Diablo Immortal: Just let it die quietly

So recently Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal and fans are PISSED.  In case you saw that banner and got excited because you didn't catch the story yet, don't get your hopes up too high because it's only a mobile game.  Here's a trailer

If you view it on YouTube instead of in the blog, HOO BOY that dislike bar.

Now I get it, oh boy do I understand your rage.  A series with such a long and respected pedigree being reduced to yet another cash grab, probably gatcha in some way, premium currency pay to win mobile dogshit.  The fact that it's not just some little extra thing that Blizzard developed on the side but a thing that was shoved in your face at fucking Blizzcon like it's something you should be excited for.  The condescending attitude when an audience member asked "will we get it on PC?" and the guy, when booed for saying no, replied with "What, don't you all have phones?!".  You have every right to be boiling mad but just stop and think for a second.

There are tons of generic shitty hack and slash games on mobile already.  I hate to admit it but I sunk quite a lot of time into a hack and slash RPG on mobile called HIT for a pretty significant amount of time about a year ago.  All that time ended up being wasted though since it's just another deleted free game on my app store account now.  At the very least, we know that Diablo Immortal will have a degree of polish to it, so if you're going to play a shitty mobile hack and slash game at least a Diablo flavored one might be worth keeping on your phone for the occasional fiddle with on a bus or while you're dropping a fat shit.

Plus it's not like Blizzard are dropping everything to focus on this one mobile game.  Diablo 3 just got a Switch release so if Immortal really disgusts you that much but you want portable Diablo anyway, just go play that.  You don't see Final Fantasy fans losing their shit over Record Keeper or Brave Exvius, you can at least be happy that Blizzard are still giving D3 the love it needs to keep going for another console generation at the very least.  If you hate the look of it that much, it really is as easy just not downloading it from the app store.

Booing, disliking videos on raging online won't really do anything.  If no one downloads it though, if that game is dead from day 1, THEN Blizzard will know they cocked up.  I get that your mad but calm down and let it die quietly instead of giving it publicity so that all the know-nothings and curious children with a tablet don't end up keeping the game alive for years to come.

I personally will never play it because it'll never stack up to Dragalia Lost.

Eggggg and Illi

Every week a paid app on the app store goes free for a while and I always take the chance to grab that shit because fuck paying money for app games.  However sometimes I download a title that makes me feel a little guilty for not directly supporting the creator and while I'm not about to go and pay for a game I already own, I want to highlight a couple of titles I got for free so many you can go and support the better side of the mobile game spectrum.

The first game is Egggg, I'm not sure exactly how many Gs are in there but it's more than usual.  Egggg is a two button platform game and the aim is just to get from one end of the stage to the other without dying.  The thing is though that once you press a direction button, you can't stop.  If you push the way you're running you jump and the other button will make you turn around.  While you're running from one end of the stage to the other there are things to collect and little hidden areas of each stage for you to explore which net you stars at the end.  Simply finishing a level isn't too much of a challenge but getting 3 stars on a stage will require some strategising.  The game also mixes things up every so often by giving you a stage specific mechanic or having you fight a boss but generally just reaching the end of the stage is your only worry.  Still, it's a nice, pure little platforming experience and it's the kind of thing you'd easily find on something like Steam for a few pounds but instead its phone exclusive.

EDIT: As soon as I posted this thing I googled Egg and found a Steam page for it and it's "coming soon", so worth buying there if you don't like playing games on a shitty phone screen.  Seriously, it's a goodun

The second game I want to talk about briefly is Illi.  It's a very simple, cute little platform puzzle game that will eat through your commutes like nothing else.  The game play is super simple with each stage being made up of a number of squares or rectangles and you must jump your way to the exit by tapping the screen.  Illy moves around each square by himself and which way he falls depends on which side of the cube you're on when you press jump.  So press jump on the top and you'll fall down but press it on the right hand side and you'll fall to the left.  Illi does not respect the laws of physics.  Each stage comes with a number of "quests" which involve collecting a thing, getting to the exit in a certain number of jumps or beating a stage in a certain time and finishing these quests unlocks more levels.

