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. Some old and new faces are here this week with a bevy of beautiful updates destined to thrill, chill, and delight you in the usual manner. Buckle up the seat belt in your kitchen chair, because I am way over-selling this whole thing but I’m not about to stop now. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself using AppShopper or by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s dig in!
Exiled Kingdoms RPG, Free So, Exiled Kingdoms is a really great homage to RPGs of the past and I personally love it for that. But one modern element I did wish it had had was autosaves, because when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. Luckily, the game now has just that feature, along with a couple more manual save slots for, you know, bookmarking purposes. Should you happen to die, you’ll now go directly to the load menu instead of having to do the dance from the main menu, too. Another friendly adjustment is that NPCs will automatically return to their spawn points when you reload the game. That way if someone has somehow ended up blocking the road ahead, you can just reload and they should be out of your way.
MARVEL Avengers Academy, Free Planet Hulk was one of the best Hulk stories ever, in my opinion. World War Hulk? Uh, well… I won’t lie, it was pretty great seeing the Illuminati getting their butts kicked after all the problems they caused. The latest event at the Academy is supposedly based on World War Hulk, but it’s really just using the name and a couple of characters as an excuse for a Hulk event. Battle Abomination and unlock new characters Skaar and Rick Jones, and try to earn some neat costumes for Hulk, Vision, and Skaar.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Free Pocket Camp is one of those games that always has new events going on, so the update notes tend to say very little. I can at least say that this update was mostly about adding in size records for the fish and insects you catch, along with seeding in content for upcoming events and animal arrivals. The records add a little extra purpose to doing things in the game, and keeping track of sizes allows for fishing and bug-catching events to help mix things up. This isn’t weird at all!
Templar Battleforce Elite, $9.99 This isn’t the biggest update Templar Battleforce has seen, but I’m including it just for old time’s sake. Plus, even a small update from the Trese Brothers is still a million miles long. This one adds a new monster called the Carapace Tusk, some new armor and weapons, and a frankly gargantuan list of balance changes and adjustments to various aspects of the game. In a normal week, this would be good enough for our most coveted of awards, but as we’ll see in a bit, there’s some tough competition this time.
Vainglory, Free Ah, poor Vainglory. No sooner does it add 5V5 ranked and draft play than mobile gamers start being all about that 100-player Battle Royale style. Oh well. Do those games have a dwarven brawler named Tony? Probably not! Maybe they do. I’m not going to check. But Vainglory certainly does have a dwarf named Tony. Tony! There are also some new hero skins for Baptiste and, yes, Tony. Tony! Add in some balance adjustments, UI tweaks, bug fixes, and a few other little things and that’s another decent update in the books for this ESPORTS SENSATION. Tony!
Rules of Survival, Free Life comes at you fast sometimes. Rules of Survival had come out way ahead in the battle of the Battle Royale mobile games and looked like it was going to come out on top, with all the rewards that such a victory would bring. Now that Fortnite seems to be making even bigger waves, does Rules of Survival have a future? Probably. I’m no analyst. This update adds the ability to vault through windows and open your parachute whenever you like during your initial descent. The Fearless Fiord has seen some beefing up, including increasing the max number of players to 160 in Fireteam mode. You can also see farther than before. The rest is mostly optimizations and little tweaks.
Star Warsâ„¢: Force Arena, Free This seems a little late, but ehn, better than never I guess. Star Wars: Force Arena adds four new characters from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, including Old Luke. Everyone loves Old Luke, right? Ha ha, please don’t start a fight in the comments. This update also adds a new arcade mode named All Out War, which allows each player to put their best 18 cards into play and see who comes out on top. Anyway, I guess this update is to coincide with a home release of the movie in some form or another, so I guess from a certain point of view, it’s perfectly on time. But seriously, Old Luke should have been in right away.
The Blockheads, Free I’m convinced that nothing will ever, ever put The Blockheads down for good. Its developer’s vengeful spirit will remain shackled to our mortal realm just to make sure The Blockheads never dies. This new update not only takes care of compatibility issues, it also adds expert mode, pets, animal breeding, wind effects, new mobs, pizza ovens, HD textures, a new control option using a virtual directional pad, and so very much more. It’s an unbelievably huge update for a game I really thought was finished this time. And that, my friends, is why I’m giving it the ultra-coveted UMMSotW award for this week.
Cytus II, $1.99 Rayark has found a lot of success on other platforms lately, but they haven’t left mobile behind by any means. Cytus 2 received an update that adds a new character named Cherry, who brings 10 new songs and some new stories for those who pay the $9.99 IAP to unlock it all. The character level limit has been increased, adding more free unlockable content and stories. Other than that, it’s just tweaks and adjustments, but that’s probably fine. More content is really all most players are looking for, I’d imagine.
Need for Speed No Limits, Free Updates for racing games usually mean new cars, and yeah. It’s new cars. Well, one new car anyway. The all-new Mazda MX-5 has been added to the game. This update also sees the return of seven classic events including the Porsche 918 Spyder Devil’s Run and the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon special events. And those are the limits of what I know about this particular update, so I’m going to need to speed away now. That’s as much as I’ve got to give today, sorry.
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!