What IOS games have you been playing? ARCHIVE

You may as well go ahead and get DoDonPachi Resurrection and Deathsmiles too. The sad thing is that you literally missed their New Year sale by one day.

Espgaluda II is more complex than Bug Princess...Bug Princess is pretty straightforward. EII has some more complicated scoring and bonus opportunities

Deathsmiles probably has the most gameplay out of all of them. You get the original Arcade version (but oddly, not the "Black Label" content from the 360 version) as well as an all-new light RPG version of the game where you can buy shoes and dresses. I think it's a little on the easy side though, apart from these crazy stages where it's horizontally scrolling downward but you're still sideways. Pretty tough to navigate. The bosses are just awesome. A giant cow, a tree that throws giant apples at you, Death with a bunch of pumpkins flying around.

DoDonPachi Resurrection is probably the best of the lot, IMO. It's more old fashioned in some ways, but I like the choice of ships and it has bullet scraping, which I _love_. There's some nice strategy in this "S&M" (that's slaughter and massacre) differential that determines bonuses...choosing to go laser or shot makes a difference.

Bug Panic, I dunno. It's definitely Cave but it's a sort of quirky kind of dual stick thing.

There's lots more to see if you have MAME. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head (something like Dotsugon Fever) that's a disco shmup they did. Esp.Ra.De is one of their very best, and the game they did with Capcom- Progear- is really good. Mushimesama Futari (Bug Princess II) is their best game, but it's only on Xbox 360 as an $80-$100 import.

I actually don't think these games are expensive. These are full, complete versions of these games with enhanced controls and platform-specific special features. Even at $10-$12, you're getting some of the best games in the genre on a platform that is strangely perfect for them.

I _don't_ like how Espgaluda II is packaged though. It's awesome that they have the iPad 2 only version (which is the one I have) but then there's the Arcade only one, the HD one, the Smartphone one...should have just been one universal package like the rest of them.

I didn't like MUSHIHIMESAMA BUG PANIC. That was too weird for me, and the controls bothered me. I think I would like it more if I had a JOYSTICK-IT . I could say that for a bunch of games though. You know where that road leads...

Of late, I have been enjoying SUPER CRATE BOX , which is 8-bit awesomeness and so fucking hard I want to cry. My record is 1618 crates.

Take a look at Hero Academy. It's done by some industry vets that did stuff like Age of Empires and Halo Wars. It's more or less a Summoner Wars-style board game. There's actually some pretty neat mechanics, like having a "deck" of units and buffs with five plays per turn. Units with special abilities and so forth. It's free, but to get the Dark Elves you have to pay a buck.

And...async multiplayer.

Just lost a brutal round of Ascension today... But at least I beat Barnes.

I'm getting Super Crate Box

Just lost a brutal round of Ascension today... But at least I beat Barnes.

Listen, I can't win all 16 games I'm currently playing.

I did pull off an AMAZING 19 point turn against Bill Abner yesterday. Last turn of the game and I was still closing the gap in points going in. Came out and beat him by ten. I think I killed four monsters on that one turn. Crazy.

Four Cave games in just a couple of days, Jesus Christ my brain is ruined.

I was having this one game of Espagulda 2 and I was thinking who are these bad gus, who am I? My tech is so far advanced compared to my enemies. I fire like 80 million missiles a second and they shoot a couple of floaty purple balls that I can easily avoid. It must be so demoralizing to see my ship coming. This is definitely a case of the new tech just overpowering the primitives. Am I evil?

So Deathsmiles and DoDonPachiR were next. I played Deathsmiles a lot. It's really awesome. I'm still not sure what I think of the obstacles, and I'm pretty sure if I were to care about what dress or umbrella Princess Tiara used I would be automatically thrown into pedaphile jail. But the game strikes me as so messed up that I don't worry about the sexual undertones. In fact, I didn't even notice the "sexy if your sick" pictures they were putting up during the stage load screen in the previous two games until last night when my wife pointed them out. For some reason I wasn't looking at the background.

DoDonPachiR will take a bit longer. It's a more complicated game whereas Deathsmiles is easy peasy. There is some awesome game in DoDonPachiR but I have to get used to it a bit more. I haven't finished either yet but I don't see it taking too long. If you only got one of these I think I'd play it safe and get either Bug Princess or Espagulda 2, if you got two I'd make the second one Deathsmiles because it's so different then the rest.

I haven't touched Ascencion since I got these games, escept once because someone asked me. I think I'll be playing these for a good long time to come.

Michael Barnes wrote:
Listen, I can't win all 16 games I'm currently playing.

Gah... you got me by 4 points. Good game. I was surprised I was able to close the gap as much as I did.

I've been playing SALLY'S SALON: LUXURY EDITION. What a fun game!

I'm looking for some solid FATtie advice, re: Caylus.

The game hits tonight in the U.S. (it's already out in New Zealand and spreading through those time zones over there), and I'm feeling conflicted. My current thoughts:

Pros
1. Big Daddy's is an excellent developer. Their Neuroshima Hex is still, overall, my favorite iOS game ever.
2. I like playing boardgames on iOS. A lot. I've made those feeling known elsewhere, so I won't belabor it.
3. I like finding new stuff via iOS, and Caylus would be new to me.

Cons
1. This last week, I read some reviews and watched some videos (mostly at BGG), and Caylus is coming across as skull-crushingly boring. And needlessly complicated.
2. Over the years and months, I've seen some anti-Caylus sentiment expressed at this site from people whose opinions I value, as a general thing. That might not be a good sign.

I'm torn here. It looks like the game will be $5 U.S., and it's not so much the money that's the issue as it is the (potential) sense of wasted time and effort. I've already got many, many iOS boardgames that I don't even bother to sync any longer, for various reasons. If I pick up Caylus, and if it's as horrible as I fear it might be, then it will just join that list as I return to Ascension, Carc., Elder Sign, Samurai, TtR, etc., etc.

Thoughts, opinions, and snarky commentary would all be welcomed. Do I trust Big Daddy's to pull this off ... or should I keep the fiver in my pocketses?

I'm buying it. As an app, it won't be so much like a 3 hour fat guy staring contest.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmyyyeyeyryryeheesggshhhhhfmmmmm--no. Not right away at least. I mean, this crowd makes chaff like HOITY TOITY playable, so that's saying something. Drunk KingPut is like the third best CAYLUS layer in the world. But even all that, CAYLUS just looks so fucking boring. I like playing PUERTO RICO on this thing, and CAYLUS has me shaking my head. If you all jump in and tell me how there's this new thing like sliced bread, I will check it out.

LOL — well, there's one thumb up and one down. Christ, now I'm really conflicted.

Argh! I'll probably get it. I'm pretty committed to doing most of my gaming through iOS now, and here's a pretty well-known game staring me right in the face.

I just wish I could find one — just one — video, review, or session report that didn't make the game seem like a total fucking chore.

TheDukester wrote: LOL — well, there's one thumb up and one down. Christ, now I'm really conflicted.

Argh! I'll probably get it. I'm pretty committed to doing most of my gaming through iOS now, and here's a pretty well-known game staring me right in the face.

I just wish I could find one — just one — video, review, or session report that didn't make the game seem like a total fucking chore.

Look around on the site here for KingPut's posts on CAYLUS. He has some good things to say, as I recall. Try KingPut CAYLUS site:fortressat.com on Google. It'll be in there somewhere.

Meanwhile, did Barnes finish smoking us in ASCENSION yet or what?

jeb wrote: Meanwhile, did Barnes finish smoking us in ASCENSION yet or what?

No, he's afraid to make that last move. He knows I've got like 55 points of Mechana hiding.

Or something.