Immense, infinitely replayable

Ive been watching the Wastelands development of this title unfold for a while, and being one of the Kickstarter backers I wanted to be disappointed with this title... but Im not.
Im a huge fan of the original Master of Magic title and have been wanting just for someone to port it as-is to iOS. After waiting ten years, it looks like thats not going to happen.
But thats okay. This incarnation may have scrapped the pixelated charm of its ancestor for showy graphics, but you can also dynamically spin the battlefield with a touch interface to see behind obstacles and zoom in on the action.
I gave it the hard test- on a 14-hour flight from the US to Hong Kong, did it hold my attention? Id have to say it did.
Its not quite tuned yet, there are still bugs (every once in a while the layers slide on the main map, for example) but nothing is irretrievably broken, and theyre still working on it.
The original MoM balancing of power took a few releases to get right, and at least now on iOS that process is fairly painless. I hope they keep whacking away at the power balance and bugs until the hero inventory screen works correctly and a city wall isnt a pass/fail solution against invasion.
So could I gripe about how I miss naming artifacts and heroes, and complain about the AI doing weird stuff? Sure. But for a turn-based game that you can play over a week, replay infinitely, and keep in your pocket... its worth the storage space and a few bucks. Remember how much a PC game cost in 1992? Seems like an easy choice.

throwingspork about Planar Conquest