"If there is an app for that"

Resident Evil Village review

November 10, 2023 by RSS Feed

I posted some first impressions of how Resident Evil Village plays on iOS a few days ago, and I stand by most of what I wrote there if you are curious about how it plays and the effort that went into the port. The only thing I now disagree with is how I close the piece supposing that I won't have much to say about the game once I finish it. Now that I have completed Resident Evil Village, I definitely have thoughts, and the prevailing one is this: It's a fine enough AAA game, but--with the distance I have put between myself and that kind of game over the past 15 years or so--returning to it feels surprisingly (and disappointingly) familiar.

What year is it?

The source of my disappointment doesn't come from Resident Evil Village being a poorly made or even bad game. In fact, it's pretty fun. You get dropped into a world of creepy goings-on and try to figure out how to survive against all kinds of otherworldly horrors and solve mysterious puzzles while piecing together why this is happening to you and your family. The game does a pretty good job of creating spooky tension and making you feel somewhat vulnerable despite the fact that the game is ultimately still a power fantasy.

The disappointment comes more from the fact that if Resident Evil Village had actually originally released around 2007 and not 2021, I would have very little problem believing it. This game may be fun, but almost all of it comes from making a lot of very safe and risk-averse decisions that follow a blueprint that was fresh over a decade ago. Does it still work? Sure! I beat this iOS port and had fun doing it (with a controller only), but as someone who hasn't really put much time into AAA single-player experiences in about the same span of time, it's just shocking that so little has changed, at least when it comes to this game specifically.

Horror-flavored CoD

I do have some familiarity with previous Resident Evil titles, and in fairness to Village there are things in this game that are new for the series. As opposed to the watershed releases in the franchise like Resident Evil 4, Village plays in first-person and makes a bunch of other little changes to make combat feel more difficult, including a good amount of enemies that you simply have to run from. Eventually, though, you get so comically well armed that by the end of the game it just feels like you're playing a series of Call of Duty setpieces instead of a Resident Evil game.

Village is at its best around the middle section of the game, where you have somewhat of a free rein to wander between locations, scavenge for supplies and treasures, and solve puzzles. There is also a certain area where your ability to fight is completely stripped from you, and it is easily the most tense and satisfying section of the experience. The rest--again--is fine, but the game only truly feels like it's taking some creative chances and trying new things (that aren't just new for Resident Evil) in about 10% of the overall game.

Should you play it on mobile?

I don't know how enthusiastically I'd recommend Resident Evil Village on any platform, but seeing as how this is an iOS-focused site, I'll just say that the iOS port might as well be the other versions of that game but on limited hardware. It won't look as nice or run as well as it does elsewhere, but it is that game and I ran into no issues with crashing or device heating or anything else that can come when trying to bring something so technically complicated to mobile.

This is all somewhat moot to say, though, because anyone with a device that can run the game can try it out for free if they'd like. The free portion of Village is essentially the entire opening act of the game and provides a very good look at what the game has to offer so you can decide for yourself if you want to sign up for 10 or so hours of more of that without spending any money.

The bottom line

It is certainly impressive that Resident Evil Village exists on iOS, and it's perfectly enjoyable provided you have the right hardware for it (including a controller). That said, "enjoyable" is about as far as I'd go in describing my feelings for it. Village checks off all the boxes to make a compelling AAA single-player game, or at least the ones that passed muster over 10 years ago, and otherwise only has glimmers of inspiration.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/resident-evil-village-review/

Illuminaria review

November 02, 2023 by RSS Feed

Illuminaria is a real-time strategy game that explores the idea of being able to build multiple bases of operations that persist and interoperate throughout the course of a campaign. It's a really neat idea that I'm surprised I haven't come across earlier, and this novelty definitely goes a long way for it. That said, a lot of this game's challenges feel like they lack both variety and depth, which definitely take away from the experience.

