Siege Hero for iOS, Angry Birds for the 1980's nostalgic
We don't typically review games here at Betanews, but a new game called Siege Hero that was released for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch today sparked a pang of nostalgia in Tim Conneally, so we said he could write a quick review.
When we were children, my older brother and I were lucky enough to receive a game called Crossbows and Catapults as a gift. The premise of the game was simple: knock down your opponent's building block castle using rubber-band powered siege weaponry and red and blue "battle caroms" (essentially junior-sized plastic poker chips).
We loved it and played it more than any other board game we had. I loved this game so much that I even got the additional "castle outposts" and contemplated buying the carom-chucking minotaur and cyclops accessories with my saved-up allowance money.
I frequently think of this game whenever someone brings up Rovio's breakout hit game series Angry Birds. Game makers have known it for a long time, there's a great deal of satisfaction in demolishing buildings with projectiles.
But there has been a game even more similar to Crossbows and Catapults that was released at the same time as Angry Birds called Crush the Castle by Armor Games. In the cross-plaform mobile and flash game, the player uses a trebuchet to fling projectiles at castles and buildings, eliminating the inhabitants. It was a bit more seriously drawn and put-together than Angry Birds, stylistically not unlike Terry Gilliam's animated scenes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Today, Armor Games has released a follow-up to the Crush the Castle series called Siege Hero (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad), which very much reflects the post-Angry Birds world in which they were created, yet still retains that medieval castle smashing delight I remember from Crossbows and Catapults and Crush the Castle.
The more realistic graphics of Crush the Castle, however, have been replaced by Angry Birds-style cartoon representations of vikings, samurai, and knights.
In terms of gameplay, it has departed slightly from the left-to-right projectile flinging scheme embraced by Angry Birds and has taken a first person perspective instead. This allows the player to target buildings with sniperscope accuracy with ammunition that includes stones, bombs and kegs of boiling oil, bringing down buildings with aplomb.
The game is available today in the iTunes app store and is definitely a worthwhile purchase. The game is highly addictive, and can therefore be completed in relatively little time. Fortunately, expansion packs and additional levels are going to come at a later date, giving this title room to grow in the future.
