Taito's Space Invaders Infinity Gene [$4.99] has to be one of the most well received games here on TouchArcade. We loved it, and our readers loved it, and it really demonstrated how a classic could be properly revived on the iPhone platform.
Next on Taito's list is Arkanoid -- the 1986 brick breaker that modernized Breakout and has been endlessly imitated. Arkanoid introduced special bricks, enemy ships, power ups and more to the classic brick breaking formula. According to Taito "a new legend is about to be born" and that they are bringing Arkanoid back and it will be "all new".
We've confirmed with Taito that this version will be coming to the iPhone. Little else is known so far, though details and a video are going to be released shortly.
Imagine a world in which you are caught behind enemy lines, and your only hope is to take out an endless onslaught of pink bears whose only wish is to hug you to death. Welcome to Battle Bears.
Battle Bears [$0.99] is a survival shooter with a ridiculous story line that is almost worth the price of entry by itself. The full version of the game offers both Story and Survival modes in which you must survive the onslaught of pink bears with your machine gun or a number of unlockable weapons (including the Swearaphone pictured above which stuns the innocent bears temporarily as you shout out expletives). The gameplay itself places you behind a bunker in which you pan across the screen with one finger while tapping to fire with the other. Headshots take out the bears who release a burst of rainbow colors rather than blood.
Check out the gameplay video of the Lite version to see the excellent intro cutscene and basics of gameplay. The full version has a new cut scene between each of the 5 stages and a more gradual ramp up in difficulty in story mode.
The gameplay is simple and a bit repetitive, so it's hard to say we necessarily recommend it as a game, but with this kind of epic story line, it's hard to resist. But do at least take the Free version for a spin if you want a good laugh. There's further discussion in our forums.
Cogs is a game that takes unique spin on the Pipe Mania formula for the PC currently available via Steam and Direct2Drive. In the game, players move around pipes and gears to transfer either rotational or steam power from one side of the game board to the other. The twist is, instead of simple 2D game fields, Cogs has you solving puzzles on a 3D cube.
Forum member Owl emailed the developers asking about a potential iPhone port of the game, and sure enough, it's already in the works, but may be a while before the game gets to market. Check out this trailer for the PC version of the game to get an idea of what could be coming. Make sure you watch at least to the 35 second mark or so, as that's when the video gets really cool.
Nothing in the trailer looks like it would be a problem for the iPhone. Some of the fancy lighting might need to get cut, but overall the core gameplay elements should work fine. Pieces could be controlled using single finger movements on screen, and the view controls could easily be done with two finger gestures. Cogs has a free demo available for the PC on their web site, so in the meantime you could either check that out or come participate in the thread on our forums. While Cogs currently has no release date, it's at least nice knowing that it's coming.
Rockstar games announced today that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will be coming to iPhone and iPod Touch later this fall.
"Chinatown Wars is a perfect match for the iPhone and iPod touch," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "We are very excited to bring this incredibly ambitious version of Liberty City, with this level of detail and immersive gameplay on Apple's new gaming platforms."
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is presently available for the Nintendo DS and follows the story of Huang Lee, a young Triad who travels to Liberty City after the mysterious death of his father.
What I won't forget to mention: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars continues GTA's legacy as the premiere "sandbox" game design. Though it might look like a lot has changed in the move to the handheld platform, more has been added than taken away - there's so much to do in this Liberty City, and it's hard not to be impressed and amazed at some of the things the developer's managed to pull off on the hardware. GTA: Chinatown Wars is easily one of the best Nintendo DS games on the platform.
Alan Turoff invented Boggle [App Store] in 1972 and since then the game has seen numerous variants, computer games, and as of today, an iPhone game. The classic game of Boggle is played by shaking a covered tray of 16 dice, each with a different letter printed on each of its sides. The dice settle in to a 4x4 grid, you flip over the included hour glass and start writing out every word you find then tallying your score.
