Final Fantasy Record Keeper

The Short

Pros

• A nostalgia trip down every single-player Final Fantasy game
• The Final Fantasy VI inspired sprites are a treat, particularly pixel-styled monsters from the later games
• All the original music is maintained, and it's great
• For a free-to-play game, you can get a lot of gametime out of it without spending a cent
• Great for short bursts of playtime
• Daily dungeons give you new stuff to try every day
• It's basically Puzzle and Dragon but with Final Fantasy. If you like that, you'll like this.
• Dr. Mog is probably not a real doctor, but that's ok.

Cons

• Horrible UI and constant load times mar the experience
• Not a whole lot of strategy until the dungeons get really hard
• To unlock most characters you have to wait for bi-monthly events
• Black magic is worthless until way later, and after you've invested tons of time into the game
• Mithril gets painfully scarce after the initial run. If you try and use real money, prepare to get ripped off.
• Not totally void of strategy, but the real meat of the game requires several weeks of playtime

Get yo nostalgia on.

The Long

Square-Enix sure likes to milk it's fans nostalgia for the Final Fantasy series. Starting with Final Fantasy IX, which one could argue exists as a nostalgic throwback to the I-V style of games, in more recent years the pandering fanservice has become more apparent. When not squirting out Final Fantasy VII spinoff games (or the upcoming remake), they've made a ton of crossover style games to try and lure old fans back into the franchise. Some of these are good (Dissidia) some are really good (Theatarhythm) and some are abominations (All The Bravest). With Record Keeper (which is an awful name, by the way), does Square finally hit pay dirt on the nostalgia train? In particular, do they finally release a new mobile game that isn't awful and/or completely overpriced?

On the surface, this looks a hell of a lot like the awful All The Bravest. However, if you only read one thing in this article know this: Record Keeper is NOT All The Bravest. It's much better (thank goodness). How much better remains to be said, but compared to that atrocity, Record Keeper looks like god's gift to video games.

So...does it stand on its own? Or is Record Keeper not worth recording? Or keeping? Puns? Read on.

I'm here to get nostalgic and play video games. And I'm all out of...well, neither.

There is actually a story to Record Keeper, albeit a stupid one. You are a record keeper (fancy that) named whatever you want to be named (so, "Barf") and apprentice to Dr. Mog, who is obviously a Moogle. Apparently all the stories from the Final Fantasy series live in some kind of Moogle archive in...space? The moon? Cocoon? The Esper Realm? Who knows. Point being, something happens and all the stories get screwed up, so it's up to you, Barf, to go back and fix them. How do you do it? By recruiting characters from the games and reliving the most poignant battle scenes and moments, of course! How ELSE?!

This is portrayed through text descriptions of events in the game, with a few screenshots. Unlike Theatarhythm, where you got little movies representing the stories, in here it's just badly granulated jpegs. The images they choose to use are also pretty baffling; Final Fantasy VI uses the SNES graphcis, but Final Fantasy IV's story screenshots are from the 3D DS remake (ugh) and Final Fantasy V's are from the RPG Maker looking android/iOS port (double ugh). While the pixelated stuff looks ok, the 3D stuff looks weirdly SD, even worse than it probably looked on the PS1/PS2. I dunno, maybe I'm being too picky, because I just skimmed the stories anyway. Point being: if you haven't played these games in a while, this does a decent job at reminding you of the general flow, and it's fun to unlock plot progression across multiple Final Fantasy games at once.

Limit break!

Gameplay is pretty much Puzzle and Dragon, except replace the monster fusing/sacrificing with doing the same thing for character equipment. If you haven't played Puzzle and Dragon, then I'm gonna explain it anyway, so don't freak out.

Basic gameplay is in the traditional ATB Final Fantasy combat, meaning you have a meter that fills for each character, you issue instructions, it takes a moment for that command to execute, and it moves on to the next person. In a weird twist that I actually like, spells and abilities are done more in the style of Final Fantasy I, with a charge system rather than MP. All abilities have to be crafted (more on that later), and have limited uses in a dungeon based on how much you've "honed" them. All these and your HPs reset after a dungeon run, so no worries there.

Essentially, you pick a realm (being the numbered Final Fantasy game) and then a particular event. In that event, you have 3-10 dungeon "events"  you have to do in order to complete the dungeon, with the last usually being a boss. Within each event you have 3-4 waves of enemies to fight. If you back out of a dungeon, you keep your loot but have to start at the beginning, same goes if you fail. So don't fail.

And there's quests. We'll get to that.

In order to do dungeon events, you have to spend "stamina." Stamina is automatically generated over time, and you have a pool of it that can grow as you clear more dungeons. Stamina generation is actually pretty fair: you get 1 point every 3 minutes, and your starting pool is generous. Dungeons get more expensive the harder they get, but you usually have enough to do one or two dungons, then be done for an hour or so, then come back and play a little more. I imagine not having stamina would allow people to grind through the game in like a week, so it's understandable. I actually like this system, as it encourages me taking breaks.

Clearing dungeons gives you loot in the form of equipment, crafting materials, gil, and XP (and Mithril, but only rarely). There is a ton of equipment in this game, pooled from all the Final Fantasy games. To upgrade it, you "feed" other equipment into the equipment you want to level, destroying the food equipment and paying some Gil to make it happen. Max upgrade a weapon and you can combine it with one of the same name, upping the max level and quality. Quality ranges from one to five stars, with anything three and above considered pretty good. As you can guess, you get a ton of junk gear which you then use to feed your higher ranked stuff. Additionally, characters can only equip certain types of weapons, which I'll get to...right now.

