Harry's biggest disappointments in mobile gaming in 2018 so far
We're half way through the year, so here at 148Apps, we're dedicating July to looking back at the best, and worst games that have come out in the first half of the year, and looking forward to some of the delights that await us on the mobile gaming horizon.
First up, we're going to have a look at some of the games that have disappointed us in the first chunk of 2018. It's not that they're bad games, it's just that they didn't live up to the lofty expectations we set for them, for one reason or another.
Don't worry though, we'll be taking a more positive look at the year-so-far in other pieces, so it's not going to be all doom and gloom. And, of course, if you disagree with us on anything here, make sure you let us know in the comments at the bottom of the article.
Bloons TD 6
The tower defense genre has been in a bit of a rut recently. There haven't been games of the calibre of the Anomaly or Kingdom Rush series in a good long while. So, I had quite high hopes for Bloons TD 6. It had the name, it had the poise, and it felt like it might be ready to bring tower defense back to public attention.
Unfortunately though, it sort of did the opposite. It's a perfectly solid game, and it does everything it sets out to do really well. It's just that we've seen what it does hundred of times over. If the tower defense genre needed a shake up before Bloons TD 6 came out, it's desperate for one now.
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery
Oh lord, where to start? The uninspiring story? The weird character models? The empty, echoing corridors of Hogwarts? Nah, let's start with the awful energy system that meant you had to lay the game down for hours at a time in order to progress.
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery wasn't just disappointing, it was really bad. Where it should have conjured up the magic of spending time in the most famous school of witchcraft and wizardry, what actually happened was you got stuck in some devil's snare, then deleted the game from your iPhone forever.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Mobile
This might be a controversial addition to the list, but we all had high hopes when PUBG was announced for mobile. But in the last few months it's continually underperformed, leaving Fortnite as the big boss of the battle royale genre on mobile.
There's nothing wrong with the PUBG Mobile port, but compared to Fortnite the game is starting to look really rather drab. It's still fun, and it's still addictive, but it's easy to see why Epic's game has stormed to the top of the charts and left PUBG floundering in its wake.
Tekken
Be honest, you probably don't remember that a Tekken game came out this year. Well, one did, and it hoped to combine the magic of everyone's favorite button-bashing-brawler with some of the mobile spark of Marvel's Contest of Champions. It didn't work though.
The end product had some nice ideas, but in the end they couldn't quite gel together well enough to appease Tekken fans and casual gamers alike. What we ended up with was something that no one quite took to, and the game was pretty quickly forgotten.
Dissidia Final Fantasy Omnia
Unless you're a super fan of the Final Fantasy series, then there's a good chance this one made you scratch your head. It's sort of the mobile version of the console game with a similar name, but where that one was all action, this is a far more hands-off adventure.
It certainly has its moments, but it doesn't reach the heights of some of the other games that Square Enix has released on mobile this year and last. It's fine, but quite frankly fine just isn't good enough on the App Store nowadays.
World of Warships Blitz
Where World of Tanks Blitz took the shape of its console sibling and shook it up for fast-paced mobile action, World of Warships Blitz feels clunky. I mean, you're driving boats, and they're not the snappiest vehicles in the world, but still.
Tanks are just cooler than boats, and no matter how many guns you add to your ship that's always going to be the case. It might work on PC, but on mobile World of Warships Blitz is too slow, too cumbersome, and a little bit too dull.