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This weekend was a big one if you’re a fan of NFL football, as the final 4 teams in the playoffs battled it out to see who’s going to the Superbowl this year. Sadly, I’m still feeling like I was punched in the stomach after my Niners played an amazing defensive game only to fumble a punt return in overtime and set up the NY Giants for a piece of cake winning field goal. It sucks to see two teams play such a great game only to have it end on such a sour note.

However, as bad as that was, it was far from the biggest blunder of the conference championships this weekend. Ravens fans, you know where I’m going with this. After taking the fight to the mighty Patriots all afternoon, the Ravens put together an impressive late game drive to put them within a short field goal distance to tie the game and send it into overtime. Seriously, this field goal was basically a chip shot that 99% of the time any NFL kicker could make blindfolded. Unfortunately for them, the Ravens kicker fell into the other 1%, when he shanked the kick and missed the field goal – sans blindfold.

So what’s all this sports talk have to do with iOS gaming you ask? Well, Full Fat Games has just released NFL Flick Kicker [99¢/HD], which, if you so choose, will allow you to reenact the biggest missed field goal of the entire NFL season. If you’re a Ravens fan, this sort of thing might be akin to rubbing salt in the wound. So, you can go the other way with it if you want – play as the Ravens and pretend he actually made that field goal, and then daydream your way to the Superbowl. You’re always a winner, as long as it’s in your mind.

Don’t worry, if you’re not an NFL fan there’s still plenty to enjoy here. Full Fat has basically perfected the flicking sports genre over the past couple of years, starting with Deadball Specialist [99¢/HD] back in 2010 and extending to many additional titles across several different sports since then. They’ve even previously utilized their NFL license on the opposite end of the spectrum with NFL Flick Quarterback [99¢/HD], which put you in the roll of the ball thrower rather than the ball kicker.

I’ve been having fun with NFL Flick Kicker so far. It doesn’t really do anything drastically different than previous flicking games, but it does have a nice character progression system and several different modes to play through, as well as Game Center achievements and leaderboards.

If you’ve enjoyed any of their previous games, chances are pretty good you’ll enjoy NFL Flick Kicker as well, especially if the official NFL licensing does something for you.

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We’ve reached a point in Kairosoft’s output where a pattern begins to form. On one side are Game Dev Story [$3.99 / Lite] and Grand Prix Story [$3.99 / Lite], games mostly about teams and what they can achieve. On the other side are five other titles that are more about building the perfect environment, be it mall, town, school, or hot spring. Their newest release, Pocket League Story [$2.99] falls squarely in column A. This time, you’re creating the perfect soccer team, and you won’t need spreadsheets or a love of soccer to enjoy yourself.

I’d go so far as to say that Pocket League Story is the most approachable game Kairosoft has put out on iOS to date. There are a few tricks to min-maxing the game, but if you do exactly what it tells you to do you’ll be fine. For the spreadsheet geeks among us it may be too straightforward, but ultimately this is the perfect game to serve as an introduction to Kairosoft’s catalog, or for anyone who loves their games but gets hung up on lists of combos and other arcana.

As manager of a soccer team, you’re responsible for pretty much everything your team does, right down to the strategies they use on the field. The only thing that’s out of your hands is how they play in the moment, and even there you have some input.

You’re given control over hiring and firing players, arguably the most important part of the game. You might love your starting team, with their bright-eyed eagerness, but they’re terrible. Just atrocious. They’ll get you through the first few games, but your priority is to court better talent. Think Game Dev Story’s talent pool, but vaster and more costly. You can really customize your team down to the last detail.

Building your team is an ongoing process, one you’ll handle alongside training your players. You earn research points both on the field and off, and you can use those to improve your players stats, build up a fan base, and unlock new content. There is a bit of a building sim tucked in as you set up training facilities, but it’s really low key. Most of your time off the field will be spent managing numbers, choosing basic coaching strategies and courting players, sponsors and fans.

On the field, things get a bit weirder. Like Grand Prix Story’s races, Pocket League Story’s matches mostly play themselves. You pick lines and formations in advance, and basic passing technique during the game. You can also fiddle with your strategy at halftime and trigger auras here or there, but your players are mostly on their own.

So you’re left spectating a lot of the time. There’s a huge selection of matches and league tournaments to work through in the eight years you’re given, but they all boil down to the same thing: watch as your players win or lose. Games can take three or four minutes, and Pocket League soccer just isn’t that stimulating a spectator sport after a few hours.