You pick up characters along the way. Each world has at least one to get, tying into the game you are in. Just a word of advice: named character (Cloud, Cyan, Steiner, etc.) are way better than the generic FFI characters (White Mage, Black Mage, etc.). Dump those guys, stick with the named ones. Each character has their own unique limit break and a handful they can learn from elite/rare gear, as well as their own class (usually ranged fighter, melee fighter, red mage, black mage, with summoners and monks being included in some of those roles). There are a lot of characters to collect, and seeing as characters get giant bonuses in their own worlds, it's good to even out your party with a range.

Dungeons vary in length.

The downside is that most characters can only be collected during special events, which Square rotates through once every two weeks. These require both a beefed up party and a lot of stamina, so expect to be stuck with Cloud, Barf, Kane, and Wakka for a while before getting anybody really good (Cloud is good, at least). If you miss an event, too bad; better hope it comes up again if you want Sabin and Edgar from FFVI, for example. This is a little obnoxious but it makes me keep coming back, so it's got that going for it.

And...that's essentially the game. Doing realms and dungeons unlocks more realms and dungeons to battle in, which get progressively harder. You use crafting materials to create and upgrade spells, with the rarer components making the better stuff. Square does everybody a solid by having "Gil" dungeons come up on the daily randomized dungeon rotation, which are basically dungeons where you get a buttload of money (seeing as all upgrades, combinations, etc. require Gil, it's good it is plentiful if you know where to look), as well as crafting material dailies and more. It's surprisingly lenient considering Square's history of free to play games. This game is very easy to pick up, play for a bit, do some upgrades, and put it down for a few hours. Which makes it a great phone game...in theory.

Let's talk about what's bad now. Like this UI.

The saddest part to me about Record Keeper is that the game's biggest failing comes in completely technical ways. First off, the UI is a cluttered mess in every instance. From the confusing scrolling banner, to the non-centered navigation buttons on the bottom with huge icons, to there being buttons freaking everywhere and look like they were designed for a smartphone in 2009, this game's interface is bad. To be fair, you get used to it, but some streamlining would really help this game out a lot. But that isn't even the biggest problem, which is: the load times.

Now, I usually don't fault games for load times. I mean, I loved Fable and the Xbox version of that game had 30-45 second load times for every freaking area. But Record Keeper is a mobile game, designed to be picked up and run through fast. Instead, literally (and I mean the literal use of the word literally here) everything you do has a load screen. Switch menu options? Load screen. Go to a realm to check your progress? Load screen. Load the quests interface? Load screen. Load a dungeon layout? Load screen. Load a battle? Load screen. Results screen? Yep, it loads. Hell, it even has a load screen just to show the Square-Enix logo fade in and out at the beginning, and then loads again for the title. Like...what.

To be fair, I've only played the android version, maybe the iOS version is better. But still...damn. If this game were better optimized, it would be much funner to just bust through every couple of hours.

We gonna win.

Another problem is the lack of strategy. Early on (by that I mean the first month you play), you can probably beat most battles by having an all-melee warrior team and hitting "auto battle." Healers? Who needs em! Black magic? Are you kidding? Black magic is essentially worthless until it's honed (as you have two casts of Thunder per entire dungeon at the start), which means using gil and crafting materials, which you get from battles. So Terra can't be that godly black mage until you've played a ton, so just...pick warriors and auto battle. Which means most of the game (except bosses) you just watch your guys murder everything and do nothing. Fun!

Bosses provide a larger challenge, as they're usually way harder than the enemies leading up to them. Dr. Mog will give you their weaknesses before a battle, but often times just beating them to death works. Twice per dungeon you also get to summon another player's character for a free Limit Break, and often times these characters are in their 50s+. Which means a "roaming party member" can insta-gib a boss most of the time early on. Again, not much strategy.

The game does get more complex once you start playing Elite versions of old dungeons, as well as your party getting fleshed out and better equipped. But ultimately, it's just a time waster for long time, which may turn a lot of people off.

Death to ugly birds.

So how does Square make money off this? Well, there is the usual two "top tier" currencies, in this case Mithril (which you can earn slowly by clearing dungeons) and Coins (great name...you buy these). Essentially, you can use either to revive a party on death (it's a waste, don't do it), refill your stamina (waste) or gamble for rare items (do this). For 5 Mithril you get a three star or higher weapon, but for 50 Mithril you get eleven, which I'd suggest saving for. You can also pay $1 for one draw or $10 for 11 draws, which is a horrible deal and a waste of money. With me saving 50 mithril, I turned my weak party into diabolical killing machines really easily, so don't put money in. I never did, and I got fat fast. Just saying.

All in all, Record Keeper is a fun diversion if you are nostalgic for the Final Fantasy series. It has a lot of technical problems, as well as some tedious starting gameplay, but for those who burn a few weeks worth of stamina on it they'll find a fun and fairly strategic Final Fantasy battle game. It isn't quite as good as I hoped it would be, but it's a billion times better than All the Bravest, so if you have a smartphone and love these games, you might as well give it a shot.

Just don't get too pissed off at the loading screens.

Three out of five stars. 

Plants vs Zombies 2: It's About Time

The Short

Pros
- The free sequel to the smash hit Plants vs Zombies
- Did I mention it's free? That's a pretty big plus
- Despite having microtransactions, the entire game can be beaten and is still fun without spending a cent
- New plants, levels, and time periods are great
- Tons of new challenges for each level, not to mention unlockable minigames and rewards
- Plant food was an excellent idea to give you something to do in the downtime
- Graphics seem marginally improved and look great on iPad
- Cone-head zombies in Egypt have little pharaoh hats. But still cones. That's pretty great.

