Gameloft's port of Rayman 2: The Great Escape [App Store] launched this evening, and fans of the original will be in for a treat as it appears that very little, if anything, has been cut from the game in the process of squeezing it on to the iPhone.
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.
In the graphics and sound department, Rayman 2 is great. It looks just as I remembered it on the Dreamcast, and the soundtrack does a great job of setting the mood of the game. Unfortunately, once you get past how cool it is to be playing a late 90's console classic on your phone, things start to quickly fall apart.
As a 3D platformer, the two most important things are the controls and the camera system. A virtual joystick on the left side of the screen controls Rayman's movements, while a set of buttons handle jumping and tossing orbs to attack. Additional buttons appear when needed, such as a third button to dive while swimming.
The camera can be moved left or right by swiping that direction on screen, and to lock on to enemies a confusing pinching gesture is used. There are also some portions of the game with an obligatory tilt gimmick thrown in for good measure.
I feel like there are a lot of similarities between what I think about Rayman 2 and how I felt about Earthworm Jim when Gameloft brought it to the iPhone last year. The game itself looks great, but even a fantastic looking port of a game I had a lot of fun with when it was first released in the late 90's doesn't outweigh the cumbersome controls that make even the simple tutorial levels much more difficult than they should be.
I can forgive Gameloft for yet another game that doesn't really fit the iPhone with a set of virtual controls plastered on top, because Rayman 2 with bad controls is still better than not having Rayman 2 at all. As you progress through the game, you even start to get used to the crazy camera system and end up falling off ledges much less than you were originally, but something as simple as character movement really shouldn't have a learning curve attached to it.
Where Gameloft completely loses me on this port is in the save system. If you need to answer a phone call, a text message, or quit the game for any reason, the next time you load it you're back at the level select screen and need to start the level you were on over, complete with skipping through any associated cut scenes.
Taking these flaws in to account, Rayman 2 is hard to recommend, especially as your first foray in to the Rayman universe. If you are willing to invest the time in to mastering the game's irritating controls, and can work around the ridiculous save system, you will be rewarded with a classic adventure across tons of unique levels that are loaded with oodles of different hidden collectables.
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.
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.
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 followup to yesterday's inteview with ngmoco CEO Neil Young, this morning we spoke with Freeverse President Ian Lynch Smith to hear what the recent purchase of Freeverse by ngmoco means to them. The full audio is attached below, but here is a summary of the talk.
Originally founded in 1994, Freeverse's earliest titles were Mac shareware games. They later branched out in to games for Windows, XBOX Live Arcade, and most recently the iPhone. Freeverse's MotoChaser was one of the few 3D games that launched with the App Store. Also immediately available were Big Bang Sudoku and Jared. They then went on to release a catalog of great iPhone games, both developed in house and and by outside developers published by Freeverse.
Since the surprise announcement yesterday of ngmoco's purchase of Freeverse, what we've all been wondering is what is going to change. Ngmoco has recently shifted gears to an entirely free to play business model, while Freeverse has been happily releasing massively successful 99¢ games like Skee-Ball and Flick Fishing while working on highly anticipated games such as Warpgate.
The short answer of what is going to change initially is almost nothing, with very little changing in the future aside from the shift in payment models. According to Ian Lynch Smith, they wouldn't have done the deal if it wasn't for the shared vision between both companies, as each of them focus on the iPhone and iPhone OS. This doesn't mean they're abandoning the Mac games, applications, and everything else they do either. Freeverse will remain its own company in Brooklyn, just as a wholly owned subsidiary of ngmoco.
In addition, Freeverse will continue to publish the works of other iPhone developers, with the same level of quality and care we've seen in the past. As Smith put it, "[Ngmoco] did not buy Freeverse to make radical changes. They bought us because of our success, and they bought us because of what we've been doing right."
From Freeverse's perspective, the main motivation behind agreeing to this deal is the immense potential for growth. Through the years they've done everything they could to reach a larger audience, originally starting with shareware, then making the jump to retail shelves, then bringing their games to both the PC and XBOX, and finally jumping on the iPhone.
