Developer/Publisher: Cervo Media GmbH || Overall: 8.0/10
Hardware Used: iPhone 5 with iOS 6
Want to go on a Match-Three Safari full of deformed animals that are caged in some weird contraption called a “crazy ring?” Well, if that specific craving has arisen, Crazy Rings is for you. 101 stages full of fun and oddly not-very-funny humor. For some reason the game is listed in the store as “the funniest game ever” or something, but I have yet to even see a real joke or something funny. Maybe that’s the joke.
I guess it doesn’t matter. What there IS to like is probably what should be paid attention to, anyway. Through the “Campaign” mode, in which you presumably play through all 101 of the stages, you are trying to get as many points as possible and clear the Crazy Rings with as much efficiency and/or combo-making as possible. Once you complete a level, you gain up to three stars (you can earn zero, too) depending on how well you do in the level and progress to the next one.
The concept is not hard to grasp, nor is it really that difficult, at least until the point I’m at, which is Stage 25. The game can get a bit hectic, depending on the little things they throw in to make it harder/easier to play. There isn’t a whole lot of variety up until this point, but I’m not complaining since the art is nice to look at, and the game isn’t really that frustrating to play – it is also a stable application that doesn’t crash or have frequent bugs that I have encountered.
The essential control mechanic is to tap where you want to send one of your spherical animals, and in doing so, try to match them up with the others and try to make combos, like many other Match-Three games. What makes this game a little bit unique is that the crazy rings will rotate, expand, or travel around in a circle, so you will have to pay attention to those elements in order to not misplace any of your spherical lions, frogs, snakes, pigs, or other animals. You can also have multiple crazy rings which will also rely on the speed of each ring’s rotation if you want to match any animals with the outer rings, as they can all be rotating and expanding at the same time.
At a certain point, the game will begin to give you helpful one-time-use power-ups. One of them is a pork-chop-shaped meat thing that you can launch at the ring of animals, and they will all go chasing after it off-screen. This can be useful if you have two rings at the same time or if you just have a lot of random animals. Another power-up is a tranquilizer needle, which can slow down the ring that you shoot at, limiting its rotational speed or elastic rate. Later on, there is a Rhino that you can use to break through any obstacles, including rocks. I’m sure that they throw in different power-ups and obstacles every now-and-then to break up the monotony. Obstacles, like the rocks, which act as a wall within a crazy ring can change your strategy in completing a level.
You aren’t able to save these particular power-ups, and you have to use them within about 10 seconds of their appearance, or lose the opportunity to use them. The only power-ups that you actually keep are Rocket Rings. Rocket Rings are basically things you can use to “cheat” and clear a level if you somehow get frustrated enough to use it. I am not entirely sure if Rocket Rings are acquirable in-game, but you are able to buy them. Doing so will also unlock all of the levels in the game without having to progress one-by-one — it is a package deal and I’m not sure if you are able to just keep buying Rocket Rings after your first purchase.
Considering the Rocket Rings aren’t very enticing to use, and you can unlock all of the levels by yourself anyway, I don’t know why you would WANT to buy this “package,” even if it is a very low price to do so (at the moment, $0.99). The game isn’t particularly annoying in trying to get you to buy anything or share anything with your friends, so that is a welcomed aspect. There are also no naggy notifications or stupid social/faux-multiplayer bloat features. What I enjoy about the game is that you are actually playing a game and not trying to show your friends how cool it is to not play a game.
The game itself is quite meaty, considering there are 101 levels, and once you get through all of those, you can re-play them and try to get three-stars or play what seems like an endless-play mode called “Zen Mode.” The rings probably get crazier and crazier (and difficult) as it goes along. The sound effects/ambient noises aren’t annoying, so they’re nice to play with if you require something to listen to, but you’re not missing much if your phone is on silent.
The game is not a bad bargain for “free.” If you like puzzle games, you will enjoy Crazy Rings, and while it may not be the most unique concept you’ve ever seen, it is still worth playing. It can get pretty hectic at times, but I have yet to encounter a level that I couldn’t pass on the first go. I’m sure that in the later levels it may become difficult enough where it may require a couple of tries, but in general, there isn’t much retrying.
Jetpack Joyride feels like one of those games that are intentionally supposed to make you nostalgic for side-scrollers. In a sense, the way the game is actually played is almost like an old arcade game, pitting you against ridiculous challenges and timing that almost guarantees you will die – the question is when. And literally, that is the metric by which you “win” in Jetpack Joyride. You are trying to get as far as you can, running from left to right, to the farthest point possible before you are fried, blown up, or electrocuted to death. Avoid as many obstacles as possible, get a couple of power-ups, and collect coins. That’s pretty much it.
When you begin the game, you probably won’t get further than 200 meters or so. Then you’ll slowly progress to 400, 500, and then maybe 2000 meters. Eventually you might even get further, depending on how lucky you are. The only thing that is guaranteed, though, is that you will be attempting it over and over again. The distance you might end up is pushed just a bit further each time when buying enhancements or one-time boosts with Coins that you find during your repeated runs through the evil (or at least, nefarious) science lab you have decided to run endlessly through with your character.
