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. With Christmas knocking on 2020’s door, you might expect to see a lot of holiday-themed updates rolling in. And yes, that is the general theme of things if we’re searching for one. But there are far greater, hammier things afoot. Or should that be ahoof? Heh, heh, heh. 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!
Mario Kart Tour, Free We’re about halfway into the latest event in Mario Kart Tour, but that’s how the timing of these things usually works out. Anyway, you still have plenty of time to catch up even if you’re only sliding into the event today. It’s a Christmas-themed tour, complete with a new festive Bowser Koopa up for grabs. There’s a new track, and even the returning tracks have been gussied up with some holiday cheer. I’m always in for Koopa variants, so I personally love this event.
Jetpack Joyride, Free The rotating events keep on, uh, rotating. Making a rather swift return to Jetpack Joyride, the Metal Slug event brings in Marco, Tarma, Fio, and Eri along with a bunch of vehicles, weapons, and decorations from SNK’s amazing run-and-gun series. It’s a weird cross-over, to be sure, but one that Metal Slug fans will surely dig. I seem to remember that the first event went by a bit quickly, so this is a good chance for those who missed it to get a proper taste.
Tetris®, Free Let’s have a look and see how the current mobile Tetris game is doing these days. Hmm. Something called Royale Tournaments, it seems. Earn Tournament Points and climb the leaderboards to see if you can pull off a finish near the top of the heap. Those that do will be rewarded handsomely. Even if you can’t manage a top ranking, you’ll still earn some medals along the way that you can exchange for some special avatars and themes. Speaking of themes, you’ll find four season-appropriate (for those in the Northern Hemisphere) winter themes to try out.
Marvel Contest of Champions, Free Ha ha ha, no way! The latest addition to the Contest of Champions roster is Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham! This is not a drill: Spider-Ham is a playable character in a Marvel fighting game. He does whatever a spider-bitten-by-a-radioactive-pig can, and on top of that wields his powerful Spider-Nonsense, which gives him all kinds of benefits as battles wear on. Ah, I can’t believe this is a thing that happened. I happily award Marvel Contest of Champions the coveted UMMSotW prize for its outstanding achievement in the field of excellence.
MARVEL Future Fight, Free Two Marvel games in one article? It’s more likely than you think, True Believers. Normally I’d just pick my favorite of the two and we’d only be talking about Spider-Ham, but this is a really cool update too. It’s themed around the Dark Avengers, a popular event from the comics that is admittedly a bit long in the tooth now. There’s a new Epic Quest built around its story, with a Tier-3 Sentry waiting just for starting the event. New playable characters include Sentry, Scorpion, Daken, Molecule Man, and Moonstone. Green Goblin and Bullseye get new costumes to ensure they’re looking like their Dark Avengers forms. Good stuff. Say, how is Sentry doing these days? I haven’t read the last few weeks of comics. I’m sure he’s fine.
Gardenscapes, Free For this week’s obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update, I’m once again bouncing over to the Austinverse for a minute. Gardenscapes is gearing up for the holiday season with a few big events to help you set the mood. Snowy Season has already started, and if you’ve got the Golden Ticket you’ll get a bunch of rewards. I don’t really recommend that, though. Anyway, the real event gets going soon, seeing you turn the garden into a holiday fair. This update also sets up the first event of the new year, where Austin has to renovate a cottage for his uncle Mycroft. There’s also some new story content, and a new puzzle element in the form of moles that can be captured by removing the soil around them.
Rules of Survival, Free By now, Season 16 has a few days under its belt. Prizes for Season 15 should have been distributed according to rankings, and all the pieces should be reset for the next big run. If not… uh, I really don’t know what to say. You might be living in a parallel dimension? Check and see if your Spider-Man is a Spider-Man or a Spider-Ham. This week is essentially your last shot at enjoying all the events and bonuses from the 3rd ROSversary event as well, so make sure you get on that. ROSversary. I wonder how you say that? Is it ‘R-O-S-versary’ or ‘Ross-versary’? I hope it’s the former, because the latter just reminds me of the worst member of the Friends gang.
Merge Dragons!, Free The tough business world of dragons, where mergers happen every hour of every day. Who can really survive in such a wyrm-eat-wyrm world? I guess the dragons in Merge Dragons can, or else this would be a terrible game. At any rate, there’s a holiday doings a-transpirin’ in Merge Dragons at the moment. This update sets things up for a few upcoming events connected to the holiday season that’s approaching. The Star Oasis, Christmas, and Happy 2021 events will be running one after another for the rest of the year, so you’ve got plenty of festive cheer to go with your RAWR.
LEGO® Brawls, LEGO Chris Pratt has exited the icon, now it is time for LEGO Gingerbread Man to shine. His coming signals the new season filled with winter-like and holiday-ish themes and goodies. We’re talking weekly drops of winter-themed minifigs that will be available for a limited time. There’s also a new holiday game mode where you collect toys in the North Pole, with the winning team being the one who collects fifty presents first. Finally, some improvements have been made to controller support, so those of you hanging back with a dandy pad of some sort should have an easier time of things.
Good Sudoku by Zach Gage, Free In any other week this update may have had a shot at the weekly award, but what can you do? Someone else brought the big guns. Still, this spiffy new version of Good Sudoku is nothing to sneeze at. You get seven new techniques in a brand new set of puzzles called Extended Impossible, which you can find by tapping on Impossible. If you’re playing with a keyboard (someone must be, right?) you’ll find that the keyboard inputs are now remappable, and the save system has been improved so that it’s quicker and more reliable. Not too bad at all, and that’s a good thing because otherwise the title of the game would be a misnomer, wouldn’t it?
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!
