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Game Dev Story (iPhone Application)
by Anti *NOTE: This review is for the Android Version of 'Game Dev Story'. There is no difference in gameplay or controls, which is why I have put the review in the iPhone version rather than create a Product Suggestion for an identical product.* At Christmas I received a tablet for my parents for "educational purposes". ... Whilst I have indeed been using it for my university studies, I have still looked for some nice time-wasters from the Google Play Store. Among the overlooked gems is 'Game Dev Story', a surprisingly addictive management game from Japanese developers Kairosoft. I have played many games from this developer, all of which are management games in a different field- whether it is running a shopping complex ('Mega Mall Story'), a tourist island with Pokémon-like creatures ('Beastie Bay') or even a Japanese-style inn ('Hot Springs Story'). However 'Game Dev Story' is by far the most popular, and easily the best, of the Kairosoft games. ==---Gameplay---== Well, if it isn't obvious to you from the title, you play the CEO of a new video game developer. Your aim is to create and release video games over different video game systems and make as much money in twenty years of game time. As you earn more money, you can expand your company base, hire better staff and improve the quality of your games, perhaps even nabbing you the crowning achievement of Best Video Game at the end of year awards ceremony... What I love about this game is amount of control you have into shaping your video games. You first select a console to release your game on. As time passes new video game consoles are released which you must buy licenses to create games for, which mirrors the release of video game systems in real life. So you start off able to make games for the PC only, but then you have access to the likes of "Intendro's" IES, "Senga's" Exodus (get it?) and so forth. Then you choose a genre and type, put points into the direction of the game's development (e.g. be approachable or exclusive, realistic or cute) and then let your staff begin working on the game. Each title has points in Gameplay, Creativity, Graphics and Sound, which your staff members can specialize in boosting up while working on the project. The higher the number of points your game has in each category, the better the quality of the game. So when you begin the game you will struggle to release good games with your inexperienced staff and the critics (who rate your game out of 10 upon release) will rightly pan them regardless of how much they sell. Thankfully you can improve your staff by levelling them up with Research Data, which is earned whilst your team work. Money can also be earned by working on Contracts, which are short-term projects requested by other companies where your team must achieve scores in categories within the deadline otherwise your company doesn't get paid and loses reputation. Furthermore, a range of genres and types get unlocked to over time, and there is no restrictions regarding which ones you combine. Want to create a Robot Adventure game? Go ahead. A Ninja Action game? Sure! A Shooter Golf game? Sounds bizarre, but you still can do it! Creative matchups could still sell well with good direction. Using the same genres often causes them to level up and give you more points in direction to improve the quality of future game, but be careful you don't make the same types consecutively or you will lose fans and appeal! I thoroughly enjoyed experimenting in making games with unusual genre matchups and direction changes. Sometimes I did feel that critic scores for my games were random compared to ones of the same type and genre. For instance, my Ninja Adventure game (creatively titled 'Ninja Story') got an average score of 4/10 from the critics but could still sell 600,000 copies, whereas my Shooter Time Travel game ('Bullet Time', another apt title) averaged 7/10 and could still sell the same amount. Whilst critical reception doesn't always account for sales, you need an average 8/10 score from each of them to get your game into the Hall of Fame, which allows you to create a sequel. Yet the sequel game also has to reach the Hall of Fame, otherwise no more games in that series can be created. Whilst being judged on critic scores alone (instead of a combination of that and how well your game sells) is a little annoying, at the same time I liked that the game encouraged me to develop new titles rather than stick to the same series. It offers a chance at making possible different series of games that are all critically acclaimed and sell well- just like a real video game developer I suppose! As for the controls, they are okay for a touch-screen based game, although sometimes I had trouble selecting things on the menu, but this is easily resolved by pressing the back button. ==---Graphics---== 'Game Dev Story', like all the games by this developer, has 8-bit pixelated graphics. This may put off some potential players especially since the game has been ported from the PC and the poor quality of pixel characters up close can show. This is especially true on my tablet as everything is bigger than it looks in the screenshots and so the quality is worse. Animation is standard, with the best looking bits being the popup boxes whenever something good happens in a game's development or release, but nothing outstanding. ==---Sound---== The background music is the same looped over track which only changes when you move office. It is pretty annoying to listen to, especially for hours on end, but it wasn't frustrating to the point where I'd rather mute my tablet. Other sounds are decent and fit the game theme, but the quality does seem average compared to other 8-bit games. ==---Replay Value---== I find with a lot of Management Simulation games that you can play them for hours on end in one go, but then get sick of them and ignore it for months. This is pretty much the case with 