Those of you who were turned off by the Here and Now Edition of Monopoly that had been in the App Store will be pleased to find out that EA has finally released the Classic version.
Monopoly brings the classic Monopoly board game to the App Store. The game offers a somewhat gratuitously 3D view of the game and even offers internationally localized versions of the board. The game seems to pull your iPhone's region settings (see here) to present the proper board. The game comes with 3 levels of difficulty against AI opponents and also offers local Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (2 players), and Pass & Play for your friends.
There also appear to be plenty of rule customizations to give you the game you're used to (Auction option also available, but cut off on screenshot):
The game is embellished with 3D graphics and animations of your pieces moving from one place to another, and the game also allows you pick one of several 3D rooms in which to play the game.
Gameloft has posted a teaser/cinematic video which reveals they are bringing Driver to the iPhone. The original Driver game was first released in 1999 to critical acclaim. The game plot was as follows:
Tanner, an NYPD detective gone undercover due to his impressive driving skills, must gain the confidence of the syndicate's bosses by performing increasingly difficult missions such as stopping or following another car, driving through windows, delivering a stolen car or scaring a taxi customer
No actual gameplay is shown, but we'll post more as we get it. Driver is due in December.
Skater Nation
Meanwhile, a proper gameplay trailer for their Gameloft's upcoming skateboarding game Skater Nation was also released. This shows a lot of the gameplay for their Tony Hawk Pro Skater-alike. Full featured skateboarding games have been a rarity on the iPhone, so we expect this one to do quite well when it comes out.
Stair Dismount
Finally, Secret Exit released their first gameplay video of their Stair Dismount game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. We took a look at this interesting title earlier this week. This one's also due soon.
Pocketball is a fresh new puzzler that takes physics and navigation and wraps them together in a tight little package. In each of Pocketball’s 30 stages, you’ll need to stretch pieces of rope across different pegs to guide a falling ball to a like colored bin. If there’s a blue ball it goes to the blue bin. If there’s a green ball it goes to a green bin. You get the idea.
Things get complicated fairly quickly. Some stages offer up 2 or 3 different colored balls that you need to guide to their like-colored bins. Other stages have items scattered around the playfield with boosters that will give your balls a toss in a certain direction or nukes that will incinerate any ball they come in contact with. With a good deal of variety and some exceptional level design, no two stages ever feel the same.
The mechanics behind the game may be simple, but that doesn’t mean the puzzles don’t offer up an incredible level of challenge. You may find yourself returning to the same puzzle a dozen or more times before finding a solution. There’s a certain degree of logic involved, but after awhile we just found ourselves testing the waters to see where different balls might land after setting up different ropes. Unless a puzzle has an obvious solution, there’s a real “trial and error” vibe to the gameplay. Thankfully Pocketball is incredibly forgiving of the “let’s see what this does” guess work that’s required. With no real penalties in the game, you can try each level over and over until you get it just right.
Pocketball is also forgiving in that it won’t force you to complete a level to proceed to the next. If you’re stuck on a level or two, you can walk away, check out some more levels, and unlock the rest of the game without ever going back to a certain over-complicated nightmare. Likewise you can always go back at a later time and see if you can finally best the harsh mistress that is stage 13.
Pocketball offers up a tremendous level of challenge in an "easy to learn but impossible to master" puzzler. Despite a few nitpicky complaints (such as lack of music), this game did the puzzle fanatic in our hearts good. If you’re a fan of genuinely challenging puzzle games that are about more than falling blocks, Pocketball is $1.99 well spent.
Here are a few releases that have snuck by us over the past few weeks that are worth considering. Each game has its fans and both the gameplay video and forum threads are linked so you can dig deeper.
Chuck Norris: Bring on the Pain
Chuck Norris arrives on the iPhone with an over-the-top side scrolling shooter. The controls aren't great, and the game reminds us of an old school side shooter, but Chuck Norris fans seem to be enjoying it. It's only $0.99 and you can join the discussion thread for more impressions.
Demolition fans may enjoy IUGO's latest physics puzzler in which you place your quota of dynamic to see if you can level each building. There are 60 levels in all drawn in chalkboard style. The game is available for $1.99, comes with online leaderboards and new levels coming in the next update. Join the discussion.
Fans of Matmi's beautifully styled Monster Pinball will be happy to see their latest pinball creation: Snowy's Christmas Pinball. The game is set across 3 distinct interconnected tables with various mini-goals per table. The game is a little early for the Christmas season and is available for $1.99. Join the forum discussion here.
