Hijinks Inc.

Tag: hijinks

  • Hijinks Reviews: Space Station: Frontier HD

    Hijinks Reviews: Space Station: Frontier HD

    Publisher: Origin8 Technologies Ltd.
    Platform: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad
    Cost: $4.99 [iTunes Link]
    Version Reviewed: 1.1.0

    Space Station: Frontier HD is the love child of a tower defense game and a real time strategy game. Understandably, SS:FHD grew up with some issues. It had upgradable towers, but not the selection of a true tower defense game. It had resource management and RTS-like mission objectives, but lacked that second layer of micromanagment that true strategy games have.  So, SS:FHD grew up with something missing, something it couldn’t put its finger on. When it made the jump to the iPad there was hope SS:FHD would mature a little bit; perhaps grow out of all the genre confusion. Unfortunately, all it did was get the standard iPad “graphical enlargement” surgery. While increasing SS:FHD’s confidence, it did nothing to improve his game.

    (more…)

  • I tried to review Osmos for iPad

    I tried, I really did. I bought the game before it was even in the top 100 (its now #1 in popularity and gross sales). I beat the Odyssey campaign in about two hours, and I even logged a couple hours in arcade mode. This was the middle of last week. Since then I’ve tried to play it every day, and every day I shut it off a minute later and go play more Small World.  I get that its trippy, I get that. I also understand that if I habitually used LSD, this game would be AWESOME. Here’s the thing: I don’t, and this game gets really boring, really fast.

    The core concept is proven. You absorb things and get bigger. Yeah, like that game, and that one, also this one. I could go on. It falls apart about the time you beat the Odyssey and realize that whats left is the exact same thing you just played, only ten times harder. I don’t have a problem with challenging games, but I do have a problem with turning a casual arcade game into a hardcore puzzle game without any kind of a learning curve. I have a feeling the developers finished the core game, polished it, realized they needed to add more content, and then piled on a bunch of gameplay modes and additional levels without properly tuning them.

    I want to give Hemisphere the benifit of the doubt and believe that they will continue to update the game into a better experience. Frankly though, I doubt I’ll have the motivation to pick it up even if they do.