This is a misstep, for sure, because it takes players out of that non-stop, always-something-on-the-go mentality that Game Dev Story so perfected. It’s much easier to put this game down than any of Kairosoft’s other titles – not that that’s necessarily the worst thing for those of us with other things to do.

Whether you’ll enjoy Pocket League Story depends a lot on where you’re coming from. Aside from a few issues some of our forum users with older devices have run into, this is probably the cleanest Kairosoft game yet. The translation is good, the tutorial explanations are clear and nothing’s left to muddling through foreign cultural references. So it’s easy to get into, and lays out all the traditional sim fun in a very manageable way.

But it’s also quite shallow, with neither the complexity of a proper football simulator or the depth of most of Kairosoft’s other games. If the meta-game of keeping spreadsheets and consulting FAQs is your thing, give this one a pass. But if it’s the first Kairosoft title you’re considering or you’re okay with a streamlined experience, I can recommend Pocket League Story wholeheartedly.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Looks like we’ve got one more big release to add to today’s list. Kairosoft has just released their latest simulation title called Pocket League Story [$2.99]. By now you’re probably familiar with Kairosoft’s method of operation: pick a theme and develop a simplistic but deceptively deep simulation around it, then fill it to the brim with cute and colorful retro-style visuals and mobile friendly gameplay.

Pocket League Story appears to be no exception. The theme of choice this time around is soccer, or football depending on which country you hail from. You’ll build up a team of players, train them, and then take on the rest of the league. You also have the ability to sell your team’s own merchandise, build a gym for training, and even build your own stadium. The goal is to increase your fan base as you progress your team’s abilities through competition.

It looks as though all the components are here of another solid Kairosoft simulation, especially if you’re a fan of footy. We’ll be digging in a lot deeper before passing final judgement on Pocket League Story, but if you’re generally a fan of Kairosoft’s work you probably can pretty much guess what you’re getting here. You can pick it up for $2.99 which is an introductory price, and at some point it will raise up to their usual $3.99.

We’ll have a full review of Pocket League Story in the near future, and until then you can check out impressions in our forums which are starting to trickle in.

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We’ve come to expect EA to never mess around with its sales, and we’re pleased to report that it certainly isn’t messing around with its latest. From now, and presumably until shortly after New Years Day, all of the publisher’s gargantuan premium catalogue is an agreeable $.99. That means games like Madden 12, Trenches II, and many others have been reduced up to 90-percent off the original asking price. Whoa, right?

This same sale happened last year around this time, too. You probably know the story, but EA managed to choke the App Store’s charts with its titles and pushed everyone out of its way. It was a powerful move that set the yuletide savings tone moving forward.

We’ve got a list, but just as a note, we haven’t listed every single EA game, just the ones in this “holiday sale.”

• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – $2.99 → $.99
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Battleship HD – $2.99 → $.99
• Bop it! for iPad – $ → $.99
• Coconut Dodge HD – $1.99 → $.99
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Dead Space – $6.99 → $.99
• Dead Space HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Draw Jump HD – $2.99 → $.99
• Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp – $2.99 → $.99
• FIFA 12 – $4.99 → $.99
• FIFA 12 for iPad – $9.99 → $.99
• Fight Night Champion – $4.99 → $.99
• The Game of Life for iPad – $6.99 → $.99
• High Caliber Hunting - $2.99 – $.99
• Madden NFL 12 – $4.99 → $.99
• Madden NFL 12 for iPad – $12.99 → $.99
• Max And the Magic Marker HD – $2.99 → $.99
• Mirror’s Edge HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Monopoly for iPad – $9.99 → $.99
• Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition – $2.99 → $.99
• Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition for iPad – $ → $.99
• NBA Jam HD – $4.99 → $.99
• NCAA Football – $2.99 → $.99
• Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit – $4.99 → $.99
• Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit HD – $9.99 → $.99
• Need For Speed Shift 2 Unleashed – $2.99 → $.99
• Need For Speed Shift 2 Unleashed for iPad – $4.99 → $.99
• Need for Speed Undercover – $2.99 → $.99
• PICTUREKA! HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Reckless Racing HD – $4.99 → $.99
• RISK -$2.99 → $.99
• RISK HD -$6.99 → $.99
• Scrabble -$2.99 → $.99
• Scrabble HD – $9.99 → $.99
• SimCity Deluxe HD – $6.99 → $.99
• Snood HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Spy Mouse HD – $2.99 → $.99
• TETRIS HD – $7.99 → $.99
• Trenches II – $1.99 → $.99
• Trenches II for iPad – $2.99 → $.99
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 – $4.99 → $.99
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 for iPad – $6.99 → $.99
• Trivial Pursuit Master Edition for iPad – $ – $.99
• The Sims 3 -$6.99 → $.99
• The Sims 3: Ambitions – $4.99 → $.99
• The Sims Medieval – $4.99 – $.99
• The Sims 3: World Adventures – $2.99 → $.99
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon – $2.99 → $.99
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 HD – $4.99 → $.99

If you’re looking for something else, hit up EA’s publisher page on the App Store. You’ll see its entire selection, including games that were already $.99 courtesy its Daily Deals seasonal program.

