Yie Ar Kung-Fu -- old arcade classic makes a retro attack onto mobiles, and this is a FULL retro version with all 11 enemies, and every single possible move available.
Brothers in Arms: Art of War -- Gameloft tries again with Brothers in Arms franchise, and went off into the Wild Blue Yonder... again. (I really hate it when a game publisher went lazy make a boss that's impossible given the game context)
Seems like mobile game market will get hotter, but not all publishers actually UNDERSTAND the mobile game market. Publishers, take note:
- Mobile gamers want ability to save ANYWHERE, so they can come back to it later.
At least make your game "pause friendly", so that a gamer can pick it up minutes, hours, or even days later. A single savegame is fine, but rather... annoying. Two or more savegames would be better. - Mobile gamers want a level or a game that lasts just a few minutes, so they can have some distraction during waiting or such.
Games that go on infinitely, such as Tetris, actually are NOT great mobile games, unless you add pause support and other "resume" abilities, but that'd actually make the game simpler as you get more time to study the level... - Mobile gamers want games that show some innovation, not merely different control scheme or new set of sprites or such.
Thus, adding SOME 3D to a 2D title is really dumb, when the rest of gameplay isn't there. Metal Slug 3 Mobile got a 3D version... The choppers are 3D, and that end "saucer" is 3D, but everything else... is still 2D. What's worse, someone forgot to check the sizes... The saucer was flying THROUGH the train. Now it's MORE than stupid. - Mobile gamers want good responsive controls that works within confines of phone keypad. Thus, having MORE controls than the basics is BAD.
Worst offender? Ridge Racer for mobile phone. They tried to give you 4 different control configs, but none of them work well, as a phone keypad just isn't up to the task of driving AND shifting gears. - Mobile gamers want GOOD graphics, or at least good-looking graphics, or failing that, CLEAR and READABLE graphics.
Sometimes, the developers forgot that they've developing for a cellphone, and designed their art a wee bit TOO SMALL. Saint's Row Mobile is the worst offender here... Take a look at these images. Can you spot "your man" in the first pic? (Hint: he's in the center, wearing light-green)
And here's just a personal pet peeve of mine... It's fine if you make the final boss a really big, bad, and nasty entity, but don't make him absolutely impossible within the context of the game. Gameloft have a tendency to do this with a LOT of their games, as if they're trying to pull from the same design documents.
- Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Mobile -- you end up fighting ALONE against an enemy MECH (yes, I said MECH, 2 legs, jumps (don't let it land on you!), fires heavy machine gun and GUIDED missiles). What do I have? My assault rifle and some grenades. Whoopee. :P Oh, and one fixed heavy machine gun.
- Brothers in Arms : Art of War -- you end up alone, fighting a Nazi General who's flying a Me-262 with machine guns and guided missiles. However, you're on a platform that is moving like 200 MPH, so the jet can kinda "hover" near you to shoot you. However, you at least have a bazooka this time, though the jet can "buzz" you and try to knock you off the platform, but you somehow can hold on and climb back on...
Enough ranting. Reviews coming soon, stay tuned.
Come to think of it, did I ever review TradeWinds 2? Guess not.
Tradewinds 2 -- updated version of "Taipan" set in Caribean, 3 different starts, randomly generated availability of ports and openings, every play will be different.
P.S. I thought I had previously reviewed Prince of Persia classic. Turns out I haven't, so the review is up on IGN.
No comments:
Post a Comment