In case you are wondering, Stenches is Trenches with zombies instead of Germans. Having not played Trenches a ton, my time with Stenches was much like hanging out with a long lost girlfriend that moved away far too soon: it’s fun for a time, but then you realize why you weren’t so upset when she originally left.

Stenches lives in the side scrolling castle defense/attack genre that is populated by such titles as Trenches and Epic War 3. The basic concept is to build a bunch of units to fortify/advance your lines while fending off the waves of zombies that are approaching from the right. As you kill zombies, you get gold that you can spend on new troops or ballistic weapons that can strike the zombies from long range. The goal, much like a WW1 battle, is to advance your army to nearby trenches that not only provide shelter, but can be upgraded to become a troop spawn point.

Sales of the game, and its mass popularity, surely come from the polished exterior and likable characters. There are no NPC’s to speak of, but the troop units all have a likability that isn’t matched in the genre. The battlefield, zombies, heck, even the battle sounds in the game are all extremely well made… often sucking you back in after you are determined to stop playing.

Once you get past the polish though, the game quickly shows off its true colors. There are a few issues that I have with the basic game play, and most of the issues come down to frustrating troop movement. First off, the movement in Stenches is all done by line drawing, just draw a little line to tell a unit where you want it to go. This is a great implementation of the touch screen, but when you have 5 units standing in the same spot, what do you do? This problem comes to light primarily when you are advancing your lines to a new trench. To add difficulty, Stenches puts a troop limit in the trenches, and the only way to raise this limit is to upgrade the trench with an engineer. Singling out the engineer for movement is a pain in the rear, and protecting him is even worse. It would make sense to protect your hard-at-work engineer with a few machine gun units, but in the heat of battle when you are moving the units to the trenches their horrible AI will overshoot the trench and blow their cover. Needless to say, there badly needs to be an “advance to next bunker button,” in addition to the regular advance gesture.

My other squabbles come down to the maddening lack of hand to hand combat strength and the unfortunate low max troop count, but the movement issues are by far the most frustrating. Do these issues mean that Stenches is a bad game? No, but it’s hard not to think that the game could be much much better with a few of the kinks worked out. As is, it is a worthy buy if you love the genre or are a fan of Trenches… just be ready for some frustration.

[ Stenches Review is a post from 148Apps ]

Did you find yourself greatly enjoying Thunder Game Works’ Trenches but thought to yourself, “This game needs more zombies”? If so then you’re in luck, as the developer has just released Stenches: A Zombie Tale of Trenches into the App Store.

While the undead were present in Trenches’ Zombie Horde mode, this new app builds an entire game around the concept of re-killing the dead, because zombies are so tenacious they can’t be contained to a single mode within another game. Stenches features over 200 levels of horde-thinning action spread across 4 maps, several nasty zombie bosses and “more cowbell than legally allowed in seven countries.” With so much cowbell how could the game possibly go wrong?

Thunder Game Works is also promising competitive and cooperative multiplayer in a future update, as well as new modes and bosses designed to give you nightmares. Definitely not a bad package if I do say so myself.

The original Trenches was highly entertaining, so there’s no reason to think Stenches will be any less endearing. The new title is keeping core mechanics intact, so players will still be beating back waves of enemies, buying weapon upgrades and swapping firearms in an attempt to keep the horde at bay. Stenches also supports Game Center, so you can spend plenty of time gunning for Achievements and trying to prove that when it comes to zombie World War I, you are truly the greatest general to ever live. Also, the game will only run you $1.99, so the price is definitely right on this one.

In spite of all it has to offer I won’t personally be picking up Stenches, but that’s just because I’m utterly burned out on zombies in gaming. The zombie horde mode in Call of Duty: World at War was novel, and the Left 4 Dead series was truly entertaining, but now I’m just done with the brain-munching shufflers. Can we start fixating on other mythical creatures now? How about games featuring a succubus mode? I’m all about trying to prevent my character from being sexed to death because even when you lose, you win.

$0.99

$1.99

Stenches: A Zombie Tale of Trenches

iPhone App – Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-11-11 :: Category: Games / Strategy

[via TouchArcade]

[ Stenches: A Zombie Tale of Trenches Now Available is a post from 148Apps ]