Tag Archives: appsized report card

Sep 15 2014

Now Playing: Appointment with F.E.A.R. on iPhone and iPad

 

If you are a comic book fan and a gamebook fan, then Appointment With F.E.A.R. is right up your alley. This classic gamebook written by Steve Jackson is Tin Man Games’ latest outing and adapts for the iOS the mechanics of a classic gamebook with an interesting new twist.

Appointment With F.E.A.R. parodies many familiar comic book heroes, villains and locales. As the main hero of Titan City, your job is to keep the city safe from an assorted lot of evildoers and thugs. Mainly, however, your mission is to prevent the meeting of F.E.A.R., a powerful organization of baddies, from taking place. Without much clues and only three days to do it, the challenge is to do the superhero stuff and be a detective at the same time. Oh, and as in typical super hero stories, your superhero identiy is a secret and you are a meek newspaper reporter by day (Clark Kent? Peter Parker?) with a mean boss.

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Sep 8 2014

Now Playing: Valiant Hearts – The Great War for iPhone and iPad

It is 1914 and you are in the middle of World War I. You are an ordinary soldier, thrust into the power struggle between great European countries, to serve as fodder for protracted battles on the ground.

The App Store’s Editor’s Choice of the week Valiant Hearts: The Great War relives the confusion and nightmare of the war, told through the eyes of ordinary folks called upon to serve their country. Just as war, in its broadest sense, is just the game of the generals, it is ironic to see the game make out of a high stakes ‘game’ that cost lives.

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Aug 23 2014

Now Playing: Sentinel 4 – Dark Star for iPhone and iPad

It’s been a while since indie developer Origin8 came out with a sequel to their award-winning tower defense (TD) series, Sentinel. However, Sentinel should be familiar to those who’ve been gaming on the iPhone and during the time when tower defense games were just starting to shine. With a long absence from the TD scene, does Sentinel 4 – Dark World measure up to the TD games that have come out since its hiatus?

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Aug 2 2014

Now Playing: Guardians of the Galaxy – The Universal Weapon

Marvel Studios’ latest flick, the amazingly good Guardians of the Galaxy movie is now out in theaters and enjoying critical and popular acclaim. The iOS game, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon, on the other hand, was released a few weeks prior to the movie’s launch and is currently on sale for a limited time to celebrate the film’s opening weekend. Featuring a funny, ragtag group of space not so do-gooders straight out of a Marvel comic book, the real challenge of GOTG: The Universal Weapon is to be just as good as the movie. Check out the review after the break!
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Jun 28 2014

Now Playing: Dream Catchers – The Beginning HD for iPad

We have always had a fascination for the secret world of our dreams and how the real and surreal interact in our mind’s landscape while we are sleeping. Dreams sometimes help solve real world problems, others reveal anxieties and fears, while some of us find a fantasy world to escape in.
Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD by G5 Games hints at a new series of hidden object adventure games, with the intriguing storyline of ‘dream catchers’ (although not fully explained) who get caught up in a web of deception and betrayal.
The story, however, begins with the unexplained phenomena of students of a school, including one of its teachers (your sister), falling asleep seemingly without hope of waking up. As you try to piece together what happened, you are also drawn into the dream world with strange scenery, monsters and creatures to defeat in order to wake up.

the zodiac clock

Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD is standard Hidden Object and puzzle solving fare, requiring you to search for objects bit by bit that contribute to activating puzzles in order to obtain objects and tools (inventory items).
Looking for items is a pretty straightforward and simple affair. Some HOGs like to make things more interesting and interactive by requiring you to put together some items in order to find the object on your list, while others encourage you to open a drawer or part a curtain to reveal what’s inside. Disappointingly, Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD doesn’t employ these little gimmicks.
As I have observed with many hidden object games, there isn’t a clear or logical link between objects or tools you need to say, unlock a door or get an object from a tree. In addition, since these are objects scattered across different locations, you really don’t know what you need until you press the hint. Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD is no exception. Thus, in my case, I rely on hints a lot, and more so in this game. Some useful inventory objects show up in sparkly locations, in a seemingly random and arbitrary order.
The game’s art direction evokes some mixed feelings. The earlier parts and cutscenes are a bit hazy and muddled – much like a dream sequence, I know, but some consistency in relation to the regular scenes would be nice. The game would have been more visually appealing if the scenes were less static.
The puzzles are simpler and less varied than most HOGs. Of course, the usual rotate pieces to form a picture and rotate pipes to find your way out can be found in Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD, but I find the execution of some puzzles a bit cumbersome and frustrating.
As what appears to be the first among many in a series, Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD starts off intriguing and promising. However, compared to other HOGs and even G5’s own extensive offerings, this one doesn’t quite measure up. I do hope that future installments of this game will be a lot better in many ways and for its flaws, I will give Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD a pass.
Check out the report card below:

appSIZED rating: 3 out of 5

App: Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD
Download: Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD
Compatibility: iPad only
Price: Free (with In-App Purchase of $6.99)
Deveoper/Publisher: G5