Ah, yes, Coins. Considering you need thousands of coins to even get the smallest of upgrades, you will be playing a lot of runs just to be able to use them in any meaningful manner. BUT YOU CAN BUY THEM WITH REAL MONEY!!!! As if you didn’t see that coming, right? I don’t have much incentive to purchase anything in free to play games, but when something is as grindy as earning the coins in this game, it is definitely one of the biggest motivators to pulling out the credit card. You’re probably going to be spending a good too many hours just trying to collect enough coins to buy the next jetpack or whatever random gadget they included in the game for you to use to your benefit. I suppose it is nice that they at least have Coins in the game for you to collect, but the grind is practically endless. They appear in somewhat plentiful manner, yet they almost always require you to skillfully fly your jetpack in a formation to maximize your collection of the coins. The collision with the coins is fairly unforgiving, so you will have to really be accurate if you’re running through coins to get as many as you can, since you will be leaving a few behind. Sometimes you may even have to sacrifice yourself when your reaction time isn’t fast enough to avoid the next obstacle.
As you run further through the endless, randomized, corridors of this very large science lab thing, your character will begin to speed up. This increases the difficulty considerably, since you aren’t able to see what is coming up more than half a second before you almost hit it. When you come across a power-up, such as the Lil’ Stomper, Crazy Freakin Teleporter, or Gravity Suit, among others, you essentially gain a life before dying – if you are unable to avoid one of the coming obstacles, you forfeit your power-up and revert back to normal Barry Fries the Rocket Guy. The acquiring and destruction of your power up will also clear out any of the obstacles on the screen, so it gives you a fair chance to reset your bearings and be ready for the next obstacles ahead.
The humor of the game is probably what is most enjoyable. I like the terminology they use, like calling the Teleporter power up the “CRAZY FREAKIN TELEPORTER” or the huge mech robot with rocket boosters the “Lil’ Stomper.” The names of gadgets and types of rocket packs are also fun names. The Machine Gun jetpack, the first jetpack you get, shoots bullets underneath you and kills the scientist guys below you. The “DIY Jetpack” is a balloon, which I assume let’s you control just a little bit better than the Machine Gun Jetpack, but I’m not sure if these different jetpacks are more than just cosmetic upgrades. Other jetpacks do other funny things, like shoot bubbles or 1920’s 1000 dollar bills.
I suppose it would be beneficial to buy the in-game upgrades offered. There are quite a few gadgets to purchase, and you can’t get the next tier of gadgets without buying a certain amount of stuff from the lower tier. Of course, the grind becomes longer and longer each time. I am unsure what kind of variety this game can really offer since all that really seems to happen are randomized obstacles, randomized backgrounds, and not much traditional progression. You aren’t excelling to another level. You aren’t starting from a point further than the beginning unless you spend Coins on head starts. I’d even go so far as to say the game is engineered to make you fail a lot and make you feel you AREN’T progressing so that you are more inclined to spend money to get ahead.
Once you die, you are given a chance at bonuses based on how many Spin Tokens you gather during your run. The bonuses will give you another chance, more coins, bonus distance, or a free head start on your next run. The bonuses are random, since it is a slot machine, but since the Spin Tokens are plentiful enough, you’ll at least have one after each run. You can also cash-in your tokens for 50 coins each, which may be a particularly attractive offer if you don’t win a lot on the spins.
To break up the seeming monotony of the game, there are Missions to complete. They are “interesting” challenges such as finishing the game between the 500m and 600m mark (aka intentionally dying at that point), or going a certain distance in a vehicle, or collecting spin tokens in varying amounts, among other things. Completing missions awards you from one to three stars to gain levels, which require progressively more stars. I’m not entirely sure what the point of gaining levels is, except to gain the coin bonuses awarded for achieving the next level. However, you are allowed to spend coins to complete a mission so that you can get the next mission, so there is some weird disconnect here. You don’t really gain any benefits from gaining levels, so why are you trying to do it, and why would you ever spend coins to get fewer coins? It is fairly confusing. But then, I remember that they want you to spend money on coins, not give it to you in copious amounts, so I guess that’s why they let you spend coins to make fewer coins. It’s almost ingenious, really.
The experience as a whole is relatively stress-free. You can play a couple of runs and be done with it for the day. It doesn’t notify you to go back into the game to collect bonus coins or to do something inane for upkeep. In a sense, the game is almost more traditional in this way in that it doesn’t constantly nag you and beg for attention. It also relies on skillful controls, which is rare to see in a touch-based game, especially considering touch-based controls are anything but accurate most of the time. Relying on the skill of the player is also a boon to this game since the controls do not inhibit being able to control the character as they are binary and very responsive. It doesn’t rely on any touch-screen directional pad – you either propel yourself up or let yourself fall down.
However, I wouldn’t say that the game is original or even very exciting. It doesn’t really seem like it’s trying to do anything other than provide a single, difficult challenge, and force you to grind coins for years. If there were actual levels or some other kind of quantifiable progression that allowed you to feel like you were accomplishing something overall, the game would be something great. It definitely has a foundation for good gameplay, good art, doesn’t have any noticeable bugs, and the sound design is pretty much ridiculous in and of itself. I feel a game like this isn’t being simple for simplicity’s sake; it’s being simple because it is lazy, and the intentions of the game design are not toward the experience of the user, but towards people spending money so they can bypass the monotony of dying over and over.
There are a couple of those stupid social features, like leaderboards, and “tweeting your progress.” I can’t believe people would ever want to tweet that they went 1,979 meters. I can’t believe anyone even has another friend that plays this game that they added as a friend in the iOS Game Center thing. Why these developers waste their time with these absolutely terrible features is beyond me.
