Category: Mobile Game Releases

The summer of sport may be drawing to a close, but for many of us the season will start anew on our favourite handheld device. There seems to be no better time to check out the best sports manager games that mobile gaming has to offer.

Not a sports person? Perhaps you’ll enjoy this list of great puzzle games instead!

Better still, armchair sports fans can chill out and enjoy this cerebral selection of sporting simulations without breaking into a sweat. Whether you’r on iOS or Android, a Soccer sycophantic or a Motorsport maniac, we’ve got you covered.

Football Manager Touch 2018 (Review)

Developer: SEGA
Platforms: iPad, Android
Price: $19.99

There is no shortage of mobile football management games clamouring for attention, but the pedigree of the Football Manager series is difficult to argue with. The games predate Arsène Wenger’s appointment as Arsenal manager and have even been recognised by professional football clubs as a valuable source for scouting new players. The Touch games offer a more accessible take on the PC version, with an interface specially designed for tablet devices.

However, this is still a rich and complex simulation with masses of information and options at your fingertips. If you find this just too overwhelming then you can delegate duties, such as training, to your assistant.  As well as the obligatory player roster updates, the latest version has further refined the interface to ensure that information is presented in a more streamlined fashion. There is also a cheaper and even more pared down mobile version for those that prefer to play on their phone rather than tablet.

Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 (Review)

Developer: Playsport Games
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android
Price: $3.99

This series scores an easy pole position in the motorsport management genre, and the latest instalment is the best looking and most feature-rich yet. For a sport game on mobile devices, this is achingly beautiful, especially the dioramic race tracks which are just so pretty. But the game has lots of substance as well as style with plenty to keep you busy as the principal of a motorsport team, including recruiting drivers, developing the best cars and investing in your facilities. Once the action switches to the track during qualifying and races you’ll still have plenty of decisions to make on race strategy, car set-up and tyres.

For the third game in the series Playsport Games has added six new championships across GT and endurance races, making it deeper than ever before. As our four-star review suggested, MM3 does a great job of getting players emotionally invested in their teams, with a fine line between winning and losing “A game made up of so many small decisions and menus allows for a surprising amount of excitement. Watching those small dots speed around the screen may not give the surge of pleasure a standard racing game would, but watching your team secure a win, leading to a championship is genuinely wonderful.”

Cricket Captain 2018

Developer: Childish Things Ltd
Platforms:  iOS Universal, Android
Price: £8.99

This series has been around on mobile devices for several years, but without much fanfare, despite being well received by players. Perhaps cricket is more of a niche interest than other sports, particularly among European or American gamers, but this is a must-buy if you are fan of hearing leather on willow.

Cricket management is a very narrow genre, but this game is unrivalled in it with its deep, accurate and comprehensive simulation. Very much the Football Manager of cricket games with its attention to detail, this is packed with features, stats and tactical options that should keep virtual cricket captains happy for many hours.

Football Chairman Pro

Developer: Underground Creative
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android
Price: £2.99

Not so much Championship Manager as Chairmanship Manager. This simple but satisfying simulation puts you at the head of the table in the boardroom rather than being in the manager’s office or dugout. Instead of being the football manager going to the chairman asking for extra funds or more time to build you squad, you are the chairman who makes the decision on the hiring and firing of your club’s manager. If you get that decision right, along with sponsorship deals, stadium development, transfers, contracts and more, you’ll be able to turn your little non-league football team into a major force.

It’s a more basic, quick-playing game than, say, Football Manager but its fast pace allows you to whizz through seasons in minutes and hours rather than days and months, making it great for short sessions on the commute. Despite the simplicity and less detail, it’s still got plenty of choices for you to make as the big boss, and enough addictive power to keep you coming back.

Baseball Highlights 2045

Developer: Peter Kossits
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android
Price: $3.99

As its name suggests this clever card came condenses baseball matches into short bite-sized 10-minute matches. If you are looking for realism then I suggest you move on as this futuristic take on America’s favourite sport has a player roster that includes robotic and cybernetic players. An entire game consists of each player only playing a total six cards, but it still manages to pack in a lot of tough decisions and tension. On your way to the World Series you get to draft new players into your hand, which gives the whole experience a pleasing bubble-gum card collecting nostalgia.

