Category Archives: Retro

‘Pinball Magic’ Turns Your iPhone into a Pinball Machine…Kinda

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‘Pinball Magic’ Turns Your iPhone into a Pinball Machine…Kinda is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

New Potato, who brought us the Jackpot Slots [App Store] game / accessory for the iPhone, has just released another such bundle for the iPhone and iPod touch — but this time around, the game in question is pinball.

Pinball Magic is a gaming accessory that is intended to transform your iPhone or iPod touch into a realistic pinball machine, albeit a rather diminutive one. The pinball table-shaped accessory sports flipper buttons, a ball-launching plunger, a credit / select button,an animated LED backbox display, and foldable legs for easy transport. The device mates with your device's 30-pin dock connector and delivers a pinball experience by way of New Potato's free Pinball Magic [link] app.

Game features, listed by the developer:

  • Multiple classic and unique playboard layout
  • Advanced multi-level and multiplayer competition
  • Four possible multi-ball modes
  • End-of-ball and replay bonuses
  • Tilt detection, tilt warning and activation
  • Ball saver

Pinball Magic is currently available from Best Buy, online and at certain retail locations at a price of $39.99. And don't bother downloading the game app if you don't have the accessory — it won't play at all.

[ via ChipChick ]


Retro 101: Ten Classics to Get You Started

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Retro 101: Ten Classics to Get You Started is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Right now there are 250,000 apps in the App Store. One of the biggest categories of apps are games. And happily, for folks like me, there's no shortage of retro inspired / remake titles among them. Apple recently setup a retro game section of the App Store, in fact.

For those that haven't really explored this side of the App Store, I point you to a nice little roundup that Mashable recently put together. Ten titles — all of which we've covered in the past — that won't disappoint (though, we might urge folks towards Rogue Touch or Sword of Fargoal for their Rogue fix, as opposed to Gadnreas' never-updated, 2008 release featured in the roundup). Of course, ten games is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the list of great retro titles available for iOS devices, but if you're just beginning to taste the awesomeness of these classics — baby steps.

Those looking for more recommended retro titles can have a look at our list of Retro-related game stories.


From Cyan: ‘Riven’ Screenshots and a New Upcoming Title ‘Stoneship’

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From Cyan: ‘Riven’ Screenshots and a New Upcoming Title ‘Stoneship’ is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

In May of last year Cyan Worlds released an iPhone version of their groundbreaking (in its day) point and click adventure Myst [App Store]. Earlier this year we got word that Riven: The Sequel to Myst would be arriving on the iPhone by early summer. And, while it's obviously not here yet, we do have an update for those who've been waiting anxiously for Riven's arrival.




Early this month, Cyan's Mark DeForest (or 'Chogon') made a post on the Myst online forums indicating that they are expecting Riven to be available in early Fall, with Riven HD for the iPod following sometime after that. What's more, Cyan today launched a simple Riven for iOS website that reveals certain details about the forthcoming iPhone version along with a screenshot gallery.

The original Riven sights and sounds have been meticulously re-assembled for a remarkable experience on the iPhone and iPod touch. Everything that you remember from the original Riven in a format where a simple touch or swipe moves you through the world.

According to the website, the install of Riven for the iPhone is huge — and it's not surprising; Riven for the Mac and PC was initially distributed as a set of five CD-ROMs. Cyan has worked to optimize the original game data for the iOS platform but, even so, the game is about a gig and a half in size (probably the largest iOS application out there) and requires over 2 gigabytes of free storage for a successful install.

Riven for iPhone features, as listed by Cyan:

  • All the original Ages & gameplay
  • High quality images
  • Full music & sound effects
  • Movies & animations
  • Auto-save (when quitting or phone call)
  • "Bookmark" system to save & restore progress
  • Swipe to turn
  • Zoom in anywhere for more detail
  • “Hot Spot” hints
  • Works with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

We'll take a close look at Riven when it arrives and share our experiences with our readers. But, that's not the end of the Cyan news…

A small ad banner has recently appeared on the Cyan Worlds website that reads, "never let your timbers be shivered!" A click on the banner takes you to a rather spartan "preview" page that shows a screenshot of a new iOS game entitled Stoneship. Now, the savvy Myst fan will recall that "Stoneship" is the name of one of the ages in Myst, and this forthcoming title, which looks as if it may be some sort of top-down naval combat / tower defense / puzzle game, was surely inspired by it.

