Mission: Deep Sea is an unusual game developed by Hiccup Studios and published by Chillingo. In here, you get to control a turtle to take on various underwater missions.

The game is in a near future setting were technology has risen, with chips being implanted on them so controlling a turtle is now possible. In addition to that, you also have a chip implanted so you’d feel what the turtle feels.

Now for the controls, I can really say that they really made full-use of the multi-touch technology and the way you control the turtle feels somewhat like really swimming. Each of the turtle’s flippers are assigned to the two sides of the screen. Right side will control the right flipper and vice versa. Turning is a bit confusing because for example you want to turn right, you must swipe your thumb from the center of the screen to the left edge. Moving forward is simply dragging both your thumbs from the center to each of their sides and you should be swiping in a straight line. swiping a bit downwards will move the turtle up and swiping a bit upwards will make the turtle move down. I know it’s confusing without any hands-on experience, but it’s the same manuever you do when you dive in real life.

The controls are very precise. But, that also causes the problem you would encounter at first. Sometimes it’s just really hard to control the turtle and it can be frustrating at times. Of course there’s nothing that your hand won’t get used to, but even though you already do, it still feels a bit awkward. But, it’s not a bad thing. It will just really take a real effort to cut off the learning curve in controlling the turtle.

The game is quite short with only five missions to take on. But it will take you almost forever finishing up a mission because the timer is frustrating. It feels like the timer is way too short and you end up running out of time even though you have the minimum room for errors. One of the first missions is to locate red barrels that are radioactive wastes, after locating them you must tap it using the turtles beak and it will be tagged. Once tagged it will be taken out of the sea and yay the sea is now clean! Other missions includes rescuing someone, photographing something, tagging a manta ray, and locating some missiles in a sunken Greek-like city.

The game’s graphics is really beautiful. You can see some jellyfish and a few fishes floating around. A few sea plants here and there, some stones (not corals), some sunken things, divers, etc. But, they are so minimal it feels empty. Maybe because of the of the radioactive wastes thrown into the deep? The draw distance is really short but that’s another thing you would expect when you’re underwater, vision is really short. The sound is what you expect to hear when you’re underwater and its creepy atleast for me. But, not a necessarily a bad thing because that’s what you really hear underwater, right?

Each mission tracks your fastest time and each has it’s leaderboards. So, the game offers more replay value by completing and improving your time and compare it to others. As for me, I am not really hooked with the game. It’s okay but nothing more. Yes it has some innovative control scheme that you will either hate or love. Overall, I did find myself bored with this game. I know some will love it (as all with other games). But that’s it.

3.5 out of 5
Mediocre

Mission: Deep Sea on the App Store.

Chaos management games really hits hard on me with titles such as Flight Control, Harbor Master, and Fare City. It’s definitely one of my favorite types of games even though the are so repetitive in gameplay because the core is so simple, but that’s what makes me so addicted to these type of games. And I am very happy that Voxel Agents created another game with the same addicting concept of the games I mentioned, but really can stand out among the saturated crowd – Train Conductor.

First there were planes, then boats and ships, of course taxis in there too. Heck even spaceships. Trains, anyone? Why not.

The premise of Train Conductor is controlling the trains to their designated tracks leading them to the exit. By tapping and holding down on a train, you can now drag it to its track. You don’t draw lines here, you just literally drag the train and a new path will connect to its right track. The tracks are numbered as well as the train so you’ll know where to guide them. You can tap on a train to stop it when you foresee a collision with another train. And that’s the basic premise of the game and I assure you, simple gameplay are those that plays best.

Adding to that winning formula are some nice twist to the gameplay. You gain multiplier when you are really good at conducting those trains and never missing their paths. This will add bonus points to your score. You will notice a great difference in your score when you play it in fast-forward. But I advice using this feature if you’re already a skilled player.

There are four distinct locations to play on that is set in Australia. First is Alice Springs, which is more of a tutorial, giving you some insights on how to play and enjoy the game. The second one is Cairns and here’s where the real fun begins. In here, a fast-forward button is added that will make the speed of the train go 2x faster but the time remains at it’s pace. This will enable you to control more trains, thus scoring more points before the time runs out. But it also means it will be more frantic watching speeding trains come and go. Cairns is just the tip of the iceberg. The third one is Sydney, and it introduces the gold rush train which carries gold and is very long so there’s more chance the other trains will hit it along the way. And the fourth and last one is Melbourne, and here you’ll encounter a major obstacle – a broken track. It would not be a smooth ride passing along these track, would it? You’ll have to maneuver the trains around this broken track, really adds to the challenge.

