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We’ve had our share of decent endless runners lately, and Defiant Development’s Ski Safari [ $0.99 ], looks to continue that trend. With adorable graphics, great controls, and a decent amount of content, hits all the right notes for the genre and should be checked out.

Ski Safari challenges you to last as long as you can against an impending avalanche while you race down an eternal slope. In order to accomplish this, you’ll need to build up your speed (and score multiplier) and keep it up as long as possible. You can gain speed by performing a wide variety of tricks or by picking up ‘vehicles’ that range from penguins and yetis to hawks to even a snowmobile. Of course, several types of obstacles (rocks, ski cabins, e.t.c.) stand in your way to slow you down. It’s an interesting system that plays out like a constant tug-of-war between you and the never-ending avalanche. In some ways, the speed system is a bit vaguer than other endless runners but I think it adds to the tension and enjoyment.

Of course, Ski Safari wouldn’t offer much in the replayability department if it only offered a simple race against inevitability. Thankfully, a decent objective/leveling system similar to the likes of Jetpack Joyride is always in play, offering nice distractions during the race. Completing sets of missions raises your rank and multiplier, allowing you to gain more points (and speed). While the mission system doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the table, it’s still a welcome addition.

Like many endless runners, Ski Safari’s controls are a simple mixture of taps and holds. A quick tap will have your skier jump while holding down on the screen starts a backflip. Your backflip speed depends a lot on your velocity and vehicle, adding a bit to the strategy of whether or not to actually start a move. The control scheme definitely hits the mark for being accessible while offering just enough potential for strategy to keep you coming back.

You’ll notice that once you get the hang of the gameplay runs can take quite a bit of time (relatively speaking) before they get hard. However, I don’t really see this as an issue as there are plenty of objectives to complete while you’re skiing and the ever-increasing multiplier means that you’ll eventually be able to reach those higher scores faster.

I’m a fan of Ski Safari’s lighthearted and playful presentation. Everything from the initial runs while asleep in bed to the mischievous music and cartoony visuals just illicit an amusing feeling. This continues with the pun-filled trick names and animal/vehicle companions. Obviously competent gameplay is an important facet for endless runners, but having well executed presentation goes a long way towards keeping me coming back. Thankfully, Ski Safari succeeds in all those aspects.

There are a few minor issues that I think keep Ski Safari from elite status. I really would have liked to see some sort of in-game use for all the coins you collect in a run. Even if it only offered cosmetic changes, an in-game shop goes a long way towards replayability. For that matter, while Ski Safari does a great job with its randomly generated runs, I hope that scenery changes are in the works for future updates. I really love the vehicle system and hope to see more options as well.

Still, Ski Safari definitely deserves to be put into the upper echelon of endless runners. The great presentation, well-implemented control scheme and overall enjoyable gameplay simply lead to a game worth playing. If you’re looking for the next great (and cute) endless runner, look no further and check out Ski Safari.

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I’d argue that the only genre more saturated on the App Store than match-3’s has got to be casino style games. Whether you’re talking slot machines, card games, and other variations, there’s a bazillion of them. Well, the guys behind the United States Playing Card Company think they’ve got a compelling addition to the field, and that’s through their expertise of being the guys behind basically every brand of playing cards. Aviator, Bee, Bicycle, Tally-Ho, Congress, KEM, and PokerPeek are all their products, and the company has been around since 1867, so they definitely have some momentum behind them.

Anyway, the United States Playing Card Company have teamed up with the marketing firm Digi117 who themselves are behind widely recognizable brands like Morton, O’Reilly, and even Carfax. They’re partnering to form a company called Zeniz to throw their hat into the social gaming arena.

Who knows what will come of this, but if nothing else it’ll be interesting to see how the giant of physical playing cards transitions to the virtual space. Casino by Zeniz is on schedule to launch next week, so we won’t have to wait too long to watch this play out.

