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Shaun Inman’s The Last Rocket [ $2.99 ] is a game that you can tell is going to be special inside of about 30 seconds of playing it. We absolutely loved it in our review, and with the various tweaks and fixes the game has seen since release (including Retina iPad support), it’s an even greater effortless recommendation. Gameplay in a nutshell consists of piloting a rocket through 64 rooms filled with all sorts of obstacles. It sounds simple, and it is, but the best part about The Last Rocket is that it doesn’t just use chip tunes and pixel art for the sake of having a “retro” feel. Instead, the entire game, from top to bottom, is just as much at home on the screen of your iPhone as it would’ve been on your NES in the mid-80’s.

The eBook is available direct from Shaun Inman’s site for $9.99. It’s a DRM-free iBooks-friendly ePub which features an exhaustive account of the game’s development including notes, drawings, screenshots, and much, much more. Fair warning though, the eBook is chock full of spoilers, so make sure you’ve played the game first. If you’re the kind of person who loves behind the scenes looks at game development, this isn’t something you should miss.

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Ladies and gentlemen, fire up your speculation machines, as this one is a doozie. According to Apple Insider, Apple CEO Tim Cook was spotted wandering around the Valve headquarters in Bellevue, WA earlier today. What his purpose was for swinging by is basically a game of Apple rumor whack-a-mole. Valve got involved with the Apple community when they released Steam for the Mac, and since then have even released Steam Mobile [ Free ] for iOS devices.

The possibilities are endless. An expanded collaboration between the two companies could be in the works which could mean more Mac games, or potentially Valve even getting into iOS development. Either way, something strange is afoot. Of course, Tim could just have flown up there to go out to lunch with Gabe, too. Or, maybe he’s just a fan of the greater Seattle area.

Speculation time… GO!

[via Apple Insider]

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Reviewing games you have a history with is always difficult, especially when they’re derivative titles from a series you hold dear to your heart. Looking back on it, at some point I’ve owned each of the eight Burnout games that make up the franchise going back to the original that was released all the way back in 2001.

If you’ve never played a proper Burnout game (which is a problem you really should look into solving) here’s what the series is all about- Imagine a high-octane arcade racer that not only has a fabulous sense of speed, but takes the typical car damage system dozens of steps further into a car crashing system. Instead of merely beating the competition to the finish line, gameplay focuses on making sure your your opponents never actually make it there.

Subsequent sequels took this many steps further, even evolving into entire game modes that focused entirely on orchestrating the most elaborate pile-ups you can. It’s from these game modes that Burnout Crash [ $4.99 ] is distilled from, making its original appearance on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN late last year.

In Crash, the familiar racing game camera angle is replaced with an overhead birds-eye view of your car. The game consists of a series of intersections, each with slightly different layouts and traffic patterns, and you need to unleash as much damage as possible. Initially, you drive in, and slam into some cars. Cause enough damage, and you’ll be able to explode again, and vaguely control where your car gets blasted to in the process. This continues until you’ve either let five cars escape off screen, or you’ve reached the damage threshold for the level.

Burnout Crash perfectly embodies the horrid cliche of “Easy to learn, but difficult to master.” It’ll only take you a few tries to get a handle on the game physics, but actually learning the nuances of where to try to stack up cars on each intersection and how to position your own car to not mess up existing piles almost turns Crash an entirely unexpected physics puzzle game, especially if you jump into it expecting something like previous Burnout titles.

Gameplay is further spiced up by special cars that appear such as a wave of police cars that block part of the intersection to the insufferably terrible driver Dr. Beat who will restore one of your missed cars if he survives his drive on and off screen. (However, as Penny Arcade points out, he’ll crash into anything.) Additional game modes also add a decent amount of replay value.

My first experience with Burnout Crash was on Xbox Live Arcade, as a $15 title. Like most Burnout games, the overall energy of the game was amplified by a real soundtrack, heavy amounts of voice work, and a fabulous tutorial, creating an absolutely fantastic first impression. Those last two things? Nowhere to be found in the iOS port of the game. I could understand cutting a lot of the voice overs if EA was shooting for the 3G download limit, but the game weighs in at 146MB currently. The lack of any kind of tutorial is even more puzzling, and has left players in our forums confused as to what you’re even supposed to do in the game.

That’s not what has me personally disappointed the most though, as I already know how to play and usually play iOS games with the sound very low or off so voiceovers don’t do much for me. What I’m bummed about is that for whatever reason, EA thought the best (and only) way to control the game was via a weird system of swiping gestures to move your car around after each crash breaker explosion.

If you can “see the Matrix” behind Burnout Crash, it’s apparent that what you’re playing is a very elaborate and cleverly disguised ball-rolling game. Imagine something like Labyrinth 2 [ $4.99 ], except instead of freely rolling the ball you can only move when a crash breaker triggers, and instead of trying to make it to the end, you’re trying to roll into as much as you can. It’s because of this that tilt controls, even when playing on the Xbox 360, felt like they’d make the most sense- as they often do in top-down games.

