If you've got a hankering for sticking some classic Sega properties in your pocket, you're in luck. Today the long-time game developer announced on their blog that the iOS port of Jet Set Radio will be hitting at the end of this month on November 29th, along with an Android version on the same day and following the Vita version on the 20th. Here is a new batch of screens of the iPad version straight from Sega's Flickr page.
When I first got my iPad, I hadn't been playing physical board games for long. Sure, I played Monopoly and its ilk as a kid, but it wasn't until I got into things like Arkham Asylum and Carcassone as an adult that I really understood the appeal. Before that, they seemed slow, finicky and sort of lame. Afterwards, they seemed slow, finicky and kind of fantastic. The iPad let me dream of board games that kept the quality and ditched all those slow, finicky bits.
For the most part, that's come true. Board game fans are already spoiled for choice on iOS, and a lot of that choice is excellent. Up until now, though, we've been getting a slow trickle of ports of long-standing and popular tabletop titles. Reiner Knizia's Qin [$4.99 (HD)] throws down the gauntlet to game designers by landing simultaneously on the App Store and on retail shelves. The only problem? I can't imagine why I'd possibly want a boxed version when the iPad release is this well-made.
One of the coolest things to witness on iOS is when a developer creates a game that successfully makes a complete transition from traditional controls to touch mechanisms. Sure, a lot of games can get by through simply adding virtual control pads and buttons, but it's the games that make perfect use of touch controls that feel much more natural and fun. ARC Squadron [$2.99 / Free] by Psyonix is one such game and is a blast to play on iOS. By including a simple but highly effective control scheme, a decent selection of beautifully detailed levels, and a great upgrade system, ARC Squadron embodies what makes an iOS game great and is a must-play.
As an elite pilot in the aptly named ARC Squadron, players are tasked with taking down the Guardians, a nefarious race bent on destroying the universe. You'll fight the Guardians through a variety of on-rail stages that have you destroying enemy ships, collecting energy cubes and avoiding planetary obstacles. Clusters of levels culminate with boss stages, each of which require their own strategies and techniques. While the story is rather cliché, there's still a lot to do in ARC Squadron, as completing the story unlocks harder difficulties to try. Normally, the basic formula and story described above would be enough for a decent game, but ARC does so much more.
This past April, Mighty Rabbit Studios and Joystick Labs released Saturday Morning RPG [Free], an episodic iOS role-playing game crafted in the vein of those from the 16-bit era and absolutely dripping with radical '80s references and style. We thought it tickled our nostalgia bone ever so lovingly in our review of the original release, which contained two full episodes with plans for more to follow.
Then in July, we detailed the uh, details of the upcoming Episode 3 installment, titled To Bot or Not to Bot. That episode is finally ready to roll and will be launching next week on November 15th, but you can get a brief tease right now in the trailer below.
To celebrate the release of To Bot Or Not To Bot, both versions of Saturday Morning RPG are currently on sale. The free version of the game comes with Episode 1 and the ability to buy future episodes through in-app purchases, and right now Episode 2 is on sale for 99¢ instead of its usual $1.99. Then there's Saturday Morning RPG Deluxe [$5.99], which costs more up front but will get updated with all future episodes for free, and right now you can grab that for a dollar off at $4.99.
Either way you choose, Saturday Morning RPG is a lighthearted and humorous game for those with fond memories of the '80s and is totally worth checking out, so be on the lookout for Episode 3 to drop next week.
Tiger Style Games had a lot to live up to with their follow-up release to Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$1.99 / $1.99 (HD)], the critically-acclaimed 2009 puzzle adventure and our own Game of the Year that year, but they pulled it off in tremendous fashion with Waking Mars [$4.99] this past February. It's a game about exploring Mars, and quite literally waking it up by breathing life into the plant-like lifeforms that dwelled within the cavernous confines of the planet.
Like Spider, Waking Mars leaned heavily on its visual and audio style, as well as a certain amount of mystery and intrigue that compelled you to see things through. In short, its atmosphere was just as important – if not more so – than the actual underlying game mechanics, and Waking Mars nailed it.
We thought it was pretty tops in our original review, and for a game that was so reliant on its visual and aural splendor the updates that came post-release that added support for Retina Display iPads and the widescreen of the iPhone 5/new iPod touch actually enhanced the experience a lot. That's also why the latest update, released today, is also quite significant.
