Eurocenter, who brought us the popular Cocoto Kart Online, has given us an exclusive preview of their upcoming iPhone shooting gallery game Cocoto Magic Circus, a conversion of the Wii original.
In Cocoto Magic Circus, you take on the role of Cocoto, Shiny, Neuro, or Baggy on a mission to save poor Fairy, the pixie, who has been kidnapped by a sinister and disturbing clown. In order to save her, you must progress through five different creepy carnival settings, wielding your dart-gun like a champ, tapping true on the clown's various minions to knock them into oblivion. There are seven shooting gallery-style mini-games in each of the settings, making for 35 challenges in all.
While it's true that shooting gallery titles are generally rather simplistic affairs -- and there's certainly no lack of such games in the App Store -- Cocoto Magic Circus is a surprisingly enjoyable little game. The visuals are very well done -- cartoonish, cute, and atmospheric with a nice parallax effect to the scenes that adds a sense of depth to the game. Complexity is added to the title's tap-to-shoot dynamic by way of line-of-fire obstacles as well as floating bonuses and special effects that, when shot, trigger things both good and bad: double shot score, free hits, lights out, gun jams, flip screen, etc. It's a nice touch.
The game offers an Arcade mode, which is progressive play through the various settings and challenges, as well as a Training mode that allows you to jump in and play any challenge in the game. Online multiplayer is also included, allowing you to engage in real-time matches with players around the world. (Unfortunately I was unable to test this component as there is no community at present, since the game has not yet been released.)
I've enjoyed my time with the game, learning its ins and outs for this post. Getting through it requires some fast reflexes, especially in the later challenges, which ramp up the difficulty and pacing -- it's no cakewalk. One thing to note is that it's not a particularly lengthy affair; most users could get through it in an hour or two, but that's helped a bit from a replay perspective by the three available levels of difficulty, with Normal presenting a decent challenge.
Cocoto Magic Circus is a shooting gallery title that delivers a good deal more than most games of its sort. It's a cute little game that's fun to play and, as IGN called it, "a surprisingly fresh breath of air." I'd wager most gamers out there would enjoy it more than they think.
Have a look at the gameplay video to help you decide for yourself.
Cocoto Magic Circus is set to debut in the App Store on Thursday, March 4th at a price of $0.99.
Tag Games' much anticipated Astro Ranch has just come out. We previewed the game just last week.
The basic premise of the game involves the character you choose at the beginning crash landing in to a neighborhood filled with aliens who surprisingly enough are more than willing to get you started with a house to live in, a barn to keep all your stuff in, and a plot of land for you to raise your various crops and livestock. The interface is all touch driven, and works surprisingly well with how many different things in the game are controlled with very similar gestures.
During our early time with it, Astro Ranch seems to be a surprisingly deep game. Here's a hands on video of the gameplay:
This new Doodle Jump update adds in a brand spanking new theme, a Jungle level in this case. The new theme is free to download and will be the third alternate theme added to the game. Lima Sky describes it as "THIS IS OUR MOST AMAZING UPDATE EVER!"
If you're like me, every time you've booted up Glyder 2 in the past you've thought to yourself "what this game really needs is an Isle of Friendship!" Lucky for us, Glyder 2's developers have heard our call, and now players can earn friendship points by simply adding "Glyder friends." These points can be spent to unlock new wings, outfits, and other secrets, the latter of which probably isn't that exciting if they didn't name it explicity in the update description.
New multiplayer environments, new gear and enhanced matchmaking. The best news is that all of this is 100% compatible with Eliminate's soon to be released Co-Op mode. This update of Eliminate Pro comes Al Gore-approved, as you can now recycle extra gear for credits.
Jet Car Stunts just got even more awesome. You can now engage in some friendly "ghost racing" through challenges and replays. Even better, replays can be downloaded directly from leaderboards. The menu system got a much-needed reworking as well, so this game is going to feel pretty fresh the next time you boot it.
Compression is a great game, but even I'll admit that I was getting a bit bored its mechanics after playing the game for hours on end. The new "Blocked" mode is absolutely pefect for me, as it adds in a ton of variety in the form of obstacles and bombs. The game plays significantly differently in this mode, so everybody who thought they were done with Compression needs to go give it another run.
