Destiny Companion

The stats of Destiny in a rounded, neat package.

As the collective eyes of the gaming community are fixed pretty heavily on Destiny this week, I thought I might have a look at its companion app to see how useful these things actually are.

It turns out Destiny Companion is a good download to have while you are attempting to fight Earth’s enemies across the stars, if not a completely necessary one. Unlike other Companions, it doesn’t seem to provide any in-game bonuses or extra features, but it does give you a well presented summary of stats, facts and updates for hardcore players to peruse.

After going through a brief sign-in process, you’re taken to a home screen detailing the latest news and updates for the game. From there, a side menu gives you a number of options, although your first stop will probably be checking in on your Warlock, Titan or Hunter to see them lovingly recreated in statistical form.

Everything from your current equipment to undertaken bounties and challenge progress is recorded, and navigating is as simple as swiping left and right. You can also look at an extensive run-down of your achievements across all of the game’s modes and missions, with the app even telling you your kill/death ratio across story levels as well as PvP matches .

All of this info can be compared with your friends’ campaigns, which should inspire some healthy competition as the game grows. Nonetheless, aside from a few features, most of this stuff is just as easily accessible in-game. It’s a testament to Destiny’s inventory screen that a dedicated companion app might actually slow you down, and its not going to have you pausing play to look at your phone any time soon.

However, this isn’t to say that the companion is completely obsolete. In particular, anyone interested in looking deeper into the game’s story and characters will be delighted to find the app collects and stores Grimoire cards you’ve found in-game. Grimoire cards are unlocked through progress in all of Destiny’s activities, with some of them providing extra info about the game’s post-apocalpytic setting you won’t find elsewhere. As a lot of reviews have claimed they felt the story was a bit anaemic, this app might be a good way to bolster the narrative slightly.

Moreover, Destiny’s outwardly social bent is reflected by its Companion, which does a lot to bring you into its community even if you aren’t a regular forum poster. The app is perfect for getting updates on what’s going on quickly, allows you to browse forums for tips and expertise from other gamers, and even join online groups and clans. Most importantly, it’ll tell you when your friends are playing, which gives you more than a little incentive to abandon whatever you’re up to and jump back into the fight.

Destiny’s companion app might not be a must-have, but it’s very well presented and does a great job of keeping you in the loop when you aren’t in front of your TV wiping out aliens. It’s free too, so there’s no reason not to give it a punt, if only for the statistical bragging rights.

Destiny Companion is out now on iOS. Developer: Bungie Website

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

Valiant Art.

Recently released to critical acclaim on consoles, Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a grim tale of survival seen through the eyes of four unlikely friends as they endure what might be one of the most brutal video game depictions of war in recent memory.

The game spans the gruelling events of 1914 to 1918, steadily introducing us to its protagonists; Carl, a German soldier deported from France at the outbreak of war; Emile, Carl’s father-in-law who’s been drafted into the French army; Freddie, an American who joins the French war effort voluntarily and finally Anna, a battlefield nurse from Belgium.

Together, the four take on an unflinching tour of the major battles of World War 1 in an adventure that manages to feel more harrowing and real in its detailed 2D landscape than any Call of Duty or Medal of Honor title.

But while Valiant Hearts saw success on bigger screens, sadly I found the recent iOS port to be a frustrating affair. Frankly, this is a game that deserves to be played on a TV, and not just because anything is more immersive than craning your neck at an iPad screen, but because the game too often became a chore thanks to clunky, unresponsive controls.

While its visuals and side-scrolling gameplay are at least better suited to the iPad than the recently ported Bioshock, the game still features mechanics requiring a responsiveness that’s hard to meet on a touch screen.

The biggest problem is simply in the way the game handles movement on apple devices. On-screen buttons have clearly been removed to showcase as much of the environments as possible, and outwardly this makes sense given that the gloomy trenches, battlefields, desecrated cities and ruins in which the game takes place still look absolutely fantastic on a retina display.

It’s only once you start playing that the cracks in the design begin to show. Moving Carl, Anna, Emile and Freddie requires you to hold down either side of the screen, meaning you have no direct control over their movement. As a consequence, whenever the game requires precision, which is in the majority of its environmental puzzles and stealth sections, getting your character in the right position can be a pain, even more so when you’re having to throw objects or push things around under pressure.

