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Total Recall
by SWSt Generally speaking, games based on films are pretty cruddy. They are little more than lazy ties-ins designed to cash-in on the limited period when a film is on general release and at the forefront of the public's mind. As the years have gone on and we've grown wiser, we have increasingly come to accept that film tie-ins generally suck. ... Which is just as well because Total Recall on the iPhone/iPad is not about to change anything. Nor is it going to win any awards for imagination. It's an on-rails First Person Shooter (FPS). You play Quaid (the Colin Farrell character from the remake) and must fight your way through hordes of enemies to find out exactly what is happening at ReKall. Basically this involves being taken through a series of locations, shooting anything that looks vaguely dangerous. Along the way, you can pick up extra ammo, weapons, money and health packs to heal your wounds. YAAAWWWWN. I mean, come on. This is exactly the same sort of gameplay that Quake was using back in the mid-1990s. Back then, the free-roaming (notice that crucial word, we'll come back to it in a minute) atmospheric gameplay, combined with the cutting edge graphics and sound thrilled gamers. OK, so it's a sign of progress that a game originally requiring a high spec PC can now be played on a phone: I remember buying a new PC just so I could play Quake II. I wouldn't even get out of bed to play Total Recall. It feels like a game stuck in a time warp, a fact compounded by the on-rails gameplay. One of the big attractions for games these days is that you can go where you want and do anything. OK, sometimes this is taken to extremes and can leave the gamer feeling lost, but done well it can create an incredibly realistic and immersive world. Total Recall is on-rails. You can only go where the computer allows you to go. So, you are moved to one location, bad guys appear, you shoot them. As soon as you've done that, the computer moves you to a new location where you do the same again. It leaves you feeling totally out of control. There were many times when I wanted to hang around and explore, because something looked interesting, but I wasn't allowed to because I wasn't in control of my own destiny. I know this is a feature of on-rails shooters, but it's not a genre that suits the world of Total Recall. Worse still, this has an impact on the gameplay. As noted above, various collectibles (ammo, money, health) can be gained by shooting them (because obviously shooting stuff makes it usable, right kids?) However, the game makes it really hard to collect them. Pretty much as soon as you kill the last enemy in a location, you are whisked away, so any goodies lurking in that area are lost. This means that if you want to collect stuff, your best option is to shoot it while there is still an enemy on screen. Of course, whilst you are busy blasting away at an item, the remaining enemy is busy blasting away at you. Great design decision, guys. Would it really have been too much to give us five seconds after the death of the last enemy or even given the player the choice of when to leave a location, even if there's no choice over what that next location is? They can't even be bothered to use the film properly. They carefully say that the game is "inspired" by the film i.e. they contain lots of stuff that was nowhere near the film and merely look futuristic. From a graphical point of view this means lots of dark, metallic buildings and corridors with computers and flashing lights everywhere to make everything look dystopian and hi-tech. Human characters look artificial and unconvincing and there's not much imagination shown. There's nothing wrong with the graphics as such, it's just that (like so much else about the game) they are rather insipid and uninspiring. They look like the sort of graphics you'd have seen running on a PC FPS around the turn of the century. As such, they look rather dated. I accept the iPad doesn't have the same processing power as a PS3 or an XBox, but the graphics don't just look dated from a technical point of view, they feel tired and old from an artistic perspective too. Sound is exactly as you would expect: unimaginative. Bangs from guns, bleeps from computers and a generic futuristic soundtrack. There's not really much attention been applied to any aspect of the game, but sound has fared worse than other areas and was clearly one of the last things they bothered to think about. There are not actually that many controls, but somehow the game feels cluttered. The first level seems to thrown everything at you at once (Here's how you reload, here's how you duck behind cover) rather than introducing you to things gradually, so you feel like your head is going to explode. Controls themselves work fine (they mainly consist of a series of buttons to press). Since there is little character movement involved (other than moving your cross-hair) the controls issue that afflicts so many other iPad games doesn't really affect Total Recall, so that's at least one thing in its favour! A more serious issue is the stability of this game. I've lost count of the number of times it has crashed on me. Sometimes this happens immediately on loading (which is annoying, but not too bad) but sometimes it happens mid-game so any progress you have made is completely lost. I can't think of a surer way of annoying a gamer than releasing a bug-ridden game that crashes with monotonous regularity. Even worse, the developers have the audacity to claim on iTunes that the current software version (which I have installed) has "No more crash issues". Wishful thinking, guys. As if the game hadn't done enough to alienate you already, Total Recall further cements its hateful nature by throwing no end of adverts at you. From pop-up ads to (not-so-) gentle reminders about in-app purchases and links to the website containing all the other games they have produced, it's all there, in your face with monotonous regularity. Still, it's done me a favour because (assuming their other titles are of the same "quality" as this one) I now know which games to avoid on the App Store OK, so it only costs 69p to download but when you consider all the other games available at that price point, then it looks a pretty raw deal. Still, at least I wasn't disappointed. I expected a cheap, shoddy film tie-in, and that's exactly what I got. I'm just relieved I got my copy when it was free so I didn't actually part with any cash at all. I haven't seen the remake on which this is based, but from what I have heard and read, the game and the film probably deserve each other. (c) Copyright SWSt 2013 Read the complete review |
