Archive for the ‘Bing’ tag
‘Hand of Greed – dodge the blade!’ Review — Would You Put Your Hand in the Hornet’s Nest?
The AppStore being the bottomless font of creativity and innovation that it is, developers are constantly finding new ways to engage us with our devices. Tactility is a big draw card here, with simple concepts such as Fruit Ninja proving a hit thanks to the very cool way that we interface with the game. provided another example of something fresh earlier this year, but their game was pulled due to a new publishing arrangement. Thankfully, it has now re-emerged as Hand of Greed – dodge the blade! [AppStore].
Hand of Greed is an avoidance game with a twist, forcing you to literally put your hand in the hornet's nest. Where Fruit Ninja had you do the slicing and dicing, Hand of Greed makes you the subject of the slashing– tasked with avoiding the whirling on-screen blades to collect each level's treasures simply by tapping on them. Each time you unsuccessfully jab at a target, the screen is caked with blood and a gut-wrenching stabbing sound emanates from the device, along with a sharp vibrate.
There are 50 levels overall in Hand of Greed spanning over 5 differently themed worlds. Each level is beautifully rendered, with the exceptionally crafted blades stealing the show and occupying most of the screen real estate. This is especially true of the latter levels, where you'll have to face off against a number of wicked looking knives that you certainly will not find in the kitchen.
Each level provides several wave of different treasures to collect, with bonus points awarded for collecting chains of like-treasures. The object of each level is to clear it in its entirety without being sliced more than three times. To help, power-ups are slowly introduced along the way, and provide benefits such as refilling portions of your life bubble located at the top of the screen. They're sorely needed too, as Hand of Greed features a sharp incline (pun intended) in difficulty that requires you to study closely each blade's pattern or face being shredded instead.
Scores are accumulated at the end of each level and high scores recorded on the OpenFeint leaderboards. There are also 17 achievements to unlock, with most of them remaining secret until discovered to further up the ante.
It's a winning formula that is as simple as it is effective. Though there's not a lot of depth to the game, it's a terrific time waster that should keep you occupied for a long while, largely thanks to its gruelling difficulty (which may very well be too much for some). Just don't show it off to anyone with a queasy stomach or penchant for fainting at the sight of blood.
App Store Link: Hand of Greed – dodge the blade!, $0.99.
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‘Ninjatown: Trees of Doom’ Review – Climbing Trees and Fighting Demons, Just Another Day for Wee Ninja!
The evil Mr. Demon, for reasons unknown, has it out for the poor inhabitants of Ninjatown. He took to their homes in its critically successful DS release and looks to be at it again when creators team up with (of Space Miner fame) to bring Ninjatown: Trees of Doom! [App Store].
Ninjatown: Trees of Doom for the iPhone is a wholly different affair to the strategic Nintendo DS combat game. It is a lighthearted, Doodle Jump-esque adventure, with enough twists to the gameplay to give it its own distinct flavor, even before the iconic overly cute ninjas are factored in.
In Trees of Doom you take control of a solitary Wee Ninja, tasked by the Ol' Master Ninja to climb the Trees of Doom and take the fight to Mr. Demon minions. Of course, being of the Ninja persuasion, there's no way you'll be scampering up that tree with your shins — instead you propel yourself upwards by jumping deftly between trees and using branches to fling you on high. It's all very Crouching Tiger.
Naturally, Mr. Demon objects to your shenanigans and sends a horde of demon-like (but still very cute) monsters to stop you in your tracks. If that still isn't enough, the Trees of Doom are aptly named– presenting their own hazards in the form of evil ooze and slippery bark to avoid, lest your quest be met with a long drop and short demise.
Your Ninja is controlled by tapping either sides of the screen (the two trunks). Simply tapping will cause your Ninja to make a small leap, while holding down your finger will cause him to push off into a higher leap. These both need to be mastered to make it to the top and avoid the many pitfalls along the way. Of course, being a Ninja there may be times when you need to move vertically up a trunk, which you can do so by simply pressing the side your Ninja is presently on. Branches are another helpful tool, which can be directed to fling your by swiping down on the screen, an on-screen arrow allowing you to control where you ninja ends up.