Punch Club

Developer: tinyBuild
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android
Price: $4.99

This may not be a sports sim in the strictest sense of the word, but if you are interested in a boxing-themed game with lashings of 1980’s nostalgia then Punch Club rings all the right bells. You embark on a Rocky-style quest of vengeance by setting up fights, whilst juggling your work and social life.  It is a game that takes more than its graphical sensibilities from the 1980’s, being tougher than Apollo Creed. This means that you will be doing more grinding than a dirty dancing barista. However, it is still a fine game that is well worth checking out.

New Star Cricket

Developer: New Star Games
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android
Price: Free, Offers In-App Purchases

A cricketing themed follow up to New Star Football that is perfect for those who prefer the thwack of willow on leather. You begin your career with a lowly club in your favourite cricketing nation.  Each season you will compete in both 20 and 50 over competitions. Perform well and famous clubs will be queuing up for your signature, you may even get an international call-up. The game does not stray too far from the winning formula of its forbearer. A series of mini-games enable you to improve your skills and have an impact on matches at key points. Gameplay is as equally satisfying in bite-sized spells as it is in marathon sessions, which makes for an ideal mobile game that will have you padding up and heading out to the middle time and time again. 

MLB Manager 2018

Developer: OOTP Developments
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android
Price: $4.99

A realistic management simulation that is based on the well–established Out of The Park Baseball Series. You can choose to either guide your favourite team through the 2018 season onwards, play in a fictional baseball world, populated with fresh players and clubs or even re-enact an historical season from days gone by. Management options are extensive; you set line-ups and call the shots as the game unfolds, negotiate contract, trades and drafts. The mobile version is not as complex as its big brother but still rather demanding. The latest version includes updated rosters and improved AI.

While we realise our recent review may throw into doubt MLB’s place on this list, to be honest there aren’t many decent Baseball apps out there, so for now at least MLB Manager retains its place here. OOTP’s main sin seems to be releasing the same game every time with little innovation, so make sure you do your research before deciding whether or not to buy this.

1st & Goal

Developer: R&R Games
Platforms: iOS Universal
Price: $4.99

Based on a popular board game, 1st & Goal uses a combination of dice and cards to simulate the rough and tumble of American football. Opponents play cards to determine their offensive and defensive strategies and then dice are rolled to determine the outcome. The dice used will depend on the strategies selected.  For instance, if the offensive team chooses a rushing play and their opponents choose a passing defence, then the offensive team will have a big advantage. You can play a one-off exhibition match, compete in the play-offs or embark on a full season. Whatever you decide you will get a game that sticks closely to its board game roots, with straightforward rules, together with tense bluff and double bluff gameplay.

Pro Strategy Football 2018

Developer: Kerry Batts
Platforms:  iOS Universal
Price: £4.99

Considering its popularity, football of the American variety feels very under-represented in games. There are a few arcade-y options and of course EA is present with the usual free-to-play butchering of a great game in the absurdly titled Madden NFL Overdrive Football, but quality management games are few and far between.

The one serious choice is the Pro Strategy Football series, which once again delivered a very solid offering in its 2018 edition and is about to evolve into PSF 2019. It’s a fun and playable coaching game but also accurate and realistic depending how deep you want to dive in. One of the best things about PSF is how flexible it is, so you can have a quick single match or a multi-season career and then on the field you play in beginner mode just choosing the type of play or expert mode in which you can micromanage every player’s role.

It’s a great game for novices who want to learn more about the complexities of gridiron and hardcore players who want to control every aspect of their team.

What would your list of the best sports strategy/management games on mobile look like? Let us know in the comments!

Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. This week features new games and sales across five different genres of games… which means there’s something for everyone!

With Gamescom dominating the industry at large these past few days, we thought we’d have a more low-key week: check out our reviews of One More Button and Holedown if you haven’t already. Otherwise, we gave our guides to the Best Rougelikes & Best RPGs on mobile a bit of a dust off. Also, did you hear? Reigns is getting a Game of Thrones spin-off! 

Out Now

One Hour One Life for Mobile (iOS Universal and Android) – Full Review Coming Soon!

One Hour One Life for Mobile is a multiplayer survival game where you have to stave off starvation and the cold and craft what you need to survive. Time passes quickly, and the game occurs over many generations. A year happens in a minute and birth to death in one hour, so there’s no time to waste. Civilization has collapsed, and it is up to you, your descendants, and other players to rebuild it. It’s each generation’s job to make things a bit easier for those to come by crafting necessities and securing superior shelter and equipment.

The game is adapted from the original desktop version of One Hour One Life and it’s a really cool idea. I like how each generation builds on the next, not just for your particular family but for everybody playing the game in aggregate. It’s an intriguing micro/macro dichotomy.