Developer: Zynga With Friends Studio | Publisher: Zynga Games || Overall: 7.0/10
Hardware Used: iPhone 5 with iOS 6 / LG Ally with Android 2.1 (past experience, not used in basis for review)
Reviewing a game like Words With Friends is basically just reviewing a game like Scrabble. It’s sort of pointless as long as the rules are adhered to and aren’t taken in some extreme manner. The point of reviewing Words With Friends comes with taking a look at the feature set, its ease of use, and user experience, and little to nothing with the gameplay itself.
The actual meat of the game almost has nothing to do with the actual purpose of playing the game, oddly enough. The point of Words With Friends seemingly is to play Scrabble with your friends on a pace that may take days or weeks, instead of straight through. Given the gift of technology, there is now a higher probability you will actually get to finish a full game of Scrabble. It’s a lot easier to convince your friends to play a couple minutes a day than it is to invite them over to your house to play an hour-long (or more?) board game. So, if you actually enjoy playing Scrabble, this game is right up your alley.
It would literally be impossible to talk about this game without talking about Scrabble. I’ve already mentioned it 5 times, and that’s basically what the main problem with this game is. It’s not very original, but at the same time it doesn’t really have to be. When it comes to Words With Friends, the game pretty much mirrors all of the rules – but there are no errors, since it calculates all of the points for you, easily, and tallies them up. It also makes sure that all of the words you are using are actually words you can use. Inviting random friends on your Facebook is pretty easy, and it shows you who plays and when they last played – so you can play with last week’s hookup or even your mom, and use as many provocative (yet, legal) words as you can in games with them. There is also an option to play a randomly matched player — so it’s not all that hard to find someone to play with, although random matches won’t seem to be as motivated to play with you… at least in my experience. And in the rare instance you are physically with someone who you want to play Words With Friends with, there is a local multiplayer mode where you can play and pass your phone after each turn, which is a nice, if seemingly antiquated in today’s environment, option to have.
Most of the game is rooted in convenience, when it comes down to it. You’re not getting any particular feature that is exciting or cool or helps provide some sort of meta-game experience. I honestly think some sort of score-counter between two players for games won would do a great amount of good for the game – if you play hundreds of games with one person, at least you’re going to see something from all of those matches and know who is usually winning, etc. I’m not asking for a page of statistics, but it shouldn’t be that hard to implement a counter.
The game is free, and with being free comes lots of advertisements. They’re not particularly intrusive, since they will appear typically after one to two plays. You can also upgrade to an ad-free version for 3 or 4 bucks, which might be worth it if you play a lot. Obviously, this is Zynga’s end game when it comes to Words With Friends: Making money off of ad impressions and clicks. They are pretty much painless, though you do have to actively move past them when they appear, sans any bugs that might force you to quit and restart the app (which may happen quite often).
What really inhibits this game are the random bugs you will get. I’m currently playing this on iOS, but started with the Android version. For two years, it was absolutely the most terrible piece of shit I have ever seen. It would crash over and over and when my Android finally ran out of space to keep any apps on it, out went Words With Friends until a year later when I finally got an iPhone (that had more than 512 mb to store stuff). So, why do I bring up the Android version in a review for the iOS version? Because the iOS version is not without its own bugs, either, and shows a pattern of carelessness. While the game is demonstrably more enjoyable to play when it’s stable, there are occasional random crashes, and advertisements that fail to load which produce nothing but a white screen which make you force quit the program to remedy. I have also had problems with letters being frozen and not moving onto the board. Network connectivity issues can also cripple the game temporarily – whether it is a problem with your phone’s connection or not. A company like Zynga, which relies on nothing but its games, should be squashing these bugs within weeks, not months or years. I can’t imagine they aren’t losing some sort of revenue from these bugs.
The occasional interaction with people you may or may not talk to a whole lot is probably the biggest benefit of the game. I personally enjoy playing with people I actually call my friends, because there’s some sort of interaction going on, whether or not it’s real life or meaningful. I suppose that is the main appeal of the game itself, and seeing how well you can play against them. It’s also great when there’s some random word that they make that might have some sort of inside meaning or something that is completely off-base that catches you off-guard. My most recent gaffe was playing a game in which “Krauts” was an accepted word. In another game, I played “Shit” and got a few points, as well. The rules say they don’t allow derogative words or racial slurs, so I’m not sure how they went through, but it’s still fun, nonetheless. It should also be noted that this game’s social features are actually useful and there aren’t really any stupid features like “post your word on Facebook” or some other dumb shit you might see in some other game as a cheap way to get you to advertise for them.
Words With Friends is your barebones convenience package for Scrabble. It’s an enjoyable game that you can play with your friends, but little more than that is what is going to be going on. There are no interesting game modes and no features that string together your multiple games into some sort of a career or competition with particular friends. Some might appreciate the simplicity of “just Scrabble” but there is just a little that could have gone into it that could have kept that simplicity while adding something interesting to the mix. I wouldn’t mind seeing some sort of 3-or-4 player modes implemented or inviting people to tournaments. But since this game doesn’t make a habit of adding features, that is about impossible to ever see from Zynga, who typically like to ride coattails.
Tiny Tower is one of those games that takes a relatively simple concept and artificially inflates the time it takes to do anything to make you feel like spending money to get ahead. But that’s every game nowadays on an iOS or Android platform, and its easy to get riled up about business aspects of any of these “free to play, pay to win” games. So, what does Tiny Tower offer that you might not occasionally see in other games? Well, I can’t say that there’s much that I really “enjoy” about the game except for maybe two things: the art style and the humor. It’s nice to say that in this case, Tiny Tower actually tries to go “against” the curb, looking cartoony or “old” (read: 8-bit) and get away with it. Truth be told, the art style mixed with the humor therein is more what makes this game enjoyable than anything else.