As in Doodle Jump and similar games, there are a raft of power-ups to collect on the way, all aimed at helping you inching just that little bit further than last time. Granted, I don't think any game has had anything quite as bizzare as the Mucho-Mucho Moustachio though, a giant moustache that your Ninja clings to as it carries him skyward. There are also the standard ninja-fare smoke bombs though and gum balloons that can be inflated to encompass you in a shield of sorts. The Plus+ network records your highest climbs, as well as a large list of challenging achievements to attempt.
Trees of Doom's real appeal though comes largely thanks to its crisp, richly colored artwork. Sure, the game itself poses an interesting spin on the usual tilt or tap mechanic, requiring quite a bit of dexterity and skill to land precision jumps, but at the end of the day we know what these games are about. They're about high scores and quick games that keep you coming back for more. Trees of Doom does all these things, and looks great to boot. If you like Doodle Jump and other see how high you can go games, and you like Ninjas (who doesn't) then this is definitely a worthwhile pickup.
App Store Link: Ninjatown: Trees of Doom!, $1.99.
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‘Hungry Shark’: More Fun Than a Fresh Block of Chum
Those who enjoy a bit of casual, yet challenging, fun may want to have a look at Future Games of London's recent iPhone survival action title, Hungry Shark [App Store].
Hungry Shark is an aptly named title. The game puts you in tilt-based control of a shark that is, well, hungry. Your shark must feed — constantly — in order to keep his ever-dwindling health bar from tanking out. The menu consists of pretty, little tropical fish, humans, barracudas, penguins, pelicans, and scary-looking deep-sea anglers, among others. Bingeing yourself on a whole mess of fish at once gets you multiplier bonuses. And some things out there are best left uneaten or perhaps eaten just right. These include jelly fish, puffer fish, swordfish, and aquatic mines.
After a few minutes of play, zipping to and fro gobbling prey, you'll realize you've only just scratched the surface of the game, so to speak. While reefs and shores and ice block your way in places, you can swim your shark far down into the darkened depths to feast upon a more creepy-looking menu. But, whatever your depth, the name of the game is eat, eat, eat. As you do so, your shark will level up, growing in size and ferocity — but be careful, your newfound might will soon attract the attention of shark hunters.
Along with the health meter, your shark has a boost meter that replenishes with time. A tap to the screen activates the speed boost which helps in grabbing fast moving prey or getting out of a sticky situation. Collecting lost items strewn about the seafloor (license plates, helmets, etc.) gains you points, as well.
Hungry Shark is a cute, fun, simple game that's pretty hard to put down. It has a just-one-more-time appeal that I would liken to Doodle Jump; it seems that surely the next game will win you a crown spot on the global leaderboards. It's a casual game that our forum readers , and so are we.
( Note that the developers, who are active in our forums, have indicated that the game has a bug that prevents it from running on 3G iPod touch 16GB / 32GB models, at present. A free v1.1 update is on the way (already submitted) that will correct this issue and allow it to run on all iPhone platform devices. )
App Store Link: Hungry Shark, $1.99
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‘Super Jetpack Dragon IV: Village Burntopia’ Review – What a Mouth Full
, creators of Topple 2 [99¢ / Free] and The Battle of Pirate Bay [99¢ / Free] had a new game hit the App Store recently, Super Jetpack Dragon IV: Village Burntopia [iPhone: Free / iPad: $1.99]. Similar to Adult Swim's free online flash game, Unicorn Attack, Super Jetpack Dragon IV: Village Burntopia is a high-scoring endurance games where players play as a dragon running across the countryside capable of jumping, briefly gliding, and smashing through walls depending on which side of the screen you touch.
Scoring high involves picking up meat, burning every town you come across, and most importantly, not dying. As you get farther and farther your dragon runs even faster, creating a slow but steady difficulty curve. There are also a bundle of Plus+ achievements to unlock, and the entire game is set to some awesome rock music.
The iPhone version is completely free, with a brief interstitial ad (currently for Bing.com) between loading the game and playing. If you want the HD iPad version, be prepared to fork out two bucks for basically the same game with higher resolution graphics.
Sure, Super Jetpack Dragon IV: Village Burntopia is a little on the simple side, but I have a hard time complaining about a fun free game that helps me pad my Plus+ gamer score.
