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Crashing into things and making them explode almost never gets old, and that’s exactly what Bravo Games was banking on when it released Crash Mayhem [ Free ]. Luckily, this game lives up to its name and is just as fun as it may sound.

The thing about Crash Mayhem that immediately sucks you in is the lure of making as big of a crash as possible, racking up repair bills just as high as you can in the process. If this concept sounds familiar, that’s because the Burnout series was basically built on this same premise, even up to the iOS release of Burnout Crash [ $4.99 ].

Let’s preface this by saying that Burnout Crash is a pretty good addition to the Burnout series, and only debuted about a month ago on the App Store. The control style in Crash Mayhem is similar, the camera view is similar, the drivers are still incredibly stupid, and the scoring system is basically the same, too. Now that you know that, you should also know that Mayhem might even improve on Burnout’s formula a bit.

Besides the obvious advantage of Crash Mayhem being free, you can complete other goals that aren’t just blowing up everything in sight, causing catastrophic damage in the process. Instead, this non-stop action is broken up by objectives you’ll find across the game’s open world. Being able to actually explore around a world is quite a nice refresher after spending so much time strictly making things explode.

As previously mentioned, Crash Mayhem is indeed free and as with most free games, it does have some sort of in-app purchase for you to buy if you wish. This game’s pricing scheme is an example of IAP done right because you’ll only have to buy it if you don’t want ads or if you want some extra levels. As it is, the base free game gives you fifteen levels that you unlock as you play, with five more included with purchase.

The ads are persistent throughout the game, not just in menus and such, so if a banner blocking part of the screen will drive you crazy then forking over the 99¢ IAP to remove them will probably be high on your list of things to do. Still, having a game with as much content as Crash Mayhem available for free to try before you buy is a welcome thing.

The visuals in the game tend to be a bit drab and lacking in punch, but are satisfying enough to not be too much of a bother. Variety would have helped out a bit in this area, as you play in the same open world throughout every stage of the game. For the audio, the main theme playing on the main menu is very catchy, and the sound effects do just fine and capture the action happening on screen well.

Game Center integration is a definite advantage that Crash Mayhem has over Burnout, as you won’t have to sign up for another silly account (Origin) just to share your high scores with your friends. Being Universal also helps, so that you can compare with your friends regardless of iOS device.

While it may be easy to say Crash Mayhem is a simple copy-and-paste job of the Burnout series by looking at screenshots, you’d be entirely wrong. Crash Mayhem is certainly derivative of Burnout (and especially Crash), but adds its own flavor and features that make it stand out on its own. With a price tag of free, you’d probably be doing yourself a disservice by passing this one up.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Back at GDC in March, Devolver Digital held somewhat of an “open call” for indie developers to pitch them their game ideas for possible publishing deals. They served beer and talked with various developers while being toured around San Francisco on an enormous bus. That’s right, they held their meetings on a moving bus. It was a really interesting departure from the typical dry business pitches that take place at conferences, and the Penny Arcade Report has a fantastic write up of the event from when they tagged along for a few of the bus interviews.

One of the games that was pitched and was picked up by Devolver while they were there is Cube Roots’ Dungeon Hearts, a fast-paced matching game dressed with the trappings of a classic JRPG battle system. In the game, colored coins scroll across the bottom of the screen almost like note charts in Rock Band. You can shuffle coins around to make matches, and the color of coin that you match determines which character in your party of 4 will attack the enemy. This continues in a “boss rush” series of battles as the difficulty steadily increases.

It’s a bit more nuanced than that, actually, and to really understand the gameplay in Dungeon Hearts check out this lengthy video the developer posted back in March which describes the mechanics in the game.

We’ve seen some really successful uses of the “mash a puzzle game together with RPG elements” formula, like Puzzle Quest 2 [ $4.99 ], Dungeon Raid [$2.99 / Free ], King Cashing [$1.99 / Free ], and many more. From the early looks at Dungeon Hearts it appears this might just be another winning combination. Unfortunately, Devolver Digital is pegging the release window for “early 2013”, which seems much too far off for my liking. However, a new video should be hitting in the next several weeks to tide us over, and in the meantime you can feast on the screens below from a more recent version of the game or drop by our forums for some discussion of this quirky upcoming title.

