This is pretty interesting, I just got a high score playing Crushin’ Robots – NYC on the iPad with Natalia sleeping on my lap. All other play-through attempts on this new game by indie devs Falling Objects Entertainment’s latest game ended rather dismally but I’ll get to that in a moment.

The game is pretty simple with players taking on the role of a lone construction worker taking on an invasion of New York by a bunch of evil robots. The overweight chap is initially armed with some light, for a lack of a better term, weapons such as a nail gun, spanners and gas cylinders.

These basic weapons can at best take you up to levels 5 or 6, as the game gets progressively harder the longer you play. The longer you play, different robot types are unlocked and the 2D graphics do well in conveying the added carnage. Destroying robots also allows players to access power ups and chalk up scrap which can be used to upgrade and get new weapons.

Now here comes the clincher. The weapons come off as being too weak initially and with upgrades seem to cost too much in terms of scraps, it seems a little bit convenient to have in-app purchase function to buy more scraps. I know it makes me sound a little cynical but it looks like you’ll need to pay to win or work your fingers off for a long time in the game.

IAP aside, Crushin’ Robots – NYC is a pretty polished debut and Nineoverten.com rates the game at a 4 out of 5. The game is now available on the iTunes App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crushin-robots-nyc/id568075534?ls=1&mt=8.

A review code was provided to Nineoverten.com for the purpose of this review.

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GearSprout’s latest iOS title, Chuck the Bot brought a smile to my face as the wordplay in title not only described the name and nature of the game’s protagonist (his name is Chuck, he is a robot), but also the gameplay involved, where you have to chuck poor Chuck out-of-bounds from a level. The faster you get him to leave, the better as players are rated Angry Birds style in terms of how fast they get this done in the form of stars.

How you get Chuck to leave in this physics-based game is by manipulating his environment. Certain items in each level can be destroyed, and players choose how best they would want to manipulate pulleys, ropes, balls and even make-shift catapults to chuck poor Chuck out. I must say the gameplay model in Chuck the Bot is refreshing as most games would focus of destroying stuff while trying to keep everything IN.

Aside from the awesome gameplay, I really love the art direction in this game, objects are rendered as crumpled colour paper and Chuck himself, looks to be a colour-pencil creation. Chuck the Bot has some extras under it sleeve, with the addition of an Level Creator/Editor and an Online Level Viewer for plenty of user-generated content.

This increases the amount of re-playability that the game already offers from the 60 levels that it already has. One thing to note, the game is available for free on the iTunes App Store with 15 levels available, the rest of the game is unlocked with a 99 cents in-app purchase.That’s actually a pretty smart business model from GearSprout, having people to check out the game first before deciding to unlock more levels and the Online Level Viewer for a very small sum.

If you have not checked out Chuck the Bot yet, you really should as we at Nineoverten.com rate the game highly at a 4.5 out of 5. Check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chuck-the-bot/id602192130?mt=8

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Turn-based World War II games on the iPad are not a common breed, and I’m not sure whether is that popular a genre to begin with. But this doesn’t deter the folks at HeroCraft from releasing their brand new title Strategy & Tactics: World War II for iOS devices. In this turn-based game, players take part in all three theaters of war (Europe, Asia and Africa) as they command the armies of the USSR and the Allies against some really impressive A.I opponents.

Players fight through 18 missions in story mode, with historically accurate troops and on top of that new technology can also be researched to improve troop divisions and build industry in the march to victory. Should players tire of the A.I opponents, there are also skirmish games, several classic scenarios, plus hot seat and Wi-Fi multiplayer modes, including between various different smartphones and tablets. All this displayed, in a highly-detailed, powerful but simple to understand interface.

George Erkhan, Creative Director of HeroCraft: “We are thrilled to finally put the fruits of our labour into the hands of discerning strategy enthusiasts. This game combines the complexity of classic turn-based strategies with the convenience of modern mobile apps. Strategy & Tactics differs significantly from our Revival or Majesty franchises but we are confident it will gain recognition and more than a little love from fans of the genre.”

