At GDC back in March, Sega announced they were remaking and rereleasing the original Sonic the Hedgehog [$2.99], and that it would be coming as a free update to the existing game on the App Store. Today, that update has gone live. For the nitty gritty behind the Christian Whitehead/Sega saga, refer to our previous post on the remake, but to summarize: Christian Whitehead, who is responsible for the sublimeSonic CD [$2.99] remake on iOS, was commissioned by Sega to give a similar treatment to the original two games (and hopefully Sonic 3 & Knuckles too!). This means proper widescreen and Retina Display support for Sonic 1, Universal iPad support, vastly improved virtual controls, 60 frames per second, a new Time Attack mode, unlockable playable characters Tails and Knuckles, and I'm sure tons more little goodies.
I've given just a quick run through the updated Sonic 1 and it's everything I dreamt it would be. This is what it feels like when doves cry. Right from the moment you boot it up, you realize the kind of care that was put into this port as a 3D rendered Japanese Mega Drive game case pops up on the screen. You touch the screen to play and the case opens up, revealing the cartridge itself. You have the option of choosing the Japanese, American, or European versions of the box art and cartridge. It's those little touches that tell you this is by fans, for fans of Sonic The Hedgehog.
It also plays like a dream now, or at least as much of a dream as virtual controls can be. If you have no problems with Sonic CD on iOS, you'll be more than happy here. I can't wait to beat the game yet again today, hopefully unlock a new character, and mess around with Time Attack mode. Oh, and there's Game Center leaderboards and achievements, too. Seriously, if you've suffered through the shoddy original port of Sonic The Hedgehog on iOS for the last several years, this is a handsome reward. Head to the App Store immediately and update, and drop by our forums for discussion from the community.
Eli and I opened up a lot about the movies that made us cry while we gave Trigger City [$0.99] a spin the other afternoon. If you don't know about it, it's a retro-inspired brawler that plays pretty much just like... a retro brawler. In the game, you're tasked with punching and kicking a bunch of bad dudes while eternally moving to the right. Sadly, there's not much more to see here outside of a currency system. Basically, you get cash for beating up folks and then you can use that to buy permanent boosts and new combos.
I'm not a big fan of this. It's pretty clear that a lot of love went into the look and sound and feel, but it fails in delivering a reason for me to feel like I need to keep fighting and moving to the right. It's kinda hollow, in a way.
You can see for yourself in our look, which includes a lot of real talk.
Blitz Brigade [Free] is a class-based, competitive shooter that takes a lot of cues from other class-based, competitive shooters like, say, Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield 1943. It's a Gameloft joint, so it's more copycat than original and it's loaded with a ton of free-to-play features, including the ability to buy gems to respawn instantly in battle. I'm guessing the free-to-play part specifically is going to turn folks off. I get that. But, I've gotta say, this isn't a terrible shooter as far as touch device shooters go. Also, the matchmaking and network functionality actually works consistently, which is pretty rare for these types of games.
Eli and I gave it a spin the other afternoon. We killed a bunch of dudes and we also got to drive around in a tank for a few seconds. More importantly, we met a man named Bobby. He was a good man (or a spy), that Bobby:
Blitz is free, so the barrier to entry is pretty low. Give this a shot if you're in the mood for a shooter and can stomach virtual controls and the design wizardry that comes with it. Oh, and if you see Bobby, tell him we said "Hi!"
Just a quick heads up that a very neat game is currently free, and worth checking out even if you miss out on the freebie. It's called Floris [Free] by Ox & Coon, and it takes similar matching inspiration from games like Tetris and Dr. Mario and blends them into an audio/visual treat that feels equal parts art and game.
To be perfectly honest, Floris seems pretty simple on the surface but it actually can get quite complex and strategic as you go. It's also one of those things that's hard to explain, but will eventually "click" after you play for a bit and from that point on Floris really begins to shine.
Floris is based around a center point with 12 extensions branching out from it evenly, like the numbers on a clock. At any given time two of the extensions are pointing towards the top of the screen, and two sets of colored dot-like petals travel down them towards the center. Buttons on either side of the screen allow you to spin then entire shape around, changing which extensions are pointing up and receiving the dropping petals. Another set of buttons allow you to swap the position of the dropping petals, and touching the center of the Floris causes your petals to fast-drop to the center. It's easier to see in motion in the following video.
