TouchArcade.ru

As long-time readers are surely aware, I'm a retro gaming nut and, within that classification, am a particular fan of the roguelike / dungeon crawler genre. Gamers like me were handed real treat early last year when ChronoSoft released Rogue Touch [App Store], an iPhone adaptation of / enhancement to the 1980 genre-defining Rogue. One of my absolute favorite iPhone games, Rogue Touch really takes me back to those long hours spent in front of Rogue on my Atari ST back in 1987.

Developer Kevin Hill has done a great job of updating the game since its initial release, and in ways strongly shaped by the user community in the Touch Arcade forums, Kevin tells me. He's just released version 1.52 of Rogue Touch [link] that addresses iOS 4 performance issues along with a number of other enhancements:

• Hotfix for daemon saving issue at home button press / incoming call answer
• iOS 4 speed improvements (any device will play faster now!)
• Nymphs no longer steal the *last* item of your pack, but a truly random magic item from you
• Venus Flytraps now prevent you from going down stairs if held in their vines
• Scroll of Safe Passage fixed- it would actually *hide* previously found traps without disarming them. Not anymore!
• Tweaks to search messages (scrawlings and gold in cracks will be less frequent)
• Slimes will no longer split when hit with a War Hammer
• Knockback Attacks! You have a chance to push back a monster with each successful blow you strike! The chance grows with increased strength and higher experience levels. Monsters that get pushed into a wall or another monster take additional damage!

It's great to see the game continue to evolve and, in fact, Kevin indicates that the version 1.5.3 update will be submitted this week, offering Retina Display text-support, Fast App Switching / Multitasking support, even faster speeds under iOS 4, and maybe a new magic item or two. But that's not all the news he had to share from the world of Rogue Touch…

The developer, alongside his forthcoming Spirit Hunter Mineko, is presently working on Rogue Touch EX, a take on the formula that should have greater appeal to more casual gamers than the original.

Rogue Touch EX is a side project. It is planned to be a more slick, streamlined experience utilizing knowledge gained in working on Spirit Hunter Mineko this year. The “EX” stands for enhanced and extended. Core gameplay will remain “Rogue”, but the presentation will be unlike any version of Rogue ever seen. The fact is most people find rogue-likes unappealing to look at, but may actually enjoy the game if given a chance. Rogue Touch EX and Spirit Hunter Mineko are different takes on the idea of making a more appealing experience.

Major features of Rogue Touch EX, as listed by the developer:

• Professional sprite artwork and more animation, improved lighting effects, everything presented on screen using OpenGL for fluid motion
• It will be a universal app, with high resolution support on iPad and iPhone 4 Retina Display
• An analog / swipe anywhere control scheme, improved context actions, and inventory system
• Gamecenter support

Rogue Touch EX is in the early stages right now, and should see an App Store release sometime later this year. Fans of the original can rest assured that it will continue to evolve alongside the new title. We'll keep readers informed as more details emerge surrounding all of ChronoSoft's works in progress.

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With the Major League All-Star Game right around the corner, America's pastime is getting into full swing. This marks a perfect time for developer Com2uS to release their follow up to last year's popular 9 Innings: Pro Baseball with the aptly titled 9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2011. This year's version features mostly the same simplistic play mechanics, but adds a great deal of authenticity by way of a Major League Ball Players Association license. While this isn't an MLB license (so no actual MLB logos, team names, or ballparks), it's a real boon for the baseball aficionado to be able to play the game with accurate player stats and real player photos. Another huge addition to this year's version is a card collecting mechanic that almost acts like a sub-game of it's own.

The first thing to note about this year's version of 9 Innings is that it utilizes the touch interface much better, whereas last year almost all the game navigation was handled through the use of the virtual controls. It feels more like it's made for this device rather than being shoehorned into working on it. This makes things like navigating the menus and choosing pitch location much more intuitive. You'll start off by choosing a team, and all the same teams from MLB are represented here in a generic form. The team colors and logos are a close enough representation that you don't really miss that they're not the actual MLB franchises.

Once a team is chosen you're given 25 player cards to represent your team's roster. The roster's are according to 2009, so there are a few players here and there that aren't on the correct team, but for the most part you're getting the actual players from that MLB team. The card dynamic is really neat, with each card carrying the real life stats of that player. Certain players will have special attributes as well, like hitting especially well against left handed pitchers or having an extra keen eye at the plate. Points are earned by playing games, with certain special achievements earning additional points, like striking out 3 batters in a row or hitting back to back home runs. These points can then be spent on upgrading each player's card and in turn increasing their overall stats.

