Category: Game Releases

As Nick mentioned last week, The Weekender is dead. Long live the Weekender! Or rather, long live whatever will rise to take it’s place. He’s not leaving us, and we still want to let you know what deals crop up, what new games are out etc… it’s just that we may change-up how we do that.

For starters, I’m going to be handling a lot more of it myself which will free up Nick to work on bigger and better things. We’re going to be trying out a new monthly column, and I imagine he will return to reviewing & feature work as well. His first entry of the new column will drop on Friday, November 30th.

For the sake of easing the transition, I’ve put together a weekend gaming guide myself this week along the lines you’re used to. This will probably start changing over time as we figure out how best to deal with the various elements that made Out Now/The Weekender so valuable.

What We’ve Been Up to

As far as the week goes, we kicked things off with our belated review of Stardew Valley, and then followed up with an even more belated review of colourful puzzler ELOH. Yesterday we put up a guide to some quality free games on iOS, and C&C Rivals’ release date was revealed.

What do we have coming up? Well our writers are hard at work, and over the next week (or so), you may see the following:

• Reviews of Element RTS & Love Letter.
• An in-depth look at C&C Rivals.
• Another round of updates to key guides (although I’ll try not to do as many, as soon).

We’re also interested in looking at some of the games below, but those articles are unlikely to be turned around in time for next week.

Meanwhile, in mobile gaming…

Out Now

For now, unless otherwise stated, assume that we haven’t managed to get any hands-on time with these games. As we transition to this new world order it will take a while before I can start testing out games as Nick did. Thank you for your patience.

Old School Runescape (iOS Universal & Android) – Full review planned!

One of the headline releases for this week – this classic version of iconic MMORPG Runescape has made the jump to mobile. I remember playing this game back in the early early days, before World of Warcraft came out (Runescape was first launched in 2001, WoW dropped in ’04). ‘Old School’ Runescape is based on an older version of the game from 2007 which was released in 2013 as a stand-alone experience.

It’s a free-to-play game with a subscription option (check the store page for details on what you get), and the development is entirely community driven. For new content to be added to the game, it needs to pass a 75% vote. This mobile port also has cross-platform enabled, so you can play it on any device. Unlike a lot of MMO/RPGs, there’s no central narrative – it’s a wholly sandbox environment, with both PvE and PvP content. And FAQ with more details can be found here.

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Football Manager 2019 Touch (iPad & Android)
Football Manager 2019 Mobile (iOS Universal & Android)

Football Manager’s annual release is upon us, and this time it’s come with a slight name change. I’m not sure what the significance is in not having the year at the end, but I’m sure it was super-important.

As a reminder, FM Touch is a streamlined version of the PC game that only works on tablets, where-as FM Mobile is a bespoke game, offering a slim-downed version of Football Manager to account for the fact that it also works on phones. We reviewed FM Touch 2018 a couple of months ago, and changes in the 2019 version include new tactical styles, the inclusion of the German Bundesliga and a new UI interface

New features in FM 19 Mobile include the introduction of licensed kits, new leagues from Russian and China and similar UI enhancements. We’ll get you a review of at least one of these as soon as we can.

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Farabel (iOS Universal & Android) – Full review planned!

Another one for the review pile, Farabel is a turn-based strategy game where players start at the end of the story, at maximum power. As you progress through the campaign, you jump back in time and you and your get weaker and weaker as you try and fight to save your city.

It’s an interesting twist on the typical design of a strategy game campaign, and I wish I’d been able to give you some hands-on thoughts. Other features include a challenge mode, a ‘classic’ mode that has you build an army via a points-buy system and see what you can do with it and a ‘defence’ mode.

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Squids Odyssey (iOS Universal & Android)

Something different to round-off our new releases – it’s another premium turn-based strategy game, but one with a colourful and unique aesthetic. Squids Odyssey has you building a team of heroic squids to take on crabs and other pesky crustaceans across 90+ missions and a variety of classes and squad combinations.

I’m afraid all we can provide is the trailer, but this might be an interesting break from the usual turn-based tactics games we get… although, you’ve got to really like sea creatures, I guess. We might take a look at this one ourselves at some point.

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Updates

Pocket City (Review) (iOS Universal & Android)

One of our favourite releases of the year, Pocket City has received a major content update that includes a larger map option for new cities (inc. sandbox), some UI improvements on the new iPhone XS, XS Max & XR and a new ‘Zoo’ structure, to name but a few things. It’s always great to have an excuse to jump in to an excellent game.

Stardew Valley (Review) (iOS Universal)

The seminal farming/rpg sim has had a string of mobile updates since it’s release last week, the latest of which including some stability fixes for mine levels, and control improvements for fishing. Anyone using an iPhone XR will also now have the correct resolution displaying.

A lot of the updates deal with minor bug-fixing and QoL improvements but keep an eye out for the major overhaul coming to the game’s control schemes on mobile. The developers have confirmed these are in the works, but we don’t know when they’ll land. We do know some of the details though, as this updated wiki page highlights. A lot of options there!

