One of tonight's more notable upcoming free-to-play offerings is Gameloft's Epic, a city building-meets-strategy game that plays pretty much like Clash of Clans [Free]. In Epic, you'll be tasked with building up a fantasy army and taking care of all the overhead that goes alongside this. Basically, you'll be obtaining minerals, refining minerals, and waiting for a bunch of timers to finish so you can obtain and refine even more minerals -- you know, the usual. I guess the hook with this one is in its tie-in with Blue Sky's film of the same name, which is apparently hitting a theater near you later this week. It has talking slugs in it, just FYI.

Combat is one of the few places where Epic threatens to be interesting, by the way. Your soldiers and machines of war are all elemental-based, much like the enemies you'll be fighting, making it seem as if producing the right mix of dudes and then matching them up against your opponents as counters is important. Unfortunately, in the early going, countering doesn't appear to matter. You win no matter what. Maybe down the line this stuff gets harder? These games tend to hold players' hands forever, so that's entirely possible. Regardless, this is the shell of an interesting system where choices could potentially matter.

Anyway, Epic will be available tonight. If you've played a free-to-play building game in the last couple of months, you'll be readily familiar with this one so give it a shot if you've been enjoying this genre.

International App Store Link: Epic, Free (Universal)

Brick breaking games like the classics Breakout or Arkanoid are pretty timeless, but they've also been done to death in the mobile space. Because of that it's hard to get too excited about a new brick breaker unless it really does something to stand out from the pack. I wouldn't say that the upcoming Hyper Breaker Turbo is trying to reinvent the genre or anything, but it does have a clean look and complex multi-screen levels which caught my attention. Plus, it has been a while since I've had a good brick breaker, so I was actually enthused to check this one out.

If you're at all familiar with this genre, then there's not a whole lot to explain about Hyper Breaker Turbo. You control a paddle at the bottom of the screen – the curved variety, not a flat one – and bounce a tiny ball toward the block formations in the playing area, breaking and clearing as many blocks as you can while you travel upwards towards an end goal. There are many different kinds of blocks, some of which have special requirements in order to be broken or just plain can't be broken at all, and a variety of bonuses and power-ups that fall from broken blocks that you can use to your advantage (or disadvantage, depending on the power-up).

It's all pretty typical fare, but very clean and polished. The part that stands out about Hyper Breaker Turbo to me are its elongated levels. As you break through a set of block barriers you can continue to go up in the level, with more block formations and obstacles for you to deal with. It's a nice change from the usual single-screen levels in similar games, and once you do end up making it to the goal your score is tallied and you're given up to a 4-star rating for completion. You don't have to break every block to complete a level, but doing so will earn you more points and thus give you a better shot at earning more stars, which are used for unlocking additional themes and sets of levels later in the game.

There's not a whole lot more to say about Hyper Breaker Turbo, it's just a very well-made brick breaking game. I will say that the physics feel a little lightweight and wonky at times, but nothing detrimental. Also I'm not a huge fan of using a curved paddle, I'd prefer a flat one, but I am warming up to the one here. The bottom line is that if you're ready for another brick breaking game, then Hyper Breaker Turbo appears to be a pretty great one. With 75 levels it should give you your fix for some time, so if interested stop by the forums for more impressions and add it to your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List to get an alert when it hits the US App Store later tonight.

International App Store Link: Hyper Breaker Turbo, $1.99 (Universal)

Zombie Fish Tank is yet another competent, level-based arcade action game with a three-star rating system being published by Chillingo. Its hook is a "devouring" mechanic. In the game, you play as a ghoulish fish and are tasked with eating other freakish fish. As you gobble these dudes up, your fish gets bigger. Eventually, he gets big enough to chow down on the larger fish swimming around in a given level. If you accidentally run into a bigger fish before your own is large enough to take him on, he'll eat you instead.

