Yesterday we were blown away by Griffin's upcoming $49.99 HELO TC iOS-controlled helicopter, for a number of good reasons. First off, it's a sixth of the price of the Parrot AR.Drone and the announcement was accompanied by an awesome video which I'll embed again just for fun:
Initially, I was under the incorrect assumption that this was going to be a two horse race between Parrot and Griffin for iOS real-world aerial superiority, but boy was I wrong. As it turns out, there's quite a few options already in existence that you can order today in a variety of different sizes and price points.
Despite both noble and ignoble efforts, the real time strategy genre has never managed to find much traction outside of PC/Mac gaming. The micromanagement required to succeed in these games just screams for the speed and precision of a mouse. This hasn’t stopped developers from trying to awkwardly force RTS gameplay into console controller or touch inputs, however. While they struggle bravely on, it may ironically be a game that never attempted to tackle the problem at all that actually provides a vital clue to answering the riddle.
When Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim [$2.99] first released back in 2000 for PC and Mac, the game was praised for its unique take on the genre. The game featured all the base building, resource gathering, and upgrade grinding that a fan of RTSs at the time could hope for, while streamlining unit management by making all heroes and henchmen autonomous. As it turns out, the iOS port of Majesty demonstrates that it may make far more sense to tailor RTS gameplay to fit the unique inputs of a platform than the other way around.
One of our very favorite not-a-game-itself-but-is-still-gaming-related apps in the App Store is Zell Application’s Joypad Game Controller [Free]. We reviewed the Joypad this past February, and in short it turns your iOS device into a customizable virtual control pad for playing games on your computer. You just run the app on your device and then it very easily connects to a desktop client on your computer over Bluetooth or a local WiFi network. You’re then free to map the virtual buttons of the Joypad to the keyboard controls of whatever game you’re playing, or choose from the many preset configurations, and just like that you’ve got yourself a competent little game controller.
Naturally, it’s not quite the same as having a physical controller, but if you like to travel light or find yourself needing to get your game on in a pinch it more than does the trick. Heck, I use the Joypad exclusively to play old emulators on my laptop simply because it works really well and I’m too lazy to bust out my USB controller. Ah, technology, always facilitating my laziness.
We originally planned to describe Roping Rob [99c] as a "hook-throwing platform game", because modern gamers are familiar with that genre, thanks to popular titles like Super Quick Hook [$2.99 / Review]. However, according to the game description from developers, Wehaveapp, you're actually carrying a harpoon, so let's call it a "harpooning-platform game", which is technically accurate, but not quite as catchy.
The game opens with a background story, which does a great job of setting the context for the game-play. The 'Robs' are little creatures who work at the center of the Earth, where they ensure the core is constantly stable, hot and fluid. However, one of the Robs is defiant and wants to travel, to check out the Earth's surface. This game follows his journey through the Earth, with levels starting at the inner core and moving through the molten outer core, the lower and upper mantle and eventually to the crust, as he ventures to the Earth's surface.
In early June, Capcom did what many gamers had been clamoring for ever since the App Store opened and released a Monster Hunter game for iOS called Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting [$1.99]. Unfortunately, this was not a proper Monster Hunter title like the others in the ridiculously popular series, but rather a collection of single battles against many of the monsters from previous iterations of the game.
However, if you were cool with it not being your typical Monster Hunter game, there was actually a lot to like about Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting. It used a gesture-based combat system similar to Infinity Blade [$5.99], though much more mechanical and less organic, and featured a respectable amount of armor and weapon upgrading that kept you engaged throughout the many battles. The game was even improved further by an update in early July that added a “Real Hunt” mode which basically let you play through the game over again with a highly increased difficulty after beating it the first time.
In the great scheme of iOS gaming, Darkness Escape Deluxe [$0.99 / HD ] isn’t a horrible game. In fact, Darkness Escape does an adequate job representing the platform runner genre that has become more prevalent on the App Store in recent years. Unfortunately, adequate isn’t enough, especially when compared to some of the other heavy hitters in the genre. There are simply too many missteps, mainly a lack of content and questionable asset design, that prevent this game from rising above the rest of the competition and actually earning your play time.
A couple of weeks ago, we highlighted a new update for id Software’s Rage [Free] and Rage HD [Free] that added several welcome new features, like a melee move, a virtual analog stick, and HDMI TV-Out support. We also mentioned that id was running a campaign on their Facebook page that if they received 100,000 “Likes” then both versions of the Rage game would go free for a week.
Today, they finally hit that mark, which is amazing to me considering that I can count the number of people that like me on one hand. As promised, both Rage and Rage HD have dropped to free for the next week. If you haven’t yet picked up the game, then now is your chance to grab it gratis. Assuming you have the nearly 800 mb of free space that the HD version takes up, of course. Also, be sure to check out our original review of Rage if you need some help deciding if this free download is worth the bandwidth.
