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‘Tower of Fortune’ Review – A Reel Good Time For RPG Fans

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While dwindling on consoles, RPGs of all shapes and sizes are flourishing on mobile devices. There have been some truly creative and unique RPGs released in the past few years, and perhaps none is capable of tugging at your heartstrings and pushing you to fight just one more battle than Game Stew Studio’s new iOS game, Tower of Fortune (ToF) [ $0.99 ].

Like Puzzle Quest and Sword & Poker before it, ToF infuses a basic role-playing game with mechanics drawn from a completely different genre entirely—in this case, slot machines.

The premise of ToF is pretty simple. You’re a hero. You’ve a lady to rescue. You need to gather coin, get loot, and defeat evil incarnate. A “game of the year”-winning story, this is not, but the simple framework provides enough context to the game to make it work.

Before you even get to the gameplay, though, you’ll be hard-pressed to ignore ToF’s eye-catching retro art style and ear-pleasing chip tunes. Both the game’s quirky, NES-era visuals and strong selection of catchy music make the game visually and aurally simplistic and yet undeniably charming, like the greatest Gameboy games of yore.

Presentation is all well and good, of course, but how does the game actually play? Surprisingly well. ToF succeeds in blending the requisite RPG features with the mechanics of a slot machine, albeit with only one truly noteworthy quirk.

Currency is central to ToF, and it’s what powers all of the game’s subsequent systems. To progress through the game’s world, you’ll need coin. To battle, you’ll need to spend (and potentially lose) coin. To upgrade your hero, you’ll need coin. To heal after battle, you’ll need coin. To buy items… you get the point.

There are two ways to earn coin in the game: through fairly nonintrusive microtransactions or by fighting monsters. Given that the combat is the star of the show, most will be content to get their hands dirty and earn money the hard way, and it’s not hard to do so willingly as prices aren’t as exorbitant as they are in similar games.

This is where the game’s slot system comes into play. When you enter combat, you’ll be greeted with a simple one-line, three-reel slot machine. The reels are filled with icons that represent doing damage, taking damage, gaining XP, and gaining coin. Whatever icon appears on the left-most reel determines what happens during the turn, and the more like icons matched, the more significant the effect. In addition, the effect is multiplied by repeat matches, so if you get XP one spin and XP again the next, you’ll get an XP bonus.

One more level of both gambling and depth is added to the battle system by way of a simple “Bet” button. Prior to a spin, you can bet your coin to enhance the effects of the spin. Every effect is doubled after a bet, so you’ll be crossing your fingers in hopes of avoiding taking damage icons and screaming in joy when you hit a full three-match of XP or coin. This becomes critical as bad guys get harder and have more health.

I’m not much of a gambler, and random elements in games tend to annoy me to no end—here’s looking at you, Crisis Core. But after hours of playing, I’ve found that ToF manages a fine balance between feeling cheated and feeling lucky, and hard battles are nail-biters as a result. As you begin to fight more difficult monsters, the high wrought by a good string of luck and the stomach-sinking disappointment wrought by a bad one make the game quite compelling.

In practice, the system works surprisingly well. This is largely thanks to the game’s simple loot and upgrade systems, which allow you to upgrade your character periodically with simple items and stat boosts, you can do a decent amount to prepare for battle and tip the tide in your favor.

If there are any complaints to be had, they would revolve around the game’s sense of progression. Progression is a critical component of any RPG: it’s what keeps the genre’s fans playing, even when everything else—from storyline to graphics and beyond—may falter. ToF struggles a little bit in this regard, as progression is too random and too fleeting to feel rewarding in the long run.

Moving through the game from area to area requires paying escalating “unlock” fees. This means that you’ll need to amass a substantial purse. This in-and-of-itself wouldn’t be that bad, but when combined with the game’s rougelike treatment of death, you can find yourself frustrated.

Should you die, you’ll lose all the equipment, levels, and upgrades you earned as you play—you keep only your unspent coin. As a result, some may beat the game in a day while others could theoretically play it indefinitely and never see the end.  This near-complete randomness makes it hard to feel any sustained, substantial, and satisfying feelings of progression.

