Huge news, dinosaur enthusiasts: work on Telltale Games' Jurassic Park: The Game has wrapped and it's hitting this November 15 across almost every major platform under the sun -- with the exception of ours. Fear not, though. According to a press release, the iPad version is slated to hit the App Store "shortly after" this sweeping release. We can only guess what the hold-up is, but it's known that dinosaurs are feisty talent to work with and probably don't enjoy being shrunk to fit onto 10-inch screens. Or put into parks, for that matter.
Jurassic Park: The Game, from what we gather from other reports, is a spin on the Telltale adventure game formula, as it'll supposedly be much more action oriented. It's been compared to Heavy Rain on a few occasions, too, though that really doesn't tell us much.
Interestingly, this game will take us all back to Isla Nublar during the events of the first movie. Somehow, it'll squeeze in new dinosaurs, new locations, but also pay its respects to the beasts and places we fell in love with in the first place. Neat!
We've already told you just how awesome Fish Labs' Galaxy On Fire 2 is in our review, which hit almost exactly one year ago. Since then, the original title has been updated a few times, and a DLC pack hit. In addition, Fish Labs had been teasing a high definition version of the game initially running on Tegra devices for way too long.
Well, that HD version hit earlier this month as Galaxy On Fire HD, released exclusively for A5-equipped iOS devices. It's even universal, to run on either your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S. Better yet, it can use either OpenFeint or iCloud to sync progress between devices. It launched with a few technical hiccups which kept us from sounding the alarm to go out and download it immediately, but those things have all since been fixed in subsequent updates.
Galaxy On Fire 2 HD is the exact same game as Galaxy On Fire 2, with substantially better graphics. If you already own Galaxy On Fire 2, there's basically no reason to "upgrade" to the HD version unless you just want some additional eye candy. However, since the game is so "old" (in App Store terms, anyway), it wouldn't surprise me if there's a bunch of people out there with 4S's or iPad 2's that never heard of it the first time around-- In which case, there's no better time to hop on this awesome game.
Namco Bandai is planning to roll a couple of new levels into Katamari Amore [Free] tomorrow. Seven in total, actually, one of which is Tekken-themed, are scheduled to hit in an update to the App Store-exclusive Katamari successor. Each will be playable across all of the game's modes in the "unlocked" (read: paid) version, but only the first of these will be available in the base, free-to-play experience.
Confusion is a natural reaction to any and all update news for a game that's essentially split between financial models. Just think of Amore as a demo that you can morph into a full, retail-ish game with your hard-earned coin. Also, like with the first level pack, this update basically requires a purchase of the 'full' game.
Here's a look at what's coming:
We weren't impressed with Amore, which continues our streak of disappointment in a series that really should feel at home on the iPad and iPhone. New levels aren't the fix, but for the fans it does have, I'd imagine it's enough to keep them invested.
You can read our review here, if you're interested in learning more.
How much should a game punish you? This is the question that hangs over Mountain Sheep's Bike Baron [$0.99] but the answer is totally subjective. Me, I can take a bit of brutality. Sadistic level design appeals -- to a point. You'll need at least as much tolerance as I have to enjoy this game, but if, say, Trials HD is your high water mark for cruelty to gamers, you'll find a lot to like here.
Bike Baron successfully merges an excellent interface with charming art and sound design. Those things pull you in, and then the game tries to break you. If you're looking for a casual biking experience where you'll spend a lot of time soaring through the air, look elsewhere. If you get gleeful at the thought of pixel-precise jumps, trial and error, and endless retries, well, you might be a bit mad. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- those are the exact things you'll find in Bike Baron.
I'm not totally sure what the occasion is, but there sure does seem to be a ton of sales going on this week. Perhaps it's some pre-Halloween celebrating, or maybe developers have seen the number of new iPhones sold this month and want to capitalize on all of the potential new iOS gamers. Whatever the reason though, I don't think anyone will argue with getting some great deals on some new games. Without further ado, here's a list of some recent price drops and freebies from the past 24 hours:
A couple of things about the list above. First of all, all the versions of the original Puzzle Quest games have been updated with iOS 5 support and visual enhancements (including Retina Display support), as well as have been tuned up in the way of bug fixes. Second, Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising is due to get a humongous update with a brand new campaign available via IAP, and we'll be giving that a spin and will report back on it soon. But, the sale is supposed to only last until the update hits, so if you have any interest then you should definitely jump on it quickly.
In fact, that pretty much goes for every sale, as the prices can fluctuate on a whim. Make sure to jump at the chance to grab what interests you before these sales run out, and always keep a copy of the AppShopper [Free] app on your device to stay on top of the constantly changing App Store.
We're closing in on another holiday, guys, and that means one thing: sales. This week, Sega was the first to open up its library in celebration of Halloween. Until October 31, you can save up to 80-percent on some of it's more... unimpressive iOS efforts, including Gunstar Heroes and Virtua Fighter 2. I'm not sure if the hook for this was to scare us with lower prices or questionable games, but hey, a sale is a sale.