Unfortunately, the controls are too finicky for my liking. You do a lot of swiping in one direction or another and it is easy to do the wrong thing. I found myself making multiple attempts to do basic things and needing to do a fair amount of positioning of my avatar a well. I’d wager it gets better as you get used to it, but I’d prefer that controls weren’t an acquired taste. Also, since the game is online multiplayer you can’t wander away from the app for long. If you do you’ll come back dead (from starvation or having disconnected from the game). This isn’t a huge deal if you can make time for good-sized, uninterrupted play sessions.

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Powerless (iOS Universal)

Interactive fiction meets simulation in Powerless, an “interactive doomsday simulator.” The source of the doom is the sun. A coronal mass ejection is hurtling toward earth and when it hits our atmosphere it will disable electronics the world over. It’s into this new world a host of characters awake, and you are put into their shoes to work through a variety of crisis like delivering a baby or landing a helicopter. It’s a compelling post-apocalyptic world and has an interesting variety of characters you can get to know and develop. Worth a look if you’re into the genre.

Rome: Total War (iOS Universal) (Review)

One of the greatest RTS/turn-based strategy games ever is now available on the iPhone. The app is universal, so you can play on either and share games across them, and the developer videos look great. Unfortunately, the universal part isn’t working on my account for some reason, so I’m unable to provide any impressions or comparisons to iPad. I’ll drop something into next week’s Out Now if I can get it sorted out.  

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Front Armies RTS (iOS Universal and Android) – Full Review Coming Soon!

Front Armies is a premium real-time strategy game with simple graphics and good but not great gameplay. The limitations are it’s not terribly deep and you can only play against the AI or local multiplayer. Still, it’s not a bad game and is relatively inexpensive. 

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Sales

Project Highrise (iOS Universal and Android: $2.99) (Review)

Skyscraper simulator Project Highrise puts you in charge of the growth and management of a building. You decide how to grow—office space, shops and restaurants, hotels, and more—and work to attract visitors and keep your tenants happy by offering the right mix of amenities. It came out earlier this year and is on sale for the first time.

Transistor (iOS Universal: $2.99)

Supergiant’s RPG hit, sci-fi title Transistor, is on sale for $3. You wield a weapon of extraordinary power as you fight through a futuristic city in this action RPG.

Chrono Trigger (iOS Universal & Android: $6.99)

Yet another great example from our list of best RPGs, Square Enix’s classic dungeon-crawler CHRONO TRIGGER is 30% off. 

Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!

A quick news bulletin for you this morning – those of you who were excited by the prospect of playing quirky city-builder Tropico on your iPad will definitely be interested in what we’ve got to share with you.

Feral Interactive have put out a gameplay video showing a direct iPad feed. You get a good look at the menu, the graphics and how the interface handles – especially with the touch inputs registering as little circles – which is cool. It’s just shy of fifteen minutes in length, and we’ve embedded it below for you:

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Yesterday, the developers released the long awaited iPhone port for Rome: Total War, making that a fully universal iOS game. Unfortunately Nick wasn’t able to get the iPhone version to download in time for today’s Weekender, so we’ve got no hands-on impressions for you.

Tropico for iPad is due out later this year, before the end of Autumn.

The developers of Reigns & Reigns: Her Majesty could be bringing us a Game of Thrones-inspired sequel/spin-off/license game in the near future.

Our eagle eyed brethren over at Pocket Gamer spotted a tweet from the official Reigns account yesterday afternoon that was nothing but an image – a map of Westeros (as imagined by the TV Show), rendered in the familiar art style of Nerial’s innovative narrative game.

pic.twitter.com/Ibk7tWyAr1

— Reigns (@reignsgame) August 21, 2018

There’s really nothing else to say without needless speculation, although PG noted we’re approaching the 1 year anniversary of Reigns: Her Majesty’s release date.

What do you guys think? Would you get behind a Games of Thrones skinned reigns? Do we think this is officially licensed or perhaps just inspired? Answers on a post-card!

Mobile puzzle games are a dime a dozen. Many take the path of least resistance, despite the genre being one of the most open to innovation and new concepts. That’s why One More Button stands out despite its simplicity. It takes familiar mechanics and turns them on their head to make for a fun, easy-to-understand, and challenging

One More Button is the sequel to the mobile title No More Buttons, a hand-drawn platform-based puzzler with an intriguing control scheme. It’s more of the same interesting design, and could nearly be called the same game, just an extension of the original. With that said, it’s a great twist on typical ‘move this there, now stand here’ formulate that all-too-often permeates on-the-go puzzlers.