The game is available for FREE on the iTunes App Store, and there’s a USD 6.99 in-app purchase that will unlock the premium version of the game. Check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/strategy-tactics-world-war-ii/id570655455?l=ru&ls=1&mt=8

It’s always interesting to see developers of triple-A titles for the PC or consoles making the jump to mobile. The resulting games almost always tend to be a little more cooler than what solo indie developers tend to come up with, and with new indie development studio Megapop (made up of ex Funcom and ex Artplant developers), this is no different.

Unveiled today is their debut title Trolls vs Vikings, which will be made available both on PC and mobile platforms. The game will be showcased in GDC 2013 and hopefully will bring several new features to the fore in a genre that is honestly well and truly saturated on both PC and mobile. Check out the following excerpt from the Press Release for further details:

Trolls vs Vikings is a brand new tower defense game for players of all ages and experience levels, where you’re tasked with defending a tribe of grumpy, misunderstood-but-harmless Trolls from raids by Vikings intent on stealing their gold.  This colorful, engaging and edgy lane defense game is set in a world of rich Norse mythology, populated by a cast of over-the-top characters. With their background in creating Triple-A MMO, Adventure and Browser titles, Megapop are setting the bar high for their debut game.

Trolls vs Vikings adds a number of never-before-seen features, striving to evolve the tower defense genre for a whole new audience. It takes a fresh approach to towers, levels, gameplay, tactics, player interaction and boss fights. In addition, Trolls vs Vikings has a number of genre enhancements, including multiplayer matches (both live and asynchronous), full social integration, movable towers, strategic resource gathering, a dynamic tile system, set-piece challenges, and more. How did they fit all that game into one little game?!

Don’t forget to stay tuned to Nineoverten.com for further details on Trolls vs Vikings.

Our friends at UNAGames dropped in to announced that they have been nominated for the Drago d’Oro, the Italian award for excellence in the world of video games.  Just a little background on the Drago d’Oro; it is the Italian video game industry award established by AESVI, (Associazione Editori Sviluppatori Videogiochi Italiani), and has two prestigious partnerships with Media World, a leading consumer electronics chain in Italy, and Repubblica.it, one of the top Italian information websites.

The technical jury, chaired by Paul Spagnoli – Product Manager Videogame at Media World – and composed of journalists from the press, will choose the best games by genre; the jury of critics, headed by Jaime D’Alessandro – La Repubblica journalist – and comprising journalists from major news organizations (Corriere della Sera, Il Sole 24 Ore, La Stampa, Gazzetta dello Sport) and culture and showbiz personalities, will evaluate the artistic and cultural value of the nominated titles.

We reviewed UNAGames’ Tapsteroids back in 2011 (read all about it here) and the game has been nominated in the Best Independent Italian Videogame category, along with other luminaries such as Ducati Challenge, Ikaro Racing: Air Master, Shadows on the Vatican and several more. We at Nineoverten.com wish UNAGames the best of luck in the Drago d’Oro.

I had an interesting itch to scratch, desktop gaming on the go, without a laptop or a desktop but with an iPad. Given the advent of high speed Internet broadband in Malaysia along with remoting software that I usually use for work, I was just waiting for the right game to come.

I know I can't cope with action games for the purpose of this experiment, not with the level of interactivity required (basically the need to use the mouse and the keyboard at the same time). So how about a turn-based strategy game which already passed the “new father with a 2 and a half month old baby” test.

Civ V's relatively simple controls belie the complexity this long standing franchise has been known for. But complexity isn't what we are looking for here, we just want to find out whether the game is playable on the iPad. My test environment involved a MacBook Pro running Steam on Mac OSX at home with a 5 Mbps line, while I'm accessing that machine from my in-laws, where they also have a 5 Mbps Internet connection as well.

The results? A totally playable experience, with one niggling issue, the fact that the virtual mouse is a little small will make it slightly difficult to left click and drag to move around the map. It felt really seamless though the experience, I guess the high speed line (well at least to Malaysians, our neighbors down south run at 150 Mbps) had a lot to do with it.

Why bother going to such trouble to get Civ V running on the iPad instead of sticking to just iPad games. Well, I've not met one with such excellent start and stop gameplay and while some do show potential, other elements such as the genre and rules (some iPad games are too complex for their own good, don't you think) simply put me off.

