opkopk
1701
Ah yes, then if he takes iocane powder then I’ll have to remember that I am him and he is me.
:-)
biosc1
1702
It also is a much different game against a friend versus strangers. I knew my friend was big into the ‘expect the unexpected’ type maneuvers. Once I figured out how to counter those, I won at least 50/50 of the games.
opkopk
1703
Frozen Synapse is out in the store. I’ll buy it once I can scrounge a WiFi for my pad.
Generally I base the claim on win percentages of top players. This is harder to judge for ascension, as it doesn’t show you other people’s records. But I have won as consistently as anyone in the Ascension league since joining, and made the playoffs every time, so I assume my record is on the high side of what people have and it hovers right around winning 2/3 of the time (currently 429-215). In Summoner Wars I also won the league for most of the months I played and my record generally hovered between winning 3/4 and 4/5 of games (currently 167-48). I can also see other top players records to know that a really high win percentage is possible, I know one person that is 47-4 for example. So I am basically going off stats more than any sort of feel in my claim.
But it makes intuitive sense to me, because there is much more under your control in Summoner Wars, and it is a more directly competitive adversarial game. In both games the random elements are something you have to plan for, but you have a much greater ability to do so in Summoner Wars. In the 200+ games I have played there are only a handful that I would say were really decided on the dice, but it can be easy to notice and remember them.
Nathan
1705
I am stupidly hooked on New Star Soccer. I don’t know why, it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of game there.
HA! Yeah, I am not a soccer fan and the game, on the surface, appears relatively shallow, but I played the hell out of that until I got almost all of the achievements and won my way up the ladder.
Sporos was free yesterday when I downloaded it. So far it’s simple, but challenging. It’s a nice little puzzle game where you’re presented with a cell, and asked to fill it in with pieces they provide. I’ve only finished ten of the puzzles with one 2 star, the rest 3 stars. It’s starting to ramp up though, and came with quite a few levels.
opkopk
1708
For that matter, Pudding Monsters is free today too. It has a casual Cut the Rope type feel to it, but is less timing based. Definitely casual, but hours of fun.
Thanks for the heads up opkopk. Pudding monsters is definitely proving fun, like most games by Zepto labs. Been a while since I played a sliding tile puzzle game.
opkopk
1710
Sporos seems fun after about 25 levels so far.
PM really intrigued me after I 3-starred all the levels. It lets you go back and try to 2-star, 1-star & 0-star them all as well. That was quite fun and a bit of a challenge. Now that there’s new levels I’m revisiting it (and Where’s the Water has new ones as well). I’ll be busy during poop time for a while.
opkopk
1713
They’re called casual games for a reason
I played 7 or 8 battles and I am bored to tears. I see people calling this a “good” or “decent” game and likening it to chess. It is a tedious grindfest and I think people’s gauge of what is good and not good as far as iOS games goes is radically different from how they would judge a PC or console title.
Does anyone else think many places and individuals cut iOS games waaaaaayyyyyy too much slack? This is about the 100th time I have thought this. I want to punch people that call this similar to FFT right square in the face. It is turn based and there is a square battlefield. End of similarities.
Oh, yes. No question about it. There are some outstanding iOS games (Ascension, Eclipse if you don’t count the so-so multiplayer implementation) that compare well to PC games, but most of them are only good compared to browser games.
Thraeg
1716
Agreed. There’s a lot of crap out there, and the reviews (both professional and user) tend to be very forgiving compared to those on dedicated gaming platforms.
It’s easy to say that they are different platforms and it’s not fair to directly compare the games on them, but they’re still competing for time and attention with everything else out there. At this point, I’m not really interested in anything that’s just a polished time-filler, since I always have a book and saved articles a click away on my phone.
But still, there’s enough legitimately good stuff that I’m not going to complain too much.
I got it for $.99 and yeah, it’s maybe worth that. It’s like a real SRPG the same way a Yugo is like a Camaro or something.
I tried it for the dollar but I agree it is blah
Holy Moses, people! Karateka is out today!No, not that remake. The original. For the Apple II. It feels perfect. The sounds are amazing. You can play in monochrome. And there are floppy drive sounds at the historically accurate loading points. The only thing I can see that they changed is that you can retry battles (save points, basically). And the eagles feel like they fly at you fast, but maybe my memory is off.
Buy and enjoy!
peterb
1720
If I hold the pad upside down can I play upside down!