The iPhone version of the game, needless to say, takes care of most of these things for you. The game still starts with a vigorous shake, but finding words is done using a simple touch interface that works identically to other similar word games on the App Store. You drag your finger across tiles to spell a word, hit the green button that pops up to enter it, and repeat for three minutes. You can even rotate the letters by putting two fingers on screen at once and rotating them. At the end of the game, it shows you your total score along with the complete word list and the ability to challenge your friends via email.
Tapping the challenge button brings up an already filled out email ready to be addressed. When the person you're challenging receives the email, assuming they also own the game, tapping the included link fires up Boggle and allows them to play your exact letter set to beat your score. If you receive a challenge, you can access it at any time by tapping the "Challenges" button, so you don't need to play challenges from friends right away if you don't want to.
Also included is an "Advanced" mode that mixes things up a bit by allowing you to change the time limit as well as enable "portal cubes" and/or "panic flip". With portal cubes on, when you match a word the first and last letters swap positions on the grid and with panic flip at 20 seconds left a new configuration of the letters appear. If you're an old school Boggle player and prefer writing and scoring your own words, there's a self score mode that does nothing more than display the letter grid and a timer.
If achievements and stat tracking are your thing, Boggle keeps track of a ridiculous amount of data such as your total play time, most used letters, and even things like your favorite method of controlling the game among other equally silly statistics. Achievements range from word length to total games played, challenges beaten, and other things like that.
There's really not much to say about Boggle other than it's an excellent adaptation of the original. I can see the challenge feature being extremely popular among word nerds, and advanced mode will mix things up a bit for Boggle veterans. Also, at $2.99, the iPhone version seems well priced for a brand-name title, and only priced slightly higher than the generic Boogle-variants already found in the App Store.
The iPhone version Boggle was developed by Tricky Software who also developed Spore and Armado for the iPhone.
If you're a fan of physics games, it's time to go rummaging through your couch cushions to scrounge up some quarters to buy 2up Games' first iPhone game, Melon Golf [App Store]. Featuring 36 holes between the three standard courses and one unlockable course, touch controls that couldn't be more simple, and a difficulty curve that keeps you coming back for more, Melon Golf joins the ranks of my other physics favorites on the App Store.
The thing about Melon Golf is that it isn't really a golf game as much as it is just a golf inspired game. You are trying to get a melon in to a hole, and the levels are called courses, and that is about where the similarities end. To fling your melon, you draw back on the screen and let go. The controls work exactly like all the other slingshot and archery type games, and come just as naturally. You can put a spin on your melon after your launch it by swiping on the screen while it's in the air, a technique that becomes vital in later courses.
Once you finish the easy set of courses, Melon Golf starts throwing spinning gears, moving obstacles, and holes that require some pretty high accuracy to get in one shot-- But that's one of the things that seems to draw me to the game so much. There doesn't seem to be a way to lose (or if there is, I haven't found it yet) so if you're not a Melon Golf pro, all you need to do is keep trying.
Getting the melon in to the hole in fewer shots than previous attempts has kept me playing courses I've already cleared and if there was one bad thing I had to say about the game it would be that there's no replay system. I've had a few absolutely unbelievable holes in one that I would have loved to be able to save, but this is a minor complaint. Melon Golf also has no music, but I usually play simple games like this while listening to podcasts, so it isn't an issue for me.
The developer put together this gameplay video:
If you like these kinds of physics games, there's no reason you won't also enjoy Melon Golf and if you're new to the "flinging stuff from point A to point B" genre, this game is a great place to start.
First Star Software recently released their second Boulder Dash title for the iPhone. This time, they've taken the 2007 Nintendo DS version of Boulder Dash Rocks and brought it to the iPhone. Whereas the original Boulder Dash [$4.99] had to live up to 20 year old memories of the original, Boulder Dash Rocks [$4.99] brings a revamped version of the game that may be targeted more to newcomers than veterans of the franchise.
Boulder Dash Rocks is still an action puzzler in which you play the earth digging Rockford who must collect a quota of diamonds to pass each level. Unlike the original game which relied on fast-paced joystick responses, Boulder Dash Rocks seems to be a much more forgiving game. As you dig under rocks, you have a very comfortable amount of time before the rocks come crushing down. Even so, death doesn't come that abruptly. Instead, you have a certain amount of health that must be depleted before you must start over. (more...)