 

 

Jun 5 2014

Now Playing: Battleheart Legacy for iPhone and iPad

Ever played a game where you wanted to be the character who had a little bit of everything? Say, a spellcasting ninja master? Or a knight able to summon the undead? Or perhaps, a humble bard, purveyor of tale and song, yet able to take down long range enemies with a handy bow and arrow? Or do you want to have it all? Hero classes such as barbarian, knight, rogue, ranger, monk, witch, wizard, etc. are farmiliar archetypes in RPGs (role playing games) and are easily defined by the strengths and limitations of their powers and abilities… but in Battleheart Legacy, you can have it all.

battleheart on appSIZED

the original Battleheart

If you played the original Battleheart back in 2011, it was groundbreaking and original. What made it unique was that you could control four (4) of them at once simply by drawing lines from point A to point B, and activating a set of special powers and skills for each one. In Battleheart, you can freely experiment with with the party type system and develop your heroes’ skills, boost their stats with weapons and equipment to get these guys to work seamlessly together. Battleheart, in its own way, changed how we should design and play games on a touchscreen device. While there are many copycats, Battleheart remains unparalleled.

Now, in Battleheart Legacy, you are now a solo player and party-based combat is not used in this game. With Legacy employing a gameplay mechanic different from Battleheart, does it live up to the awesomeness of the original?

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May 31 2014

App Review: Goodreader 4 for iPhone and iPad

If there is one app out there that is the best toolbox that you’ll find for your iPad/iPhone, then Goodreader for iPad (Goodreader, for short) would be it. As a long time user (since 2010), I have come to rely on Goodreader for the tasks needed for my iPad that are usually only possible using a computer.

Goodreader 4 is said to be an even better version of an already great app. It’s currently available as a standalone app or as in-app purchase from one’s existing Goodreader app.

Need a toolbox of an app for your needs? Read on to find out!

 

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May 25 2014

Now Playing: Farmscapes HD (Premium) for iPad

Welcome to Farmscapes! In time for summer, there is a bored kid who is sent off to ‘farm camp’ with his grandpa after his parents notice that he plays too many video games during his free time. Armed with a sense of humr, an eye for business and a desire to keep things neat and clean, you accompany Tom to his grandpa Joe’s farm to make something out of the charming but poorly maintained place.

Playrix is one of my aboslute favorite publishers/developers when it comes to casual games. Their games are beautifully designed and highly polished, offering more than your usual time management or hiddn object title. Farmscapes HD (Premium), which was free for a limited time, is no exception. In this game, you help a kid and his grandpa restore his rundown farm into a beautiful and financially productive entreprise.

How, pray tell? Farmscapes HD (Premium) combines match three with hidden object gameplay in order for you to buy the necessary equipment and decorations to improve your farm.

Matching at least three of a kind is used to sell your wares to the local townfolk. Your wares form the ‘units’ that you have to mix and match – ultimately, you have to eliminate golden tiles scattered across the board in typical match three fashion. Later on, when you unlock new equipment/animals such as bees and livestock, you add units to the board. Each match three level is equivalent to a day at the market, and as a nice touch, people walk past and make all sorts of comments while buying.
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May 13 2014

Now Playing: Hearthstone (Heroes of Warcraft) for iPad

IMG_6207

It took me longer than it should to share my thoughts about this amazing new game, Hearthstone (Heroes of Warcraft) from Blizzard, best known for their incredible and genre-defining games, Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo. While these games are serious affairs, Hearthstone takes on a lighter note as its ordinarily fearsome and powerful characters are reduced to gorgeous, animated cards in a deck.

Hearthstone is a card game. If you’re not a big fan of these games (like I am) or if you’re new to them, then Hearthstone is by far the best introductory game you’ll find. Basically, you have a hero with his/her own respective skills and strengths, represented by specific cards. To boost your hero, you also have ‘neutral’ cards or cards that can be used for all classes of heroes. You have a deck of 30 cards and starting health of 30. Each turn gives you a specific number of mana corresponding to the mana required by the cards to be played. The goal is to defeat your enemy who may be AI (in practice mode) or a fellow player who is online (play mode, ranked mode or arena mode).

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May 3 2014

Now Playing: The Cursed Ship, Collector’s Edition HD for iPad

appSIZED the cursed ship
Dark, disturbing horror tales are a favorite subject of many hidden object games (HOGs). The Cursed Ship, Collector’s Edition HD by G5 Games is no exception. The story about Ondine, a Titanic-like luxury cruise ship, disappears in the late 1970’s and you step in on an assignment to search for the missing ship.
As the name implies, the ship Ondine is indeed cursed, and you have to navigate a treacherous and downright creepy environment searching for clues and a way out alive.
appSIZED the cursed ship 2
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