Pocket Gamer - Alternate reality is a potent narrative tool, powered by the immortal question: "What if?"
From “What if Germany had won World War II?” right down to “What if I’d missed the bus on which I met my partner?”, there’s an irresistible attraction to thinking about how life might have gone under different circumstances.
"Sitting at the airport? Wi-fi down? Sometimes you need to a game that won't use up your whole data plan just to download it."
"Steambirds, also available for iOS, Android devices and Windows Phone 7 is also, technically, a browser game and a quite good one at that. By Radial Games and Spry Fox, Steambirds has you set on October 15th 1940, also known as The Battle of Britain. Your goal, in a simultaneous turn-based manner, is to take out as many of the German opposition as possible, in order to give the fair citizens or Britain enough time to evacuate. You’re told that you cannot save the city and while that is a morbid sentiment, you and your over eager compatriots fend of as many foes as possible, regardless."
-John from That Gamer Hub
There’s no button mashing here, and no blind attacks where you come out blasting and hope for the best. It’s a planner’s game where a slight misstep may cost you one of your units, or even your entire squad. In many of the levels the player is out-gunned, out-manned, and outclassed – in order to succeed they must be creative and find not only a way to escape their conditions, but to overcome them. Each level keeps track of how well the player does by awarding them stars based on how much damage that they took in that level. There is also a ranking system that goes along with this but it seems to be purely decorative.
