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.

Pianista

Pianista is a game that just randomly came up in an advert while I was scrolling through Facebook one day.  Usually I steer clear of mobile rhythm games because despite their fairly decent quality they are almost always full of bullshit that makes me quit.  However the idea of a rhythm game based on classical music piqued my interest so I gave it a try 

So the bullshit that I'm talking about with other rhythm games usually involves the collection and leveling of characters.  You can play a song perfectly in games like Love Live but still end up with a shitty rank because your characters don't have enough levels to earn you the required points.  Luckily Pianista doesn't do that.  You just pick and song, play it and you're graded based on your actual skill rather than any money-grubbing character breeding system.

The game has I think about 50 songs at time of writing with new stuff getting added every so often and songs are played on something called Tour Mode and clearing them in this mode unlocks them for your collection where you can play them freely.  There are 3 difficulty levels of play which are normal, technical and master.  I've not tried master yet so I can't say just how challenging it gets but if you aren't really all that familiar with the genre there are certain songs on normal that may give you a hard time.

As you play songs you earn gold and you can use this gold to upgrade your piano which will get you different bonuses and such but apart from that you don't use the gold for anything else.  There's also a premium currency which I think lets you cut down the wait time on your plays recharging but considering this is something I'll do a song or two with on the train that's not really an issue.  The game also has leader boards so if you're the competetive type you can see how you stand up to the rest of the user base.

My only real complaint is that you get 5 song points to play songs with and then after that you have to wait before you can play any more.  1 song point regenerates every 30 minutes so if you're just fiddling with it it's not much of an issue but if you have a long journey and you were hoping to jam out to some Chopin you may have to start spending premium currency or just listening to him on a music player and live without the game part.

Either way, it's free to download on the app store, the game looks slick, plays really well and has a decent number of songs for you to enjoy.  So unless you hate classical music you should probably go and give it a try.

Sim City Build It

This isn't a game I thought I'd be so quick to blog about or even play at all.  Usually when I see phone games like this my mind immediately remembers complete rip off titles such as Dungeon Keeper or basically any free to play city builder for the phone.  Usually these games demand that you pay real money in order to keep up with the demands of the game OR ELSE it will fuck you for it and make it basically unplayable.  While Sim City Build It kind of does the first one, it doesn't do the second.

The aim of the game is simple, build a city.  You do this by purchasing residential areas, factories, government buildings, public services etc. and from there you just have to watch things grow.  This is a long running series that started life in 1989 and has sort of grown into one of those franchises that everyone with even a passing interest in games knows about.

SNES Version

The games have since been become extremely streamlined and very easy to get into.  I seem to remember Sim City being pretty hard to understand and manage back in the day but I played the original when I was VERY young so there is a chance that my memory is sullied by the fact I was just a stupid kid who knew nothing of city management.

Anyway the one big problem I have with the phone game is that it takes a long time to do anything.  For example, you level up by building residential areas and upgrading them, which in turn increases population.  Increasing your level will of course, unlock new features, which isn't a bad thing since it's sort of nice to have all the games concepts trickled to you rather than just having a big info dump and then saying "OKAY GO!".  The problem is, you need money to do anything and you get money by upgrading residences so you can't help but start levelling up and just when you start to think everything is fine BAM! it hits you with fire stations or sewage and you don't have nearly enough money to deal with these problems. 

So the only course of action is to halt all expansion and just sit and wait for taxes to roll in which of course is taking a hit because of the lack of the new thing it just introduced that you can't afford.  The pain of this goes away a little as you unlock things like a trade depot and cargo missions but it still  takes a while to get anything done.  That said though, having a building on fire or every member of your town shitting their pants due to no sewage system doesn't fuck you completely.  Your happiness will take a hit but with a little bit of patience you can fix the problem and be on your merry way.

Not bad for a phone game and great to just fiddle with between short tasks.  I'm actually surprised by how fun I'm finding it and the production quality on it is top notch.  Of course you can pay if you want but it's possible to get a fairly decent looking city without spending a penny and after that it's just patience.  It's free so it's not like you have anything to lose, go try!

