If you just bought a brand new iPod touch with a Retina Display or already have an iPhone 4, Square Enix's Chaos Rings [$12.99 / HD] is a game that is highly worth considering with the release of the latest update. Chaos Rings looked great before, and now looks even better with high resolution graphics, UI elements, and text. To sweeten the deal they even added multitasking support for instant switching between battling and whatever other apps you're using.
We liked Chaos Rings enough to award it five stars in our review, and really think it's a game that any fan of turn based RPG's should own. With this latest update, that's especially true if you have a Retina Display device.
All the way back in the middle of December of last year we first got our hands on EA's Mirror's Edge [$4.99] for the iPhone, but it came without any solid release date. Mirror's Edge then disappeared until the iPad launch when Mirror's Edge for iPad [$9.99] popped up once again. Back then, we figured the iPhone release was immanent, but once again, it never came. Tonight is finally the night, and after spending quite a bit of time with the game today, it seems remarkably similar to the iPad version, downsized to the iPhone. In fact, it's so similar to our preview from last year that everything I said back then is still relevant.
The world of Mirror's Edge is set in the future, where a totalitarian regime is in power and an underground resistance powered by runners move information around on foot to avoid to watchful eye of the government which have implemented intense levels of surveillance across all communication mediums. You play as Faith, one of these runners.
The game is controlled using very simple swiping gestures that all feel very natural. Swiping right or left makes you run in that direction, swiping up makes you jump, and swiping down makes you slide. When you run across opposition, you can also use similar gestures to take them out with a variety of moves such as sweeping their legs out from under them or jump kicking them. There are many other interactions with different obstacles you come across, like jumping off spring boards, sliding down zip lines, and wall-running across billboards.
All of these things can be seen in the following gameplay video:
If you are like me and enjoyed the idea behind the console version of Mirror's Edge, but didn't really like the first person viewpoint and all the issues that caused in a platforming environment, you will love the iPhone version of the game. All of the visibility problems are gone thanks to the 3rd person view, and the game as a whole has been transformed in to a fun reaction game instead of an often frustrating and sometimes motion-sickness inducing first person experience.
New additions to Mirror's Edge since last year include new leaderboards that track your time through every level along with a whole heap of achievements to soak up and artwork to unlock. The whole game is optimized for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4, and looks really great in motion. This doesn't mean it won't run well on older devices, as forum members are reporting that Mirror's Edge even runs just fine on the first generation iPod touch.
Mirror's Edge is an effortless recommendation, and while I'm not sure waiting all this time has made the game any better, I'm glad it's finally here. Sure, there have been tons of running games in the past year but Mirror's Edge still is able to stand on its own, even after all this time. Playing through the game is a really cool experience, the controls work well, and just like the iPad game EA did a fantastic job of nailing the look and feel of the Mirror's Edge universe.
Games based on comic books have been almost as hit or miss as games based on movies in the past, so I think my cautious optimism for Gameloft's recently released Spider-Man: Total Mayhem [$6.99] was well deserved. Sure, there are some absolutely fantastic comic book games such as the quarter-sucking X-Men Arcade Game, and a few others over the years. Unfortunately, many fall in to the same pit that movie games fall in to where they lean far too heavily on whatever intellectual property the game is based on instead of actually having good gameplay. This is true to some extent in Spider-Man: Total Mayhem, but the whole package is comprehensive enough that it doesn't even seem to even matter.
Like all Gameloft games, many parts of Spider-Man are clearly borrowed from other titles of theirs, and Total Mayhem is no different. A lot of the combat feels like a mix of James Cameron's Avatar [$4.99 / Free / Free] and Iron Man 2 [$4.99 / Free / HD]. Spider-Man is host to the same wall climbing and rail sliding sections as nearly every other 3rd person action Gameloft game, and just like almost all of their other titles, the voice work is laughable at best and face palm worthy at worst. They even managed to sandwich the upgrade system from Hero of Sparta II [$6.99 / Free] in that nearly everything in the game drops orbs of various colors which are then used to upgrade Spider-Man's various abilities.
