Hey, do you like Angry Birds? And do you have friends? Well you can finally combine these two major aspects of your life in one handy iOS game. Yes, as we've talked about previously, Rovio has just taken their ultra-popular Facebook social game and brought it to the App Store as Angry Birds Friends [Free].
Here's the thing, though: as snarky as I might try to be about yet anotherAngry Birds game, Angry Birds Friends is pretty darn fun so far. First and foremost, it uses Facebook to do pretty much anything meaningful, so if you're not down with that then you should probably just move on now.
If you are down to plug your Facebook into the game, Angry Birds Friends will pit you against your buddies in weekly high-score tournaments. A different set of 6 levels will appear with each weekly tournament, and you can play and replay each one trying to get the absolute best score you possibly can. Your total score for all levels is the bar used to measure who wins at the end of the week, and then the whole thing starts over again.
While there's nothing mind-blowingly different going on in Angry Birds Friends, it's still fun to have a smaller subset of players to compete against rather than the billion or so people who are playing the other Angry Birds games, and with a rotating set of new levels each and every week it should provide some variety if you've played the other games to death already.
I'm not crazy about having to use Facebook, and the connection to the social network seems kind of slow at times, but for a free download you don't have anything to lose by checking out Angry Birds Friends if you're looking to add a more competitive aspect to your bird-flinging.
Time warp! Civilization creator Firaxis's turn-based strategy game, Haunted Hollow [Free], is available for download on the App Store. If you didn't grab it the first or bazillionth time it managed to see a release before yesterday, consider picking it up. It's a neat, bubbly competitive one-versus-one supernatural slugfest that tasks you with building up an army of monsters and scaring more townsfolk than your opponent. It's a pretty deep game that really forces you to consider the make-up of your monster army, as well as each move. We wrote about this pretty extensively last week.
If you're scratching your head still about the release -- yes, the game's "launch" the other week or so ago was the result of "testing error." This version of the game sees a few updates, mainly for polish stuff. Here's the launch trailer:
Two years, two Kickstarter campaigns, and lots of hookers and blow later, developer Warballoon has finally beamed up Star Command to the App Store. Do some screws still need tightening? Affirmative. Should you dive in immediately? Absolutely.
After designing and naming your avatar and ship, you learn the ins and outs of running your rig. Your spacecraft is made up of three types of rooms: weaponry, science, and engineering. You decide which types of rooms you want to build, then hire crew and assign them to rooms. Without crew to operate equipment, rooms cannot function. Rooms cost tokens to build, and some rooms, such as the plasma torpedo, require special ammo tokens to operate.
With the basics under your belt, you set sail for faraway planets and mix it up with your first band of hostiles. The goal of ship battles is to knock out the opposing craft's shields and sap their hull down to zero before they do the same to you. You wait for your weapons and defensive tech to charge up, then let fly with your chosen offense by playing quick time-like minigames such as stopping three spinning balls inside tiny circles and lining up vertical and horizontal sliders. Survive, and you earn tokens you can allocate toward more rooms and upgrades for your crew and equipment.
It's Wednesday again, which means a slew of new iOS games have been releasing into the various international App Stores all day, and have finally arrived in the US App Store right… now! Or in the next few minutes, at least. These things take time, ok? The long, long, looonnngggg awaited Star Command will likely be the most buzzed about release this week, but as the day has gone on there have been a decent number of new titles popping up to flesh out this week's offering. Following is a collection of relevant information and links for all the new releases from today and even a couple from the past few days.
In Better Than Portal, you control a kid with whacky hair and a portal gun across a host of chapter-based levels that range from a reactor to an underground lab to a forest. In each level, the goal is to reach a purplish orb thing, usually tucked well and away from the kid. Getting to the orb requires use of the portal gun, which when used, can create tears in the universe allowing for easy teleportation of the kid and other objects such as, say, boxes. As the game ramps up, it introduces obstacles like laser grids, which you'll need to turn off by, generally, finding a box to drop onto a switch.
In a nutshell, Dark Avenger is another crack at a mobile version of Diablo. They were beaten to the App Store by Gameloft's recently released Dungeon Hunter 4 and I'm super curious to see which will end up being the champion of this proverbial dungeon crawling cage match.
Impressions on our forums generally seem to be positive, although multiple members have mentioned that the game feels a little flat. That echoes my experiences as well, although admittedly I'm very curious to see if/when the game opens up at all to anything more than mindless monster mashing.
"Emilly In Darkness" is an old school action-adventure game in which on one hand the character shoots, sets traps and learns new skills, but on the other hand the character must navigate a gloomy, complex world with a twisted and unpredictable plot, highlighted by cut-in animations and conversations with NPC's.
