The game is very much like Tiny Tower or No Zombies Allowed, in that you have to build various ‘rooms’ that supply, power, food, water, storage and relaxation to an ever growing population. Each inhabitant or ‘dweller’ has a set of seven special stats from strength to luck. Different attributes are suited to different rooms. Strong dwellers work best in the power stations, whereas the more intelligent characters are happier in the medical or scientific rooms. If ‘dwellers’ are placed in the bedrooms, they have a chance of procreation and if dwellers work in rooms that match their stats they become happier and raise the moral of the whole shelter. Later rooms aim to improve the special stats and you are able to send people to the bar to improve their charisma, get them on a treadmill to increase their endurance or even have them play cards to improve their luck.

I have spent the last three weeks constantly playing this game and I love it. At a recent count, I had nearly 130 dwellers all in custom outfits carrying some serious weaponry. New clothes and weapons can be gathered by sending some people out into the wasteland for hours at a time, or by opening special lunch boxes. Every lunch box has a set of cards that range from additional caps (money) to bespoke dwellers. You are awarded lunch boxes for achieving various tasks, such as gathering resources or sending people outside. Lunch boxes are also given out for playing everyday for a week and should you get in trouble, you can buy them as in-app purchases. I found myself spending nearly £10 on lunch boxes after a series of failed ‘rush’ events, when I tried to force my dwellers to create more resources. The ensuing ‘bug attack’ and fires soon killed many of my dwellers and in a panic I bought my way out of it.

Despite, my loss of self control in the finance department, I don’t consider it a waste of money, considering how many hours I have put into the game. I would like to see the game extended in future updates and have the addition of more rooms, mutants, robots and all of the other things that make the Fallout universe so eclectic.

If you are a fan of the Fallout series or just enjoy persistent games such as the Tiny Tower or ‘sims’, this is a great game that will keep you going back again and again. After three weeks, I realised I was getting addicted when I found myself checking it many times a day and even starting a new vault, so I could test how flexible the in-breading rules were. Before I was consumed by the darkness of my own personality, I decided to ceremonially send all 127 dwellers out into the wastelands, to find their own destiny. As I sat watching the lights slowly turn off in my 12 storey underground bunker I almost shed a tear.

Three days later, i went back…

The post Review: Fallout Shelter | iPhone appeared first on AppTrawler.

It’s back with a vengeance

Hairbrained Schemes wanted to stay loyal to the original and the screenshots in the Kickstarter campaign really sold it. The project raised nearly 2 million in funding after only asking for $400k and the IP returned to the original creator.

but what about the game

The first thing that will put you off is the price. £7 / $10 is a lot to pay for a mobile game in this day in age, especially one by a small development company. As the game was originally built for PC you can expect more depth than the average mobile title.

The graphic mix detailed 2D backdrops with 3D character models and whilst both are good in their own right, the merging of the two is a little jarred. Personally I would have preferred one or the other. The team have tried the best to merge the two using subtle animations and the ability to walk behind the 2D backgrounds but its not without fault. I think the optimization done on the graphics in order to bring the file size down has give some of the visuals a slight grainy texture that might not be present on the PC version.

Sounds and music are limited but solid and the music fits the grungy and tired future it portrays. Weapon Sounds are spot on and whilst I understand why there is no voice acting I think the odd street vector call or ‘hello’ here and there would not have gone a miss.

The story and dialogue is where it really shines. There is a lot of text, a lot of story and decision trees aplenty. This is why voice acting was never on the cards as the audio files alone would have filled up a standard iPad’s memory. The film Noir style story mixes seamlessly with the crime thriller narrative and you feel like a futuristic Humphrey Bogarde after the next lead in your hot case.

The game-play is mainly point and click with turn based fighting. These work well and stay true to the original game.

Many on the App Store complained of problems and sections not loading. I did suffer some issues after downloading but once I had rebooted my tablet I did not have any further issues.

Overall, this is a big game so you get your money’s worth and if you liked the original then this trip down memory lane will be a lot of fun. If you are new to Shadowrun you might find it different to more recent titles, as it requires a lot of reading and remembering, as there is little hand holding so you will have to concentrate. This is not a game you can dip in and out of in 10 minute intervals as there is a lot to take in so i would recommend tackling it is large 2-3 hour sittings. The game plays well but the mix of graphics is slightly off putting at times but if you are a fan of the cyber punk genre then you will find a lot here to keep you busy.

The post Review: Shadowrun Returns | Android Tablet appeared first on AppTrawler.

Zombieville USA is simple; you choose a character, each of which has strengths and weaknesses, and you side scroll through towns, bashing zombies with melee attacks or utilizing guns to mow them down. The more zombies you kill, the more money you get. You can also loot homes for ammo and to hide from the onslaught.

Some levels you might luck out and find a vehicle has spawned. It’s neat when this happens; you can tap it to jump right in and it will not only take you directly to the end of the level, but kill tons of zombies along the way.

In between levels, you can buy weapons or health, often a tough choice when you don’t have much cash on you. As you get through later levels, a lot of the weapons become obsolete. Getting into level 40+, you might as well forget everything else and stick with just the rocket launcher and laser gun, which really takes a lot of the fun away. It would be much better if the other weapons could be upgraded to be strong enough to take on the stronger and more numerous zombies (and boy, is there a ton in later levels). It makes it feel like the other options are just moot at that point and it becomes less fun.

As far as it goes, it doesn’t seem like there is an endgame, though it’s possible it doesn’t go past 99 levels, which will still keep you busy for a very long time. It’s truly a game of survival; you will keep going and going against wave after wave until your finger can’t tap anymore. Despite it’s very hard AI later in the game, it is still an enjoyable mobile game you’ll find yourself going back to, from time to time.

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Plague Inc. is a strategy game where the goal is to infect and wipe out every human being on the planet. You must do so before a cure is created and administered. You can choose from only one disease when you start out, bacteria. Once you beat the game with bacteria, you can unlock others; virus, fungus and parasite are just a couple, all of which spread differently and provide different challenges to the player.

The game works from a top down view of the world; you name your disease (providing endless, hilarious possibilities) and then tap a country to infect someone. Choosing your starting country is the first major important decision, and depending on the type of disease, your choice will change. From there, you gain DNA points you can use to manipulate your disease.

You do this a variety of ways; you can influence how it transmits, whether by air, sea, injection or even insects. You can also choose its symptoms, which also have the ability to mutate on their own. Sometimes, you’ll want to de-evolve these symptoms to keep your disease under wraps. Other times, you’ll embrace them so they can kill off thousands.

Lastly, each type of disease can be manipulated to resist research as well as added benefits that change depending on the type you are working with. It creates a huge dynamic in the game, as each one needs a very different strategy to beat. And even if you get through them all, brutal mode will up the challenge even more.

Plague Inc has won a ton of accolades and it is easy to see why. It’s easily one of the most infectious, pun intended, mobile games available. You can get Plague Inc on both Android and iPhone.

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