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The goal of Rocket Riot [99¢] from Chillingo and CodeGlue is to fly around an arena on a jetpack destroying enemies with your bazooka. And you can also destroy …well, pretty much everything. You see, the entire level is destructible, so even the walls can be blown apart. Everything can be shot to pieces. But once you’ve blast a little short-cut through a wall, the level is not permanently destroyed, because it slowly regenerates.

Rocket Riot was released in 2009 for Xbox and featured multiplayer modes, but the iOS release focuses solely on a single player campaign. That’s a shame because an arena shooter like this is ideally suited for multiplayer mode, but the developers have no current plans to implement that – unless the Rocket Riot becomes super popular. Fortunately, the single-player campaign mode is an entertaining arena shooter fill of rockets, destruction and heaps of cool power-ups.

The campaign mode includes 48 levels, which are a mixture of four different game types: “Death-match” is a free-for-all arena battle. While “Destroy the object” involves blasting certain items (such as golden boots) within the level while also shooting opponents.  In the “Rugby Riot” levels, you grab a football and run around the opponents to shoot the ball over the opposing team’s goal post. And lastly, there’s boss-fights against larger enemies like BlockBeard the legless pirate. Apparently there are 150 characters you can unlock to play, such as pirates or robots. Some of these characters (like a bazooka-carrying taco) are unlocked by gifting it to friends, or via an in-app purchase. The other characters are unlocked in-game. Each character has a jetpack instead of legs, enabling them to fly around the levels.

The controls handle well …most of the time. Occasionally your character does get snagged on the remnants of the destructed environment, but this doesn’t happen enough to be a problem. The left side of the screen is used for moving around the arena, while the right side determines the direction and power of your rocket attacks. The firing can be done using either swipe or joystick options. Tilt controls can be used for movement on the iPhone or iPod, but the tilting option is not presented on the iPad. If you fire your weapon in close proximity to an enemy, you’ll do a punch instead. But mostly, Rocket Riot involves frequent attacks, often in quick succession, so your poor rocket-launching fingers may need an occasional rest.

There’s heaps of temporary power-ups to collect (20). Some are traditional power-up’s, like missiles or extra health. But there’s also more creative ones, like rainbow colored explosions, increasing the size of particle explosions or gaining rockets which bounce around the level endlessly until hitting an enemy. Once you have some decent power-ups you can really destroy the level in a spectacular way, with particles flying everywhere. The red-colored power-ups are actually “power-downs”, as they do negative things, such as turn you into a rocket-magnet or replace your bullets with a harmless “bang” flag, so you’re powerless until it times out. This game has a sense of humor.

The 8-bit pixel-art graphics in Rocket Riot are good (especially the blocky explosions), although it’s an odd mix, combining the 3D level designs with your 2D character, who flips over when changing direction. The levels have graphical themes like laboratory, army, computer chips and pirates, to name a few, with matching enemies. For example, you can expect pirates in the pirate levels and robots when you venture inside the computer. The level themes all fit into the overall story, which is told via occasional cut-scenes. It’s a simple story, but does tie the level themes together.

Three rockets are awarded for each level, based on your score, which is managed by Game Center and Crystal. Bonus points are awarded for really destroying the level or being “manly” (ie: not camping-out in the safety of the corners). Kill shot bonuses are given for long distance shots, punching, killing with large rockets or shooting a launched rocket down. And combo points are gained from successive kills. Surprisingly, there’s no difficulty levels to make the enemies smarter or more aggressive, although aiming for three stars will increase the skill requirement.

Like the rest of the game, the high-energy music is also noteworthy in that it contains lyrics and fits in nicely with the general craziness of the non-stop action. The music in the trailer (above) is featured in the game. Overall, Rocket Riot is a blast to play (quite literally), thanks to the range of fun power-ups, destructible levels and best of all, the eye-catching particle explosions and the banana with a rocket launcher!

