Weekend Rollback

     Doing these game streams for my son to have something to watch has really driven me to keep up a lot better with posting to my blog here.  I've got another video, hanging around the fifteen minute mark, ready to be viewed.  What I'm finding really interesting is just how easy it is to get fifteen minutes of streaming done.  I keep sitting down telling myself I've only got five minutes and I'll just do something quick, and then all of a sudden the video is three times longer than I expected.

     Now onto the topic today.  I've been trying to work with the equipment I have at the moment, so the videos are all mobile games so far, which got me thinking about good mobile games, or at least really popular ones, which led me to remembering Clash of Clans.  This title was once king of the land prior to titles like Fortnite, and about half a decade ago it seemed like everybody was playing Clash.  It even spawned a television show you could watch on Google Play, which I believe landed two seasons.  Still popular today, it sadly got eclipsed rapidly, as I said, by the ascension of Fortnite and PUBG.  Still, the RTS-like PVP battle-builder was revolutionary in its legitimizing mobile gaming, so I thought a quick video reminding older players, and introducing younger ones, was a great idea.  So here it is folks, an intro to Clash-of-Clans:

A Trainwreck You Can't Look Away From

     A trainwreck is always a disastrous thing, and not to make too light of that, I have to say that people who make a train simulation game should be very aware of that.  Imagine my surprise then, when I download the gorgeous looking TrainStation 2 for Android.  It only took me five minutes of game play to realize it was a flaming trainwreck of a game.

     When I had initially saw the commercials for this title, I was awed by the beautiful look of the trains, and the countryside you get to take them through (disclaimer: I am a sucker for trains).  I was excited by the possibility to set up and run trains down the tracks, figuring that even basic free-to-play mobile titles like this have a certain element of base building, to keep you vested in the growth of whatever group you are supporting, and to keep you dropping real cash into loot-box bin.

     But no, this game seems like it's developers know it is nothing more than just whale bait, so much so they don't waste any time on a real game tutorial, and within two minutes of starting just show you the shop and the in-game currency, telling you to just by new trains to get things done faster.  This nonchalant manner is illustrated best by how the whole game seems to be just dispatch train from home base, fetch quest resource, deliver resource, return to home station.  You don't get the opportunity to lay your own track, or decide the layout of your buildings, it's just buy a new train so you can fetch faster.

     And as I said in the disclaimer, i am a fan of locomotives, so when you offer me a train simulator, I want it to work, and I'll even play a bad one, if it seems well intentioned.  TrainStation 2 did not.  It felt immediately like a visual pandering of popular theme to get people to drop loads of money in microtransactions for nothing more than a battery drain.  Publisher Pixel Federation Games should get a clue, people don't enjoy an obvious rip off, and will find something better to play.

     I have to give this a 0/5 ⭐.  This game was lame, and I mean that like a wounded animal, in need of pity and possibly being put down.

     Well, that's all I've got to say on TrainStation 2, and I'll catch you all next time.  

Running on Empty

So, I broke down and downloaded the new Super Mario Run game from Nintendo the other day. I've been putting it off, even though I was on the wait list, because I'm a little apprehensive about a game with a tag line of 'You can play it with only one finger' .  Having caved and downloaded it, though, I then had to play it.

The first comment I've got is that the game is a lot more polished than I expected. I was afraid these were throwaway titles Nintendo was banking on stealing a part of the nuclear wasteland that is most of mobile gaming, so I also thought we'd get half-thought graphics as well. I was wrong. This game looks as good as any download for the Wii U or 3DS.

Also, the interface works really smooth. I've played a lot of mobile games where the interface was obviously an afterthought, but this isn't one of them. Every button is well placed to be easily accessed on your phone. Heck, even my 8.1" tablet is easily navigable with this game.

And pricing: as is the way of mobile gaming these days, this is a freemium game, but as far in as I've gotten, there is no real reason to drop a ton of money into this game to get full enjoyment out of it.

But now we hit the snag. Is it fun? Not really. As a platformer-on-rails, this game feels more like you're watching another person play a play-through, and you just get to interact a little. And the frustration you feel at not being able to back up and grab something you've missed kills most of the enjoyment you might have gotten.

So, to conclude, the idea of a Mario game on tablets is cool, and I really did hope it would be some thing I could like, but if any game, even a Mario game, doesn't really grab you in the first 15-20 minutes, its probably not worth your time.

Pokémon Go

So, I was one of the luck few to get a few weeks heads up on Pokémon GO,  and I've really been mulling over this one.  It's hard sometimes to write a review of a game when it's as popular as this, especially when your review is something of a negative view.

That being said, I think Pokémon GO is terribly disappointing.  When I was told it was going to be a Pokémon AR game, I thought, cool, a Pokémon game that interacts with its suroundings.  A pokemon game that will make it feel as if pokemon were part of the real world.

What we got instead was a game that feels only half done.  I'm not saying it's terrible, just that it's not great.  There is very little beyond the drive to control your local gym to drive you on your quest.  And the reality is, if you aren't the kid wasting all the data on your parent's cellphone plan, you are never going to control a gym.  Then there is the lack of battling.  In the show from the very beginning when Ash caught caterpie, we have been taught that you battle a pokemon to weaken it before throwing a pokeball.  None of that is in Pokémon GO.  In fact very little of anything in the main Gamez or the show is incorporated into the new game.  Nor is there much Augmented Reality.  The only pieces of AR in the game are the GPS tracking, and the display fed in from your camera.  And the camera functionality does less to convince you pokemon are hiding in the world than being used to make inappropriate pictures with Diglet.

Over all, this completed game feels more like a beta, and leaves me wanting a full game.  It's a bit early to see how much the rest of you like it.  But this feels like a fad thing to me.  Once the glitter and shine wear off, I'm not sure how much staying power this game has.  I guess we'll see next month.  Till then, catch you later pokefans.

(The game has made me very aware about the bugs in my attic space, though.)