Well, this was unexpected. A day or so after launching a restaurant simulation game on Android, the simulation gurus at Kairosoft stealth-released Epic Astro Story [$3.99] across the iPhone and iPod Touch. From the look, it appears as if it's melding the action-y soccer part of Pocket League Story with the city-building of its other recent releases, Oh Edo Town and Venture Town. The key exceptions being that it's dripping with sci-fi buildings and homes, and the action-y part are actual battles with cutesy aliens.
We're giving it a spin right now and will definitely deliver you something a little more specific in the near future. If you're a Kairosoft fan, however, this appears to be the change of pace game you've been craving since the company began releasing its city building games on the App Store. Fingers crossed for awesome!
Azkend [Free / HD] took me by surprise—a gem matching/hidden object game that devoured my hours and my phone's battery until I'd burned through everything it had to offer. After that, Azkend 2: The World Beneath [$2.99 / Universal] shouldn't have been much of a surprise, but it was.
Trouble is, the surprise wasn't good. The bones of the game are still there, and it's prettier than ever with Retina graphics. But where the original sucked me in so hard I forgot to put my phone down until it was done, I keep dropping the sequel in frustration.
The description for Ziggurat[$.99]Â calls it "the end of a much longer story -- a story which ends with The Last Human On Earth standing atop a stratosphere-high stone pyramid." Incoboto[$3.99]Â could have been described similarly: "Incoboto is the end of a much longer story -- a story which ends with The Last Human in the Galaxy trying to survive the heat death of the universe."
It's a uniquely lonely and melancholy game, and almost every visual and design tweak reinforces that. Inco, the protagonist and player-character, is tiny and feels insignificant next to the immense contraptions he has to manipulate to find new energy sources for his dying solar system; if you zoom the map out far enough, he disappears from sight completely.
Incoboto's elegant one-finger touch controls keep developer Fluttermind from having to implement a cluttered user interface, keeping players' focus on only a few things at a time. The relative abundance of inky black sky only reinforces the idea that Inco is thoroughly alone. In fact, the only communication he receives are from outdated corporate memos and the fragmented death rattles of the dead and dying inhabitants of the Milky Way.
Last month we reported that an iOS remake of Barbarian - The Ultimate Warrior, aka Death Sword, was in the works courtesy of developer Microids and publisher Anuman Interactive, and after a couple of false starts in the past week, the game does appear to officially be available in the App Store.
Renamed Barbarian - The Death Sword [$1.99/HD] for iOS, the game is a one-on-one fighting game that originally released in 1987 for the Commodore 64 and most of the other popular computers at the time. Gamers lauded the competitive gameplay of Barbarian in the burgeoning fighting game genre, but most of its widespread notoriety was due to some racy packaging and the ability to lop off your opponents head in a shower of blood during battle.
I like to imagine there's an Oberlin burnout somewhere who's made a living getting bent on ayahuasca and pitching music-history based games to different companies. My hypothetical game designer, wide-eyed and euphoric, is responsible for games like Boom Boom Rocket, Eternal Sonata, Jazz: Trump's Journey [$2.99], and now Frederic --Resurrection of Music [$1.99/HD/Lite], by Forever Entertainment S.A.
In the first scene, set in present-day Paris, Fryderyk Chopin climbs out of his grave, speaks with the Muses, and rap-battles a French DJ with dual-wield keyboards and a jetpack. After this, he rides a horse-and-carriage to Jamaica and gets high with a reggae artist named Rob. Amazing.
Last week, Spry Fox released an iOS version of Triple Town [Free], their hugely popular match-3 town builder for the Amazon Kindle, and more recently for Google+ and Facebook. We really liked Triple Townin our review, and it’s personally been my biggest obsession of the past week. The ability to upgrade the game tiles by making matches and the limited amount of space to work within added a tremendous amount of depth to the gameplay far beyond your typical matching game.