The premise is extremely simple. You play a small yellow creature with one eye looking to reach a level’s end goal. There’s only one problem: There are small bright yellow blocks in your way with lots of different arrows on them. They represent the directions your character can move in. The game doesn’t make this explicitly clear at the beginning, so before you start tapping around trying to figure things out, it can be a bit confusing if you didn’t play the first title.

You’ll notice that there’s no on-screen controls to move your character, and you can’t just tap where you want it to go. That’s because there aren’t any traditional controls. Each maze-like level instead finds you tapping on those yellow blocks with arrows on them, because those are also the controls. Pressing on one of the blocks with a right arrow will move your character right, and so on. It’s an interesting deconstruction of puzzle controls that tie up the very way you control the game as part of each stage as a whole, and it’s a refreshing change of pace because of it.

The goal of each level is obviously to reach the exit the end, marked with a block with a lock on it. This is achieved by pushing around the arrows themselves onto special areas on the map with the outline of where the buttons should go or figuring out how to push the blocks away and into areas where they aren’t blocking your path. It’s quite simple to get accustomed to early on as you’re getting your bearings, but then the game throws quite a few curveballs into the mix to keep you on your toes.

Once you’ve become adept at clearing out paths with its rather unorthodox control scheme, it’s time to tackle special unlockable areas and blocks that require you to flip them around, as you won’t be able to slide them on their designated spaces if they’re pointing in the wrong direction. Luckily, tapping on a button offers precise moves, if a bit frustrating since you’re always going to be searching where the other directional controls are with each puzzle setup. But this setup completely deconstructs the way typical mobile games approach control, which is the most admirable part of the whole thing, and something you’ll come to appreciate as you play.

If you make a mistake, unfortunately, you’ll have to simply restart the entire level. There is no undo button for your last move, so if you find that you’ve pushed a block all the way it can go to the bottom of the screen accidentally, it’s stuck there. It’s prudent to try and remember the moves you’ve made because of this, which can be a bit frustrating in later levels. There’s no real strategic reason to exclude a ‘rewind’ step, so it’s strange that the only option is to erase all progress.

While there are also plenty of levels and mazes to solve, each level isn’t very large, and only takes a few minutes to complete. This isn’t so much a negative, but a hope for longer, more complex mazes in any future content instalments or sequels. Since you’ll have to restart levels several times using the ‘undo’ feature, you’ll be spending plenty of time in each one, anyway.

One More Button is a fun experiment in changing the way players approach and think about puzzle games as well as the way they’re controlled. It’s not absolutely perfect in its execution and could use a bit polish for any future iterations, but it’s a fun diversion for a few minutes at a time while waiting at the doctor’s office or on your commute.

You’ve probably got an image of something like Holedown in your brain already. That brick-breaker sort of layout, with numbered blocks ominously floating above an empty void. Little white orbs get rapid fired out from a point at the lower edge, and ricochet madly off of the blocks. The blocks don’t break on contact, though. Instead, every tap of a ball subtracts a number, and when that number reaches zero, the block is finally slain.

If this sounds familiar, it means advertising works. On mobile versions of social media sites, you’ve probably seen a sponsored video of this colorful menagerie, punctuated with a “click here” or “download now” option. You may have even taken the plunge down the rabbit hole and sunk some time into it. You wouldn’t be alone, Ketchapp’s Ballz was quite the free-to-play success in 2017.

There’s an amusing irony here. Ketchapp is a developer infamous for cloning the number puzzle game Threes! and releasing a free to play version of it called 2048 before Threes! could officially launch. This is among the best known examples of a trend in mobile games that isn’t going away. But where games are often cut out at the knees by imitators who create free to play copies with dubiously low production value and stuffed to the brim with ads, Martin Jonasson turns the formula around. In every single way, Holedown is the best version of this alt-brick breaker sub-genre.

Part of this is the concept. As some nameless, identity-less space explorer, you must drift to cosmic entities and mine them for their riches. From asteroids, to a sun, to an endless black hole, you must drill until you reach the core. Your tools are a clip full of smiley balls, that are rapid fired into the rocks below. The colorful rocks at the blocks you much break, which get increasingly harder to do as the numbers stretch into ridiculous amounts.

