Archive for the ‘Electronic Arts’ tag
A Few More Weekend Sales and Price Drops…
Yesterday we made a post listing several titles that have gone on sale for a limited time. We wanted to pass along a heads-up on a few more sales and price drops for titles we think readers may enjoy.
Soosiz, Free Ahh, Soosiz. [ review ] Touch Foo's rotational 2D platformer is one of our very favorite iPhone games, and is one of the first titles to which we gave a five-star rating. Soosiz is a stylized cartoonish platformer that challenges your brain to keep up with all of its twists, turns, and inversions. It's incredibly well executed with excellent controls, has a ton of content and is a lot of fun. And it's free this weekend (regularly $1.99). There's no excuse for missing this one.
Need For Speed™ Undercover, $1.99 [ review ] Electronic Arts' Need for Speed Undercover (down from $4.99 for a limited time) is the studio's first iPhone release in their long-running racer series. It's a mission-based racer (as opposed to the "'round the track" variety) that puts you in the role of an undercover wheel man infiltrating a series of street racer / chop-shop gangs to try and bust an auto theft ring wide open. It's a very well-done title that, at the time of its release, was perhaps the most visually impressive game on the platform.
ROCK BAND, $4.99 [ review ] EA's Rock Band, which recently hit the 2000 downloadable song mark, is one of the most immersive rhythm games in the App Store. The game sets you behind a guitar, bass, or drum kit, or lets you take the lead vocals in playing through any of the myriad songs available through its in-game song store. The game features 32 free songs and offers Facebook integration to help jam with your friends. Rock Band is, for a limited time, down from $6.99.
Rogue Touch, $0.99 [ review ] ChronoSoft's Rogue Touch (normally $2.99) is an iPhone adaptation of , the classic dungeon crawler that dates back to 1980. It's highly faithful to the feel and mechanics of the well-loved early platform releases, but has expanded the game nicely. It's my personal favorite iPhone dungeon crawler and is one of our long-time favorites here at Touch Arcade.
Worms HD, $2.99 [ review (iPhone ver) ] First there was Worms for the iPhone [ ], then came Worms HD for the iPad. Well, actually, first there was the Worms for the Amiga, which Team 17 released back in 1995. Whichever way you look at it, it's classic turn-based artillery action in the Scorched Earth vein. And the iPad version has been reduced in price, from $4.99.
2XL TROPHYLITE Rally, $0.99 [ post ] 2XL Games' 2XL TROPHYLITE Rally (down from $4.99) is a highly impressive looking desert rally racer featuring 15 different races, WiFi and Bluetooth multiplayer, multiple vehicle views, five control schemes, and leaderboards. The iPad version has also been reduced in price ( $7.99 down to $.99 ).
Enigmo, $0.99 Pangea is running a sale on all of its multiplayer titles, physics puzzler Enigmo (down from $2.99) being one of the three games affected. Starting its life as a Mac game, Enigmo is a physics puzzle game that was voted Best iPhone Game at WWDC in 2008. In the game you move various objects around the game board to direct water droplets to their destination. Levels start easy and get so hard you will be desperately searching Google for the solution.
Nanosaur 2, $0.99 Another Pangea multiplayer title on sale is Nanosaur 2 (down from $2.99). Also starting as a Mac game, Nanosaur 2 was ported to the iPhone in late 2008. It hasn’t aged very well compared to Pangea’s other games, but the premise of piloting a massive dinosaur from the future who is equipped with a massive arsenal of weaponry couldn’t get much more ridiculous and/or awesome.
Cro-Mag Rally, $0.99 [ review ] One of the early iPhone cart racers, Pangea's Cro-Mag Rally (down from $2.99) won the 2008 Best App Ever Award for Best Racing Game. Cro-Mag Rally puts you behind the wheel of a caveman's cart in a bid to cross the finish line first through nine different race tracks, using 11 different vehicles with nine types of power-ups there to help you. The multiplayer system was recently entirely rewritten to ease the auto-matching game process.
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Labor Day Weekend Sales Extravaganza
It's Labor Day Weekend in the U.S. and most every retail sector in the land is offering major product sales — and the App Store is no exception. So, without further ado, the following games are available for a reduced price through this three-day, holiday weekend.
