The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn’t necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable “best" thing. Instead, it’s more just us picking out the single game out of the week’s releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one.
These picks might be controversial, and that’s OK. If you disagree with what we’ve chosen, let’s try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why.
Without further ado…
Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade
While picking a Game of the Week each week is often a difficult task, I don’t think I’ve ever picked a game that I felt so conflicted over than I do with this week’s pick Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade (Free). You may remember Freeblade debuting during the iPhone 6s keynote back in September as a game that utilized the just-announced 3D Touch feature of the new iPhones.
Freeblade is an on-rails, over-the-shoulder mech shooter and with 3D Touch integration you can touch and hold to fire your weapon, press a bit harder to zoom in while still firing, and press even harder to switch to your secondary weapon, letting go of the screen to fire it. It’s incredibly cool and works so freaking well. Freeblade really shows me just how game-changing the 3D Touch feature can be for gaming on iOS.
On top of that, Freeblade uses Apple’s Metal technology, and is one of the most impressive looking games I’ve ever seen on iOS. I know literally nothing about Warhammer, but the giant mechs you play as in Freeblade are super cool and fully customizable with different paint schemes and weaponry. There’s lots of interesting story bits too, but again, I know nothing of Warhammer so really the only thing that matters to me is I’m a giant mech running around blasting bad guys and blowing up buildings, which is perfectly fine by me.
Sounds great, right? Well it is great! Except for one major thing, which seems to be the main criticism against the game I’ve heard from just about everyone: It’s free to play’d out the wazoo. Not any more than your typical free to play game mind you, but multiple in-game currencies and cooldown timers on a few different actions in the game will definitely impede on your fun if you’re not big on free to play systems. Some folks in our forums who have gotten farther than I have so far have also noted the difficulty ramping up quite a bit later in the game, meaning you’ll need to grind earlier levels to level your mech up or, you know, bust out that credit card.
A couple of hours into Freeblade and I haven’t quite got to a point where I feel like the free to play stuff is getting in the way of my enjoyment, and that’s really what pushed me over the edge into picking this as Game of the Week over some of the other fantastic games that were released. Maybe the late game gets super grindy or difficult or whatever, but there’s so much great stuff to check out in Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade that even if you download it and only play it for an hour or two it’s really worth the effort. This is especially true if you have an iPhone 6s with 3D Touch, as the implementation here is really, really cool.
Fancy graphics, huge mechs, even huger explosions, and a really neat 3D Touch experience are all the reasons why you should give Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade a try, even if it’s just for a short while. If you’re not mad at typical free to play systems, Freeblade will likely find a permanent spot on your device.