What saves the whole game is that even though they recycle all these different elements, they seem to combine extremely well to create a game that just feels like a Spider-Man game should. There are endless thugs for you to bash, a heavy reliance on the spider sense, and a surprising array of extremely recognizable bosses that anyone who has read a Spider-Man comic or watched a Spider-Man cartoon will know. The levels included are fairly linear, but feature a great mix of fighting standard enemies, bashing mini-bosses, swinging around, climbing, and the varied events leading up to the boss encounter.
The combat system works well, and even though it feels a little button mashy at times, it's a lot of fun to watch Spider-Man execute his combos filled with punching and web slinging. However, even fighting bosses is a little too easy because of how well the spider sense evasion system works. Whenever you're fighting, when there's an incoming attack you're able to slam your thumb down on a virtual button that appears just to the left of the joystick. A successful button mash kicks the game in to slow motion, and Spidey evades the incoming blow and counter-attacks. It all flows together great, and these spider sense moves usually look really cool.
There's a surprising amount of content in Spider-Man: Total Mayhem, including a hefty amount of unlockables to boost replay value. Twelve levels are included, and in each of the levels are tokens you can pick up to unlock bonus art to look at. In addition, there's an "ultimate" difficulty to unlock as well as a boss rush mode. There's even the black Spider-Man symbiote suit to unlock to play through the game again with Spidey powered up. Also, when fighting bosses you have opportunity to take photos of them, and these photo opportunities seem fairly easy to miss. If you're a completionist, you will be playing through Spider-Man: Total Mayhem many times.
Total Mayhem is loaded with high resolution graphics that look absolutely fantastic on the iPhone 4. It's not universal, but like most Gameloft games it wouldn't surprise me if an iPad-specific HD release was on the horizon. Gameloft did a great job of making a game that plays like a Spider-Man game needs to. The spider sense seems entirely overpowered in combat, and it won't take long for you to get tired of the spider sense quick action sequences that are liberally used in cut scenes, but beating up an endless array of nameless thugs is just as fun as it should be.
Back aboard the Gameloft party bus at E3 we got our first look at Ultimate Spider-Man Total Mayhem. When we saw it, the game played a lot like Gameloft's other third person action games, but totally drenched in all things Spider Man which any fan of the movies, comics, or cartoons will appreciate. The following trailer was released earlier today, which has a bit of gameplay footage towards the end:
Along with the trailer Gameloft also sent us a set of Retina Display resolution screenshots:
Spider Man is hitting the App Store September 1st, so if your spider sense is going crazy about that time, that may very well be why. In the meantime, swing by Gameloft's Ultimate Spider-Man Total Mayhem site which has quite a few details about the game including a listing of all the villains that you will come across.
Not long ago classic iPhone tower defense game geoDefense [$1.99 / Free] version 1.5 hit the App Store, adding support for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4 as well as the framework for DLC level packs. The first of those level packs was just released this afternoon, and a 99¢ in-app purchase unlocks brand new set of 3 medium levels and 3 hard levels. Also, these levels are immediately playable once downloaded so you can dive right in without needing to play any previous levels. While a game as good as geoDefense getting more levels is totally newsworthy by itself, it also gave us an excellent opportunity to pester developer David Whatley who is quite literally floating around the Caribbean as we speak.
Last time we spoke with Whatley he was extremely excited about the potential of the iPad, and told us that a sequel to geoDefense was coming which would be exclusive to the device. Since then, several things have gotten in the way such as the release of the iPhone 4, a Facebook game called Fantasy University, launch day ports of geoDefense and geoDefense Swarm for Windows Phone 7, and the never-ending question of what will make a worthy sequel to a game with the notoriety of geoDefense.
According to David, the recent update to geoDefense had a lot of work done behind the scenes to eventually ramp up in to an iPad version of geoDefense which is going to be the next title to be released by Critical Thought Games. From there, they're going to be testing the waters of the iPad App Store to see whether or not sticking to their guns regarding the iPad exclusivity of geoDefense 2 makes sense or not. Whatley admits that not doing an iPhone version of the sequel would likely be a big mistake, especially given the size of the market.
When talking to David about geoDefense 2, he mentioned the amount of pressure he's under to deliver something that will impress gamers, but not stray too far from what everyone has since come to expect out of the geoDefense series. He wants to take geoDefense to the next level, but he's still not entirely sure what that next level is. The situation seems eerily similar to Galcon [$2.99 / Free] and its successor Galcon Labs [$2.99] which despite the popularity of the original saw a lackluster response from gamers as it felt too much like an expansion pack, and not enough like its own game.
