➤ Quite a couple of bombs 🎮

Looking at the curriculum of the Nexon M development team, it is immediately evident how the Emeryville company has a clear inclination for strategic titles: Heroes of War: Orcs vs Knights, DomiNations and the most recent Oz: Broken Kingdom (of which you can find out everything in our review) all revolve around the same concepts, so it was logical to imagine that for its latest product the studio was once again going down such a familiar path. With a twist, however, Nexon M has pulled out of the hat this Evil Factory, action game in pixel art definitely far from its standards and that is also very interesting for this reason.

Evil Factory offers well-made 8-bit action, too bad for a few avoidable slips

(Don't) free the Kraken!

First of all, credit should be given to Nexon M for having been able to create a curious setting, a rather rare commodity when it comes to mobile gaming: the protagonist of the adventure is Leo, sent to Antarctica by the International Alliance to find out what is hidden inside a Kraken bunker. , an evil organization believed to have been defeated years ago. The aim of the game is therefore to go deeper and deeper, room after room, destroying all the war machines in front of us and preventing the inevitable mad scientist from reviving the Kraken's world domination plans.

More than the plot itself, what is striking about Evil Factory is its innate ability to take itself very little seriously, peppering the narration with hilarious (albeit a little intrusive) dialogues that allow themselves even more than a few tasty meta-referential jokes. Fortunately, the Nexon M title doesn't just take care of the outline, and indeed offers a respectable main course, with old-school gameplay that simultaneously winks at classics like Bomberman and Commando. As mentioned above, the game is divided into rooms, each containing one or more enemies that must be eliminated in order to access the next area: to do this, Leo has at his disposal as his main weapon some bombs that must be placed on the ground and that explode after a few seconds, while the secondary tool is a medium-range device capable of generating massive damage but which can only be used once during a single round. On these simple premises, the developers have been able to weave a truly remarkable canvas, thanks to a whole series of tricks that make the action on screen always intriguing: the upgrades and new weapons to unlock, the enemies always different and with attack patterns well-defined, the mission objectives that reward those who can satisfy them all in a single session and above all a very intelligent dodging system, which slows down time when the user lifts his finger from the virtual stick, thus allowing him to better avoid enemy shots . Between standard levels, bonus stages, weekly challenges and various extras, then, the contents are absolutely first-rate and guarantee a respectable longevity. In such a positive overall picture, however, it is unfortunate to note that Evil Factory lacks that level of care that separates milestones from excellent games., and which mainly manifests itself in a control system that is too little reactive to meet the needs of a gameplay that - especially in the more advanced stages - would require much greater precision. Confirming a sad tradition that unites too many free to play, moreover, the work of Nexon M is not free from sins regarding in-app purchases that from a certain point on become binding in order to proceed without resorting to a sustained grind: it goes said however that, despite the application can count on all (absolutely all) the typical gimmicks of the category, it is far from being among the worst money-eating machines currently in circulation on the various multimedia stores. It would nevertheless be a shame to avoid downloading Evil Factory only for these two flaws, also because the game is a little gem both from a technical and an artistic point of view: the pixel art graphics are very pleasant and above all incredibly varied as regards the looks and animations of the opponents, and also the sound makes a beautiful figure thanks to well-chosen effects and a really powerful soundtrack created ad hoc by the Finnish artist Kuabee.

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Tested version iPhone (2.0.1) Price Free Resources4Gaming.com

8.0

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Evil Factory is a product that can count on a good amount of arrows in its bow: flawless from a technical and stylistic point of view, rich in content and strong gameplay very skilled in mixing elements of old school action with more modern mechanics, the Nexon M title would seem destined for eternal glory, but some important flaws unfortunately end up bringing it back to harsh reality. With a control system that more than a few times proves unsuitable for the purpose and a free to play formula that becomes more and more stringent as you go, Evil Factory stumbles on the most beautiful, still remaining a fun and challenging title that we recommend downloading. .