Unfortunately, that's about all the details we've got at the moment on this forthcoming, new title from Cyan. We'll share additional news on this one as we get it.

[ Thanks Jordan ]


LaserDisc Game ‘Road Blaster’ Screenshots Released

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LaserDisc Game ‘Road Blaster’ Screenshots Released is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Originally released in 1985 by the now defunct Data East, Road Blaster is a LaserDisc game in the style of Cobra Command [99¢]. Road Blaster was one of the last LaserDisc games ever released, and is set in a Mad Max-like post apocalyptic world where you play as a vigilante on the road hunting down a biker gang in attempt to bring them to justice for the death of your wife. Along the way you will need to do all kinds of tricky driving maneuvers before finally facing off with the gang's leader.

The only time this game has been seen outside of Japan is in the Sega CD port which not only suffered from the same horrid video compression of all Sega CD games, but also got renamed to Road Avenger. Revolutionary Concepts have completely remastered the game, and when it is finally released, it will play at 60FPS at full iPhone 4 or iPad resolutions. They've also completely redesigned the dashboard of the car, added in tilt controls, and made a whole list of other tweaks.

Check out this comparison between the original arcade and iPad versions of the game:

Road Blaster is currently in the final stages of development, and is expected to be released on the App Store sometime next month.


SwankoLab Review

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SwankoLab Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Synthetic Corp
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4

iPhone Integration Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Re-use Value Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I was part of a school camera club when I was a kid. We took photos for an hour and then headed back to the ludicrously cool dark room to develop our snaps of fairly boring subjects like fields and trees. I always thought we could have made these aesthetically dull pictures a little more exciting if we could have at least experimented with a few new chemicals during the development process but sadly, according to Mr Slatter, that’s not the way it’s done.

Prasie be then that SwankoLab has emerged from the same snap-happy bunch that brought us the excellent Hipstamatic, allowing me to indulge my photographic alchemy right on my iPhone without a teacher to stunt my manic creativity.

A virtual darkroom filled with image-adjusting chemicals awaits when you first fire up SwankoLab. It won’t take much play with the delicious interface before you’re applying saturation and bleaching effects to your existing iPhone snaps. Pick from any of the available bottles on the shelf above your development tray, read what their effect will be and then drop them into the mix. There is a limit to how many chemicals you can use in one sitting (as should be the case with all hazardous materials you experiment with) which is a blessing given how easy it is to get carried away.

Your image is then processed in an attractive yet fairly time consuming manner before being hung out to dry while you preview it. From there you can share your image, name the formula used or trash it altogether. On more than one occasion I did find that an image didn’t develop at all, however. Rather than feel my pride swell as my original image appeared from its bath of property tweaking liquid, my heart sank as I looked at a blank print. Whether it was the photo I chose, the type chemicals I mixed, witchcraft or perhaps FBI censorship, I don’t know. I guess, as is true of any experiment, sometimes it just doesn’t work.

That slight niggle aside, SwankoLab is a fun app that allows you to achieve similar retro effects to your Hipstamatic shots but using photos you’ve already taken and even those imported from your computer which makes it endlessly reusable. Combine that with the many chemical combinations at your disposal and the option to buy more and you’ve got an immensely enjoyable and creative tool at your disposal.

With IncrediBooth and Hipstamatic already under their belts, the guys at Synthetic Corp are quickly becoming the best photography developers in the business. And now they’ve added SwankoLab to the fold, I mean “developers” in more than one sense of the word.

[ SwankoLab Review is a post from 148Apps ]


‘So Long, Oregon!’ Review – Another Masterpiece From the Creators of ‘Enviro-Bear 2010′

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‘So Long, Oregon!’ Review – Another Masterpiece From the Creators of ‘Enviro-Bear 2010′ is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

If you weren't around for the great Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢] fiasco of, well, 2009, here's what you missed- Imagine you're a bear, driving a car, and you have five minutes to fatten yourself up as much as possible before finally driving your car in to your bear cave. The ridiculousness of the game's premise was matched only by the terrible controls and even worse pixel art which in our review we dubbed the best bear driving simulator on the App Store. (A worthy title.) I invoke the unholy name of Enviro-Bear because it's from those same fiery depths of hell that So Long, Oregon! [$1.99] was forged in.

