03 April,2022 08:40 AM IST | Mumbai | Jaison Lewis
Oddmar
Oddmar is the cutest Super Mario clone. The arcade game mimics the game mechanics of Mario, but has an art style that is entirely its own. There is a lot of humour and the story is engaging. Thanks to his laziness, Oddmar is not worthy of Valhalla and is therefore shunned by his fellow Vikings. He has to prove himself by going on a journey. This journey is 24 levels of beautiful forests, snow-capped mountains and underground mines. I love the animation style and the story of the game. The control system is very basic, akin to Mario and this works well if you are playing the game on an Apple TV without a controller.
Castlevania is a great franchise. There are multiple games on several consoles, a Netflix series and graphic novels. Grimoire of Souls focuses heavily on the re-emergence of Count Dracula after previous adventurers had locked him and his castle away in a solar eclipse. I found the story quite entertaining which is told with a bit of animation and classic text panels. The game itself is a great platform, you can play as different characters, the more you progress the more you can unlock. Characters are upgradable and you can share some of your equipment between characters, which are also upgradeable. There is a bit of a freemium push in the game with gems and other stuff but it is mostly playable without actually buying stuff.
Bridge construction is a physics-based game that will have you building all sorts of bridges. The objectives of the bridge are to load management and building the best bridge possible on the lowest budget. The budget saved turns into points for a higher score. While this may seem simple initially, the game increases the difficulty rather quickly. If you find building a bridge too stressful, you can always turn off the budget and materials constraints to build the best bridge you can muster. Within the game, you can build bridges for trains, heavy trucks and more. It is a game that will keep you engaged for a long time simply because you can go back to any level and improve the structure of your bridge and your score.
Alto belongs to the endless runner genre, but instead of running you have to ski. The previous game was skiing on snow, whereas The Lost City has him on the sand. Not much of a difference in theme but the game is a lot of fun. The game is loaded with challenges and beautiful landscapes. There is always something to discover and do in the game. You can also unlock new characters and each of them has its special ability. The beauty of the game is its one-touch control system that lets you do a variety of things with just one button. This makes it ideal to play even on the Apple TV. If completing goals and collecting coins is not your thing you can always play the game in Zen mode.
Skate City is a lazy game that has your character skating through a cityscape. You don't need to know anything about skating to play. You can perform a trick, hop over obstacles and upgrade your equipment. There are various cities to explore and love, these include Los Angeles, Oslo and Barcelona. The game lets you play either in challenge mode or take it easy with the Endless mode. To add to the vibe the game has some nice easy listening music that will have you grooving. You can even capture your in-game stunts and share them on social media.
Hidden Folks is a giant game of Where is Waldo where you have to search for specific objects and people on a giant interactive picture. The game is made entirely of doodles; this makes the search even more challenging because it's all black and white. Fortunately, each thing that you have to find comes with clues that you can use to find the approximate location. You have to look closely because things can be hidden behind grass, plants and trees which need to be either clicked on or removed before you can make your discovery. The game features 32 locations with more than 300 targets to find. It is a lot of fun.
If you love basketball you will love this game. It is a stripped-down version of NBA 2K22 but it looks and plays great on the Mac, iPad and Apple TV. You can choose to just jump in with Quick Match, compete with a real person in online multiplayer, or play 3on3 street basketball. If you want something more customised you can try playing the career mode where you can build a player from scratch and train them to be a superstar. NBA 2K22 even lets you take over as the General Manager and Head Coach of an NBA franchise to take them to the championship. The only downside to this game is you need a controller to play.
Gibbon Beyond the Trees is a game that has players talking or at least thinking about our impact on the environment. The game is the story of a Gibbon family trying to survive human encroachment. The best part about the game is the smooth way in which the gibbons travel through the trees. The controls of this game are a little tough to learn and the tutorials are a little tougher than the actual game. However, once mastered the controls are very satisfying, especially when your gibbon leaps across huge chasms. Supposedly, the movements in the game are based on brachiation, which is the way real gibbons move around.
