"If there is an app for that"

Perfect Grind review

January 18, 2023 by RSS Feed

The template for making action sports like skateboarding work well as video games has been the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series for decades now. So, when a new one comes along and it feels like those old classics it's not entirely surprising. Perfect Grind does a decent job of condensing very similar action to the Tony Hawk games down to a smaller, portrait-mode form factor, but doesn't do a whole lot to change up an age-old formula.

Small skater

Perfect Grind lets players create their own skater and take them to various locations full of stuff to trick and grind all over. Scattered throughout these locales are also people who give you challenges. Some of these might be to trick off of specific things, collect certain items, or a good old score challenge. Completing these challenges grants you currency you can spend on cosmetic items and can unlock new locations to skate in.

All of this action takes place in portrait mode, and it fairly easy to control with Perfect Grind's swipe-based control scheme. You swipe to jump and trick at the same time and then various taps, swipes, holds, etc. while tricking let you do just about everything you might expect from a Tony Hawk game (i.e. manuals, grinds, transfers, wall plants, etc.).

Free skate

When you aren't doing challenges in Perfect Grind, you are free to skate around and do whatever you'd like. The game also has a dedicated free skate mode, a score chasing 2 minute run, and even a park editor that lets you design the skate park of your dreams. The park editor seems to have quite a bit of potential to add to the longevity of Perfect Grind, as players can upload and share park designs with other players.

Perfect Grind is set up as a free-to-try game and locks its full feature set behind a simple one-time $2.99 in app purchase. Personally, I think the price and the model are very player friendly as you get a lot of bang for your buck and also get to try the game out before deciding. More games should do this!

Do you like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater?

With all that Perfect Grind has to offer, your enjoyment of it hinges almost entirely on two key things: whether you still have an appetite for an extremely by-the-numbers Tony Hawk-like and if that appetite can be satisfied with a streamlined version of this on a small screen with touch controls.

I find Perfect Grind's controls slightly clunky but every time I boot it up I can't help but try to knock out a few challenges. This is to say it has a good and compelling structure. That said, I never really miss it when I close the app. It's a fine game, but outside of being playable on a phone it's not novel or otherwise particularly special.

The bottom line

It's hard to think of any other mobile games that really do the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater thing as well or as reliably as Perfect Grind. So, if that's something you want, it's here! Have at it! It very much is basically a 20 year old game repackaged for phones, for better or for worse.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/perfect-grind-review/

Finding Paradise review

December 23, 2022 by RSS Feed

Finding Paradise is the second episode in the To the Moon series, which probably means something to anyone who has played To the Moon. I haven't, but the app description for Finding Paradise accurately notes that this game does not require previous knowledge of other games in the series. This experience ends up being a touching exploration of inner life presented through a very light pixel art style and some sci-fi shennanigans.

Choose your own deathwish

The story of Finding Paradise revolves around two doctors who work for a company that has developed a technology they use to hop into the subconscious of people on their deathbeds. Their mission is to reconstruct a new life for those at death's door so that their parting memory fulfills any wishes, dreams, or desires of the person before passing on.

For this particular game, everything focuses on one particular client named Colin who isn't particularly forthcoming about his dying wishes and has a family who is pretty unhappy about his decision to work with this company. Regardless for the doctors, the job is the job, and you as the player alternate between controlling both members of this dynamic duo to solve light puzzles that break up what is otherwise a text-based dialogue-heavy game.

Mind games

A large portion of Finding Paradise is a slice of life story about the person Colin came to be, but the wrinkles introduced by playing as interlopers trying to "fix" his life before he dies creates layers of mystery, twists, and turns that keep it genuinely intriguing. For most of the game, the doctors act as stand-in for the player that you pilot around scenes to piece together their significance.

At the end of any particular scene, you are supposed to have gathered memory "orbs" that you then insert into some object of significance that kicks off a simple matching puzzle you complete before being whisked away to the next memory related to the object you interacted with. This creates a structure where you are hopping between large gaps of time in Colin's life. The space between these scenes also creates some suspense and mystery, but as you play the game you fill in the blanks to eventually learn why Colin was so insistent-yet-cagey about getting this procedure done.

Pesky playfulness

The primary draw of Finding Paradise is almost entirely its story. The game doesn't ask a whole lot of you in terms of problem solving or navigating, which is probably for the best as controlling characters doesn't feel great so you don't want to be in control for longer than you have to before making it to the next round of dialog.