Also, be sure to check out Penny Arcade Report’s follow-up article on Dungeon Hearts where they talk to both Devolver Digital and Cube Roots about their experience landing a publishing deal on a moving vehicle.

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The success of the digital version of a physical board game hinges on three things: the quality of the base game, the accuracy of the representation of said game and if both of these things are pulled off well enough to sustain a community long after you’ve tired of getting beaten by friends and family. With that in mind, is Scotland Yard [ $4.99 ] a successful iOS port of a classic board game? No, but it could be.

It’s not as if Ravensburger’s Scotland Yard, the 1983 Spiel des Jahres recipient, isn’t fundamentally sound. One player is Mr. X, terribly creative criminal mastermind, stealthily darting about London in an attempt to avoid the grasp of five Scotland Yard investigators, represented by the other players. Players move about via ticket cards allowing access to modes of transportation around the game map: taxis, buses, boats or the London Underground.

The goal of the game is for Mr. X to ultimately evade captivity, while the investigators have twenty-two moves in which to capture him by either landing on whatever space he occupies, or trapping him so that he is unable to take another move. The catch is that Mr. X is invisible… for a time. Every few turns Mr. X’s position is revealed to the rest of the group, and though his movements remain otherwise hidden, the method of transportation he uses each turn is not. So, knowing his general location, it’s up to the investigators to use the limited number of ticket cards divvied up before the start of the game to coordinate with each other and entrap him.

It’s fast-paced and encourages teamwork, ironically the iOS version’s fundamental flaw thanks to weak computer AI and broken matchmaking. The game, while designed to have six pieces on the board at all times, can be played with as little as two people, seeing a single player control up to five investigators. This is actually hugely advantageous, as it allows the single player to focus the efforts of each piece, sending investigators out to flank and herd, or assigning different methods of transportation, or routes, to individual investigators. Play like this, one-on-one, also happens to get very boring very quickly.

A shame then that the AI is so little fun. Most of my games against the AI as Mr. X saw me shuffling in a triangle in the corner of London before escaping up the sides, or using the Tube to steal away to another portion of the map. Problematically, these are the same buffoons you’re stuck with should you just want to play a quick game with some AI partners against Mr. X. It’s really aggravating when you’re certain a fellow investigator is sitting a mere space away from Mr. X, only to see the dude travel in the opposite direction, across the Thames, to what I can only assume is his favorite kebab stand.

At the time of this writing, Game Center auto-match play is broken. That means you’ll either be playing the dim AI, your Game Center friends that have room in their lives for another board game or your loved ones. Local pass-and-play along with basic Wi-Fi and Bluetooth functionality seem to work, but borked matchmaking is just one of several annoying technical and usability issues the game has including an updated game board that’s a strain on the eyes, 3D architecture that obscures important information, unresponsive clickables, crashes and an overly pithy rulebook.

Having done a bit of research, I was pretty excited to play Scotland Yard. Given its heritage, I envisioned a future with it as a permanent fixture on my phone, alongside the likes of Carcassonne [ $9.99 ] and Ascension [ $0.99 ] But it doesn’t have the heft of a good iOS board game. The comforting simulation of tactility, of texture, of weight; the aesthetic cohesion. Or the capacity to sustain a community. So no, ultimately Scotland Yard is not a success, but something to be shelved in the hope that Ravensburger soon revisits it.

TouchArcade Rating:

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It would be easy to write Witch Wars [ Free ] off for its, shall we say, intensely aggressive IAP implementation. It would be hard to argue that Com2Us hasn’t reached new heights on that score. But let me play devil’s advocate for a minute. Sure, there are characters that can be unlocked for ten dollars. That’s a thing that happens in this game. But it’s also a solid competitive match-3 in a market that doesn’t have many of those to choose from. If, say, you’ve been waiting for a successor to Puzzle Quest 2 [ $4.99 ] all this time, that might not be something you can afford to ignore.

The IAP breaks down a bit like League of Legends. You start with Athena, the default witch. She’s a bit middle-of-the-road as far as abilities go. You can unlock six other characters, half with coins and half with (far too much) cash. If you do, you can use them online or solo any time. Otherwise, be patient. Every day, a new witch unlocks temporarily for everyone to try out online. In the course of a given week, you’ll be able to play each and every character Witch Wars has to offer.

