Justin Smith from Captain Games is probably most widely known for sparking off the Enviro-Bear 2010 phenomenon of 2009. The world’s first bear driving a car simulator made a huge splash on the App Store, and proved that beyond the surface of MS Paint quality visuals and purposely awkward control schemes could lie a surprising amount of depth and replay value. Also, you play as a bear driving a car through a forest. Not every video game lets you do that.
Those same principles of low-fidelity visuals, unwieldy controls, and high playability carried through to his next iOS release So Long, Oregon! [$1.99], and they are ever-present in his latest bit of zaniness know as Justin Smith’s Realistic Summer Sports Simulator [99¢]. Don’t let the ironic title fool you, there is absolutely nothing realistic about Summer Sports Simulator. In fact, it’s greatest attraction is just how NOT realistic it portrays the various Olympic-style events it contains.
If you were to tell me that I’d be able to play a hockey game featuring Enviro-Bear [99¢] as a player, I’d say you were crazy. Yet, that’s exactly the case with Ice Rage [99¢], a simple arcade hockey game from Mountain Sheep. While Ice Rage doesn’t quite feature the deep gameplay found in previous Mountain Sheep titles, it’s still an enjoyable little arcade game, especially on the multiplayer side.
Billed as bringing the “8-bit hockey experience” to iOS, Ice Rage plays less like a hockey game and more of something akin to Pong. Games are played 2 vs 2 (one goalie and one attacker) on a very small rink. There’s also very little strategy involved; if your player has the puck you take shots at the opposing goal, and if you don’t have it, you smack the opposing attacker until you get it back. The controls also share Ice Rage’s simplicity: a virtual joystick and a button that doubles as the offense/defense action are the only buttons you have.
Back in November, we took an early look at SummitX Snowboarding [99¢] from Com2uS and Free Range Games. Since then, the game's been released, so now the rest of us can hit the virtual slopes for $99¢. After investing some time into the final release of the game I've reached the same conclusion as our preview: - I like what see.
There's six different mountains to conquer, including 36 different multiple-branching down-hill runs. The first slope is 'Glacier' which has six runs and you can unlock the other peaks - like Mt. Payne and Angel Peak - by winning medal points (3 points for gold, 2 for silver or 1 point for bronze). You can choose which valley to enter and each route contains different gates, with blue for time bonuses and red for a score multiplier, so it's worth exploring.
After choosing to be male or female, you start with $1000 and can earn money in the game, which is handy for buying tricks, such as the ability to tilt the device for air-control. There's a decent assortment of tricks available, such as flips, rolls and tail grabs. Doing tricks earns time bonuses and points as you fly down the mountain towards the finish.
When you leave the ground, six new buttons conveniently appear on-screen for performing tricks. You can press one button for a simple trick, two buttons for a trickier trick or hold and slide your finger to extend the move, for the trickiest of tricks. Two landing buttons appear when you're about to hit the snow and these can be pressed to level-out the board for a safe landing, or to stop a spin, roll or flip. These trick buttons only appear when needed and then disappear to keep the screen uncluttered, so you have a clear view of the terrain.
The main navigational controls are rather unusual. A two-thumbed split steering-wheel is used to turn left or right. For example, to turn left sharply: The left thumb moves down, while the right right thumb moves up simultaneously like using a virtual steering wheel of sorts. This control scheme wasn't immediately intuitive to me, however, I persevered and after five minutes I was carving the snow quite happily. So, potentially be prepared for a little practice time at the start.
Some highlights of the game include finding massive jumps on the side of the course or jumping off a cliff, onto a small snow-coated plateau, then immediately off a ramp for some big air. There's also caves and a deep rocky ravine to jump across, with a turning landing required on the other side. These "hell yeah" moments really add to the experience and make this game a lot of fun.
You can spend your game money on a variety of snowboards, for improved performance. There's six decks, ranging from the entry-level "basix" up to the "pro board". Each board has different attributes for air-time, air-control, acrobatics, speed and toughness. Plus, there's over 20 skins to buy: Perhaps you want a zombie ape on your deck, a tiger shark or a stylish green cyclops.
Your runs are scored based on tricks performed and time taken. SummitX connects to the Com2uS gameHub, but pleasingly, it also supports Game Center for leader-boards and 15 achievements and games are automatically saved to iCloud. The music is great, featuring over 20 licensed rock soundtracks, which play in a slow-motion effect when you're aerial. Alternatively, you can pump your own iTunes playlist. There are in-app purchases (IAP) available, to unlock features, however so far it hasn't felt intrusive or necessary which is good as Com2uS have been criticized for heavy-handed IAP in the past.
SummitX Snowboarding only has one game mode and I haven't seen any other boarders to race, however, this is a cool looking and sounding snowboarding game, with peaks, runs, boards, skins and tricks to unlock, plus a variety of routes down each run, which ensures there's plenty of replay value. Unfortunately, after downloading their update v1.01 and installing it on both devices, I lost my medal points and progress, which has dented my otherwise positive impression. If you're downloading the game for the first time, this obviously won't be an issue for you.
