Warfare Incorporated would be a fantastic game even if it was not a cell phone game and is my favorite iPhone game. In this RTS, you play as a young miner for the ACME corporation named Andy. You discover a secret on a new planet, but the rival corporation OMNI as well as the Free Radicals find out about it also! There’s only one campaign, played as Andy, which is different than a lot of PC RTS games. OMNI and the Free Radicals have the same units and buildings, which is a little disappointing. The game plays well with many different types of levels, including levels in which the goal is to wipe out the enemy, mine, stealthily infiltrate, and destroy waves of incoming enemies. The graphics and sound are nice, and the storyline is interesting and provides great motivation. I’ve loved this game for years on Palm OS devices, and it continues to be excellent on the iPhone with touch controls. You can download new mission packs from within the game, adding a lot of replayability to the little RTS. There seems to be two different styles of on screen dialogue, and I don’t know why. I feel like the game should only use one style if there isn’t a precise reason why some messages use a particular style. There are occasional grammar errors and unpolished dialogue, but the problems are minor.

 
The gamplay is similar to many other RTS games. In order to create new units or buildings, you need to have enough Galaxite mined. You also must have enough power generators to power your buildings. The more buildings you create, the more generators you’ll need. Warfare Incorporated has three identical factions with ten building types, seven vehicle types, and four soldier types. Unit selection is done my creating a rectangle on screen using two fingers. There isn’t a way to switch between different groups quickly, which is a feature present in most PC RTS games. Each time you want to select troops, you have to reselect them manually. This does get in the way of playing. There are three difficulty settings, all available to be chosen from the first time Warfare Incorporated is launched. Depending on how well you do in a level, you could get promoted one or more ranks. This allows you to see how well you did overall after finishing the game. The game also comes with challenge maps for an extra test of skill after finishing the main game. These are also available from the beginning if you want to play them without playing through the main campaign.
After discovering the secret on the planet Icarus, players can take advantage of it to change the strategy of battle. Of course, enemy factions can also take advantage it. I’ll refrain from saying exactly what it is because it would spoil the game, but it is an interesting feature. The game has many save slots, so you don’t have to worry about saving at a point that is impossible from which to recover. The game will also continue right where you left off if you press the Home button to exit the game. It’s a great game that I’ve enjoyed playing through multiple times. Warfare Incorporated really is a fantastic game and by far the best game on the iPhone!

I had been looking forward to playing Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction when I obtained a PS3, and recently I finally had the opportunity to try it. It feels like a classic 3D platformer (can we call something from the 5th generation ‘classic’ yet?) but with polish that the genre doesn’t normally receive today. It has a lot of running around, jumping, and shooting. It also has little need for precise aiming or hiding it under cover, keeping the classic, action feel. As you kill enemies and blow up boxes, gears will appear on the ground that you can collect to power up. I’ve only played the first level and a little of the second, but the first level was just gorgeous. The graphics are great with a fantastic futuristic city. There were lots of colors with tall buildings and flying vehicles stuck in traffic high in the air. The character designs are cute and cartoony. Ratchet looks like a bipedal cat, Clank is a little, silver robot, and the enemies I’ve fought so far have been little slime/worm things inside mech suits. I’m looking forward to playing more of this!

The gameplay of Unreal Tournament feels just like it always does! It has all the weapons I love and the fast pace I came to know in the first Unreal Tournament. However, it now has an odd plot. The plot should be simply that Liandri Corporation is having a tournament. In UT3, some aliens attack a planet on which the main character lives, and he gets hurt. After he heals up, he wants revenge. There’s a bit more to it than that already, and I’ve only played one level of the campaign. There was a substantial amount of cut scenes already, but they looked good besides the faces, which looked very undetailed.
After he wakes up, he finds himself in what looks to be a monastery of some sort, and it appears that it belongs to people he and his friends are working for as mercenaries. The main character’s sister wants to make sure he’s ready for battle, so she decides to have a one-on-one match with him with rocket launchers (although when the match actually starts, you do not start with the rocket launcher, and other weapons are available). He question the safety of this, and she points out that respawners are used on the battlefield. Although the main character seems familiar with respawners, he’s surprised they’re used in the field. She says they’re portable units.

 
Of course I’m familiar with the concept of respawning, but I’d really prefer it if the characters were not.
Oh! I forgot to mention that the main character is Marcus Fenix from Gears of War. His armor’s a little different, but it’s basically him with a different voice actor. The aliens look like Locust also. I’m glad they’re proud of their new Gears franchise, but it should be kept out of Unreal Tournament. Everyone has the bulky, thick look of characters in Gears of War. Their armor has that same look as well.
Most dissapointingly, the buildings have the ugly bulk too. I played CTF on Facing Worlds, and the buildings just seem needlessly thick. I realize that previous incarnations of UT had altered the map to have much “thicker” looking towers, but those were also different, thicker towers. This map is a recreation of the original. It looks like the original except extra bulky. I also feel like they overuse textures on the buildings, especially the walls. Not every wall needs a little monitor or some flashing lights. People loved this map for a reason! Epic really didn’t need to change it. The towers also seem to have an Asian theme now, with some sort of futuristic paper lanterns hanging on them.
I’ve done a lot of complaining about things, but that’s because the core game feels just like every previous Unreal Tournament game – pretty awesome. I think I just prefer the clean, classic Unreal Tournament over any of the sequels. In fact, what I didn’t like about 2k4 was that it felt clunkier and bulkier. Here’s hoping for an Unreal Tournament 3 Lite Edition.

Monster Madness: Grave Danger almost instantly reminded me of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. This is a very good thing. However, it falls pretty short of it (at least in the first fifteen minutes). The sound effects are really nice so far, giving the game a definite B-movie horror flick feel. The voice acting is just horrible though, and the graphics look like a PS2 game. While not great, it didn’t really hurt the game too much, but there were times that things looked disappointing. I’ve only played one stage so far, but so far it’s been more of a button mashing monster-fest than Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Zombies just kept running at me, and I could just stand in one room swinging my weapon at them. There wasn’t a lot of strategy to it. Maybe subsequent levels will get better. Unless the game gets significantly better, I could see playing now and then when bored, but I doubt I’ll play it too much. It does have co-op though, so I’d like to take a look at that. For thirteen dollars I feel like it wasn’t too bad, but I’m definitely glad I didn’t spend anymore.

Everyday Shooter is an impressive indie PSN game that really reminds me of stereotypical indie music. It’s a multidirectional shooter using dual analog sticks. It has a very simplistic design, and each level has it’s own song and different rules called “chaining.” Each type of enemy seems to make a different sound when killed, and this sound blends with the guitar music. However, the music that’s generated by killing enemies doesn’t blend with the background quite as well as it does in Rez. By playing the game you earn points you can use to unlock various features. One of the interesting features I noticed was the ability to play in “shuffle” mode, giving the stages a random order. I’ve heard the game compared to Geometry Wars. It seems more artsy to me and less “awesome” in an adrenaline sort of way. I’m enjoying it.