Success Story is a very nice time management game which challenges you to run various fast food joints.
The objective here is simple: fill customers’ orders as quickly and accurately as possible. The happier the customers, the higher your profit margin will be, and most importantly, the faster you get to move on to the next fast food restaurant. Of course, it’s not as simple as grabbing this and grabbing that. To fill an order, you actually have to assemble things using the right ingredients and in the correct sequence using a variety of different ingredients.
Success Story offers a good deal of content with 10 different restaurants for a total of 46 levels including a final supermax franchise level to be the ultimate fast food guru. Customers appear with their orders and wait patiently at least for a short while for their orders. Controls are straightforward: tap on the desired ingredient or food product. And if you choose the wrong ingredient, tap again to remove.
Ingredients appear on a layout of 11 tables which constantly appear and disappear throughout so you’ll need to act fast. As I mentioned, accuracy is important. For example, to assemble a cheeseburger, the ingredients must be placed in the following sequence on the bun: patty, onions and then cheese. If any of that is in the wrong sequence, not only will your picky customer storm off, but your customer satisfaction will also take a hit if it happens too often. In order to proceed to the next level, you’ll need to meet certain profit targets and a running tally keeps track of progress.
As levels are completed, profits are tabulated which can then be used in the upgrade store. The game also has an achievement system based on points earned (not profit) called the Grill Hall of Fame where you can be crowned anything from Chief Cook and Burger Professor all the way up to Burger Hero and ultimately Burger God.
Visually, it can be tough to make out what’s actually in an order. For example, some customers request extra lettuce or cheese, and sometimes, that’s not readily apparent from looking at the order. In addition, the game throws a wrench into things by including indecisive customers—customers who change their mind while you’re preparing their order. For some, the gameplay may feel repetitive because you are constantly assembling things. But on the other hand, the diversity of items and the fast-paced flow of the game are both challenging and entertaining.
Success Story is a terrific game with high production values and a ton of content. The gameplay should appeal to those interested in time management games as well as those looking for a faster change of pace.
Here are a few games that have recently come out with Lite versions that are worth checking out.
Atlantis Sky Patrol Lite - This incredibly well-made marble shooting game had the unfortunate timing of coming out immediately before Luxor. As a result, the game hasn't seen as much attention as it might have. The game adds a bit of a twist to the standard marble shooting games by adding stationary elements that must be completely destroyed in order to pass a level. It's enough to keep the game interesting enough for fans of Stoneloops or Luxor.
Dirt Moto Racing Lite - A high quality ATV racer from Resolution Interactive. We really enjoyed the full version of the game. The controls felt "right" and the phyics were solid. For $4.99, it's a solid buy, but you can try it out for yourself.
Harbor Master Lite - Harbor Master seems to be the second most popular line-drawing chaos management games after Flight Control which popularized the genre. After seeing initial success with the title, Imangi adopted a frequent update model and is up to their 5th episode, now with 6 unlockable maps. It'll be interesting to see if the Lite version of Harbor Master will introduce an untapped segment of the app buying population to this genre.
Eric Tong is celebrating the birth of his first daughter by putting his well loved shooter 2079 on sale for free.
2079 was one of the first Geometry Wars-like games to appear in the App Store back in November and has remained a forum favorite here at TouchArcade. If you've never picked up the game, now's your chance.
This is an old video of the game from back in November:
If you're looking for a fun and fast game to test your recollection of mixing primary and secondary colors, Mixt [App Store] should do the trick. Like most good puzzle games, the premise of the game is simple but gets challenging quick.
In Mixt, blobs of colors fall from the top of the screen. They can be controlled by touching and dragging your finger to send them flying in whatever direction you choose. When two blobs collide, if they're the same color, they combine and grow in size. If they're two different colors, they mix together. At the bottom of the screen is a series of colored pools that blobs of corresponding color need to get dropped in to. If you need to break a mixed blob, swiping across one will break it in to the two original blobs that were combined.