SEGA has announced that they will be releasing Super Monkey Ball 2 in time for the holidays and we were able to have some hands on time with the game. The original Super Monkey Ball was one of the launch titles for the App Store back in July 2008 and was an enormous commercial success. It also managed to single-handedly set the price ceiling for App Store games at $9.99 which carries through to today.
The sequel to the game Super Monkey Ball 2 takes the original and offers new levels, local Wi-Fi multiplayer, improved graphics and, notably, improved controls. Despite the success of the original launch title, one of Super Monkey Ball's criticisms had been the sensitivity of the control system, a point that had been acknowledged by Sega in the past. After playing a late build of the sequel, it seems they've made real strides in the controls. In particular, I found turning to be much more precise than in the original.
Super Monkey Ball 2 also begins to add in mini-games that have been popular in the franchise. The first mini game to ship with it will be Monkey Bowling, while Monkey Golf and Monkey Target will be added as free updates in 2010. Overall, the graphics also seem notably improved compared to the original. After a brief amount of time with the game, I was able to shoot this video embedded below. As always, playing games while video taping can be difficult, and this is made even more difficult with tilt-controlled games… but I still managed to have a pretty good showing.
Super Monkey Ball 2 will arrive in time for the holidays and offers 115 new levels. No price was announced.
MikaMobile, the developers behind Zombieville USA have just announced their followup project: OMG Pirates!.
OMG Pirates! is described as a "silly, bloody, cartoony homage to the classic 2D games of yesterday" not unlike Zombieville. The developers claim that they've stepped it up considerably when creating this game. OMG Pirates! is said to draw inspiration from beat-em-ups such as Castle Crashers, Double Dragon, etc, and includes a variety of enemies, locales, and boss battles.
We feel like we've struck a great balance between depth and playability – combat is performed with a simple two-button setup, one for attacking, one for defense, with different timing leading to different moves. Land enough blows fills your super gauge, which when tapped unleashes a spectacular finishing move.
The comes with a campaign mode, an unlockable "hard mode", and survival modes alongside some light RPG elements with increasing strength and moves. Reaching the maximum level will require more than one playthrough of the campaign mode. Here's the developer video:
OMG Pirates! is due to be submitted this weekend. We were big fans of Zombieville so are really looking forward to MikaMobile's following title.
MiniSquadron [AppStore] brings to the platform a re-imagination of classic PC games such as Subspace Continuum and Soldat, but does so more in the fashion of the more recently released Altitude. Essentially, MiniSquadron is a 2D side-scrolling, physics-based aerial dog-fighting game. If you think that was a mouthful, MiniSquadron boasts 8 different levels, each with 12 increasingly challenging rounds and a whopping 56 different planes to unlock over the course of the game.
The game begins with you manning a simple, somewhat slow fixed wing aircraft, capable of firing only a single machine gun. Round to round you are presented with additional and varied enemy types to take down, each with their own attacking style, agility and armor. Through use of a virtual analog stick you control only the pitch of your plan, able to send it into loop-the-loops and other complex maneuvers as you wrestle for the most advantageous position in which to fire. You unleash your bullets by tapping on the right-hand side of the screen.
These straight-forward controls complement the frantic nature of the game; a fact that ramps up in no time as you find yourself facing an overwhelming number of enemy combatants, particularly in the latter rounds of each level. In order to master MiniSquadron, you have to become intimately familiar with your plane’s speed, turning circle and weapon of choice, as you’ll find yourself dodging a hail of fire from tens of other planes almost simultaneously while trying to whittle them down one-by-one. The combat really is MiniSquadron’s high water mark; an all-out romp that action fans should warm to immediately.
MiniSquadron rewards your progress and feats with plane unlocks; each plane different to the next, with its own speed, armor and turning attributes. Additionally, planes that you unlock will possess one of several weapons, which start off as just additional guns, but later take the form of the cluster bomb for example, requiring a completely new approach to your aerial acrobatics to get the most out of. A range of in-game power-ups also bolster your arsenal, with quick burst omnipotent weaponry such as the Big Laser providing some of the more memorable experiences, in a throwback to the over-the-top Street Fighter super attacks.
The game is presented in its own charming, cartoony fashion, with smoke trails, weapons and plane damage effects looking particularly terrific. The variety (and eccentricity) of planes to unlock is impressive; with panda-faced planes to UFOs being awarded for completing certain requirements each level.
The 8 worlds to tackle are each accompanied by well-recognised classical compositions. Unfortunately, the current version does not support use of your own music; so if you do have something against classical music you’re out of luck until the developer pushes through an update- something that is being looked into according to posts on our discussion forum.