Matching five of the same color on one extension will eliminate the petals in that extension, but the real fun lies in making entire circles of a matching color around the entire Floris. Again, it's tricky to explain and I'm even still trying to wrap my head around the game, but suffice to say there is a lot of strategy involved in the mechanics of Floris. You'd do well to read the developer's guide which does a great job of explaining things, as there really isn't an in-game tutorial to speak of.
There's so much more to Floris than the basics that I've covered here, and it's worth the effort to read up on and learn its ways as it really is a clever and visually striking little game. Players in our forums seem to be really enjoying it ever since its release a month ago, and you'd do well to snag Floris during its freebie sale.
Rail shooters are one of my guilty pleasures as a gamer. They're mindless fun, like climbing into a rollercoaster car that happens to rumble and weave through a shooting gallery. I'm especially fond of The House of the Dead, the first on-rails shooter I had the pleasure of touring from inside the cool darkness of a video arcade. The House of the Dead: Overkill - The Lost Reels [$4.99] is arguably the best entry yet, but an aggravating pay model and IAP leaves some divots in an otherwise smooth and flowing track.
Lost Reels consists of three episodes broken up into five stages each. You choose a character, lock and load two guns, and unlock levels as you clear haunted houses and zombie-infested hospitals. By default, you aim your crosshair using a virtual d-pad. After the first few levels, zombies come rushing in from all directions, and the d-pad just doesn't respond fast enough. Aiming using the accelerometer works much better, but did leave me massaging my wrists as I stepped over dozens of corpses toward boss battles and victory screens.
A tiny world unfurls across your iPhone screen: the surface of a tranquil pond, where water beetles swim about, tadpoles wriggle to and fro, and turtles laze atop drifting waterlilies. But do not be deceived, beneath this soothing surface lies a cruel, Darwinian realm, where you must guide the tastiest of the Tasty Tadpoles [$0.99] as he attempts to eek out an existence.
As a game, Tasty Tadpoles places itself firmly in the realm of the sort of one-touch controlled mobile experience first imagined in Angry Birds. You've seen this before: the cute cartoony characters, the colorful visuals, and those three stars to collect each level. . . So, after slinging birds for them, cutting ropes for them, filling buckets with water for them–is this latest three star scavenger hunt worth your time? In a word: yes.
In Tasty Tadpoles, you must guide your intrepid little amphibian to the pond's exit, dodging predators and collecting stars along the way. The game is played in portrait mode, with the entirety of the level displayed on your screen (though some later levels will buck this trend). A single screen tap will send your tadpole darting on his way, or by dragging your finger you can create a more complex path. The stars must be collected sequentially, and only after grabbing each one will the next one's location reveal itself.
If you've been getting stomped in Star Command [$2.99] and stopped playing as a result, consider giving it another shot. Creator War Balloon just pushed out an update that added a bunch of rookie-friendly features, including tutorials, a beginner difficulty level, and tips for the weapon-firing mini-games. Also, three additional tokens are now being dished out at the start of every new game, bringing the total to a hefty 15. Show the space zombies who's boss! Or not!
This update also sees a bunch of other tweaks and improvements. The list is sorta crazy huge, actually. Here are some notable additions: room ammo and assign buttons have been disabled if a room can't hold anymore, max crew has been increased, and you can unlock "larger ships and heavy difficulty," provided you're a Bad Enough Space Dude to handle them.
You can check out the patch notes for yourself over at our sister site AppShopper. Also, if you're still having troubles after updating, consider swinging by our guide for Star Command, which is full of hot tips from us and our community.
"Endless fallers" isn’t a proper genre name, but if it was, that would be the easiest way to describe Daddy Was A Thief [$1.99] In Rebel Twins' latest, you play as the titular daddy -- imagine a more nefarious Andy Richter -- who finds himself abruptly fired and turns to a life of crime to provide for his family. Instead of cooking meth a la Breaking Bad, he opts for something much more traditional: robbing banks.
Every game starts off with dad escaping the bank’s rooftop and then leaping onto an adjacent building’s roof presumably to make his escape. He automatically runs from left to right, reversing course whenever hitting anything, which frees you up to either jump (swipe up) or smash through the floor below (swipe down). That, pretty much, is the entire game.
