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Honestly, there’s not much a rhythm game has to do in order to make me happy. A nice selection of tap-friendly tunes, decent UI, and adequate replayability features are the extent of my wishlist. For its part, O2Jam U [ Free ] manages to satisfy two of those three criteria, making it a satisfactory addition to the genre in my book. More importantly, O2Jam U manages to unveil a new wrinkle with the inclusion of freemium elements, a somewhat unique addition to song-based rhythm games.

If you’ve ever played a rhythm/music title on iOS you should be familiar with the gameplay in O2Jam U. Simply put, select one of the 16 currently available songs and earn the highest score possible by tapping out notes coming down the screen. Play results are scored on a grading scale and gems are awarded which can be used to purchase different tile patterns for each song. The tile patterns are a nice way to extend the life of each song, but I didn’t like the fact that patterns weren’t one-time purchases for songs.

Song-wise, you can expect a lot of K-Pop and other similar beat-heavy tunes. Obviously, musical preferences vary greatly, but I thought the song selections were definitely appropriate and lent themselves to a fun experience. Thankfully, folks can simply download the app for free in order to check out the musical variety.

O2Jam U also offers a multitude of standard options in addition to pattern changes. For example, each song has three difficulty settings, as well as the option of playing with 2, 4, or 5 rows of scrolling notes. There’s also a speed option, for those wanting a bit more hectic experience. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking as far as features, but it’s nice to see all the different options consolidated in one game, even if the overall UI seems to be a little peculiar (I imagine due to something being lost in the English translation).

While the UI’s quirkiness can somewhat be looked past, what’s less acceptable is the poor optimization that seems to permeate across all iOS devices. Selecting songs and navigating through menus almost always leads to slowdown and/or temporary screen freezes. I assume this has to do with the online infrastructure that the app hooks into (the game is a straight port of a PC title). Regardless, the performance issues put a significant damper on the overall experience, especially when it occurs mid-game (although some slowdown appears deliberate and not necessarily performance-based). Another significant side effect of the online system is a requirement to have an internet connection in order to play.

Seeing how O2Jam U is a free title, folks may be wondering about the freemium/IAP situation. Surprisingly, the system is quite fair. Upon first launching the game, you’ll be given 100 points which are used to play “paid” songs. Selection-wise, 8 of the 16 available tunes are free with the other half cost 3 points each. As you can imagine, the 100 points will go a long way towards replaying those 8 songs and when your point total eventually declines, you will slowly regenerate a limited number of points over time (the IAP for additional points is also reasonably priced).

Slowdown issues aside, I found O2Jam U to be a fun little music game. There are enough initial points to sample all the songs, and the decent amount of options ensures some replayability. Song selection may be a bit sparse, but that can easily be fixed with future support. There are some folks that will find the network requirement and performance issues to be deal breakers, but for everyone else, O2Jam U is worth at least a try.

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This morning Subatomic Studios unveiled that it has been doing something other than pounding out updates for Fieldrunners on iPhone and iPad. It’s been working on a big budget sequel to that 2008 original. In fact, Subatomic has been building Fieldrunners 2 since Fieldrunner’s initial release, carefully toying around with new concepts while also playing around with other prototypes. So, yeah, this one did take awhile.

It’s true that this sequel ushers in the usual, not-so-exciting follow-up fare: new enemies, new towers, new modes, new progression systems, and new maps. But it’s also doing something great and pure. It’s introducing new mechanics that change up the core experience. These tweaks and changes are radical enough that they had Subatomic floating the idea of calling the game something else.

Jamie Gotch, the CEO of Subatomic Studios, chatted with us this afternoon about some of the game’s biggest changes. He also gave us a brief history lesson on how Subatomic got its start, and how important Fieldrunners is to the studio.

“We formed back in 2008. When we first established, we were virtual. We were just some dudes who were working on this game part-time on the side,” Gotch says. “We saw an opportunity on the iPhone and we went for it. We had this game idea, which was Fieldrunners, and we figured that — this was before any games were released when the iPhone was in its beta phase and we thought tower defense game would be great to put on a mobile device. There wasn’t much of that out at the time. I don’t know if there were any games that were in that genre. We saw it as a great opportunity. We worked really hard and got the game out and it did really, really well.”

Gotch paints an overall picture that has us thinking that Subatomic wouldn’t exist in its current full-time staffed form without Fieldrunners. Subatomic almost … owes that game, and it needs to produce a sequel that feels as honest and hip, but also just as new as Fieldrunners felt at the time.

“We were really fortunate,” Gotch tell us when we ask about how many people were buying into the original. “As you know, there’s so many iPhone games out there. It’s very hard to release a game on a huge budget because it’s a huge risk. Fieldrunners has done well and it allowed us the ability to build this team and the game we wanted to build.”

