Adult Swim seems to be on a mission of porting every single one of their flash games to the iPhone, with My Lil' Bastard being the next from their lineup making the jump to the App Store.
My Lil' Bastard is a fairly simple virtual pet game where you raise your own lil' bastard, starting with adjusting a heat lamp to determine its sex. From there you learn how to feed it, clean it, look after it, and keep it happy. Of course, being an Adult Swim game, this isn't your average virtual pet. Your lil' bastard will inevitably have an attitude problem which will lead to lots of vomiting, thrown molotov cocktails, and even breaking the water bottle you use to discipline him or her.
Like the other Adult Swim games, My Lil' Bastard is playable for free on the Adult Swim Games site, and this is a pocket-sized carbon copy of the same game with touch controls instead of a mouse pointer.
Here is the trailer for the identical flash game:
My Lil' Bastard is set for release on the 23rd of this month, so if you find an iTunes gift card under your Christmas tree and are looking for a not-so-adorable virtual pet-- Look no further than getting your own lil' bastard.
Inspired by Dante's Inferno, The Inferno is a top down-puzzle game which will have players adventuring through all five circles of hell collecting souls, avoiding obstacles, and hopefully reaching the exit of each level before running out of lives and/or time. The story is told through a text-based character conversations before levels, and the only real fault I can find in the game is the somewhat confusing default control scheme. Instead of a normal D-Pad, you control your movement east and west with your left thumb, and north and south with your right. It's a little disorienting, but a quick trip to the game's option can turn this in to a much more comfortable standard D-Pad.
What is interesting about The Inferno is how Xpressed is selling it on the App Store. There is a full version of The Inferno [$2.99] with all 121 levels, The Inferno [99¢] that comes loaded with 50 levels, and The Inferno [Free] with the first 23 levels. Regardless of whether or not you download the 99¢ or free version, both can be upgraded to the full version from within the game via DLC.
While Xpressed has also released a trailer for the game, here is our own gameplay video showing the first few levels:
To celebrate the release of The Inferno, UniWar [Free] will be available for free for the next 24 hours. UniWar is a turn-based strategy game with online multiplayer that is a ton of fun. If you somehow need more reason to download this game while it's free, check out our review.
Iceland-based game studio On The Rocks is on the verge of releasing a side scrolling game based in the world of myth and legend. Published by Freeverse, Thor includes 13 levels along with hidden objects, achievements, unlockables, and multiple game save slots among other things.
Gameplay consists of running through the mythical landscape, gathering energy orbs by tapping them and lightning bolts by sliding your finger across them to power up your hammer. Destroying and avoiding obstacles involves tapping the screen at the right time, a mechanic that seemed to take me quite a few deaths to get used to.
Along the way you run in to several bosses, clever dialog, and a few different locales to run across. Overall Thor is pretty fun, but as you can see from the video it is a game where your fingers will be constantly be obscuring the screen if you hope to collect everything. Regardless, I've found myself enjoying all of these different running games and while Thor is no Canabalt, it's still a fun game.
EA's much anticipated Need for Speed: Shift has zoomed into the App Store this evening. We took an extensive look at the game last week and found it to be a remarkable iPhone racing game.
With licensed cars, control options that should make most people happy, and a very cool yet mostly superfluous driver profile and performance tracking system, Shift is a must-have for fans of the genre.
The game comes with 20 real licensed cars that can have both their visuals and performance upgraded. In the visuals department you can add a body kit, change paint colors, buy ridiculously huge spoilers, and change out your wheels. If you care more about your car actually going faster than looking cool, you can upgrade its top speed, acceleration, nitrous oxide system, as well as tires and suspension. Each of these upgrades come in multiple stages and once you've hit a car's limit to remain competitive in races you will need to buy new cars.
In each of the 3 locales you can participate in seven different types of events which range from standard races to drifting competitions, time trials, and the driver duel which pits you against a single AI opponent. There are 18 different courses total that can be unlocked.
Need for Speed: Shift includes a range of control options from full assist all the way to expert mode where you can manually shift the transmission. Regardless of which control mode you choose, acceleration is handled automatically and touching the screen applies the brakes. Really, the biggest downfall of the game is that it shares a name with the very impressive console title, and is unable to deliver on the immersive sense of speed that those versions are known for.
