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In April of last year, iOS gamers scored big when longtime Japanese developer CAVE decided to task their mobile division with bringing some of their classic shooter titles to the Apple App Store. All of these games – Espgaluda II, Dodonpachi Resurrection, and Deathsmiles – received critical acclaim from media and gamers alike, and set the benchmark for what we should expect from our bullet hell shmups on the App Store.

In between two of those releases, CAVE decided to branch out into something different, and brought out an iOS exclusive game called Mushihimesama Bug Panic. It was a departure from their typical offerings as it was a dual-stick action game, but it retained the frantic nature of their bullet hell games extremely well and was equally adored amongst critics and fans.

Now we have CAVE’s latest release, which kind of brings things full circle. Mushihimesama is a vertical shmup released in Japanese arcades back in 2004. It’s seen a sequel with Mushihimesama Futari, and a spinoff title called Puzzle! Mushihimetama. Bug Panic on iOS is actually based in the Mushihimesama universe, featuring the same female main character and insect-based enemies. Now the original Mushihimesama title is available on the App Store as Bug Princess [$4.99].

Typically with CAVE’s iOS ports, there will be the full original arcade version of the game along with an enhanced Smartphone Mode which contains additional things like scoring tweaks, different enemies or ships, and alternate ways to play the game. Bug Princess bucks this trend and doesn’t have a reworked Smartphone Mode, but the original game had three different modes anyway so there are still different ways to play through the game. The three modes in Bug Princess are Original, Maniac, and Ultra. Sadly, the special Arranged mode from the PlayStation 2 port didn’t make it to the iOS version.

Gameplay across each of the 3 modes is similar. You can pick from 3 different ships to play as, each offering a different firing style. One sends a concentrated spray of bullets in a straight stream, one fires less powerful shots but in an incredibly wide stream, and the third ship fires both straight ahead and diagonally at the same time giving a balance between shot coverage and power. You’ll play through 5 stages absolutely filled to the brim with enemies and bullets flying everywhere, along with crazy mid and end of level boss fights. In every mode, you can choose to play straight through the 5 stages in a single run, or choose each level individually to play through score attack style.

Along the way, you’ll be able to collect upgrades for your main firepower, increasing the strength and quantity of your shots. There are bombs which will clear a huge area of the screen, and you can also pick up a little squad of support ships to fly along with you and add some firepower. You can choose two different formations for this support squad, a wide spread or concentrated in a narrow spray.

Scoring in Original mode is fairly straightforward. Shoot every enemy you see, collect the gems they leave behind, and have them tallied up at the end of a level to determine final score. Maniac and Ultra modes, however, add a wrinkle to this formula. In those modes a counter in the upper corner increases with every shot that connects with an enemy, and decreases when no enemies are being shot. Whenever you kill an enemy, whatever the number that the counter is at is added to your score as a bonus. So if you’re at the 2000 mark on your counter, ever enemy you kill gives you an additional 2000 points, each.

Needless to say, this tiny facet can drastically change how you approach the game, and adds lots of strategy to getting high scores. If you’re mindful of the need to always be shooting something, you can get that counter up into the tens of thousands or more, especially with some of the larger bullet sponge enemies and bosses. This added score complexity makes Maniac and Ultra the more interesting modes to play, but they are also significantly more difficult than Original mode.

Speaking of difficulty, you can choose from 4 of them in Bug Princess. It’s a trip to see just how different they are from each other too, in terms of the amount of bullets onscreen and the complexity of bullet patterns. Novice is an easy trip for any casual gamer who merely wants to be able to play through the game without much fuss. But crank the difficulty up to Hell, which is basically exact to the arcade original, and you will be crying for momma before the halfway point of the first level. The 3 modes and various difficulty options really help cater the game to a wide audience, and even if you’re not a bullet hell pro (which I’m not!) then there is still plenty to enjoy.

