Mr. Crab [iOS]

Mr. Crab is a crab themed endless runner, or should that be endless jumper? Here you have to jump your way to the top, jumping on monsters, jumping on bosses and occasionally rolling things along. The game reminds me a lot of the Mario series, particularly Mario Galaxy, as although Mr. Crab is a 2D game, the way the world moves is reminiscent of moving across a planet in Mario Galaxy.

The only control you have in game is to touch the screen to jump. Hold for a long jump, tap for a short one. So you jump from platform to platform, do wall jumps and use walls to send you in the opposite direction. Timing is critical with Mr. Crab and if you don't time things right, you may see yourself plummeting back down to where you came from. You see instead of killing you, enemies send you flying back down levels. The game does stop you from falling too far though with platforms collapsing to block the way back after you have reached them. But this can make the game frustrating as you continuously are knocked back to where you came from with no end game screen or anything to stop your next attempt.

I found that the difficulty peaked and troughed with no rhyme or reason, some early levels were hard, some later levels were quite easy. I didn't mind this too much though, as it just meant I needed to really focus and learn what steps were ahead. The levels aren't too tedious as they are usually quite short, perfect for a mobile game. You also get to fight some interesting bosses along the way, although, again all you are doing is jumping on them until they are defeated but it does add to the variety of the overall experience.

Although it is simple, I think it's worth a play as there is something enchanting about the world. You scuttle along as a silly little crab, unlocking new worlds and crab outfits(!?), it just has this odd charm. Also it's free, though you can buy extra levels for a dollar which seems relatively fairly priced. Oh, I nearly forgot! You pick up baby crabs throughout the level which are so adorable, now, who doesn't want adorable crabs in their pants? Nobody worth knowing. 7.9/10

Hearthstone Beta

Aaaaargh! I have become addicted to this game, help me, it might be worse than this. Seriously though, Hearthstone might only be in beta but it is a great game. It's an online trading card game (TCG) developed by the folks at Blizzard and set in the world of Warcraft (pun not intended). It's free to play and to get into the beta all you need to do is register for it in your Battlenet account.

The game starts you out in a tutorial, which is perhaps a little longwinded and currently unskippable, at least users are reporting errors when they try to. Here you'll learn the basics like hero powers, what cards to play and when. There are 9 different heroes to choose from, each with a unique set of cards and hero power. All hero powers cost 2 mana to play and they really add to making each character distinct. Some examples of hero powers are the Warlock, who loses 2 life and draws a card or the Mage, who gets to deal one damage to any character on the board.

Cards are broken up into 3 types, spells, weapons and minions. Whilst there are cards of all types that are unique to heroes, there is a pool of neutral minions that anyone can select from. Decks are comprised of 30 cards and in Constructed mode you are limited to 2 of the same card. Constructed mode allows you to select cards from your collection, to battle it out in either casual or ranked play. You can also enter Arena mode by paying in-game gold, or real money. In Arena mode you select a hero and then a deck of 30 cards from cards randomly presented to you. There are no restrictions on how many of one card you have in this mode, which can make for some interesting decks. Playing in the Arena gives you rewards such as cards, gold and dust.

Like all TCGs a large part of the addiction factor is collecting the cards. Cards can be crafted by using dust and cards you don't need anymore can be disenchanted into dust, to make the cards you want. You can also buy packs of cards with gold and real money. I think this is a major factor in what got me hooked. There are a lot of cards to collect and creating a new deck with the shiny card you just won can be a lot of fun. And yes there are shiny cards; cards can either be standard or gold and the gold ones are animated and just look cool. The other factor is that you are given a quest everyday, which when you complete gives you gold, plus you can earn 10 gold for every 3 matches that you win. The combination of the addiction to collect and free rewards, has really sucked me in and makes me want to login everyday.

Now, onto the gameplay. It is very similar to Magic the Gathering and those sorts of card games, except it has a much better flow. There is no possibility to play a card on someone else's turn, instead you can play secrets, that are triggered when the other player meets the conditions. For example, the Counterspell secret card that Mages have, will be played on the Mages turn as an undisclosed secret. Then as soon as an opponent plays a spell, it will trigger, countering the spell. This actually speeds up gameplay a lot, as you no longer have to pause constantly and wait for someone to decide if they want to make an action. It is definitely a card game that is designed to be played on a computer and not the other way around. For me the constant flow of the game is what makes it so fun, it even has clever elements such as timed turns that get faster if someone doesn't complete their turn, i.e. goes AFK.

