TouchArcade.ru

We’ve had our eye on Tweet Land [$1.99] from Why Ideas ever since we spotted it as a curious Kickstarter project back in April of last year. The project was more than sufficiently funded, and last month we were treated to a new trailer and news that Tweet Land would be hitting at the end of January. As expected, earlier this week the game finally went live in the App Store.

Tweet Land was intriguing due to its unique real-time usage of tweets drawn from Twitter that would trigger elements into the game. It reaches out into the vast ocean of Twitter and utilizes special keywords from real tweets to create things in the game. It’s a fantastic idea in theory, and Why Ideas did pull it off on a functional level just as they had promised. However, despite being really innovative, Tweet Land doesn’t hold up as well in the gameplay department, and there were a couple of unintended side effects of using live tweets that left a sour taste in my mouth.

First, let’s talk about the kind of gameplay that’s in Tweet Land. You control a car heading down the highway (Route 140 no less) and you must make it to the finish line while dodging tweet-driven hazards and other traffic on the road. You can veer into the other cars from the side to knock them off the road and score some points, and ramming multiple cars off the road at once will multiply the points you earn. If you hit cars from behind or run into road hazards, you lose a bit of life, which is represented by the visual damage on your car.

I really like Tweet Land’s retro style, and there is a lot of humor and personality in its pixel art visuals (though it’s kind of blurry on my iPhone 4S). But things start to fall apart when you actually start playing. The controls are very slippery, and it’s hard to be precise when trying to properly ram other cars or avoid hitting hazards. With practice you can get used to it, but it’s still really annoying when you’re trying to quickly react to something and the controls don’t afford you the kind of finesse that you need to get it done.

I think when you have games that are built on top of a very simple core gameplay concept, you have to get all the little details right. That’s why games like Jetpack Joyride or Angry Birds are often imitated but rarely duplicated. as they get the feel of the controls and the movement in the game so right. If you’re going to be doing the same action over and over again, you want that action to be fun. While Tweet Land has its share of fun moments, something about it just feels off, like it’s missing something but I can’t pinpoint what.

The game is broken into two environments with 12 levels each, with a spot for a third environment that’s said to be coming soon. With each new level, new tweet-driven elements are introduced and added to the current ones, so as you keep going the variety of things that can happen increases quite a bit. An example of a hazard would be if someone tweets the word “meteor” then a meteor will fly in from off screen and you’ll have to use the position of its shadow in order to avoid being crushed. There are helpful things that can be triggered in the game too, like health packs or a temporary spread shot for your vehicle.

One problem with the progression in Tweet Land is that it gets rather hard rather quickly, and if you get stuck on a level there’s no moving forward until you beat it. This got pretty frustrating since many of the times that I died it felt like it wasn’t actually my fault. When elements are brought in from Twitter, they are accompanied by a label with the Twitter handle of whoever tweeted that keyword. This is neat, but leads to an incredibly cluttered and distracting screen, especially when there are multiple things happening at once. Coupled with the floaty controls and the speed at which things are zooming by, and the odds are stacked against you.

Arrows indicate where things will be coming in from off screen, but they’re hard to notice amongst the busyness on the screen and often aren’t very helpful. Add in the fact that there’s usually a ton of traffic on the road with you, and making it to the finish line intact can require a healthy dose of luck just as much as skill. The levels tend to be a bit longish, and nothing is worse than seeing your cheap demise when you’re within a stone’s throw of the finish. The more I failed a level over and over, the less I felt compelled to go back and conquer it.

However, my biggest issue with Tweet Land is something that I didn’t really expect: the tweets that the game draws from can be much too somber for what is supposed to be a fun and lighthearted game. For example, if someone tweets about a “car crash” then cars will zoom in from offscreen and wreck into some of the other traffic on the road. When your run ends, you have the option of looking at a list of all the tweets that were used to bring things into the game.

To my horror, I found that in this particular instance “car crash” was pulled from a huge retweet campaign trying to raise money for a girl who had lost her parents in a car crash in Florida. I know Tweet Land has no way of telling the difference, but I couldn’t help but feel crass for playing a game that was fueled by somebody else’s tragedy. With some of the other keywords used in the game – like tsunami, terrorist, and death – I have no doubt that encountering a downer situation like that will occur often.

