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. It’s quiet this week. A little too quiet, if you ask me. I’ve found some interesting ones, but if you’re counting on this article to get you through your morning, I’m afraid I’ve let you down this time. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself using AppShopper or by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is here to fill in the things you might have missed. Let’s dig in!
Altered Beast Classic, Free Over the past few weeks, SEGA has issued updates to all of the new SEGA Forever Genesis games. These updates have taken care of some of the performance issues and fixed up the sound emulation a bit. Other than the framerate problems, these are now approaching the level of the emulator SEGA was using on iOS eight years ago. Good job, everyone! Now you can enjoy Altered Beast, Comix Zone, Kid Chameleon and Phantasy Star II a little better than before. But you’re still hungry.
868-HACK, $7.99 An update that adds content to one of my favorite iOS games? Yes, please. Specifically, you can now buy an expansion to the game through IAP. It adds a new mode to the game where you can choose a starting class, try to deal with random rule changes, and so on. It’s tough, perhaps tougher than the normal mode, even. But it’s also very, very good. Even though I was probably never going to stop playing 868-HACK anyway, now I’m super-ultra-top-secret-probation-never going to stop playing it. An easy pick for a coveted UMMSMotW award, even if it were a more crowded week.
Don't Starve: Pocket Edition, $4.99 Oh, this is a neat update. I think the aesthetics and general gameplay mechanics of Don’t Starve have wide appeal, but its difficulty level sometimes scares people away. Well, no longer. This update adds a mode called No Sweat, which basically turns the difficulty down to almost nothing. I’d have called it Can’t Starve mode, but what the heck do I know? I write about retro mobile games and expect to get paid for it.
Disney Crossy Road, Free If you’re not first, you’re last. Wait, I think I’ve got my mediocre car racing movies crossed again. Speaking of crossing and cars, Disney Crossy Road got an update with a trunk-load of Cars figurines. More than 30, to be exact. New characters include Lightning McQueen, Cars newcomer Cruz Ramirez, and everyone’s favorite tow-truck Mater, who is really, really lucky that the Minions came on the scene and started being even more annoying than him. They all join the game, along with a new Thunder Hollow level for them to play in. All joking aside, I heard the third movie was okay? That’s surprising, but there you go.
Subway Surfers, Free We can always count on the Subway Surfers, even during slow weeks. This time, they’re visiting Shanghai. Surf through the gardens and shopping malls, collecting fans to win prizes. You can earn a new outfit for Lee, along with a Rickshaw board. Who… uh…. who wants to tell the developers that rickshaws were invented in Japan? I guess what I’m saying is that you probably shouldn’t cite Subway Surfers in your cultural studies report that’s due in two weeks. I know, now you have to rewrite the whole darned thing. Sorry, I do that a lot. My girlfriend in university used to say to me, “Shaun, you have a way of ruining every moment."
Candy Crush Soda Saga, Free Geez and cripes, Doc. Are you telling me… you built a time travel plot… out of a Candy Crush update? Precisely! If you play through levels at about 88 stages per hour, you’re going to see some serious… fizz. I don’t know. I saw this new episode had something to do with time travel and I thought a Back to the Future parody would be infinitely more entertaining than trying to talk about yet another 15 levels of misery. See the last sentence of the previous entry. Next!
Survivalcraft 2, $3.99 It might be hard to believe if you weren’t around at the time, but at one point, a little indie knock-off of Minecraft was leagues better at providing a full-blown Minecraft experience than the actual mobile version of Minecraft. That game was Survivalcraft, and its sequel has not enjoyed nearly the same level of success. Probably because the Pocket Edition of Minecraft doesn’t suck anymore. Still, there are lots of cool features that Survivalcraft 2 has that you won’t find in its source of inspiration. This latest update adds a ton of new content, changes, adjustments, and so on. Highlights include gamepad support, food rotting mechanics, rivers, female player characters, a freaking tigershark, greater visibility, sneezing, improved zebra textures, puking, and so very much more.
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!
