[iPhone/iPod] TouchMedieval Review (Moving Target)

[mightbe]

Product: Medieval
Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch
Price: $0.99

That's pretty much how you play. Impale people with finger fired projectiles.

There's a host of games on the App Store that have their own take on the theme of a single gunman or bowman against a legion of foes. Where Medieval tries to shine is in offering a host of upgrades, fielding your own army and allowing you to adjust your difficulty level to suit your style of play.

Slamming a volley of flaming arrows into your opponent's castle may not be horribly effective, but it is cathartic.

Medieval starts you off with a one-at-a-time arrow firing ballista at your disposal. A slow reload and a weak amount of damage makes the gameplay a bit slow at first. As you hit your opponent's castle and slay their troops, you'll be rewarded with piles of gold to unlock all manner of death dealing contraptions. From massive boulders and bombs to arrows that pierce multiple foes there's no shortage of ways to inflict pain on the attackers. Each one of these weapons has five ranks to upgrade through; every new rank deadlier than the last.

Though I found most of them to be not terribly useful, you can also buy upgrades so that you may produce ground troops that will dutifully march off to their doom on the field of battle. The most useful of the ground troops to me were the mounted knights that can charge ahead a slow down a particularly dangerous spawn of enemies.

Fire works predictably well on hydrogen filled blimps.

If you're patient or greedy enough, you can continue to slaughter foes for cash instead of focusing on crumbling your opponent's castle. In my experience with Medieval, I never felt the need to farm gold to stay competitive. If you're finding the game too challenging or having trouble aiming your shots, the game offers a variety of options and difficulty levels so you shouldn't find yourself out of your league in the higher numbered levels.

Having been through a number of updates, Medieval has added all of the App amenities that you'd expect: Open Feint support, listen to your own music, and always saving your progress no matter how you exit.

The variety of environments are more than just cosmetic. The changes in the layout of the terrain change how early you can hit oncoming troops and what weapons are most effective.

So is Medieval worth your hard earned dollar? I'd say with it's level of polish, depth of play, and plethora of options it's making a good case that it belongs on your iDevice. Though it's not the most ambitious game on the App store, it's perfect for the little downtimes in your life by filling it with fun sized castle sieges.

Moving Target is a weekly mobile gaming feature by Curt "Mot Wakorb" Lecaptain and Rob "mightbe" Schuster. Check CoG every Saturday for updates. Hit us up if there's something you'd like us to cover.