 88 Metacritic score of the original Plants vs. Zombies (complete with 100's from multiple sources) just goes to show how great this game is. The iPhone port is absolutely phenomenal, and even though it's lacking a few game modes, there's always hope for them to be implemented in the future either via an update or a DLC add-on. There isn't a lite version, but there is a free Flash demo that I highly recommend trying if this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies.

Hack Slash Crawl Review

Hack Slash Crawl is an action RPG game much like the recently released Torchlight. You go around slaying goblins while at the same time, you're upgrading your weapons and armor in order to fight more menacing enemies along the way.

There's no story to this game unlike with console-based RPGs. As you start the game you're already transported inside a dark and depressing dungeon expected slay pretty much everything that moves. The controls are fairly easy to master since everything is controlled by the click of a mouse.

To move all you have to do is highlight an area using the mouse and click. It's fairly simple although it can get a bit tedious sometimes if you're trying to move away from baddies all the time. But the easiest thing about the game is combat.

There are no complex controls for you to memorize as your character automatically fights enemies that you highlight over with the mouse. As long as the enemy is in range of the main character, he will keep fighting until everyone around him is dead. The only way to stop him from fighting is to simply run away.

It's advisable that you use this technique because some areas there are time where the enemy can overwhelm you in big numbers. They can surround you and even chase you for several meters! Don't worry you can eventually get your revenge as this game has arguably the best feature ever in a RPG game - that is a recoverable health bar.

Your health bar replenishes over time much like your magic bar does too. This feature should be implemented on all RPG games in my opinion. I find it very annoying having to use items all the time to replenish your health and magic points like in most other RPGs. Bear in mind, not all character possess the ability to replenish health. If you choose to be a skeleton at the start of the game, he won't have this ability but he is immune to poison. It's advisable you choose which type of character you'd like to be as each of them will have different strengths and weaknesses.

All your gear can be picked up after you've killed your enemies. You can pick up pretty much anything as long as you keep yourself alive and defeat groups of baddies. Within seconds I was wielding a huge axe while I picked up a helmet and plate armor for my chest. This is similar to Torchlight which came out on the Xbox 360 not too long ago.

The 2D isometric visuals are pleasing to the eye. The only limitation to the isometric view is that you cannot always see everything that is ahead of you. There were often times I was running away trying to replenish my health only to stumble upon more baddies right in front of me. Although the graphics are nice the dungeons look a little boring. Small dark and grey hallways are not what you call a fun place to be all the time. It would have been nice if other environments were included such as ice and jungle worlds like those seen in other RPGs.

Another thing I disliked about the game is that there were no continues. Once I died there was you're only presented with a high score. I'm guessing the longer you play, the higher the score you'll achieve. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I hoped the game had some sort of save feature as it took me quite a while to complete only the first dungeon...