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Penny Parlor [$1.99] wraps four antique coin-operated sports games into one release. But we’re not talking about classic arcade games …no, Australian-based  GamesLab Apps are taking us further back in time, like pre-1950’s, to the era of mechanical arcade machines which used to cost one penny to play.

The game displays a room (parlor) with four antique amusement machines shown in 3D, including: American Pro Football, Super Swing Baseball, The Amazing Golf Game and Smack’n'Whack Cricket. The old-fashioned color schemes, carnival music, and mechanical style movements and controls are all designed to convey the original feeling of playing these games at the fairground.

My favorite mini-game is ‘American Pro Football‘, which challenges you to flick a football with your finger to avoid three defenders (who move on tracks) and score touchdowns. The end-zone is divided into different gates, which represent either a touchdown or the amount of yards gained. If you accrue 100 yards you score a touchdown. You can bounce the football off the sides to sneak around the defenders or double-tap to quickly reset the football, ready for another attempt. Each time you score a touchdown, extra time is added to your play clock.

In ‘Super Swing Baseball‘, a ball rolls down a track towards home plate and you have to tap at the right time to swing the bat. You can either score a home run or help your team progress around the bases by hitting the ball into targets. As always, three strikes and: “you’re out!”, and three outs means game over, unless you hit the “extra innings” target. As you move up the levels, the balls are bowled more frequently, testing your hand eye coordination.

The ‘Amazing Golf Game‘ involves sinking 9 holes of golf, although you have to sink the ball in one shot from the tee. You rotate a little man to aim, then hold down the red button to determine the power of your swing. Initially you have 10 credits, but each time you go over par you lose a credit. Sinking the ball earns a point, while a hole-in-one scores 2 points. The par for each hole starts at four attempts, but this decreases each round, making it progressively harder. For me, this mini-game doesn’t live up to it’s name, unless you’re interested in memorizing the correct angle and power for each hole.

Finally, in ‘Smack’n'Whack Cricket‘ you’re the batter standing at the crease, trying to score as many runs as possible. You drag your finger downwards to determine the power of your swing and slide left/right to aim, then release to swing the bat at the right time. In the field, there are targets representing 2,4 and 6 runs. If you hit a target, it’s knocked over until all targets have been hit or the batsman is given out for either missing the ball or hitting an “Out!” target.

Each game has four levels of difficulty to progress through, with nine achievements to complete. Game Center wasn’t included initially, but online leaderboards and  achievements were released as an update, along with iPad support (Universal).

It’s impossible to review this game without using the word “nostalgic”, even if you weren’t alive when these vintage mechanical games were originally available. In that regard, it’s a charming “feel-good” game and an interesting experience, almost like visiting a game museum. However, it’s also extremely basic and repetitive game-play which may not hold your attention for long once the initial novelty wears off. But for a quick go-to game on your mobile when you have just a few moments to spare, Penny Parlor does the trick, and is executed with great presentation and style.

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If there’s one genre that’s prolific on the App Store, it’s mini-game collections. It’s not particularly surprising considering the general appeal for games that can offer small doses of gameplay for gaming on the go. Flick Champions [$0.99 / HD] looks to expand the genre with its own collection of sports themed mini-games. While Flick Champions certainly succeeds at providing some much-needed diversity in its sports mini-games, the fact that a lot of the better games are locked at the onset may irritate potential players.

As its name implies, the mini-games in Flick Champions are all centered on simple flicks and swipes in order to play each of the eight included mini-games. For example, both Tennis and Hockey are played as glorified Pong simulators which have you swipe around the field of play in order to block the ball (or puck) from scoring points on you. Other games, such as Bowling and Basketball actually require precise flicks in order maximize your scores in harder difficulties. Each game also has a variety of options to tinker with, allowing you to customize certain rules and make the gameplay as long (or as short) as you want.

When it comes to actual gameplay, Flick Champions has some fun games, but not all of them are going to be particularly compelling. As mentioned above, Tennis and Hockey are incredibly simplistic and, while fun, aren’t going to win any awards. Soccer is a sort of turn-based magnetic foosball simulator, and can be frustrating since a lot of the game is dependent on missteps from the opposing AI. Bowling and Archery were my most favorite games, as they actually require enough timing and skill that your success is mostly dependent on you and not the AI. The same goes for mini-golf, which features a whole 18-hole course and would be a good casual game on its own if it had more courses.

