Flight Control Rocket [$.99] is beautiful. The art is pyrotechnic: the groovy colors are sharp and detailed, betraying no fuzz, gloom, or jagged edges on the new iPad. Even the menus have flair. Created intricately to reflect the swinging sci-fi themes that the rest of the game is so gleefully entrenched in, they're a pleasure to plumb. The on-screen antics feel just as good, as Firemint has iterated on the core design in really fresh ways. But, it's a shame that all of this is wrapped in the stench of corporate influence. Some of the most interesting additions to the core play model are rendered meaningless courtesy clumsily handled free-to-play functionality.
The sci-fi influence, outside of the slicker and more vibrant visual appeal, is just a fun contrivance to push the series' usual conceit: take a ship, plot a course, and then repeat until the screen is so full of ships, that it becomes impossible to not avoid a mid-space collision. New features include a fascinating variety of ships with abilities, all of which refreshingly change up the pacing. There's 15 new ships in total, including a snake-like series of ships that coils as you move it, a ship that splits into two, and even a new drop-ship type that spits out smaller ships into the playing area.
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.
If you're anything like me, the idea of a remake of a game you dearly loved when it was originally released comes as very good news. As much as I adore new games, there's just something about playing something tried and true. Add HD graphics into that mix, and you're really tempting me... which really should have been the case with Prince of Persia Classic [$1.99/HD]. I was hoping to be having so much fun with this game that it'd be hard to put the phone down to write this review, but unfortunately, that was not quite the case.
Prince of Persia Classic is far from all bad. If you played the game in its original form as a downloadable console title a few years back (or heaven forbid, even further back on the Apple II), you'll recall that it had its charming parts... and its annoying ones. Still, there's no denying that some of us spent countless hours navigating the prince through death traps, spiked pits, and all those things that make a game a proper adventure.
Over the last few years, I've seen a great number of strange things done to George Romero's slavering, brain-dead antagonists. They've been assaulted by botanical artillery, transmogrified into office workers, made into soccer players and stuffed into a pizzeria. I'm totally okay with that, by the way. Amorous zombies, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. Google Warm Bodies. You'll understand. Still, were it not for a certain major flaw (we'll get into that), Akaoni Studio's frenetic arcade style shooter Zombie Panic in Wonderland Plus [Free]Â could have made me into a convert.
Steeped in cherry blossoms and highly destructible architecture, Zombie Panic in Wonderland is the story of a rather troubled land. Once a tranquil environment populated by a mishmash of copyright-infringing characters, Wonderland is now the epicenter of a ghoulish infestation.
Curiously enough, the dude responsible for all this madness has rather little to do with the usual list of suspects (evil corporations, witchcraft, heavy metal - you know the drill). The culprit here is a self-centered prince with an affection for the spotlight. He made a perfume designed to enthrall the masses. As you might have guessed, that didn't work too well. Consequently, it is now up to you, the heroic and extremely effeminate-looking Mamotaro, to save the day.
It's hard to appreciate a novel game when clunky stuff enters the picture. Sminis [$.99] is one of the few Unreal Engine 3 games on the App Store that doesn't look like an Unreal Engine 3 game, and it's one of the few puzzlers out there that tries to be something different. I also have a man-crush on its attempt to feel at home on touch devices, as it doesn't try to do too much despite being rendered in 3D. On the other hand, it suffers from a hairy problem: its core design flashes ruthlessness too often, leaving you squirming helplessly in the hands of overindulgent design decisions.
Sminis are tiny, and supposedly sentient, robot beings crafted by an evil scientist in order to help him do, uh, evil stuff. After a "freak accident," the Sminis are free to bust out from the scientist's contraption-filled lair. You play as a maestro-god tasked with guiding entire groups of Sminis simultaneously through the scientist's Frankenstein machines. Lose too many Sminis to a saw, hydraulic press, or a moving platform, and it's game over.
Definitely no stranger to dual-stick shooters, Chillingo is back with their latest one called Mafia Rush [Free], a (duh) gangster-themed addition to the action-oriented genre. While Mafia Rush doesn’t offer much in terms of innovative or unique gameplay, it still gets the job done and is free to check out.
As a dual-stick shooter, Mafia Rush’s gameplay is relatively simplistic. Missions are divided into four different scenarios: Robbery (grab sacks of money and take them to a getaway vehicle), Defend (protect said vehicle full of cash from baddies), Attack (find packs of C4 and bomb an armored cash car) and Survival (survive waves of enemies gunning for you). Missions only last several minutes each, with each completed mission earning you an 'Ace.' Collect enough aces and you unlock additional locales.
Train Titans [$1.99] by Sad Cat Software is a puzzler focusing on train and train track management. While the game offers a refreshing amount of freedom for a puzzle game, a lot of its execution (especially in terms of controls and gameplay) leaves the game as something less than it could have been.
The premise of Train Titans is relatively simple: each train and depot has a certain color and your goal is to guide the trains to their respective (same colored) stations while helping them avoid other trains on the field. This is accomplished by laying out train tracks in whatever way you see fit (such as bridges, switch tracks, and more). Of course, there’s a wide variety of power-ups, obstacles, and various special buildings, but the end goal is always the same. Still, Train Titans succeeds in providing players a decent amount of flexibility in placing tracks. I’m a fan of flexibility in these types of puzzle games simply because it offers a wider array of solutions.
