Puzzle Quest -- Challenge of the Warlords Impressions

Puzzle Quest -- Challenge of the Warlords is a port of the original PSP and DS Puzzle Quest to the iPhone. While the game is pretty much a direct port, it unfortunately only contains two out of the four chapters from the DS and PSP versions.

For those who have never played Puzzle Quest before, it is essentially a mesh of Bejeweled and a RPG. The player connects three coloured jewels together to battle enemies and gain experience points while completing quests. On paper this may seem stupid, but when you play the game yourself, you will discover that is absolutely genius.

While I usually only play one hour for these game impressions, I ended up playing two hours of Puzzle Quest because it was so addicting.

The visuals of Puzzle Quest are good, but don't really push the platform. Thankfully this doesn't dampen the experience and allows the game to be run on any iOS device with great ease. The music in the game is also pretty good. The audio finds a perfect balance between being interesting and not overpowering the game, which is a necessity for this type of game.

As you can tell, I really enjoyed Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. The game was perfect for me in every regard and kept me hooked for hours. The ability to be hooked for an extended period of time, while also being able to drop at any time is what makes the perfect iPhone game. As it stands, four games into my impressions blog, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is my favourite.

Doodle Jump Impressions

Today's impressions will be on what used to be a very popular iOS game. As of late it has been replaced by other games in popularity, such as Angry Birds, but is still enjoyed by many. The game I am talking about is Doodle Jump.

As the name implies, you play as a doodle in a doodle world who must vertically climb as far as possible by jumping between platforms. The game is all about jumping with no breaks in between. Making sure you have a platform to land on after jumping is crucial, or else you'll fall to a game over. The game also has some other doodle monsters that you must defeat by tapping on the screen to shoot. These enemies plau a relatively small role, but can become very annoying if you don't tap the screen in the right spot.

The graphics of doodle jump are okay. Nothing wows you or makes you think it is pushing the limits of the iOS platform, but it also doesn't look bad by any means. My main complaint with the graphics is that the game has a very faded look. A more vibrant colour palette would definitely do the game some good.

Unfortunately, the audio is easily the low point of Doodle Jump. For some reason, there is absolutely no background music while playing, which is really disappointing. Each jump makes a sound, along with the monsters and shots, but they don't make up for the lack of music. The lack of music would be understandable if this was just an average iOS game, but it has sold enough to warrent and soundtrack addition of some kind in an update or something.

Overall, Doodle Jump is a great little iOS game. The visuals and lack of music are starting to date the game when compared to other offerings on the platform. But as it stands, Doodle Jump is still a classic that I hope everyone gets to play in some way. Doodle Jump does a lot of stuff right and I apologize for focusing on the bad in this impression. However, drowning on about how great it is wouldn't be as interesting.

Plants Vs Zombies Impressions

Today I'm going to be writing about a game that has become a classic on the iPhone. Plants Vs Zombies, a spin on the tower defence genre and developed Pop Cap Games, was originally a PC game but found new life in the hands of on-the-go iPhone players.

Plants vs Zombies has the player planting various plants -- each with special abilities -- to stop slow moving zombies from across the street from reaching your house. In the adventure mode, the main mode of the game, the game holds your hand and progresses you slowly by unlocking a new plant each time you beat a level. This works great for teching those who aren't familiar with the game how to play, while also serving as a well made story component.

The controls of Plants Vs Zombies work great. It really feels as though the game was built perfectly for the iPhone screen. Through my time playing I experienced no accidental taps or frustration.

Graphics wise, Plants Vs Zombies on iPhone looks just like its PC counterpart. Very little -- if any at all -- was lost in the transition from PC to iPhone and that really benefits the game. The sounds and music have also made their way over from the PC version of the game.

Overall, Plants Vs Zombies is a fantastic iPhone port. There isn't much more to say other than "buy it". One word of warning though: the game is so good that it is very easy to get addicted and lose track of time. But with a game this good, that shouldn't be a problem.

Death Knight Impressions

For my first iPhone game impression, I picked up Death Knight on the iPhone.

Death Knight is a hack-and-slash action game. You, the player, fulfills the role of the Death Knight as he hacks and slashes through waves of evil creatures. Think of Death Knight as a 2D version of Gears of War's Hoarde mode, or Halo's Firefight mode. The enemies spawn in groups and it is the player's job to kill a certain amount of enemies, without losing all of their life from enemy attacks. If your life bar is depleted, you lose a certain amount of coins and start the level over. If you need more coins, the game provides in-game purchases for more.

Movement in the game is handled with a d-pad type controller on the left of the touch screen, the sword slicing attack is performed by pressing a button the right of the touch screen, and a roll move -- for avoiding enemy attacks -- is right beside the attack button. I found the controls easy to use, but as with most iPhone games, they can become impercise and frustrating.

I really like the game's visuals. The art style is light and "cartoony", and best of all, easy on the eyes. The game also has its fair share of blood, but not enough to become tiresome. The music in the game is also good, but it's pretty basic and not very memorable.

Overall, I enjoyed Death Knight. My biggest complaint with the game is that is its focus on coins and in-game purchases. I think that the game is solid enough to stand on its own and doesn't need to force people to spend even more money.

Welcome to my new blog!

I love my iPhone and I love blogging, so it was natural that I combine the two and create a blog about my iPhone. In this blog, I will give summaries of games I play on my iPhone.

Every day, I will play a different game on my iPhone for an hour. Then, I will write a summary about my experiences with the game. I think that this will be a great way for my followers to learn about a vast amount of iPhone games; popular ones, and not-so-popular ones.

So if you like iPhone games, I encourage you to follow this blog. Thanks!