In recent years, Minecraft has become the common ancestor of an entire sandbox subgenre. While it boasts a player base bursting with creativity, this is a subgenre that often suffers at the hands of less ambitious developers. Uninspired Minecraft imitations continue to pour into the iOS market, each trying to capture and cash in on a piece of Mojang's magic formula. Cast adrift on an ocean of Cavern Clones, Block Knock-offs, and Tryin'crafts, I sometimes catch myself wondering if it's all been done; if we've already seen the best Minecraft's successors have to offer. But then, inevitably, a new diamond emerges from the coal pile to disabuse me of that notion. The Blockheads [Free] is the latest game to set me straight.
So... what's its gimmick? What exactly makes The Blockheads stand out? Normally, the Minecraft-inspired iOS games that grab my attention are titles that take the original's block-sandbox premise and spin it in some wild new direction. Block Fortress, for example, created a fresh, intense experience by combining elements of Minecraft and the tower defense genre. Another of my recent favorites, Junk Jack, rebooted the block-sandbox aesthetic, resulting in a charming game with a look and feel so distinct that I occasionally forgot about its Minecraft roots altogether.
Djinn Works are like the Kings of simplistic "stickman" games. They've put out some incredibly popular titles over the years, like the Rope'n'Fly and Line Runner series, as well as various sports that these stickmen compete in like Stickman Games or Stickman Base Jumper. Stickmen have all the fun, I guess. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why these games continue to do so well in the charts, as the App Store is filled with such similar titles, but for whatever reason people can't seem to get enough stickman action.
Their latest release is Stick Stunt Biker 2 [$0.99], a sequel to the 2010 original. This new version eschews the doodle and graph paper look of the first game and instead goes with a silhouette visual style not totally unlike games like Limbo or Badland [$3.99]. It looks pretty nice, and a lot more professional than the original's doodle style.
Gameplay is similar to the first, placing you on a little dirt bike and tasking you with making it through a series of jumps and obstacles as you motor towards the finish line of each level. Simply touch the right side of the screen to accelerate, touch the left side to brake, and tilt your device to rotate in the air. It's the same formula used in plenty of these kinds of games, and it works just fine.
One of the coolest features of Stick Stunt Biker 2 is the ability to unlock new kinds of bikes, like a burly Chopper, a Police Motorcycle, or the hovering Future Bike. Each new vehicle comes equipped with their own unique set of attributes and physics behavior, giving you a bit of a different experience playing through the levels with them.
There is an insane amount of side-scrolling motorcycle games on the App Store, but if you're dying for a new one or you were a fan of the first game, Stick Stunt Biker 2 seems like a competent new entry in the genre. More impressions can be found in our forums, and the game is available worldwide right now if you want to check it out with the link below.
Ripstone Ltd. would like to sell you a time machine. For only a buck, you can download Gun Commando [$0.99] and travel way back to 1993, a year when Bill Clinton was president, Sega and Nintendo went 15 rounds in the 16-bit console prize fight, and first-person shooters didn't bother with radical ideas like aiming up and down.
id Software also released a game called Doom in 1993--maybe you've heard of it--but Gun Commando has more in common with Doom's pappy, Wolfenstein 3D. The Macintosh version of Wolf3D, specifically, since character sprites only have one side. That means no sneaking up on alien goobers and capping them in the back. Levels are made up of rooms cut at 90-degree angles, the graphics are good and pixelated, and the plot, told through beautiful comic-book-style cutscenes, gets no more complex than "aliens are bad so shoot all the aliens."
You might notice that your 99-cent, Gun Commando-themed time machine affords access to a few tricks that B.J. Blazkowicz didn't have on hand when he went up against Robo-Hitler in id's seminal shooter. When you shoot an enemy, you add a few bars to the experience bar at the top of the screen. Fill it up and your one and only peashooter evolves, changing color and packing a mightier punch with each upgrade. Enemies that took four shots to put down soon only require three, then two, and before you know it, you're a one-shot hotshot.
Careful, though. Miss your target and you lose experience points. Empty your XP bar completely and your gun downgrades one level. It's a clever upgrade system that encourages steady aiming instead of button mashing, and makes you feel like a badass every time you topple a previously hearty bad guy in one or two shots instead of a handful or more.
Not that your enemies are sturdy to begin with. Once again evoking the zeitgeist of the 2D era, enemies pack more bite than brains. The base enemy, a grunt who swings a shield as his only form of attack, marches resolutely toward you, giving you plenty of time to take him down before he gets close enough to attack. Gun-packing aliens only fire when you step within a few feet of their position, which means you can round a corner, spot them looking right at you, and pop them off at your leisure.