One of the things the studio wanted to build for Fieldrunners 2 is better AI. It did, and it’s a game-changer. It’s smarter. It’s now aware of itself and the world it inhabits. Enemies can bump into each other at choke points and push to find safer pathways. They can also scramble over and under each other. The original game was as mechanical as other tower defense games. Enemies just plowed straight ahead, totally oblivious to everything around them — no behaviors, no awareness, no brains.

“In Fieldrunners 2 what we did, we actually have this very elaborate swarming behavior,” Gotch says. “Units behave like they would on a real battlefield. If you were to throw hundreds of units on-screen they would all swarm in and take control of the battlefield. Like an army you would see in Braveheart … They actually influence one another. You can build mazes and congest the [pipes you build]. And the guys behind [other enemies] are affected by the guys in the forefront.

Gotch excitedly tells us about other new stuff. Bridges and tunnels are being introduced in addition to environmental hazards and mini-bosses. A really neat sounding collectible card mini-game is in the works, too. As you earn achievements in the game’s modes, you receive cards.

Several of you noted earlier today that the game looks great. It does, and that’s thanks to Fieldrunner 2’s re-written engine, which is what makes all of the game’s new, much more unpredictable action possible. We’ve got a couple of new screens in the article, so give the game a look as you’re reading.

The new engine and the new AI behaviors combine to make a pretty different game, which is what prompted the debate Subatomic had about the Fieldrunner 2’s name. In the App Store world, putting a number instead of a subtitle in a sequel’s name is often said to be sales suicide because people quit buying the original game. Subatomic doesn’t care about this. It thinks it created a better game and if it loses sales, whatever. It wants this to stand proudly on its own.

Fieldrunners 2 is due out this June on iPhone and an iPad version will then follow. We talked with Gotch and the game’s lead designer Sergei Gourski on this week’s episode of our bonus podcast. We’ll blast the audio to your earholes tomorrow.

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I admit without shame that I was a huge Poké-nerd back in Pikachu’s heyday. The explosion of Pokémon’s popularity coincided with my sophomore year of high school, and being nerdy enough to know my cool-kid rep was in the negatives even before I started lugging around a Pokédex with my textbooks, I wore Pokémon t-shirts and evangelized the games and cartoon without a care. I also saw new Pokémon movies on opening night and, surrounded by squirmy kiddles and their irritated parents, broke out in wild applause and cheers when the Nintendo logo appeared on the screen, which prompted all the kids to whoop and holler along with me (and the parents to stare at me with such loathing that I wanted to crawl into the nearest Poke-ball).

There is, however, one immediately noticeable difference between MonTowers ~Legend of Summoners’~ [ Free ] critters and Nintendo’s kid-friendly goldmine. Amid the fantasy- and horror-themed creatures you will amass, you’ll also accumulate anime girls so scantily clad and busty they make Lara Croft look like a teenie bopper who has only just started to blossom. Fortunately, unlike the milky-white flesh of your personal monster-hunting assistant (and what soft, creamy, heaving flesh it is), there is much more to MonTowers than meets the eye.

Like Pokémon, MonTowers is a monster-hunting game where you pit monsters against each other and, ideally, add defeated opponents to your ensemble. Your goal is to clear a series of towers by defeating the monster on each floor and moving up to the next challenge. There’s a cursory story outlined at the start of the adventure, but really, it’s all about climbing monster towers and fighting deadlier and deadlier opponents.

At the beginning of each brawl, you get a chance to attack first by completing a touchscreen minigame. During your attack phase, your monsters automatically step up one by one to deal their damage. Should you botch your first-strike opportunity, the opposing monster gets its licks in before your group. The cycle rinses and repeats until your team or the enemy drops dead.

When you defeat an opponent, they either combust in a flash of light, or shrink into a coin. Earning a monster’s coin adds that monster to your collection. From the moment I received my first coin, I felt that old Poké-compulsion come flooding back–not only the burning desire to “catch em all,” but to form posses made up of different abilities that dominated the competition.

As our forum users can attest, there’s no real rhyme or reason to capturing a monster. Sometimes you’ll bag it, but more often than you’d like, you just won’t. Not to worry; there are other ways to expand your portfolio. As the game unfolds, you’ll learn recipes that reveal monsters you can breed to create new types. When you run out of monsters to hook up, you can spend the tokens you earn from leveling up on Gachamon, a gambling-type minigame where a payment of five tokens cooks up a random monster. Most monsters created through Gachamon are stronger than many of the ones you’ll encounter as you ascend monster towers floor by floor, making it an expensive addiction I was willing to indulge.