So Long, Oregon! is "A fun new game about American history" according to the developers, where you pilot (I say pilot because you spend most of the game airborne) a Conestoga wagon from Independence, Missouri to El Dorado– The legendary city of gold. Much like the original Oregon Trail, you'll need to cross rivers, travel the countryside, murder swaths of helpless animals, become afflicted with various diseases, and lose your loved ones in the process of searching for said ancient gold.

Unlike the the original Oregon Trail, you don't make it to El Dorado through intense simulation, ration management, profession selection, caulking and/or floating the wagon across rivers, or anything else. Instead you just hold down the left arrow and go flipping over hills, and tapping the screen to let out a barrage of bullets to kill anything in your path to then collect its meat for your food stores. The hills and mountains are tall, and will often send you flipping end to end or just flat out landing upside down forcing you to wait until your wagon rights itself.

Along the way you'll find various settlements such as indian camps that give you food, disease, or flat out curse your wagon. There are also trading posts that you can trade for food, bullets, or sometimes even see a doctor. There are other surprises along the trail, but I won't spoil them.

The novelty value of So Long, Oregon! is out of this world, especially if you have fond memories of the original Oregon Trail. But, much like Enviro-Bear 2010, both the controls and gameplay seem to be intentionally bad so if you're looking for something serious So Long, Oregon! is not what you need. If you do like these kinds of silly games, there's a lot to love about So Long, Oregon! such as multiple ridiculous game modes with tons of wagons to race, tons of animals to shoot, a case of the super-measles to deal with, and others. There's also all kinds of Open Feint achievements and online leaderboards.

The windows version of the game can be downloaded for free and likely will provide more So Long, Oregon! than one person would ever need in their life. If you need more, download the iOS version which also happens to be universal and is equally weird regardless of which device you're playing it on.

App Store Link: So Long, Oregon!, $1.99 (Universal)


‘The Incident’ Review – Beware: Falling Junk

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‘The Incident’ Review – Beware: Falling Junk is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Big Bucket Software's The Incident [$1.99] which we featured in yesterday's upcoming games roundup was approved mere moments ago and is now available for download on the App Store. The Incident takes the basic vertical jumping game premise that has become wildly popular on the iPhone and adds a new twist to it, and that twist amounts to massive piles of junk falling from the sky. The variety of objects that fall from the sky is astounding, ranging from boulders to crates to electric guitars and even Smart cars.

The game is controlled by tilting your device right or left to move, and tapping on the screen to jump. You're able to move objects around by walking in to them, and sometimes you can flip falling junk around with a well timed jump underneath whatever you're trying to move. Seven levels are included in the game, starting with the street and ending in space. Each level consists of its own height goal, and you just need to stay on top of the falling pile of junk to climb upwards. This sounds simple enough, and the first few levels are fairly easy, but it doesn't take long until things are falling so fast that you will have your fingers crossed that a health powerup spawns or a checkpoint is near.

The Incident is host to some excellent chiptune music, power ups, power downs, fantastic pixel art retro graphics, some odd achievements, and it's even universal. I tend to be preferring the game on my iPhone, but that's more just because holding and tilting the iPad for extended periods of time can be tiresome. I'd love to see some kind of onscreen control option, at least for the iPad, but as is the game is still fun to play on either device.

According to The Incident's web site, the developers are already hard at work on updates to add even more levels and gameplay. Hopefully somewhere along the way they add in some kind of online scoring and achievement tracking, because only having local scores is a huge bummer for a game like this. I'd love to see how I rank globally on things like how long it takes me to climb, how many coins I've collected, how many times I've been crushed by a couch, and a ton of other things.

