My Reviews
As a Technologist, some of the best conversations that I have with people are the back-room conversations about apps and games. This past year (2014) I decided to move my App and Game conversations from the back of my website – buried in my blog feed – to the forefront. Welcome to my new and improved review section.
App and Game Reviews
When I started writing app and game reviews, I had no idea what I was doing. So much seemed like magic, but I buckled down and found a way to do reviews with screenshots and a large amount of text.
After trying hard to make that work, I was bogged down in the review cycle – apps were coming into and out of my life before I could give them a proper review. On my iPad, I had a folder containing almost 100 Applications that were waiting for reviews before I deleted them.
Something had to give…
After some hard coding and wading through the App Store API, I found a way to introduce a standardized rating system for my reviews and direct app store links. Instead of uploading a huge amount of screenshots I shoot a screen-recording of the App put it up as a embedded video. Now every review I put out is for games that are current, includes a video of gameplay, has screenshots, includes up-to-date pricing, and an overall rating. That is progress!
My reviews are focused on five specific areas – although most applications will only get a review in three of those categories. I specifically look at the interface/usability of the app, how engaging that app is, and my final rating is a meta-score regarding the apps productivity value, overall gaming value, and/or educational value. All of the apps that I review will fit into one of those three major categories. You can see my full rubric by clicking on this link.
The Review Roll
Game Review: European War 4
This series is the most similar to a board game that I love, Axis and Allies. On each turn, you create armies, manage your economy, and make strategic battle decisions. In European War 4, you manage a span of time from the American Revolution to the French Revolution.
Each step of the game allows you to progress through more and more history. The campaign itself lets you play the major battles of the Napoleonic Campaign. You can make this game more and more difficult for yourself as you play the game in online and pass and play multiplayer or individual skirmishes.
read moreGame Review: NarcoGuerra
NarcoGuerra is a slightly scary Strategy Game produced by Game the News. GtN prides itself in making modern news stories approachable as games – and they do a nice job of creating the games.
Imaging playing risk with drugs, police, corruption, and lots of wars. If you can imagine all of that, with some great story lines and plot developments, you can picture what happens in NarcoGuerra. This is a realistic simulation about why the war on Drugs is so difficult to stop. When the game starts, you take command of the Police forces of Mexico. You help to develop resources, send men to battle and oust the Cartels.
read moreGame Review: Plague Inc.
Plague Inc is one of my favorite games of all time. I remember sitting in a Drafting class playing the game for weeks on end (sorry Mr.Geesman – we still got our projects done though). Back then – almost 15 years ago, the game was called Pandemic 2 and was a great SWF. Now, Plague Inc. by Ndemic solutions is a fantastically complicated version of one of my childhood all-star games.
In the game, you take control of a plague. That plague then targets and eradicates the entire human race. While you play, you unlock additional game types, new plagues, scenarios, genes to mutate your disease, and of course a blood fever for killing the human race.
read moreGame Review: Move the Turtle
Move the Turtle is a Kickstarter game turned app. It is designed to allow young students to approach object oriented programing through an easy to use graphical interface.
I have used the App as an extension of my basic programming course. In the elementary grades, this is a perfect app to teach elementary programming (hehe). Students use the interface to program the actions of a turtle. As the name implies, the students get more and more creative as they learn additional commands and processes that can get the turtle from point A to point B.
read moreApp Essentials: iTeacherBook
iTeacherBook is a great app to help manage the demands and scheduling needs of your classroom.
There are a few disclaimers to this app however. Unfortunately, it has not been updated for quite some time, reducing its value as it appears to be underdeveloped at this point. It also has no way to directly export your scores and attendance to other LMS and SIS platforms.
It takes just a few minutes to setup your class and students in the App, and then you can use iTeacherBook to keep records of your students and how they are progressing in class.
read moreGame Review: Star Realms
Star Realms can be summarized in a single statement: Simple Drafting SciFi Card Game.
The gameplay of Star Realms is amazingly easy! You play cards which give you energy or combat points that you use to purchase more cards or damage your enemies. Where the game gets interesting is in the multiplayer online community. My win ratio only hovers around 50%, and I often get obliterated by other players. The game itself is not as robust as some of the other more notable card games on the app store, but it is one of the most enjoyable.
read moreGame Review: Fist of Jesus
Judas, the enforcer of light, squares off against the undead Legions of Lazarus in this wonderful game by DreamFear.
I have to say that I feel like I am in some Religious High-Water when I play the game (pun intended). There is something satisfying about playing as Judas and liberating the Undead. Where the game really excels is in the small things: The Doves and Glorification of Levels, the Trainings from Jesus, the finishing moves of Purity, and the carefully crafted weapons. As a game, it is difficult to progress, and is a challenging fighting and puzzling game. It reminds me of Age of Zombies, but it has a more compelling story for me than AoZ did.
read moreGame Review: Dustoff Vietnam
I still remember with the original Chopper Game hit the iOS store so many years ago. It was fun, but I for some reason never got into it. I always seemed to die, and never really liked the “get to the end” gameplay (oh and the rockets were a b***h).
Ever since that game came out, I have subconsciously been watching the app store for other Helicopter games that were engaging, and a bit more approachable. Just a few short weeks ago, Dustoff Vietnam fulfilled my Helicopter desires with a great flying app.
It takes just a few minutes to understand and use the basic controls of Dustoff, but it takes several hours to master the gameplay enough to fly a maze in a Chinook. The gameplay is predictable: rescue GI’s or collect missing equipment. The challenge comes in flying your chopper through the wind, dodging enemies, and fly through mines to find all of the GI’s. It was a time consuming challenge to get all the way through (and earn all of the gold stars), but I loved every minute of it.
read moreGame Review: Terraria
Wow, Terraria…
It takes forever! As an iOS gamer, I have been following the pulse of iOS game development. It seems like three genres of Games have been steadily growing over the past year. Those genres are Crafting, Card, and Survival Games. Terraria is one of the most popular iOS Crafting/Survival games on the market.
The basic premise is that you are stuck on an alien world and need to survive. With rudimentary tools (at first), you create your own kingdom. As the game progresses, you have access to more intricate tools and resources, allowing you to create more and more items. Games like this tend to drag on forever! With Terraria, there is an end. You do reach the end of the crafting table after many hours in the game, and you can then spend your time developing your holdings.
read moreGame Review: FTL
FTL is a game that has been out for some time. I have been playing it for months and it still has me firmly within its grip. The basic premise is that you command a ship that is fleeing an aggressive fleet. As you progress, or jump, to new systems, you are presented with missions. Those missions earn you commodities that you use to upgrade your ship and destroy your enemies.
The gameplay is fairly straight forward, but the game is insanely challenging. After a few hours of playing, I had not beaten a single game. To this day, I still have not progressed to defeating the final boss of the game. It will take you hours of gameplay just to make it to the final confrontation, and even then, you will be lucky to survive. FTL is another game with an insanely high Game Hours / Dollar ratio. I still continue to play hoping that one day I will unlock all of the ships – it seems unlikely, but I am still hoping. Check out my video below for Gameplay analysis.
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