Cons
- Currently exclusive to iOS
- Some plants can only be gotten through purchasing, and they're quite overpriced
- Missing an actual ending to the "story," which I assume will be unlocked later
- Challenges become repetitive quite quickly
- Hunting for randomly dropped keys is a chore
- Where's the zen garden?
- Doesn't quite have the same magic as the first game

Burn them all.

The Long

I, like the rest of the world, eagerly awaited a sequel to Popcap's 2009 PC hit, Plants vs Zombies. I played the game on almost every platform imaginable, unlocking everything in the iOS version and beating every mini-game on the PC version with gusto. It was a simple game that held a level of complexity to it that made it both engaging and easy to pick up. In short, it was a perfect casual game.

Four freaking years later and we finally have it: Plants vs Zombies 2: It's About Time. Exclusive (for the time being) to iOS devices and sporting a free-to-play model that is very indicative of the recent acquirement of Popcap by EA (seriously guys: everything doesn't need microtransactions), the outlook for this game was surprisingly grim. Did it ruin the magic of PvZ with it's touch-pad exclusivity and money-grubbing unlockables? Or will your plants still be soiled with delight at the prospect of murdering zombies?

Eh, a bit of both I guess.

Crazy Dave: Zombie Expert.

There's sort of a plot to this one. Sort of. Crazy Dave finally eats the magic taco you gave him back in PvZ, and he likes it so much he wants to travel back in time in his talking, time-travelling motor home to eat it again. Of course, it all goes wrong and you're slammed back into various time periods, specifically ancient egypt, a pirate "era," and the wild west. It seems zombies were around then, too, and in spades (this is seriously the worst world to live in), so plant your zombies on the tile floors and get killin'!

The dialogue is mildly amusing, but after a while it gets obnoxious. The charm of Crazy Dave was that he didn't show up after every single level in the first game, but now he seems to be the star character. While his insanity is endearing to a point, it also becomes grating how unbelievably stupid he is, not to mention his car sounds like the guide from Nintendoland and is just as static in her personality. 

The map is very "Mario World"esque. 

Another major change is the story mode, or rather, how it's presented. Ditching the linear level progression from the first game, it instead ops for a more similar approach to how it was done in it's Facebook game, Plants vs Zombies: Adventures. You progress down a fairly straight path, Mario World style, until you reach the Stargate (tm) at the end of each level. Along the way there's various doors that can be unlocked with keys. Behind these unlocks are new plants, powerups (such as getting a refund when digging up a plant) and the minigame portion of the game. All gated doors are some sort of minigame, and all require keys specific to that world to unlock.

How do you get keys? Well, two ways. Either they randomly drop (and the drop rate isn't awful, to be fair, though you'll have to burn through a few rounds of that world's Endless Mode to farm them up), or you can  just pay to open the gate. So on a scale of one to super offensive in the microtransactions-frustration-o-meter, the doors aren't that bad. 

Though having six keys left over in Egypt while I still need six more in Wild West is a bit annoying.

Key get!

The gameplay itself is identical to the original game, down to the grid layout. Egypt gives you a full plot, with later levels popping up destroyable gravestones to slow you down a bit. The pirate level mixes it up with a gangplank over water on the right side, with pirates swinging in on ropes for the shorter lanes. Wild west has probably the best new addition: minecarts. You can plant only a single plant per track, but you can move it freely and at any time up and down. It's a neat trick and makes me wish each level before it had possessed as clever an idea. 

There's two other new things with regard to actual gameplay that should be mentioned: plant food and powerups. See, coins actually don't buy anything anymore, at least not in terms of unlocks. All the money you get is used for in-level powerups. The first is plant food. Green-colored zombies will randomly drop plant food, or you can pay some of your coins to get one immediately. What they do varies depending on the plant you put it on. Sunflowers drop a jackpot of suns. Pea-shooters blast out a plethora of peas. Iceberg lettuce freezes all zombies on the screen, and so on. This is actually the best new feature because it adds a level of interactivity during matches that the previous games didn't have. It also allows the levels to be much harder, forcing you to ration your plant food and use it wisely. Then again, you can always "cheat" and buy more on the fly if you suck, but I beat the entire game without ever having to buy any more.

Fire at will!

The other addition is payable powerups. These are also used during matches, and can only be obtained by spending coin. You have three: a "pinch" move that kills all the zombies you pinch, a "flick" move that launches them back (or off screen), and a "hold" move that electrocutes them. They all have a limited timer and (in some levels) can only be bought a set number of times. Again, these cost coins.

And, as you have already guessed, you can pay real money for coins. However, if you have any ability at Plants vs Zombies, you won't need any of these powerups until attempting to tackle some of the harder minigames in the later levels, meaning you'll have a massive pileup of cash to blow anyway. Again, I beat every level and got every star and never spent a cent, while using powerups liberally at the end. So, still ok on the microtransaction front. 

My only downside to all of this is that, if you do use the powerups liberally, it kind of completely kills the challenge. This is one of those "you can just pay to win the whole game" problems we see, but since this is a single player game and not an MMO, the only person's fun you are cheating is your own. Trust me: don't buy coins. You don't need them. 

THIS is the stuff I don't like. 

I think I'd better finish off the microtransactions talk by talking about the part I don't like: the store. Now, let me say this: you get tons of plants as part of the game, and even more by unlocking doors. This includes a variety of new plants. While the count isn't quite as high as PvZ, they do seem to have streamlined their purposes down a bit better (there are no "upgrades" anymore; double headed suns are just their own plant, for instance) and the arsenal they give you is more than well enough equipped to destroy just about anything in your path.

