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Rise of Civilizations Review

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

We’ve gained a little more respect for Julius Caesar and Hannibal since we started playing Rise of Civilizations. It turns out that running an empire is a serious multitasking exercise.

Rise of Kingdoms

Not only do you have to keep expanding your interests, wiping out barbarian tribes and overcoming well-organised enemies, but you have to keep the home front ticking over too.

Rise of Civilizations sees you taking the reins of a burgeoning empire, giving you the choice of Rome, Spain, Britain, France, Germany, China, Japan and Korea

You start with a modest walled city with very little in it, but as you upgrade your City Hall and the buildings around it you unlock more building types. Upgrading these lets you upgrade your City Hall in turn, making more building types available, and so on.

Eventually you’ll have a farm, an archery range, a workshop, a barracks, a lumber mill, an academy, and many more buildings besides. Between them they keep your people sheltered, fed, trained, educated, armed, healthy, safe, and prosperous.

Upgrading buildings takes time, but you can speed up the process with consumable cards. You have to exercise a little bit of restraint with these, since you don’t have an unlimited supply, but you have enough that you can expedite a few building, training, and research periods per session, allowing you to get some good progress out of a quick game.

Of course, this just covers the very basics of attending to your own city. Zoom out and you’ll discover a staggeringly huge game world. Your city is just a tiny dot in a vast region, which itself just one of nine regions, separated by mountain ranges and accessible through pathways that you need to find with your scouts.

What’s more, the vast majority of this map is shrouded in fog, so there’s a huge amount to discover. We dread to think how long it would take you to clear every wisp of fog, but every time you send out a scout you uncover new stuff to befriend, explore, conquer, plunder, or kill.

Naturally, killing stuff is a big part of being an emperor. To this end,​ you have troops, which you recruit and train in your city, but you also have commanders. These are based on real historical figures like Julius Caesar, and you can level them up with their own individual skill trees, RPG-style.

You can have multiple commanders, too, giving you even more to think about when assigning skill points, as well as allowing you to fight on multiple fronts.

The Good

Rise of Kingdoms

Rise of Civilizations also has its own exhaustive alliance system, complete with messaging. Joining an alliance gives you access to communal assets such as research, alliance gifts, and earnings from resources. It also lets you call on alliance members for assistance in completing research, building, and training projects in your city.

Naturally, you can help the alliance too, by pledging your troops in wars, contributing to research costs, and so on.

Believe it or not, we haven’t really scratched the surface of Rise of Civilizations. There’s so much to do, and so many ways to do it, and so much room to do it in, that it would take you days to get to grips with the game’s subtle intricacies.

It would risk becoming overwhelming if not for the inexhaustible supply of missions and tasks. The best way to progress, certainly at first, is to just go to the missions screen and keep taking them on.

For example, accepting a barbarian hunting mission will take you straight to the search function, where you can search for barbarians, among other things, at whatever level you like. Once you’ve found a squad of barbarians it’s just a matter of a couple of taps before you’re wiping them out with swords, arrows, and siege weapons.

As a result of accepting this mission,​ you’ll learn how the search function works, level your troops up, and earn some resources. There are many different mission types, all of them productive and profitable, so it makes sense to stay on this path until you’re ready to face the big bad world without training wheels.

The Bad

Rise of Kingdoms

The slight downside of Rise of Civilization’s huge scope is that it can look a little plain. The graphics are polished and slick, but there’s only so much character a developer can squeeze into an ant-sized sprite. The interface can become cluttered, too, and it’s not uncommon to tap on the wrong building while working in your city.

But these are minor issues, and a small price to pay for the sheer detail and abundance that Rise of Civilizations contains.

The Verdict

If you have any interest in the genre, you ought to check Rise of Civilizations out. You can download it via the App Store and Google Play.

8.3

OVERALL

Replayability 8.8

Game Controls 8.6

Gameplay 8.5

Graphics 7.8

Sound/Music 7.9

FREE

Rise of Kingdoms

Lilith Games

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BirdsIsle Review

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

Creating a semi-involving story for a match-3 game seems an impossible task. BirdsIsle, the new game from Amrita Studio, may have just managed it though.

BirdsIsle

It involves you collecting a crew of - you guessed it - birds in an ornitary by completing several stages that ask you to match​ up a colorful range of fruits and objects. You match them up by colorful vertically, horizontally, and even in grids of 2x2.

Moving these items is done by swiping on the touchscreen, and making lines or squares of four or more items will see you unlock certain power-ups, create explosions, or set off chain-reactions.

