What’s the rule for iPhone game clones? Are they cool? Sure they’re cool. It’s more of what we love… so of course they’re cool. The rule is that if you’re going to clone a game style like Angry Birds or that Siege game, you must make the graphics better or at least as good as they were in the former version.
Sad to say Castle Clout did copy the game mechanics, but they didn’t quite give the game the right appeal.
Upon starting the game I immediately thought of the first Lord of the Realms game. The music is a lot like it. That’s nice. The graphics are well done, and the siege mechanism is good too. But what’s missing?
Everything is very small. The people are small, the blood is minute!! Even the structures make out really small on the iPhone. The graphics are very realistic, but given their size one can hardly appreciate them. Got to be able to see ‘em right? A zoom feature would allow us to at least see if we have destroyed everything.
Now the music and sound effects are well done. That’s a nice effect. There are 150 levels presented to us in one gigantic cluster… that’s a little stranger. No story or backgrounds either, so where exactly are we? “Hey! We’re in the castle age!” Oh right.
For shooting with the catapult there are two different ways to do it. One way is extremely awkward and frustrating, the other is pleasant. Well, that’s my opinion, right?
What gets this game an 8/10 is really the thinking behind the geniuses who made the game:
- Make a custom map
- Share it
- Let others play it!
If 150 pre-made maps aren’t enough, you can choose from well over 100 custom made maps.
Ah, very good.
