More Android Game Quick Reviews for August 2010

Welcome, welcome. Here you have another set of quick game reviews about Android games... That is games for the Android OS, not games OF androids or for androids. Any way, enough talk, let's get started.

In this game you have random cities with different manufacturing capacity. They make X tanks per "turn". Gather up an huge batch of tanks, then send it after other cities, who will be busy building tanks as well to defend itself. There will be AI as well, and they will send tanks to attack other cities too.

The map is randomly generated with random amount of cities depending on size, and random capacity. The idea is conquer the whole map with your tanks.

Actually, this game is more closely related to Archipelago, GalCon, or Space Domination, where each "planet / city / island" produce units (spaceships, tanks, planes...) and you use those to conquer the neutral islands.

The main problem with this game is it is actually turn-based, not real-time, which makes it VERY VERY slow. Also, it has problems resuming from interruptions, such as a phone call.

Due to lack of proper resume, rating is 3 of 10.

Pros: slower, less hectic version of Archipelago or Galcon
Cons: turn-based?!?!  interface is clunky
Rating: 3 of 10
Verdict: outdated compared to its real-time cousins

Get Tank Warriors from Androlib.com

You control a radioactive ball in 3D using tilt controls as it rolls down a corridor. The more radioactive stuff you hit, the faster it rolls. The more obstacle you hit, the slower it moves. When the ball stops, it's all over.

The game is basically a "stunt-runner" type game where you avoid all the bad stuff and hit all the good stuff... in pretty good 3D graphics. Hit the guy, hit the radioactive barrels, jump the ramps, avoid the spinning fan blades, avoid the cargo containers...

The "demo" version limits your max run to 120 seconds, but you will need to be pretty good to use up all that time. In fact, you probably won't last 30 seconds without a lot of practice.

It *is* a twitch-type game, so if you don't dig this type of game you won't like it, but you probably would not hate it either. It's not new, as it's been done before in 2D on the Android, but this 3D version does show off the graphics capabilities.

Give it a try.

Pros: pretty good graphics, pretty good gameplay for something that simple, lots of stunts
Cons: can be pretty difficult for those who are not into twitch games, not all controls explained well
Rating: 7 out of 10
Verdict: a fun little game where you are that huge rock chasing Indiana Jones... Sort of.

Get Radio Ball 3D from Androlib.com

You are the lone defender of the castle against invading stickmen, and you can shoot only 3 arrows at a time. However, every stickmen you kill will earn you gold with which you can buy repairs and upgrades to your arrows, such as multi-shot, higher shot power, fire damage, and so on. How many levels can you last?

There are of course, different kinds of stickmen, some strong, some fast, some are less vulnerable to certain types of arrows... So you need to upgrade, upgrade, and more upgrade. Flick or click to launch arrow. Kill them all. You get the idea!

In practice, the fire arrows are useful, but blocks the view of the enemy bars, so you basically end up spraying arrows all over the place, and once you got max upgrade on the multi-shots, it's just steady upgrade of arrow power, and nothing else. Progression of difficulty is not that well designed.

Cute, but not that interesting.

Pros: simple and to the point, cute in a certain sense
Cons: upgrades are not that well balanced, fire blurs the damage bars
Rating: 6 out of 10
Verdict: another variant on the "defense" theme... but nothing too special here

Get Flick Defense (demo) from Androlib.com

The text-based classic Rogue / Dnd type game, was slightly improved for the Android phone... Choose a character, and descend into the depths of a randomly generated dungeon. Think Diablo, but in 2D, and turn-based, and you would not be too far off.

However, it's also far more tedious. You need to eat, drink, and there are randomly good and bad things that will happen to you, and you will encounter plenty of randomly generated weapons and equipment and bazillion other stuff. And there are a ton of different enemies with different attacks, and bazillion options. In fact, just the number of commands is staggering. Playing it with a virtual keyboard is nearly IMPOSSIBLE. As you can see, nearly every key is mapped to SOMETHING.

Graphics? Well, that can be improved by downloading some "tilesets", which made the whole thing look more... like C64 instead of VT100 Terminal (if you don't know what those are, you're a young whippersnapper. Ha-ha), but it's still the same game.

The problem is it's too tedious, too complicated, to be fun nowadays.In general, the game runs like this. You run into things, kill a few weak monsters like snake, spider, then you hit a tough one, and you're severely wounded. You find some food, which heals you. You go down another level. This time the monster kills you. The end. You barely explored 5% of the capabilities of the game, like spells, items, and so on.

It has some nostalgic qualities, but a modern game this ain't.

Pros: the old game is here, with tileset improvements
Cons: was, and still is, too ****ing complicated
Rating: 6 out of 10
Verdict: worth visiting only for nostalgia's sake

Get Nethack from Androlib.com