Hit N’Run
Released over a month ago, Hit N’Run is an interesting tilt-based driving game interwoven with a color matching puzzle mechanic. The goal is to run into like colored cars while speeding through five lanes of traffic on a busy highway. Once you hit the correctly colored car, your car changes to the next color that must be hit. Successfully hitting the right cars in a row allows you to increase your speed, and hitting the wrong car or driving in the shoulder slows you down. Steering is controlled by tilt, and braking by touching the lower part of the screen. It’s a unique concept with colorful 3D graphics that make for a pretty entertaining game.
One thing that turned off some players was the overly-sensitive controls, but a recently released update that adds a landscape mode actually does a lot to alleviate this. It’s much easier to hold the device with two hands now, allowing for more precise tilting. One oddity is that the game only runs in landscape during actual play time, with the menus and scoreboards all still in portrait mode. It’s a bit clunky, but doesn’t interfere with your enjoyment too much. At the current price of 99¢ Hit N’Run is worth a look.
Stick Skater
Stick Skater is a 2D reaction-based platforming game with a skateboarding theme. It’s somewhat similar to Canabalt or Run!, although with 30 set levels as opposed to one randomly generated endless level.
What really shines about Stick Skater are the simple and intuitive controls. A button in the lower left causes your skater to push for more speed, and a button in the lower right makes him ollie. Swiping the ollie button in one of 8 different directions causes the skater to perform a flip trick or grind. You make your way through the levels avoiding obstacles, tricking over stairs and gaps, and grinding ledges and rails. It works well, and gives you that good feeling when you pull off a series of cool moves that you would get from a more complex skateboarding game.
Although the skater is just a stick figure, he’s animated really fluidly and actually has quite a bit of personality. The tricks look really great in motion. The different locations in the game all have subtle details that are faithful to their real world skate spots, which is a cool touch. Additional levels were just added in the last update with more to come, and developer Traction Games is even hinting at a level creator in the game’s forum thread. What’s already a fun game and a bargain at just 99¢ only stands to get better, and there’s a lot to be excited about for Stick Skater’s future.
RPG Snake
Although it has a slightly misleading title, RPG Snake delivers a solid take on the overdone “snake game” genre, and actually manages to stand out from the pack.
The RPG in the name represents the characters and simple storyline that accompany the familiar gameplay. There are no stats or leveling of any kind, but the style and music of the game is just charming enough to be compelling. You avoid hazards in the terrain while running into enemies to defeat them, with each defeated creature growing your “snake” of knights one person longer. Some of the enemies move around the game board making them that much trickier to defeat. It’s a fairly short game, but it’s entertaining and the last few levels give you a pretty nice challenge. OpenFeint leaderboards and achievements round out the 99¢ package.
If it’s been a while since you’ve indulged in one of the snake games, RPG Snake should have enough personality to hold your interest.