'Game Dev Story'; when I first got into it I was hooked for days on end, but constantly releasing games and having them sell millions does get boring after a while, although sometimes I felt the need to see if that game could sell a billion copies and win the 'Game of the Year' award. There are also unlockable characters you can recruit for your company as well as new genres and types through training and levelling up your staff. Although the game technically finishes in year 20 (which takes about 7 hours), there is a New Game Plus option which carries over all that you have unlocked, so potentially there is no limit how much you can keep releasing games. ==---Overall---== 'Game Dev Story' is great little gem among the thousands of games in the Android and iOS library. It is surprisingly in-depth with its range of genres and consoles reflecting on real video game culture, allowing you to create any kind of video game you want at your fingertips. Whilst the sound and graphics are pretty simple and dated, if the idea of creating your very own video games and making imaginary money appeals to you regardless, then by all means check this game out! 'Game Dev Story' is currently on the Google Play Store for £1.60 (there is a trial version available too). Read the complete review |
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100 Greatest Hits HD
by SWSt Elite was one of the few software houses to survive the transition from the 8 and16 bit era into the brave new world of consoles. It might be a mere shadow of its former self but has evolved a new role as a published, buying up the rights to classic Spectrum games and releasing them via emulation onto new platforms. This HD ... Collection of some of the Spectrum's greatest hits collects together 100 great games from the Spectrum era and makes them available to pay in your iPad in glorious HD. The first thing you will notice about the app is that it's really nicely presented. Whilst the HD approach doesn't impact on the games themselves (which feature the same 8-bit graphics you will remember fondly/with horror), elsewhere the presentation looks crisp and vibrant. Images of the various game boxes are presented, along with the instructions on how to play them and there is even a history of the Spectrum provided. Of course, what you're really interested in is the games themselves. There are 100 games available, although you only actually get one (the classic Bruce Lee) included in the free download. If you want more, you have to purchase them separately via in-app purchases. For once, though, a reasonable approach has been taken to these extra purchases and Elite should be applauded for this. There are two options available. The first is to purchase specific packages. There are 25 of these available, each containing 4 games by a particular publisher. Downloading a single pack costs £1.49, which is a fair price for 4 games. Alternatively, you go download all the games for a one-off payment of £8.99. That's 100 games for the same price you paid for one Spectrum title back in the late 1980s. Elite should also be praised for their selection of games, too. Compilations like this usually have a smattering of excellent titles, bulked out by a lot of mediocre to poor ones. For the most part, the titles in this collection are very good. Every pack has at least one well-known title in it and some have several. Whilst you might dispute whether the terms "greatest hit" could be applied to all the games, at least they are drawn from the machine's better offerings. There is an obvious bias towards arcade/action games, with strategy or text adventure very under represented, but this simply reflects the type of game which dominated the Spectrum. There have been criticisms that Elite keep repackaging the same content under different guises and this might well be true; but since I only own this collection (and don't plan on getting any more) it's not an issue. If you were tempted by another package you would need to check out the list of titles and compare it with your existing collection. Normally at this point, I would talk about the graphics and sound but there's probably not much point in that. They were developed over 30 years ago on a machine that wasn't even that high specced at the time, so of course they look and sound rather ropey. The Spectrum's garish colour schemes and infamous colour clash issues will have today's generation of gamers staring in disbelief, whilst the basic beeps will have them blocking their ears in horror. What you're buying here, though, is a sense of wistful nostalgia, recapturing those early days of gaming when every new release was eagerly awaited and discussed in playgrounds across the country. Emulation is generally good. The games run smoothly and are glitch-free and I've yet to have any of them crash on me. They blocky graphics look surprisingly good on the iPad's big screen whilst retaining their 8 bit charm. Whilst it's not quite the same as playing the games on their native hardware, its close enough for most people. Yet again, what cripples this otherwise excellent package is the controls. This is the bane of gaming on iOS devices and proves the downfall for this one. Spectrum games were made for a physical controller (a keyboard or a joystick) and the lack of one brings some serious issues. The developers have tried their best, but too many of the titles are rendered virtually unplayable due to the poor touchscreen controls. There are several different options to try (including an on-screen keyboard and a virtual joystick/fire button) and almost every aspect of the controls is customisable (screen position, size, sensitivity). Unfortunately, no matter how much I tweak, I can't get them to be as responsive as I need. It's criminal that the one thing Elite haven't done is make this collection compatible with all versions of the iCade (a third party add that provides a physical controller). It's compatible with some iCade machines, but not all (it's not compatible with the iCade Core which I own, for example). It seems a really strange decision not to include comprehensive iCade compatibility as this would solve the issue at a stroke for those that own one and make the app worthy of 4, possibly even 5 stars . If you can put up with the controls, this is a very strong and well-priced collection. £8.99 for 100 games? Bargain. Sure, you can argue that you are able to download most of these titles for free off the Internet, but this collection allows you to own them legally and play them on the go. It's just a shame that all too many titles are unsuited to the touch screen environment and the lack of a physical control system ruins what would otherwise be a must-have app. (c) copyright SWSt 2013 Read the complete review |