In Tiny Tower, the basic goal of the game is to add more floors to your tower. Your tower floors can be residential or a random store within six individual categories. The people who live in your tower work in your tower. These little slave people bend to your will and will work and live wherever you tell them to. And if you don’t like their face or their skills, you can evict them. Ah, yes, Tiny Tower is also probably making a social commentary on the downturn of the economy with people having “dream jobs” of working in a donut shop or a coffee house, but I digress — that is probably part of the humor of the game and also adds an element of difficulty in trying to match your “Bitizens” (whom live in your tower) to work and be happy. Oh, and they also pay you rent. It’s indentured servitude at its finest, and they can wear a sheet to look like a ghost while doing it all.
Tiny Tower is an okay game. It isn’t exactly the most fun that I’ve ever had with my spangly-dangly iPhone, and I can’t imagine I’d be playing this game for very long because of it. I think what actually ticks me off about the game more than anything is that there is a lot of micromanaging involved. Each business on your floor has 3 items it can sell, and each take a certain amount of time to “re-stock.” Once re-stocked, the game notifies you the item is ready to be stocked, and doesn’t start selling until you go back into the game to click it and then get back out. I thought I was paying my little slaves to do that for me, why do I have to get notifications every 3 seconds to do something new? I thought this game was supposed to be leisurely fun, not harassing me to pay attention to it like a GigaPet or Tomagatchi! Not only do I have to do that, but I have to monitor all of the floors individually by clicking on them and figuring out which items will become out of stock soon. There isn’t an easy way to just view all of the possible re-stocking actions I can do and decide from there — I have to individually click 6 different floors to see what’s up and if I don’t, I run the risk of losing potential money. What happens when I get to 30 or 40 floors? Who do they think they’re kidding with this?
Reeling it back a little bit, there is basically one goal to the game, and that is to add more floors for you to manage. To accomplish this, the game gives you two currencies. You know that when there are “two currencies” in a game, one is the one you actually want (Coins), and the other is the one that they want you to buy with real money (Towerbux) so that you can save “time” and actually progress in the game to the point of madness before you have your third coronary. Towerbux can be used to buy more coins, or pay off some of your Bitizens to do stuff faster. Great, so why couldn’t I do that with coins? OH, that’s because Towerbux cost like 3 to 9 cents each (depending on the bulk size) and THEN you can convert them into coins, but you can’t seem to do it the other way around. Tiny Tower allows for a little leniency in this regard, however, since there are actually ways to earn Towerbux INSIDE the game and as a result the game is balanced around using Towerbux to at least a certain extent. It makes Towerbux not seem as useless as its cousins in other games, like BlowJobBux, or whatever they’re called in other games, since you actually get to use them. If a game were giving out free Blow Jobs, would you not partake?
Coins are the real end-game, however, and the more coins you get the more floors you can add to get more coins for the whole process. Towerbux essentially help you earn more coins at a faster rate, and depending on if your math skills are any good, you have to figure out what the best way to use your Towerbux actually will be. My general tactic seems to be using it for the “3rd tier” items for whatever has the most stock that can sell (since they sell for 3 coins each, as opposed to the lower tiers which are 1 and 2 respectively). The amount of stock that an item can maintain depends on who works there, which also relies on your ability to count from 0 to 9 and being able to assign people to the right color based on those numbers. Sometimes Bitizens will be useless in your situation, so you can evict them and hope for a better idiot to replace the guy who is wearing last year’s purple hat. Or hope that you’ll get an Asian-looking lady for your Day Spa so that you can start selling Happy Endings.
There isn’t ALWAYS something to do in the game, though. So, during those times where you’re just trying to wait for more measly minutes of your life to pass you by while you wait for another event to happen in Tiny Tower, you can act like an elevator attendant and work for tips. Depending on what floor they ask you to take them to, you’ll get twice the amount of coins there. However, you will occasionally get one Towerbux instead and boy howdy, it’s time to go to the strip bar! If you know what I mean… it’s on the 69th floor and the 3rd tier of stock to sell is Backroom Dances, so you can tell them to “Hurry!” and get some more Backroom Dances in stock so that people can start buying them at 3 coins each so you can repeat the whole process again and be depressed that there is absolutely nothing better to do with your time than be a slave to this game.
Not only do you have to wait anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 (or more?) hours for things to restock, but you have to use coins to pay for the restocking so that you can earn more coins. It sort of doesn’t make sense to me when you look at it from a gameplay standpoint, even if it makes sense in a real life standpoint. But this game is not real life, it is a game. They should just make us earn less coins per stock or reduce the amount of stock you gain per restock. It is sort of a weird, needless, cyclical thing going on and perhaps it is some sort of fail safe on their end so that if you end up spending all your coins and somehow can’t afford to restock anything you have to sit there and waste an hour elevating people to parts of the tower that are closed because they can’t sell them anything — or buy Towerbux so that you can exchange them for Coins!! AHA! I found out their little scheme. But, for now, I’m just going to chalk that up to another one of those “meaningless” micromanaging things they thought was necessary to include in this game, since there’s a lot of those already. Once you further progress in the game, you are also able to fulfill missions and get Towerbux for them. There are about 50 of them, and it probably isn’t even worth doing for the return you get.
