Greetings & Salutations Everyone!
What’s that saying? “And the hits just keep on rolling?” Today’s game for your consideration is currently the number #1 ranked game for mobile platforms in China and is already the recipient of several awards including ‘Best Art Design Award’ from Indieplay, ‘Best Cocos Award’ from Cocoachina, and ‘Best Indie Game Award’ from Tencent Games. After trying it out for myself on the iPad Air 2, I’m here to tell you those awards and the hype surrounding the game are well deserved.
From Zhuhai HippieNetwork Technology Co.Ltd comes the 2D action-fighter game ‘Never Gone’! Set in a dark gothic world where chaos reigns over the land and demons, humans, and vampires exist on the same dimensional plane only to wage war and fight amongst one another, ‘Never Gone’ is a stylish and brilliantly crafted 21st century game inspired by the old school video games of the mid to late 90s. Choose to play the game as ‘Dark Sister’ or ‘Blood Knight’ and battle evil monsters and their end level bosses over the course of 3 chapters in the game’s story mode at various difficulty levels. There are also 3 challenge modes as well as side missions which can be utilized to earn more credits, skill points, and upgrade your experience. Over 200 weapons and vital pieces of equipment are made available to the player as they are earned over the course of the game which you craft and upgrade yourself as the game progresses and you earn credits and skill level points.
‘Never Gone’ also features an in-game community where you can converse with other players, share video captures of your games, and exchange bragging rights and tips with your fellow players. And if all that wasn’t enough, the games creators enlisted the legendary Swedish symphonic metal band ‘Therion’ to craft the games soundtrack and background music. It’s rumored that if you play the game long enough some of Therion’s band members will appear in the game and fight against your or even perhaps alongside you! The game’s amazing graphics, landscapes, and elegant moving visuals requires that the use of of over 1GB of ram and iOS 8 software or later so only the most recent of Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPad mini) can support the game. This game could easily keep pace with with most console games and in my opinion surpasses so many of them. If I still had a console platform and a few games, I’d immediately consider just trading them all in or selling them on eBay after trying out this game. This is one of those few high quality mobile apps that certainly makes many platform games appear obsolete.
I’d go so far as to call this app a ‘dark symphonic masterpiece of gaming’. As I played through the first hour, I immediately thought of days past playing ‘Street Fighter’ and ‘Mortal Combat’ inside video arcades on those huge monitors. Now we have the HD graphics and the elegance of touch screen technology that gives THOSE games new life and to welcome amazing new games like this one.
Im going to call it 5 out of 5 stars. Beautiful graphics, awesome audio, and exceptional gameplay, this one has it all. Amongst all the mobile games I’ve had the good fortune to try out, this one definitely ranks in the top 5. I’d say it should be included on every iPad. I can’t imagine anyone not liking it. Most definitely consider it for your tablet’s game selection!