To build your team, you unlock monster slots that allow you to beam in monsters from your coin collection. Each monster comes with a summoning cost divided among five colored gems you harvest during the game, and you can use those same gems to buy upgrades. The catch is, you can’t take all your monsters into a fight. Instead you assemble a small squad from your pool of summoned fighters, picking and choosing ones with lots of health, attack power, and special abilities like health regeneration.

As you progress, you’ll eventually have to un-summon older, weaker monsters to fill your finite amount of monster slots with new blood you recruit along the way. Un-summoning a monster frees up its slot, but costs you all the time and gems you spent decking out your monster with enhanced powers.

I actually found myself growing attached to battle-scarred veterans, and it’s a shame that most battles end quickly if you bring in your heaviest hitters, rendering many older monsters obsolete. Ah, progress. You are a cruel mistress. (Although you can reminisce on old times by visiting the gallery, where you can view all your summoned monsters past and present, and in the various stages of undress brought about by any upgrades you purchased for them. Believe me, once you capture and fully upgrade the Nymph and Succubus, you’ll be spending a lot of time “reminiscing” with them.)

As with any collecting game, obsessing over filling every blank spot in your monster collection is the star of the show. A good thing, too, since MonTowers‘ battle system is pretty simplistic. Aside from exercising slight control over who attacks first and pouring healing potions down the throats of injured monsters (lose them in battle and all their upgrades go with them), you mostly just sit back and watch. To be fair, I found the battle system just as complex as it needs to be. The real strategy lies in upgrading your bestiary, building dream teams, watching them annihilate the biggest and baddest the game has to throw at you, taming them, and continuing your journey upward.

Even your strongest team of monster slayers doesn’t stand a chance against the game’s most powerful adversary: Father Time. Similar to other freemium games like Tiny Tower [ Free ], many functions in MonTowers require real-time minutes or hours to complete. Lowly monsters only need a few seconds or minutes to pop up, but more advanced minions will keep you waiting for hours. The upgrade gems you harvest cost one energy apiece, and you replenish one energy every three minutes. Not so long, but to the impatient, waiting is waiting.

You can expedite certain time restrictions depending on the girth of your wallet. Tired of waiting for a summoned monster to warp in or apply researched upgrades? Slip it some tokens and it will appear instantly. Don’t want to wait for your wounded monsters to regenerate one health per second? Feed them potions, but be prepared to spend tokens on more once you run out, as you’ll rely on them in battle once you enter the third tower and beyond.

In many ways, the game’s time restrictions feel designed to make you either watch the clock and wait for assorted activities to wrap up in their own time, or break down and spend money–in-game or real–to get things moving. But, just like with Tiny Tower, the time restrictions never bothered me. There’s usually something to do while your timers tick down. Return to monsters you haven’t captured, take on new foes, consult your recipes to arrange blind dates for two lucky monsters, spend your savings on Gachamon, grind or purchase IAP tokens to instantly finish summons and upgrades–or, God forbid, put the game down and do something else for a while. Maybe gather some friends and LARP MonTowers in the woods or salivate over your sexier acquisitions.

And speaking of sexy (the game asks you to confirm that you’re at least 17 before installing it), the amount of skin it shows is good for a chuckle, but is no more than window dressing designed to attract horny 15-year-olds. Case in point: your female monsters actually remove clothing with every upgrade rather than adding on more for protection. Silly logic. But don’t let MonTowers‘ cheap bids for attention fool you. Look beyond all the thongs and pasties and you’ll find an engaging, if somewhat simplified, monster-hunting experience.

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It would be easy to write Witch Wars [ Free ] off for its, shall we say, intensely aggressive IAP implementation. It would be hard to argue that Com2Us hasn’t reached new heights on that score. But let me play devil’s advocate for a minute. Sure, there are characters that can be unlocked for ten dollars. That’s a thing that happens in this game. But it’s also a solid competitive match-3 in a market that doesn’t have many of those to choose from. If, say, you’ve been waiting for a successor to Puzzle Quest 2 [ $4.99 ] all this time, that might not be something you can afford to ignore.

The IAP breaks down a bit like League of Legends. You start with Athena, the default witch. She’s a bit middle-of-the-road as far as abilities go. You can unlock six other characters, half with coins and half with (far too much) cash. If you do, you can use them online or solo any time. Otherwise, be patient. Every day, a new witch unlocks temporarily for everyone to try out online. In the course of a given week, you’ll be able to play each and every character Witch Wars has to offer.

