Killing Monsters

Well, now that I've given a boring description of a bad game, it's time to write an exciting review about a good game.

Ever felt like your life is too boring? Wouldn't it be great if you were to walk out into the street and suddenly be surrounded by hordes and waves of monsters? And you were armed only with a single shot musket? Well it ain't gonna happen. Not in real life anyway.

But for the absolute bargain price of $0.99US(at the time of this writing) you can pick up the iPhone/iPod touch game iDracula and live your dream.

Built around blood-boiling metal-type music and Diablo II-style graphics, iDracula is described as a "survival shooter." You play as a Van Helsing type dude who must fight off endless waves of werewolves, vampires, and other mythical creatures. Two "virtual directional pads (D-pads)" are shown on screen; the lower left one is for moving your character around and the lower right one is for aiming the gun and firing.

The two game modes as of this writing are Survival and Rush. First, survival. At the beginning the enemies come in small groups and kind of move slowly so you can easily pick them off. As you kill more, they slowly get stronger, faster, and more numerous. To help you out, the game has the enemies randomly drop items, including health recovery potions, stronger weapons including a crossbow, flamethrower, shotgun, and a BFG, as well as ammo and "omens". Omens are the only items that stay with you between play sessions, and determine your rank as an iDracula player. You gain points by killing monsters, and after gaining certain amounts of points you earn a "perk" which allows you to choose from a variety of permanent (e.g. increase max health) or temporary (e.g. increased damage) upgrades.

Once you get to a certain point the game gets really frantic with enemies coming at you from all over the place. This where the game shines. Even with so much activity, the beautiful graphics engine doesn't hiccup, doesn't skip a beat. And there is a certain great sense of satisfaction in taking out hordes of ugly monsters in your spare time.

Oh yeah, real quick note on Rush mode. In this mode, you are equipped with a really powerful weapon from the get-go (the chaingun when I played) and they just throw tons and tons of werewolves at you right off the bat. Quick and intense.

I'll try to post some screenshots later, but in the meantime get this game before it goes up to $2.99 at some unspecified point in the future.

iDracula: iTunes Store, AppShopper

EDIT: here's a sneak preview video of the upcoming Free update to owners of iDracula

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]