As the adage says, "Rome wasn't built in a day." Not surprising. Every empire is slow to build up the momentum necessary to become a world-dominating force. Unfortunately, Epic Empire: A Hero's Quest won't hold up your plans for conquest with strategy or army-building. Instead, the game's energy system keeps you waiting for ages between fights. Rome wasn't built in a day, but neither was it built with in-app purchases.You begin Epic Empire as a wanderer driven out of his homeland by bandits. Tired of running, you resolve to turn around, stand your ground, and give those bandits what for. Gradually, and with the help of friends, you drive pack after pack of outlaws away from their ill-gotten turf. In the place of the wilderness and lawlessness, you place mines, businesses, and other civilized means of generating revenue."Epic Empire is essentially a battle / building game. The world is shadowed by bandits and evil-doers, and you need to reclaim the darkness. First and foremost, you must fight. To instigate battle, you enter a hostile patch of land and engage the bad guys within. Victory is simply a matter of tapping on the enemy and hoping you deliver the fatal blow before they hack your life bar into nothingness. When everyone's been driven out, the land is yours for the taking.Winning fights in Epic Empire has little to do with skill. Numbers are key. When you go up against bandits, victory is only possible if your armor and weapons have been upgraded sufficiently. Upgrading is done by winning loot from fights and then "fusing" the pieces with your equipment. You can also evolve equipment if you find the sufficient ingredients and have coins to spare.
Kiwi Inc. may be a young company, but its games have already been numbered among the Top 100 Grossing applications on Google Play. This week, the company attempts to crack the Top 100 list once again with western-themed social sim, Westbound. This FarmVille-like mobile title features everything we've come to expect from town-building games; unfortunately, it does nothing to advance them.Westbound begins without preamble, and immediately upon starting, you're whisked away to a desert location where you find a guy trapped under a wagon wheel. You let him out, and he asks for help exploring the nearby cliffs. You go along with the idea (because if you don't, the game's over), and the two of you find a pretty lady trapped under some rubble. You help her out (while wondering if everyone out West just stands around waiting for something to fall on them), and then the three of you set about constructing a settlement.This all sounds fairly dynamic, but like everything in this kind of game, it's all accomplished by the repetition of two things: clicking and waiting. Westbound teaches you this click/wait technique in a brief tutorial that demonstrates building structures, planting and harvesting fields, removing random debris, and exploring the surrounding cliffs. It then introduces you to quests, which are simple assignments given to you by the main characters. You might, for instance, be asked to perform some kind of settlement-expanding task like "plant two apple trees" or "build a barn." While not particularly thrilling, these tasks do move the game along by giving you specific things to do. Once they dry up however, you're faced with a choice: extend your play time by spending money every few minutes, or stop playing altogether.
Beyond the Dead is a zombie adventure game created by GREE. You'll construct a base, build a team around other survivors of the zombie apocalypse, and travel to various areas completing quests. Gamezebo's quick start strategy guide will provide you with detailed images, tips, information, and hints on how to play your best game."
Westbound is a free-to-play time management game where you are tasked with exploring canyons and establishing a booming city in a Wild West setting, while allotting resources, exploring islands, building houses, and more. Gamezebo's quick-start strategy guide will provide you with detailed images, tips, information, and hints on how to play your best game."
Nightbird Trigger X, the new puzzle/shooter hybrid from COLOPL Inc. had potential for greatness locked in its sights. But in the end, a forced social element and a few perplexing monetization calls caused it to miss its target.Trapped behind the concrete walls of a future metropolis, our cannon wielding anti-hero must use expert timing and a touch of luck to shatter the core of each room's security system while hypnotic patterns of living neon light shield it from incoming fire, giving up only fleeting chances for a clear shot; and all the while, under the relentless ticking of a time-bomb set to blow. Now, I'm not totally clear on just why our man in white was breaking and entering in the first place (the intro video was heavy on action but light on info), but thankfully the set-up doesn't matter too much with this one.And at least the gameplay is fairly straightforward. Each room is set up pretty much the same way. On an elevated platform on the left side of the screen stands our player character. In the middle of the screen we have a psychedelic swarm of primary shapes, simple machines, particles, and light that weaves around the playfield to and fro, blocking the player's laser beams from hitting the previously mentioned core that rests on the far right of the screen and acts as a doorway to the next room.
It feels a bit eerie to be passing judgment on a game that has been on this earth for more years (and is therefore wiser) than myself. Yet this is the situation I find myself in, reviewing a special 30-year anniversary addition of Spelunker, previously available for the Atari, the Commodore 64, and the NES.Everyday Spelunker is a mobile version of the classic pot-holing game, with new touchscreen controls and slight adjustments to the difficulty: the only elements out of place compared to the original release. It's a decent conversion, but unless you're feeling nostalgic and want to pick this up for the memories, this is very much an experience that feels out of place in today's video game world."Players take control of an explorer who is plumbing the depths of a colossal cave. There's a lovely treasure right at the bottom, but to get there is easier said than done, thanks to a variety of traps, pits, and enemies that threaten your existence. Everyday Spelunker is all about dodging around, grabbing treasure, picking up keys, and making it to the end.Everyday Spelunker is very difficult. Holes will open up without warning and swallow you whole. Platforms teeter and ledges loom, all in aid of bringing about your demise. Just the tiniest of slips can lead to death, and while I haven't counted the exact number of things that can kill you in this game, I'm going to go ahead and estimate it at around 1 billion.
Mobage and free-to-play mobile games have been, and always will be, a thing. On the one hand it means we can pretty much know what to expect before ever loading up one of their titles. On the other hand, all that experience with F2P social game development puts them in a great position to try new things. Heroes & Havoc is one such new thing, for better and for worse.Since it's apparently impossible to develop a freemium fantasy-themed mobile game without a ridiculous story that takes itself way too seriously, Heroes & Havoc casts players in the role of a fallen angel exiled from the heavens for bringing magic to mortals. Then they must gather a band of powerful heroes and fight the gods in order to redeem themselves because "reasons." All joking aside, games like this are never really played for their story, anyway."Mechanically, Heroes & Havoc is a bizarre sort of not-quite CCG. Players gather up heroes, certainly, and they can level-up and learn new skills and spells, but there are no random draws or fusion/evolution elements. Instead, there are several areas (each belonging to a specific deity) that they must fight their way through. Completing all of the battles in one area will unlock a new hero, and that hero can then be powered-up by completing more challenging skirmishes in the same zone.
D&D: Arena of War is an adventure game from DeNA. Train your hero, make friends, and fight your way through the dungeons of Farum. Gamezebo's quick start strategy guide will provide you with detailed images, tips, information, and hints on how to play your best game."