Readers have been exploring the game ever since it started being released internationally earlier today and reactions have been generally positive. Forum member howiedeano was unsure at first but has become a fan :
However, after sticking with it through the early races, it just gets better and better, the cpu cars put up a really good challenge, you have to concentrate on your driving and winning races requires effort & skill. You'll find yourself hugging the racing line to try and get better scores/rewards after the race and as you get past the slightly on rails feel, the controls actually work extremely well, drifting feels good, the cars look beautiful. It's really a game that sneaks up on you, I'm really addicted, tweaking my car with upgrades, retrying races, knowing I can go faster and win next time.
We also enjoyed it in our preview and described as a "must-have" for fans of the racing genre.
iPhone gamers with a penchant for spending some virtual time on the wing, rejoice. Glu Mobile's highly anticipated Glyder 2 [link] has hit the App Store.
We first saw the original Glyder earlier this year at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco shortly before it made its App Store debut. We were immediately impressed by the game's casual flying dynamic, unlike anything in the App Store at the time. Many, including all of us here at Touch Arcade, consider the game to be the iPhone's answer to Nintendo's excellent Pilotwings. The game garnered quite a following, and looking at our forums, it seems the sequel is destined to do the same.
In Glyder 2, Eryn, who was ever so unfortunately thrown through a dimensional rift in the original Glyder, has again found herself in a foreign dimension and needs your help in unlocking the mysteries of her new environment in order to make her way back home. Poor, poor Eryn. But, then, her misfortune is your gain as an iPhone gamer.
Glyder 2, weighing in at four times the filesize of the original, brings a great deal of new content to thrill those who found themselves addicted to the original:
Six new worlds to explore
Character customizations (new wings and new outfits can be acquired and worn)
18 new mini-games and puzzles
A seventh mini-world that involves flying faster and faster through an obstacle course across a tiny atoll
Last week we reported on news that Paperboy was coming to the App Store. Featuring both a "classic" and a newly re-imagined 3D mode, this 1984 arcade game should be a perfect fit amongst other retro games that have made their way to the iPhone.
Also, according to developers Elite Systems, the English version of game will go live on the App Store tomorrow for $4.99 with non-English versions being released after the New Year. Needless to say, we'll post more once we have the game in our hands.
Two games on the horizon from Infinite Dreams had trailers released recently that caught our eye. Not much is known about these games currently aside from what is shown in each video, but judging by their lineup of mobile phone games and games already on the App Store, both Jelly Defence and Sailboat Championship should be worth a look.
Jelly Defence, a tower defense game in need of a slogan. Not really any actual gameplay is shown in the video, but they really spent some time putting together a very nice trailer.
The latest freebie from AppventCalendar is a game that we reviewed just a couple of weeks ago. Cabby is a side-scrolling transport game that has been compared to Space Taxi.
We quite enjoyed the game, though had some issues with the size/placement of the on screen buttons. This is said to be addressed in a future update.
In the meanwhile, the game is certainly worth a download.
EA's Spore Creatures is the sequel to Spore Origins [99¢ / Free], one of the very early big-name games to be released on the App Store. While Origins hasn't exactly aged well, Spore Creatures takes a similar tilt to move and eat stuff mechanic and adds a considerable layer of depth to nearly all aspects of the game.
As obvious by the screenshots, this game takes place on land and you will need to evolve to move rocks or otherwise interact with the environment, socialize with other creatures, and fight bosses among other things. Along the way your creature will evolve getting new body parts which can be added to your infinitely customizable creature.
The following video shows the creature builder as well as eating and socializing with some friendly crabs:
It's hard to say how much allure the Spore brand name even has anymore, but if you enjoyed the first game, you will likely have just as much fun evolving a new creature on land. Spore Creatures is also part of EA's holiday lineup, and should be released soon.