Craft campaigns

In Illuminaria, you command an army of robotic drones as they carve out spaces within rock caves, harvest resources, and ultimately try to fight back against enemies of darkness to restore control and harmony to your lands. It's a pretty cliche setup but luckily there's no long exposition you have to sit through or anything. You can hop straight into the action and get to building up bases.

What all of this looks like is unfamiliar, but it feels a lot like a semi-automated version of fairly standard real-time strategy (RTS) game mechanics. Your drones work as resource gatherers and builders and you begin most matches by having them build segmented rooms within an empty space that--once fully closed off--can house resources of your choosing. As you build up resources, you'll also be able to create "research" that can advance a tech tree and unlock the ability to build weapons on special nodes within these cave structures that can either provide defenses from potential invaders or produce units for potential invading. Your goal in any given region is to build up your resources in order to launch an attack that takes over all the enemy bases.

Supply chain of command

What sets Illuminaria apart from being just another RTS is that each region requires you to conquer and build out multiple different caverns to reach the enemy bases, and the fact that all these cavern bases are interoperable, meaning your drones can teleport between bases you've previously built to retrieve, harvest, or build structures as you continue trying to advance and complete other caverns. While this is mostly a boon to you as a player (as it allows for a lot more resource gathering and crafting potential to eventually create your fighting force) it also means needing to build defenses for multiple bases that you need to hop between as needed to fend off threats.

Another interesting wrinkle to Illuminaria is that some of the most important resources to craft with can't be produced within your bases. At certain points, you will have to send drones out on expeditions to retrieve special loot, which suddenly transforms the game into a very slapshod dungeon crawler, where you can select nodes along a branching path to encounter treasure chests, traps, combat, and more, though all of it feels about as deep and varied as a mini-game.

Create, crush, repeat

There are quite a few things to research and build in Illuminaria, and there's some fun to be had in trying to optimize your various bases so that you can have a smooth operation of production, but beyond that the game feels pretty flat. Enemies attack in very predictable ways that are very easy to defend and there's no real incentive to try different strategies for attacking bases. This leaves a lot of the joy to be found in Illuminaria resting solely on the building aspects of the game and way less so on the combat.

Across the game's multiple regions, none of them really feel different. They have different aesthetics, but their sub-objectives are all some flavor of researching a particular craftable item, all of which are just slight variations on units or ammo types you've been able to develop from the beginning of the game. As you make your way through each one, some light story moments crop up upon completing expeditions for the first time, but they don't feel like they add much to the story and are (thankfully) pretty brief.

The bottom line

If the idea of tweaking multiple bases into optimized resource factories sounds fun, then Illuminaria might be right up your alley. This aspect of the game is really what sets it apart from other RTS games. The rest of the experience feels kind of samey and barebones, so don't look to pick this up if you want any kind of deep or compelling combat systems.

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

Kingdom Eighties review

October 17, 2023 by RSS Feed

The latest entry in the Kingdom series also takes place the closest the franchise has ever gotten to the modern day. Kingdom Eighties takes the real-time, minimalist strategy series to the 1980s and trades out horses for bikes, has you building outposts in abandon malls, injects a synth-fueled soundtrack, and... well, that's pretty much it. It's still a fun game, but Kingdom Eighties definitely feels like a half-hearted sequel.

Kid kingdom

Kingdom Eighties has you take control of a kid in the midst of a sudden monster attack originating from a nearby mall. Just like in previous Kingdom games, you start off with a mount an a few coins that you have to ride around and deploy strategically to build up a safe encampment that can eventually take down the external threat.

For this game, though, your mount is (typically) a bicycle, and you recruit nearby children to build up walls using construction equipment, create income by restoring power to rundown arcades, and can even recruit 80s movie cliches like a jock and a nerd to compliment your fighting force.

Save your parents

The primary game mode in Kingdom Eighties is a campaign that consists of four rounds of basic Kingdom gameplay. Along the way there are a few cutscenes that tell the story of how the monsters broke loose and how the kids can figure out a way to stop the invasion and save their parents. It's the exact kind of corny narrative that pervaded 80s movies so it feels fitting here.

