Even at $4.99, Pocket Tanks Deluxe is a good bang for your buck
Pocket Tanks Deluxe, inspired by the Mac/PC computer game of same name, is a high-quality artillery experience that has no legitimate rival. Anyone into playing strategy games against their friends or who want to have their skill challenged by an intuitive computer player will play Pocket Tanks for hours at a time. It’s pretty easy to get hooked, although the price tag of $4.99 might be too much for frugal app purchasers.
I started off downloading the free version, as I do with most game apps that are pricey, and was blown away by the game play. On the hardest level of difficulty I found the game and its 35 weapons very easy to master. I opted to upgrade through a button on the free version’s main menu and was instantly transported to a world of new tank weapons and more impressive explosions. Side note: the deluxe version is much tougher when playing against the artificial intelligence, given the range of new weapon effects. You can also (and should) practice your accuracy and familiarize yourself with the multitude of weapons in Target Practice mode.
Blitwise Productions has really outdone itself. Pocket Tanks Deluxe doesn’t have great graphics like its competitors. But it includes more than 100 unusual and cleverly named weapons that change the approach to defeating your opponent. No weapon in the free version compares to two game-changer weapons in the deluxe version. Jump Jets, which allow you to drastically alter your tank’s location, and Bouncy Dirt, which turns the ground into a reflective surface. My personal favorite weapon for defense is the Mud Pie. Once it hits its target, a geyser scatters mud balls around your opponent. Each ball grows into a boulder that seals them into a muddy cocoon and prohibits them from bombing you without an adverse reaction to their point total. Another cool projectile is the Nanobots, a collection of laser-firing robots that do a considerable amount of damage to rival tanks, an example of the consistent ingenuity of Pocket Tanks Deluxe.
It costs more than it should, but if you’re into artillery games, Pocket Tanks Deluxe is well worth it. If you don’t care about weapon variety, stick with the free version. I eagerly await an update that adds a new slew of weapons.
Hanoi’s legendary game play brings logical challenge
Hanoi is a puzzle game based on a Vietnamese legend. The cultural backdrop and ease of learning how to play makes Hanoi fun, but be warned: Playing a game based on a legend can get repetitive.
The legend is about monks and an ancient prophecy. The legend says there is a large temple with three crumbling towers surrounded by 64 delicate gold disks. The gold disks are stacked from largest on bottom to the smallest on top, with no two disks being the same size. Since they are so fragile, a larger disk can never be placed on top of a smaller one. The monks’ task is to move the disks from the first tower to the farthest before the temple falls.
In the legend, the towers fall before the priests complete the task and the world comes to an end.
In the game, the temple and towers are replaced by a simpler rock slab, but the disks and the idea of the game remain the same.
Fortunately, the world doesn’t end if you can’t complete the task. Which is good, because while this game is fun, it gets far less interesting once you figure out the puzzle.
Swinging Rope’n’fly soars to the top
Among the top-selling iPhone apps, Rope’n’Fly features a falling stick figure that was inexplicably dropped from an airplane and forced to swinging from skyscrapers with no other goal than to avoid death.
And why wouldn’t it be popular?
The game portrays Spidey’s iconic web-slingin’ chops while capturing the universal gravity of the situation—with a few acrobatics thrown in for style, of course. A quick tap on the screen shoots a rope to the tops of buildings and another tap releases it, catapulting your man into backflips toward the other towers that get further apart as the difficulty level increases.
The trick is all timing and maintaining the momentum of your acrobat without letting excess slack shatter his body into dozens of Lego-like pieces on the sidewalk.
With its somersaulting stick figure and colored boxes for buildings, the game’s design could easily disappoint more graphically-inclined users. But anything more elaborate could also seem like an insecurity in the app’s simplicity.
Instead the game shamelessly embraces its single focus: Just keep swinging until you drop.