Today the first update has hit for Triple Town, which mostly focuses on fixing bugs. Things like broken Game Center achievements, the inability to restart games sometimes, and tons of other quirks that come with a version 1.0 release have now been taken care of. The update description also goes on to say that there are several other known bugs that are currently in the process of being hunted down and fixed, one of which includes a problem with turns regenerating after exiting the app.
My feelings on Kairosoft's new simulation, Venture Towns [$3.99 / Lite], are mixed, leaning on negative. My recommendation is rather weak: I'd say buy it... but only if you dug Oh! Edo Towns [$3.99 /Â Lite] a lot.
Venture Towns, for the most part, is a carbon copy of Oh! Edo Towns set in the modern day. You'll build houses and then people will buy them; you'll build buildings and then people will work in them; you'll buy cafes, and arcades, and pastures, and parks, and then people will spend money in them. A grid-based placing system keeps everything as neat and tidy as can be, and a UI choked with options and graphs and additional mechanics will be where you spend the most of your time.
Buildings, in order to be efficient enough to profit, need to be paired with other very specific buildings. People, in order to fair well in the workplace, need to earn bonus statistics given nebulously from these buildings. Special items, on the other hand, can increase the parameters of buildings, shops, and commerce.
All these systems feed into the overall research and build structure; buildings dish out research points at unpredictable intervals, and this gives you the power to research new buildings. Money gathered then goes into building the stuff you just researched.
This is all pretty simple in theory, but there's a huge, catastrophic catch: the only way to execute well and learn what works is to continually fail, and to fail so badly that you need to start new games over and over again. This is a code-red, oh-my-god-I-hate-this-game kind of stuff -- and nothing really saves it.
I've had to dump around five hours into deficit drowning towns in order to even figure out how to position houses and stores together efficiently. Worse, it has taken over four restarts to get a handle on the combination system -- what buildings go together to create the most profit -- and how to acceptably micro-manage my citizens and buildings with boosts. Venture Towns never gives you the tools to be successful. It fails to give you any kind of blueprint for success, and there's obviously one it wants you to use, or else it wouldn't punish you so much.
This is a problem that feeds into everything else just about as well as its structure feeds into the research and build model. Kairosoft's typically sluggish pacing feels even slower as you flounder, the hot-and-cold translation effort gets even more grating as you're forced to read bad tutorial bubbles, and the dumbphone-geared interface gets even more in the way as you knowingly suck at the game for hours on end.
Venture Towns uncharacteristic ruthlessness makes what's usually forgivable with Kairosoft's formula unforgivable. It makes me feel like the whole thing has been played out; that sly hesitancy to give me all the important information up-front comes off as underhanded, the cutesy visuals feels like a mask, the resemblance to other Kairosoft games conceptually and mechanically is grosser, and the mechanics are bulky and the systems brutal. Its just all so muddled. Confidence and fun come at a costly premium of tons of your time and patience.
For what it's worth, there is a decent-enough game buried in this mess. After wrapping my head around all of the unmentioned mechanics and systems and uncovering most of the title's great mysteries -- such as how to advance as beyond as a town, how to unlock cars as vehicles, and how to grid buildings -- the actual game part, the weighing and measuring of what to build and when, became magically entertaining.
It just sucks that Venture Towns sucks until you invest massive, massive amounts of time into failing and discovering what the game is actually offering. As a whole, it doesn't feel like a fully fleshed out title -- there's too much hanging in the breeze.
Oh! Edo Towns has a similar kind of approach, so I think that game's fanatics might find something they might like in Venture Towns. I gotta say though, the modern backdrop doesn't do this game any favors; it's bland, SimCity type of stuff with Kairosoft's characteristic wrapper.
LostWinds [$3.99] from Frontier was originally released for the Wii in 2008 and we've been waiting for the iOS port since it was reported in July. It's a beautiful adventure platforming game with puzzle elements, which rates highly in almost every way.
The story opens with little Toku asleep on the grass, but once you swipe him awake, there's a lovely layered platform world to explore, with pink trees, waterfalls, caves, villages and other characters to discover. Just tap the screen to walk in that direction, or hold your finger down for a second to keep moving automatically.