Another thing Flick Champions does a good job with is its overall presentation. The game has a definite Olympic-style motif which is prevalent in everything from your initial selection of a country to represent to its round-robin tournament ‘Cup’ gameplay mode, which has you playing against other countries for trophies (and experience). Also, the entire game, from the playfields to even the menus has a striking visual appearance (at least on retina devices). Some folks may be turned off by the simplicity of the player models (they look similar to ‘Mii’ avatars), but overall Flick Champions nails its visual style.

My only complaint with Flick Champions is the fact that only half the games are unlocked when you first pick up the title. Even more frustrating, the four that must be unlocked (Bowling, Archery, Mini-golf and Football) are by far the most interesting (and deep) games that are available in Flick Champions. Considering that the primary way of unlocking games is by accumulating experience through playing games, you’re going to see a lot of the first four games (at least a few hours’ worth) before you start unlocking the other titles.  Of course, an IAP option exists to unlock all collectibles and games instantly, but it seems a bit odd to have to pay extra to unlock these other games when you’ve already paid for the initial app download. I understand the need to create 'hooks' in order to encourage your player base to return to your game, but it would have been nice to have one or two more games available at the onset.

Overall, if you’re a fan of mini-game collections and you’re looking for a new fix, Flick Champions does a solid job of satisfying that need. There are certainly enough different games (assuming you’ve unlocked them all) for variety, and the available options and collectibles (along with a harsh difficulty on ‘Hard’) means that you’ll have plenty of reasons to return. However, if you don’t care for simplistic gameplay (or if you’re not a fan of sports games), don’t expect Flick Champions to offer anything particularly captivating.

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It's been about a year since decades-old studio Elite Systems brought their ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection [iPhone, iPad] and the first wave of its retro titles to the App Store. Since then 150 titles have become available through their Spectrum emulator, giving retro fans much old school gaming goodness to play with.

Since then, Elite has been hard at work engineering a completely new system through which to bring an even broader range of retro classic to iOS gamers. I recently had a conversation with Elite co-founder Steve Wilcox who filled me in on some of the titles that are on the way in the coming Elite Collection of 8-bit home computer games, as well as details surrounding their newly completed proprietary technology that went into it. The new system is a facilitator, of sorts, that was designed in such a way as to not incorporate, reference, or in any way rely upon third-party property and that is able to deliver to iOS games that originated on platforms other than just the ZX Spectrum in near-100% original form.

Elite has been busy licensing classics from a wide range of developers and it sounds like iOS gamers are in for a trove of titles to be delivered through the studio's new system. The first stage in the deployment consists of nine games developed across North America, the UK, and Germany.

The launch games of North American origin are:

• Black Magic (the action-adventure, published by Datasoft in 1987)
• M.U.L.E (the seminal multiplayer game from Ozark Softscape, published in 1983)
• Alternate Reality: The City (the first in the cult RPG series, published by Datasoft in 1987)

The launch games from the UK are:

• First Samurai (the platform game, published by Image Works in 1992)
• Uridium (the sci-fi side-scrolling shoot 'em up from Hewson, published in 1986)
• Paradroid (Andrew Breybrook’s puzzle-shooter, published by Hewson in 1985)

The launch games from Germany are:

• Enforcer (the shooter from revered German programmer Manfred Trenz, published by CP Verlag in 1992)
• Bundesliga Manager (the football (soccer) management simulation, developed by Werner Krahe and Jens Onnen, published by Software 2000 in 1989)
• Denaris (the modified Katakis, an R-Type clone, again from Manfred Trenz, published by Rainbow Arts in 1989)

These games will be released as individual iOS applications, three at a time. The first three titles from the list of nine set to arrive in the App Store are Black Magic, First Samurai and Enforcer, which should land by month's end. A great many more titles will follow, and Wilcox tells me that, down the road, game bundles configured as collections will be offered, as well.

On a touchscreen device, controls are, of course, a particular challenge when bringing over games that were written with joysticks and keyboards in mind. And, while in such cases a touchscreen is never a match for physical controls, Elite has done an impressive job with the highly customizable "iDaptive" controls used in their iOS Spectrum offerings (demonstrated in this video). Steve informs me that in the upcoming Elite Collection, the iDaptive controls are brought to the fore and will allow players to heavily customize the control experience.

As a huge fan of the solid, basic gameplay of the classics of old, I've been impressed with Elite's efforts so far with its ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection. This latest news from the quarter-century old studio shows a true commitment to bringing these classics to a new generation of gamers and is an effort I whole-heartedly applaud.

We should have the first wave of games in our hands in just a few days and will share our reactions shortly. Stay tuned.

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