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This week on The TouchArcade Show, we battle through discussion about staph infections, broken necks, and other off-topic stuff to bring you the latest, hottest, and best in iOS news, reviews, and commentary. At the top, we do a new iPad check-in just to see if everyone is still digging Apple’s New Thing. Later, we dive into discussions on Swordigo, Hunger Games: Girl On Fire and Angry Birds Space. Of course, we also get to your user questions.

If you’d like to listen, feel free to do so via the links below. Additionally, you can subscribe to our weekly radio show via Zune and iTunes. It’s the easiest way to get our stuff the second its uploaded to the Internet, so consider your options!

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-044.mp3, 42.7MB

And now your show notes:

GAMES

• Angry Birds Space [$.99 / HD]
• Hunger Games: Girl On Fire [Free]
• Sky Gamblers: Aerial Supremacy [$4.99]
• Fireball: SE[$.99 / HD]
• Swordigo [$1.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• Nyan Cat Adventure [$.99 / Free]

FRONT PAGE

• Zynga buys ‘Draw Something’ Devs
• Mobile ‘WOW’ Could Still Happen

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Here’s a fun Friday story for you- Disc Drivin’ [$1.99 / Free / $2.99 (HD)], if you’ve never heard of it, is an a turn-based racing game that both Jared and Arnold can’t get enough of, still. The basic idea is if you took a game like Mario Kart, but gave it online turn-based multiplayer, and used a flick-based shuffleboard-like mechanic to race your discs around a track. We’ve got a pretty extensive review in the books, but since then, the game has been updated a whole bunch of times with all sorts of new stuff.

Anyway, in a recent short interview with AdWeek, Rich Sommer, the actor who plays Harry Crane on AMC’s Mad Men dropped some interesting details on the gameplay habits of the cast and crew:

Disc Drivin’ is a racing game that I’ve been playing a lot lately with Jon Hamm; Jay Ferguson, who’s also on the show; our head hairstylist; and our makeup artist.

Celebrity endorsement for apps and games isn’t a new thing, but it always seems like whenever a celeb’ is tweeting about the game they’re playing, it’s usually the same ultra-popular junk everyone else is playing. Disc Drivin’, however, is seriously obscure compared to something like, I don’t know, Temple Run.

So, yeah, if the folks behind Mad Men are playing Disc Drivin’, you totally should be too. Right?

[via AdWeek]

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Let’s wind the clocks back to 2009, as really, to appreciate what Angry Birds has become, I think we need to go back and appreciate what Angry Birds was. The App Store was a crazy place. The “gold rush” was still in full effect. Publishers like Chillingo were trying to stake as large of a claim as possible in this brave new world brought about by the impulse-powered instant gratification of downloading a 99¢ game and the exploding popularity of the iPhone.

Chillingo was incredibly successful in pooling together a library of games we called “AAA titles” at the time. iDracula [ $2.99 ] may look incredibly archaic by today’s standards, but back then, it was among the cream of the crop. In late May, Chillingo spun off a new brand called Clickgamer.com, which per the original press release was intended to “carry casual games and software applications in the Apple App Store. This new brand will fully complement Chillingo’s existing catalogue of AAA innovative titles.”

Clickgamer.com’s aisle in the App Store was (and still is) an odd assortment of ultra-casual games and apps ranging from the SAT Vocabulary Builder [ $1.99 ] to sliding block puzzle games like Pic n’ Mix [ $0.99 ]. Reading between the lines of Chillingo’s own distinction between the AAA Chillingo and Clickgamer.com brands, it wasn’t difficult to see why Angry Birds [ $0.99 ] was relegated to the non-AAA Clickgamer.com brand when it launched, as the late-2009 1.0 version of the game really wasn’t anything that special. Or, as we mention in our original review which almost seems laughable now:

When you see a game with a name as nondescript as Angry Birds, it’s pretty hard to get excited. Even after playing through the first few levels, I was enjoying this game, but failing to see the real appeal.

The original release had a barebones array of birds, 63 levels, no leaderboards, no achievements, and no, really… anything else. Angry Birds wouldn’t even strike it big until months later in early 2010, when Chillingo announced that the game had been downloaded over half a million times. Whether that sales surge was a result of Chillingo’s marketing prowess or creative consulting as a publisher or the product of Rovio’s hard work seems to be a matter of perspective, and the answer to that question depends more on who you ask. Regardless, Angry Birds has yet to let go of a position on the top ten iTunes sales charts.

