Let's wind back the clocks a bit so those of you who weren't around for the great iDOS fiasco of 2010. It all started with Apple ever-so-slightly easing up on their approval guidelines which opened the floodgates for quite a few apps (such as the Google Voice apps) that seemed to eternally be trapped in approval limbo. Whether this had anything to do with iDOS or not is debatable, but it seems awfully coincidental otherwise. Anyway, on the morning of October 26th last year, iDOS hit the App Store. It was a shockingly full featured DOS emulator complete with keyboard and mouse support, as well as a basic virtual gamepad, multiple screen modes, and so much more.
The crazy part about iDOS is there seemed to be nearly no limit to what it was capable of. If you scroll down on this story you'll even find someone successfully installing Microsoft Windows, within iDOS, on their iPad. iDOS was quickly pulled, then re-appeared in late January of this year with quite a bit of its functionality stripped. Regardless, people quickly figured out how to load things into iDOS, utilizing utilities like iExplorer and other Mac/Windows programs that allow you to fiddle with the file system of your iOS device. Once again, iDOS was removed from the App Store.
Yesterday, iDOS hit the App Store once again, this time as Aemula Oldies [Free] for the iPad and Aemula Oldies S [Free] for smaller screen devices. There's also the Aemula Gamepad [99¢] which works a lot like the other gamepad apps and pairs with an iPad playing a game. It seems that the functionality has been stripped even further, as all the previous command line access has been traded for a simple menu to load the included games.
The freebies packed in with Aemula Oldies are Mille Bornes, Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle, Duke Nukem, Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, Scorched Earth, CD-Man, The Catacomb Abyss, Bio Menace, Monster Bash, StarMines II: Planet of Mines, 4D Prince of Persia and CHAMP Kong. They all seem to work decently well, too.
I sort of think third time is the charm for iDOS, err, Aemula Oldies, as I'd imagine that there aren't any holes for slipping other things to emulate in left anymore. Of course, I could be totally wrong on that, so if anyone figures out any tricks, be sure to let us know.
Surprise! Grand Theft Auto 3, which saw a release this December 14 at $4.99, is now just $2.99 in celebration of the holidays. If you were one of those day-one guys saying he'd wait until a price drop before taking the plunge... well, here you go.
This is part of a larger Rockstar holiday sale, by the way. Until the after New Years, you can also grab the studio's decidedly more mobile-friendly Grand Theft Auto joint, Chinatown Wars, at $5.99 instead of its usual $9.99. Beaterator, a music creation game, is also on sale. It's now $1.99 rather than its everyday $2.99. Deals!
Since Grand Theft Auto 3 is so fresh and all, swing by our review if you're on the fence. Spoiler: it's GTA 3 -- a fun, exciting open-world game that brimming with all the things we take for granted in a GTA -- but with virtual controls.
A lot of people don't like Square Enix's App Store prices mainly because they're so much higher than the norm. Good thing about the holidays, we guess, is that all of these prices tend to fall. And they have. Again. This year. Starting now and extending until after New Years Day, you can grab just about every Square Enix title at a much lower price. For example, Final Fantasy Tactics is $11.99 instead of $15.99. Another example: Chaos Rings Omega is $5.99 rather than $11.99.
Here's a full list of what we've seen. Do note that Square is also offering up a bunch of actual apps at a lower cost, too. Just hit up its publisher page on iTunes to see those:
All the Taito stuff on sale are must-have kind of games, as we've mentioned many times before. Forced to pick a straight-up Square game, we'd say Final Fantasy III is probably the best value on the list. It's a great game on iPad especially, and has enough touch hooks to feel decidedly less port-y than its other stuff.
Hey, Shadowgun [$2.99] now has more content via an update. Madfinger has added an "expansion" to the overall package that directly follows the events in the core game. Overall, this new expansion contains a total of four new levels, as well as new little visual tweaks, a new gun, new collectibles, and a new enemy type. All for free, of course.
The update this was rolled in with also includes some fresh improvements for the same price: free. According to Madfinger, Shadowgun now sports improved "effects," like, say, bullet trails and camera shakes. You can now also roll and apparently face freshly tuned enemies with freshly tuned guns courtesy of this thing, too.
We weren't so hot on Shadowgun and this update doesn't really change that viewpoint, but we're pretty stoked for the pre-existing fans. This is the kind of update they wanted, and they totally got it.
Picture Super Mario Bros. Got a nice image in your head? Good. Now imagine Mario could never stop moving and would only change direction if he hit a wall. A little tougher. And what if absolutely everything could kill him in one hit, and there was no such thing as a checkpoint? That sounds like the sort of game that would have you cursing, spitting, and contemplating throwing your controller, and it also sounds a lot like Wind-up Knight [$0.99]
Occasionally a game will come out on Android that looks so good I slaver for a port. Wind-up Knight is one of those games. Released on the Android Market a couple months back, the side-scrolling adventure looked slick, adorable, and hard -- all the things I look for in a platformer. Now that it's arrived on iOS, I can finally confirm: this game is outstanding.
