Civilization Revolution is a turn-based strategy game based on the Civilization series by Sid Meier, developed by 2K Games, 2K China, and Firaxis Games.

The Game

They bring a knife, you bring a gun…

For those unfamiliar with the Civilization series, the premise is this: you are the leader of a nation and you will take that nation from the stone ages to the modern era through growth, research, and a little bit of ye olde strongarm. Of course, there is a lot more to it, but occasionally I write as if I am composing a message for Twitter. Anyhow, you as a nation will develop your military, your economy, your technology, and your culture through research, creating buildings, and the exchange of knowledge with other cultures. You will meet these other cultures throughout your playing time, and it is up to you to make peace or go straight for the throat. But of course, they can do the exact same thing right back to you.

Death from above!

Civilization Revolution itself is a turn-based strategy game where you take turns moving units around, settling and building cities, improving your culture and economy, and waging wars. Three of the same unit will create an army, which can allow for a much more powerful, combined attack. Each game of Civilization Revolution has a limited number of turns (Game ends at 2100AD) and the nation with the greatest score at the end of the game automatically wins. Should you choose not to take it to the limit of turns, you can win four different ways: build a spaceship and be the first to make it to Alpha Centauri, capture all of the Capitals of the other nations present, achieve 8 economic milestones, and attract 20 great people (Like Albert Einstein) and build the United Nations wonder. The real challenge is to achieve one of the aforementioned victory conditions before the other nations do.

One of the real problems of the game is that the movement scheme is a bit weird, with the “Go To” option not really being very good. You can click and select anywhere on the screen, but if you have to scroll at all, tough luck moving there. This may not seem like a big deal, but have you ever tried to launch a nuclear ICBM within the same screen? Suicide. In addition, Random Map mode, which just dumps you into a game with four other nations, does not allow you to choose the number of opponents or the size of the map, just the difficulty.

Graphics

You brought a horse to a tank fight?

The art style of Civilization Revolution (and the game itself) reminded me of the Nintendo DS version of Civilization Revolution, but with slightly better graphics. The game is very polished and the animations are somewhat smooth.

Sound

There is no soundtrack present in Civilization Revolution, but there is quite a diverse array of sound effects. Unfortunately, after playing the game for about an hour and a half straight, I had the urge to choke Queen Elizabeth after hearing her conversational sound effect about 300 times.

Additional Comments

One of my favourite aspects of the Civilization series was playing with my friends online and verbally berating their inability to research technology as fast as I could, and I definitely hope to see multiplayer in a future update of Civilization Revolution. Aside from that, the game has immense amounts of replayability, being able to play as one of many leaders and nations, as well as being able to win in a multitude of different possible ways.

Conclusion

Civilization Revolution is a wonderful incarnation of one of my favourite strategy games of all time, on a mobile device. There are some shortcomings present in the game which prevent it from reaching its full potential, but thankfully they can be corrected in the near future.

Score

MustTap Score: Silver Tap

Looks great and gives out some quality stuff!

Bottom Line
As a huge fan of the Civilization series, I was absolutely in love with the game. Being the first touch version I had played, it could have certainly been much better with the controls and customization, but the presentation of information and overall feeling of the game was superb.

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Trapped: Undead Infection is a zombie-survival horror game from Com2uS.

The Game

This doesn’t look good…

You wake up to the smell of rotted flesh, it’s dark, and for some reason you have a pounding headache. Welcome to your worst nightmare: you are a scientist trapped in a huge bio-research facility, and for some reason it is swarming with zombies. You look around in your cell and you find a pistol, some ammo, and a whole lot of blood. Wait, why does a prison cell have a pistol with ammo? Better yet, why does this enormous bio-research facility have prison cells?

Welcome to Trapped: Undead Infection. You are indeed a scientist trapped in this facility, it is dark as hell, you are surrounded by zombies, and you are trying to escape alive – with a headache thrown in for good measure! You start the game off with very limited munitions, something like 15 bullets, and it takes just about 7 or 8 shots to put down a zombie. This of course means you are going to resort to using your initial melee weapon most of the time – a stun gun. The stun gun brings up one of my first big problems with the game: the melee system. You need to be in pretty close with an enemy in order to use this stun gun – I’m pretty sure they were able to lick me and determine my flavour before I could stun them – and it is a pain in the ass for the first little while. Thankfully later on your melee weapons become more powerful and have a little bit of range behind them, but it takes a little while to find that iron bar.

