This massive bundle of Wednesday release bundles has so many awesome games in it that I’m just going to order them alphabetically since I’m not even sure which game I’d want to list first if I were ordering them in order of which I want to play first. I think I want to play Bumpy Road the most, which works out well, because it’s also first when sorting these games alphabetically!
If this is your first Wednesday as an iOS gamer, here’s how this all works: Developers can either set their games and apps to be released the moment they’re approved by Apple, or they can set a future release date. Since the App Store is a global market, games with a release date of 5/19 are released first in the first place in the world where it’s the 19th. In this case, that’s the New Zealand App Store. All of these games will slowly be available as it becomes the 19th in your area of the world, or, if you’re in the USA, 11:00 PM Eastern tonight.
Bumpy Road, $2.99 – Forum Thread – Every now and again a developer comes along with gameplay that centralizes around a control method that makes you say to yourself, “Why didn’t someone think of this before?" Bumpy Road is a platformer of sorts that is controlled by touching the screen which manipulates the ground which, as the title suggests, creates a bumpy road for a car to travel down. By creating these bumps, you’re able to make the car bounce to other platforms. It looks really clever, and I can’t wait to give it a try. Oh, and to make things better, it’s even universal.
Candy Train, Free – Forum Thread – What’s better than a PopCap game? How about a free PopCap game? Candy Train seems to have similar gameplay to a lot of other train routing games on the App Store, but if there’s anything PopCap is good at, it’s taking established gameplay and making it impossible to put down with a thick payer of… PopCap magic. PopCap has had such a great track record of awesomely fun games that I’d blindly download this game even if it weren’t free.
Casey’s Contraptions for iPad, $2.99 – Forum Thread – I’ve been anxiously anticipating this game since we first got a look at it at GDC. Since then, it’s been a difficult wait as my Twitter feed has been filled with horribly teasing tweets from beta testers. Casey’s Contraptions is a cartoony physics puzzle game that asks you to complete various puzzles with elaborate Rube Goldberg contraptions. Aside from a level creator, you can also see how your friends solved puzzles, as there doesn’t seem to be a single solution for any of the included 70 levels.
CHAOS RINGS Ω, $11.99 / HD – Forum Thread – Square Enix’s continuation of the iOS-exclusive game Chaos Rings. Aside from the irritating to type “Ω" character in the title, Chaos Rings Ω also comes packed with a whole new story which actually takes place 10,000 years before the previous game. Squeenix has a whole array of updates planned too, which are all outlined in the iTunes text. 7 monthly updates are scheduled, most of which add a “secret boss" and up the level cap.
Draw Jump, 99¢ / HD – Forum Thread – A jumping game by EA, which according to the iTunes description, is totally green. Instead of your character being powered by fossil fuels, he’s apparently completely carbon neutral since he jumps using trampolines that you draw on screen. It seems like a weird angle, but I can still sink a stupid amount of time into jumping games.
Ink Ball, 99¢ – Forum Thread – The art style of this puzzle game is really cool, and I can’t wait to see it in motion. Gameplay revolves around funneling the ink on screen back into a inkwell. It seems like you’re able to draw lines on screen to modify the flow of ink on screen, and doing well involves using as few of these as possible.
iQuarterback 2, Free – Forum Thread – A free game that revolves around tossing footballs, as you might have guessed from the game’s title. By earning fame in-game you can unlock a ridiculous amount of things ranging from items for your character all the way to full stadiums. A bunch of different game modes are included too.
Kung Fu Panda 2: Be The Master, 99¢ – Forum Thread – So what do you do if you’ve got what will likely be a mediocre sequel to a movie and you want to release a mobile game based on it? Apparently incorporate both Fruit Ninja and Mega Jump. Two shockingly familiar mini-games are included in the initial release, and it looks like two more will be coming with updates. I wonder what Jack Black thinks of all this.
Orions 2: The Deckmasters $2.99 / Lite – Forum Thread – The sequel to the original Orions is here. The first game had a considerable following on our forums, and it will be interesting to see how much of that transfers over since as many thought a significant amount of the changes and additions in the sequel were going to be updates to the initial game. Regardless, Orions 2 is a similar card-based battle game. There’s full online multiplayer, hundreds of cards, and even a full single player campaign.
Storm in a Teacup, 99¢ – Forum Thread – Sure, there might be a lot of platformers on the App Store, but how many of them have you piloting a magical teacup around? None that I can think of! I’m digging the art style of this game, I just hope it controls well.
TNA Wrestling iMPACT, $4.99 – Forum Thread – To say that wrestling games on the App Store haven’t been that great would be a bit of an understatement, but there’s always time to turn things around, and TNA Wrestling iMPACT could be the wrestling game that fans have been craving. It’s got the ability to create your own wrestler, and then enter a career mode with that wrestler… but why would you do that when you can just play as Hulk Hogan doing these crazy kicks like the above screenshot!?