It looks like Chillingo's on a bit of a shooter roll, here lately.  They've just given the heads up on the upcoming fast-pace 2D scrolling shooter Assault Squadron, developed by The Binary Mill.
The Global Defense Force (GDF) reports that Earth is under attack by a hostile, unidentified vessel containing thousands of enemy craft. Striking with unwavering precision, the invasion destroys key defensive facilities to leave Earth and its inhabitants at the mercy of fearsome alien attackers.
You are a part of the Assault Squadron, an elite tactical space combat force dispatched by the Federal Alliance to defeat the alien enemy. Assault Squadron’s explosive sci-fi missions and in-depth storyline will thrill shoot-‘em-up fans and casual players as they battle to save the Earth.
The game offers a choice of four different ships, each with its own set of abilities and weapons systems that can be upgraded to dish out the kill with an arsenal including vulcan cannons, torpedo missiles, spiral grenades, and tri-vortex bombs, with attacks that can be chained together to deliver devastating, high-scoring combo attacks.
On-screen action runs at a smooth 60 frames-per-second across both a Campaign Mode and a quick-play Arcade mode, each offering three difficulty settings and set against a licensed trance soundtrack. Ship control is handled via four different modes: Touch 1:1, Touch 2,5:1, Tilt Control, and Virtual Joystick. The whole thing is tied together with Chillingo's Crystal leaderboards and achievements system.
Let's hope this one is as nice as it sounds. We'll bring further details on Assault Squadron as we get them. Stay tuned.
Chillingo has just provided us with a new gameplay video of the upcoming musical shooter Radio Flare Redux by Studio Radiolaris, a sequel to the late-2008 iPhone original which was a finalist in the 2009 IGF Mobile and IndieCade competitions.
As with the original, Radio Flare Redux challenges you to battle extraterrestrial enemies while jamming to pumping background beats in a gaming experience that's more or less Rez meets the side-scrolling shooter. The developer suggests adding a few words to your vocabulary to prepare for the experience.
Hyperjump [hī'pər] – noun: Takes as long as the blink of an eye. The split-second of traveling through hyperspace, where the brain experiences a unique audio-visual sensation à Synchronicity.
Synesthetic [sÄn'Äs-thÄ“'zhÉ™] – noun: A unity of the senses such as hearing colors and seeing music. à Players receive a synesthetic experience with Radio Flare REDUX’s tightly connected melodies and stimulating game visuals.
Everything in the game, from the movement of the enemies to the firing of your ship, is synched to the beat of the licensed techno, club, and house tracks. The game features fast-paced shooter action and "club style" visuals across 33 unlockable levels that, the developer assures us, combine to deliver a truly "synesthetic" experience.
Radio Flare Redux features both drag and virtual stick controls for negotiating the side-scrolling battlefields. Online leaderboards through Chillingo's social network let you compete with friends. And, in a zen / psychedelic twist, there's an unlockable Musical Toy sequencer that allows you to arrange sound effects, create rhythms, and experience a Visualizer mode that takes you through an enemy-free level where it's all about the eye candy.
Radio Flare Redux is expected to appear in the App Store sometime in the next few days.
Hey what do you know it's Friday and once again we've got a huge list of games that are on sale and free. As usual, because of the nature of iTunes pricing, these can change at any time. All prices are current as of this posting, but if you've had your eye on any of these games you're better off not waiting around because you never know when they'll return to normal price.
One game you should really check out while it's on sale is Revolutionary Concepts' Cobra Command [$4.99 → $1.99], especially if you've never played an old laserdisc game. We enjoyed the game in our review and even included it in our year end listing of best retro games.
There's also a free version of the game and to celebrate their one year anniversary, Revolutionary Concepts is also making the two games developed by their sister studio Collect3 free as well: SNAP! and Animal SNAP!.
To promote the launch of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II, Square Enix dropped the price of most of their other games. They haven't drastically slashed prices, but if you've been looking to pick up some of these games, Square Enix sales are fairly rare:
And while we haven't given The Quest series much love here on TouchArcade, I know quite a few people who absolutely love these old school style 3D RPG's.
The Quest Gold, The Quest, and all the expansions are on sale:
This is just a small selection of games with recent price changes. For the full list, check out AppShopper where you can find all games and popular games with recent price drops.