Nothing says spooky like ChuChu Rocket, right? In all seriousness, though, we're pretty stoked that Sega is slashing the price of this one in particular. It's a cool, fast-moving puzzle game that actually plays well on the iPad. You can catch our original review here, if the less-than-a-dollar price point isn't luring you in immediately. Here's our words of caution on Brick People by the way.
Gameloft doesn't miss sales opportunities, so it's not much of a surprise to see a very select number of its titles get a price-slashing treatment this week in celebration of Make Kids Fat Night. Starting now and for a 'limited time,' you can save a bunch of dollars on decidedly un-spooky titles like Gameloft Action Pack, its MMO Order & Chaos Online, and Shrek Forever After: the Movie: the Game.
We're not 100-percent behind any of these, but we will note that the Gameloft Action Pack has a total of three decent titles bundled inside of it: Gameloft's answer to God of War, Hero of Sparta, its WWII shooter Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes, and its Mortal Kombat-ish homage, Blades of Fury. You could do worse with your dollar. For example: you could buy candy.
Fall 2011 is the unofficial season of anthropomorphized penguins. Don’t believe me? Between the penguin sweater craze and the release of Happy Feet 2, adorable penguins are everywhere. Now, a third entry into fall’s penguin lineup is here in the form of BulkyPix’s super-cute new game, Crazy Escape [99¢]. And this one answers the question on everybody’s mind: Can penguins drive tiny penguin cars, and if so, is it extra-adorable?
It’s a story as old as time itself: Two penguin buddies have to take to their Jeep (err, low-emission 4x4 of indeterminate branding, I should say) to save their sheep friends from being kidnapped and eaten by wolves. As these penguins race along the winding road, they must collect sheep, stars (ostensibly because penguins like shiny objects?), keys (to unchain locked-up sheep, of course!), and avoid stationary wolves, roaming wolves, chasing wolves – basically wolves of all kinds, all right?! You can run into fences (good) and trees (bad!), and the less road you cover to complete the level, the better.
Coming early next year, developer FarSight Studios will be bringing a massive collection of some of the most classic pinball games from throughout history to just about every single gaming platform imaginable. Of course, the one that matters most to us is the iOS platform, which the upcoming Pinball Arcade is indeed slated to hit. You're likely familiar with FarSight's previous pinball work, the Pinball Hall of Fame series, with The Gottlieb Collection and The Williams Collection, each of which has landed on various platforms over the last several years. With The Pinball Arcade, they look to take a similar "collection" approach, only with far more licensed tables.
The Pinball Arcade lays claim to more than 50 different tables from classic companies like Williams and Gottlieb (naturally), Bally, and Stern. FarSight is calling the game "the most comprehensive pinball video game ever created" which it certainly will be if they can really achieve their lofty goal of included tables. Details are scarce at this point, but it sounds as if the game will initially ship with at least the tables mentioned in the above trailer, and possibly more, with a steady stream of additional tables being made available as downloadable content post release.
We'll look to dig up some more information on The Pinball Arcade as the new year approaches, but the prospect of having dozens of virtual representations of classic pinball machines available right in your pocket has players in our forums drooling in anticipation (myself included).
In 3D Pixel Racing [$1.99] the car graphics look extremely blocky - there's simply no anti-aliasing (or smoothing of the edges) ...but that's not a bad thing, because it's completely intentional! This car racing game uses 8-bit pixelated graphics to depict the 3D cars, tracks and menus, so they look like they're constructed from tiny blocks of Lego. You might think this sounds like 8-bit Rally [99¢], but no, this is far more pixelated than that.
While the unusual "pixel" graphics are definitely the main draw, there's also quite a few other features, including 5 game modes, 11 cars, 10 tracks, and various weather conditions, which all sounds really good on paper. However, this game has received mixed feedback in our discussion thread, with the menu system in particular being singled out for criticism.
In this week's bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show, we speak with Rocketcat Games' Kepa Auwae about Rocketcat's past, present, and future and discuss his studio's action RPG Mage Gauntlet [$2.99] in great detail. Kepa keeps it real the entire time. Dude spills the beans on the studio's plans for a trilogy, a free-to-play spin-off, and what it's probably going to do to improve on the current build of Mage Gauntlet. This was a spectacularly fun conversation, and if you're a fan of Mage Gauntlet, you'll undoubtedly leave it with some excitement.
If you'd like to give us a listen, go ahead and do so via streaming or direct download. You could also subscribe to use on iTunes or Zune to get every new episode the second they hit the Internet. If you ask me, this is the premier way to enjoy your TouchArcade orally.
The mobile division of Nexon Co. is readying an iOS version of their popular free-to-play online first-person shooter Combat Arms. Known as Combat Arms: Zombies, the title has been developed using Unreal Engine 3 and is based off of the zombie themed cooperative Fireteam Mode from the original game. There aren't many details regarding Combat Arms: Zombies at the moment, but Nexon Mobile hints that they are interested in supporting the game post-release until it almost equals the full scale of the original Combat Arms online game.
I've never played Combat Arms, but this Zombies edition sounds like a cooperative survival mode similar to the popular Call of Duty: Zombies [$4.99/HD] that's been a pretty big hit on iOS the past couple of years. The first trailer for the game looks pretty darn impressive, and although it doesn't appear to show any actual gameplay, it does seem that the entire video was rendered using an in-game engine.
