The TouchArcade Show - 177 - The Same as Last Week's Episode, But We Added Touch ID Posted: 17 Oct 2014 04:30 PM PDT
Don't forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com. We read 'em all, even if they don't make it into the podcast. As always, you can listen to us with the links below... And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated! iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show Games
News
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
TouchArcade Game of the Week: 'Hail to the King: Deathbat' Posted: 17 Oct 2014 03:46 PM PDT The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn't necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable "best" thing. Instead, it's more just us picking out the single game out of the week's releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one. These picks might be controversial, and that's OK. If you disagree with what we've chosen, let's try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why. Without further ado… Hail to the King: DeathbatThis week saw the release of Hail to the King: Deathbat [$4.99], a collaboration between developer Subscience Studios and the metal-ish band Avenged Sevenfold. And when I say collaboration, I don't mean that Avenged Sevenfold simply licensed their name out to a studio who then used it to create a game. No, the band members themselves, especially lead singer M. Shadows, had a direct hand in creating Deathbat. As long-time gamers the band set out to make a game that was a love letter to the games they loved playing growing up, as well as a way to pay tribute to their 15 year history as Avenged Sevenfold. They hit the mark on both of those goals beautifully.
However, it's important to point out that Hail to the King: Deathbat has received a very mixed response since releasing a couple of days ago. Surprisingly so, in my opinion. I understand that not every game is for every person, but so far the attitude towards Deathbat has been incredibly polarized. Some people hated it right from first sight, while others were stoked for the game but were ultimately left disappointed with how it turned out. Then there's some people who just straight up love everything about Deathbat. (Well, just about everything.) I am firmly in that latter camp. The thing about Deathbat is that it's best taken as a whole. Its individual pieces don't always stand up all on their own. Its weakest aspect is its combat, which is fairly basic and quite button-mashy (or more accurately, button-holdy-downy). That said, most old-school hack n slash or beat 'em up games are like that, and as a throwback it works quite well. The combat isn't as complex as something like God of War or newer Ninja Gaiden games, but it gets the job done just fine. If your main reason for wanting to play Deathbat is for satisfying combat, then you'll probably be disappointed.
Like I said though, Deathbat is more about the sum of its parts. It's not the flashiest game, but its art style is fantastic. Colorful and haunting, almost like you're playing through the cover artwork from Iron Maiden albums. The enemy designs are also quite interesting, especially some of the bosses. And the soundtrack… ohhhh the soundtrack. It's so damn good, and adds so much to the overall experience. This is definitely a game where you want to keep the sound on (though I wish the actual sound effects were better). I could probably go on and on, but I won't. We've covered pretty much all aspects of the game in our review, and our community member metalcasket put up an excellent forum review that I think mirrors much of my own feelings about the game. There's just something indescribably enjoyable about playing Deathbat, warts and all. If you want a game to show off the graphical power of your device, this probably won't be it. If you crave complex, technical battle mechanics, this probably won't do it for you either. But if you want a simple hack 'n slash that's fun just for the sake of being fun, you might find yourself as pleasantly surprised as I was with how much enjoyment you get out of Deathbat.
With those caveats in mind, if you think Hail to the King: Deathbat looks interesting based off of videos and all the impressions of it so far, I'd definitely recommend checking it out. This will be a game I keep on my device for a long time to come, and will play and replay many times over just for the sheer fun of it all. |
Posted: 17 Oct 2014 02:10 PM PDT As we're barreling towards the end of the year, it's no surprise we're posting so many great game reviews. It seems like everyone holds on to Q4 to release their best games, so I'm sure it'll only get better from here- Especially looking at what came out this week. Here's the highest scored game reviews we posted this week:
Helix , $2.99 [Review] - 868-HACK creator Michael Brough is doing for the arena survival genre with Helix what he did for the roguelike with 868-HACK: take an existing genre and own it with his own style. This is an arcade game that's got great art, great controls, intriguing gameplay, and even a few secrets to try and dig up, that make this worth checking out if you love arcade games.
Zombie Highway 2 , Free [Review] - Free-to-play gets a bad rap among a lot of serious mobile gamers, and often for good reason: there are many games which devolve and infantilize their design because it's more profitable to do so. But not Zombie Highway 2. This is a free-to-play game that features many of the trappings of the business model, two-tier currencies, and incentivized video ads, but it makes them feel optional, and doesn't get in the way of being a fun, zombie-splattering good time.
