Ben – Page 4 – This is a Game Blog

Boomerang All Stars

I’m not really sure what the ‘Boomerang’ is supposed to represent in this title. It doesn’t even make it easy to find on the App Store thanks to a glut of other apps with similar titles. Where this game is likely to be found is in the same place I found it – under a niche sub-category on the gaming main page.

There’s nothing particularly ‘meaty’ about this game, and that’s ok. Not every game on mobile needs to have teeth, and this one will cater for anyone who wants some variety with some Warner Bros. characters thrown in for good measure. There is a variety of games, or sports, to play, and while they’re not necessarily anything special – they’re not all together terrible either.

All-in-all, this probably isn’t a bad game to keep on your phone if you’ve got kids around. Otherwise, the more discerning gamer is unlikely to milk much joy from this particular cow.

Go Escape!

This is a fun little title where you essentially bounce a small ball over the top of spikes as gravity takes hold and it tracks downward. I thought this would have been easier than what it turned out to be, but as it turned out, there is nuance to this that requires you to master timing, speed and trajectory.

I’ll be honest, this is more fun than I thought it would be. But at the same time, it’s another ad-filled game that just takes away the short fix you need sometimes, and instead inserts a frustratingly long gameplay ad that ends up causing you to turn the whole thing off, rather than entice you into a purchase.

Wonka’s World of Candy Match 3

Truth be told, when I first saw this game on the App Store, I figured it was the third in a series of ‘Willy Wonka’ games, but as it turns out, it is simply a ‘Match 3’ game, which makes perfect sense when you stop and think about it – but my poor little SJW millennial mind is probably to blame.

That being said, this is, well, a match three game. It probably has more in kind with Garden/Homescapes than it does, say, Candy Crush. In addition to the normal matching part of the game, there is a bit of ‘base building on rails’, which, in this instance, is the Wonka Chocolate Factory.

There’s probably not enough here to keep the average punter interested in the game. I think those who might be new to the genre and haven’t been fatigued by the glut of matching games in the market might find this a good introduction, likewise that small niche of society that pang for anything and everything to do with Willy Wonka.

But for the rest of us? There’s nothing new or different here to prompt you to wake up in the morning.

It might not be a hard pass, but it’s certainly ‘don’t make eye contact’.

CSR Racing 2

At no point in the opening of CSR Racing 2 do you find out what exactly CSR stands for. Nor, too, the Wikipedia entry for the game series. And so, before you even start to comment on the quality of the racing in this game, you find yourself asking: what the hell does CSR mean?

Well, nobody can tell you with 100% certainty, but the consensus appears to be “Custom Street Racer”, and while grammatically it still gets a pass, I have to say, it’s not great to have ‘Racer Racing’ as good structure.

Perhaps the greatest sin though isn’t sentence structure, but rather the face that the most I could ‘custom'(ise) my car was to give it a lick of paint and change the rims.

Mate. GTA San Andreas had more customisation than that, and the game is fifteen years old!

The racing sets in the game are actually quite good fun. The fact that it is pretty much a tactical shifting of the gear, as well as the control of the garages demonstrate that you know your stuff.

Fortnite

You would be living under a fairly large boulder if you have never heard of Fortnite, considering it’s regularly news-shattering impact, notably the 2019 win by 16-year-old Kyle Giersdorf (or his online alias, “Bugha”, which makes me think of the old Toyota Ad where various characters mutter one word: ‘Bugger’), who took home the US$3 million grand prize in the first Fortnite World Cup.

I feel like my early adoption of Fortnite was a sign of things to come. It came to market at a time when ‘PUBG’ was all the rage, and instead of trying to compete with the quasi-realistic shooter, it took things in another direction and just made them fun!

I don’t plan on rehashing the format of a Battle Royale, but it seems like there are a few new game modes up for grabs these days. For instance, my first game of the season was not a Royale as such, but rather a team death match with a score count. So, even when you died, you just respawned and got on with it. And it was as fun as classic Fortnite used to be.

Well played, Epic Games.

Chessplode

Chess has had a bit of a resurgence in the gaming spheres lately. I’ve seen a lot of “Chess 960” variations floating around – and that in itself is bringing people back to the original game.

This, however, is something different again. The basics of this game are somewhat simple – catch a piece and it detonates every other piece in that row and column – except if the King is in the same row or column as the captured piece (and then it’s a regular capture). It’s probably an unnecessary addition to a crowded market but on the other hand, I appreciate it not just being ‘another chess game.’