A card shop is available to purchase extra packs of cards using these in-game points or even as in-app purchase by spending real life money, if you so wish. These new cards can then be used to swap out players from your team and mix up your roster. There's even cards for the team's manager and for cheerleaders. It's odd, as baseball doesn't have cheerleaders, but they can be looked at as a team's mascot. These cards can add special attributes to your team or players to give you an added boost in the stats department. The card collecting and player leveling adds a nice RPG-ish wrinkle to the game, and is even more fun for people who are into baseball stats, although you in no way have to be a baseball buff to enjoy the game.

Gameplay wise 9 Innings 2011 hasn't changed too much from last year's iteration. Hitting the ball requires just simply timing the pitch and pressing anywhere on the screen to swing, with icons for power hitting and bunting available as well. Pitching has you choosing a pitch type from the player's repertoire and then sliding a small baseball icon to the part of the strike zone you want it to go. When the pitch placement is set, a circle will enclose that position in the strike zone ,and the closer the circle is to that point when you tap the screen the more accurate your pitch will be. This mechanic becomes harder as your pitcher fatigues during the course of the game.

Defense is handled almost exclusively by the game for you, with minor options like deciding which base to throw to after fielding a hit and attempting pick off plays under your own control. A small portion of the offensive strategy is up to you as well, like deciding to advance runners or not, but by and large the game is mostly about batting and pitching, and while slightly basic it ends up being incredibly easy to play and fun.

Everything combined, 9 Innings 2011 makes for a fun, casual game of baseball with an added element of depth due to the player card system and leveling dynamic. It has much better graphics than last year's version, less basic and with more detail, but strangely the entire game is played in portrait view rather than the landscape view of the last game. The dev has stated in our forums that landscape mode will be coming in an update, which should be a welcome addition and provide a more comfortable way to play. It would also be nice to have some sort of roster update to get the statistics and players more current, although this doesn't really hurt the overall experience much.

With entertaining gameplay, a multi-season franchise mode, an excellent homerun derby mode, and endless possibilities for card collection and customization, 9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2011 is the strongest entry in the baseball game genre to date, and is recommended for both baseball fans and regular gamers alike.

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As much as I'd love to be reporting that both Trism [$2.99 / Free] and Giana Sisters [$4.99] are now available for the iPad, both developers were hit by unexpected App Store hiccups recently. Bad Monkee, creators of the classic platformer port Giana Sisters announced via Twitter this afternoon that the wrong version of Giana Sisters HD was uploaded, approved, and briefly available for sale before it was pulled down. If you were excited for the iPad game after our announcement last week, you should only need to wait a few more days before you're collecting crystals and smooshing bad guys on the iPad.

Demiforce's Trism was hit with a much nastier bug in Trism 1.5 which landed on the App Store recently. If you were excited to see the little universal plus in the bottom corner of the Trism icon, I'd hold off on buying the game until a fix is released. With 1.5, when you launch the game on the iPad, instead of having the option to run in 1x or 2x mode, it attempts to run fullscreen but only displays the triangle-laden game board in the top right corner. This display bug is actually kind of interesting, as when you move the rows of triangles around they will extend the whole length of the iPad screen, and all the in-game text sits to the right of the play area until it's needed in the game.

If you're a Trism fan that has been enjoying the game on your iPad, hold off on updating until a fix is released, which according to Demiforce has already been submitted to Apple and they've requested an expedited review. We've seen critical expedited updates hit the App Store in 24 hours or less, so a fix may be coming very soon.

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The original Predator movie back in 1987 sparked a huge cult following and a subsequent movie and various crossovers with Aliens. Acclaimed producer Robert Rodriguez is set to rekindle that flame on the big-screen with a stand-alone movie, Predators, with Chillingo and Angry Mob Games stepping up for the mandatory small-screen game tie-in.

Like Guerilla Bob (Angry Mob's last project), Predators is a dual-stick shooter, though distinguishing itself with a unique focus on melee combat to satiate that staple Predator action. Where would Predator be without the wicked arsenal that we all know and love? Angry Mob Games has taken heed and supplemented the melee combat with his many useful longer-range attacks (such as the Plasma Cannon and Disc Weapon) and sensory abilities too.

These all come together in arena-like combat scenarios– 24 of them to be exact– where you are tasked with dispatching the supple human prey wandering into your predatory habitat. To begin with, your Predator has only the use of his claws, which are single target shredding machines, and only a single combo. The first few levels operate as an introduction sequence to familiarise yourself with the 6 melee combos at your disposal. Subsequent levels gradually unlock weapons and abilities that are all required to continue.