Definitely not good!

Trapped: Undead Infection feels a lot like one of those side-scrolling action games I used to play on my Sony Ericsson S710a, and it probably was just a port from a project on a less refined mobile gaming platform. Although this may be the case, it doesn’t detract much from the game – aside from the control scheme of course. Normally I’m not averse to using an on-screen d-pad and buttons, but it really does feel sticky and clunky when you are trying your best to escape a room with four zombies and a crab-monster-thingy and your fat thumbs accidentally hit down instead of right, causing you to pretty much run face first into a bunch of hungry zombies.

Other than those two problems, the story of Trapped: Undead Infection has so far been decent, but it feels like other zombie-survival games due to it being a scientist being trapped in a bio-research facility with zombies crawling about. They recently introduced a little girl into the mix, so I’m pretty sure if Resident Evil and F.E.A.R. had some inhuman zombie love child and stuffed it into an iPhone, it would be Trapped: Undead Infection. I’m a huge zombie fan, so Trapped definitely kept me interested!

Graphics

Ooh, nevermind.

Trapped: Undead Infection is played isometrically, and your character can move up, down, left or right, but everything is pretty much 2D. The sprites have some good detail behind them and are well shaded. The darkness of the game is one of the key selling points because should you turn on the lights in a room, guaranteed every living zombie in the room is waking up and going to try to take a bite of your soft, delicious, human flesh. As mentioned earlier, Trapped is probably a port from less capable mobile gaming platforms and the graphics reflect that, but they did a great job with the ambiance created using the darkness.

Sound

The sound of Trapped: Undead Infection is what it is supposed to be: creepy as hell. There is a pretty spooky song going on during the main menu, but once you enter the game, it is pure silence. You will hear your own footsteps, the clicks of light switches, and the moans of zombies. This isn’t a very strong point of the game, but coupled with the graphics, the ambiance created is just downright creepy.

Additional Comments

You may have wondered, after the Sound section, why is it just so creepy? Well, for starters, I played the game at just about 3am without any lights on and I kept looking around me to make sure that all the moans and groans were only coming from the game. Also, the game is genuinely creepy, from having a random body get up and start walking towards you to a random little girl appearing out of nowhere and just standing there, Trapped has its creepy moments.

I may have breezed over most of the game, but there is also a pretty great PDA system where you can select weapons, view items and clues, as well as view a map. That map has saved my butt more than a few times, and that PDA system is a must-have for any zombie-survival game.

Conclusion

I am a die-hard zombie fan. I loved Trapped: Undead Infection just because of that, but it did have its shortcomings – choppy gameplay, sticky controls, and a melee system that was very frustrating at the beginning. That said, it is a quality game that I wish they would re-make to fully take advantage of the iPhone’s capabilities, and you should really check it out. At least just to find out what that little girl is all about.

Score

MustTap Score: Silver Tap

Looks great and gives out some quality stuff!

Bottom Line
Trapped is a great zombie-survival horror game but it really does feel dated and choppy in comparison to the other games in the App Store. The ambience created from the lighting and sound are great, and zombies are always a plus, but the controls leave much to be desired.

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9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2009 is a wonderful baseball simulator game made by the great folks over at Com2uS.

The Game

I bet he’s a catcher.

9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2009 is a very full-featured baseball simulator that has you managing a baseball team. You can play on multiple modes: Exhibition, Tournament, Season, and Homerun mode. Exhibition mode allows you to play 3, 5, or 9 innings as any team against any team and is a great way to get a hang of the game and practice. Tournament mode places you in a tournament bracket against other teams in a bid for first place. Season mode has you starting fresh with zeroed statistics for every player on your selected team and going through a season facing different teams in different stadiums, trying to win the championships. Last but not least, Homerun mode is essentially home run derby mode where you try to hit as many home runs possible before running out of pitches, trying to also get the highest score possible.

Aw crud.