Before you get too excited from the title, no, this is not The Simpsons Arcade you're probably thinking of. Instead, it's a upgraded port of a J2ME game which still manages to be quite a bit of fun, especially for fans of the show. The premise of the game involves some secret plans stored on a USB flash drive which Springfield's illuminati (consequently practically consisting of all the rest of the show's cast) decided to hide in a doughnut and entrust to Waylon Smithers.
Smithers naturally loses the doughnut and Homer gives chase, since it must be a pretty good doughnut for everyone to want it this badly. Using a mixture of a virtual D-Pad and two on-screen buttons you engage in fisticuffs with the various henchmen who are, um, protecting the doughnut. There isn't much to the plot, but given the arcade beat-em-up style of the game there doesn't really need to be.
Characters from the show make up the game's bosses, and scattered between every few levels is a mini-game of sorts where homer either chases or runs from something. The only real variety in the game is from the power ups you pick up along the way, which consist of weapons for you to use as well as other members of the Simpson family coming to briefly help you out.
Here is the first few levels, including a boss fight with Chief Wiggum and Mayor Quimby:
The Simpsons Arcade is a title in EA's holiday lineup and is coming soon.
Few games have generated the amount of hype that Gameloft's N.O.V.A. - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [App Store] has, and even fewer have managed to live up to that same hype. NOVA is one of those rare instances where a upcoming game is everything we wanted and more. It's not perfect, but there aren't many games to even compare it to on the platform. NOVA feels like a complete video game experience, something which is quite rare indeed on the landscape of bite sized games that make up the App Store.
In Nova you play as Karl Wardin, an ex-space marine who has been reactivated to investigate some strange alien activity in a futuristic setting where the Earth has depleted its resources and no longer can sustain life, forcing humanity to live on nearby orbiting colonies. Admittedly, the plot isn't anything to write home about and the voice acting ranges from passable to downright cringe-worthy at times-- Especially whenever Karl himself speaks. Thankfully, the gameplay itself more than makes up for these shortfalls.
The first series of levels will leave you wandering around on a space ship while you're guided by various characters communicating over the radio. An arrow guides you from objective to objective, and gameplay amounts to simply following this arrow, killing anything that moves, and flipping switches to activate or unlock different objects and areas. Deadspace fans will feel right at home when the game asks you to traverse the hull of the space ship, even going as far as to mention enabling your magnetic boots. What do you do while you're outside the ship? Run from pressurized area to pressurized area while avoiding incoming asteroids of course. (If you haven't played Deadspace, you do exactly this several times throughout the game-- The hull is even laid out similarly.)
Eventually after fixing a few different parts of the ship and killing oodles of aliens, you will make your way to the bridge to initiate the self destruct sequence and escape back to your ship. You then fly down to a planet with beautifully rendered lush forests which also happens to be infested by these same (although slightly different colored) aliens. The rest of the game continues in a similar fashion, with different characters telling you where to go and what to do across 13 different levels that take place in five distinctly different environments.
The run and gun action is broken up by mini games, a level where you man the turrent on a warthog-like truck from Halo, and even a couple boss fights. Scattered throughout the levels are locked crates which must be opened by playing a brief mini game where you move different objects around on a grid to solve a puzzle where you're directing a laser beam from its source to the target. None of these are particularly difficult, and depending on how you feel about mini games you will either find these to be enjoyable distractions or just too annoying to bother with. Thankfully, it seems like there is enough ammo dropped by enemies and laying on the ground that the crates are optional but you will be forced to solve a few of these puzzles throughout the game as you "hack" things to progress.
Similar to Halo, your life is measured by a shield meter at the top of the screen which depletes when you take damage and recharges slowly afterwards. Your shield gauge also serves as your oxygen supply when you're in space, and your super abilities also take off a chunk of your shield's power. Super abilities? Oh yes, straight out of Metroid Prime you will slowly gain new abilities such as the ability to freeze enemies, shoot a charged up energy beam, and even run faster with speed boots.
