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I get a lot of Tower Defence games across my desk. It’s amazing how many variations on a simple genre you can have. Then again, it’s not a simple genre – Tower Defence combines strategy with resource management, or at least it should. With Elemental War you have to pitch the power of the elements against endless hordes of enemies. Is the gameplay more than elementary though?
One of the simplest and most addictive games I've seen yet on Symbian, a combined puzzler/arcader that works absolutely superbly as a 'one more go' casual title. On your own, or against a friend, you guide your car towards refuelling points and service centres, and away from hazards. The further you get, the higher you score. A game for one or more players (via Bluetooth), it's an insanely good way to while away a few minutes here and there during your day.
What do you get if you cross Breakout with Doom? No, really. Breakfest provides all the gameplay of the famous ball and block games, complete with every power up option you've ever seen, in full animated texture mapped 3D, with explosions and other visual effects. And, yes, you even get to fire missiles at various points. All that's missing are the monsters...
I remember the day well. Aged seven or eight, I was at an ageing relative's house and he brought out 'something he thought I might like'. It turned out to be a wooden 'pin bagatelle' and I loved it, spending the rest of the day on the thing. Just some wood, some pins and a ball, but it kept me happy. And fired me off in the direction of pinball, one of my specialities at university, ten years later. And now we have bagatelle on our Symbian smartphones, courtesy of Fortuna.
How can one pass up a game billed as "Exciting, intuitive and simple gameplay based on revolutionary worm-physics"? Come again? "Worm physics"? Oh yes, Finnish company 10tons has taken the basic game structure of the famous Angry Birds, created by their country mates Rovio, and applied it to their own physics-based game, based on the way caterpillars 'swing' around their environment (allegedly), swinging end over end. Is it as polished as Angry Birds? A resounding yes. Is it as much fun to play? That depends on your gaming preference and time available.
When classifying a game, you don’t often find something that qualifies as a physics simulation and a platformer. Sonic the Hedgehog is perhaps the only exception. Duster on Symbian^3 appears to be trying to achieve the same classification. While it works on paper, read on to find out what sort of gameplay is on offer.
Get your pitch forks and guillotines ready as we step back into 18th century France to play Townsmen 6. This Civilisation type strategy game puts you in charge of French provinces, directing workers to complete your objectives. To achieve your goals, you must make sure that your workers are housed and fed. You’ll also need to be good at resource management, to make sure work is getting done. If this sounds like your sort of game, read on to find out more.
What do you get if you take all the existing 'Block Breaker' titles and mash them together - and then add another 50% again? And then optimise everything for higher resolution screens and graphics acceleration chips? You get this, Block Breaker 3 Unlimited HD (I can't believe the developers resisted the temptation to add 'Deluxe Pro: Rise of the Meta Ball' or similar, too.....!) It's absolutely the most comprehensive 'Arkanoid' game I've ever played and is an absolute blast, even if it does add rather too many layers of game complexity for my liking.
If you like word puzzle games and you have an eagle eye, then Word Hunter might be for you. This well presented game brings word search puzzles up to date for the 2011 Symbian user. If you can deal with the pressure of finding hidden words against the clock, then read on to find out more.
Platform games were all the rage in the early days of video gaming. Now though, it’s a rare title that takes us back to those two dimensional worlds. In the new age of mobile gaming, fantastic creativity can be found in arcade and action games. Therefore, a return to the classic platform genre would require a unique twist to catch our attention. That’s exactly what YoYo Games have done with They Need To Be Fed. Read on to find out if it works.