Each turn, the blocks inch towards you, slowly encroaching on your safe zone. If it crosses that red line at the top, your drilling vessel crashes, and you lose. Literally turning Ballz on its head is its own form of poetry but adding a crawling death wall mechanic really brings a sense of urgency to every shot. Blocks come in various, Tetris-like shapes and sizes, and they’re oriented randomly as they move to crush you, so every run through the six unique stages is different.

You may surprise yourself with how much critical thinking you do during any given round of Holedown. At first, it becomes simply a game of ‘kill the closest block to you.’ But as the numbers get bigger, you have to get cleverer. You start aiming for foundation blocks, that if you zap will cause everything on top of them to collapse, as well. There are blocks that can never mover, and must be drilled the hard way, they start becoming priority. Target blocks start being shoved behind big buffer blocks, so you have to weigh your options. Do you just blast through this as fast as possible, upgrading your ball threshold with collectable crystals to get more bang for each buck? Or do you try to work the angles and start pinging balls off of the rounded edges of near blocks in hopes that you can bounce your way to the target.

Once the wave of disgust hits you after you watch a string of balls haphazardly only hit your target once, and not the three or four times you’ve planned for, you come to realise that Holedown has drilled its way into your soul. It’s such a satisfying layer cake of simple, yet effective design choices. It only asks for such little space, input, and attention from you, and maximizes every moment of it. That’s what good mobile games are all about.

Another big factor is the look. It has a colorful, modernist simplicity that you can expect from the creator of twofold, inc. and rymdkapsel.  There’s a little alien worm thing in the bottom right cheering you on for some reason. It’s awkward and ultimately just for show, but it’s got good energy, so no one is really upset.

There are a few hitches in the system that can make some play experiences inconsistent. For example, the big green line that you aim with draws reliable path to where the first ball in your string will hit. With it, you can start to use some rudimentary geometry to figure out what sorts of bounces you’ll get after the initial one. As you begin to line the aiming string up close to some bricks, things may not be as they suggest. On more than one occasion, the line told me it would pass narrowly by a block, and instead would clip it, ruining the shot.

Also, as the procedural generation of the rising blocks adds a sense of uniqueness to each game, it can get carried away. Sometimes, a level will spawn with a block that has an immense number on it, with no other blocks nearby. You’ll sometimes be left to wonder “how was I ever supposed to solve this?” This is especially true on later planets, where the biggest of blocks can be insane.

These are ultimately blips in a system that is impeccably well put together. Holedown is enjoying its time in the greater gaming spotlight, a rare achievement for a mobile game. It’s simple gameplay has an inescapable gravity. It’s charm beguiles you, and soon every train ride, bathroom trip, or lunch break has just enough time in it for block breaking. Don’t let the modest price tag scare you away from the ‘it’ mobile game of the summer.

Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. We’ve got a few new games and content updates, including a great action option. This week’s sales feature a host of RPG options as well as a Civ VI price drop.

We’ve had a bunch of great content pop up on the website this week; refreshes of a couple of  key guides mark the start of a new season of updates. We‘ve got new ones in the pipelines, but we’re going to get more regular with updating older stuff as well. A good week for reviews too – from King and Assassins to Football Manager Touch 2018. We’ve also been trying to keep on top of important news, like Rome: Total War’s iPhone release date.

Out Now

Barbearian (iOS Universal) (Review)

The highlight of the week is action-RPG Barbearian. Combat is frenetic and features huge hits against massive hordes of enemies, loads of fun and effective special weapons, and challenging tactical choices. Check out my five-star review for more info on the game.

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Mars Power Industries (iOS Universal) – Full Review Coming Soon!

Mars Power Industries is a minimalist puzzle game, which means there’s no high scores, no time limits, no stars…just you and the puzzle. You goal is to build powers stations in a Martian colony such that power is supplied to all buildings. As you play a mystery is revealed through the game’s imagery. It’s a very chill game and would work nicely for more laid-back gaming sessions. 

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The Draugr (iOS Universal) – Full review coming soon!

The Draugr is a tabletop card game where reanimated dead with magical powers invade and seek to corrupt the town of Stjørdal with their foul influence. You play as a revenant hunter who has come to protect the town and slay the Draugr. To win you have to slay four of the six Draugr.

The game is played out over two phases. In the first phase the Draugr spread their corruption and in the second the hunter tracks and attempts to destroy them. The game plays pretty well and I like the simple yet attractive graphics. It does work much better if you understand the game going in. The rules are referenceable but there isn’t much of a tutorial.