There are two things that make it possible to just keep on playing Witch Wars without putting in any money at all. The first is that the vast majority of other players are doing the same thing. I encounter Athena in nine matches out of every ten, and virtually never run into a soul using the most expensive unlocks. This won’t last in the long run, but for now it works out well. The second thing is that the pricier characters aren’t outrageously superior. Their abilities, while powerful, are expensive to upgrade, and they can still be defeated easily by a skilled player or a lucky one. Putting down cash is far from a guarantee that you’ll stomp every opponent you face.

With the IAP thing out of the way, Witch Wars plays pretty much like you’d expect from a competitive match-3. The board is filled with RPG fare—swords, potions, spellbooks and coins—and some slightly out-of-place handcuffs. Coins are currency, so they’re valuable despite doing nothing to affect the outcome of the game. Matching swords attacks your opponent, matching potions heals you, and matching spellbooks charges your mana bar. You’ll move up a spell tier for each section of the bar you let fill before casting. Handcuffs lock down your opponent’s pieces, leaving them vulnerable and frustrated.

The main differences between the six characters rest in their spells. Athena has a pretty basic set—a spell to lock your opponent’s blocks, an attack that pulls its power all your on-screen swords, and a third-tier explosion that takes out the other guy’s entire grid. Elrhyme has ice spells, Wisp has healing spells, Silpheed’s are poisonous, and so on. It’s a diverse group of characters, and mostly a balanced one. Not that you’re likely to spend much time with most; it would take about $25 to unlock all three premium characters, and about 23,000 coins for the rest.

The average game is a sprint; with swift fingers you can easily take out an opponent in a minute or two. If you’re quick enough to earn combos you can speed things up further with bursts of bonus power. With such brief games, Witch Wars matchmaking might get a bit frustrating as the player pool shrinks in the long term, but for now it’s filled with a lot of eager players and a quick rematch button that sees heavy use. The game keeps a close eye on your rankings, giving you a rating for your wins and losses and keeping track of wins and streaks. Not only does this offer up some fodder for Game Center achievements, it also provides overall sense of progression despite the brief matches.

There’s another type of progression to be had in Witch Wars: character leveling. Here again we find the pitch for IAP: if you can’t earn coins fast enough in game, you can always buy them (and they aren’t cheap). This, at least, is mostly a shortcut purchase; it would be a struggle to earn enough coins in multiplayer to unlock the priciest character, but it’s doable. In the survival-style solo mode this should be easier; you earn double coins for playing on medium difficulty and triple coins for hard. But to survive a few rounds in hard mode is, well, hard.

So caveat emptor: Witch Wars is out to part you from your hard earned money. It doesn’t make any attempt to hide that fact. But there’s no reason you can’t rack up quite a few wins (and coins) just by playing with the free witches. Putting in cash might put you at an advantage, but it’s smaller than it looks. So ask yourself—is it worth all that to play a fun, competitive match-3? If you can resist the call of IAP, that’s quite the thing to get for free.

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Neuroshima Hex [$2.99] received all sorts of new features and content this morning courtesy a brand new update to the core game. The coolest addition by far is the introduction of asynchronous online play, which is something the game’s developer Big Daddy’s Creations has been thinking about doing for quite some time. Other neat features in today’s update include new iPad retina support, player profiles, a stronger tutorial, and redesigned UI elements across the board — stores, menus, and even in-game.

We haven’t talked about Neuroshima in a while, so allow us to re-introduce you to the brain busting game with this tidbit from our comprehensive review:

Like many strategy games with unique rulesets, Neuroshima Hex is fairly complicated. Playing the game involves selecting one of the four factions, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, then playing with a 35 tile “deck”. Players start by placing their headquarters on the game board, and the rest of the game revolves around attacking the enemy HQ while defending your own utilizing the tiles you draw at the start of your turn. Your deck of tiles consists of three different types, tiles that contain different types of units, modules which buff those units, and instant action tiles that do things like destroy or slide a unit, or even initiate combat.

In celebration of the release of this update, Big Daddy has dropped the price of the game to $2.99 from its usual $4.99. Our full review is available here, if you’d like to read up on the game if you’re thinking about taking the plunge. Spoiler: the game’s learning curve is a little steep.

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It seems as if ever since the iOS remake of Death Rally [ $0.99 ] hit the scene over a year ago, we’ve had a resurgence of weapons-based racing titles gracing the platform. Deadmans Run [ $0.99 ] from Nightfall Interactive is another entry into the genre and attempts to model itself somewhat closely to Death Rally. While Deadmans Run does try to differentiate itself from the pack in some ways, you’re mostly left with a fairly average racer with controls that leave a bit to be desired.

