‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ for iOS and Android. Review & Download

The Amazing Spider-Man

Rating: 1/5
Pros: Swinging around using web shooters can be fun
Cons: Linear, repetitive missions, poor visuals, cheesy dialogues, glitchy controls, overpriced

‘The Amazing Spider-Man‘ is an iOS and Android game that’s based roughly on the events in the 2012movie of the same name. This version of the game came out around the same time as the PC and console version, but has different story and missions and has been developed by Gameloft instead of Activision.

Although this game has been available for a while now, it often appears in the top charts on both the App Store as well as the Google Play store. So we decided to give it a try and see just how amazing ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ really is.

Gameplay

In ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’, you control Spider-man as he goes around New York City trying to save people from bad guys. One of the advantages of being Spider-man is that you can swing from buildings using your web shooters and even if you fall down you don’t die, regardless of the height.

You shoot the web using a button on the bottom right of the screen and keep it held to swing around. You don’t necessarily need to aim the web shooters at anything particular. Simply pressing the button shoots the web and Spider-man pulls himself up and starts swinging.

You never actually see where the other end of the web is and at times you are in a completely open environment with nothing to sling the web at and Spider-man is still happily swinging from his web, which just attaches itself magically somewhere in mid-air.

You can roam around the city all you want but you would have to begin one of the missions in the game to progress through the story. Missions appear on the map and you usually get a couple of them at a time. You have the option to do them in any order you like.

Touching the mission selects it and the game then points you in the direction so you can swing around and reach the point on the map where the mission begins. If you are too bored to actually go there, you can press the fast-forward button and the mission begins automatically. You then usually have to sit through a couple of cut scenes (you can skip them as well) before the actual mission begins.

The missions usually involve saving someone and almost always has you punching a bunch of bad guys. You attack using a single button on the right. Enemies have a health bar so you can see their health degrading as you hit them. There is a Spider Sense button that glows when an enemy is about to hit you. Hitthe button at the right time and Spider-man dodges the attack and responds with one of his own.

You can also use the web shooters to pull enemies towards you and shoot webs at them, which temporarily incapacitates them. This can come in handy if you are faced with multiple enemies.

The game also allows you to upgrade Spider-man using points you earn by defeating bad guys. You can upgrade to different combos and attacks and also buy healing items to be used during missions.

As for the missions themselves, they are too repetitive and usually not very interesting. The game has some other minor challenges that you can do in between that involve doing things like taking pictures of the Spider-man for Peter Parker or completing objectives such as swinging around for a specified amount of time or swing to a particular height. Unfortunately, these aren’t particularly interesting either.

I also had issues with the controls, which often hurt the fairly enjoyable experience of swinging around the city. The web shooter button often fails mid-air even if you keep it pressed. At times, even after repeatedly pressing the button Spider-man does not shoot the web. This often results in him falling down, which fortunately, does not kill him, but does kill the flow of the game.

It’s also painfully difficult to get him swinging in the right direction. You can’t just swing and quickly turn around. If you accidentally fall down from the roof of a building, you have to swing around the block to be able to get back to where you were. Unlike Batman’s grapple, you can’t just look up at the roof of a building and just hoist yourself up using your web, although there is no reason why you shouldn’t. Instead you have to take giant swings around the place to do the simple act of climbing on top of the building. This can be very annoying, especially on missions with limited time.

Graphics and Sound

‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ looks downright terrible most of the time, especially on the new iPad. The game clearly isn’t optimized for the Retina display, even though it came out last month (The Dark Knight Rises was) and even then the textures look horrible.

The game also has really bad texture pop-in, where buildings look horribly pixelated until you get close and then suddenly the textures are loaded and things clear up. This issue was present in The Dark Knight Rises to some extent but it was within acceptable limits and was hidden due to the dark theme of the game. But it looks really bad in this one.

Admittedly, the game looks better on smaller screens but it’s still not a patch on some of the recent games we have seen.

The in-game sounds are fine but the dialogues are horribly cheesy, particularly Spider-man’s, who just seems to be trying too hard to sound cool and funny. This ended up in me skipping most of the cut scenes so I don’t have to hear him talking.

Conclusion

Honestly, there is nothing amazing about ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’. The missions feel repetitive, the graphics are poor, the controls are glitchy and the dialogues are annoying. At $6.99, the game feels like acomplete rip-off, with nothing to justify even half of that. The game is just built to cash in on the fame of the movie and unlike the movie itself, which was fairly enjoyable, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ game is a completedisappointment. Your $6.99 will be better spent elsewhere.

