Death Dome is an Android action game developed by Griptonite Games, which is now wholly owned by Glu Mobile. Griptonite’s new game has a similar gameplay style to Blood and Glory or the Infinity Blade series, and features Glu’s in-app Glu coin currency.

Just a quick note, if you’re not too fond of gory content then be warned, this game contains a lot of it.

Gameplay and Controls

If you’ve played Blood and Glory, you’ll recognize the format of Death Dome instantly. You’ll be put through different battle instances where you’ll need to block, dodge, and parry your enemy until you find a decent window to attack it. All actions in-game are done with touch controls and gestures, for instance, swiping your screen will make your character perform an attack in the direction you’re swiping in, and holding the block button will make your character put his shield up to block an enemy’s attack.

There is also a dodge button on either side of the screen, allowing you to dodge left and right, and parrying can be done by taking a well-timed swipe in the opposite direction of your attacker. We’ve already seen the popular Infinity Blade series by Chair Entertainment with this kind of gameplay, as well as the two Blood and Glory titles, so I’m a little disappointed with Glu’s attempts to cash in on a another clone of their own games.

There are a few differences in gameplay though, and if you’re one for interesting graphic styles and regular changes of scene, you may prefer Death Dome over any other titles that it has been inspired by.

Story and Environment

So, here’s the basis of the story. A virus has run rampant through the city causing many to die within days, but there are some the lucky ones. Others have fallen victim to the ‘M’ virus, causing mutations to spread through their body. The infected were quarantined off in a bio-dome force field to keep the rest of the plague spreading further than the city. Ironically the no-named protagonist finds herself immune to the disease and trapped within the bio-dome along with the violent abominations.

You can tell straight away that Death Dome has been heavily influenced by many other games and has incorporated them into its own rather sparse story. There are cut scenes after each stage giving a little insight into the main character’s motives and the world she lives in, but for the most part, her identity remains a mystery. It’s hard to determine whether the developers left the story mysterious for a real purpose or if they had just ran out of imagination. Either way, the slightly empty story allows us to use our imagination, and there are certainly a lot of concepts in Death Dome to give us a solid feel for the game.

Although Death Dome is heavily-instanced, Griptonite have done a great job to make the game feel a lot less restricted than it truly is. There are plenty of different scenarios to encounter, as well as different background environments and a huge variety of enemies with a nice mix of attack styles.

The level select screen is also displayed on a city map, giving us the idea that our character is travelling to her next location whilst our device loads up the next battle. Most areas also have a small mini-game before an enemy appears, which usually involves tapping areas on the screen for loot and in-game currency.

Equipment and Glu Coins

Don’t get me wrong, Glu mobile has made some brilliant titles, but what always puts me off is their hugely freemium based play schemes, which usually require you to make a purchase of some kind, or download a load of promotional apps. Death Dome is no different here, and just like Blood and Glory, spending in-game cash doesn’t just improve your gameplay, it’s pretty much going to determine whether you win or lose at the game. Without it, gameplay becomes slow and boring, and even if you did manage to keep at 100% health throughout a battle, as the game progresses, enemies become too powerful for our weaker weapons. Buy a weapon from the marketplace, and you’ll suddenly be extremely over-powered and killing enemies becomes much too easy.

I totally understand Glu’s need to create a steady income, but I’d appreciate it a lot more if they balanced out their current system. I definitely have to applaud Glu for the cross-game currency though; if you buy Glu coins on one game, you’ll be able to spend it on any games within the Glu games list.

Aside from the in-app purchases, the items and equipment in Glu are very appealing, and there’s a good variety of weapons and gear to pick from, so you’re bound to find something you like in-game. Death Dome has some serious looking badass gear, as well as some comical items like over-powered bubble blowers and unearthed stop signs.

