iOS Game Watch: Clash of Clans, The Watch: Defenders, Chasing Yello
Today we look at multiplayer strategy/time sim Clash of Clans by Supercell, film-based game The Watch: Defenders, and dreamfab’s endless runner Chasing Yello.
First up is Clash of Clans by Supercell. This cartoony freemium strategy/time management game pits players against each other from around the world as you create clans to battle it out. Upgrade your village by leveling up your training center for your warriors, your gold storage, adding weapons for defense, etc. All of these take time to build, but of course you can speed up the process by expending gold or gems. The balance seems in getting enough gems and gold so as not to take forever to build/level up, while not expending atrocious amounts of in-app purchases for gold/gems/etc. The game allows you to build clans with other players around the world and even includes an in-game chat manager similar to twitter. It’s a universal app, but we found it definitely works much better with the iPad because of the game detail. Some complained about crashing, but we didn’t experience any while testing the game out. Though the game was released back in June in Canada, it just came to the US App Store this past week.
It’s getting pretty standard that when a film is released, the film company wants a game to come out with it. So it’s no surprise that with the release of The Watch comes The Watch: Defenders. What, you’ve never heard of The Watch? Don’t worry about it…based on the reviews (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_watch_2012/) you don’t want to. The game, a freemium marketing tool, is actually not that bad. A basic tower defense game, you start with a brief tutorial before jumping into the map itself. Various locations throughout Glenview, Ohio, USA, are being invaded by aliens and it’s your job to defend the locations with your tower tech. There’s nothing new to the gameplay, but based on what little time we spent on the game it’s funnier than the movie. And it’s free. Can’t beat that.
dreamfab has released Chasing Yello, the sequel to Saving Yello, as a limited free download featured on Free App A Day. In this endless runner, the mischievous seven-year-old Mathilda has given the little fish Yello a taste of freedom in a local creek. To escape re-capture, Yello must jump and dive over obstacles such as rocks, logs and even piranhas in order to outrun Mathilda’s fishing net. The game features simple tilt and swipe controls as you guide Yello through all of the environmental dangers in the creek and stock up on gold stars, which can be used to purchase in-game power-ups and unlock goals. The game takes some precision and patience and makes you work a bit for your success, but is packaged within a large amount of charm.