Dragon Quest 1 and Fairune iOS Double Bill

So recently I've been getting some use out of my iPhone of all damn things.  Usually games on the iPhone are complete and total garbage.  They are either stupid shit game coded by some beginner trying to get some experience (which is fair enough I guess) or some kind of monster collecting bullshit fest with micro transactions out the arse.

Well I said fuck all that and I'm going to look for some fucking mobile games that have some kind of ending.  None of this endless fucking bullshit with daily dungeons and seasonal things to collect, just a straight up normal game with a start and a finish.

So I started by playing it safe and going for a game with a bit of a legacy behind it and that was Dragon Quest.  If you've somehow not heard of Dragon Quest it's the big motherfuckin' granddad of JRPGs.  You thought FF1 was basic? HO BOY YOU AIN'T SEEN SHIT.  We're talking a time when the games entire combat system was focused on one on one battles and the plot was basically "find and kill the bad thing"

Obviously there's more to it than that, the game focuses a lot on exploration and it's up to you, the player, to seek out hints and uncover  the secrets of the world in order to gain access to a big castle and shove your legendary blade in some assholes face.  It's pure, simple, somewhat challenging and a hell of a lot of fun.  Usually I play mobile games when I'm out and about and too busy to bust out the Vita or 3DS but I found myself logging in time on Dragon Quest while sitting around my fucking house.

It's a fucking classic and the iOS version comes with fancy graphics and a nice easy to use interface.  So if you don't want to deal with all that archaic crap then this is a good place for you to find out what all the fuss was about back in '86.  While it's not free it costs so little money on the app store that it may as well be so I highly recommend checking it out.

The other game that got to eat my phones battery life like candy was Fairune, a strange little action RPG type thing that is free to download and play.

Whoever made this game must of been a big fan of the Ys series because the game involves a read headed protagonist running around a world killing enemies by running into them like a Beyblade that's been on fire.  Like Dragon Quest the game has a simple plot of go and kill the bad thing and it also involves a lot of exploration and puzzle solving in order to reach the big bads lair so you can shove a sword into his face.

The game is short and easy but when you're dealing with mobile games this is pretty much exactly what you want.  There are a couple of moments that will stump you for more bullshit reasons rather than good design but you won't need a guide to find out what's going on and when you do make progress you'll want to slap yourself for not trying that method earlier.  There are even leader boards for completion time so if you're the speed running type then maybe you'll get a kick out of that but I found the controls to be a bit shitty so I didn't want to bother.

I've heard that it's had a release on 3DS but why pay for it when you can just get it for free off the app store.  Maybe the 3DS has some extra features, I'd be surprised if it didn't but I'd just stick to the free version for your phone. 

I did have a weird issue where the game would crash constantly on launch unless I launched it from the app store which is weird but you'll finish it in a few sessions so it's not too big a deal.  Go give it a download, you have nothing to lose and it's probably better than that shitty monster collecting game you've had collecting dust for a long long time.

So yeah, iPhone is still mostly complete and utter trash when it comes to games but there are a few titles hidden on the store that are worth playing.  Check these two out and I'm also down to try some others if anyone has any suggestions.

Final Fantasy 7 on iPhone: What's the Fucking Point?

So recently I was killing some time and decided to browse around the app store on my shitty iPhone.  Before downloading some anime game about girls running races with each other I noticed that Final Fantasy 7 had been made available for download.  As I was swiping through the screen shots I found this.

Since I live in Japan the information came up in Japanese but I'll tell you what it says.  It says that on this version of the game you can turn off the encounters and raise your stats to maximum in order to make it easy to "play".  Now I'm also pretty sure this feature is available on the Steam PC version too and I may have ranted about it then but I don't remember so I'm going to go off on one again just to make sure.

Why is this even a feature?  What the fuck is even the point of playing a game if you are going to strive to take out all the "game" aspect of it.  Part of the reason FF7 is so good was because combat was fun and levelling up your characters and materia was a satisfying experience.  Sure, the story was cool as well but it wasn't JUST the story that made it a PS1 classic, it was the whole damn package.  If you're just going to cut a huge part of the games content just because you're lazy/shit then what's the fucking point?

