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. Due to the App Store freeze and the holiday season, there weren’t as many updates as we usually see in a given week. Don’t worry, I was able to find some interesting ones for us to enjoy anyway. 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!
Pascal's Wager, $4.99 That Pascal and his gambling problems, I tell you. Well, this was one wager that paid off handsomely as the game is quite a bit of fun. The latest update adds a free new mode called Obsession Challenge where you race other players to defeat bosses. There are new outfits for Viola and Benita, and those on iOS 14 and up can enjoy the new keyboard and mouse controls. There are also the expected bug fixes and tweaks to make everything run as best as it can.
PAC-MAN, Free Pac-Man is hitting the courts again, and this time it has nothing to do with Ms. Pac-Man‘s rights. No, it’s time for Pac to go on another NBA Adventure, working his way through team-themed mazes to try to collect cool NBA-themed skins and costumes. That’s all running along with the holiday-themed skins and costumes as well. Nothing too strange if you’re used to how this app rolls, of course. I like Pac-Man’s little NBA headband, it suits him well.
Dan The Man Platformer, Free Virtual Reality: it comes and it goes. And kind of stays quietly in the background, these days. Anyway, it’s not the heady stuff of sci-fi the way it was when I was young, but that won’t stop us all from pretending it can be. Dan the Man‘s latest update is distinctly VR-themed with its new Virtual Reality multiplayer event. New arenas! A new costume! And of course some new rewards in the form of Virtual Reality icons and emotes. It’s another good reason to fire up Dan the Man again, in case you actually needed one.
Bloodstained:RotN, $9.99 Updates were promised, and updates have been delivered. And it’s quite the improvement on the whole, friends. Like hey, there’s a little button you can toggle in the options now that switches to 60 FPS mode. I wouldn’t use it if your device is a bit old or you’re worried about draining your battery, but wow, does it look nice. Those using controllers will find support has been significantly improved, and it should now be a lot easier to play without having to reach for the touchscreen every few seconds. Aside from that, some bugs have been hammered out and a few optimizations have been made here and there. This is easily the best portable version of the game now, and it’s not even close.
Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, Free Okay this one is more like two weeks old, but by the time I realized it there was no way to turn the car around. We’re on this road whether we like it or not, friends. Hey, that’s probably how Disney felt about Treasure Planet just before it released! Certainly not one of the Mouse’s most famous animated films, but I have a soft spot for those unloved relics of the last era of hand-drawn animation. And clearly someone at PerBlue does as well, as this latest update adds Jim Hawkins and Captain Amelia from Treasure Planet to the roster. Probably some bug fixes and stuff in here as well, but as always the new content takes the center stage.
Toy Blast, Free Aww, it’s our final obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update of the year. How many of these have I written over the years? I hope I can write another final obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update of the year next year, too. Anyway, it’s the usual batch of 50 new levels to play through, with the update text naturally leaning into the whole Christmas thing. Join the toys in their celebration in Christmas Town. In your imagination, that is. I don’t think there’s any actual in-game event connected to all of this.
PAC-MAN Party Royale, More Pac-Man for the Pac-Man gods. I guess that would be Bandai Namco, wouldn’t it? Well, I’m not here to talk about video game theology. I’m here to present the second Pac-Man related update of this article, this time for the Apple Arcade title Pac-Man Party Royale. One weird thing about this game up until now is that even though it’s a party game, you couldn’t play multiplayer off of one device, couch-style. Well, now you can. Pair up some controllers and put on the good reading glasses, because it’s time for family fun on your iPhone! Yeah, probably meant for the devices with larger displays. Oh well. This update also brings a cute winter theme for the mazes so you can feel the chill even when indoors.
Star Traders: Frontiers, $6.99 You know, I don’t think the Trese Brothers actually take any time off. Here’s another solid update to the excellent Star Traders: Frontiers, a game that never stops giving. It adds a capstone storyline to the Jyeeta Brood Era, with all new story characters, items, and unique weapons to enjoy. There are new allies and enemies alike, and some new Grade 8 and 9 assault rifles so you can get all Junior High School on the butts of the latter. Some bug fixes round things out for another great year of updates by this top-class developer.
Pocket Build, $0.99 Speaking of extremely hard-working developers, here’s MoonBear with an amazing end-of-year update for the superb Pocket Build. It adds a new post-apocalyptic theme with more than 260 new items to mess around with. There are new buildings, props, plants, fences, and more. There’s also a new option to remove the first-person tools from view in case they were bothering you or something. Finally, bug fixes. Anyway, I’ve decided this game easily deserves the UMMSotW award for this week, and that’s just how it is. Congrats on snagging the final award for 2020!
Genshin Impact, Free Ha ha, this game is huge and keeps getting huger all the time. Not just in-game, but also the memory footprint. Oh well, you don’t get big, beautiful fully-3D open worlds with kilobytes I suppose. This update adds in new characters Albedo and Ganyu, a new area called Dragonspine, a new event titled The Chalk Prince and the Dragon, a new domain named Domain of Blessing – Peak of Vindagnyr, and some new Artifact Sets in the form of Blizzard Strayer and Heart of Depth. In addition to that significant amount of new content, there are also some bug fixes and stability improvements.
That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates, and for the most part this year’s 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!