So, what makes me come back to this game? Honestly, not much. The only idle interest I have in pursuing the game any further is to see how ridiculous the micromanagement of all of your stores can get once you add a lot of floors to your tower. I’ve played the game for approximately two days and I already find it taxing on my sanity. Every three minutes I feel like I have to go back to the game and do “something” before I put it down and wait another three minutes to do “something” again. The game is stable and has some seemingly useless social aspects in which you can see what towers your friends have or whatever, but that interests me not in the slightest. How about spending more time on a single-player experience and less with these meaningless faux-multiplayer features?
This game certainly didn’t help my terrible cough, that’s for sure.
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Post-mortem:
Since I wrote the review, I ended up getting to the point at which I had 40 floors in my Tower. The more floors you added, it seemed like the game began to become less stable and you would get random crashes now and then. They also updated the game for “Valentine’s Day” a week before February even rolled around, and made everything an obnoxious pink.
I finally decided enough was enough and I uninstalled the game on February 3rd. I feel like a weight was lifted off my shoulders, and I probably should have done it much earlier. This is an absolutely terrible game, and I would probably re-rate it at about 3.0/10 based on playing it for a long time (3 weeks straight?). I can only imagine what floor that poor schmucks out there who actually enjoy this game are at, and how much time per day they spend restocking and shuffling Bitizens.
A girl spent about 10 minutes trying to fix a paper jam for the paperwork she was printing out for me after davepoobond gets his car serviced.
She opens the back of the printer, and for about 30 seconds she is digging in it without being able to look in, and finally she pulls out a piece of paper.
davepoobond: “It’s a boy!”
Obviously she didn’t get it as a joke because her emotional response was not indicative of understanding it as one. And then the printer paper jammed again as more sheets were printing.
There once was a bear named Max. He was a hopeless romantic who spent his days smelling flowers and eating bark off of trees for the cleanliness of his teeth. He would always try to find the perfect flower to give to one of his many potential mates.
Natasha the Big Brown Bear was the skankiest bear in all of The NeighborWood, also known as “The Wood.” She would climb trees and then eat the acorns out of their shells and then spit them at other bears. She was so annoying. This one time she spat an acorn shell on the mayor of The Wood, Mayor Hunstingson. She was kicked out of the city for three days and had to direct traffic from the neighboring city ForesTown to and fro. Traffic duty is pretty much the worst duty you could do in The Wood since everyone is an idiot and doesn’t know how to drive their cars.
Max found a Red Mistberry Flower growing in a ravine north of the NeighborWood Nuclear Factory. He thought it smelled so good that he picked it and decided to give it to Natasha as a gesture of affection. He thought since Natasha would be all alone on the Bearway Pass between NeighborWood and ForesTown, he could make his move.
It was an unfortunate misplacing of romantic intentions for Max. Natasha had the IQ of a baboon, and the brain of one, too. That’s why she’s so stupid. Because she isn’t a bear, she is a baboon in the body of a bear. Too bad for Max because she had a booty like DANGGGG!!!!! Natasha ate his Red Mistberry Flower and spat the seeds at him when he presented it to her.
All spat on, heartbroken, and no one to love, Max went back to his den made out of bricks. It was a nice den, but watch out if he wanted to fart because IT’S MADE OF BRICKS!!!!! You may not get it, but sure.
The next week, Max found a flower called the Junior Talap Wishmaker. It was the perfect type of flower to give to Allison the Green Bear. Why was she green? Because she is soooooo cool. That’s why! She’s like one of those chicks you see on BizarroBook who is friends with someone you know but sticks out like a sore thumb in their friends list. So, Allison the Green Bear was at the local record store Bear-cords, smelling the guitar tablature books. She liked the very minor temporary high the glue gave her. Max came in, holding the large flower between his teeth, trotting down the aisle in a triumphant fashion. Allison looked over to see Max presenting her with the flower. She smelled it, but it did not give her even the slightest amusement. Her swollen red eyes watered as the flowers pungent smell filled her sinuses. She stood up on two legs and sneezed right onto Max’s face. Max dropped the flower in astonishment and suddenly he was teleported back to his brick den. The Junior Talap Wishmaker would grant one wish to anyone who sneezed on the face of the person that had picked (aka murdered) the flower. In this case, Allison wished for Max to go away.
For two weeks, Max was again depressed and lacking in the macking. He searched high and low for the next flower that would really impress his new love, Calista the Model Bear. Calista spent most of her days at the NeighborWood Hidden Lake Resort, poolside, tanning in the moonlight. The moonlight tanning fad had become a mandated regiment by the bear modeling agency known as Bear-It-All, and was forcing all of their famous bear models to take part in the tanning procedure which consisted of placing a huge amplification telescope above the tanner and focus the beam onto them until they became glowing with moon radiation.
Max was able to catch a spaceship to the Moon and picked a Moonflower for Calista since she seemed to like the Moon and he thought if he got this rare and special Moonflower which you could be arrested for if you picked it because there’s only like three of them left, so it makes it even MORE romantic because he committed a crime to show his love and chicks fall over for that stuff like a domino in a hurricane.
Max was seen by the Moonflower Security Response Team and for the next three days he was in the middle of a Western-Sci-Fi-style laser gunfight and spaceship dogfight campaign to get the flower back to the Earth. Needless to say, and really the point I’m trying to make, is that Max did a lot to get this flower and it was a lot of effort.