There are numerous glitches in the game as it is only still in the beta stage. Cards will go flying around the screen, there are flickers and odd graphical errors. Sometimes the music will stop, or the sound will appear distant, or distorted. However, the core engine is very solid and these errors rarely get in the way of the gameplay. It's always difficult to judge a game whilst it is still in beta but with the open beta already being pushed back by Blizzard I think they are going to take the time to get this right. Of course Blizzard are notorious for taking a long time with releasing their games, so it will be interesting to see how their first big foray into the world of free-to-play unfolds.

If you are looking for a fast paced action game this is not for you, however, if you want a tactical card game that your are going to end up addicted to look no further. Apply for the closed beta now, or wait for the open beta, which surely is just around the corner. Either way you better start building your card collection now and abandoning friends and family 8.8/10.

The Best Games of 2013 as Reviewed by AGS

So 2013 is over allegedly and all the developers have been far too busy eating and drinking to release much in the way of games over this silly season. So here is my top favourite games of 2013 plus one dishonourable mention.

Number 4: Sid Meier's Ace Patrol
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol was a bit of a surprise entry into the mobile world for Sid and now there is the sequel Pacific Skies. Sid Meier has done very little wrong in his career and this game shows why he is the king of turn based strategy. You can't go wrong in picking up this title or the sequel.

Number 3: Natural Selection 2

Can we use the term asymmetric gameplay whilst not talking about the Wii U. If we can then that would be the best way to describe Natural Selection 2. One team plays the aliens, the other the marines in a first person shooter view, whilst one commander on each team plays an RTS. You can't get much more asymmetrical than that, yet the game is still quite balanced and a hell of a lot of fun to play. It's 90% off right now on Steam which makes it ridiculous cheap but only for another 13 hours.

Number 2: Company of Heroes 2

A lot of titles have come and gone this year and often they have received rave reviews from the early press only to be much maligned come launch day. Company of Heroes 2 is the opposite of this, it got solid reviews but it wasn't overly hyped and it has just been getting better and better. A bunch of free content has been released and there has ben plenty of balancing patches to keep the game fair. Well worth the play if you like RTS or WWII games.

Number 1: Desktop Dungeons

It's a tough decision for me between Desktop Dungeons and Company of Heroes 2 for the number one spot but I chose Desktop Dungeons because it is so different to the bulk of titles out there. A tactical rogue-like, with kingdom building aspects is quite unique. If you are looking for something unique it is a pretty cheap game (also available on the Steam sale for another 13hrs) but beware, it is immensely challenging.

Dishonourable Mention

Mechwarrior Online was another title that got a high score from me this year and it was only officially launched in September. What I have realised after a lot of play is that this game was better in beta, in fact it was great. You would get a share of money to spend and then the whole game would be reset and you'd receive your money again. You could have so much fun with different builds and try out the new mechs and guns but now that it is fully released, it's a grind. You have to grind to get a gun and grind to get a chance to try the new mech, or spend a tonne of money. I already put $60 into it right from the start and I don't think I got a full games worth of value out of it.

The Tube Adventure

Sometimes you need something silly to play, whether you are unwinding at work, ignoring a loved one, or just plain bored out of your mind and the The Tube Adventure is the silliest of them all. I'm not going to write a review for this one as it's quite short but it is well worth many a play through. It's best not to try and make sense of it, just sit back and enjoy the madness. It's available for free anywhere Flash is.

My best score yet

Desktop Dungeons

Desktop Dungeons began it's life as a Game Maker game that is still available for download as a sort of demo of the game. It has changed a lot since then, including changing to a Unity based engine. As I too am making a game based in Game Maker, I was interested to play the original to see how much can be done with Game Maker and I was pretty impressed but for the purposes of this review let's look at the full version.

The original isn't as pretty as the full release.