While I do still think the idea behind Tweet Land is incredibly clever, I just find the game too fundamentally flawed to be enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong, I want to like it and I did find myself having fun with the game at times, but those fun times are quickly diminished when you realize your game is possibly being powered by the tragic tweets of strangers. Beyond that, the gameplay is too average to warrant dealing with cheap deaths and an unpredictable difficulty.

With some tweaks to the controls and interface, and perhaps some sort of filter for what kind of keywords are utilized, then Tweet Land could end up being something pretty special. It feels like it’s just a couple notches off of being something great, and I hope it gets there someday. As it is now, though, it’s hard to recommend the game except to those who might be curious to check out its novel use of Twitter or are prepared to deal with its shortcomings.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

Our ratings for games we reviewed in January are now in place, and we now present to you the ones that are on the top of the heap. Each game reviewed receives a 1-5 star rating relative to the other games from that month. Generally, a three-star or higher is considered a “good” rating.

Our final scores are not the product of any traditionally objective measures such as graphics or sound, but simply reflect the games we would most recommend to others. Keep in mind, this listing is comprised of games we reviewed in January, and not necessarily games that were specifically released in January.

5 Stars

Super Crate Box, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Vlambeer knocks it out of the park with this ultra-frantic crate collecting game. With great virtual controls, and gameplay that is great for pick up and play mobile gaming sessions, Super Crate Box is a game you shouldn’t miss.

4.5 Stars

Blockwick, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – A really slick puzzle game that you can try for free. After that, level packs of increasing difficulty are sold in bundles of 60 for 99¢ a pop. Don’t let the initial pack it comes with turn you off, think of it more as a really long tutorial.

Hero Academy, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This multiplayer tactical game by Robot Entertainment has become incredibly popular amongst our community, and even was the topic of a recent Penny Arcade comic. If you’re looking for people to play with, hit the forum link and you’ll find tons of people looking for a game.

Run Roo Run, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – From the creators of Scribblenauts comes this super-fun mini-level jumping game. Most levels will only take a few moments to complete, but thankfully, there’s a ton of them. Clearing a world unlocks some really difficult levels that’ll really put you to the test.

Smash Cops, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Not only does Smash Cops have great graphics, but it also has a new control method that we haven’t seen before for controlling your cop car. You use your finger to “push” the car where you want to go. It sounds strange, but it works great.

Triple Town, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – There’s a definite learning curve to Triple Town but once you get over that hump and come to grips with how the mechanics of the game works, you’ll be building amazing towns and cursing at bears in no time. Argh, those bears. They ruin everything.

Windosill, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This iPad exclusive puzzle game originally started its life as a Flash title. It’s aged incredibly well, and feels like a perfect fit for the iPad. Multitouch adds so much, even if you played the original, it’s worth trying again on the iPad.

The rest of the game ratings can be seen in their respective rating categories (also found in the sidebar navigation): 5 Stars, 4.5 Stars, 4 Stars, 3.5 Stars, 3 Stars, and 2 Stars.

As always, we expect there will be some debate about relative scores, but keep in mind that everyone’s personal ratings may vary based on individual tastes.

For more of our favorite iOS games, check out our “Best iPhone Games” category which includes all of these monthly posts as well as other special compilations of the greatest games the App Store has to offer.

[source]

Ticket to Ride Pocket [$1.99], the iPhone and iPod Touch-specific version of the wonderful board game translation, has received a huge update. Starting now, users can now rock out online for the first time in a new asynchronous mode that allows up to four games per user. Less excitingly, local play has received a few tweaks: games no longer just quit out whenever there’s a disconnect, and an AI or two can now join in on the fun.

The patch notes also mention a lot of bug fixes, including memory leaks. Hit those up if you are really, really into the nitty-gritty of a splendidly comprehensive patch that adds functionality that we’ve all been waiting for. Here’s to hoping Pocket gets all of the maps in the iPad version down the line, too.

[source]

A couple of high-profile games are on sale on the App Store this morning. Warner Bros, in celebration of over a million sales and Valentine’s Day, has put Scribblenauts Remix [$.99] on the price-slash block. Down to $.99 from $1.99, the latest version of the game includes a new Valentine’s Day playground. The other notable, Another World [$1.99], is now just $1.99 instead of its usual $4.99. We’ve created the above epic image to mark the occasion of the meeting of these two games within a single blog post. Enjoy!

In all seriousness, both games are imaginative and lovingly rendered on iPhone and iPad. You can read more about Scribblenauts here and Another World here if you’d like, but let us save you a bit of time with this double-fisted spoiler: both games are, like, fantastically buy-it-now good. What are you waiting for, man?