Combat Arms: Zombies will first be unveiled in playable form at the G-Star 2011 expo in South Korea on November 10th. The release date is expected sometime shortly after, though nothing specific has been confirmed. We'll of course be keeping our eye out for Combat Arms: Zombies as it gets closer to release, and bring you any new information or media as we get it.
Retro gamers are about a week out from a true bundle of 8-bit gaming goodness, with a promise of much more to come. On the weekend of October 28th, Elite Systems will be releasing the Elite Collection and Elite Collection HD (for iPad) that bring a dozen 8-bit games to the App Store, and at a week-long introductory price of $0.99.
Last month I spoke with Elite Systems co-founder Steve Wilcox who took me through his studio's plans to bring a great number of notable 8-bit titles from years past to iOS gamers, using a new proprietary technology developed within Elite. This new system, or facilitator, brings these titles to iOS at near 100% accuracy and allows a great degree of control customization thanks to the studio's "iDaptive" control system. Elite's initial move in this effort involved ZX Spectrum-only titles, but it's worth noting that with this new collection, Elite has pushed beyond just the ZX Spectrum platform. (more...)
I discovered tower defense late in my gaming career. I have no good justification for this. Perhaps I was too busy burying my face into all the RPGs and sidescrollers I could find. However, my intro game into the genre was PixelJunk Monsters, and if you gotta discover late, it may as well be with one of the genre's best entries. Ever since, I salivate Pavlovian-style every time someone murmurs the words "tower defense," and I had the same reaction when Gem Keeper [$2.99] was mentioned around the Touch Arcade office. I also was digging the fact that NCSoft made it, because I like them and I wanted to see how their skills would translate to iOS.
Like any proper tower defense title, Gem Keeper has plenty of levels to keep your building skills busy. 30 are available in total, and over the course of gameplay you have the ability to earn 14 different towers to use to strategically keep baddies out of your fortress. You'll start slow, with only a basic gunfire tower and a few bombs at your disposal. However, soon enough you'll be slowing em down with sticky goo and firing giant spiked cannonballs. I loved that you had the option to switch between Easy, Medium and Hard difficulty at anytime, even right before you start a level. Gem Keeper doesn't disappoint when it comes to the challenge either, but I'll return to that later.
Attention Kairosoft nerds: the studio, fresh off a release of Edo Town earlier this fall, has just dropped a new game on the Japanese App Store. It's called Zaibatsu Towns, and from what we're gathering via a few fantastic translator-types, it's a financial-oriented town-building game not so dissimilar from its last still region-exclusive title. The key difference appears to be the town itself -- it's not as 'traditional' Japanese as Edo Town's.
With the release of this, Kairosoft broke its emerging worldwide release pattern. We're not so sure Edo Town is on the way next, in other words. For all we know, we could be receiving Game Dev Story 2 next, or hey, even this.
One thing for certain, though: I want whatever game is coming. Also, hurry up, Kairosoft. I just finished Grand Prix Story [$3.99 / Lite] for the fourth and final time. What's a man to do with all this new time on his hands?
[Thanks to a for helping us with this, people; you know who you are!]
Huge news, dinosaur enthusiasts: work on Telltale Games' Jurassic Park: The Game has wrapped and it's hitting this November 15 across almost every major platform under the sun -- with the exception of ours. Fear not, though. According to a press release, the iPad version is slated to hit the App Store "shortly after" this sweeping release. We can only guess what the hold-up is, but it's known that dinosaurs are feisty talent to work with and probably don't enjoy being shrunk to fit onto 10-inch screens. Or put into parks, for that matter.
We've 
Namco Bandai is planning to roll a couple of new levels into Katamari Amore [
We're closing in on another holiday, guys, and that means one thing: sales. This week, Sega was the first to open up its library in celebration of Halloween. Until October 31, you can save up to 80-percent on some of it's more... unimpressive iOS efforts, including Gunstar Heroes and Virtua Fighter 2. I'm not sure if the hook for this was to scare us with lower prices or questionable games, but hey, a sale is a sale.
Gameloft doesn't miss sales opportunities, so it's not much of a surprise to see a very select number of its titles get a price-slashing treatment this week in celebration of Make Kids Fat Night. Starting now and for a 'limited time,' you can save a bunch of dollars on decidedly un-spooky titles like Gameloft Action Pack, its MMO Order & Chaos Online, and Shrek Forever After: the Movie: the Game.
In this week's bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show, we speak with 
Retro gamers are about a week out from a true bundle of 8-bit gaming goodness, with a promise of much more to come. On the weekend of October 28th, 
I discovered tower defense late in my gaming career. I have no good justification for this. Perhaps I was too busy burying my face into all the RPGs and sidescrollers I could find. However, my intro game into the genre was PixelJunk Monsters, and if you gotta discover late, it may as well be with one of the genre's best entries. Ever since, I salivate Pavlovian-style every time someone murmurs the words "tower defense," and I had the same reaction when Gem Keeper [
Attention Kairosoft nerds: the studio, fresh off a release of 
