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 a nice mix of popular free-to-play games and some cool paid titles this time around, so hopefully everyone can find at least one game in the mix that they enjoy. 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 go for it!
Marvel Contest of Champions, Free Geez, Contest of Champions must be coming to an end or something. Why do I think that? Well, look: they added Squirrel Girl as a playable character. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. How can you balance around an unbeatable hero? So yeah, wrap it up. Doreen is here, and she’s ready to kick butts and eat nuts. Will Koi Boi, Chipmunk Hunk, and Brain Drain be far behind? Yes, yes they will. Very, very far. I doubt they’ll ever be acknowledged by Marvel again now that Ryan North isn’t writing the book anymore. But that’s okay, we’ve got Squirrel Girl for now, and that’s a lot.
MARVEL Future Fight, Free Future Fight, being well ahead of the Squirrel Girl curve, has something quite different to offer than its stablemate. A brand-new, original team of characters is joining the game. The Warriors of the Sky consist of Blue Dragon, War Tiger, Sun Bird, and Shadow Shell, and if you think that’s a direct appeal to China and its Four Symbols, you are almost definitely right. Good timing, given the Lunar New Year is right around the corner. Some new uniforms have also been added for Iron Man, Cap, Black Widow, and Sharon Rogers. Not going to lie: the costumes of the Warriors of the Sky don’t look much like Marvel Superhero suits to me, but they do seem like neat characters anyway.
Real Racing 3, Free Real Racing: it’s better than Fake Racing. Don’t think too hard about it, I’m just filling out the paragraph. In this update, the Formula 1 Season continues with two more Grand Prix events. The Japanese Grand Prix is set at the famous Suzuka Circuit, while the Emirates United States Grand Prix has you taking to the Circuit of the Americas. There’s a chance to win some sweet new BMWs via events, among many other cool cars. Business as usual for Real Racing 3, but I imagine its many fans don’t mind that much at all.
TEPPEN, Free Call him Gouki, call him Akuma, but whatever you do, don’t call him late for Teppen! The demonic Akuma joins the roster with this update, and a sweet Evil Ryu extra skin comes alongside him. A new card set called The Force Seekers has been added, and a new Tour Points feature is now available. More players will now receive rewards in the Ranking Matches, and you can now play free matches with the same rules as the Grand Prix and EX Grand Prix while they are available. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long to add Akuma. He’s usually the first one to show up to Capcom crossovers.
The Simsâ„¢ FreePlay, Free Holy smokes, this is still going? Well, I guess people have to get their handheld Sims fix somewhere, and EA seems pretty sure Switch owners don’t want any of their games so I suppose mobile is the only place you can go. This update allows you to unlock a huge mansion and earn some really fancy fixtures for it. A new season of SimChase is available called Mansion Mania where you can get some high-class furniture, and the Inner Childs Play event is making a return. Mansions for adults, tree houses for the kids. Living the dream no matter how old your Sims are, I guess.
Toy Blast, Free Oh yay, it’s the obligatory free-to-play puzzle game update. As usual, fifty new levels to play. As usual, some silly text in the update notes that doesn’t correlate at all with anything in the game. This time it’s something about a Zen Garden and taking selfies in said garden while trying to reach inner peace? If you actually visit a Zen Buddhist Garden, please refrain from being too obnoxious the way these awful toys are suggesting, okay?
Star Traders: Frontiers, $6.99 Been a while since I looked in on the Trese Brothers, but they’ve been busy beavers as usual updating their very awesome Star Traders Frontiers. The latest update adds twelve new weapons to Salvage mini-game cards, adds a Show All Talents toggle to the training screen, and makes a bunch of adjustments to the balance, UI, and such. This update also fixes a bunch of bugs. A great game keeps on getting better, and I think that’s one of the best things about games from this particular developer. Make sure you pick this one up if you haven’t already.
Fire Emblem Heroes, Free Some Fire Emblem Heroes updates are more noteworthy than others, and I’m afraid this one isn’t all that big. But hey, it’s still an update so here it is. Some new character-specific weapon skills for Cordelia, Rebecca, and Henry have been added to the game, and some Aether Raid structures have had their level caps raised. Perhaps most ominously, the notes say that “issues have been addressed". What issues? Did… did they kill someone? I need answers, and I don’t even know my questions!
ANOTHER EDEN, Free Here’s another familiar face for regular readers of these articles. Another Eden is always getting new adventures added to it, and that’s what this new version is all about. The Cat Beyond its Territory is the title of the new stuff, and with it comes the addition of the Cat Catalog. As far as Encounters go, the new character Philio has been added to the game. Some bugs have been fixed, some writing errors have been corrected, a few problems have been mentioned as being next on the fix list. Good, good.
DOOM, $4.99 We’ll finish things up with a look at the latest update to the 2019 version of DOOM. Well, a similar update also hit DOOM II, but I’m only including one here in the interests of fairness. The games now run at 60 FPS, there are aspect ratio and gamma options, a quick save and quick load feature, and a level select option. Best of all is that the game now supports add-ons, including both parts of Final DOOM and John Romero’s recent Sigil. They’re free, which is awesome. More add-ons will apparently be added in the future, too. I don’t see any reason not to give this the coveted UMMSoTW award for the week, so there it is.
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. I’ll be out of town next week, so there won’t be an article, but I’ll try to round up the big ones from the last two weeks when I return. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back the Monday after next to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!
