Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. Well, the previous week’s relatively slow output sure didn’t carry over, because we’ve got a mountain of cool updates to check out this time. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself using AppShopper Social (Free), the watchlist in the TouchArcade App (Free), or by participating in the TouchArcade forums, but this weekly summary is here to fill in the things you might have missed. Let’s dig in!
Downwell, $2.99 Hey, you! Yes, you with the iPad 3 and/or iPad 4! Have you been gazing longingly at Downwell, only to be met with an odd slow-motion experience when you try to play it? Well, this update should put some pep in your step, friend! By using the game’s new optimized mode, you too can enjoy one of the finest games of 2015 without having to shuffle over to your computer. Now that’s something everyone can get behind!
Out There: Ω Edition, $4.99 Alternatively, if you’ve liked everything you’ve heard about Out There but haven’t been able to get around its somewhat punishing difficulty level, you’ll be interested in the easy difficulty setting added in its latest update. This version also adds the Cemetery Gates mode, where you can find the ships you lost in previous failed attempts. That’s cool and sort of makes sense.
Pyramid Solitaire Saga, Free Having made a narrow escape from the Apotamkin last time around, Helena and Kingsley now face their ultimate challenge: being wholly-owned property of the Activision Blizzard corporation! Heading to New York’s Central Park, they spot a familiar sight. It’s either the stolen Sarcophagus or the vengeful spirit of Bobby Kotick, but either way, things are about to get scary! 15 new levels of playing solitaire, for those who don’t care about my wild imagination.
Hero Fighter X, Free Friend developers, be really careful how you word your update notes. Hero Fighter X has changed its monetization system from a demo with an IAP to unlock the full game to a free-to-play gem-and-timer laden system with an IAP to remove all that tomfoolery. If you bought the unlock before, nothing will have changed for you, even if you delete and go from a restore purchase. The update does not point this out in its notes, and I think people are worrying the game has pulled a sneaky-sneaky. It has not.
Templar Battleforce Elite, $9.99 There might be flies on some of those guys, but there ain’t no flies on Trese. Templar Battleforce is a great game, and it’s already got its first update from its diligent developers. The list is ridiculous, but highlights include the ability to skip enemy animations to speed up their turns, new equipment art that shows visible differences between pieces, new talents for certain classes, and new Requisition stuff to unlock. If you like strategy games, do yourself a favor and pick this up. This is only the first of what will likely be a billion updates, going by Trese Brothers history, but for being the groundbreaker on this wonderful game, I’m awarding it the coveted Update Mondays Most Spider-Mans Of The Week award. Congratulations!
Rex Rocket: Mobile, $1.99 Rex Rocket is an amazing iPad exploratory action-platformer, a meaty treat for any fan of the genre. The only thing that kept me from giving it the highest possible recommendation when I reviewed it was the game’s reliance on some rather complicated virtual controls. This latest update addresses that problem, at least for those of you with MFi controllers. Yes, the game now supports those controllers so that you can play without having to play Finger Twister. You’ll still have to navigate menus with touch, but hey, we take what we can get, right? With the game being on sale for a single dollar right now, the time’s never been better to pick it up!
Pinball Arcade Plus, $0.99 Pinball Arcade‘s latest update just missed Hallowe’en, but I’m sure its fans won’t care too much. The latest table added to the game as IAP is SEGA Pinball’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a pretty enjoyable table based on the 1995 Robert DeNiro film. Fair warning, this is a pretty challenging table, and was a real coin-sucker back in the day. Farsight had to remove references to SEGA, so that means the fun Sonic cameo is cut, but otherwise, this is a pretty good rendition of the table, right down to the inclusion of the song Frankenstein by the Edgar Winters Group. Be warned, however, that some users are getting some nasty bugs on this update. Color me surprised!
Drive Ahead! - Fun Car Battles, Free This update to the fun two-player racer Drive Ahead! adds two new arenas, a couple of new helmets, and most importantly, randomly-spawning objects. You’ll now have to keep your eyes open for mines, tires, and ramps, and use them to your advantage and your opponent’s disadvantage. Random things are fun! Flying peanut butter turtle!
Beneath The Lighthouse, Free It’s pretty much a tradition by now for Nitrome to slip in a quick update post-release to address some player feedback, and Beneath The Lighthouse is no exception. You can now skip the story opening even on your first playthrough, the UI has seen some improvements, and a few pesky bugs have been smashed into a billion little bug pieces, some of which are sure to end up in that frozen yogurt you’re eating right now. Aw, shucks!
Star Warsâ„¢: Uprising, Free This is a pretty big update for a game that I unfortunately find to be super ho-hum, but hey, I’m sure lots of people are enjoying it more than I have. The main updates include allowing you to run up to 20 Crew Runs at a time, improvements to the Sector Battles, lots of tweaks and added features to the inventory system, and some new store items, among other adjustments and fixes. To be honest, a lot of this stuff probably should have been in there at launch, but live and learn, eh?
Skyline Skaters, Free It’s been a while since Skyline Skaters and Subway Surfers appeared in the same article, but it looks like they’re back in step again. Skyline Skaters is off to Berlin, Germany, for its new version. Keep your eyes open for salty pretzels made of coins and enjoy the sights and sounds of this historic capital, at least as filtered through shallow stereotyping.
Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon, $19.99 Slitherine’s take on the Warhammer 40K universe gets a few additions this time around. Along with some new localizations for our French, German, and Spanish friends, there are also some new advanced tutorials, two new bonus scenarios in Act 3, and a few changes to how Dead Forests are distributed. Nothing too big, mind you, but the new tutorials should help ease people into this fairly complex game.
