Every week, FingerGaming rounds up the most popular paid and free iPad applications, as current that day on the iTunes App Store. This week’s top paid titles are:
Gameloft’s Real Golf 2011 HD finishes as the iPad’s second-best selling game app in its debut week, trailing reigning chart leader Angry Birds HD. Halfbrick’s Fruit Ninja HD moves up to third place, as a recent price drop puts Art in Games’ AirAttack HD in close competition with EA’s Scrabble for iPad.
THUP’s educational game Monkey Preschool Lunchbox enters the charts at seventh place this week, while Plants vs. Zombies HD and Words With Friends HD outsell Madden NFL 11 for iPad and Pinball HD.
NimbleBit’s free-to-play frog breeding sim Pocket Frogs has seen a steady rise up the charts since its debut last week, and outranks ADS Software’s Art Puzzles HD as today’s top free iPad game download.
Gameloft’s GT Racing Motor Academy HD also remains a popular download, while Backflip Studios captures two chart spots this week with its recent releases NinJump HD and Buganoids.
Honk! Honk! You’re trapped – strategically maneuver cars around parking lots & traffic jams to set your car free!
Aces Traffic Pack contains 480 puzzles! Test your strategic thinking with varying traffic puzzle difficulties, maneuver your car and others around parking lots and traffic jams to set your car free! Make sure to watch out for objects such as potholes and rocks that we’ve placed in areas to increase your problem-solving skills!
The amazing graphics and realistic sound effects dazzle the eyes and ears while the puzzle challenges your mind. The online high scores and statistic tracking adds a competitive element so you can compete against yourself or challenge a friend to beat your best time or lowest move count.
Developer: Bullypix
Price: $0.99
Version: 1.1
App Reviewed on: iPad
Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.88 out of 5 stars
Simplicity with a side of mind-bending difficulty is often the heart of any puzzle game on the App Store. Some games soar to greatness with this philosophy at their heart. RollOut is looking to top the charts of puzzle solving greatness with a new take on challenging your noggin. Does RollOut succeed in this task, or is it sucking the scum off the bottom of the barrel?
RollOut is a puzzle game about making for the exit. Players are tasked with getting Wabba to the exit of each level. Wabba is not just going to sit around and wait, though. Wabba forms into a saw blade ball and proceeds to start rolling through the level. To bad Wabba can’t just cut his way to the exit.
The puzzle part comes in with getting Wabba’s pointy posterior to the exit. Jump arrows scroll across the stage. Players control these arrows to get this Sonic wannabe to the exit door. The complexity starts to rack up when the player realizes these jump arrows can only be moved to the left. Wabba starts on the ground floor and it is up to players to jump him to an exit door strategically placed somewhere way above his starting position.
While this all sounds rough enough, there is yet even more complexity to throw into the mix. Sometimes an elevator is necessary to get to higher ground. Landing on it will stop Wabba just long enough to get to the next level. Wabba can also fall all the way back down to the starting position. Adding into these levels of heck are areas where the jumping signs won’t work.
Oh yeah, there is one last touch to round out those 50 levels of insanity-inducing game play. Jump signs, elevators, and control voids may all sound feeble and weak in comparison. One last thing to consider: not all jump signs are the same. Some will make Wabba race faster, others will pause, and some will even slow down the action. Whew.
RollOut may notch up the puzzle complexity, but it sure skips the visual eye candy. About the only colors that ever come into play here are fundamental primary colors in the control signs. Some different backgrounds would have really upped the ante on the presentation side.
Overall, RollOut is a sadistic take on puzzle platforming. Fifty levels, trophy support, and simple game play make this worthy of being on that iPhone. Just don’t be surprised when your broken blood vessels kick in at the higher levels.
A little more than a month ago, iPhone giant Gameloft first announced a sequel to Gangstar: West Coast Hustle [$4.99 / Free / HD], an open-world crime game which we liked quite a bit in our review despite a few disappointments. Gangstar: Miami Vindication [$6.99] was released this evening, and while several of our annoyances from the first have been tweaked or massaged to be less problematic, there's still a few things keeping Miami Vindication from being our favorite thug simulator.
Much like the original, Gangstar: Miami Vindication features a full city to explore, a wide variety of vehicles to steal, weapons ranging from baseball bats to flame throwers, and a heap of missions to complete. (75 to be exact.) The game plays exactly how you'd expect it to play if you've ever played a Grand Theft Auto or similar type of open world crime game. You can play through the series of missions which vary wildly from something as simple to going to a particular point in the city to stealing a specific car or even racing. Alternatively, you can just disregard the missions entirely and instead just drive around the city, stealing cars, running from the police, or really doing whatever you feel like doing.
While there isn't a whole lot of innovation to be found in Miami Vindication, it has been improved in some ways over the original. For instance, the game is fully voiced over and the voice acting actually seems to be a little better than your typical Gameloft game– at least for major characters. Gameloft also has been boasting the fact that the game was written in part by one of the writers from the TV show The Wire. This story consists of dabbling in the various sectors of the Miami criminal underground on the hunt for your missing brother. I don't see it winning any awards, but by and large the dialog in Miami Hustle is substantially less cringeworthy than West Coast Hustle.
Controls seem to be a lot tighter than the original, offering three different options: Tilt, a virtual steering wheel, and a slider which I've found myself preferring. When on a motorcycle, tilting your device back and forth executes wheelies and stoppies although riding a wheelie for any length of time usually seems to result in a spectacular crash. Lighting is improved as well, resulting in some fairly spectacular views during sunset and sunrise as the entire city is bathed in warm sunlight.
Unfortunately, even though the lighting is better, Miami Vindication is home to some heinously low polygon models. Cars look decent, but character models look absolutely dreadful. Animations are extremely limited, faces lack depth, there are no fingers to be found anywhere, and no lips move when anyone speaks. Instead, they just flail their arms about and bop their heads back and forth. With how much of the game is spent watching two characters talk to each other, this soon becomes incredibly distracting.
The draw distance is decent, but pop-in is considerable. You can see buildings and terrain from far away, but trees and other small details all appear incredibly close to your character. Much like the original Gangstar, the city of Miami in Miami Vindication is terribly barren. Only a few cars will ever appear on screen at once, and pedestrians are rare as can be. Everything feels entirely too clean and empty. Gameloft did implement some varied areas to the city instead of being totally metropolitan, but all the subareas all feel equally lonely and empty.
If you can get past the relatively sparse graphical environment, there really isn't anything else like Miami Vindication on the App Store. Riding around on motorcycles and boats is a lot of fun, and if you can find a helicopter, flying around the city is really pretty cool. I still prefer Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / Free / HD], but if you don't like the top-down view and want a full 3D experience, Gangstar: Miami Vindication is worth exploring.
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A little more than a month ago, iPhone giant Gameloft 
