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  • Imperium: Galactic War Review
    Reviews
    Imperium: Galactic War Review

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    It must be tough to be a Thanerian. When you look precisely like the subjects in C.M. Coolidge's kitschy paintings of dogs playing poker, it's perhaps inevitable that your comrades will introduce you as the "lapdogs" of the Intergalactic Alliance. That's not to say that the mutt men don't encourage it themselves; later, after they've won a battle against one of the other factions in space, they announce that they won't "roll over for the rabble of the universe." This kind of dorky humor weaves itself into most aspects of Imperium: Galactic War, and when you couple it with real time space battles that encourage the use of actual strategy, the result is a city building/strategy sim that stands out from its increasingly numerous competition.
  • Godsrule: War of Mortals Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Godsrule: War of Mortals Review

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    Longtime readers of this site may know I have a problem with the current explosion of social strategy games. By the time you've played your twentieth variation of the same formula, they've all started to blur together into a confused jumble of housing, farms, and amicable quest givers. I think I've forgotten the names of most of them. And that's why I found myself looking so forward to Godsrule: War of Mortals. For one, it was published by Sega, whose name still evokes awesomeness despite the many years since the glory days of Sonic the Hedgehog; and for another, it promised to deliver a brand of social strategy combat worth paying attention to. Here, I'd hoped, was a social strategy game worthy of the gods.
  • World of Western Review
    Reviews
    World of Western Review

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    World of Western is the kind of social strategy game that you'd expect a guy like me to love. I might be fat and chained to a computer during most of my waking hours these days, but once upon a time I was a cowboy on the ranches of Texas - spurs, chaps, and even a slightly bowlegged walk. Alas, this is no Red Dead Redemption. World of Western's heart is in the right place, what with its rifle toting buckaroos and friendly Native Americans patrolling digital Tombstones, but in execution it bears far too many resemblances to the many other city-building-meets-combat games that have been popping up on Facebook lately.
  • iMech Online Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    iMech Online Review

    By

    If you've ever wondered why we've yet to see our battlefields dominated by soldiers in hulking two-legged tanks, the answer might lie in the gameplay of this new multiplayer arena battler for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Put simply, they're a royal pain to control. Moving forward and backwards isn't so bad, but when you find your big guns simply shooting off in the direction of Alpha Centauri when you're trying to blast the guy who's barbecuring you from behind with a flamethrower, you might find yourself realizing why the military's devoted its resources to less fantastical projects.
  • Kingdom Knights Review
    Reviews
    Kingdom Knights Review

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    Surely no genre has weathered the ups and downs of Facebook gaming quite like the city building strategy hybrid. Just when we as players think it's dead or that we've seen every possible variation of the template we could possibly see - boom - it returns to mock us for our lack of faith. Its resilience likely lies in the fact that these games are just so fun when all the elements work. Take Kingdom Knights. I jumped into this cartoony strategy game with apathy, but before I knew it, an hour had passed and I was still eager to see where it'd take me.
  • War of Mercenaries Review
    Reviews
    War of Mercenaries Review

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    War of Mercenaries is one of those games that may look a little too familiar when you first boot it up--specifically, it bears more than a passing resemblance to Kixeye's beloved Backyard Monsters and, more recently, Supercell's Clash of Clans. To its credit, it handles the popular concept well. Gone are the monsters and their suburban environs; in their place we have the trappings of medieval high fantasy and a host of memorable units. That might be enough to win you over if your preferences lean more toward high fantasy than Monsters, Inc., but be prepared to bring along some friends—the social requirements get demanding fast.
  • Heralds of Chaos Review
    Reviews
    Heralds of Chaos Review

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    An hour into my time with Heralds of Chaos, I found myself wondering why it's so hard to find something like this among all the other social trading card games on Facebook. Its gameplay may reveal a greater focus on polish than innovation, but I've nevertheless experienced few other social trading card games that do such a good job at hammering out an entertaining narrative from a game about cards. Other card games have seasoned their gameplay with stories, of course, but Heralds of Chaos does it so well that it's enough to trump some of its shortcomings.
  • Insanity Review
    Reviews
    Insanity Review

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    Say what you will about Insanity, the new Facebook social RPG from Playflock, but you can't deny that its heart isn't in the right place. Consider, for instance, that it wastes no time in filling your screen with the sight of a nurse in bloody digs that have to be breaking some kind of dress code, or consider its creepy piano music that sounds like it'd be at home in the creepy PSP thriller Corpse Party. All this, mind you, before the loading screen has even finished its business. It's a pity that most of its potential is mired in gameplay that's better suited to Mafia Wars than today's flashier options, and its oversimplification of horrific action bores more than its scares.