Matters aren’t particularly helped by Walt, your trained pooch who is as loyal and well-meaning as ever, but one of the game’s biggest grievances where its puzzles are concerned. He’s still just as likely to worm his way into your heart with his playful yelping and surprising adeptness at pulling levers, but occasionally he just won’t do what you ask of him, leading to awkward moments where you’ll be screaming at him to regroup with you, or chasing him around to get a quest item out of his mouth like in a Simpsons episode.

The iPad version is also host to a number of glitches, a couple of them game-breaking. The sticky controls make it awkward enough to move to objects and pick them up, but in some cases I had to restart levels because the tap command to pick up vital objects didn’t appear at all.

As a consequence of irksome controls, Valiant Hearts’ strongest moments are actually when it takes a more on-the-rails approach. Driving segments in which Anna hurtles a ramshackle taxi towards the screen, avoiding various obstacles that appear in time to stirring classical music, remain inspired and exciting. Meanwhile, hopping in a tank to shoot planes from the sky as Freddie is a welcome change in pace at the game’s midpoint.

Nevertheless, these moments are fleeting, and the majority of Valiant Hearts takes place with item in hand, attempting to get the hang of movement controls that never really fall into place. A shame, because the puzzles, although not mind-bendingly difficult, are fun and satisfying to play through. The backdrop of the war leads to some interesting scenarios, such as mining sequences in which Emile digs underground passages while avoiding buried bomb shells, or a mission in which Carl must escape a POW camp by hiding behind a moving pack of sheep.

Overwhelmingly, the flaws of the iOS version of Valiant Hearts make it hard to recommend over other platforms. However, if you have any interest in WW1 and a console, this is the game for you. Text box pop-ups appear with regular extra historical information, and collectible items allow you a museum-esque glimpse at some of the equipment and memorabilia involved. It’s a feature which didn’t need to be included in a game that’s already this strong at setting the scene, but it’s a nice touch by the developers for those interested in delving further.

Above all, despite the cartoonish look of its lead characters and a villainous German general who’s a bit too much of a caricature, the game shines at giving a perspective on war that you rarely see covered in video game form. Valiant Hearts scores big points for focusing not just on the conflict but the actual people involved in it. You’d be hard-pressed to find a game that makes you feel sympathy for everyone there, not just the characters in the foreground who you are moving around (or attempting to, at least).

Unsurprisingly, it’s a bleak and absolutely heartbreaking journey at times. For a 2D game in which characters do little more than mumble short phrases at each other for instruction, you’ll have nothing but support for the four heroes as woe upon woe falls upon them. I’ve still not broken the seal for crying at a game, but Carl’s attempts to reunite with the wife he’s forced to abandon at the start of the war very nearly had me in Birdsong levels of blubbering.

Ultimately, whether you want a beautifully drawn, beautifully scored alternative to the deluge of historical war games, or if you are just hankering to play a new adventure title with thoughtful puzzles, you owe it to yourself to play Valiant Hearts. But not the iOS version. While not unplayable, it’s simply too distracting from the game’s atmosphere to be having your own personal war with its controls. However traumatic it’s meant to be, Valiant Hearts is a work of art, and deserves far more than that.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War  is out now on iOS. Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier Website

Robot Dance Party

Do androids dream of an electric beat? 

In a deviation from the standard robot role in video games as murderous antagonist or cannon fodder, Robot Dance Party sees agitated androids hitting the dance floor to body pop and moonwalk the night away.

On opening the game for the first time, you create your own robot from a selection of parts before taking them out for a tutorial level. Before you know it, cogs and gears are flying all over the place as your mechanical creation starts shaking its pistons like there’s no tomorrow.

Your actual interaction with Robot Dance Party, apart from staring in bewilderment at a cyborg recreating Saturday Night Fever, is in tapping and sliding various onscreen prompts when they appear in time to music. Some prompts need to be held down, while others need to be tapped once or repeatedly, and so on.

As you go through the game’s meagre collection of songs, increasingly complex moves are introduced, with higher difficulty settings throwing more prompts at you to deal with. The cost of missing a step is a mistake from your robot and a reduction in your total score, but there’s no game over for cocking up a la Guitar Hero/Rockband.

