Storm The Train Review

Storm the Train is an action platformer available for free from Chillingo. If you like running, killing, shooting, and trains...this is your game.

In storm the train you choose from three different agent characters, each with their own style, weapons, and upgrades. As you progress you can unlock new weapons, gear, and achievements for each.

Gameplay consists of platforming and shooting. You begin each game at the end of a moving train, and your goal is to progress as far as you can without dying. You'll face all sorts of hordes of enemies, including some heavy duty bosses, as you jump from train to train. All the trains are themed, such as zombie trains, sci fi trains, etc., and the enemies and bosses also change accordingly. Along the way you collect powerups, coins, and fill up your meter to use special weapons, like the drone in the video. In between missions you select characters, spend coins, and upgrade your characters and weapons.

This game looks gorgeous. Awesome backgrounds, great 2D environments, good animation, and an excellent cartoon style art style make this a joy to watch. Plenty of explosions, splatters, gunfire, and a nicely paced atmospheric soundtrack will fill your ears from start to finish. Controls are tight and responsive, no mushiness or delay. They've done a good job of making it a very competent and playable game, even if you suck at it like me.

Storm the Train is a fairly new release, and it's quite a bit of fun to play. Whether it stands the test of time with updates and new content remains to be seen, but it's a pretty unique and fun experience, and the price of entry is just right.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storm-the-train/id553852137?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2

Scribblenauts Remix Review

Scribblenauts is a game that started life as a puzzle game on the Nintendo DS, and has been ported over quite well to iOS.

In Scribblenauts Remix you are presented with either a sandbox mode, or a challenge mode where you spawn items by typing them in. Obviously anything goes in the sandbox mode, but the real meat of the actual game is the challenge mode where you are given a whole slew of puzzles to solve, and your imagination is the limit.

At first glance, it's pretty temtping to take a look at this game and dismiss it as a child's game, due to the cartoony graphics and the decided lack of adult content, but there is quite a fun game to play here when you within it's confines. Pretty much anything goes, unless you try to be dirty, which, if you're like me, will be all the time. However, there are tons and tons of items and multiple solutions to each level, and it is great, addicting fun just to try and figure all the ways you can solve the puzzles.

If you've never played the DS version, or even if you have, there's plenty of additional content here. It's a deceptively simple, and surprisingly fun game, but it's begging to have an “adult” version made.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scribblenauts-remix/id444844790?mt=8

Pocket RPG is a great little dual stick RPG for iOS.

Played from an overhead perspective, you get three different classes, warrior, mage, and archer. As you progress through indoor and outdoor areas, slogging through hordes of enemies and bosses, you level up, gain loot and abilities, and kick tons and tons of ass.

Pocket RPG is essentially RPG's distilled into their most basic components, and thrown together in a simple, and very fun little package.

Addicting, easy to control, difficult to master, great graphics and sound, and everything you'd expect from a standard rpg, but with a great sense of humor, the game keeps it pretty light and never takes itself too seriously. If you've never played it, it has been around for quite a while, but it's defintely worth picking up if you've never played it, like action rpg's, or dual stick games.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-rpg/id411690524?mt=8

Death Dome Review

You ever find yourself sitting around thinking “Man, I wish someone would make a freemium infinity blade clone set in a post apocalyptic zombie/mutant virus outbreak.”? Well, your wildest dreams have come true.

Enter Death Dome. A giant stadium filled with people exposed to some terrible virus in an apocalypitc future and you have to fight to survive as a scantily clad heroine with a bad attitude and a thirst for blood. Or something. Not sure quite on the story, but it isn't really high brow.

The game plays just like infinty blade, if infinity blade had slow, plodding combat, unresponsive, mushy controls, and was just flat out boring. The graphics and the cutscenes are all very well done though, and the art style is very reminiscent of borderlands, which is a good thing. This definitely is not an ugly game, but the fact is, it's almost enough to put you to sleep.

The paywall is pretty much omnipresent and trying to get you to pay at every step of the way, and it's really quite obnoxious. It's pretty sad, this could have been quite a good game. With some tightening of the combat and controls, and had it been a pay game where you could play like infinity blade, I would have liked this quite a bit. Unfortunately, it's not.

