Mobile Monday – Worm Vs. Birds, Kings Corners, Donkey Kong Jr, Tentacleez

You know what day it is? It’s Monday again and that can mean only one thing here at GodisaGeek.com: It’s time for another edition of Mobile Monday, the article where we take a look at four mobile games and let you know if they’re worth your time and money.

This week we’re taking a look at Worms Vs. Birds from Team Top 3, Kings Corners from Order of Leisure, Rocket Race from Big Smash Studios and Tentacleez from Zombie Robot Games.

Read on to find the full reviews of each game, but don’t forget to come back next week for more Mobile Monday reviews. While you’re here, if you have played any of the games listed, or even just want to come back once you’ve had a go to let us know how you got on, we’d love to hear from you in the comment box at the bottom of the page.

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Titles are available on iPhone and iPad unless specifically stated otherwise. If you like what you read, click the small black “App Store” button to load iTunes up and purchase the title!

WORM VS. BIRDS by Martin Baker:

Those birds have been angry for such a long time, throwing themselves at pigs and other items in the environment and generally causing a mess, it’s about time that someone got their own back and did away with some of those pesky flying creatures. That’s where the worms come in, via the new iOS game Worm Vs. Birds, developed by Team Top 3 and published by Chillingo. The concept of the game is easy enough, destroy all of the birds within the level and then you’ll be allowed to move on to the next, but is it worth a download?

The gameplay at first looks as if it’s going to be similar to Angry Birds, but as soon as you start playing you’ll realise that things are different enough to keep people interested. The cannon that you’ll be using will get loaded with a snail, the different snails provide different types of ammunition for you to use against the birds that populate each level, and it’s the player’s job to fire the ammunition using your finger to choose the trajectory; just as you would in Angry Birds.

At the end of each level, depending on how well you did and how quickly you disposed of the level’s birds, you’ll be awarded a certain number of stars. These stars, as with many other games on the iOS App Store, allow you to unlock levels later on in the game so gaining as many of them as you can is certainly a good reason to keep coming back, as well as a good reason to replay some of the levels that you perhaps did particularly poorly on. The choice – as always – is up to the player but at least knowing that there’s some sort of reward at the end with spur some players on.

When it comes to the controls, if you’ve ever played Angry Birds before then you’ll be well versed in the mechanics of Worms Vs. Birds. Things are slightly different, you don’t need to pull back on a slingshot or anything for starters, just tap the screen where you want the worm to fire the snail and you’re well on your way to total devastation of the avian. Despite the differences between the two games, things are similar enough for people to understand what’s required of them almost immediately. Even for people that have never played this type of game before, there are enough tutorials within the first few levels, even going to far as to show you where to touch the screen, that you’ll be a master of the mechanics after only a few short levels.

Worm Vs. Birds is well worth a look, the art style gives you something nice to look at each time you boot it up, even if similar gameplay can be found in other games. It’s very reminiscent of the Worms games from Team 17 in its cartoony quirkiness but it’s still an art style all to itself. A very entertaining little game indeed.

KINGS CORNERS by Martin Baker:

Card games are some of our favourite pastimes, whether it’s a quick game of Solitaire or something a little bit more complex, we can usually lose ourselves for hours with just a simple deck of cards. It’s not often that I come across a new card game either, something that I’ve not played before, but that’s exactly what I found with Kings Corners, a game from the iOS App Store developed by Order of Leisure, which may look easy on the surface but it’ll only take a mere five minutes before you start to realise that things aren’t always what they seem.

First and foremost, you’re going to lose the game at first, a lot of times. The whole point of the game is to fill the corners of the grid with Kings, the top and bottom with Queens and the left and right with Jacks. Sound simple enough doesn’t it? That’s the beauty of the game, when you first look at it you’ll think that you’ll be staring down the face of victory within minutes but, as you start placing cards onto the grid, and you get your first message that there’s no place left for the Jack/Queen/King because you’ve used all the spaces up due to placing down meaningless cards, you’ll start to realise that things aren’t so easy. In fact, it’s almost impossible until you begin to stop and think about where you’re placing things.

In order to clear the grid of cards once you’ve placed them down, and allow you to place down all those precious Jacks, Queens and Kings, once all the grids have been taken up you’ll enter the clearing mode. In this mode you’ll have to pair the cards up in order to make them add up to a total of 10. For example, a six and a four can be paired up, as can a nine and an ace, or you could just choose a ten on its own. Once the cards have been selected, hit the ‘Clear’ button and they’ll disappear giving you more grid spaces for you to play about with. You’ll have to be careful though, you’ll only have a limited amount of time in clearing mode so you’ll have to be quick about it.

The controls of Kings Corners are easy enough, a single card is presented to player and all that’s required is for the player to tap a grid space in order to place that card there. Nothing difficult about that at all, the difficulty lies in the game itself. Thanks to the simplicity of the game there’s really no barrier to entry and Kings Corners is a game that can (and should) be played by anyone that has access to an iOS device.

