Myst is a point and click adventure puzzle game first published for the Mac in 1993. Loaded on a CD-ROM, Myst was absolutely revolutionary at the time. We enjoyed the iPhone port in our review, and there's not much reason to think that Riven wouldn't translate to the iPhone just as well.
Riven is set immediately following the events that transpired in Myst and the plot is hard to describe without revealing some spoilers from the original game. It's safe to say if the iPhone port of Myst was your first foray in to the series, you will also enjoy Riven as it was highly praised by critics and comes packed with even more immersive puzzles to get hopelessly stuck on.
Unfortunately it sounds like the rest of the Myst games might not be making it to the iPhone due to technical issues and licensing, but news of Riven joining Myst on the App Store should get any fan of the series excited.
The Great Giana Sisters, as it was originally known, has an interesting and cheeky history, being pulled off the shelves as soon as it first went on sale in 1987 for the Amiga, Atari and Commodore 64, due to its incredible likeness to Super Mario Bros on the NES– henceforth cementing it as a highly sought collectors item. Many years down the track, it was re-imagined on the Nintendo DS in 2009, a port of which has now made its way to the iPhone as Armin Gessert's Giana Sisters [App Store], named after the C64 version's original programmer.
Having just played through the first and second worlds, it is immediately obvious where Armin Gessert's Giana Sisters has derived its inspiration. Our early experiences were replete with head-butting brick-smashing platforming, jumping on unsuspecting enemies, pipes, and a steady stream of fireball upgrades. It goes so far as to have coin-bricks, and hidden coin-bricks, and a flag at the end of each level.
It isn't all Mario though, as Armin Gessert's Giana Sisters appears to have an abundance of its own charm. The platforming is straightforward, but challenging, and it really comes into its own after the first few stages. There are two control schemes available– a Classic and Touch setting– the latter of which seems a bit too unorthodox to time pin-point jumps. Fortunately, the Classic setting is as you would expect it; movement buttons on the left and jump and shoot buttons on the right which work a treat. Both modes have a swipe feature to help you look below and above you. A number of different power-ups are also available throughout the 80 newly-crafted levels, after which the 32 original 'retro' levels are unlocked.
The full feature set, as provided by Bad Monkey is as follows:
80 new levels
32 retro levels
completely new graphic set especially for iPhone and iPod
2 controls (touch and classic)
play your own music while you play Giana Sisters
5 languages: English, German, Spanish, French and Italian
legendary soundtrack, inspired by Chris Huelsbeck
Online community tools (Openfeint)
We've thoroughly enjoyed what we've played so far of Armin Gessert's Giana Sisters. There's something special about a great 80's platformer, and this one seems to get all the elements just right. Expect a more extensive review in the near future as we put Armin Gessert's Giana Sisters on the iPhone through its paces.
More first impressions from our readers are already amassing in our forums.
Today, an iPhone port of the well-reviewed mobile title DOOM II RPG [App Store] from id Software LLC appeared in the App Store. Doom II RPG was created by the same team that brought us Wolfenstein RPG and offers a turn-based take on the Doom universe:
The forces of Hell have invaded our dimension once again, and only you can stop them from their ultimate goal—conquering Earth!
A mysterious distress signal calls your team—two hardened Marines and a rookie scientist—to a Union Aerospace Corporation research facility on Earth’s Moon, but you were unprepared for what awaits you. The forces of Hell itself have taken hold of the station and its inhabitants! Zombies and demonic monsters roam the halls, killing all who cross their path. Your backup squad is dead. Mysterious scientists conspire against you. Even the facility’s AI cannot be trusted. You are being hunted from all sides. Now, you must fight to survive, and try to stop the invasion—and uncover the truth—by any means available. The fate of all humanity is at stake!
The game challenges you to choose one of three available characters through which to take on a veritable menagerie of Hell-spawned beasts. Cacodemons, Cyberdemons, Spider Masterminds — they're all here for your goring enjoyment.
Among the game's features as listed by id:
Battle through 9 maps, spanning the Moon, Earth, and Hell itself. Over 8 hours of gameplay!
Over a dozen unique weapons to find, plus improvised weapons such as Sentry Bots or even plumbing fixtures.
Eleven different enemy types—each with multiple, increasingly-powerful forms—plus four bosses.