After killing 67 members of the security team, they finally let him go. Max gained the nickname the Moonflower Assassin for his cunning flower picking skills and being able to elude all of the security around the illustrious Moonflower.
Max , dressed in his space fighter leather jacket, with 67 tally marks on his right shoulder and “Moonflower Assassin” written in capital letters across his back, journeyed up the mountain to the Hidden Lake Resort. Standing on two legs, he presented the Moonflower to Calista.
“Ugh, what is that? I don’t even LIKE flowers… harrumph!” Calista put the cucumbers back on her eyes and began to ignore Max again.
Max fell backward and the Moonflower, encased in its little forcefield blasted off towards the moon, to return to its nest.
Later next week, Max was escorted to the Emergency Sex Change Room. He had absolutely no luck with women so he decided he wanted to try being one so that he could learn how to make one like him.
He hated flowers forever.
The end.
Moral of the story: If you only have two minutes to think up a moral to explain your story, you’re doing it wrong.
I found this ridiculously asinine list of apparent requirements that some random stupid girl threw up on her dating profile. Since it was so terrible, I decided to break down each line of it. It should be noted that this was found on a not-very-attractive “high skool” math teacher’s page. I doubt she actually wrote it, but who knows with these things.
The original image is attached at the bottom of the post.
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I want a boyfriend who:
– “Isn’t going to call other girls cute.”
Wow, how paranoid and/or low self-esteem do you have to be to actually put a stranglehold on whoever you consider to be your actual boyfriend to restrict them from ever calling another girl “cute.” Wow. CUTE is the barrier? A 10 year old could be construed as “cute” — is this person going to become super jealous if that happens? I assume the obvious point of stating this to begin with is that they don’t want their theoretical boyfriend to look at other girls, but the catch-all low-standard requirement just seems like a good way to be controlling of said boyfriend rather than being more afraid about having them, at worst, cheat on you.
– “Isn’t going to like other girl’s facebook photo.”
Despite the terrible grammar, that this is #2 on the list absolutely boggles the mind. Note that half of this world is made up of women, and most people in this world at least know one person that is a girl that they might be a Facebook friend with. I would guess that simply being a Facebook friend with a girl is an infinitely more expressive notion to having some sort of infidelity going on with friends that are girls you might have, let alone liking some stupid fucking picture. It’s okay to have cyber sex in private messages and talk about how many handjobs you would give in 30 minutes, but if you’re liking a photo, HOLY SHIT WATCH OUT, THE GIRLFRIEND IS GOING TO SMOTHER YOU WITH THAT PILLOW WHILE YOU SLEEP.
– “Would text me good morning/goodnight texts :)”
Boring. Every single fucking day? Come on. Don’t people have different sleeping schedules, anyway? I would assume that someone who is this controlling would want to be with their boyfriend 100% of the time anyway so wishing for these texts are irrelevant in their very basic logical form.
– “Actually makes an attempt to spend a day with me.”
I like that “makes an attempt” is the standard. I guess it excuses anyone from actually having to spend a full day with this idiot.
– “Doesn’t want to rush things and isn’t just after sex.”
I already feel like this person wants to be married after the prior requirements. Who’s the real person rushing things?
– “I can be my complete self around.”
Because there are apparently multiple “selves” running around separated and once they are completed they shall combine into the Slime Lord, a hopelessly clingy and needy ultimate biological girlfriend that you don’t want. And Slime Lord is apparently in an “around” shape. I guess.
– “I can take silly pictures with.”
Isn’t that cute. WHOOPS! Let’s just take some silly pictures, girlfriend! It’ll be lots of fun! Never mind having any sort of commonalities in our interests or personalities. Just as long as we can take silly pictures, it’s good!
– “I can play xbox with.”
Despite the fact that Xbox sucks because you have to pay an additional fee to access any online fees, this girl probably only likes to play Call of Duty or at best Halo. Considering the rest of the list leaves no room for imagination in perhaps other types of games that might actually be more complex than “shoot the bad guyz” I could see this as a string of very painful experiences. Most of the pain would come from split-screen multiplayer. Yuck.
– “I can wrestle with.”
Wow.
– “I can cuddle with.”
Cuddling is less important than wrestling.
– “Respects me and my decisions.”
What this actually means is: “Here’s my fucking list and if you don’t fucking like it you can go fuck yourself.” I think I’d rather fuck myself, thank you very much!
Also, it might be a bit of irony that this is the last in her list. I guess being able to wrestle and take silly pictures with someone is more important that having respect from a theoretical boyfriend.
Developer/Publisher: Cervo Media GmbH || Overall: 9.0/10
Hardware Used: iPhone 5 with iOS 6
Slots are one of your basic casino stereotypes. Old ladies clutching their purses, chasing the 20 dollars they get from their nickel bet… It’s not that exciting to think about. In fact, it’s probably a bit comical.
Video slots are much different, though, and appeal to a new generation that is very technologically and entertainment-focused. Video slots open up a whole new realm of possibilities such as bonus games, screwing the gambler through incorrect math programming, and enchanting the player with even more lights and sounds than mechanical slots typically offered. Themes also work a lot better with video slots. Star Trek slots, anyone? Who wouldn’t want Shatner’s soothing frequencies spurted every time you lost a spin?
Slots – Pharaoh’s Way is basically going to be the best video slots fix you’re going to get for free or otherwise. I personally downloaded this on iOS 6 with an iPhone 5 and have become enamored with the fake gambling experience it provides. If the title of the game wasn’t obvious enough, it is an Ancient Egypt-themed slots game.