See, we are playing fucking video GAMES here.  That means that there is some element of skill involved weather its platforming, solving puzzles, precise movements or accuracy or in this case, managing a team of adventurers so that they are able to cope with the challenges that the story presents them. 

Imagine if I was playing Mario and I could opt to turn off all the pits and enemies and just run to the end of the game for the "experience" of playing it?  It would be the most boring, retarded bullshit and anyone who actually cares about games would laugh you out of the fucking room.  If you are so stubbornly unwilling to get good at the GAME aspect of the video GAME then maybe you should just fuck off.

But wait, I hear an idiot somewhere on the internet cry "what if I just want to experience the story! I should be allowed to!"  To which I say go and fuck yourself up the ass with a spiky baseball bat.  These are games and if you aren't willing to put in the time or effort to gather enough skill in order to play it through then you shouldn't be playing at all.  If you want to experience a story go and read a book or watch a fucking movie, you aren't entitled to see the ending to FF7 just because it's a popular game that you haven't beaten due to being shit.

If a game wants to include an easy mode so that the less skilled members of the gaming community can play through their game and feel good about it, that's cool.  Even on an easy setting there is still the fact that you have to play the fucking game and get at least somewhat good in order to make progress but this is just retarded.  Doing shit like this just dumbs down the medium but that is another post for another time.

If you want to play Final Fantasy 7, play fucking Final Fantasy 7 and spend the 10 minutes required to learn how materia works in order to beat the game.  It's a fucking easy game, even someone COMPLETELY new to gaming could see the ending.  If you want to experience a story in a game, go and google some good visual novels I'm sure picking from a list of A, B or C choices won't be too taxing for you.  Then again, if you're the kind of person who needs to max stats and turn off combat then I'm not even sure that you could find the button to progress the text.

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!

Untappd

I know this isn't strictly games and I know that all my beer loving pals are laughing at me for being so late to the party but god damn I've just got into this thing and I fucking love it.

So I love drinking, I know that makes me sound like an alcoholic but I do love a good drink.  When I come home from work or with a nice meal, a nice glass of beer or some other kind of beverage hits the goddamn spot.  Before any fucking puritan nutters want to get on my case, I'm not drinking to get smashed every day, just a little wind down and it just happens to taste pretty good too.

Untappd is an app for phones and I think they have a website where you can track your beer drinking.  The reason I'm posting it as part of this blog is that it effectively gamifies your beer drinking habits.  The app tracks how many "check-ins" of beer that you make as well as how many distinct beers.  This turns the act of drinking a beer into a sort of "gotta drink 'em all" game that you play with yourself.  Now when I go to my shop to buy a can or two, instead of just getting the same old shit I always buy, I'm trying new things all the time just to make this little counter go up.

On top of that, the thing has fucking achievements.  Usually I hate achievements but whenever this app tells me that I've earned a "badge" then I do get a bit happy.  These are for things like numbers of distinct beers, drinking at certain times, drinking certain types of beer so on and so on.  The app also comes with a kind of beer detection feature where you can see what beers are being sold near you so you could even use this thing to discover new little bars that you might have not tried before.

If you're into beer you should give Untappd a go.  The original purpose was probably for beer snobs to document their exploits but it's so game-like that even twats like me can have fun with it.

The iPhone fucking sucks

I have an iPhone 5s and if it wasn't for the fact I could play Mahjong online for free and a few other games I probably would have broken my contract and ditched it way sooner.  Luckily, I didn't pay for the fucking thing as my 5s was provided for free when we signed up with the phone company.

Except the iPhone is a huge fucking piece of shit and always has been.  They never start that way though, when you first unbox it everything seems pretty good.  It does the messaging and the calling that you want and the app store has a few decent apps on there to keep you entertained during boring train rides or whatever.  It's a convenient piece of kit to have in your pocket and because of its mass popularity there is a lot of stuff and support available for it. 