If you've beaten every level in geoDefense over the last year and a half since its initial release, now is a great time to re-download the game and try out the new levels. Admittedly, I'm fairly rusty but so far the six new levels completely live up to the difficulty level we've come to expect of geoDefense and are highly recommended for any fan of the game.
Tiger Style'sSpider is a game that we really just can't say enough good things about. The iPhone game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99] was our game of the year in 2009, and Spider HD [$4.99] is great on the iPad. There's also the pseudo-lite version of the game, Spider: Hornet Smash [Free] which is totally worth checking out if you've yet to try Spider just to see how the mechanics of being a spider in the game work. We loved Spiderin our review, and the development of the game itself is also fairly interesting which was covered in both an interview and a talk at GDC Austin.
An update just hit the App Store for Spider that among other tweaks finally adds Retina Display support which has made the game look even more amazing. One of my favorite things about Spider always has been the great hand drawn art style that encompasses the whole game, and the high pixel density of the Retina Display now makes Spider even more visually impressive.
Spider has been out for just over a year now, so if you've had it chilling in your iTunes library instead of synced to your device, now is an excellent time to do so if you own an iPhone 4. Otherwise, if you're looking for another game to show off just how great things can look on the Retina Display, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor is a worthy pick.
Ethan Nicholas grabbed headlines when his Scorched Earth-alike, iShoot [App Store] shot up the charts to grab the #1 spot in the top 100 paid apps category, dethroning the mighty iFart Mobile. What's particularly interesting about his success is that the game had been languishing in the App Store for several months until he released the free iShoot Lite [App Store], which instantly started to climb the charts, bringing the paid app with it and thereby defining a strategy that many would follow with varied success. For Nicholas, his success with iShoot was such that he was able to leave the day job behind and focus entirely on iPhone development.
In January, after his follow-up title Kim Rhodes' Outdoor Shooting [App Store] was out the door, Nichols began work on iShoot 2, sharing details of the development process in a few developer blog posts. And, after eight months' work, the game has just gone live in the App Store [link].
iShoot 2 is basically a reworked take on theScorched Earthformula, but with some nice enhancements over the original iShoot. First of all, iShoot 2 is a universal application that takes full advantage of the screen resolution of the iPhone 4 and iPad. But, aside from the benefit gained by the physically higher resolution screens of Apple's latest devices, the graphical detail of the game itself is notably enhanced as compared to the original, lending a more polished feel to the game.
Like iShoot before it, iShoot 2 is a turn-based artillery game that delivers a kill-or-be-killed battlefield scenario to the player. You control a tank set on a hilly / craggy landscape, flanked by one or more enemy tanks. Your goal is to calculate the proper angle and velocity to deliver your projectile(s) to your enemy in as few attempts as possible. And then pound him until dead. In this go-round, you have more intricate control of your weapons, as the velocity setting is handled via on-screen slider, as opposed to the length of time the fire button is held down, as handled in the original.
The game offers both Skirmish and Campaign single-player modes, as well as local Bluetooth multiplayer, with four players total in each mode. An entirely new weapons system has been put in place, with not only single-projectile weapons, but particle-based weapons, flame weapons, and the like. Tanks can be upgraded to use more advanced ordnance as the game progresses. The battlefields of iShoot 2 are larger than those of the original, with scrolling and pinch / spread zooming used to keep enemies in view. A dramatic, original soundtrack backdrops the action. Basically, every area of the game has been in some way improved over the original.
I've personally long been a fan of these sorts of games, there being a sort of fulfillment gained from calculating a trajectory and watching your volley of fiery death rain down upon your enemy. If you can identify with that emotion, or simply enjoyed Scorched Earth and its ilk, you'll likely find iShoot 2 rather to your liking.
There has been a lot of hue and cry about the latest version of the iphone because people only expect something extraordinary from the Apple. But a lot of us are still are unsure whether it will be worth to buy such an expensive phone. One of the added features of iphone 4 is that it comes with an application called face time which will enable you to have a video chat and this phone is equipped with two cameras as well. You can start off with the video chat without installing any additional software. The downside of the facetime feature is that one can have a video chat with people who possess the same iphone. Another aspect of the phone which has been creating a lot of buzz is that it has a retina display and as a result the images on the screen are very bright and vivid. So in short you can have a great video viewing experience on your iphone. The zoom in function is also available in this phone, so that you can increase the size of the image or text while surfing any website, for better visibility.