There are two things that make it possible to just keep on playing Witch Wars without putting in any money at all. The first is that the vast majority of other players are doing the same thing. I encounter Athena in nine matches out of every ten, and virtually never run into a soul using the most expensive unlocks. This won’t last in the long run, but for now it works out well. The second thing is that the pricier characters aren’t outrageously superior. Their abilities, while powerful, are expensive to upgrade, and they can still be defeated easily by a skilled player or a lucky one. Putting down cash is far from a guarantee that you’ll stomp every opponent you face.

With the IAP thing out of the way, Witch Wars plays pretty much like you’d expect from a competitive match-3. The board is filled with RPG fare—swords, potions, spellbooks and coins—and some slightly out-of-place handcuffs. Coins are currency, so they’re valuable despite doing nothing to affect the outcome of the game. Matching swords attacks your opponent, matching potions heals you, and matching spellbooks charges your mana bar. You’ll move up a spell tier for each section of the bar you let fill before casting. Handcuffs lock down your opponent’s pieces, leaving them vulnerable and frustrated.

The main differences between the six characters rest in their spells. Athena has a pretty basic set—a spell to lock your opponent’s blocks, an attack that pulls its power all your on-screen swords, and a third-tier explosion that takes out the other guy’s entire grid. Elrhyme has ice spells, Wisp has healing spells, Silpheed’s are poisonous, and so on. It’s a diverse group of characters, and mostly a balanced one. Not that you’re likely to spend much time with most; it would take about $25 to unlock all three premium characters, and about 23,000 coins for the rest.

The average game is a sprint; with swift fingers you can easily take out an opponent in a minute or two. If you’re quick enough to earn combos you can speed things up further with bursts of bonus power. With such brief games, Witch Wars matchmaking might get a bit frustrating as the player pool shrinks in the long term, but for now it’s filled with a lot of eager players and a quick rematch button that sees heavy use. The game keeps a close eye on your rankings, giving you a rating for your wins and losses and keeping track of wins and streaks. Not only does this offer up some fodder for Game Center achievements, it also provides overall sense of progression despite the brief matches.

There’s another type of progression to be had in Witch Wars: character leveling. Here again we find the pitch for IAP: if you can’t earn coins fast enough in game, you can always buy them (and they aren’t cheap). This, at least, is mostly a shortcut purchase; it would be a struggle to earn enough coins in multiplayer to unlock the priciest character, but it’s doable. In the survival-style solo mode this should be easier; you earn double coins for playing on medium difficulty and triple coins for hard. But to survive a few rounds in hard mode is, well, hard.

So caveat emptor: Witch Wars is out to part you from your hard earned money. It doesn’t make any attempt to hide that fact. But there’s no reason you can’t rack up quite a few wins (and coins) just by playing with the free witches. Putting in cash might put you at an advantage, but it’s smaller than it looks. So ask yourself—is it worth all that to play a fun, competitive match-3? If you can resist the call of IAP, that’s quite the thing to get for free.

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Neuroshima Hex [$2.99] received all sorts of new features and content this morning courtesy a brand new update to the core game. The coolest addition by far is the introduction of asynchronous online play, which is something the game’s developer Big Daddy’s Creations has been thinking about doing for quite some time. Other neat features in today’s update include new iPad retina support, player profiles, a stronger tutorial, and redesigned UI elements across the board — stores, menus, and even in-game.

We haven’t talked about Neuroshima in a while, so allow us to re-introduce you to the brain busting game with this tidbit from our comprehensive review:

Like many strategy games with unique rulesets, Neuroshima Hex is fairly complicated. Playing the game involves selecting one of the four factions, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, then playing with a 35 tile “deck”. Players start by placing their headquarters on the game board, and the rest of the game revolves around attacking the enemy HQ while defending your own utilizing the tiles you draw at the start of your turn. Your deck of tiles consists of three different types, tiles that contain different types of units, modules which buff those units, and instant action tiles that do things like destroy or slide a unit, or even initiate combat.

