Capcom's 'alright' iPhone and iPod Touch take on Devil May Cry 4 has received an update alongside a price reduction. For a limited time, Devil May Cry 4 Refrain [$.99] is (obviously) $.99 instead of its usual $4.99. The coinciding update adds an unlockable "Devil Trigger" for both of the game's characters. The catch? It's only available after completion.
If you're sitting there wondering what a Devil Trigger is, enjoy this academic breakdown of the mechanic by the dudes who run the unofficial Devil May Cry wiki. They take their jobs very seriously:
"Devil Trigger (often abbreviated as D.T.) is a special technique possessed by demons and half-demons which allows them to release their full power. While in Devil Trigger, the user will assume their true form. In this form, many of the character's attributes are amplified, and the character may have access to upgrades or even additions to their normal abilities like flying or hovering.
When playing on higher difficulties, enemies can enter a Devil Trigger-like state[1] after a certain time limit (which is fixed for each enemy). This causes enemies to strengthen their attributes as well as making them attack more often and more powerful."
We took a good, long look at Refrain earlier this year and it's probably in your interests to check that write-up out before you click "buy." It'll help get your expectations in line, at the very least. Spoiler: Refrain is a competent re-make of the original game, featuring simpler combos and a few core issues due to its mobile nature.
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.
Hey, guys, Soul Calibur is coming to iOS. The original Soul Calibur, that is, and not one of the new-fangled ones.
Joystiq recently caught up with a Namco Bandai at an event and received this confirmation, as well as a release window of "soon." And, well, that's it.
Soul Calibur has seen two port jobs since its release in 1998. It'll be fun to see if this one will roll out with iOS-centric controls and functionality like the Street Fighter iOS games. They seem to hit register pretty well with that series' faithful and we all know how choosey they can (rightfully sometimes) be.
On the heels of the pyrotechnic announcement for Infinity Blade 2, Chair Entertainment has dropped another content update for the original Infinity Blade [$5.99]. Content Pack #4, as it’s been oh-so-cleverly dubbed, gives you new rings, swords, helmets, and shields to level up and use against its brand new enemy the “RookBane.” Chair describes the ‘Bane as “fierce and deadly,” which kinda calls into question the character of the game’s other monsters. I mean, what are these guys, chopped liver?
If you’re one of the two or three people who are really into Infinity Blade’s lore, know that this update also packs in a “sneak peek” at the game’s book, "Infinity Blade: Awakening." The whole thing is available right now, actually, on the App Store for $2.99.
Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade 2 will be a lot more than a facelift. From our side of the aisle, it appears as though the team is attempting to widen the scope and breadth of the original experience, all the while giving players something they didn’t have a lot of in the first game: choice. In a must-read interview with IGN UK, Chair co-founder and technical dude Geremy Mustard revealed that the game will launch with over 100 new weapons and items, boast a significantly larger world with more intricately constructed environments, feature way more enemies and optional side-paths, and it’ll roll out with fun battle additions like, say, dual- and two-handed fighting styles and weapons.
"The player will explore many different environments in this game," Mustard told IGN. "You'll see some stuff that looks familiar, but the castle in this game is very different. We'll also be exploring environments in a more Asian-themed landscape."
“With each environment, we wanted to create these water cooler moments -- these areas where players can look back and converse about that battle that took place in front of that huge tower or by that really cool clock,” he continued. "There's always something in the environment that will keep your focus and lead you through the level."
We got our first look at Infinity Blade 2’s December-bound feature set at Apple’s press event the other afternoon and came away ridiculously impressed with the technical majesty. Can this game come any faster, please? Pretty please with sugar on top?
This past week we posted a preview of the first three games set to hit the App Store, marking the launch of the Elite Collection of 8-bit home computer games from noted and long-running studio Elite Systems. The games have just gone live and are available in both iPhone and iPad "HD" versions.
The initial Elite Collection titles that have arrived are Datasoft's 1987 magical platformer Black Magic, Image Works' lovely 1992 release First Samurai, and the frantic 1992 space shooter Enforcer from Manfred Trenz. Every one of these titles is very well implemented in iOS and is among the top tier of games to be found on the 8-bit platforms of decades past.
The Elite Collection is Elite Systems' initiative to expand their ongoing retro rebirth efforts by utilizing a new proprietary system -- a facilitator, of sorts -- that was designed in such a way as to not incorporate, reference, or in any way rely upon third-party property and that is able to deliver, to iOS, games that originated on platforms other than just the ZX Spectrum (Elite's original source platform) in near-100% original form. For more details on these titles (including videos), see our preview.
Elite will soon be following up these three initial titles with an additional sixElite Collection releases.
