Pigs VS Wolves (2010), featured on the iPho Game Development Website, is Digiarty Software's recently released tower defense game, available on iTunes, for the iPod Touch/iPhone. Pigs VS Wolves comes out hot on the heels of powerhouse PopCap Games strikingly similar, but higher profile, Plants vs Zombies, which, besides being available on the iPod Touch/iPhone, also has versions available for the PC, Mac, and Web. Not having played Plants vs Zombies, besides the obvious visual differences, the only other major distinction that I can see is the price. Plants vs Zombies runs $2.99, while Pigs VS Wolves is just $.99--at least for a limited time. Therefore, without a true basis for comparison, I will only review Pigs VS Wolves on its own merits, keeping in mind the existence of the prior product from a much larger developer/publisher.

Tower defense games are considered a sub-genre of real-time strategy games, with the most basic goal to stop enemies from reaching a particular point. Wikipedia points to Atari's Rampart, a 1990 arcade game from Atari, as forming the foundation of this sub-genre's roots. While I think that simplifies history a bit and minimizes the truly hybrid nature of Rampart - which I argue is part Tetris - it's ultimately a fair assertion. One of my personal favorites in this sub-genre is PixelJunk Monsters (Q-Games, 2008; Sony PlayStation 3 (PSN)), though I've certainly played my share of others, including South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! (Doublesix, 2009; Microsoft Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade)), that I've tended to like much less. Major distinctions between the tower defense games include how much real-time elements there are and of course the overall imagination and cohesiveness that goes into all of the defensive and board designs. The vast majority of these games feature levels that start out simple but progressively add more playing pieces to the mix, requiring an increasing amount of thought in both defensive selection and asset allocation, as well as an increasing amount of trial and error to both learn new capabilities and properly utilize them to fight off the hoards of enemies.

The developer describes Pigs VS Wolves as follows (and we must at least partially forgive their non-native English):

A brand new episode of my Clone Wars-series. This time I take a look at the Yobo FC3 Plus. It will be a multi part video so be sure to check out all the parts if you don't want to miss out.

We write about videogames and we all have some opinion on just about any game out there. But how do we play them? Are we any good? Or do we stink? Well playing the games is where it is all about isn't it! Here's how I play.

Released earlier this month, Sword of Fargoal for the iPod Touch and iPhone ("iTouch") has had no shortage of pre-release buzz and anticipation, and, once gamers got their hands on the game, nearly universal praise. Well, it looks like now I have to heap on some more.

The original commercial versions of Sword of Fargoal, released for the Commodore VIC-20 and 64 in the early 1980s (review here), came towards the end of the former system's short, but successful commercial lifespan, and early on in the latter system's long and successful commercial lifespan. While generally considered a critical and commercial success (with the caveat that it was also successfully pirated), its release timing in each case caused it to have a bit more mainstream obscurity than it likely would have had otherwise. Nevertheless, the strength of the game - which is essentially a simplified, randomized dungeon crawl, very much in the tradition of Rogue (though with more real-time elements) - allowed it to have enough impact in the minds of gamers to be mentioned often on "best of" lists and receive several unofficial conversions and updates over the years, even making it as one of the games on the popular Commodore 30-in-1 from a few years back. This brings us to the latest release of the game, and the first official new commercial release since the Commodore 64 version. Matt Barton had the pleasure of speaking with original author Jeff McCord not too long ago, and it was McCord and the rest of the Fargoal LLC team who were kind enough to send me a review code for this version for my iPhone 3G.

Upon starting the game, you're greeted with an all too uncommon occurrence in iTouch games--an opening cinematic. Normally, this would be a mere distraction to quickly skip past, but in this case - no doubt due to the skills of Emmy-winning animator, Charlie Canfield - it's a pleasure to behold and a great scene setter for the stylized visuals of the game within. This quality is carried through to the occasional in-game cut scenes. While this is nothing to get the game over all by itself, this is but the first of many examples of the type of TLC that went into this game's creation. Not to be outdone, British composer Daniel Pemberton created a musical score to be reckoned with. Combined with the mix of classic in-game sound effects, aurally the game does not disappoint.

As their follow-up to the previously reviewed [(x)(x)(x)(x)( )] puzzler, Skeleton Key, Insurgent Games' teh internets, couldn't be more different. While Skeleton Key relied strictly on brainpower, teh internets relies strictly on your reflexes, attempting to tickle your funny bone along the way. What teh internets sets out to be is a tongue-in-cheek side scrolling shooter with more in common with classic era games in its gameplay than today's "bullet hell" variety, the latter of which is a decidely acquired and commercially niche taste. Not only is going the classic route a good choice since it's likely more appealing to a broader audience (and a personal preference of mine), but also because it's a better fit for the platform in general (in this case I used an iPhone 3G for the review).

Having a knowledge of classic Internet memes goes a long way to enjoying the game's humor, which pays proper homage to the momentary pop culture icons (check here for both South Park's take on classic memes and the original memes themselves). From the Dramatic Gopher who is your host during the tutorial, to your ASCII-inspired ROFL- and LOL-rotored helicopter, there are no shortage of winks and nods to not only the World Wide Web, but computing in general. Nevertheless, all the humor in the world couldn't salvage a game deficient in gameplay, but luckily, teh internets delivers. While the gameplay is hardly ambitous - this is a pure shooter through and through - the execution works. Of course, though the descriptor is a convenient one, calling it a "shooter" is not entirely correct, because you don't actually get to shoot anything, you just attempt to collect lolcats and try to avoid nearly everything else, like popup windows and a variety of trolls.

The UK magazine Retro Gamer will from time to time publish anthology editions - containing what seems to be the "best of" a set of previous editions. Usually I stay away from these but I have just got vol. 3 of this. It weighs in at 256 pages and costs £10 - but may be a good way of collecting this magazine if not a UK resident as each issue costs around £6.

After just officially releasing the latest update to Insurgent Games' Skeleton Key, Micah Lee, head of the studio and the game's programmer, was kind enough to send me a promo code so I could do a review. With iTunes being such a hot bed for app development these days and there being countless games available in every possible category and price point, it's not surprising that this is the first time I heard of the game. Since my time is extremely limited these days, I do most of my gaming on the go with my iPhone 3G, so I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to leverage my current situation and put up a review. So, with all that said, exactly what is Skeleton Key?

I recently completed my advance copy of Phantomery Interactive's Outcry:The Dawn, a 2008 game now being published by Mamba Games under their Odyssia label. Outcry is a great game in the style of Myst, with fun puzzles, a rich story, and creepy, surreal atmosphere.

OutcryThe story is complex enough that even after finishing the game you may not be quite sure what happened. At least, that's how I ended the game--though this isn't a criticism; indeed, the mysterious and unexplained aspects of the storyline make it even more intriguing to play. Basically, though, we have here a sort of H.P. Lovecraft take on Jules Verne. The protagonist travels to another dimension, which is apparently built of fragments of his own rationality. The game is psychological to the point of having players read snippets of Freud and Yung (as well as experiment with mind-altering chemicals).

Just read through Jerry Ellis' 8-Bit Book today (I got signed hardback copy #175/256). If I get time on the weekend I'll do a nice review with some pics..