Organ Trail: Here comes retro for iOS!

To my delight this evening as I opened up the Applications icon on my phone, I was greeted in the Featured section with a brand new game titled Organ Trail. The picture had what looked like a zombie on it, so immediately it caught my interest.

After much reading of the game and it's reviews (tip: on the app store, always read the reviews!) I found myself needing to buy the game immediately! Organ trail is a remake of the classic 70's retro game where you and 5 friends must reach other cities to survive a zombocalypse. It's a 64-bit, pixelated world of creatures, navigation issues and insane executions, all riddles into the price of $2.99!

The Good:
- A choose-your-own-adventure style game. 

Our team tried to ram through a horde. We failed...

- Every action you make has consequences. (I chose to stop off in a city teeming with rodents because I needed food, and now two party members have diseases)
- The pixel art is fantastic
- The music is fantastic
- Your taken back to the 'retro' days, which I love!

The Bad:
-It crashes a lot (Please note that the developers are working on this)
- There is no multiplayer
- There is no female protagonist

One of the game-modes, where you move around and shoot stuff!

The game-play itself has many different styles: a birds eye view side scroller as you shoot down undead, a side-scrolling road-trip where you experience many mishaps. The difference is really good, it shows originality.  
Although it is limited to a 2D world, Organ Trail shows promise of bringing back Retro to iOS. So many elements in this game have been well thought out, and it was my pleasure to have experienced a game still loved even years after it's first release.
ZED  

For Narniaaa!!!

"For Narnia!!!!" These are precisely the words I screamed as I begun the battle. My towers were ready, my forces stood strong, but the enemy approached like waves upon waves, obliterating my kingdom. I sat there, slumping in my seat, before I hit restart and begun the level again with fierce determination in my eyes...



Kingdom Rush has been an app that I have thouroughly enjoyed, and it brings me great pleasure to review this game. At first, I found the controls annoying and the gameplay a little dull, but if you just delve in a little bit more, you can find a real treasure of a game on the app store.

The app is a tower defense raider game, with various levels that follow a typical medieval story. There a multiple enemies, but not that many towers. Only four actually.
That's right, four towers to choose: barracks, archer tower, mage lair and bomb dispenser. Now, you may be thinking, "Four towers!? How gay" but I will stop you there good sir, as there is more then meets the eye.
My first arguement is that the developers, Ironhide Games Studio, have promised more towers. Great!
My second arguement is that these towers develop into 8 different specialty towers that look cool and
work great! This adds more units and more fun!

Even so, there are tower upgrades, hero's, and special 'God' abilities to turn the tide.

But, there is a downside... this game is hard! Like, seriously, take a rock, put it in concrete, then cover it with diamonds and then make it Chuck Norris's abs; it's almost as hard as that!!
I have spent many agonizing days having to restart endless battles, because in the end they overkill my units and I end up with butthurt >.> Not cool.
In other negative aspects, the monetary unit, gold, is extremely difficult to get in game. Defeating an enemy or summoning the next wave gets you more money, but in the end it's easily spent.

Even though there are these negatives, I still find it a fun game! Trust me, I have wasted many hours on this amazing game. Don't believe me that it's fun? Then read these reviews:

"Kingdom Rush is a beaut of a tower defense game, with new ideas that make it feel extremely polished and refined." Slidetoplay
                  
"This is easily one of the best tower defense games currently in the App Store." Gamezeebo
                  
"Kingdom Rush is an instant classic and is guaranteed to turn up on 2012 "best of" lists." IGN
                  
"Kingdom Rush can be filed in the thin folder marked -games that are pretty much perfect-." Jayisgames

I give this game a 5/5 for fun, a 3/5 for originality, a 4/5 for gameplay and a 3/5 for development. I like this app guys, it's a real beauty.

ZED

Swordigo: Child's Fantasy game popular with oldies.

For those of you who rememeber Mario, it was the age of revolutionary platforming systems. A little italian plumber runs across the screen dodging fireballs and jumping on enemies: ingenius gameplay! Well these platformer style games have arrived for the Iphone, and they look better then ever.

The main opening screen.

Swordigo, recently released by Touch Foo, has ingeniusly created a 2D world of fantasy that includes multiple gear, level up systems, power ups and enemies.
The game is simple in design, but incredible as a puzzle solver. A gamer can spend a max of four hours gameplay to finish the storyline, but spend another hour unlocking the maxed out items and weapons.

Pros:
Creative system- The user interface is smart. There are no moving buttons to imitate where your fingers touch the screen; the buttons stay where they are.
Level Up System- The classic level up system provides a prior goal to gamers should they finish the story-line quickly.
Puzzle Play!- Most maps have ingenius puzzles that require a lot of thinking and magic from the player.
Trinkets- THis was my most favourite aspect of the game. Throughout the worlds, certain places give you a 'trinket'. These magical spheres enchant your weapons, magic spells and armour to give it special abilitis. Currently I use the shadow trinket on my iron sword, giving it a purple aura. But it doesn't just change the image, it gives it special powerups too! But, if I was to use it on my armour, it would allow me to pass through enemies when I chose to! Amazing! (NOTE: In the above image of the app icon, the 'fire trinket, can be seen on the sword)
Multiple Bosses- Bosses unlock different achievments, and can be found in secret 'coves' under or abve the map. Defeating them will unlock trinkets for you character.

One of the many bosses of the 'Shadow Lord'. His minions will try to defeat you!