The Angry Birds kingdom expanded into the Angry Birds empire with the self-published release of both Angry Birds Seasons [ $0.99 ] and Angry Birds Rio [ $0.99 ] over the next couple of years. Since then, Rovio has grown further yet, and now days it’s difficult to find a platform that doesn’t have Angry Birds on it as the brand has made its way to the browser, smart TV’s, and even feature phones being sold in emerging markets. Think about that. People in African countries rocking series 40 Nokia phones have Angry Birds.

Despite Rovio’s unprecedented levels of success, recently it has been hard to dispute the argument that the Angry Birds formula might be getting a little stale. I’ve always been excited to play through the levels added in new updates, but for a while now I’ve felt like I’m just going through the motions of figuring out the weak points in the pig defenses, launching a bird, collecting my three stars, and moving on. This lead to the inevitable question of what could Rovio do in a sequel to not only revitalize the brand to players who have grown bored, but also provide a big enough twist on gameplay to make it worth having a fourth installment in the series?

It turns out the answer was to head to space.

Angry Birds Space [$0.99 / $2.99 (HD)] is close enough to the rest of the Angry Birds family that anyone even vaguely familiar with the games will be able to hop right in. It features the same premise of flinging birds in a big slingshot into dastardly egg-stealing pigs, but this time, your shots are assisted by a dotted line coming off the front of the slingshot to make the aiming process a little more transparent. The boss battles from Rio even make an appearance.

It comes packed with the familiar family of birds, with some minor modifications. All of the birds got a cosmetic upgrade, with snazzy looking space outfits. More importantly, some of their functionality has changed. For instance, the new version of the yellow bird doesn’t just dash forward. Instead, tapping on the screen sends it homing in on that specific location, even allowing for complete trajectory changes in flight. The force exerted by the bomb bird seems to focus more on pushing things rather than destroying them, and a new freezing bird turns anything inside of its blast radius into ice, allowing for easy cleanup with blue birds.

The magic of Angry Birds Space comes from the physics tricks Rovio is able to pull off by leaning on the gravitational fields of the various planetoids that make up many of the levels. Birds shot into space fly straight as an arrow, as obviously, there isn’t any gravity to make them do anything differently. Gravity fields are indicated by faint blue halos, and completing each level (particularly with three stars) involves the intelligent mastery of both zero gravity as well as the (potentially) multiple gravitational pulls of the different planetoids that the pigs have set their forts up on.

This varying gravity system allows for some incredibly elaborate level design, including puzzle elements that would never have been possible with the “traditional” gravity model of previous Angry Birds titles. One early level that exhibits this in a particularly clever way involves the introduction of the bomb bird. Players are faced with a bunch of pigs hanging out and being smug on a gravity-rich planetoid.

There isn’t a clear shot to be had between the slingshot and the pigs themselves, as there are all sorts of asteroids littering the top half of the screen. Completing the level actually requires delicate use of the bomb birds to gently push the asteroids down into the gravity field, at which point they come smashing down on the pigs. Other levels involve shooting your birds to catch the rim of a gravity field, placing them in an orbit of sorts to slingshot around to hit an otherwise unreachable target.

The truly interesting thing that I’ve found is that this gravity mechanic has allowed for some incredibly creative ways to complete levels. The comparison may be a bit of a stretch, but in Scribblenauts Remix [ $0.99 ] the way to truly have fun in that game was to come up with the most absurd and imaginative solution to each puzzle. Sure, nearly every level can be solved by equipping yourself with some wings and a gun, but there’s just a certain sense of satisfaction to be had when you figured out how to somehow work Cthulhu into your solution. Similarly, while most levels in Angry Birds Space often have a fairly clear-cut solution, I’ve been having way more fun coming up with the most convoluted flight paths for my birds, with personal bonus points awarded for as many orbits as possible before expertly slamming whatever bird I fired into a pig.

Some other changes have been made to Angry Birds Space, namely, the addition of a new in-app purchase system. In previous games, the Mighty Eagle is a one time 99¢ purchase which allows you to skip one level every hour. The Mighty Eagle also adds an entirely new (although not necessarily immediately apparent) game mode where you can go back to previously completed levels and fire off the Mighty Eagle shooting for destroying everything on screen.

