ToG #225 – Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Snowboard Party 2

In this episode we talk about the small amount of news coming out this week as well as the few upcoming games/updates we are excited for.

We then delve into the games we grabbed during the big Thanksgiving Holiday sales on the App and Google Play stores.

Then it was time to talk games…and we have quite a few this week.

Jared: Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes (Free, iOS and Android, EA) – Jared played a bunch of this game and while the gameplay is ok and the Star Wars setting is nice, the overall free to play mechanics and muddiness make this game forgettable. There are too many currencies, too many odd upgrades, and too much grinding to fully recommend this game to anyone but the most ardent of Star Wars fan. This one will not be sticking around on Jared’s device. 3 out of 5 overall.

Todd: Ball King (Free, iOS & Android, QWIBOO, LTD.) – challenged to beat a score in this game by a Game Center friend, Todd decided to grab it and try the game. What he found was a very simple “shoot the ball in the floating hoop by using very intuitive touch controls to draw the path of your shot” game. This is a nice high score chase game with decent graphics, great sound effects, great control and extremely fair Free to Play mechanics. Really good fun and worth picking up for sure. On Fire! 5 out of 5.

Jared: Starlit Adventures (Free with unlock, iOS and Android, Rockhead Games). This game, in the vein of Dig Dug, proved to be a lot of fun for both Jared and his 3 year old son. Although probably not completely understandable children of that age, this game can be picked up quickly and easily and makes for a great little “on the couch” time waster. It has good music and a very bright, friendly, and colorful style. Worth trying for sure.

Todd: Snowboard Party 2 ($2.99, iOS, Ratrod). Todd loves snowboarding games in the vein of SSX but has yet to find one that really lives up to that potential on mobile. This one comes close with nice graphics, good controls (including MFI controller support), and an ok soundtrack (but with the ability to play music from your own collection!!). It has 4 modes of play, lots of characters and gear to unlock, plenty of tracks with a decent amount of variety. In short…it has most everything you might want. What it lacks is the cohesion to tie all of those things together. Something is missing and it makes this completely competent game less than the sum of its parts. It is worth grabbing if you like the genre but it could have been better. 4 out of 5 overall.

Jared: Le Havre: Inland Port ($4.99, iOS and Android, Digidiced). Digidiced provides an excellent port from board game to iOS with this release and the only thing that could see improvement on that end is the online mulitiplayer…which they are working on. The game, however, is a bit too “mathy” for Jared’s tastes so he probably won’t keep playing it. Overall, this is an excellent translation of the board game…but you need to like this style of board game to appreciate the iOS version of the game. At $4.99 it is worth grabbing; especially if you have already tried the board game and enjoy its mechanics.

Todd: Traffic Rush 2 (Free, iOS, Donut Games). Hot on the heals of its 2009 prequel, this game looks to up the ante a bit…and it succeeds overall. A voxel based update to a high score chase game, this follows the Crossy Road free to play model…which means you really never see an ad if you don’t want to and you never have to pay any money. The gameplay is very tight and feels a lot like its 2009 rendition. It is fun and gets very frantic…which can be a good or a bad thing overall. Todd feels like he might have already reached his highest score…but he will give it one more try just in case. 4 out of 5 overall.

Jared: Starside Arena (Free, iOS and Android, Epic Owl) – Jared is really, really digging this “build your own starship” arena battle game. In this one, strategically building your starship is the key. When you send it out into battle, the battle plays out automatically and you have no input, so plan well. There are tons of things to enjoy about this game and only 1 real flaw so far…it seems that even if you are winning battles, the game will sometimes “scrap” your ship and tell you you need to rebuild it to do better. You can rebuild it without a problem…but you might not have wanted to. That aside, this is highly recommended and Todd was convinced enough to download it while Jared was talking. Cool.