Temple Run is among the most-awaited games on the Android. Having achieved considerable success on the iOS platform, it isn't hard to understand why.
Temple Run is a 3D running game, and one that had earned rave reviews by serious casual gamers and a good, growing following of iOS mobile device users. For those who aren't really into games, I'm not surprised if they picked this up and got addicted to it.
A dear friend had one day "barged onto" my Facebook Wall and declared that I should download the app and waste no time in doing so. So I tried to look for it, but alas and alack, I came up empty.
Then I read that an Android version was still under development by Imangi Studios, and that it would be released, soon. At that time, it was around February, and while I'm passionate about the casual games that I do like, it takes a certain type of game to catch my fancy. I'm not even sure about my personal metrics, but as far as I know, I've fallen in love with random casual games that don't really have a set pattern.
Given that I have a random way of taking a liking to casual games, I find that it takes these elements for me to get addicted:
A great storyline
Something to solve
Cute characters
Great graphics
GOALS
Continuity
With that, I find that games that push you back to square one when you "die," save possibly for Fruit Roll and Caverns of Hammerfest, are annoying to me.
That being said, I have a mild distaste for almost all running games I've come across, except for Fruit Roll, Robot Unicorn Attack, Coma and Run Ninja Run. That's because running games tend to warp you back to square one, even as you find yourself still reeling from your "death."
That is why, I personally don't know if I would like Temple Run. But judging from this video:
This game has the makings of a runaway hit, as it already is, way before it's made available on Google Play. I say that it's already a runaway hit way before it debuts on Google Play, simply because Android users are actually clamoring for the app as soon as word of its awesomeness spread all over the Internet.
So, what makes Temple Run a game worth waiting for, then?
Try these:
Gorgeous graphics
Apt, emotion-milking soundtrack
A pace that squeezes out all the adrenaline your body can pump
Thanks to these elements, you'll be installing addiction in your Apple mobile device, or, come March 27, just 10 days from now, on your Android phone or tablet of choice, when it hits the Google Play shelves.
And oh, I almost forgot to add. People are soo insane about Temple Run, that they've actually made a "trailer video" about it.
Let us know in the comments or on the Android Alliance Ph Page if you've played it, and what you think about it!
Last week, and for a few weeks before that, Zombie Dash was at #1 of the Top Free Apps on Android Market. Today, however, it's just at #3. But still, being part of the Top 3 Free Game Downloads on the Android Market means something, right?
But my question is, does Zombie Dash actually live up to its hype?
Zombie Dash, as we mentioned in the review for Fruit Roll, is also a sidescrolling platform game. Meaning, you will find your character dashing through the stages, while you get your upgrades, coins, and in the case of Zombie Dash, kill zombies.
Character:
Zombie Dash allows you to choose between a girl or a guy character. Both serve the same purpose: run and kill zombies.
Gameplay:
You don't need to press anything to make the character run. It runs, nay, DASHes on its own. All you need to do is to jump to avoid the ground spikes and the floating/moving/turning sharp things that are hanging in midair. If you don't want to shoot your enemies, your jumps will allow you to dodge them, too.
There are coins to be collected, and upgrades to be scored. You'll have to jump to get them, as well.
In order to earn more points, it's better to shoot your enemies than to avoid them. It's also helpful to gather the coins, so that you can buy upgraded weapons in the store. The points you earn from shooting your enemies will also be added towards the total coins for upgrade purchases.
You have three lives for every "run." You will lose 1 life whenever you bump into an enemy or a lethal object. When you lose all three lives, it's game over for you. When you fall into a ditch/gap in between platforms, it's instant game over for you, whether you still have 1 life left or 3.
Basic Functions/Powers:
There are two buttons for the player: the Jump button on the left, and the Fire button on the right. Just as it says, the Jump button allows you to jump in order to dodge the lethal objects and enemies, while the Fire button allows you to shoot a gun in order to kill your enemies and gain points.
Weapons And Upgrades:
You start out with only one weapon, a shotgun, and depending on whatever weapon you'll be able to get from the boxes with question marks: [?], you'll have 40 seconds to use each upgrade, every time you manage to touch the [?]-marked box.
You may also buy upgrades with your total "cash" on hand from the store. Weapons start at 2000 coins, with an M-16A1 rifle, and topping off at 9000 coins with either an MS-07A GYAN or a Jetpack.
Tips:
Try to gather as many coins as you can, and kill as many zombies as you can. This way, you can earn enough coins for your store upgrades.