The Good

BirdsIsle

BirdsIsle may be a match-3 game, but that doesn’t mean it’s another generic entry in this most overcrowded of genres. This is in part down to the presentation, as mentioned above.

It gets you to care about these birds you group together. Their distinctive designs are one factor, and another is their adorable chirpings. We’re not talking about birdsongs either, but the various geographical and word facts they keep sharing with you. It’s somehow enjoyable to learn about the world. Who knew.

Then there are the clear and colorful in-game visuals, which make BirdsIsle an incredibly easy title to get to grips with. Even the in-app purchases aren’t as irritating as in other match-3 games. You can replay past levels to gain more coins and the like if needed, but we didn’t lean on this crutch too much to pass the latter stages.

What’s most impressive in BirdsIsle is how it asks you to play stages tactically straight off the bat. If you go in swiping mindlessly you won’t get far. Instead you have to make sure you clear a certain amount of items per stage, and often there are other obstacles to work your way around - including defending your board against wood-boring beetles.

You do this by matching up four or more objects in certain ways - such as in L-shapes or 2x2 squares - and gaining certain power-ups that are then essential in competing for​ that level’s main objective. It’s this need to think about the shapes you have to create that really helps BirdsIsle differentiate itself from its rivals.

The Bad

BirdsIsle

There’s ultimately no getting away from it - BirdsIsle is a match-3 game. Regardless of how many power-ups and intriguing gameplay gimmicks it throws at you,​ it’s impossible to escape the fact that you’ve played many titles like this before.

That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker, but if you go into BirdsIsle expecting it to blow the puzzle genre wide open you will be disappointed. Set your expectations accordingly and you’ll be very happy indeed though.

The Verdict

No it’s not the most original game in the world, but BirdsIsle has more than enough about it to make it well worth a look into anyone with even a passing interest in the puzzle game genre. You can download it via the App Store now.

7.9

OVERALL

Graphics 8.4

Sound/Music 8

Replayability 7.6

Game Controls 7.9

Gameplay 7.6

FREE

BirdsIsle

Amrita Studio

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

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Burger Shop 2 Review

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

You might think that working behind the counter in a burger joint would be no fun at all. But if Burger Shop 2 is anything to go by, you’re dead wrong. It turns out that putting orders together for a succession of hungry customers from a menu of more than 100 items is a great way to kill some time.

Burger Shop 2

This casual time-management sequel from developer GoBit sees you waking up in a dumpster to discover that the catering empire you built in the previous game has been cruelly taken from you.

There’s nothing for it but to start from scratch and regain everything you’ve lost the only way you know how: making fast food.

Once again you’re assisted by the BurgerTron 2000, the secret weapon that helped you dominate the fast food world in the first game. Whoever put you in that dumpster clearly missed a trick.

Your trusty robot companion issues a constant stream of food items into your restaurant via a snaking conveyor belt, while your customers wait at a counter along the bottom of the screen, requesting meals in speech bubbles.

To serve a meal you simply tap on the requested food items, and a plate if necessary, and then on the patron who ordered it. Except that only applies to the simplest of simple dishes. Pretty soon you’ll find yourself cooking food, filling glasses, toasting toast, and much more.

The Good

Burger Shop 2

Burger Shop 2 is deceptively deep. New food items are added before every stage (you get to choose which ones), along with boosts and other features.

Foods need to be prepared in a variety of ways, whether in the oven, from the ice cream machine, out of the fryer, or whatever. There are toppings, too, such as butter on toast or sprinkles on ice creams, all of which makes for a dizzying number of considerations to juggle.

Over time you’ll learn to make the most of the tools at your disposal. You’ll fill fries cartons and soda glasses even when there are none on order, keep the oven working to have steak, ham, and fish ready to go, and you’ll make use of the extra place at the end of the conveyor belt, which allows you to keep one item aside.

You’ll also learn to serve your customers tactically, giving them their meals in parts rather than all at once, so that you can spread your attention equally among your impatient patrons.

The game contains different customer types with different levels of patience and different requirements in terms of the food they like to eat and how many dishes they’re going to order. Learning to identify these customer types on sight is essential if you want to maximize​ your efficiency.

It’s a tough challenge, even in the tutorial stages, but fortunately Burger Shop 2 gives you boosts in the form of lollipops that you can dish out to prevent angry customers from leaving, dog biscuits that you can give to certain customers to make them happier (and thus more generous), and even a little hovering robot called BurgerBot, whom you can deploy to fill an order for you whenever his energy bar is full.