If you've played Modern Combat: Sandstorm [$4.99 / Free], the controls in NOVA will be instantly familiar to you. If not, the game uses a virtual joystick on the left side of the screen for movement, and moving your thumb around the right side of the screen changes your view around. Different buttons frame the screen that do things like fire your weapon, toss a grenade, change weapons, reload, etc. There are two other included control schemes, one where the screen is split in half and moving your left thumb anywhere controls your movement while your right controls your view (essentially just removing the virtual joystick) and another with two virtual joysticks where you tap the screen to fire. I've found the default controls to be fine, although I did spend some time fiddling with the sensitivity.
Another nice feature is the ability to move all of the elements of the game's UI around. I've moved the reload button closer to the fire button because I'm a compulsive reloader in first person shooters, but you can customize it however you want. (Although currently this option only seems available by adjusting your controls mid-game, and not from the main menu.) Strangely enough, even though it seems that Gameloft has put a great deal of thought in to different control options and customizations, the ability to invert the Y-axis of the camera control is notably absent. What will leave you scratching your head even more regarding the lack of invert look is that Modern Combat: Sandstorm, a game which shares a similar engine to NOVA includes Y-axis inversion. You can however flip the screen orientation, something that should make iPod touch users happy.
The performance of the game is phenomenal on the iPhone 3GS with fast load times, high frame rates, and everything else you could ask for in a first person shooter. Meanwhile, reader reports all the way down to the slowest device in the iPod family have been said to be smooth. Even while playing online in NOVA's four player deathmatch mode, which surprisingly enough seems to be working just fine for everyone, a nice change of pace from Gameloft's recently released Modern Combat: Sandstorm multiplayer update.
Playing online requires both WiFi and a Gameloft Live account. Registering for Gameloft Live is easy, and once you're online you will have the option to play deathmatch or look at the worldwide leaderboards of players with the most points and kills. When creating a deathmatch game, available options include choosing one of the five maps, as well as enabling or disabling weapon stay and aim assist. Games can be set with a time limit or a frag limit, and both can be set to none to play for as long as you'd like.
When joining a game, you're thrown in to a lobby which lists available games that have open slots for you to join. Those of you waiting for an Eliminate "killer" will be disappointed to discover that currently there doesn't seem to be any random matchmaking, or the ability to have friends-only private matches. All you can do is create a game and hope that three of your friends join it before other people do.
Despite its limitations, online multiplayer (as well as local bluetooth/WiFi multiplayer) is a lot of fun and performs surprisingly well. I haven't come across any lag or connection issues, and so far it just works-- Although the true test of NOVA multiplayer will be how well it holds up once players start getting good at the game and scrutinizing the weapon balance. It's too early to say how large the online community will get and what kind of staying power NOVA's online presence will have, but it seems quite enjoyable right now.
If you're a fan of first person shooters, or any of the previously mentioned console classics that NOVA is obviously inspired by, then you too will also likely really enjoy NOVA. It's one of the most ambitious iPhone games I've played so far, and despite the questionable originality of the game I've really got to hand it to Gameloft for creating such an amazing iPhone experience.
The Metal Slug franchise made a surprise appearance in the App Store this evening. SNK Playmore has brought a version of the classic game to the iPhone:
"METAL SLUG", the 2D action shooter which has fascinated game fans from all over the world with its beautiful dot pixel art and gaudy action, has arrived on the iPhone for a new type of Metal Slug, "METAL SLUG TOUCH"! It will give gamers great excitement and thrills together with the simple and intuitive controls available only on the iPhone. Handle the versatile armored tank Metal Slug, and give chase to Morden's Army!
Movement is tilt controlled (left/right) while turret rotation is handled by tapping on the left/right side of the screen. This results in your turret moving in the desired direction. Jump and squat movements are handled by swipe control (up and down) and finally, there are two additional on screen buttons: avoid and cannon. Controls of the game are shown through this trailer video.
If that all sounds confusing, it is at first. In the end, I found the primary controls to focus on were the turret rotation and tilt controls. Jumping and squatting came into usage much less, and with unlimited continues, actually trying to dodge enemy fire became were less of a concern. The game only comes with 4 missions, and I ran into a crashing issue that prevented me twice from completing the game. With no auto-save or ability to restart at a later level, this became particularly frustrating. A reboot later, and I was able to make it through the relatively brief campaign and had a reasonable amount of fun during.