MiniSquadron also offers local WiFi play, which whilst a nice addition, seems a little out of place for a game that shines far more when heavily populated by combatants. If you can manage to get a few friends together though, there’s no doubt that there is a heap of competitive fun to be had here. MiniSquadron does seem far more suited to online play however, and its absence is notable seeing as how that was the hallmark of games on which it is based.
All in all however, MiniSquadron can be thoroughly recommended both to those who wish to take a trip down memory lane and to those who are new to the 2D dog-fighting genre. It is a well-rounded package that can be breezed through in a couple of hours, but offers you replayability as you unlock and learn to master the many different planes composing your sizable squadron. The game is also seeing overwhelmingly positive impressions in from our discussion forums.
A physics-based destruction game where you can demolish blocks with a tap of your finger. The game offers several different scenarios set to a silly story line where you are a new employee of DDD Demolition. The game has generated a following with its nice graphics, enjoyable physics and over 60 levels. Levels offer specific and varied goals to keep it interesting. A lite version is available and further discussion can be found in our forums.
Tiki Totems is a more traditional physics block dropping game that we've seen before in the App Store. Tap on blocks one at a time while trying to keep the totem from hitting the ground. But Tiki Totems manages to do it with more style and enjoyment than most of the others we've seen. Special blocks including bouncing blocks, indestructible blocks and vanishing blocks try to keep things interesting.
Early customers are also really enjoying it with the main criticism being a relatively short play time to make it through the 60 levels.
Those eagerly awaiting the 2D Mini Squadron shooter we profiled back in September will be pleased to find the game has arrived. The developer described his motivation was to bring a "high quality, frenetic shoot-em-up to the iPhone, taking inspiration from old-skool games".
Mini Squadron offers an arcade style 2D shooter with a progressively difficult 8 levels with multiple stages in each. There are 50 progressively unlockable aircraft with different stats, handling and weapons to use throughout the game. Other features from the developer include:
Over 50 planes to unlock and collect for your mini squadron.
8 Levels of intense combat each containing multiple levels of enemies to shoot down
7 different types of weapon to use including Homing Missile, Drop Bomb, Laser and BIG Laser!
Ducks, Seagulls, UFOs, Devil Planes, Propellor Planes, Squids – you can shoot all these things and more!
Simple yet fluid gameplay systems based on physics, you can stall if going too slow and also gain supersonic speed by diving fast towards the Earth for a competitve advantage.
More than 8 different pick-ups to boost your plane.
Local WiFi Multiplayer – challenge your friends to a one-on-one dogfight to the death!
Full review to come. First impressions are being reported in our forums.
One of Gameloft's latest games that came out just the other night tries to breathe life into a very popular genre in the App Store: Castle Defense. Not to be confused with Tower Defense, Castle Defense games involve defending your castle from an endless onslaught of enemies that can be flicked away with the swipe of a finger. In the past, the gameplay of these have been so monotonously repetitive, you have to ask yourself why are people playing these games.
While there been some notable versions including as Monster Kill and Knights Onrush that have added their own twists to the gameplay, Gameloft's latest take seems the most ambitious with the use of 3D graphics that adds a surprising amount to the game itself.
Set in a fantasy world, the game offers 10 different types of invaders and 18 strategic upgrades. Gameloft's video shows off the gameplay really well and is worth a watch:
Readers who have already grabbed the game seem to be enjoying it and New England Gamer details its distinguishing features well:
There are different ways to kill your enemies with the fire ball, the ice ball, the griffon (how they spell it) and feeding them to the hydra. In addition you can purchase tornados and lightning spells. You can upgrade to the boulder spell which makes a boulder to roll over enemies. There is also the all powerful ghost army. There are ten types of enemies that each need to be killed in a different manner. Upgrades are available at the end of each day in the campaign mode. Catch an energy ball from a warlock for example and divert it back to kill other enemies. Redirect the bomb from the Bomb Goblin to kill enemies.
But there is also the usual dropping, slamming and throwing into the wall way of killing (though that won't work with some enemies). Feeding them to the hydra gains you life points that are needed in addition to the gold you earn for upgrades.
So there are lots of additions to the flicking and there is some strategy involved with the enemies – especially when hoards approach! Ice, fire, griffon, flick, bomb, etc. Its pretty frenzied at some points.
Some in our forums are calling it the best Castle Defense game so far, and even with our brief time with the game, we'd have to agree. So, if you've enjoyed these types of games before, Castle Frenzy is worth serious consideration.
Those of you who were turned off by the Here and Now Edition of Monopoly that had been in the App Store will be pleased to find out that EA has finally released the Classic version.