Review:
Initially, I hated the game as it was too fast-paced for my taste (I kept falling into the ditches, haha!), and pointless. I prefer games that will build up to ultimate enemies, you see, and I like games that have a certain degree of continuity in its storyline.
But playing Zombie Dash for this review today allowed me to realize that it's pretty relaxing to keep shooting at zombies. And when I saw that I could actually buy weapon upgrades, I found another fun element to it. I'm a power hog, and as soon as my game characters earn all the powers and super powers they can earn, I'm at my happiest. So, upgrades in any game, are completely welcome.
The game also serves the purpose of annoying everyone around you. So if you hate your roommate or your housemate, turn up your media volume to the maximum and it'll achieve exactly that.
As they say, everyone's a kid at heart. None more so than the techies who love the games on their mobile devices. Thanks to the advent of the iPod Touch and the iPad, I find that gaming is no longer for the chosen few who are overgrown kids in adult bodies. Thanks to Steve Jobs' legacy, gaming is now pretty much a part of mobile adults' lives.
That's why every week, we here in Android Alliance Philippines will be seeking to give you fun reviews of games worth checking out, downloading and installing on your Androids.
If you're an oldie in video games, I'll bet you've had a Family Computer in the 80's. And I'll bet that you had Super Mario, Contra and even Adventure Island on it. These games are what you call Platform Games.
Fruit Roll, on the other hand, is a SidescrollingPlatform Game. In non-nosebleed, non nerdy geek terms, this means that the game forces your character to move through the game sceneries, and you have to accomplish tasks or gather weapons, upgrades and coins as you move through the scenes.
Fruit Roll, Zombie Dash and Robot Unicorn Attack are all Sidescrolling Platform Games. All will require you to gather coins and get weapons and upgrades as you dash through the games' scenes. Though there are differences, the concept is the same.
I personally find Fruit Roll the most pleasant of the three. While Robot Unicorn Attack is possibly the most addictive and compelling because of the soundtrack and the whole atmosphere of the game, Fruit Roll will appeal to the child in you because it's so... Bouncy. And squishy. If there were fluff in this, this'd definitely be FLUFFY. But I digress.
Character:
You will play a run-of-the-mill unidentified yellow fruit. You will be able to change in appearance as you gather other fruits. These fruits will also have particular "powers" attached with them.
Gameplay:
You will go through scenes where you will gather stars, which give you your score. Then, as mentioned, you will have to gather fruits, which will serve as your weapons. You will also have enemies to beat, by switching to particular fruits which will beat them. Thankfully, your fruit's color will correspond with the color of the enemy that you can beat with it.
Basic Functions/Powers:
Tap: A tap gives you a jump, which will enable you to reach and gather your stars/coins, as well as your fruit upgrades.
Double-Tap: Double- and Triple- taps will enable your character to jump higher, and even stay afloat. Triple taps help in gathering the end-of-game series of stars.
Weapons vs. Enemies:
Yellow Lemon: Will help you beat the crawling Yellow Worms. It will slow down your fruit, as well. (Note: The way the lemon and the worm look to me, it's more yellow-green than yellow. Just check with how it looks on your end.)
Red Star Fruit: Will let you defeat the Red Frogs. It will also cause your fruit to speed up.
Purple Grape: Defeats Purple Flying Squirrels. Makes fruit get smaller.
Brown Durian: Gets rid of the Brown Monkeys, then makes your fruit get bigger.
As I noticed, you will be able to defeat lesser enemies with the "more advanced" fruit. For example, a Red Star Fruit will kill Yellow Worms. A Brown Durian will kill Red Frogs. But this has a short shelf life, as with several brushes with Yellow Worms while wearing a Brown Durian, your fruit will still die. Best to kill the enemies with its corresponding fruit.
Upgrades:
Three same fruits in a row gathered will turn your fruit into this gigantic super badass fruit of the color you gathered. Kills everyone on your path.
Tips:
If you have a strong orientation with your handedness, whether you're a lefty or a righty, you can move the Fruit Selection Totem Pole (Controls) either left or right via the Settings menu, accessible on the main screen. I had to move mine because I kept bumping on the Home button and it keeps interrupting my game when I tap to jump.
You should also turn off resource-hog widgets like the Facebook widget, especially if you're on a run-of-the-mill midrange Droid. That way, you will be able to avoid the dreaded Android lag by focusing all the RAM and processing power you can give the game.