In grade school, I played a game similar to this on CD-ROM. I can't remember the name of it, unfortunately, but I do recall that it was meant to be educational. You controlled a bunch of actual fish. The goal was, I guess, to learn about the food chain. Zombie Fish Tank isn't so concerned with this. Surprising, I know! Instead, it leans more on scoring and raw progression. Get big, go to a new level, get big again, and so on. Here's a trailer that shows almost everything off:

There's also an actual fish tank component. You earn coins or whatever as you play and can cash those in to buy fish that swim around in a tank that's displayed prominently on the main menu screen. You can also buy power-ups and stuff in the game's market. Also, yeah, there's IAP.

By the way, you control your fish with the accelerometer. A double tap at any time will reset what the game interprets as the center of your device. All you have to do to eat something is collide into it. This all feels pretty good, which is neat.

Zombie Fish Tank hits tonight across iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You can catch it at about 11PM EST. Add it to our app's [Free] Watch List if you want notified when it's out. And you know you do! Zombies! They're a thing!

International App Store Link: Zombie Fish Tank, $0.99 (Universal)

Welp. Here we are with a game about going to the bathroom. It's called Men's Room Mayhem, and it's a line-drawing game where you must manage the traffic rolling through a men's bathroom, ensuring each patron is able to get a chance to relieve themselves, wash up, and be on their way. Isn't this the job you've always dreamt of? Well now you can live out that fantasy on your telephone or tablet, most likely while sitting on the toilet yourself. The future is amazing.

Men's Room Mayhem is a pretty straightforward line-drawing game. You're given a top-down view of a bathroom, with 3 urinals on one wall, a toilet stall down in the corner, and a couple of sinks near the exit. As people walk in they'll give you and indication of whether it's "number one" or "number two" and you simply draw a path from them to the appropriate facility.

When a person is all through, you can then score some bonus points by directing them down to the sink area so they can wash up before leading them to the exit. That's nice, bonus points for washing your hands. Pro tip: you should always wash your hands after using the bathroom in real life, too. You can also earn some bonus points for proper "etiquette" like not taking the urinal directly next to one that's in use if there's another one available. That's totally based on real life unspoken rules, too. After each wave is complete, you can score even more bonus points by cleaning up the facilities by frantically rubbing them clean.

Of course, just as you need to avoid planes crashing into each other in the granddaddy line-drawer Flight Control, if two bathroom patrons' paths cross during the course of their potty break, a knock-down drag-out fight will ensue. Also just like in real life. (Ladies, you have no idea how crazy men's bathrooms are.) You have to tap the fighting duo to get them to exit, and you'll get one strike against you for that current wave of customers for allowing a fight. Get five strikes and it's game over.

Men's Room Mayhem, despite its juvenile theme, is a pretty solid line-drawing game. My biggest issue with it so far is that it just moves much too slowly. An option to speed up time would be nice, but after 5 or 6 waves the pace actually does pick up rather well. It gets hectic juggling people going to the urinals, the stalls,  and people washing their hands and exiting – all without causing a collision. It's just a shame it takes so long to get to that hectic point.

There's a bunch of meta-goals to complete as you play, and doing so will allow you to unlock new levels. You can also purchase an "extras" pack as IAP which comes with a timed Blitz mode and a couple of bonus levels. For whatever reason the in-app purchasing mechanism isn't working for me, so I haven't checked this out yet. However I did quite easily unlock the second level, a hotel, which has a much more complex bathroom layout and new types of patrons to deal with.

It starts off slow, and at first blush it might seem like the kind of game targeted at the "fart app" audience, but Men's Room Mayhem is actually a fun little game. The variety of patrons adds a wrinkle to how you play, and I'm hooked on completing goals and progressing further into the game. It'll be launching tonight, so add it to your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List to get an alert when it releases and leave your own thoughts and potty-related strategies in the forum discussion.

International App Store Link: Men's Room Mayhem, $0.99 (Universal)

Man. I've been nibbling on some delicious crow. Combo Crew is A-OK and I kinda feel bad about writing off brawler-y games on FingerPads devices. This one proves this genre can work on touch, thanks to its utilization rad gesture-based controls.

