Developer: Tall Chair
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.15
Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 2.79 out of 5 stars
There are so many tower defense games in the App Store that it really takes a unique idea to make one stand out. Tall Chair, Inc., had a fantastic idea for Cowboys vs. Zombies: have a bunch of dumb cowboys defend a small western town from a hoard of incoming zombies. You can place cowboys anywhere you want basically — on buildings, on the ground, in formations — just don’t let the zombies take over.
I like this. Well, I like the premise; the resulting game is a bit sloppy. Just like any other tower defense game, you get waves and waves of enemies coming at you, and it is up to you to make an unstoppable defense barrier with your towers… er, cowboys. You start with the basic gunslinger, but then move on to shotgun cowboys and so on. Each cowboy can be upgraded three times, which increases his fire rate and range.
The problem that CvZ runs into is with its view perspective. Instead of being a top down view point layout, or even having a slanted view like Tower Madness, it gives you a 3rd person view, making it seem like the zombies are really coming at you. The problem with this is that the placement of the cowboys revolves around depth, and the best way to kill a group of enemies is to create a flat line of defense. You want maximum stopping power in this game, and the only way to get it is by forcing a bunch of cowboys to be grouped together. The game strategy soon goes from using the whole town and all the buildings to hide on top of, to making a line of cowboys in front of everything, skipping the parts that would make the game great. Just stack as many people as you can as close as you can and hope for the best.
This devolution of tower defense strategy unfortunately masks the joy of the games great sense of style. Everything in the game, from the dumb cowboys to the even dumber zombies has charm, and the menu screens, as well as the games tutorial, are fantastic. If you take away the actual gameplay, I would give CvZ a five star review.
With its high level of polish and fun graphics, it’s hard not to recommend CvZ, but it just isn’t that enjoyable past a few levels. The whole system, in my opinion, needs to be reworked to make better use of the western town. CvZ just doesn’t do enough to make it worthwhile.
I had an interview scheduled with Josh Scott-Slade from JohnnyTwoShoes (Plunderland) at 9AM, about two hours after my dog wakes me up in the morning to go outside. Remember, two hours to go.
I figured that I would hang around and prep for the interview by doing all the company research that I could do, so I hopped on to their website hoping to find something interesting. What I found was Heist 2, one of their many online games… and it sucked the life right out of me. Then what seemed like 10 minutes later and it was 9AM (where did the time go!) and the interview was on.
Still in shock over where my time went, I made a comment to Josh saying, “I didn’t know that you guys made other games until today.” I was expecting a new, indie game house with a seriously legit design team, but was certainly not expecting a three year old online game outfit. They did have another iPhone game that came out about a year ago called High Speed Chase 2, but it must’ve gotten lost in the deep sea of App Store apps.
“Ah yeah, we’ve been making games since we were kids.” He went on, thankfully. I was still in shock over my Heist 2 induced time warp, “The company has been around as JohnnyTwoShoes for about 3 years now. It started off as a portfolio when I was at university, then it turned into a gaming site and became our company. My brother Max was a site designer by profession anyway, so it all just worked out.”
So how, after years of online games, why did they get into the App Store?
“Well we always loved the iPhone and when the App Store came out it just seemed like the perfect idea for what we wanted to do. The App Store allows us to be more ambitious and support bigger ideas. There’s only so much time you can put into a free web game.”
After 3+ years of practice making games at a rapid-fire pace, it seems that Johnny Two Shoes is off to bigger and better things with Plunderland and then moving forward. They apparently have a “ridiculous amount of ideas for games”, but are aiming to make their games as good as they can possibly be before moving on. There’s something to be said for that kind of dedication to a games success, but it’s nice to know that the company won’t stagnate on one idea for two years (cough, cough, Fieldrunners).
“We intended to release Plunderland to support ourselves while we updated and fulfilled its full potential. We tried out new ideas and reacted on feedback, hoping that it would push up the charts slowly, allowing us to make a name for ourselves on the platform. Now the reaction is so fast to everything we do with it, it’s kind of scary.” He goes on, “at the same time it feels amazing to know we can do what we always wanted. To build on the game and make it even better – bring fresh new ideas to the experience. We hope people will see it as something they can return to and have that fun and excitement brought back every time we add to the game.”
The obvious question here was, what kinds of things were they going to add to the game? It’s one thing to fix glitches, and an entirely different thing to go “Pocket God” and make the whole experience change with every update.
Josh nonchalantly wrote back, “Yeah, new levels, campaigns, game modes etc. Anything we think would be fun or addresses peoples feedback.” He went on to tell me some more specific details about upgrades, but what I gathered was that their experience with online gaming has made them quick movers, unafraid to try out any idea thrown at them. They thrive on customer feedback, and I honestly don’t think that Plunderland will stop being supported until the feedback stops coming in.
I just had one more question, because, you know, I’m an industry professional (whatever that means). I noticed when I was on their website that their logo was a space man, so I asked them why Plunderland wasn’t set in space.
“The basic idea behind the game is to create the sense of adventure and unknown. It could totally be set in space, but coming from a family of pirates, it just felt natural.”
Well nobody is going to argue with that, with them being pirates and all. These people mean business.
Developer: Iskandar Inc.
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.1
Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.73 out of 5 stars
CutHimUp is, without a doubt, the most angry Streets of Rage clone that I have ever played. The whole concept of the game, along with the graphics that power the experience, are gruesome and bloody. The game just oozes violence.