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We just learned this week that one of the pioneering forces of both the freemium pay model as well as real-time online multiplayer, Eliminate, will be closing up shop later this month. Well according to RockBandAide.com right on the heels of that news it looks as if EA Mobile will be giving the same treatment to the original Rock Band [ $4.99 ] iOS game, which we thought was pretty good when it launched towards the end of 2009.

The original Rock Band was usurped by the superior sequel Rock Band Reloaded [$4.99 / $9.99 (HD)] in December of 2010, so it’s not totally surprising that EA would want to focus on the newer version. However, for a game that many people have likely spent a good chunk of cash on by buying new songs through IAP, not to mention that it launched at $9.99 to begin with, it seems sort of crazy that EA would flat out make the game inoperable.

At the very least you would think that EA would be able to just leave the original Rock Band alone, so those who bought it and paid for IAP songs can continue to at least use it even if future updates aren’t in the cards. Perhaps there’s a reason for this, like a licensing issue with the music, but at any rate if you’re still a fan of the first Rock Band on iOS you’ll have until May 31st to continue enjoying it.

Servers being shut down and dropping support for games isn’t a new phenomenon, but in the increasingly more digital age of video games you’ll just have to keep in mind that the experience might be finite unlike physical copies of games which will last for eternity as long as you have the hardware to play it.

Note: I’m leaving the links for both Rock Band games in case you already own the original and want to re-download it for safe keeping, but obviously it won’t work after the end of the month. If you want a Rock Band game for iOS go with Rock Band Reloaded (for the time being, anyway).

[Via RockBandAide.com]

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I’m not sure exactly what the occasion is for this many great freebies available at one time, but, hey, whatever. Here are sixteen games that are all free for a limited time. Because of the potentially volatile nature of pricing on the App Store, you’re probably better off just going down this list and mashing the download button instead of waiting for later in case they go back to being paid:

• Baby Monkey (going backwards on a pig) [ Free ]
• Commander Cool [ Free ]
• Dawn of the Dead™ [ Free ]
• Deadlock: Online [ Free ]
• Final Freeway [ Free ]
• Ion Racer [ Free ]
• Jaws™ [ Free ]
• Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim [ Free ]
• Reflexions [ Free ]
• Rinth Island [ Free ]
• Scarface™ [ Free ]
• Time Ducks [ Free ]
• Towers N’ Trolls HD [ Free ]
• ZDAY Survival Simulator HD [ Free (HD)]
• Zombie Caves [ Free ]
• ZombieRunnerZ [ Free ]

Don’t miss Time Ducks and Final Freeway, which are my two favorite games from the list. Heck, don’t miss any of them. Be sure you grab The 7th Guest too.

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If there’s anything that could completely wreck my plans and productivity, it would be a Super Crate Box [$1.99] RPG. I’d say a quick prayer of thanks to Vlambeer for not going forward with that idea, but it’s too late. FireFruitForge and Everplay Interactive have something against letting me work in peace, I guess, because Spellsword [$0.99] is that perfect storm of quick, one-more-try gameplay and RPG mechanics I can completely lose myself in.

Spellsword isn’t a clone of Super Crate Box (thankfully—Vlambeer really could use a break), but it has a similar starting point. It’s an arena game that’s designed around rapidly collecting weapon spawns to kill baddies. But where Super Crate Box focuses tightly on that mechanic to the exclusion of everything else, Spellsword takes a more expansive road. Along that road you’re going to find levelling, loot, and a lot of new ways to play.

As a result, it’s not quite as clean as Super Crate Box’s more minimalistic approach allows. It has a few problems, and things get sloppy from time to time. I’m not saying you shouldn’t play it, though. It’s crazy-fun, and you really shouldn’t miss out.

You start out as a quippy hero with a spellsword. It’s not worth much on its own, but it can be enhanced with cards that litter the arena. Each one powers up the sword in some way—with fire, ice or poison damage, for starters—and each one also sets off some sort of effect. The ice card sends out wheels of ice, the fire card launches fireballs, and the poison card poisons every enemy on screen. And that’s just the start.

