Play Log: Mobile Gaming Strikes Back

Getting a new phone has motivated me to give mobile gaming another look.  Having finished Justice For All, it's about time I moved into the trilogy finale.  I really goddamn miss Company of Heroes 2.  Like, a lot.

World of Tanks Blitz
The extensive amount of time I've put into the Company of Heroes games has gradually turned me into a light tank enthusiast.  I even ended up writing a term paper on British WW2 tanks a few months ago, and it was fun as fuck.  Anyway, I've been eyeing World of Tanks for a really long time, but never had the gall or spare moments to jump into it.

Well, I don't have a computer capable of playing World of Tanks, but I do have a lot of free time now.  So I opted to give World of Tanks Blitz a shot, which runs quite nicely on my Surface.  At first I tried it on my phone, and it's a functional experience there but kinda hard to steer.  Playing with a keyboard and mouse is way better.  I don't know how closely it resembles the main game, but I'm having a good enough time with it.  I played pretty intensively over the past two weeks or so, making a beeline straight for the Cromwell.  Now that I've got my nimble British cruiser, I'm content to just pop in once or twice a day and play some matches for the multiplier bonus.

And admittedly, I'm afraid my skills won't get me much farther, anyway.  Tier 6 is already pretty serious business, I can't imagine what 7-10 are like.  Nah, I'm happy messing around in tiers 1-6.

Michiko and Hatchin

The next anime I decided to watch after Chaika.  I'm on episode 18 or so as of this writing, and it's a damn good show.  Definitely one of those anime that even non-anime lovers can get into, and I think it deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with shows like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.  The dub is also really good.  I might go so far as to say Michiko herself is dubbed better in English than in Japanese.  In Japanese she's kind of a cool, tough character in the vein of Major Kusanagi.  The English dub paints her as reckless, and quick to fly off the handle.  I think the latter suits her behavior a little better.

Hitman Go
I got this (and Lara Croft Go) on the cheap a couple months ago, just got around to trying it out.  I love the aesthetic and general concept, but it's way more of a puzzle game than I was expecting... I played the first several levels and wasn't really hooked at all.

Shadowverse
People weren't kidding, this really is Hearthstone: Anime Edition.  And fuck it, I'm totally okay with that, especially because it seems every bit as mechanically competent as Hearthstone.  I've only dabbled in Shadowverse so far, but the thing I'm already enjoying about it over Hearthstone is that it has a lot of singleplayer content.  There's a central storyline, with voice acting and cutscenes, it's neat.  And the developer seems to give out card packs like nobody's business.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse
Fun little game!  The gameplay's not that amazing, but the presentation is stellar.  The writing's fun, the animation is expressive, and the art's quite nice.  It's a game with a lot of character, even if its actual gameplay isn't anything to write home about, at least so far.  And hot damn, why does every female character in this game have to be smokin' hot?  The protagonists, the antagonists, the NPCs, the enemies, if it's female you can bet they'll be ridiculously curvy and voluptuous.

Kingdom Rush
I've played Kingdom Rush before.  Tower Defense is historically one of my favorite game genres, and so I was quick to give it a shot when people started talking about it.  I wasn't impressed.  I'm still not impressed.  I'd like to keep with it a little longer this time because it is a serviceable game and I want to see if it has anything more to offer than I'm seeing.

Rayman
I got this for free from Ubi's 30 Days promotion.  I've never played a Rayman game older than Origins.  I don't know if I'm into it.