In celebration of the release of this update, Big Daddy has dropped the price of the game to $2.99 from its usual $4.99. Our full review is available here, if you’d like to read up on the game if you’re thinking about taking the plunge. Spoiler: the game’s learning curve is a little steep.

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There are great mysteries buried beneath the surface of the alien world of Gene Effect [ $4.99 ], mysteries your small team has been sent to uncover. As you immerse yourself in the atmosphere of those distant tunnels, you’ll encounter alien life, hostile and beautiful, and the remnants of a civilization both ancient and powerful.

You pilot the exploration ship Triton. It’s almost ludicrously vulnerable, destroyed with equal ease by careless piloting, aggressive plant life and man-made defenses. But that doesn’t change the facts: you’re the only one who can unlock the secrets of this cavern and its alien masters. Unarmed but for your repulsors, you travel ever deeper.

This journey isn’t one of lengthy maze-like exploration. Gene Effect is broken up into levels, and most of those levels are fairly straightforward. There will be a task or for the Triton to complete, maybe collecting a certain amount of koronite resources from the environment, finding DNA samples or powering up ancient reactors. You might need to use your repulsors to clear away loose rocks in your path, or locate and use the occasional drone to clear a path. Once those things are done, it’s just a matter of finding the warp gate and moving on.

There are subtasks that might impede your progress, though. The path is often blocked with gates that need opening in some way—finding the right triggers tucked away in the tunnels, collecting enough of a resource or turning on (or off) the lights. On their own these things are usually fairly simple—or at least they would be if not for the presence of so many walls.

Walls are the Triton’s natural enemy. While you’re still getting comfortable piloting you might find yourself bumping into them. Do so for more than a moment and you’ll blow your ship up. The controls are well-designed, with a responsive joystick that controls movement, so crashing shouldn’t be a big problem for long. It’s when you’re comfortable that the game brings in mines and plant life that will smash you into walls if you’re not ever-so-careful.

Once you have survival sorted out, you can start to enjoy the real meat of Gene Effect. It’s a completionist’s dream, with level trophies for speed, careful navigation, and overall score. And then there are the relicts and artifacts. Nearly every level has a hidden relict or two tucked away somewhere. They’re often hidden in the walls, revealed with a lucky ping of your sonar and a well-placed blast from Triton’s repulsor. Sometimes they’re hidden more deeply, in temples opened with camouflaged triggers or rooms tucked away behind seemingly solid walls. Some, the most hidden of all, aren’t even listed on the level score breakdown, so you won’t know they’re present until you find them. Those are the alien artifacts, and if you find enough pieces you’ll be able to strap them on to Triton to upgrade its capabilities.

While all of this is going on, the game slowly unfolds an intriguing story. It tends toward telling over showing, as it’s revealed far more in static text feeds at the end of each level than within the gameplay itself. There are also a few too many errors in the text for comfort. But the story has some great hooks, and it should string you along quite effectively while you’re out exploring.

Gene Effect is ambitious, and long—accounting for deaths, I’ve put in quite a few hours without finding everything that’s out there to discover. But that length also highlights the game’s flaws. For example, the caves, while gorgeous, all look fairly similar to one another, and while the levels grow more difficult they don’t really get all that complex. On its own this would start to feel a bit repetitious, and pixel-hunting your way to new artifacts doesn’t really help.

The game’s difficulty level varies between hard and stupidly frustrating. Some of the later levels are long, and meander between traveling through long, mostly harmless tunnels and facing down sudden bursts of danger. Long periods of boredom followed by short-lived struggles aren’t really what I look for in entertainment. Take it easy when you choose your difficulty—Gene Effect is harder than it looks, and you can’t really change difficulty modes mid-stream.

All of this leaves Gene Effect something of a tough call. On one hand it’s gorgeous, with a well-crafted story and loads of content. On the other hand, that content ventures into boredom or frustration a little too often. Ultimately, though, it’s a game worth playing, a story worth experiencing. And it will leave you wanting more, so let’s hope there’s more on the way soon.

TouchArcade Rating:

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If there was a list of things that I never expected to be talking about today, Duke Nukem 3D [ Free ] getting an update would probably be right near the top. But that’s just what has happened as MachineWorks has issued a new update for 3D Realms’ classic first-person shooter that looks to address the long-derided virtual controls in the game.

For a quick backstory, Duke Nukem 3D launched in the App Store way back in August of 2009. Id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D [$1.99 / Free ] had hit iOS several months earlier and received critical acclaim, mostly centered around how well their controls worked. With a Doom [ $4.99 ] iOS port also on the horizon, having Duke Nukem on my iPhone seemed like the greatest news in history for a long-time FPS fan like me.

However, the initial version of Duke had possibly the worst controls I’ve ever encountered. I mean downright unplayable. To the developer’s credit they quickly issued an update about a month later with a bunch of new control options, but sadly it did little to help. Sure, some people could find a scheme that was workable for them with some heavy tweaking of options, but the controls still felt pretty bad and have remained that way ever since.

Until today that is, closing in on 3 years after the last update to Duke Nukem. Surprising to say the least, but unfortunately it’s also a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the controls are actually quite decent now, offering an improved (but still lackluster) dual-stick option as well as a very good “drag anywhere to aim” scheme which really nails it. It may have taken a long time (that’s an understatement) but I can finally enjoy Duke Nukem 3D on my iPhone. Also, it appears that the visuals have been cleaned up considerably, and actually look quite good for a 16 year old game.

Now for the bad news. The update is full of bugs, one of which can render your controls unusable. You can avoid causing this by going into the control options before loading or starting a new game and selecting and then deselecting the dual-stick controls, but that will erase whatever custom scheme you might have previously created by dragging the virtual buttons around the screen. Basically, it’s not much of a solution.

In addition, there’s also a bug that silences the sounds from the game which I’ve only been able to fix by saving my game and killing it from the multi-tasking screen and then starting it up again. Also, for some reason the end-level stats screen is upside down and they’ve disabled the mirror reflection effect in the game. Finally, advertisements have been inserted into Duke Nukem 3D which will pop down when you first start the game and when wake your device from sleep with the game running. Lame.

As delighted as I was to see a surprise update to one of my all-time favorite games, unfortunately this latest update for Duke Nukem 3D is a complete mess. If they can sort out the bugs then I really believe the new controls are a huge improvement, and bring the game more in line with the newer FPS games on the App Store. However, given the lack of attention paid to the game the past few years that seems like a pretty big “if”, especially since the iPad version Duke Nukem 3D SE [ $0.99 (HD)] hasn’t been updated at all. Also, I’m not crazy about ads being put into a game that I previously paid for.

At any rate, Duke Nukem 3D is currently free right now, so if you didn’t have it already you might as well grab it just in case they do sort out the bugs. If you could manage just fine with the controls the way they were before, then you’ll probably want to hold out on this update altogether until (and if) they can fix this situation.

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I love the App Store. On a single platform, I can draw from a well of my favorite classics like Doom [ $4.99 ], and try out thousands games like N.O.V.A. 3 [ $6.99 ] that take their inspiration from popular console and PC games but offer an experience tailor-made for tablets and smartphones. But what I enjoy most about the App Store is the chance to drop a buck or two on quirky titles you don’t see on any other platform. Take Rocket Fox [ Free ], for example, a new puzzle/platformer game starring a fox named Guy who loves fireworks. He loves them so much that he’s not content to admire them from afar like your average Fourth-of-July party-goer. No, Guy likes to hop aboard rockets before they blast off and ride them skyward. Of course, what goes up must come down, and that’s where you come in.

Each level begins with Guy slipping inside a large flower while a counter ticks down from three. Once the clock strikes zero, the camera flips to an overhead view, the flower bursts open, and Guy, mounted on a rocket, shoots up to the clouds. Seconds later, his rocket blows apart in a torrent of colors, and Guy begins to freefall. From here, you tilt your iPhone to guide Guy away from the hard earth and watery depths, and toward trampoline-like flower pads. Flower pads come in different colors and designs that denote their functions. Red flowers give you a slight boost, blue ones throw you up even higher, and yellow pads give a breathtaking view of surrounding topography. Flowers can only be used once before withering away, leaving you to find the next one by the time Guy starts hurtling back down once again.

Because flower pads sit on lands of different heights and distances, you have to choose which flower pads to land on and in which order. Do you use a yellow pad first, which will send you soaring high and afford a breathtaking view of the sprawling topography? Or should you leave it and bop around the red pads first, since those ones won’t lend enough momentum to cross the water to the other isle where more flowers await? Other levels ask you to fly high enough to drop through flower rings, find and land on a level-winning finale flower, use flower rockets that fire off explosives on impact, and more.

The appearance of rocket flowers brought about a distinct and pleasant shift in Rocket Fox’s pace. Rocket flowers don’t shoot arbitrarily; an arrow blinking in one corner reveals which direction the rocket will fly when you land. Rockets destroy the first flower they come into contact with, but they also cause closed flowers to blossom into new launching pads. Figuring out which flowers to clear away so rockets wouldn’t blast them into charred petals en route to closed pads I needed to crack open, coupled with making split-second decisions during brief airborne periods and the addition of new elements like rockets that send you shooting forward, shifted the game’s pace from soporific to an intense brainteaser that rewards quick thinking and skill.

Upping the tension and satisfaction of a good plan coming to fruition are a few risk-reward factors thrown into the mix on each level. Players are graded according to factors such as the time they took to finish a level. As you grow in skill, you’ll find yourself tempted to make use of the dive button in the lower-right corner of the screen. With a touch, Guy stiffens like an arrow and streaks toward the ground headfirst, giving you no further chance to alter his direction but shaving several seconds off your record once you grow comfortable enough to use it from great heights. That, and it just reeks of style.

Another temptation comes in the form of Fox Fire, colored flames that spit out of flower pads each time you collide with one, swirling around Guy like leaves caught up in a gust of wind. You can tap flames to collect them, then use them to buy items that slow your descent, increase your buoyancy, and grant you a second chance should you accidentally take a nosedive into earth or sea. But, each item lasts only a single turn. Whether you win on your next turn or slip up and have to try again, you lose your power-ups. More importantly, collecting flames means tearing your eyes away from pressing concerns like landing on flowers instead of carving fox-shaped holes in the ground.

Fortunately, flames don’t disappear, so you can wait until you have more airtime than usual (say, after hitting a yellow pad) to frantically claw at your screen then give your attention back to Guy’s disagreements with gravity. And, although items do help, I never once felt like I needed one, even on the more trying stages. The only significant mark against Rocket Fox is that most levels must be solved in a particular way. Perform one move out of order and you’ll likely run out of flower pads and end up back at the retry screen. That wouldn’t be so bad, but the game takes several seconds to load between attempts, then makes you sit through Guy’s three-second launch countdown, totaling to almost ten seconds of downtime between each gaffe. You’re bound to play later levels many, many times before completing them, so keeping relevant data loaded in memory to expedite attempts would have been welcome.

Don’t think twice about tagging along with Guy as he journeys to and from the stars in a journey crafted from charming storybook graphics and a unique twist on puzzle games that only a platform as diverse as the App Store can provide. Rocket Fox is free with a single $1.99 unlock, but by the time you hit that pay wall you’ll know for sure whether or want you go the rest of the way. I think you will.

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It was back in October of 2010 that Sega first released Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I [$3.99 / $4.99 (HD)], a direct sequel to the original 16-bit Sonic trilogy on Genesis and the much ballyhooed return to its classic 2D roots after more than a decade of mostly mediocre Sonic games. While we did enjoy Episode I in our review, I don’t think it exactly lived up to the expectations set by the rabid Sonic fan base (could anything, though?).

In short, Sonic 4 Episode I brought modern visuals, great level designs, and a Sonic experience that was decidedly better than the majority of recent entries in the series. However, it didn’t quite feel like the Sonic games of old. Sonic’s movement in-game felt both slippery and sluggish, and it seemed much too easy to lose momentum and speed while playing, which isn’t a good thing for a character that has made his name by blasting through levels in a blue blur. Still, with the right expectations Sonic 4 Episode I was a pretty darn fun platformer that worked well on the touch screen, and was a huge step in the right direction for a faltering Sonic franchise.

Then, for the next year or so, Sega seemed happy to almost forget that Sonic 4 even happened as they hyped the impending release of an enhanced port of Sonic CD for iOS and other major platforms. And, last December, Sonic CD [ $4.99 ] finally hit and it was simply phenomenal. Since a lot of people might have missed out on Sonic CD the first time around back in the ‘90s, in a way it was almost like the new Sonic game that fans had been clamoring for for years, and really served to highlight just how much Sonic 4 Episode I missed that mark.

But, Sonic 4 wasn’t terrible by any means, and it wasn’t quite through just yet. Just a couple of weeks after Sonic CD’s release, Sega announced that Sonic 4 Episode II was slated for 2012. They would be using a new game engine for this latest episode in order to provide better visuals and address the complaints from fans over the wonky “feel” of Sonic’s movement.

So, with the convoluted backstory of Sonic 4’s rocky development road out of the way, this week finally saw Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II [ $6.99 ] hit all the major platforms. And, just like Episode I, it makes many great strides forward for the series, but some hiccups keep it from being the second coming of the original Sonic games that everybody hoped it would be.

Sonic 4 Episode II will look very familiar if you’ve played Episode I. There are 4 worlds to explore, each with 3 stages and a boss fight, and you can again play every stage in the default Score attack mode or a speed run-focused Time Attack mode with Game Center leaderboard support. This is all pretty much right in line with how the first game works, except that all levels aren’t available right off the bat which gives the game a much better sense of progression.

Additionally, in the same way that Episode I drew a ton of inspiration from the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode II draws a similar inspiration from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Many of the level elements and themes will seem quite familiar, the bonus stages are similar 3rd-person half-pipe coin-grabbing runs (which are incredibly fun I might add), and of course Episode II also contains Tails as a semi-controllable secondary character. You can even connect locally with another device and a second player who can control Tails while you control Sonic, just like back in the Genesis days.

During solo play Tails is controlled by the AI and just follows you around like a puppy dog, but you can also use him to pull off some team moves like him lifting you through the air using his helicopter-like tails, or a powerful combined spin dash move that will blast through enemies and obstacles like butter. These team-up moves are designed to be necessary to pass certain parts of the game, and add some nice variety to the platforming.

Speaking of level designs, I felt that the levels in Episode II weren’t quite up to snuff with what was in Episode I. The general flow of a level is often ground to a halt due to an oddly placed dead end, and there are far too many underwater sections which really slow down the pace. That’s not to say there aren’t any bright spots, and in fact there are a lot of really fantastic interactive elements in the environments – like bouncing back and forth between the foreground and background, or snowboarding down a snowy mountain – that really break up the action nicely. Overall though, the levels really feel more choppy and slower than you’d like a Sonic game to feel.

One majorly cool addition to Episode II is the inclusion of the bonus Episode Metal content that will unlock if you have Episode I installed on your device along with Episode II. Episode Metal shows how Metal Sonic rises from the ashes after being defeated in Sonic CD, and follows his adventures through 4 reworked levels from Episode I leading up to his reintroduction in the story of Episode II. These levels are short, but it’s incredibly fun to play as Metal Sonic and see just how he rises back to prominence to team up with Dr. Robotnik.

Another real bright spot for Sonic 4 Episode II is its visuals. It’s an absolutely huge upgrade from Episode I, which despite not supporting Retina Displays was still a very good looking game. However, Episode II blows it out of the water. From the fantastic lighting effects to the parallax scrolling to the incredible water effects, around every bend some sort of new visual treat is waiting for you in Episode II. And, at long last, this includes support for Retina Displays on iPhone and iPod touch, though sadly not for the new iPad (though it still looks great on that device).

Much like Sonic 4 Episode I, Episode II is an overall enjoyable platformer with a few relatively minor quirks that hold it back from greatness. No, it’s not going to replace any of the original trilogy’s games as the greatest of all time, and it doesn’t even approach the high level of quality of Sonic CD on iOS. But at this point, I think those are unrealistic expectations. The bottom line is that Sonic 4 Episode II is a great modern day 2D Sonic game, and I’d love to see a third episode that is inspired by Sonic 3 in the same way the previous Sonic 4 episodes were inspired by the original two games.

If you’re a Sonic fan that can deal with the differences from Sonic’s ’90s greatness, or if you just like fun platformers in general, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II has a lot to offer and is a worthy entry in this new era of classically-inspired Sonic games.

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