Posts Tagged ‘kingdom rush

19
Jun
13

iPad Game Review: Kingdom Rush Frontiers

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: SlickTiger and the iPad2
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I was pretty fired up when I found out that Ironhide Studios was making a sequel to Kingdom Rush, because as a general rule game sequels (unlike movie sequels) are almost always better than their predecessors.

Making a game better than one of the best iPad games I’ve ever played is no easy feat. If you haven’t played Kingdom Rush, do yourself a favour. It is honestly one of the tightest games I’ve ever played.

Could Kingdom Rush: Frontiers top its predecessor? Could lightning strike the same flippin game twice? The answer is a resounding YES from your Tiger Pal, and here’s why…

First off to the uninitiated, KR:F is a classic tower defence game where you build defences on designated building sites along a pathway with the aim of destroying any bad guys walking along that pathway before they get to the end point.

 

 

It’s a simple premise, but trust me, shit ramps up pretty fast and before you know it, you’re elbows-deep in strategy, trying to figure out the most effective way to take the bad guys down and prevent them from bulldozing a path through your defences.

As with the first KR, you can choose one of four basic towers to build: Archers, Barracks, Mages and Dwarven Artillery.

Each has its own merits and weaknesses, adhering to classic gaming archetypes (ie. archers are quick but deal out low damage, barracks produce soldiers that can take punishment but also deal low damage, mages deal high damage but are slow and dwarves deal the highest damage but are the slowest).

What makes the game highly addictive though are the vicious enemies the developers think up to throw one spanner after the next into your carefully thought-out defence strategy and the awesome way the towers upgrade.

 

 

After you’ve upgraded a tower three times, you get the option of changing it into one of two specialist towers. The new specialist towers in KR:F are:

  • The Assassin’s Guild and the Knights Templar for the Barracks
  • The Crossbow Fort and the Windwalkers Totem for the Archer Tower
  • The Necromancer Tower and the Archmage Tower for the Mage Tower
  • The Battle-Mecha T-200 and the DWAARP for the Dwarven Artillery

Once you’ve created a specialist tower, it can be further enhanced with a number of special abilities to kick some serious bad guy ass.

The Crossbow Fort for example can be given the special ability to fire multiple flaming arrows at enemies, it’s like a burst of baddie-annihilating machinegun fire.

The Windwalkers Totem can be given special abilities that amplify damage and remove any magical spells the bad guys cast on their henchmen to make them more powerful.

It’s a water-tight system made even more awesome because of the incredible attention to detail Ironhide has put into this game. Finish a level having let 2 or less bad guys through and you get three stars which you can use to boost your various  towers’ abilities even further.

This gives you more than enough incentive to keep at the levels until you ace them and to play the levels at the two higher difficulty levels (Heroic and Iron Challenge) for an additional two stars.

What’s great about KR:F is that they’ve overhauled the entire Hero system and made it MUCH better than in the original KR game (you can choose one hero to fight alongside your army who typically deals a shiteload of damage and is a huge asset).

 

 

This time around, your Hero levels up steadily throughout the game instead of only levelling up during a level and then starting from level 1 again on the next level. Also, as they level up they get skill points you can assign to different abilities to make them even more badass.

What I also liked about KR:F is that there are six new non-upgradeable towers that are available on different levels where you can buy everything from genies to legionnaires to corsairs and Spear Maidens.

They’ve also introduced a lot of fun, random things into the game like a monkey on one of the levels that throws bananas at the bad guys, a giant desert worm that surfaces periodically on one of the levels and devours anything (good guys and bad guys alike) in its path and giant man-eating carnivorous plants on another level.

They levels play out first in desert setting, moving to uncharted jungle and ending in underground caves full of crocodile-men out to fuck your shit up.

 

 

It’s a great game by anyone’s standards. My only complaint are the goddamn in-game purchases which, in some instances, cost more than the game itself.

There are currently 9 Heroes in the release version of the game of which three are unlockable and the other six you have to buy. There is also a shop available for idiots who need to buy things like dynamite and nukes to help them finish the levels (granted, they do get VERY tricky, but c’mon! There is no excuse for buying stuff so you can finish the game quicker, it doesn’t make logical sense – you’re paying to finish a game faster and ultimately, enjoy it for a shorter period of time).

I think they should unlock more heroes or bring down the cost to buy them. The best hero available, the dragon Ashbite, costs $6.99! What a joke!

That aside, you’ll still get plenty enjoyment out of the three unlockable Heroes in the game, so buying additional ones is not essential to completing the game in any way.

The game costs $2.99 for the normal version and $4.99 for the HD version from the iStore.

Final verdict: 9/10

-ST

29
Jan
13

The Three Types Of iPad Games

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: SlickTiger and the iPad2
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iPad-mini-blackI must be one of the biggest dooses on the planet when it comes to owning an iPad.

