Yet More Quick Game Reviews for Motorola Droid and Android Phones (August 2010): Star Fighter, Drops, Guns, and Shooting

There sure were a lot of games released this month for the Droid (and other Android phones), so here's a third volume to cover some of the games available. Any way, enjoy the quick reviews. And if you see a game worthy of mention, put it in the comments!

Droplets is a logical puzzle, but it seriously needs more of a tutorial mode, and that is VERY frustrating, as the game, while similar to some of the puzzlers out there, is more related to Go than to simple puzzles, and that shows some original thinking.

The game starts with some water droplets in a grid. Droplet can move in any of the four directions. The objective is the "eliminate" all but one of the droplets by hitting one with another. If A hits B, B is eliminated, and A's new position is just short of B. Later levels introduced the 8-ball (must be left on the field) and lady bug (don't hit it!) Thus, you have to decide which to move first, which then sets you up for the subsequent moves. When the droplet count goes into 5 or higher, the number of moves to consider is staggering.

The game has a puzzle mode, where you get 100 levels of unlimited time (paid version has even more), and an arcade mode, where you are tasked to remove as many droplets as you can within a time limit.

Overall, Droplets shows promise as a puzzler, but really needs a few screens to explain the whole game concept.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10

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This Crossfire is NOT related to the excellent arcade shooter on the PC, unfortunately, but more like a relative of artillery / Scorched Earth, but in real-time. 

A "sci-fi moat" separates you and the enemy. There is no other terrain, no angle, just press and hold the unit to move, and release to shoot. Longer you hold the further you shoot. And really, that's it. You have three units sure, but you can only control one at a time. You control the orange shooter(s), and you shoot all the purple ones before they kill you. You can take two hits... First stuns you for a few seconds. If you get hit the second time you're toast. If you lose all three units it's game over.

And really, that's it.

Boring, boring, boring. No reason to have 3 crafts except for enemies to blow up (by accident most of the time), dumb game mechanics, not much of a challenge at all.

Rating: 4 out of 10

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Guns n' Glory is actually not about glory at all, but rather, about a bunch of outlaws out to gun down every settler that came across the west in order to gather a ton of loot!

At its heart, GnG is a variant on Tower Defense. Each of the outlaws is a type of turret, and you get a bunch of different units coming across, and the idea is not to let many of them through, or they'll notify the sheriff! The more you kill, the more money you get to hire more outlaws (turrets) Units that come across includes settlers (male and female), horse riders (fast), regular wagon, hard wagon, and extra-tough wagon. Each is more vulnerable to some weapons and not so vulnerable to other weapons. So you need to have a proper mix. If more than X number of settlers escape, sheriff is notified, and you lose! So don't let the "count" drop to zero! (Usually it's at about 50 or so)

The turrets/outlaws includes: gunner (have a rapid firing Winchester repeater), brave (shoots a fire arrow, target suffers continuous fire damage), dynamite thrower (throws stick of dynamite), rebel cannon (shoots big cannon balls), gatling gun (can only be mounted on railroad flatbed car attached to train). As noted earlier, some units are extra vulnerable to some and not so vulnerable to others (and average to others).

The really fun part about this game is the outlaws (turrets) can be moved, and initially you will have to move them as you don't have enough. You can also have the outlaw pick up some "chests" on the way, which contains goodies like extra damage, rapid fire, extra $$$, even return some of your "life" (usually +5).

In practice it is difficult to judge just how you *can* survive up to 10 waves in each "location". At the end the wagons keep coming hard and fast, and you don't feel you have enough firepower to keep killing them. The gatling is fine against individual settlers but little use on wagons. Cannons don't fire fast enough, and neither does dynamite throwers, and they are EXPENSIVE. On the other hand, all the relationships are explained in the game,

The full version promises even MORE locations and tougher challenges. However, even the free version will provide you hours of entertainment. Definitely give it a try.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10  <<=== MUST TRY GAME OF THE WEEK

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Remember those 360 rotating shooters like Xevious, Time Pilot, and so on? Star Fighter is the Android version of that genre.

You're this fighter and you need to fight in space and in air blasting all bad guys. There's a little radar to help you find the enemy, and you can use d-pad or tilt to rotate. And what else do you need to know?

In practice the ship is pretty responsive. There are text notices that tells you stuff about the plot or status of the fight. However, there is no auto-shoot. So it can get a bit tedious.

Still, not a bad game.

Rating, 7 out of 10.

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