Graphics and Audio

Glu have always tried to aim for a professional finish to their games, and it’s no different with Death Dome. The sounds are on par and there is voice acting to accompany the cut scenes too. The character models have been produced to a high standard and the background scenes are beautifully grim and portray the apocalyptic feel of the game to a great extent. The user interface is intuitive and many options are easy to navigate to without going through an unnecessary amount of menus and splash screens.

Summary

Pros:

• Backgrounds and characters are nicely detailed
• Gameplay is easy to pick up
• Lots of equipment and varied enemies
• Different scenes and bosses
• Animated cut scenes

Cons:

• Freemium content is poorly balanced
• Concept has been done before
• The story is a little vague
• Gameplay remains very similar through start to finish

Download Death Dome on Google Play here.

The post Death Dome Game Review appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

When a typical new video game console hits the market, you can usually expect to spend several hundred dollars to buy it. You might even remember the frenzy surrounding the PS3 launch with systems going for up to $2,000 on eBay. The Ouya is not that kind of video game console. It’s only $100.

The unassuming silver box will be powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and a NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor. There is 1GB of RAM to go along with 8GB of flash storage, HDMI, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a wireless controller that looks similar to that of the OnLive console or the Xbox 360 controller. Those specs make it sound like a pretty decent smartphone or tablet, but this is meant to be a home gaming console.

Perhaps the even bigger kicker is that there is an open SDK where they promise to provide digitally-delivered titles for free. I imagine the marketplace will start with a handful of freeware titles and free-to-try games, but it has to open up to paid games eventually. In any case, the Ouya is only $100 and it’ll be interesting to see how it fares in an environment where we’ve grown accustomed to Android games on the go. Does this spell eventual doom for the Wii U, PS4, and Xbox 720?

[ Uncrate via Kickstarter ]

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When you decide to get yourself one of those free apps for your smartphone, you usually recognize that you’re paying the price by having to deal with in-app advertising, but did you know that you’re also paying in the form of increased power consumption?

A study was recently conducted by Purdue University and Microsoft, revealing that as much as 70% of the power consumed from playing the free games on your smartphone is actually attributed to downloading the advertisements and tracking your usage. This isn’t always the case and I’m sure that the physics engine in Angry Birds sucks up some juice too, but that’s still a lot of precious battery life being sucked away to encourage you to sign up for some dating site.

Naturally, if the free app of your choosing also requires a GPS connection, as well as either 3G or WiFi, these likely drain your battery too. The thing is that the information gathered through those means could also be used to process and funnel the right ads your way. To be fair, the tests were run on some older hardware–the Android-powered HTC Magic and Passion, as well as the WinMo-fueled HTC Tytn II–but it should mostly hold true for newer devices too.

They tested a total of 21 apps, including newspaper apps, photo uploaders, and games. In the case of Angry Birds, a full 45% of power consumption was for user tracking, including using GPS to presumably geotarget your ads. Of course, GPS isn’t actually useful for the game itself. You can read the full report in PDF form if you want more details.  To be honest, this information just sounds like a ploy to divert companies from offering their ads for free and monetizing them through other means.

[Source]

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Some people like to celebrate the Fourth of July with a backyard barbecue. Some people like to celebrate Independence Day with a boatload of fireworks. But not the people at Sega. Nope, they like to give stuff out for free. If you have an iPhone (or iPod touch), they’ve got a puzzling gift for you.

Starting at midnight tonight and running until Monday, Sega will let you download the iPhone version of Columns for the very attractive price of zero dollars and zero cents. That’s right. It’ll be absolutely free to download, representing a 100% savings over the regular price of $1.99. What a deal!

If you grew up with puzzle games the same way that I did, then you may feel that Columns isn’t quite as epic as Tetris. That said, it was still a very worthy contender from the Sega camp in the puzzle department. Flip those gems, make matches, and prosper!

In the release from Sega, they don’t make any specific mention of which time zone the “free” time is adhering too, so I’d keep a close eye on the price tag before hitting the purchase/download button.

Source: Joystiq

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