App Store Links: iPhone: Super Jetpack Dragon IV: Village Burntopia, Free – iPad: Super Jetpack Dragon IV: Village Burntopia HD, $1.99
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TouchArcade 360iDev Game Jam – A Night to Remember
Late last night the TouchArcade Game Jam at 360iDev brought a room full of developers together to build a game in twelve hours with only a single word as the inspiration: "Tiny". After a few cases of Red Bull, a truck load of Doritos, and some Franzia, each participating developer slowly formed workable prototypes for game ideas thought up on the fly. Some people worked in teams, others went solo, but I feel confident in saying that everyone had a good time.
To track the progress of the developers, we opened up a that they used to post screenshots and get ideas from the TouchArcade community. Ordered by the number of responses each game got, here are the products of the Game Jam:
From and comes a tilt to shoot game where you must defend a cake from …cake lovers? Various power ups are included, my personal favorite being the multi-cake shot seen in the above screenshot.
and teamed up to build this molecular line drawing game where you chain together atoms to clear the screen. Different atoms have various numerical values to them, and matching them together creates huge molecules for massive points.
The Pollinator is less of a game and more of a zen garden app, as it is played by tapping the flowers as bees fly by to pollinate the plants to keep them alive. (As the title may hint.)
built a Canabalt-like side scrolling survival game where you play as a pretty little unicorn. The game's thread is worth checking out to see the iterations the art style went through.
Jason and Jakob of built a chalkboard battle game they're describing as "It's like iShoot meets Warheads for your chalkboard!" Check out the above video to see the game in motion.
This collaboration between and is said to offer Canabalt-style survival gameplay where you dodge things in the game world by pinching to zoom the game world in and out.
A team of three guys form worked through the night to build this game which involves gliding through the air and grappling the terrain to fling yourself forward while avoiding crashing in to the hills.
This oddly beautiful game by involves guiding a particle (named Owen) through a field of magnets. The polarity of the magnets can be switched around to guide said particle through the magnetic field without touching any other magnets.
While I'm not entirely sure if Serban from ever finished his game, the concept art alone is worth showing off. Since the theme of the Game Jam was tiny, his game is about sharks with tiny lasers.
Participating remotely via web cam was who built a tiny (and accurately named) space shooter game.
David Whatley of and 360iDev keynote speaker was working on a game entitled The Will of Steve. I'm not entirely sure what the plan was with the gameplay, but if I know David, it likely involved Steve doing something silly with that iPad.
put together this top down kayak racer and was one of the few people to also fulfill the bonus "Owen Goss" theme. Your kayak is controlled by swiping down both sides of the screen, and the game was just barely finished in time with 25 minutes to spare.
put together a match three based on body parts being dumped in to an open grave. They didn't quite get all the matching logic working, they have plans to finish the game over the next week.
came up with this zombie infection game that features user-modifiable graphics. You can either save the world from zombies, or, if you prefer, save the world from Owen Goss.
and put together this bacon-powered game where you play as a monkey in space with an insatiable love for cured pork products. Shoot monkey cages to free your friends and pick up Slim Fast to, well, go faster.
came up with this amazing side scrolling shooter. I'd summarize the game, but they already did it perfectly:
The unthinkable has happened. After numerous jokes about snow and hockey, our neighbors to the north have unleashed an aerial invasion, loading up tons of cargo planes with… bacon. You play as the fighter ace with a trusty P-51 mustang, who must shoot down the cargo planes with your trusty WWII plane… armed with heat seeking missiles.
This mysterious developer known only as "Rob" or "themuller" on our forums put together a game with a shockingly accurate title. A face scrolls down the screen, and, well, you mini-gun it.
Markus from put together this simple game that involves tapping the screen to leave food for the black dot to eat while you avoid the red dot. Graphics are extremely preliminary right now, but the game itself is fully functional.
I'm not entirely sure if this game turned in to anything more than this mock up screenshot put together by or not, but it's hard to not get behind anything that involves orbiting cats with laser eyes.
put together a concept for a ball rolling game where you suck up other red balls by rolling over them. The catch is, you have to avoid the pillars which becomes increasingly difficult as your red ball grows in size.
Finally, , a picnic raiding game, was posted about in our Game Jam forum but without any screenshots or details aside from the concept of playing two player with opposing armies of ants stealing food from a picnic. Hopefully we hear some more on this one.
