'Hill Billy' First Person Shooter Impressions and Video
posted by arn on March 30th, 2009 9:44 AM EDT in First Person Shooter, News, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Mirage Labs' Hill Billy [App Store] has finally made it into the App Store. The game was originally rejected due to excessive gore. Well, the game was resubmitted (now with green blood), and has been accepted and released.
The game revolves around you defending your carrots from biomechanical creatures:
You are Hill Billy: the world's largest carrot grower. You have a problem: a strange invasion of biomechanical creatures hungry of vegetables. You have a solution: your shotgun…
So get ready and try to rescue all the carrots by stopping those strange creatures; Explore and defend Hill Billy's properties, find his homemade weapons and hidden odd items… Where those footprints will lead you?
Part of the appeal of this game is the fact that it looks like a high quality first person shooter. And in my brief time with the game, I can safely say this is the most impressive first person shooter currently available on the iPhone. Overall the game's graphics are very nice with rather smooth gameplay and it also offers a reasonable set of controls to manipulate the action.
The game relies entirely on accelerometer controls for foward/back and left/right movement. Meanwhile, shooting is accomplished by tapping on the screen. Additional strafe (left/right) buttons are offered at the top of the screen. It's hard to say at this early stage if these controls are superior to other options we've seen, but it is nice to be able to easily fire and change direction.
The gameplay, itself, is a bit unusual. The game appears to be split into five chapters. Each level appears to revolve around you finding a new weapon and trying to take out your enemies with said weapon. At 5 levels, however, there's going to be a question of whether or not there is enough gameplay to warrant its purchase. We at TouchArcade have not finished the game yet.
Hill Billy does have a very nice atmosphere feel to it that adds to its creepiness. In just the second level, you'll find yourself in close quarters, fighting against a number of the enemies.
This gameplay video offers a look at the game:
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]
A lengthy discussion thread has already appeared with a couple of our forum users giving their first impressions: one, two.
App Store Link: Hill Billy, $5.99
Just picking this up now, looks good.
f*cking A, green blood lolz.
If Apple is to compete with the PSP or DS, they have to change the way they over f*cking censor everything.
what's funny is that there are quite a few other games on the platform that do have red blood (Dr. Arugula, Zombieville USA, etc.). But, I guess this is too "realistic". Because…y'know…giant rabbit/beetle/robot creatures really exist in real life, and any depiction of their demise must be made "unrealistic" by having them bleed green instead of red. >_>
Seriously though…I don't mind the green blood. Apple's censorship I mind, sure…but green blood in this game? Not so much. Look at the enemies. If they bled in neon pink I wouldn't have batted an eye. Again, they're giant rabbit/beetle/robot…thingies. Who's to say things like that would even bleed red?
I'm gonna pass on this one. The video does not look fun at all and only 5 levels? I would pay 99 cents for this one. If you want a shooter just get wolfenstein
Oh snap I forgot the Hill Billy mating call, GIT R DONE!!!
Not interested in this game at all. It's a pass for me
Great graphics but horrible controls once you get in a closed environment. The weapons are nice and enemies original but that doesn't make up for the short game time and price.
Looks good, but I don't get why people want to use the Accelerometer when using the controls that Wolf Classic uses is the best way to play an FPS on the iPhone. Every other way is clunky, annoying, and gimmicky.
Unless I'm wrong, and this game offers a variety of choices to control the game.
Such a grrrreeeeeaaaat engine.
So smooth. Really like it.
Also the sountrack with it's Tarantino western style is awesome.
But the "story", the enemies, hmmmmm…. the devs definetly smoked too much.
Get the idea out of your head. Apple does not want to directly compete with the DS or PSP. I know it is great that the iPhone plays games but it is an iPhone not an iGame. Let it go. This is just another viable idea on the platform. People play all sorts of mobile phone games but they don't want to replace their PSP or DS with an iPhone. Along the same lines, I dont want to start making phone calls with my DSi or PSP, even if it makes calls using VioP, or a standard carrier. I love my DS and PSP, and I play plenty of iPhone games but they don't directly compete. Mobile gaming is mobile gaming, not the same as the DS. The DS and PSP are portable game systems, portable gaming not mobile gaming.
http://toucharcade.com/2008/11/12/steve-jobs-iphone-and-ipod-as-mobile-gaming-devices/
This games looks cool, the story is a bit weird, but for $5.99, I would rather buy Dead Man's Dungeon for $0.99. I know they are coming out with an update based on feedback from touch arcades's forum and soon will have multi player mode.
The iphone is more than viable as a gaming platform. I think it will even surpass the ds and psp when the big publishing power houses like EA will start to take it serious enough and get some complex games on it. Also it has the advantage of the appstore where you can find a lot of original ideas that will never be developed for the psp and ds because of the strict rules Nintendo and Sony imposes on their devs.
+1
The iPhone has alot of potential and is definetly a SERIOUS and direct competitor. It's not the device (which is powerful and ideal for unique ideas), it's the devs, who have to prove this.
I'm in the 'can't see ipod as a direct gaming competitor' camp. It's just too limited, gimmicky, etc. Just like the wii can't compete with pc, etc. for the very same reasons (and I don't mean compete financially, I mean compete for 'gaming').
oh, and small screen is another limiting factor. One might respond 'but they will make the screens bigger'…but then it's no longer a phone/mp3player…there's that awkward gap between the purpose/functionality of the two.
Nunyez haters get it. This thing is going to obliterate the competition. It's all about the developers, and they will flock in droves to this platform.
The iPhone is the single easiest game development platform out there. All of the big guys–Sony, Nintendo, Xbox–require you to buy tons of custom hardware just to develop for them, not to mention the cost of licensing and approval. The iPhone is hands down, without question, the cheapest development platform EVAR. The barrier to entry that keeps small indy developers out of the major console markets just don't exist for this thing.
People are going to develop for this at an insane pace. While 90% will be drek, the remaining 10% will be genius. This platform is going to absolutely kick the tail of every other platform for one simple reason: volume.
BACK ON TOPIC
This game visually looks nice but the gameplay looks hideously dull and charging that price for such a short game is stupid.
Think I'll stick with wolfenstein. Classic gameplay and longevity beats good graphics any day.
did you play the game??? dull???
HILL BILLY *FTW*
Sure, I waited for the price drop, well worth the three bucks. Best game to date? Hellz yeahz!!!
The only thing this game is lacking is levels. Please, Mr. Developer, more levels!