Pools of Blood

DLC Review from Jae - Thursday, 03 September 2009 @ 10:32am

I'm a huge supporter of Perth acts that have made it big. Bands like John Butler Trio, Eskimo Joe, Sleepy Jackson, Little Birdy, Jebidiah and my favourite Pendulum are all very good at what they do. I would constantly play the Motorstorm demo on my US launch PS3 as I could hear Pendulum's Slam over and over again.

In recent years an alternative rock band named Karnivool has risen to be quite popular too. Featuring their hit single, Set Fire to the Hive, local developer Staring Man has licensed the song for their tower defense game. It's quite a fitting song as you spend your time squishing orcs with your fingers before they get to the tower.

There are varying levels of difficulty and a hell of a lot of blood. Some nice added value is the objective to 'Paint the town red' where you aim to squish orcs all across the screen to get it covered in blood. If you're connected to the internet whilst playing there are even more features such as links to Karnivool related sites and the ability to see your score compared to the highest score in real time.

One small gripe I have is that during the hazard of touch mashing you can accidently move the camera, no biggie as you'll react quickly and adjust to the new angle.

I don't care what anyone says I still don't consider the iPhone or iPod touch a portable gaming device. It is a media player, GPS device, web browser and phone before it even comes close to being a gaming device. The thing that will change my mind is to see some serious gaming on the system.

It is getting there, with the App store in iTunes being around for over a year now. Pools of Blood isn't the serious gaming I was looking for but it breathes some fresh air into the genre and gives you a break from the thousands of sudoku, solitaire or poker games currently for the iPhone.

This gets my vote as the price is right and by buying it you're supporting local game development. Something we're avid of here at AG. For $1.19 you can't go wrong with this game, even the price of the song on iTunes costs you 50c more. If you're really cheap you can download Pools of Blood Lite for a demo version of the game but if you like that make the small sacrifice and get a little piece of this country on your phone.

You can find out more about the game by visiting the website www.poolsofblood.net

Pros

It's dirt cheap and mindless fun which is what it was made for
Is made by a local developer from Perth - Brett&Jae land!
Great novelty for Karnivool fans

Cons

Accidental finger taps can change the camera angle instead of killing orcs