Much like Eliminate and TouchPets Dogs, ngmoco's We Rule launched first in Canada this afternoon. Since We Rule heavily relies on the Plus+ network, this limited Canadian release is allowing ngmoco to make sure they've got all their servers working properly before the game is unleashed to the rest of the world. They haven't said when they're going to throw the switch to allow everyone else to download We Rule, but looking back at the limited Canadian releases of previous ngmoco games, it wouldn't surprise me to see We Rule in the US App Store sometime next week.
We Rule is a kingdom building game, somewhat similar to the massively popular Facebook game Farmville. Here's what we had to say about the game from our hands-on preview at Macworld San Francisco:
The game map shows you your kingdom as well as the kingdom of your Plus+ contacts. Scrolling across the map shows you the relative size of everyone's kingdoms. The goal of the game is to build up your community as much as possible, but with the added twist that your own kingdom can be customized with a number of special cosmetic tweaks. These tweaks will make your kingdom truly unique and personalized.
The game consists of alternating between your daily activities of harvesting or otherwise managing your resources while building up new houses, farms, and businesses. Your kingdom will be bustling with activity from townspeople as it grows, though unlike God Finger, you don't actually have individual control of the inhabitants. ...Read More.
We'll have a review of sorts when the game hits the US App Store, but in the meantime, if you're lucky enough to have a Canadian iTunes account and are looking to add kingdoms to your network, my Plus+ username is simply "Eli". (Although because of how the Plus+ search works, you're probably better off searching for "Hodapp" or "Eli Hodapp".)
Admittedly, my kingdom is fairly pitiful right now.
TouchArcade will be attending the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco from March 9-13th. If you're a developer who wants to meet up and show us your upcoming games, please email us to set a time.
If you just want to say hi and grab a drink, we'll be at the IUGO Developer gathering on Wednesday, March 10th starting at 8pm. It will be held at the Marriott Lobby Bar. Free drinks while they last. It should be a fun time. Last year we met and hung out with IUGO, Imangi, Steph Thirion (Eliss), Firemint, Bolt Creative and many many others. Drinks will be sponsored by Team Phobic, TouchArcade, and IUGO.
Finally, we are looking for writer in the San Francisco area. If you are an avid iPhone gamer, live in the San Francisco area, and would be available to meet for an interview at GDC, please send us your resume. Previous writing experience preferred. Depending on candidate, will consider anywhere from freelance to fulltime.
Early this morning Vimov provided us a sneak peek at their iPhone port of Hexen II. It's a work in progress, as currently there's no music yet, the menu system hasn't been implemented, the controls are basic and nowhere near final, and they've got a bunch of performance tweaks to implement to make it run across the whole iPhone and iPod touch device family. But other than that, it's all there.
Hexen II is, obviously, the sequel to Hexen (which was the sequel to Heretic) and was developed by Raven Software and published by Id for the PC in 1997. This first person shooter utilizes a modified version of the Quake engine to add a roleplaying element to the game where players could choose from multiple classes, and increase statistics by earning experience throughout the adventure.
Like the other games in the series, Raven eventually released the source code for Hexen II, which is what is powering the following gameplay video:
The sticky situation that the developers of this Hexen II port face is that, while the actual game source itself has been made open source, the data files that make Hexen II more than just a modded Quake engine are not open source. The preview version we were given is utilizing assets from the free Hexen II demo, but the game itself can't hit the App Store until the developers work our some kind of licensing agreement with Activision.
If that wasn't enough reason to give this game a shot already, it was just awarded OpenFeint gold status. When Fieldrunners went gold, we explained exactly what this meant:
Similar to our monthly game ratings, the OpenFeint Gold program aims to pick out games which are not only of the highest quality, but also make excellent use of the OpenFeint service. They seem to be setting the bar fairly high in nominating Fieldrunners as the first game to get their gold rating, and it should be interesting to see what games they choose in the future.
The latest Jet Car Stunts update that was released this evening includes even more OpenFeint functionality. You can now send and receive ghost challenges, along with download replays associated to the various entries of the online leaderboards. On top of that, they also tweaked the menu system and rolled in some bug fixes.
