KairoSoft Sims (iphone): Crack addiciton in 1's and 0's.

During this dry spell when I have nothing coming out I went browsing around my Iphone to look for something new to do to fill the gap. That friend who suggested to me to try Infinity Blade earlier in the life of my Iphone contract introduced me to a Simulation game called Game Dev Story. I hate him to this day for that. I don’t know what it is about simulation games, by all definitions they should be boring as hell, but the second I get started with one I become physically unable to put them down. They become my sole focus in my existence. Maybe it’s the classic sprite animated charm or the simple midi sound track or the goofy parodies on the names in these games, but I don’t know why I keep falling for it.

KairoSoft Simulations: (Iphone/Android)

      

So out of curiosity I downloaded the game. The premise is fairly simple, you start a game development company and your objective is to make as much money as you can. The more you make, the more you can expand, hire new employees, purchase licenses to develop for consoles, and eventually create your own console.  The whole game is very menu driven and if you have happened to be a gamer in the past 20 years, you generally know what consoles will be successful despite the parody names. What made this game hilarious to me is the horribly offensive names I could think of for my game company and names I could come up with, most of which I am unable to provide for the sake of keeping this article PG. I don’t know why I found the game so entertaining, but I've played it through 3 times.

That was several months ago. The problem is when I was looking for something new to play, I found out that they produced three more simulation titles, and like the idiot I am I purchased all of them. Next up is Mega Mall Story, and much like the last game, the premise is pretty cut and dry. You want to try to become a five star mall, run the competition out of town and try to build up the surrounding community to raise your traffic. As people start to come to your mall, they give gifts and introduce ideas for new stores to bring in. You can hold sales to increase the amount of people to come in and placing the right stores next to each other raises their reputations.  You can hire floor associates and if they provide good customer service to people they give you hearts which you can use to upgrade store stock or quality. While some of the stores you earn are a little bizarre (my mall certainly doesn't have a casino or planetarium), this one was surprisingly addicting to play.

The one that I am currently playing is Pocket Academy. I have recently started playing it so forgive me if the review is a little narrower in description.  As you have already guessed, the objective to this game is to create a successful academy. You train your students and the more you do you can increase the level of learning to get more tuition money. That allows you to higher better staff, aside from teaching; the staff wander the halls and get you points to spend on new amenities for the university.  In addition to this your students can help in local events to earn money for your school as well as create relationships amongst the students, romantic or platonic. What makes this game different from the previous two is that you have a much more freedom in your construction of the academy.  Unlike Game Dev Story where you get no building at all and it’s all done for you or Mega Mall Story where basically place buildings in blocks of 1-4 spaces, Pocket Academy opens up the map for you to construct, much in a manner you would expect like in The Sims Series.  It’s still fairly early on in my play through so I’m sure there is more for me experience and unlock, but it’s looking to be just as addictive as the previous two.

Or if going back to school isn’t your thing, you can try your hand at Hot Springs Story.  I only have played the demo for this game, but it plays a lot like if not exactly like Pocket Academy does. You start off with a small spring you have to expand it. As you do you can add different amenities in the same way of the previous mentioned game and you can sway business depending on what clientele you advertise to. Like Mega Mall Story, you can you expand and invest in the surround community to try to bring more people to your spa. What I am noticing about this game and Pocket Academy is that in this one it forces you to plan your building more carefully as money is not as prevalent as the first two titles. That being said, they do open up a new dimension to the game. This is the next one I have on the chopping block.

You can pick any one of these you want. Their all about 2 or 3 bucks on the Iphone App Store or Android Marketplace and every single one of them should keep you distracted for a good number of hours. Plus, if you are like me and looking for more, Android users can download their newest title Grand Prix Story, with an Iphone release in the near future. 

Now they just need to make a Sim Game Rehab Story and I'll be all set.... Damn you KairoSoft... Damn you...

Infinity Blade (iphone): Plays like a mobius strip.