There were a couple of things about Bug Princess that I didn’t enjoy, though. First off, the game uses both Game Center and OpenFeint for achievements and leaderboards which is great, but they plaster that awful OpenFeint game feed onto the title screen. Admittedly that’s not a problem with the game itself, but the feed is distracting and ugly, slow to load, and cheapens an otherwise top-notch presentation. At least give me the option to turn that bad boy off, please. My other issue with the game is that the load times in general are a bit long, which isn’t a great feature for a mobile title.

Aside from those small quibbles, Bug Princess offers yet another stellar entry in CAVE’s series of iOS shooters. It’s probably the most straight forward and least complex out of them all, which makes it a great starting point for bullet hell newbies, but it does have its share of depth for those looking to master its strategies. And like all CAVE shooters, the touch controls are fantastic, the visuals are striking, and the action is non-stop. Plus, Bug Princess is the first from CAVE to be Universal, and while I prefer playing on the iPhone, it plays pretty nice on the iPad too. At its current price of $4.99, Bug Princess should be a no brainer for your next bullet hell fix.

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I’m certainly not ashamed to admit I’m a fanboy of Big Pixel Studios. They make my favorite match-3 in Piyo Blocks 2 [99¢], they created one of the greatest kitty games of all time with Meow Meow Happy Fight [$2.99/HD], and their wonderful physics puzzler Land-a Panda [99¢/HD] has been a huge success. I adore the unique art style in Big Pixel’s games, and they’re always bright, colorful, and full of cheer, as well as solid gameplay. So yeah, I’m a fan.

The latest title that Big Pixel has been hard at work on is called Off The Leash, and I’ve had the good fortune of playing a preview build of the game ahead of its January release. I’m enjoying the heck out of it so far, and to lean on an easy comparison, Off The Leash does for tilt-based avoidance games what Jetpack Joyride [99¢] did for cave flyers. That’s to say, it takes the core mechanic of reaction-based tilt gameplay and slathers it in colorful visuals, unlockable items and characters, and meta goals to achieve through continued play.

The story, like the visuals, is almost just too adorable to handle. Society has suddenly put a ban on dogs for some reason, and since you’re a dog this is bad news. While quietly minding your own doggy business inside your home, the fuzz crashes down the door ready to haul you away. You burst through the window to escape while the cops promptly give chase, setting up the premise for the game.

As you’re evading your police pursuit, you’ll need to tilt your device to avoid bad objects and collect good objects along the way. Your escape is broken into segments, each with a timer and a checkpoint at the end that must be reached before time’s up. Running into bushes, water, or other disruptive objects will slow you down, possibly to the point of not making the checkpoint in time and extending your play. Careful avoidance is the main name of the game if you want to make it far.

You can also collect other dogs while you go, snatching them right from the leashes in their owner’s hand and recruiting them into your pack. As this pack grows, it becomes easier to collect good objects like food and coins since you’re pack covers a wider area, but it also becomes easier to run into hazards. At certain points the level can get pretty narrow, so holding down on the bottom of the screen will slow down time a bit and make your puppy pals line up behind you in single file, making the hazards easier to negotiate but costing you precious time.

So the core gameplay is fairly simple, but there are some neat additions thrown in there to add some variety and depth. This also includes powerups, which can be picked up as you’re running and will do things like give you a temporary speed boost or draw items closer to you like a magnet. You can also spend the coins you earn on all sorts of nifty things like silly hats, special powerups, and new characters. Most of these items take a lot of coins, and there will be the option of purchasing more through IAP if you want to speed up that process, though it isn’t necessary.

Off The Leash is shaping up to be another winner from Big Pixel Studios. The gameplay is so simple even a caveman could do it, and the store filled with items to buy and the mini-missions to complete during regular play will keep me coming back frequently. The game feels mostly complete in the version I’m playing, so chances are Big Pixel is waiting for the holiday release rush to die down before unleashing Off The Leash in the App Store. We should be seeing it sometime in January, hopefully sooner rather than later.