Real Steel [$4.99] was released to the App Store this month by Indian developers, Jump Games as a tie-in to the boxing movie of the same name. The film is due to be released on October 7th, and as far as we can tell from trailers, combines Wolverine and Kate from Lost with an $80 million dollar budget and a likely drunken bet in the Hollywood production rings that they could get people to pay money to sit through a movie based on Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
If you don't generally follow upcoming releases of robot-centric movies with lots of explosions, this trailer will get you up to speed:
Whoa, hey, Capcom Mobile is on a roll. After releasing a pretty hefty and free content update to Street Fighter 4: Volt this morning, the publisher has released two new (old) games on the App Store. Starting now, you can re-live some of your old coin-op beat-em-up memories with Final Fight iOS [$.99]. Or, if classic Street Fighter is more your thing, you can also check out three different versions of Street Fighter 2 in Street Fighter 2 Collection [$3.99].
Final Fight, as you’ve probably noticed, is carrying a promotional $.99 price tag, which strikes us as pretty appropriate considering you’ve probably purchased this game in some shape or form a billion times already. This specific version, however, does roll in virtual controls and a finishing move button. Also, if you’ve got pals with phones, you can connect with one via Bluetooth for co-op action. And before you ask: dibs on Haggar.
In bummer news, Street Fighter II Collection is also shackled by Bluetooth. In much brighter news, it’s a heck of a package for fans of the series -- it rolls in the original game, Street Fighter II: Championship Edition, and Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting all in one app. They all appear to be relatively untouched content-wise, but like with Final Fight the notable iOS tweak is an “easy-to-use one button finishing move.”
One note: both games require iOS 4.1 (or better) and don’t support a lot of older devices. Check the game notes before you go nuts.
Have you scoped the latest version notes on Street Fighter 4: Volt [$2.99]? We did this morning and were stoked to see what they had to share. On top of 60 new icons, a “Friend Request” button, and a few tweaks, Capcom has added two new (old) pugilists to the action: fan favorite Fei Long and the uber-powerful brat Yun. With these guys included, the roster has expanded to 22 fighters, but let’s be serious, Guile is still the only character that matters.
Oh! And Volt is much cheaper than what it was -- until the end of this month, it’s $2.99 instead of $6.99. You could buy a, uh, liter of frozen yogurt or a really classy hotdog with those savings!
Anyway, it appears as though Capcom Mobile is committed to updating Volt as much as it did the its first proper mobile Street Fighter game, Street Fighter 4 [$4.99]. If this is indeed the case, you’d probably be better off with Volt in the long-term. Here’s our review if you’re interested in learning more about the game.
This past July, SNK Playmore surprised everybody by releasing The King of Fighters-i [$4.99], a mobile version of their popular fighting series, into the App Store. Until that time, Capcom’sStreet Fighter IV Volt [$6.99] had been the pinnacle of touch screen fighters, but just like the 90s arcades that I grew up in, King of Fighters gave Street Fighter a worthy opponent for the title of best iOS fighting game. We gave the nod to The King of Fighters-iin our review, but just barely, and in reality both titles are extremely evenly matched when it comes down to gameplay and features. It really may just boil down to personal preference which one you like more, or if you’re like me, you just play and enjoy both. Problem solved.
Anyway, The King of Fighters-i has just gotten even better with a brand new update that adds 6 new playable fighters as well as an interesting new Challenge Mode. The new fighters are Iori Yagami, Mature, Vice, Elisabeth Branctorche, Shen Woo, and Duo Lon, bringing the total character count to 20, the same as in Street Fighter IV Volt. I’m not as familiar with The King of Fighters series' characters as I am with the Street Fighter ones, so I don’t have any real attachment to any of these new additions, but I am pretty stoked to have 6 new people to learn how to use.
Pocket Warriors [$4.99] is an action hack-and-slash game, with 2d cartoon-style graphics, from WitOne Games. It's based on killing monsters and leveling-up your weapons through combat. But you're not alone on this quest, as your party consists of two little warriors - a male and a female, who must work together to protect the village from monsters and dragons. In the thread in our forums, Pocket Warriors is likened to a 2D version of the Monster Hunter series, and it provides many hours of monster combat, with 3 chapters, each containing 12 missions for a total of 36 quests.
Your adventure starts in the village, as you prepare for battle. There's a weapons trader selling both weapons and magic spells, a blacksmith offering weapon upgrades, the village chief dishing out quests, and your own home for depositing items and storing stuff. After interacting with these four places to prepare, you can walk through the village gates to hunt the next available monster. There's often no minions, just straight to the boss!
We were pretty excited about Capcom’s latest iOS offering of their venerable fighting game franchise, Street Fighter IV Volt [$4.99], when we reviewed the title back in June. It offered everything that was great about the original iPhone release plus a few new characters and many new features, most significantly the ability to battle it out with people from all over the world online.
Having online play was fantastic, if not a little rough due to latency issues, but one aspect about it didn’t seem to be very well thought out. When playing online, there was no penalty for quitting out of a match. This seems like a good idea given the mobile nature of the game and the potential for distractions like texts or phone calls interrupting a match. But it also gave way to people quitting when they’re on the wrong side of a beating, and screwing you out of a win while not being subjected to any sort of penalty.
