While tower defense is one of those genres that I can't seem to get enough of, even I have to admit that it's high-time for some innovation. Enter Go Home Dinosaurs [$4.99 (HD)], the latest title from Fire Hose Games and a TD game that looks to carve its own niche.
While a first glance might lead one to believe its primarily for kids, beneath the playful, cartoony exterior lies a game that expertly combines tower defense with puzzle elements, making it one of my current favorites of the genre.
Apparently the love for BBQ is so great it extends across time periods and species. As such, Dinosaurs puts you in command of an army of gophers that must guard their delectable BBQ pit against an onslaught of hungry dinosaurs.
When it comes to basic tower defense gameplay, Go Home Dinosaurs plays similar to many other titles. Dinosaurs run down a pre-set path towards the BBQ pit with two pieces of dynamite acting as last-second defenses against impending BBQ devouring. Meanwhile, players place a variety of gopher-manned weapons around the path in an attempt to drive the dinos towards extinction. A coin system rounds out the gameplay, allowing players to earn currency in-game (no IAPs) and purchase supplemental towers with limited, but powerful effects.
Few recent tactical strategy games have received such a large amount of attention as Frozen Synapse [$6.99 (HD)]. It has been praised for both its art style and excellent strategy gameplay. Starting on PC and Mac it has now found its way to iOS. While initially overwhelming with a busy interface and lengthy tutorial, Frozen Synapse is able to find a totally appropriate home on iOS.
In Frozen Synapse you take on the role of a tactician. Your task is direct a team of soldiers second by second. They can be ordered to move behind cover, fire a weapon, and many other options. Once all players have decided on the directions for their teams, the actions are carried out simultaneously. It calls to mind the X-wing Miniatures game as your success is based upon the ability to read the other player. Will they take cover or launch an offensive? In some modes of the game you are also locked into seeing only those enemies in your line of sight, which can be challenging. Beware, your sci-fi soldiers are very fragile and a single misstep can mean instant death. Matches usually last only a few rounds as players bluff and bait each other.
There are a myriad of ways to enjoy this title whether alone or with others. There is a fully functional AI in the game which can allow for quick matches. This little buddy is no pushover; you will die often. It is no wonder the developers recommend this mode as the best teacher after finishing the tutorial. The game also features an excellent campaign mode with a story spanning several levels. These range from straightforward skirmishes to  more complex missions of capture or defense. It is the gameplay that stands out, but the story certainly has its strong points.
Frozen Synapse really shines when playing with others. The online play features a separate login and a full blown PC-esque lobby. There are always plenty of people online and games can be completed live or in an asynchronous fashion. You can play with friends, complete strangers, or participate in tournaments. It really is a full fledged online system, the likes of which is rarely seen on iOS. This version also features Hotseat mode which is great for mobile as you can pass the iPad around a room and play with your friends in one location. If you find online play too insular or intimidating, this is an excellent way to play with friends on your terms.
This game comes packed with many hours of content- The campaign will take you some time to complete and then there are untold hours of play both online and off. There are dozens of maps, different unit types, several game modes, and on and on. I was impressed by the amount of things to do. Frozen Synapse is an exercise in complex simplicity. On the service the controls are simple taps and turns, but to really succeed it will require practice. This process can be terribly rewarding, and even games you struggle in will end quickly.
It is this hidden complexity that provides some challenges for this app. The number of choices available to you at any moment make the interface large and somewhat confusing. To really succeed at the game you will have to learn all of these options and know when best to ask them. For a new player they can look downright baffling and it would be great to see a more interactive tutorial that guides a player through step by step. This UI difficulty is paired with the games overall menu system which has a decidedly PC feeling. There are cases of strange pop-up issues and overlays that seem traditional reserved to the wild world of PC gaming. While the gameplay fits perfectly on iOS, the surrounding menus seem to miss the boat.
Frozen Synapse succeeds at bringing a beloved PC game to iOS. It is fiercely faithful in bringing the whole experience to mobile which has its own pros (tons of content, great online experience) and cons (archaic menu system, hard to manage UI). This is a great strategy title which is enjoyable on many levels. There is complexity there if you want it or you can stay on the surface and have a great tactical experience.
A tiny world unfurls across your iPhone screen: the surface of a tranquil pond, where water beetles swim about, tadpoles wriggle to and fro, and turtles laze atop drifting waterlilies. But do not be deceived, beneath this soothing surface lies a cruel, Darwinian realm, where you must guide the tastiest of the Tasty Tadpoles [$0.99] as he attempts to eek out an existence.