Borderlands Legends [$4.99 / $6.99 (HD)] doesn't lean on enough of the series' strengths. Instead, it turns a lot of them on their heads to its detriment.
But even removed from Borderlands the series, it's still an unimaginative, often boring game with spotty controls and iffy mechanics that don't work so well together. In a lot of ways, Legends is kind of a mess.
To rewind, Legends is a top-down strategy game that puts you in control of the original four Vault Hunters across a series of randomized "missions." For the most part, missions are simple bag and tag kind of procedures, each consisting of four claustrophobic arenas that spew monsters and the series' psychopaths at you in a steady stream.
Fights go down in real-time, so you're in charge of directing each of the characters at once. The Hunters also have special abilities, and you're tasked with setting those off at the right time for the best effect. Brick, for example, can berserk and essentially act as a tank, so ideally you want to pop this skill in front of a mob. Mordecai is a sniper that can call in a bird. Ideally, you want to pop this from the back of a fight as often as possible. Pretty simple stuff.
Borderlands Legends [$4.99 / $6.99] hit the New Zealand App Store very early this morning, and we've got our greasy mitts all over this game. Unfortunately, once you get it on your device, all the strange things 2K was doing like revealing the game in a strategy guide starts to make a lot of sense as the game is just not good. The best way to describe it is by likening it to the "GameBoy version" of popular video games, and anyone alive in the 80's should know exactly what I mean.
If not, the trend at the time was to take popular IP, and due to either the limitations of the platform or due to development budget restraints, water it down to the point that the only recognizable elements that remain is the name on the box and the characters used inside the game. That's certainly the case here, as they've removed basically everything we like about Borderlands games in exchange for... Having a game on the App Store with "Borderlands" in the title, I guess.
We'll have a full review of the game up to coincide with the US launch at 11:00 PM Eastern tonight, but it's not looking good. In the meantime, you can join the launch day party in our forums where initial impressions are similarly not positive.
I sometimes wonder if we play Monopoly more out of habit, or some sense of nostalgic obligation, rather than because we actually want to. There’s barely a half-functioning family in the world that doesn’t have some kind of annual board game tradition, and at some point during the year we all give Monopoly a dusting off and joke, between yawns, about how great it’d be if this were real money.
Patience for long, semi-serious games like this is much thinner these days, though. Yes, we dredge it up once or twice a year, but how many of us actually finish a game? More often than not fun fatigue sets in and everyone agrees that whoever’s got the biggest wad right now is the winner, and then there’s a mad rush to pack it all back in its dog-eared box as you attempt to salvage what’s left of the evening. And now we have Monopoly Millionaire [$2.99 / $4.99 (HD)] finding its way to iOS, with a promise of a “fresh take on classic Monopoly.”
It’s a new take, to be fair, but “fresh” is not a word that I’d rush to associate with Monopoly Millionaire. What this really is – and indeed it’s probably a wise move, even if it doesn’t quite pay off in this situation – is an effort to speed up an ordinary game of Monopoly. Not reboot it, or refresh it, or rebrand it, or revolve it, or reload it, or reinvigorate it. Just get it finished before everyone realizes they’re not having fun.
Look through my game collection and you'll find at least five copies of Mortal Kombat, Doom on assorted media, and more copies of Street Fighter II than Ryu players spam fireballs in a single round. Some games are so nice I've just got to buy them twice. Or more. The iPhone release of Crazy Taxi [$4.99] marks my fourth foray through the boulevards of Sega's imitation San Francisco, and it's still a pretty good game. Granted, the fun is still somewhat hampered by old design decisions, but Crazy Taxi feels good and whole on mobile.
If you somehow missed the arcade original or one of the multitude of ports over the last 13 years, Crazy Taxi puts you in the driver's seat of a yellow cab. Your job is to whisk your customers away to their intended destinations as speedily as possible to collect the highest fare possible, and you do that by cutting through parks, juking between cars, daring to drive left of center, and breaking every conceivable traffic law -- all to the tune of the original head-banging soundtrack.