The good thing about Illi compared to other puzzle games I've played is that it's not bullshit difficult like other shitty iPhone games like Cut the Rope.  The solutions to certain levels in things like Cut the Rope where there's no way you'd figure that shit out without spending money on a solution fairy or whatever piss me off but Illi has that nice level of challenge sort of similar to Portal.  Things that look hard but if you take a moment to think about them carefully are actually quite simple.

I got these games for free but if it wasn't such a stingy piece of shit and someone had told me about them beforehand, I would have easily dropped a few pounds on these titles.  So go check them out because instead of complaining about the sorry state of mobile gaming we should be supporting the people who are actually at least TRYING to do a good job.

Attack on Moe

It's times like this I start to question my own tastes in games. 

So a few days ago I was drunk in a bar and at one point in the evening I took to looking at one of my social media applications.  An advert popped up for a game called "Attack on Moe" which depicted a dude fighting giant anime girls that lost their clothes when you beat them in combat.

So OF COURSE I fucking downloaded it

What I found was a fan service clicking game similar to that of cookie clicker but instead of cookies its monsters and anime girls.  The game is very simple, you tap the thing until it dies and you do this until you get a boss.  Then you have to tap the boss until it dies but you're on a time limit for that and if you kill it then you progress to the next stage.  Every 5 stages you get to fight a "Moetan" which is a big anime girl which when defeated, goes into a "Moepedia" (seeing a theme here?) and then you can sort of rub them down for bonuses and images of them slowly losing more and more items of clothing.

As you do all this you earn money which you can use to buy upgrades for you guy as well as hero characters that will support you and farm you more money while you're offline.  There's also a "PVP" feature where you and a friend see who can mash this fastest and you earn points which earn you various rewards as you do this every handful of hours.  There's also premium currency which you can buy/earn by playing which allows you to buy items that increase stats or unlock more anime girls for you to fight in later stages.

There's not much to say about it other than it's just a fucking clicking game.  It's the kind of thing you fiddle with for about 30 seconds to a minute at a time when you're taking a shit or REALLY bored on a train or something.  I'd say it's worth checking out because if I'm going to waste my time monotonously tapping things the experience is so much better with some anime titties to go with it.

Sword&Dragon

This is a game I would have initially never have heard anything about if it wasn't for a friend of mine asking me to play it and say a few things about it for the blog.  Of course, I agreed and what I got was a pleasant little surprise for my phone.

Sword&Dragon is a free to download and play puzzle game for iOS.  The game contains 100 levels with each stage presenting you with a 4x4 grid and some pieces for you to work with.  The pieces involve things like swords used for killing dragons, dragons for killing you, a heart which represents your life and finally treasures to collect which act as level goals and points.  There are other things too but I've not beat the game so I'm just listing the things that appear in every stage.

The idea is that you sweep the pieces across the board in order to kill dragons and collect loot.  Each level has a number of goals which may be "kill x dragons" or "kill x dragons and collect y gold bars".  While the game starts out fairly simple the game throws obstacles at you as the levels go on throwing things like fortresses to break your swords on and move limits to make your life hard.  On each board there is a heart piece that will die if it collides with a dragon which also results in a game over.  You can prevent this by collecting potions but it's surprisingly easy to get overly focused on the objectives and get yourself killed despite the small size of the stages.

My playtime over the weekend was fairly limited due to being busy testing new capture equipment but the 35 levels that I did play were very fun and it's a title I'll keep coming back to when I have some time to kill with my phone.  I do have one little complaint which is that the new pieces that spawn in each turn seem to be random, so sometimes I feel like I'm getting lucky rather then figuring out a puzzle but this doesn't detract from the overall fun of the game.  Levels will fly by so having a bad run or two doesn't waste too much time and it doesn't happen enough to be overly frustrating.

