Review by: Christopher Dambroso
Casual games for the iPhone/iPodTouch generally get a bad rap IMO, mostly due to the hampered control scheme. With the control layout constraining the game play of most genres, these casual games need to present themselves as being fresh or intuitive up front to stave off being deleted after the first run. I feel that Shift Lite by Armor Games has done a great job and is the very first game I downloaded for my iPhone months ago that I still play.
In the game your character is a test subject (#32763) or a secret agency recruit, which somewhat reminds me of the Flash based Portal game for the PC that came out a few years ago. Music for the game is all instrumental and reminds me of a LA Noire or SPY vs SPY mood.
It’s a “puzzle platformer” wherein your character begins at one side of the screen and needs to reach a doorway, usually located at the other side. The controls are simple and well laid out, there is a left direction button along with a right direction button and you press both at the same time to jump. All you need is two solid gaming thumbs and your set to go. The twist to the game is in the name itself, which is the “SHIFT” button. Pressing this button vertically flips your character into the platform below, causing the screen to rotate presenting your character standing up right. Think of it as if you were standing on water in the middle of your backyard pool, hit the “SHIFT” button and now the bottom of the pool is your ceiling and your feet are on the opposite side of the surface edge.
Shift Lite makes use of the accelerometer and engages by taking over the “SHIFT” mechanic which to me seems like a cheap thrill, but it’s still an extra effort by the developers so they get a bonus point on that.
Game play for Shift: I enjoy this video since it actually shows the gamer using his thumbs during the preview.
Download Shift Lite from iTunes. The full version is only $0.99 that grants you an additional 25 levels of SHIFT greatness, which I would strongly recommend you purchasing. Coming from a seasoned, hardcore, gaming veteran…that’s a good things folks.
Head over to ArmorGames website for more info on Shift and their other iPhone games.
Video: LightBike Online by Pankaku
July 23rd, 2009 / Category: Rip Off, Sports, Watch It, Worth It, multiplayerReview by: Kevin Watson
Vampires Live is part of the emerging Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) niche on the iPhone/iTouch. It is a free app (read Why it’s “free” below). For all you WoWers, recovering EverCrack addicts, and FF XI fanfolks, now you can get your MMORPG fix on the iPhone/iTouch, and you can get it in the flavor of your choice! While I am writing about Vampires Live, the other games from Storm8 are virtually identical, with a different theme laid over the same game play and general concepts.
The game sets the tone with this opening message:
In the darkness under a starry sky, you awake to find a whole new world around you. The night, previously scary and mysterious now seems familiar and comforting. The vampire ho turned you is trying to get you to join his underground vampire clan. You, however, have other plans…
Vampires Live is great at appealing to the vampire lover. Build your pool of blood donors (stray dogs on up the food chain to humans, demons, and beyond) which you get blood from hourly. Then use this blood to upgrade abilities, heal from attacking other players, or save it for later in the Blood Bank. At any time (whether you are online or not) people can attack you and steal small amounts of your unbanked blood or you can pillage other vampire clans and increase your bloody coffers. As you complete missions and attack other clans you level up and increase your power, unlocking new creatures to enslave, abilities to master, and missions to complete. It is also important to collect allies and increase your clan’s size both for survival and offensive prowess.
Many gauges other than blood donations are also on set timers which keeps you coming back throughout the day to complete missions, attack clans, even put out hits on particularly annoying stronger vamps, and enslaving more beings to donate their blood. While you check in with your Vampire Clan periodically, you don’t need to spend huge amounts of time online at any given time to keep things going. Comment on clan member’s profiles, heckle enemies, or invite others to join your clan. Slip online and do a quick mission, or go through and invest some blood into new abilities. You can spend 5 minutes or a half hour. Very easy to play with minimal hand movement, a great feature for the school-going and work-avoiding crowd!
Storm8 is trying out many different things and I’m enjoying most of their ideas and having fun seeing the game interface get updated and new features appearing periodically. All in all, this is a great RPG game made even better because it’s a free download.
Why it’s “free”
This is a “free” app. Yes, you can download it and play with all the features in tact completely free. However, if you want to do extra things like change class, name, add NPC members to your clan you need Loyalty Points (LPs).
You can get these LPs in two ways, buy them (60 LPs for $4.99) OR you can download the other free apps from Storm8 LLC. Now this is really clever on Storm8’s part because this way you download all their other products. Additionally, they put out free apps where you simply download them and get extra abilities/spells or more LPs. You can then delete the app or play one of their other games. This keeps people constantly downloading SOMETHING of Storm8’s which keeps them visible in the top downloads sections of iTunes. I think this is a fair price to pay, you download a random free app of theirs, get rewarded in-game, and they reap advertising.
All in all, I feel this is a great balance for a company to provide their content for free, offer a quick way that you can progress if you are willing to pay, and a slower way if you want to help them advertise with download numbers.
Download Vampires Live from iTunes
As of this post, Storm8 is still working on their website.
Review by: Bronwyn Lewis
I have a confession: I’m a SimCity addict. And when I saw that EA came out with a version for the iPhone, I knew I had to give it a spin.
At $4.99, I was skeptical. I expected a game dumbed down and stripped of what made it SimCity, or one that was so clunky and overwhelming that I’d give up after 15 minutes. What I found instead was a fairly intuitive and comprehensive version of the game I loved.
They’ve skipped over some of the menu controls, and removed the ability to landscape — though you do have some say over your piece of land when starting a game — but that seems to help in streamlining the game. You still have a ton of control over budget, ordinances, and a cadre of advisors to help you along in the game. Building city infrastructure is not as difficult as I thought it would be, since they force your to build roads, rail, pipes, and power lines in straight lines.
Unfortunately, since you are dealing with a small screen, it can sometimes be hard to see if you’ve missed a plot of land or laid something down exactly where you want it, especially when a large building is in the way — yes, there’s only one angle for your view of the city, though you can zoom in/out at a surprising number of levels.
My biggest concern was saving my game — what would happen after I poured hours into a city, and got a phone call? Thankfully, SimCity handles that seamlessly with autosave, and can also handle multiple save files (one per city, not including autosave).
So if you’re a SimCity fan, or just like the idea of a city living in your pocket, this is a steal — you definitely get your money’s worth.
Jump over to EA’s website for more info about the game.
Download SimCity from iTunes.