Other enemies move and fire at the same time, but won't open fire unless you're in a certain range. I cleared most rooms by running in to wake up the aliens, retreating a safe distance down a clear hallway, and knocking them off one by one without taking a lick of damage. Throw in the fact that your health jumps back to 100 between levels and you can stroll right up to the final boss, no sweat.
If you do die, you just head back to the beginning of the current stage with full health and your upgraded weapon intact. Why not dock players a gun level to add tension? Not that most enemy mobs inspire much fear even with a low-level weapon. You'll meet pockets of worthy resistance on the game's twilight stages, but your gun should pack enough oomph to topple them in a few shots or less. The only real threat to Gun Commando's beefcake hero is the control scheme. Invisible sticks move and strafe, but movement fluctuates between choppy and floaty, like sliding across an icy pond.
How much you'll enjoy Gun Commando will depend on how nostalgic you are for a shooter that recalls the bygone days of boot disks and Sound Blaster 16 cards. I grew up on a healthy diet of old-school shooters where the goal was to mow down legions of mouth-breathing monsters, so I enjoyed my brief jaunt through my formative years, and appreciated how the upgrade system added some tactical consideration to the experience. Those interested in more sophisticated shooting galleries should pass.
There is something inherently perverse about intentionally creating the thing that will destroy you. I don't mean that in any sort of metaphorical sense; this isn't some sort of child-destroys-the-parent thing. In Bit Ate Bit's They Need To Be Fed 2 [$1.99], you are charged with growing a monster and then crawling into its mouth to die, over and over and over again. You are responsible for pulling yourself through a hellish platform-scape, gathering the magical bean that contains your killer, planting it, and then feeding yourself to the monster that results. The game's developer Jesse Venbrux has some twisted ideas.
He also has a talent for crafting killer platformers, as shown by the original They Need to be Fed [$0.99 / Free] and now its sequel. Both have this 360 degree gravity going for them: as you leap from one platform to the next, you're pulled in by gravity, orbiting, crashing and breaking away all based on the pull of the nearest objects. It's not easier or harder than straight jumping, just different—different enough to feel fresh and to create opportunities for original level design.
In January of 2012, developer Spry Fox released their novel approach to the match-3 genre called Triple Town [Free]. It used the basic rules of match-3 but the twist was that you could match certain items and upgrade them into new and better items, thus expanding the entire strategy of matching and where to place your blocks within the games gridded boards. Check out our review for more details, but the bottom line is that we found Triple Town to be pretty fantastic.
Since that time, Triple Town has been updated several times with new features and modes. Today the latest update for the game was released, and it adds yet another new game mode for players who have purchased the unlimited turns unlock from within the game.
The new mode is called Lakes (Classic) and should be familiar to those of you who played Triple Town on the Kindle. It's pretty similar to a standard game, but you'll get special lake blocks which you can place on your board to create spaces made out of water.
These water spaces are kind of like placeholders, as you can build on top of them, but you can't place bears on top of them. However, it adds a new layer of strategy to the game as you can block off portions of the board without dedicating a permanent piece that would otherwise need to be matched to be moved.
In addition to the new mode, there is now a Spring decorative theme you can unlock to give your game a fresh look. Similar to the Winter theme introduced in an update this past January, you can buy the new theme using either in-game coins or as a 99¢ IAP. It's not going to change how you play the game or anything, but it's real pretty and stuff.
If you have yet to dive into the world of Triple Town, definitely give it a download. It's free to try and it uses a pretty cool limited-turn system to allow you to really check out the game at your own pace, or if you like what you see you can plunk down $3.99 to unlock unlimited turns as well as all the bonus modes including the one in this latest update.
As both a lover of retro 1950s sci-fi design and an enthusiast of gaming history, it was inevitable that Rocket Patrol [Free (HD)] would snare my attention in its tractor beam. This recent, iPad-only release by GRL Games is a descendant of the classic card games Touring (1906) and the French-designed Mille Bornes (1954). Those games took two players on a head-to-head, cross-country automobile race, avoiding fender benders and flat tires along the way. Rocket Patrol trades wheels for warp drives, taking that competition into the final frontier.
It's not a terribly complex game, nor does it claim to be. Games are short, and (aided by a few brief tutorial screens) most new players should have a good grasp of the basics by the end of their first single-player match. Even the game's subtler strategic possibilities will become clear to attentive players after just a handful of games.
The Rocket Patrol deck is comprised of three basic card types. Numbered light year cards are the fuel that propels your ship forward a set distance, in increments of 5, 15, 25, and 100 light years. Red hazard cards, depicting events such as engine fires and asteroid fields, can be played offensively to stall your opponent. Green repair cards--star maps, space stations, etc.--overcome a specific type of hazard when played, allowing your own stalled ship to resume its course toward victory.