Unfortunately, now not only is the Mighty Eagle a consumable item, but it also doesn’t automatically skip a level. When you fire out the sardine can, the Mighty Eagle can totally miss, leaving whatever smug pigs are left on screen laughing at your failure. Additional Mighty Eagles are awarded in small quantities by just playing the game. Alternatively, 20 Mighty Eagle shots can be purchased for 99¢, with additional packs of Mighty Eagles ranging all the way up to 980 for $19.99.

Out the gate, Angry Birds Space comes loaded with two level packs: “Pig Bang” which serves as more of a tutorial for the new space-centric physics and “Cold Cuts” which introduces the new freezing bird. A third (very difficult) level pack entitled “Danger Zone” is available via a 99¢ unlock, and if you even find yourself vaguely enjoying the two included packs, the third one is basically required.

This raises the question of what is going to come of the future of Angry Birds updates, as the tea leaves of this IAP-unlocked level pack can be read in numerous ways. Angry Birds has been known by its seemingly never-ending stream of free content via updates, and I find it to be a little hard to believe that Rovio would put a stop to that with Angry Birds Space. My gut is telling me that future updates might follow a path of offering up a free pack and an optional ultra-difficult paid pack like “Danger Zone” for hardcore players… But, we’ll have to wait for the first update to land to know for sure.

If you’re playing on a new iPad, you’ll be happy to know that the HD variety of Angry Birds Space comes with crisp Retina Display-friendly graphics. Neither the HD or standard versions are universal, so, having the optimal Angry Birds Space experience requires some App Store double dipping if you want to play on both your iPhone and iPad. Sadly, there still doesn’t seem to be any way to sync progress between versions of the game, so, in that regard, there isn’t much point in buying it twice anyway.

Angry Birds is the unlikely candidate with meager beginnings that somehow managed to redefine both mobile gaming and the levels of financial success that are possible in the mobile space. The brand is known worldwide, and the series is enjoyed by everyone from hardcore gamers, to celebrities and athletes, to my own father who couldn’t possibly be more of a non-gamer. Angry Birds is the Super Mario Brothers of mobile devices, and Angry Birds Space is so successful in redefining the Angry Birds formula that everyone should give it a try.

TouchArcade Rating:

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The Game Bakers‘ fast-paced and creatively endowed strategy RPG, Squids [Free], is now available for the agreeable price of $0 from now until the end of the weekend. Grab it while you can — not only because it’s free, but because this new, lower price point makes Squids a better game.

In our review, we argued that its original pricing of $1.99 was a problem. The game, for all of its awesomeness, was too reliant on its IAP model during the late game. Free-to-play works best when the offering is, you know, free. Squids at no cost sort of erases any trepidation you have about buying a fistful of pearls or any of the store’s items.

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I can hardly believe it’s been almost one year since the release of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Since that time, Sword & Sworcery has earned more accolades than I can shake a stick at, including our own Game of the Year award for 2011, and it redefined what we can expect from a melding of video games, music, art, and storytelling on the iOS platform.

Basically, if you somehow haven’t checked out Sword & Sworcery yet, you can currently get either version of the game at a discount in order to celebrate the one year anniversary of its release (and the vernal equinox, of course). And by either version I mean the iPhone/iPod touch-only version which is on sale for 99¢, or the Universal version which will set you back $1.99 during this one day price cut.

If you don’t currently own an iPad, but are having thoughts about picking up one of those fancy new iPads, then I’d just go ahead and jump on the Universal version. The folks behind Sword & Sworcery note on their website that they’re fully aware of Apple’s latest touchtronic device, and will be announcing something on that topic soon. I drool at the thought of a Retina iPad version of Sword & Sworcery, so let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Also, you can’t really mention Sword & Sworcery without mentioning Jim Guthrie who did the amazing soundtrack for the game. He’s all over this sale business too, and you can currently purchase the Sword & Sworcery soundtrack in digital form for whatever price you feel like paying. If you’re a collector type, you can also get the album on limited edition vinyl with original artwork from Pendleton Ward (seen above), or as a limited edition cassette tape. That’s right, a cassette tape! All of this is available at Jim’s Bandcamp page.

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I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to think about Picnic Wars [$0.99 / HD], a castle crusher showcasing the epic feud between vegetables and fruits (which somehow takes place during a picnic). Yet, despite the absurd story, what follows is a decent take on the genre with a good amount of gameplay variety that unfortunately suffers from a lack of content.