Jet Car Stunts is a great game, and this new replay download system is extremely cool. Since the update was just released, you have to search around for new scores that have replays attached to them, but it's really fun to watch how good (or poorly) other people do in the game.
First Driver, now Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Gameloft seems to be on a roll with porting old PC / console games to the iPhone platform.
Rayman 2 is a 3D platformer released in late 1999 that takes place in a world known as the "Glade of Dreams" that happens to be infested by robot pirates who, lamentably, invaded and destroyed the "Heart of the World". Now it's up to Rayman to seek out the four magic masks needed to awaken Polokus, the spirit of the world, and set things right.
The game will be available on the App Store on March 1st, and Gameloft released the following trailer which shows quite a bit of gameplay:
When Rayman 2 was first released, it saw a positive reception both from gamers and the gaming media, but the recent Nintendo DS port tarnished much of the magic due to an extremely problematic camera system that made traversing the various 3D obstacles much harder than it should have been. While the original 2D Rayman may have been a better fit for the iPhone, as fans of the Rayman series, we're excited to see this game on the iPhone and hope Gameloft continues porting these classic games of the 90's.
If there's one thing that PopCap is really good at aside from making impossible to put down games that appeal to hardcore gamers, grandmas, and everyone in between it's having those game smash sales records.
The original Plants vs. Zombies [App Store] release for the PC was PopCap's fastest-selling video game, and per a press release this morning, the iPhone release is performing just as well.
Since its release, there have been over 300,000 units sold on the App Store, making Plants vs. Zombies the highest grossing launch in App Store history. PopCap is no stranger to greatness on the App Store, as Bejeweled 2 was the first paid app to reach 3 million downloads, and they're responsible for three games that have been #1 on the paid app charts as well: Bejeweled 2, Peggle, and obviously Plants vs. Zombies
If this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies, you absolutely must check out our glowing review:
The 88 Metacritic score of the original Plants vs. Zombies (complete with 100's from multiple sources) just goes to show how great this game is. The iPhone port is absolutely phenomenal, and even though it's lacking a few game modes, there's always hope for them to be implemented in the future either via an update or a DLC add-on. There isn't a lite version, but there is a free Flash demo that I highly recommend trying if this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies.
Now that Plants vs. Zombies has decimated App Store sales records, hopefully PopCap will throw iPhone gamers a bone and somehow implement the missing game modes found in the PC version. I've still got my fingers crossed at least.
Earlier this month we posted an update on Peter Hirschberg and his glowy bit of retro vector goodness known as Vector Tanks. As we indicated in that post, 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 betokened the near-term arrival of a rather revamped take on the original.
That game is Vector Tanks Extreme, and Peter has given us an exclusive look at the release version of the title before it makes its App Store debut.
The game has been split into two versions to provide, as Peter 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 Extreme offers everything the original did, plus more tank types, more weapon types (my personal favorite is the Rail Gun), airborne enemies (helicopters), and downright frenzied action. The standard play mode is Combat, which is a desperate bid to wipe out as many enemies as possible before losing all your lives, while Rage mode gives you unlimited lives and ammunition with the goal of wiping out as many enemies as possible before a two-minute timer runs out. Both modes are brutal, let me assure you. An integrated online scoreboard shows the world your strength (or weakness) and network play support is a planned addition, to arrive in a future update.
I've had the final build of Vector Tanks Extreme on my iPhone for the past few days and have spent considerable time scoping down enemy tanks, jeeps, and copters. Having become quite familiar with the title, I can definitely say that "WAY over the top" is in no way an overstated description. This is perhaps the most intense iPhone shooter I've ever encountered. If you enjoy Vector Tanks and feel it's a little on the difficult side -- stay away from Vector Tanks Extreme. You don't have the stuff.
As we mentioned in our earlier piece, in moving from Chillingo to his own BlimpTime Studios for the original Vector Tanks, now known as Vector Tanks (Classic Version), Peter was unable to make the latest version of the game (v1.3.2, posted earlier this month) a free upgrade. But, to help get every owner of the original up to speed on the latest version, he will be offering Vector Tanks (Classic Version) as a free download during the week following the launch of Vector Tanks Extreme. Thanks Peter!
Have a look at the Vector Tanks Extremetrailer to get a taste of the action.
