Parents' Guide to Z-Day: Hearts of Heroes

Though this app represents yet another link in a chain of similar strategy game clones, there's some fun to be had if you can look past the long wait times imposed on play. The graphics in Z-Day: Hearts of Heroes are nicely done, and that makes it fun to customize your commander's appearance and watch your base progress. Simple animations also make taking out rabid wolves and zombie invaders somewhat more interesting. When not hunting drooling wolves, you'll be tinkering with your base, and there's lots to be done there. The thing is, like every other game in this genre, base building is tied to timers; the higher level your base gets, the longer it takes things to build. "Longer" means anything from 15 minutes to several hours, and that's a real fun killer. There are only two ways to shorten those timers: spending money or begging your alliance buddies for help. But the latter depends on your alliance being online, so depending on how regular they are, you could still get stuck waiting.

Timers are why people hang out in chat rooms, and at least Z-Day: Hearts of Heroes makes that more fun with "easy translate," a cool little feature that lets you understand people from other countries with the tap of a button. Since these strategy apps are mainly about communication and collaboration, Z-Day was smart to make both easier. Even so, like so many other strategy apps like it, Z-Day makes money by making us wait, and that has us looking forward to the day when app developers realize that built-in tedium isn't a great strategy.