The annoying part is there is no way, either through in-game currency or unlocks, to get to some of the bonus plants and powerups. The powerups/plants featured above can only be gotten with real money. You could have fifty billion coins and you still couldn't buy the squash; not an option. I wouldn't be bitter, but they gated the Ice Pea behind this dollar cost, and he was one of my staples in the first game. Jerks.

The other annoying part is these powerups are way too expensive. Nine bucks for the chili and a sun powerup? Seriously? And with no options to just drop like $15 and get all the upgrades, you do have to buy them all separate for an inflated price. At that point I'd rather just pay $6 for the app and get everything. But what do I know about business? I'm not EA, the most loved of all video game companies. 

Snow Pea, I love you, but not $4 worth. 

All that aside, considering the absolutely absurd amount of content you get for free with this game, I really shouldn't be complaining. Once I looked in the shop once I never went back, and I was happier for it. Buying stuff just wasn't an option for me. While the gameplay was a little too similar to the first game to keep me really engaged, I still got sucked in. And while having to hunt for Stars (which meant replaying earlier levels with special, "hard" objectives) was fun at first, the objectives get competitive and you have to do the same ones for every time period, and I felt they were really trying to tack on some time to this bad boy.

At least the game looks good. I was kind of a hater of the new art style at first, but after playing it a bit I don't mind. It's more "hand drawn" than before, and the plants have considerably more frames of animation, which is nice. The new mixup of zombies is the real highlight, though, with each period sporting a new batch of obnoxious zombies  for you to kill. I just really wish there was a "Time Vortex" level where I could have Camel Zombies along with the Pirate Zombies and the Wild West Chicken zombies. Maybe in DLC.

The Texas flag with a brain on it is a nice touch.

All in all, Plants vs Zombies 2: It's About Time is a great game that's store leaves a bit of a sour taste in your mouth. However, if you can look past the microtransactions and repetitive star-hunt that ends each world, there's a lot to love here. It's almost everything one could ask for: more zombies, more plants, more levels, more tricks, and more ways to play. Honestly, if it weren't for the iOS exclusivity and the overpriced DLC, I'd say this game very nearly surpassed it's predecessor. 

However, there is still something missing. The magic of the first game, which might be no fault of this game itself, but that PvZ felt so novel. In either case, it's good to finally have a sequel to one of my favorite tower defense games, and if you happen to own an iOS device it's a must download. Because...seriously. It's free. 

(Now port it to Android and PC already!)

Four out of five stars. 

Needs more boomerangers. 

Super Hexagon

The Short

Pros
- Extremely addicting, difficult action game
- Action game? Is this an action game? I'd say it's just like a reflex game
- Seriously, the default difficulty is "Hard" and then it goes up to "Hardererestest"
- Minimalist graphics and flashing colors add to the difficulty
- Only three songs. All are awesome.
- Exceptionally addicting
- Quick; one "round" can last anywhere from a minute to under a second
- Nearly the perfect game for portable devices

Cons
- Not competing for score against friends kind of makes the game less interesting
- Might give you a seizure
- The "Game Over" and "Begin" voices are a bit obnoxious; I wish you could turn them off.

Screenshots don't really describe this game, so here's a video.

The Long

The thing about Super Hexagon that's so great is...hang on, I died.

Ok, we're rolling again. So the thing about...dang it! One more.

So ok, if I just quickly get this...nope. Hold up, one more go.

What? I died in under a second? That run didn't count. This one's for serious.

Ok, no, this one is for serious.

What were we talking about again?

This has reaffirmed my theory that all things hexagonal are evil. 

Ok, right, Super Hexagon. It's a game that's out on Android and iOS and also your computer, Mac, Linux, probably Palm Pilot for all I know; I don't care. The point is: you should probably go get it. If you have all the above devices and can't decide, there's clearly only one course of action: buy it on all of them. It's only $3. But if you for some reason don't have unlimited funds to buy the same game over and over, then I'd suggest the portable (iPhone, Android, etc.) version over another version.

Or you can kick yourself because you didn't buy it in the Android Humble Bundle a few months back. Like I did. Gosh dang it. 

Anyway, this is supposed to be a review, but I seriously can't stop playing this dumb game long enough to write it. Let me just...ok, hang on, we'll do it between rounds.

It's like every stop sign I ever ran is back for revenge.

So the point of Super Hexagon is simple. You play that little bitty dot on the screen, and the world around you spins and sucks all those walls in towards the hexagon at the center. Your goal is to weave through the gaps of this labyrinth, because if you so much as graze one of those solid blocks of color your run is over and you're back to square one.

That's seriously the entire game. There's milestones that are associated with shapes, with line being the start at 5 seconds, triangle at 10, etc. And yes, you heard me right: the first goal is to survive just five seconds. If this sounds easy, note that my current record for Hexagon Hyper Mode (the "Hardester" difficulty, and a remix of the first "Hard" level) is 4.11 seconds. Yep. Just can't get to that 5 second mark.

But you can bet I'll be back every 4.11 seconds to try again. 

What else is hexagons? Well, bees make their honeycomb in it. And bees are evil, too.

This game is purity incarnate. It's minimalist graphics, extremely simple controls of just left and right (it plays like a dream on both touch and computer, though I tend to prefer it on touch controls), and obvious goal are so simple a baby could figure it out. But when you get to the actual game, aka dodging stuff, this game is exceptionally tough. Tough, but very rewarding. When you're on a fourty-five second run on Hexagon (the default "Hard" difficulty), knowing in only fifteen seconds you'll get the much-wanted "Hexagon" shape call and unlock a new level, you start sweating a bit. Or a lot. It's the most intense minute of  your life, and that's the easiest difficulty.