Namco
- BurgerTime Deluxe $1.99 → 99¢
- Garters & Ghouls $1.99 → 99¢
- Ms. PAC-MAN $4.99 → 99¢
- PAC-MAN $4.99 → 99¢
- $2.99 → 99¢
- $4.99 → 99¢
- Pole Position: Remix $2.99 → 99¢
- Pool Pro Online 3 $1.99 → 99¢
- Rolling 5 Dice Poker $4.99 → 99¢
- Solitaire: Deck of Cods $4.99 → 99¢
- Star Trigon $1.99 → 99¢
- Tamagotchi: 'Round the World $4.99 → 99¢
- Lt. Fly Rise of the Arachnids $1.99 → 99¢
- Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima $4.99 → 99¢
- Galaga REMIX $2.99 → 99¢
- Dig Dug REMIX $2.99 → 99¢
- PAC-MAN Championship Edition $2.99 → 99¢
- I Love Katamari $4.99 → 2.99
- Ridge Racer Accelerated $4.99 → 2.99
- …
Sky Burger, Free (down from $1.99) NimbleBit’s Sky Burger is a fun exercise in burger stacking that’s seen a great deal of since it recently went free; presently it’s sitting at #6 free title in the App Store. Now’s the time to grab it.
Glu Mobile
- Build-a-lot $1.99 → 99¢
- Transformers $1.99 → 99¢
- Build-a-lot 2 $2.99 → 99¢
- Mini Golf $1.99 → 99¢
- Transformers G1 $1.99 → 99¢
- Deer Hunter: African Safari $6.99 → $2.99
- Jump O'Clock $1.99 → 99¢
- Stranded: Mysteries of Time $1.99 → 99¢
- Deer Hunter 3D for iPad $4.99 → 99¢
- Glyder 2 for iPad $1.99 → 99¢
- Super KO Boing 2 for iPad $2.99 → 99¢
Robot Unicorn Attack, $0.99 (down from $2.99) If there’s any game in the App Store that is double rainbow all the way, it is without question Adult Swim’s Robot Unicorn Attack. It’s got unicorns!!
- Boggle $1.99 → 99¢
- CLUE $1.99 → 99¢
- Littlest Pet Shop $2.99 → 99¢
- MONOPOLY $2.99 → 99¢
- MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition $2.99 → 99¢
- RISK: The Official Game $4.99 → $1.99
- THE GAME OF LIFE Classic Edition $2.99 → 99¢
- Trivial Pursuit $2.99 → 99¢
- YAHTZEE Adventures $2.99 → 99¢
I Dig It HD, $4.99 (down from $9.99) InMotion Software’s I Dig It HD is an iPad take on the iPhone original that we — and most everybody else — loved. On the bigger screen, it’s bigger action and all the fun of the iPhone version.
The titles listed here represent a pretty good highlight of what's out there for less this weekend, and additional deals are being discussed in an active .
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EA Price Drops ‘Dragon’s Lair’ by 80% – Now $0.99
Late last year Electronic Arts brought the classic '80s laserdisc title, Dragon's Lair, featuring the animation of Don Bluth, to the App Store [link]. We were impressed with the iPhone conversion and found it to be a must-buy at its launch price of $4.99 (that's 10 plays of the $0.50 original arcade game) for anyone who remembers the game with fondness.
Today, EA dropped the price of the game to $0.99. At just 20% its original price, now would be an excellent time for anyone who's been contemplating the purchase to grab the game.
The iPhone version of the game offers the use of an on screen sword button as well as a virtual direction pad that can be sized in small, medium or large views. The player has an option of choosing three, five, or Infinite lives. Infinite is actually chosen by default which is presumably a concession by the iPhone developers for the unforgiving nature of the game. For a more realistic "arcade" experience, you'll want to ratchet down the number of lives. As well, the iPhone version features a "Home" play mode, in addition to the classic "Arcade" mode, which makes the game a bit more linear than the original.
App Store Link: Dragon's Lair, $0.99
TouchArcade Rating: 
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‘FIFA World Cup’ Impressions – Now Available Worldwide
Electronic Arts has released its newest addition to the FIFA franchise, FIFA World Cup. This installment is targeted towards the upcoming international soccer tournament that arrives every four years, known as World Cup. The host nation for 2010 is South Africa, in which FIFA World Cup features as the theme for the game.
FIFA World Cup offers 105 of the official international teams, and 10 stadiums and locations from South Africa to play on. There are 6 different game modes to play; Kick Off, FIFA World Cup, Penalty Shoot-Out, Captain Your Country, Local Multiplayer, and Training mode. With 4 levels of AI opponent difficulty settings, players of all skill levels can enjoy, including: Amateur, Semi-Pro, Professional, and World Class.
The first thing people want to know about are the controls. With the previous FIFA 10 [$6.99] game on the iPhone released last year, the main complaint was about the controls. I'm happy to say that the controls in FIFA World Cup are much improved. The learning curve has gone way down thankfully, to a new layout of buttons. Instead of A, B, and C buttons, there are now Pass, Shoot, and Skill buttons for more clear controls. There is also no more complicated "Slide from A to B and back to A to make a 1-2 pass". More natural controls are implemented like, holding longer or double tapping the button for a different desired action. Another new feature is that the player your facing will have a blue indicator above their head, notifying you that if you pass the ball, it will go to that player. It's an extremely nice addition, allowing you to have better precision on your passes. The indicator will turn red if a long pass is available to be made. And also, there are through-ball indicators placed on the ground in yellow to let you know a through-ball can be made and in what direction.