As a game, Tasty Tadpoles places itself firmly in the realm of the sort of one-touch controlled mobile experience first imagined in Angry Birds. You've seen this before: the cute cartoony characters, the colorful visuals, and those three stars to collect each level. . . So, after slinging birds for them, cutting ropes for them, filling buckets with water for them–is this latest three star scavenger hunt worth your time? In a word: yes.
In Tasty Tadpoles, you must guide your intrepid little amphibian to the pond's exit, dodging predators and collecting stars along the way. The game is played in portrait mode, with the entirety of the level displayed on your screen (though some later levels will buck this trend). A single screen tap will send your tadpole darting on his way, or by dragging your finger you can create a more complex path. The stars must be collected sequentially, and only after grabbing each one will the next one's location reveal itself.
The setting and characters in Murder Files (formerly Blue Toad Murder Files) [$2.99] are bursting at the seams with English flavour, so when I first heard about the game, I wondered if it would have a similar feel to the Sherlock Holmes stories I've loved since I was a kid. Nope; not at all. Once I started playing, however, I found it to be very reminiscent of another, completely different style of detective story I also enjoyed in my earlier years. I remember devouring the type of books where a couple neighborhood whiz-kids on summer vacation would decide to start an amateur detective agency. During their search for, say, old Mrs. Johnson's missing cat, they'd uncover million dollar jewel heist or some such, foil the culprit, and maybe even make the front page of the school newspaper.
The recent iOS port of Murder Files--originally released for the Playstation 3 in 2009--features that same sort of fanciful storytelling and over-the-top mysteries. Despite the alarming body count that accumulates as the story progresses, the game maintains a lighthearted and cartoonish feel. You play as one of four detectives (including, appropriately, two whiz-kids on summer vacation) from the Blue Toad Detective Agency, sent to the small town of Little Riddle for some R&R between cases. But before you can even unpack your bags, you witness the cold blooded murder of one of the town's prominent citizens. A conspiracy unfolds, and you must put your sleuthing skills to work to unravel the mystery.
Firaxis is best known for their excellent strategy game work on PC and consoles. At PAX East they announced their ambition to take the iOS world by storm with the release  of XCOM: Enemy Unknown this summer. With much less fanfare comes Haunted Hollow, a sleepy, unassuming little turn-based strategy title. Behind its chibi-monsters and freemium veneer, Haunted Hollow [Free] is a digital board game that successfully marries the accessible strategy pedigree of its creators with the realities of iOS (pricing and playtime).
Your Victorian mansion sits atop a rise overlooking a small village. Heir of untold funds from wealthy ancestors you spend your time creating monsters to scare the villagers below. But what is that, another mad scientist on the neighboring bluff? In Haunted Hollow you are competing with a fellow monster maker to be the first to haunt every home in the village. To do this you will need to build up your mansion room by room and then summon monsters to do your bidding. Monsters like ghosts focus on scaring homes while those like the werewolf are used to fight other monsters.
Kingturn RPG [Free] ain't a looker. That was my first reaction to the game, as I suspect it will be yours. But for fans of tactics style turn-based RPGs such as myself, pickings are slim on iOS, so I gave the game a shot. I'm glad I did. Underneath the hood of this old beater lies a beautiful, well-oiled machine, and it won't cost you a penny to take a look for yourself.
For those not in the know, tactics games are a subgenre of turn-based RPGs, first brought to the mainstream by Final Fantasy Tactics (which itself has an iOS port). Tactics games see you leading a small host of heroes over a battlefield in turn-based combat against an opponent. They differ from typical RPGs in that a good deal of the strategy deals with the positioning of you and your opponent's soldiers, a bit like pieces on a chessboard.
Being a good tactician requires patience, but the dearth of tactics titles on iOS would test the patience of even the mighty Sun Tzu. Into that void comes Kingturn, a tactics title to its core. The prologue campaign is free, with the full campaign unlocked as a $4.99 IAP. Kingturn's gameplay owes much to its predecessor, Final Fantasy Tactics, but from the start the game begins to stake its own territory. The first thing you will notice is that this game is not merely challenging, but hard. Kingturn will try the skills of even veteran strategy gamers. Beyond the game's refreshing difficulty, Developers Mangobile have also brought some truly innovative gameplay elements to the table.