The Predator's arsenal provides both the objectives and context for the game's missions. Some missions require you to use your cloaking device to eliminate enemies undetected; others require you to use your thermal detection to take out sniping enemies. Others again require you to perform particular melee kills, or collect trophy scalps with the trophy kill combo after netting your prey. No matter the task at hand, the Predator swiss-army-knife has a tool to tackle it head-on and with deadly force; and it's great to see an effort has been made to make each weapon and ability useful.

Eventually, you are introduced to the overall targets of your bloody alien party; 8 warriors from Earth deemed worthy of being honorable Predator prey. These act as boss levels, which are unfortunately a low point in the game's missions– requiring you to monotonously kill a large number of cannon fodder humans to flush them out– and then killing them when they do. Each of these targets has a unique ability to make your job all the more difficult. In subsequent levels they reappear as standard enemies, the end result being that the final levels are replete with enemies sporting machine guns, samurai swords and sniper rifles are all trying to take you down first, adding considerably to the difficulty.

The on-screen controls are adequate to the task, with the dual-stick mechanics functioning as well as we've seen so far. Weapons are switched with on-screen buttons, and your limited energy bar (responsible for powering most of your weapons and armor abilities) is represented in the top left corner. Melee combat is where the controls really stand out however, with an A and B button activating a number of different combos and attacks. Pressing B while running for example, will cause your Predator to leap attack; a subsequent B will cause him to Impale your enemy, and another 3 A attacks will initiate the Trophy kill to brutally sever their head. It may sound difficult on paper, but combos and attacks are fluid and easily executed and look absolutely gut-wrenching– pun intended!

On the flipside, the levels themselves in Predators attract our largest criticism. The jungle level at first appears lush and detailed, and though not overly large, suffices for the cloak and dagger gameplay required of the Predator. It is still a glorified square arena however, with clearly delineated boundaries containing what is essentially an open area somewhat reminescent of Minigore. And as in that game, the level does not change at all mission-to-mission. It's a real shame that one of the strengths of Guerilla Bob– its varied level design– couldn't be employed by the developers here as well.

The only other issue we had is that the game does suffer from a few minor bugs and graphical glitches that may hamper the occasional combo attack. Predators is also a little light on content, offering only a single difficulty level able to be played through in a couple of hours. Fortunately, the last level to be unlocked also doubles as an endless Survival Mode, in what will undoubtedly be the bread and butter for competitive types.

Throughout the levels, the more difficult kills are awarded with a greater honor bonus, a points system used to upgrade your unlocked weapons. In its current implementation though, honor points seem a little superfluous as we earned far more points than we could spend on a simple run through, and never had to work towards our upgrades. In any case, Chillingo's Crystal platform is used to record these scores online and to provide a set of achievements for completionists to tackle.

Predators is a faithful rendition of the source material, checking off all the gory boxes to satisfy even the headiest of cult followers. More importantly however, Predators successfully combines fun melee combat, light stealth gameplay and missions acutely based on the Predator arsenal to offer a different and engaging Predator gameplay experience on the iOS device. We only hope that future DLC can introduce more interesting level designs and additional missions to flesh out the existing content.

App Store Link: Predators, $2.99 (Universal App for iPhone & iPad).

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TechCrunch reports this afternoon that iPhone startup Tapulous has been acquired by Disney. With meager beginnings on the App Store between the photo sharing app Collage [Free], their Twitter client Twinkle [Free], and the original Tap Tap Revenge [$1.99], Tapulous later went on to releasing additional licensed Tap Tap games with music from bands ranging from Metallica to Coldplay, and even Justin Bieber.

It's hard to say what this means for the future of Tapulous, as being owned by Disney presumably now gives them access to Disney's amazing library of music owned by the Disney Music Group. This includes soundtracks to Disney movies, and other bands covering a wide spectrum of music from They Might Be Giants to Miley Cyrus and an amazing amount in between. We'll have to wait and see if this means more individually licensed games, additional DLC for Tap Tap Revenge 3 [Free], or other potential games we can't even imagine yet.

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Details are sketchy on this one, but besides Final Fantasy Tactics, it appears Square Enix is also delivering Secret of Mana to the iPhone. The above/right photo by @rpgfancom.

Secret of Mana is an action role-playing game that was originally released in 1993. The game was re-released for Wii in 2008 and ported to Japanese mobile phones in 2009.

More details as we get them.

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While the Apple A4 processor and higher resolution screen of the iPhone 4 will be fantastic for gamers, what likely will cause the biggest splash in future game development is the addition of the electronic gyroscope buried inside of the device. This additional orientation sensor will likely add a similar dimension to gameplay as the Wii Motion Plus, an addon that also utilizes a gyroscope for incredibly accurate motion tracking.