Vector Tanks Extreme has been submitted to the App Store and should be available for download sometime in the next few days at a price of $1.99.
Facing the possibility of bankruptcy in 1987 after a string of failed titles, SquareSoft (now Square Enix) only had the resources left for one final game. Hironobu Sakaguchi was in charge of the seemingly insurmountable task of saving the company. Aptly named, Final Fantasy needed to succeed, and with the help of artist Yoshitaka Amano and composer Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy not only was massively successful, it also spawned the series that has since become the benchmark that nearly all roleplaying games are compared to in one way or another.
Final Fantasy tells the tale of four "Light Warriors" with mysterious backgrounds that have joined forces to restore light to the world and vanquish the evil that has spread across the land, illuminating four elemental orbs in the process. While the plot of the game is entirely cliche by today's standards and the in-game dialog is succinct and non-sensical at times, Final Fantasy was unlike anything console gamers of the late 80's had ever seen before with an epic world map spanning three continents, party customization, and unmatched gameplay depth.
Final Fantasy
The original Final Fantasy [App Store] was not an easy game by any means. The magic system didn't make much sense, the death and save system was extremely unforgiving, and some of the later dungeons required tons of grinding to earn experience and money to buy the provisions needed to make it through alive-- And even then, a string of random encounters could put an end to hours of progress. A strategy guide was practically required, and in its day, Funco Land (now GameStop) sold the used Final Fantasy NES cartridge for far more than its original retail price after the supply dwindled following the surprise success of the game.
Final Fantasy has since been remade and rereleased several times over the years, and while the basic story and gameplay mechanics have remained the same, many tweaks and refinements have been applied in the process. The iPhone port of Final Fantasy includes the high resolution graphics and reworked soundtrack of previous revisions, the additional "Soul of Chaos" and "Labyrinth of Time" dungeons, as well as a greatly reduced difficulty level which has served as a point of contention amongst Final Fantasy fans.
Your party seems to level up much faster, you can save anywhere outside of battle, and ineffective attacks are a thing of the past. (Previously if you assigned a party member to attack a monster and that monster dies before they attack, they just swing at nothing instead of the next available target.) Like any good iPhone game, your progress is saved when you quit the game. When you load the game again, you will be able to resume from where you were in a dungeon or on the world map. This has one side effect though, in that you can cheese your way through skipping random encounters by just quitting the game when you enter battle. On your next launch, you'll be right where you were before the battle and can keep on truckin' through the dungeon.
SquareSoft never imagined Final Fantasy would be a smash hit, as the game in no way lends itself to a sequel. A year after the original Japanese release of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II hit the streets, starting the trend of releasing Final Fantasy sequels that all feature a similar theme with a new game world as well as tweaks, refinements, and modifications to things like the battle and leveling systems. Again you play as a party of four (this time without the ability to customize which classes were in your party like the first) and once again save the world from evil.
Final Fantasy II
The most drastic change in Final Fantasy II [App Store] is way your characters level up. Instead of strictly increasing in level as you earn a certain amount of experience, the more you use certain abilities, the more powerful they become. For instance, by taking damage you will eventually earn more hit points and by casting spells you eventually earn more magic points. This often confusing cause and effect system was supposed to allow players greater customization of their characters instead of the rigid class types of the original Final Fantasy, but also allowed several opportunities to cheat the system to artificially inflate the various attributes of your party members.
Final Fantasy II also comes with a new system to interact with the various in-game characters where players can memorize certain key terms, then recall them to question townspeople. While there is more interactivity than finding the correct character and talking to them until they tell you the next part of your quest, the new dialog system introduces tons of trial and error as you explore multiple conversation trees with each character you come across.
While advancing the plot may be tedious at times, Final Fantasy II is the first game in the series where you can have less than four party members, with new characters rotating in and out as the plot progressed instead of playing the part of silent protagonists in the first. New vehicles were added, and the chocobo was first introduced, a rideable bird that allows players to move around the game world without random enemy encounters.
Final Fantasy II wasn't available in the US until 2003, as before then what we knew as the Super Nintendo Final Fantasy II was actually Final Fantasy IV, a confusing numbering scheme that wasn't rectified until the release of Final Fantasy VII for the Playstation. The iPhone port of Final Fantasy II also comes with bonus content released in previous remakes of the game. Both the "Soul of Rebirth" and "Arcane Labyrinth" dungeons are included.