I mean here you have this super effective tool that can streamline your entire life, it can basically turn you into a super-human with the right combination of apps and what do I use mine for?

Games. Shitloads of games.

Oh, and FlipBoard – that app rocks. But if you had to take those two things off my ipad, all it would be is a very expensive paperweight.

On the odd occasion I take it into meetings and people are like, “What cool apps do you have?” I always flip the cover back on guiltily and bark “NOTHING!” before it’s too late and they realise what a dork I am.

So I’d say I’m pretty well-versed when it comes to iPad games, having played and completed more than I can remember but I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to be the case because I swear to God iPad games are designed to do one thing and one thing only – take your money.

 

 

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, so here’s a breakdown of the 3 different kinds of iPad games out there, listed from the best kind to the worst kind:

1. Free games that are rad and don’t bleed you dry:

These are the best kind of iPad games and the rarest to actually find.

These days, if an iPad game is free you can almost bet your bottom dollar that you will get bent over the table by “in-app purchases” and bombarded with ads for other games by the same publisher until your eyes bleed.

Some examples of rad free games that are challenging to play but not impossible to complete without spending money on in-app purchases are:


ZOMBIE HIGHWAY

 

 

One of the first games I got for my iPad. Sure, you can spend real money on unlocking the weapons but it’s not too tricky to unlock everything in the game if you put in the hours.

The gameplay is pretty straight-forward, you drive down a highway, tilting the iPad to steer and shooting / smashing zombies into the other cars around you as they latch onto your car and try to tip it over.

Also, it has arguably one of the best taglines I’ve read on a game in ages: “Your goal is to survive. But you won’t".


HUNGRY SHARK EVOLUTION

 

 

A game I downloaded over Christmas and immediately got hooked on. Again, the premise here is simple – you’re a shark whose life slowly drains unless you eat EVERYTHING YOU SEE!

As you feed, your shark levels up and gets bigger. Once you’ve hit level 10, the next shark is unlocked. Eating golden fish / turtles / humans gives you coins that you use to increase your speed, bite and boost.

Sure, the game does have a gem system where gems are notoriously difficult to come by but can buy you some cool added stuff in the game, but it’s not essential to buy any of this stuff to complete the game.

Again, this game is just challenging enough that you won’t crack it in under 10 hours but not so much so that it’s impossible to complete without spending real money.

 

 

2. Free games that are rad and DO bleed you dry

“Hey wow, this game looks SICK! And it’s FREE! How motherflippin’ awesome is that?!”

Pretty awesome. Until you’ve been playing the game for a few hours and start to realise that it’s fucking impossible to get anywhere without spending real money!

Here’s the best example that comes to mind…

CLASH OF CLANS

 

 

Clash Of Clans is currently the top grossing game in the iStore because why? Because it’s the sneakiest fucking iPad game you’re ever likely to find.

In the game there are three basic forms of currency: gold, elixir and gems. Gold and elixir you can mine (at a painfully slow rate), but gems you can only get for completing goals and moving random rocks and trees from your map and when you do so, you get them in tiny quantities.

It’s a classic strategy game where you build a village, train up troops and attack other clans. The graphics are pretty awesome and the gameplay is fun so it’s easy to get hooked.

 

 

Here’s the rub though – each time you upgrade one of your buildings / defences in the game, it takes slightly longer that the time before.

At first it’s a small amount of time; maybe 10 / 15 minutes. Even then you’re like “What, 15 real minutes or 15 game minutes?” Yeah, it’s 15 REAL minutes of watching something upgrade. Woo. Hoo.

So you go make yourself a cup of coffee and come back and hey presto it’s done, no biggie.

BUT that 15 minutes soon becomes 30, then an hour, then 12 hours, then 1 day, then 3 days, then I shit you not 4 days to fucking upgrade something!

Of course, you can speed the entire process up to happen instantly IF you spend gems, but to give you an idea, a 3-day upgrade needs about 500 gems to speed up. If you buy a “Pile Of Gems” (the smallest amount you can buy, 500 gems) it costs you $4.99.

So you’ve just paid R45 to upgrade your imaginary gold mine. What. The. Fuck?

Tell me you feel that!

 

 

Games like this are becoming all to frequent, but they’re not the worst kind.

The worst kind is…

3. Games you PAY FOR and that BLEED YOU DRY

The worst kind. You fork out a good $5 for a game thinking, this looks awesome and I’m pretty sure isn’t going to fleece me for every cent I have because, you know, I’ve already paid for it.

Wrong again bucko. That amount you forked out was just a down payment. If you really want to get anywhere in this game you better be ready to fork out some serious cashola.

