Since buying the Pre in June of last year, I’ve been waiting eagerly for two games: a decent Scorched Earth clone, and a decent Tower Defense type of game. The App Catalog is full of great 3D gaming titles to be sure, but one of my favorite ways to kill a few minutes of time in game land is with these kinds of titles, as they tend to be less attention and time intensive.
For one of those games, my wait is finally over. DZ.Tanks ($0.99 in the App Catalog) is a fairly rudimentary Scorched Earth clone that offers the basics: 4 weapons to choose from, destructible landscape, full touchscreen support and a global leader board. There’s no 3D here, but the game works well (done in Canvas, I assume) both in terms of performance and playability in its current form.
I’ve found that the game is well worth the 99 cent admission fee, though I can’t say that I agree with the developers plans to charge for additional content for what is a very basic game. It isn’t going to be too long before PDK based apps hit the Catalog and Flash based games are accessible through the browser, changing the playing field significantly. While I can appreciate the economics of the downloadable content pack model, you have got to start with a solid base (read: more than 3 purchasable weapons in a Scorched Earth clone) if you expect any traction with that model.