So while you can certainly run around killing things with your sword, it’s dangerous. Better to collect every card you can, and lean on those one-time effects to do the killing for you. This is where the game feels most like Super Crate Box, dodging enemies to get to the next card and never stopping to rest. Still, the differences are pretty huge.

For one thing, enemies drop rupees. In fact, the whole game is pretty much built around the rupee economy. Play well to earn more rupees, which you can use to level up your cards, your sword, and even your rupee drop rate. You can also use them to buy gear that adds to those same skills. And before you ask, no—there isn’t any IAP.

Mission mode is another big difference. Each of the three current arenas come with 20 missions. These ask you to do a bunch of different things. You might need to survive some waves, kill some baddies or collect some cards. In exchange you’re given big payouts of rupees, new cards and the occasional piece of gear.

Endless mode is more familiar, with nonstop waves of baddies until you burn through all your hearts. There are three difficulty tiers of endless mode for each arena. In them you’ll grind rupees, and you’ll also find the leaderboard competition.

When it comes to the little things, Spellsword goes the distance. The look is great, very much like Terra Noctis [$0.99], FireFruitForge’s other big title. The sound is no slouch, but it doesn’t really stand out. Love it or hate it, the real flavor rests in the hero’s quips. There’s one for every mission, and nearly ever single one is a reference to a show, game, or movie. They run the gamut from modern and obvious to old and seriously obscure. Me, I find ‘em charming.

As I mentioned, there are also some problems. The controls aren’t great, and on iPad they’re worse. There’s already a fix incoming for that—along with adding new control types, it will let you reposition the iPad controls. There’s also some clumsiness in the arena design. It’s easy to get caught on edges, or mess up platforms. There are also ways to abuse positioning and let enemies wander off to their own deaths. These things aren’t remotely dealbreakers, but they can be irritating.

Overall, though, the game is outstanding. The RPG mechanics add a whole new layer of compulsion to an already inviting sort of game. It’s not easy to call it quits, especially when there’s one more level to earn, or one more piece of gear you can almost afford. Those things make it less of a pure skill game—you’ll need to put in a bit of a grind to cap out— but they also add a bit of strategy. There is real value in carefully choosing your gear and putting your rupees to good use when leveling.

With some elbow grease and a good once over, Spellsword could easily earn a permanent spot on my iPhone. It’s really that good. And Everplay Interactive seems dedicated to hitting those heights, if the developer’s comments in our discussion thread are anything to go by. I don’t see how you could possibly go wrong here. This a game that’s fun, full-featured and ridiculously cheap, with a developer that’s working hard to keep fixes and content coming. Looks like a winner from here.

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On April Fool’s Day, Team Meat teased that its upcoming Super Meat Boy game for iPhone and iPad game will use new art, new sound, and new mechanics. In other words, it’s not going to be a port of Super Meat Boy. Speaking with The Verge today, Team Meat revealed that it wants Meat Boy iOS to be twitch-based platformer like its big brother, but plans to tone down the memorization part of that original experience for the mobile crowd.

“[The original] Meat Boy was a twitch-based game about memorizing things,” said Edmund McMillen of Team Meat said. “[iOS] Meat Boy is the opposite. That’s the foundation of its design. But it’s also on a touch device, so there’s that as well. We want to make a twitch-based platformer that’s not about memorization.”

With a fuller picture of what this game is now in our minds, we’re imagining that this version of will have the spirit of the original Meat Boy, minus some of the pain. It sounds almost… enjoyable. We’re scared. Should we be scared?

[via The Verge]

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These days, endless runners need to go above and beyond in some aspect if they hope to rise above the competition and get some attention. Enter Escape from Age of Monsters [$0.99 / HD] an endless runner from Massive Joe Studios. Featuring a beautiful and unique art style, Escape certainly has our attention as a game worth checking out.