There's six difficulties total...well, three actually. The second three are unlocked after passing a minute in the first three, and are the same levels amped up to extreme speeds. This is the kind of game where you'll play the hardest level, failing out after 5-10 seconds, then jump back to the first one and realize how slow everything is moving in comparison and how much better you suddenly are at the game. And then die anyway. And play again. Because a run is hardly longer than a minute, and everybody has a minute. I have a minute right  now, actually...whoop, died again. 

The tunes of shapes. And rotating death.

The excellent, pure visual design is accented by some kickin' chiptunes. If you don't like them, you can use your own music, but I seriously dig them. One of the best parts is after you die and restart it'll jump to like 2 minutes ahead into the track, meaning you'll hear a different song. But if you want to hear the in-between stuff, the song that happens from 1-2 or 2-3, you'll have to live long enough to hear it. I'll fully admit I haven't heard any of these songs all the way through in-game. Seriously. I can't do it. But I'll keep trying. 

The only thing that's obnoxious is the female voice that says "Game Over" every time you die, or "Begin" when you start. But even that becomes a sort of hypnotic quality, urging you to try again after hearing her say "Game Over" in that kind of disappointed way, giving it one more run before...ok, I died too fast that time, let's try one more time. 

According to Wikipedia, this is how you make a Hexagon. Note the lack of bright, spinning colors and constant failure. 

Perhaps the only real complaint I could lodge against this purity of video game addiction is the fact that it's longevity is, primarily, based on personal accomplishment. If you aren't the kind of person who likes to stretch oneself without others being involved, this might not be the best game for you. However, you can easily fix this by convincing a few friends to buy copies of the game (or buying it for them yourself during a Steam sale) and then competing for top scores. That greatly increases the game's lifespan, assuming your friends are as determined to dodge spinning shapes as you are.

Seriously...there is so much one could say about this game, but really it explains itself exactly perfect in the trailer video I posted above. Super Hexagon is a fantastic experience, and a damn near perfect game. It's extremely addicting, unbelievably challenging, an impossible to put down. Like Tetris on the Game Boy, Super Hexagon is my modern-day mobile killer-app. 

Five out of five stars. 

I was going to put an outro graphic here, but instead I just played more Super Hexagon. Hey; not my fault my phone is right next to my computer. 

Spaceteam

Spaceteam

The Short

Pros
- Frantic multiplayer game where you are a SPACE TEAM
- Free
- Can be played 2-4 people and game adjust difficulty accordingly
- This game is an absolutely hilarious, insane good time
- Cleverly written and designed, with no two games the same
- Did I mention it's free?

Cons
- Some of the "disabilities" are much, much worse than others
- Might make your friends hate you if you play really bad
- No advanced options (team switching)
- Can't have more than four people...though that might be a pro
- Not available on Android. Since it uses local Wifi, I'd love to see cross-OS play here

It's time to form a team. A Spaceteam. 

The Long

I heard a lot about this game over the holiday from the various gaming blogs and podcasts I listen too, with several even considering it in their Game of the Year deliberations. It made me curious about it, but the screenshots didn't look particularly enthralling. Yeah, it's a space game. Yeah, you hit buttons and turn dials. And yeah, it's multiplayer only and is free. So..?

I had these reservations, sure. Until I played it.

Spaceteam is one of the best things you can get on your iOS device at this given moment. Assuming you have friends (local ones, mind) that own iOS devices as well. 

This game is so frantic, it's absurd. 

Spaceteam is incredibly simple, yet incredible in what it does. Essentially, you and up to three other people are...well, a Space Team. You are all part of a ship that is running from an exploding sun, and it's your job to keep the ship up and running to avoid getting blown up. How this is done is through a variety of random, menial tasks. For example, you might have a dial called the "Zaxon Zapper," and you'll need to turn it to 3 and then to 5 when the game tells you to, before the time runs out. Simple, yes?

Well...no. Because sometimes, instructions for your screen appear on your friends' devices. And sometimes instructions for their screen is on yours. Because everybody gets a completely different set of controls on their various iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, you have to yell it out to them to do what is needed ("Flip the Dekadatter!" "Eject the Metapods!") before time runs up. Get enough right and you'll jump to hyperspace for a brief breather before it continues. Screw up enough, and you explode and your team dies. Your space team. That's not a good thing.

The magic of Spaceteam is the absolutely frantic co-op, and the absurd things the game makes you say. With four people, you have all four of you yelling commands, hoping that the right owner will catch their needed maneuver through the din. Not to mention asteroid fields (everybody has to shake their devices at the same time) and wormholes (everybody has to flip their devices at the same time) can mess up your controls. Screw up a lot and bits of your controls fall off, slime covers buttons, or (the worst), your translation machine fails, turning button names into nonsense. It only gets harder and harder until you die, with the challenge being to get as many warps as possible.

Sometimes they turn to random symbols. Because Spaceteam hates you.

Without a doubt, this game is some of the best fun I've had with a group of friends owning iOS devices. We played with two iPhones, and iPad, and an iPod Touch. There was no lag (minus our own yelling and misinterpretation), the yelling escalated quickly, and there's the awful sense of embarrassment when you issue a command and then realize it was on your button set to begin with. The game is chock-full of near-misses and awesome feats of teamwork, and when you fail you just want to start the whole frantic, yell-fest again.

By not being "just" a touch-screen game and incorporating real-world cooperation, Spaceteam succeeds in a way I wouldn't have imagined from a simple phone game. Yes, I could critique the graphics (which are charming but hardly pushing the envelope) or the lack of group options (I'd love to see it make two groups of three, then have people swap groups during hyperspace. That would be insane) or more than four players, but for what it does...it does it perfectly. For a frantic yell-fest that hooks your team and sends you into elated hysterics when you just make that hyperspace jump together, Spaceteam is something else. 

