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 another healthy crop of updates this week, with plenty of big names and cult favorites alike. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself using AppShopper Social (Free), the watchlist in the TouchArcade App (Free), or by participating in the TouchArcade forums, but this weekly summary is here to fill in the things you might have missed. Let’s dig in!
Dungeons of Chaos REVAMPED ED., $5.99 The updates have been steadily trickling out for this old-school RPG, and the latest version continues the trend of balancing, fixes, and a couple of new tricks. Monks and rogues can take advantage of the new passive dodge skill, while rogues get that staple of the thieving lifestyle, the backstab. The backstab in particular is a very powerful move that should help buff up the rogue class. Bring one into your party and check it out.
MARVEL Avengers Academy, Free Hot on the heels of the exhausting Hell’s Kitchen event and a nice, relaxing Guardians rerun, the Halloween event brings all sorts of demonic characters to the world’s most disorganized superhero school. Misty Knight, Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, and Blade are all eligible to join the academy, while Mephisto, Satana, and Dracula are up to some no-good tricks. If it’s like previous events, some of them will be redeemed, while one of them will be arbitrarily locked in a plastic cube that only a small fraction of players will be able to acquire. Mephisto is looking very Count Choculesque in this rendition, I must say.
Sky Force Reloaded, Free The new additions this time around include technicians and a new prestige system, which work hand in hand to give you some extra boosts. Performing various tasks in-game will earn you prestige points, and when you reach certain levels, you’ll unlock new technicians. You can bring one of them with you into each level, giving additional bonus effects. There’s also a new tournament level, and the collectible cards now have mildly humorous flavor text on them to help explain what they do.
Siralim 2 (Monster Taming RPG), $4.99 This update had a little delay, but it finally arrived last week, full of all kinds of goodies. In this version, there are six new punishments, an option that should help the game run more smoothly on lower-end devices, and some UI improvements. In addition, a number of changes have been made to balance the game out a little. One important change is in making lower-level enemies a bit easier to hit, hopefully avoiding the miss-fest that was going on prior to this patch. I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of updates for this game in the future. Let’s hope those that come in the future don’t run into similar issues.
Angry Birds Seasons, Free It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we were all talking about how great the Piggywood levels in Angry Birds Seasons were. Can you believe it’s time for the sequel already? Yes, Piggywood part 2 is here, with 21 new levels spoofing Hollywood films. This update also includes new bonus levels, new tournament levels, and new Bird Wear. Spoofing Hollywood, friends. It never gets old. Apparently.
Templar Battleforce Elite, $9.99 You know you’re looking at a Trese Brothers update when you need to scroll to read the update notes in the App Store. So what can you look forward to here? New gear, new ordnance, new talents, new weapons, and really, just a whole bunch of new stuff to mess around with. There are also tons of balance tweaks, fixes, and UI adjustments. This all sounds to me like a pretty reasonable excuse to fire up this great game again! Let’s add another coveted Update Mondays Most Spider-Mans of the Week award to the game’s mantle, while we’re at it.
Pinball Arcade Plus, $0.99 This month’s addition to the Pinball Arcade is another of their Kickstarter projects come to fruition. Doctor Who, a Barry Oursler-designed table originally released in 1992 by Bally, features several past Doctors on the back-glass and playfield, a TARDIS target, and of course, plenty of Daleks. From a gameplay point of view, it has a fairly unusual three-tier mini-play area as its centerpiece. Like other tables, you’ll have to buy this one via IAP if you want it.
Leap Day, Free Leap Day‘s latest version adds eight new characters to the roster, including a rock man, a giant toad, a turret knight, and more. Who doesn’t like new characters? The villains, friends. The villains are the only ones who don’t like new characters. There are lots of new selfies for each of the characters, so make sure to try out lots of poses in-game. This update also fixes some bugs.
Pocket Mine 2, Free Is it Halloween update time now? So far we’re only seeing the faintest signs, but we’ll be swamped in them soon, friends. Pocket Mine 2 gets its foot in the door quickly with a seasonal icon and the daily October mine, where a search for pumpkins will yield some interesting outcomes. There are also some weekend events running where you can earn some cool unique gear.
The Sandbox Evolution, Free Do you know how to get my attention? Besides mentioning Spider-Man, or dinosaurs, or Spider-Man riding dinosaurs? Well, there are lots of ways, but talking about lasers is certainly one of them. The Sandbox Evolution throws some laser elements into the game in this update, letting you play with an electro-powered laser and a lens that can be used to shrink or enlarge a beam. Naturally, there’s a new campaign to go with that, with 30 new puzzles to solve. That campaign makes use of the new time limit feature, which allows you to, well, add a time limit to your levels to give an extra bit of challenge.
Zen Pinball, Free Zen Pinball adds two new Marvel-themed tables to this app and the Marvel Pinball app. The Marvel’s Women of Power two-pack includes an A-Force table and a Champions table. By Champions, they mean the current iteration of the group, sort of. I mean, really, it’s just an excuse to throw Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl into one package, but if that’s wrong, then I don’t want to be right. The A-Force table has a bunch of other heroes, including Black Widow, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, and Thor. While I personally prefer the realistic tables of Pinball Arcade, there’s no question Zen are the best at their particular take on video pinball, and these two tables reflect that nicely.
Disney Crossy Road, Free My personal favorite Disney animated movie has come to Disney Crossy Road. Journey to Agrabah with Aladdin, Jasmine, Rajah, Iago, Genie, and of course, Jafar. There’s no one to tell you no, or where to go, or say you’re only dreaming. How about a little more baklava? Dis-ney Cross-y, wondrous thee, Crossy Road-ba-bwaa! Okay, sorry, I’m done. Gotta eat to live, gotta write to eat, otherwise you’d be spared these references.
Ninja Turtles: Legends, Free With all the turtles you love to remember and a whole lot you don’t, TMNT Legends is certainly a reflection of the many forms this franchise has taken. This update adds Vision Quests, Master Splinter’s Training Dojo, challenge events, and a few new characters. Yes, the ones we’ve all been waiting for: the Out of the Shadows versions of Casey Jones, Bebop, and Rocksteady!
Bubble Witch 2 Saga, Free Bubble Witch 2 Saga, like many of King’s games, keeps on plugging away with new levels and obstacles to beat. This episode takes Stella into the Termitepolitan area, which is one of the lazier names I’ve seen in quite some time. Seriously, could you imagine if we had a city called Humanopolis? Well, whatever blows your hair back, I guess. The main point is that there are 20 new levels to pop your way through. You just have to beat all of the levels before these 20 to reach them, which I’m sure all of you have done already.
Banana Kong, Free Well, I can honestly say that I didn’t expect to see a content update for Banana Kong this week. But here it is! It has a new beach area, a new snake friend, some new music, a bunch of added missions, some tricky new obstacles, and bonus balloons. What is it with video game gorillas and balloons? Or video game gorillas and befriending snakes? Banana Kong, I don’t understand you or your cousins, but your game is pretty fun, so carry on.
Micro Machines, Free Looks like the Joes have given their public service message and moved out of the app icon. The latest update to Micro Machines instead reaches into the past of the franchise itself, adding a handful of Classic Micro Machines vehicles to the game. This update also features a brand-new track, Pocket Problems, set on a giant billiards table. That seems acceptable, according to my concept of the franchise. You may proceed, Micro Machines. But we are all watching.
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!
