Ready Up

1000 Heroz – The Game That Keeps On Giving

Just like my fellow Ready-Upper Sarah-Lou, lately I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to gaming on my iPhone rather than the ‘proper’ gaming my Xbox 360 offers. Largely I think this is down to my current desire to play shorter games, with my last few completed games all being XBLA masterpieces (Monkey Island 2, Braid and the frankly incredible Limbo) and bargain iPhone goodies (Ultimate Spider-Man: Total Mayhem as well as the not-particularly-short Broken Sword Director’s Cut and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney).

Now let’s back up a second there. Please don’t think I’m saying that iPhone games are not ‘proper’ games — of course they are! Size isn’t everything, so they say. However, the experiences offered are frequently of the more compact nature that downloadable games often are, or at least playable in bite size chunks, meaning that it feels like I can get through more of them than if I were to start working through Final Fantasy XIII, for instance.

Fear of gaming commitment: it's not you, it's me!

Anyway, the point I’m making is that there’s something about embarking on an epic or long game that, for me, is a bit daunting at the moment. My spare time seems to be at such a premium that it generally takes me about a month to get through an Xbox 360 game, squeezing in an hour here, maybe an afternoon there, playing at the pace I want to play the game at, to soak everything in that interests me and to allow me to understand as much about the game as possible, from both my gamer and designer points of view.

I like completing games – I’m pretty sure most gamers do: that feeling of beating everything a particular game could throw at you. And because I generally have a fairly monogamous relationship with my games (probably more to do with my mental faculties than anything else), and because ‘the pile’ doesn’t ever seem to shrink (never mind the iPhone-equivalent ‘stack’ I now have), I don’t seem to see the end of as many games as I’d like.

Which, in my typically waffling Gilo fashion, brings me to the iPhone game I picked up yesterday, 1000 Heroz, developed by Red Lynx of Trials HD fame. A game I will not see the end of for a guaranteed three years. Three years! And you know what? I think that’s incredible.

From the makers of this…

For those of you who don’t keep as up to date with iPhone games as I now do, 1000 Heroz is, in a rather crude summary, Trials HD without the insane stunts and with you controlling a little person instead of a bloke on a motorbike. The aim of the game is elegant in its simplicity — racing against the clock to cross the finish line as quickly as you can in a battle to beat your friends’ times (and your personal best time, represented as a ghostly fairy thing… which is a technical term, I believe). It’s a mixture of platforming and racing that is superb, perfect for a quick blast at any time, since the courses I’ve played so far can be completed in less than 30 seconds per attempt.

…comes this little gem!

But where the game is truly unique is in its most original concept. Every 24 hours, one new ‘hero’ and their specific level is unlocked, making me think of what a playable advent calendar might be like, if it lasted a bit beyond December, at any rate. Each of these forthcoming characters is said to play slightly differently based on their size and weight, and, as the game’s title suggests, there will be a total of 1000 by the time the game’s line-up is fully unlocked. On top of that, each day there is a leaderboard for the specific unlocked course, along with a lifetime leaderboard and the opportunity to create custom leagues based on your Game Center friends list.

If Red Lynx are able to keep their promise, namely giving us one new character and level each and every day until there are 1000, the soonest any of us will see the end of 1000 Heroz is (counting the 2012 leap year and assuming a character is still unlocked regardless of any public holidays and suchlike)… Monday 3rd March 2014! Crikey! Hopefully I’ll still have a compatible iDevice by then!

Imagine what the gaming landscape could be like by March 2014. We’ll probably have the Xbox 360’s successor, the PlayStation 4, and of course the recently announced Wii U, not to mention we’ll only be one year away from flying cars, hoverboards and, of course, Elijah Wood turning his nose up at retro gaming because he’s so used to controller-free gaming:

[youtube height=”300″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_eRjB3hEa8[/youtube]

Clearly a Kinect fanboy that Hobbit – but hey, who can blame him. But I digress: 1000 Heroz is great and, at a mere 59p, Red Lynx’s ambition and generosity is to be applauded. Cheaper than a can of Coke and an expiry date that can’t be beat. On top of that, the game is great, its gameplay and bite size playable goodness a tasty daily snack that’ll keep you going for a fair while.