I had a go at both the “vs Ziri” the the “levels” modes in the game, and both played pretty much like standard Chessbots. I wasn’t paying attention in the levels at first and didn’t realise it was a Chess 960 startup, so it took me some time to claw my way back to victory but considering it was Level 1, I suspect the Chessbot was more sympathetic than normal.

Polysphere

There is almost a beauty to the simplicity of Polysphere, and yet its increasing levels of complexity mean that this is not your average game. It truly is ‘art’ in a digital form.

The premise is simple, you are given a fractured shape or picture, and you rotate it in three dimensions to reform the image. At first the images invoke larger chunks of colour which help bring everything into focus much quicker, but, as you’d suspect, there are more colours, more fragmentation, and just generally more complexity as the game goes on.

I played about the first dozen levels, but once again, Polysphere is another game that is almost aggressive in its attempt to force you into a paid service, or swallow as many ads as they can force down your throat in between levels. It’s incredibly off-putting, but I appreciate the need to monetise in a complicated market with very few business models from which to apply.

But that’s not my problem. I just want to play great games.

If gaming has taught us anything in the past year, it’s that a subscription based service is absolutely the way to go. Xbox’s Game Pass has opened up a world of great independent games and titles that likely would have remained obscure and niche without being attached to the pass, and now they are brought front-and-centre. With this in mind, I think Apple Arcade probably stands the best chance of discovering some great mobile titles, but we’ll wait and see the details before lauding over it too much (but it seems like it’s definitely a step in the right direction).

Ultimate Briefcase

Well … this is certainly a video game. I can’t quite work out what the ‘end state’ of Ultimate Briefcase is, but I think it invokes a bit of an ‘endless runner’ spirit. That is, keep on going until you die … and then repeat the process until you die again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

The basic movement of the game is left and right, at least in these early stages, and it involves you dodging bombs for as long as you can. At one point you are able to launch the ‘Ultimate Briefcase’ which essentially just converts it into an umbrella which will cause bombs to harmlessly explode on top of your head, as you carry on your run back and forth for no particular reason.

I am sure that there are some perfectionists for this game who like to really push themselves to reach the upper echelons of the game, or a level that is overwhelming by design, but I’m certainly not one of those people. I was happy to play it, and I’m glad I did for the sake of posterity, but I wouldn’t be so quick to spend any money on it or invest any more time in the game than I already had.

Zombie Gunship Survival

Most people who played Call of Duty Modern Warfare (before it went all silly with wall jumping and other sci-fi/futuristic pursuits) will know and love the great level where you provide aerial cover for Price and his team from the comfort of an AC-130 gunship. Bombarding a whole bunch of bad-guys with a very satisfying series of explosions, or peppering bad guys with a mini-gun offers a level of cathartic satisfaction that very few games are able to replicate.

Well, as it turns out, Zombie Gunship Survival does … and it does so quite convincingly on a mobile phone.

I think what makes this game so enjoyable is the haptic feedback you get from firing your minigun at the zombies below. I’ve only had two weapon types to play with so far – the minigun as well as hellfire missiles – but both offer up a slice of tactile joy that I can have in the bathroom as easy as I can in bed or on the couch.

Already, I can see myself enjoying a few more levels in this game. I’ve progressed through a lot of the first ‘chapter’ or ‘stage’, and built up some of my base, but – to be honest – the micromanagement of resources and people and buildings and weapons doesn’t interest me nearly as much as holding down my ‘fire’ button on my minigun and shooting zombies.

And let’s face it – who doesn’t love shooting zombies?

Crossy Road

If you wanted to find a game that embodies what it means to see poultry-in-motion (get it?) then Crossy Road is for you. I mean, sure, it doesn’t hurt if you have the hendurance to be able to stand the journey from one side of the map to the other – this isn’t any old pecknic.

Anyone who played Frogger back in the day will instantly feel familiar with the premise. And even if you’re not, you quickly learn that the point is to keep moving forward, preferably not in the path of traffic.

The other thing I like about this game is it’s by an Australian developer, Hipster Whale. I know Giselle Rosman from the studio does a heap of work locally to make sure that the Australian scene punches well above its weight, and it shows here. I think that Crossy Road was a good early game to showcase what Australia was capable of, and the continued growth of the industry, despite a few recent, very public collapses, there’s still a lot of heart here in our little corner of the planet.