Games age so quickly. Jordan Mechner's The Last Express [$4.99] was first released in 1997. That's 15 years ago: time enough for pop to become "classic rock", and more than long enough for a television show to have developed an eternally loyal fanbase (Babylon Five ran 1994-8) or have been forgotten utterly (Lost ran 2004-2010). In the worlds of art and literature, 15 years is the blink of an eye.
But videogames age faster than dogs. I think only the fashion industry devours itself on a more regular basis. Here, 15 years is a bloody eternity.
So it was a relief to see just how gracefully The Last Express has aged, just how natural it feels on mobile, and that Dot Emu delivered such a masterful port (on a level with their port of Another World [$3.99]. The Last Express plays like it was designed for mobile, albeit in a "headphones strongly recommended" way.
That's one of the game's weaknesses: it is driven by it's audio and categorically inaccessible to the deaf. There isn't even an option to subtitle every conversation (dialogue in languages other than English are subtitled, just as in the original US release).
One room. Four walls, a ceiling, a floor—a claustrophobic space, if you can't leave. Dark music, heartbeats and whispers. You could imagine the walls closing in while you scrabble for an exit. But The Room [$1.99 (HD)] never lets you worry about any of that. There's a time you stop caring about your surroundings, when you don't care a whit about anything but what's in front of you. It's the moment your work absorbs you completely, or you're on the trail of a mystery.
The mystery, in this case, is a box. A beautiful, ornate box with dozens of secrets and few answers to offer. It has levers and dials, locks and keys, parchment and clockwork. Manipulating them is a joy, the nearest thing to reality you can get on a screen. And all of it leads you deeper and deeper inside, into a nesting doll of mysteries.
If I tell you that Lili [$2.99] is a game about picking flowers, please don't stop reading. It's also about being a freedom fighter, if that helps, and bringing down an authoritarian regime. Hope that sounds good, because it is—fantastic, even. The plucky star of the game traipses through the gorgeous world of Geos, stalking Spirits, clawing her way up their backs and tearing out their flowers until they have nothing left. They can get pretty cross about that, but it's the friendliest sort of guerrilla warfare.
The things that are wrong with Lili—and there are a few—have a hard time stacking up against the game's beauty. The environments are lush, painted with bright colors and full of detail. There is as much repetition in the streets and homes as you might expect, but there are hints of personality to be found tucked away in quiet corners. Every home you poke your nose into has treasure to be found, and the quirky things you collect add a heck of a lot of character to an already charming title.
In case you haven't noticed, we've been fans of the titles coming out of Illusion Labs for quite awhile. So when the developer announced Blast-A-Way [$4.99] early last month, we were intrigued and a little excited to see how Illusion Labs would put its mark on the puzzle genre. Well, as a physics puzzler, Blast-A-Way doesn't stray too far from normal genre conventions. However, the game's strict attention to detail, excellent implementation of features and simply fun gameplay set Blast-A-Way apart from the pack, earning a recommendation in my book.
After causing the dangerous Sticky Bomb Monument to fall and explode, a group of little beings called 'Boxies' are blown across the lands. Thus, you take the role of three robot heroes as they traverse across a variety of regions in search of the Boxies. Blast-A-Way features 80 levels across five regions, each tailored after a different "element" (wood, metal, fabric, stone and plastic). Each level tasks you with finding three Boxies and guiding your robots to the exit. There are no timers, scores, or points; the only ways to gauge progression are the amount of Boxies you've rescued and the amount of levels you've unlocked. In this sense, Blast-A-Way takes a page from simpler puzzle games, but there is definitely some beauty in this simplicity.
Supergiant Games' Bastion [$0.99] is truly a game whose reputation precedes it. When the indie game released in July of last year, it quickly became a hit with its fascinating story, catchy music and well-done action RPG gameplay. Fast-forward a year later and iOS gamers are finally able to check out the land of Caelondia. Suffice to say, Bastion makes a near-perfect transition to iOS and should be experienced by just about everyone.
Bastion follows the narrated story of the Kid, one of a few survivors of The Calamity, a world-altering event that destroys the land and has turned once docile enemies against everyone. After the Kid reaches the Bastion, the area of the world designated as the survival zone (should anything go wrong), he embarks on a journey to find survivors, recharge the Bastion, and hopefully bring clarity back to a shattered world.