Violence itself though does not make a great game, great game mechanics do. You can throw all of the sexy black and white, Sin City style graphics at me you want, but deep down, I know that I’m just playing Streets of Rage. The game revolves around walking around the screen ruthlessly beating people up. Along the way you get health and adrenaline, as well as some extra weapons to use (the chainsaw is pretty amazing), but most of the game boils down to button mashing and occasionally using the right button combination to perform a combo.
There are also the same pitfalls in this one that occur in an average side scrolling fighter too. For one, you have to be directly even with a bad guy to hit him. Too far up or too far down, the leeway isn’t that large, and he is home free. Another major issue is the collision detection which makes enemies un-hittable if they are too close. You almost have to develop a striking sweet spot to get some hits in, but when enemies start swarming it becomes a button mash fest.
If the genre, with all of its pitfalls, excites you though, there is plenty to like about CutHimUp. The story is intriguing, the characters are all sinister, and there is oh so much blood. Every enemy you kill leaves a pile of it flying through the black and white game, and it looks oh so good. I really would prefer a more freestyle fighting system, maybe where the “hero” could swing a bit to the left and right to hit an enemy, but I guess I can’t have my cake and eat it too.
For those of you looking for a violence fueled bloody mess, CutHimUp is your meal ticket.
Developer: ngmoco:)
Price: FREE
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Graphics / Sound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
We Farm is the type of game that drives anyone over the age of 30 (should be 12) insane. There is no story, no winner, no loser… so really no point. Much like Farmville before it, the games sole reason for existence is to hope that people become impatient and buy goods (Gro) via in-app pruchase to speed the game up. That and to sell advertising space to impressionable tweens.
The game is a simple clone of the Farmville idea that was made hugely popular on Facebook. You start with a farm, and you must build crops, animal pens, and other buildings to make money. Nothing is instant though, so instead of building up this great farm in a day, you have to wait around for a set amount of time to harvest/ milk cows/ whatever else there is to do. The more things that you do, the more experience you get which unlocks the ability to buy bigger and better things.
The problem for many people is that there is no way to lose. Your farm never fails, there is no ranking promotion you get for good crop placement, you just do whatever you want until you run out of money, then wait for your stuff to grow or mature.
To add some substance to the game, you can add friends to share your goods with. For instance, if you build a well on your property, you can sell Popsicle parties to anyone that wants one. You can also go to other peoples farms and buy their goods, gaining both parties XP. There’s no real sense of necessary commerce going on, such as the trade of supplies that you can actually use, so it quickly becomes obvious that going to friends farms is just a way for ngmoco to get you to view more ads.
Somehow though, whether it be from the constant push notifications sent to you when something is completed (you can turn them off if you want) or just habit, you keep on playing. I’ve been “playing” We Farm for a few days now, each time wondering where my life is going. There really is infinite replay value because there is no end. Nobody wins. Ever.
To me, this game is just the embodiment to what happened when we started giving trophies to kids for participation. I really desperately want something to do in this game. I want to lower my crop prices and run my neighbor out of business. Maybe I could start a farmers market and then beat up my rivals Street Fighter style. I think this boils down to the difference between my Doom/Duke Nukem generation and the current Zynga playing one.
Oh, and my screen name is Chris148apps. Come buy a Popsicle party or something, I need the XP.
Archetype 1.3.1 is out now, and it brings even more online shooter madness to your iPhone. In the update, there is a new level, a “Rocket Arena” game mode that makes the Pride level “rockets only”, and “gyroscopic aim assist”, which is the precursor to full gyroscopic controls that will be in a future update.
“Other gameplay improvements include a fix for spawning too close to enemies, a change in the default equipment that starts players with two grenades rather than three to make grenade usage more strategic, and info button that provides information and updates, user controls for inverting yaw and disabling blood effects, automatic screen rotation (iOS4 only), a memory fix for second gen iPod touch owners, and a graphical fix for player who appeared to be holding a melee axe when they had the default rifle.”
Be sure to download the latest update for free in the App Store, and prepare for some rocket attacks!
I like this. Well, I like the premise; the resulting game is a bit sloppy. Just like any other tower defense game, you get waves and waves of enemies coming at you, and it is up to you to make an unstoppable defense barrier with your towers… er, cowboys. You start with the basic gunslinger, but then move on to shotgun cowboys and so on. Each cowboy can be upgraded three times, which increases his fire rate and range.
I figured that I would hang around and prep for the interview by doing all the company research that I could do, so I hopped on to their website hoping to find something interesting. What I found was 
“We intended to release Plunderland to support ourselves while we updated and fulfilled its full potential. We tried out new ideas and reacted on feedback, hoping that it would push up the charts slowly, allowing us to make a name for ourselves on the platform. Now the reaction is so fast to everything we do with it, it’s kind of scary.” He goes on, “at the same time it feels amazing to know we can do what we always wanted. To build on the game and make it even better – bring fresh new ideas to the experience. We hope people will see it as something they can return to and have that fun and excitement brought back every time we add to the game.”
:: A PIRATES LIFE FOR ME
The game is a simple clone of the Farmville idea that was made hugely popular on Facebook. You start with a farm, and you must build crops, animal pens, and other buildings to make money. Nothing is instant though, so instead of building up this great farm in a day, you have to wait around for a set amount of time to harvest/ milk cows/ whatever else there is to do. The more things that you do, the more experience you get which unlocks the ability to buy bigger and better things.
Archetype 1.3.1 is out now, and it brings even more online shooter madness to your iPhone. In the update, there is a new level, a “Rocket Arena” game mode that makes the Pride level “rockets only”, and “gyroscopic aim assist”, which is the precursor to full gyroscopic controls that will be in a future update.
:: WHERE’S THE BEEF?
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