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Every iOS game has a story behind its development, but the one behind MinoMonsters [$0.99] may have been one you’ve already heard if you pay attention to iOS news. Like that the guys that founded the company that made the game are some of the youngest game designers to score an investment of this size for their project ( a cool million, to be exact), but they have some meaty people on board too, such as TJ Murphy, who co-founded the Social Gaming Network. In other words, MinoMonsters has a hell of a pedigree. And with that kind of story behind it, well, it’s hard not to expect one hell of a game.

Luckily, the final product is pretty stellar. MinoMonsters operates off the Pokemon strategy, as it puts you in the role of an (unseen) hero who collects adorable creatures and trains them to fight on your behalf as you progress through a lush world populated by a series of different stages. The game looks like a comic book in action, and is absolutely gorgeous to play – definitely a standout when it comes to what’s on the App Store. There are tons of cute titles out there, but MinoMonsters looks and plays like a really handsome action RPG. Since I love that genre, I was instantly hooked on the combination of monster training and exploring.

Speaking of how it plays, there are four worlds to explore, and you’ll start simply with only one Mino by your side. As you explore the worlds, you’ll have a small log at the top of your screen that lists your quests. Some are fetch quests a’la MMO style (fight this many guys, etc), but others will have you looking for a big Mino to save or other such quests. When you get one of these latter quests, there will be a circular icon with a tiny arrow attached to it to help you navigate your way towards it with more ease.

Movement is flawless — with the exception of the back home and quest icons at the top middle of the screen, there are not a lot of buttons to contend with. Each world is made up of a series of platforms you’ll jump between to move around, and when you land on one with a Mino on it, a fight ensues. You can either engage in the fight by tapping the Mino with your finger for a normal attack or choosing a special attack from the bottom of the screen.

However, to do so, you’ll need to earn lightning bolt icons to fill up that bar. Every time you get a hit in, the enemies will drop hearts, lightning bolts, and stars. These respectively fill up your life bar, your special attack bar, and your experience rating post fight. The way the enemies drop these works very well too, as it allows you to keep fighting. It’s also worth mentioning that the more care you take with your Minos, the better they will perform in fights for you — something I’ll explain next here.

At any time in your explorations, you can touch the home button up top and find yourself on the Mino island. You’ll see the Minos you have equipped, and be able to interact with them by touching them. Each will have an icon over its head to tell you how comfortable it is feeling with you. In order to make the Minos happy, you need to periodically come to the island and make sure you feed them goodies. When you have the opportunity to after some time exploring, there will be a heart over their heads, and you can touch it and feed them a slew of hearts and smile faces. This warms them to you and makes them better fighters. If you neglect coming to this screen, they will come to like you less and less.

This screen also has the shop on it, which will enable you to purchase new monsters, collars for them to toughen them up, gems to make them more powerful, and candy, which is what you feed Minos in order to capture them. These are all microtransactions, so you’ll have to spend real money if you want to do any of this.

You are given some candy to start the game off with, but once you run out, you’ll have to wait one day in-game to get 5 more. You also use these to run in battles, which means that it’s fairly easy to run out of them quickly. This was one part of MinoMonsters I did not care for. I do not like feeling forced to participate in microtransactions, but considering how integral the candy is to gameplay, it seems to me that it would have been nice to at least find one in boxes from time to time. However, the MinoMonsters team have mentioned on their Facebook page that they will be adding an update in the future that will make candy easier to earn, so it’s nice to see the developers on top of user feedback and aiming to please.

My only other complaint is that I think MinoMonsters needed more music. The sound effects are fine, but it made no sense to me that the overworld and the Mino island was silent. I actually looked to make sure I didn’t mute something. It’s a small bone to pick, but with a world as enchanting as this one at your fingertips, it seems it would have only been further enhanced by music to make that atmosphere a place you want to spend that much more time in.

You can play MinoMonsters alone just fine, but the creators really intended it to be an experience you share with friends. You can use the friends button to add Facebook friends, and once you do, that’s when you can start pitting your monsters against your friends’ monsters. I am solo gamer for the most part, but I can easily see how battling your friends could become something I wanted to do a lot.