Source : GsmArena

Read More

The Dark Knight Rises

Rating:

 3/5
Pros: Lengthy campaign, Gotham city is vast and well detailed and you are free to explore
Cons: Most of the missions aren’t very exciting, graphics are a mixed bag, large download size on Android, a bit expensive for what it offers

We are no strangers to seeing movie tie-in games that come out shortly after the release of a big budget movie. But recently, these games have started appearing on mobile devices as well. We saw Temple Run: Brave, The Amazing Spider-man and now The Dark Knight Rises, releasing just weeks apart from each other.

Today we will be taking a look at The Dark Knight Rises, a game based on arguably the best movie that has come out this year so far. The movie had raised everyone’s expectations sky high and managed to meet and exceed most of them. On the contrary, no one is expecting anything from the Batman game and with the history of movie tie-in games it would be a surprise if it is any good. We decided to find out if that is the case.

The Premise

The Dark Knight Rises’ story is based roughly on the events that happen in the movie. It goes without saying then that you should have watched the movie in advance or this game will spoil some key events for you. However, the game takes some liberties with the story, by adding several extra events that never take place in the movie, which is understandable because this is a game after all and there should be something extra for you to do.

So you find yourself jumping from roof tops, punching the living daylights out of the bad guys, using some cool gadgets, and generally running around taking care of things in Gotham City.

Gameplay

The Dark Knight Rises is split up in several chapters and in each chapter you have multiple missions. The game rushes through the story of the movie in the first couple of chapters and then stretches out the last section of the movie over several chapters. This is understandable as very little actually happens in the first half of the movie that could have been adapted for the game.

For each chapter you get the objective on the screen and then you have to reach there and do whatever it is you have to do in that mission. In the early missions you will find yourself freeing hostages, disarming bombs and hacking into switches. The hacking involves solving a puzzle, where you have to align all pieces before the timer runs out, although there is no real penalty for missing the mark and you just have to start again.

You get a major sense of déjà vu while playing this game, mostly because it’s so similar to the two Batman games that came out on the PC and consoles in recent times. To move around the city, you can just run around or do the more sensible thing of using your grapple. Areas where you can grapple have a small circle and you have to press a button on the screen for Batman to just swoop over. Jumping down from rooftops is also easy. Just press a button and Batman uses his cape to gradually glide down. It’s all very similar to the previous Batman games.

The combat mechanics are also the same. You keep mashing a button on screen to punch your enemies and Batman keeps rotating between various attacks until the enemy is down. After that you switch over to the next enemy, then rinse and repeat. This game also borrows the block mechanism from the other Batman games, whereby you will get an indicator on the screen when an enemy is trying to attack you while you are engaging another enemy. Pressing the button causes Batman to switch focus and block as well as attack the other guy who tried to hit you. You even get the same slow motion finishing moves, but this time it’s for every enemy instead of for just the last one in the group.

There are some stealth mechanics as well. You can stand on a platform above an enemy and take him down with one key. Similarly, you can sneak up behind enemies and take them down. This rarely works, however, as somehow the enemies telepathically become aware of your presence around them and make stealth take-down impossible, with you eventually having to resort to good ol’ fashioned punching to take care of things.

Taking down enemies gives you credits, which can then be used to purchase additional gadgets. One would wonder why someone like Batman would need to earn credit to be able to afford anything, but then, if you followed the events in the movie and the game, Batman is not exactly flush with cash at the moment.

You also get to briefly control vehicles like the Batpod and the Bat, which is fun in the short time it lasts.

Despite the obvious attempt to ape the other Batman games, one area where The Dark Knight Rises does not match them is in the quality of missions. They are mostly quite boring and just seem to be there to add length to the game. I became bored after the first couple of chapters, the game couldn’t hold my interest any longer.

Graphics and Sound

Visually, the best thing about The Dark Knight Rises is the enormous city Gameloft has created for the game. Gotham in this game feels like a real, believable place and you can just roam around and be amazed at how detailed this place is for a mobile game. And there are no loading times as you move around between the city.

Other than that, though, the game looks fairly average. Batman and his suit in particular are very detailed but the details and texture of everywhere else range from acceptable to plain ugly. Even characters other than Batman use far few polygons than they deserve, making them resemble something straight out of the PSOne. Overall the visuals are no match for recent games such as Madfinger’s excellent Shadowgun and Dead Trigger and EA’s Dead Space.