On the technical side of things, given just how long EA has been working on the iOS port of Burnout Crash, there’s some odd flaws. While I’m thankful the game is universal, some of the textures in game are blatantly low-resolution on the new iPad. I’ve experienced Game Center weirdness, with popups often telling me that the game is not recognized by Game Center. Additionally, most intersections start with some noticeable frame rate drops as you race towards them. Also, the little springy “boing” sound that plays each time you swipe the screen really needs to go.

Admittedly, I’m probably being overly nitpicky because of my experience with this game. However, the things Crash feels like it’s missing don’t make a whole lot of sense, especially when it comes to the game’s tutorial. Regardless, I’m still going to play through Crash over and over again on my iPad, with my fingers crossed that EA eventually addresses some of these things. And even if they don’t, if you’ve never played the console version, I’m not even sure you’ll care or notice.

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If you’ve ever thought that the classic edutainment title The Oregon Trail was lacking in the zombies department, developer The Men Who Wear Many Hats (yes, that is their name) have got you covered. They’ve taken all the core mechanics of the original game and plopped them down into a modern post-apocalyptic setting that is littered with the undead.

Your goal is to make it from Washington DC to Oregon via a long and drawn out route that will take you through a host of cities and landmarks. You’ll forgo a covered wagon for a station wagon, and the looming threat of zombie infection is added to the laundry list of other calamities that can befall your group while on the road.

This unholy combination of historical education and zombies is known as Organ Trail, which was released more than a year ago and can be played via a free Flash version on The Hats’ website. Here’s a few screens from that version.

The reason I’m bringing all of this up is because The Hats are in the midst of porting a Director’s Cut version of Organ Trail to iOS, and they were showing off a playable version on iPad during PAX last week. Kotaku has a hands-on video of the iPad game complete with some commentary from the developer, who notes that Organ Trail on iOS will have several enhancements over the original Flash game, including a reworked interface for the touch screen.

The Hats team hopes to have Organ Trail: Director’s Cut out by the end of May, and in the meantime I’d definitely suggest checking out Kotaku’s video as well as the Flash version of the game, which is a ton of fun.

[Via Kotaku]

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The most influential man at hardware and software powerhouse Nintendo has found at least one phone game he enjoys. Visionary Shigeru Miyamoto recently name-dropped Rovio’s Angry Birds in a conversation with Hookshot, Inc, noting that it’s one of the few phone games he can dig. “There aren’t many games that I’ve played recently that have been truly convincing to me,” he said at a Paris event. “That said, I have very much enjoyed Angry Birds — especially the way in which it combines traditional and new game elements in exciting ways.”

Miyamoto later praised the surprising depth of the game’s flinging mechanic and the overall simplicity of its design. “Angry Birds is a very simple idea but it’s one of those games that I immediately appreciated when I first started playing, before wishing that I had been the one to come up with the idea first,” he said.

Nintendo does its best to totally dismiss the App Store and phones in general, so these quotes strike us as a particularly notable. It’s acknowledgment that something great can happen on our platforms of choice, from the mouth of Nintendo’s visionary designer.

In an interview with Edge at the same event, Miyamoto admitted that he keeps tabs on the mobile space, but noted that Nintendo can be just as creative.

“I check up on them sometimes, but I don’t have a lot of time,” he told Edge. “I think we also have a history of having certain fun ideas and making a game out of it, and there’s lots of other people also doing this [now].

“This kind of environment inspires us to try even harder, and create even more unexpected new things.”

Miyamoto is in the middle of some sort of slow (and disputed) stepping down process that’ll see him working on smaller games with smaller teams instead of big, blown-up AAA Mario and Zelda titles.

[via Hookshot Inc, via Edge]

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If you’re still in the honeymoon phase with your new iPad, know this: Tilt to Live HD [Free] has joined the family of retina-supported titles, which has given it some fresh legs in yet another new generation of hardware. One Man Left tells us that it had to dig through all of its old assets and code to make this happen, but the end result of that work is paying off. The dots look so much more… red. And round.

For those of us looking ahead to One Man’s Outwitters instead, don’t worry about new iPad support. According to One Man, it’s currently in the process of upgrading all of its gorgeous assets for the device’s retina screen. We’re especially pumped for this one, if you couldn’t tell by our excited GDC 2012 ramblings for the new-look strategy game with a dab of StarCraft-inspired multiplayer.

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This past February I was very pleasantly surprised with the quirky title The Hacker [Free], a story-driven collection of puzzle mini-games that put you in the role as a member of an international computer hacking ring. The storyline itself was interesting if not a bit cliche, and the mini-games that served as the “hacking” in the game were both clever and challenging.

But where The Hacker really won me over in our review was in its level of immersion and attention to detail. It did a fantastic job of making you feel like you’re really the protagonist programmer in the story who must utilize an 80s-era computer and unravel an evil plot surrounding your former employer, the sinister Glider Corporation. It’s really an entertaining little escape from reality.

Currently, you can grab all this hackery goodness for the very affordable price of zero dollars. You should get at least a few solid hours of entertainment from the main campaign, not to mention the inclusion of fictional arcade games that are “emulated” on your system and come equipped with Game Center integration. Additional content packs are available as IAP if you crave more puzzle solving, but aren’t necessary to enjoy the main story.