I think MinoMonsters has the potential to become a pretty big deal. It’s in a hell of a package, and it’s clear that the developers want to continue expanding the world and building upon what they have. They have been clear in interviews that they would like this game to be the next Angry Birds, which is a lofty goal. However, I enjoyed it a great deal more than I did Angry Birds, so take from that what you will. At the price, I consider it a must-download, as it’s easily some of the most fun I’ve had with an iOS title in some time.

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It won’t take long to suss out the inspiration for Crazy Bomber [$0.99]. Its pedigree is Bomberman all the way down. Are we ready for games inspired by Hudson Soft’s 1983 series yet? Or perhaps the question is whether Crazy Bomber brings anything new to the table.

The answer is a tentative “yes.” Yes, Crazy Bomber has a few tricks up its sleeve, though not many. Yes, it’s the nicest rendition of this gameplay I’ve seen on iOS yet. But without online multiplayer (a feature JoyTouch says is coming), the heart of the modern Bomberman experience is missing. Without it, you’re just a guy running around a field blowing stuff up — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But let’s back up a bit. Maybe you’ve missed that last 28 years of gaming and you’re still wondering what this Crazy Bomber thing is all about. So here goes: you control an adorable character (your choice of cute fairy, zombie, vampire or knight) in a rectangular field filled with obstacles, traps and monsters. You move around with a virtual d-pad on the left of the screen, and plant bombs with a button on the right. The bombs can destroy some of the obstacles, kill monsters, and hurt you. So the challenge is to find the right place to plant them that will trap and kill the moving monsters without doing the same to yourself.

If we’re all on the same page now, let’s talk about how Crazy Bomber gets this right, and where it drops the ball. For the main campaign it sets you up against the monsters, requiring that you blow them all up to complete most of its 60 levels. They don’t have bombs, though it’ll hurt to run into them. The challenge ramps up nicely, introducing familiar elements like power-ups, conveyor belts and aggressive defenses as you progress. The biggest failing is the virtual controls. They’re certainly serviceable, but not as responsive as they ought to be considering how quickly you need to move out of the way of bombs and monsters.

Crazy Bomber offers a good variety of levels. Not only does the challenge increase, you’ll also find challenge levels scattered throughout. These include block-pushing puzzles, conveyor belt races and a few other frantic trials. You’ll also fight bosses on the last level of each zone. These keep the act of bombing from getting as boring and repetitive as it otherwise would, especially given the short loops of music you’ll be hearing in each level.

After playing through the campaign for a little while, you’ll also unlock multiplayer, which can be played against any combination of AI players. You can choose from 1 to 3 opponents, select how they team up and set their difficulty. It’s fun, but really hollow without the ability to play against friends.

The reason I say you unlock multiplayer after “a little while” is because I’m not entirely sure what conditions are needed to make that happen — the game doesn’t tell you. It isn’t finishing single player — I unlocked it about midway through the game — so it’s probably based on the stars you collect. Each level ranks you out of three stars, with a steep challenge for getting all three. The specifics of improving your score are also a mystery, and Crazy Bomber would do well to lay that and the unlocking mechanic out more clearly.

On the whole, though, Crazy Bomber is a decent game, and it will be much better if online multiplayer is added. If you’re craving Bomberman-style play, you won’t go wrong picking it up. If you do, stop by our discussion thread and let us know what you think.

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Just over a year ago, SRRN Games released Ash [99¢/Lite], a fun role-playing game that attempted to be a modern throwback to RPGs of the 16-bit era. It succeeded remarkably well at it too, offering simple but fun RPG gameplay with an interesting story tying everything together. We liked it a whole bunch in our review, and even our complaints about the difficulty and the controls were rectified in a later update.

Sadly, one thing that didn’t seem likely to get rectified was the generic look of the game. Ash was made using assets from RPG Maker, a build-your-own-RPG program of sorts. This made everything look kind of patchwork-ish and cookie cutter, which contrasted poorly with the high quality of the dialogue and storyline. However, it wasn’t anything so off-putting that you couldn’t enjoy the game, it was just the biggest part of the game that could use improvement.