For the new iPad, Gameloft promises Retina graphics and the game mostly delivers. But it’s still sad to see that while the 3D elements are in high resolution, the 2D elements such as the buttons and loading animation are at non-Retina resolution. It also makes the low quality textures look especially bad when stretched out on the new iPad’s display.

On the audio front, The Dark Knight Rises tries to emulate the voices of the actors in the movie. Voices for Batman, Alfred, Lucius Fox And Jim Gordon sound the closest to their movie counterparts. Voices for Selina Kyle, Bane and John Blake sound nowhere close, though. One issue with the dialogues is that the lips of the characters don’t move when they talk, so they just stand there stupidly staring at each other while the voicescome out of nowehere.

One thing I would like to note here is the massive size of the Android version of The Dark Knight Rises. Initially the game was an insane 3.6GB in size but Gameloft has managed to whittle it down to 1.8GB, which is much better but still a bit too much. The iOS version, in comparison, is just 819MB. Fortunately, Gameloft is now making use of the increased APK size limit on the Play Store, which means now you will downloadthe entire game through the Play Store, instead just downloading an installer first and then downloading the rest of the files from within the app. The advantage of this is that the 15 minute refund period starts only after the entire game finishes downloading unlike before, where the 15 minute period would start with the installerand would likely end before you finished downloading the additional files from within the game.

Conclusion

The Dark Knight Rises is not a bad game per se. Those interested in the Batman universe, particularly the latest movie, or those who loved the previous two Batman games on consoles and PC and want something similar on their mobile devices might find it interesting. Those who have played other recent games on their phones, however, won’t be impressed. The bar has been raised quite high even in mobile games these days and unfortunately, The Dark Knight Rises does not manage to impress in any particular area, being just an average game as a whole and not something you’d remember or would suggest others to download and play. At $6.99, the game is also well above the impulse purchase territory and people would expect it to be really great to justify that price, something it isn’t.

So although The Dark Knight Rises is a decent game overall, a price drop is something we would recommend.

Source : GsmArena

Read More

Play this: ’10000000′

Combining a puzzle game with role playing elements isn’t a new concept, but 10000000 has a distinct advantage over similar games that makes it a perfect fit for playing on your iPhone: it’s really, really fast. The game is all about exploring a dungeon, where you’ll find all manner of bad guys to battle and treasure chests to open. And in order to perform actions, you’ll need to match tiles at the bottom of the screen. Matching three or more swords will cause your pixelated character to attack, for instance, while matching keys will open up locked chests. But what sets it apart from games like Puzzle Quest is just how fast things happen. Your character will run automatically, and the longer he stays still while you fight an enemy, the worse off your are.

The emphasis on speed can be jarring at first, as you’ll die quite a bit — an early achievement rewards you for surviving for a minute and a half — but it also proves to be the game’s biggest strength. It lets you get your dungeon crawling fix without the massive time investment. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t depth, as there’s plenty of loot to collect, skills to learn, and even a home base to fix up. It’s an addicting timesink that may take some time to get used to, but is fully worth the effort. That is, unless you value your free time. You can grab the game from the App Store at the source link below.

Download here

Source : TheVerge 

Read More

iPhone and iPad spy game pure action

These days you don’t need to spend a dime to enjoy some seriously adrenaline-drenched automotive action: I’ve collected five excellent racing games that you can download for free and play to your heart’s content.

Rubber, Meet Road

Games are all about make-believe, but some are more realistic than others. The first two games in this roundup qualify as simulators, and can feel almost too realistic, especially if you’re just looking for a quick rush.

Dolphinity Racer is the most hard-core of the bunch: It serves as the basis for expensive racing simulators built by Cruden, it has no installer, and it incorporates painstakingly realistic physics. Driving a car in Racer feels very much like driving a real car, and not always in a fun way: The vehicle can easily swerve out of control, and getting started driving takes quite a bit of patience, especially if you’re used to more toylike racing games.

One level away from Racer’s uncompromising realism isDriving Speed 2. Driving Speed 2 feels a bit more like a game, though your car can still easily drift and spin out of control. If your car rubs up against the sidewall as you race, you will see sparks fly. It will also collect dents as you bump into walls and other cars, but it won’t easily flip over or lend itself to crazy aerobatics. Driving Speed 2 runs only in full-screen mode, so if you have to lower your monitor’s default resolution to get it to run smoothly, the graphics may end up looking stretched and pixelated.

Racer, Meet Cop

Now that we’re covered uncompromising realism, let’s move on to games that put fun first. Need For Speed World is a massively multiplayer online racing game first released in 2010 by Electronic Arts. As befits an entry in the long-running Need For Speed franchise, Need For Speed World features beautiful graphics, dozens of cars, and copious amounts of action.

