Friday, March 8, 2013

Rest Time Reviews - Hero Academy

Alright, let's give this review thing a go.



As a reminder, Rest Time Reviews isn't meant to simply rate games. Rather, it's meant to help those with limited free time decide if a game will make good use of your time.

The first game I'll be reviewing is Hero Academy. Hero Academy is available on iOS, Android, and Steam and features cross-platform play. This strategy game has received glowing reviews, but does it maximize your time? First, an overview of the game.

The idea of Hero Academy is simple. Two players square off on a 5x9 grid, and the first player to destroy his opponent's crystals, or completely eliminate the opponent's heroes, wins. In addition to your opponent's tricks, each game board is randomly generated with 1-3 crystals and several "power up" tiles. Games are played asynchronously, meaning you take your turn and then wait for an alert that the other player has taken his.



Hero Academy is free to play (except Steam, which costs $5 and gives you an extra team), but you do have the options of purchasing one of four extra teams and vanity items for your avatar. Council is the team you start with, and from what I've seen it may very well be the most well-balanced team. All teams have similar roles (healer, ranged, melee, and a "super unit"), but each team has its own theme that dictates how they perform on the battlefield.

For example, the Council likes to buff up the archer and hide her behind a warrior, whereas The Tribe deals huge amounts of damage and then explodes the corpse they just created. It's this sort of variety that keeps games interesting, and it's usually the final turns of a game that decide the match.

What's great about this game is that you decide your time investment. Do you want three games that will give you something to do during downtime at work? Or do you want 20 games that'll keep your iPad alerting you every minute?

Unfortunately, this can be a tough game to play for an hour a day. Until you find an opponent with your schedule you'll be playing this game in between other tasks. While not a bad thing, it makes it more of a game you play while microwaving a snack rather than something you take time out to play.

I thought about giving a number rating, but without some sort of objective rating system it would be completely arbitrary. Instead, I simply suggest that you download it for free and try it out. If you need an opponent, I hear FaceStabbity is always looking for an opponent!



No comments:

Post a Comment

Best Seller

Blog Archive