The newest update for Street Fighter IV Volt looks to address this problem. Now, quitting out of an online match for whatever reason counts as a loss, and it will deduct points from your BP which are like the experience points for online play. Also, players found to be habitually quitting early from matches may have their matchmaking experience limited in some form, though there aren’t any details on exactly how you’re limited when this happens.
Not to be forgotten about in this update are the two new characters that we learned last month were being added to the roster, Sakura and Makoto. Both fighters fit nicely into the current selection of characters, though strangely some of Makoto’s animations seem abnormally choppy. I’m not sure if that’s intentional or just a graphical glitch, but it doesn’t seem to affect her performance in the game.
If you’ve been enjoying Street Fighter IV Volt but have been getting fed up with people taking the coward’s way out online, then hopefully this newest update will help smooth out the experience some. Of course, even if you don’t partake in online battles, you’ll want to grab this latest update for the two additional characters, and if you've been on the fence about picking up the game it's not a bad time to consider grabbing it as it's currently on sale for $4.99.
Street Fighter IV Volt [$6.99] launched back in June and although it played strikingly similar to Capcom's original Street Fighter IV [$4.99] on iOS, it did contain a few significant upgrades. Namely, it featured every character from the original as well as 3 new fighters and competitive online play via Game Center. We really loved the first Street Fighter IV so it wasn’t surprising that we enjoyed the enhanced Street Fighter IV Volt even more in our review.
Capcom fed a pretty steady stream of new characters and features to the original Street Fighter IV, and their new iteration is gearing up to start off on that same foot. According to Andriasang and 4Gamer.net, the first set of new characters for Street Fighter IV Volt will be a pair of female fighters, Sakura and Makoto. Sakura is a long time favorite from back in the Alpha series, and Makoto first appeared in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and made a triumphant return in last year’s Super Street Fighter IV on consoles.
There are plenty more screens of both Sakura and Makoto over at Andriasang.com, and as for what may be coming in future updates some enterprising members in our forums may have a lead on that as well. After digging around through some of the game files in Street Fighter IV Volt, they have come across a character list that includes every character already in the game plus Sakura and Makoto, and has spots for Evil Ryu and Fei Long too. This doesn’t necessarily confirm those characters are coming, but it sure is a strong possibility.
There is also another character in Street Fighter IV Volt that was conspicuously absent from the original game, the long time fan favorite Akuma. You fight Akuma as a second boss character after M. Bison in arcade mode, assuming you don’t lose a single round along the way. You can unlock Akuma as a playable character by playing and beating him with every character in Arcade mode or by playing 100 matches online, both potentially time consuming endeavors.
If you want to bypass all that, then there is a very easy way to unlock Akuma if you already have the original Street Fighter IV installed on your device. Simply fire up Arcade mode in Street Fighter IV Volt and at the character select screen tap on the characters in the following order: starting at Ryu, select Abel, Guile, Cammy, then end back on Ryu. Pause for about a second at each character, and when you return back to Ryu tap on him again to reveal Akuma, who will stay unlocked permanently at the character select screen from now on.
Unfortunately, my dodgy Google translating of the articles didn’t divulge a release date for the Sakura and Makoto update, but we’ll keep our eye out for it and let you know when it hits.
Last year, Capcom raised the bar for traditional fighting games on the touch screen with Street Fighter IV [$4.99], and a couple of weeks ago they upped their game again by releasing Street Fighter IV Volt [$6.99] with online multiplayer. To a lesser degree, we’ve also seen Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 [99¢/HD] on the App Store, and although quirky and rough around the edges it still offered up a decent portable experience for fans of that series. With SNK Playmore’s recently released The King of Fighters-i [$7.99], we now have all the major players of the mid-90s 2D arcade fighter rivalry once again battling it out with each other, this time on the App Store.
While SNK’s various fighting franchises all had a pretty dedicated following, it was always the Street Fighters and Mortal Kombats of the world that stole the mainstream spotlight. Now here, more than a decade later on iOS, SNK Playmore has brought their A-game for a shot at the iOS fighting crown. And true to its namesake, The King of Fighters-i takes that crown by elevating touch screen fighters to the next level. It’s missing the marquee feature of online multiplayer that Street Fighter IV Volt can boast about, but when it comes to control responsiveness, speed, performance, visuals, animations, and approachability, The King of Fighters-i tops the competition.
Capcom's 'alright' iPhone and iPod Touch take on Devil May Cry 4 has received an update alongside a price reduction. For a limited time, Devil May Cry 4 Refrain [$.99] is (obviously) $.99 instead of its usual $4.99. The coinciding update adds an unlockable "Devil Trigger" for both of the game's characters. The catch? It's only available after completion.
