Kingdom Rush

Having never had the knack for first-person shooters, I’ve always been more interested in games that require a little more brain power than hand-eye coordination. And as I’m always on the go, this tends to have me gravitating towards the simplistic frustration that is the tower defense model of game play. Well gosh darn it, I think I’ve found a winner!

Kingdom Rush

Image courtesy of Ironhide Game Studio

Kingdom Rush by Ironhide Game Studio is a graphically beautiful tower defense game that rolls out medieval fantasy theme. But don’t think it’s just your typical tower defense format as they’ve mixed in a few RTS elements to set it aside from the usual fare.

While you have your usual fare of towers (arrow, magic, artillery, defense), the largest deviation from the norm is how the defense tower places soldiers in the path of oncoming enemies allowing you to focus your other three towers to create a world of hurt. And as you progress in the game, you gain options to have each tower progress to one of two specialties both with pros and cons – in reality no tower is the wrong tower, you’ll just find some work far better it specific situations.

Cosmetically, it seems that the developers spent considerable time on every little detail whether it be the movement of mobs to the voice-overs that each of your towers possesses (including the censor beep for those foul-mouthed artillery dudes). While the game comes across as very cartoonish, the gameplay is definitely mature enough to keep adults occupied and quite possibly frustrated if they happen to be perfectionists like me. And while a few hours of gameplay will have you finishing the game on normal mode, there are both challenge levels and a heroic mode to add new quirks (and hair losing frustration) to keep things fresh

For a mean $2.99, this game is available to those of you rocking the iPad for full HD glory. However, for those of you who tend to be frugal like me you can rock the whole game for free via Armor Games. So why don’t you give a try and tell me what you think?

There Be Orcs

Image courtesy of Ironhide Game Studio

ZOMG! Zerg Rush! KEKEKEKE

Zerg Rush on Terran Base

My Memories of Starcraft

For some of you, it will only be minutes past midnight before you go and get yourself some good ol’ Starcraft 2 action. You’ll be lining up (or already have) at your local Best Buy or Future Shop and be one of the many who’s already figured out that the best way to win a multiplayer is either to zerg rush the piss out of your opponent or tech rush with a team.

And then there will be me, waiting for you to skill yourself up to the point that when I do get the game and fire up the mulitplayer experience, you’re waiting there to hand my ass to me (and assuming your no older than my current shoe size, tell me all about my momma). Oh the horror…

Much like Ed, I distinctly remember my experience with Starcraft as if it were yesterday. I remember thoroughly enjoying the story line on the single player, and the satisfaction of providing limited support to my buddies when we fired up the multiplayer (okay, okay.. we cheated.. we always played 4v4 with 5 people – it was nice to have a mole). I also remember scenes such as the image above, although I was usually able to last long enough to have a massive number of firebats all freaked out on the stimpack juice.. yes.. that is definitely the stuff.

So what should we expect in a moments time?

StarCraft II continues the epic saga of the terrans, protoss, and zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy as each faction struggles for survival.

Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard Entertainment will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company’s world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game.

Well.. that’s the official line from Blizzard. I can’t speak to the single player experience, but having had a chance to crack open the multiplayer beta, everything I remembered from a decade ago was still quite the same. The zerg or tech rush is still the in thing. Protoss are still OP in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. Chris still plays terran because he thinks there is honour in doing so. Yep, same old same old. There are some new units and unit dynamics (no more firebats which pisses me off), the rules that bind line-of-sight are different (height is something that comes in handy), and games didn’t seem to turtle as often, but it just seemed to me that it was just the same ol’ game polished up.

But what do I know? Exactly.

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