To rewind a bit, Combo Crew is an everyday brawler that pits you against hundreds of bad dudes and several bosses along the way. The quest is to reach the top of a tower where a really bad dude named Mr. Boss resides. Sounds ridiculous, right? With a wink and a nod, Combo Crew embraces the cheesiness of old-school brawlers, constantly poking fun at the amount of stupidity these things threw at you. From the music, to the character designs, and to the story, Combo Crew's aware that everything you're doing is dumb. I like it for this, and the execution on the satire is pretty good.

Unlike most of brawlers, including ones we see on iPad and iPhone, Crew doesn't use virtual buttons. In fact, you don't even directly control your character's movement. You just swipe to attack between bad guys. Two finger swipes lead to bigger combos, holding down a swipe charges an attack that can break through defenses, while on-screen taps can counter-attack anyone taking shots at you. As the game ramps up, you start learning new ways to combo, as it integrates multi-directional swipes that can do things like, say, blast opponents into the air for a juggle. The touch controls, in general, are pretty robust considering the simplicity of the control method. I was surprised, at least.

Another neat thing: Crew has a neat social hook in its endless "arena" mode. If you bite the dust, you can opt to send your score to a friend via Facebook or e-mail. If he or she manages to beat that score, you'll be healed with your friend's score converted into life points for you. It's a wild idea, and while it doesn't use Game Center, this seems like a pretty healthy way to integrate some sort of multiplayer.

If you're wondering why this looks so good, it's because Squids maker The Game Bakers is behind it. The art and production elements, as always with this crew, are top-notch.

There's a lot for us to see, still, in Crew -- there's an entire boost system which gives your characters extra powers, a character unlock system, and upgrades. I'll have to spend a lot more time to really evaluate if this stuff works and feels fair, but just so you know, no, this thing doesn't have IAP.

Combo Crew will hit tonight at around 11PM EST. If you've got our app [Free] , you can add it to your Watch List to be notified when it's released. We'll have more on this one as we dig deeper into it.

International App Store Link: Combo Crew, $1.99 (Universal)

I have to admit my eyes glazed over a bit when I took my first look at Tomb Breaker [Free] It could probably look more like Bejewled with a little effort, but I've had my fill of straight Match-3s and then some. I probably wouldn't have given it a second look if I hadn't noticed it was from Kurt Bieg, creator of the delightfully frustrating Circadia [$0.99]. That bit of trivia caught my attention, and I'm glad it did.

Tomb Breaker has promise. It's clear Bieg's Simple Machine is catering to a more casual crowd, but it boosts the business of matching gems into something a bit more cerebral than we've come to expect.

If you've played Bejeweled Blitz, you've got the basics of the setup. Tomb Breaker gives you sixty seconds on the clock to pull in the highest score you can, and the option of competing with friends on Game Center. You can use up to three boosts per attempt, paying out of a pool of gems that you can earn or (more likely) buy. It lacks some of Blitz's more aggressive psychological tricks, but the bones are there.

Read the rest of this entry »

TouchArcade Rating:

According to some accidentally revealed evidence spotted by IGN, it looks like BioWare and LucasArts' classic Star Wars role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic is getting set for release on the iPad. The snippet of info comes by way of an email newsletter announcing a sale on Call of Duty games. In the header is the text "The critically-acclaimed Star Wars RPG is now available on iPad..." which seems most likely to be referring to a Knights of the Old Republic game. Here's a screen cap of the newsletter taken by IGN:

---

---

The newsletter is from Aspyr Media, and as IGN notes they're no stranger to Knights of the Old Republic as they ported the game to the Mac previously and also they have a presence on the App Store already with Sushi Mushi [Free]. So by connecting the dots, it doesn't seem like that big of a stretch. We'll be keeping an eye out for more details on a possible Knights of the Old Republic port to the iPad as soon as they become available.

[IGN]

There's no doubt that Mojang's Minecraft has become a nearly unfathomable success over the past few years, and as with anything that becomes popular there's a seemingly unending line of people that rush to ride the coattails of that success.

Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with taking heavy inspiration from a game. I mean heck, even Minecraft was inspired by similar games that came before it. But in the mobile space especially, 99% of anything that gets released that's reminiscent of Minecraft is just a crappy knock-off and cash-in attempt that's of little value to anyone. "Minecraft" is the new "Angry" or "Temple" in terms of latest SEO hotness, I guess you could say.