[source]

Kotaku is reporting that Crytek, the company behind the CryEngine technology and the Crysis series of visually high-end first-person shooters, is in advanced stages of a new social gaming network that they’re calling GFACE. Yes, GFACE. I’m as baffled as you about the name, “game+Facebook” maybe?

Anyway, what the service known as GFACE actually claims to do sounds pretty cool. It runs completely in the browser and lets you do all the sorts of social things you would expect from your Facebook, Google+ or Twitter – add friends, post about your interests, discover new people, and plenty more. You can also meet up with people online and enjoy media-type things together, sort of like how you can watch a movie with friends in an Xbox Live party.

And of course, you can partner up and play games together. But this is the surprising part – all the game’s are streamed from the cloud on GFACE’s end, similar to how the OnLive system works. There’s a drag and drop party creation system that Kotaku likens to Battlefield 3‘s Battlelog, and then everybody plugs into the game on GFACE’s servers from their individual locations.

The interesting bit is that the type of gameplay seems to scale depending on what device you’re using. Like the graphic above, someone can be playing a first-person shooter on their PC while other players are connected to the game via their mobile devices, but with secondary roles. The person on the iPad has a commander role from a top-down perspective and the person on the iPhone-lookalike is directing a support weapon.

It’s a pretty exciting prospect thinking about being able to play games with people online in this fashion, utilizing different devices and gameplay perspectives all in the same game. I need another social network like I need a hole in my head, but the other features of GFACE sound pretty interesting as well. That name, though. Yeesh.

You can see a video of GFACE in action at the original Kotaku article or the GFACE website. The UI is bananas, everything is so smooth and high-tech feeling. I’m actually eager to check it out. Right now GFACE is in closed beta, but whenever it finally launches it will be interesting to see if it’s able to make an impact in the fledgling streaming game market or the nearly-impossible-to-compete-in social network market.

[Via Kotaku]

[source]

Don’t take this as a shocker, but it sounds like Mortal Kombat developer NetherRealm is open to the idea of branching out beyond its resuscitated IP as well as exploring other platforms like iPad and iPhone. In an interview with GameSpot, head honcho Ed Boon talked about the future of NetherRealm and where it might go, noting that it, of course, isn’t done with Mortal Kombat, yet is down with creating new experiences across multiple platforms.

Here’s the relevant stuff for us from the wide-reaching interview:

GS: NetherRealm recently released Arkham City Lockdown for the iOS. Will NetherRealm continue to work on iOS projects, and what was it like developing it compared to a console game?

EB: It’s surprisingly similar, but for not as long a time period. We’re working in the Unreal environment, both in our console games as well as the iOS games, so there’s a familiarity there. We can share our programming resources, which is great. Obviously, the iOS games aren’t as long, in terms of how long it takes us to complete the project. As for future ones, we would definitely like to do additional iOS titles; we have nothing to announce at the moment, but that’s generally something we want to do. With our studio, we really want to diversify ourselves, and work on multiple formats, multiple types of games, not just Mortal Kombat games.

There’s a lot of ifs, mights, and wants in the interview, but it’s totally worth reading if you’re a fan of NetherRealm or even the old Midway studio it was built from. And while we weren’t the biggest fans of Lockdown [$5.99], we’re stoked about the prospect of more iOS titles from this studio. These guys know what they’re doing and given the resources, we bet its next Big Thing on iPhone could be special.

[via GameSpot, via Joystiq]

[source]

In April of 2009, the world was treated to Ow My Balls! [Free], the “Citizen Kane of iPhone gaming” according to our own Eli Hodapp. Ow My Balls! is a simple but powerful arcade game where you kick a hapless gentleman off of a rooftop and try to rack his, ahem, family jewels let’s say, against as many painful objects as possible before hitting the ground. Aiding you in this noble quest is the use of flatulence to keep you afloat and carry you towards some hard to reach objects in the environment (like unicorns), which will ultimately lead to higher scores.

So yeah, Ow My Balls! probably won’t be the next favorite past time of high society, but it’s an immensely fun and funny game for those who can appreciate its lowbrow humor. At last year’s Macworld I talked with Ow My Balls! developer Josh Michaels about a huge version 2.0 update to the game which went live the following month and expanded the game with Retina Display visuals and a whole roster of new characters, as well as dropping its price to free.

