Danger Alliance: Battles iPad Review
We've looked forward to playing Danger Alliance: Battles the past few weeks, largely because it seemed like a fun homage to Nintendo's Advance Wars franchise and the perfect compliment to the outstanding iPhone and iPad title, Great Little War Game. At $3.99 (a hefty sum for an iOS app), we expected to get a lot for the money.
So much for that idea. Although the developers at TOME Studios have a solid foundation in place, a serious lack of content and minor performance issues derail what could have been (or still can be) one of the finer turn-based strategy games.
At its core, Danger Alliance: Battles is like a game of chess, where you move up to five units around one of six battlefields in an effort to destroy the computer.
Each unit features a humorous back-story and signature weapon, so there's an engineer with a rocket launcher, a digger carrying a flamethrower and a legionnaire holding a grenade, among others. You simply tap the desired character and then point to where you want him to go, within a certain range, of course. Then you end that turn and watch the computer go through the motions.
From there, tapping enemies and then hitting the "end turn" button instructs units to attack. What ensues is a slow-paced back and forth that lasts until all the available units on one side croak.
Certainly not a bad idea. Problem is, the game is pathetically shallow. You only have five units to play with, and those six boards are surprisingly small.
What's more, there's no story mode (only skirmish) to speak of, while local hot seat multiplayer is the only way to compete against friends; sorry, no online play.
The in-game action, meanwhile, tends to bog down with so many characters in such tight quarters. In fact, it becomes increasingly difficult to make sense of the clutter.
The combat's fine, and the cartoon style graphics look nice. We just expected a lot more, considering the price. Before long, we could no longer fight the artificial intelligence without falling asleep.
That said, Danger Alliance: Battles has unrealized potential. Whether or not TOME is able to uncover it, unfortunately, remains to be seen.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.