Unfortunately, this game is not available on Android (yet). It is free on iOS, with a few very minor in-app purchases available (none of which are necessary to enjoy the game; they simply make it a bit better). It requires everybody be on the same local Wifi (which makes sense, as you have to be near each other to even play the game) or Bluetooth together, but all iOS devices have Bluetooth now so it should be an easy connection. We had no issue getting together on a local Wifi. Because it circumvents stuff like Gamecenter, I could see cross-platform play (Android and iOS) with this game, which would be delicious.

I feel a bit silly review this game, but let me just say this: if you have friends that have iOS devices, get this game and force them to play it with you. Trust me, it's a load of fun, probably the best "party" iOS game ever, and gets you to all yell totally stupid stuff while trying to be the ultimate Space Team. Words don't do it justice. Just get it. Seriously. JUST GET IT.

Four out of five stars. 

Rayman: Jungle Run

The Short

Pros
- Fun twist on the "runner" genre
- Livid Dead levels are a fun, difficult challenge
- Graphics look gorgeous on a retina screen or high-res android display
- Game does a good balance of rewarding powerups to improve difficulty
- Great "pick up 'n play" game
- Has free DLC
- Not hampered by microtransactions
- Only $2

Cons
- Could have used more levels
- Simplistic platforming might irritate some

I was runnin...

The Long

It's no secret I'm a big fan of iOS and Android games. Short, usually simple experiences that sate your video game fix on the go for a hefty discount. Games like 10,000,000 and Game Dev Story can be content rich (and, at times, complex) while still being loads of fun and budget priced.

Something I'm sick of, however, is the "runner" style games on the iOS store. There's plenty of these out there, some more popular ones being Canabalt, Jetpack Joyride, Monster Run, and I Must Run! Basically you endlessly run to the right, dodging obstacles forever until you run into something and die. It's a score chase, it's mindless, and there's too many of them.

So when I heard they were making a Rayman game that was a "run" game, I was a bit turned off. Yeah, I loved the crap out of Rayman Origins, but I didn't want fond memories of that game tarnished by a weak knock-off. However, after hearing a few good reviews and seeing how downright pretty this game is, I dived in.

And guess what? Rayman Jungle Run is a superb platformer in every respect, that certainly goes above the concept of both a "runner" game and an iOS platformer.

The game certainly looks like Rayman

Jungle Run takes the basic ideas from Rayman Origins, strips them down, and leaves a game that is both easy to learn and difficult to master. It plays somewhat similarly to runner games in that Rayman will always automatically run to the right, but what differentiates this game is that there's actual level design here. It isn't an endless runner like many might think; instead, it's got similar platforming to Origins, just axing the manual directional control that would normally be handled by the D-pad. As such, you are left with three very simple options: jump, hover, and attack. And the game has worlds devoted entirely around these mechanics, just to be sure you'll learn them. Oh, and the wall run move. Can't forget that.

Because this game has actual levels, it feels more like an actual platformer than many other iOS platformers that offer full control. To be honest, removing directional controls (a finicky thing on a touch screen) was probably the best idea for this touch-only game, as they obviously designed the levels around the "always running" mechanic. This leaves a bunch of levels that are both challenging and fun, while still being easy and not having touch-controls trying to bottleneck you at every turn. It was a smart design choice, and it pays off in spades. 

Lums are still the goal of the game. 

While the levels are usually not too challenging to get through in terms of traversal, the real goal is to collect all the Lums (those little golden dudes) on every stage. That is where the game's challenge comes in. If you can get all 100 Lums, you earn a tooth for Death. Get enough teeth in a world, and you unlock that world's Land of the Livid Dead stage, a super challenging gauntlet that can often feel more like rote memorization rather than actual skill. Still, these uber-difficult unlocks are appreciated, as they feel like a good capstone to the skill you learned in each world. They also add a lot of replayability, as each level is usually under a minute long, so replaying it over and over to try and get all the Lums quickly becomes priority.

There were originally four worlds (five now, with DLC), each with ten levels if you count the bonus Livid Dead levels. That's a total of fifty levels for $2, which is certainly not a bad deal, but I wouldn't have minded more considering how easy the first world is. Still, it's easy to pick up, hopelessly addicting, and controls great. You can't ask for a more perfect iOS experience.

Good luck with that coin. 

This game also looks downright gorgeous on an iOS screen. The fact it looks nearly identical to Rayman Origins is a credit to the developers considering the downgrade in hardware, and the bright colors pop out vividly on the retena display. It looks great on an iPhone, but on an iPad it's downright spectacular, easily being one of the best looking iOS games artistically.

Music is also good, with a few select tunes from Origins, though it doesn't quite reach the awesome level that Origins' music provided. Still, I play most iOS games with the sound off, and the game plays fine silent as well. So that's a plus too.

I have very little bad to say about this game. 

Jungle Run isn't Origins. It's stripped down, to be sure, to accommodate for the touch screen and mobile status of a phone. But despite that, Ubisoft has created one of the best iOS platformers I've ever experienced. By removing what is often a developer's biggest hang up for these types of games (analog directional control on a touch screen) and focusing instead on building levels around the running mechanic, they've created a game that's fun, a good challenge, addicting, and excellently controlled. My only gripe is I wish there was more of it, something they seem to be fixing with free DLC.

If you have any affinity for these types of games, on console or otherwise, you should do yourself a favor and grab Jungle Run. I mean...come on. It's $2. You can't even buy lunch with that. 

Four out of five stars. 

Fire is still bad, though. Just...in case you forgot. 

