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. I think it might be a straight run of free-to-play games this week, friends. I can’t help it, there was a bumper crop. As usual, there are some stupid jokes to be found in here, so even if you don’t like the games you might enjoy the read. 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!
Jetpack Joyride, Free Wow, honest-to-goodness new content for Jetpack Joyride? We haven’t seen anything like this since the big layoffs at Halfbrick a couple of years back. And it’s a Metal Slug collaboration, which is pretty, pretty, pretty cool. You can collect the four main heroes of the series: Marco, Fio, Tarma, and Eri. You get the Heavy Machine Gun for free, and can collect the FlameShot, Laser Cannon, and Rocket Lawn-Chair jetpacks to go with it. The classic SV-001 Metal Slug tank is here, and so are five new vehicle skins plus a new SAM. There are also four new backgrounds you can keep forever. Uhh… yeah, that’s awesome. Coveted UMMSotW award for you, Halfbrick. Treat it well.
Marvel Contest of Champions, Free Something new is brewing in Contest of Champions, as you could probably guess from its presence here in this article about games with new things added to them. The Rise of X event sees Professor X trying to make a deal that sounds a bit too good to be true. What’s going on here? It’s time to investigate Krakoa and see what you can turn up. Keep an eye out for Pirate King Platinumpool, who is causing all kinds of trouble. Some new features to go along with this content: you can now sell directly from your Stash, and you can now sort your Champions by Tag in the Champions and Edit Team screens. Cool.
Homescapes, Free Well, let’s check what’s going on in the Austin Cinematic Universe this week. Oh weird. This new event sees you going to Oz, of all places. Collect all of the decorations and you’ll get an Emerald Palace as a gift. That’s… big. There’s an Emerald Hall, a Yellow Brick Road, all that good stuff. Another event is the Summer Stage, where Austin’s family is preparing for a big Summer Stage and Talent Show. As usual, lots of decorations up for grabs here. Outside of events, the last chapter in the Farm story is now available. The new puzzle element is the Brooch. You’ll want to make matches to restore it.
Fire Emblem Heroes, Free There’s a big new event coming up in mid-September in Fire Emblem Heroes, and this update for the most part simply revolves around preparing the app for it. Frontline Phalanx will see you teaming up with other summoners to support Heroes in other worlds. Besides that, this new version adds a feature that allows you to use the new Trait Fruit item to change Hero traits. Oh yay, new ways to min/max! Let it never be said that Intelligent Systems doesn’t know what brings its players to the playground.
Knights Chronicle, Free Well, let’s check in on a random NetMarble game just to see what’s up. The dartboard says Knights Chronicle is the winner, so here we are. The latest version of the game adds the new advent difficulty level Absolute Hell. That sounds positively lovely. Sign me up for a vacation there. Oh nooooo, it’s just Twittttteerrrr. Haha, just joking. A little. There really is a new difficulty level though. There’s a new hero here too, someone named Timur. The more the merrier, I suppose. The update notes also speak of miscellaneous improvements. Nobody, not even the person who wrote that, knows exactly what that cursed phrase entails. This was nice, Knights Chronicle. Let’s do it again sometime.
Langrisser, Free Langrisser and Fire Emblem in the same article. This is like when Johnny takes Carmen out for a date at the restaurant and Daniel and his wife end up at the next table. Cobra Kai is a really good show, everyone. Make sure you watch it. Langrisser has a crossover event going on right now, and it’s an interesting one. Trails of Cold Steel, if you can believe it. There are new heroes in the form of SSR Rean and SSR Arianrhod, and a new map event with Holy Badman. New Hero summoning banners now have a video effect, and there are some new Level 2 Hero Awakening Skills for a handful of characters. All this plus a new Love Confession for Brenda! Who is Brenda? Is it Shannon Doherty?
King Rabbit - Puzzle, Free Ah, good old King Rabbit. Haven’t checked in on this game in a bit, but an update always makes for a nice excuse to do so, don’t you think? This new version brings a brand new feature to the game: the Rabbit Market! You can buy rabbits from other players and sell any limited edition rabbits you may not want anymore. There are also four new items you can use in levels, adding a little extra spice to the proceedings. The Shield Wall item has also received a little tender loving care to optimize its capabilities. That makes it sound so fancy, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not called Normal Guy Rabbit, after all.
Merge Dragons!, Free Like with most updates for Merge Dragons, this one is mostly about setting up a few events. First up, the Owlympus event makes its return, giving you a chance to score the Zeus and Hera Dragons. Hmm. Not sure I’d let that Zeus Dragon into my dimension, but you do you. Aside from that, a brand new event called Frozen Seas is apparently on its way as well. I’m guessing ice dragons? Chilly water dragons? Sunken Leonardo DiCaprio dragons? There’s only one way to find out. Some bug fixes and performance improvements round this one out.
Disney Magic Kingdoms, Free Now this is the content I’ve been waiting for. The Emperor’s New Groove hits the Magic Kingdoms, bringing Kuzco, Pacha, Kronk, and Yzma into the mix as they look for that place where the sun hits the ridge just right. Or maybe Yzma and Kronk are just trying to kill Kuzco and Pacha is protecting him because he’s a good dude. There’s also a new Tower Challenge to take on, with some nice bonus content up for grabs.
Minion Rush: Running game, Free Although I know very well that it kind of faded out hard at the end, I still find myself wondering why Spider-Man Unlimited died so quickly while Minion Rush is older than some of the kids I teach. I guess those Minion guys are popular or something? No idea. Okay, some idea. Just doing that thing where I pretend I don’t know about a famous thing, which is different from when I say I don’t know much about Game of Thrones because that one is actually true. This update adds a new Festival Feature where you can earn some extra goodies along with some new Special Missions and costumes. No, but seriously: what is a Kardashian?
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!