Once you complete this campaign, Kingdom Eighties also allows you to take on "Survival Mixtapes" which give you certain goals to meet on certain maps while cranking up the difficulty. This is to say that just like other Kingdom games, there are a lot of things to do, although they all boil down to essentially the same procedural and strategic gameplay.

Not radical enough

I still really like the basic gameplay formula of the Kingdom games, but Kingdom Eighties feels a little hollow to me. The previous title, Two Crowns, felt like it was bursting with so much new stuff that I never really figured out how everything in it worked, whereas I felt like I had seen everything in Eighties by the time I reached the last chapter of the campaign.

I also think that if you're going to take a game to the 1980s, you have to do it all the way. While Kingdom Eighties generally looks the part of an 80s-tastic spin on Kingdom, it also doesn't feel like it does nearly enough to fully transform it. Your fighters are still archers and knights, your currency is still coins, your encampments still end up looking like castles, etc. The end result is a game that feels very much like an older game with a fresh coat of paint just splashed on top of it.

The bottom line

Kingdom Eighties feels like an add-on for a Kingdom game as opposed to a fully fledged game in its own right, and even as an add-on it doesn't feel like it totally captures the vision it's going for. It's still a fun and compelling gameplay formula, but all of the things that Eighties does to switch things up feel very surface-level.

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

Subpar Pool review

October 13, 2023 by RSS Feed

Subpar Pool is a new puzzle game from the developer behind holedown and rymdkapsel. In concept, it's a billiards game, but it also combines that with a little bit of mini-golf and a whole lot of video game nonsense. The end result is a game that gives you nearly endless possibilities for golf challenges on iOS, though some of these possibilities are more entertaining, rewarding, and functional than others.

Cues from golf

Rounds of Subpar Pool ask you to sink pool balls into pockets that also resemble golf holes. On each table, you have a certain number of shots to clear the table to get par, subpar, bogey, etc. Completing tables or hitting the shot limit moves you to the next table until you've completed a preset number of tables, or--if you go over the shot limit too many times--prematurely ends your run.

Your general goal is just to be efficient and effective at making shots, both to get some satisfying feedback from the game about your performance and to survive through the progression of tables. But this is also just the very tip of what Subpar Pool offers in terms of challenge. As you play, you also start unlocking "cards" that modify the game that include new types of balls, different courses, different rules, and a whole lot of sub-challenges that encourage and--of course--challenge you to play the game differently while still shooting efficiently.

Choose your challenge

As opposed to being a linear flow of challenges, Subpar Pool allows you to activate a certain number of cards per run, and each challenge is attached to a different kind of game modifier. With this structure, you can load up to mix and match challenges as much as you want given your card limit, or just focus on a single challenge at a time.

When you first start the game, you have just a couple of card slots and challenges to choose from, but as you get further into the experience you get a larger card limit and unlock a lot more modifiers and courses. Once this starts happening, certain challenges start having card requirements for completion that keep Subpar Pool moving along some semblance of a difficulty curve. The more varitey you unlock also leads you to learn certain card synergies that work well for completing challenges, which creates a fun meta-puzzle that allows you to find fun workarounds achieving certain objectives.

Fun when functional

All of this variability and variety of challenge makes Subpar Pool very compelling and replayable. I often find myself playing more rounds than intended to see what challenges will unlock next, and even without that incentive the intuitive control scheme and satisfying physics make knocking balls into holes feel like good, simple fun. It also helps that Subpar Pool has some charming and colorful visuals and is really easy to play on any iOS device thanks to its great landscape and portrait layouts and seamless iCloud syncing.

That said, there are definitely things about Subpar Pool that are somewhat baffling and can put a damper on the experience. There are times when playing where I really wish there was some kind of glossary or in-game resource that explained certain terminology like "long shot," for example, because there just isn't enough information to know if you are doing the right thing to complete a challenge or even know how a certain mechanic works.