There is a lot of difference between the new iphone when it is compared with the iphone 3. The new model of the iphone is made up of steel so that it can give a better protection to the phone. The front and back portion of the phone is made up of sturdy glass to give it a cool look and simultaneously it has a coating which gives the phone a lot of protection. There are a lot of people who have tried to check the strength of the iphone and they have found that the phone is quite sturdy as it can handle the pressure from falling off the hand. And this has proved to be a unique feature of this apple iphone. People want their phone to be sturdy because it is used everyday and there will be times when it can get slipped from the hand. So in order to deal with such instances, the new iphone is made in such a way that this issue does not hamper the functioning of the phone. There are also chances that the phone might get scratches due to various reasons and hence you add a cover to your phone, to give it more protection.
Although the iphone 4 is quite strong and it is least likely to get affected from any minor falls, but it is better to think about its protection as it is a costly phone. This phone comes with the battery talk time of seven hours. You can read your favorite book on your iphone as it also has an ebook reader. The price of the new iphone 4 starts from one hundred and ninety nine dollars and if you want its costlier version then you can get it in two hundred and ninety nine dollars. The price is quite affordable and it is worth buying this phone as it has marvelous features.
It's not very often that a game comes along on the App Store that is too different to really liken it to anything. I suppose since the game involves going moving to the right it could be compared to Canabalt [$2.99] or Line Rider iRide [$1.99] since you're technically drawing the line that your character skis on, but neither seem like apt comparisons. In Solipskier [$2.99], you draw the mountain that your skier flies down by placing your finger on the screen. When you pick your finger up, you stop drawing but your skier keeps going– So, by tapping and moving your finger around you can create slopes of all kinds, along with ramps and huge jumps.
The way this all works on the iPhone goes together so well with the touchscreen that I was more than a little surprised in researching this game for this review that it started its life as a completely free to play flash game that is played by clicking the mouse instead of dragging your finger around. The presentation is top notch too, with music that ranges from this really somber sounding piano piece in the menus to a fast paced heavy metal rock ballad while you're skiing.
Also, as you paint the slopes with your finger houses and trees spring up from, and despite being largely black and white and 2D, the scenery has quite a bit of depth to it, with trees and houses scrolling on front of the scoreboards. Yet another cool little flourish in the game is that the music you're listening to is actually emanating from your character's headphones. If you go fast enough for them to fall off, all you hear is the sound of the wind. Upon successfully landing a jump, you're judged by off-screen judges who hold signs up scoring it, and the name of the game is to just score as high as possible.
Included in the game is OpenFeint online leaderboards for tracking scores, although achievements are curiously absent. Scoring high seems to be highly dependent on keeping your combo going to keep the rainbow following your skier up, which involves constantly skiing through the gates and tunnels are they appear on screen. One mistake I initially made when playing the game was drawing my jumps far too steep, and seem to be having better luck with long slow inclines and then short ramps at no more than a 45 degree angle. Forum member Ataloss offers additional tips in the Solipskier thread.
If nothing else, you should really try the free flash version, but just be aware that the game seems to work even better using the touchscreen of iOS devices. Solipskier is universal, and even comes with high resolution graphics for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4 (which look excellent, by the way). The game plays nice with the fast app switching in iOS 4 and reloads instantly, but it would be really nice if the game resumed in a paused state to give you an opportunity to reorient yourself before playing instead of having your little dude just go right back to skiing almost always resulting in death.
Overall, it's really hard to ask for more in a Flash to iPhone port, and Solipskier is really worth grabbing if you're even the least bit captivated by the Flash game.
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All the way back in the middle of December of last year we first got our hands on EA's Mirror's Edge [
Games based on comic books have been almost as hit or miss as games based on movies in the past, so I think my cautious optimism for Gameloft's recently released Spider-Man: Total Mayhem [
Not long ago classic iPhone tower defense game geoDefense [
Ethan Nicholas grabbed headlines when his Scorched Earth-alike, iShoot [
It's not very often that a game comes along on the App Store that is too different to really liken it to anything. I suppose since the game involves going moving to the right it could be compared to Canabalt [