Developer CAVE is looking to make it a bullet hell holiday for its fans by getting in on the year end sale bandwagon. CAVE just recently dropped Bug Princess [$4.99/Lite] into the App Store, a game which we liked a whole bunchwhen it released, and thought was quite reasonably priced to boot. Now, you can pick up all of their previous major iOS titles at a discounted rate from now until January 10th.
If you aren't sure about a purchase, each and every one of these games has a lite version you can check out, and there are even versions of Espgaluda II that are split into separate "Arcade" and "iPhone" standalone apps that are available for a cheaper price. Also, make sure you're equipped with at least 3rd generation hardware or above, and in the case of Espgaluda II HD, you'll need an iPad 2 specifically to run that bad boy.
At any rate, all of CAVE's games are high quality offerings worthy of your dollar, so be sure to hit up this sale while it lasts.
Emulators have had an interesting history on the App Store, to say the least. There are a few emulator apps that have received Apple's blessing, namely Manomio's Commodore 64 [$4.99] and a choice group of similar emulators. More often than not though, they randomly appear, having slipped through the Apple approval system, then are quickly pulled. Right now we've got no clue which side of the fence iMAME [Free] is sitting on, but it's free, so there's absolutely no reason not to download it just to have it.
iMame comes preloaded with nine less than stellar ROMs to play, but the real interesting part is going to be whether or not it's possible to side load other ROM files into the app. I've been tinkering around with various tricks to load other ROMs into the app that have worked in other instances of similar emulators on to the App Store, and so far haven't had anything work. Regardless, I give it about two hours (or potentially much less) before someone figures it out, and a few hours after that for Apple to pull it from the App Store.
Go go go!!! I'll keep this post updated as new things develop.
Death Rally [$.99] now officially has multiplayer courtesy a December 16 update. Starting now, you can participate in an online twist to the game's standard single-player campaign, which has been dubbed "Road Wars." In this, you simply race against others and earn a comparable amount of experience points based on your position and performance.
You'd figure this kind of update would make everyone happy, right? Wrong, because this is the Internet. Road Wars is loaded to the gills with IAP guns and cars that you can buy in advance of earning them normally through play. As a result, some are picking up their nearest pitchfork or torch to storm the gates.
We've spent some time with Road Wars and the IAP stuff looks like just that -- an option. Even though it'll be constantly winking at you, the experience seems suitably balance for those of us who just want to rock out and earn additional items through play. Full update notes through this link, by the way.
UPDATE: We've been advised that some higher level items can't be unlocked traditionally. The fact that IAP exists threw off the balance of the mode anyway, so there's not much left to say here.
Way back in 2000 when I first started playing The Sims, the big joke was that Sims players were wasting their time living virtual lives when they could be living their own. That stigma faded over time -- once MMORPGs made it big, there were bigger time wasters to fry.
But The Sims FreePlay [Free] hearkens back to those early days in more ways than one. For one thing, it's more like the original than any of the other mobile titles. For another, this game plays in real time. That means when you take the time to send your Sim off to shower, you really could be doing it yourself. Never before has a game given me such an uncomfortable awareness of my own time-wasting -- but the returns make it feel worthwhile.
Bike Baron [$.99] received an update a couple of days ago, but developer Mountain Sheep has managed to fit another rejuvenating splash of content in before the App Store freeze. And this one, guys, is just as cool.
This latest update specifically drops in a total of five brand new ice-themed levels with a new kind of material that allows you to morph objects into breakable ice. More in line with the yuletide spirit, though, Mountain Sheep has also added two new Santa characters equipped with jolly bikes via in-app purchase. You can view both of these before you buy, by the way, which is a welcome design decision. Here's a look:
Bike Baron is a surprisingly good game, and an especially welcome title on the App Store since we didn't have a Trials or anything near its level beforehand. Check it!
Dead Space [$.99 / HD] is one of the seemingly billions of EA-published games on sale right now, and it's also received a new update. On both iPad and iPhone, Dead Space now supports EA's polarizing social UI, Origin. In more satisfying news, it also now supports Game Center integration by the way of leaderboards and apparently runs "smoother" thanks to some technical tinkering on the back-end.
If you didn't know, by the way, this portable spin on the ridiculously good horror-action franchise is also ridiculously good. And not in that Game Boy port kind of way, either -- this thing is a full, complete product that has its own feel, mechanics, pull. In other words, it easily stands on its own. You should check it out while it's on sale for $.99 and get familiar. We'll be talking about it again this year.