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Candy Crush Saga
by KLockwood75 Candy Crush Saga is an app that I downloaded on to both my iPad and my iPhone 4S a couple of months ago, after my Facebook news feed filled up with stories of my friends' successes in this game. With so many people that I knew playing this game, I thought it was worth giving it a try - especially as it was free to download from the App ... Store. * Basic Game Play * The basic premise of Candy Crush Saga is to swap different coloured fruity sweets to make lines of three, four or five sweets. Once you have a minimum of three sweets in a line, they will disappear and the next group of sweets will fall down from the top of the game screen. In this way, it is similar to games such as Bejewelled. A line of three sweets will simply disappear, four sweets will leave one striped sweet in their place and a line of five will create a sprinkle-covered doughnut. If you can combine three sweets horizontally and vertically, you will create a wrapped sweet. The sweets that you create all do different things - the striped ones will clear a line of sweets either vertically or horizontally, the wrapped ones explode like mini-bombs and the doughnuts enable you to wipe out all sweets of a particular colour on the game-board. You can also swap two of these 'special' sweets - two striped ones will clear a line of sweets both vertically and horizontally while a striped one and wrapped one will create a giant bomb. * Moving Through the Levels * The early levels of Candy Crush Saga are very simple. In the first level, you get just six moves to score a minimum number of points and this is simple to achieve. As you move through the early levels, it is a similar story - a set number of moves to achieve the required number of points. However, it soon begins to become slightly more complex with some new challenges. These includes moving 'ingredients' from the top of the game area to the bottom, clearing semi-transparent jelly, releasing sweets which are trapped in boxes and, in the later levels, dealing with big blocks of chocolate which spread their way across the board making various parts of it unplayable. You can't move on to a new level without completing the previous one - this can be a bit frustrating as a few times I have got stuck on a level for days and been completely sick of it by the time I finally complete it. The frequent updates add more levels to the game and there are now well over 200 available, assuming you can progress far enough to unlock them! Overall though, the game-play is very simple and the fact that you can complete a level in just a couple of minutes means that it is the type of game it is easy to pick up, play with for a short time and put down again. * Limitations * Initially, I was playing this game on my iPad without linking it to my Facebook account which meant that when I finally completed Level 35 (one of the levels which I got stuck on for ages), I couldn't actually move on to the next level without paying to upgrade my game. However, when I connected it to Facebook I could ask friends for help to unlock the next level - as previously mentioned, a lot of my friends are playing this game and it didn't take me long to unlock the level free of charge. Without a Facebook account and cooperative friends, you would have to pay to move on though - which is always frustrating in an app that starts off as being free. The other limitation I find in this game is that you only get one life every 30 minutes - in some ways this is a positive thing as it means you can't waste an entire evening trying to get past a tricky level, but I'd like to be able to choose how much time I want to waste playing this for myself, especially when playing on my phone to kill a bit of time on my commute. You can ask friends for extra lives (and send them lives in return) but this doesn't make a huge amount of difference to the actual playing tim4e as it literally only takes a couple of minutes to attempt each level. The gameplay itself is fairly repetitive as essentially you are doing the same thing on each level with swapping the coloured candies although, in my opinion, they is enough variation in the challenges to hold the attention. * Cost * This is a free app on the iPad / iPhone and is also available as an online game through Facebook. However, you do have the option to pay for added features - extra lives, special 'sweets' which may help you unlock a level and also moving on to the next world, so I'd advise anyone letting children play on this on the iPad/iPhone to make sure that in-app purchases are disabled, otherwise it could get very expensive! * Final Thoughts * For a free app with a relatively simple concept, Candy Crush Saga is an addictive little game. It is certainly something that I find myself coming back to again and again when I have a few spare minutes to waste. I am giving it a four star score as enjoyable though it is, the need to either get assistance from your friends or spend money to unlock levels is very frustrating. I've played plenty of Facebook games in the past where it is all a lot of fun when there are a group of you playing, but as soon as a couple of friends stop playing, it suddenly becomes virtually impossible to make progress, and I can see this one going the same way as we all start to get bored of it and move on to the next short-term addiction. Overall though, it is a game I would recommend if you just want something light to pass the time. Read the complete review |
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Car Jack Streets