But mark my words you are going to NEED that support so fucking bad after a year or so of using the damn thing because it will start to break on you for absolutely no fucking reason.  Every single person I've ever known that has owned an iPhone of ANY model has had it fuck up on them big time after a year or so of use.  These problems range from battery issues to buttons that just stop functioning or the thing slowing down for no goddamn reason.

2 days ago I was playing some Summons Board on the train, a monster breeding RPG made by the same people who brought us Puzzle and Dragon except it plays like a simplified Strategy RPG rather than a shitty version of Bejewled.  Anyway, I'm having a grand old time waiting for my stop when suddenly the game locks up and the thing fucking blue screens!  I mean the screen literally turned blue and then the thing fucking reset itself and I lost my progress.  This isn't the first game that its happened to either with certain titles like Mushihime Sama just crashing ALL the fucking time which is depressing because I really like that game.  At least I can go play it in my local arcade for 100 yen a credit...

Games fucking up is the reason I made this post but I've had all sorts of other issues too.  While my battery isn't quite kicking the bucket just yet, there are some days where it will decide it just wants to drop 10% for no goddamn reason.  Not to mention that 5 has become the new 0 which is deceptive and annoying.  Also for some reason every time I try to read a link on twitter it fucking crashes the app so I have to rush to the "open in safari" button just to read anything anymore.  There have even been points where the internet connection will just fucking die and I have to turn the damn thing off and on again to bring it back.

Like I said, everyone I know has had issues like this or worse.  The worst I've ever seen is on my friends phone where the swipe just decided to take an afternoon off.  He could still touch things using that button free interface or whatever the fuck its called by he couldn't open his phone which was a real pain in the ass considering that he was trying to contact his girlfriend a whole goddamn prefecture over.

Bottom line, iPhone fucking sucks.  I'm not all that clued up on the world of phones so I don't know what is a better alternative but I'm sure you can google it, you're a smart reader.

Fuck the iPhone
Fuck Apple
and fuck all these "trendy" wankers that rush out to buy the latest model day one.  Enjoy your paper weight, asshole.

Sonic Runners

I really don't understand how Sonic is still going.  For YEARS they've just been pounding out shit game after shit game and yet there are still legions of fans for this guy.  There are still groups of people who actually get moderately excited for an upcoming Sonic game and considering the quality of these fucking things I have no idea why.

That's when I was surprised when my friend said to me "I've got this really cool new phone game" and when I peered into his screen I saw it was a Sonic title.  At first I just laughed and told him to get out with that crap but the next day I started to get curious so I ended up downloading it.

Sonic Runners is one of those auto running type games.  If you're not sure what I mean by that then it's a kind of game where you character just runs forward and all you have to do is tap/swipe the screen to avoid obstacles.  Quite frankly, the novelty of this genre ran out after a few days with Temple Run and yet I haven't deleted the game off my phone yet.

Game play is very simple; Sonic runs and you tap the screen to jump.  You have to collect rings and gems to build score, kill enemies and save little animals.  It never ends, you just keep going until you die and the longer you play then the harder it gets.  Once you build up enough points you can fight Dr Eggman which will net you some extra rewards.  There is also a story that unfolds as you beat each area but I find myself just skipping through it because I'm pretty sure the scripts to Sonic games are written on the walls by a monkey with the pen jammed up its asshole.

Outside of the running you have to level up your characters so that they get more score or item effects last longer or you can play a little roulette game to get companions.  The companions come in the form of Chao's or remote controlled objects and bestow various effects when equipped.

You can pay for a special currency so that you can continue when you die or buy new companions but the currency is awarded to you slowly as you play for free so they micropayments don't really get in the way of the overall experience.  Also the games doesn't throw constant "BUY THIS SHIT NOW!" messages in your face which is nice because the idea of paying money for an iPhone games makes me want to vomit.

So to conclude, Sonic Runners is actually pretty good and considering that it's totally free its worth a try at the very least.  It's probably the best endless running game I've ever played which isn't saying much but I guess that's one point in it's favor. 

Then again, you could just play one of the originals or Generations and use your phone for better games like Super Monsters Ate My Condo or Mahjong Mobile......just sayin.....

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.