If you can tell that I am not really going deep into every mode, there is a good reason: I only have so much room to write. 9 Innings is a terribly deep game, and I wish I could describe to you every single little aspect of it. Instead, let’s talk about the game mechanics instead. Batting is simple enough, there are three buttons – swing, bunt left, and bunt right. Personally, I’m horrible at bunting so I have stopped using it, but batting is all about the timing and pitch recognition. Once you master the timing of the swings, you will be unstoppable. Running the bases is pretty much automated, just click on the little icons of the players on the bases to have them run, and click on the icon between the bases to have them run back. Pitching is another beast, having you select a pitch, pick out where you want it to hit, and timing the control meter. At the same time, you have to manage the pitcher’s stamina and accuracy, ensuring to switch out when you need to.

Lastly, fielding is mostly automated, your fielders will usually throw it to the most appropriate person possible. Of course, this isn’t always true. Fielding is probably the most aggravating part of the game because your fielders aren’t exactly the smartest peas in the pod. I have had an opposing batter hit a blooper into right field, and instead of my right fielder throwing it to first base for an easy out, he chose to throw it to the cut off man, who then decided to throw it to second base. Very well done gentlemen, you have not only made fools of yourself, but you have made a fool of this entire organization!

Don’t choke, don’t choke, don’t choke!

Silly annoyances aside, the game has three difficulty levels for each mode: Easy, Normal, and Hard, with the amount of automation decreasing with the increase in difficulty – Hard is completely manual. In addition, there are achievements to be attained as well, ranging anywhere from “hit a solo home run” to “everyone on the team gets a hit”. The achievements have been really difficult to achieve on the higher end of the spectrum, but it is part of the reason why I have been coming back. These achievements in 9 Innings all give you points which you can put towards upgrading your coaches. Coaches offer greater depth for the game, giving you bonuses that you can upgrade as well as other types of coaches that you can unlock.

Graphics

The graphics of 9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2009 are cartoony in style but are not exactly impressive. Although the animations are smooth and the sprites are quite detailed, this was the weakest part of the game.

Sound

9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2009 has a great soundtrack that reminds me of the old sports games on the NES and SNES (Which surprisingly fits the graphics and art of the game) and the sound effects are top notch. Nothing more satisfying than the crack of a baseball bat signifying a very strong hit.

Additional Comments

I don’t feel I have played the game enough to really give any additional comments, despite having played for at least 8 hours now. I am very surprised at the depth and addictiveness of the game, and I wish I had played it much more before writing this review. While I would have normally suggested multiplayer modes or online multiplayer modes, I really could not imagine sitting there for half an hour to an hour playing 9 innings all the way through with someone, but it would be nice!

Conclusion

9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2009 has to be one of my favourite games for the iPhone thus far. There is something satisfying about being able to play a complete game of baseball in a multitude of modes, with plenty of achievements and unlockables to find. A definite must have, so go out and get it!

Score

MustTap Score: Silver Tap

Looks great and gives out some quality stuff!

Bottom Line
Baseball lovers are going to enjoy the hell out of 9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2009. It is a fully featured and robust baseball simulator that will keep you playing for hours. A definite must have game, worth every penny!

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Baseball Slugger: Home Run Race 3D is one of the most fun games I have played for the iPhone. Developed by Com2uS out of Korea, this is one of the first games MustTap is reviewing out of a big name studio!

The Game

Baseball Slugger can be boiled down to one simple concept: home run derby. The great thing is that you can play it in four different modes, keeping the game nice and fresh! In case you aren’t aware of what home run derby is, it is essentially one of my favourite parts of all-star weekend for baseball: there is a pitcher and a batter, the aim of the game is to rack up as many home runs as possible before you get 10 outs. An out will either be a strike or a foul, and a home run is when the ball goes over the fence.

Alright, all explaining out of the way, we can discuss the four different modes. First and foremost, there is training mode, which lets you test out different pitcher styles (Over, under, side), hand (Left or right), speed of pitches, and pitch type. This is to get you accustomed to all the various curveballs (Hyuk hyuk) that a pitcher can throw at you during the course of 10 outs. Personally, it has been really helpful in figuring out where knuckles, sliders, sinkers, and splits will land in the box as well as recognizing them as soon as they are thrown. All of these pitches always throw me off, and being able to practice against them has been phenomenally helpful.