"Emilly in Darkness" tells the story of Emilly who, for reasons unknown, wakes up alone in a dark forest, and after a few moments is fatally gunned down by an unseen assassin. However, she does not die, at least not in the traditional sense of death. Instead, Emilly finds herself suspended in a grim and odd place, not so different from hell. She is lost, alone, surrounded by demons, and oddly enough, other forlorn people, people whose intentions are not always clear. This is just the beginning...
Out of the pages of Valiant’s smash-hit summer crossover event and onto your favorite mobile device, Harbinger Wars: Battle for Las Vegas is a first-of-its-kind gaming experience that mirrors the events of the ongoing Valiant comic book storyline by Joshua Dysart, Duane Swierczynski and Clayton Henry.
Developed in concert with Storm City Entertainment and Gameshastra, Valiant’s first mobile game comes complete with an all-original 8-bit soundtrack, a wide array of Easter eggs for longtime gamers and Valiant fans, and gameplay that emulates some of the most well-remembered console classics of the 1980s.
Collect, recycle and test your skills as you traverse the galaxy in your own interstellar garbage scow.
FEATURES:
-Dead simple one touch controls
-Awesome original soundtrack
-Tons of levels and junk
-Endless High score mode featuring Game Center leaderbaords
-Collect Legendary junk and unlock a Game Center achievement for each one.
This isn’t your standard matching game. It is a beautifully designed game that has achievements, high scores, penalty cards and power ups. It is your childhood matching game meets action puzzler. Work your way through levels unlocking achievements and gaining power up points to purchase power up cards to assist you in the levels. Game Center support for High Score and Achievements.
*Exciting Ninja Actions!
*Original touch controls for Ninja Actions!
*10 more items!
*20 more Enemies!
*Retro style pixel art and chiptune music!
*Game Center support!
*Japanese Ninja world!
- Real-time online multiplayer Death Match, Team Death Match and King of the Hill.
- Fast pacing fun hack and slash.
- Five different heroes with ten unique skills.
- Various cooperative and competitive strategy among teams.
- Simple and easy to learn, hard to master.
Paper Titans is a 3D puzzle platform game. In it, you "make" a bunch of odd-looking paper creatures and then search for stars and postcards across a host of same-y, or even recycled, levels. Each one has three stars that you can collect, but the card is the end goal for whatever reason. Monster movement is handled by a line-drawing mechanic similar to the one in, say, Spy Mouse. Just tap the monster and drag a line to where you want him.
Sorcery! plays like a gamebook mixed with a board game. The actual chunks of text glide elegantly into view with the various options for you to choose presented at the bottom. As you make your choices, more of the story glides in with even more branches to choose from. In between the reading, you'll direct your character around a gorgeous 3D overworld map, again making choices on which path to take through the terrain.
The game does a great job at hinting towards what might await behind each choice you make, whether it's clueing you in on the demeanor of the intimidating stranger you meet in a tavern or what sort of perils (and possible rewards) await you if you choose a given path through the countryside. Being that I'm not exactly a gamebook aficionado, I've found Sorcery! completely approachable so far, and I'm hooked enough on my current adventure already that I can't wait to see it through.
At the top level, Star Command is a sci-fi simulation game that focuses on the real guts of an interstellar ship -- you know, the people, the facilities, and the technology that makes travel and battle possible. As far as feel goes, it's something of sci-fi slugfest where you find yourself limping out of every battle in a charred ship that's being staffed by a skeleton crew because everyone either (a) got sucked out of the hull, (b) got incinerated by phasers, or (c) died in a fire. I'm not really sure that this is the feel that creator War Balloon was ultimately looking for, but this is how it came across to us for the first couple of hours. And, spoiler, this is a pretty cool thing.
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.
Armed with hatchets, roman candles, and even a chupacabra, you'll trace a path with your finger and watch your weapon hurl through these immortal enemies. Each level requires timing, strategy and precision to complete the Sugar Skull Missions and rescue your friendly animales before they become brain-eating Zoombies themselves. Collect golden pesos to earn Especiales upgrades like slippery Guacamole, La Bomba, and stampeding Elefantes to thwart the unending hordes of Zoombies!
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.
We're being trolled, right? Maybe? I honestly can't tell if the titling for this is an attempt to draw interest by capitalizing on a popular brand or just misguided confidence in a product. Either way, Better Than Portal [$0.99] invites a comparison that it can't live up to in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I'm not going to waste anymore of my time comparing the two because POPS Worldwide didn't bother to try to do anything remarkable with this game. It is just another run-of-the-mill 2D puzzle game with flat writing, uninspired art, oodles of fail states, and a portal gun.