This year at Macworld 2012, I again met with Josh to check out the upcoming Ow My Balls! XL for iPad. The iPad version will include everything from its iPhone counterpart, as well as a number of new enhancements. There’s a brand new politician character to play, as well as other subtle nods to current events like the hippie Bobby Surreal “occupying” the starting rooftop in his tent. New swiping controls have also been added which are both simple to use and more effective, ensuring that even your grandmother could play this game (something I could sense was a concern on everybody’s mind).

Finally, there is some fresh new title screen music and some new character dialogue, both of which you can see in this hands-on video (FYI if you’re somewhere that’s not blaring fart sounds friendly, you might want to check your volume):

Unfortunately, despite reaching nearly 5 million users, Ow My Balls! wasn’t exactly a financial success. Josh’s other project, ironically, is the classy and beautiful Magic Window [99¢] app that brings amazing time-lapse scenery to your iOS device. It’s as gorgeous as Ow My Balls! is silly, and it’s currently the one putting the Cup O’ Noodles on the table. No, Ow My Balls! XL isn’t meant to make money, though it may offer some sort of in-app purchase as more of a donation type of thing. Instead, Josh draws satisfaction just from knowing he’s made people laugh with his work (and about an equal number of people angry, as the iTunes reviews have always been roughly equal parts 1 and 5 stars).

If everything goes according to plan, then Ow My Balls! XL should be launching on Valentines Day for free, and I can’t really think of a better gift for your loved one. Also, in the very near future the iPhone version will be getting updated with all the additional features found in the iPad version. Sadly, once that’s completed, that will likely be the last of game development for Josh as he focuses solely on Magic Window. Sometimes you gotta do what pays the bills, even if it means putting your farting, nuts-kicking game to rest.

[source]

Super Meat Boy creators Team Meat have been critics of iOS devices as well as the App Store itself for quite some time now. If you want to get up to speed, the best place to start would be the Team Meat Blog where Tommy Refenes goes over his GDC rant session, including the Zits n’ Giggles pricing drama, and more. Tommy also mentioned, “I have no intentions on doing anything for iPhone or iPad ever…I hate the platforms and I hate the stores.” Well, per a recent interview with IndieGames.com, Team Meat has changed their tune to “The next game will probably be iPhone. Probably.”

…And that’s all we know about it currently. I really just hope that whatever their next title happens to be is actually a game and not another App Store troll like Zits n’ Giggles. There’s some serious talent at work in Team Meat, and I’m really excited to see what they can do with iOS devices.

Oh, and if you haven’t yet, consider this your official reminder to download Super Meat Boy. It’s available on the Mac, PC, and the digital download area of home consoles. Here’s the trailer:

[via PocketGamer]

[source]

Originally developed for the Amiga, Babylonian Twins [99¢/HD] never made it to market but found life nearly 17 years later on the App Store. This platformer that has you swapping between two different characters, each with different abilities, in order to solve the many puzzles and progress through the game. It’s a lengthy and satisfying trip too, and currently you can grab the iPad version for free for the first time ever.

You can read our thoughts on this Babylonian Twins reboot in our full review, and you can learn even more about the amazing history behind the game finally being finished and released. To summarize: Babylonian Twins is an excellent game and it’s practically a miracle that we’re able to finally play it. Suffice to say, if you own an iPad and have even a passing interest in puzzle games or platformers, you should download Babylonian Twins HD while it’s still free. For iPhone and iPod touch owners, you should also consider dropping the 99¢ for the small version if you don’t have it already.

[source]

Hey, remember that time we were like, “oh sure, Junk Jack is coming to the iPad, but it’s not going to be for a long time”? Well, you should remember, because it was just last week. Anyway, the story goes that the game’s developer PixBits has been so involved with just updating the game in general, that making it iPad-friendly was kind of on the back burner, at least until the iPhone version became more fleshed out.

However, it sounds like they might have overestimated how difficult the transition to the iPad would be, because we’ve heard from the developer that progress on a Universal update for Junk Jack is moving forward much more quickly than they had expected. They’ve sent over a load of work-in-progress screens of the game from the iPad, which you can check out below.

We’ve been told that the Universal support won’t go live with the very next update, which sounds like it’s pretty near completion, but PixBits is hopeful that it will be included in the update that follows. We’ll be sure to keep tabs on this and let you know just as soon as you can get diggin’ on the big screen with Junk Jack.

[source]