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Freebie Friday & Game Sales: 'Earth Vs Moon', 'Transformers', Gameloft Games & Others

Eli Hodapp — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:03:04 +0000

I'm still kind of stunned it's already Friday, after GDC madness last week and playing catch up this week I'm not even sure where all the time went. Regardless, we missed our sales and freebies post this week, so I've dug up an extra helping of freebies in attempt to make amends this week. As always, the standard iTunes price change disclaimer is in effect. These prices are all current as of Friday afternoon, but due to the nature of the App Store are subject to change at any time. If you've got your eye on one or more of these games, you're probably better off grabbing them ASAP.

Earth Vs Moon, 99¢ → FREE

Quite possibly one of the best missile command spinoffs on the App Store, we loved Earth Vs Moon in our review, and since then it has only gotten better with updates. This one has been free for a few days now, and likely will return to normal price any time now, so grab it while you still can… And if you miss the free promotion, it's still totally worth a buck if you haven't heard of it before.

Other notable freebies include:

As far as game sales are concerned, a few Gameloft games were recently dropped to 99¢. I've had a good time playing through all of these, so if you don't own them yet, I can think of worse ways to spend $5:

And of course, there are a ton of other games with recent price drops:

There are many other games with recent price changes, and you can see a listing of popular games and all games on sale over on AppShopper. Stay tuned for more freebies and sales next week, same bat time, same bat channel.

Friday Game Sales: Tons of Freebies, 'Cobra Command', and Most Square Enix Games on Sale

Eli Hodapp — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:54:35 +0000

Hey what do you know it's Friday and once again we've got a huge list of games that are on sale and free. As usual, because of the nature of iTunes pricing, these can change at any time. All prices are current as of this posting, but if you've had your eye on any of these games you're better off not waiting around because you never know when they'll return to normal price.

One game you should really check out while it's on sale is Revolutionary Concepts' Cobra Command [$4.99 → $1.99], especially if you've never played an old laserdisc game. We enjoyed the game in our review and even included it in our year end listing of best retro games.

There's also a free version of the game and to celebrate their one year anniversary, Revolutionary Concepts is also making the two games developed by their sister studio Collect3 free as well: SNAP! and Animal SNAP!.

To promote the launch of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II, Square Enix dropped the price of most of their other games. They haven't drastically slashed prices, but if you've been looking to pick up some of these games, Square Enix sales are fairly rare:

And of course there is a whole bunch of freebies:

AirBear, 99¢ → FREE
Compression, 99¢ → FREE
Kachina, $1.99 → FREE
Rasta Monkey!, 99¢ → FREE
Sky Force Reloaded, $1.99 → FREE
Vector Tanks (Classic Version), 99¢ → FREE

TONS of great games are on sale this week, this is just my pick of games we've covered that have had price drops:

And while we haven't given The Quest series much love here on TouchArcade, I know quite a few people who absolutely love these old school style 3D RPG's.

The Quest Gold, The Quest, and all the expansions are on sale:

The Quest Gold, $9.99 → $5.99

This is just a small selection of games with recent price changes. For the full list, check out AppShopper where you can find all games and popular games with recent price drops.

Freebie Friday: 'FaceFighter', 'Sentinel' and More – 'Space Miner' and Others On Sale

Eli Hodapp — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:58:44 +0000

It's that time of the week again, and the only thing that can make Friday even better is lots and lots of free or cheap games. This week oddly enough is absolutely loaded with great freebies. As usual, the standard iTunes price change disclaimer applies in that the prices listed here are current as the time of this posting, but are subject to change at any time. If you want any of these games (especially the freebies), grab them now.

FaceFighter, $1.99 → FREE

Appy Entertainment's crazy fighting game allows players to either snap a photo or import one from the photo library of someone's face. Whether that's your wife, Neil Patrick Harris, or your cat, the game doesn't care. After that, you're able to fight your new opponent in game. As you pummel them to death, FaceFighter overlays black eyes, a broken nose, swollen lips, and other things on top of their face to indicate the damage you're inflicting.

Sentinel: Mars Defense, 99¢ → FREE

Still one of my favorite tower defense games, Sentinel has everything you'd expect out of a good tower defender. Give this one a spin and if you like it, you'll love the sequel, Sentinel 2: Earth Defense [$2.99], even more.

Other free games worth checking out include:

Space Miner: Space Ore Bust, $4.99 → $1.99

Venan Entertainment's Space Miner is absolutely amazing. Great controls and graphics combine with a fun Asteroids-like core gameplay element that is all wrapped in the wacky Space Miner universe loaded with ship upgrades that will keep you playing until your battery is dead. We absolutely loved the game in our review and since the price drop the game has been rocketing up the top app charts. You don't want to miss this sale.