Updates

Pocket Run Pool (iOS Universal) (Review)

Zach Gage’s take on pool games, Pocket Run Pool, just got a nice content update. Two new payout tables and five new betting conditions have been added, which increases the options nicely. Pocket Run Pool is free with in-app-purchases to unlock certain features. It’s well worth a look.

Mini Metro (iOS Universal and Android) (Review)

Mini Metro is a great simulation/puzzle game where you must build a train system for a well-known metropolitan area and handle increasingly savage congestion. Several new features have been added since launch and now a new one is available: Challenge Mode. In it you pick an achievement challenge and attempt to build your metro under some additional constraints.

Sales

A Noble Circle (iOS Universal: $Free)

Amirali Rajan’s minimalist RPG/adventure A Noble Circle is surprisingly deep for a two-dimensional game. It’s also full of surprises and thought-provoking story. Oh, and its free right now, so there’s zero reason not to grab it!

Beholder (iOS Universal and Android: $1.99) (Android: Free)

If you’re ready to make some tough choices in a grim, dystopian future now’s your chance. Beholder, a game where you run an apartment building and must spy on and rat out your unpatriotic neighbors, is on sale for $1.99 (normally $5).

Jade Empire (Android) (iOS Universal: $4.99)

Aspyr Media has a nice sale going with its mobile RPG catalog. We’ll kick it off with Jade Empire, currently half off. It’s inspired by the myths and legends of ancient China and full of places to explore and plots to uncover.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (iOS Universal and Android: $4.99)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a little dated at this point but has long been enshrined as one of the best RPGs of all time. It’s also half off and worthy of inclusion in your mobile-game collection if you’re into Star Wars, RPGs, or nostalgia.

Civilization VI (Full game IAP) (iPad: $23.99)

The big-hitter of Aspyr’s lineup is also on sale. Normally $60, you can unlock the full Civ VI experience for your iPad for $24. The in-app content packs, normally $5 to $9, are also on sale for $2 to $3.  If you enjoy Civilization and want it on your iPad, this is a great deal, as the mobile port is really quite good.

Seen anything else you like? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!

By Michael Coffer 16 Aug 2018

August is a difficult time for football fans, what with the endless gossip pages to scrutinise, those deadline day live blogs to agonisingly refresh and the countless hours it takes to craft the perfect fantasy squad.

It’s also when many supporters come down with a strange disease known as wannabemanageritis. The main symptom is the trance-like involuntary repeating of the words ‘I could do better than {insert the surname of their club’s manager here}’ over and over again. It’s coupled with lots of tutting, and the condition can persist for nine months or so if left untreated.

The most effective cure is to switch on a PC and fire up Football Manager, the behemoth sports sim that gives players the chance to sit in the virtual hot-seat and run the club of their choice, proving they really are a Guardiola-like tactical genius or a wheeler-dealer of Redknapp proportions.

But this remedy proves too complex and overwhelming for some people, with an injection of full-strength FM known to have the side-effect of making heads explode, but fortunately there is a slightly softer alternative which comes in tablet form for both iOS and Android.

Cue Football Manager Touch, which offers the same accuracy and depth minus some of the time-consuming micro-management that has resulted in the main game becoming so bloated and life-consuming. There have been yearly versions of it since 2015, when it was initially known as Football Manager Classic in reference to how it harks back to the good old days of the series (and Championship Manager before it) when the focus was on tactics and transfers.

Don’t be fooled though – being retro-inspired doesn’t make FM Touch simplistic. Far from it. If you do want something basic (and overly easy in my opinion) you need to try the third member of the squad, Football Manager Mobile, which is much more stripped back and faster to play.

No, FM Touch is still very much a monster of a game which, despite the instant result function that lets you see the scores without sitting through long matches, still has the power to suck up many hours of your life.

How far from being a lightweight casual game it is becomes immediately apparent after you complete the set-up phase of choosing which leagues you’ll have in the game and which club you’ll take charge of from the vast array of real-world options (you even get to, slightly bizarrely, decide what your Manager ‘character’ will look like).

As you get comfortable behind your desk, figuratively speaking, you begin to explore some of the dozens, may hundreds, of pages of information contained within the game and you start to grasp the scale of the task ahead of you. Getting familiar with your playing squad and identifying improvements can turn into several hours’ work, with each player being rated on 36 separate attributes.

It should go without saying given how long-established this style of sports sim is, but it’s worth noting at this point that, in line with the main Football Manager game, FM Touch is based around spreadsheets and stats. The only action, so to speak, is watching a 3D representation of your team’s matches. The rest of the time the game is very much static, filled with menus, lists and charts. If that sounds ‘boring’ to you then 1) What are you doing here? and 2) You need to play a different type of footy game.