Nevertheless, Daddy Was A Thief tries admirably to not feel repetitive. There are obstacles to get in your way, certainly, but part of what keeps things moving are the aesthetics. It’s a subtle move, but each floor is a different, bright, warm color. When you’re crashing through floor after floor, it tricks the eye into feeling like there’s more variety than there really is. Not that Daddy Was A Thief is tricky: It has a few core things going on, and sticks only to them.
Talisman is a geeky boardgaming legend. Created in 1983 by Games Workshop, it features a broad range of fantasy archetypes (Elves, Wizards, Monks, etc.) competing to be the first to reach the Crown of Command.
Each of the heroes available has a simple set of RPG stats, including Strength and Craft (magical power); plus one or two special abilities, such as the Druid's ability to change his alignment at will. Some also have drawbacks: the Monk can add his starting Craft to his Strength when fighting, but can never equip weapons.
The goal is to reach the center of the board, but movement is intentionally imprecise. Each turn you roll a die and move that many spaces in either direction then follow the instructions for the space you landed on: usually drawing one or more Adventure cards, which can represent monsters, loot, followers and other kinds of enconters.
As someone who can get pretty obsessive about both reading and video games, I keep expecting gamebooks to grab me by the throat. It seems as though they should be perfect for that: part game, part book, all gripping entertainment.
Most of the time, however, I find them a bit thin. Not enough game to really sink into mechanically, not enough book to really reel me in. Sorcery! [$4.99] managed to keep me up well past my bedtime, though. Inkle offers the same expertise they displayed in bringing Frankenstein [$4.99] to life to the task of drawing the magic of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! out onto the screen. At least in part: thus far, only the first of the four books of Sorcery!, The Shamutanti Hills, is available.
The journey through those hills is still a gamebook trip, no doubt about it. There are stats, interactive combat scenes and plenty of big decisions to be made. It's just that nothing feels restrained; nothing feels all that formulaic. Sorcery! goes big where needed, and the app shines for it.
Foursaken Media's castle defense third-person hack 'n slash mashup Heroes and Castles [$1.99 / Free] has just received another massive update adding all sorts of new goodies to the game. You might remember that we thoroughly enjoyedHeroes and Castles when it came out in January, and the very next month a huge version 2.0 update hit which sweetened the deal even further by adding a competitive multiplayer mode, a single-player Siege mode, and a trio of brand new character classes to play as.
Today's update, which is significant enough to be called version 3.0, again adds a trio of new characters. First off is a female Assassin which gives you a sneakier way to dispatch your enemies. Next up is a Barbarian who has a unique "risk vs reward" attribute that seems him getting stronger as his health gets lower, which should make for some interesting tactics. Finally there is a Druid who uses nature and various kinds of spells to augment the units under his control. The Assassin comes free for everybody, while the Barbarian and Druid are unlocked using gems like the rest of the characters in the game.
In addition to the new characters, a new 20 mission campaign has been added which continues on from the end of the first campaign, and is balanced for players who have beaten the first. It features a new beach environment and new enemy types. There are also several new ally units that you can utilize, like a long-ranged Hunter, heavily armored Dwarves called the Iron Helms to beef up your front lines, two new types of Wizards, and a very powerful (but very expensive) Dwarven Tank which sounds pretty bad ass. Speaking of ally units, you'll be able to level up your buildings and units by 3 additional levels thanks to the new update.
All of this new Heroes and Castles version 3.0 content will be available in versus and co-op, and there's a new multiplayer map to battle it out on as well. If you have a higher-end iOS device you'll also be treated to real-time shadows, and Foursaken has lowered the RAM usage on lower-end devices which should help with of the crashing issues some people had been experiencing. Of course, there's many other tweaks and fixes under the hood in this update too.
Heroes and Castles just keeps getting better as time goes by. There is a full-featured free version which will let you give it a spin risk-free, though the version 3.0 content in that version had a slight hitch and is still waiting for approval from Apple. Seriously, Heroes and Castles is truly awesome and players in our forums have been loving it since day one, check it out if you haven't done so already.
I need Road Not Taken in my life, like, right now. It's the next game from Spry Fox, the studio behind Triple Town [Free]. Inspired in part by Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," it's being described as an "evergreen rogue-like" that explores life in loss -- you know, heavy stuff, like what happens when you stray from your path and all that.
Spry is being pretty vague with details (and probably for a good reason), but it is sharing some concept art and a teaser trailer, the latter of which we've embedded in this post. Take a look around; this thing looks like a winner.