It also doesn't help that Subpar Pool seems to have a few bugs that just add to the confusion. Challenges associated with achieving a certain amount of "flawless" tables in a run seem to move up and down, and certain ball types like the "splitter" that are supposed to break up into multiple, smaller balls on contact sometimes just don't, among other things. Between the lack of explanation and unexpected behavior, it's hard to tell how much of this is intentional, but in either case it can make some sessions with the game annoying.

The bottom line

Subpar Pool is packed with a ton of great ideas that mesh into a really neat experience when they behave the way you expect them to. The only problem is that this doesn't always happen, and it's very hard to parse exactly how or why this disconnect happens. It's still an enjoyable game, especially since the simple pleasure of making shots doesn't really get old, but it would be nice if the overall experience as a bit more consistent and clear.

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

The Wreck review

October 10, 2023 by RSS Feed

I have built up a pretty high degree of skepticism heading into experiences like The Wreck over the years. Games focused emotional narratives are all well and good, but I've played a few too many that feel content to just make emotive moments without doing much with them or saying much about them. I had some amount of hope knowing that this game was from the developers behind Bury me, my Love, though, a game that I really enjoyed for its strong writing and compelling story despite being pretty visually bland. As it turns out, I had good reason for my optimism, as The Wreck tells a brilliantly crafted and meaningful narrative with incredible art direction to boot.

Family emergency

The Wreck tells the story of a woman named Junon arriving at a hospital to learn that her mother, a famous artist, has had a medical episode leaving her impaired and unable to make decisions for her own care. This kicks off a series of conversations, flashbacks, and other vignettes that examine familial relationships, misogyny, generational trauma, grief, and more.

The story plays out through a kind of "stop-motion" polygonal style where people and scenes are 3-D modeled but generally switch poses or make simple movements as opposed having full range of smooth motion. Your viewpoint acts as a camera on the action, though, and typically does move smoothly and cinematically through scenes as needed. For the most part, gameplay consists of making dialog choices for Junon, though certain sequences will also have you using limited camera control or tapping on words written over scenes to activate the next narrative sequence.

No puzzles, just pacing

The primary focus of The Wreck is on storytelling, to the point that there aren't really any puzzles or other moments where you aren't just moving to the next set of dialog. Certain scenes are somewhat interactive, but even those are directed to the point that you can only activate certain things in a specific order. This may sound somewhat dull, but it helps ensure The Wreck doesn't lull around and drag out, which ultimately works in its favor.

In the moments where you do get player agency, it's typically around choosing how Junon responds to a certain situation or continues down a certain line of thought. With so many dialog choices, you may think that The Wreck is this branching narrative that can reveal different stories or content based on what you choose, but again, this isn't really the case. The choices are the way you end up connecting with and embodying Junon, and making these choices helps prepare you for some of the late-game reveals and make them that much more impactful.

Stylish and smart

Describing how The Wreck plays makes it sound pretty uninteresting, and it probably would be if not for the games impeccable sense of style and sharp writing. Over the course of playing this game, there are countless examples of perfect little visual flourishes or surprisingly cinematic framing. These things act as the backdrop to some intense and deep writing of a style that takes a little bit time to warm up to and doesn't always land the way it feels like it should, but definitely has more highs than lows and is capable of being quite funny, insightful, or even devastatingly sad (and sometimes all of these things at once).

The Wreck is also fully voice acted and is generally well done. There are some small moments where it feels like characters drop or change their accents on some line reads, but otherwise all of it is really well delivered and further heightens the drama that plays out. The only real complaints I have about The Wreck are its somewhat uneven start (before you really get a sense of what the story is about and how the game is structured, which is also basically the free portion of the game) and the fact that this mobile version controls fine but seems to have an invisible cursor that will sometimes highlight dialog choices in ways that can be a little distracting and confusing.

The bottom line

The Wreck is exactly what I was hoping for as a next step from the creators of Bury me, my Love. The same high quality writing and storytelling is here intact, but now with a budget that allows for much more compelling visuals and audio. More importantly, it tells a meaningful story of painful introspection and does so with grace, style, and a lot more nuance than most other games that have tried to do something similar.

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