Another day, another Apple TV game announced. I have a hunch this Apple company is about to get very popular, might even go mainstream. Fantastic Plastic Squad is an upcoming game from Studio Pound Sand, led by former executive producer and studio head for EA’s Medal of Honor games. The game is a third-person shooter where you pretend to be an action figure (haven’t we all done that at some point in our lives?) which you can upgrade and customize to your liking. First, let’s start with the trailer. If you are in your mid-thirties like I am, you’ll see so many 80s influences in this trailer it’s ridiculous (in a good way); It really feels like the 80s should take this trailer to court for plagiarism and intellectual property theft. Needless to say, it’s glorious!
Now, the game itself has some clever ideas going for it that show how the developers know it’s a mobile rather than a console game. For instance, if you are interrupted in the middle of a campaign or online match, you can let an AI autopilot play the game for you until you return. Of course, the AI won’t play like you (it will probably play better), but it’s great to have that option given the way real life can get in the way of mobile gaming. The game has a single player campaign of 125 missions as well as PvP mode with much-coveted features such as clan support, tournaments, leaderboards, and replays. You can even borrow a friend’s figures for online battle, which gives that friend a portion of the credits earned. All these ideas sound quite smart, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them become staples of the mobile gaming world.
The Apple TV version of the game will use the touch controls of the remote and also third-party controllers. To play the game, you’ll drag your thumb on the touchpad to aim, and you move forward by holding the Play button and backwards by tapping Play and then holding it (not sure how well this part is going to work). You can jump by tapping the touchpad and throw grenades by clicking and holding the touchpad. If you want to turn on the AI assist, you hold the remove vertically, and when you want to get back to killing things yourself, you hold it horizontally. Although it sounds a bit clunky to me, the developer claims it works really well. The game will be F2P and should come out on iPad and iPhone before the Apple TV version. If you want to read the whole interview with Polygon, go here.