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Galaxy on Fire 2
by SWSt Galaxy on Fire sees the return of unlikely monikored hero Keith, an ace spaceship pilot fighting the good fight out there in a galaxy far, far away. Keith is in real trouble when he is caught up in some sort of space anomaly which sends him spinning through time and space so that he ends up hundreds of light years from home, and almost ... 100 years into the future. The original Galaxy on Fire looked good and offered a real change to iPhone users who wanted an alternative to the casual games that seem to dominate the App Store. A space epic that recalled the early Wing Commander games it cast you in the role of a spaceship pilot who had work his way up in a tough universe, undertaking missions to raise credits that could be used to enhance your ship. Galaxy on Fire 2 pretty much offers more of the same; just with added mineral mining. As you might expect from a sequel running on superior hardware, the presentation stakes have been upped and GoF2 looks even better than its already good looking predecessor. Graphics are beautifully crisp and clear, with lots of different spaceship designs and alien races to give the game a truly epic feel. The game looks fantastic, particularly on the iPad's bigger screen. Sound is no less impressive. A full orchestral score accompanies the action, with speech for all of the main characters. Most of the voice characterisation is pretty good quality. The voices of the various alien races are imaginative without ever feeling silly, although Keith perhaps sounds a little odd (his lazy London drawl sounds out of place in outer space!). True, sound effects are a little disappointing, but that's true of a lot of iOS games. Gameplay is also initially great fun. Learning how to handle your craft, exploring the massive gaming universe and getting into dogfights with enemy ships is both exciting and satisfying. The excellent script provides a strong narrative so that you really feel like the missions you undertake are making a difference on the world around you. Like a great big black hole in space, the game is surprisingly addictive and sucks you in. As you complete one mission or reach a new location, there is always that temptation to just have a browse around your new location and see what other characters have to say... and then, of course, you are tempted to just try one more "last" mission before you switch off. You become engrossed in Keith's mission to find out exactly where (and when) he is and to raise enough money to get himself back home. The difficulty curve is well-judged. Early levels treat you quite gently, giving you nice easy missions with few enemies. As you progress, things get steadily harder. Not so difficult that the average gamer won't be able to progress, but tricky enough so that you won't breeze through the title in a couple of hours. Of course, there are the inevitable in-app purchases to ease your progress and give you quicker access to the more advanced ships and weapons but it's perfectly possible to complete the game without resorting to these. The trouble is that whilst the game's developers have undoubtedly enhanced the scale of the game and improved the already impressive presentation, they haven't fixed some of the underlying gamplay issues that plagued the original. For a start, although fun, the game can become rather repetitive. Most missions tend to boil down to "fly to point X, collect/deliver object Y and speak to person Z", engaging or avoiding any enemies you encounter along the way. Obviously, the narrative helps to add interest, but the structure of the gameplay does start to feel very "samey". The ore mining sub-game doesn't add that much new and the need to do it regularly also becomes repetitive. Looking at it from a clinical standpoint, Galaxy on Fire 2 is not much of an advance on the original Wing Commander or, going back even further, Elite. In other words, its basic gameplay is 30 years old. Controls are still an issue too. You can choose between accelerometer based controls or a virtual joystick. I'd say forget the former - they make the game virtually unplayable and are horribly unresponsive. Joystick controls are better, but still rather twitchy and your shop can be difficult and frustrating to control in the heat of battle. You can fiddle with the sensitivity of the joystick, but it takes an awful lot of tweaking of the settings before you even come close to getting the settings even vaguely right. A further issue is that if you download the standard (rather than the HD version) of the game then every so often the action is interrupted by a full screen advert for the HD version. This is incredibly annoying and destroys the immersive atmosphere by effectively shouting down your ear "HEY YOU'RE JUST PLAYING A GAME, YOU KNOW.". On the plus side, assuming you don't choose to spend wodges of real cash on in-app purchases, then you can pick up Galaxy on Fire for free which has got to be a good deal. It's a fun game in short bursts, although the repetitive nature of the missions and lack of variety soon starts to grate. © Copyright SWSt 2013 Read the complete review |
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