That said, Finding Paradise doesn't really do many favors to help making control it easier. Almost every object interaction feels like it has two or three extra steps to it than necessary, which can get annoying at times. Similarly, Finding Paradise's dialog can be a bit loquacious through its constant insertion of jokes and bits between lines that actually drive the action forward. I'd be ok with these if they were a little fewer and further between, but it feels like every sequence has at least 2-3 moments where the game is giving you a wink and a nudge and it feels too forced. Without any of those moments, Finding Paradise establishes a charm of its own, and every time it tries to add to it with little gags it's a bit distracting.

The bottom line

I found myself genuinely moved by the story in Finding Paradise. Making my way toward the end wasn't particularly challenging (which is good), but it sometimes did feel like things were drawn out unnecessarily (which is... less good). Still, if you are looking for a narrative-forward experience on mobile with an intriguing sci-fi premise this game is probably among the best picks you could make.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/finding-paradise-review/

Afterplace review

December 21, 2022 by RSS Feed

From the outside, Afterplace can look a bit like a Legend of Zelda derivative, but after only a short time with the game it's easy to tell there's a distinct vision guiding this experience and that it plans to go places and say things unique to itself. This is (unfortunately) a fairly rare thing to encounter on mobile platforms these days, but Afterplace is also notable for just how strange it insists on getting and the vibe it plays with, even if everything it tries to pull off isn't entirely successful or easy to deal with.

Looking for adventure

Afterplace is an open-world action-adventure game where you play as Yu, a pink-haired wanderer who just so happens to have one of the only weapons that exist in a mysterious world they've found themselves waking up in. With sword in tow, you as Yu wander through the woods, visit town, and talk with people to get a sense of how this world operates and Yu's role in completing an adventure within it.

As it turns out, no one living here seems to be native to the world. They, too, all just woke up here one day, though at different times. Also, there's a gigantic floating sword in the sky that seems ominous and bad. Most people want to go home, but have found some way of life that occupies them in this strange place they are in now for the time-being. One of these individuals is an adventure-seeking mouse who wants to team up with Yu (because of the sword) to figure out more about what is going on, and it's this partnership that kicks off the dungeon-crawling that leads you through the rest of the game world and story.

One-finger wonderland

Going through this adventure is a fairly simple affair. Afterplace is a portrait mode game that is easily controllable by dragging anywhere on the screen to move Yu around and tapping to attack. There are some more advanced maneuvers like swiping to roll or adding another finger to automatically shift the control scheme to control movement and attacking separately, but a majority of the time you'll be prowling through environments that don't require much from you in terms of input.

What the game may lack in control complexity or mechanics it more than makes up by filling its world to the brim with secrets and strange things to discover. Some of these areas and happenings you encounter as part of your journey through the story, but it feels like just as often you'll find a small hidden pathway that leads you to something you could have easily missed entirely. I don't want to get into any spoilers necessarily, but it is important for me to underscore that Afterplace is so thick with beautiful, touching, charming, strange, and surreal locations and secrets that it was the main reason I felt compelled and excited to see it through to the end.

Beautifully flawed

A big part of Afterplace's charm comes from its presentation. Its visuals, music, and writing are mostly not all that sophisticated or ambitious, but they are all so cohesive, confident, and beautiful that you want to keep being in that world, even if it means wandering aimlessly as you internalize a mental map of the game world.

Speaking of which, some of Afterplace's design decisions result in some clunky, obtuse, and--in some cases--not entirely functional moments. These can obviously hamper your enjoyment of the game, but by the end of it I (kind of) understand why some of them were there. On its face it sounds like having no waypoints or maps, for example, are categorically bad ideas, but if you are like me and have some patience to just deal with some design friction and other hinky stuff, the adventure is well worth it (especially now that the game has received a few updates that were needed for me to actually complete it).

The bottom line

Afterplace is one of those games that isn't entirely easy to recommend, but it is undoubtedly special. It definitely hits some Zelda notes, but is also so much more than that. A lot of that "so much more" is rewarding precisely because this isn't a game that has its weirder and rougher edges sanded down to make it abide by prevailing game design principles. Afterplace wears that weirdness on its sleeve and asks you to follow it to where it wants to take you, and I think doing so is well worth doing.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/afterplace-review/

Vampire Survivors review

December 13, 2022 by RSS Feed

Celebrated action roguelite Vampire Survivors made a surprise jump to mobile where players can now mow down walls of enemies with automated weaponry right from their phone. This mobile version arrives as a completely free game and in an uncompromised state, making it a no-brainer to download immediately.

