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First Impressions: Book of Heroes
Within the ever-changing landscape of MMOs, the mobile MMO is a peculiar beast. Not too often will you find any perfect storm of MMO features in one mobile title, but as players, we're instead forced to make do with a game that includes our favorite parts and pieces. Book of Heroes is a mobile MMO that first launched for Apple devices in November of 2011 and on Android in March of 2012. The game's developer, Venan Entertainment, has most recently produced Chapter 3: Dragonmoor, which puts the game even closer to what one might want from a "true" MMO. It's not even close to being there quite yet, but if you like raiding and battling up the leaderboards with your friends, you might just enjoy this game.
NinjaTown: Trees of Doom half price for a 'limited time'
Between scaling deadly pines and being adorable, NinjaTown franchise star Wee Ninja somehow found the time to pow-wow with Business Ninja and work out a price drop for NinjaTown: Trees of Doom. The Doodle Jump-like series spinoff game landed on iPhone earlier this month for $1.99, but apparently developer Venan Entertainment decided that it's "not yet satisfied" with sales, despite remaining atop the Top 25 paid app charts for some time now. No official end date is given for the sale, though the game's iTunes App Store listing says it will stay on sale "while featured by Apple." Better get it while the getting's good then, eh? NinjaTown: Trees of Doom (Venan Entertainment, $0.99):
Return to Ninjatown in tree-hopping iPhone adventure
click to enter the gallery of doomShawn Smith's Ninjatown characters first appeared in video game form in a 2008 tower defense game for DS called, appropriately, Ninjatown. It was adorable. Developer Venan Entertainment is bringing Ninjatown back on a new platform, and as a platformer, sort of! Ninjatown: Trees of Doom puts the player in the role of a Wee Ninja who, in order to impress Ol' Master Ninja, demonstrates his ability to run straight up a tree. To avoid enemies and obstacles like Dark Syrup, Wee Ninja must leap between two parallel trees or use branches to catapult himself upward. Trees of Doom will be Ninja Dropping onto the App Store "in a couple weeks" for $1.99. %Gallery-91004%
Metareview -- Ninjatown (DS)
We have a tendency to miss metareviewing portable games, especially when they're caught up in the mad flood of holiday releases. But Ninjatown has been getting such good scores we figured it deserved its moment in the sun, especially since you'll be able to pick it up for $15 on Friday. ... And yes, OK, it's kind of a slow news day. So sue us. GameShark (91/100): "Ninjatown has 'sleeper hit' written all over it. It certainly looks innocent enough on the outside – it's cute and goofy, and oozes sugary sweetness, as it's actually based on a stuffed toy line (the Shawnimals, created by ex game journo Shawn Smith). But underneath that fluffy exterior is a seriously addictive tower defense game that is as hardcore as it is adorable." Game Informer (90/100): "Don't let the cutie-pie exterior fool you - Ninjatown is a gamer's game through and through. The units in this tower-defense title are versatile and useful, enemies are diverse and deadly, and there are enough power-ups and options to keep things fresh. Best of all, levels don't seem to have a preset way to beat them, unlike many tower-defense games on the market." 1UP (B+): "Ninjatown's layered in a coating of sickly sweetness that no amount of scrubbing will ever get out of your DS slot, but this obviously wasn't a game rushed out just to peddle Shawnimals merchandise. If you can get past the saccharine coating of the Ninjatown world, you'll find a surprisingly good tower defense?style filling hidden inside the hard candy shell." GameDaily (80/100): "Once you're done admiring the charming and colorful artwork that encompasses the Ninjatown box, you'll soon realize there's a deep, addictive and challenging game for your DS inside. Ninjatown takes the fast-thinking, reactionary gameplay of tower defense and combines it with simple real-time strategy elements, creating one of the more compelling and unique games in recent memory."
DS Fanboy Review: Ninjatown
When I received my pretty-much-complete build of Ninjatown, I was floored at just how much fun this ridiculously cute game is. But, beneath its layer of cute sprites and witty dialogue hides a masochistic game that loves to punish you for making an incorrect move. Of course, it is a strategy game, after all. %Gallery-15839%
Joystiq hands-on: Ninjatown
Designed by artist and former EGM editor Shawn Smith, Ninjatown is so sugary-cute that it should come packaged with flavored DS screen protectors. Its looks are just as sly as ninjas themselves, as we found a (so far) surprisingly deep action-strategy game underneath all the serious eye-fluff. We got some stylus time with a nice and solid pre-release version of the game yesterday. At first, we caught ourselves giggling a bit as the game's mechanics were explained. After all, it's not every day that you see a special attack where you literally blow away ah-dorable fire demons using the DS microphone. Keep reading for more silliness and our full impressions. %Gallery-25123%
