Some great games this week are included in this post that everyone really needs to have. NimbleBit is up to their old tricks of releasing really awesome games, particularly if you like getting beat by your friends in word games. Similarly, a free to play game actually succeeded in being a good hardcore game, meanwhile, console developer Insomniac has made a great transition to mobile with their latest release. Definitely give these all a look.
Capitals Battle, Free [Review] – Capitals (Free) from NimbleBit is their take on a long-running genre: the turn-based multiplayer word game. Thankfully, they manage to deliver a fun and worthwhile take on the genre by making it a simple strategy game that just uses familiar word game mechanics to feel familiar. It’s a game that’s accessible, but leads to an intense battle between folks. You form words from tiles on a hex grid using Scrabble/Words With Friends (Free) rules, with each tile you play being replaced by another tile. Any tiles you play connected to your color of tile are added to your tiles, and if you capture the enemy capital, you get an extra turn. Wipe out all the enemy territory, and you win!
Ire:Blood Memory, Free [Review] – I often hate when I’m right; you tell a friend not to climb that tree, he does, he falls, and then you have to rush him to the ER. Yet, there are times when I’m glad to be right, and the case of TenBirds’ Ire: Blood Memory (Free) is one such case. When I decided to draw attention to the game recently, I did so because of the influences cited by the developers: Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Monster Hunter, three games that are demanding and relatively-slow paced and that aren’t the kind of influences most iOS developers will cite. I was quite positive in my write-up, and even though most commenters dismissed the game outright because of its F2P monetization model, now that I’ve played the game, I’m glad to say that I was right about this game being one to look forward to. Ire is a brave and successful attempt to give iOS gamers a challenging, tactical Action-RPG that offers a great and complex battle system wrapped in a demanding inventory and forging system. While the game isn’t perfect, it might actually come pretty close to that if some of its issues are addressed in the future, provided you enjoy difficult games that punish you often but reward contemplative, tactical gameplay.
Digit & Dash - GameClub, Free [Review] – Insomniac’s Digit & Dash (Free) is a reaction game that tasks you with controlling two characters at once on either side of a vertical level, and I could feel my conscious brain letting me down with every failed tap of the screen. If only I could be more… machine-like. Pure reaction with no pesky awareness getting in the way and mucking things up. I guess what I’m trying to say is, this game is hard. It’s really, really hard. But it’s hard in a good way: satisfyingly challenging, with every single mistake being your fault and yours alone.
Additionally, we reviewed a few other games this week. As always, you can dig into all of our reviews by clicking here. Alternatively, you can hit up specific scores by using these links:
