Review: 33rd Division by Craneballs Studios

33rd Division Review: Another Line Drawer? Even “Veterans” will welcome this one! – Reviewed by our newest addition to The Current Gamer team: Edward Abarilla

  As someone who has played nearly every line-drawing games for the iPhone, I have not exactly been jumping at the chance to purchase yet another in the genre. I am sure this is probably a growing sentiment as the app-store has seen an incredible and expanding amount of line-drawing games this recent year. Craneballs Studios, the makers of Blimp: The Flying Adventures, makes it way into the line-drawing arena with their second game, 33rd Division. Needless to say the game had its work cut out if it was going to impress, but sure enough, 33rd Division earned its colors and totally won me over.

At this point, the mention of another line drawing game may evoke an immediate face-palm in some of us, however 33rd Division is actually a fresh take on the genre, and was able to stand out from the ever-growing line drawing gang. The basic concept is you simply need to guide your soldiers through a World War Two-esque environment  by drawing paths to their individual destinations while avoiding enemy soldiers patrolling along your way. Each enemy soldier has a line of sight, and as much as possible, you want to keep your soldiers out of sight lest they be identified and quickly shot down. A quick tap on a soldier, and he will lie flat on the ground becoming fully camouflaged from the enemies’ line of sight. Tap the soldier again and he will resume to his drawn destination. The game has various power-ups and bonuses that will help you along the way, effectively makeing your allies ultimate soldiers of the WW2 era. Special powers include invisibility, double speed, life-up, frozen enemies, time bonus, double score, triple score and super score.

The gameplay may sound not very complicated but do not expect a walk in the park. To do well, you must deploy patience, quick skill, strategy and some good ol’ soldier instinct as the game gets quite challenging as you progress through all four maps. Each map is unique to its own right and becomes progressively more difficult. You will need to employ a different tactic for each of the locations, don’t expect just a simple re-skinned version of the same map with no tactical differences from the others. And that’s a good thing.

  Additionally, there are two gameplay modes – Life Mode and Time Mode. In Life mode, you’ll have to keep an eye on your remaining lives. This mode will require your patience  and careful planning. If you get sloppy and to often walk into the enemy sights it will be game over when you lose all your lives. Time Mode is the more fast-paced time-is-of-the-essence mode. In this mode it doesn’t matter how many soldiers get killed because you play with, yes, a time limit which increases the difficulty. Each soldier you successfully guide to their destination will give you additional time, and there are also time extenders that randomly appears throughout the game.

Craneballs Studios is very well-known for its high level of polish in their previous game, Blimp. 33rd Division is no different. Each map has its own unique background music that brings refreshing variation to the levels. The music also fits well with the style and theme of the game. Also worth mentioning are the various sound effects in the game and voice-overs done by the legendary Arin “Egoraptor” Hanson which brings humor to this already fabulous-looking game. The art style is very clean and a pleasant to look at, and the hand-painted backgrounds are gorgeous. Overall, the graphics and art style truly make 33rd Division pop, adding to an already highly polished title.

At just $0.99 33rd Division has great value for the price. Openfeint integration is a nice additionwhere you can track your rank against other players around the world in the online leaderboards. Achievements are the only thing seemingly missing from 33rd Division, and I would really like to see them added in the future.

 33rd Division is much better than most other line-drawing games on the app-store and actually introduces new ideas to the genre which is truly remarkable. Craneballs Studios title actually separates itself from being just another Flight Control clone, and is definitely more than worth its asking price. I can honestly recommend this to anyone, especially to those who got tired of this genre – the Veterans of line-drawing. 33rd Division is definetely worth checking out.

Score: 5 out of 5 – Excellent

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