On the first level, you discover Enril the wind spirit and gain the ability to generate gusts of wind with a finger swipe. So if you swipe a plant it sways in the breeze, swiping a tree causes it to shake and rustle, while swiping a waterfall splashes water around. You can also swipe at objects - like large rock balls - to move them, or swipe burning fires to fan or direct the flames. These abilities help your search for the evil Balasar, so you can lift his dark curse.
I’m a big fan of top-down arcade racers. The short tracks, speed boosts, and tight races create a kind of intensity that I find hard to replicate in other, more traditional racing games. Enter Mini Motor Racing [$1.99 / HD], the latest from The Binary Mill, and a good example of why I love top-down racers. Everything from the visuals to the great presentation and large amount of content outweigh the physics issues and occasional stability problems, making this a highly recommended game for racer fans.
The first thing you’ll notice when you jump into a race in Mini Motor Racing is the high quality visuals. Both the vehicle models as well as the actual tracks look great and it all runs at a fast framerate. Added touches like weather conditions (the rain looks great) do a good job making the game come alive. In addition, Mini Motor Racing also features a rocking soundtrack that I thought added to the feel of the game. All of these elements combine for a smooth and engaging presentation that simply adds to the overall experience while playing.
Back in July I had the pleasure of welcoming one of my favorite shooters of all time, Cope-Com's excellent Battle Squadron, into the App Store in the form of a native iOS port of the original Amiga game. Today I'm happy to bring news of a new, lower-priced iPad-only release of the title featuring two-player, split-screen action and Game Center achievements as well as an update to the original, universal release.
The new iPad-only release, entitled Battle Squadron ONE 2-player [App Store], allows two players to face off on the same device, thanks to a new split-screen, portrait play mode that lets you and a friend share in the action (for those equipped with a friend). In this mode, each player is able to choose their own control configuration, and gameplay is as smooth and fast-paced as it is in the one-player mode. What's more, two-player network gameplay is planned for a future update.
A number of other improvements have arrived in this new release, as well. The game features 36 Game Center achievements and a new super-tough "Air Commodore" difficulty level (get it?) with a particularly intense level ending. Cope-Com has listened to player feedback and has tweaked every control mode and rolled-in a new one. The main user complaint was that it was "tedious" to have to move a finger all over the entire screen to control the ship. To address this, a drag control mode with 2x the movement vs. finger rate was added (with the original 1x control still available). Additionally, the joypad and tilt control modes have been adjusted to allow movement in all directions (analog) as opposed to the earlier release's 8-way (digital) movement.
In mid-November, True Axis finally released Space Tripper [$3.99] into the App Store. This was a big deal for a couple of reasons. First, Space Tripper was a straight up awesome indie shoot 'em up that released a decade ago, and not only does it hold up extremely well today but it also makes a fantastic fit for the iOS platform. The second reason Space Tripper's release was a big deal was that the development of the port hit just about every type of snag you can think of, and with what seemed like a black cloud looming over the game's progress there was a strong possibility it would never see the light of day on the App Store.
However, determination won over, and even though it took more than 3 years True Axis completed their goal of releasing Space Tripper for iOS. And spoiler alert: it kicks major ass, as evidenced in our review. But it wasn't all happy times and rainbows, as the one glaring omission from Space Tripper was any sort of option for touch controls. As it stood, the game only offered a tilt control scheme.
Recently, we mentioned that Space Tripper [$3.99] - the iOS version of Astro Tripper - has finally been released by True Axis the makers of the popular game: Jet Car Stunts [$1.99 / Free]. After being released on various other platforms over the past decade, it's finally our turn for an iOS port of this top-down arena-based shoot'em-up, which features a main campaign plus score attack and challenge modes to unlock.
Although I'm happy to recommend this game now, my initial impressions were less favorable. You see, Space Tripper offers tilt controls as the only option for movement, but strangely, it appears no auto-calibration occurs at the start of the game, so the craft was unresponsive to tilts and left sitting like a lame duck. However, after discovering the tilt calibration and tilt-sensitivity options and testing a few different configurations, the craft became very responsive, ducking and weaving around enemies.
