Pocket God: Tribal torment for iPhone
While we may never go as far as Dr Frankenstein, the lure of controlling life is a strong one for many people. Here to help you with your deific fantasies are Pocket God and Galcon for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
While we may never go as far as Dr Frankenstein, the lure of controlling life is a strong one for many people. Here to help you with your deific fantasies are Pocket God and Galcon for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Admit it — we've all wanted to have our sadistic whims satisfied by tormenting a tribe of tiny people at some point or another, and Pocket God allows you to do just that. This god-sim places you in the position of a malicious god who (apparently) takes pleasure in the suffering of his creations, allowing you to visit lightning strikes, cyclones, piranhas, meteors, giant dinosaurs and many more disasters on your own personal tribe of cute little playthings. If you want to get a little more involved in the fun, you can flick the little fellas into active volcanoes, burn them with giant magnifying glasses or dangle them in front of hungry sharks.
One of the greatest things about Pocket God is that its developer, Bolt Creative, regularly updates its creation with new episodes, adding new functionality to the game and a myriad of new and exciting ways to terrorise your island of cute little native islanders. Bolt Creative isn't messing around with adding new content either — 17 episodes have been added within the first four months of release, at no additional charge.
While some may view our enjoyment of this game as yet another sign of our imminent psychosis, we'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that being a Pocket God is really, really fun — surely that makes up for it.
On the other end of the universe-dominating spectrum is Galcon. If you've ever wanted to take over the universe, this just may be the game for you. Using the touchscreen, you send forth dozens of triangular fighters to dominate neutral or enemy planets in an attempt to capture it. The game has 10 difficulty levels and six game types, including online multiplayer and a ranking system if you choose to play online, so you shouldn't get bored any time soon.
The AI is fiendishly intelligent for a game this simple in premise; we found that our armies were regularly outmanoeuvred and overwhelmed on the higher difficulties, but the game keeps up a fast and tense pace regardless of the difficulty you play on. If you're looking for a strategic challenge, Galcon delivers in spades; however, the downside is that the game is so irritatingly addictive.
Available from iTunes for the iPhone and iPod Touch, Galcon can be purchased for AU$3.99, with a free demo also available, whilst Pocket God is available for only AU$1.19.