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

The Short

Pros
- Hilarious, cheesy, well-written story
- Absolutely outrageous and over the top characters
- Playing both detective and attorney can be a blast
- Great music and art
- Sticks with you long after you beat the game
- Cases are fun and have some great twists (despite the last one being weak)
- Being able to yell "HOLD IT!" or "OBJECTION!" into the DS mic is freaking hilarious
- iOS and Wii ports are both solid

Cons
- Short, with only five cases
- Relies a heavy amont on its own designed "logic," which can lead to issues
- Detective portions can be guesswork to find a certain object before the game lets you progress
- Graphically looks like the GBA port it is, with the touchscreen relatively useless
- Final fifth case feels tacked on (because it was)

The start of a thousand memes. 

The Long

I love the fact that Phoenix Wright exists, because it means that somewhere over in Japan somebody came into work at Capcom HQ and was like, "You know what the industry is missing? LAWYER GAMES."

And from that absolutely brilliant idea was birthed the Phoenix Wright franchise. First released in Japan on the GBA, it was ported (someone lazily) over to the new Nintendo DS for American audiences. And, yes, I was being serious before: this is a game where you play a lawyer. A defense attorney, to be completely accurate. And you do exactly what you think: defend people in court. Yep.

Which makes it all the more amazing at how incredible Phoenix Wright is. 

Brilliant burn there, Mr. Wright.

I won't lie: the majority of your enjoyment from Phoenix Wright is going to be from its absurd story (or stories might be more accurate). You play as Phoenix Wright, rookie defense attorney who is just starting off his career. As such he's insecure, makes awful jokes, and gets a bit overconfident at times. Luckily he has helpful tutors to guide him, but quickly the training wheels are taken off and he's thrown into the big world of defensive lawyering all by himself. 

That's where you come in. 

As the player, you will be participating in one of two activities: either going around collecting evidence (visiting witnesses, searching for clues, etc.) or getting into court to present those clues. The game is structured such that you cannot miss anything necessary during detectiving: it's pretty much a straight shot as you tick off check boxes to get to the end. Pretty basic. 

This game makes being a lawyer look more intense than doing back flips on a BMX bike off the side of the Grand Canyon while drinking Monster Energy. 

Back to the story: you have five cases to deal with (though four were the only ones included on the GBA games, and thus they flow together well while the fifth is a bit tacked on) and you have to prove your person innocent or die trying! Luckily Phoenix only gets people who actually are innocent, so there's no moral conundrum here. Where the game really shines, however, is its absurd characters. 

From crazy afro-lady photographers to blue-haired rich scumbags, sleeping crazy hermits or insane old ladies, Phoenix Wright has it all. It even has an evil attorney named Manfred Von Karma. Seriously, they couldn't ham this up any more if they tried. 

The silliness really shines, however, because of the balance. Many of these cases are serious (murders, digging up into the main character's pasts to reveal some genuinely dark secrets, and more) but the game keeps everything so over the top that the melodrama plays nicely with the exaggerated absurdity. To not mince any more words: the game is downright charming, well written, and knows exactly how serious to take itself (read: not at all). The jokes are spot on and the cases are genuinely interesting, which is all you really need.

Suck it, Edgeworth. 

The gameplay, unfortunately, doesn't really deliver as much as one might hope. As stated before you have two main things to do in Ace Attorney: search for evidence, then use the evidence in a court scene. Of these two, the former is by far the most aggravating. Searching a static image for small object is about as fun as looking for a needle in a haystack, especially since often you aren't even sure if you are looking in the right location. The game gates you from continuing until you fulfill certain (unknown) objectives, meaning it is very easy to get stuck and frustrated. When you do find clues it's usually really rewarding, as it's often accompanied by a silly bit of dialogue. But playing Sherlock is very slow, frustrating, and you rarely feel like you actually accomplished a goal. It's more like you luckily stumbled on the right place to tell the game that you are allowed to continue now.

Courtroom drama plays much better. You are charged with listening to both the information given as well as witness testimony. I dunno if they made these people swear on a Bible or whatever, but they lie constantly, and its your job to unravel it all and force them to spill the beans. You do this by tearing apart their statements chunk by chunk, pushing when necessary and using evidence to expose the lies. It works about 80% of the time, with the other 20% where the game falls to "adventure game logic," meaning next to no logic at all. It's the whole "throw the pie at the yeti" trap from King's Quest V: some leaps of logic simply don't make sense. After a while you can start to think the way the game wants you, but even then I would get stuck on some stupid cross examinations later in the game. 

But I will say: when you totally destroy a known liar's testimony using your wits and evidence (usually resulting in the person actually breaking down in defeat), that soul-crush is delicious.

You get five mistakes a trial, then you have to start all over. 

Graphically, Ace Attorney looks like a GBA game. The top screen does pretty much everything, with the bottom being reserved for menu choices or...tap to advance text. The game also looks a bit low-res (especially on high-res iPhone, which this game has been ported to) even on the DS screen. However, the bright colors and absurd art stylings do more than make up for the technical shortcomings. 

The music is also excellent. Even though there's only a handful of tracks, they are just as suspenseful and over-the-top as one would expect from a game about super-lawyers. You'll find yourself humming these tunes long after the game is over.

Ya screwed up. 

Despite having some rather glaring gameplay issues, I absolutely love Phoenix Wright. If you treat it more like an interactive visual novel instead of a game (and use a guide for the dull "play detective" parts), the story here is an absolute riot and absolutely worth diving in for. While Phoenix Wright might not be the most inspired game in terms of mechanics, the idea of making a lawyer game is undoubtably inspired. It's a hoot, genuinely emotional, and necessary playing if you own a DS or an iOS device (or a Wii, since I guess its out on that too). 