In Picnic Wars, you take the role of either fruits or veggies as they seek to destroy the fortresses of the other. You accomplish this by flinging various units at the castles, causing as much mayhem and destruction as possible. Truthfully, I have no idea what picnics have to do with the story, but seeing how zany the concept is I didn’t bother thinking about it.

Gameplay is a bit more complicated than simply tossing fruits or veggies at the opposition. Players take control of up to five different launchers on an isometric grid by moving them up and down the grid to aim. Each launcher can also be upgraded, with some units being more effective when fired from a certain launcher. Meanwhile, the opposition is throwing utensils at your launchers which can damage and eventually destroy your weapons. Combine this with a countdown on each mission, and gameplay in Picnic Wars becomes a bit more fast-paced than other similar games.

However, before you can throw your units, they must first be grown with seeds. Each unit takes a certain amount of seeds and time to grow depending on its strength. In addition, you start with a limited amount of seeds but can obtain more by aiming your allies at scattered seed bags located within the enemy castle.  Plant projectiles have lots of different strengths and attributes, such as the garlic that turns into a group of mini garlic grenades to the cabbage that acts as a delayed grenade. Players are scored based on speed, item collection, and total destruction.

I thought Picnic Wars did a good job creating a fun, varied gamplay foundation. There are a ton of different fruits and veggies to grow, and almost all of them are viable through the majority of the campaign. I also really enjoyed the isometric view which provides a bit of strategy as to where you want to launch seeing as how you may not be able to see some enemies until you take out certain sections. Controls, however, can be a pain as the same isometric view also leads to situations where you have to move some launchers just to tap on others, wasting precious time.

A hard mode is also available, which allows you to play through all the levels again with different units. Hard mode also increases the likelihood of catapult destruction and also removes the targeting sights, making it a bit tougher to accurately aim your shots. I personally loved hard mode, as it provided the perfect amount of difficulty that was missing from the easy mode.

Visually, Picnic Wars boasts a colorful, cartoony style that works well for the content. The game looks great on retina-iPhones, but not so much on the new iPad yet. The music also reflects the quirky feel of the game, although I wasn’t a fan of most of the sound effects (too annoying for my tastes). Strangely enough, the game also had load times between levels that, while not excessive, were still long enough for me to notice.

While Picnic Wars touts a total of 64 levels, in reality you’re getting two campaigns of the same 32-levels with the only difference being that you play as fruits in one campaign and veggies in the other. Each campaign has its share of different units, but the actual maps are the same, offering little in variety to players that have already completed one of the campaigns. Considering how swiftly you can get through the ‘easy’ campaign, you’ll be hurting for more rather quickly.

I’m a bit disappointed at how little there actually is. When you take into account the decent gameplay mechanics and visuals, Picnic Wars ends up feeling like wasted potential. If you’re willing to check it out I have no doubt that it should provide some enjoyment. However, be advised that enjoyment will be short-lived.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Nowadays there is a veritable smorgasbord of excellent iOS platformers, but it wasn’t always this way. Virtual controls have always been a sticking point with platformers on a touch screen, rarely offering the type of precision needed in such a game. One of the games that managed to nail the control problem early on, back in October of 2009 to be exact, was Touch Foo’s Soosiz [$1.99/HD].

Soosiz was a bright and colorful 2D platformer built around an interesting gravity mechanic and levels made up of tiny planet-like platforms not totally dissimilar from the Super Mario Galaxy titles. Soosiz was pretty well-loved by gamers and critics alike, and served as an early benchmark for how virtual controls should work in a platformer.

Since Soosiz, however, Touch Foo has been quiet on the App Store front, and I’ve caught myself wondering just what the team might be up to for their follow-up release. Last week, they announced in our forums what that follow-up title is, and they’ve sent word today that we won’t be waiting long to try out the game for ourselves as it will be launching this Thursday.

The game is called Swordigo, and it’s another platforming game but looks to be quite a departure from Soosiz. It’s a 2.5D game, meaning the visuals are made of 3D graphics but the gameplay itself is strictly classic 2D. There is a bigger focus on action and battling enemies this time around, and there will be RPG elements that let you level up your character, weapons, spells, and items.