Now, surprisingly, SRRN has actually gone and redrawn all of the artwork to Ash and released it as a free update. The new sprites, backgrounds, and character art all closely mimic the previous version, so it’s not like you’re dealing with entirely new characters, but they’ve all been redrawn or remade beautifully. The game is much more colorful and brighter, and everything has a more cohesive look like it all belongs together. It’s definitely a very welcome improvement. Aside from the new artwork, they also fixed some bugs and toned down the frequency of random encounters.

If you haven’t checked out Ash already, the lovely new artwork is just one more reason to give it a look. For those that already own and have played through Ash, this update is reason enough to dust off that app and give it another run through. If you’re thinking of picking up Ash, right now wouldn’t be a bad time as it’s currently on sale for 99¢ and there’s a lite version to try which has also been given the visual improvement.

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Controversial is probably the best word for War on Terror [$1.99]. Originally a board game conceived by Terror Bull Games in 2003, War on Terror has precipitated everything from bans to death threats – true story, I swear. As you can imagine, when the iOS version was released, there was significant concern about it being forcibly annulled from the App Store. It wasn’t, and I’m damn well glad for that because War on Terror is the sort of game you should at least play once.

Fans of the title should be forewarned, however. The iOS version is significantly watered down compared to the original. There is no Axis of Evil. There are no off-board negotiations or dealings. Defeated players do not become terrorist nations. You don’t even get situational cards. Nonetheless, that doesn’t change the fact that War on Terror is surprisingly fun and, once you’ve realized the genius behind it, devilishly clever.

But we’re moving a little too fast. Let’s take a few steps back and take a look at how the game actually plays. When you first start the game, you’ll be asked to select your avatar (this is purely cosmetic, by the way) and the number of players you wish to play against. After that, you’ll be dropped into a world map with a few nations under your control. To win, you must accumulate a certain amount of liberty points. How do you do that? By taking over continents (each continent rewards you with a certain amount of points). I’m totally serious about this.

If you cringed at that, you should probably stop reading now because it gets a lot worse. Did you know that the total annihilation of a player in War on Terror is usually accompanied with fanfare and a declaration that the aforementioned individual has been liberated. Ahem. Moving on.

The actual gameplay itself is relatively straightforward. During each turn, a set of dice is rolled and countries with the corresponding number will reward its owner with a certain amount of money. You’ll also be able to do things like establish alliances (these seldom seem to help), declare war on others, develop the countries under your ownership (the better developed the country, the greater the revenue you receive from them), indulge in a spot of terrorism (they’re surprisingly effective), build defenses (protect a country against radioactive assaults or common-place rabble; it’s your choice) and even initiate nuclear attacks (exactly what you think it is).

Complex as all that might sound, it’s not. War happens when you click on an adjacent nation and select the appropriate option. Victory is even less hands-on; a win is determined by whether or not your dice rolls are above a five.

Such is the case for everything else as well; it’s all a matter of pointing and clicking. However, what makes War on Terror shine is the way the game enforces the need for proper accountancy. For example, you can wage war as much as you like – just make sure you have a minimum of forty million in your bank. Want to call a nuclear strike? Sure. Have five hundred million in reserve. No one ever said it was easy to be a world leader. If anything, it’s bloody expensive. Guerrilla warfare, on the other hand, is not.

In fact, compared to everything else, terrorism is almost mind-bogglingly cheap. You’ll only need to spend ten million in order to send your incendiaries anywhere in the world. As an added bonus, you won’t have to worry about weathering retaliation either – radicals in this game are rather close-mouthed about their affiliations.

For the sake of decorum, I’m going to forgo discussing the political aspects of the game. You can come to your own conclusions yourself. However, I will have to say that War on Terror is rather compelling. Once you’ve gotten into the swing of things, it’s easy to get caught up in the act of expansion, in worrying about the next oil turn and whether you will be a prince or a pauper. Do you play nice with your neighbors or do you move for the kill? Do you spread like a venereal disease or do you focus on building up the nations under your control?