While the sequels do tend to fare a little better, this first game is still my favorite. Four out of five stars. 

Nice hair.

10,000,000

10,000,000

Buy it here.


The Short


Pros
- Addicting fusion of puzzle and RPG elements, akin to Puzzle Quest
- Gameplay is extremely fast and gives constant rewards
- Upgrades, challenges, and perks further the push the "one more run" concept
- Charming music and retro 8-bit style (if that style is a bit overdone)
- No in-app purchases. Bravo!

Cons
- Can prove difficult at first, with runs only lasting a few seconds
- Endgame push to the finish can be a horrendous grind
- Music is enjoyable but extremely repetitive

Get ready to fuel your puzzle addiction

The Long

Plenty of gamers berate the advent of iPhone gaming, which has always baffled me. The iPhone has done two very important things for gaming in general: added tons more players to the mix (making gaming more mainstream than ever) and bringing on the rise of the $1-$5 game. It's an oft-spoke argument between gamers which is better: a $40 3DS game or 40 $1 iPhone games? And while it's true that most of the stuff on the iPhone App Store is a consumer trap, there are some absolutely incredible games hidden amongst the garbage.

One of these hidden gems is 10,000,000, a game cursed with both a stupid name and a horrible icon. However, once you get into this puzzler rpg, you might find it hard to quit.

Not quite ten million...

The goal of 10,000,000 is simple: do a dungeon run that earns you ten million points. In order to accomplish this lofty goal, you'll need to gain power and hone your skills. See, 10,000,000 is a fusion of an rpg, one of those "constant runner" games, and a puzzle game. While I admit to having an affinity to Puzzle Quest, I have yet to find a game that blends the two in such a way that I can't stop playing. Sword & Poker was decent but didn't really do it for me, and others have come and gone (the indie scene is full of 'em). 10,000,000, however, does it right: by mixing the best of both genres.

The gameplay is simple. Your character on the top of the screen will keep running until he runs into something (a chest, a locked door, or a monster). It is up to you to help him defeat/unlock said obstacle by matching the correct tiles on bottom (keys for locks, wands and swords for enemies). Some enemies are weaker to magic attacks (wands) and others to physical (swords), so it's important to keep an eye out for that. When he runs into something it slowly pushes him backwards, and if he reaches the far left side of the screen your run (and score) are done.

The game is complex but has a good tutorial.

Matching blocks is identical to PopCap's Chuzzle (this is not a Bejeweled clone, unlike 99% of the app store). Rather than switch pieces you instead slide rows or columns until three of a kind (or more) are lined up. It's a simple idea that worked great in Chuzzle and works better here, because it has a point.

But where the game gets crazy is in the amount of things you earn. Killing enemies earns you XP. Opening chests earns you gold. Other things you match include stone, wood, item bags, and shields. Stone and wood are accumulated to repair your castle to buy better upgrades. Item bags have a random chance to give you expendable items to help your run. Shields are used to protect you from enemy hits because, rather than having health, enemies just push you further to the far side (and the end of your run) if they land a hit. Storing shields is essential for late-game runs.

Home, sweet home. 

There's more. XP can be spent on passive perks that permanently improve your character (ranging from more XP, more points, and additional ways to add time to the clock such as matching 5-in-a-row or opening chests). Gold is spent on the plethora of upgrades: swords, wands, armor, and shields all need to be upgraded. Each shop also has it's own level-up mechanic, which you pay wood and stone to unlock further tiers of weapons.

Yes, it's a game that plasters you with resources and rewards your every move, and that's why its so addicting. On top of that system, every run you have a set of three challenges you can accomplish for bonus gold and fame. These start easy but soon get very tricky, requiring some skillful (and fast) play in an already fast-paced game. But it gives runs more to strive for other than "get more resources," which just intensifies the addiction.

There are plenty of upgrades to obtain. 

There is a load of content here for you to dig through as you shoot for that ten million sweet spot, and while the ride is a fun one there are a few hangups. The music, while a catchy 8-bit style, only has about 3-4 songs for your runs and quickly gets repetitive (even if runs usually only last between five seconds and a minute). It is charming at first and then quickly is grating, so turn the sound off.

The other bigger issue is the late-game. While you can use "alteration tonics" to change the game so you don't get resources you don't need (turn your gathered stone and wood into gold, for example), it still comes down to having to grind for gold during the final few tiers. It's frustrating and a bit obnoxious, especially since the pace up to that point offered just the amount of rewards over time to keep you going. I seriously played this game for something like six hours straight, only stopping because I had to sleep. It's a pity the end degenerates into gold farming. 

Kill the uglies!

Despite that minor complaint, 10,000,000 is a fantastic and addicting iPhone experience. Getting better at the underlying puzzle directly correlates with in-game progression, so you get that sense of accomplishment as you become a master at row and column sliding. Because of the limited number of resources chains come easily, and are satisfying to watch and make you feel awesome when you crush an enemy in one move. While the underlying rpg elements are particularly deep, they are good enough to make you actually have to decide how to build your character. Spend the gold and make a glass cannon, or save up and upgrade your armor? Or just grind and GET IT ALL?!

At the insultingly low price of $2, 10,000,000 is absolutely worth getting if you own any iOS device. The app is even universal, so both iPhone and iPad owners can play the game at the low price. I hope this game becomes a big hit (there's been plenty of buzz about it these last few days), as it is a thrilling, fast paced puzzler that is absolutely worth your $2. If only the ending didn't break down into monotony. 

Four out of five stars, but considering the price I'd absolutely recommend everyone pick it up. 

Suffer not a pixelated beastie to live.