So yup. I continue to play games almost exclusively on my iPhone now, heh. There was a short period I was playing a steam game called "Zavix Tower," and I might go back to that, but otherwise, it's been the iPhone. I graduated from jrpg's after getting stuck in "Romancing Saga II." played thru "The Quest" and one of its expansions,that was a pretty cool old school CRPG-style game.

Inevitably, I came across some War Hammer games: "War Hammer Quest" and "War Hammer 40,000: Deathwatch - Tyranid Invasion." Separately, War Hammer Quest was $1.99 and Tyranid Invasion was $2.99, but they also came in a bundle for $3.99, so why the hell wouldn't you do that? Quest had some mixed reviews, but Tyranid Invasion was pretty solid on that front.

Played Quest first. Starting off, it was a really fun game, nothing was really annoying me. It kinda played like a D&D tabletop game, where ya go to town and send your characters off to do individual things, and random events can occur. Random events could also occur on the world map or in a dungeon. In the dungeons, everything is entirely turn-based, your characters can only move so far a turn. Whenever you end your turn, you might have some random event--sometimes good, but usually bad--or you might have some enemies spawn right on top of you. Even when you come across predetermined enemies on a map, once you end a turn while fighting them, there's a chance a group of random enemies will spawn on top of you, too. Your characters take a lot of damage, too. Regardless of class, though the wizard and elven ranger classes get beat up more quickly than the berserker and dwarven soldier classes (not their actual names, but I don't remember what their actual names are). In easy mode, when your characters go down, after an enemy turn, they'll get right back up with 1 hp, so long as not all of your characters go down (I assume, as per I've never had them all go down at once). From like the first dungeon, though, your characters will start going down, and it's really desirable to get them leveled up, or get them better equipment...

It can take a bit of saving to get better equipment, but even worse, in order to level your characters up, you have to pay out the ass for their "training," once they've gained enough EXP. The first game I've ever played with such a mechanic. And again, it's ridiculously expensive. The only way to level them all fast, right when they have enough experience, is to pay real world money. And guess what? Want more characters? Spend real world money. Want more than 9 quests that are at least somewhat fleshed out, story-wise? Real world money. Want to fight something other than spiders/rats/bats/goblins/orcs/trolls? Real world money. There is no "main story;" only a handful of random, mainline quests, that don't go together and aren't very satisfying. Once you've been those quests, you can reset them and play them again, I suppose. However, once you've beaten like 5 of them, in the more generic quests, you start constantly running into the strongest monsters possible, up until that point. Namely: orc big bosses, who can hit 3 times a turn and will mess you up; orc war bosses, who can hit 4 times and mess you up even more; orc bosses, who replace the generic "orc boyz;" and river trolls, who only hit once, but can hit hard. There's nowhere on the map that you can go specifically to fight some weaker monsters to farm for a while. I can't imagine playing this on normal, heh...

It's got great atmosphere, great music, cool player units, and some alright game mechanics (though you can miss a million times, and no way to up your accuracy specifically) but the game is obviously designed to make you want to make some in game purchases, and that's annoying.

Tyranid Invasion plays a bit like War Hammer Quest, except in a sci-fi setting, with space marines and alien monsters. There are three types of units: the "tactical trooper," a normal soldier with a gun; the "assault trooper," a soldier with a smaller gun and a melee weapon; and the "devastator," a soldier with a massive gun, that takes two or three action points to fire (and nearly all units in the game, enemy or not, get 4 action points a turn. Nearly all). In addition to those three unit types, there are four tiers of units, with stats and slots for extra stuff going up with each: normal, veteran, champion, and ancient. You might get a higher-tiered unit when you get a new pack of cards, which you get by either: completing an act; using your in-game points; or spending real world money. What you get in a pack is random, so I only ever ended up with one ancient, two champions, and several veterans. The good thing is that you don't really need those higher-tiered units to get through the game, however, as the normal units do just fine.

There are nine acts in this game, with four stages each. The first three acts and most of the fourth act are all fairly manageable, though there is a stage here and there that can get hairy. That final stage of the fourth act, though, you get to meet your first carnifex. Every stage leading up to that point will make you think, "Oh, so it's a big monster? I bet I can do this." And then the carnifex kills each of your units with one or two hits, and you're like, "oh SHIT." So you go back to the earlier stages to grind a bit. Fortunately, you're never in danger of losing your soldiers in this game; just any accumulated experience they had when they died. Personally, I tried--and failed--again to beat the carnifex, and then looked online, where someone suggested three devastators and two assault troopers. I tried this and failed, and ended up going with four devastators and one tactical trooper, and got out of it with one devastator alive at the end (the tactical trooper was also alive when the carnifex died, but you have to get to the "extraction point," too). After that stage, there was only one stage I had to do over again before the final stage, and I think that was more due to me messing up than not being prepared, as I only had to try it once. The final stage, on the other hand, is another really tough one. It also features a carnifex. Pretty much, if you see a carnifex, you're gonna have a bad day. There are two more boss-level monsters they introduce after the carnifex, but they are nowhere near as bad. Again, there are some hairy levels in between, but they're pretty much all doable the first time.

I played this game for a few weeks before getting to the end, and after the end, you get to play all the stages over again, at a harder difficulty! Regardless though, the first time through is fun enough on its own. This game is pretty awesome. Some of you likely already know this, as per it's been out on the PC for a few years already. The thing I'd stress the most is that, in comparison to Quest, you do not feel a need AT ALL to make in game purchases. You could go through the entire game without making any in game purchases at all. And the game, by itself, was $2.99 when I bought it (or $1.99, since I bought it as a two game package). It is more than worth that price, to say the least, although you can also pay $14.99 to play it on steam. It's easily worth that much, too.

So yeah; those were my first experiences with War Hammer games. My brother used to collect and hand paint the figurines when I was little, so I've always been fascinated with this universe. It got overshadowed a bit when I was introduced to Warcraft II, but yeah; definitely an interesting universe (or two).