While on stage during the keynote today, Steve Jobs showed a brief demonstration with a Jenga game that was able to rotate the stack of blocks while utilizing the gyroscope in addition to the accelerometers. When only using the accelerometers like games on today's devices use, rotating the stack of blocks worked, and was fairly precise, but once the gyroscope was enabled the difference was remarkable.

Here is a brief video of the gyroscope portion of the keynote, the quality is mediocre but you can easily see how the phone is able to track Steve's various movements then translate it to the game world:

The game that immediately sticks out to me that would benefit the most from this extra degree of control would be a game like Zen Bound [$2.99 / Free], as I imagine manipulating the objects you wrap could be even easier with yet another degree of control. It's not hard to think of other games that could be enhanced by the extremely precise motion tracking, especially if you've ever used a Wii Motion Plus and have seen just how much the addition of a gyroscope can improve how accurately a game can track your movement.

Like anything on the App Store, it's up to developers to implement these new features. All we can do is wait and see what they come up with once they finally get the device in their hands.

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Back in the early '90s when I was in college, with some sorrow, I replaced my lovely Amiga 2000 with a Mac LC in order to crank out higher quality print documents for my classwork. And, in that capacity, it excelled. Sadly, as the weakest color Macintosh one could buy, it was not much of a game machine — not that there were that many Mac games out there to play, anyhow. One game, however, was huge fun and played rather well even on the meager LC. It eased my pain at having to part with the veritable gaming powerhouse that was the Amiga. The game I speak of is Spectre, and it actually made that little LC feel like a proper game machine.

Spectre is a 3D, filled-vector tank battle game something akin to Battlezone. The simple objective was to drive your tank around various obstacle-filled battlefields collecting flags and dodging the fire of AI enemy vehicles. The game also supported local multiplayer over the Mac's integrated AppleTalk networking hardware. It was followed by Spectre VR, an overall enhanced, network-centric title. Both versions were highly rated at the time and were awesome to play on the Mac's relatively high resolution, color display.

As a lover of that 1991 title — pretty much the only game I played on that Mac — you can imagine my thrill when Spectre 3D [link] made its debut in the App Store. And the iPhone release is not just a port of Spectre; the game includes iPhone versions of both Spectre and Spectre VR, including four different multiplayer games. It's pretty much an old Spectre jockey's dream come true.

Let's start with the single player scenarios. Both Spectre and Spectre VR are pretty much straight conversions of the Mac originals, although on the iPhone they play glass-smooth thanks to the device's processor and graphics hardware, both of which are far more powerful than that found on even the very highest end Mac systems of the day. (There's even anaglyph 3D — red / blue glasses –support.) You move from battlefield to battlefield, collecting flags and power-ups and blasting enemies using one of three different view modes: first person, over-the-shoulder, and 2D top-down. Direction and weapons are controlled via touch; steering is accomplished via either an analog virtual stick (default) or a digital control square in the lower-left corner of the screen while weapons and jump are controller by virtual buttons at the lower-right. The controls, analog in particular, are responsive and work quite well. It's simple but a lot of fun, especially for those who remember the days of 68020 and 68030 Macs.

Things really get interesting in the multiplayer modes, however. As I mentioned, there are four multiplayer games: Arena, Capture the Flag, Flag Rally, and Base Raid. Up to four players can compete locally via Bluetooth and up to 16 players can get in on the fun over the Internet or local WiFi. The game has just hit the App Store and, as such, there are not that many players online — no surprise. But I was happy to see that most of the game servers available feature AI bots that offer up a rather solid online game experience. The action gets downright frantic. It's Spectre as I never saw it back in '91 — pretty "white knuckle," really.

As I said earlier, Spectre 3D is an absolute instant buy for anyone who enjoyed the title back in the day. And, while it doesn't steal the crown from Vector Tanks Extreme for the ultimate iPhone Battlezone experience, Spectre 3D has multiplayer support going for it, and is a good deal of fun. I hope to see kill you online sometime soon.

App Store Link: Spectre 3D, $4.99

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Beat It!

Glu games has made their musical puzzler Beat It! free for a limited time. See our full review for details:

Beat It!, a music-based game from Glu Games Inc, is different from other music games, not only in the way that it presents its music for interactive play, but in the way that players' brains must function in order to be successful. Instead of playing along with a predetermined song, players are asked to recreate a short, looping beat that is played for them several times in quick succession before the beginning of each level.

We actually really enjoyed the this game and highly recommend every pick it up for free.

