Gameloft has had a recent track record of enjoyable titles (9mm [$6.99] and BackStab [$6.99] come to mind). Silent Ops [$6.99], the latest part-stealth, part-third-person shooter looked to extend Gameloft’s streak of decent titles that provide a good iOS alternative to a variety of genres usually reserved for console and PC gamers. Unfortunately, Silent Ops, with its generic story, poor presentation, and lacking gameplay definitely takes the genre back quite a few steps and should be avoided in lieu of other, much more deserving titles.

At first glance, Silent Ops looks to take a lot of its inspiration from the popular Splinter Cell series --there’s a lot of sneaking into buildings, a lot of silenced weapons, and a lot of double-crossing.  Take a closer look, however, and you’ll quickly see that any comparison to an actual stealth title is only skin deep. While you may be doing quite a bit of sneaking, your cover is almost always blown every time you take a shot at the opposition, silenced weapon or not. In addition, the whole ‘sneaking’ mechanic is just poorly done, as not only is the cover system poorly implemented, but once you’re spotted, you’re basically in guns blazing mode for the rest of the level.

Not that getting spotted makes the game any harder. The AI in Silent Ops is atrocious. I lost count how many times I’ve seen several enemies just stare at me for seconds on end while I took my time reloading in front of them and then proceeding to empty my clip.  In fact, the only threat I ever encountered was running out of bullets. Not to worry, however, as when that happened I would simply just run up to a group of enemies and they would immediately put their guns away and face me in hand-to-hand combat, each taking their turn in an organized, civilized fashion.

The whole combat system is just bizarre and not done very well. Other gameplay elements include simplistic quick time events as well as a few sniping sections that worked as well as they could within the context of the rest of the game.  Overall Silent Ops' gameplay, like its aged graphics system, just seems to be lackluster.

In addition to the single-player mode, which takes place across seven different levels (coupled with three separate difficulty levels), Silent Ops also features a barebones multiplayer mode. Players can create or join servers with up to 12 total combatants. Stat tracking does exist, but is restricted to games played, total deaths, and total kills. Admittedly, multiplayer was a much more enjoyable experience than the single player mode, but that’s mostly due to the fact that you’re playing against other live players and has nothing to do with anything that the game actually offers.

As iOS has matured as a gaming platform, games in the style of the typical first or third person shooter have become readily available. In this day and age, there’s no reason to flock to a new one just because it fits in this mold, but that’s the impression I get with Silent Ops. There are far more better titles than this one, some even published by Gameloft itself. I’d suggest you stick with one of those other alternatives, and stay away from this game.

Alright, so I'll fully admit I was likely a little more excited than I should have been about the (then) upcoming Dragons' Den game when we first posted about it last week. It's one of my favorite guilty pleasures that I watch on TV, as I've always had an odd interest both in wacky inventions and business ideas as well as everything that takes place behind the scenes when people try to raise money for those inventions and ideas. The Wikipedia article has an exhaustive listing on the history of the show, but it originated in Japan and was popularized in English-speaking countries by the UK version originally broadcast on BBC Two (then eventually BBC America).

The show involves inventors and businessmen entering the "Dragons' Den" and presenting their business idea to a panel of investors, or, "dragons." These entrepreneurs come with a financial goal which must be reached for them to get the money, and the meat of the show involves the dragons duking it out, both with each other as well as the entrepreneurs when it comes to just how much of the business they're getting for that amount of money. In my opinion, this is all wildly interesting as each of the dragons come from a different business background, and potentially have the knowledge and connections to turn a small startup into a multi-million dollar hit.

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I've been experiencing different levels of excitement for Monty Python's Cow Tossing [99¢ / HD] since I saw the first details on the game at the International Mobile Gaming Awards last month. Since then, I posted the trailer, and generated a bit of excitement from fellow Monty Python fans in comments and on our forums. The game launched yesterday, and I couldn't wait to try it.

See, I've been a Monty Python fan as long as I can remember, and have watched Monty Python and The Holy Grail more times than I could even estimate in my lifetime. I suppose it's my own fault for letting my imagination run wild, but I figured classic Monty Python style Holy Grail humor combined with Angry Birds gameplay could have been a combination that worked incredibly well.