Auto-mapping feature and mission-tracking PDA functions ensure you’ll never be lost again.
Customizable controls; change the size, style, and placement of the control inputs.
Three levels of difficulty will give players of all skill levels a challenge.
Detailed graphics and complex levels which take advantage of the power of the iPhone.
As with Wolfenstein RPG, the pace of Doom II RPG game is entirely different than the first person shooter versions that we all know. We'll offer a closer look in time, while first impressions are being collected in our forums.
Plants Vs Zombies is Popcap's take on the tower defense genre, where players cultivate a crop of various plants that each have different abilities to play against the weaknesses of the many different types of zombies you will face. Progressing through the game, you eventually unlock all kinds of different defenses to choose from as you deal with zombies invading your front lawn during the day, across your pool in the back yard, and even fending them off at night. Each setting requires a slightly different strategy and this keeps gameplay fresh throughout the whole game.
The following trailer was released today, and mentions 2/15 as the official release date of Plants Vs Zombies for the iPhone.
Like most Popcap games, Plants Vs Zombies is available for the Mac and PC and currently can either be purchased directly from Popcap online or nearly any brick and mortar store that stocks PC games. You can expect a full review from us as soon as the game is released on the App Store.
Our January game ratings are in place now, and here are the top of the heap. Our monthly "best of" round-up summarizes the top rated games that we looked at in the previous month. Each game reviewed receives a 1-5 star rating relative to the other games from that month. Generally, a 3 or higher is considered a "good" rating.
Our final scores are not the product of any traditionally objective measures such as graphics or sound, but simply reflect the games we would most recommend to others.
5 Stars
Broken Sword – The remake of this 1996 point and click adventure was wonderfully brought to the iPhone. The story and all around high-quality production values of Broken Sword sucked us in. Whether you're an old fan of the original game, a newcomer to the series, or even someone who's never played a point-and-click adventure before, Broken Sword is a game with mass appeal that will draw you in. (Review, App Store)
Sword & Poker – Mix poker with a loose RPG and you get one of the most surprisingly compelling games from January. The variety of monsters, weapons and levels adds enough content to kept us coming back throughout the month. Even if the premise sounds strange to you, give the Lite a try. (Review, App Store, Lite)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars – A great adaptation of a DS/PSP game, Chinatown Wars offers a level of depth rarely seen on the App Store. If you complete everything in game, playtime will need to be measured in days, not hours. The weapon targeting system can use improvement, but barely detracts from an otherwise phenomenal game. (Review, App Store)
4.5 Stars
Cogs – Cogs is a mechanical puzzler that challenges you to bring to life a series of increasingly complex machines by way of arranging sets of tiles, gears, pipes, and the like in such a way as to connect varying energy sources to their ultimate outlets across 50 different 2.5D and 3D environments It has become one of our favorite iPhone puzzlers. (Review, App Store)
The Deep – The Deep is all about exploring environments and finding important items that allow access to other parts of the map or give unique abilities to the main character. Unique level designs, the pleasant art, and that addictive, upgrade-focused exploratory gameplay kept us captive for hours (Review, App Store)
As always, we expect there will be some debate about relative scores, but keep in mind that everyone's personal ratings may vary based on individual tastes.
Hudson Entertainment just released an iPhone version of the classic turn based strategy game Military Madness (or Nectaris). The hex map strategy game predates Advance Wars and was originally released for the TurboGrafx-16 back in 1989. The game has since seen a number of revisions including last year's revival for WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network.
The iPhone version is an adaptation of Military Madness 2 and is said to take full advantage of the iPhone's touch control and graphics capabilities.
Military Madness: Neo Nectaris delivers a complete, turn-based strategy game from the masters of the genre. Through 50 levels of blistering tactical gameplay, you'll be wrapped up in every battle, every move, every step of the way.
We'll take a closer look at this game later this week.
Nearly five months ago now Tapulous first announced Riddim Ribbon [App Store] on stage at an Apple keynote. Oddly enough, aside from graphical changes, the game that is available today is almost exactly what Tapulous promised at the event. Three songs from the Black Eyed Peas are included along with three additional 99¢ tracks available via in-app purchase. (Two by Tiësto and one by Benny Benassi.)