The Hacker is a surprisingly fun experience that feels right at home on iOS, and everybody should make sure to check it out while it’s free.

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Being called a “Child of the 80s” has made me more aware of my mortality recently, than it has conjured memories of the actual time period.

The USSR? Gone.
Hair Metal? Mostly gone. (Thanks for this.)
Reaganomics? Relegated to post-punk indie hardcore band names.

These days you will be lucky to find any kind of media that doesn’t have 1 or 2 glassy-eyed teenagers waiting anxiously for “The Drop.”

Thankfully, the Wonder-Twin powers of Mighty Rabbit and Joystick Labs has manifested a game that absolutely drips 80s nostalgia and helps me forget that the twilight years are quickly approaching. Saturday Morning RPG [ Free ] is as close to a physical manifestation of my childhood as I am going to find, without a truckload of Pixiesticks.

Inspired by the JRPGS of the 80s and 90s, Saturday Morning RPG is nothing special on the surface. Its battle system, littered with quicktime events that modify damage done and taken, is straight forward and pedestrian. In fact, the game’s story (the supposed hallmark of the RPG genre) has the literary alacrity of an R.L. Stine novel. Luckily, none of this matters. One would argue that that is exactly the point.

Episode 1 of Saturday Morning RPG (which comes free of charge) has the game’s hero, Marty, fast asleep on his bed. In his dream, he is spending the day with his sweetheart Samantha, when she is kidnapped by Cobra Commander Hood. Hood intends to wed Samantha, whether she wants it or not. After being beaten down by Hood and his minions, The Wizard (and his powerful glove – which is (so) bad) appears before Marty to offer help. He gives Marty his Trapper Keeper, the spell book Marty can use to defeat Hood’s Army and rescue Samantha. And that is what Marty (and you) set off to do.

The Trapper Keeper enhances the vanilla battle system by throwing in spells and other wild cards. It’s first feature is customizable scratch and sniff stickers. Using up to five, the stickers provide benefits like +15 health or -2 Enemy strength for the length of the battle. The trick is that you have to scratch them to release their bonus, and you are only given a small amount of time at the start of the battle to do so.

Once the battle begins, your Trapper Keeper functions as your spell book. Spells vary from the mundane (a flaming basketball) to the awesome (a glittery-glove-clothed punch, delivered via Moonwalk). There are some balance issues that become apparent, such as getting more bang for your buck via spells and, therefore, not focusing on leveling up melee attacks, but I’m not sure the developers care. The actual gameplay is the plain cracker on which the aged nostalgia cheese is served. No one should complain about the cracker.

When you aren’t battling Lizards or Hood Soldiers, you walk 8-bit Marty around the episode’s environment (they are different in each episode) talking to people and, occasionally, collecting a quest or two. The quests don’t do much to flesh out the universe, instead trading lore for laughs. They vary from the eye-rolling “stop all the downloadin”, to the morbid task of setting animals free by flushing them down the toilet. Completed quests offer you either XP, Spells, or stickers, so they are worth doing when you find them.

If there were any complaints to be leveled against Saturday Morning RPG, they would be the ones I’ve already mentioned. The game is a very basic RPG. Encounters are not random (your character and my character are probably going to be pretty similar by game’s end), quests and quest completions are very linear, and the story lines are pretty dumb. There just isn’t much substance here…much like a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

In that respect, one could argue that this game captures the spirit of the Saturday Morning Cartoon perfectly. And, in the process, litters the game with wonderful nuggets of 80s nostalgia. To play Devil’s Advocate a bit, if the game is called Saturday Morning RPG, and playing it perfectly recreates the spirit and feeling of an 80s Saturday Morning cartoon, doesn’t that make it the perfect game?

You and I could argue about this all day, but I don’t think we could argue as to whether or not you should give this game a shot. The first Episode, which took me 2 hours to complete (I try to be thorough), is completely free. If you like it, you can unlock Episode 2 for a measly 2 bucks. That, to me, seems like an awesome way to sell your game. More Episodes are in the pipeline of course, with Mighty Rabbit shooting for a May/June release for Episode 3.

All in all, Saturday Morning RPG is exactly what it promised. A fun, easy going, RPG with a heavy coating of 80s nostalgia. With an upfront cost of “free”, it’s hard not to recommend it.

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Today’s Dark Meadow [$5.99] update smells like damage control, but that’s not a bad thing for the folks expecting the premium title to stay premium. With the latest update, all the costs of weapons and amulets have been converted back into gold from Sun Coins, robbing the incentive to buy the weapons with real-world currency. Also, creator Phosphor Games has tweaked loot drops to “be more generous” and has tooled around with health drops. As explained on our message board, this is a permanent shift for the app.

Back in March, Phosphor caught wind that free-to-play was The New Thing and planned to update its offering with F2P mechanics. Fans weren’t pleased, and so Phosphor decided to release a free version of the game instead. Oddly, it then decided to stick all of those elements into the paid one anyway, which didn’t make people happy, either. But, hey, now the app is basically back to normal. Neat!

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