Monty Python's Cow Tossing is based around the point of King Arthur's quest in The Holy Grail where they come across the French stronghold on the search for the grail. After an exchange of taunts, the French claim to have the grail, and Arthur demands it. At this point, the French launch a cow over the wall at Arthur and his men, which is what you'll be doing in Cow Tossing-- Launching farm animals at English knights who are often positioned inside of various structures which will also need to be destroyed, exactly like Angry Birds.

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Dungeon Defenders [$2.99] is an ambitious title full of carrots that propel a basic hack-and-slash experience. It also has systems and content out the wazoo, providing a level of good depth rarely seen in App Store titles. But as effective as its smoke and mirrors are, and as much as it has to offer, its controls and interface are a pain to use and navigate, making it hard to recommend.

A lazy bit of shorthand to describe Dungeon Defenders is "Diablo meets Tower Defense." Dungeon Defenders has the hack-and-slash appeal and the character classes from the former, and the tower building and flow of the latter. Overall, the two mesh into a good whole, providing a ceaseless stream of stimuli to play with.

You'll spend more time hammering away at fantasy foes with the "action" button than anything else, but this basic offense is always in the service of defense of large, neon-blue crystals that sit in the middle of the game's instance-based levels. These crystals have their own health meters, and if foes manage to pummel it to zero, it's game over.

What makes defense manageable is the scripting and flow. A preset number of monsters amble out of spawn doors on scripted routes during each "Wave" of play. You can choose to confront these foes with weapon in hand or set up defensive towers via a character-specific radial menu. But maps are huge and enemies spawn in every possible corner, so towers quickly become the star of the show.

The placement of towers versus your decision to be in a certain place during a certain "Wave" is satisfying and rewarding. And there's no shortage of towers. Each of the four character classes -- the mage, the archer, the knight, and the warrior monk -- have different spins on the same five or so towers, presenting some unique gameplay opportunities when coupled with the Rock, Paper, Scissors nature of the strategy you'll need to consider.

Player-side, the combat boils down to basic hack-and-slash. Each of the classes do bring their own style of combat, which helps to mix it up, and the loot and grind lust that the game encourages with its constant drops keeps things interesting, too.

Dungeon Defenders has a neat online multiplayer compliment to the play and the characters are balanced in such a way to provide a rich experience. The catch is that the single-player balance is off, so you'll need to get with some pals to push through the later levels.

For the most part, the network code appears to be stable. You'll encounter a fair amount of latency and matchmaking oddness as you get into and attempt to find matches. And the lack of voice chat is annoying on a fundamental strategy level.

If the game controlled well, this would easily be a highly recommended game. Alas, the controls and interface are terrible. It's painfully obvious that this is a game designed foremost and balanced for a dual-analog controller. Instead of integrating good touch-based controls, Trendy Entertainment has chose to just put all of a controller's functionality up on the screen. It's littered with buttons, bubbles, and dials to the extent that they obscure play.

But Dungeon Defenders is also fundamentally an awkward game to move around in, in part, due to the terrible 3D camera which needs to be babysat with an on-screen pad. As you can see below in the image of the game's overlay, the camera control is not in a convenient or intuitive location, meaning you have to take your eyes and hands off the action in order to swivel the camera to a sensible spot. Also, a virtual d-pad for movement?

(Edit:  There's a virtual joystick-less control option that you can turn on from the game's menu, but it's no good.)

Dungeon Defenders iOS is a deep, sometimes entertaining game… but the controls are a core, critical, nasty flaw that I don't think can be "fixed" or addressed in any meaningful way. The game, quite simply, requires all the stuff the UI is lit up with. There's a chance that if you're the kind of guy who can play, say, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light without issues, you might be able to get into this one. If you're not, I'd stay away from Dungeon Defenders until it hits Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, and PC at some point.

Just a note: Dungeon Defenders is a Universal App. Playing on an iPad does reduce the UI clutter by virtue of being a bigger screen, but it's still a mess and doesn't alleviate any of overwhelming button overload going on here.

Despite the overwhelming popularity of the genre, I fully admit I've never been able to get in to most hunting games. The ones I've played on the iPhone either seem entirely too basic, diluting the sport of hunting down to basic wild animal shooting galleries with a few gimmicks or attempting to recreate arcade light gun style gameplay by tapping on the screen. In Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2011 [$4.99], Activision takes some steps in the right direction to make a hunting game that's more entertaining than most by injecting a single player adventure campaign in to the mix.