It's the simplest games, the ones any player of any age can pick up and play, that become App Store sensations. Temple Run, for example. You tap and swipe the screen to keep your dude from falling down pits and running into walls as he runs forward. And Angry Birds? Even adventurers in galaxies far, far away know about Angry Birds.
Cut the Rope is another one of those "so easy your mom can play it" games that wrapped charming graphics, easy-to-grasp controls, and physics-based puzzles challenging enough to make you wrack your brain yet quick enough that you can solve one or two in a single setting in a 99-cent package. It also spawned a couple of sequels, the newest of which is Cut the Rope: Time Travel [$0.99 / $2.99 (HD)].
Like the previous rope-cutting extravaganzas, Time Travel is all about feeding candies to the Om-Nom, an adorable alien critter with an insatiable appetite for sweets. Said candies dangle from the ends of ropes, and you swipe your finger over those ropes to cut them and send the candies swinging into the mouth of the Om-Nom waiting patiently nearby.
The opening to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Run [$1.99], an endless runner based on Nickelodeon's reboot of the popular '90s cartoon, is almost as awesome as the game itself. We open on a shot of our four heroes in a half-shell lounging around the sewer den playing video games. A very young and spunky April O'Neil comes bursting into the room, shouting at the love-struck mutant teenagers to turn on the news, which shows alien invaders descending on New York City.
Boggled at the nerve of the alien riffraff, the heroes rush up to the surface, spout a lot of talk about kicking some alien butt--and immediately set off running when the alien ship swoops in from above and gives chase. My heroes.
Humorous as it may be to see those turtle tough guys turn tail, I'm glad they did, because the resulting adventure makes for one of the more creative runners on the App Store. After choosing a turtle, your hero sets off at a dash, leaving you to tap the screen to leap gaps between buildings and ninja-kick Foot soldiers and aliens in your path. As you run, you'll need to collect green orbs to keep the glowing meter at the top of the screen from draining. Should it deplete, the ship beams you up and, one presumes, the crew dines on turtle soup.
If you're a longtime iOS gamer then you probably remember Lego Batman: Gotham City Games, the first Lego Batman game to grace the App Store. You also probably remember that it was an uninspired collection of mini-games that was a far cry in terms of enjoyment from its console counterpart. These are painful memories.
Well, it's been more than four years but perhaps there's finally a chance for redemption with Lego Batman: DC Super Heroes, set to hit the App Store in the US in just a few hours. We'll be looking forward to checking it out then, but even already you can tell that this is a far cry from that other Lego Batman game.
First off, this is a full 3D action title, similar to the console Lego games and even Lego Harry Potter [$4.99] on iOS. You'll run around doing 3D platforming and light puzzle solving, all the while beating up on both bad guys and objects and then collecting the sweet, sweet Lego studs that are left behind, which are then used to buy different characters and other goodies. Lego Batman: DC Super Heroes boasts an 80 character roster, and not surprisingly it looks like you can buy studs as IAP if you desire.
Controls are also always a concern with a game like this, and Lego Batman: DC Super Heroes offers two different options. First is your standard "Classic" virtual stick and buttons setup, and second is a streamlined "Touch Screen" option which simply has you touching where you want the character to go and tapping items to interact with them.
If you liked the iOS versions of Lego Harry Potter then chances are you'll dig this latest Lego Batman incarnation, as it seems to be in the same vein. Or, if you just like Batman and other DC heroes, you'll probably get a kick out of it too. Add it to your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List to be alerted when it hits the US later tonight, and check out our forums for even more impressions and discussion.
Earlier this month we told you that Gun Commando, a retro-styled first-person shooter previously released on PlayStation Mobile devices, was on its way to the App Store, and it's worming its way through international markets as we speak and should land in the US later tonight. I've been toying around with Gun Commando for a bit and so far it's pretty much what I expected: a simple, but fun, frag-a-thon that's a real throwback to the early days of FPS games.
When I talk about throwback, I mean that Gun Commando is like Doom [$4.99] or Wolfenstein 3D [$1.99 / Free] in that you're aiming is fixed to a single plane, so you don't have to worry about aiming up or down. This makes the game less complex, but also much easier to control on a touchscreen. The controls are still as fiddly as most touchscreen FPS games, and I'm sure a far cry from the actual dual-sticks of the Vita, but they get the job done fine.