Final Fantasy II features the same save system, allowing players to save anywhere. The game also will resume where you left off, and is susceptible to the same random battle cheesing as the original Final Fantasy where you can just quit the game and load it back up before the random battle occurred.
iPhone Adjustments
Both Final Fantasy games are controlled via an on-screen D-Pad for character movement and a button to run while in town or dungeons, with similar menu systems as previous releases, except now the various menu items are all touch sensitive. Movement and menu navigation works well enough to get the job done, but the D-Pad feels stiff and much larger than it should be. Also, navigating the menus can be irritating at times, as the touch areas for scroll bars and some menu options are annoyingly small. Regardless, this didn't hinder gameplay much as neither Final Fantasy game really requires quick or precise movement or menu work.
In battles, the menu system as you may remember it is gone, instead replaced with a row of icons on the bottom of the screen to attack, cast magic, use items, etc. Targeting is as simple as touching the party member or monster you want to select, and overall the battle system works well although like most games with random battles, can get very tedious, especially when backtracking and potentially fighting much lower level enemies that you can kill in one hit but still have to go through all the motions of attacking and targeting.
Conclusion
As far as which game you should get, both are substantial pieces of gaming history. If you weren't around when Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II were released, keep in mind these early RPG's lack many of the features that have since become commonplace. Because of that, you might require a trip to GameFAQs to figure out what to do or where to go next as it's not always spelled out for you. There's also no quest log if you forgot where you were supposed to be going.
Personally, I love the original Final Fantasy. I've played through the game more times than I can even remember, on more platforms than I'd even care to admit starting with the NES and ending with the iPhone. I'd recommend anyone who considers themselves a fan of RPG's or the Final Fantasy series to download the iPhone port immediately. If like me, you've been around since the beginning, the iPhone version is a competent port and an excellent blast from the past, even with the mediocre controls.
The sequel is good as well, but I've never been a fan of the wacky leveling system, and the new dialog trees that are the result of the key term memorization system will quickly have you heading to GameFAQs. I'd really recommend playing through the first before downloading the second, as if you can't make it through Final Fantasy, you likely won't have the patience for Final Fantasy II.
As an aside, I'm absolutely ecstatic that Square Enix has decided to start porting Final Fantasy games to the iPhone. I think I speak for every iPhone-owning fan of the series when I say: Please, don't stop. Bring them all.
As a child of the 80’s I grew up on Transformers. As a mobile strategy fanatic I’ve been in love with turn-based strategy games for years. It should come as no surprise then that Transformers G1 Awakening ranked pretty high on my most wanted list. But it also ranked fairly high on my list of concerns. After all – Transformers has had countless reinventions over the last few decades, none of which could hold a torch to the series that started it all. Likewise the series has had a number of video game spinoffs, nearly all of which have managed to disappoint. Could a Transformers game released more than 25 years after the series inception possibly live up to the expectations of series purists and strategy fans alike? As mobile gamers first learned in 2008, the answer is a resounding yes.
Originally available for mobile phones back in 2008, Transformers G1 Awakening is a solid strategy game that takes fan service to a whole new level. If you grew up on the original Transformers cartoon from 1984, you’re going to squeal like a 6 year old when you see some of the choices the game has made. The cast is comprised of series mainstays like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, but the game happily makes room for fan favourites like Grimlock and Ironhide. True to the television storyline, the story starts with the crash of the Ark and continues through to the Space Bridge built by the Decepticons. Jetfire’s first appearance is even true to his back story, starting out with the bad guys and quickly switching sides.
Gameplay here should be familiar to anyone who’s played turn-based strategy games like Rogue Planet or UniWar. Each unit will be able to move a certain number of squares, attack opposing forces, and capture important structures. Unique to Transformers however, is the ability to -– well -– transform. Every character can transform from robot mode to vehicle mode and back again. Vehicle mode offers a major advantage if you need to cover ground as you’ll be able to move around with much greater ease, but it also comes with a major disadvantage as you won’t be able to defend yourself from attacks.