A prime example is:


THE INFINITY BLADE SERIES

Infinity Blade is not a cheap game. You’re looking at $5.99 to buy the first one and $6.99 for the second and it’s a big download (595MB). But man-o-man is it an awesome game.

The graphics are stunning, the hack-and-slash gameplay is awesome and the enemies scale up in difficulty perfectly as you progress into the game.

Then shit starts slowing down BIG TIME.

The only way you can level up in the game is through the items you carry. The experience points you accumulate when you kill enemies goes into your items until they fill up to the max and you master them.

 

 

Problem is, once something is mastered, any experience points that would have gone into that item are immediately forfeited. In other words, once an item is mastered it immediately becomes almost useless because it can no longer fill up with experience points.

Your only choice is to wait to pick up another unmastered item or buy one using the gold you collect in the game. Of course, the cost of the items in the game far outweighs the amount of gold you pick up so once again, you’re forced to use real life money to buy fake money.

Or you just slowly and painfully collect gold while all your rad items max out and you stop levelling up almost entirely.

iPad game developers need to sort their shit out and stop making games whose only purpose is to extort money from us.

I don’t mind paying even up to $7 or $8 for a game as long as the game is awesome and I don’t get eyeball-raped by ads or made to spend more money because the difficulty level has scaled up from “retardedly simple” to “insanely difficult” after 5 hours of gameplay.

Cool examples of games like these include Kingdom Rush, Machinarium, The Remade Monkey Island Games and Contre Jour.

Other iPad games could learn a thing or two from those titles.

-ST

08
May
12

iPad Game Review: Kingdom Rush

By SlickTiger 2 Comments
Categories: SlickTiger and the iPad2
Tags: , , , , ,

kingdom rush squareI heard about Kingdom Rush from a tweet I picked up from @wobblyonion, managing editor of www.lazygamer.net, who tweeted that while he generally doesn’t play iPad games, he was going batshit for Kingdom Rush.

I hit up the iStore to read some user reviews and was pretty blown away by the fact that EVERY REVIEW published had given the game 5 stars.

There had to be a catch. There’s no way an iPad game could legitimately get 5 star reviews across the board. Thing is, having played it for the last 3 weeks I can vouch for it. It IS legit. Kingdom Rush is that awesome. And here’s why.

In a nutshell

Kingdom Rush is a tower defence game, meaning you build different towers at specific points along a pathway to stop the advancing hordes of bad guys who get bigger, faster and meaner with every oncoming “wave”.

Your four basic tower types are Archery, Barracks, Mage’s Guild and Artillery. Each has different strengths and weaknesses that follow standard RPG lore.

 

 

The Archery Towers don’t do a lot of damage but are fast, Barracks towers deploy troops that engage and slow down the badguys, but unless you upgrade them the troops die quickly, Mage’s Guilds do medium damage but are slower than Archery Towers and Artillery Towers do massive damage but are the slowest of the lot.

Your placement of your towers is crucial in deciding the outcome of a level, as is your choice of which tower to upgrade when. Upgrade a tower three times and on the fourth upgrade, two new tower types become available.

So instead of just making standard troops, on your fourth Barracks upgrade you can turn it into a Barbarian Hall, which makes axe-wielding Barbarians, or a Holy Order that spits out armour-clad Paladins.

 

 

You are given a set amount of gold at the beginning of a level to get started and you earn more gold with every bad guy you obliterate.

Ideally, you don’t want more than one or two bad guys at the most to make it through the gauntlet of towers you set up. Get this right and you’ll earn 3 stars at the end of every level.

You then use those stars to buy permanent upgrades for your towers that increase the strength of your attacks and reduce the amount of gold it costs to build them, a sneaky incentive to make you want to ace every level.

 

 

What makes it awesome

The attention to detail in this game and the tight-as-a-drum level and character design are what make Kingdom Rush awesome.

It also scales up in difficulty enough that it doesn’t scare you off from the outset, but does offer a solid challenge that veteran gamers will sink a good couple of hours / days / weeks into.

What I also loved is that an update was recently released for the game that allows you to unlock “Hero” characters once you’ve earned 15 stars. These characters level up and add a nice extra layer to the gameplay. The only downside is that three of the six heroes have to be bought for $0.99 once you’ve unlocked them, but to be honest I’ll gladly chip in the extra $2.97 for this awesome game.

 

TOTAL TIME SPENT PLAYING: I’d estimate I’ve sunk about 30 or 40 hours into this game so far and still have about another 15 or 20 to go before I’ve unlocked the whole game
TOTAL ENJOYMENT LEVEL: 97%
FINAL VERDICT: I love the quote Jayisgames gave Kingdom Rush: “Kingdom Rush can be filed in the thin folder marked ‘games that are pretty much perfect’”. I agree 100%. If you have an iPad why are you still reading this? Go buy this game immediately and smash it in your FACE!

-ST