If you are looking for a new game to play with on your phone then I'd absolutely tell you to give Sword&Dragon a go.  It's not going to revolutionise anything but it's some good, simple fun for your mobile device and you could do a hell of a lot worse.  Check out the website for more information here

http://www.i-yoda.com/products/iphone/sworddragon_ios.html

and go get the game off the app store if you're interested.  Happy dragon slaying!

Bug Princess Duel

So one night I was looking through the app store for weird shit to try out when I came across this thing for FREE! It blew my goddamn mind.

For those who aren't in the know, Bug Princess became fairly notorious on the internet for having "the hardest boss in all of video games" in this video.

The game featured in this video is a Japanese shmup called Mushihime Sama (or Bug Princess in English) and recently a phone version of the game was released for free.

The phone version is basically the first game scaled down to work on a mobile device.  It also comes with all these weird leveling systems that are a bit shit but it doesn't really tarnish the overall experience.  There's also a multiplayer mode where you can connect with a friend or random to compete for score and whoever has the highest score at the end steals the other persons rewards, it's pretty cool.  The leader boards also offer prizes for people who rank high up at the end of every week so there are lots of chances to get the games various currencies without actually spending a penny.

Last time I played a shmup on a mobile device it controlled like complete bollocks but this one actually plays pretty well.  There's a dedicated area at the bottom of the screen for moving yourself around but moving out of it doesn't prevent you from controlling your character.  There are two transparent buttons on the side that let you switch between the shot mode and beam mode for you ship as well as use your bombs.  Each character also has a unique skill that can be used by double tapping the screen which is a nice little touch since the ability comes online quite often.

It's not exactly what I'd call a perfect shmup and I imagine a lot of people who are hardcore on the genre may turn their nose up at something like this.  However, for me and my long train commutes to work, Bug Princess Duel is a nice little change from all the match 3/monster breeding puzzle games on the app store.  If you're looking for a quick dose of shmuppy goodness for your train rides or to kill time with, the Bug Princess is pretty good considering it costs 0 money.

App Store Double Trouble: Buzz Killem and Smash Hit

Most of the games on the app store are complete garbage.  They are either all knockoffs of something more popular or are stuff with in-app purchases that just ruin everything.  Recently however, I have come across 2 titles that are a ton of fun, free and most importantly, not drowning in pay gates so I thought I'd take a moment to introduce all you iPhone users to some actually good games to kill your train journeys with.

The first is a game called Buzz Killem

Buzz Killem is a simple platforming and shooting game where you go around one of a few arenas shooting aliens.  The idea is that every time you start a mission, the game gives you three objectives such as "Kill X of Y" or "collect X power-ups" or something like that.  When you complete the objectives you get gold and with that gold you can buy new weapons or upgrade the shit that you already have to increase your killing efficiency.

The game is controlled with 2 sets of buttons located at the bottom of the screen.  A left and right for moving and an A and B button for shooting and jumping.  It's simplistic and it works pretty much perfectly for this kind of game because I find that iPhone games that try to have real controls end up being a bit of a mess.

The game has a couple of flaws that I've noticed so far.  The objectives for each mission can be a little bit samey and can therefore get a little bit dull.  But then again if you're only playing this one in short bursts during boring train rides then it's not too much of an issue.  A big issue would be the bug that occurs sometimes when picking up a Jet Pack.  The idea of the jet pack is to allow you to control your jumps a little more except every now and again you'll pick up a pack and just rocket up into the air and die instantly and there's fuck all you can do.  This can be rage inducing if you were just on the brink of clearing an objective but it's not like it's impossible to avoid it so sometimes it's better to just not take the risk.

There's also a levelling system that unlocks outfits which all have different abilities and none of these features which are unlocked thought levelling up are locked behind any kind of pay gate.  In fact, the only in-app purchasing that I've noticed inside this game is extra gold in case your extra impatient about unlocking weapons or whatever but I doubt anyone would really need that.