I can tell you from personal experience working at TouchArcade that with dozens of these kinds of games coming out every week it gets very hard to decide which ones are worth exploring and which ones should just be written off as the cheap clones that they are. It gets very easy to dismiss these games when so many bad ones are churned out at such an incredible pace.

With that said, a new Minecraft-y game has been ripping up the charts lately and even jockeying for position with Mojang's official Minecraft - Pocket Edition [$6.99]. That game is called Survivalcraft [$3.99], and despite being made by just a single person it bests even Mojang's official mobile offering and even does some unique things to set itself apart from the pack. And, despite our initial hesitations, this is anything but a cheap knock-off attempting to cash in on the Minecraft craze, and is in fact the best mobile sandbox game of its kind that you can get at this time.

Read the rest of this entry »

TouchArcade Rating:

Back in March it was announced that Games Workshop was teaming up with Slitherine to bring a then-unspecified Warhammer game to PC and mobile, and today the developers have released the first concrete information on the upcoming title. Officially titled Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon, the hex-based turn-based strategy title will take place in the "Battle for Armageddon" setting in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

More specifically, it's set during the Second War for Armageddon and you'll lead the Imperial Armageddon Steel Legion, along with help from various Space Marines, against the evil Orks. There will be more than 30 major scenarios that make up the single-player campaign, complete with more than 100 different kinds of upgradeable units and a set of maps designed specifically for multiplayer bouts. Here is a promo image that accompanied the announcement:

You'll likely recall that there's an assortment of Warhammer-related games on the horizon, including Space Hulk from Full Control, Warhammer Quest from Rodeo Games, and an unspecified Warhammer game from Roadhouse Interactive. For their part, Slitherine are masters of strategy titles and you may have already enjoyed their current iPad offerings Battle Academy [$19.99 (HD) / Free (HD)] or Slitherine's Legion [$9.99 (HD)], so it's exciting to see what they'll bring to the table in the Warhammer universe.

Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon is slated for a Q1 2014 launch, so settle in and expect much more on this title as we draw closer to then.

Baseball season is in full swing, and in celebration of the 2013 All-Star Game coming in July Major League Baseball has released MLB.com Home Run Derby [Free], a free-to-play game that puts you in the shoes of an actual MLB player as they try to become the winner of the Home Run Derby competition. While the core game at the center of Home Run Derby is solid, and visually it looks great, the whole thing is hampered by a stingy free-to-play model that pretty much ruins what would have been a fun little mobile game for baseball fans.

The game uses a dual-currency system, MLBucks and coins. At the onset you're given enough bucks to purchase one lower-tier player from all the players who have participated in the last three Home Run Derbys. You're then given the option to play either of the game's two modes: the Home Run Derby itself or Arcade mode. Both can be played in single player or in online multiplayer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey! In the next few moments, Microsoft will be revealing its Next Big Thing: the follow-up to the Xbox 360. This event, which is taking place at Microsoft's campus, is available to watch at a couple of places, including Xbox.com, GameTrailers and your own Xbox. You can also catch it on Spike TV, if you've got a television handy. Aside from those streams, IGN is also streaming it live via YouTube. Check it out:

NOTE: For some weird reason the live streaming embed isn't working quite right in some browsers. If you're having issues, give Google Chrome a try which seems to work fine.

Word on the street is that Microsoft will be announcing a bunch of phone and tablet support. What we do know is that we'll see some games and services at the event. Specifically, the next Call of Duty title, Call of Duty: Ghosts, is going to get some airtime, in addition to the next generation of EA sports titles, including a UFC and FIFA game. Who knows, maybe even that next entry in the NBA Live franchise will finally appear. Who knows! That's half the fun.

The event should be pretty cool, and, hey, even if mobile doesn't get all the showtime, this is a big deal in the industry that'll set the tone moving into E3 and for the next-generation of video game playing devices.

