Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Warhammer Quest on iPad

Warhammer Quest is one of my favorite board games of all time.  It is set in the world of the Warhammer talbetop miniatures game, and is essentially a combination of board game and roleplaying game, though leaning more towards the board game end of the spectrum.  Up to four players take on the role of a character, and go into a subterranean tunnel complex to complete quests and kill monsters.  The game is quite random, with many things being determined through the drawing of cards, and some things being handled through dice rolls.  The game can be frustrating when the random fates decide it is not your day, but I have always really enjoyed it.

Recently an iPad version of the game was released.  I have been playing it quite a bit over the last couple weeks, and for the most part I like it.  It matches pretty closely to the original game, but there are some fairly obvious differences.  Primarily, the iPad game is too easy.  I am not sure why this is, but when you play the boardgame your characters die.  All the time.  In the iPad game you have to be pretty stupid to have a character die.  In the board game, you could either make melee or missile attacks, but not both.  In the iPad game, you can wade in the middle of five orcs, stab two of them, and then fire arrows across the board at other orcs.  It makes the characters really overpowered.  Also, the original game has all sorts of horrible random peril happen to you while you wander the countryside between adventures.  In the iPad game hardly anything ever happens to you.  It is just too kind.  Yet more evidence that America is becoming a country of wusses, I guess.

So, I like the iPad game, but it isn't mean enough.  Games should be challenging, at least, and this one is just a walk in the park.  I do like the themed quests, though.  Those are a nice touch.

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