Posts Tagged ‘zombie highway

29
Jan
13

The Three Types Of iPad Games

iPad-mini-blackI must be one of the biggest dooses on the planet when it comes to owning an iPad.

I mean here you have this super effective tool that can streamline your entire life, it can basically turn you into a super-human with the right combination of apps and what do I use mine for?

Games. Shitloads of games.

Oh, and FlipBoard – that app rocks. But if you had to take those two things off my ipad, all it would be is a very expensive paperweight.

On the odd occasion I take it into meetings and people are like, “What cool apps do you have?” I always flip the cover back on guiltily and bark “NOTHING!” before it’s too late and they realise what a dork I am.

So I’d say I’m pretty well-versed when it comes to iPad games, having played and completed more than I can remember but I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to be the case because I swear to God iPad games are designed to do one thing and one thing only – take your money.

 

 

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, so here’s a breakdown of the 3 different kinds of iPad games out there, listed from the best kind to the worst kind:

1. Free games that are rad and don’t bleed you dry:

These are the best kind of iPad games and the rarest to actually find.

These days, if an iPad game is free you can almost bet your bottom dollar that you will get bent over the table by “in-app purchases” and bombarded with ads for other games by the same publisher until your eyes bleed.

Some examples of rad free games that are challenging to play but not impossible to complete without spending money on in-app purchases are:


ZOMBIE HIGHWAY

 

 

One of the first games I got for my iPad. Sure, you can spend real money on unlocking the weapons but it’s not too tricky to unlock everything in the game if you put in the hours.

The gameplay is pretty straight-forward, you drive down a highway, tilting the iPad to steer and shooting / smashing zombies into the other cars around you as they latch onto your car and try to tip it over.

Also, it has arguably one of the best taglines I’ve read on a game in ages: “Your goal is to survive. But you won’t".


HUNGRY SHARK EVOLUTION

 

 

A game I downloaded over Christmas and immediately got hooked on. Again, the premise here is simple – you’re a shark whose life slowly drains unless you eat EVERYTHING YOU SEE!

As you feed, your shark levels up and gets bigger. Once you’ve hit level 10, the next shark is unlocked. Eating golden fish / turtles / humans gives you coins that you use to increase your speed, bite and boost.

Sure, the game does have a gem system where gems are notoriously difficult to come by but can buy you some cool added stuff in the game, but it’s not essential to buy any of this stuff to complete the game.

Again, this game is just challenging enough that you won’t crack it in under 10 hours but not so much so that it’s impossible to complete without spending real money.

 

 

2. Free games that are rad and DO bleed you dry

“Hey wow, this game looks SICK! And it’s FREE! How motherflippin’ awesome is that?!”

Pretty awesome. Until you’ve been playing the game for a few hours and start to realise that it’s fucking impossible to get anywhere without spending real money!

Here’s the best example that comes to mind…

CLASH OF CLANS

 

 

Clash Of Clans is currently the top grossing game in the iStore because why? Because it’s the sneakiest fucking iPad game you’re ever likely to find.

In the game there are three basic forms of currency: gold, elixir and gems. Gold and elixir you can mine (at a painfully slow rate), but gems you can only get for completing goals and moving random rocks and trees from your map and when you do so, you get them in tiny quantities.

It’s a classic strategy game where you build a village, train up troops and attack other clans. The graphics are pretty awesome and the gameplay is fun so it’s easy to get hooked.

 

 

Here’s the rub though – each time you upgrade one of your buildings / defences in the game, it takes slightly longer that the time before.

At first it’s a small amount of time; maybe 10 / 15 minutes. Even then you’re like “What, 15 real minutes or 15 game minutes?” Yeah, it’s 15 REAL minutes of watching something upgrade. Woo. Hoo.

So you go make yourself a cup of coffee and come back and hey presto it’s done, no biggie.

BUT that 15 minutes soon becomes 30, then an hour, then 12 hours, then 1 day, then 3 days, then I shit you not 4 days to fucking upgrade something!

Of course, you can speed the entire process up to happen instantly IF you spend gems, but to give you an idea, a 3-day upgrade needs about 500 gems to speed up. If you buy a “Pile Of Gems” (the smallest amount you can buy, 500 gems) it costs you $4.99.

So you’ve just paid R45 to upgrade your imaginary gold mine. What. The. Fuck?

Tell me you feel that!

 

 

Games like this are becoming all to frequent, but they’re not the worst kind.

The worst kind is…

3. Games you PAY FOR and that BLEED YOU DRY

The worst kind. You fork out a good $5 for a game thinking, this looks awesome and I’m pretty sure isn’t going to fleece me for every cent I have because, you know, I’ve already paid for it.

Wrong again bucko. That amount you forked out was just a down payment. If you really want to get anywhere in this game you better be ready to fork out some serious cashola.

A prime example is:


THE INFINITY BLADE SERIES

Infinity Blade is not a cheap game. You’re looking at $5.99 to buy the first one and $6.99 for the second and it’s a big download (595MB). But man-o-man is it an awesome game.

The graphics are stunning, the hack-and-slash gameplay is awesome and the enemies scale up in difficulty perfectly as you progress into the game.

Then shit starts slowing down BIG TIME.

The only way you can level up in the game is through the items you carry. The experience points you accumulate when you kill enemies goes into your items until they fill up to the max and you master them.

 

 

Problem is, once something is mastered, any experience points that would have gone into that item are immediately forfeited. In other words, once an item is mastered it immediately becomes almost useless because it can no longer fill up with experience points.