Deadmans Run offers a somewhat comprehensive campaign that has you racing across nine different levels across three “difficulty” levels, earning both cash and notoriety (essentially experience points). The cash is used to purchase permanent (engine, weapons, and armor) and temporary upgrades for your vehicles while the notoriety acts as a level-wall that restricts upgrades and car purchases until you’ve hit a certain level. Overall, the system works well enough for replayability, although the strict level requirements for each purchase take away any sense of freedom, which is a bit disappointing.

Gameplay involves your standard race-to-the-finish with positional awards, although the inclusion of weapons makes it a bit more interesting. Cars all come equipped with machine guns and mines, with ammo refills (among other power-ups) randomly littered on the track. As you upgrade your cars, you’ll typically find yourself in races that end prematurely because everyone else (or you) has been destroyed. This typically leads to a very hectic racing experience, especially at the onset of the campaign since you’ll be losing a lot before you can earn enough cash and notoriety to build up a contending car.

One area that I thought Deadmans Run did well dealt with its dynamic generation of races. As mentioned above, there are three different difficulties in the campaign. Whenever you want to race, each difficulty will randomly choose the level and opponents (while usually keeping the purse winnings the same).

In addition, races will occasionally offer supplemental objectives, such as to take out a specific opponent before the race is over. The supplemental quests actually offer penalties if you fail, making the choice to accept it have actual repercussions. Unfortunately, while the dynamic missions are an interesting idea, you’ll quickly find that the two harder difficulties will be way too challenging to play for quite a while. One item of note is the complete lack of IAP, so all notoriety and cash will have to earned by (gasp!) playing the game. In addition to the campaign, a time trial mode also exists.

While everything above seems fairly decent, Deadmans’ controls are where the experience starts faltering. You are given the option of two control schemes: auto-acceleration and manual gas. Auto-acceleration is the default and my preferred control type as it allows you to focus mostly on turning and aiming. Unfortunately, this also leads to a lot of lost control when you’re making tight turns as you’ve effectively lost the ability to ‘ease up on the gas.’

Manual gas, meanwhile, just feels awful as the gas ‘button’ is right smack in the middle of the two turn portions, which feels extremely unintuitive for me.  Either way, additional miscues such as a very bouncy physics system and the occasional unresponsiveness of controls don’t help the experience, either. Other facets of Deadmans Run, such as the visuals, felt mostly average and don’t add or detract from the rest of the game.

If you can get past the spotty controls, Deadmans Run is an adequate racer with enough meat in its campaign to offer genre fans something to try. There are gamers out there that are simply looking for the next ‘rat race’ to race through, and this game can certainly provide that. However, the overall rough presentation and spotty controls are enough to detract all but the diehard combat racing enthusiasts.

TouchArcade Rating:

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The TouchArcade App [ Free ] has been out for a couple weeks now, and it seems like everyone is really digging it. Currently we’re working on a quick 1.1 update which will address some tweaks, fixes, and suggestions that have been posted in our forums. After that, it’s full-steam ahead on releasing a universal update. Spoilers: I’ve already got a beta version of it on my iPad, and it’s going to be really nice.

But anyway, one of the best features you might not be using in the TouchArcade app is setting up watch lists to stay on top of upcoming games we’ve posted about. Flipping the little binoculars switch on these games will add them to your watch list, and you’ll be notified when we post additional articles on them as well as when they’re actually released. Going back through historical stories to fill up your watch list is a bit of a hassle, so here’s a list of games I’m looking forward to that you could think about adding.

All you’ve got to do is tap each link, and then flip the binocular toggle on top:

Audiosuft Air – The Audiosurf series of games were a huge hit on the PC, and it seems like a natural fit on the iPhone. It’s currently scheduled to be released sometime this year.

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition – If you listen to the podcast, you’ll know we’re always going on about how much we want old school RPGs on our iPads, and there’s few finer old school RPGs than Baldur’s Gate- Especially a totally touch-centric port.

Bladeslinger – A “western-themed Infinity Blade” as it’s known around my house. The game has been delayed like crazy, but last we heard is still supposed to be released this month.

Defender Chronicles II – The original Defender Chronicles was a huge hit in our community, so naturally, folks are incredibly excited about the upcoming sequel. (Including me, I can’t wait.)

Drifter – Space trading games and me go together like peas and carrots. Drifter is looking really promising.

Galactic Keep – I feel like Gilded Skull Games has been teasing us with this game for eternity, and last we heard, it’s still coming. I’m still loving the art style and dice-centric gameplay ideas.

Infinity Blade Dungeons – It’s the new Infinity Blade, there’s no way this game won’t be huge, especially with the recent release of Diablo III and Dungeons’ dungeon crawling gameplay.

