Super Monsters Ate My Condo!
They're back. Are you ready to take on the new time-based challenge?
Did you play Monsters Ate My Condo? If you very wisely did, you'll no doubt have fallen in love with its over-the-top gameplay and feverish high-score chasing, while likely finding yourself confused at the anarchic strategy that lay in the deeper sections of the game. Now re-imagined for quick-fire rounds, Super Monsters Ate My Condo! has more than made up for any original stumbles.
Tempting though it is to describe the game as being simple at its core, it's a simple game that has a huge amount of frantic gameplay stacked on top. The objective is to maintain a tower that steadily grows in size while a pair of titanic monsters do their best to bring it down if left unsatisfied.
To keep them happy, you need to swipe and feed them condo blocks that match their color, and send them away by matching up three or more blocks of the same color. Should you manage this, they'll swap out for a different monster altogether.
Amongst all of this action your tower sways precariously back and forth as you remove blocks Jenga-like from the stack. Keep everything ticking over though and you'll be rewarded with Bronze, Silver, Gold or Diamond blocks that can be fed to monsters to unlock their special powers.
One might double your points gain for a fixed amount of time, another sends the monsters to sleep temporarily, so that you can do some much-needed emergency work on re-stabilizing your tower. With every element of the game drawn together, it makes for an insane and anarchic experience, and the developers have done a much better job of explaining the intricacies of the deeper gameplay through the use of mission objectives.
Your successes on this frantic battlefield reward you with coins, which can be used to purchase a points boost before the start of a round, or a longer play time, one that's otherwise locked to a two minute limit. The overall package is tied up with some ridiculous humor too, from the singing Valkyrie who announces your achievements to the world, to the energetic commentator who leads you into battle.
At it's most frantic, the game can stutter a little on a second-generation iPad but these moments are fleeting. Harsh opponents of in-app purchases may blanche at the inclusion of a coin shop, although in fairness the game throws generous coin rewards your way. Whether that's in the form of high-scoring rewards, or the ridiculous Wheel of Fortune mini-game at the end of each match that randomly awards cash or bonus time, you won't find yourself short of play opportunities.
We liked last year's Monster's Ate My Condo. We love this new version, and it's now a game that feels like the finished product, one that draws you deeper into the game's manic strategizing. If you're one of those boring old-fashioned gamers who values crazy things like fun, compulsion, and competitiveness, you really owe it to yourself to grab this stellar action-puzzler.
What's Hot: A much more accessible version of last year's spectacular puzzle game, this finally feels like the finished product.
What's Not: A few technical issues detract from the experience.
4.5/5