Cons:
Childish Graphics/Gameplay- The animation makes it look like a child's game. There is no detail in the characters, and the story-line is really simple to pick up (Which makes the ending easier to guess). 
4 hours!!!- That's right, depending on your thumb skill, this game has a max of 4-5 hours gameplay. The abd news: there is nothing online except for achievments. Unfortunetly, history in the appstore tells us that apps without online gameplay are rarely bought, due to their entertainment factyor decreasing by the time everything has been experienced.

Gameplay is very '2D' based. Like Mario!

Glitchy- Sometimes shuts down. Very aggravating. 'Nuff said.

My rating: 4/5 for creativity, 2/5 for gameplay, a 3/5 for price and a 3/5 for originality. Well done Touch Foo, you created a game that I thouroughly enjoyed!

Zed

You wanted to lose weight? Here you go!

Get the ultimate workout!

Yes I know that I already posted up about a zombie app, but this one takes the cake. 'Zombies. Run!' has become one of the mosty recent apps to combine fitness with zombies, which is quite an interesting combination.
It's hard to describe just what this game is like, so I will give you a blurb instead. Yeah, I'm good at blurbs:

The game places the runner in a zombie apocalypse, where you take on the role of Runner 5 (In the game, runners are the people who leave hot-spots to find medical and food supplies). Whilst running, the game will be simulating sounds, noises and echoes of different zombies that increase your running time.
Whilst doing this, the device picks up different items on the run, which can be used when running from Zeds. The opening menu shows an RTS style base, where you can distribute these supplies and increase your population. The game is mission based, and currently has up to 30 chapters
Here is the good news: This app updates weekly.
New Content YAY!

But there is a bit of a downside. The missions are difficult to get into, and a lot of the game requires you to use your imagination. Sometimes the charachters speech impairment can be aggravating, and other times the app will randomlty shut down on you, forcing you back to the beginning of the mission.

My rating: 3/5 for graphics, 4/5 for Gameplay, 3/5 for Development and a 6/5 for originality. This is a very interesting game, and I definetley recommend for those who want to lose weight but have fun at the same time. Zombies. Run! Is a well thought out app.

ZED

For more info on the app, see http://www.zombiesrungame.com/

iGet Ready For the Zombocalypse

Zombie Killing Gem of the App Store; that's what app enthusiasts are labelling this brand new zombocalypse FPS. Players take on the role of a survivalist amidst the zombie apocalypse; they are given a very simple but interesting story-line to follow.
What first caught my eye however, was the gravity field aspect. When you kill these Zeds, they don't just drop to the ground in a undignified, tedious way. No, developers have created multiple ways to finish them off, leaving the player with a giddy feeling that this game gives more then it first let on.

Imagine the players face as they experiment with multiple head shots, leg decapitaters and Zed bashing!

BOTTOM LINE: A Mob (enemy) in this game will react differently to each kill shot you give. Knock of its arms, and it will kick you in the shins (Which actually takes away a good ammount of health). Severe it's leg, and the zombie will shuffle after you till the final blow! It's this kind of authenticity that gamers want to feel; not just shoot the undead a couple of times and watch it fall down monotonously...
It's this kind of originality that put's other zombie shooters *cough* CoD Zombies *cough* in the online trash pile. Players want a humanizing effect of a game, and this app certainly delivers just that.

The developers of DEAD TRIGGER, Madfinger, have promised all this and more in their feature first game. Their continual updates have left buyers on the edge of their seats, asking for more! A pretty good deal for just 99c!

IN THE GAME:The opening menu of the game is a bird's eye view of the city, giving the player an RTS style genre. From there, the game allows you to selct missions in different area's of the map, which then determines
a) The number of zombies around AND
b) The setting of the game.

For example: Selecting a mission in the downtown area will put in a rustic, alleyway street, which might or might not be deserted. The 'levels' are linear-based, but allow open-fluid movement, meaning that you can move around and take different paths to a certain limit of that map. Clearly this game delivers more then asked for...


The gameplay is not that different from a regular Apple FPS. On the left side, the movement button. On the right: a trigger button, as well as iron sight and reload. The games ingenius interface allows users to customise the button style, to permit smooth play ability.


But, if there is a few things I can be a critic on, it would be this: Madfinger have allowed in-app purchases. This can be aggravating to a lot of buyers, as the currency model is based off the obtainable units (money) and purchased units (gold). To cut a long story short (and avoid the avid cursing), the games best suited weapons need to be purchased in order to kick some zombie ass.
Naturally, this got critics worried. But then came the final nail in the coffin...
Madfinger recently announced that the pressure their fans gave them about releasing a new app hindered the finished results in DEAD TRIGGER. Hence why the game has so many bugs, and currently only three NPC's. And just to rub salt into the wound, grammar Nazi's get a whole workload of sifting through error after error from various characters and plot-points in the game; a not so satisfying result for such a promising app. As for bug fixes and tweaks, Madfinger Games has managed to fix various issues in-game that reduced play-ability and interest.

However...

It's the next Dead Trigger update that you should really be excited about, though, for it will introduce the game's first survival arena, two new environments, two new flesh-eaters, and two fresh weapons (the chainsaw and boat motor). Oh, and iCloud support.

All in all, this game is brilliant. And it has potential to become memorable. I can agree with critics that this is a lesson to be learnt swiftly: don't rush into game development. That being said though, I give this game a 4/5 for graphics, 4/5 for story-line, 3/5 for development and a 5/5 for originality (compared to other zombie kill-em-up's on the App store). 


Buy this game guys; as you will not be disappointed...


ZED




RAWR I'M A ZOMBIE!!!