And of course, thanks to everyone who came to the Game Jam. The vibe in the room was fantastic, and it's always great hanging around creative people bouncing ideas off one another… Especially when those ideas have to do with rapidly developed iPhone games and Owen Goss. We'll post a followup as we hear from more of these developers regarding the fate of their Game Jam games. I went through and listed everyone who posted anything in the in this article, so if your game is missing, it's not too late to post a thread!
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‘Babylonian Twins’ & ‘Babylonian Twins HD’– A Puzzle/Platformer Milestone 16 Years in the Making
Sixteen years ago, as the developers tell the tale, Rabah Shihab led a team at Baghdad University, Iraq to develop an original puzzle/platformer for the Amiga, inspired by what he saw of other games' depiction of his home country.
As he explained in with Amiga Games That Weren't,
…My real dedication for this theme came during the early nineties after I saw a computer game in which you control a warplane with the goal of bombing Iraq. Putting the bombing aside (I was in Baghdad during the first gulf war and I saw the human suffering that resulted from the real bombing ), I didn't like the way they depicted Iraq in the game, as a primitive and uncivilized place. I wanted to build a game that counter that image, a game that shows the vibrant history of Mesopotamia. In Babylonian Twins, the game takes you to different historical places, from Babylon to Assyria. We relied on authentic history books to design many of the graphics in the game.
Under the extraordinary conditions caused by the economic sanctions of Iraq at that time, the first Iraqi-developed game never came to be; a well-loved, early Amiga was all we ever saw. Last week however, saw the arrival of Babylonian Twins — The Quest for Peace in Ancient Iraq [AppStore] and Babylonian Twins HD [AppStore] to the iPhone and iPad respectively, the result of a re-union of that development team.
Babylonian Twins is both a port and re-imagination of that original Amiga title. All the artwork has been re-done from scratch in rich, high definition and the original, middle eastern score and gameplay elements have all been improved. It is obvious that this has all been attended to with the utmost care, as there are no outward signs that this is in fact a port, beyond a grand style of gameplay that harkens back to the golden age of the Amiga.
The story begins with the plight of the twin princes of Babylon, imprisoned by an evil sorcerer who has cursed the city in which they live. It is a thread-bare tale told merely to give some context to the unique gameplay elements herein, foremost of which is the ability to control two protagonists with differing abilities. Blasir is able to jump higher than his brother, and is able to Dash mid-air to access hidden locations or break through weakened walls. Nasir on the other hand, has a mace capable of breaking objects and a Drill ability that destroys broken ground underfoot. Movement and attacks are handled with the standard platformer on-screen D-Pad and thumb buttons.
Nasir and Blasir are played interdependently, relying on each other's strengths to reach otherwise inaccessible locations, though only one twin is under your immediate control at any given time. When this happens, the other freezes into a statue, providing an oft-used height boost for out-of-reach areas or a weight to trigger pressure switches. In some ways this co-operative gameplay is reminiscent of another Amiga classic, The Lost Vikings, one of Blizzard's earliest titles (when they were known as Silicon and Synapse).
These simple gameplay features form the premise for some of the most interesting and expansive level designs that we have seen to date on the platform. In many ways, Babylonian Twins does away with contemporary trends in gaming, and re-instates the old-school values of a challenging, explorative platformer that refuses to hold you by the hand. There are no directional arrows or maps to point you towards the golden palm trees you must collect each level. In fact, even crucial objects such as the aforementioned broken walls and floors are easily missed unless you're paying attention. And each level is enormous– an adventure in and of itself– many of our completion times clocking in at around 30 minutes each.
To some, this may seem overbearing, but we thoroughly appreciated the breathe of fresh air that comes with a game that respects its players, and isn't just another title that can be waltzed through with minimal effort. Much of our time was spent exploring the colorful, wonderfully crafted middle-eastern environments; not to take in the vistas, but to puzzle out what path we had yet to take, and what vital element we were missing that was stalling our progress. That and avoiding the many pitfalls and enemies peppered across each landscape.
Babylonian Twins isn't completely unforgiving, having both a generous health bar for each twin and three lives between them to ease enemy encounters. That said, we expected that it would be replete with a checkpoint system and a resume feature to handle call-interruption. Unfortunately, these are not included to the extent they should, the latter proving especially frustrating on one occasion when 25 minutes of gameplay was wiped with the end in sight. Fortunately, the developer that this is being looked into, and that further checkpoints may be added in future versions.