In spite of this issue, though, the game never stops being fun to play. The game’s ability to produce such a wide spectrum of emotional highs and lows is no small feat for a game, and additional elements, like the game’s fun mini-quest system that introduces small objectives that reward XP when completed, do wonders at keeping things fresh.

Ultimately, Tower Of Fortune may not have the progression elements, compelling story, or depth of its meatier RPG brethren, but it has all the stats, levels, loot, triumph, and tragedy a RPG fan needs for on-the-go gaming.

App Store Link: Tower of Fortune, $0.99

TouchArcade Rating:

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Written by admin

May 7, 2012 at 18:15

‘Tiny Wings’ Developer Andreas Illiger Hints that New Game is Coming Soon

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One of the great indie success stories on the App Store was last year’s mega hit Tiny Wings [ $0.99 ] from lone developer Andreas Illiger. While the core gameplay hook wasn’t entirely unique, it was executed to perfection, and literally anybody who was capable of tapping a touch screen could pick up Tiny Wings and get hooked. Beyond just the gameplay though, Tiny Wings had that special, indescribable “something” that allowed players to connect with it on an emotional level, something we noted in our review of the game.

The kind of overnight success that Tiny Wings saw must have come as a pretty big surprise to Andreas Illiger, who seemed to shy away from all the newfound attention. He released several updates for Tiny Wings during the course of the year, but remained mostly silent about any future development plans.

Recently during the A Maze Festival in Berlin last month, Andreas chatted candidly with fellow developer Flow Studio in an interview the company has posted on their blog. In it, Andreas talks about some of the inspiration behind the creation of Tiny Wings, how its sudden rise to the top was actually very scary, and how becoming an overnight sensation hasn’t really changed him. Andreas sounds like a very humble, artistic individual.

Also mentioned in this interview is that Andreas has been hard at work for the last 10 months on his Tiny Wings follow-up, and that it is just a few weeks from being finished. It will again be an iOS title and again he’s developing the game all on his own, but beyond that he isn’t divulging any details about what the game is.

We’ll be waiting anxiously for any more news regarding Andreas Illiger’s latest release, which sounds like it will hopefully be soon, but in the meantime check out the short interview for some insight into one of iOS’s most beloved titles Tiny Wings.

[Via Flow Studio Blog]

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May 7, 2012 at 18:15

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The TouchArcade Show – 50 – Fourth Time is the Charm

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On this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we power through conversations about smart gyms and wearable heart monitors in order to bring the latest, greatest, and the best in iPhone and iPad. At the top of the show, we dive into oral reviews of a bunch of cool games, including Brainsss and King of Fighters 2012. Later, we ponder if the free-to-play market is about to collapse and dig into the realities of development in a market that only wants 99¢ stuff.

You can listen below via these handy-dandy links or, hey, you can subscribe to us on iTunes or Zune. The latter is the only way to get our stuff the very second it comes out and lord knows you want us immediately so do it!

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-050.mp3, 42.7MB

Here are your show notes:

GAMES

  • Brainsss [$2.99]
  • Flight Control Rocket [99¢]
  • The King of Fighters-i 2012
  • Tower of Fortune [99¢]
  • DreamWorks Dragons: TapDragonDrop [$1.99]
  • Junk Jack [$2.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

  • Cat Sliding [Free]

FRONT PAGE


This week’s episode is sponsored by Jim Guthrie’s official soundtrack for Indie Game: The Movie.

The original Soundtrack by Jim Guthrie (of Sword & Sworcery fame) for Indie Game: The Movie is available for pre-order now on Bandcamp and iTunes. The 24-track album featuring music from the award winning documentary chronicling the journeys of independent game developers by filmmakers James Swirsky and Lisa Pajot will be released in full on May 15th. It will also be available on double LP exclusively through Bandcamp. Pick up a pre-order copy of Indie Game: The Movie: The Soundtrack today on Bandcamp and iTunes.

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May 5, 2012 at 2:15

‘Ballistic SE’ Review – Radiangames Takes on the Twin-Stick Shooter

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How many games does it take before you can call a developer a sure bet? Radiangames has been bringing its games to iOS like clockwork lately, and we’ve been impressed. Super Crossfire HD [ $2.99 ] and Fireball SE [ $1.99 ] are both excellent games that iterate on arcade classics, and the newest entry, Ballistic SE [ $1.99 ], also returns to a popular well: the twin-stick shooter. Like its predecessors, though, it’s a thoughtful take on the semi-stale genre. It makes up for familiarity with a heck of a lot of fun.