Escape puts you in the role of Gizzard, a man in possession of a mysterious pair of gloves who is to survive the monster invasion. With orphans in tow, you’ll guide Gizzard through buildings punching down walls and monsters, all while collecting floating items offering points, coins and a variety of power-ups (slowdown, speedup, e.t.c.). Miss a punch, and the monsters will take the orphans before eventually taking you down and ending the game. As expected, the longer you stay alive, the faster the obstacles come at you, until you eventually succumb to the monsters.

The first thing you’ll notice about Escape from Age of Monsters is its gorgeous visuals. The hand-drawn animated style is quite unique and simply looks stunning. Everything from the characters themselves to the backdrops to even the menus has an air of being meticulously detailed, and gives off the feeling that you’re playing in an animated cartoon. Amazingly, this feeling is amplified on the new iPad, as the retina-visuals on the large screen look quite fantastic. This sentiment is also carried over with the game’s music, which boasts a great metal soundtrack that fits the theme and sets the mood appropriately. This all leads to a very enjoyable playing experience, as Escape simply nails its presentation.

Gizzard’s gloves are the key to Escape’s gameplay. One glove is colored red while the other is blue. Tapping on the right side of the screen will launch a red punch while tapping on the left side launches the blue. Relatedly, every barrier and baddie you encounter will be colored red or blue. Thus, the game becomes an exercise in tapping the appropriate side of the screen that corresponds with the obstacle in front of you.

In addition to the simple survival objective, Escape features a mission system that tasks you with various objectives and rewards items that permanently increase the base score multiplier upon completion. This continues a recent trend in endless titles that provide score-enhancing awards vice older titles that tried to mostly preserve leaderboard parity regardless of how much you played. One minor complaint is the lack of iCloud support for your progress, although that is somewhat expected considering iPad and iPhone versions are separate. Regardless, it’s a good incentive program that encourages gamers to play for more than just leaderboard chasing (even if the rewards are simply to make said chasing easier).

While the controls are simple enough for an endless runner, there are a few miscues that prevent it from being flawless. For example, each successful punch has the opportunity to award double points, with three consecutive ‘perfect’ punches putting you in ‘Turbo Mode,’ where the score multiplayer jumps up even further and you get a temporary extra life (until the mode breaks).

However, the timing for the perfect punches seems a bit off. While continual practice alleviates this problem somewhat, you never seem to fully grasp the timing window. Another issue revolves around the swiping mechanism needed to collect the various items and power-ups littered on the level. I had multiple occasions where I’d swipe at the item several times and the collection wouldn’t register. Considering how hectic Escape gets in later buildings, this can get frustrating when you’re trying to balance item collection and wall breaking.

Despite the above issues, Escape from Age of Monsters is still a great endless runner. I’d argue that it warrants consideration simply from its visuals. Luckily, you won’t have to make that decision as Escape also offers a balanced gameplay experience to accompany those visuals. With that in mind, you’d be hard-pressed to pass up on this endless runner.

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Late last week Capcom surprised everybody by announcing an iOS port of their classic arcade fighter Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 [ $2.99 ]. In all honesty, I suspect this was a cleverly timed release to casually tie in with ‘The Avengers’ movie coming out next week, but whatever the motivation I’m not complaining. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is one of the most beloved fighting games in history, and prior to the downloadable rerelease on XBL and PSN in 2009 it could be kind of a difficult game to play unless you owned the Dreamcast or the somewhat rare PS2 or Xbox versions.

With that said it’s fairly mind blowing then that today you can download the entire original game onto a device that fits snugly in your pocket (or to your iPad if you’d rather, since the game is Universal, though it’s extra snug trying to jam that in your pocket). The iOS version of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is really cool for what it is, basically a cheap nostalgic trip, but it’s plagued with several major problems that drag the experience down, making it feel more like a novelty rather than another solid iOS fighter.

The major sticking points in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 are that it’s difficult to control compared to the other top iOS fighters, the 12 year old visuals have not aged gracefully, and the overall performance leaves a lot to be desired. However, the virtual control setup that Capcom has come up with for the game is pretty clever, and just having a classic like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 in my pocket is worth putting up with its shortcomings. It’s just a shame because with a little more care I think this port could have been a whole lot better.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 features a whopping 56 playable characters, 28 from the Marvel camp and 28 from Capcom. Only 24 are available from the start, with the rest being unlocked from an in-game store using coins earned through play, or for performing certain tasks like completing the arcade mode with different characters.