If you’re prepared to take a leap of faith and use your imagination to bring it alive and give it personality, this version is every bit as immersive and utterly absorbing as Football Manager has always been. There is never a shortage of things to do and decisions to make as you go through the day-to-day running of your club, dealing with contract negotiations, coach reports, training schedules and much more. You can delegate some duties to your virtual assistants but being a make-believe manager is still a big role – more involved and complex than many real-life jobs.

A lot of your time is taken up with those two Ts – tactics and transfers. Winning matches doesn’t just happen by magic, unless you’re very lucky. It takes meticulous planning and analysing as you pick the best formation for your squad, then pick the best player for each position, then give those players detailed instructions for how you want them to play both individually and as a unit. FM Touch’s tactical options are extremely deep, giving you near-infinite possibilities for how to set your team up.

While small improvements to the game’s interface and navigation have been made in this edition which help to marginally enhance the overall experience, some of the screens are still slightly fiddly to use. You have to tap on some small precise areas to pull up the information you want without ending up on a page or pulling up a menu you didn’t want. Despite minor and occasional niggles like these, it’s still a tactician’s dream to have so much freedom to devise that perfect strategy – and of course it continues into the matches when you have to call upon all your shrewdness to achieve victory by switching formations, changing playing styles and making substitutions as needed.

Getting into the transfers area of the game is like diving down a rabbit hole from which you may never escape. It’s easy to lose all sense of time as you set your filters, send your scouts out and scope out the ideal additions to your squad from the game’s massive database. There’s a real buzz to be had from identifying the perfect target, having a bid accepted and then getting through tense talks before coming to a successful conclusion. A nice addition this time is getting a score out of 100 from your scouts on how suitable a signing each player might be, which makes it just that little bit easier to decide who to go for.

FM Touch is a magnificent game in many ways. One of the best things about it is being able to tuck into such a meaty slice of Football Manager anytime, anywhere whether on the daily commute or relaxing in the armchair of an evening. As a huge footy fan and long-time player of Championship/Football Manager, playing such a challenging and satisfying game is one of the very best things you can do on an iPad, or other tablet. So, why then, does this not deserve full marks?

Where the boys stop giving 110 per cent and where I feel as sick as a parrot at the end of the day Brian, is in how this version of Football Manager hasn’t changed much since its arrival in 2015. Now, like Ronaldo and Messi over the past few seasons, it’s had no equals so perhaps hasn’t needed to advance very far – but it means the complaints I had after the first edition still remain. The 3D match engine looks and works better, the tactics are a bit deeper, the game has more polish but there are still a couple of big omissions which I think stop this from going from Premier League regular to global superstar.

First is the near complete lack of any press or media work during the management journey. Sports Interactive boasts that FM Touch allows players to speed through seasons without “the pre-match build up and media fuss” – true, this makes the game quicker to play but it also sucks a lot of fun out of it. Crafting a media image and then using it to your advantage is a big part of a modern football manager’s job, like it or not, and its absence here makes the game feel less authentic.

The other key thing missing is human interaction. There are very few ways to communicate with players and staff at your club, or with rival managers and players. There are no team talks, no cosy chats, no taunts. This, combined with the lack of press conferences and interviews, makes the whole thing a little too passive – like it’s all about the numbers and not the people. It’s like being locked away in your office with no contact with the outside world.

Adding these two wishes into the game would fatten up FM Touch and take away some of the reason for is existing in the first place separate to the main FM game, but they really need to be represented in some way when FM Touch 2019 comes along in November. Leaving them out yet again would be something of an own goal.

It’s another unchallenged trophy-winning season for Sports Interactive’s mini beast but I’m hoping for something just a bit more next time to stop this series getting stale. 

Just over a year ago I wrote up a post of mobile games reminiscent of Diablo in some form or fashion. While the games I chose are all fun in their own right and share characteristics with Blizzard’s hall-of-fame RPG series, none quite matched the exciting combat pacing of Diablo III on a PC. Turns out I was just thirteen months early. Barbearian is a real-time game that features frenetic combat full of huge hits against vast hordes of enemies. The constant motion, explosive hits, and overwhelming odds of it reminds me of running around Diablo III maps looking for more to kill. 