Another thing that adds to the longevity of the game is each location can be played in graveyard shift. So all in all, there are 8 unique levels in this game. Graveyard shift is errr… a shift beyond reality by adding ghost trains and demon trains. These trains won’t collide with each other, they will just pass through each other and they don’t stop. You’ll only have to worry about lading them to their path which is pretty much fast-paced as usual. Demon trains should always be guided to their paths or the game will be over as opposed to the other trains that will only deduct points if you lead them in the wrong track.

All of the locations can be unlocked by the scores you accumulated. Don’t worry, you won’t feel like grinding to the game just to unlock certain locations because each of them has its own leaderboards via Plus+ social platform (How I love this feature! Really! Oh well!), and of course it wouldn’t be complete if there’s no achievements to earn. Voxel Agents adds a lot of these – kudos to that!

This game has a superb presentation. It has a sleek and clean user-interface plus with the subtle things like the choo-choos when a train’s about to arrive and the ding-dings when you successfully sent a train to its exit, and a soundtrack that really sets the mood whether you choose to play daylight or graveyard shift. I always end up singing along withe tune of graveyard shift levels because it’s so funny! They’re so groovy it makes me whistle with the tune while playing. The overall visual is very appealing, to its hand-painted looks of the background locations, and to the 3D rendered trains – it’s jaw-dropping.

Train Conductor will end up being an Appstore classic along with Flight Control, Harbor Master and Doodle Jump. With a simple concept but boasting with so much features (it’s almost a complete package), it’s a no-brainer that it is more than worth it. It may not be an all-new experience, but it still has its own unique identity that will leave us a memorable and happy experience, hands-down.

5 out of 5
Magnifico!

Train Conductor on the App Store.

I’d tell you a secret, I was a victim. A victim of hype for this game called Seed that Chillingo published. I was fallen on a trap when it is publicized to even beat Zenonia, backing it up with cool illustrations and a low-quality gameplay videos on YouTube, plus the fact that it is being published by a big name. I was so sure that this will be a great game. Upon booting up the game, I was in awe with the illustrations and no one can ever deny that it really looks so cool, dude. But my excitement came to an end the second the loading time begins. It was ridiculously long, and there’s many of them. It was only the beginning of my never-ending disappointment over this game. I blame myself for getting hyped and later joining the commotion it caused. Screw me!

You play as Litta, it’s a girl’s name, but that protagonist is a boy, actually (should have been Litto hehe).
Litta is a very ambitious person and wants to become a hero. So ambitious to the point that he’s not very like-able. This is bad because nobody wants to play a character that you’re having a hard time to like. Part of my dislikes about out Litta is because he’s so whiny and very cocky, there’s noting humble in him. Even his teacher gave up on giving him lectures on how it is dangerous in the outside world. Of course, that’s the point of the story, to discover this massive world full of monsters. It is an adventure everyone will wanna experience, even though you have no experience.

Fortunately, your teacher has still some concern left in you (or maybe that’s just his plot so you can get out of the town as soon as possible), by teaching you different combats for up to four different weapons such as swords, guns, lance, and staff that wields you magical power. The teacher even cited how Litta learned so fast and really has the potential of being great, because he just used words but Litto didn’t even struggled learning the weapons, even casting some magic spells the first time. Through-out the tutorial you’re just going to watch it then your adventure begins. Day and night cycle is one feature of the game which is pretty neat. You gain more experience by night, but battle is harder.

Now for the controls. Yay it beats Zenonia! Pwned! The virtual d-pad works more precise in this game, the accidental button presses when you want to walk upwards, but the character walks sideways is decreased here. But I can’t say it’s perfect. No virtual d-pad is perfect but luckily, it works okay here. What bothers me is the cluttered buttons on the side of the screen. Even empty buttons are present making it a real mess.

A story is what makes an RPG very compelling. Unfortunately, this game has a mediocre story. Being overly ambitious and over-confident that you can take anything out of the way with no sense at all isn’t a good thing. The story isn’t really engaging enough, even with a good gameplay with a half decent story, it will kill it.

Just like any other RPGs, you main goal is the quest. Introducing 50 main ones, and 100 optional ones like finding 5 mushrooms in the south forest. I can say that the world here is massive, you’ll take on over 20 different towns. In here, they introduced a ship/air balloon, this will enable you to travel much faster and easier between towns. Just like a typical RPG, there are a lot of NPCs (non-player characters) to talk to, and sometimes will give you little missions. This will enable you to gain some experience points too. What I don’t like about talking to NPCs (Non-playable characters) is, say, you approached them on their side or their back to talk to them, they won’t even look at you or even turn to you. Maybe because they don’t like Litta as well.

Sadly, the overall production value of the game is really half decent but not exceedingly. The graphics can be improved a lot upon porting to the iPhone but it seems like no extra work has been done on that part as well. The graphics look decent but not good especially for an iPhone game? Even Gameboy Advance games beat this game in terms of visuals. You can see the edges of the cliffs and houses, they all looked sliced down. You can also notice this especially on interiors like for example the tables, it’s as if the edges have been cut, thus loosing the depth of the image. Please don’t lecture me with graphics-isn’t-important-but-great-gameplay nonsense, This review of course covers that, not only the passable gameplay. Same can be said about the music/score. It just loops badly.