Slide to slay

I won't spend a ton of time going in depth on what Vampire Survivors as you can read that elsewhere, but a quick description is it's a wave-based survival game. You play as a character with weapons that they use automatically, and your job as the player is to move the character around to avoid enemies and pick up experience and other items to make them stronger.

On mobile, this makes things simple as you just tap and drag to move your character around the screen. If you desire the fidelity of a controller, those are also supported, though I tend to prefer playing the game in the convenient portrait mode and steer with my finger, allowing me to bust it out and play just about anywhere.

Time killer

Every level in Vampire Survivors is a time challenge that tops out at 30 minutes. You won't always make it that far in a run, but that time commitment is generally your goal. This is to say this is a game that can demand a lot of your attention for a decent chunk of time, unlike a lot of other phone games you can pop in an out of at your leisure.

You can pause the game or close the app to return to a run, but if Vampire Survivors has to close and reboot, no mid-run progress gets preserved. If this game clicks with you like it does with me, though, time melts away while you play it and you make time to fit in runs so this doesn't present any particular issue.

The power of mystery

The moment-to-moment action in Vampire Survivors is a big part of its initial draw, but if you look at screenshots or short clips and wonder if the ridiculousness of the action is enough to give it staying power, don't worry. This game has a lot more going on underneath the surface than it really tells you about.

Between unlockable characters, secret items, hidden combinations, and obfuscated mechanics, there's always some kind of goal to pursue beyond mere survival in a run of Vampire Survivors. I'm still trying to figure out a bunch of them myself and enjoying experimenting with new characters and weapon combinations all along the way.

The bottom line Vampire Survivors is a power fantasy distilled down into an extremely potent form, but there's also more to it than that. On mobile it plays as well as can be expected, but also allows for traditional controller support if people just want another platform to be able to play this amazing game on, and for free no less!

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/vampire-survivors-review/

A Memoir Blue review

December 01, 2022 by RSS Feed

The steady flow of reflective and slow adventure games has definitely reached a saturation point where the mere idea of one coming out is no longer notable or celebration-worthy. In fact, there are a lot of games in this category that actually just seem like derivative attempts to ride the coattails of pioneering titles like Dear Esther. In any case, A Memoir Blue is definitely one of these kinds of games, and it manages to distinguish itself through its unique blend of art styles, focus on light puzzle-solving, and simple-yet-powerful storytelling.

Sunken memories

A Memoir Blue is a sort of surreal adventure where you dive into the memories of a nameless woman who seems to have found success as a swimmer. Through this wordless story, you'll find this woman literally swimming through an ocean filled with objects and images from her past, and through poking and prodding at them in the right ways you can trigger small cutscenes that start piecing together a coherent story.

You never have direct control over the protagonist, but rather they'll stop in a scene you're supposed to interact with or the camera will automatically zoom up to the things the game wants you to focus on. This takes makes it less like a "walking simulator" like the games it seems inspired by but also has the added benefit of eliminating any pathfinding issues or guesswork about how to proceed through the experience.

Old and new

It takes a little bit of time to really understand where A Memoir Blue is trying to go with its story, but once you put it together it's very well-worn territory. I don't want to get into spoilers as discovering what is going on is part of what makes the game enjoyable, but I will say that it has some genuinely moving moments despite the somewhat tropey narrative.

Story beats in A Memoir Blue land primarily because of the game's style, which mixes 3D and 2D animation in ways that are both novel but also intentional for reinforcing aspects of the story. It's also worth noting that A Memoir Blue has a beautiful soundtrack that helps make its emotional highs peak a little higher than they might otherwise.

A simple puzzle

A Memoir Blue punctuates its story moments with sections of puzzle-solving that usually involve manipulating and object to get it into a desired state before moving forward. Examples of this are putting books onto a shelf, turning on lights, opening doors, etc. None of it is particularly complicated, but they are satisfying actions to perform and give you some attachment to the scene they inevitably end up being used for.

What I appreciate about this approach is it allows A Memoir Blue to move very swiftly through its story without hanging you up on obtuse challenges. This isn't a terribly long game, but it wouldn't be made more enjoyable if it gave you more significant obstacles to overcome.

The bottom line

It took a moment for A Memoir Blue to click with me, as it looks and feels quite a bit like every other emotive adventure at first. Slowly but surely though, the game reveals itself to be a novel and stylish take on an unsurprising but well-executed story.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/a-memoir-blue-review/