The objective of Riddim Ribbon is to guide a ball down a track, and tilt your device to follow a green line that moves left and right to one of the three songs you select on the main screen. When you stray from the track, the music begins to fade out until you're only hearing the faint backbeat to the song. Laid out on the green line are silver spheres to pick up, ramps to jump over, and hoops to jump through. All of these different pickups and obstacles are arranged so you're hitting them with the beat of the song, an experience that's actually pretty cool if you haven't played a similar racing rhythm game before.
As you're rolling down the tracks in Riddim Ribbon, you will be faced with both forks in the road and ramps that lead to secondary portions of track that allow you to mix the song by turning or jumping up on to the same portion of the song remixed by one of a number of different DJ's included in the game. By replaying individual songs and choosing different paths to take, you can come up with a number of different remixes of the same song.
Riddim Ribbon is a game that sounds really cool when you describe it, yet it somehow manages to be not that fun at all when you're playing it. The way the music is visualized is great, and the tracks are laid out very well to match each song. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to get bored of the three included songs, and the tilt controls are frustrating.
Instead of like most racing games where you tilt to move right or left, then hold your device level straight to go straight, the amount you tilt directly translates to your position on the track. This causes you to spend most of your time holding your device at an awkward angle instead of making small tilting movements to steer as you're probably used to if you've played many racing games on the platform.
As mentioned previously, the way you interact with the music in the game is really neat but by default an announcer is almost constantly talking over it telling you how "dope" and "ill" your performance is along with announcing the many checkpoints on each song. It likely won't take you long to turn this off in the options.
Riddim Ribbon is a great idea for a game that ultimately is ruined by frustrating controls and gameplay which is too easy to get bored of.
Mobila Interactive and Apogee Software just announced that the classic first person shooter Rise of the Triad, originally released for the PC in late 1994, will soon be available on the App Store.
We covered an early development video of this game, but at that time didn't know if this would ever become an official release, until now:
“We are very honored to be working with industry pioneer like Apogee Software to bring this groundbreaking game from the 90’s to platforms of the 21nd century,” said Yevegeniy Goyfman, co-founder of Mobilia Interactive. “It is exciting to be a major part of re-introducing classics like Rise of the Triad and allowing fans to re-live the experience, as well as share these true entertainment treasures with a new generation of gamers.”
Features include:
Original game soundtrack.
A number of customizable control schemes.
Four full game episodes containing 32 super huge levels – up to one million sq. feet, and up to 16 stories high!
Secret levels, hidden rooms, and other surprises.
Play as one of five players, each with unique attributes and abilities.
Look both up and down, up to 45 degrees, to see what is above and below.
Ten unique, real digitized enemies (actual Apogee employees!)
About a week back I had a chance to visit Gameloft's Manhattan studios and have a look at their upcoming racing simulator GT Racing: Motor Academy [App Store] for iPhone. Tonight, GT Racing has gone live in the App Store and we've got a chance to take a closer look.
GT Racing is a driving simulation as opposed to an arcade racer. Gameloft likens the title to Real Racing, which it considers the only other driving simulation in the App Store. Being a simulation-style racer, it starts off much like the definitive driving sim, Gran Turismo. You are presented with a few initial challenges (accelerate to maximum speed and then come to a stop between the lines, etc.) that must be completed before your achieve your first racing license. From there it's a Campaign journey through a variety of tracks around the world. Though, I will say the game is rather more forgiving than Gran Turismo, partially due to the integrated Break Assist system (like Real Racing), but more due to the overall control scenario.
The game features over 100 cars from 24 different manufacturers to choose from for a race to the finish against up to nine on-track opponents. There are 14 different worldwide tracks in all, comprised of raceway, urban, and rally-style runs. The better you rank, the more credits you accumulate, and the fancier cars and equipment you can purchase. Progressive tracks are unlocked in Campaign mode, and any unlocked track can be used for a quick spin in the game's Arcade mode.
GT Racing features three different control methods: accelerometer (default), screen keys (think Vector Tanks – kinda), and wheel. I find accelerometer to be my preferred method that, for what it is, really leaves little room for control improvement. Score tracking is handled through the integrated Gameloft LIVE network. Like Asphalt 5, Gameloft also offers an online multi-player component that we were unable to test at launch, but it's an important feature we're certainly glad to see.