The Bad

Burger Shop 2

Burger Shop 2 isn’t getting any awards for presentation. The graphics could easily belong to a game from 2005, and during gameplay it can be difficult to connect with particular food items because they’re so small on the screen.

It can be frustrating, too. If you make a mistake you can’t simply remove the errant food item from the plate - you need to tip the whole lot into the waste disposal. In cases where cooked food is involved, this can set you back a fatal amount, for reasons that don’t feel intuitively fair. After all, you wouldn’t be expected to start from scratch in real life. Games are supposed to be more forgiving, not less.

The Verdict

Whether or not you played the first Burger Shop, if you’re a fan of casual time-management games like Diner Dash and Cook, Serve, Delicious! you’ll gobble this up. Burger Shop 2 may not be the slickest game of its type, but it has a fun story and a surprising amount of depth and challenge.

8.0

OVERALL

Replayability 8.4

Game Controls 8.1

Sound/Music 8

Gameplay 8.2

Graphics 7.3

FREE

Burger Shop 2

GoBit, Inc.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

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Mobile Royale Review

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

The mobile strategy MMO genre has been thriving ever since 2012, when Supercell’s Clash of Clans burst onto the scene.

Mobile Royale: Kingdom Defense

Since then, developer IGG has specialized in perfecting the strategy MMO genre, with games such as Lords Mobile and Clash of Lords dominating the app store charts thanks to their professional sheen (and canny choice of names).

Mobile Royale, the studio’s latest, demonstrates the same commitment to high-quality game production and sneaky zeitgeist-borrowing titles.

Despite appearances, Mobile Royale is not a battle royale game. Instead, it follows the strategy MMO formula pretty closely. That means it involves building up a city by adding and upgrading buildings, while also venturing out to fight for the resources and experience you’ll need if you want to dominate the game world.

Unsurprisingly, Mobile Royale has a fantasy setting, which means you’ll come across elves, humans, dwarves, beasts, dragons, monsters magic, and so on as you romp your way through the single-player campaign.

The dragon is a particular point of interest. This magical beast has apparently taken a shine to you, which means it’s prepared not only to smite your enemies during battle but also to help you at home by bestowing boosts on your city-building efforts.

The Good

Mobile Royale: Kingdom Defense

As you’d expect from a studio with IGG’s clout, Mobile Royale looks terrific, from the impressive introductory cut-scene featuring a Kratos-like warrior to your city, which is spread out across a lush cloud-draped mountainscape, giving you an impressive area to scroll around and zoom in and out of.

The battles are distinctive in themselves. Rather than moving through stages with a party of heroes you engage in full scale battles, with rows of infantry charging up the screen in block formation.

Before each battle you can examine your opponent’s army to inform your own tactics. There are three different troop types, each effective against one of the others and relatively ineffective against another. Think rock-paper-scissors, with your three brigades hopefully outranking your enemy’s.

On top of that you get additional effects for sending more than one brigade of the same kind into battle. These include Shield Wall, Charge, and Barrage. Since three brigades is the maximum number you can send into battle, you have to go without a unit type if you want to make use of a bonus effect, lending the game an extra tactical dimension.

You have a relatively high degree of control during battles, too. Each hero on the battlefield (you can have up to four) has a spirit bar that charges as you fight. One a bar is full you can unleash that hero’s skill, aiming it by tapping and dragging. You can also choose when to deploy your dragon and, of course, your brigade effect.

Naturally, you spend the many spoils of war on upgrading your city, buying new buildings and levelling them up. On top of that you need to summon and upgrade heroes, trade with other players, hunt monsters, occupy villages, and so on. There’s always plenty to do in Mobile Royale.

The mission system gives you a rational path through this abundance of activities, prompting you to do the things you need to do to keep your forces and your city ticking along and winning battles.

All of that will be familiar to anyone who has played any one of the countless strategy MMOs that have hit the app stores in the last few years. Mobile Royale sticks to the formula in most regards, but it brings new features too, and

The Bad

Mobile Royale: Kingdom Defense

The only real issue with Mobile Royale is that it won’t be winning over anybody who isn’t already an MMO fan. Although it’s polished and has stacks of features it doesn’t particularly do anything hugely different to other titles in the genre - but that could well be seen as a plus for those who are just looking for another MMO to sink some hours into.

The Verdict

If you’re looking for a new strategy MMO to fill the hours, Mobile Royale is up there with the best of them.