Where I expect people to spend most of their time is playing in the World Cup tournament. Here you can pick any of the teams, even if they haven't qualified for the real tournament, and lead them to victory. You can choose to play your way through the entire qualification stages and then progress to the finals, or start off at the finals in group play and make your way through the last few rounds of 32 teams in 8 groups to make it to the championship match. As you play through, you can see standings from each group, next matches, manage your team, player performance charts, and more.
Here is a video with some gameplay so you can see the new features:
Overall, the game plays great and is a good improvement over EA's first FIFA game, they have learned from their mistakes to provide a better soccer game for the iPhone. With the top-notch graphics, a well-balanced AI, and an enjoyable soccer experience, it's hard to pass this game up if you are a soccer fan waiting for the World Cup to start.
App Store Link: FIFA World Cup (U.S.), $6.99, FIFA World Cup (International Version)
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Some Early iPad Games that Have Our Attention
Today the iPad App Store opened up, revealing a great many iPad launch titles to those itching to see what they'll be loading onto their iPads when they arrive on Saturday. The amount of iPad app news this has generated today has us feeling as if we're standing in the middle of a tornado, admittedly. And so, without a great deal of rhyme or reason, I've chosen a few iPad games, now in the App Store, to highlight, the only real criterion being that they're titles we've not recently covered and are ones that I'm personally anxious to get my hands on.
So, without further ado…
Minigore HD from Mountain Sheep — $4.99
The iPad adaptation of Minigore sounds better than ever with 14 playable characters, "guest stars" from Hook Champ, Zombieville USA, Sway, and Envrio-Bear 2010, and redone graphics to take full advantage of the iPad's screen acreage.
Warpgate HD from Freeverse — $7.99
Freeverse's real-time strategy title Warpgate is here for the iPad, but not yet for the iPhone. Who would've guessed? (The iPhone version should be making its debut any day now.) All that we've seen indicates that this is a RTS title not to be missed.
Sam & Max Episode 1: The Penal Zone from Telltale Games — $9.99
Inspired by Steve Purcell's comic series , Lucas Arts in 1993 released the SCUMM-based adventure to much critical acclaim. Sequels followed and the odd, starring duo gathered something of a cult following. Those in the cult will be happy to see the just-released iPad title from Telltale Games, Sam & Max Episode 1: The Penal Zone.
Cogs HD from Chillingo — $4.99
In January we took a look at steampunk puzzler Cogs and very much liked what we saw. Cogs HD is now in the App Store and rendered on the iPad's 10-inch screen,
Mirror's Edge for iPad — $12.99
We recently posted about Mirror's Edge for the iPad, but at the time, it was to be a $14.99 title. While still premium, it seems to have made its debut at $12.99 — just a shade less dear.
Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies from Activision — $14.99
This bundle of zombie smackdown is the most expensive game on our list, but it does look like fun. Bigger screen = more menacing zombies.
Fieldrunners for iPad from Subatomic Studios — $7.99
Fieldrunners. Everyone's favorite tower defense game. Well, my favorite, anyway. And it's here in full-screen iPad glory.
Touchgrind HD from Illusion Labs — $7.99
Touchgrind is a highly unique iPhone skateboarding game. Skateboarding for your fingers, really. But the one limitation? Screen size. The iPad version should have no such limitation.
Ocean Blue from Com2uS — $9.99
Ocean Blue falls under the Entertainment category — it's not really a game. But it looks pretty fun. It has the distinction of being "the first realistic diving experience on the iPad." We're anxious to check it out.
Scrabble for iPad from Electronic Arts — $9.99
Scrabble. On a big multitouch screen. Not cool enough? How about this:
Scrabble Tile Rack for iPhone / iPod touch — Free
Use your iPad as the Scrabble board and connect wirelessly from your iPhone or iPod touch to use it as a private tile rack while you are playing Scrabble.
Harbor Master HD from Imangi Studios — Free
Imangi has produced an HD version of their chaos management game and is giving it away for Free.
There are plenty more announcements, screenshots and info about upcoming iPad games in our .
It's hard to track everything that's happening in the App Store right now. This is going to be a rather insane weekend for everyone connected with the iPad. Don't worry, our usual iPhone and iPod Touch game coverage will also resume but over the next week there's going to be a lot of news and attention on the iPad.
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