In the end, Metal Slug Touch isn't all that bad, but it's also just not all that great either. Meanwhile, long time fans of the franchise seem particularly disappointed with the changes made to the iPhone adaptation (no non-vehicular levels, for example).
The highly anticipated sci-fi action first person shooter N.O.V.A. - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [App Store] was released mere moments ago much to the excitement of forum members in the NOVA thread. With a single player campaign that reportedly takes around 8 hours to finish, four player online multiplayer, and online leaderboards tracking performance both in game and (apparently coming soon) on the NOVA web site, NOVA does not disappoint.
We'll have a review out shortly, in the meantime, check out the thread in our forums, with posts regarding the American release starting here.
Glu mobile's sequel to the much beloved Glyder has finally arrived in the App Store. Glyder 2 continues Eryn's flying adventure across 6 new worlds and revives that sense of soaring that players loved in the original.
Glyder 2 adds a number of new customizations and mini games to the original formula and plays quite similarly. If you never tried the first Glyder you can read our review or check out the Lite version of the original [Lite]. The sequel doesn't have a Lite version yet.
Readers are enjoying it so far, and we'll provide a full review soon.
Last week I mentioned Connect2Media's Arachnadoodle [99¢] in a roundup with a few other games, and since then the game hasn't been getting anywhere near the amount of love it deserves, which is surprising considering the amount of people who go crazy whenever Peggle [$4.99] and/or Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99] are mentioned.
In the game you play as Boris the spider whose goal in life is similar to that of all spiders: Making webs and collecting as many flies as possible. The game board consists of Peggle-like pegs, which all must be connected in order to make it through a level. By touching and dragging on the screen you control the speed and direction of Boris's jumps. As you pass by each pin, Boris connects a piece of his web to it and when every pin is covered in web a squadron of flies fly through accompanied by Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.
If you're only concerned about clearing each of the 32 levels included in the game, Arachnadoodle doesn't offer much play time. Where the immense amount of replay value comes in is from the strategy required for building a good web. You get bonus points for each of the flies that your web catches at the end of the level, and catching all the flies requires a web that has as many of the pins connected to each other as possible. (The overall strength of your web is determined by the web gauge on the top left corner of the screen.)
With a set number of jumps on each level, you need to carefully plan each of them to get as much web coverage as possible while still leaving one (or more) pegs un-webbed, since as soon as you connect to the last peg the level is over regardless of how many jumps you have left. Scores are tracked online via OpenFeint, and there are also a few achievements if you're looking to pad your OpenFeint gamer score.
To spice things up further, there are special obstacles on many of the levels such as bugs which explode when hit that destroy part of your web, pins that your spider can spin off of to change trajectory, bumpers that you bounce off of, and others. Arachnadoodle also just spews bonus points while you're playing, seemingly rewarding both lucky and well planned jumps. For instance, when you connect several pins, or connect two pins that are very far away the game goes in to slow-motion, text pops up telling you what you just did, and you get even more points. Tons of things reward bonus points, and it's fun randomly seeing yourself doing very well.
Everything in Arachnadoodle combines to create a ridiculously cute game, between your spider's googly eyes, animated text and sparkles everywhere, and Boris yelling "Yay!" every time you do well I doubt anyone can resist cracking a smile while playing. Sure there could be more levels in the game, but if Arachnadoodle sucks you in like I expect it will, you will be replaying your favorite levels trying to build a perfect web and getting on the OpenFeint scoreboards for quite some time.
Arachnadoodle is definitely a hidden gem on the App Store, combining many tried and true gameplay elements in to a very fun iPhone game that I highly recommend downloading.
Adult Swim seems to be on a mission of porting every single one of their flash games to the iPhone, with My Lil' Bastard being the next from their lineup making the jump to the App Store.
In Glyder 2, Eryn, who was ever so unfortunately thrown through a dimensional rift in the original Glyder, has again found herself in a foreign dimension and needs your help in unlocking the mysteries of her new environment in order to make her way back home. Poor, poor Eryn. But, then, her misfortune is your gain as an iPhone gamer.
Last week I mentioned Connect2Media's Arachnadoodle [