Kings Corners is quite an addictive new card game and one that’s been developed rather well too. The visuals are crisp and clean and the whole game is responsive to just about all the touches that players will be giving it. Most players will find themselves coming back for more and more just because of the difficulty level of the game; I know I will.

DONKEY KONG JR by Robin Parker:

After the monster hit that was Donkey Kong in 1981, it would come as no surprise to gamers that a sequel would soon be on its way to arcades around the world. What came as something of a surprise was that, in the sequel, Mario (or Jumpman as he was known as back then) was cast in the role of the evil bad guy, with the son of Donkey Kong trying to rescue his father from the former hero. So, Donkey Kong Junior was unleashed on the public in 1982, and the gaming anti-hero was born.

Donkey Kong Junior on the Nintendo 3DS is identical to the Virtual Console release that graced the Wii platform several years ago; except for the fact that you can, of course, now take it with you anywhere. No concessions are made for the 3D capabilities or the touch screen, it is the same old game. The game is, in fact, a very faithful recreation of the original game, with the only addition being that Restore Points have now been included, so that gamers can save a particular state which they can re-load whenever they wish. This is somewhat of a boon for old-fashioned games, where trial and error, and constant deaths were common, so it is a welcome addition.

The game can be played in both single and 2-player, with an A and B mode for both. The two modes are more or less the same, just with faster and harder enemies on the B mode, and 2-player simply consists of taking turns and handing your console to a friend. It must be said, first impressions are positive as the sprites in the game are large and colourful, with some great animations and expressions for Junior in particular. Mario and Donkey himself seem to be lifted straight from the first game, but nonetheless it looks good for its time. The music is also strong, with a few different ditties involved, none of which are too irritating, considering you may have to re-play some stages multiple times.

And this is the main problem, you will have to re-play levels whether you are good at them or not, as there are only four short stages in the title. Once you finish them, and free your father, they simply repeat, playing in exactly the same way until you run out of lives. The levels are quite different, with new enemies on each of the screens, and different tactics required to beat each one, but they are all too short. once you learn a stage, there is simply a pattern to completing it, and very little challenge, so the game becomes more of an exercise in timing and memory, and it simply lacks the timeless appeal and addictiveness of the original Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong Jr. is undoubtedly a very short experience, which quickly becomes repetitive due to the lack of different stages. You will no doubt have some fun reminiscing for a short time, but without some sort of Wi-Fi Leaderboards, the appeal of beating high scores doesn’t really apply to this version, so there is very little to keep you coming back. The game is also somewhat expensive for what you actually get, with longer and more enjoyable games being on the eShop for cheaper already. Although they might not bear the famous name or characters, there are some true classics that are more deserving of your time and money on the 3DS.

TENTACLEEZ by Martin Baker:

The names of iOS games can make us extremely curious as to what they are. There have been numerous instances in the past when I’ve been surprised about what a game contains, even when it hasn’t been particularly well named. Tentacleez, developed by Zombie Robot Games, was another game that I wasn’t sure what I was going to get before I opened it for the first time.

For all intents and purposes, Tentacleez is a clone of Pac-Man. Your main task while you’re playing the game is to collect all of the collectables that are scattered around each of the mazes while trying to avoid the multitude of enemies that are following you wherever you go. There are quite a few varieties of mazes that you’ll end up playing, which serve to keep things a fresh. You’re always going to be finding your way around a maze, but at least it’s a different maze. That’s going to make a big difference to a lot of people.

Of course, being a Pac-Man clone, there are certain collectables, usually located at the extremes of the maze, that will turn the main character into some sort of cute little avatar of death. Allowing them to gobble up all the enemies that have, up until this point, have been chasing you down. Time for some payback. Eating the enemies will give you a nice little point boost as well as making the maze a little bit safer for a short while; something that you’re going to want to do if you’re aiming for those high scores.

The controls are simple to use too, will all that’s required from the player being a short little swipe across their iOS device screen in order to tell the main character which direction they’re going to be heading in the next time they approach a corner. A lot of Pac-Man clones have made use of an on-screen analogue stick to move the character but that always felt a little bit forced. The way it’s utilised in Tentacleez feels intuitive and well thought out. It certainly opens up the barrier to entry for the entire game too.

If you’re in the market for a Pac-Man game, but don’t want to buy the official game that’s available – for whatever reason – then Tentacleez could be just what you’re after. It’s not an easy game to recommend though, just because of it’s an obvious copy of another classic game. There’s even a free “lite” version of the official Pac-Man game which makes much more sense to download and play. Tentacleez is a fun game to play, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s really only fun because the original gameplay mechanic is fun. There’s not much that has been added to the formula in this iteration; certainly not enough to really recommend a download, unless you’re curious.