App of the Day: Medieval for iPhone

Medieval for the iPhone and iPad takes you back 500 years and let’s you experience how castles and soliders had to fight tooth and nail for their lives. This is a castle defense game where you will use medieval soldiers and weapons to protect your castle and attack theirs. Your main weapon will be a large cross bow located on the top of your castle and you will use this weapon to shoot down the enemy?s army. For every solider or weapon that you kill, you will receive money that can be used to buy upgrades to your castle or  military units like soldiers, archers, catapults and so on.

There will be 3 different ways to shower your enemies with arrows: Show Arc, Auto-Fire and Drag Fire. Each method will affect the amount of money you receive when you kill the enemy?s troops.  The Show Arc will display the trajectory of your arrow and will give you a 10% money boost if you successfully kill something. Secondly, the drag fire is similar to the show arc but will not show the trajectory however; you will get a 20% boost per kill. Finally, the auto-fire will just let you point to shoot the soldiers but will not give a percentage increase. Later on in the level you will be able to buy upgrades to this crossbow and will be able to launch bombs, huge rocks, multiple arrows, fire arrows and more.

In addition there are three different ways to beat the enemy. You and your enemy will have a flag and if you successfully capture their flag the level will end. Secondly, if you eliminate their entire battalion. And finally, the level will end if you destroy their castle with either your catapults or gigantic crossbow. However, I suggest that you end the game with the second method. You will ultimately get more gold for the more soldiers you kill and this gold will be very useful in upgrading your defenses or offenses which is especially helpful in the later levels.

The graphics in this game are well designed and are 2D based. The backgrounds are crisp and the environments are clear and vivid. The soldiers will make nice “ugh” sounds when you kill them but can become really repetitive when you start killing a lot (in the later levels).  The iPhone version is $0.99 while the iPad version is 2.99. Currently this game has 4 star ratings for both versions and I totally disagree as this should be a 5 star rated game. What do you guys think?