It's Wednesday again, which aside from meaning that we're one day closer to Friday, it also means there's a whole heap of new iOS games appearing on the App Store tonight.
This works the same as it does every week, but since I love repeating myself I'll explain it again anyway: The App Store is a global market with many different regions which all have different local times. Developers are able to set future release dates for their games, and thanks to the modern marvel that is time zones, these releases slowly trickle out as it becomes that date in each region. Due to their proximity to the International Date Line, this means New Zealand comes first followed by Asian markets, then Europe, then North America at 11:00 PM Eastern time.
Management over at Atari continues to change as it re-positions itself as a mobile and casual games publisher. In the latest move, Atari has added a new senior vice president of digital publishing, Owais Farooqui, and has pegged Maria Pacheco as its vice president of mobile. Farooqui was previously with a tournament games company, King.com. Pacheco, on the other hand, last served Vivendi Games Mobile, which apparently existed at one point. The company apparently also has a new CFO: Robert Mattes, a former CFO of a market research company called Authentic Response.
In a press release announcing these moves, its stressed that these three will be behind a new mobile, social and online initiative that uses the company’s old-school properties for gain in the social and mobile space. I guess we’ll see the first fruits of this change a little later this fall with the release of Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter for Facebook, but the company has already been dabbling on the mega-popular platform with Asteroids Online and Fairies vs. Darklings.
Atari attempted to make the switch to digital distribution a couple of years ago, and I don’t think many would say that it’s been working out too well for the publisher. It’ll be interesting to see if the casual, mobile, and social universes are kinder to the once-boxed retail competitor, especially with this new cast.
I’d imagine it’s gut-wrenchingly frustrating when a Flash game creator discovers that one of his game's ideas, mechanics, or even overall aesthetic has been cribbed by another party and then monetized on the App Store without his permission. Most notably in media circles, it happened with Halfbot and its fantastic title, The Blocks Cometh [$.99], and it’s possibly happening right now to Andrew Morrish, the creator of Super Puzzle Platformer. In a strange twist, various games web sites are reporting that the 'company' that made a victim of Halfbot is also the same one responsible for this specific and supposed theft.
The game Morrish claims is cribbing his title is I Hate Puzzle [$.99]. DIY Gamer reports that the games are, basically, mechanically the same. As you’ll see, they also definitely resemble each other in a profound way. In the following image Morrish tweeted, the game on the left is Super Puzzle Platformer, while the one on the right is I Hate Puzzle. Take note of how the assets are flip-flopped or toned down between these two titles:
The developer listed on I Hate Puzzle is Domi Games, the same house that, according to a GameFront report, lifted the Flash game Tiny Hawk in the past. According to the reporting in that specific article, Domi Games is a new name for Edison Game, the company that started The Blocks Cometh brouhaha.
There’s a lot of loose ends here, but it strikes us as odd -- provided these theft reports are indeed accurate -- that Domi Games is still allowed to distribute on the App Store. On a platform as closed as this one is, you’d figure something like a ban from Apple wouldn’t be out of the question. I wonder how this will shake out.
Windows Phone 7 has a serious amount of catching up to do both in market share and with apps if it wants to seriously compete with the iPhone and the App Store, but we’ve always seen the handheld as a promising contender. Part of that reason has to do with its Games Hub, which is essentially a mobile take on Xbox Live. It’s packed with promise, and Microsoft has continued to take the steps in the right direction. Today’s news is a good example of that: the next release of Windows Phone 7, Mango, will allow in-app purchases and add-on content. This is huge, as we all know free-to-play is a meaningful mobile model.
There’s more, of course. In the Fall-bound update, Microsoft will introduce badges that you can put on your avatar after earning certain achievements. Also, it’s bulking up its network support, cleaning up the UI in a significant way by introducing sensible views and blades, and it’s integrating a lot of Xbox Live “Extras” into the actual Hub. If you really want to dive into the nitty-gritty, this blog post and this earlier blog post on the Windows Phone Blog both break it all down pretty well, canned as it is.
In addition to the former stuff, Microsoft has also announced a bunch of new games slated to hit the platform within the next few months. Most of them are unknown to us, but if you have a 360 or a Kinect, these two brands might ring a bell: Toy Soldiers and Kinectimals. Yeah, mobile versions of these titles are coming. Can you hear me shrugging? I’m shrugging.
It strikes me as weird that we’re still in a wait and watch stance on Windows Phone 7 a year or so out of release, but the platform still doesn’t feel as robust as Microsoft wants it to be. Updates like this, though, are definitely a sign of solid progress.
Housemarque, the creators of the entertaining and artistically gifted downloadable Outland and several other notable PSN-exclusive titles like Super Stardust HD and Dead Nation, is turning to the App Store for the release of its upcoming cutesy physics-based puzzle game, Furmins.