The game contains all of the things that make actual video slots fun and exciting to play. Fast plays, smooth animation, high quality art that fits in with the theme, and lots of annoying noises. The first thing I did was turn off the audio, of course.
It should be obvious that if you don’t like the concept of video slots, this game is probably not for you. I would say that slots in general do not appeal to me, at least until I played video slots a couple of years ago. Video slots, to me, provide more “gameplay” opportunities when it comes to bonus games – and boy are they (usually) exciting. Slots – Pharaoh’s Way replicates the exciting feeling of normal video slots by providing unique bonus games (depending on the slot game you are playing) and free spins.
If you break down the goal of the game to its very basic element, you are doing one thing: Earning Diamonds. These Diamonds are used in grinding levels to unlock more slots to play. Diamonds are earned through normal slot play and each progressive level has a substantial percentage more to get to the next level, which promotes playing more/upping your bet to get further along. Playing straight through, the feeling you are grinding out levels doesn’t settle in until about level 13 or so, and depending on how many Credits (the game’s currency) you have, it is fairly influencing to up your bet and earn Diamonds at a faster, even reckless, pace.
Your most reliable source of Diamonds comes from your initial bet at a rate of x2 what your bet is. If you’re betting 10 Credits per slot play, you gain 20 Diamonds, if you bet 100, you get 200, etc. More often than not, at least one of the spaces on your slot board will be bonus Diamonds which also increase at a rate of x20 what you are betting. In this case, you gain 1000 bonus Diamonds for a 50 Credit bet, and so on. That’s only if you hit bonus Diamonds in a space, and that can sometimes prevent you from winning more Credits depending on its placement.
When your next level is about 150,000 diamonds away (at level 21) you’re almost going to be hoping for the bonus Diamonds more than anything else you could get. Essentially, when you are using Credits to win more Credits, what you are actually doing is using Credits to get more Diamonds, and being as efficient as possible in earning Diamonds becomes the real intent. Earning Credits only allows you to have a chance of earning more Diamonds. There are also various rewards and bet amounts unlocked for each progressive level, which can supplement your Credit gain/usage.
What I began to realize is that earning Credits is paltry compared to getting Diamonds, and in the end Credits almost mean nothing as the game forces you to keep parity with your growing Credit pool and level by upping your bet to earn more Diamonds at a higher rate. No matter how many Credits you have, you will practically always have the “same” amount of spins you started out with as the winnings all scale linearly. The only thing that increases exponentially is the barrier to level up.
Sure, you could play for 1 credit each bet while you have 3,000 sitting in your pool, but what the hell is the point when there’s absolutely NOTHING else to do with said Credits other than to earn Diamonds with them? In a sense, it combats the inflation that the developers no doubt predicted would happen with Credits, and unless you want to be stuck at the level 20 range for the rest of your life and never unlock another slot, you’re going to be upping your bet.
My personal strategy for betting with Credits has been to always have “100” spins available to me before I go bankrupt. If I fall below the 1,000 Credit mark, I would lower my bet to 10 Credits so that I could work my way back up to a comfortable level for my currently-comfortable bet of 50 Credits. However, when I get up to 5,000 Credits I’m sure I’ll at least up it to 100 or 250 Credits.
Design-wise, all of this makes sense. When you actually play it, however, you begin to beg for variety. Playing the slots game proper is good enough, and every time you win a bet, you get the option to play a simple card game where you can guess the color or suit of the card and gain twice or four times what you won in the slot game. This bonus game is fun for a while, but ends up being less enticing as the stakes get higher, since it really is not in your favor, and doesn’t even net you any Diamonds directly. You’ll probably not want to waste time playing it at all after a while, regardless of the fact that the card game has better odds than the actual slots game at the end of the day.
New slots open every 10 levels with new artwork, a different bonus game, different payouts, and slightly different rules/spaces. For example, the second slot is only 3 reels, but every consecutive 3-way match is counted. On the 5 reel slots, which are the first and third slots, you have 25 to 50 lines in many different random combinations that are harder to predict when you win. The idea is that the more progressed slot has the best payouts, but you might visit the previous ones to get a change of scenery every now and then.
Each slot has its own bonus game which throws in a little variety every now and then, but they are barely rewarding. One of the bonus games named River of Luck relies on your… “luck” to guess whether or not the next number in a sequence of numbers will be higher or lower. If you know anything about statistics, it might be an easy decision process, but it certainly does take a long time to get through the game, not to mention the payouts are almost laughable for the amount of time you spend on it until you guess about 8 times in a row correctly (which almost never happens). The bonus games don’t typically hit often either, which adds to the disappointment. The monotony of constantly pressing the “spin” button can be subsided with the AutoPlay option, but then it REALLY feels like you’re doing nothing, so I use it sparingly — only when I’m jerking it. Other bonus games are pretty simple, like “finding a match” and clicking cat idols until you click two of the wrong ones. Meh.
I think there is a missed opportunity here with the way the game is made as far as bonuses go. If they made some mechanic for spending a certain amount of Credits and being able to play a bonus game that awarded Credits, Diamonds, or even both outside of the random chance of the Slot games, it would be a lot more fun to play for long sessions. Even if they were rehashed bonus games that you already unlocked for the slots you are playing, it would be a step in the right direction. As it is, you simply plug away and hope that you get to the next level range before the turn (pun!) of the century. But I suppose that’s where buying Credits might alleviate this frustrating aspect of the grind.
