Germs that can wipe out the planet are cool.
Surely the millions who made “The Stand” Stephen King’s best-selling book can’t all be wrong. He even came out with a second, far more verbose, version 10 years later (full of typos and errors thanks to now-obsolete references). No idea what it says about society when we’re enthralled by nearly all of the planet being wiped out, but it certainly offers lots of entertainment possibilities for the gaming addict.
Inkub for iPhone and its ilk (developed by Cosmonaut Games and just reduced to 99 cents) involves fighting off viruses that can wipe out the planet by infecting eggs in our incubators. Um, no need to ask players for a suspension of belief. It’s hardly a grand scenario and maybe that’s fitting, since this is hardly an advanced species if we lump it loosely into the tower defense genre.
The game’s flaws in a nutshell: slow and simple.
The action takes place in clear tubes resembling the ones used to make gerbil cage mazes (much more fun than trying to remember to feed the usually starving creature within) rather than a laboratory. Cartoonish viruses of various types eventually appear and make their way toward the egg you’re defending at the bottom center of the screen. To fight back you get turrets and other weapons/obstacles to place in the tubes, with the ability to power them up using energy credits produced by two generators at the sides of the screen. This last part might sound a little confusing, but the upshot is they kick out a bit of energy at regular intervals, which are speeded up if you spent some of your credits enhancing their ability.
A perhaps-overlooked word in the previous paragraph – “eventually” – is used to describe the viruses’ emergence because it takes a while for them to begin attacking, presumably so you have time to establish your basic defenses. This is useful while getting tutored during the first couple of levels, but it takes way too long after that for things to speed up to a sufficiently challenging state. More wrinkles – different creatures, a rotating playfield and other things – are eventually thrown in, but again the progression can best be described as leisurely.
There’s 40 levels, a decent amount of depth for the money, and it won’t intimidate lesser experienced players unfamiliar with the strategies of more advanced tower defense games. But there’s far more play and entertainment value in classics like Plants Vs. Zombies and numerous other titles, and anyone addicted to them isn’t going to find this much of an addition to their collection.
Mark Sabbatini
Inkub by Cosmonaut Games
99 cents
Category: Puzzle
Languages: English, French, Spanish
Rated 9+ for the following: Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Requires: iOS 3.1.3 or later
16.2 MB