Living in Southern California, I spend most holidays in front of a space heater watching White Christmas on TV and wishing I was one-half of a musical comedy duo trying to gain the affections of two sisters while saving the inn of my old Army commander.
But more than that, what I want more than anything is the snow that the movie is named for. I sit inside daydreaming about that beautiful, luscious blanket of powder covering the ground (yes, I realized that they probably filmed that movie on a sound stage not far from me, but a girl can dream!) while red-faced children fling snowballs at each other. Alas, as that is unlikely to occur pretty much ever, I’ve been making do with Snow Fight [Free].
Final Fantasy Tactics [$11.99] on iPhone and iPod Touch has inspired numerous, uh, passionate e-commentaries since its release earlier this year. One of the components we've seen the most bickering about has been addressed: Tactics' latest update zeroes in on the port's decidedly unspectacular visuals on retina devices and supports the screen.
To be clear, the text is still tiny on iPhone 4S, for example, but it's apparently much less blurry overall. Also, the UI is noticeably sharper, and various assets like facial graphics and icons have been updated to mesh with the retina support. This update also rolls in some nebulous "bug fixes."
Off-topic, here, but we definitely want to note that Tactics is available at the lowest price it has ever been since its August release: as of December 19, it's $11.99 instead of $15.99. Still steep in comparison to other App Store games, but better.
If you already own the game and choose to update, note that you'll lose your auto-save data in the process because, reasons.
Want more Junk Jack [$2.99 / Lite]? You got it. Approaching the game as if it were Notch's own, the team behind Junk Jack have consistently added to and improved upon Junk Jack since its release this November. The latest two updates for example -- which will see the game through until at least New Years Day -- are incredibly focused, addressing a myriad of technical and mechanical oddities users have been experiencing.
Now you can hold to break blocks, stop worrying about consuming healing items when at maximum health, fight mobs that spawn properly according to their light and dark values, spruce trees, forget about vine glitches, and climb spiderwebs.
On the flip-side, the game now has three new looks for its cold dirt, cobblestone, and its clay blocks. Several new mobs, including chicken, birds, skulls, and even rabbits, have been introduced. And you can now rock out with a Mithril Sword, use healing potions and place Christmas balls on trees.
These are just a taste of what's been added -- we've got a huge list from the game's prior update included in the text below. The latest update, which addresses some saving and loading woes, has text that can be seen here.
Chances are that we're not done covering Junk Jack in the very least, and that's a good thing considering the tremendous value the game is -- and presumably will continue to be as the team keeps piling on layers of new mechanics and tune-ups.
Back in October, we were pleasantly surprised with Bring Me Sandwiches!! [99¢], a new platformer from Adult Swim Games and Grumpy Face Studios. First of all, any platformer on iOS lives and dies by how good its controls are, and Bring Me Sandwiches!! delivered on this front with several great options for controlling your character. Secondly, it took the basics of platforming and mixed in a dose of Katamari-like progressive collecting, which proved to be a really great addition to the genre. Finally, Bring Me Sandwiches!! had a truly excellent visual style that felt like it could have been ripped straight from a show on the Cartoon Network.
Yesterday, Bring Me Sandwiches!! got its first update, making it a Universal app and providing some other minor fixes and tweaks. All of the same content from the iPhone/iPod touch version of the game is available on the iPad, though sadly there is no transferring of game saves between multiple devices. The game plays great on the larger screen, and like the original version, gives you half the lower screen for movement and the other half for jumping (when using touch controls). This is important to me as I typically find the controls in platformers on the iPad to be awkwardly placed, and here you can basically just use anywhere that feels the most comfortable on the lower part of the screen.
If you're the owner of an iPad that you've been itching to get Bring Me Sandwiches!! on, now is a great time to drop your hard earned dollar on the new Universal version.
Let's wind back the clocks a bit so those of you who weren't around for the great iDOS fiasco of 2010. It all started with Apple ever-so-slightly easing up on their approval guidelines which opened the floodgates for quite a few apps (such as the Google Voice apps) that seemed to eternally be trapped in approval limbo. Whether this had anything to do with iDOS or not is debatable, but it seems awfully coincidental otherwise. Anyway, on the morning of October 26th last year, iDOS hit the App Store. It was a shockingly full featured DOS emulator complete with keyboard and mouse support, as well as a basic virtual gamepad, multiple screen modes, and so much more.
Surprise! 
A lot of people don't like Square Enix's App Store prices mainly because they're so much higher than the norm. Good thing about the holidays, we guess, is that all of these prices tend to fall. And they have. Again. This year. Starting now and extending until after New Years Day, you can grab just about every Square Enix title at a much lower price. For example, Final Fantasy Tactics is $11.99 instead of $15.99. Another example: Chaos Rings Omega is $5.99 rather than $11.99.
Hey, 
Bike Baron
Final Fantasy Tactics
Want more 