In the game, Stage 1 will be filled with Yellow Worms. So best to stock up on the Yellow Lemons in this stage. Stage 2 will have Red Frogs and Stage 3 will have Brown Monkeys. The following stages will be inclined, and the navigation will be faster, so if you like, you could switch to the Yellow Lemon so you could move a little slower.
Review:
If you're in for some destressing with a mindless but exciting game, this one will be great for you. Very little challenge, and the game already pushes your character through the hoops, all you need to do is to tap or double- and triple-tap to get the things you need and kill the dangling or flying enemies. That's about the effort you'll have to do for this game.
The adrenaline pumps and the challenge comes in because of the speed.
If you like panicking a little, the speed that the fruit is pushed through the stages will achieve that. If you like all the power you can gather, the three-fruit upgrade will give you that power fix you [and I, personally,] love.
In terms of game-driven pressure, there are no stages to get through and pick up where you left off. Whenever you restart, you'll always be back to square one, Tutorial and all. This is no mind-boggling game that requires strategy. This is nothing like Pumpkins vs. Monsters which will compete with your productivity. This is just a destressor. A blood-pumping destressor.
So if you're in line for a doctor's appointment, or in another state that needs you to kill a bit of time, this could be the perfect game for you.
I personally love the quirky music, and I fill my room with its comical auditory goodness. The background sceneries may change if you keep restarting the game, so for the easily-bored, this variation may be welcome.
All in all, an engrossing, zero-pressure casual game for the kid-at-heart.
It just occurred to me that we've never really talked about great games for the Android on this space. Surely, y'all are bored to the hilt by the perfunctory Angry Birds, the paid Cut The Rope, and the other, originally iOS games. So today, I'll bring you one of the games that not only captured my gaming heart, it also effectively obliterated hours, possibly even days off my life.
Do you love Match 3, Match 4, Match-howmany-ever games like Bejeweled? Well, this is an upgrade of that. Pumpkins vs. Monsters is a Match 3 -- Fling-to-Monsters -- Kill-Em-With-Chained/Matched-Pumpkins -- Smile-A-Manical-Gamer's-Smile kind of game.
This is also a form of a Tower Defense Game, wherein you need to defend your "home" from these marauding monsters. The goal is to kill them all, while preventing them from entering your fence, by matching 3 or more similar pumpkins then flinging it at them.
This is for casual gamers, by the way, so if you're looking for something more, like a Warcraft kind of game, this isn't THAT kind of game. This is strictly for the Plants vs. Zombies or Cafe World kind of gamer.
As we mentioned, you have to match at least 3 individual pumpkins by color. This will serve as your ammo against those pesky zombies, mummies and other monsters.
When you've matched 3 pumpkins of the same kind, you will need to fling/push that towards your target, the oncoming zombies, in order to kill them.
That's basically it.
Ammo and Enemies:
Green Pumpkins
Orange Pumpkins
The player starts out with green and orange pumpkins. They're "normal" in strength, and will generally be able to kill most of the standard little zombies with just one shot. The tougher zombies, like the pot-bellied ones and the mummies may need 2 shots of the green or orange pumpkins. The horned ones that appear in the Mayan War may take 2 shots as well. The gold-and-pink ones may need as many as three shots of the green and orange pumpkins.
Red Pumpkins
Blue Pumpkins
These two pumpkins are color-coded for what will work best with which kind of mummy. There are two types of Mummies: the Red ones are Hot mummies, while the Blue ones are Frozen mummies. The Red pumpkins mean that they're "hot," so they will work best for Blue mummies. On the other hand, the Blue pumpkins indicates that they're frozen, so they will work best with the Red mummies. With these types of ammo, just one shot is needed for the appropriate mummy. In fact, you will only need 1 Red pumpkin for 1 Blue mummy or 1 Blue pumpkin for 1 Red mummy, so if three Red mummies are lined up horizontally, you can definitely kill them with three Blue pumpkins, in just one shot.
Shooting the mummy with the same color of pumpkins as it is will only make you need to work up another shot with it, even up to three shots, so as much as possible, choose the opposite color of pumpkin for the color of the mummy.
On the other hand, the GREEN pumpkin will work great with the RED mummy. The Orange pumpkin, on the other hand, doesn't work as well with either mummy.