For gamers entering the world of Bastion for the first time, you're in for a treat. Supergiant Games has created a masterpiece of gaming narrative that extends to the game's visuals, story, narration, music, and gameplay. The Kid's tale, narrated by a strange voice from the moment the game starts, adds so much personality and context to every action. The experience lends itself well to the story, which starts off with you in the middle of a disaster and charges you with a path towards resolution while simultaneously feeding you snippets of backstory. Without spoiling much, be advised the game is full of twists and turns and the narrative hints dropped while you're on missions as to what'll happen next is superb.
Bastion's soundtrack, meanwhile, consistently steals the show with an eclectic mix of soft reflective tunes and fast-paced melodies that constantly set the mood. The visuals serve as the last piece of the puzzle, offering a beautiful glimpse into the world of Bastion with soft colors mixed with palette shifts whenever the game's tenor changes. Finally, everything is wrapped in an action-RPG shell featuring tons of weapons, upgrades, and choices offering a good deal of customization as far as how you want to use the Kid in battle. In sum, Bastion simply nails every facet of the game, with little to complain about and everything to praise.
If you're a veteran of Bastion and are curious of the differences between the console and iOS versions, I'll refer you to the awesome FAQ put up by Supergiant Games that describes all the differences. For those looking for a quick summation, Bastion for iOS incorporates the Stranger's Dream DLC package, has a new aspect ratio (4:3 vice 16:9) and features visuals for the retina-enabled iPad. While these are all nice additions to the title, the real change lies with its completely redone controls that focus on a more touch-centric experience.
Unlike other versions, Bastion defaults to a tap-to-move control scheme somewhat similar to Orc: Vengeance. Unlike Orc, however, Bastion's controls are far smoother and much more responsive when it comes to moving the Kid. The controls also condense most of the virtual buttons down to two: a combination block/manual shot button and a secret move button. Normal attacks are automatically initiated (and targeted) and dodging is as simple as double-tapping in the direction you want to move.
I'm a huge fan of this modified control scheme. It does a great job utilizing the iPad's screen space while keeping most of it clear of buttons to let you experience the action more organically. I also think removing the virtual control pad and condensing the buttons allows you to concentrate more on aiming and moving in the middle of the action. Admittedly, there is a certain amount of precision lost in regards to moving and aiming when allowing the game to make some of the decisions for you. However, if you're coming into Bastion for the first time on iOS, I doubt you'll have much of an issue with the controls. For returning console veterans, however, a 'Classic' control scheme is available that incorporates a virtual pad as well as more traditional buttons.
The classic control scheme works as well as virtual buttons typically work on iOS games, which is to say that it is adequate, but not necessarily preferred. This is why I give Supergiant Games a lot of credit in creating and fine-tuning an iOS specific scheme that I feel does the game a lot more credit on this platform. However, I recognize that not everyone will be as pleased with the controls as I am, and it's simply an issue that players need to be aware of.
Minor control issues notwithstanding, Bastion for iPad is just as good, if not better than its console brethren. Every element that made the game so amazing and fascinating returns and the subtle refinements to various features in making the jump to iOS simply add to the experience. In the console realm, Bastion has been nearly universally regaled and recommended and there is no reason not to do the same on iOS.
A few weeks back, we found out that Illusion Labs had a new iOS project in the works called Blast-A-Way [$4.99]. At first we weren’t really sure what it was all about, but a trailer released a couple of days later revealed it to be a physics puzzle game that used various types of explosives to blast apart a level and reach the end goal.
So, a physics puzzler. Is my excitement not showing? It's not that I haven’t enjoyed that genre immensely over the years, because I have. It’s just that the overabundance of them on the App Store has sapped my enthusiasm for more, even though great new ones are being released all the time. I mean, why don’t you just make a match-3 while you’re at it?
Then, about 10 minutes after diving into an advanced copy of Blast-A-Way, it hit me: this is Illusion Labs, you idiot. These folks made Touchgrind BMX [$4.99], Sway [$4.99 / Free], and Labyrinth 2 [$4.99 / Free]. Everything they do exudes quality, they don’t play silly App Store pricing games, and they only release new products when they’re fully ready. They’re like a little iOS Valve.
