I was wandering over at the old digs yesterday and stumbled on an interesting comment at the end of their review of the Slitherine-published, Carrier Deck. It concerns the upcoming transition to 64-bit-only apps that we’ll see in iOS 11 and the many, many Slitherine titles many of us own. The news ain’t good, folks.
iOS • In upgrading from my iPad Air, with its long-inadequate 32GB of storage, I was mostly looking for more storage, Pencil support, and the ability to care less about the nature of the deposits left by my children’s fingers. I’m not terrifically picky about screen wonderflonium, the camera, or the speakers. I don’t even care about the ability to have a full-sized keyboard in the cover, because I’ve been surprisingly happy typing on the screen. So, as a hardware reviewer, I’m not exactly curmudgeonly, but I expect to be insensitive to a lot of what I’m seeing written about the new iPads. People who review lots of devices have more incentive to care deeply about what seem to me like rather minimal differences.
iOS, PC/Mac • The Commands & Colors series already has its share of digital versions available on Steam or the App Store. Memoir ’44 was pushed out as a free-to-play PC game well before Days of Wonder clambered under Asmodee‘s umbrella, Fantasy Flight published a take on BattleLore for tablets only a couple years ago, and, last year, HexWar launched the World War I title, The Great War, on both Steam and iPad. That’s all well and good, but we’ve been told for eons that GMT Games was bringing the ultra-blocky Commands & Colors: Ancients to the digital realm and, thus far, have nothing to show for it. This month’s GMT Update changes that, giving us our first look at HexWar’s take on the venerable C&C entry.
iOS Universal, Android, PC/Mac • When Age of Rivals launched for iOS last week, I’m not sure anyone saw just how damn good it was going to be. Sure, I’d played it on my laptop a bit, but it took a tablet version for me to really start digging into it and realizing that the design is brilliant. Even more surprising is the lack of complaints from other users. Not to say gamers can be a picky lot, but there’s always something that the dev didn’t do right. The only complaint I’ve heard about Age of Rivals is that it requires an online connection, even when you’re playing the AI. In what might be the quickest response to a complaint by a developer ever, the always-online component is now history.
iOS Universal, PC • We’ve talked about it, we’ve reviewed it, and today’s the day it finally arrived on the App Store. We’re talking about Missile Cards, which landed on the App Store last night and joined a handful of other card games that are trying their best to make 2017 the best year ever for mobile gaming.
iPad, PC • It probably won’t come as a huge surprise to readers of Stately Play that we’re not on the press list of Slitherine. As such, unless I’m actively searching out for Slitherine news, it passes us by. Last week they published a game developed by Every Single Soldier, the gents behind the wonderful Vietnam ’65 and it’s companion title, Afghanistan ’11. Their latest is called Carrier Deck and it’s not another hex and counter war game. Instead, it’s a naval simulation that puts you on the deck of the titular ship and it couldn’t be more different than their previous titles. Even more interesting, however, is that it was released for both PC and iPad.
iOS Universal, Android, PC/Mac • Every now and then a game appears on the App Store and it just clicks. It takes hold immediately, as early as playing through the tutorial. There’s more than just a sense of “fun”, whatever that means, but an urge to really dig in and explore. It doesn’t happen often. I remember it happening when I first played Pathfinder Adventures last year, or the first time I loaded up Hearthstone, and it happened again last week with Age of Rivals. What a game.
iOS Universal, Android • I love Temple Gates‘ digital version of Race for the Galaxy so much that I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about it. Hell, I’m tired of hearing about it. That’s tough, though, because not only is Race for the Galaxy my current front-runner for Game of the Year, today it got better. Late last night, version 1.02 landed on the App Store and it plugs up the few holes that were remaining from the initial launch.
iOS Universal, PC • We’ve talked a lot about the currently PC-only Missile Cards the past few months, starting with Nick’s glowing review. The big news was that developer, Nathan Meunier, was trying to bring the game to iOS at some point. That point is next week, apparently, as we can expect it on our phones on the 28th of June.
PC/Mac, Consoles • Ever since the first Diablo appeared on PCs back in the mid-90’s, I’ve been a huge fan of the series. Unlike other RPGs with detailed character creation and gameplay so long that finishing a game felt more like a chore, Diablo was a breath of fresh air. Fast paced, new loot every time you played, and the ability to easily play online with friends, which was kind of mind-blowing back in 1996, Diablo was what my RPG-craving soul desired. Diablo 2 was an even better game, but Diablo 3 kind of lost the way. It was still fun, but it took an expansion pack and a lot of tweaking to get it to the point where it is today: a fun action romp that still falls a bit short of its predecessors.