And who knows, maybe we’ll see a Ready Up custom league popping up in the near future…? Only time, and the Ready Up forum, will tell. Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go mark my territory on the Day 3 leaderboard… so to speak.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HLO1wCOFT8[/youtube]

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3 responses to “1000 Heroz – The Game That Keeps On Giving”

  1. Morrellium avatar
    Morrellium

    Nice article Gilo! I for one have never really ‘got’ gaming on mobile phones. I can see how they would be great for commuting or if you out the house waiting for something, but I wouldn’t sit at home and play games on my mobile. I don’t see the point when I’ve got a big fat TV and a PS3. Just out of curiosity do where/when do you play mobile games?

  2. asamink avatar
    asamink

    Top blog.

    I am addicted to my iPhone games, my free time is at a premium, I never have more than a few minutes free at a time so I don’t have time to sit and play on my console. I got LA Noire on launch day, but I haven’t even taken it out of the wrapper. Hence mobile gaming fills in that void. Yes the games aren’t epic in the same way as MW or GTA, but they are addictive. Broken Sword: coke, Angry Birds: heroin, Coin Dozer: crack. Choose your poison.

    And there is the cost. Those three games cost in total 59p, dirt cheap compared to a console. 59p for three games that I have spent hours playing, bargain. Then there are all the classics: Peggle, Plants vs Zombies, Bejewelled all for the fraction of the handheld or console versions.

    Where do I play my mobile games? Sitting on the sofa when I have a spare few minutes, standing in the kitchen waiting for the pasta to cook, sitting on the loo (you did ask), sitting outside a shop waiting for my wife to finish shopping, laying bed, etc.

  3. Giles avatar
    Giles

    Cheers Morrellium and asamink!

    Morrellium —
    Mobile gaming *had* always been, for me, a bit like having a phone with a decent-enough camera; carrying a phone around is a lot more convenient than also carrying a camera around or, in the case of gaming, a portable console. Having said that, I was a PSP owner, and that only really saw the light of day when I was without a ‘proper’ console and/or when travelling.

    But since I was lucky enough to get my hands on an iPhone, I’ve had access to games that are often on par with Nintendo DS games, with a few that are enhanced ports of DS games! Yes – I really wish there were some buttons for the more action-packed titles, but the games that are especially suited to touchscreens are often as compelling as games I’d play on my Xbox 360.

    The other great thing about iDevice gaming at the moment is the sheer breadth of titles. Admittedly there are a gazillion games on the App Store that are, frankly, tripe, but there are also ports of arcade games I’d play as a kid (Dragon’s Lair and Road Blaster), ports of cult CD-i ‘classics’ (The 7th Guest), forthcoming retro hits like Chrono Trigger and superb new games either built from the ground up for the Apple hardware, or great versions of old favourites that travel with me more or less everywhere I go. On my phone at the moment is something like 40-odd games (not counting the plethora of free games); something to suit any mood, all available at the swipe of virtual button, and often sporting the sort of connectivity (leaderboards and the like) that you’d expect from a main console.

    As to where and when I play, it depends largely on the game. I played Broken Sword mostly instead of reading a book before bed, Phoenix Wright I would try to squeeze in at any opportunity (absolutely loved it!), often playing that instead of my Xbox. 1000 Heroz I usually play during my lunch break, and in the evening when a spare few minutes crop up…which swiftly turned into a couple of hours last night, such is its addictive ‘one more go’ nature. Since my 360 is hooked up to the main TV, sometimes my girlfriend will want to watch something, so I’ll usually (quite happily) just carry on with a game on my phone.

    Apologies for the epic reply! ^_^

    —

    asamink —

    59p games FTW! ^_^ Another massive plus for us thrifty gamers, but let’s not get into the wider implications for the games industry (according to Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime, at any rate). Those 40-odd games I mentioned before probably cost me around £25 or so (probably less), which is a cracking bargain, especially considering how many hours of fun they have and will provide. The only thing that annoys me if when you buy a game only for it to go down to 59p a few days later…although since the difference is often 50p – £1, it isn’t really that big a deal is it.

    As to your list of where you play…yep, yep, yep (but don’t tell anyone), yep (ideal for when they’re in the changing room too) and yep.

    If you’re an iPhone gamer, be sure to check out (*cough!* shameless plug alert! *cough!*) Quiz Climber when it comes out in the very-very near future. It’s been finely tuned to slot into that ‘one more go’ mentality, and beating your friends (or workmates for me, until the game comes out) is always great for bragging! ^_^

    Cheers!

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