Sales

Zombie Rogue (Review) (iOS Universal & Android) – $1.99

We weren’t a fan of this one, but plenty of people came out in its defence in the comments so it’s worth highlighting that this has been discounted. Zombie-themed survival horror with a twist.

Heroes of Steel RPG Elite (iOS Universal & Android) – $1.99

One of the Trese Brother’s games, Heroes of Steel is a turn-based fantasy RPG that takes you through a winding, epic adventure as you try to protect the last remnants of humanity. Like most Trese games, there’s a free version you can try, but the premium game is now discounted to just a couple of bucks. Please note, you can’t transfer save game data between the free and premium versions.

Reiner Knizia’s Modern Art: The Card Game (iOS Universal) – $0.99

Another Knizia game, we’ve not actually taken a look at this one before, but it’s only a dollar if anyone wants to speculate. It’s described as a card game of management and valuation. You must drive up the prices of your favourite artworks, holding out for the best price.

Age of Rivals (Review) (iOS Universal & Android) – $1.99

A PT favourite, Age of Rivals is discount again to only a couple of bucks. It’s been cheaper but not since June 2017 and that seems like a one-off so far. This is still a fair price for an excellent strategy boardgame.

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

Apple’s walled garden approach to their app store means that a lot of the worst of the internet gets filtered out, but you lose a lot of freedom too. Android may be the platform of pirates and hackers, but it’s also where the craziest indie developers can go wild. In the end, that wall only protects users from creative, ardent, independent makers, while letting the worst of big money gatcha trash through.

Are you one of our Android readers? Fear not, we have a guide to the best free games on Android as well!

But, whaddya know? I did some digging and some generous souls have released a few truly free strategy, board, RPG, and puzzle games on iOS, supported only by free donations. Not freemium, no ads, no IAP, no loot. True freeware! It’s enough to restore your faith in humanity. Oh, of course, these are (almost) all available on Android too, obviously.

This passion project brings Civilization to your mobile phone. The interface is a bit goofy looking, using sometimes disparate icons and cartoony skeumorphic buttons. The gameplay, though, is all there. It has all the features you would expect from Civ, including random and historical maps, way too many starting civilizations, the whole Civ tech tree with all your favorites, Gandhi threatening you with nukes, everything.

The AI is okay, but there is also the option to play on LAN or online. If you like it, there is a donation button and totally optional ads that you can watch to support the developer. Also on Android.

There’s not a lot of RTS on iOS to begin with, so you may be shocked to learn that one of the best examples of it is totally free. Warfare Incorporated is a time-tested game going back to the heyday of real-time strategy, being originally built for PalmOS in 2003. It’s mastered touch controls for RTS, with an interface that appears when you need it and goes away when you don’t, and a smart multi-touch box for selecting groups of units.

The graphics are dated, but it’s easy to tell units apart and tap on the right spots. The game has a classic sci-fi setup, with rival corporations competing over an alien planet in its campaign mode, but the real star are the hundreds of user-created missions you can download and the online multiplayer, making Warfare Incorporated a stock that will never crash. Also available on Android.

Or, if you disparage real-time strategy as shallow “micro” tap-tap-tapping, one of the deepest and most venerable wargame franchises is also available for free on iOS. Open Panzer is basically the classic Panzer General II on your phone with controls exceptionally well-adapted for mobile play.

Set in World War II, as all the best wargames are, Open Panzer charges you with commanding historically “semi-accurate” troops through over seventy different scenarios. These troops number in the thousands, so think carefully and try the tutorial first if you’ve never played a General game before. That said, if you’re a newcomer to wargaming, Open General is a great starting point. Also available on Android.

This boardgame-like strategy game has a lot of really interesting ideas underneath its minimalistic exterior. You build farms and towers to support a small army of troops. The trick is that each soldier has supply requirements, so if your development isn’t balanced or you are over-extended, your opponents will quickly cut you down to size.

All the math can be done on one hand, leaving you to focus on predicting your opponent’s moves. It’s thoughtful in much the same way chess is. Also, you have to deal with rapidly-growing forests eating up your farmland, which I don’t remember being a feature of chess, but I might be forgetting. Also available on Android.

This is basically Card Crawl but free, so go get it. In this card-based dungeon-crawler, you have to clear the deck of cards by using potions and food to keep your strength up while you kill monsters. Food acts as energy, monsters drain your health, potions restore it, and gems are needed to draw a new board. Manage your resources well, and you’ll get new special ability cards that add whole new twists to the basic gameplay. Mind Cards’ simple cycle adapts well to new abilities, which keeps it exciting as you learn to master new cards and push yourself further into the card dungeon.