In the XBL and PSN versions of the game, all characters are unlocked from the start, but I far prefer having to unlock them on my own as it gives you a sense of progress and some goals to shoot for while playing. However, if you’re dying to download the iOS version and bust out some local Bluetooth multiplayer with a buddy (sadly there is no online) right out of the gate, then you might find it annoying to have to spend significant time earning enough coins to unlock your favorite characters. Surprisingly, there is no sort of in-app purchase option to unlock everything.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is all about 3-on-3 tag team matches where characters can be swapped in and out at will, there’s a crazy emphasis on battles in the air, and the combos and special moves are all outrageous and over the top. Unfortunately, the iOS version runs so sluggishly that much of those fun moments are turned to frustration. The framerate can be a bit choppy and the virtual controls don’t seem to respond as well as even other Capcom fighters available on the App Store. This makes pulling off elaborate combos and air battling nearly impossible.

Despite the controls being sometimes unreliable, the default controls that Capcom implemented to simplify the experience are pretty nifty. There’s just a single button each for punch and kick, then there is a special button for controlling teammates and another for special moves. Besides just tapping these special buttons, each one can also be flicked in 4 different directions in order to perform additional moves. For example you can simply tap the special move button to shoot out a hadoken (fireball), but if you flick it to the side instead you can instantly launch into a shoryuken (dragon punch).

It’s a really cool idea and when it works well it’s brilliant, but for some reason much of the time it feels like the special buttons don’t respond to many of your flicks. There is the option to go with the original arcade game controls, which means no flicking for special moves, and I found that this option is much more reliable but does require more work on your part.

The visuals in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 are also a pretty big letdown. I expect a 12 year old game to look dated, but for some reason the iOS version looks worse than any previous version. Sprites are noticeably jagged and pixelated, something that is accentuated on the iPad’s bigger screen. On the bright side, the fully 3D animated backgrounds are intact here and actually look quite good, especially when you consider the boring static backgrounds used in Street Fighter IV Volt on iOS.

So, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 has a lot of issues, but nothing that renders the game completely unplayable. The controls work well enough but are far from as good as other iOS fighters, and definitely not good enough to fully pull off some of the game’s more complicated techniques. If you’re a fan of the game on other platforms and can accept the problems it has on iOS for the sake of having it in your pocket, then I think it’s definitely worth the $3 price of admission (or $5 when the intro sale ends). Personally, I’m having a ton of fun playing through the game again, even with the inherent frustrations.

If you don’t have any particular affinity for the original game but are just looking for a new iOS fighter, then Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is a tougher sell. The controls are passable, but nowhere near the likes of Street Fighter IV Volt [ $6.99 ], King of Fighters-i [ $6.99 ], or SoulCalibur [ $11.99 ] on iOS. It’s frustrating because those examples prove that Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 could have been such a better port, and it may be in the future after some updating, but if nostalgia isn’t playing a big role in your desire for having this game on iPhone then I’d suggest waiting to see how things shake out down the line.

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Hey! You! Yeah, you. You loved Oblivion, can’t get enough of Skyrim and all those subsequent “arrow to the knee” memes. You probably wish there was something at least vaguely similar on your phone or iPad, right? Well, there is. It originally hit in late 2010, so you might already have it. If you don’t take a peek at our review:

You start off in Aralon by choosing one of three races – a human, elf, or troll – and from there you further refine your character by choosing its class. Both humans and elves can be male or female and pick from warrior, rogue, ranger, and mage classes. Trolls can only be male and either a warrior or a rogue. Each class has its own skill tree to master as your character levels up, and they all play quite differently from one another giving plenty of reason to play through the game as each. You then customize the look of your character model using a decent selection of hair and face choices, and although the options here aren’t as robust as what you would find in a console game, it’s certainly the most extensive on the iOS platform.