8.2

OVERALL

Replayability 8.1

Game Controls 8.2

Graphics 8.5

Sound/Music 8.4

Gameplay 8

FREE

Mobile Royale: Kingdom Defense

IGG.COM

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

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LifeAfter Review: Bringing Zombie Games Back From the Dead?

November 21, 2020 by RSS Feed

Zombies are definitely coming back from the dead in 2019. Resident Evil 2 recently reminded us how much we miss claustrophobic corridors filled with bloodthirsty undead while Days Gone looks set to be one of the biggest games of the year.

LifeAfter

NetEase is leading the zombie resurgence on mobile though with LifeAfter, a post apocalyptic survival game that combines the action and tension of PUBG with the craftiness of Minecraft.

The game pulls no punches right from the start, with you involved in a tense gunfight on the back of a pickup against some alarmingly fast undead. After fighting them off the pickup crashes, sending you flying into the wilderness.

Cue a terrifying chase sequence in which you’ll outrun the undead long enough to meet a fellow survivor who teaches you the basics.

You’ll scavenge for resources to make a simple machete before locating your adorable doggie companion who leads you to a hut. Safety at last? Not quite. The zombies find you and force you to run again, at which point you witness some kind of giant mutated creature that could swallow you whole – and then some.

You’ll then meet a few stranded survivors, beg them to let you fix and use your helicopter, then make a quick escape by air. Well, you would if that giant mutant didn’t pluck it out of the air and chuck you into a river, at which point the real adventure begins.

The Good

LifeAfter

We were first impressed with the robust character customisation options, which greet you as soon as you open the game. We could create any type of character we wanted, including face, hair, and clothes. Heck, you can even customise your pet dog, from its breed to the colour of its fur.

LifeAfter doesn’t get in the way of you playing however you want to either. Right from the bat you can choose whether or not you want to complete the tutorial. You can then either start your story solo, or send a friend an invitation code that allows you to play together over the internet. Not only that, but a friend can join you at any time within the game with a simple tap of a button, so you’re not limited to the option you pick at that moment.

The presentation is also top notch – and that includes the menu screens. All of the options we mentioned in our previous paragraph? You tweak them on a rustic table in first person, which is a nice twist and helps seat the scene right from the beginning. The in-game graphics are also very impressive, reminiscent of a PS3-era action game. That’s likely to ensure LifeAfter works on as many devices as possible, as you get the feeling that it could have been bumped up to PS4 level if NetEase wished it.

Console-style games are often difficult to pull off without a controller on mobile, but we reckon NetEase has done the best they could. The virtual buttons are kept to a minimum, with a joystick, shoot, crouch, and swap weapon buttons. There’s even some nifty context-sensitive buttons that only appear when you need them, like reloading or opening doors.

Finally, we were impressed with the crafting system, which was kept mercifully simple. In another nice presentational touch, your character actually whips out a tablet device whenever you try to craft something. Here you can see all of the recipes you can craft, and the resources that you need to craft them. You can filter these by types, like Tools, Weapons, and Ammo and swap between a simplified, or more complex, menu.

You can also queue up to five crafting items at once, freeing you up to get on with more fun activities like slaying zombies, setting up defenses, and scavenging for resources.

The Bad

LifeAfter

While LifeAfter is a generally impressive experience – particularly on mobile – there’s an unmistakable level of oddness that stifles the immersion. There are some lovely animations for actions like chopping down trees or picking away at rocks but then other simple actions go entirely without. Cutscenes that end on a dramatic note like falling out of a helicopter into a river lose their impact when you just appear by the side of the river as nothing happened.

This extends to the combat too. While there are some wonderful melee animations, they lack any real impact. The same goes for guns. If you hit a zombie with a shotgun right in the face, you expect some level of gore or, at the very least, for the zombie to react to it. Many times though, our zombie continued to shamble forward unscathed for a few seconds before it realized​ it was actually dead this time.

Very few people are likely playing this for the story, but those that do will likely feel disappointed at the dialogue. While we really appreciate the effort NetEase has made to give us dialogue options, the actual text itself is unrealistic and, quite frankly, bad. More effort could have been put into the translation, which would probably have helped.

The Verdict

LifeAfter is an impressive survival game that is well worth playing for fans of the likes of Minecraft or PUBG. It successfully transports these types of experiences onto mobile, though not without a certain level of oddness.

8.1

OVERALL

Replayability 8.2

Game Controls 8

Graphics 8.3

Sound/Music 8.1

Gameplay 7.7

FREE

LifeAfter

NetEase Games

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