Occidental Heroes scratches a similar itch as indie hit Battle Brothers, albeit in a much more limited fashion. You take command of a group of three mercenaries in a fictional medieval (not magical) world seemingly influenced by Darklands. You’re responsible for company management and battlefield tactics. The tactical layer is interesting enough since each unit type has quite distinct abilities. A lot of the game is procedurally generated and there is permadeath.

Though there’s no overarching story, there’s lots of little touches to make the world feel more alive. Each mercenary has a background that may come into play on the battlefield or may help you avoid conflict by parlaying with enemies, and they can retire and complete their tale if you can get them enough reputation. The developer is still adding more to the game, but right now the gameplay is solid and the rewards compelling. Also available on Android.

Pathos is a very successful attempt to bring a streamlined form of Nethack to iOS. It takes the basic roguelike classic design and cuts away all the fat. Moreover, it keeps the controls and interface super-smooth so they stay out of the way of your goblin-slaying. There’s still lots and lots to do and think about, unless you want to die horribly. You have thirteen classes, pets, potions, a wide variety of monsters, the whole shebang.

A lot of the stuff that was removed was more annoying details of Nethack, like rusting weapons, and good riddance One of the best (worst?) parts of Pathos is the default graphic set, which looks like it was copied from the first page of Google Image Search results for “fantasy sprites”. If you are less charmed by the kitsch, there are several more traditional sets. Also available on Android.

On the other hand, if you want the full-fat roguelike experience, the true form of Nethack is playable on iOS as well. Nethack is an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink (no really, you can die by hitting your head on a kitchen sink) take on roguelikes and its thirty-year development has resulted in some delightful bloat. That said, the iOS port iNethack2 uses the system keyboard and suggested commands to give you full access to the systems of the game while keeping things manageable on mobile. It has sprite sets too, if you are one of those people who just can’t see a purple ampersand as a demogorgon in your mind’s eye.

Jumping into Vampire’s Fall, you will be instantly transported back to 1996 and the town of the original Diablo, down to the identical (?) fonts. You are a vampire and the king is dead (oh no!) and the big bad Witchmaster has returned so it’s time to kill some rats and level up until you can kick his ass. Unlike Diablo, combat plays out in turn-based form rather than action real time.

It’s not the deepest, but you do have multiple skills and the ability to pick up and use new gear. It’s a straightforward but fairly polished traditional RPG experience. Like World of Empires, it does have IAP and ads, but they are both meant only as voluntary donations–you have to seek out a certain character in town to either pass the developer some cash or put some eyeballs on his ad buys. Also available on Android.

Finally, a puzzle game. Mekorama looks a lot like the iOS instant classic Monument Valley or the indie game Fez, but it’s not quite so devious as those games–its three-dimensional environments are really three-dimensional, no tricks.

There’s an adorable robot that needs to get from the start to the finish, and you can rotate the mazes, drag parts of the environment around, and tap to guide the little guy to the finish. There are mountains of levels, and a level creator that outputs QR codes, making it a snap to share and download new mazes. The IAP are purely for donations. Also available on Android.

Any other iOS games you’ve discovered that are really freeware? Remember: no ads or IAP that aren’t totally donations.

We were just as sceptical as you guys were when we first heard about the existence of Command & Conquer: Rivals. It IS a pretty cynical use of a much loved franchise that hasn’t had a decent try in years, after all.

At the same time, looking at what we’ve seen so far (including Dan’s hands-on time with the game at E3), I still think there’s room for Rivals to surprise us all. Plenty of people who’ve actually played the game have suggested that it’s actually pretty decent. Behind the abused license seem to lurk a paced, deep tactics game that just wants to be given a chance.

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Which you can do come December 4th, when the game releases worldwide on both iOS and Android devices.

As EA themselves point out, this isn’t a “drop-and-watch” game like other competitive strategy tiles on mobile. You do have control of your units through all stages of a match. EA are also pretty serious about making this a major mobile title for them, as indicated by their yearly earnings report:

It will also be our next official EA competitive gaming franchise, with a complete ecosystem beginning to roll out in Q4, including community tournaments and a championship pro scene. This is a fast-paced, head-to-head strategy game that is easy to play, a lot of fun, and perfect for competitive play. We’ve had great engagement and feedback in our soft-launch testing, and strong interest from competitive players. This is our first entry into mobile esports, and we’re excited for Command & Conquer: Rivals to expand our global audience of players and spectators.

What is currently unknown, and what we’ll be looking closely at, is the monetisation systems. EA have a bad reputation in this space, and I doubt their overall strategy will shift dramatically for Rivals, but if we’re lucky, it may be just enough to make it worth-while. The influences of games like Fortnite also can’t be ignored, which subsist largely on cosmetic DLC – proof, of sorts, that you don’t need to resort to pay-to-win to engage your player base.

You can go to the official website if you want to try and get in on the pre-release activity on iOS, and on Android you can just register directly on the Google Play store.

Command & Conquer Rivals will release world-wide on iOS and Android December 4th, 2018.