Now if you may excuse me, Boudicca has a round of diplomacy to make before deciding on which city state to conquer.

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The SimCity 5 launch reminded me of Diablo III all over again, with its always on server connection (EA is not calling it that, rather players are “sharing” the same game space) and to hear an EA exec mention that more people logged on than they have expected, playing in ways that weren’t expected (check it out), makes one wonder whether do these guys have any idea what are they talking about in the first place.

This problem however isn’t endemic to the Diablos and Simcities of the world as casual games, which are facing a boom period on iOS and Android devices are guilty of this too. Mainly created to tap into the freemium model, these games constantly are in touch with backend servers, in the likelihood to prevent cheating (especially those that support any form of multiplayer) and to manage in-game purchases.

The folks at at Big Blue Bubble has just launched a brand new MMO on the iPad, featuring pirates and the high seas. Titled Raft Pirates, players get to build their pirate ships by piecing together rafts, and putting some really crazy looking weapons on board. The crew look like something out from a Miyazaki film and having said that, everything in the game is in beautiful 2D line-art graphics.

Besides taking turns battling other fellow pirates (the multiplayer action doesn’t require the active participation of other players, it’s basically a play against power levels), and building your rafts, players get to participate in mini games, collecting salvage (which is earned through combat as well) by diving deep into the waters of Rift Pirates.

In  a perfect world, a reviewer like me would say, hey, this will be the next big thing, but then like SimCity and Diablo, Raft Pirates features always-on connectivity back to its servers. Yes the game is an MMO (and one can argue that SimCity 5 is one as well), but what happens if the servers do not scale up with the seemingly increasing numbers of players buoyed by positive initial reviews. You get nothing short of a disaster.

I’m now having trouble starting the game, it crashes upon start-up. Before that, combat resolution was really slow and there were more than one occasion where I was booted out after a hard-earned victory (reason being the game communicates with the server during and right after combat, and so happened it failed), denying me salvage. To rub salt to the wound, the damage to my ship still remains, with  nothing (in terms of salvage) to show.

You can imagine that it has been an incredibly frustrating experience reviewing Raft Pirates. It seems to be a very nicely  made game, only to be hampered by it’s back end. I would give the game a 4.5 out of 5 just for the gameplay and graphics alone, but connectivity issues and the fact that it is unplayable now makes it difficult for me to recommend the game at all. It’s available for free on the iTunes App Store, so you’re more than welcome to check it out: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/raft-pirates/id539098940?mt=8.

When the folks from Czech-indie game developers Cinemax contacted me about their new iOS title 247 MISSILES, I was thinking to myself: “Hmmm… Another Missile Command clone?” Curiosity did get the better of me and I ended up using the promo code provided by the developers to grab a copy of the game from the iTunes App Store.

I’m happy to report that it was the right move and 247 MISSILES doesn’t disappoint. Like other Missile Command clones before it, the gameplay is action packed. You’ll be tapping all over the screen to intercept enemy missiles. As the commander, instead of the traditional missile silos, you control a Navy ship and submarine protecting a bunch of cities. Both units launch different types of missiles, the ones launched by the ship travel slower while sub-launched missiles move faster.

You’ll need to make full use of both missile types as there are different kinds of enemy missiles as well. Adding further to the player’s tactical considerations would be the fact that both units will need to reload and can be temporary knocked out of commission by enemy missiles! While not exactly being available all the time, players can trigger a laser whenever a satellite flies overhead, helping to destroy enemy missiles as well.

Destroying stuff nets you valuable coins which you can use to upgrade both your ship and submarine as well as additional protection for your cities. The level of difficulty gets progressively harder the longer you survive, just like Tetris . The game tabulates your high score and uploads it to Game Center so you can see how you fare against the rest of the world.

247 MISSILES greatly impresses with its fun, frantic gameplay and super smooth 2D graphics which would make any fan of Missile Command happy. Perfect for one of those days where you just want to blast things out from the sky. And don’t worry about the crazy loading screen when you see it in the game:

Nineoverten.com rates 247 MISSILES at a 4.5 out of 5. The game is available on the iTunes App Store for USD 0.99, check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/247-missiles/id598888111?mt=8

A review code was provided to Nineoverten.com for the purpose of this review.