Linux Tycoon – There have been tons of “tycoon” style games released over the years, but none are as delightfully nerdy as Linux Tycoon. Last we heard, it’s coming very soon.

Penny Arcade On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Three – Sadly, I don’t hold out much hope for the first two episodes, but I’m more than happy for the third installment to be hitting iOS devices.

Pocket Heroes – Dungeons and Dragons combined with Words With Friends style asynchronous multiplayer? That “Take My Money” meme is totally appropriate here.

RealMyst – I’m still blown away that this exists. 20-ish years ago, my computer could barely play the pre-rendered version of Myst. Soon we’ll be playing it rendered in real time on our phones.

Star Command – Kairosoft-style simulation combined with a gloriously Star-Trek-y setting. They’ve also released the best trailer I’ve seen recently, which is embedded above.

The Other Brothers – An adventure game with platforming elements and some really awesome pixel art. We can’t wait.

WarGames – I’m a massive fan of Dungeon Raid [$2.99 / Free ] and WarGames is designed with vaguely similar gameplay in mind. Oh, and it’s dripping with WarGames style from the actual movie.

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How do you feel about endangered species? Does your heart ache for the poor creatures that, through no fault of their own, are being driven to extinction? If so, you might want to join up with Adult Swim and PikPok’s Extinction Squad [ $0.99 ], the bloodiest game about conservation I’ve ever seen.

As the story goes, the surprisingly well-preserved Chuck Darwin, father of evolution, has found a lost colony of dodos. Seems like a miracle, but then the terrible truth is revealed: the scent of dodos causes other animals to jump to their deaths. Animals are killing themselves by the thousands, so Chuck pulls together his extinction squad to save ‘em. Running back and forth with a jump net, the squad bounces the suicidal animals to safety, earning points, coins and the occasional surprise in the process.

All you need to do is swipe your finger back and forth along the bottom of the screen, directing the squad back and forth. You need to position them under falling animals, beneath coins and powerups, and away from falling bombs—a single encounter with a bomb means game over. Adventure mode is all about survival, and Countdown mode is a time trial, but both just ask you to swipe back and forth, nothing more. This makes for a very simple game, but it isn’t the sort of simple that gets boring quickl. PikPok is pretty great at making crazy-fun simple games, the kind that Adult Swim likes to publish, and Extinction Squad is no exception.

There’s the absurdity, for one. You travel around the world with these adorably designed and well-animated people and animals. Every animal you miss splatters into bloody chunks on the ground. Sometimes you juggle pandas, and sometimes you need to bounce a whale. Simply put, this game is over-the-top in all the best ways. With bright colors everywhere and a ton of Australianisms, the whole game commits to a level of absurdity that most developers can’t match.

Then there’s the compulsion. Every time you play, you’re not only saving animals (fun in and of itself) and working on high scores, you’re also collecting. As in Jetpack Joyride [ Free ], there are coins to collect and tokens for the post-game lucky spin. Also familiar is the selection of three meta-goals you’re faced with each time you play, like reaching certain scores in a single streak or saving all the animals that fall within a certain span of time. These elements give players a lot of reasons to just keep playing, with that one last turn turning into a dozen.

The coins you collect can go toward upgrading your powerups and unlocking new, higher-scoring areas. As the game normally plays, you need to save 30 animals in one area without dying, then 40 in the next, then 45 in the one after that, and so on. When you go through all the available areas the game loops but the goal keeps rising. Having access to the later areas means higher overall scores, though the game takes just as long to get obscenely difficult.

A word about IAP in Extinction Squad before we continue: yes, you can absolutely do everything without ever spending an additional dime. With lucky spins and occasional coin powerups and the awards you get from completing goals, you’ll unlock all the areas pretty quickly. If you buy coins, however, you’ll be able to unlock them more quickly, level up your powerups sooner, and—most damningly—extend your plays further. You can pay coins to continue after dying, and that coin value increases each time you use it in a single run. Pay the toll and you can pick up from the start of the current stage with your score intact. So yes, IAP can give you an advantage on the leaderboards, a sad addition to an otherwise excellent game.

If you’re not fussed about IAP, there is so much to love here. Skill can play a huge part in your success, with bonuses for accuracy and with the serious reflexes needed to dodge bombs as the game goes on. There are random events that add a lot of variety, and stats to keep track of just how good you are at saving animals. And the game just oozes character.