Pink/Lavender Pumpkins
These pumpkins were designed for the blue horned monsters that will appear in the Mayan War, as well as the gold-and-pink particularly strong monsters that will appear in the later stages. You'll find that everything else except for the gray pumpkins will be difficult to use with these two types of monsters, so make sure to stock up on the pink/lavender pumpkins. These pumpkins are rather ineffective for the red mummies, however. But the blue mummies will die pretty well with these pink/lavender pumpkins. It may take an extra shot, but these pumpkins are way better than either the green, orange or blue ones, for the blue mummies.
Gray Pumpkins
These are the so-called "ultimate" pumpkins. They obliterate anything just fine. Though, I notice that the blue mummies will still need an extra shot using these. The pink-and-gold and the horned monsters may also need one more shot, but these are the most versatile/awesome of the lot.
Rainbow Pumpkins
Rainbow Pumpkins can mimic the color of any of the other pumpkins, so you can complete a set of 3 whenever you lack one, using a Rainbow Pumpkin.
These pumpkins, except the Rainbow Pumpkin, can all be upgraded: they cost 1000 coins to get the Level 2 Star, then 1500 coins for the max of 3 stars. Upgrading them makes them more powerful and able to kill monsters with less shots.
Props, Upgrages and Purchaseable Items:
There are items which you will be able to purchase from the game's "store." These items are purchaseable with coins that you can collect when dead zombies drop coins.
These three are the standard:
Shield/Fence Replacement
Landmine
Dynamite
When your fence breaks down due to a zombie munching on it or a mummy hitting it with its head, you can and must replace it with a Shield/Fence Replacement. Unless you kill the monster attacking your fence, you will need to keep replacing it as it breaks down.
The landmine is static when you plant it. It will only explode when a monster makes contact with it. This is most effective for the pink-and-gold monsters, for some reason. This is also effective for the monsters on shooting vehicles, as these add to the blows needed to kill them.
The dynamite kills on contact, and will be best reserved for killing the Bosses or for when you'll get overwhelmed with the onslaught.
Levels and Stages:
Protection of the Territory
The Mummy Returns
Mayan War
Castle Tomorrow
Snow Empire
Bonus: Halloween
The newest version of Pumpkins vs. Monsters now contains the Halloween stage. You will need to have passed The Mayan War before you can unlock this, however.
Each level has 15 stages, and there are 5 standard levels, so that'll be a total of 75 stages to blast monsters through. With the Halloween Level, that's a total of 90.
The toughest stage in every level is Stage 15, as expected. It's called the "Boss Wave," where you'll be facing a particularly tough and frustrating monster.
You'll need to get through the "Boss" monster to get to the next level, until you finish the whole Pumpkins vs. Monsters game.
Tips and Tricks:
If you can't get through these Stage 15's, I do have one trick to share: gather coins from Level 2, Stage 15, or The Mummy Returns, Stage 15. There, the first wave of zombies is in a perfect straight line from end to end. Flinging a full straight line of pumpkins and getting to kill everyone with one flick will give you quite a number of coins.
With these coins you gather, work up to gathering a total of 3,600 coins. This is the amount you need in order to buy ALL the props: the land mines, the dynamites and the fence replacements. Try as best as you can to save the props for last, as you will need it because the "boss monsters" in the Boss Waves tend to be relentless and extra-tough.
Sometimes, it took me as much as 6 times to repeat the process of gathering coins from The Mummy Returns and then returning to the Boss Wave of the level I'm at, in order to overcome it.
New Additions:
As of today's download, Pumpkins vs. Monsters now has a few more props, and some game additions:
A lavender jewel
A blue jewel
A pumpkin mask
The pink jewel that used to drop with particularly awesome hits and add around 100 coins to your coin count is now a separate in-game "currency." You can use it to buy slot spins in the newly-added Slots sub-game. You will be able to get more coins, more props and other bonuses when you get a winning spin. You will spend one pink jewel per spin.
On the whole, to say that this game is addictive is an understatement. Be warned of playing this game just for sanity's sake, because you may experience the flip side and get stuck playing this game instead.
The music is apt: haunting yet quirky, and matches the mood of the game. The fact that you're dealing with monsters does get you in the mood to get a little frightened, but some of the characters, like the pot-bellied zombie that whacks at the fence, do elicit laughs more than chills of fright.
On the whole, I find that the game is the perfect de-stressor for a busy casual gamer. You don't need to give too much thought to your strategy, but it does give enough of a mental challenge to keep you on your gaming toes. Next to Plants vs. Zombies, this is probably my second ultimate casual gaming fave.
