What’s up Evil Geek Gamers! Normally I worship at the altar of console gaming, but lately I’ve been losing a lot of time to one incredibly addictive app. The game is free, but the best part is that it features everyone’s favorite Gallifreyan badass, the Doctor! Rarely will we feature a mobile game, but damnit when one this cool comes along you know we’re going to be all over it. This game has swept across the Evil Lair between Arthur Harkness, Big Evil, and myself faster than that flu that killed all of those people at the prison on The Walking Dead. Put your brain in puzzle solving mode and get your sonics at the ready Evil Geeks, we’ve got a game to play!

So you know how you spend an inordinate amount of time each day staring at the screen of your phone while fiddling around with various apps and social networks? Yeah, be prepared to double the amount of time oyu spend doing that once you download Doctor Who: Legacy. That’s really if you’re just an average gamer; if you’re a Whovian, you’ll be getting completely lost down a rabbit hole of playing through episodes of the show and replaying chapters over and over again in hopes of snagging an obscure character and adding them to your team. It’s embarrassing how much time I’ve spent this week trying to get Strax and Rory’s dad into my TARDIS. The story of the game starts out as the Doctor and Madame Vastra are traveling back to the 1970’s and upon their arrival they discover that the Sontarans are invading in a time and place where they should not exist. Progressing through the story means getting the opportunity to play through episodes from various seasons. You start out on Season 7 (of the reboot) and gradually work your back through the series.

The thing that really shocks me is the depths of the character roster from which you can create a team of companions to aid the Doctor as he battles Sontarans, Weeping Angels, Daleks and host of other Whoverse baddies. Not only will you run across multiple companions from years past, but you’ll also recruit tons of one-off characters who only stuck around for an episode or two. Right now the team I’m rocking consists of the 11th Doctor his cowboy outfit from The Impossible Astronaut (I’ve been keeping Tennant on the sidelines but I feel like mixing things up a bit soon), River Song, K9, Angie (one of the kids that Clara nannies for), an Ood, and the Warwick Davis character from Nightmare in Silver. Also each character has multiple outfits that enemies randomly drop. Every character is associated with a certain color of orb and when you chain together orbs of that color, the character will attack. The combinations of characters that you can put on your team should keep any Who-Nerd in ecstasy for years to come. You can play out your fantasy, all-star roster of companions across time and space!

The game is simple enough, if you’ve played Puzzle Quest, Puzzle Fighter, Dr. Mario, or even Tetris before, then you’ve played Legacy. You line up colored spheres trying to get at least three in a row of the same color. When you line up three, you attack your enemy. Line up five or more and you attack all enemies on-screen. You can also line up multiple combos to boost your damage or healing. Simple premise, but it’s just enough to keep you hooked. Soooooooo many times this week I’ve found myself swearing that I’m only going to play for ten or fifteen minutes, only to find myself forty-five minutes later still saying “Ok, just one more episode.”

In addition to the puzzle aspects of the game, there is an RPG element as well, which of course only fuels my compulsion to play this game again and again. The Doctor and his companions can all level up to get stronger and stronger. The companions gain XP with each battle and gradually level up. You’ll inevitably reach a max limit every ten levels, but you can upgrade to allow for another ten levels by finding various items that are dropped by enemies when defeated.The Doctor has a much more limited RPG path than the companions, as he can only be upgraded and doesn’t gain XP like the others. The Doctor and the companions all have special abilities that can be used after a certain number of combos are created. The abilities can really bail you out in a tight squeeze, as some of them offer powerful solo or group attacks, orb color changing abilities, strength boosts, or healing. As the characters level up the abilities get stronger. I thought the level limit would be annoying because the items needed to upgrade the characters once the limit is reached are INCREDIBLY rare, but once a character is maxed it offers you an opportunity to change up your roster and allow a character who may have been riding the bench a chance to get in the game.

The game is free to download and play, but of course there is a “freemium” aspect of the game. You can pay to buy time crystals which can be used as continues when you lose or to unlock new characters, but the crystals are also dropped by enemies randomly when defeated. If you play long enough you can earn enough to unlock some new characters. For a game with such a simple premise, I’m truly amazed at how hooked I am on playing it. The packaging of course has quite a lot to do with that addiction, specifically because it pays such great fanservice to Who-fans. I’m absolutely recommending this one to the Evil Geek Game Nation. If you’re a hardcore Who-nut, then you may as well kiss away any free moments you may have in the near future because you’ll be glued to your phone screen for a while. If all this hasn’t been enough to convince you to check it out, there’s promo code giveaways on the Doctor Who: Legacy Facebook page every day this month for Christmas! Free characters, free levels, and more are being handed out daily for free, so go check them out here. Until next time Evil Geeks, GAME ON!!!

Find out what ELSE has been killing my social life…aside from my grating personality that is.