Everything considered, Extinction Squad is a ridiculously fun diversion, a great way to while away the minutes. I wouldn’t put too much effort into climbing the leaderboards, knowing that someone with deeper pockets could easily outmatch me with less skill, but just for fun? Sure, I’m happy to give this game my time. If fun, charm and character are all that matter to you, then you should definitely pick it up. And bounce by our discussion thread to let us know what you think when you do.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Punch Hero’s [ Free ] moment of brilliance occurs when it has you against the ropes. You’ll come to a point during the game’s eighteen-bout arcade mode where progression seems well-nigh impossible. Down to a trickle of health, you will think about throwing the towel in, taking an uppercut to the chin so you can earn some gold and turn the thing off.

But you won’t. Instead, you weave under a vicious right hook and in cinematic slow motion land your own devastating punch. Your opponent is dazed. Jab, jab, jab. Right in his big, stupid face. He comes to, and, mad as hell, throws an uppercut. You weave under it and this time, in similarly cinematic slow motion you throw a left hook. The knockout punch. “Oh my God,” you’ll probably say while your cats look on in shame.

This game’s comeback KO is one of the most gratifying skill-oriented moments the iOS platform has to offer. It is akin to the feeling one gets when cracking a thousand on Super Crate Box’s [ $1.99 ] Construction Yard, or killing your first Big Purple Freak in ZiGGURAT [ $0.99 ]. And while the skill ceilings of those games look down upon Punch Hero’s from high above, high-fiving each other in the Exosphere of Amazing, it does not matter one bit. That moment makes you feel as if you are awesome, thus, you are awesome.

It’s a glimpse of the boxing game the App Store deserves. A glimpse because for that highest of highs, it is a ridiculously vertiginous ascent from the usual grind the game tries so hard to put the player through. Remember the aforementioned “eighteen-bout arcade mode?” If you want to see that through without succumbing to in-app purchases, you are going to have to replay most those fights again and again, ad infinitum.

Despite vague aesthetic similarities and a similar, mostly innocent (more on this later) propensity for racial stereotyping, Punch Hero is nothing like Punch-Out!! Whereas Punch-Out!! is a timing-based puzzle game, Punch Hero is, hey, a boxing game.

Opponents have no patterns as far as I can tell, so you are left with the game’s very simple tap-and-swipe controls, along with the knowledge that the next opponent you face is going to hit harder and have a larger pool of health. Which would be fine if all it took to trudge your way to the top was your wits and reflexes, but it’s not.

No matter your skill, you are going to get hit so hard, will face opponents so resilient, that you will need to upgrade your skills and gear using the gold doled out to you at the end of a match, or via IAP. Most items that actually buff your stats are nearly unattainable without spending actual money, while attribute upgrades the average player will need to complete the arcade mode take dozens upon dozens of monotonous hours grinding out gold to acquire. Or, you know, you could just buy them.

When microtransactions and in-app purchases became the monetization method of choice for many social and mobile developers, the worry was that “pay-to-win” would become the norm. Punch Hero utilizes a “pay-to-compete” system so unfair as to require an unfun punishment should the player not want to spend actual money.

A bit of a non-controversy occurred when another outlet’s reviewer noticed that, among all of the cultural stereotypes presented in Punch Hero, the African American fighters were portrayed most offensively. The writer’s casual description of the “full-lipped, wide-eyed ‘Sambo’ look” even fails to mention that the standard “black male” face is also called “Full Lips” in the game’s shop.

Punch Hero developer Johnny Oh, who seems like a really sweet guy, replied to the review, asking for feedback on how to change the black fighters to make them less offensive. It was an honest response to the kind of inadvertent racism that really can only be replied to with a sigh and a shake of the head. It’s a product of cultural detachment, rather than anything mean-spirited. By contrast, Punch Hero’s invisible paywall feels terribly mean-spirited.

It’s an unfortunate decision that’s marred what is otherwise a pretty good game of boxing. Groundwork for iteration, then, rather than something I’d recommend this go-round. That’s fine. As for me, I think I’ll go ahead and delete the game from my phone, hanging onto the memory of that one wonderful high.

TouchArcade Rating:

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It was back in October of 2010 that Sega first released Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I [$3.99 / $4.99 (HD)], a direct sequel to the original 16-bit Sonic trilogy on Genesis and the much ballyhooed return to its classic 2D roots after more than a decade of mostly mediocre Sonic games. While we did enjoy Episode I in our review, I don’t think it exactly lived up to the expectations set by the rabid Sonic fan base (could anything, though?).

In short, Sonic 4 Episode I brought modern visuals, great level designs, and a Sonic experience that was decidedly better than the majority of recent entries in the series. However, it didn’t quite feel like the Sonic games of old. Sonic’s movement in-game felt both slippery and sluggish, and it seemed much too easy to lose momentum and speed while playing, which isn’t a good thing for a character that has made his name by blasting through levels in a blue blur. Still, with the right expectations Sonic 4 Episode I was a pretty darn fun platformer that worked well on the touch screen, and was a huge step in the right direction for a faltering Sonic franchise.