Things quickly get difficult as there isn't always a color pool at the bottom of the screen that matches the blobs you're juggling. For instance, sometimes there just won't be a yellow pool and you're forced to mix yellow in to green or orange to match it to a pool. Here is a video showing the game's tutorial, and here is a video of what the game looks like once you're actually playing:
Another game worth considering is Anthropophagy's Stay [App Store], a physics-based balancing game. In Stay, a red shape appears on a beam and touching she screen drops another block to balance the beam from tipping. You want to keep the special red shape, or your "friend" as the game calls it, on the beam for as long as possible.
It's not as simple as it sounds though, because when you touch the screen you have no control over what type of block gets created. You might just get a normal block, a block that pops in to a larger shape, or a block that explodes among others. Surviving any more than a few seconds on the harder difficulty levels usually is just the result of frantic tapping and doing everything you can from dumping all the blocks off the beam.
The developer released this excellent gameplay video that shows exactly what I'm talking about:
Both are relatively simple games but high quality productions so if either of the videos look interesting to you, they are worth considering.
Gameloft seems intent on completely solidifying its reputation as the unstoppable game producing juggernaut of the App Store. This latest trailer of theirs shows absolutely nothing of the gameplay, but provides the premise for a roleplaying game. Is this a hack and slash like Diablo? A more traditional RPG like Final Fantasy? Or maybe even a tactical RPG like Fire Emblem? We'll find out soon!
After a cool teaser video and a load of screenshots, Konami's Krazy Kart Racing [App Store] has been high on my list of games I really wanted to play. As of tonight, the wait is (almost) over, and Krazy Kart is actually surprisingly fun, especially when playing against friends in the various online multiplayer modes.
Konami has tried pretty hard to duplicate as much of Mario Kart as they can, with shells replaced with missiles, mushrooms replaced with a generic speed boost item, the lightning bolt replaced with an item that turns everyone in to pigs, and other fairly blatant copies of Mario Kart power-ups. Instead of the highly recognizable Nintendo lineup or characters, Krazy Kart Racing features a slightly more obscure cast of Konami characters such as Sparkster (from the SNES game of the same name), Robbie Rabbit (the mascot from an amusement park found in Silent Hill), and the frog from Frogger along with seven others.
The controls work well and feature both tilt steering and touch controls. I've found myself preferring touch controls, but tilt worked fine as well. Acceleration is handled automatically, and there are virtual buttons on screen to brake and use whatever power-up you've managed to pick up.
16 tracks are included, based on themes of the games the characters are from. For instance, Power Stadium is a baseball diamond shaped track to go along with the baseball player racer from Power Touch Pros and there's a Antarctic themed track to go with the penguin racer from Penguin Adventure. These tracks can be played in grand prix, time attack, and free run modes as well as with friends or random people online in the included internet multiplayer modes.
Online multiplayer works without any kind of registration. You simply enter your name, connect to one of the game servers, and from there you can either create or join a game room with other players. Any track that you have unlocked in single player is playable online with up to five other players and/or bots. Aside from the standard race mode, there are two battle modes, chicken and bomb chaser. In chicken, players accelerate down a straight track and slam on their brakes before reaching the end and flying off in to the pool of water below.
In bomb chaser, one player has the bomb and drives around a circular arena attempting to run in to other players to give them the bomb. Whoever has the bomb drives significantly faster than the other players, so it can get kind of hectic at times, but neither battle mode is very interesting and pales in comparison to Mario Kart. Performance online is surprisingly good, although there was a bit of lag when playing in a full game with bots, it was still completely playable. The online system seems a bit buggy still as I experienced a few instances where games wouldn't launch, game rooms becoming unresponsive and it not releasing my username. Once you're actually connected, however, the gameplay seemed to work fine. We mostly tested on Wi-Fi though 3G worked as well.