Back in late October we posted an update on Elite Systems' coming Elite Collection (iPhone) and Elite Collection HD (iPad) apps, which will offer a bundled collection of classic Commodore 8-bit home computer games, as well as an in-app game store for purchasing additional singles and bundled arrangements of games. At that time, Elite indicated that these applications would be delayed due to a trademark complication. We're now happy to report the studio has informed us that the titles will land in the App Store on Friday, December 16th, and at a one-week promotional launch price of $0.99 each. [ UPDATE: Apologies to readers in our overlooking the fact that the stated release date does not apply to the Americas. These titles will see release there in mid-to-late January. ]
For whatever reason, there really aren't that many snowboarding games available for iOS devices. X2 Snowboarding [$2.99] is my favorite of the currently available titles, and I really wish Sean White Snowboarding: Origins [99¢] was a better game, but other than that there's slim pickings on the App Store. Free Range Games and Com2uS are on the verge of adding another entry to the snowboarding aisle of your local iOS games depository with SummitX Snowboarding. I've got my hands on a preview build of it, and I like what I see so far.
The graphics speak for themselves, check out the above trailer, the game really looks like that. What I'm really digging though is the control scheme that they've implemented. The preview I got was on my iPad 2, and games like this are usually controlled in one of two ways: Tilting, which I've never felt is ideal for the iPad, or with a weird virtual joystick setup which similarly never translates very well.
SummitX implements a two-thumb steering wheel sort of approach in that you slide your thumbs along both sides of the screen to control the board. I raised an eyebrow at the first loading screen that explained how it worked, but in practice, it's really cool. When you go over a jump, the interface changes to focus on tricks, which will allow you to do all your standard grabs and flips while flying through the air.
If all goes as planned, SummitX should be available as a universal app sometime this December. Initially, it'll come loaded with 14 different paths spread across 4 different mountainsides and an entirely licensed soundtrack with over 20 different bands. There's also plans for an iPhone/iPod touch-only non-universal build sometime after launch. Neat, right?
Com2uS and I have a love-hate thing going on. I love many of their games but I absolutely loath their aggressive marketing tactics. Nothing in the world is going to convince me to give you an unwarranted 5-star review. No, not even a small pile of virtual currency. As you might have already guessed, Homerun Battle 2 [$4.99] is the latest in the long line of Com2uS games that I despise myself for enjoying.
Distilled into its most basic form, Homerun Battle 2, much like its predecessor, is a batting simulation. A 'casual' sports game, if you will. The goal here is to hit as many home runs as is humanly possible. Sometimes. Depending on which game mode you've selected, you might occasionally be called upon to hit a number of fouls in rapid succession instead. It varies. If you're experiencing vague feelings of deja vu, I don't blame you. Com2uS is clearly a firm believer in the old adage, 'If it isn't broke, don't fix it' and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Instead of venturing away from a beloved formula, they've added more to the fix. But, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
People around here have been playing the original Homerun Battle 3D [$4.99 / Free / HD] since it was Baseball Slugger all the way back in 2009. We reviewed the game then and even though there's been all kinds of changes (some crazy, some not so much) the core gameplay is still the same.
It revolves around being nearly instantly matched up with people all over the world to compete in homerun derbies. You aim your bat by tilting, then tap to swing, hopefully resulting in a higher score than your opponent. Unfortunately, the addition of an in-app purchase system skewed the power curve like nobody's business, and before long you needed to either spend a shocking amount of money or grind for eternity to remain competitive.
The sequel is launching with all sorts of new customization, including female batters. There's six different game modes, and even multiple stadiums. Everything we've heard so far about the game is pointing to it being a great sequel to the original, but I've got my fingers, toes, shoelaces, and everything else that can be crossed crossed in hopes that the in-app purchase system doesn't have such a drastic effect on this entry in the series. Or, if nothing else, that there's at least a lobby you can play in that doesn't allow anything but the starting equipment… As the pre-IAP Baseball Slugger is responsible for some of my fondest memories in early iOS gaming.
If all goes as planned, Homerun Battle 2 should be available in the US App Store tomorrow night at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially much earlier if you're lucky enough to live on the same island as Peter Jackson.
Flick Home Run [99¢] from Infinity Pocket has been camped out as the #2 paid application on the American App Store for a few days and hit #1 for top grossing iPhone apps, yet it's barely been mentioned in our forums, which is rather unusual for a top-ranking game. We decided to investigate why this baseball game's so popular. That was a few days ago ...and I'm still playing it.
Rather than displaying a batter, bowler, bases and fielders, like a regular baseball game, Flick Home Run focuses entirely on smacking home runs, as the name suggests. There's no awkward floating virtual bat displayed either, because your finger acts as the bat and your swipe is the swing. When you place your finger on the pitch button, a ball is bowled by an unseen pitcher from the right side of the screen. You flick your finger at the ball, timing it right to smack it as far as possible.
When Top Spin was released for the original Xbox, I became an instant fan of tennis games. I would crank up the difficulty to max and give myself bad stats and play the top players, just to make it more challenging. But until recently my iOS device had no tennis games installed, even though there's a few out there.