There is a story of forging a new kingdom to ward off the monsters of the world or something but it is all rather silly. The main crux of the game is defeating dungeons and then using that gold to upgrade your kingdom. This will unlock new classes, races, items, etc for you to use in the dungeons. But don't think these upgrades will make the game any easier, quite often an upgrade will also let loose a new dangerous type of monster that will require new tactics to defeat. You really need to be focused when playing Desktop Dungeons as it is quite a challenging game. Dungeons will often take multiple tries to complete and the game explains that dying is learning. Often you just need to learn the pattern of the dungeon but as they quite often randomise key features you can't always rely on your memory. The random nature of the dungeons also means sometimes you get off to a horrible start and other times you find the items and enemies you need straight away. This can be immensely frustrating at times.

Look at those graphix

It's an odd style of gameplay where you just bash into your generally unmoving foes until they die. Then as you explore through the fog of war you regain health and mana. However, there are various additions that mix this all up. Magic plays a big role in this and can give you an edge in combat. So to do shrines. Worshipping at a shrine will grant you powerful benefits but the gods get angered by certain actions like drinking potions, or using magic, so you have to be careful. To switch up from just straight dungeon crawling all the time the game also offers puzzles. Puzzles have a specific way they are to be completed and are meant to teach you about the game. The thing that really tricked me with them is that you don't have to "win" them like you would a dungeon. In a dungeon to win you typically have to beat the strongest monster there but in a puzzle you just need to perform the actions in the correct order. I was trying so hard to be able to beat this one monster and when I figured out all I needed to do is hit it once, well, I was a bit shocked. I really think this could have been explained as it would have made it a lot easier. Oh well you die you learn.

 

I don't normally go for immensely challenging games as some others do but I got a lot of enjoyment out of Desktop Dungeons. There are some annoying issues and the game isn't going to win an award for it's graphical achievements but it has a lot of charm and character. It has a good balance of patient, tactical play and loot grabbing silliness to keep you coming back for more. Plus it's pretty cheap and on Steam, which means it will go on sale eventually, I say at the very least put it in your wishlist 8/10.

Band Stars [iOS]

Band Stars is a free to play, band simulation game. I was pretty excited to pick this up as the combination of being a rockstar plus Kairosoft style gameplay really appeals to me. If only it was as easy as playing this game to start a successful music career.

The game is divided into five different sections, firstly you have recording. Recording is the bread and butter of your group and is what you'll be doing most of the time. First you'll pick the label, the style and the lyrics of a song as well as one of your band members to write it. Then you select who should play what instrument on the track and if anyone will do a solo. Finally you choose someone to mix it. All of these different sections correlate to one of the five different skills, lyrics, creativity, melody, rhythm and polish. I am always confused by polish as they write it with a capital first letter. Who has the best Polish? It asks, umm... Next we have training. Training will improve your band members in one or multiple of the five skills as mentioned before. The higher their stats in these levels the better your song will do on the charts.

Hiring band members is the third section. You'll start the game with just four musos but you can have up to six working on a song at once, plus you can store others away in the VIP section. This allows you to collect the whole lot and complete all of their challenges which I'll get to shortly. Next comes upgrading. You can upgrade the look as well as the performance of all the instruments in your studio. You can also upgrade your furniture which allows your musicians to rest faster. Plus you can upgrade the strengths of your solos and because this is a free to play game you can also buy your various currencies here. Lastly we come to challenges which act as the quests of the game. You have various tasks to complete some of which come from the specific band members you have and some are just bonus challenges. Each musician has three challenges to complete which will provide you with various goodies for completing.

At first I was really sucked into this game. It slowly introduced new concepts and it felt like there was depth to this and it was slowly being fleshed out. But after a few hours I felt a little lost. There was still plenty to do but why am I doing it? Because it's free to play you'll have to play the waiting game with this one and you only seem to get rewarded with more waiting. The solo mini-game is boring you just occasionally tap to spend inspirado and there aren't really any other mini-games to play. Sure there are more challenges to complete but they are all essentially the same. Train someone in rhythm, train someone in polish etc., this game needs a little something more. I think this is what I don't understand about the way the free to play model is being implemented at the moment. You can pay to not wait but waiting is what the game is about.

The music is enjoyable if a bit generic at times but they do have to cover a lot of styles so that is understandable. Plus the presentation is great, it's colourful and cheerful. I still think it's worth a play because you will get some enjoyment out of it at first and perhaps some of you will feel hooked but in the longterm, you aren't going to even think about this game again 7/10.