Instead of just choosing a location, selecting your hunting load out, and just shooting whatever animals are on the horizon, Dangerous Hunts has you actively stalking prey. Also, more often than not, your prey is also stalking you. It sounds like the workings of a real cool game, as you're left wandering about the African wilderness after animals that are just as interested in killing you as you are in killing them. Unfortunately, the cool premise is about all there is to it.

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When bringing up the topic of vertical shoot 'em ups, it's nearly impossible not to mention Capcom's seminal 194X series. Since the original 1942 was released way back in 1984 the series has spawned a number of sequels and has been ported to practically any system you can think of, minus the iPhone. That changed tonight however as 1942: First Strike is now available on the App Store.

1942: First Strike is said to be inspired by the game 1942: Joint Strike that graced the Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network a couple years ago. While those games were slightly mundane gameplay-wise, they at the very least showcased some excellent 3D high def graphics that really brought the classic franchise into this new generation. This is not the case here. The iPhone version features tiny plane and enemy sprites and boring backdrops. It's colorful, but not very interesting. The music is really quite excellent, but the sound effects lack any substance and destroying enemies is met with a whimper rather than a boom.

I could excuse the disappointing graphics if the gameplay was entertaining, but sadly this isn't the case either. The major fault of 1942: First Strike is in the controls. The gameplay area is fairly wide, which makes the screen scroll left or right when you fly in those directions. The sensitivity in the scrolling is just way off and creates a totally disorienting experience. If a row of enemies is coming towards you, and you need to scoot just a smidgen over to line up your aim, likely that will send the playfield scrolling too hard and your plane slamming right into enemies or incoming fire. Adjusting the sensitivity or using tilt helps a tiny bit, but not really. It's just not something I could get used to, and it ruins a game that requires high precision.

Even if the controls worked better, there's nothing here you haven't seen before. Enemy attack patterns and your own special weapons are all garden variety, and if not for the controls, the game would likely be too short and easy. There are a couple things to like about the game, though. As mentioned the music is well done, as are the different menu graphics. Some nifty full motion cutscenes are shown prior to beginning levels or fighting a boss, although they seem to repeat often.

None of these good marks outweigh the bad though, and at best 1942: First Strike feels like a Java game that might have impressed on mobile 5 years ago. It's unfortunate and surprising that such a beloved franchise received such poor treatment.

Nearly five months ago now Tapulous first announced Riddim Ribbon [App Store] on stage at an Apple keynote. Oddly enough, aside from graphical changes, the game that is available today is almost exactly what Tapulous promised at the event. Three songs from the Black Eyed Peas are included along with three additional 99¢ tracks available via in-app purchase. (Two by Tiësto and one by Benny Benassi.)

The objective of Riddim Ribbon is to guide a ball down a track, and tilt your device to follow a green line that moves left and right to one of the three songs you select on the main screen. When you stray from the track, the music begins to fade out until you're only hearing the faint backbeat to the song. Laid out on the green line are silver spheres to pick up, ramps to jump over, and hoops to jump through. All of these different pickups and obstacles are arranged so you're hitting them with the beat of the song, an experience that's actually pretty cool if you haven't played a similar racing rhythm game before.

As you're rolling down the tracks in Riddim Ribbon, you will be faced with both forks in the road and ramps that lead to secondary portions of track that allow you to mix the song by turning or jumping up on to the same portion of the song remixed by one of a number of different DJ's included in the game. By replaying individual songs and choosing different paths to take, you can come up with a number of different remixes of the same song.

Riddim Ribbon is a game that sounds really cool when you describe it, yet it somehow manages to be not that fun at all when you're playing it. The way the music is visualized is great, and the tracks are laid out very well to match each song. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to get bored of the three included songs, and the tilt controls are frustrating.

Instead of like most racing games where you tilt to move right or left, then hold your device level straight to go straight, the amount you tilt directly translates to your position on the track. This causes you to spend most of your time holding your device at an awkward angle instead of making small tilting movements to steer as you're probably used to if you've played many racing games on the platform.

As mentioned previously, the way you interact with the music in the game is really neat but by default an announcer is almost constantly talking over it telling you how "dope" and "ill" your performance is along with announcing the many checkpoints on each song. It likely won't take you long to turn this off in the options.

Riddim Ribbon is a great idea for a game that ultimately is ruined by frustrating controls and gameplay which is too easy to get bored of.