While most fans of Square Enix should be rightfully concerned with some of the recentFinal Fantasy mobile offerings, one area competently executed are their ports of preexisting console FF offerings. Final Fantasy V [$15.99], the latest port to grace iOS, thankfully continues the trend of offering improved versions of the classic RPG series. Offering one of the better implementations of the main series’ job system, FFV is a great game in its own right, successfully makes the transition to iOS and should be added to the collection of any nostalgic RPG collector.
Originally released in 1992, Final Fantasy V wouldn’t grace the US until its inclusion in the PSX Fantasy Fantasy Anthology in 1999 (and wouldn’t see a mobile release until the 2006 GBA Version). It’s a shame that US FF fans had to wait so long, because Final Fantasy V was a pretty good entry in the series. The overall story, which centered on a sealed evil looking to destroy the elemental crystals holding its bond in place, features a lot of themes and character development that would be utilized in later entries in the series.
There’re a lot of folks that have probably played FFV in some previous iteration and are wondering what the differences are between this iOS version and previous ones. Content-wise, FFV for iOS features the same additions as found in the GBA version. This means that players will find an additional end-game dungeon as well as four extra job classes that weren't in the original. While the additional content is purely optional, the additional job classes add some variety for players that haven't experienced the GBA remake.
The one area that does change significantly in this iOS port is the art style. Instead of using the classic, highly pixelated models of the original, FFV on iOS has a very smoothed art style, with the game looking closer to the recently released Final Fantasy Dimensions. In addition, the game features more artwork from original artist Yoshitaka Amano at a much higher resolution than previous versions. While I welcome the additional Amano art, I'm on the fence about the rest of the visual improvements. There's a lot of nostalgia and charm lost in the move away from the pixel graphics and the current look feels a little bland.
The rest of the additions, meanwhile, are positive in my book. The music, which is classic Nobuo Uematsu, has been remastered beyond the chiptunes of old but still retains everything that made the original soundtrack great. FFV for iOS also includes an auto-battle mode, which speeds up the wait time between turns and automatically uses the previous commands issued for every character. This one little addition does a lot towards speeding up the grind, which is always a concern with these early RPGs. Little additions such as the ability to pinch-zoom the in-game map are also nice touches.
It's always hard to review these classic FF titles on iOS because they're always essentially ports of ports of the originals. Just as was the case with the previously released iOS ports, Final Fantasy V is a no-brainer if you're an RPG fan and have not had the pleasure of playing it. The story, job system, and classic Final Fantasy gameplay are strong in this title and showcase the golden age of  Squaresoft 16-bit RPGs.
At the same time, the changes to the visual engine and minor gameplay tweaks probably aren't enough to justify a purchase for fans that have already completed the game (especially on GBA). Although, there's still enough nostalgic appeal that odds are you'll probably buy it anyways.
There's no escaping it: multiplayer on a single iPad is pretty much always a full contact sport. It's all hands and fingers everywhere, ducking and dodging to see under and around your opponent and clear to your goal. You can try to fight it, to keep everything very organized so everyone stays in their respective corners. Or you can embrace it, as Alistair Aitcheson has with Slamjet Stadium [$2.99 (HD) / Free (HD)]
Slamjet Stadium is pretty chaotic in its Solo mode, in that crazy future bloodsport sort of way. Playing bumper cars with a soccer ball, more or less. Then you add a second player on the same screen, and things get downright aggressive. This is a game that encourages players to steal their opponents' units if it helps. Anything goes, though you really ought to stop before your opponent gets physical. It's probably not supposed to be that sort of bloodsport.
Each player (or team) controls two units, slingshotting them to try to get a small ball into the other team's goal. The stadiums are claustrophobic. Four bumper car-style units is a crowd, and anything more would be impossible. Half the battle is avoiding your own goal, and the rest is making the best of the arena.
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.
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.
As both a lover of retro 1950s sci-fi design and an enthusiast of gaming history, it was inevitable that Rocket Patrol [Free (HD)] would snare my attention in its tractor beam. This recent, iPad-only release by GRL Games is a descendant of the classic card games Touring (1906) and the French-designed Mille Bornes (1954). Those games took two players on a head-to-head, cross-country automobile race, avoiding fender benders and flat tires along the way. Rocket Patrol trades wheels for warp drives, taking that competition into the final frontier.
It's not a terribly complex game, nor does it claim to be. Games are short, and (aided by a few brief tutorial screens) most new players should have a good grasp of the basics by the end of their first single-player match. Even the game's subtler strategic possibilities will become clear to attentive players after just a handful of games.