Unlike many of the games that G1 Awakening draws inspiration from, the gameplay emphasizes strategy over sheer force. Certain levels play out more like puzzles than tactical combat situations. By offering up actual characters instead of generic unit types, you can never have more than one of a certain unit on screen at the same time. Like the morale boost Optimus gives his troops, but also enjoy his high attack rating? He can’t be in two places at once, so you’ll need to place him where he’s needed the most.
Some of the characters will share similar stats and abilities, but no two Autobots play exactly alike. Prowl and Sideswipe both utilize ranged attacks, but their distance and power are different. Ironhide had a great chance to deflect damage, but his mobility is severely limited. It’s very rare that you’ll ever have more than 4 or 5 characters on screen in any given level, so knowing the strengths and weaknesses of every character (including those of the Decepticons you’re trying to destroy) is essential to your success.
Having a limited number of characters doesn’t mean you can’t introduce more into the battlefield, it just means you’ll need to be selective on who you introduce. New units can be purchased by spending Energon, which you’ll earn on each turn. The amount you earn depends on the number of pylons or power stations you’ve captured. As strange as it may sound, unit production became one of my favourite parts of the G1 Awakening – not for any gameplay reasons, but because it’s a shining example of the crazy amount of fan love that went into the game design. Units aren’t created in a factory or rolled off the back of a truck – they’re introduced into the battlefield by Metroplex, the Autobots living battle station. The only thing that could have been better is if Blaster was able to produce units like Eject and Rewind, and guess what? He can do that too. If anyone tries to tell you that G1 Awakening isn’t everything an old school Transformers fan has been waiting for, you just tell them to shut their lying mouth.
G1’s campaign is 17 missions long and should take the average gamer 3 or 4 hours to work through – not a bad package, but not necessarily as long as similar turn-based strategy games on the App Store. In addition to the story mode G1 Awakening also offers Showdown mode, a series of challenges that pit the Autobots against the Decepticons in a number of unique situations.
Rounding out the package is Cybertron Arena, G1’s fancy name for multiplayer. Cybertron Arena earns serious points for finally letting us play as the Decepticons, but it loses just as many for its limited gameplay options. You can’t play online, you can’t play over local wifi -– the only option for multiplayer is single device pass’n’play. It’s a good fit for this style of game, but on its own it just feels like too slim an offering. Still, if you don’t have another friend to play with sitting next to you G1 Awakening at least offers up a Cybertron Arena AI option.
Outside of the slim multiplayer options, the only real disappointment here came from the visuals. The game was ported from a 2008 mobile phone release and when you’re issuing commands on the map it really shows. It’s not just that the graphics are ripped from a mobile phone, it’s that the design decisions made for the mobile phone version just made no sense. Each character has a constant animation when standing still that has their torso and arms moving in a way that mimics breathing (which, I’m pretty sure robots don’t do), so we know they can do animations. Yet when characters move around the map in robot mode their feet don’t move. It’s like moving asthmatic chess pieces. The terrible command mode visuals are a stark contrast to the battle visuals which easily rank amongst the best in the genre. Cel-shaded graphics come to life in a quick battle animation that looks like it could have been ripped right out of the series. If anything, they reminded me a lot of the visuals in 2002’s Robotech: Battlecry for home consoles. If you’re not familiar with the game, trust me, that’s a compliment.
As a strategy game, Transformers G1 Awakening offers up enough twists to help it stand out in a sea of similar games. As a Transformers game, it offers up anything and everything an old school Transformers fan could want to see. G1 Awakening isn’t simply a great strategy game, it’s the greatest Transformers game I’ve seen to date.
Eurocenter, who brought us the popular Cocoto Kart Online, has given us an exclusive preview of their upcoming iPhone shooting gallery game Cocoto Magic Circus, a conversion of the Wii original.
Tag Games' much anticipated Astro Ranch has just come out. We 
Hey what do you know it's Friday and once again we've got a huge list of games that are on sale and free. As usual, because of the nature of iTunes pricing, these can change at any time. All prices are current as of this posting, but if you've had your eye on any of these games you're better off not waiting around because you never know when they'll return to normal price.
To promote the launch of 
TONS of great games are on sale this week, this is just my pick of games we've covered that have had price drops:
Early this morning 
First 