Snail Dentist

So snails do have teeth, in fact they can have thousands of them. Luckily in this game you only have to deal with eight individual teeth. As far as I can tell this game is made by just one guy and it is based off a game that was released in October called Pumpkin Dentist. In fact I believe it is the same game just with a snail instead.

So right in front of you is a snail's head and it will open and shut it's mouth allowing you to clean its teeth. To clean its teeth you just need to touch on them until they turn white but if you try to clean its teeth whilst it's mouth is shut you will hurt it. Hurt it too many times and you fail the level. Also there is a timer and a little gremlin that want to ruin your day too. You do have some power-ups to combat all this. A toothbrush which cleans some teeth a bit, freeze will let you keep the damn snails mouth open for a while, and the finger? Well the finger just undoes all the times you hurt the poor snail.

There are just a bunch of odd things about the game. You are constantly bombarded by a message asking you to review or report a problem with the game. Eventually I thought why not leave a review so I hit the button and the whole thing crashed. The in app purchases aren't explained at all and it seems immensely dodgy to me, it just says 100. Is it going to charge you one hundred dollars? I am too scared to find out.

The only problem with this game is that it's boring, which is a fairly big problem for a video game. All you do is tap on the snails teeth every level. It isn't like Plants Vs. Zombies which throws in some new mini-games from time-to-time to keep you going. Still it is better than Ashes Cricket 2013 2.5/10.

Ashes Cricket 2013 [Windows]

Ashes Cricket 2013 is in contention for one of the worst games of all time. The game was released on Steam on the 22nd of November and then pulled on the 26th, for being too buggy and straight up terrible. Now it has been reported that the game has been cancelled by publisher 505 Games, though it seems to me that it is still unclear if the whole project is cancelled, or if they will send the developer Trickstar, back to the drawing board. Trickstar are an Australian developer based in Melbourne, so it is particularly sad to see them drop the ball on this one. Anyway, what is this game actually it like?

The graphics are just atrocious, the models look like something from years ago. The crowd just stand around with their hands in their pockets. The animations are shocking, sometimes a player will throw the ball backwards which looks pretty hilarious but I'm sure was not what was intended. At least they managed to get all the sponsorship signs on the stands, I guess. The music is alright but the commentary makes no sense most of the time. They will tell me how the batsmen was terrible to miss that ball, even though it's called a wide, plus it gets quite repetitive.

Where the hell are his eyes?

The controls are terrible and there is no explanation of them nor is there any customization. If you are going to play with a keyboard you need to go here to learn the keys. Yes in order to learn the keys to play the game you have to go to a third party website. I can't even imagine what they are thinking. If you play with a controller be prepared to use the keyboard and then the controller in no specific order and for no logical reason. Like all cricket games you need to learn the right timing and placement of your shots and bowls but honestly I have no inspiration to want to learn it in this game. Without a tutorial to get you started you are left alone to figure it out and with an option to see the controls in the game you have to alt-tab out to your browser. What a frustrating mess.

Even if the game does re-release without a single bug it's still going to be just a simple cricket game. You get to play 20-twenty matches, ODIs or tests, which is fine but there is no career mode or anything off the beaten track. Don Bradman Cricket 14, which had a little preview in Melbourne on the 7th of November, is going to have a full career mode where you can work your way up through the ranks and it looks like they are actually going to take the time to put out a finished game. I give this abortion of a game 2/10.

Crusader No Remorse

Crusader No Remorse was originally released back in 1995 and it's now available on GOG for $5.99 USD. I never played it in it's heyday though I really wanted to get it. Your character looks like Boba Fett and therefore oozes cool, also you've got no remorse so obviously you're killing and blowing things up indiscriminately. The story goes that you are a super soldier who originally is part of the immensely corrupt World Economic Consortium but after botching a mission where you were meant to kill civilians, you decide to join the resistance. I think it is a cool story even if it is played out in cheesy 90's, I can see each pixel, CD video. The GOG version runs DOSBox to make it compatible with your modern PC so very little has changed.

