Very tricky too, the game description mentions nothing about IAPs, so people won't realize they've just bought a paid-mium game until they actually spent the $2.99 or whatever it is. What a shady dev.
The thing is why'd they have to be necessary are pushed so hard in the game...if what Arashi said is true. There are plenty of ppl willing to buy IAPs to spped up gameplay. Single player, non-forced IAPs are the only IAPs I don't b*tch about. Well...I don't complain about accessory IAPs either.
Everytime before each level they take you to the menu. You need these items (especially the revive one) since its quite a difficult game made even more difficult by the four direction controls.
Wow, that really blows. Could have been a good one. Still need a great Contra clone. Surprised no one has ported the originals (those and Metal Slug would be good additions to the iOS). EDIT: Forgot that there is a poor Metal Slug port... but would be nice to have a good one.
Nope no checkpoints. Controls really blow when there are enemys that you cant reach with the standard 4 directions that it allows you. From there you constatntly lose health thus making those med kits incresaingly neccessary. And when you need med kits you dont have enough gems for weapons and vica versa.
Very disappointed to read this thread thus far as I was looking forward to this one as well. Also disappointed to see a slider for movement control in the video; they simply don't work as well as d-pads for games like this on the iOS. Let's do a little tally: -$2. -No retina. -Not Universal. -IAP. -Slider control for movement. The fact that I am still even mildly considering picking this up is testament to the potential this game appeared to have. Definitely leaning towards a pass at this stage though.
I think I'll take the plunge and just talk about the game later. This is just all very disheartening.
Very disheartening. I can't believe it's not Universal. What, iPad players are always going to be second to iPhone gamers? Stinx.
Well, I was SUPER excited until I started reading the reviews. Glitchsoft, I can't help but feel like you've pulled the wool over our eyes a little, and the fact that you haven't shown up in this thread to address any of the concerns of the members here does not help matters. I am pissed that you have released a paid-mium game that pushes you towards additional purchases, and told us not a thing about it beforehand. We don't want to pay for ****ing health packs and revives. We have REAL things to spend our money on. That is seriously oftentimes grounds for boycott around here. And here I was singing the praises and getting ready to gift this to everyone. Fat chance. Plus the game isn't retina or universal. It probably should be both of those things, but then it would be a bigger file. It's under 20 MB so that it can be downloaded over 3G. I had a feeling that was a money-motivated shortcoming of the game, and now it's confirmed. Smaller devs need to realize that the amount of their core fanbase that will refuse to buy their game due to paid-mium (or bad freemium) will more than offset the money they'd make off their little IAP schemes, and word of mouth spreads fast. Get rid of the IAP, these kinds of pay models are money-sink BULLSHIT. I know you're reading this. Get rid of it. And don't give me that crap about "some people already bought stuff, it's not fair to them if I make it free". They will be happy not to pay for it anymore. Get on it.
Oh FFS, this is ridiculous. Thanks for the reviews guys. Looks like the game sucks big time. I'll pass, thank you.
I hope to see some other reviews(viewpoints) because I was eagerly awaiting this game. I really dislike paying for a game then having to shell out IAP purchases to "fully" enjoy the game. I wish they would just make two styles of their game.... One free with adds and IAP's and one paid... Not a combination of both.
Frankly, all I've gotten from all the brouhaha so far is this: Star Marines is a tough as nails game (like Contra), and you can pay to real world cash to make it easier to beat it (unlike Contra). I'll reserve judgement as to whether the controls are an issue (I find that there's usually a wide range of opinions on that), but as long as the game is fair about it's difficulty, I see no reason to get too exercised about what casual gamers want to do with their money. Guess we'll see in a few hours. I'll report as soon as I can.