Look up. Are pigs flying? Ok, just checking, because in case you hadn't heard True Axis' Space Tripper [$3.99] is now available in the App Store. If you've heard the tale of Space Tripper's perilous development cycle that spanned more than three years, then you might be apt to think that pigs flying would be about as plausible as the game being released. However, after a late push from the developers these past couple of months, they have finally released Space Tripper out into the wild.
As a quick recap, Space Tripper started as a Mac and PC game created by PomPom Games back in 2001. In 2006, it was rereleased on the PlayStation Network as an enhanced version by the name of Astro Tripper. True Axis began working on an iOS port of the game back in mid-2008, but were riddled with setbacks that pushed the release back many times.
It features 14 different levels across 4 worlds in Campaign, Time Attack, and Challenge modes. There is OpenFeint and Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements, and there's even a built-in cheat menu if you're finding the game a bit too difficult (though this will disable leaderboard and achievement tracking), just like the old days!
Now I don't think anybody would argue that Space Tripper doesn't look quite gorgeous, with vibrant colors, interesting enemies littering the screen, and huge boss fights. But, I'm betting at least a few of you are feeling hesitant about the game's tilt-only control scheme. Heck, I'm not typically a fan of tilt controls either, unless they're done extremely well. After playing with Space Tripper for just a short while, I can see that the tilt controls are indeed rock solid. However, as good as the tilt controls are, if enough people request it True Axis will look into a touch control option. They've tried it already and weren't happy with the results, hence why they aren't included already.
At any rate, Space Tripper seems to be good arcade shooter action already. We'll be taking a closer look at the game in the coming days, and you can check out early impressions of Space Tripper from gamers in our forums.
Fantasy Flight Games is a company that's known for creating very complicated tabletop games from geek-friendly properties, like A Song of Ice and Fire, Battlestar Galactica, The Lord of the Rings, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft. One of their most popular offerings is Arkham Horror, a game with approximately 700 cards, tokens and markers to keep track of and a play time of up to four hours. Earlier this year, the company released Elder Sign, a game that takes the Lovecraftian horror of Arkham Horror and distills it down to about half the time and only 200 pieces or so.
I love these games, but there's really no such thing as a quick game of, well, any of them. Between set up, tear down and the inevitable time taken to teach new players and reference forgotten rules, you're looking at a full evening's entertainment. So imagine my delight playing Elder Sign: Omens [$3.99 / HD], the first of Fantasy Flight's more mature games to arrive on the App Store. It's quick to play, can be learned (mostly) as you go, and can be played solo or hotseat with friends. What's not to like?
We spied Oh! Edo Towns [$3.99/Lite] on the App store in early September, and ever since, I've been wringing my hands in anticipation at the thought of a new Kairosoft game to fill up my free time. After all, Game Dev Story earned our coveted five-star score, and we've enjoyed the clever and cute take on the pleasures of city sims every since. Throw in my slight obsession with historical Japan, and then tell me I get to build my own town in Edo-period Japan, and here you have a very excited gamer. Can I be a shogun? Paint some ukiyo-e? Maybe even thwart Saigo Takamori before he reaches the borders of my humble town?
In all seriousness, though -- if you have ever played a Kairosoft title, you will know what to expect here. Oh! Edo Towns follows the formula of the previous games by kicking it off giving you your own plot of land to build up into something spectacular. Considering the theme, everything plays on Japan's Edo period, from the ability to build things like Public Baths and Dumpling Shops to small details such as character dress and design. If you're a fan of Japanese history, as I am, you are sure to have a soft spot for this one.
Well, this was unexpected. A day or so after launching a restaurant simulation game on Android, the simulation gurus at Kairosoft stealth-released Epic Astro Story [$3.99] across the iPhone and iPod Touch. From the look, it appears as if it's melding the action-y soccer part of Pocket League Story with the city-building of its other recent releases, Oh Edo Town and Venture Town. The key exceptions being that it's dripping with sci-fi buildings and homes, and the action-y part are actual battles with cutesy aliens.