This shouldn't be reason though to miss one of the most engaging platformers that we have had the pleasure of playing in a long while. While the artwork is stunning (apparently there was significant historical research behind much of the environment) and the terrific accompanying score both retro and authentically middle-eastern, the real selling point is the core gameplay. OpenFeint high scores and achievements (which include a near-impossible to find hidden trove of treasures) only accentuate a style of play that is heavy on exploration and puzzles designed to really challenge you. This won't be a game breezed through in a few short hours, but will require dedication to learn and reasoning to execute.
In true puzzle fashion, when your synapses are firing and each of the dozen levels are finally completed, your efforts pay off with a feeling of satisfaction and achievement that's second to none. That's when Babylonian Twins again shows its nature, offering two secret, additional levels when further time and life challenges are met. This is certainly a game that will remain on our iPhones and iPads for a long time to come, a sentiment shared by many of our readers who are posting their own impressions in our .
App Store Link: Babylonian Twins, $2.99, Babylonian Twins HD, $4.99
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Cave Raises the Bar with Stunning Shooter ‘Espgaluda II’
Any truly diehard arcade shooter fan will have heard of . Founded in 1994, the Japanese gamemaker is responsible for some of the most highly acclaimed scrolling shooters to have ever appeared in an arcade. With their 1995 release of DonPachi, the company created a new, intense genre of shooter known commonly as the "manic shooter" or "bullet hell" shooter, in which the screen is almost entirely filled with enemy fire, and successfully evading said fire requires extreme control precision and skill. It's a prevalent genre in Japan that is far less-represented in the West. (Some such titles readers may be familiar with include (Xbox 360, Gamecube), (Xbox 360, PS2, Dreamcast) and Noiz2sa [App Store].)
In a move that should have iPhone shooter fans standing up and cheering, Cave has just thrown their hat into the iPhone gaming ring with their port of the 2005 Japanese Arcade / Xbox 360 release [App Store]. A sequel to the original Japanese arcade and PS2 release, Espgaluda II is a bullet hell-style shooter that was released in 2005. The iPhone version seeks to bring a fast-action, arcade quality shooter experience to our favorite mobile platform.
The first thing I said to myself upon jumping into a game of Espgaluda II was, "finally!" I've long lamented the fact that the iPhone 2D scrolling shooter experience was, across the board, pretty much a slow-motion affair as compared to that of even much older consoles such as the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation. Cave's first iPhone shooter throws an x/y scrolling backdrop along with an incredible number of moving objects onscreen at once, and the whole thing just flies. Fast action at a super-smooth framerate. (There's a settings option to set the screen size, if you want to tweak performance a bit.) It's certainly the most impressive iPhone shooter to date from a technical standpoint. But all this pixellated magic didn't come without a price; Espgaluda II presently only runs on the iPhone 3GS and the iPad (with 3G iPod touch support coming soon in an update). Older devices just can't push this scale of pixels, it seems.
Gameplay involves using touch controls to maneuver your craft about the playfield, destroying enemies, dodging their fire, and collecting Spirit Stones and power-ups. Along the left or right of the screen (user's choice) are special function buttons that trigger a Guard shield / attack mode, Awakening mode (more on this later), auto-fire on / off, and weapons mode select — some of which may not be presented depending on the control mode you've chosen, among Simplified, Normal, and Expert. The touch controls work quite well and offer better control than either the stick or D-pad of the earlier arcade and Xbox 360 versions. Thankfully, you can tap and hold some distance from your onscreen craft to control it without obscuring your view of it.
Each level is concluded by a boss battle, some quite lengthy, that really puts your control savvy to the test. Keep a finger hovering over that shield trigger when a boss comes out to play…
From an artistic standpoint, the game really stands out. The backdrops are very well done and the enemy craft objects are highly detailed. There's so much color and graphical complexity onscreen — and zipping around at a breakneck clip — that it probably takes the smallest hit in running pixel-doubled on an iPad than any iPhone game I've seen. In fact, the larger screen image makes dodging enemy fire a bit easier than on the iPhone. The iPad is my personal platform of choice for this one.
A lively soundtrack featuring audio similar to other such Japanese shooters accompanies gameplay and adds to the overall feeling of intensity. (Cave released the game's soundtrack on CD back in 2006.)