by SWSt I think it's fairly safe to say that the developers of Car Jack are rather large fans of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series. In particular, they seem to have very fond memories (as many of us do) of that very first game which was one of the must-own titles on the original Playstation One. Everything about GTA has been lovingly ... recreated for the iPhone/iPad. The plot, graphics and gameplay have all been faithfully revamped for a new generation of gamers. Still, let's not be too hasty about condemning it. There are plenty of example of games which "build" on the work done by other games, and actually improve them. As in GTA (three words that are likely to feature a lot in this review), you play a small time hood who needs cash fast. When a gambling debt is called in, you have to raise £50,000 a month until your debt is paid off. You can do this by undertaking driving jobs for other criminals (the more successful you are, the higher paid jobs you will be offered) or by car-jacking vehicles and then selling them on. Of course, you also have to make sure that you fly under the radar and don't attract too much attention from the police. Otherwise, they will chase you as soon as they see you, and the criminal fraternity will refuse to do business with you, making raising that cash very difficult. When the original GTA came out, it wowed people with its unique open gameplay, overhead perspective and range of cars. Reproduced in 2013, the 2D overhead graphics now look rather dated. The combination of mission-based gameplay and an open ended world is pretty old hat, so one of the defining features of the original GTA has lost some of its shine. Despite this, the core gameplay is still surprisingly strong. Whether you want to try and raise some serious cash by undertaking specific missions or just race around the city in as many different cars as possible, the underlying game behind Car Jack remains appealing. As in GTA, the city is viewed from an 2D overhead perspective which works very well. Buildings, cars, roads and people are all clearly defined and there is a good view of the city, so you can plan an escape route should the police start to chase. The various vehicles in the game all look different, so you don't accidentally get into a family car thinking you've nicked a sports car. Despite a lot of the buildings being grey, there's a good amount of colour throughout (mainly through the different cars) and, if you wind your mental clock back to 1996, it looks pretty good. I would say this is definitely a game for the iPad. On the iPhone's smaller screen, the graphics look far more cramped and it's much harder to navigate your way around the city. Sound, I have to say, was rather disappointing. Again, Car Jack replicates a (for the time) novel feature of GTA in that each type of car has its own type of song, which carries on playing until you get out and swap cars. These songs are great and give the game a really strong identity. However, the music is rather loud and tends to drown out the other sound effects. Car engines are weedy, whether you are driving a sports car, a family car or a 10 ton truck. When you run over pedestrians, they make a feeble squelching noise instead of the full-on splat from GTA. For the game to work properly, the cartoon-like approach needs to be applied to everything and not enough attention has been paid to the sound. There's a nice range of cars to drive too, and crucially they all handle differently. Grab a sports car and the handling is twitchy, threatening to send you careering off the road, but with a speed that makes it ideal for getting away from police. Grab a truck and it is much more sluggish, but can take a lot more damage before it blows up, so it's useful for bashing your way out of trouble. Even before you tackle the game proper, it's a whole lot of fun just jumping in and out of different cars and taking them for a test drive. The downside is the speed. Even the very fastest cars don't feel quite as nippy as they should. In the original GTA, the speed differential between driving (say) a bus and high end sports car was massive; in Car Jack it's not so pronounced, and this does have an impact on the sense of realism and on the game itself. What really lets Car Jack down is the lack of a physical controller. Whilst the developers have done their best to create a touch-screen friendly game, it's not entirely successful. A variety of buttons are scattered around the screen (to control things like getting in/out of cars, firing your gun etc.) and these are fine. They are well-placed, easy to access when you're in a tight spot and need to do something quickly, and they don't obscure the screen. The real problem comes when driving. arguably the most essential element. An up and down arrow controls acceleration/braking/reversing, whilst a small steering wheel is used to set direction. It's this latter which proves problematic. It's a little on the small size and you find your finger tends to slip off it at crucial times. Mostly, though, it's because it is so sensitive, requiring exactly the right amount of pressure . Don't press hard enough, nothing will happen; use the tiniest bit too much pressure and you'll find your car careering all over the place. The controls feel very twitchy and I spent too much time no really feeling in control of whatever I was driving. The twitchy controls are more than a minor irritant, they have a serious impact on the gameplay. All the time you are wrestling with them you are hitting buildings or other vehicles (causing damage to your car and taking it closer to the point where it will blow up), running over pedestrians (attracting unwanted police attention) or just wasting time (I've lost count of the number of missions I've failed because I didn't get to the rendezvous point in time). The overly sensitive controls all to often make Car Jack an exercise in frustration. In fairness, if you are willing to persevere , you can master the controls and they become a lot more instinctive. You start to know exactly how much pressure you need to exert for each type of vehicle. It's just a real shame that the controls are such an issue because despite being a GTA clone, there's actually a rather good game lurking beneath the awkward controls. I just fear that many people will be put off by the amount of effort needed to master them. The controls really are the defining issue for this game. If you're willing to persist with them, then you will start to enjoy Car Jack more. It provides both short term and long term fun and will take a fair old while to get through all the missions. Whilst it's not in the same class as the original GTA, it's probably about as close as you're going to get on an iOS device. It's worth investigating; just be aware that the controls are the core issue here. [Note: if you are interested in Car Jack, now might be a good time to try it as it's currently available to download for free (March 2013), a reduction on its normal 69p price] (c) Copyright SWSt 2013 Read the complete review |
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