Remember Fieldrunners? The game that basically started the tower defense craze in the App Store? Well, whether you remember it or not, you may be happy to hear that it has finally received an update after sitting dormant in the App Store for the last nine months, but it comes at a small cost.
Fieldrunners v1.3 adds OpenFeint 2.4 integration and two new maps. OpenFeint allows you to challenge yourself and your friends thanks to online leader boards, achievements, and Facebook and Twitter integration. OpenFeint 2.4 also adds a new chat and forum system, along with a new fan club area that allows you to add games as favorites and follow them and their developers to stay in touch.
What should really have Fieldrunners fans excited is the two new maps: Skyway and Frostbite. Skyway is a unique map in the sense that it has certain parts of the field missing, so you are unable to build towers in those areas. Frostbite is a new winter map that features multiple entry points, which spreads your towers out making it a tad more difficult. Both maps contain new towers and enemies. Each map is available as a separate $.99 in-app purchase.
Although Fieldrunners has been near and dear to many iPhone gamer’s hearts, it has already received its fair share of negative reviews already thanks to in-app purchase content. Some feel that charging for the new maps is just asking too much considering Fieldrunners has always been one of the more expensive tower defense games. To make matters worse, a select group of gamers have been running into problems with recent update. Upon launching the game one of the original maps, Grasslands, is no longer available, which wouldn’t be so bad if the other two included maps weren’t locked by default. Restarting or reinstalling the app apparently doesn’t remedy the issue. According to a forum post, Subatomic Studios has already submitted a fix to the Apple, which will hopefully be pushed through relatively quickly.
Fieldrunners v1.3 breaths new life into the classic tower defense game even if you don’t feel like spending an extra $2 on new maps thanks to OpenFeint integration. The game is still available in the App Store for $2.99, a price it hasn’t budged from since April.
I was just enjoying a game of Fieldrunners the other night so I was very interested when I noticed this update. But with the degradation of recent updates like F.A.S.T. and even AppAdvice’s own BargainBin (although that was Apple’s fault), I decided to wait and see what you guys had to say. If I understand correctly, if you buy Fieldrunners now or upgrade, you can’t play the game until you purchase one of the new levels? It’s hard to believe they could do something so stupid and rude. In app content=you pay for updates.
The thing is, Grasslands isn’t missing for everyone, just a select group of people. I guess it’s a risk you must be willing to take until the fix/update is out. I am running an iPhone 3GS, and after the update, all of my maps remain intact.
Honestly, this is the WORST update ever! Not only I lost my hard earned score but now I got unwanted, silly and buggy Openfeint, two new maps which I have to buy (its not even working, sandbox issue) and broken Grasslands map.
Damn you guys, you’ve been working on update to release such crap?
I just changed my 5 star rate at iTunes to 1 star.
I tried to buy a new map, but it says I first need to buy the application that the map is designed for. So … that is pretty much broken. I guess you should wait for the fix.
Almost a year waiting for this lame update, full of bugs and no additional free maps. The word Ripoff falls short to describe Fieldrunners.