Flick Tennis: College Wars [99¢ / HD / HD Free] by Rolocule has come to the rescue, providing me with a challenging touch-based tennis game to conveniently carry in my pocket. The iPad version was released in August, but this review is based on the iPhone version, which has just come out. And I'm really enjoying it, because although it starts out pretty easy, the later matches are challenging and can be real nail-biters.
Com2uS is certainly in the seasonal spirit. The publisher has added Halloween trimmings to a ton of its current line-up of titles, including Homerun Battle 3D [$.99 / HD], Tiny Farm [Free], World of Magic [Free], and even Piggy Adventure [$.99 / HD]. Starting now, you can deck out your farms with zombie horses and jack-o-lanterns, blow baseballs out of the yard while wearing a pumpkin on your head, use Warp Gates and pumpkins as pet in World of Magic, and enjoy 12 Halloween-themed levels and new musical tracks across Piggy Adventure.
In other related Halloween-ynews, Homerun Battle 3D is now just $.99, three dollars less than its standard, non-celebratory price. Piggy Adventure also sees a cut due to this event: it's now $.99 instead of its usual $2.99.
Now, I ask you to enjoy the funniest series of pictures from a video game ever. You can catch images of the other games mentioned in this post at Com2uS's blog.
Penny Parlor [$1.99] wraps four antique coin-operated sports games into one release. But we're not talking about classic arcade games ...no, Australian-based GamesLab Apps are taking us further back in time, like pre-1950's, to the era of mechanical arcade machines which used to cost one penny to play.
The game displays a room (parlor) with four antique amusement machines shown in 3D, including: American Pro Football, Super Swing Baseball, The Amazing Golf Game and Smack'n'Whack Cricket. The old-fashioned color schemes, carnival music, and mechanical style movements and controls are all designed to convey the original feeling of playing these games at the fairground.
Halloween is great. It's the only day of the year you can get away with dressing as the bug-eyed rabbit from Donnie Darko and not immediately be sent to a crisis center. Also, it turns out that it's also a great holiday to save some cash on video games. 2K Games has joined the price-cut party with some stellar deals of its own, all of which are slated to run into this weekend. And if you decide to buy, they could possibly occupy the entire thing. Games like Civilization Revolution are time warps -- you boot them up and all of a sudden it's 4AM .
Here's the full list of what 2K is offering on the cheap. Take note that Sid Meier's Pirates, which is another great time sink, has hit rockbottom sales-wise, too:
I've been playing Civ Rev on my iPad for a long, long time now, so I've got zero problems with telling you to buy this thing now. Despite being a simpler version of Civilization proper, Civ Rev's easily manageable strategy components are deep, compelling and satisfying. Give it like an hour or so to learn and then wave goodbye to your fun-fun iPad free time for a couple of months. Also, this is the biggest sale it's ever seen. I mean, it's eleven dollars off! Definitely jump all over that while you have the chance.
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.
Putter King Adventure Golf [99¢] is released by Putter King, a company with real indoor miniature golf franchises, so these guys should know how to design a fun and challenging mini-putt experience. We were keen to see how their real-world ideas would translate onto our iOS devices. The good news is: They've done a pretty decent job of it.
This game sports four different modes: Championship mode is a regular single-player round of mini-golf. In Time trial mode, you're racing against the clock to sink the ball in the shortest possible time on any specific unlocked hole. Multi-player mode allows 2 to 4 local players to take turns on the same device (there's currently no online multiplayer). But before you play the other modes, you may want to invest some time on practice mode, to hone your skills. It would be nice if there was a career mode or tournament, to tie multiple games together, but there's currently not.
I have a weird amount of respect for the Worms franchise because not only has it lasted for almost two decades, it has consistently been a solid, albeit unchanging experience. The problem is, I've never actually been able to really get into the games, but with Team17's Worms Crazy Golf [$2.99 / HD], it's the first new experience that takes the oddness of the franchise and converts it into something a little easier to pick up and play.
If you've ever played any of the Worms games dating back to the Amiga, you should have a good idea of what to expect with a golf game. The difference is that you're only controlling one worm instead of a battalion and your goal isn't to crush the opposing team, it's to hit a ball into a hole. The same control scheme from other Worms iOS ports comes into play here, you can slide your finger around for a better view of the course and you'll move a small aiming reticle to line up the trajectory of your shot. You'll hold a button to set the strength and whack it as far and accurately as you can.
Perhaps you've already been clued in by the "crazy" in the title, but just so we're all on the same page, this isn't a set of normal golf courses. They're essentially tricked out, massive mini-golf style puzzles, with exploding sheep, suicidal worms, cannons, magnets and more.
Justin Smith from Captain Games is probably most widely known for sparking off the Enviro-Bear 2010 phenomenon of 2009. The world’s first bear driving a car simulator made a huge splash on the App Store, and proved that beyond the surface of MS Paint quality visuals and purposely awkward control schemes could lie a surprising amount of depth and replay value. Also, you play as a bear driving a car through a forest. Not every video game lets you do that.