Aqua Forest 2 is also free but for today only.

This game challenges you to guide a drop of water from start to finish across a variety of beautiful photorealistic levels, including leaves, mossy rocks, flower petals, and more. Simply tilt your phone to make the water move, thanks to the technology of the "PHYZIOS Engine™ Casual" 2D multi-physics engine.

It's hard to say we highly recommend the game, but its worth a free download to see the water droplet physics effects.

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Originally released on the Nintendo DS in late 2008, Skate It by EA Games is something of a portable semi-sequel to the original Skate game for Xbox 360 and PS3. It utilized the DS's touch screen to mimic the unique gesture based Flick-it controls of it's console brethren, and delivered a relatively robust experience for such a small package. Now, coinciding with the console release of Skate 3 this week, the iPhone version of Skate It is now available. It's an experience that's virtually identical to its DS counterpart in content, but vastly superior in graphics, ease of use, and overall presentation. A relatively difficult learning curve will likely turn off many players initially, but those who persist will be rewarded with one of the finest portable skateboarding games available.

The bulk of the game takes place in a Career mode that spans 20 separate levels, 13 taken straight from San Vanelona (the fictional city featured in Skate) and 7 levels based on real life locations that are exclusive to the Skate It series. It's not one big open world like the console games, but each level is fairly large and filled with plenty of challenges and skateable terrain. New goals are constantly unlocking as you progress, and the Career challenges are all interesting and varied. You'll perform specific tricks for photos, play S.K.A.T.E. against AI skaters, enter high score contests, and more. There's even challenges that have you participating in checkpoint races against other skaters across the map, which proved to be especially fun. The graphics of the iPhone version utilize much higher resolution textures and a smoother framerate than that of the DS. It's much more visually appealing now, but oddly the actual skater animations when performing tricks seem a lot more fluid on the DS.

While there's certainly a great deal of content in Skate It, whether you'll be able to enjoy it or not ultimately depends on if you can get behind the control scheme. Tilting the device left or right steers your skater in either direction, tilting the screen away from you crouches the skater, and tilting towards you slows down. There's no option for touch controls to perform any of these actions. I'm not generally one that likes tilt controls in games like this, and it took me a good hour of practice before I started to really feel comfortable with it. Some may pick it up much quicker, others may never quite take to it. Once you get it down though, it's a far more immersive experience than a virtual analog stick and actually quite enjoyable.

As for the onscreen Flick-it controls, they have been implemented fairly well here and are far easier to utilize than they are on the DS. Holding that system with one hand while awkwardly trying to wield a stylus to perform touch screen gestures was an exercise in frustration. On the iPhone however, it feels very natural to draw the various trick motions using your thumb or index finger while comfortably holding the device. The amount of different maneuvers you're able to perform with this system is incredible, and although touch recognition is a little spotty sometimes, pulling off tricks in Skate It is a blast. One welcome addition in the iPhone version is Trick Mode, the ability to slow down time while doing a trick. Placing your finger on the screen slows everything down (how slow can be configured in the options), affording you more time to draw the correct gesture. It works really well and helps ease new players into the Flick-it system if you're not familiar with the Skate series.

A huge advantage Skate It has over it's competitors, namely Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, is a large focus on customization. Your avatar for Career mode can be personalized with different faces, clothing, and skateboards. An editor allows you to draw your own logos or board graphics simply by drawing on the screen, and then apply them to your character. There's the option to listen to your own iPod music while playing, although the included soundtrack of licensed songs is very good. Also, there's a fairly robust park editor that let's you set up many different obstacles to your liking in a large warehouse. You can save up to three different created parks, but due to a lack of any online component, you're unfortunately not able to share these parks with other people as in the DS version. Still, creating parks adds an infinite amount of replayability and potential for experimentation. Different park objects and items for your character are unlocked as you progress through the Career, giving you incentive to complete the game's challenges.

In the end, Skate It for iPhone greatly improves upon the already impressive game that was found on the DS a year and a half ago. A lot of care has gone into suiting the entire experience to this platform, and the simple fact of not needing a stylus goes a long way in making it more accessible. Whether or not it takes the current skateboarding crown from THPS2 will largely be a matter of personal preference. Skate It wins in content, graphics, and customization but has a steep learning curve with the controls that may never feel comfortable to some. THPS2 is slightly smaller in scope, but has familiar controls and ten years worth of nostalgia on its side. Honestly, they're both fantastic games that are worth your time. If you're looking for a more realistic portrayal of skateboarding and are up to the challenge of learning the controls, Skate It delivers a wealth of content with style, and is easily recommended for skateboarding fans.

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