Oh, hey, did you know: a new Xbox is about to be announced today. At 10AM PST, Microsoft will finally reveal its next-generation console, putting to bed a lot of the rumors that have been swirling around. Will this new console completely embrace mobile? The Internet seems to think so, which is why we're pretty interested in what Microsoft has to show.

Word on the street is that this next Xbox will have a much more of a presence on phones and tablets. We've heard just about everything, including the possibility of a straight-up Xbox-branded tablet that'll, presumably, interface directly with the console. There's also much more believable rumors, including the ones that say SmartGlass will be more of a thing with this Xbox, giving users to control over their new consoles via tablets or phones.

For what it's worth, our money's on the latter. SmartGlass was a pretty neat late add-on to the Xbox 360. Being able to view stats in Halo, pick songs in Dance Central, or see a map in Forza was helpful. Also, it felt kinda space age-y. With this new Xbox, you gotta figure that this "second screen" kinda stuff is going to be baked in, providing a richer and faster experience to users.

Who knows, though! That's why we're pretty stoked to see the event this afternoon. Feel free to throw your own speculation in the comments that way you'll more easily be able to be That Guy and say you called it.

Whether or not you even realize it, it's a safe bet that you've got at least one game on your phone right now that uses the Unity game engine. It's a really cool development environment that allows developers to essentially code their game once, then deploy it across a ridiculous amount of platforms ranging all the way from iOS devices up to the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4- Often times with either no or very few tweaks to make it work on each device.

In the scheme of game engine pricing, Unity was incredibly cheap at its initial free bundle when coupled with the $800 package license that allows developers to build iOS and Android games... But, $800 is still a lot of money for a indie developer dabbling in game development in their spare time. As of today, it's all free.

Unity CEO David Helgason explains the thought process in a recently released video:

If you want to fiddle with Unity, head on over to the download site. Exhaustive tutorials for anything you'd ever want to do (including tutorials that start with incredibly beginner-level stuff) are plentiful and merely a Google search away. I can't wait to see what kind of things comes of this shift in pricing.

[via Gamasutra]

Following what appears to have been a pretty successful release across iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, Star Command [$2.99] creator War Balloon has announced that it's starting to work on some pretty big updates to the game as it, simultaneously, starts porting it across Mac, PC, and Android.

The list of new stuff War Balloon has in mind is pretty exhaustive, but wicked cool. For one, it plans to give fire the ability to spread, which should really jack up the frenzy of battle. Also, ship destructibility is in the works. You may or may not know this, but apparently your ship can't really blow up and you don't necessarily HAVE to fix damage.

Squad grouping, automatic healing and repair, cloud saves, and the removal of ammunition tokens are all on deck, too, as eventual updates. War Ballon outlines the whys for each of these improvements, tweaks or overhauls. The update's neat reading if you're really into the game or need some weird sort of validation.

Last but not least: away teams are said to be coming down the line as well. "The focus here is on planet exploration and enemy ship invasion," War Balloon writes in the update. "These are VERY different systems and will take some time to get right. They are our focus for the PC / Mac version of the game, but will be seen across the platforms.

"You would probably be surprised with how far along we are with them and they should really expand the game from cool simulator to something very epic," War Ballon adds.

Star Command is pretty cool and we're excited to see it grow. There's no doubt about that. As for a timeline when will see any of this? War Balloon isn't setting anymore release dates, which is a good thing.

Ok not a spare thumb like an extra one, but if one of your thumbs is free then I've got a game for you to check out. Bouncy! Trampoline [$0.99] is one of those games that came out a few months ago, I played around with it real quick, and then it's sort of just been hiding on my device ever since. Recently, when going through my many folders of games that time forgot, I came across Bouncy! once again and decided to give it another go. This time Bouncy! really stuck with me.

A deceptively simple game at its core, Bouncy! sees you playing as an adorable rabbit bouncing on a trampoline. Pressing the screen causes you to throw your weight downward into the trampoline, and once the elastic surface hits the lowest point it can from your weight, you let go for maximum propulsion into the sky. If you've played a Mario game or any of the many similar platformers over the years with a springboard in it, then you should be familiar with this mechanic.

Read the rest of this entry »