Graphics in Gun Commando are really simple, with blocky environments and textures, but it has a really cool stylized look that makes it feel like you're playing an '80s cartoon. The levels are simplistic and are all really bite-sized, which is well-suited to mobile. You aren't likely to get lost working your way through them, but there are 3 trophies to search out and collect in each one and plenty of little secret areas to find that give you additional goals to shoot for.
By far the most interesting aspect about Gun Commando is its weapons system. Unlike traditional games where you where you can switch between the various weapons you run across in the game, here you'll always start out with a base pistol and work your way up from there. You do this by landing shots into enemies consecutively, which builds up a meter in your HUD.
Each time you fill the meter your weapon levels up, turning it into a more powerful weapon. With every hit you land the meter notches up a bit, and when you miss it notches down a bit. This system is brilliant as it makes you focus on accuracy rather than just mashing the trigger willy nilly, but on the flip side I do miss the strategies that come with being able to choose your weapons and manage your ammunition.
The lack of strategies or complexity isn't necessarily a negative in Gun Commando's case, especially for a mobile game. Its focus is on running around and blasting bad dudes, and I like it that way. It also has a really cool visual style and lots of tongue-in-cheek personality, and players in the forums seem to be digging it too. Gun Commando should land around 11pm EST, so throw this bad boy on your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List and we'll alert you when it hits the US App Store.
In late February Angry Mob Games, creators of Muffin Knight [$0.99 / Free] and Guerrilla Bob [$0.99 / $2.99 (HD)] on iOS, released a new 3rd-person action game in the Aliens vs. Predator crossover universe titled AVP: Evolution [$2.99]. In fact, Angry Mob had already proven their merit in working with this kind of IP with their previous dual-stick game Predators [$0.99], which was actually quite good.
Graphically, AVP: Evolution is very impressive, and it lets you battle through its campaign as either an Alien or a Predator. At first blush, though, it felt like nothing more than a mindless, button-mashing brawler. In some ways it actually is, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. However, put a little time into learning the mechanics and there's actually a very satisfying game here, and it's one that players in our forums have been enjoying a ton since its release.
Yesterday Angry Mob pushed out the latest update to AVP: Evolution and it's a doozy. Two new playable characters have been added, the Berserker Alien and the Chopper Predator, and each come with their own unique new abilities. There are some new missions to play through and secret areas to discover throughout the game's campaign. Oh, and the Predator has gotten a couple of new weapons to add to his arsenal: a Shuriken and a Plasma Railgun.
Additionally, the combat camera has been improved, following up on some tweaks made to the camera and combat mechanics in the previous update. Difficulty has been adjusted as well, along with performance improvements so the game runs more smoothly on all the various supported iOS devices.
AVP: Evolution opens up as a pretty awesome action game once you've spent some time learning the ropes, and especially if you're already an Alien or Predator fanatic. This new update keeps the good times rolling, so be sure to check it out.
GameVision's Mr. Runner [Free] series has proven popular on the App Store, garnering more than 5 million downloads across its normal and Plus [Free] versions. Yesterday a proper sequel to the original games appeared in the App Store, titled Mr. Runner 2: The Masks [$0.99].
Mr. Runner 2 is an auto-running game. Big surprise, right? However, unlike most typical runners that have you jumping over enemies and gaps in the terrain, you're actually tasked with controlling your character's speed in order to safely get through the very dangerously designed levels.
You see, as you run along, the ceiling will occasionally lower down to meet the floor. There are plenty of very fortunately-placed gaps in the ceiling though, so you'll need to slow down or speed up your character so that you're situated in one of these gaps at the time the ceiling decides to drop down, thus saving you from getting crushed.
Back in the late '90s, Sega's House of the Dead was one of the most popular games in arcades. It let you team up with a buddy, each with brightly-colored plastic guns in your hands, and lay waste to hordes of the undead. How could it not be popular?
While having a stand-up cabinet with physical faux guns attached was a big part of the appeal of a game like House of the Dead, the franchise went on to become quite popular on home consoles, utilizing its own set of gun peripherals or more recently being compatible with motion controllers like the PS3 Move and Nintendo Wiimote.
Tonight Sega is getting ready to drop House of the Dead: Overkill - The Lost Reels on the App Store. It's a touchscreen-tuned, remixed version of the title released for the Wii back in 2009, and I've been playing around with it for most of the morning. To be honest I wasn't exactly expecting much out of the iOS House of the Dead, but I have been pleasantly surprised so far, save for a few head-scratching quirks.
The game is broken up into three different "movies" which each contain four levels and a boss fight at the end. The initial download gives you the first movie, Papa's Palace of Pain, as well as a locked second movie Ballistic Trauma. You unlock that second movie merely by playing through the first, but the third movie, Naked Terror, must be purchased for a $1.99 IAP. I don't mind so much having to pay for additional DLC levels in games, but on day one in a paid game that already only comes with two chapters it feels a bit weird.