In Barbearian you are a bear-clad barbarian. Thus, you know, the puntastic title of the game. You didn’t start out that way, the barbarian part anyway. Abducted and brought to a strange world, you were forced to battle for your life and berserker-mode is just how you roll. The game isn’t just a quest for a survival, but one to unwrap the mysteries of a group of weirdos known as the Arbitrators and to find the way back home.

Any hope of a return home lay through the challenges arrayed before you. The game consists of a series of portal-connected worlds. Most portals lead to worlds full of people, creatures, and things dedicated to your death. Your job is to smash your way through these haters and take out all of the bosses on each of the three levels, thus defeating the world. Once you take out all of the bosses on one level a portal opens and will, ready or not, eventually suck you through to the next level. As you destroy foes, trees, walls, and really anything food and gems will drop which are the currency of the game. There are buildings back in non-combat worlds where you can buy access to special weapons which will then drop as loot in game.

Each level also has a peasant and fellow abductee that you can rescue. Those you rescue become part of your warband and you can buy them a kit to be knights or archers and they can be brought into battle to help with the carnage. They die easily, but luckily you can also buy revival magic to bring them back from the dead. You recharge these revivals by destroying enemy critters, which you were going to do anyway, and it’s easy to respawn a good portion of your warband over and over while in the enemy world.

Combat is the biggest part of the game, and it is fast, fun, and fierce. You start out with an axe attack and a charge attack the recharges after a few seconds. You’ll quickly find yourself looking for the biggest bang for your charge and slamming into dozens if not hundreds of foes, sending them flying lifelessly in all directions. Once you purchase the new weapons—machine guns, boom sticks, and many more—you’ll start finding them as you fight as well. In addition to these there are special temporary power ups that do things like make you invincible, faster, or give you a temporary ball-and-chain-type thing that swirls around you mowing down anything around you.

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Not only is combat great but Barbearian‘s levels are hand-crafted, attractive, and fully destructible. You can run around and bash down every tree and Kool-Aid Man your way through fences and walls if you want (and I want) and doing so yields extra fruit for your trouble. There’s a lot of great attention-to-detail aspects of the game that go a long way toward enhancing the feel of the game as well. Charging into a huge pile of enemies and sending their corpses scattering in every direction is a visceral delight and the kick-back from the machine gun that proves, even in a video game, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction are two of my favorite examples.

Barbearian is a challenging game, most people should expect to need a couple to a few tries on each portal, but it is far more forgiving than a lot of real-time games. You don’t need crazy-fast reflexes to beat a level or some precise order of moves and attacks to beat bosses. You will need to get good at wheeling around avoiding the masses arrayed against you, firing off various weapons as you go, and charging through tightly gathered mobs when the time is right. Certainly, anybody with experience kiting in other real-time games will feel right at home.

The biggest challenge factor in the game is health attrition. Your mighty bear has only one way to regain health: one shrine placed on each level where you pay to get back to full health. This creates some tense levels where you’re at a sliver of health and really need to get to the next shrine, which may be on the next level! The single chance to heal per level works well with the portals that open when you’ve killed the last boss, because you’re going through that thing whether you’ve healed or found the abductee on that level. You can run for it, and charging helps, but you feel the pull of the portal like a dog straining at the leash. It’s a cool effect and adds an interesting timing challenge to the game. Do you take a sub-optimal heal when you’re at half health or do you bet you can get back to the shrine without killing the last boss?

What if the game feels too difficult, or too easy for that matter? Barbearian has you covered in the form of three difficulty sliders. You can adjust the game speed, damage taken, and loot value both up and down. Using those sliders, you can micromanage the difficulty of the game and tune it to where it’s the most fun for you. I really love when games give that level of control to the player over their own experience.

Another very cool option in the game is the ability to customize its controls. There are default layouts for both small and large screens as well as a fully customizable layout where you decide exactly where all the buttons go. It’s a very smart plan that accounts for different screen sizes, hand sizes, ways people hold or prop up their devices, and even gaming posture. Oh, it also features controller support for you mobile-game-controller enthusiasts. Display wise, I think Barbearian is perfect for an iPad. It plays well on my iPhone 6S Plus, but I definitely prefer the bigger screen as it’s much easier to destroy all the things without your fingers getting in the way. 

If you’re a fan of real-time combat games Barbearian is easy to recommend as it is certainly one of the better mobile titles in the genre. It looks great, is loaded with smashy goodness and visceral feel, and is a ton of fun to play. It offers plenty of challenge without nearing the rage-quit-and-never-look-at-the-game-again reaction some similar games seem to elicit. The ability to micromanage the difficulty and completely control the UI layout is just icing on the cake.