At its best, Robot Dance Party is quite reminiscent of Elite Beat Agents, with the combination of catchy tapping in time to the music and the ludicrous display of mechanical manoeuvres going on in the background making it hard not to smile. The robotic dance animations are never going to match the moves of the real superimposed dancers in the Just Dance games, but they’re goofy enough to chuckle at.

Unfortunately, the game suffers from a woeful lack of staying power, not just because the songs are a truly awful mishmash of forced EDM sounds and robo-puns, but because of the way the game pads itself out. You have to keep repeating the same levels over and over to gain experience before unlocking more levels, by which time you’ll be so sick of a poorly autotuned woman drawling out binary code as backing vocals that it doesn’t seem worth the effort.

What’s more, customisation is made less enticing by the fact that only the robotic parts you are currently using level up, giving your score a boost and taking you one step towards escaping binary woman’s early work, before you can head onto her later stuff where she really started going downhill (or presumably she did, I didn’t actually get that far).

Robot Dance Party at least has the good sense to incorporate a multiplayer mode, and is probably silly enough on its own merits to warrant a free download, especially if the idea of a robot doing a Michael Jackson impression appeals. But after the novelty wears off and you’ve left the app alone for a bit, you probably won’t be saying “I’ll be back.” (That’s from Terminator. I’ll try harder next time.)

Robot Dance Party is out now on iOS and Android. Developer: DeNA Corp. Website

Epic Eric

Epic Eric may just keep you up at Knight.

Taking the one-touch platformer to new levels of addictive, Epic Eric is a classic damsel in distress tale that has you swinging, jumping and in some cases flopping your way to the rescue.

Across the game’s three medieval environments, you’ll play as stalwart knight Eric as he attempts to reach his star-crossed lover waiting on the right hand side of the screen. To get there you’ll have to negotiate a number of moving platforms and spinning cogs and gears by tapping to hop from point to point.

Fall to the ground or fly helplessly off screen and you’ll have to start over again, although levels are never so long that the game becomes frustrating. Far from it, in fact.

Timing and momentum are Eric’s most important assets from the get-go. Every time you attach to a spinning cog, an arrow helpfully points the direction the knight will travel on your next jump. As levels get harder, you’ll come across cogs that move only with the speed of Eric’s jump, meaning you’ll have to work to prevent your momentum fizzing out or risk Eric’s quest ending face down in a puddle.

Add to the mix moving platforms which often double up as launchpads and three collectible stars that ask you to use cogs in interesting new ways and you’ve got a game that makes every successful manoeuvre feel sweeter than the kiss of a princess (or something less cringeworthy).

The game certainly has more than a little Mario to it, not just because you’re trying to save what seems to be Princess Peach’s lost twin sister, or even because each level ends with Eric sliding down a familiar flagpole. It’s also because Epic Eric is just as addictive, and inspires the same level of determination that’ll stop you from getting on with anything else until the brave knight is reunited with his swooning girlfriend .

Unfortunately, Epic Eric won’t take you that long to beat, with only a handful of levels to play through and stars that aren’t too taxing to reach once you’ve got into the swing of things.

However there are clearly plans to update the game with more stages later on, and it feels like Epic Eric is still very much at the tip of the iceberg, not just because of its currently limited environments but because of all the potential mechanics and puzzles that its simple, fun play style could accommodate in the future.

Overall, in terms of being a game thats easy to pick up and enjoy, all cogs are running smoothly where Epic Eric is concerned. Now we just need more of it. And possibly a Bowser ripoff.

Epic Eric is out now on iOS. Developer: 232 Studios Ltd Website

Almightree: The Last Dreamer

Almightree: The Last Dreamer has just enough tension to overcome its sloppy controls.

Despite apparently swiping some visual ideas from Bastion and a main character design from a Final Fantasy game, Almightree: The Last Dreamer’s gameplay couldn’t be more different.

In Almightree, You play as a blond-haired boy running for his life while the world collapses around him. The only way for him to set things straight is to revive the saplings of an Almightree, a powerful tree that might just restore balance and stability to the universe. It’s a decent set up for the scenario, and is dwelled on just long enough to give the game context without thrusting the narrative in your face every two minutes.