So about a year and half ago in a pissed off rage at T-Mobile for refusing to give me the upgraded that I wanted, I decided for once to splurge and despite my undying hatred of all things Apple, I purchased an Iphone. It hasn't changed my opinion of Apple but taking the device as a whole it really did hit the mark with what its trying to be. But interestingly enough the smartphone market really does seem to be trying to make a push in the gaming area where titles like Angry Birds are dominating in sales with simplistic design yet addicting to play.

Not to long a go a friend (for the sake of his privacy, we'll only call him JD instead of using his full name), had asked me if I had played Infinity Blade. I had not and he said its supposed to be the best looking game on the Iphone. I had noticed that it was half off this week so I took the plunge. 

INFINITY BLADE (Iphone)

The story in this game is pretty slim pick'ns. The game opens up with an unnamed knight entering a chamber and gibberish dialogue goes though that he's a defender of freedom. You briefly learn to fight and then Sir Derply of Nameless gets his ass crushed immediately. It flashes 20 years later and you apparently take control of his son and now the game begins. 

He wasn't kidding when he said the game had some really good graphics. Considering that this is a phone and not a portable game console, I was very impressed by the opening cutscene and some of the animations of the game. The colors and nice and crisp and the environments are incredibly detailed.  The game continues to the change the appearance of your character with every piece of equipment you add and the some of the monsters change as you progress as well.

Sadly, this is about all the praise this game gets out of me. As far as game play goes, it gets hampered by my most frequent complaint of Iphone games in that it has no controller. The game for the most part plays like a point and click adventure game. Most of the animation is just CGI cutscenes as you move from location to location. Your character stands still and you can cam around the scene a bit to find either strewn treasures or glowing little circles that scream "hey stupid, go here". Typically after clicking one of these you either move into another room or a monster attacks you. This was kind of a disappointment because Chaos Rings had really good graphics but I was able to control my exploration.

The fighting in the game is intuitive and frustrating all at the same time. The way that it plays it could almost be described as it plays like Punch-out!!! You get two arrow sets to dodge left and right and one Shield in the middle to block. You only get so many blocks before the shield cracks and you have to see which way the enemy swing is coming and decide which way to dodge.  To attack you simply slash at the screen with your fingertip. Most of the time it plays fairly smoothly. The enemy attack patterns in the beginning of the game an very very simple so its easy to pick up which way to dodge and the slashing works fairly easily. However as you level so do all the monsters, and the patterns become more difficult. This by itself seems like a good idea but the progression never works like it should and I cant think of how many times I'd hit the arrows and my character just would not dodge. Perhaps their too close to the corners and I'm missing them. Maybe its just buggy. But it would almost always happen when I needed to not miss my dodge. Learning the healing spell later helps but its still a frustration. You only can gain experience if you are wearing equipment you haven't mastered so you are constantly upgrading which is kinda nice unless you have all the best gear. Then you have to choose to downgrade or get less exp.

The sound in this game sucks. There is maybe one "song" if you want to call it that. A constant droning of the same 5 bass notes bedding a the constant shrieking of monsters. The combat sound effects are what you would expect. Clashing sounds, grunts, and glittery sounds when you cast magic. All of the voices appear to just be gibberish. Maybe is a Foreign language but I couldn't identify it.

The game is also short as hell, too.  Basically in the course of an evening I had beaten the game twice and gotten two endings. Whether you beat the last boss or lose to him, the game flashes 20 years into the future and you play the next son running off to die like his father before him. The maps never change, the enemies level up but they are always in the same place every run, and there only really seems to be about three different paths to take. Essentially the game just continues to loop indefinitely (hence the title, perhaps). There is a spot where it seems like it might open up more game if you level enough to earn the actual Infinity Blade but at the price their asking I don't think I'll ever do it. Unless the game comes with free updates I don't see this game having a lot of replay value.

The game when it first came out was boasting a 7 or 10 dollar price tag, and I'm glad I didn't pay that much. It's definitely an impressive viewing of what the iPhone can handle graphically. I paid about 3 bucks for the game but you could probably afford to wait for it drop again.

With Apple in the world? I believe it.