Mobile games
James Pinnell reviews the latest games for android & iOS smartphones & tablets.
Crash Bandicoot: On the Run SPINNING, SPINNING, SPINNING.
Free with IAP
Crash Bandicoot has been living a bit of a resurgence at the moment, featuring in both sequels and remasters, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the original runner ended up in… well... a runner. For better or worse, Crash is now spinning his way through the jungle on your mobile in roughly the same manner as he did back in the original PlayStation days, although not without a few caveats.
As per the original, Crash is on a mission to defeat the Henchmen of Dr. Neo Cortex, via defeating a number of bosses and getting closer to Neo himself. This is completed via a bunch of running challenges, in which our hero(es) smash through boxes, minions and dodge a host of other obstacles to collect items that provide access to the bigger baddies.
As the game goes difficulty wise, it’s a fairly simple endeavour. While the console versions of Crash were renowned for their difficulty, the mobile version is incredibly simple and mostly forgiving – it’s fairly difficult to die in most levels unless you make a fairly serious mistake. Most of the levels are designed to be learned easily in order to farm them for materials.
Thankfully though, it’s incredibly polished, runs very well on most devices and feels exactly how you’d expect a Crash game to feel. It controls well, moves quickly, has a simple premise and a lot of replayability. There’s a team asynchronous multiplayer system that is essentially a group leader board – as teams break time trial challenges against other teams, they rise up through the ranks to win items and skins.
It’s arguably one of the best mobile runners out there as it actually combines an attack move (the spin) with strategy and boss battles. Monetisation is largely in optional ads to boost your haul or to unlock cosmetic items without grinding materials and coins. If you’re a fan of the series it’s arguably a no-brainer to download and give it a go – I had a lot of fun and have found myself going back when I have a few minutes to kill.
Ragnarok: Labyrinth FIGHT. SLEEP. REPEAT.
Free with IAP
Ragnarok Online is one of the most popular multiplayer games ever made, with millions of players still logging into both the PC and mobile versions of its RPG sandbox. Over the past few years, almost half a dozen mobile spinoffs have come out of the franchise, from a traditional mobile experience of the main game, to a tactics and strategy experience using the same classes. The latest, Labyrinth, is an adaptation of arguably the worst part of Ragnarok Online – navigating the games’ confusing and grindy Labyrinths for loot. Funnily enough, the game actually seems to realise this and has effectivity automated the experience, turning it into an Idle-style game where you slowly grind through mazes and bosses to collect loot and experience.
There’s a fun element to this – in essence it’s a macro version of dungeon crawling, where you focus on building up the equipment, skills and size of your party as it gradually rises through the easier dungeons and into the more difficult ones. You can choose when you attack the boss or challenge other players to duels, which are also completed automatically – but unlike most Idle games, you need to be logged in for any progress to complete.
The issue here is that – you’re largely burning your mobile battery to watch your team do all the fun and interesting stuff while you watch and wait for quests to pop or levels to rise. At its worst, it’s just plain boring.
Florida Interstate 86 FLORIDA MAN’S SEDAN.
Free with IAP
Have you ever wanted to cruise the highways of the mid-eighties Florida, picking up cassettes tapes that seem to be sprinkled across the road? No? Well, wait, hear me out. Florida Interstate 86 is a fairly chilled out driveathon where you cruise across some fairly detailed roadscapes with a dynamic lighting system and some sexy synthwave tunes.
It’s also really, really hard. The controls are based on how long you hold down a tap on either side of the screen, meaning in most cases your DeLorean or Mustang is going to swerve and weave dangerously across the road until it hits another car or road barrier and you’re starting again.
It’s genuinely frustrating at times, especially since your vehicle isn’t going that fast, and you’re having to reset the run after such a short amount of time. Eventually, however, you can learn the idiosyncrasies of the tap style to keep the car in the middle of the road.
The problem then is that the game is rather boring – there’s no aim or challenge outside of collecting the tapes. The soundtrack suits the theme well and I enjoyed cruising along to it, but after about 15 minutes or so of play I didn’t really want to go back again. It’s a shame because the game looks and runs like a dream and is a clever idea to garner some nostalgia from older players.
Mini DayZ 2 A POOR SEQUEL.
Free with IAP
DayZ’s development existence has been fairly fraught – launching on PC with an innovative, difficult and engaging survival experience, it effectively launched an entire genre. But an inability to tackle some of its larger bugs or expand on features allowed its competitors to gazump it – leaving its developers to look into expanding the universe to mobile. The original Mini Dayz was quite fun – it effectively shrunk down the experience of the PC version into a 2D environment, with much of the same restrictions and challenges. It was far from perfect, as the map was quite small and the challenge downgraded to suit new and casual players, but it did provide an effective “alternate” mobile survival sim. Mini DayZ 2 attempts to create more of a standard, fairly boring and rudimentary, base builder to compete with the multitude of other games in this genre. In fact, you don’t even need to head out to survive at all – “Auto Raid” automates the whole experience and allows you to spend time clicking on icons in your base to upgrade the various buildings. There’s also a host of new currencies, based up by the usual real money bundles, leaving me feeling like this was designed entirely to grab cash based off the name. There is very little to differentiate Mini DayZ 2 from its competition, most of which has more polish and more features. Disappointing.
NBA Ball Stars A BALLER GEM MATCHER.
Free with IAP
As someone who is relatively unfamiliar with the modern NBA – like most 90s kids I grew up idolising the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan and collecting cards – I wasn’t sure what to expect from Ball Stars. Based on a collectable card system, the game is thankfully welcoming to basketball newbies thanks to a clever control system and a well-polished interface.
While Gem games are a dime a dozen on mobile, I must admit it is a very clever control scheme for many puzzle and adventure games that are trying to attract a new audience. Ball Stars goes further and attributes both a colour and value to each gem, linking it to a particular player based on the scenario they are in (attacking or defending). Using gems also builds up a skill bar that allows, effectively, a guaranteed point. I was surprised at how much fun I had here – players are unlocked via card packs, which can present a problem when you are playing against other players who have forked out for “premium” cards – although a lot of it is based on how you use your gems throughout the session. There are some nice graphics and animations for the demonstrated play and the models for the players are relatively high detail. There are some strategy elements with formations and stats if that’s your bag, as well as a leader board and trophy system to compete in. As with most card games on mobile however, it can get pay-to-win at higher levels, so your mileage may vary.