Terra Battle First Impressions

It's not every day that I'd be so quick to jump on here and talk about a game for iOS but goddamn, Terra Battle is pretty fucking good.

The story goes that one day I was having trouble updating the apps on my phone.  While trying to work out the problem I took the the app store to see if I could still download stuff.  Terra Battle just happened to be at the top of the list so I hit download and it worked.  After fixing the problem I thought I should give the thing a go so I fired it up and the first words I see on my phone screen are "Mistwalker"

I was stunned, I had no idea Mistwalker had made a game for iPhones and what was even more stunning is that it was released (at time of writing) last Thursday.  For those that don't know Mistwalker is a company founded by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the guy who headed Final Fantasy back when it was good.  They came in strong with Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360 and followed it up with The Last Story on Wii but after that I lost track of them.  Turns out they've been making games for iOS and Terra Battle is their latest release.

Terra Battle is kind of like every other RPG on iOS right now in the sense that you collect characters, put them in a team of 6 and then play some kind of puzzle game to fight monsters and level them up.  What I like about Terra Battle is that the puzzle involved isn't just something stupid like matching gems but it involves positioning units around a board to make attacks by flanking an enemy.  To add a little bit of extra strategy, units on the same row as an attacking unit can get a little extra hit in and all units come with skills that are activated by chaining attacks together.

The one thing I like about this game is that I'm not being bogged down in characters right from the get go.  One of the things I don't like about games like Puzzle and Dragon or Love Live is that you get so much shit and no "box" space to put it all in that a lot of the characters feel like junk.  In Terra Battle you are given small numbers of units and you have to carefully arrange a party together to effectively get through a level.

Right now the game is quite bare bones but this is by design as Sakaguchi has come up with this idea of "download starter".  Apparently he has stated that he likes the sense of community that comes around via something like Kickstarter but doesn't like the idea of fans directly financing the game.  Instead content is released based on download numbers.  Given that, as of right now, Terra Battle is the first game I see in the app store on my iPhone, I can see this game going pretty far.

Sakaguchi is a man who knows what he's doing when it comes to making games and making fans happy so give this game a go.  You have nothing to lose really except maybe an hour or two and the only complaint I have about the game thus far is the translation is a bit wonky.  Plus if you download and give it a go you're helping me get more content, so get downloading.

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.

OK, Mobile Gaming isn't THAT bad

Mobile gaming is always something that I've completely disregarded as a load of complete crap but since coming to Japan and not having a stable internet connection as well as being busy setting up a new place and whatnot, I've not really had the chance to sit down and play proper games for an extended period.

So of course, to keep myself from going insane, I've been making do with what I can with my iPhone and I'm actually pleasantly surprised with some of the things that I've been finding hidden deep within the app store.

So I'm sat here trying to beat my high score on Super Monsters Ate My Condo thinking that all the games I've been playing are pretty fun and with the exception of one title, don't try and go out of the way to try and squeeze money out of you in the form of micro transactions.  Not only that but a quick glance round the paid section of the App Store I've found all sorts of interesting looking things including full on RPGs made by Square Enix as well as all sorts of funky looking beat your high score time sinks, which is great for this kind of system.  So taking all that into consideration, why does mobile gaming have such a bad rep from people like me who player "proper" games.

Well I think I figured it out.

Angry Birds is pretty much entirely at fault for giving mobile gaming the horrible reputation that it's built up over the years.  I've played Angry Birds a little bit on my old Android phone, and it was fine, it made for a good distraction while I was ignoring my university teachers during my 3 month stint of depression in Paris, but it wasn't anything special, it was just a shitty little phone game I used to whittle away the time until I got to my PC at home.

But then you look around you and Angry Birds has this unreal amount of popularity.  There isn't just one game, there's like 5 or 6 of the damn things, all exactly the same but just themed a little differently.  Then you walk into shops and see Angry Birds merchandise clogging up the shelf like headphones or shoes or whatever.

So then people like me go and try it out, discover that it's nothing more than a mildly entertaining little puzzle game, get frustrated at the amount of hype people steep on it and then just blanket label all of mobile gaming as the same brain dead bullshit as a result.