I was just about to start Butterscotch Shenanigans’ latest iOS title Towelfight 2: The Monocle of Destiny to grab a bunch of screenshots when my baby girl Natalia decided that she needed some attention. It’s interesting being a new father and a gamer at the same time, having to schedule play time for her and myself, not to mention the time to write stuff like this. I’m 100% confident that a few years down the road she’ll be gaming along with her old man on whatever it is that Sony or Microsoft come up with.

OK, back to the review. You know how the App Store is saturated with 8-bit titles; so much so that as a reviewer, my eyes start to bleed at the mention of “retro graphics”. No offense to developers who think retro is cool, but you know too much of a good thing, like sugar, can be really bad for you (think diabetes). But what if developers took the design principles of retro titles such as The Legend of Zelda, putting key emphasis on exploration with a whole slew of bizarre characters, and top it up with the clean, crisp lines of 21st century 2D animation?

I would say that the team at BS (heh, that was smart) have a winner right here with Towelfight 2. Players take on the role of Hardik, an Indian guy with a stereotypical monocle reminiscent of all things British India. Anyways, the old chap gets swept away to a strange land and that monocle of his gets enchanted to shoot out animals in order to destroy enemies. The first animal that you can shoot out of your monocle is a…frog. Don’t let that wet towel dampen your spirits as you get to collect more animals that deliver even more devastating firepower, well, except for the sloth, he’s just too slow coming out of the monocle.

Towelfight 2 is pretty unique for a game, as the game world is procedurally generated with interconnected rooms. Clearing rooms of enemies and destructible objects will net you coins, rescue NPCs, keys, animal weapons and treasure chests. It’s good to note that Hardik jumps around like a kid discovering a candy store for the first time whenever he gets a new weapon or an item, it’s not that the game is acting up or something. Hardik also has a penchant of saying irrelevant things when it comes to destroying enemies, so be sure to watch the screen for all the shout outs.

There’s quite a lot of content in Towelfight 2, and you get plenty of bang for your buck as the amount of hours you can put in to exploring the game can number in the dozens. The interconnected rooms allow you to take a breather from time to time, but you’ll find that combat is so addictive you’ll go “hey, let’s explore the next room”. The NPCs that you discover along the way have some pretty colourful dialogue, which in context of the game is good, since it shows character.

Towelfight 2, with all its irrelevant, quirky dialogue, crazy combat and vast amount of levels and not to mention sweet 2D graphics, simply delivers and is a heavy favourite of mine to being one of the best games in 2013. Nineoverten.com rates Towelfight 2 at a 5 out of 5. SIMPLY OUTSTANDING. The game is available on the iTunes App Store at a price of USD 2.99. Check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/towelfight-2-monocle-destiny/id599207248?mt=8

A review code was provided to Nineoverten.com for the purpose of this review. Natalia was not harmed during the course of this review and she was promptly attended to throughout the entire time .

If you are still playing Tiny Tower, don’t you wish for a little bit of spice on your piece of real estate. Nothing ever happens except for visitors and VIPs, but don’t fret just yet, as a brand new game is set to allow you to build castles, complete with all things medieval!  Gamenauts, in conjunction with developer Artlogic Games, today announced their upcoming tower building / RPG hybrid, Castle Champions. The first in a series of games published under Gamenauts’ Asian indie mobile publishing initiative, Castle Champions combines castle-management simulation with RPG/battle party management. The game is set to hit the App Store for free on March 14, 2013.

The coveted honor of being the Castle Champion is up for grabs! Players must battle against fearsome enemies such as the Cerberus, Minotaur, and other medieval menaces in the Amateur and Pro Leagues to claim the prestigious title. Train an army with warriors of nine different character classes, including Mages, Crusaders and Paladins, as well as one of six Heroes serving as team captain to increase the army’s battle prowess!

The army, of course, would not exist without a formidable castle in which to train. Players must build a castle from the ground up to house not just their warriors but also civilians who will earn the player valuable gold and crystals for being employed in the castle’s businesses. Heroes must also be ready at all times to repel the horde of castle invaders!

Stay tuned to Nineoverten.com come March 14th for the launch announcement, and see you in Castle Champions.