App Store Link: Riddim Ribbon feat. The Black Eyed Peas, $2.99

Undoubtedly we are all quite fond of our iPhones. After all, never has it been easier to bring our favourite games around with us wherever we may be. But how would it be if the roles were reversed-- if our games instead brought us around with them? That is the question on which Glu Mobile has rested the success of its latest foray into the AppStore.

1000: Find 'Em All! [App Store] is as much an abstract as it is the title. You are tasked with simply finding and collecting 1000 items-- that is the extent of the what, but it's the how which really sets 1000: Find 'Em All! apart.

The first method of collecting items is the easiest. You navigate your character by dragging him around a lifeless but gorgeously crafted in-game world; leaving a trail of sunshine, rainbows and lollipops behind you. Well, maybe not lollipops, but your very presence injects color and life into your surroundings-- flowers will sprout, grass will turn green, objects will animate-- for anyone that's tried their hand at De Blob [$3.99 / Free], you'll know what I'm on about. And every now and then you'll stumble across a sparkling item and tapping on it may or may not reveal an item to collect.

This is all well and good but still largely derivative. It's the second and third means of discovering items that really bring something new to the table. Making use of the iPhone's in-build GPS and in partnership with Google Maps, 1000: Find 'Em All! will populate your neighbourhood and surroundings with virtual items simply by the press of a button. A map of your area will download and presents will pop-up all over the place; Christmas only coming early to those willing to physically move to the highlighted locations. In a similar fashion the third and final means of collecting items also interacts with the real world; virtual 'Gifters' appearing at different WiFi hotspots that you may come across to bestow presents on you. At this point you may be thinking what I was-- if only Glu Mobile were in league with Starbucks or McDonalds we could be gifted some serious rewards for our exertions.

In any case, 1000: Find 'Em All! comes packaged with a raft of achievements, not only to do with the number of items collected and the percentage of the game world colored, but also concerning how items are collected (presumably to encourage players not to just sit at home). Collected items can only be interacted with as far as their tooltip, and whilst they can be quite funny or informative, they really serve no other purpose than as trophies.

Whether this worldwide scavenger hunt will appeal to you is really quite up to you as an individual. I can see how some may rally to the idea of having something interesting to distract them while they're out. Personally, I could not depart from the feeling that it was too gimmicky and ultimately superfluous-- that it demanded too much from you for it to be worth your while. If anything, it seems more suited to those with kids, to encourage a little out-and-about time whilst still whetting the little monsters' insatiable appetites for technology.

It's disappointing that finding and collecting items is really all there is to do in 1000: Find 'Em All! though, as the game world is rich and detailed and screaming for further interaction. But for all you budding treasure-hunters out there, finding 1000 items is sure to occupy you for a very long time, and you may actually take something from 1000: Find 'Em All! if you're willing to brave the elements to do so.

Please note that only the iPhone is supported due to the GPS requirements, and only if you have OS 3.0 installed.

App Store Link: 1000: Find 'Em All!, $2.99.

It's no secret that the iPhone is a highly attractive target platform for developers, not only because of the excellent app distribution model that Apple has put in place with the App Store, but also because of the quality and accessibility of its freely-available development tools. They are great tools, indeed, but we wouldn't go as far as to say you could get a game out the door in a single day, or anything. Well, at least...we wouldn't have, until developers Alex Schwartz (who brought us Spring Fling) and Yilmaz Kiymaz (who brought us Rocket Monkey) did just that.

Schwartz and Kiymaz decided to try and develop a full-featured iPhone game, including all of the art, animation, music, sound effects, and everything, all within a single day -- 24 hours. And before the starting pistol fired, the duo opened up the design to the iPhone gaming community.

The design will be based around one word: 'Absurdity'
You're the designer. Go.

After amassing ideas from the community, the timer started and the code began to flow. The team live-blogged the entire process in a thread in our own forums (which they've since summarized on their own blog).

And did they succeed in their mission? Well, despite delivering the game one entire minute late (we'll cut the guys some slack...), we'd definitely call the effort an impressive success. With the help of the online Touch Arcade community for ideas (forum member Sailor Jensen provided the winning concept) and a few developers from the Boston indie community for assistance with art and music (Matt Board, Beth Beinke, Steve Trenkamp), Super Ramen BROTHers quickly sprang to life, and is now available as a free App Store download [link].