In Better Than Portal, you control a kid with whacky hair and a portal gun across a host of chapter-based levels that range from a reactor to an underground lab to a forest. In each level, the goal is to reach a purplish orb thing, usually tucked well and away from the kid. Getting to the orb requires use of the portal gun, which when used, can create tears in the universe allowing for easy teleportation of the kid and other objects such as, say, boxes. As the game ramps up, it introduces obstacles like laser grids, which you'll need to turn off by, generally, finding a box to drop onto a switch.
Where the game starts running into problems is in the controls. Simple taps in the world make portals, but there's just one type of portal, meaning every time you mess up you'll need to make two brand new portals instead of just one. This is wicked frustrating in a lot of the later levels, as you'll have to repeat entire sections of a puzzle (or even have to restart) if you accidentally touch the screen while moving your character.
There's also the issue of just being plain unambitious. The puzzles I've seen so far are Standard Video Game type of stuff. Now, the game might take it to the next level in the last two areas, but nothing I've seen in the mechanical build-up so far indicates that it will. Regardless, the first hour I've spent with Better Than Portal has been lackluster at best.
Anyway, you can see it for yourself today if you'd like. It's available worldwide right now for iPhone and iPod touch. We'll continue plugging away, just like the folks in the game's thread.
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 [Free], 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.
Paper Titans just doesn't have enough to it. It's too small in scope and scale, for one, but it's also utterly unremarkable. The mechanics are stale, the amount of repetition it has you do is absolutely numbing, and the 3D puzzles are dull at best. You might want to look over this one tonight as you pick and choose releases. There's just no oomph here outside of the visuals.
To rewind, Paper Titans is a 3D puzzle platform game. In it, you "make" a bunch of odd-looking paper creatures and then search for stars and postcards across a host of same-y, or even recycled, levels. Each one has three stars that you can collect, but the card is the end goal for whatever reason. Monster movement is handled by a line-drawing mechanic similar to the one in, say, Spy Mouse. Just tap the monster and drag a line to where you want him.
Each monster has a special ability. The first one you build is a Collector. He collects things. The next one is a Thrower. He can throw Collectors to raised platforms. There's also a guy that uses a rocket pack, as well as a shaman that can raise platforms.
Once you start diving deeper into the game, you unlock the ability to spawn more and more of these dudes into a level at the same time, which allows you to move around a handful of paper dudes at once. Slow movement mechanics and too simple tasks keep this from being interesting, though. From the minute you load into a level you know exactly what you need to do, so it's just a matter of waiting for your monsters to waddle their way over to the obvious.
I wish I liked this one more. The art style is OK and the sound design is stellar, but the game part is ultimately just ... competent, if not straight-up flat at times. Some folks are probably disagreeing with me, though, so give the game's thread a look as you ponder a purchasing decision as the game hits tonight alongside the rest of the world's new releases.
It's happening: War Balloon's sci-fi ship tragedy simulator, Star Command, is available on the New Zealand App Store. Basically, this is the first stop on its automated global release tour that will see the game finally released everywhere. For realsies.
Back in April, I took a look at a build that's pretty representative of the one you'll be checking out tonight. In a nutshell, Star Command is good. It's hard. But it's good. Here's what I mean:
At the top level, Star Command is a sci-fi simulation game that focuses on the real guts of an interstellar ship -- you know, the people, the facilities, and the technology that makes travel and battle possible. As far as feel goes, it's something of sci-fi slugfest where you find yourself limping out of every battle in a charred ship that's being staffed by a skeleton crew because everyone either (a) got sucked out of the hull, (b) got incinerated by phasers, or (c) died in a fire. I'm not really sure that this is the feel that creator War Balloon was ultimately looking for, but this is how it came across to us for the first couple of hours. And, spoiler, this is a pretty cool thing.
If you'd like to see more of Star Command, we've got your back. We've got twoTA Plays, and of course, that preview. We're working on a review at the moment, so stay tuned for that if you're on the fence.
Of course, if you want a reminder when Star Command hits, go ahead and add it to your Watch List on the TouchArcade app [Free]. You can also watch the game's thread on our forum.
It's been almost a year since last we saw an iOS port of the successful LEGO series. While we've yet to see the likes of LEGO Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean grace Apple's platform, the folks at Warner Bros saw fit to show some DC universe love with LEGO Batman: DC Super Heroes [$4.99]. Hampered only by spotty controls, DC Super Heroes is an otherwise great port bringing a fresh coat of paint to the classic LEGO gameplay formula.
