FREEday 3/16/12 - "FREE as a Bird, it's the Next Best Thing to Be"

Posted by Rob Rich on March 17th, 2012

My apologies for the semi-zombie theme for this week. I swear it wasn't intentional. But since it's all said and done anyway, what's the harm in taking a look? Of course, even if it's too difficult to accept the inclusion of the Living Dead there are three more games of a decidedly classic variety to mess around with. Best part is, when they're free we don't lose anything in the looking aside from a little time.

Zombie Jombie - What's this? A collectible (and trade-able) card game with zombies as the good guys? And players can fuse and train their zombies to make more powerful zombies as they attempt to take down the evil humans? Heck yeah!

Samurai vs Zombies Defense - Okay so zombie-themed action defense games are a reasonably common thing these days, but not many of them look this good. Or feature feudal Japan as a setting. But the most alluring aspect by far has to be the ability to play Pachinko to earn rare items. I mean come on, it's Pachinko!

Greedy Bankers: Bailout! - Taking the Arcade Mode of Greedy Bankers and making it into a stand-alone freebie could be seen as some form cop-out, but I'd consider that an unfair label. If anything I'd call it a clever attempt at hooking frugal iOS gamers once they get a toe in the door, then presumably yanking them inside for drinks and possibly a vacation slideshow. Seriously though, puzzle games are virtually synonymous with mobile devices and being able to nab a good one for free is always cool.

Action Mahjong - I'll admit I'm not all that big on Mahjong, but throw in some unnecessarily cute chibi/anime cartoon characters and dress it up with some cheesy special effects and I'll certainly give it a shot. What can I say? I like the idea of taking somewhat mundane analog games and accentuating them with ridiculous things. If nothing else it tends to make the proceedings more interesting.

Gold Rush Classic - It's a familiar puzzle concept that's been replicated throughout the years, but that's because it's pretty much always fun. Players must sort through a bunch of different pieces of train tracks and set up a path from start to finish. If the tracks aren't lined up right (i.e. there are dead ends) in a timely manner, the train crashes. Simple, but a proven formula. With trains, no less.