Mobile Games Roundup
Zoo! Oil! Golf! D-Captatrix! Robotek! Hunting!
D-Capitatrix HD
- iPad - £0.59
- Also available on iPhone and Mac App Store
It's not every day you get to roll a decapitated dominatrix robot head around in the name of quality mobile entertainment.
For reasons probably too sordid to repeat on a family website, a heartless machine known as The Golden Mistress has become consumed with a jealous rage and elected to remove the heads of all attractive female robots. They were most likely Ipswich Town fans.
But little does Robot Thatcher realise, help is literally at hand. It's up to your fumbling fingers to place little wormholes around each 'prison', roll their severed heads, reunite them with their lonely cadavers and allow them to attend the forthcoming Take That concerts.
To make matters a smidgen more involved, Gamesmold also deems it necessary to pick up three energy packs dotted around the level - a process that involves more precision faffing with every passing level.
If you're not dancing gingerly past electric force fields, you're coaxing ball bearings onto pressure pads or contriving to ignite explosives to blast your way through solid walls.
At other times it's just a matter of building up speed to launch yourself at a precise trajectory, before course-correcting at the last moment with judicious use of the tilt controls.
So that's D-Capitatrix: sexy robot physics dancing, to a soundtrack of your choice. Preferably White Denim.
8/10
Robotek HD
Little angry robots need love too. But it's a special kind of love that one formally expresses via the ancient art of turn-based combat and fruit machines.
In Robotek HD, two slightly overweight mainframes face one another and slug it out until one's hit points have been reduced to zero. But the interesting part comes from a nimble combination of luck and judgement.
Faced with thee basic strategies each turn, you can either opt for warfare, hacking or powers. To start with, you simply spin the reels and tap again to stop on your chosen symbol, and this results in a different action; like a fruit machine, the more matching symbols you end up with, the more valuable the attack.
Given that your mainframe is not only defenceless but unable to attack, the first priority is to teleport droids into the fray and let them unleash merry hell on your opponent. But, occasionally, you'll spot opportunities to mine weak points, or, for example, circumvent firewall defences by using a microwave attack.
When you've got a full arsenal available and can afford to lose a few units, sometimes it makes sense to go all-out and unleash the most powerful attacks to knock down their HP, but sometimes you're simply reliant on the luck of the roll. Say, for example, your opponent rolls three-of-a-kind: not only will it deliver the most powerful form of that attack, but grant them an extra turn. Such moments can be decisive in a closely fought battle.
But the more turns a battle goes on for, the more one-off specials you can deploy, such as emergency repair or rapid fire. Knowing when to issue one can often make the difference.
As you can probably predict, the more you understand Robotek's nuances, the more it suckers you in for another battle. The more nodes you conquer, the more upgrades you can bolt on, and before you know it, you're rolling again.
If Hexage.net was asking a few quid for this simple battler, we'd be completely fine with that. But to deliver something this polished for free? Where I come from, ignoring it would be considered bad manners.
8/10
Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting
- iPhone/iPad - £2.99
Dan Pearson writes: There are generally three things which you can expect from a Monster Hunter game: extensive and compulsive crafting, ample opportunity for endless grinding and a ball-crushing level of difficulty. They're not ideal for a mobile game, in truth. As such, Capcom's iOS take on the series which crippled a million thumbs is a pared-down affair, the Coke Zero of the franchise.
As a whole, the elements on offer in Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting equate to a decent little time waster, but it's unlikely to satisfy any baying Monster Hunter fanatics expecting a 700-hour thumbscrew session.
What you get for your £2.99 is a Cliff Notes of the Monster Hunter experience, with 12 of the series' beasts available to creatively butcher with the three weapon classes on offer. Controls are generally responsive and well-implemented, with single finger taps and swipes to attack or move and double finger holds and swipes to block and dodge. Powerful slash attacks can be earned by successful dodging and lost by taking hits, whilst a combo meter builds to unleash a special move.
As per usual, chopping off your foes' extremities will furnish you with a grim harvest of body parts which can be forged into various weapons and armours. A choice of greatsword, dual blade or sword and shield combos is a truncation of the weapon options which aficionados will be used to, but there are still plenty of options.
Graphics are crisp, colourful and smooth, even when played on my ageing 3GS. However, screen real estate being what it is, there can be issues with the action getting obscured - but handy visual cues make it obvious when a dodge or block is necessary.
The main issue - and I never thought I'd find myself writing this about any game even loosely affiliated with Monster Hunter - is that it's really far too easy.
Besting each creature isn't likely to tax you for long and can easily be achieved without bothering with much of the material-harvesting grind. You're free to revisit any of the hunts for extra parts or a better ranking, and hitting the top band is very demanding, but there's little point beyond a sense of self-satisfaction.
Unless I've very much misjudged my own capabilities, Capcom's not going to make a lot of money from selling the stat-boosting potions available as in-app purchases. They're completely unnecessary in the course of normal completion, as is the still-welcome option of local multiplayer.
It's an easy game to finish, but after three or so hours of play I've still got a lot of armour and weapons to collect, and I've yet to S-rank most hunts. Plenty of replay value for the enthusiast, the perfectionist and the completist then, and a happy hour or so for everyone else.
7/10