Well luckily I've discovered not everything on the App Store is as shit as Angry Birds or whatever crappy social game is topping the lists, you just have to dig around for them.  Things like Mahjong Mobile, Punch Girl, Zenonia and other half way entertaining games are buried under the crap, so you really have to dig deep to find stuff like that. 

Although the other problem is that why would you do that when you can just fire up steam or your nearby games system and play something WAY, WAYYY better?  Still, the point is that my opinion of mobile gaming has been changed and now I just have 1 more thing to enjoy on boring train rides in case my DS or PSP/Vita batteries die.

More Updates Regarding Steam and YouTube content

Right, this post isn't going to have a picture because right now my current internet situation is a load of complete bollocks.

Over the last few days, I've been surviving by tethering my iPhone to my computer and using the internet that way.  Up until yesterday it was perfect, but then I went and ran out of usage so now my phone's internet speed has been capped out for the month and it's slow as all hell.

Yesterday I was hoping to upload another episode of Silent Bomber, but with my net now being what it is, it's basically impossible to upload anything without it taking 3 years.

However the good news is that today 2 dudes came over to our apartment and basically set up our internet plan, now all we have to do is wait about a week for the little box to arrive and then I'm golden.

So, expect sporadic updates for a while since my net access is extremely limited.  I'll be at least trying to keep up with daily written posts but it takes so long to do anything that I might just get frustrated and give up, hopefully not though.

Once the internet does come I'll be testing the stream, uploading videos and then jumping right into the Daikatana marathon as soon as I get some free time, so look forward to that.

I still also have a key for F.E.A.R 2 available and I'm willing to give it to the first person who throws a charity donation to the Alzheimer's Society.

Thanks for your patience

Back At Home!! Quick Mobile Gaming Roundup

Right, well I just got back from my trip on Olive Island.  It was a fun little adventure even if it was completely game-less, but I think theses short breaks from ranting about industry bullshit are required for me to not go insane.

Anyway, due to the fact that I had literally just moved into my new place on the day we set out I accidently left all my proper portable gaming systems inside the new house and was left with nothing but an iPhone to satisfy my mid journey gaming needs, which is a bit shit.  So for now, I'm going to give a quick run down of all the mobile shit I was playing while sitting inside that car for 8 or 9 hours at a time.

First there was Mahjong 5, a Japanese mahjong game for the iPhone that allows you to play online completely for free.  Winning enough games generates you "MJChips" which allow you to play the paid modes for free too which is a really nice feature and motivates the player to play smarter to maintain their scores.

The next game was a strange little thing that was recommended to me by a friend via Facebook.  I'll go into more depth on this game in it's own post because it's surprisingly good for a mobile game.  As a brief description, all I'll say for now is that you play as a high school girl kicking the ever loving shit out of strange men.  It's weirdly compelling.

Finally there was Puzzle and Dragon

This is a gem matching RPG monster breeding type game where you build a party of 6 creatures, go into dungeons, match gems and fight monsters.  It's actually really good with an absolutely staggering amount of creatures to collect, however, I'm just going to leave one image for you on why I enjoyed playing it so much this weekend.

Now the rest of my day will be spent setting up my new apartment, I'll see if I can get some videos up in the next day or so.

Micro Payments Are Cruel

Since I'm still preparing to move into my new apartment, I've not really had the chance to sink my teeth into anything proper and since I've been going out a bit doing all sorts of fun Japan stuff, a surprising amount of my time has been soaked up by my iPhone.

Now when you think about mobile or social games with micro transactions you generally imagine a shitty game with very little depth where you can basically pay money to win the game.  For this reason, they are generally not very well liked by people who play real games since paying to win requires no skill and it's a greedy way for a developer to squeeze cash out of people.

Well you're right, to some extent, but just take a moment and think about what's really going on.  These people aren't paying to win because they are lazy, you go and look at the insane numbers of hours that gets wasted on all sorts of facebook and iPhone games it's easy to tell that people aren't paying to win because of a lack of effort.