On the bright side each chapter in the game is quite lengthy. You're guided around "on rails" through each environment, blasting at zombies (oh sorry, I mean the infected) at every turn. There are also a ton of cool little touches to discover, like hidden items or secret doors you can access by shooting them.
A pretty robust shop system allows you to buy and upgrade new weapons. While you can certainly buy the "Koins" currency as IAP, I found I had more than enough to upgrade my starting shotgun and handgun quite well just using what I earned through playing. Good thing too, as the third segment of the first chapter is where things really started to get tough, and the upgrading instantly made the going a lot easier.
The weapon upgrades are permanent, and there are some abilities you can permanently upgrade for your character too like beefing up your life bar or combo multiplier. The shop also contains consumables which will give you a temporary boost in things like damage done or Koins earned.
One of the biggest head-scratchers so far has to do with the controls. There are options for a virtual stick which moves your aiming reticule around the screen, and it works really well, and then there's an option for accelerometer controls which aren't quite as good in my opinion but still seem to get the job done alright. Then there's a Frenzy Tap option, which sounds like a tap-to-shoot scheme, and also seems like the control option that would make the most sense for this game.
I say "sounds" and "seems" because I haven't actually tried Frenzy Tap yet. For some inexplicable reason it's locked, and I haven't quite figured out how to unlock it. It seems very strange to lock away something like a control option, but I'm getting along just fine with the virtual stick so I guess I'll just see what happens I do end up running across Frenzy Tap.
Other than the couple of quirks I mentioned, the actual action in House of the Dead is as solid as ever, and I'm having a blast so far. The production values are quite high, and fans of the series should be pretty happy having a version to carry around in their pocket. House of the Dead: Overkill - The Lost Levels should be hitting the US App Store tonight at 11pm EST, so in the meantime hit up our forums for more impressions and feel free to add the game to your Watch List in the TouchArcade app [Free] to be notified when it does land here in the US later tonight.
Pocket Frogs [Free], Tiny Tower [Free], Pocket Planes [Free]… Nimblebit’s gotten pretty good at keeping us enraptured on our devices with cute graphics and pixelated timers. With Nimble Quest [$0.99], the team takes a turn towards improving upon and deepening a classic arcade experience. Less of a time-management title and more of an action-oriented experience Nimble Quest is an excellent title that continues the trend of high quality games coming out of Nimblebit.
The best way to describe Nimble Quest is like a game of Snake, except way better (to paraphrase the title of our TA Plays). Similar to what Call of Snakes [$0.99] did last year, Nimble Quest takes the simplicity of Snake's mechanics and adds layers of variety to turn it into something more. The game centers around guiding a group of heroes around a bordered plane with simple swiping controls turning your heroes left or right. Movement and attacks are both on auto-pilot and the goal is to dispatch enemies that randomly appear in the environment. Take out a certain number of baddies, and you move on to the next level.
Away from the heart. You have to bounce the ninjas—no, punch them—away from the heart, not toward it. Indiscriminate punching isn't good enough. "Defend Heart!" they said. You had one job, and you failed by scoring on your own goal, punching some guy right into your own vulnerable heart. There might be a metaphor there.
In Jared Bailey'sFist Face Fight [Free], you're a disembodied fist. A disembodied fist with feet, that is, fighting face ninjas with feet of their own. They aren't particularly malicious ninjas. They're probably just going about their days. But your heart is right there, exposed, helpless. So you punch, because that's the only way to keep it safe.
You begin as any child starting karate class might, with a white belt. In the distance is your goal, the coveted black belt. Between you and it are quite a few ninjas and no shortage of punches. Each belt is functionally a level. White is easy - the ninjas will hardly have a chance as you tap them in their expressionless faces. Each time you earn enough coins to unlock a new belt the ninjas you have to fight get more dangerous. They'll take two hits, three, nine. They slip in and out of reality. Things start to get chancy.
In recent years, Minecraft has become the common ancestor of an entire sandbox subgenre. While it boasts a player base bursting with creativity, this is a subgenre that often suffers at the hands of less ambitious developers. Uninspired Minecraft imitations continue to pour into the iOS market, each trying to capture and cash in on a piece of Mojang's magic formula. Cast adrift on an ocean of Cavern Clones, Block Knock-offs, and Tryin'crafts, I sometimes catch myself wondering if it's all been done; if we've already seen the best Minecraft's successors have to offer. But then, inevitably, a new diamond emerges from the coal pile to disabuse me of that notion. The Blockheads [Free] is the latest game to set me straight.