Even without online scoring, The Incident has quite a few things I like to see in iPhone games. It saves at each checkpoint, so you can either play for a few minutes at a time or even longer, the controls work well, the graphics look cool, it's universal from the get go, and I really dig the whole concept behind the game. Forum members in The Incident's thread are enjoying it a lot, and I really can't wait to see what Big Bucket Software has planned via updates.

App Store Link: The Incident, $1.99 (Universal)


Three Upcoming Games: ‘Monster Dash’, ‘The Incident’, and ‘Skull Smasher’

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Three Upcoming Games: ‘Monster Dash’, ‘The Incident’, and ‘Skull Smasher’ is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Three upcoming games are picking up steam in our upcoming iPhone games forum that are likely all worth keeping an eye out for, especially if you like dashing from monsters, avoiding falling junk, and/or matching skulls.

Monster Dash – The latest game from Halfbrick Studios, the guys behind Blast Off [99¢], Fruit Ninja [99¢], and most recently Fruit Ninja HD [$4.99] for the iPad. According to beta tester da shiz wiz 19 on our forums, "It's like the guy from Canabalt goes homicidal…against monsters," and that is a mash up I can get behind. Monster Dash is scheduled for release on August 19th.

Check out this absolutely fantastic trailer for the game:

The Incident – Coming potentially very soon from Big Bucket Software is The Incident, a pixel-art powered climbing and avoidance game. In the game, you basically just try to stay on top of a massive pile of junk falling from the sky. The Incident has already been submitted, and should be approved any day now.

Take a look at the gameplay trailer to see this odd gameplay mechanic in motion:

Skull Smasher for the iPad – Even though I'm still anxiously awaiting Galactic Keep: Dice Battles, I'm glad to see Gilded Skull Games working on another title for the iPhone. Skull Smasher seems to have the same fantastic art style of both the upcoming Galactic Keep and the already released Imp or Oaf? [99¢], only this time applied to a match three.

Gameplay is explained by the developer in the thread and involves tapping groups of similar skulls to smash them with boss skulls that take damage for being near other matches. Apparently Skull Smasher will have a sizable amount of depth to it with power-ups, player health, leveling, and even a story line. Gilded Skull plans on releasing a series of these bite sized games, which I'm totally looking forward to.


Sega’s ‘Shining Force’ Sieges App Store

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Sega’s ‘Shining Force’ Sieges App Store is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

If you've been waiting for a game wrapped in Sega's mediocre emulator that's finally worth buying, that day has come. Shining Force [$2.99] hit the App Store mere moments ago, and as mentioned in our preview yesterday, it's amazing how much the overall experience of playing these emulated games is improved when playing a slow-paced game that doesn't depend on emulator performance or precise controls. In said preview, I explained the basics of Shining Force:

Shining Force is a tactical RPG with turn-based battles that take place on square grids. Originally released in the USA in 1993, Shining Force is about as classic as you get when it comes to a Sega RPG. Not only has it been included in various classic game collections that Sega has released on numerous platforms over the years, but it also saw a remake in 2004 for the Gameboy Advance. This is the original Genesis version of the game, set in the land of Rune where you play a silent protagonist who recruits allies to the Shining Force to ultimately prevent the evil Darksol from resurrecting a Dark Dragon, destroying the world, and doing all those other things which have since become entirely cliche for RPG villains to do.

While Shining Force may seem a little basic if you haven't played it before and your first exposure to turn based strategy games was Final Fantasy Tactics or later games, Shining Force has everything it needs for a great old school RPG. Each character has their own class (and personality which is often revealed throughout the story) along with special abilities. As you battle your units level up, and my favorite feature of Shining Force always was that there never really is a game over. If your party falls in battle you retain all your experience earned and just try again. Of course there are all kinds of items to buy, treasure to find, gear to equip, and everything else you'd expect as well.

Surprisingly enough, this is the first emulated Genesis game on the App Store I can recommend without issue. Shining Force is an excellent classic RPG, and the turn based gameplay makes the touch controls extremely forgiving. It would have been nice to see Sega put a little more effort in to this game and either port the Gameboy Advance or Sega CD release, but I'm just glad they've moved on to RPG's instead of sticking with the classic lineup of action and arcade games. Now, how about Phantasy Star next, eh Sega?

App Store Link: Shining Force, $2.99

(International link)