From what we gather, in Furmins you’ll basically play God to a host of anthropomorphic and especially rubbery ball-like animals called Furmins. The goal in each level is to arrange several objects or items in specific ways that allow these bouncy creatures entry into a basket. As you’ll see, it’s not as mechanically dense as some of the studio’s other titles: (more...)
Around this time last year, we were just about to get our hands on the Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter. It was (and still is) an incredibly cool remote control toy with some seriously advanced technology onboard that allows for control of the craft via an iOS device complete with a video feed captured from cameras onboard the AR.Drone all connected through a WiFi network served up by the quadricopter itself. Parrot later even expanded the AR.Drone's functionality to include a few different games that utilized the cameras in interesting ways.
Unfortunately, all of this tech came with a hefty price tag. $299.99 to be exact which put the AR.Drone far outside of impulse purchase range for most. Thankfully, acclaimed accessory manufacturer Griffin took note that people thought things like the AR.Drone are cool as hell, while building a similar product with a price point that falls comfortably inside "eh, what the hell" territory which I really think is vital for any gadgety toy.
Check out the HELO TC in action:
Griffin has taken a unique angle with the HELO TC and has made several obvious cost-cutting measures to hit that key $50 price point. First off, the HELO TC obviously lacks all the flight stabilization logic that powered the AR.Drone. The AR.Drone basically flies itself, while the HELO TC seems to be very similar to the barebones remote control helicopters that you can pick up for around $20 online, which leads me to believe that flying the HELO TC with the finesse seen in the above video is going to be very difficult.
Similarly, all of the WiFi connectivity options found in the AR.Drone have been replaced by a transmitter that clips on to your iOS device and plugs into your headphone jack. This takes AA batteries, and utilizing the free companion app sends tones out your headphone port to an IR transmitter, a technique that has been well documented and used by hobbyists to essentially create a playlist of sounds to do things like control a digital SLR camera, or in this case, fly a helicopter.
Of course Griffin hasn't mentioned the specifics of how the HELO TC works, so this is largely just a series of educated guesses on my part, but the logic seems sound. Either way, we're totally stoked for the device. I had a ton of fun with the AR.Drone, and it seems like the HELO TC should be equally fun, only for a sixth of the price.
For more information, check out the HELO TC web site, or if you're totally sold on the device swing over to the Griffin store to pre-order. No specific release dates have been mentioned yet, although the PR Griffin blasted out this morning repeatedly mentions the holiday season. It seems every year the window for what the "holiday season" actually is broadens even wider, so we could be seeing the HELO TC sooner than we expect. I've got my fingers crossed, at least.
In case you're not familiar, Azkend [$2.99] is an awesome puzzle game. It's ancient in App Store terms, originally released in mid-2009, but the game has held up remarkably well since then and still is amongst my favorite matching games available on the platform. Azkend seems to strike an almost perfect balance between strategic matching and massive (often accidental) combos that utilizing whichever one of the many in-game powers you can have active at a time. Playing through the game unlocks more of these powers, and they'll do things like rain down massive amounts of lightning to clear tiles, or even just have a huge hammer appear to knock the tiles off the board (among many others).
Recently Azkend 2 was announced, and… Yeah, that's all we've got. They're currently directing traffic to their Facebook page for updates which is equally devoid of information. Surely this will be good news to fellow Azkend fans, and I'm going to be keeping a close eye on things for future details.
Digital Chocolate, the social games publisher probably best known for getting legally rowdy with Zynga over the Mafia Wars name, has just acquired Sandlot Games, the studio responsible for Cake Mania and an assortment of other weird social or casual flings. This news comes on the heels of tons of various other acquisitions in the social space. EA’s moves are the most notable due to the sheer size and scale, but other publishers are snagging dudes up with the quickness as the social digital social games market emerges into a substantial force.
In a press release, Digital Chocolate made this move sound like it was an attempt to expand into social and expand its own development team.
“Sandlot has built a great reputation in casual games,” Trip Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate said in a statement. “We love their development teams and we can now expand further in Seattle and Eastern Europe. We expect to be the leading game company in at least 5 of the 7 cities where we now have development studios.”
Our take on this is, simply, that it’s definitely a funky market right now. We have big publishers like Zynga and EA scooping up whatever has a decent name attached to it, while others like Warner Bros, Activision, or THQ are shuttering studios right and left. Economic unease and the fact the gaming landscape is indeed changing are certainly factors in these developments, but we're a little too close to the moment to be able to see how everything is shaking up. We wonder how we’ll look back at 2011 once everything settles.
One of our very favorite not-a-game-itself-but-is-still-gaming-related apps in the App Store is 
In case you're not familiar, Azkend [
Digital Chocolate