Other rad games worth picking up that all saw recent price drops include:

Of course this is just a small selection of the games on sale this week. For a full listing, head over to AppShopper where you can see a listing of all games as well as all popular games with recent price changes.

Freebies: 'Alchemize', 'Navy Patrol: Coastal Defense', and 'Textropolis'

Eli Hodapp — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:53:06 +0000

Free games are almost as awesome as free samples at the grocery store, or maybe more awesome depending on how you look at it. Three cool games are free today, and like most price changes, they will only be free for a short period of time so it's best not to wait before downloading these games.

Alchemize, $2.99 → FREE

Alchemize looks to be a simple match 3, but the gameplay is actually quite complex with all kinds of things to unlock, different game modes, and other surprises. We liked the game in our review, and it's really worth checking out to see how they managed to mix up the match 3 formula.

Navy Patrol: Coastal Defense Advanced, $4.99 → FREE

While I wasn't really crazy about this naval tower defense game when it was first released, it has since been updated a ton with all kinds new content, gameplay tweaks, achievements, and OpenFeint integration with online leaderboards.

Textropolis, $1.99 → FREE

Where most word finding games have you frantically searching for words to beat a timer, Textropolis has much more laid back gameplay that allows players to search for words made from the letters found in the names of 30 different included cities at their own pace. If you like Textropolis, check out the sequel, Fishtropolis [$1.99] as well.

Weekend Game Sales: 'Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars', Namco Games, and Others

Eli Hodapp — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:15:41 +0000

It's time to head off to the nearest Coinstar machine to turn the treasures lost to your couch cushions in to iTunes credit, as this week has some sales you likely won't want to miss. As usual, all of these prices are current as of this posting and because of the nature of App Store price fluctuations it's usually not a good idea to wait very long if any of these games interest you.

The star of the show this week is Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, a game that we not only loved in our review but also awarded 5 stars in our January "Best iPhone Games" round up. For a limited time to celebrate the Chinese new year, Chinatown Wars will be available for $6.99, down from its original $9.99. If you haven't bought this game yet, this is a sale you won't want to miss.

There are also a ton of Namco games on sale:

Other noteworthy game sales include:

Of course as usual there are a ton of other games on sale, to see other games with recent price changes, AppShopper has listings of both "popular" games with recent price changes and all games with recent price changes.

Freebie Friday: 'Lion Pride'

Eli Hodapp — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:00:32 +0000

What do you get when you cross line drawing with a pack of hungry lions? Lion Pride [App Store], of course. As OpenFeint's free game of the day, you really don't want to miss this strange warthog munching simulator.

From our review:

The premise of the game is simple, you control a pack of lions and need to gather food for the rest of your pride. Thankfully, in this corner of the African savanna there seems to be a constant stream of warthogs, gazelles, and other beasts to munch on. Similar to Draw Race, you control the speed of the lions by how fast you draw lines from them on screen. Sneaking up on animals is important to keep them from running off, so you start by moving your lions slowly, then quickly go in for the kill. If something starts to get away, tapping twice on them will briefly stun them.

As you get further in to the game, you get more lions to control and tougher prey which needs to be attacked by multiple lions in order to be brought down. Lions need to be positioned to work as a team to all strike at once, and if any wandering hyenas come on screen they need to be scared off to prevent them from disrupting your food supply.

I really liked Lion Pride when we first took a look at it, and since then they've added additional game modes and all kinds of OpenFeint functionality to give the game tons of replay value through achievements and friends challenges. There's even fun facts about lions in game, how can you go wrong?

App Store Link: Lion Pride, Free (Today only.)

'Spring Fling' Free Today

Eli Hodapp — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:00:35 +0000

GTProductions, creators of the recently released 24 hour TouchArcade forum powered code fest, Super Ramen BROTHers is giving away their first iPhone game away for free today. Spring Fling [App Store] is a jumping game with a similar play style to Doodle Jump, but with the physics of a bouncing spring.

From our review:

GTProduction's Spring Fling is a jump-up-the-platform-wall game where you take on the role of a spring. Being a spring, it's not just a matter of tap to jump straight upward — you can compress the string and set the angle of your jump by way of a tap and drag mechanic. And the integrated PhysX engine makes the experience rather convincing. Choose an angle to shallow or severe and it's a platform miss with a plummet to your end.

Each jump uses up a supply of Power that doesn't get recharged until the next checkpoint. So, the game is a more deliberate physics/power management game than the fast paced action of other platform jumping titles.