The story of Aralon then begins, and follows a tale of betrayal and a Kingdom on the brink of collapse. As fate would have it, you are the key element to solving these problems and restoring The Kingdom of Aralon to its previous state of peace and harmony. It’s certainly the kind of story that follows clichés of the role-playing genre, but it’s interesting nonetheless and serves as a good motivator to carry on and see things through. …Read More.

Aralon has aged surprisingly well, and for its sale price of 99¢ your cost-per-hour-of-entertainment in this game is down to mere pennies. Give it a look, especially if you’re into semi-open world RPGs. We made an awful lot of noise about Aralon when it was first released, but, I suppose it’s possible there are people out there who haven’t heard about it or still haven’t picked it up for whatever reason.

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I like to think that Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead is an exploration of character and violence more than it is some grim zombie fairy tale. Its cast is as beastly as its undead. Action is sudden, terrifying, and distressing. Decisions are made in bursts of lust and blood, greed and anger, brains and preservation. This miasma is revealing: we’re not good people. This makes for interesting reading, as you get to glimpse into what makes us forget who we want to be, and become what we actually are.

The first episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead plays like a celebration of the comic and its themes. It adheres to the Kirkman’s vision, showcasing the series’ violence and grit, choice and character. You’ll make painful decisions, interact with broken people, and participate in some of the most brutal, real-world action that’s ever been shown in a video game. In under an hour of play with a Mac build of the title, I have become one of The Walking Dead’s characters: a liar and a monster in the face of danger.

You’ll play through a vehicle named Lee, a loosely defined character with a mysterious history and an innocence about him. The opening takes place right before the world goes to hell. Lee is in the back of a police car, handcuffed, talking to the officer driving when, suddenly, the officer strikes a walker with his vehicle. The crash is a stomach-churning, and the action after is intense. Lee survives, but finds himself in a world where the dead shamble and the living sprint.

Lee goes on to meet a few characters, including a little girl who becomes something of a companion. As you progress, you’ll make choices that each character will “remember,” perhaps coloring the events in later episodes as you jump in and out of alliances with others, react calmly or violently, or lie. Thus far, I don’t have a great sense of how anything that I’m saying or doing will play out, and that’s perhaps The Walking Dead’s biggest upcoming challenge: these choices need to feel meaningful one way or another.

Mechanically, the game controls like a cross between Jurassic Park and Heavy Rain: you manually move Lee in very specific environments, searching for items and clues that will inevitably lead you to the next story point. The Walking Dead doesn’t rely on puzzles as a bridge. Instead, it leverages Lee’s confusion and desire: you find things for people or for Lee. Action segments challenge you to react fast, as you line up reticules or tap buttons to complete QTEs. The dialogue system, on the other hand, presents multiple flavors of response and a timer forces you to make snap judgements and decisions.

I appreciate the intensity of the writing. The Walking Dead invites you to explore a grim and violent world spotted with people who actually feel like people and react in extreme ways under the pressure of survival. Being able to lie to cover things up or get an “in” with a group of better equipped survivors, or save one person over another are the game’s strongest points of narrative design. I’ve been swaying between unnerved or moved as I progress, and this emotional connection is what appeals to me the most about the game as a whole.

We don’t know how the iPad (or iPhone) version of The Walking Dead will control, though the expectation is that it’ll work similarly to how Jurassic Park did with its basic and functional touch, tap, and swipe controls. We’re also not so sure when we’ll see this episode on our devices of choice. Rumor has it that the iOS versions have been delayed beyond its planned May launch. We’re checking on that.

Regardless, you’ll want to keep up with its progress. Provided Telltale will continue is trend of launching really, actually good ports of its games on iOS post-Jurassic Park, this is something I feel like could be required play material.

All of the assets in this article are from the PC, Mac, Xbox Live Arcade, or PSN version of the game. If it means anything to you, we played the Mac version with medium settings and it still looked fantastic. We expect this level of quality, at least, on the new iPad.

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