This video shows the multiplayer modes as well as single player using touch control:
Our early impressions of Krazy Kart Racing is that it's a fun kart racer, and while it's currently the closest thing to Mario Kart available on the App Store, it's still hard to compare to the original. There already is a menu item in game for downloadable content, so it should be interesting to see what Konami has in store with that. If Krazy Kart's online community takes off, I could see myself spending a serious amount of time racing over the internet. We'll spend some more time with this title this weekend, and we are still looking forward to Gameloft's Shrek Kart which is due next month.
Note: Krazy Kart Racing is not currently available from the US App Store, but has appeared in international stores. With any luck it should appear for download in the US shortly, though there have been instances (such as Silent Hill) where the U.S. release lagged as long as a week after the international release.
As if you needed one more difficult decision to make today, you can now either get a Subway $5 foot long sandwich, or five games that all have recently been dropped to 99¢. As strong as the allure of the meatball sandwich is, given the original price of some of these games, now is the time to buy if you've had your mouse hovering over the buy now button in iTunes in the past.
Castle of Magic, 99¢ - A really neat platformer by Gameloft, Castle of Magic has a level of detail seldom seen in iPhone games. Fun level designs, cool boss encounters, and a magical game world make for a highly enjoyable game. There is a down side to the amount of visual flair in the game, as Castle of Magic does have significant load times on older devices, so you might want to check out Castle of Magic Free [App Store] first.
Rise of the Lost Empires, 99¢ - Gameloft's real-time strategy game that takes place in a fantasy setting with two included campaigns, one for both orcs and humans. Colorful graphics and loads of voice overs make for a pretty fun game, but if you're the kind of person who sits down and plays through entire games in one sitting, Rise of the Lost Empires can be beaten in a matter of hours. If you're more of a casual player who plays games in small burts, the game should keep you busy for quite a while. Rise of the Lost Empires Free [App Store] is also available if you want to get an idea of how the game plays before purchasing.
Smiles, 99¢ - If you have room on your iPhone for another match three game, Smiles has more variety in it than most other similar games. Featuring 14 different game modes and 3 themes, Smiles has been well received by the iPhone gaming community and was even a finalist for the best mobile game at the Independent Games Festival Mobile Awards. If you want to see what all the fuss is about, Free Smiles [App Store] will let you get your feet wet.
Silent Scope, 99¢ - Originally a awesome arcade game, Silent Scope for the iPhone has the same wacky premise of you playing as the world's top sniper trying to rescue the President and the first family from terrorists. The controls make some of the boss encounters and tracking moving enemies fairly difficult, so the $5.99 original price point was hard to swallow because of that. At 99¢, Silent Scope is worth a try if you've found yourself enjoying the other sniper games on the App Store.
Video by YouTube user kman316
Power Touch Pros, 99¢ - An immensely popular series in Japan, Power Touch Pros is an arcade baseball game with a ridiculous amount of customization to it. You can play exhibition games, entire seasons, change the overall difficulty, enable or disable errors, and even change whether or not there is wind in the game. Gameplay can be as simple as tapping or extremely complex depending on how far you delve in to the options available.
NaturalMotion once again asks the eternal question of "Are you ready for some football?" with the announcement of Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley, an iPhone game based on a mini-game from Backbreaker, a game currently in development for the XBOX 360 and PS3. The game takes advantage of "morpheme", NaturalMotion's iPhone graphics engine which allegedly "produces animation of a quality not seen before on the iPhone and iPod Touch providing the on-screen characters with a fluidity of motion rivaling that experienced on home consoles."
The iPhone version of the game is being developed by Ideaworks3D, the company behind Airplay SDK, a cross-platform environment that enables high-quality 3D graphics across a ton of mobile devices including the iPhone. The list of mobile phone games they've been involved in is pretty impressive and includes titles such as Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode - Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid Mobile, and Project Gotham Racing among others.
In the game, players use the accelerometer and on-screen buttons to control their player through waves of defenders. You will be able to sprint, dodge, and spin past your opponents to rack up combos and score multipliers making your way to the end zone. Also included is Facebook integration to broadcast your high scores to your friends. Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley will be available on the App Store sometime this fall.
Here is a trailer for the console version of Backbreaker:
Alan Turoff invented Boggle [