The iPhone version of Epsgaluda II features two modes of play. There's the Arcade Mode, which stays close to the arcade original and the Xbox 360 version — but in the case of the latter, this has been for some, as far as the somewhat unclear scoring system. Cave addressed this by adding an iPhone Mode, which features a scoring system that the developers feel makes more sense for mobile play. As well, the iPhone Mode features a new Awakening Pulse attack where you can turn enemy fire into the green Spirit Stones that you want to collect, increasing your multiplier and protecting your ship at the same time. Across both of these modes are Novice, Normal, and Hard difficulty levels.
The game utilizes OpenFeint for various in-game achievements and leaderboard tracking to keep things nice and competitive.
I am a particular shooter fan, but the bullet hell variety is not my very favorite flavor. Despite that, I fell quick and hard in love with Espgaluda II. It is easily the best 2D shooter experience in the App Store. I spent most of the day plowing through wave after wave of some of the most dense bullet swarms I've ever encountered and found it quite difficult to put down in order to start this review. I moved frequently between the iPhone 3GS and iPad to get a good feel for gameplay on both devices and it was fast-paced and frenetic fun, whichever device I used.
If you own an iPhone 3GS and are a fan of the manic shooter — go buy this game right now. If you are a general shooter fan and feel that you're up to facing the dense and constant volleys of enemy fire that this type of shooter brings — go buy this game right now. At present, Espgaluda II has no peer in the App Store.
The game is currently listed at an introductory price of $4.99, down from the standard price of $8.99.
App Store Link: Espgaluda II, $4.99 (limited time)
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‘Warpgate HD’ – The Game I’ve Been Waiting For
At this point we've posted about Freeverse's Warpgate so many times that linking to the various previews over the last year just seems excessive. From its very beginnings at WWDC '09, Warpgate piqued my interest, and as information slowly leaked out of Freeverse regarding the game's development, it seemed like it was set to exceed even my wildest expectations– Provided they could live up to nearly a year of pre-release hype.
Warpgate HD [App Store] was among the initial batch of games available along side the launch of the iPad, and was the first game I loaded up following unboxing mine after waiting what seemed like an eternity to sync. Since then, Warpgate has sucked me in in the worst way. Describing games as "addicting" or "addictive" has become the absolute worst cliche of the App Store, both in descriptions and game reviews, but I'm having a hard time coming up with a better way to describe my attraction to this game.
To give some perspective, things I love in video games in no particular order includes anything to do with space, massive game worlds, warring factions you can take part in, an impressive sense of scale, and as much randomization as possible to provide endless replay value. Warpgate has all of these things and more.
Obviously set in space, Warpgate is host to a gigantic galaxy map that you slowly explore through a seamless set of campaign missions. Once you complete the initial tutorial, and start in on the "real" game, procedurally generated missions begin appearing that have you flying places, delivering things, getting in to battles with other ships, and other objectives. Because of this, the game never technically ends.
Warpgate is remarkably open, so much so that if you're the kind of gamer that requires a rigid goal structure with a concrete "end" to a game, it might just drive you crazy. The end goal of Warpgate is whatever you want it to be. If that means grinding up reputation with the space pirates and piloting the biggest, baddest battleship in the entire galaxy, killing everything in your path, you can. Or, on the opposite side of things, you can be completely lawful and play your cards so you're in good standing with all the factions of space.
Or, if you don't care about that, and you just want to have billions and billions of space bucks, Warpgate is conducive to that play style too. There's an entire dynamic economy in game and if all you want to do is ferry around commodities between planets selling low and buying high, you can. In-game news feeds will help you keep an eye on the pulse of the universe, and you can often make an insane profit by quickly delivering huge loads of much needed cargo to planets that show up in the news.
If you don't like power gaming these kinds of games, and just want to have fun in space, that works too. Warpgate seems to be balanced in a way that both rewards power gaming the economy and in-game faction system as well as being conducive to casual gamers just bouncing between campaign missions without getting too involved in the other parts of the game. Mostly, playing the in-game markets is optional, and you might only have to participate in buying and selling commodities if you're low on money and need to buy an expensive quest item or want to further upgrade your ship's weaponry.
Alternatively, if you really don't want to grind up money to buy things, there's an in-game store where you can buy a huge battle cruiser and tons of space bucks for a few real dollars. Other than that, you can just follow the campaign missions and have a great time.