Along the way rockets, balloons, parachutes, and pogo sticks help you scale the wall. The game includes five different worlds, some static and some downward scrolling. And achievements, online leaderboards, and Facebook / Twitter integration provide incentive to reach the highest height.

Spring Fling is free for a limited time, so if you're as much of a fan of these endless jumping games as we are, don't waste any time downloading this one.

App Store Link: SpringFling, Free (Today Only)

Free Today: The Original 'Air Hockey'

Eli Hodapp — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:00:16 +0000

Acceleroto's Air Hockey [App Store] is one of the early classics in iPhone gaming. Released in August of 2008, the game has been regularly updated with different features and additions such as peer to peer bluetooth multiplayer and OpenFeint integration.

Aside from peer to peer bluetooth multiplayer, Air Hockey can also be played against another person using one device or by facing an AI opponent with several different difficulty levels.

Air Hockey has been featured several times by Apple, including being listed in the iTunes "Best of 2008". On top of that, the game was the #1 paid app on the App Store, and has won many other rewards from various media outlets. In other words, there is absolutely no reason for you to not drop whatever you're doing and download this game.

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, if you're in to following iPhone developers on Twitter, Acceleroto developer Brian Duke is responsible for one of the more interesting Twitter feeds that I follow.

Acceleroto's other game, Occurro! [App Store] is also worth a look, especially if you like space shooters. We really enjoyed the game in our review.

App Store Link: Air Hockey, Free (For today only.)

Freebie Friday: 'Alien Glyphs' and 'Buster Red'

Eli Hodapp — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:45:26 +0000

While the haul this week is nowhere near as grand as it was during the holidays when everything was going free, we found two games that are both worth downloading, each free for a limited time.

Alien Glyphs – A fun pattern matching game that we enjoyed in our review that has seen several updates since the including adding both WiFi and bluetooth multiplayer.

The game begins with a board of symbols. At set intervals, a new symbol slides into the top of the screen and your job is to match it with one of the symbols found on the board. Tap off a symbol and the top symbol is eliminated. Another symbol takes its place and so on. If you take too long to match up the symbol, however, the timer will run out and another symbol will appear. Take even longer and the row of symbols will fill eventually up and you lose a life. Three levels of difficulty (Easy, Medium, and Hard) should provide plenty of challenge.

Alien Glyphs tries to spice it up with Power-Ups, Power-Downs, that can be triggered or deactivated by matching quickly enough. However, I found myself too busy looking for matches to really register their presence. The game also offers multiple different skins for the glyphs if the neon red isn't to your liking.

Buster Red – A vertical shooter that is spiced up with a combo system and OpenFeint leaderboards. The game tracks the number of enemy deaths you're able to string together as well as overall score to submit online.

Similar to quite a few vertical shooters on the platform, you steer your ship around with your finger, which can obstruct your view at times. Still, Buster Red is pretty awesome for a free game and you don't have to play it for long before your screen is chock full of laser beams, bullets, and bosses.

CES 2010: 'Gunman' – A Free (For a Limited Time) iPhone-Only Camera Game

Eli Hodapp — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:33:41 +0000

Aside from the Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter, we haven't come across much noteworthy in the world of iPhone gaming at CES– Everyone is far too busy looking at tablet computers being shown and speculating as to which is likely going to be the closest to Apple's tablet. That doesn't mean people at CES aren't playing iPhone games.

The developers behind Gunman [App Store], a camera-based shooter game, are currently running a contest encouraging people to get involved in Gunman battles at CES– And if the Twitter activity is any indication, quite a few people are. While this contest is largely irrelevant to those of us who aren't at CES, one great thing came out of it: Gunman is free for the duration of the convention.

Gunman makes use of the iPhone's camera to create a real-world multiplayer game similar to laser tag. By connecting to a WiFi network, players join a game then "shoot" each other by taking photos using the phone's camera. If you're running the latest iPhone OS, you can even zoom in as if you were using a sniper scope. Each player is tracked by the color of their shirt, and in my testing of the game I found the color recognition to be shockingly good.

The game comes with a few caveats of course. Large multiplayer games require WiFi, everyone must be wearing a different color shirt, and needless to say, until an iPod touch with a camera materializes you need an iPhone to play. Still, if you can round up a few friends all willing to wear different colored shirts that have iPhones in an area blanketed by WiFi, and don't mind people wondering what in the world you're doing running around pretending to shoot people with your phone, Gunman looks to be a lot of fun.

App Store Link: Gunman, Free (For a limited time.)