The first thing I noticed about this game was how clunky the controls are. Aiming with the mouse is terrible, aiming with the keys is too slow. Searching for loot and hitting switches takes far too long. The controls will see you going all over the keyboard for the buttons that you need and to figure this out you're gonna need to read the manual. The problem is every time I alt-tabbed out the game would permanently get stuck in tiny window mode, which is frustrating and makes me miss the printed manuals of old. Eventually I got the hang of it and I must say it is great to have a lot of control but it doesn't compare with modern games. I think it is a shame that there is no added controller support as this would have made it easier to play. The worst part was when shooting if you got too close to an enemy you wouldn't hit it, same with being too far. Also, the enemies seem capable of hitting you from the strangest angles that you yourself cannot achieve.

One of the coolest features at the time was how interactive the world was and it still stands out in this regard. You can basically blow up everything, hell, you can even blow up metal guard rails which makes no sense. There are a lot of traps and secrets to interact with that help to keep the world interesting. Some traps are as simple to get past as switching off a valve but there are more devious ones such as, hidden sensors traps that blanket the room in grenades and annoying walls that zap you with electricity. The game is also about finding loot, you must loot everything to survive! Like every other game like this, RPGs, Farcry, etc., picking up every bit of ammo and money gets tedious after a while but due to the clunky controls in Crusader No Remorse you'll feel it even quicker.

I honestly did have fun with Crusader No Remorse but I also had a lot of frustrations. I encountered a lot of bugs from in game traps not triggering right, to plain ol' disappearing off the screen at times. I didn't realise how long each mission was at first and that it is crucial to save at all times. Slowly but surely I made progress and got the hang of things. Still, I think this game is best left to those who played it back in the day and loved it, or those that really wanted to play it back then and are willing to give it a lot of time now 6/10.

Clumsy Ninja [iOS]

Clumsy Ninja is a pay-to-not-wait style game which puts you in charge of training a ninja and yes, he is clumsy. The ninja's sister has disappeared after fighting a mysterious villain and it is up to you to train him hard enough to get her back. It plays more like a virtual pet simulator than anything else.

The bulk of the game is spent training your ninja in one of four mini games. The first is a trampoline and in terms of gameplay this one is pretty boring. You have to slide the trampoline back and forth to keep him from falling off and slowly he will learn how to do new moves. Next up is punching bag training. I feel this one is fairly satisfying to watch but you don't really do anything but hold up the bag for him. Then you have my favourite mini game where you throw various things at your ninja like watermelons or basketballs and he has to learn to defend them. Lastly is the practice dummy. You don't do anything with the practice dummy except put it back in the ring if the ninja knocks out it. I wish the game was a bit more interactive.

Then you have the "Fun Stuff" section which includes some other training options and some general silliness. You get things like balloons and boxes, potions that make your ninja do a variety of silly things like get really dizzy or spin uncontrollably. You can combine some of these items with the training tools for some interesting results. For example, I set up a ninja tower from the fun stuff section, put the ninja on top and had him jump down onto the trampoline. Watching the ninja go flying after bouncing off the trampoline was pretty funny to me and this game really aims to be humourous. However it mostly falls short from my perspective but kids are bound to love it's simple slapstick comedy. One of the oddest attempts at humour is the basketball hoops you get. These will provide experience to your ninja every time you shoot him through a hoop.

In app purchases are handle by ways of buying coins or gems, plus there is also a "Holiday Box" purchase too. $2.99 AUD is the cheapest option you can buy which I think is a little silly. A dollar is about all I would want to spend on a game like this personally and there isn't that option. Coins and gems allow you to buy new equipment or recharge the equipment you already have. Once you have used a piece of equipment with the ninja a timer will start showing you how long you have before you can use it. You can get a lot of this game for free though because instead of paying to wait for some items to recharge you can watch a video, tweet or post to Facebook about the game. The Holiday Box adds a snow filled world with various activities set to coincide with winter in the Northern Hemisphere. 

The graphics, sounds and music of this game are all top notch. The way the clumsy ninja is animated is quite outstanding. Though at times he seems like a simple rag doll, as he learns new moves he gets a lot more interesting. At first when you throw him up into the air he will just collapse in a heap but eventually he learns to land like a ninja pro, which looks really cool. Whilst you can't flaw this game for its aesthetics, it's such a shame that more time wasn't spent on the gameplay. All the mini games are too simple and whilst there is some connectivity between training apparatuses it is very limited. To sum it all up, if you are looking for a ninja pet to keep and sometimes play with this is a good option. Just don't expect it to keep your interest for long 6.9/10.