1681

Yeah, the UI is pretty opaque. In the star map screen, there are two buttons in the lower left with rightward arrows that will end the turn. The bottom one advances by one “day” and the top one advances until something interesting happens.

Watch this video before starting, and check out the other videos once you get going.

1682

Hmm, it looks like Neuroshima Hex achivements I’ve already earned on my wife’s Game Center account aren’t showing up on my own Game Center account.

It’s possibly a bug. I’m getting the feeling it’s kind of stupid to try to be an achivement whore on iOS anyway. But the metagame gives me an excuse to try new things.

1683

Thanks magnet, I’ll watch it.

1684

Got the lite version and like it! Does every team cost money?

1685

No problem. One thing to point out is that the newest version of Ascendancy has the ability to save your ship designs as well as use some default templates. This feature isn’t in the video, and it makes shipbuilding much easier.

1686

It comes with four teams. The are an additional two teams which you can purchase.

1687

Can someone who has played iPad Combat Mission write a review? How does the UI hold up?

1688

I haven’t played it, but the forums over at Touch Arcade went from ‘wow, so cool’ to ‘ugh, glitchy, rough, and dumbed-down’ pretty quick. Now, I have no idea how reliable that is, though a bunch of the posters seem to have PC Combat Mission experience at least. Sort of cooled my intention to buy the thing.

1689

I tried Combat Mission Touch for about an hour and my initial impression is it’s a very watered down version of the PC version. I was hoping it would at least have the sophistication of the original CM, but it doesn’t come close to that. For example, there appears to be no order delays or HQ effects, no way to go hull down with vehicles, button up, or change their covered arc. There is no feedback on who is firing at what when you watch a replay, and no info on enemy units when you spot them. Battlefront stated on their forums that the iPad is not powerful enough for even a game of CM 1’s complexity (even by the time of iPad 8, they believe!), but I have a hard time believing that.

1690

Thanks - that is VERY helpful. I will be avoiding it for now then. Like you, I have a hard time believing that the iPad isn’t powerful enough for CM1 though. That was a 2001 game… maybe some hardware gurus can give us an opinion.

1691

My pretty decent PC can’t run a 5000 points battle vs AI…

And that’s small compared to the size of the formations you are supposed to buy.

So, no Ipad 11 maybe.

1692

I don’t understand this. You can’t play the game that was released in 2000 today?

1693

I can believe that it is a pretty CPU intensive game. They always talk about how many calculations are going on under the hood. Everything is tracked down to a single bullet. Perhaps a game where having a quad core CPU would have been an advantage.

1694

What about Battle Academy, have people played that?

1695

At this point I would say Battle Academy is a much better game than Combat Mission. I don’t think there is much “game” in combat mission, because your orders and options are very limited and movie replay feedback is minimal.

1696

Finally picked up the Call of Cthulhu: Wasted Lands (part intense curiosity, part research). And, yeah, it’s kinda a stinker, I’m very sorry to say. Unpolished, poor UI, terrible touch controls, lame story (so far). Damn shame.

Figured I would warn anyone else sitting on the fence like I was until yesterday.

1697

Well, thanks for taking one for the team, buddy.

1698

Thanks!

1699

I’m playing it right now and rather enjoying myself.
I’m still on the first campaign (cirka 6 hours in), but even so, I think I’ve already gotten my moneys worth. The rather high price is warranted, IMHO.

1700

I hope you got it at the $1.99 price that it just dropped to. I wish I had read your post before ponying up (the iTunes reviews are pretty glowing), I can handle it for two bucks.