Road Not Taken is due out for PC in 2013 and "eventually" mobile and tablet down the line. There's no doubt we'll be keeping our all-seeing eye on this thing, so add this one to your Watch List in our app [Free] if you want to be alerted whenever we post an update on the project.
Cavern [$2.99] is a pretty traditional, top-down rogue-like. You might recall the name. It made an impression on folks back when it was released in 2011. Frustrating, game-ending bugs ultimately held it back, though, despite its neat ideas, great touch interface, and hip combat. Most of those issues have now been fixed. A flurry of recent updates, including a big 2.0 update, have made it pretty playable. We've been enjoying it so much, in fact, that we thought we'd share a run in the game with you.
Earlier this afternoon, I decided to school Jared in the art of perma-death in Cavern, which, in hindsight, was a pretty easy thing to do because all I had to do was die. But it sure was nice to walk around in the randomized dungeons of this game again and grab all sorts of loot. Poison, on the other hand, not so much fun.
If you're in the market for an iOS rogue-like game, you need to grab this. Just check out that video and see if it clicks with you.
After a soft launch period that began in February, Gameloft's free-to-play class-based shooter Blitz Brigade [Free] has now been officially launched in the App Store. Originally announced in January, Blitz Brigade feels like the lovechild of Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield Heroes. It's a lighthearted kind of game, as opposed to the gritty, realistic nature of most shooters nowadays. Despite not being an entirely original concept, I'm actually surprised with how much fun Blitz Brigade has been so far.
As you'd expect, it's pretty freemium'd out, but not really in a gross or unfair way. It looks like you'll be able to earn everything the game has to offer just by playing, or if you're impatient or otherwise just don't mind dropping a few dollars on in-game currency you can purchase packs of gems to spend on basically anything in the game. The part that's annoying is that Gameloft takes every chance possible to let you know you could be spending that gem currency, so it's pretty in your face, but at least it doesn't appear to gate any of the content from you outright.
It's sad that so much time need to be dedicated to explaining how a game's pay model works, but that stuff aside Blitz Brigade is pretty darn cool. It looks nice, it plays well, and it's fun. The main dish is of course its online multiplayer, but there's also a good deal of single player missions to work your way through that'll pretty much walk you through all the different aspects of the game and its characters. The online connection has been a bit iffy but seems solid for the most part. If you've played any other Gameloft shooter you pretty much know what to expect.
I'll be spending the weekend playing some more of Blitz Brigade to dig in further, but I have to admit I'm pleasantly surprised with it so far, and our forum goers seem to be digging it as well. It's free so give it a look if you've been waiting for this type of shooter to hit your iOS device.
While the folks over at Big Bucket Software are busy cranking away at their next project, they've decided to show a little love to their previous iOS release The Incident [$0.99] and drop its price down to 99¢. What is The Incident? Well, imagine on any random day you're outside standing on the sidewalk. All of a sudden, stuff just starts falling from the sky. And by stuff, I mean just a bunch of weird stuff. Like refridgerators, cars, foam fingers from sporting events, garden gnomes… if you can think of it, it's probably falling from the sky in The Incident.
Your job is to avoid getting smashed by this stuff, but also continually stay on top of what eventually becomes a rapidly rising junk pile. What results is a fun and challenging arcade game that has stayed on my device since its original release nearly 3 years ago.
Check out our original review for more, but keep in mind that over the years The Incident has been updated pretty frequently to keep with the times. First it received an endless survival mode, iCloud progress syncing, iPad Retina Display support, and most recently iPhone 5 widescreen support. It really is one of those cool little games that's always fun to fire up and play, so if you don't own it yet then definitely consider grabbing it during this 99¢ sale.
At GDC back in March, Sega announced they were remaking and rereleasing the original Sonic the Hedgehog [$2.99], and that it would be coming as a free update to the existing game on the App Store. Today, that update has gone live. For the nitty gritty behind the Christian Whitehead/Sega saga, refer to our previous post on the remake, but to summarize: Christian Whitehead, who is responsible for the sublime Sonic CD [$2.99] remake on iOS, was commissioned by Sega to give a similar treatment to the original two games (and hopefully Sonic 3 & Knuckles too!). This means proper widescreen and Retina Display support for Sonic 1, Universal iPad support, vastly improved virtual controls, 60 frames per second, a new Time Attack mode, unlockable playable characters Tails and Knuckles, and I'm sure tons more little goodies.