Unlike the previous LEGO ports we've seen, DC Super Heroes actually features an original narrative within the DC comic universe. While the game focuses at the onset on the escapes of Batman and Robin (along with the usual villains) other heroes, such as the iconic Superman, get weaved into tale. Of course, being a LEGO game, players eventually have the option of playing as a wide variety of DC icons, with over 80 playable characters (along with create-a-character minifigs) available for the unlocking.
Gameplay, meanwhile, is pretty familiar if you've played any other LEGO games. Like others in the series, DC Super Heroes combines platforming, puzzles, and decent amount of brawling. In addition, there's also ample opportunity to collect studs, which are used to unlock the myriad of characters and extras available. While DC Super Heroes does offer a few new twists, such as some additional depth with the various Batman and Robin suits that expand powers, gameplay largely remains unchanged and fairly linear. That's not to say it's a bad thing, as LEGO games have typically been highly approachable while offering tons to do. DC Super Heroes certainly doesn't disappoint in this regard.
Another new addition to the iOS LEGO ports is the inclusion of Golden Bricks, which can be purchased via IAPs. While the game's additional characters and extras can still be unlocked with enough studs, progression, and collectibles, golden bricks can be used to sidestep a lot of the stud grinding and unlock items a lot faster. In this regard, I didn't really mind the IAP as most LEGO games are a bit too grindy for my tastes and golden bricks could be used to speed up some actions of the game.
Maybe it's due to the freedom of an original story or because the universe history is so deep, but I really enjoyed DC Super Heroes from a thematic standpoint. From the onset, you're treated to the epic tunes of the Danny Elfman Batman theme and the game is full of little nods to various facets of the DC Universe. In addition, the large swatch of playable characters means fans should have plenty of options in playing their favorite characters (assuming said characters have the necessary super powers to pass the level). The fact that the game features full voice acting (a first for iOS) also goes a long way towards making the story more enjoyable.
Spotty controls have been an issue with LEGO iOS ports in the past, and unfortunately they continue with DC Super Heroes. Previous LEGO games offered players either virtual buttons or touch-based movements. While DC Super Heroes is the first port to offer players both options, I still had some problems with both. The touch-based scheme is the more intuitive of the two options, but there's a tendency to tap errantly on enemies/environmental items on the smaller iPhone screen (although it works better on the iPad). Virtual controls, meanwhile, work as mediocre as one would expect. That's not to say the game isn't playable, but it's definitely the weak link for the game.
Control issues aside, DC Super Heroes is a welcome addition to the few LEGO games currently on iOS. In fact, I'd say it's the better LEGO game currently on the App Store considering the wider appeal of the story combined with the decent visuals, awesome music, and familiar LEGO gameplay. Suffice to say, LEGO fans have little reason not to check out DC Super Heroes, while anyone else interested in a light-hearted adventure should take the plunge.
Being a creep ain't all that bad. Well, at least, that's what the Anomaly series has taught me. If you're not familiar, these are tower offense games. Both have you play as the horde of dudes descending on a bunch of turrets instead of the other way around. It's a neat twist that literally turns the genre on its head. And if you haven't seen or played either, now's a good time to jump on the train. Both Anomalies, Earth [$3.99 / $1.99 / $3.99] and Korea [$3.99], are on sale for a limited time.
The reason for the sale, by the way? Anomaly 2 is coming to PC soon. In fact, it's hitting in just two weeks. Nothing like drumming up interest by basically giving away a game's predecessors.
We don't know if Anomaly 2 is coming to iOS, by the way. We've just shot over a note. Who knows! Maybe we'll see it. Until, then, though, have fun with these two games. They're both great. The first, if you remember, even grabbed our GOTY runner-up award a few years back. Ah, memories.
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.
The wait is almost over: Star Command is coming to iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on May 2. Yup, you read that right -- War Balloon's sci-fi battle and tragedy simulation game is coming later this week. As planned, it'll debut as a Universal app for $2.99. Also, it apparently won't support in-app purchases, which is neat.
If you haven't been in the loop, this celebratory launch trailer should get you up to speed in no time. Watch as the player's ship turns into a burning, useless husk! Note how hull breaches create vacuums and suck crew members out of their rooms! When things go bad in Star Command, they go real bad, man.
We'll continue covering the game, of course and should have a review and some other nice things ready around launch. But, anyway: hey, guys, Star Command! It's finally coming!
Hey, do you like Angry Birds? And do you have friends? Well you can finally combine these two major aspects of your life in one handy iOS game. Yes, as we've talked about previously, Rovio has just taken their ultra-popular Facebook social game and brought it to the App Store as Angry Birds Friends [Free].