In each of the game’s 20 stages, your goal is simply to traverse a set of blocky platforms to the end of the level where an Almightree sapling lies waiting to be revived. There’s not just one catch, but two. The first: segments of the levels are incomplete, asking you to move blocks from place to place to form stairways that allow you to progress. The second: While you try to work out how to get to the next area, the world is constantly collapsing behind you. Take too long to advance, and you’ll fall with it.

Almightree’s main challenge is in finding the right blocks to move and working out where to put them. Thankfully, the stages often (although notably not always) provide some alternate routes, preventing them from becoming too frustrating an exercise in trial and error.

However, the method of moving blocks, which the game calls “plantsportation”, can take a while to get your head around. Instead of directly picking blocks up you first have to select where you want them to be transported, which feels a little counterintuitive, so much so that you’ll still be running back and forth, forgetting the order you’re supposed to do things in, even in the latter stages in the game.

When you do finally get the hang of it, Almightree still suffers from movement controls that aren’t quite as reliable as they should be. You’ll spend a lot of time descending from areas you climbed up accidentally, or just trying to get the little blond bastard to walk in the right direction. The directional buttons appear sensitive when you don’t want them to be, and unresponsive when you do, which can land you in trouble when the world begins moving erratically beneath your feet.

But even if the controls aren’t always doing what you ask of them, Almightree is still decently paced, with new challenges being introduced every few levels to shake things up. Unmovable metal blocks and impassable thorn-covered plants force you to think differently about how you place your blocks, while bunches of flowers that shock you if you walk over them at the wrong time, if a little arbitrary, add an extra element of timing to the gameplay.

All these obstacles combined with the constant threat of the level being destroyed in your wake creates a level of suspense decidedly scarier than the game’s cutesy visuals might suggest. The feeling of relief when you just barely get past an area before the wobbling blocks you were standing on fall away into nothingness is palpable, even more so when you find out there are no in-game checkpoints. Almightree isn’t messing around, and spending 5 minutes on a level before failing and having to start over can be excruciating.

Generally, the selection of annoyances that accompany Almightree’s gameplay do enhance the levels of stress you’ll feel while playing it, but this can be a good thing. After all, the first Resident Evil games would have been much less scary if you could move while shooting and control the camera. But it makes for an experience that will be a little too hectic for iOS gamers who prefer to work at puzzles at their own measured pace.

Almightree: The Last Dreamer isn’t quite a dream come true, but for those that can handle its issues, it’s not a complete nightmare either. The game will be fairly repayable for collectors who want to pick up every hard-to-reach egg collectible dotted around the stage, and anyone who wants to relive the thrill of the chase that gives Almightree a unique edge over other 3D puzzle-platformers.

Almightree: The Last Dreamer is out now on iOS. Developer: Crescent Moon Games Website

CubicTour

A tour worth taking.

Continuing the theme of cubes from last week’s review is CubicTour, a game which meshes Tetris with Hole-in-The-Wall Style gameplay (although thankfully there’s no Dale Winton on display here).

Each level of Cubic Tour provides you with a shape that slowly advances down a corridor towards a big silver doorway. On each doorway is a different shape, which you’ll have to mirror by rotating your moving shape up, down, left and right in order to pass unchecked through the doorway to the next segment.

There are numerous doorways to each level and failing one sends you back to the start, leading to plenty of nail biting moments in which you’ll frantically be swiping your block around in panic.

Matching colours might sound basic, but more awkward levels demand you use intricate perspective tricks in seconds, which can be pretty bamboozling at times but at least make it harder to succeed on luck alone.

The only real problem is that you’ll occasionally tap the doorway you are about to enter by accident, which is the cue for the game to speed up your block once you’ve got the right answer. However, if you aren’t clever enough to (a) complete the puzzle or (b) avoid doing this by accident then you’ll find the lack of a clear icon for this more than a little frustrating.

Nevertheless, CubicTour is free of ads as well as a price tag, and with simple yet intricate puzzling there’s little reason not to pick it up.

CubicTour is out now on iOS. Developer: GREE, Inc Website

Happy Cube Death Arena

Square slaughter.

As its oxymoronic title aptly sums up, Happy Cube Death Arena follows the exploits of an enthusiastic little cube as he jumps quite merrily over rolling death traps.

Simply by tapping once to jump, twice to double jump and three times to do a Mario-style body slam, your goal is to prevent the googley-eyed cube from being eviscerated by spikes, rolling pins or mysterious beams of energy for as long as possible.

