 |
| Notification for chimps and pizza themed update |
We've got one of those strange hybrid themes this week, with chimps being merged with pizza! It needs to be seen to be believed, so let's start by taking in one of those ever so traditional lists of all the new content:
Tables:
- Chimpy's Pizza Table - 10,000 coins
- Chimpy's Pizza Chair - 2 gems
- Animal Ride - 8 gems
- Chimpy's Pizza Band - 15 gems
- Ticket Stand - 9,000 coins
- Chimpy's Pizza Display - 12,000 coins
- Skee Ball - 6,000 coins
- Steampunk Fountain - 52 gems (LTO)
- Bananas - 1 gem
- Banana Floor - 800 coins
- Chimpy's Pizza Counter - 5,000 coins
With 10 items introduced, there's plenty to take in. And usually at this point I'd present the Tuesday teaser to give us a jolly good preview, but for some reason Storm8 opted not to provide a glimpse of this week's offerings across any of their games. It was a long weekend in the US (and in the UK!) this past week, so I guess a slow start on Tuesday may explain the lack of a teaser. I certainly hope we're not about to plunge into another period of no previews!
Let's get straight into the fresh content then, and start with a positive comment on the pricing. For a third successive regular update the most expensive standard buy is 15 gems or less, which is very good news. We're so used to there being an astronomically priced piece that it's really gratifying when there isn't.
Chimpy's Pizza Band is 15 gems, and there's something quite redeeming about this decoration. Clearly you can't take it too seriously - we've got one chimp wearing a top hat and banging the drums, another wearing a microphone headset and strumming the guitar, and a third wearing specs and playing a keyboard with a pizza pattern! It's bizarre and yet quite enticing. Maybe I'm just getting caught up in the moment because we don't already have a group of musicians as large and detailed as this. Just a shame they're monkeys!
Then there's the Animal Ride which comes at 8 gems. This is only 1x1 and features a model monkey mounted on a pizza and banana patterned block. This is not doing anything for me - the Coin Operated Rocket is a much better option if you want something of this nature, and its for coins. In this sort of situation you need the animal to look like a mechanical mass rather than a furry being that is truly alive. It's not often I wag my finger at realism displayed in the game, but I do here!
Luckily the Skee Ball is much more attractive. This past Saturday I published my wishlist of the boxes I'd most like to see given a limited time discount, and the Carnival Box was among them. This is just the kind of content I'm looking for - a fun fairground or arcade item which could really help contribute to a quality carnival. With no chimps or pizza in sight I suspect this decoration was not designed with this update in mind...
The same can be said for the Ticket Stand. This one puts me in mind of the bright back to school theme last August, and in truth it would have been much better there. The cuddly toys in the clear box and yellow stars are very childish, which sadly doesn't suit my acquired taste. I just don't see how this decoration works as a place to get tickets. What for? The school nativity play?! Sorry, but this item is not for me.
Chimpy's Pizza Display also has me thinking of school, with it resembling a rather cheery cafeteria unit. Compared to the exceptional detail of the Pizza Toss' pizzas, this display is pretty tragic in appearance. The ingredients have been chucked on the dough in such a way that the pizzas don't look cooked! Throw in the framed promotion of bananas despite there being no actual bananas in sight and there's another resounding thumbs down.
And to be honest things don't improve with the rest of the additions. The monkey face that appears on just about everything else may be cute, but it doesn't promote any of the sophistication I tend to look for in a good item. Chimpy's Pizza Table and Chimpy's Pizza Counter have this monkey printed on blue, and in both cases the colour tone is too vivid.
Using the blue to make a chequered effect with the Banana Floor is more acceptable, but then the pizzas and bananas which appears on the blue squares make it seem like food has been dropped on the floor! And we all know what happens if you stand on a banana skin!
The Bananas wallpaper at least leaves out the blue, but instead we just have monkeys, pizza and bananas floating on a white background. It's a super dull wallpaper which lacks any kind of imagination on the part of the gamemakers. I've never been a fan of wallpapers which involve an object printed lots of times, but this one may just be the worst yet.
We're just left with Chimpy's Pizza Chair, which thankfully I have a higher opinion of. Out and out yellow chairs are few and far between in the market, so it's nice to have this option, even if I don't have any ideas which would make use of it. Of course the 2 gem asking price is a turn off, although we've suffered much worse. The transparency of the yellow is nicely done as is the glossy finish. In this case I'm nodding with approval.
As usual we now turn to the latest special deals, and this week is the turn of the limited time offer, with the Steampunk Fountain available for five days.
 |
| Notification for Steampunk Fountain limited time offer |
This is a real throwback - the Steampunk content was all released in March 2012, with the fountain coming as an LTO with the first update. This was before even my time, so this is my first ever opportunity to get this huge decoration. Being a big fan of the Steampunk stuff this is one which I've coveted since the beginning, yet am quite relaxed about passing. For starters I can't afford it (although it was 64 gems originally so we should be thankful!) but ultimately I'm happy with the decent range of Steampunk décor I already have which includes the Time Machine - first prize in the box.
There was another deal just for iOS players this past Friday, with a Value Pack hitting the market for the weekend.
 |
| Bonfire Smores Value Pack |
The Bonfire Smores was the main constituent. It is the top prize in the Bonfire Crate, and given the size of it in the image above it's difficult to comment. Usually there's somewhere we can find a more detailed version, but between the Storm8 Blog teaser and the Storm8 Forum thread for this update there's nothing. Perhaps the release of the Bonfire Crate two days prior to Black Friday contributed to that...
So it's a pretty disappointing update. Maybe I'm still on a high from the fine dining stuff, plus the contrast between that and this more child orientated content can't help. We've had some seriously good updates so far this year but inevitably there are always going to be a few let downs. This was one of them in my opinion, but in fairness there are one or two decent buys to be had.
And one last thought - so much mention of him, but who exactly is the famous 'Chimpy' half of these additions refer to?!
No comments:
Post a Comment