So, if you can't afford to get Infinity Blade 1 or 2, or wait for Dungeons, or just want some more IB style gameplay on the cheap, it's not too bad, but it's a snore.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/death-dome/id535584835?mt=8

Gears & Guts Review

Gears N Guts Review

Have a zombie problem? Have a car? Have weapons to put on car, and a need to run down the undead? Well, Glu's freemium Gears & Guts is right up your alley then.

The dead are walking, and you're driving. It's a pretty simple formula. Run down as many as you can, get new weapons, vehicles, and upgrades along the way, and there's a whole slew of missions with different objectives to keep you busy massacreing for a while. Burn some rubber, and rip some flesh. Pay for extra goodies if you think you need to (I wouldn't).

The game is played from and overhead perspective in a variety of urban and outdoor and even indoor road settings. The controls are simple, but very effective. Control seems a little loose at first, but quickly becomes a part of driving and powersliding into zombies. During missions you will find powerups and new gear, as well as receiving some for a bonus at the end of each mission as a reward.

Bolts are the currency in game and between missions can be spent on new weapons, vehicles, or to upgrade current weapons and vehicles or convert parts you have found into upgrades for your existing gear. It's always an isssue here with freemium games where you inevitably run into a point where you either have to play and endless grind to advance, or pay to get better gear and keep going, but it isn't quite as bad in this game. I've managed to find some decent stuff and keep playing with a minimum of backtracking, but some is always to be expected if you are playing a free game.

Gears & Guts is exactly what it sounds like, a car based mayhem game with lots of cars, weapons, and splattering zombie guts. It's a fun distraction, though it isn't particularly challenging or deep, it is pretty fun to collect various weapons and cars and run around smashing a variety of different zombies beneath your wheels, or blasting them to pieces with guns, rockets, artillery, laser beams, and come on, this game has cars with chainsaws on the sides and it's free to boot...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gears-guts/id510810302?mt=8

Extreme Road Trip 2 Review

Extreme Road Trip 2, the seque too...Extreme Road Trip...a game I was unaware existed. Turns out, this endless driving and stunt game is actually pretty decent, far better than I expected at first glance.

In ERT 2 you drive a selection of cars over a variety of bumpy and bouncy levels and collect coins, gas, and perform stunts to earn turbo and achievements. As you progress, you can earn powerups, in game cash and coin, and you can spend your moolah on new cars and upgrades. You can also skip all the work and pay if you want. Standard freemium model.

The graphics are simple, yet polished, the controls are tight and effective, the music and sound effects are great. There are a few different environments, and all the cars handle differently, and this game is just plain damn addicting. One more try turns into 100 more and an hour later you look up from a daze...

Bump, jump, spin, flip, wheelie your way, flying through the air, it's a good time, and it's free, so there's no reason not to give this a try if you like endless games.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/extreme-road-trip-2/id526814842?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2

Punch Quest Review

Punch Quest is an action endless runner from Rocketcat games, creators of the awesome Mage Guantlet. Tons of punches, smashes, slams, powerups, and just plain fun await you in this one.

Endless running games are beginning to be a dime a dozen on the appstore these days, but this one is definitely worth checking out. Awesome 2D graphics that are fluid and a joy to behold, excellent sound effects, tons of upgrades and special abilities to choose from all make up an excellent experience.

Gameplay is fairly straighforward, you run automatically, but you get a handful of basic attacks that are augmented by powerups that you earn and unlock as you progress through the game, which adds quite a lot of potential for individual play choices, and makes it much less boring than the standard run and you get a couple of attacks game. Pretty much everything is customizable, and the monsters, powers, and levels are all widely varied so no two games are alike, and it goes a long way to keeping you interested in the game.

Flat out, this game is good. So good, in fact, that it started out as a free game, and they are now charging for it. As a free game, it was absolutely amazing, and as a pay game, it's still worth every bit to get in and punch some stuff to smithereens.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/punch-quest/id554223561?mt=8