GT Racing is one of the most visually impressive racers in the App Store. On my iPhone 3GS test unit, the game exhibits an impressive, but subtle, HDR effect to the rendered scene and runs at a very smooth frame rate. Six different driving views are provided — three outside, three inside — to allow for the view that bests fits your driving sensibilities. All races can be seen in Replay mode which is, as well, an impressive thing to behold, and videos can also be uploaded to YouTube (example video). One notable issue with the visuals, however, is a noticeably short draw distance resulting in buildings abruptly popping into view which can be distracting.
There are a few other issues we ran across with the initial version. On occasion, my car appeared to aburbtly jolt into a nose-up position, half embedded in the track, with a warning of "wrong way" presented. (One of these incidents is recorded in our demo video.) As well, in-game language suggested that I had access to a particular track before it was supposed to be unlocked. Neither game breaking, but notable for early adopters.
See our brief gameplay video for a closer look.
Overall, GT Racer is probably one of the best racers on the App Store. In particular, racing fans looking for a realistic racer that offers nicely varied racing action wrapped up in a very pretty package should enjoy Gameloft's latest offering.
Impressions from early adopters on the forum have been similarly positive, but similar caveats:
tadad1 – lots of control adjustments, including driving aids, amazingly crisp graphics, but short draw distance, no crash damage, massive content
morphman – Lots of options, good but not stellar framerate on 3GS, pop-in apparent, graphics look amazing
Just a quick update here on one of my favorite iPhone developers, Peter Hirschberg, author of the retro-inspired Vector Tanks and Adventure [App Store], and owner of the Luna City Arcade which is, without a doubt, the most amazing arcade ever assembled (if his office isn't cool enough for you).
Peter has recently setup his own studio, BlipTime Studios, and through it has released an update to Vector Tanks known as Vector Tanks (Classic Version) [App Store]at $0.99. As one might suspect, denoting the current game as "classic" indeed betokens the near-term arrival of a rather revamped take on the original, to be known as Vector Tanks Extreme. Peter is splitting the game into two versions to provide, as he tells it, a version that delivers the "retro-simplicity" of the original, along with a version that's "a Vector Tanks experience WAY over the top for those seeking a bit more of a challenge."
Vector Tanks (Classic Version) appeared in the App Store in mid-January, with a version 1.3.2 update that appeared last week. The updated classic version delivers the following changes to the original Chillingo release, as Peter details:
New enemy tank added! The H6 "Heavy Sixer". Capable of driving directly over obstacles and having a fully turret-mounted cannon, this is a much more deadly foe than the regular tanks!
Big fixes in responsiveness of the controls!
Removed in-game music
Now publishing the game directly through my own game company, BlipTime Studios ™
Price reduction to $.99 (was $2.99)
Rebranded as Vector Tanks Classic
Unfortunately for owners of the original, published by Chillingo, the updated BlipTime Studios' classic version cannot be downloaded as a free update. As Peter explains,
…I apologize that there isn't a way to upgrade. I worked with Apple to try and establish and upgrade path for my current customers but the final answer from Apple was that once you change the account under which an app is published, it will always appear as a "new" app and upgrading is NOT possible. I sincerely apologize. I did try and I know it sort of stinks. My hope is that the reduced price will serve as a good-faith gesture to my current customers who wish to pick up this updated version of Vector Tanks.
…though Peter hints that, in celebration of the release of Vector Tanks Extreme (which is expected sometime this month), iPhone gamers might just get an opportunity to grab the classic version at a price that's a bit less than $0.99 for a week or so, to even the score on the Chillingo situation…
I've been playing a few early betas of Vector Tanks Extreme for some time now and, I must say, Peter's use of the term "bloodbath" to describe the gameplay of the new title is an apt one. This one demands some real dual-track savvy.
Peter indicates that both Vector Tanks (Classic Version) and Vector Tanks Extreme will run natively on the iPad when it makes its 1024×768-pixel debut. He's already got Extreme running in the Xcode iPad simulator and promises it looks "glowy gorgeous."
We plan to take a close look at Vector Tanks Extreme when it goes live in the App Store and share details of the formation of BlipTime Studios through an interview with Peter that will accompany the review. Stay tuned.
According to a post on the Myst Online forums, an iPhone port of Riven, the sequel to Myst [App Store], should be available "by early summer at the latest."
Nearly five months ago now Tapulous first announced Riddim Ribbon [