In regards to ngmoco's recent push to "freemium" games, Smith said, "We wouldn't have done this if we didn't think there wasn't more growth and more possibilities to reach more people in the free to play model." He cites people (now teenagers) who have grown up playing high quality free flash games as well as the massive successes seen in Asian markets as proof that the free to play model works.
Ian seems open to all forms of free to play games currently, including a one-time purchase to unlock all the features and functionality of a game– Something often requested by forum members regarding ngmoco's TouchPets and Eliminate. Freeverse has no intention of "nickel and diming" gamers, and plans on just being smart about how these things are implemented.
While he was reluctant to comment on future game development, when asked if they were still going to provide substantial gameplay experiences for gamers to enjoy instead of Farmville-like games, Smith simply responded "Yes" and mentioned a "substantial game" being discussed behind the scenes.
Freeverse admits they have much to learn about the free to play world, but with the combined expertise of ngmoco, they hope to release compelling games that can be played at no cost to the player, while providing optional in-game purchases for players who spend hours a day playing. They're hoping this will result in games that see the same exponential growth that the iPhone in general has enjoyed, instead of the current linear growth patterns Freeverse sees now.
Prior to this recent acquisition by ngmoco, Freeverse has never had investors and has been profitable on their own for the last 15 years. According to Smith, the main motivation for agreeing to the purchase was to "swing for the fences" and feels we're at a major moment in time, an inflection point, where we're going to see an explosion of mobile gaming.
"At the end of the day, we are just trying to sell our games in a way that lets us grow and continue making more games," Smith explained.
We recommend listening to the entire interview yourself, which is included here.
Three games we recently previewed all have since made their way on to the App Store. If you've been looking for some games to get your kiwi flying, hockey playing, zombie shooting fix, look no further.
In Fly Kiwi Fly, you play as a small yellow kiwi who wants to fly, much like the unrelated YouTube hit video "Kiwi!" (which you should really watch if you haven't seen it before).
Motivated by watching the Space Shuttle on TV, you take flight and somehow earn money by constantly jumping off a cliff. This money is then spent on upgrades in the in-game shop that will allow you to jump higher off the start, briefly glide, or even rocket forward among other things.
I shot my own hands-on video of early gameplay, but this recently released trailer gives you a much better idea of what the game is like once you buy some upgrades:
Stinger Table Hockey effectively duplicates the same insanity of a real hockey table, and while the controls are still in the process of being tweaked, I thought they worked pretty well. Basically, dragging up and down on a track moves that player back and forth, and swiping right or left on the same track causes the player to spin around. It's pretty intuitive, and works well enough to be fun.
There is a single player mode that allow you to play against an AI opponent which is a little on the lame side since the fun part of hockey tables were always playing with another person. Thankfully, Stinger Table Hockey has both bluetooth and wifi multiplayer that I can't wait to try out. There are also tournament modes, and skill tests that feature shootouts and other challenges.
In Zombie Cannon Carnage, zombies from outer-space have crash landed on Earth. Instead of sticking around to endlessly munch on succulent Earthling brains, they decided to build a makeshift cannon from spare circus parts to fire themselves back in to space. With semi-randomized gameplay, various purchasable power-ups, all kinds of obstacles to run in to, and tons of explosions, Zombie Cannon Carnage is one of the better (and substantially more hectic) cannon firing games I've played recently.
Gameplay is similar to other cannon firing games in that you aim your cannon, fire, and see how much stuff you can hit. Each zombie is equipped with a jet pack that has a limited amount of fuel which is capable of sending you flying forward for a brief period of time. When you finally crash in to the ground, you can self destruct for even more points.
Aside from the official trailer, we also shot some gameplay footage:
Gameloft's port of Rayman 2: The Great Escape [App Store] launched this evening, and fans of the original will be in for a treat as it appears that very little, if anything, has been cut from the game in the process of squeezing it on to the iPhone.
I can forgive Gameloft for yet another game that doesn't really fit the iPhone with a set of virtual controls plastered on top, because Rayman 2 with bad controls is still better than not having Rayman 2 at all. As you progress through the game, you even start to get used to the crazy camera system and end up falling off ledges much less than you were originally, but something as simple as character movement really shouldn't have a learning curve attached to it.
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 
As a followup to yesterday's 
From 
From 
From 