I didn't really mean to play Eufloria [$4.99] and Mass Effect at the same time during the last few days, but accidentally playing two games on opposite ends of the science fiction spectrum has been fruitful. On the one hand, Mass Effect seems absurdly violent at first glance, sporting photorealistic visuals and third-person shooting. Your character can, quite literally, be a renegade. On the other, Eufloria is relaxed and ambient, full of soft lines and leisure. It's a game about growing flowers.
But Mass Effect is about saving lives as much as ending them. And, beneath the surface, Eufloria is a killing ground: no quarter for your enemies as your troops get sent again and again into the breach. That same incongruity between mechanics and presentation infects the rest of the game.
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.
Games like My Little Monster [99¢] are nefarious. In spite of being a largely thankless collection of repetitive chores, they have this way of making you fuss over them constantly. They're like kids except without all the collateral benefits. Just ask anyone who has ever owned a Tamagotchi or any other of those 'virtual pet simulator' things.
I use the term loosely, by the way. My Little Monster isn't exactly what you would call a Tamagotchi, though the simplicity of the gameplay here is definitely on the same level. At the beginning of every in-game day, you'll be given the opportunity to decide whether you want to purchase new hats, upgrade one of your three skills or improve various statistics. This, in turn, is accomplished by spending the currency you earn from your daily fights.
There’s nothing more frustrating than a game that has good core gameplay that is ruined by missteps and issues in all the other game elements. Such is the case with DvO [$1.99 / HD], a castle defense game that’s heavy on the gameplay depth, but falters in its visuals and slow execution.
DvO (a.k.a. Dwarves vs. Orcs) plays very much like a classic castle defense title. Players send units down five battle lanes taking down the resistance until they reach the opposing castle (with the enemy doing the same to you, obviously). The side that takes down the opposing castle first wins the match. Littered throughout the lanes are crystal patches, which must be mined by your mining units and are used as the currency necessary to build supplemental units.
To steal a line from Jon Irwin, "The platforming genre, once dominant, has now been relegated to counterprogramming." Which is to say that the two-dimensional platformer has overtaken, like kudzu, much of the niche and indie landscape that isn't dominated by games that involve shooting things in the face. For mobile gaming, that idea is more or less maintained if you swap face-shooting for physics-puzzling or colored-block-sliding. But that kind of reductive generalization doesn't leave room for nuance, and nuance is exactly what you need to talk about Terra Noctis.
At first blush, Terra Noctis [$.99] seems pretty derivative: the pits are inexplicably endless, the physics are rudimentary, and the enemies -- pumped in straight from the Mushroom Kingdom -- die if something lands on their heads. Even the narrative introduction seems particularly on the nose: Allen is a nightmare who isn't scary enough to pass his monster exams. Desperate, he sneaks out of school to find a way to get scarier. The idea is never revisited.
Breakout-style games can be tough to create. On one hand, their relative simplicity and timelessness offer gameplay that can be considered universally accessible. On the other hand, this simplicity challenges developers to incorporate new gameplay elements to avoid being classified as stale or boring. This is the exact problem with Transformoid [$0.99], the latest in a long line of Breakout clones. While the steampunk-inspired game does offer a different take on some standard elements, in the end there’s simply not enough to overcome what is otherwise a somewhat boring take on the genre.
As far as core gameplay is concerned, Transformoid stays very close to its roots. The game places you and your paddle at the bottom of the screen versus the blocks up top; there are no barriers or enemies looking to destroy your paddle or any other twists in the formula. In this regard, Transformoid doesn’t offer anything unique or innovated, although it does offer plenty of levels to play in, along with elements that seek to separate itself from the competition, particularly when it comes to physics manipulation.
I have a little confession to make: I'm directionally challenged. I know exactly where everything is, but ask me whether you turn right or left to get there and I'll give you the correct answer about half the time. Not bad for a 50/50 chance, right? Because of this deficiency, Aetherium II [$0.99] has become my new nemesis. I know where I'm going, and I just need to tap one side of the screen or the other to get there, but somehow I still end up smashing into a wall most of the time.
I'll not hold that against the game. My failings aren't its failings, though it has several of its own. But man, if you like Snake, there are 100 levels here that will light up all the same bits of your brain, and four modes on top of that to boot.
Although every mode in Aetherium II plays with direction, there are three very different ways to play. You've got the main mode (and by far the best), Avoid the Edges, three different Maze modes and First Person, which is quirkier than it is successful.
By the time you read this, my big problem with Letris 2 [Free] might be resolved. That's the beauty of modern gaming: what is broken can be fixed. But indulge me for a second before I get to the good stuff (and there is quite a bit of good stuff to be found in this freemium title): Letris 2 uses what might be the worst dictionary I've had the pleasure of bashing my head against.
Ivanovich Games has already assured us there is an update coming in that adds 25,000 words players have submitted. That leaves a question, though - why were at least 25,000 words left out in the first place? Worse, how is it that the game accepts every common curse and racial slur I tried, a smattering of proper nouns, and at least a few non-English words in their place? The dictionary is the backbone of any word game, and this one is more than a little fractured. Let's hope the update fixes it, because aside from that one glaring issue there's a lot to like in Letris 2.
Flight Control Rocket [$.99] is beautiful. The art is pyrotechnic: the groovy colors are sharp and detailed, betraying no fuzz, gloom, or jagged edges on the new iPad. Even the menus have flair. Created intricately to reflect the swinging sci-fi themes that the rest of the game is so gleefully entrenched in, they're a pleasure to plumb. The on-screen antics feel just as good, as Firemint has iterated on the core design in really fresh ways. But, it's a shame that all of this is wrapped in the stench of corporate influence. Some of the most interesting additions to the core play model are rendered meaningless courtesy clumsily handled free-to-play functionality.
