Urban Rivals

Summary

In Urban Rivals it's your mission to turn a bunch of misfits street fighters into a full fledged street fighting team. The characters become more schooled after each battle until they eventually form a small army unit. Characters come in the form of cards and all have their strengths and weaknesses. Find out more about this exciting multiplayer card game in today's review.

Test device: Samsung Galaxy S2 (I9100G)
Android version: 4.0.4
Root: No
Runs as of Android version: 2.2

The name of the game is taking over the city with the help of your street savvy clan. This calls for more than mere wits and strategy, but it's also not a case of simple brawn/beat 'em up tactics, either. It's an online MMORPG / role playing game with cards (think: Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic).

Pure online games are hard to come by on Android, and the ones that are available don't always perform like you'd like them to. Urban Rivals is a very pleasant surprise in that regard.

Over 700 characters/cards are ready for battle. Each one is very thoughtfully designed, and the mix of extravagant fighters and moody street atmosphere is just brilliant.

There are four rounds to every battle, meaning you can only send in four of your fighters. This is where strategy comes into play, as you will have to gage what their strengths and advantages are.

All fights are one on one. Once a player has been vanquished the next one is up for their turn, much like in games such as Streetfighter or Tecken.

Power-ups are available for purchase (for instance: quadrupling the attack potency of a fighter).

All fights stay realistic and exciting, seeing as no two of the same characters are ever up against each other.
There are a lot of online battles to choose from and waiting times are rather minimal.

This app does not come with a tutorial which is a bit of a drawback, seeing as this way you are thrown right into the lion's den. That said, the game is easy enough to get the hang of, especially if you've tried your hand at this game genre in the past.

Bottom line:

Online games for Android are few and far between. Urban Rivals is an atmospheric, well-designed and well functioning game that surprised us very pleasantly in that regard.

I'm on fence re: labeling this game as an MMORPG or MMO-Trading-Card-Game—but what I do know is that this game is tons of fun.
 

Urban Rivals does not come with an incorporated tutorial but the game is made with a lot of attention to detail. Plus, the design matches the game's ambience and thus contributes nicely to the overall flavour of the game.

Controls are well done.

Urban Rivals ran smoothly throughout our test rounds. Finding online combat to partake in never took long, nor did loading.

Urban Rivals is free from both the Play Store and AndroidPIT App Center, which is awesome considering that this is a great online game. If you're curious about the gameplay: go ahead and download the app, you have nothing to lose!