Next up on my little app store romp is Smash Hit

Smash Hit is a very simple game.  It gives you a bunch of marbles then puts a bunch of glass objects in your way and tasks you with getting to the end.  You tap the screen to shoot a ball and there are little things you can smash that provide you with extra balls as you go.  Smashing into a piece of glass means that you lose ten balls and if you lose all your balls then the game is done.

It's simple, fun, addicting and has some really good music in it too surprisingly.  It's the kind of game that I could imagine being on the DS if they added some extra features to it or something.  The only annoying thing about this game is that it tells you every so often that it's making checkpoints but then you discover that if you want to actually use those checkpoints then you have to own the "premium" version of the game.  It's not so bad but it's a little tedious to have to start the game over from square one every time you die.


So that's it folks, fire up your iPhones and download these two titles.  Now you have something mildly entertaining to do while you take a shit or wait for a bus.

Mobile Gaming is Weird

A couple of posts ago I said that I got an iPhone 5s and wasn't really all that taken with it.  Well since I had to sign up for a Japanese App Store account, I decided to do some delving into what the Japanese mobile gaming market had to offer.  Thanks to a recommendation from my wife's sister, I ended up playing something called 育てて掃除機 (Or Raising Vacuum Cleaner) and now it's time to take a moment to talk about one of the strangest games I've ever played.

The premise is simple, you have a vacuum cleaner, and when it sucks up rubbish a small meter fills up.  When the meter gets to full the vacuum cleaner changes shape, starting out with a small cat resting on top and then over time taking on much more strange forms.

There is also a mini game that involves taking your cat machine for a walk.  This means you go down a motorway at high speed collecting coins and avoiding cars.  With those coins you can purchase balls of rubbish so that you can speed up the process of cat cleaner evolution.

Usually, when you think about mobile games you assume they are designed to be played at a bus stop or something.  Something you use to kill 10 minutes or so by playing a pointless shitty puzzle game or whatever.  This game however doesn't even qualify as that since all that you are required to do is open the app, touch the screen once, and then you are done for like 10 minutes while the rubbish respawns.

It's a truly strange game that's worth playing at least once if you can read Japanese.  If you can't read Japanese then it's just fucking weird and there wouldn't really be much point.  But I found myself strangely addicted to this fucking thing, opening the app whenever I could do clean my room and watch my cat cleaner evolve into something truly strange.

育てて掃除機, despite being one of the most basic things I've ever seen, is way more engrossing than half the shit on the app store in both regions, so give it a go if you can.

Castle Master

There is a lot of absolute shite on the Apple App Store.  It's very hard to find something that's actually worth playing so I tend to get very surprised when I do find something good.

The game that took me by surprise this time was Castle Master, a strategy game where you must re-take all your castles that have been overrun with monsters.  It's an incredibly simple game but if you're looking for something to kill for free then this is a good choice.

So, as far as I can figure out this game originally comes from Korea, since there is a Korean language mode in the options menu and there is some very strange translations going on.

I mean there is even a crossed out W on a typed story scroll.  I find it impossible to get annoyed at something THIS blitheringly stupid.

Anyway, the game itself is simple, you have a big map and you have to take all 45 castles.  Everything is in real time and you have a 3D fighting mode for when attacking or defending.  It controls pretty well too with skills being easy to pull off and targeting working rather well.

Once you take a castle you have to defend it, recruit troops and build it up so that you can earn money and take the next one.  When you're not on the map or in combat, you can go into this 3D town exploration thing where you can buy items, upgrade skills and take on quests.

The game play reminds me somewhat of a real time version of Heroes of Might and Magic with the interface and how troop recruitment and buildings work.

So what you're playing is essentially a dumbed down version of those games, but considering its an iPhone app and it's free, you could do a lot worse.  Combat all goes down in real time with up to 300 vs 300 battles and while it's happening you get to get stuck in and help out your army as well.

So if you needed something free to kill some time with while your on a train or waiting for something/someone, give this a spin.  Good free games in the app store are few and far between, so jump on this one.