Then, for the next year or so, Sega seemed happy to almost forget that Sonic 4 even happened as they hyped the impending release of an enhanced port of Sonic CD for iOS and other major platforms. And, last December, Sonic CD [ $4.99 ] finally hit and it was simply phenomenal. Since a lot of people might have missed out on Sonic CD the first time around back in the ‘90s, in a way it was almost like the new Sonic game that fans had been clamoring for for years, and really served to highlight just how much Sonic 4 Episode I missed that mark.

But, Sonic 4 wasn’t terrible by any means, and it wasn’t quite through just yet. Just a couple of weeks after Sonic CD’s release, Sega announced that Sonic 4 Episode II was slated for 2012. They would be using a new game engine for this latest episode in order to provide better visuals and address the complaints from fans over the wonky “feel” of Sonic’s movement.

So, with the convoluted backstory of Sonic 4’s rocky development road out of the way, this week finally saw Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II [ $6.99 ] hit all the major platforms. And, just like Episode I, it makes many great strides forward for the series, but some hiccups keep it from being the second coming of the original Sonic games that everybody hoped it would be.

Sonic 4 Episode II will look very familiar if you’ve played Episode I. There are 4 worlds to explore, each with 3 stages and a boss fight, and you can again play every stage in the default Score attack mode or a speed run-focused Time Attack mode with Game Center leaderboard support. This is all pretty much right in line with how the first game works, except that all levels aren’t available right off the bat which gives the game a much better sense of progression.

Additionally, in the same way that Episode I drew a ton of inspiration from the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode II draws a similar inspiration from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Many of the level elements and themes will seem quite familiar, the bonus stages are similar 3rd-person half-pipe coin-grabbing runs (which are incredibly fun I might add), and of course Episode II also contains Tails as a semi-controllable secondary character. You can even connect locally with another device and a second player who can control Tails while you control Sonic, just like back in the Genesis days.

During solo play Tails is controlled by the AI and just follows you around like a puppy dog, but you can also use him to pull off some team moves like him lifting you through the air using his helicopter-like tails, or a powerful combined spin dash move that will blast through enemies and obstacles like butter. These team-up moves are designed to be necessary to pass certain parts of the game, and add some nice variety to the platforming.

Speaking of level designs, I felt that the levels in Episode II weren’t quite up to snuff with what was in Episode I. The general flow of a level is often ground to a halt due to an oddly placed dead end, and there are far too many underwater sections which really slow down the pace. That’s not to say there aren’t any bright spots, and in fact there are a lot of really fantastic interactive elements in the environments – like bouncing back and forth between the foreground and background, or snowboarding down a snowy mountain – that really break up the action nicely. Overall though, the levels really feel more choppy and slower than you’d like a Sonic game to feel.

One majorly cool addition to Episode II is the inclusion of the bonus Episode Metal content that will unlock if you have Episode I installed on your device along with Episode II. Episode Metal shows how Metal Sonic rises from the ashes after being defeated in Sonic CD, and follows his adventures through 4 reworked levels from Episode I leading up to his reintroduction in the story of Episode II. These levels are short, but it’s incredibly fun to play as Metal Sonic and see just how he rises back to prominence to team up with Dr. Robotnik.

Another real bright spot for Sonic 4 Episode II is its visuals. It’s an absolutely huge upgrade from Episode I, which despite not supporting Retina Displays was still a very good looking game. However, Episode II blows it out of the water. From the fantastic lighting effects to the parallax scrolling to the incredible water effects, around every bend some sort of new visual treat is waiting for you in Episode II. And, at long last, this includes support for Retina Displays on iPhone and iPod touch, though sadly not for the new iPad (though it still looks great on that device).

Much like Sonic 4 Episode I, Episode II is an overall enjoyable platformer with a few relatively minor quirks that hold it back from greatness. No, it’s not going to replace any of the original trilogy’s games as the greatest of all time, and it doesn’t even approach the high level of quality of Sonic CD on iOS. But at this point, I think those are unrealistic expectations. The bottom line is that Sonic 4 Episode II is a great modern day 2D Sonic game, and I’d love to see a third episode that is inspired by Sonic 3 in the same way the previous Sonic 4 episodes were inspired by the original two games.

If you’re a Sonic fan that can deal with the differences from Sonic’s ’90s greatness, or if you just like fun platformers in general, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II has a lot to offer and is a worthy entry in this new era of classically-inspired Sonic games.

TouchArcade Rating:

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