Classic mode is just plain old vanilla home run derby, pitcher throws you a ball, you smash the hell out of it, and you rack up your home run count. The pitches are generally fast balls into the strike zone at various speeds, and outs are everything that isn’t a homerun: strikes, fouls, and hits. On the ninth out, you are offered a golden ball, which, when you hit a home run with, will give you an extra gold ball, which acts as currency. More on that later. This is the one mode you want to play if you want to build up your number of home runs both in one game and overall, because the pitches are pretty easy to hit and it goes by real quick.

Arcade mode is a completely different beast. Pitchers are now throwing different types of pitches at wildly different speeds, in an attempt to get you to go down swinging. There are poles all over the field to differentiate between the different sections of the stands you can hit home runs to, and hitting a home run to each of the different sections will make you “Cycle” where you begin calling out where your home runs are going to go, and you get a bonus if you actually make the home runs get to where you called them. There are also different pitch power-ups, such as the score doubler and tripler, golden ball, reduction of 1 out, and a whole other gaggle of different power-ups that can be applied to a ball should you hit a home run with it. The aim of Arcade mode is to get as many points as possible, within 10 outs. Unlike Classic mode, hits count for a small amount of points instead of an out in Arcade mode, which gives you a bit of breathing room when it comes to facing nasty pitches.

Last but not least is Matchup mode. This is essentially the online portion of the game where you can face off with other people playing Baseball Slugger online, in a scary mix of Classic and Arcade mode: there are three different rooms with pitchers throwing different types of pitches (Straight fastballs in the rookie room), but you are trying to outscore your opponent through power-ups and called home runs, and all the different ways you have to get points. Matchup mode was my favourite mode in Baseball Slugger simply because you are facing off with someone online, and you’re basically trying to maximize the points given to you from every single home run. Once someone reaches the limit of points, the game ends, and you gain or lose some rating, and you gain a bit of gold balls.

One of my gripes with Baseball Slugger is the currency: gold balls. Initially, I was going to make fun of the name of the currency itself, I mean come on, balls! But after quite a while of playing, I noticed that unless you’re getting all of the achievements, gold balls are VERY hard to come by. Matchup mode gives you 1-10 gold balls per match, and there are the golden balls in Arcade and Classic mode which give you 1 gold ball each. Items are typically 50+ gold balls, and that is for the second level item stuff, whereas the highest level bat, the “Bat of Thunder” is 2950 gold balls, which is an INSANE amount especially considering everything at that level will be approximately the same price. Seriously, it will take a whole lot of grinding just to even get this bat, which may or may not be worth it. Sure, it keeps me coming back to build up enough gold balls to get it, but damn what a grind.

Graphics

The graphics of Baseball Slugger are quite superb, the character models and stadiums are all in 3D and they have quite a realistic range of motions. All of the models are pretty detailed and they all have a unique look about them, and the customization of the character is quite an awesome feature. Overall the game looks extremely polished and it is apparent that they spent quite a bit of time ensuring everything looked great.

Sound

Baseball Slugger has a generic rock soundtrack that doesn’t really do too much for me, but it definitely gives you that excited atmosphere that you really need for a home run derby game. The sound effects for the game on the other hand, are superb. They are very crisp and clear, and for some reason the crack of the bat and the cheers of the crowd make me really happy. Really, I sit there grinning like an idiot whenever I’m on a roll with my home runs.

Additional Comments

I really wish there was some sort of chat function online, because I feel like I really need to talk trash sometimes. For example, one of the fellows whom I faced online was being outright demolished by me, and he kept asking to have a rematch. There were several instances where he was about to win and I would just come storming back and take the game. I wish I could have just said “Really? Again? Now I’m embarrassed for you.” but then I remembered, good sportsmanship is key to having fun in sports.

So I guess they should probably leave out chat… But I would like to add that the online play is extremely polished, and it is a very fast-paced game online that can end in seconds! I am mighty impressed at what they were capable of doing for online matchups, and I look forward to seeing more of these kinds of matchups in other iPhone/iPod Touch games.

Conclusion

Baseball Slugger is a terribly addictive game that will have you keep coming back to smash more balls out of the park. Baseball fans will have to buy this game, but non-baseball fans will have just as much fun playing as we do!

Score

MustTap Score: Golden Tap

The best of the best; everything about this is perfect.

Bottom Line
Sluggers is an extremely fun home run derby game with four fantastic modes, a must for any baseball fan but everyone will enjoy it, especially if you like embarrassing people online.

Screenshots