Your only choice is to wait to pick up another unmastered item or buy one using the gold you collect in the game. Of course, the cost of the items in the game far outweighs the amount of gold you pick up so once again, you’re forced to use real life money to buy fake money.

Or you just slowly and painfully collect gold while all your rad items max out and you stop levelling up almost entirely.

iPad game developers need to sort their shit out and stop making games whose only purpose is to extort money from us.

I don’t mind paying even up to $7 or $8 for a game as long as the game is awesome and I don’t get eyeball-raped by ads or made to spend more money because the difficulty level has scaled up from “retardedly simple” to “insanely difficult” after 5 hours of gameplay.

Cool examples of games like these include Kingdom Rush, Machinarium, The Remade Monkey Island Games and Contre Jour.

Other iPad games could learn a thing or two from those titles.

-ST

08
Sep
11

SlickTiger Learns the Fine Art Of Bashing Zombies Into Parked Cars

4a122b1d01e3a3f5dcae480f078cbb47You could do a pretty interesting study on why so many people in our generation have a total fixation on zombies.

For me, there’s just something about the entire system grinding to a complete halt that kinda appeals to me. No more mundane routines, no more work pressures, none of that fabricated bullshit would matter anymore.

Of course, you’d live every moment in blood-curdling fear and probably have to do some pretty unspeakable shit to stay alive, but as long as you’d done your homework, watched every zombie movie known to man and played games like Zombie Highway, you’d definitely survive at least a week or two.

See, Zombie Highway (available for free on iPads from the iTunes ap store) is an entire game based on those classic scenes from movies where the bad guy is clinging to the car and the good guy is bashing the car against all manner of shit to get him / it off.

The gameplay is dead simple (yes, I just did that). You drive down a long, straight highway while zombies jump out of nowhere and cling onto the side of your car.

 

 

When this happens you can either slam the zombies against conveniently-placed barricaded cars or feed the basterds some lead salad by touching circles on either side of your car which turn red when a zombie grabs onto the car.

The downside of just shooting them of course is you very quickly run out of ammo and then you’re completely fucked. Before you know it, your car will be flush with zombies and when that happens they start rocking your car until it tips and then it’s warm brains all round.

 

 

As you get further along the highway and destroy more zombies, you unlock more weapons, levels and cars. The zombies also get stronger and regenerate health which is a total bitch once your ammo runs dry.

It all sounds pretty mundane, but trust me, you can easily sink three hours into this game without even breaking a sweat.

Bashing zombies into shit is possibly one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done in a game, and for that reason I’m stopping this post right now.

It’s cutting into my zombie-bashing time.

TOTAL TIME WASTED: At least 8 hours and counting… 
TOTAL ENJOYMENT LEVEL: 85%
FINAL VERDICT: If you own an iPad or iPad2, there’s no conceivable reason why you shouldn’t download this game. It’s smaller than 20MB, doesn’t cost a cent and is awesome. Case closed.

-ST

06
Sep
11

SlickTiger And The iPad2 – the Saga Continues

redneckHi and welcome to the second instalment of a series of posts I’m planning on writing about my new iPad2 from the perspective of a complete tech retard.

When we last left off, your trusty narrator and host SlickTiger had just fired up his shiny new iPad2 3G for the first time when he encountered his first major hurdle – no micro SIM card.

Micro SIMs are identical to normal SIMs, only about 2 thirds the size. Not too sure why Apple decided you need these irritating little things, but apparently it’s the same for iPhones.

The good news is you can actually cut a regular SIM card to make it fit, but be sure to read this blog post first so you don’t fuck it up because I know you, all gung-ho, a meat cleaver clenched in your fist, just itching to cut your SIM cards up.

Be cool daddy-o. You own an iPad2 now, you’re better than everyone so start acting like it.

I decided not to go the SIM card cutting route and instead investigated getting an iPad2 data package through 8.ta because I got a tip off from my main man Callegari that they are the only network that currently have official iPad data packages and their data rates are pretty cheap.

 

 

Fast forward to Saturday morning and I’m sitting at the 8.ta shop on Adderley Street, iPad2 in hand with all the RICA docs the website said to bring only to be told that they can’t help me when it comes to anything iPad related because no one in the store has done the training yet.

Brilliant! You offer a product that no one in the shop is qualified to sell! Sheer genuis!

Even better than that is the fact that the sales dude then asked me where we lived so he could check what the coverage in our area (Vredehoek) is like which I’m really glad he did because there is none.

 

Next stop was the 4u Vodashop in Gardens Centre where my main man Ahmed hooked me up with a micro SIM (R210 on contract) and 1.5GB monthly data package for R249 in no time.

He said to try the data SIM in about 4-6 hours as they take a little while to activate. Twenty hours later, my iPad was still saying “You are not subscribed to a data service” every time I tried to fire up the 3G which was driving me fucking nuts.

Turns out all I had to do was get into “Settings”, select “Mobile Data”, hit “APN Settings” and enter the word “internet” in the APN field.

I hard boot the iPad and next thing I know, BOOM! I got the whole wide world in my hands.

From there with two touches I was in the iTunes app store, browsing the top free apps. Moments later I was downloading Zombie Highway and that’s pretty much as far as I got because if there’s anything radder than owning an iPad2, it’s using it to smash zombies against cars whilst popping round after round into their soft, brown skulls.

 

 

NEXT UP: SlickTiger reviews Zombie Highway and reveals the first downside of using a 3G connection on an iPad2.

-ST