Tag: Ayopa Games »

Dungeon crawlers as a genre have certainly seen much success over the years, but that doesn't mean that everyone loves them. It takes a certain kind of mentality to find joy in gathering tons of loot through repetitious fighting in order to fight stronger things (repetitiously) for better loot. Now assuming there was something else added to the proceedings to keep things from feeling less monotonous, something like that could draw in a bit more of a crowd. That is to say, draw in even more of a crowd. And what usually sells like crazy regardless of medium or platform? Humor.

With that in mind (I think), Ayopa Games and Drowning Monkeys have decided to unleash Dungeon Crawlers on an unsuspecting App Store. The game itself is a combination of more typical dungeon crawlers with multi-floored dungeons, loot and experience grinding and turn-based strategy RPGs. Players will control a team of four adventurers (an alchemist, priest, barbarian, and dwarven warrior) over the course of five chapters, each with their own distinct environments. They'll also be going toe-to-toe with plenty of nasty monsters as they scrounge for stuff.

Dungeon Crawlers is slated for a January 26th release. A universal release, might I add. For a special "introductory price" of $1.99 no less.

M.U.S.E. is the newest 3rd person cover shooter to hit iOS. Players control an operative of the organization M.U.S.E. who is out to destroy the evil Psychosis, who killed his family, or something. The story is mostly irrelevant, and disappointing because it has nothing to do with the band Muse, which would make for an interesting plot for a game, or a fantastic tie-in to their next album.

The gameplay is fairly standard fare for the genre with some combo elements built-in. Players shoot to kill enemies with a pistol, secondary weapon with limited ammo but greater power such as an assault rifle, and grenades. Players have an adrenaline meter, which when charged up, helps increase the combo multiplier and gives enemies and destructible objects a noticeable outline. Players can earn or purchase credits which go toward upgrades of either the protagonist or of his weapons. The combo-based combat gives it a different feel from a game like Shadowgun, and emphasizes efficiency. THe variety of destructible objects helps to bring variety to combat, as well.

The combat is just otherwise kind of uninspiring beyond that. It's never really all that fun or interesting, even compared to a game like Shadowgun which was in itself uninspiring at times due to its closeness to Gears of War. It just never feels fun to play, and is typically more frustrating than anything. The controls hurt this as well - the auto-aim goes from being necessary to frustrating in split-seconds. Spending money on upgrades feels necessary from the outset, which is not a good look for a game that's $5.99. As well, the visuals are just not all that impressive, even on the iPad 2, but that may just be me being spoiled by Unreal games like Infinity Blade 2 and Epoch.

I understand the desire to make games that try to emulate console-style gameplay on iOS, but they usually wind up falling flat because they're not particularly a good fit for the platform. It's just that M.U.S.E. feels flat even for iOS, like if there's a really good game here, it's still ways off from being fully realized. There are other, better, 3rd party shooters to check out before this one.