Failing to protect your cube results in his smiling little face exploding in a massive blue splatter across the screen, which is either horrifying or gleeful, depending on how sadistic you are.

As you begin to survive for longer periods, the game throws more and more Prince of Persia traps at you in quick succession, meaning that timing your jumps and landings becomes crucial for stopping your chipper friend from being disembowelled.

However, bucking the usual trend of the endless platformer, traversing a number of traps in a row grants you extra lives, which allow the cube a second chance if hit. It does a lot to offset a few potentially cheap deaths, and only makes your next high score seem that much more attainable.

Given the speed with which the challenge ramps up, the extra lives are invaluable, and prevent the game from being too annoying to lose yourself in. Unlike a certain endless platformer released this week by Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen, the game’s trickiness doesn’t deter you from having just one more go, even if it is just to watch Mr Cube be gruesomely obliterated once more.

My favourite thing about Happy Cube Death Arena, aside from deliberately failing at it, is the way it’s presented. The blue protagonist, dancing in time with the upbeat music while heading inevitably towards death in a Saw-like, blood-strewn abattoir, is funny and embraces the kind of idiotic whimsy that’s only really acceptable in mobile gaming.

Happy Cube Death Arena is pretty good if only for the square-based schandenfreude. Perhaps this could be the start of a new series in which 3D shapes die horribly. If so take prisms next, the smug bastards.

Happy Cube Death Arena is out now on iOS. Developer: Tiny Titan Studios. Website

Wan Nyan Slash

 

Cats and dogs fighting demons in Japan. Not weird at all. 

A game about japanese katana wielding pets might sound out there, but in reality Wan Nyan Slash actually has quite  straightforward gameplay reminiscent of Fruit Ninja.

But of the two, I think I prefer this one. Fruit Ninja just never really a-peeled to me (thank you, I’m here all week).

In Wan Nyan Slash the two heroes, named Wan and Nyan, must rid as many demons as their life bar will allow on the streets of ancient Japan. You’ll drag out a straight line for each animal, along which they’ll zoom forward, slashing anything and everything in their path.

Facing off against numerous ghouls, demons, and various other evil creatures appearing on the right side of the screen, your task is to kill as many as possible before being overwhelmed.

As you slay enemies, small bonus gifts can be slashed that grant boons such as extra lives and one-use special moves, which allow you to drag out more complex slashing shapes for Wan and Nyan to follow. These become invaluable when demons begin to clog up the screen, and can help build massive combos that add to your score.

There are three difficulty settings, but if you have a swift finger only normal and above will really provide any challenge. Still, there’s a clear art to Wan Nyan Slash’s gameplay that make it a lot more considered and tactical than Fruit Ninja. Enemies move erratically, constantly forcing you to change the direction of your attacks and making it much more rewarding when you manage to decapitate large numbers of them in one stroke.

The game’s visuals are its most divisive point I think. If you’ve already been turned off by the name Wan Nyan Slash blazen in Naruto style letters on the menu screen, the game’s heavy draw from Japanese culture for its monsters and environments will hardly serve to change your mind.

Nonetheless, the degree of tactics required and a slew of unlockable costumes give a constant reason to keep playing, and do much to counter the feeling that you’re just playing a violent version of Hello Kitty.

Wan Nyan Slash is the kind of game I usually wouldn’t touch with a ten foot samurai sword. But it’s certainly not the cat-astrophe I thought it would be. It’s not paw-ful by any means. And other puns.

Wan Nyan Slash is out now on iOS. Developer: DotWarriorGames. Website 

25 Birds

A game about hunting game. A lot of it.

25 Birds allows you to kill more birds than would be declared sane in the real world, but in the world of iPad minigames seems just about acceptable. Although if you are a member of the RSPCA, it might be wise to leave now.

Other iOS games usually make birds the hero, particularly when they are used as catapult ammunition, but not 25 Birds. In an introductory sequence, we are shown that birds are now evil, deliberately causing airliners to crash by flying into their engines, and sneering at humans from above the clouds.

Thus, the relentless gunning down of all birds having been justified (I think) it’s up to you to shoot as many feathered foes from the sky as possible in a manner as cathartic as it is mindless.