Just think about who the majority of these games are made for.  They aren't made for you and me, they are made for people who don't game at all and just want a quick fix of entertainment while they have time to kill, or something to play in the background while they upload pictures of the sandwich they had for lunch or whatever bullshit so called "normal" people like to do.

So when these people drop money on these crappy games, they aren't paying to win because they are lazy and just want an advantage, they are paying because they suck and they wouldn't be able to get to that point in the game any other way. 

When you think about it that way it's sort of cruel, that these people who don't really like video games anyway feel the need to drop money on shitty shallow experiences because they somehow became somewhat addicted to clicking farmyard animals......and they suck at even that.  These guys are making carrot on stick games that are JUST hard enough for non gamers to suck at them but not hard enough to make them quit, so instead they just pay a couple of pounds for that thing they can't get.

It's both cruel and genius at the same time, makes me think I should try and develop an iPhone game....

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.

The iPhone 5S is a piece of shit but....

A couple of days ago I got an iPhone 5S.  Luckily I'm not paying to use it and I didn't pay to get it thanks to a family plan type thingy provided by the phone company, so at least that's something.

I fucking hate this thing, I hate it so damn much.  I thought the idea behind the iPhone was that it was easy and simple to use and that anyone could do anything on it.  The latter is true, you don't need any kind of technical knowledge to work the thing, but in no way is the iPhone easy and simple.

When I first got the damn thing the shit I had to go through to set it up took WAY longer than it ever should have done.  We now live in an age where it's not enough to set up mail and phone number and just go with it, I have to do all sorts of other stupid bullshit along with it.

One example of this was signing up for fucking Line.  Apparently, everyone on the planet uses Line and if I don't do it then I'm going to lose contact with the world despite having a fucking phone number AND mail address.  So I downloaded Line, which took way longer than it fucking should have done because I had to make an account with the Japanese app store which was a complete pain, but even after I had the app it wasn't just a case of adding friends and chatting...of course not. 

I had to go through this long, stupid process where it sent mails to my number that I had to verify and then it sent MORE mails to my email so that I could verify it again and even once that was done I found the process of adding someone to your line account an arduous and ambiguous process that took way longer than it ever should have done.

So I hate the fucking thing, not for just the above reasons but the list is pretty long so I'll leave it at my application fury for now, but as you can probably tell from the post title it's not all bad.

Mobile gaming for the most part is a complete piece of shit, but recently I've been introduced to a few applications that are actually good games.  Puzzle & Dragons is one example of a mobile game that actually had enough quality to it to get ported to proper systems like the 3DS.  Most mobile games are money grubbing, worthless snore fests but every now and then I come across something worth playing and doesn't require you to pay money to be good at it.

In short, fuck the iPhone but at least the app store has a few good titles to keep me entertained on the train platforms.

Is Hell Feezing Over? Sonic Dash Is Pretty Fun

Well I heard Sonic: Generations was pretty good but I've not played that so whatever...

Anyway! Sonic Dash was a game I downloaded on my iPod Touch in a moment of boredom simply because it was a free application and it had a character I recognised.  What I was expecting was another shitty Sonic game, just because he gets a game on mobile systems doesn't mean that will save him from shittyness.

What I got was something that was actually pretty fun to swipe away for short bursts while doing things like taking a dump or waiting for the bus, so it was a pleasant surprise.  It's not like this games success is all its own though, since it's basically a rip off of the massively popular Temple Run app but it does a couple things differently enough to differentiate itself.

Basically you swipe the screen to move, collect rings for upgrades and just try to build a high score.  You can then share your scores with your friends, most of which probably don't care, but the option is there in case you have a group of sonic lovers in your facebook friends list.

There are plenty of games on the app store that go around ripping off Temple Run but that game is pretty fun so I'll take a Sonic themed version of that over most of the garbage Sonic games that get released for big proper consoles.

Sonic fans can rejoice as Sonic Dash marks the second recent Sonic game that doesn't make people want to throw up and smash things in a fit of rage, but as fun as this is, mobile gaming is still a load of absolute bollocks so it's not like Sonic Dash will be remembered after a year or two.