Like any good iOS game, it’s simple but prone towards provoking ‘one more turn’ instincts. Graphics-wise, War on Terror will likely be a hit or a miss. If you enjoy the political cartoons in the newspaper, you’ll probably like it. If not, well, it’s not intolerable. It’s just not something to shout about.

As I’ve mentioned before, War on Terror is a game that you need to experience at least once. But only once. Re playability is a big issue here for me. After beating it once, I feel little imperative to do so again, an odd turn of circumstances given that War on Terror was derived from a board game. I imagine that this opinion might change once online multiplayer (hot seating could have worked brilliant too, guys) is introduced but for now, it is a problem. Still, if you’re willing to overlook that, War on Terror remains a rather brilliant if possibly misguided piece of political satire and a rather entertaining game to boot.

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A santa hat and suit are now a part of Jetpack Joyride [$.99]. Earlier today, Halfbrick’s flyer received a yuletide update that integrates some pretty hip seasonal junk including the aforementioned, as well as a Christmas tree themed jetpack, a snow machine jetpack, and pudgier scientists who obviously had a little too much cheer of late.

All this, of course, is free for owners of the $.99 joint. Halfbrick is on a roll of late with Jetpack updates, if you haven’t noticed. Just the other week, the game received its first new area and a new challenge mission structure that rewards the hardcorest of its hardcore fans. And, hey, if you haven’t got around to this yet, now you can reach new heights of prestige in a Santa hat. Hats, guys! HATS.

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It’s getting close to the holidays, and for us that means we’re going to be posting a lot of deals in the near future. And we’re not just talking about your everyday, “Hey, this game is now half off” kind of deals, but also the crazy “Hey, this game is free now for some reason” brand of price cutter-y. Case in point: Mobigame’s Edge [Free] is now free on the App Store, for the first time ever, in celebration of the season. Whoa!

If you didn’t get Edge the first time around, this is obviously a fantastic opportunity. Sadly, it’s probably better known for the legal stir around it, but you should check it out because it’s a sharp puzzle game with some really hip inventive mechanics.

In addition to this cut, Mobigames has reduced the price of all of its other App Store titles, including Edge Extended. Here’s a list:

• Cross Fingers – $.99 → Free
• Edge Extended – $2.99 → $.99
• Perfect Cell – $2.99 → $.99
• Trucker’s Delight: Episode 1 – $.99 → Free

Buckle up, guys, because there’s going to be a lot more of these kinds of sales coming up.

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American Laser Games’s so-awful-it-ends-up-being-good FMV shooter, Mad Dog McCree, is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch this December 20, according to caretaker Digital Leisure. This is a port of the original arcade release of the game, so don’t expect anything too fancy, however the team is noting that it has converted the game’s silly footage for phones and even added an “all new casual mode” for those without hardcore gunslinging skills.

If you’re unfamiliar with McCree, take a gander at the footage just below. You play as a gunslinger charged with killing a band of Wild West cutthroats who have kidnapped a hole in the wall town’s mayor and his precious daughter. Most of the time, you’ll be killing dudes in fairly linear sequences, but there’s some hilariously bad reflex-laden one-on-one shootouts. We can’t wait to see this one, for sure.

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Plants vs. Zombies for iPhone [$.99] got some new and exciting stuff this morning in a fresh and free update. At the top, the game finally now supports Game Center leaderboards. It can also now boast some parity with the series’ PC, Macintosh, XBLA, and DS adaptations — I, Zombie mode is now supported and can be purchased via IAP in Crazy Dave’s shop.

I, Zombie, if you’re not familiar, is a table-turning twist that lets you play as the undead horde . You’ll get one free level in this update, and eight more, as well as an Endless take on it, if you do decide to pony up the dough. Holiday hats have also been introduced via this update because, hats.

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