The Rocket Patrol deck is comprised of three basic card types. Numbered light year cards are the fuel that propels your ship forward a set distance, in increments of 5, 15, 25, and 100 light years. Red hazard cards, depicting events such as engine fires and asteroid fields, can be played offensively to stall your opponent. Green repair cards--star maps, space stations, etc.--overcome a specific type of hazard when played, allowing your own stalled ship to resume its course toward victory.
Away from the heart. You have to bounce the ninjas—no, punch them—away from the heart, not toward it. Indiscriminate punching isn't good enough. "Defend Heart!" they said. You had one job, and you failed by scoring on your own goal, punching some guy right into your own vulnerable heart. There might be a metaphor there.
In Jared Bailey'sFist Face Fight [Free], you're a disembodied fist. A disembodied fist with feet, that is, fighting face ninjas with feet of their own. They aren't particularly malicious ninjas. They're probably just going about their days. But your heart is right there, exposed, helpless. So you punch, because that's the only way to keep it safe.
You begin as any child starting karate class might, with a white belt. In the distance is your goal, the coveted black belt. Between you and it are quite a few ninjas and no shortage of punches. Each belt is functionally a level. White is easy - the ninjas will hardly have a chance as you tap them in their expressionless faces. Each time you earn enough coins to unlock a new belt the ninjas you have to fight get more dangerous. They'll take two hits, three, nine. They slip in and out of reality. Things start to get chancy.
Blendoku [Free] is a game you might not immediately recognize as such. I didn't. Where, I wondered, is the challenge in lining up five colours according to hue? You put the darkest blue on the right side, the lightest blue on the left, and fill the rest with shades in between. A color theory exercise, perhaps, but a game?
That rather exclusionary point of view stuck with me until I took myself out of the lowest difficulty tier and into the next one up. Now I had to do the same thing - arrange the hues between dark and light blue, but in between there were a few shades of brown, a yellow, and a couple colors that looked distinctly purple. In the middle of all that was a small vertical section, and the hues needed to work in that direction too. Now it took thought and experimentation. Now I could see the game of it all.
Many of Blendoku's levels can be handled intuitively if you have half a grasp on how color works. You'll get through them in the few seconds it takes to drag the square color samples from the palette above to the play field below. It's okay that they're quick, though. There are 475 of them, all for free. 75 are complex enough that they're only really playable on a tablet, but even so: 400 levels ranging from dead simple to mind-breaking. Pretty good, no?
Halfbrick's games usually grab me immediately. Jetpack Joyride [Free] was the cave flier of my dreams, Fruit Ninja [$0.99] devoured my high-score hunting hours. I didn't immediately latch on to Fish Out of Water [$0.99], though. It doesn't have the same obvious hooks—the shiny coins and the upgrades that keep you hitting that play button over and over. Heck, it doesn't even have a typical high score system.
That initial ambivalence gave way after I spent a bit more time with the game. What seemed painfully simple at first—skipping fish over the water as far as possible—began to show off some of its hidden depth. You can get by without paying any mind to the different qualities of the fish that star in Fish Out of Water, and you can ignore the weather as an oddity. It just wouldn't be very much fun.
Without those things, Fish Out of Water is a quick, simple game. You pick a fish, fling it upwards and outwards, and watch as it skips across the water and eventually plunges beneath the surface. Once you do that three times a panel of crabs pops in, judges you on your performance on a rank out of 10, and takes off to let you start again.
Being a stealth assassin sounds like the coolest job ever. Hunkering down in the shadows, sneaking up on your target, and quietly handling your business – all without making a peep or being noticed by anyone. While it sounds cool on paper, I could never actually handle being an assassin in real life. I feel bad even swatting a fly, and I'm clumsy as all get-out. I wouldn't last a second.
Recreating the feeling of being a bad ass assassin through video games is something I'm capable of, though, and series like Metal Gear and Splinter Cell have done a good job over the years at putting players in those shoes. So when I saw an iOS game simply titled Stealth Assassin [$0.99 / Free], where all you do is sneak around and take out marks, I got excited.
And it delivers everything it promises in its name: level after level of assassination jobs, but an inaccurate control scheme has had me pulling my hair out in frustration, not to mention getting myself constantly killed, in what is an otherwise fun game about covert killing.
While tower defense is one of those genres that I can't seem to get enough of, even I have to admit that it's high-time for some innovation. Enter Go Home Dinosaurs [$4.99 (HD)], the latest title from Fire Hose Games and a TD game that looks to carve its own niche.