You can race against other players from all over the world, participate in single-player events in which you dodge the cops in crazy urban car chases, gain in rank, and buy new vehicles. Need For Speed World lets you buy in-game SpeedBoost for real-world money, and then use the SpeedBoost to buy cars and other items, but you don’t have to buy SpeedBoost to have fun and level up.

You will need to log in to the Need For Speed servers every time you start the game, and the game doesn’t offer to remember your password, which can be annoying at times.

Flights of Fancy

Need For Speed World doesn’t try too hard to stay in the real world, but it does feature real-world cars. The same can’t be said about the next two games, which eschew any pretense of realism in favor of magical aerobatics, otherworldly visuals, and generally awesome gameplay.

First comes Trackmania Nations Forever. Like Need For Speed, Trackmania Nations Forever emphasizes online gameplay against friends and strangers. But Trackmania Nations Forever specializes in tracks that include crazy loops, ramps that cause your car to leap for yards, and more. For people who don’t enjoy network multiplayer mode, Trackmania Nations Forever includes an addictive single-player mode with plenty of beautifully designed maps, each containing three medal achievement levels. You unlock new maps gradually, by winning medals in previous maps.

Finally, there’s Nitronic Rush. This gorgeous Tron-like racing game offers fast and furious action on neon maps that move so fast that they sometimes become disorienting. Your car can jump and even sprout wings and fly for short bursts of time. Nitronic Rush was designed to work with either a keyboard or an XBox 360 controller, but it also worked very well with my Logitech Rumble Gamepad. The gamepad vibrated whenever I hit a wall (which was often enough), and the controls were intuitive to use.

Source : PcWorld

Read More

Zynga’s new Gems With Friends puts spotlight on mobile

The social-game developer releases another game this week, this time from the mobile specialists responsible for Words With Friends.

 Zynga’s latest game, Gems With Friends, launches today and it may give some hope for the game-creator’s mobile future.

As the series’ first arcade-style and first non-word game, Gems — available in Canada with a worldwide rollout to follow in the coming weeks — features gemstones of different colors and numbers that can be combined to score points.

“They combine and they create these epic combos,” said Paul Bettner, vice president and general manager at Zynga. “It’s a thrilling game and very, very addictive.”

Zynga is introducing this mobile-only game amid criticism of the company’s dependence on its Facebook platform and a failure to make money on mobile. But, Bettner’s studio, one of the companies Zynga has acquired, could be the key to Zynga’s mobile success.

It’s unclear how much revenue comes from the With Friends series. A Zynga spokesperson said the company did not have a breakdown of how many users play With Friends games compared to the rest of Zynga’s games. Zynga did disclose that 33 million of the 144 million players on the entire network each day are mobile players.

“Our studio in particular started in a very experimental mode with Words With Friends,” Bettner said, referring to the popular game modeled after Scrabble . “We wanted to play these kinds of games on our phones. We couldn’t believe they [didn't] exist because the phones seem like the perfect platform.”

Zynga’s faced a lot of bad press in recent weeks. Accusations of insider trading and of copyright infringement followed a disappointing earnings report.

When asked about Zynga’s recent woes, Bettner distinguished his Texas-based studio from its parent company in San Francisco. He said Zynga needs to transition to mobile and the challenges associated with that can be applied to any company that finds itself at a crossroads in the industry. The company is well positioned to make the transition, he said.

Instead of games like its recently released Chefville, which currently can only be played on Facebook, Zynga may need to focus on more games like Gems, which, like its With Friends predecessors, is created specifically for mobile.

Gems seems to follow the blueprint that has helped make the other With Friends games a success — it’s easy to learn, it’s easy to play, and it’s social.

Each game consists of three rounds with an opponent, and each round lasts two minutes.

While the game may seem familiar — some may think of another game that features precious stones, PopCap’s Bejeweled — Bettner said the actual design of the game is “unlike anything out there.” The new game will initially only be available for iOS devices.

As with other Zynga games, users only have to spend money if they want to purchase bonus features to help increase their scores.

This is key to making money off mobile — creating an environment where players are happy to part with money for an enhanced experience, Bettner said.

“I’m looking to read the reviews and see how the players are reacting to that. We’ve released a couple games now where we’ve had this reaction,” he said. “They give it a high star rating and then say ‘I wish I could get more coins.’ When they say that, we know that we’ve created something that’s joyful and delightful for them.”

Source : CNET 

Read More