Levels provide you with either a machine gun, semi automatic rifle or sniper rifle to fell fowl with, and typically ask you to reach 25 kills, or to slay as many birds as possible in a given time.

As you complete missions, the environments you hunt your winged prey in change to make things harder. There are some levels taking place in a rainstorm and a few at night, where you are only able to see through your night vision-enhanced sniper scope.

However maniacal you might find it all, the game’s controls are at least well suited to the birdicide. You use your left hand to scroll in the bottom left corner of the screen for aiming, and your right hand to fire. Reloading is as simple as lifting your left hand from the screen, and getting into a rhythm of aiming and shooting is so smooth that you’ll be an efficient avian hitman in no time.

Aside from the different level flavours, and an expert difficulty setting that makes the birds fly much more erratically, there isn’t much depth and despite the game being functional, you won’t be plunging 60 hours into it any time soon.

Also, it’s pretty obvious that animal lovers won’t be too infatuated with 25 Birds, and although the birds are supposed to be evil mowing down defenceless animals might look a little psychotic to someone peeping over your shoulder on a busy train.

The game’s attempt to justify the massacre seems to notice this, and a lot of the marketing attempts to compare the antagonists of 25 Birds to those of Hitchcock’s 1963 classic The Birds. But the birds in this don’t look nearly as evil as in that film. Maybe it would be better if they all had Hitler moustaches drawn on, or there was a stalk as a final boss wielding a dead baby. Ok, too far.

At the very least, 25 Birds is refreshing for at last recognising that birds, no matter how much we adore playing as them on mobile games, can be quite annoying sometimes. I’d certainly recommend it for blowing off steam if you’ve ever sat down in Trafalgar Square and just wished the pigeons would fuck off.

25 Birds is out now on iOS. Developer: Henrik Nielsen Website

Soccer Physics

FIFA, eat your heart out.

Why is my goalkeeper spooning my defender? Why are the opposing team just lying on the ground, watching my players jump 15 feet into the air? Why has everyone on the pitch suddenly lost all their clothes?

Just some of the questions you’ll ask yourself while playing Soccer Physics, a 2D football game that looks like it was either made by an extremely drunk person, or an extremely horny one. Or both.

The game pitches you a simple objective – score 5 goals against the enemy team, before they can score 5 against you. Within seconds of play beginning, both teams have bounced off into the world geometry, crumpled into sexualised positions and occasionally, just occasionally, kicked the football.

FIFA should really be more like this IMHO.

The reason for this menagerie of lunacy is Soccer Physics’ innovative control system. “Push the button to somehow control your team” is the game’s full tutorial, and it’s not joking. The one-tap button does little more than fling your team of rag dolls in an arbitrary direction to start either an impromptu dance session or an orgy, depending on how they are feeling that day.

Occasionally, things will happen. The ball you are kicking will turn into a beach ball, everyone’s clothes will fly off or their heads will just disappear. There’s also a replay button available for every goal scored, allowing you to relive some your best plays that somehow, against all odds, managed to go in.

Having never been a big fan of football, it’s hard for me to say whether this is all realistic or not. I’m unaware for example, of whether Arsenal have ever scored a goal by two-footed kicking their own goalie in the head while the enemy team fly backwards and face plant into a goalpost. Or whether Lionel Messi has ever scored by 69-ing a defender to death while the ball rolls slowly past.

There’s only one real bit of advice for Soccer Physics, and thats that playing it with another person is a must. To the game’s credit watching the tomfoolery with someone else is hilarious. It doesn’t matter who wins or loses in 2 player mode, but only the taking part, which I think is a sentiment that has never been expressed in a single game of FIFA or Pro Evo. Not one.

There’s also an endless mode in which you can forego scores in favour of eternal carnage. However, your stamina for playing really depends on how long the idea of utter soccer-based stupidity retains its mirth, or before you realise that you should really have spent the last hour and a half mowing the lawn or doing something a little less puerile. Like watching Cbeebies.

In the end, it’s your ability to withstand complete bemusement and what-the-fuckery that will determine whether you think Soccer Physics is worth £1.49 on iOS. I found it more enjoyable than a real football match, but that might be because I have the attention span of a hyper toddler.

Soccer Physics is available now on iOS. Developer: Otto-Ville Ojala. Website