It seems like App Store gamers are always clamoring for depth in games, something that has become exceedingly rare as pricing across the board has hit rock bottom. Warpgate has depth on top of depth. To give you an idea of how much content is in the game, the galaxy map is host to 36 star systems. Those star systems are home to 120 different plants and space stations. While you're marauding around the galaxy, you can pilot one of 172 different star ships, and equip your ship with the 60 included weapons. It's really just insane how much is packed in to this game.
As far as an iPad game is concerned, Warpgate HD is great. Since the launch of the device, we've played almost everything worth playing, and it seems like the control method that I've been preferring the most is one where you can comfortably rest the iPad in your lap, holding it with one hand, and playing with the other. This is exactly how Warpgate works.
You control your ship either by touching anywhere in the game world to fly there, swiping in the direction you want to fly, or touching one of the icons on the side of the screen indicating the direction of a planet, warpgate, or other point of interest. Context sensitive buttons appear to allow you to warp through a warpgate, land on a planet, scan another ship, answer an incoming communication, or fight another ship.
The camera is controlled using all the same familiar multitouch gestures such as two fingers to rotate and pinching to zoom in or out. Speaking of zooming the camera, this is one of my absolute favorite things about the game. With a pinch of your fingers you can go from seeing the minute details of your ship, then instantly and fluidly pan the camera all the way out to show all the nearby planets. This level of zoom control and sense of scale is so cool that the first hour or two that I played the game I couldn't help myself but just constantly zoom in and out.
If you're looking for a fast paced action game, Warpgate is not it. While narrowly escaping from pirates as you just barely warp before getting hit with a missile that would destroy your ship can be exciting, by and large the game is fairly slow. You will spend a lot of time watching your ship flying from place to place, and when you're actually fighting, combat isn't anywhere near as interactive as I had hoped it would be.
When you tap the button to enter a battle, the screen zooms, twists, and blurs just like a Final Fantasy. The game then quickly loads in to a battle sequence where your ship will be flying in a swarm with the other ship (or ships) you're fighting. You don't have any control over your ship's movement at this point, and all you really do is choose when to fire what weapons by mashing buttons that appear on either side of the screen and select the target you're firing on. It gets the job done, but feels surprisingly remedial compared to the rest of the game. If there's one area that Warpgate needs improvement, it's in fleshing out this battle system to add some strategy beyond mashing your weapon buttons as they come online.
Originally designed as an iPhone game, the non-HD version of Warpgate will be available on the 13th, Warpgate will intelligently scale across the entire iPhone and iPod touch family, enabling the different graphical effects depending on what device you're playing on. If you're playing the game on a 3GS or 3rd generation iPod touch, you'll see all kinds of fancy shader effects. If not, the game should still look good without them and run at a great frame rate to boot. Aside from the smaller screen size and a reworked user interface, the iPhone version of the game will be identical to the iPad.
iPhone Warpgate compared to Warpgate HD.
While I'm having a great time with Warpgate, one thing really makes me nervous about a game of this scope. There's no way to manage your game saves, back up your game, or anything like that. I have invested hours upon hours in to Warpgate, and I'd hate to think that I could lose it all from some update SNAFU, iTunes sync weirdness, and the countless other things I've run in to in the past that have resulted in random save game data loss. Especially with an iPhone version on the horizon, there's nothing more I'd love to see than some kind of online Plus+ powered save game synchronization between devices, or anything else to add some kind of security that my massive space empire is here to stay.
Overall, in my eyes, Warpgate has completely delivered on the months of pre-launch hype. Playing the game on my iPad feels like the future, and something that you would see some space kid playing on a similar tablet device in an 80's sci-fi movie. The mood of the game is great, the graphics are phenomenal, the in-game soundtrack has an epic feel to it, and even the icon is cool. Sure, the battle system could use some work, but that is just a small part of an otherwise remarkable game.
Warpgate HD is currently my favorite iPad game, and if you've ever enjoyed a space conquest game in the past, this is a game you need to download. If you don't have an iPad, the iPhone version will be coming April 13th, so keep an eye out for that.
App Store LInk: Warpgate HD, $7.99 (iPad only, iPhone version coming 4/13.)