Crimsonland HD , Free [Review] - What separates Crimsonland from the pack is in its unusual structure and massive arsenal. The main menu presents you with two options, Quest mode and Survival mode. Quest mode has you play through preset levels trying to survive until all of the enemy waves are cleared out. Do that, and you'll earn yourself either a shiny new weapon or a nice new perk. Weapons and power-ups will occasionally drop as you mow down enemies, and having the right weapon for the enemies you're facing can make all the difference in the world. The levels are set up in six groups of ten stages, with three difficulty settings. You'll probably want to spend time here first unlocking things, but clearing out all of the levels on every difficulty setting is a pretty hefty challenge in and of itself. Even clearing all the stages on the easiest difficulty isn't exactly trivial. The fact that you're handed a nice reward after each and every level cleared helps keep you motivated, along with being able to see via a meter at the top of the screen just how close you are to finishing the stage.
Skullduggery! , $4.99 [Review] - Clutch Play is headed back to mobile with their sophomore title, Skullduggery. No bones about it, this game is a head turner. You can find platformers of all shapes and sizes on iOS but this one is the head of its class. Just looking at the graphics(and my amazingly funny jokes), you can probably already guess there are plenty of head and brain puns to be found in this app. What you find underneath, however, is a really great game. Additionally, we reviewed a few other games this week. As always, you can dig into all of our reviews by clicking here. Alternatively, you can hit up specific scores by using these links:
|
'Reckless Racing 3' Review - Today I Learned What Gymkhana is, and I Like It Posted: 17 Oct 2014 01:55 PM PDT Reckless Racing 3 [$4.99] delivers a style of racing that honestly is reckless, with the loose-controlling cars making perilous turns and drifting around, rubbing paint and just generally making a mess of the proceedings. This has been the series' modus operandi, and it does its job very well, at being a chaotic racing game that's easy to pick up but always hard to control, by design. Frankly, the game doesn't really do a lot to radically shake up things from what they were like in previous entries of the series. But that's not really a bad thing, as the formula still works, and it still feels fresh a couple years after Reckless Racing 2 [$1.99] came out. The meat of the game takes place in career mode, where money is earned in order to buy better, and higher-ranking cars for different events in career mode. There's also a set of arcade challenges with fixed tracks and cars to try and beat, along with single event and time trial modes. No multiplayer, though.
There are three types of events: race, drift, and Gymkhana. Race events are your standard racing affair, and can be quite entertaining given the fast-and-loose nature of the racing, with plenty of contact between the cars. Drift mode is hit-or-miss, as it feels like it's not rewarding skill in drifting around corners, but in to getting into drifts and maintaining them at any cost. It's not a mode that I care much for. But the Gymkhana mode, which is essentially an obstacle course, where circuitous routes must be navigated without hitting obstacles? That's quite fun, and I would love to see more Gymkhana events with fewer or no drifting events, particularly as learning to drift and taking turns is part of Gymkhana!
The game uses an automatically-adjusted difficulty feature, which I find has some problems. The game gets harder as you do better, and easier as you start to struggle. The problem is that this carries across all events. Do well in races, then go to the drift mode where you struggle? Expect to have to do extremely well. I think if the leveling was set to different modes, it would be better. But it also means that the difference between a gold medal in an event and a silver might be if you were doing well before you entered it, getting to race easy opponents early on in the series. Thankfully, the auto-difficulty can be toggled off in the options, and you can manually choose a difficulty that suits your taste. Reckless Racing 2 is one of my favorite games of recent memory controls-wise because it decides to let players move the touch controls wherever they choose, and to let them define the touch sizes. Reckless Racing 3 contains the exact same system, so it's pretty much impossible to complain about the controls because you can set them up exactly how you wish. Oh, and there's MFi gamepad support as well to sweeten the pot.
As a premium game with IAP, the question does need to be asked if it is truly optional as the developers claim it is. Well, it's the sort of thing where grinding is necessary to buy some of the better cars. Running through events multiple times should be good, but it is quite possible to hit a wall where you can't buy the necessary car for a certain event. So it's not an ideal system, but it's not awful.
While progression can feel a bit like running in a hamster wheel at times, there's still tons of fun to have in Reckless Racing 3. I only regret that I would forget to use the video sharing to show off some of the wacky (yet plausible) happenings with the physics system, because it's some of the most fun I've had with this game. The game does a great job at balancing out being loose and chaotic with not feeling out of control, and that's what makes this worth checking out. |
Saturday, 18 October 2014
Touch Arcade
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment