It’s hard to believe that it’s been over three years since Mountain Sheep’s Minigore (Free) hit the App Store. While the game started out small, it’d see multitudes of updates, making it one of the first “big" dual-stick arena shooters to hit iOS. Fast-forward to today and Minigore 2: Zombies ($1.99) looks to come out of the gate with tons of content, along with small refinements to the arena shooter formula. Unfortunately, fans looking for significant innovations will probably need to look elsewhere as Minigore 2 is really more of the same.
If you’re one of the few that have never heard of Minigore, you’ve probably at least played its genre: the dual-stick arena shooter. Minigore 2 continues the genre trend, placing players in moderately sized levels with the goal being to survive and destroy every zombie that gets thrown into the mix. Taking out the opposition earns ‘souls,’ which act as the game’s single currency. In addition, weapons, health kits, and four-leaf clovers (which still activates character powers) can also be found, giving players a leg-up on the opposition. Each level culminates with a boss battle that showers the player with rewards if the boss is defeated. At this point, missions can either be restarted with harder foes (a new ‘night’) or players can move on to a new level.
While Minigore 2 doesn’t really deviate from the traditional arena shooter, it does attempt to add a few new additions to spice up the gameplay. For starters, Minigore 2 offers a challenge system that lets players work towards completing certain objectives. Challenges range from environment specific (find and tap a specific element in a level) to weapon specific (gun down a number of zombies with a machine-gun) to gore-centric. Meeting challenges (along with defeating enemies) earn experience towards levels, which unlock more characters and weapons for purchase. While the challenge system isn’t particularly innovative, it’s still a nice addition and gives players a secondary objective to all the zombie killing.
Like the original Minigore, the traditional dual-stick control scheme still exists as well as an auto-aim system which effectively takes the ‘dual-stick’ out of the dual-stick shooter. While auto-aim worked relatively well for me, I’m not the biggest fan of relinquishing that much control to the AI. Because of this, I imagine most gamers would choose to forgo this option but I think it’s a great addition for newbies to the genre.
The most important area where Minigore 2 expands on the original is the sheer amount of customizability. Not only are there loads of new weapons, but there’s also a decent amount of environments available at the onset for unlocking. In addition, Minigore 2 continues the tradition of having tons of cross-over characters, each with their own stats and upgrade paths. When you add in the fact that each weapon and character can be upgraded a great deal, folks will have plenty to spend their souls on.
The refinements continue to other facets of Minigore 2. Visually, while Minigore 2 looks similar to its predecessor, improvements to the engine have the game looking a lot clearer and brighter than the first Minigore. Additionally, Minigore 2 has upped the ante of available enemies on screen, with support for over 150 simultaneous enemies. While I wasn’t keeping track too closely as to the number of enemies I was taking on, I can attest to the fact that the game ran pretty smoothly on my iPhone 5 regardless of what was thrown at me.
While all the improvements above are all well and good, the biggest issue confronting Minigore 2 is the simple fact that there isn’t anything groundbreaking added to the formula. Sure, the inclusion of challenges and the onslaught of new weapons and enemies are nice, but the overall game really plays like more of the same. When you take into consideration that Minigore 2 remains a basic arena shooter, this feeling of familiarity seems to be stronger as it really feels like there’s been no depth added to the game. A new update has added a Hardcore mode which adds a bit of variety, but not much. While there’s plenty of weapons and customizability available to players, they do little to actually change the game, which is (and always will be) a simple shooter.
Of course, that’s not to say Minigore 2 isn’t fun. In fact, I’d say this sequel is pretty high up there when it comes to basic dual-stick arena shooters. However, a lot has changed in the iOS gaming community in the three plus years since Minigore first launched. While a dual-stick arena shooter of this type was somewhat novel back then, today the genre is chock-full of contenders. The never-ending quest to get noticed means most titles need to offer some innovation or decent refinement just to rise above the rest. Being the sequel to a popular game, Minigore 2 doesn’t need any of that. Yet, I can’t help but feel that if this was made by any other developer, we really wouldn’t care that much.
Wow. No scarcity on quantity but a serious lack of quality. Nbd. Ill just wait for next week and play Farcry 3 in the meantime. Next week FF4 comes and possibly Ravensword!!!! Anybody heard news on RR3?! I thought that was supposed to drop in 2012?!
RR3 Still has no official release date. Last I heard it was confirmed to be "sometime in 2013", possibly Q1.
They really had to dig deep this week for a lot of crud. Most of these aren't even worth mentioning as you can tell by their description. Hopefully next week will be a big one before the App Store freeze out.
Last week was pretty good but this one is just lame.
I'm all over Football Manager! Fantastic game!! Also, trying out that Final Fantasy game. Hopefully the iAP is manageable. But that's probably about it.
This week is all about strategy/board games. The above mentioned Fluxx, the already released Stone Age, and best of all Battle of the Bulge! But the TA crowd isn't the target market for such games.
Waiting for Battle of the Bulge tomorrow. Tonight's selection just isn't cutting it for me.
Fluxx peaks my interest; isn't there already a wheel of fortune on the App Store?
I always look forward to the comments for the 'coming tonight' post. Inevitably we get the forum posters who seem to have played every game on the list enough to call them lame or crap. Always entertaining!
Just to clarify, nobody so far has been commenting on the quality of individual games (at least I wasn't) but more referring to how lame the selection is. Compared to last week where we had GTA Vice City, MC4, Baldurs Gate and Minigore 2 you have to admit that this weeks current lineup is an IAP ridden yawn-fest.
I've gamed on iOS long enough to know the difference between a AAA title and a waste of drive space.
I for one don't consider popular name brand IP as exclusively AAA titles. There are so many games out there that become AAA, but they had to start somewhere right? This weeks selection might seem like an "IAP ridden yawn-fest" to you, but for me some of it looks good. Perhaps maybe you mean to say that nothing looks interesting to you?
You're right. If you were under the impression I was trying to state fact instead of opinion in a game site comment section, I apologize.
And part of the definition of AAA games is that they have a huge budget and marketing campaign behind them. A game doesn't become AAA over time, it's IP, sequel and/or remake may though.
Point taken...
But in fairness, many weeks tend to follow a pattern of "me too" releases that everyone has played before. You can literally play a drinking game checking off each endless runner, tower defense, twin stick, builder/breeder, physics puzzler, match 3, word puzzle, IAP driven clone that's only marginally different than the hundreds of existing titles of same genres.
That doesn't mean titles aren't getting better on average each time a new release comes out... they certainly are... but the pattern of incremental progress itself is fairly stale and predictable. I'd rather pay $10-20 for a title that really shakes the ground than buy 20 modest tweaks or incremental improvements to a trend at this point.
With the app store's current maturity, even if a dev does release the quintessential title in any of the aforementioned genres... who doesn't already have a half dozen or more precursors?
iOS needs more titles that are "timeless" than "timely"... titles that showcase the platform more than capitalize on it.
Maybe I'm just jaded... but I've got hundreds of releases on my iPad and iPhone that got me there.
Very well put. Agree with every point and wish more devs had the same perspective. iOS gaming has a huge following now but I think a lot of people are still of the opinion that "they're just cell phone games".
Nothing caught my attention, and Battle of the Bulge isn't tonight. Back to Baldur's Gate I guess :)
Will download Fluxx. A steal considering that a deck costs double that. And might not always to be hand.
Although in my household that's unlikely, between two decks of fluxx, one zombie, pirate and Cthulhu fluxx, were not usually far from one.
Metal Slug 1 is on my list if it support the iCade like Metal Slug 3 did. That games a lot of fun using the iCade.
Other than that, I'm looking more forward to next week when the new Ravensword game might come out. I'm not really expecting to be able to play it on my iPad, but hopeful that my iPod Touch 5 will at least be able to handle it.
hey! our game Nanomites launched today :D. here's our launch trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Fluxx is an awesome card game! Kind of like UNO meets strategy card game. Definite buy for me. Hope they come out with Martian fluxx too.
Fluxx is the only one that interests me. Even though i've never heard of it, the concept seems interesting at least.
Zooniverse? Anyone else hoping that was a Mighty Boosh game?
Monsters Inc, Run...
Jeez, really?
Some days i really wonder why even bother spending months and months making a quality gaming experience when you can just crank out running game for every license possible.
Although strictly from a business point of view i guess it makes sense.
Final Fantasy Theatrhythm was a fun game on the 3DS. Sadly the iOS port is missing one of the song types - the type which had a video compilation of the high points of each FF game playing in the background. Also it's an in-app purchase fest of the highest order. You'd spend a fortune to bring it to anywhere near the amount of content in the 3DS version.
This music in the trailer of Playmobil pirates reminds me of something... ^v^