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‘Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2′ – There’s a New King in Town
Originally released for the PlayStation all the way back in the year 2000, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 [App Store] was the definitive skateboarding game of its day. Since then, the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series has spawned a ton of sequels, but, at least in my opinion, no skateboarding game has come close to the same level of fun. I played Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 so much that I quite literally wore out controllers. I really can't think of another game I can say the same for.
I'm not alone in absolutely loving the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 either, as it's currently the #2 top rated game on all of MetaCritic, second only to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In its day, THPS2 received flawless reviews from nearly everyone who touched it, and believe it or not, even the Gameboy Advance port was great… An accomplishment not to be taken lightly given how terribly mediocre even the best Gameboy ports of "full" 3D games were.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 stikes a perfect balance between an in-depth career mode with multiple skaters you can slowly improve by buying additional stat points, skateboards, and tricks while also sporting an extremely open game world that seems to never run out of things for you to do. Once you do finally beat the game, there's always topping you and your friends' scores which begin to become a test of endurance for how long you can keep an infinite combo going before falling.
Progressing through career mode involves selecting a skate location and completing goals to earn in-game money. Initially only the warehouse is open, and goals range from finding gaps (two ramps you can jump between), picking up the S K A T E letters, knocking over barrels, reaching several different point totals, and others. Once you make enough money the second skate location opens, and the rest of the game continues like that. Of course, you can always visit old locations, which is vital if you hope to fully tweak out your skater as each stat point you buy is incrementally more expensive than the last.
Sadly, even though Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is based on source material that is pure gaming gold, there are the usual console game to iPhone issues. First off, the necessary evil of the virtual D-Pad and set of four buttons to handle all your jumping, flipping, grabbing and grinding really doesn't do the game any favors. They're slowly growing on me and work as well as to be expected, but I'm not entirely sure I'll ever be able to pull the insane infinite combos I could on a real controller just because of how hard it is to rock your thumb between two virtual buttons on the iPhone screen.
Secondly, and potentially worse is that Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 flat out hasn't been adapted to be a very good mobile phone game. It still utilizes a similar save system to the now ancient console game where your progress is only saved after each level, so any phone calls will result in you restarting from your last save. This probably isn't as big of a deal as it sounds, since each skate session is only a couple minutes long, but it still seems worth mentioning.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is also a game that would benefit greatly from some kind of online leaderboard integration. The sheer potential this game has to be the most amazing thing I've ever seen by implementing leaderboards, push challenges, and replay sharing is out of this world. I can't even imagine how much fun sending challenges to all my friends I used to play THPS2 with back in the day would be, and I really really hope they consider adding this.
In the graphics and sound departments, it's all there. In fact, the game looks even better on the iPhone than I remember it. It has a soundtrack of real music, although the original game music by Anthrax, Rage Against the Machine, and Bad Religion are nowhere to be found. Currently the game's availability is severely limited, but according to should be available internationally fairly soon.
Despite these issues, if you have any nostalgia at all from playing the original game ten years ago, you're going to need this game. From the familiar menus to all the skate locations filled with secrets you slowly begin to remember, there's nothing that compares to Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. There is no way you won't be smiling ear to ear the first time you drop in to the warehouse, and chances are, you won't even care that the controls aren't ideal because you're playing Tony Hawk on your phone.
If you're only familiar with more modern Tony Hawk games, you might be annoyed that it's lacking (and I use that word loosely) things like a story mode, a more structured career mode, greater depth of customization, and other things that have since become common place in recent skateboarding games. But, honestly, none of that even matters, because the actual skating in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 has an absolutely timeless feel to it.
This is a game I will never delete from my iPhone.
App Store Link: Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, $9.99
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iPad Reviews Released, Video Hands-On, and New Games
As we get closer and closer to iPad zero hour, even more details on the device are hitting the internet. Most interesting from a gaming perspective is a brief hands on with an actual iPad showing several games running on the device that we haven't seen before including a few seconds of Plants vs Zombies for the iPad in this video from ABC News:
Larger version available at
PCMag also put up a video review of the iPad which goes over most aspects of the device, but if you skip to about the four minute mark you can see a few brief clips of Real Racing HD:
Other reviews are also coming in from the usual suspects:
And finally, shows another huge push of iPad games and apps. We're likely going to spend the rest of the night combing through these and post anything we find that's interesting. Stay tuned!
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