Overall, I didn’t enjoyed Seed. Its has more flaws into it than good. But ‘hardcore’ RPG players may still find something interesting in this game. Those are the ones that will most probably flame me. My final verdict is to bury this ‘seed’ six-feet underground and may rest in peace.

2.5 out of 5
Meh

Seed 1 Rise of Darkness on the App Store.

Pizzas are loved by everyone from plumbers to turtles. But wait, zombies love pizza too? It seems like it’s a fact as you can see in Appy Entertainment‘s latest game, Zombie Pizza. As long as there’s something human in it, they will eat it.

In Zombie Pizza, your task is to help Chef Zomboni to be his successor on his pizza house, because his infected and will soon become one of the zombies. He’ll surely be a customer of yours in the coming days. Because the world is now zombie infested, your goal is to make pizza that will satisfy their hunger and if you don’t want your brains to be eaten, you have no choice but to serve these undead until dawn rises.

In the main game, a conveyor belt with different yummy toppings moves around your workplace, then a some pizza base in the middle. The toppings are the one you assume that will make those zombies happy including eyeballs, heart, brains, bones, roaches and many others. These toppings are randomly squitted out to the conveyor belt. Simply drag these toppings on the base to make a pizza. But you can’t just flick ingredients randomly on top, zombies has delikadea and want their pizza to have the the right order of toppings like Road Kill where you can add differet toppings as long as they’re different from each other, meaning, no repeat of ingredients. Another one is Split Dog where you should have two of the same topping and two of any other topping. Gut Buster has all four of the same topping in one pizza, giving you 3x more points. Later in the game, zombies will even have special orders with specific toppings listed. This gives you 4x worth of points.

Also later in the game, jars will appear on the conveyor belt and you have to hit it to break it, giving you the chance to take whatever is inside. Roaches appear in the game too but you have to beat them to a splat first because zombies love everything that’s splattered. There is Zombie Rage indicator on the upper left side of the screen, be fast and give them a nice pizza or else the meter will be filled in and the zombies will break-in to the door, sending the game over. Keep the meter to a low-level and keep feeding the zombies until dawn and you’ll be safe.

The game visually is very good. The gameplay mechanic is already humorous and expect the visuals to be as funny too. It features great artwork style that will make you smile instead of being scared, and cartoony looks that will make you say ‘awww how cute!’ instead of getting grossed out. Music and sound-wise, Zombie Pizza doesn’t fall short in that department too. It provides with an appealing soundtrack that quirky yet suits the theme of the game. There’s a lot of sound effects in the game from the silent groans of the zombies, to the whacky tone when you flick in a bad pizza, zombies throw-up too and that’s funny!

The game features both a story and a survival mode. In story mode, you have to finish up to four weeks of hard work to become the Master Chef and be throned to the worthy successor. Although you can breeze through the story mode, achieveing all gold medals on each level will motivate you to replay them. Survival is pretty self-explanatory, just survive for as long as you can, you’ll have to work overtime! Adding to the replay value is the addition of Openfeint leaderboards and achievements. Let’s see if you’ve become the Master Chef!

Zombie Pizza provides you with great gameplay and makes you laugh and smile at the same time. I love the concept behind the game and Appy Entertainment delivers again.

4 out of 5
Fun!

Zombie Pizza on the App Store.

Zombie Pizza Lite on the App Store.

If you’ve been keeping up with the site you may remember our short article about Train Conductor by Voxel Agents. I got a word from one of the developers that the game will be released this Friday, 18th of December. Better save some money and spend the Holidays with a bang.

Connect trains to their tracks in eight levels of evolving gameplay, a complete parallel ghost world, and challenge the global leaderboards in this innovative and addictive iPhone and iPod Touch game.

Discover four iconic Australian locations, from the Great Outback to the bustling hubs of Sydney and Melbourne. With the swipe of a finger, connect trains to their destinations and avoid disastrous collisions by day, and deliver ghosts by night on the graveyard shift.

Each level introduces unique traffic conditions, such as Ghost Trains, Gold Rush Trains, Demon Trains and broken tracks. The original soundtrack and lush hand-crafted 3D levels create the greatest train management experience available on the iPhone.

Become the Greatest Train Conductor in the Golden Age of Steam!

Watch the trailer and listen to the music at the end of the video, it’s just so awesome and it’s an in-game music FYI:

Train Conductor will be available for just $1.99 USD during its 50% OFF Launch Special. A full-written review shall be published along-side the game’s release only here… at PocketFullOfApps.