Every 4 hours you are able to collect free bonus Credits. When the four hours are up your phone will light up and notify you that you are able to collect bonus Credits, thus allowing for the timer to restart. Your bonus will increase the more levels you gain, but in the end you’ll probably burn through it all in about a couple of spins regardless of how much you actually get, since your normal bet will keep increasing along with the bonus. If you are really enthralled with the experience, you can always buy more Credits. The option to buy Credits isn’t terrible, but you come to think about the philosophy behind a game like this. By no means is Slots – Pharaoh’s Way a major offender of the “Free2Play” format as you can get by just fine without ever paying one red cent to get ahead. At some point, though, you’ll need to up your bets considerably to match the teetering-on-the-insane Diamond grind.
Taking a long, hard look at business practices for one throwaway game might be a waste of energy, but this isn’t the only game with this model. “Free2Play” games create unique products that may not have otherwise been available, and I know that I wouldn’t be playing this game at all if I had to pay anything to play it. With so many options for games nowadays, getting someone to even spend time with your game is particularly valuable when you can make more money than you ever could per player by creating the capability to spend absurd amounts on it on the back end.
At the end of the day, Slots – Pharaoh’s Way is what it is, regardless of the philosophy involved. Having a four page review on what is “simply” a slots game is probably overdoing it but as soon as I started playing I knew I had a lot to say about it. The game sets out to do what it does with almost perfect execution, and the only glaring flaw is that the game lacks variety and more of a meta-game. I don’t only want to progress, but I want to be able to play a random cool game every hundred spins so I can be excited to do another hundred spins to play that quick, fun mini-game without taking too much focus off the slots game itself. It would be a detriment to the point of the game to have a whole suite of mini-games that are always accessible – but there is a happy medium that should be attained. Otherwise, all you’re “doing” is grinding the Diamond counter, and not playing a game. It is “drop-in-a-bucket” gameplay at an extreme.
From what I gather, this game is actually updated every couple of weeks to add more slots and adjust payout balance or math errors. I’m not sure how engaging this is for people who just start out the game, since it appears you have to grind at least 50 levels before you even get to a “new world” which may or may not be available at this point. To know the game is supported is nice, however. But it would do wonders for the game if it had some sort of “news” in the game to keep people up to date with what’s going on.
Hey folks! We’re back after a mini-hiatus. We failed at coaxing our only previous guest from attending this podcast, so we catch up with the freelancing gig I’m doing tomorrow instead.
And it looks like its going to be a disaster! Just like the rest of this week’s episode… full of technical problems! Technically the problem is davepoobond. (Get it?)
Total Recall (the new one) sucked balls. I didn’t see it yet, but its just an example of dumbing down and mainstreaming the source content for no apparent reason.
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Len Wiseman is a terrible director. Fuck that guy. He’s going to ruin the Mummy reboot, just like he ruined Total Recall.
The new Mummy should be in space.
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Guess I know what’s going on my shelf in the near future!
I think I know which Arnold Schwarzenegger movie counterpart I’d do. And that would be the predator — that mouth is so sexy.
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Deep Space Nine introduces a character named Vic Fontaine halfway through Season 6. There is… A LOT of singing. For no apparent reason. They just hang out there a lot for no particular reason.
They couldn’t think of anything better?
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iPhone 5 came out this past week. Did I get one? No. Will I get one? Maybe. The maps suck on it though.
Who woulda thought upgrading to iOS 6 Maps would be about as useful as that Fox News app?
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Who’s going to make the world’s first nutritional supplement replicator? Apple or Google?
I say Apple.
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First thing I’m going to do with that new Replicator thinger is replicate some alcohol to put in my piss and sell it.
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So, how much would you pay for the Crappy Movies Under the Stars Film Festival? HMMMMM???
A lady came and asked if there was a graduation tassel on hold for her and it was supposed to be at customer service for her. I said I didn’t have anything like that for her (asking her name and what kind it was supposed to be). She said that she talked to the manager directly about it and she had gotten a call from “some girl with a fancy name” last week and told them to hold it, even though she had gotten it months before. So I spent about 5 to 10 minutes trying to track down the manager (he wasn’t there), then asked if any of the gear representatives knew about any tassel on hold for this lady by the manager. No one knew.
I eventually asked the gear department supervisor if she knew where the manager would put something like that and she said she didn’t know, so she called him, left him a message, and we waited for him to call. In the mean time I went back and told the lady we don’t know anything about this item and I resumed to ask the lady for her number so we can call her back when we found out more info about it.
The manager calls during this time and says he didn’t know anything about it, so we ask the lady again who called her and asked her how she paid for it. She eventually says she did a phone order, which would still imply that a gear department rep would have helped her. The supervisor asked me if Web would have it, but I told her they would only have it if THEY did the web order, not if the lady had talked to the gear manager about it since they are COMPLETELY different departments with different procedures and managers. So the lady looked through her call log to see who called her, and it was the web department.
Once we found that out, I said I would call them, and then the lady accused me all of a sudden — “SEE YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED THEM, SHE WAS TELLING YOU THAT WEB HAD DONE IT OVER AND OVER BUT YOU SAID NO NO NO NO”
All I could say was “Ummm…” I eventually called Web and they brought down her stupid tassel and she left.
LIKE ITS MY FUCKING FAULT SHE DIDN’T FUCKING KNOW WHO SHE TALKED TO AND SHE SAID THAT PETER KNEW ALL ABOUT IT BUT HE DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING.