Lara Croft: Relic Run, Free Well, this isn’t the biggest update, but for those of you who don’t like to choose between sexy protagonists, you can now dress Lara up in Agent 47’s attire by picking up his costume from the game’s shop. Aside from a few tweaks to the store layout, that’s about it. So, when do we get to see Agent 47 in Lara’s outfit? Now that’s something I’d pay to see!
Subway Surfers, Free And here’s Subway Surfers, this time visiting… Tokyo, Japan! Well, they’ve kind of got the skyline right, but the rest of the decorations they’ve used look more like Kyoto. But I digress! You can also pick up a Cute Kitty board, which is in no way violating the trademarks of the Sanrio company, so please call off the adorable assassins, and a new outfit for Harumi that makes her look like she stepped out of an anime. Er, even more so than usual.
Call of Duty®: Heroes, Free Console friends have been talking about a lot of games with first-person shooting recently, and one of them is the yearly trip to the CoD factory. Well, now you can get in on that fun with your mobile device. No, silly, not with a new first-person shooter! With this fine update to Call Of Duty: Heroes! The latest version of the game includes a bunch of new things from Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3, including new heroes, killstreaks, units, and environments. There are also a number of improvements to the UI and several bug-fixes. See, who even needs a current-gen console?
Super Hexagon, $2.99 Much as I’ve enjoyed Super Hexagon over the years, there was no question the game was starting to look rough. For a game that requires you to focus super-hard on the finest details, it was kind of sad not having retina support and a locked 60 FPS framerate. Be sad no more, friends! This update brings a brand new engine, and that means retina graphics, solid 60 FPS gameplay, and a free pony. Er, that last point might be sketchy, but you get what I’m saying.
Land Sliders, Free Land Sliders has gotten a million downloads since its launch, and to celebrate, they’ve updated the game with a whole bunch of new stuff. There are eight new characters, new underwater levels, a brand new enemy, and some new quests to work on while enjoying all of that. Has anyone figured out what the answer to this game’s Caramilk Secret is yet? If so, don’t spoil me. I’m waiting for the VHS release.
Pokémon TCG Online, Free Okay, so this should be a good update, right? It adds the Pokemon TCG: XY – BREAKthrough expansion to the game, which amounts to 160 new cards. They’ve also adjusted the contents of the XY basic color decks to keep things balanced. They’ve also put in a ton of new visual work, including new animations and a redesigned play area. The problem is that the new play area looks good but is less functional, and for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, the developers have disabled the ability to turn off gameplay animations. I sure hope you enjoy checking out those new effects, as they’ll be dragging out the running time of your games until someone figures out that taking away a good feature is a pretty stupid idea.
HoPiKo, $0.99 HoPiKo‘s not exactly a game that needs a lot of updates, but this is a welcome one nonetheless. There’s a new Hardcore mode in the game for all you folks that found the regular game just too darned easy, and a tutorial for all you folks that found the regular game just too darned hard to figure out. There’s a new button that lets you shuffle the music, and inverted control options have been added, too. The rest of the update is mostly composed of tweaks and fixes, our very favorite flavors in Update Mondays.
Monkeyrama, Free Monkeyrama was already a pretty good deal for a buck, but its latest update adds even more content to this fun physics puzzler. The Winter episode adds 28 levels to the game, giving you more flinging fun to keep you going. The update notes also promise that Challenge modes will be coming in the next update, so that’s something to look forward to, as well.
Minion Rush: Running game, Free In a way, it kind of feels appropriate that Minion Rush missed Hallowe’en with its update, and by several days, at that. Anyway, there’s a special mission called Horror Night Party where you can earn a vampire costume for your Minion, and if you can be among the best on the leaderboards, you can also earn a disco costume that decks your Minion out in a leisure suit that sparkles with rhinestones. Like a rhinestone cowboy. Song’s stuck in your head now. The Minion Races feature two new gadgets, the Shrink Ray and Laser Poles, and there’s a new setting, too. Check out the Anti-Villain League Submarine, and don’t forget to post your favorite Minion pictures on Facebook with Nietzsche quotes written on them. There isn’t a prize or anything, I just think that would be funny.
GHOST TRICK: Phantom Detective, Free What can I say about Ghost Trick except that it is now back on the App Store and actually functional again for the first time in a very long while? Maybe I could tell you that it’s an amazing adventure game with enjoyable puzzles and a great story, or that there’s more personality in any single character’s animations than most entire games have to them? Instead, I’m just going to say I’m happy to see it back, and I hope we don’t have to deal with this nonsense again next September.
Vainglory, Free Another hefty update for Vainglory, with new guild rewards and functionality, a Star Queen Celeste skin, balance changes to several characters, and a menagerie of bug fixes. No new characters this time around by the looks of things, but that’s okay. Having ice cream every day just makes ice cream not special. Either that, or totally awesome. I can’t remember which. The former would certainly help with my point, though, so let’s go with that.
Mucho Taco, Free A favorite even among those who dislike clickers and tacos, Mucho Taco has some new content for you in its latest version. There are five new restaurants, and five new taco flavors to go with them. There are also three new taco counters so that you can get more information at a glance. Some new events have been added to Mucho Suerte, too. I miss tacos, friends.
Warhammer: Arcane Magic, $1.99 Having fun with Arcane Magic, but want more? The Jungles Of Lustria expansion is here for you, then, at a low price of $2.99. Other improvements in this update include a new tutorial, some new spells and scrolls, endings for all of the campaigns, and some new items in the store. Some new creatures have been added, iCloud support is in, and a bunch of UI fixes and visual enhancements have been made. This seems like a pretty great update all around, to be honest.
That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!