And what's this hastily wrought title all about? Well, you control both of the Ramen brothers as they flee down the cashier's conveyor belt in an effort to avoid that laser scanning thing and, ultimately, two cups of boiling, stovetop death. In their flight, down the three-lane conveyor belt, they must jump or dodge (tap or drag) other grocery items, as every collision jolts the Ramen packs back one notch closer to doom. Soy sauce packets picked up along the way help the Ramen brothers edge back forward towards freedom. AGON community integration provides leaderboard tracking -- an impressive touch for a one-day app.

See the devs' video for a look at the gameplay.

Super Ramen BROTHers is certainly not the best iPhone game we've ever played. But then, that wasn't really the point. Hats off to all involved in showing that it doesn't necessarily take a year of your life to get an iPhone game to the App Store. Surely their efforts here will inspire a number of would-be iPhone developers to give it a shake. What's more, the game is actually pretty fun to play. Give it a try.

App Store Link: Super Ramen BROTHers, Free

Glu's Family Guy: Uncensored finally appeared for download last night. Family Guy: Uncensored is a series of minigames loosely tied to the television show. You will play as Brian running from Stewie, Quagmire swinging through a jungle, Chris shooting down flying Meg-pigs in a sidescrolling shooter, Stewie fighting Bertram in a MegaMan-like game, and of course the battle with Peter versus the chicken.

The problem is, none of these minigames are particularly fun once the initial novelty wears off which only takes a few moments. On top of that, some are easy to fail, and when you do the entire level must be reloaded. If you're doing poorly, you will spend more time waiting for the game to load to try again than you will actually playing the game itself. Robo Stewie is probably the best game of the bunch as a sidescrolling platformer, but even it can't really stand alone in terms of gameplay.

Overall Family Guy: Uncensored has a feel to it that is very similar to the movie or TV show based games of the 8 and 16 bit era. The game doesn't at all utilize the Family Guy elements in a particularly amusing way, and instead leans heavily on catch phrases and attempts at humor to prop up a decidedly mediocre set of mini games. Amusingly enough, for a game branded as "Uncensored", Family Guy is only rated 12+ on iTunes.

If you do happen to like any of the mini games, you can play higher levels of difficulty once you've unlocked them, and 3 additional mini-games are promised in a free update. At this point, we believe only the most die-hard Family Guy fan will likely derive enough entertainment from this game to warrant its purchase.

App Store Link: Family Guy: Uncensored, $4.99

We've known for quite some time now that a Lumines port for the iPhone was in the works, and with the flurry of releases lately it likely slipped to the back of everyone's mind. Tonight LUMINES - Touch Fusion [App Store] appeared for download along with an associated lite version, and so far the reaction in our forums has been all over the place.

The game is completely Lumines, with everything from flashy visual flare to the signature Lumines soundtrack. If you're unfamilar with the series, here are the basics:

Lumines is a color matching block dropping puzzle game. Squares made of four smaller blocks appear on screen that can be rotated and then moved in to place on the game board. A line moves from left to right across the screen synchronized to the music. When this line passes over groups of four or more matched blocks, those blocks disappear.

As the game progresses, the line moves faster and faster. Getting a high score hinges heavily on your ability to set up massive matched groupings of blocks between each pass of the line moving across the screen to clear them. Lumines is played with different unlockable "skins" that change the appearance of the board and the soundtrack.

Video by AppBank
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

The problem with the iPhone port of Lumines, predictably, are the controls. Lumines is a fast paced game that obviously relies heavily on quick rotation and accurate positioning of the blocks to survive for very long. The control scheme of the iPhone port involves swiping to move blocks and tapping to rotate them. This sounds good on paper, but in practice the game can rarely determine what your intentions are unless you play much slower with much more deliberate on-screen gestures than you normally would.

In my time with the game, I've started to get used to the controls, but I'm still nowhere near the level of speed and precision I had moving blocks around in the PSP version of the game. Meanwhile, many others are finding the game unplayable in its current form. Aside from the controls, another point of contention on our forums is the inclusion of DLC skin packs that can be purchased for $1.99. Currently there is only one additional DLC pack available, and here is a video of the skins in the "Comic Pack":

Video by AppBank
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

If you've never played a Lumines game before, give the lite a try just because the mechanics of the game are worth experiencing. But even if you're a fan of the game series, I'd still recommend sticking with the lite first to test out the controls.

App Store Links:

• LUMINES - Touch Fusion, $2.99
• LUMINES - Touch Fusion Lite, Free