Check out the awesome trailer below to get a good idea of what’s in store for Swordigo:

Swing back by later this week when we do our weekly roundup of new releases to get your own hands on the game, which will be launching as a Universal app at the $1.99 price point, and we’ll put Swordigo through its paces once it’s released and bring you a full review soon too.

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On this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we return to our respective caves in order to deliver you the hottest and best in iOS… but not before we discuss the fun we had at GDC 2012. When the train gets on the tracks a little later, we bust out some good and, hey, maybe even thoughtful conversations about Mass Effect: Infiltrator, the Dark Meadow drama, and the new iPad.

Listening is easy: just click on one of the links below. If you’d like to subscribe so you can get our latest shows the second they hit the Internet, you can totally do so via iTunes and Zune Marketplace. This is, by far, the best way to listen to us.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-043.mp3, 37.3MB

Here are your show notes:

GAMES

• Mass Effect Infiltrator [$6.99]
• Super Lemonade Factory [$.99]
• Final Freeway 2R [$.99]
• Azkend 2 [$2.99 / UHD]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• iCatch Cats [$.99]

FRONT PAGE

• ‘Dark Meadow’ To Remain Paid App, F2P Version Now Happening
• New iPad Benchmarks Points To Double Performance
• Double Fine Adventure Funding Drive Closes

Fireball SE, $0.99 Smooth controls, explosive action, and thrilling escapes. Fireball Special Edition is an intense object-avoidance game from Radiangames, creator of the award-winning Super Crossfire. Dodge huge swarms of enemies across 3 modes and 18 unique stages. Use Meltdown mode to slow down the action and create your own near-death experiences.

Fireball Special Edition, for iPhone and iPad, is available right now in the App Store for a special introductory price of $.99 through March 22 and for $1.99 after that.

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If you’re anything like me, the idea of a remake of a game you dearly loved when it was originally released comes as very good news. As much as I adore new games, there’s just something about playing something tried and true. Add HD graphics into that mix, and you’re really tempting me… which really should have been the case with Prince of Persia Classic [$1.99/HD]. I was hoping to be having so much fun with this game that it’d be hard to put the phone down to write this review, but unfortunately, that was not quite the case.

Prince of Persia Classic is far from all bad. If you played the game in its original form as a downloadable console title a few years back (or heaven forbid, even further back on the Apple II), you’ll recall that it had its charming parts… and its annoying ones. Still, there’s no denying that some of us spent countless hours navigating the prince through death traps, spiked pits, and all those things that make a game a proper adventure.

For one thing, the game looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous. Ubisoft has carefully gone through and retooled this for the modern gamer, doing their best to retain the spirit of the original and do it proper justice. I’d say that part works, but once you start playing it, that’s where the trouble seems to come in.

As you or may not know, Prince of Persia Classic is a sidescroller which requires lots of running and jumping to keep the prince safe as you navigate your way forward. This would have been great fun if the controls that allow you to do so weren’t awkward, but unfortunately they are. They feel a bit stiff and take some getting used to as a whole, which is not ideal when it comes to a game you want to pick up and play. Your movement control is a left to right slide bar, which really could have benefitted from a bit more sensitivity. It’s easy to make the prince run when you mean for him to walk, and you’ll have to learn to keep tight control of him to not hurl him down a chasm by accident.

If you can get comfy with the controls though, there’s a lot more in store for you beyond that. You have Normal, Time Attack and Survival modes to try out (the latter which challenges you to navigate the castle and save the princess in one hour or less), and of course the usual Facebook connectivity. You’ve also got Game Center included so scoreboards and achievements ought to keep you going for a while.

As it was in its original incarnation, Prince of Persia Classic is also a game that you’ll need to play a lot and die in a lot before you get a handle on how to really progress. Checkpoints help to make this reasonable, but I recognized some of that same frustration I felt playing the first one, as well as other retro titles from the same era. You had to be really tenacious to beat some of these titles back in the day. I think old schoolers would keep trying, but some other gamers with less experience might give up. Of course, it’s hard to say if that’s the fault of the difficulty curve of older games, or how much easier newer ones have become.

The verdict? If you must have it portable, it’s not the worst choice But if you just love the game, there are fine versions of it on XBLA and PSN that are simply easier to maneuver. They’re a few bucks more, but it might be worth it to you if awkward controls are your idea of a platforming nightmare.

TouchArcade Rating:

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