iOS Review: Dungeon Hunter 4

Featured on April 11th in Apple’s N&N, Dungeon Hunter 4 brings the depth of Diablo to the iPad. This beautifully developed dungeon crawler game is fully fleshed out and truly impressive.  I’m sure the budget required to bring this game to life was staggering and is a sign of things to come.  Unfortunately, in order to offset the costs of this game Gameloft seems to have gone quite significantly overboard on the requiring players to pay to play and this is evident in the scathing iTunes reviews it is receiving.  While I would prefer to talk about how seamless and elegant the options to buy upgraded equipment are woven into the inventory and loading screens or how great the Wheel of Fate game is for monetization, I am forced to focus on  how tightly controlled the players health gauge is.

iOS Review: Tekken Card Tournament

I have a real love/hate relationship with this game. I want to spend money but it would be like throwing a penny down a well.

Breaking the top 10 for iPad free last week in the United States and number 1 in dozens of other countries, Tekken Card Tournament has entered the card collecting arena. (Appannie) Following in the footsteps of games such as Rage of Bahamut, it combines simple Rock, Paper, Scissors strategy game with addictive (and expensive) card collecting mechanics.  It leverages the strong IP and brand recognition of 8 classic Tekken Characters which encourage players to buy in and promises a real world tie into physical cards in summer 2013 on its iTunes page.  The graphics are 3D and would make a great stepping stone along the way to creating an actual Tekken fighting game, which many consumers are eagerly awaiting.  There are strong monetization features in this game such as multi-day events, 190 cards to collect (at as much as $6 for 5 random cards) and energy refills at $0.25 per match.