Ballistic SE has two big things going for it. It has a system of enhancements that let you customize your game every time you play (not unlike the Jetpack Joyride update that just landed), and it has ballistic mode, which is pretty much bullet time. Every time you fill up your ballistic meter, a button is primed. Everything slows down when you hit it: your ship, enemy orbs, even the music. As panic buttons go, it’s impressive and stylish.

The game also has a lot of amber. The color is everywhere: menus, interface elements, your ship, explosions, you name it. At the risk of dating myself, I used to play games on a monitor that looked like that; I don’t miss it. But there’s a method to this monochromatic madness. The amber is safe, your eyes drift over it. Every other color stands out, and those colors universally identify your enemies.

The enemy color coding is important enough that colorblind players might be at a disadvantage. The enemies are just orbs—some come in different sizes, but they all have the same general shape. But if you know what a given color does, you know whether an enemy is flying toward you or moving at random, whether it will dissolve before your guns or stand up to all fire. A firm grasp of the enemy colors is a good shortcut to survival.

Whether you’re playing Waves or Challenges, you’ve gotta survive. Waves pits you against ever-increasing waves of enemies, grinding you down over time. Challenges are a more vicious sort of play, with your choice of five pre-set combos of enemy types designed to take you out in short order. The one thing that can help stave off the inevitable? Your selection of enhancements.

Enhancements pretty much make the game. That’s not to say it isn’t good otherwise, but throw in enhancements and you essentially have a leveling mechanic that opens up a huge variety of play styles. You can speed up your ship, drop bombs in your wake, alter your shots, or speed up your ballistic meter. You can even pump points into your score multiplier if your confident that you don’t need any other boost more. It’s a fantastic little system.

Both modes give you access to enhancements, but they differ in how they present them. When playing a challenge you can pick ten enhancements right off the bat, and you’ll live or die by your choices from then on. In Waves mode you’re given a single enhancement point each time you hit a new level milestone. You power up over time based on your picks.

In practice, Ballistic SE plays out pretty simply. You have two sticks (with customizable positioning). One aims your guns, the other aims your ship. Standard twin-stick stuff. Aside from your ship there are three things on the field: enemies, of course, that come at you in waves, immovable bombs that destroy enemies when you hit them, and starbursts that increase your score multiplier. Deciding when it’s best to fly through the bombs is almost as important as learning to avoid and shoot down the enemy orbs. Knowing when to trigger your ballistic meter is another vital skill for long-term survival.

Long-term survival is, in fact, the name of the game. You get extra lives for hitting score milestones, so playing better means living longer and longer. The waves get ridiculous pretty quickly, but there’s salvation to be had with checkpoints that unlock after ever-increasing numbers of waves. You can restart from these checkpoints, but there’s a catch: the further in you start, the more your score will suffer. If you want to remain competitive on the Game Center leaderboards, you’ve gotta start from scratch.

None of these things are revolutionary; Ballistic SE doesn’t rewrite the twin stick shooter or bring us a brand new perspective on the genre. Instead, it’s an incredibly solid, well-balanced game that makes up in entertainment for what it skips in flash. Radiangames is carving out quite the niche on the App Store, and Ballistic SE does it proud.

App Store Link: Ballistic SE, $1.99 (Universal)

TouchArcade Rating:

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Written by admin

May 4, 2012 at 22:15

‘Brainsss’ Review – All We Wanna Do is Eat Your Brains; We’re Not Unreasonable

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Zombie games are still a big deal and it continues to blow my mind that this is the case. What hasn’t been done in a zombie game? Think about it. We’ve shot zombies and we’ve cut zombies. We’ve set zombies on fire. We’ve run over zombies and cured zombies and beat zombies with baseball bats. We’ve even participated as part of the horde in games like Valve’s Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. Over the last few years, there’s not much we haven’t done to or with zombies across multiple genres, including puzzle and even tower defense. This thought has crossed my mind several times: what can a brand new zombie game even offer outside of a slight twist on what we’ve done before?

And then Brainsss [$2.99] shambles along and shatters this idea in my head that zombie games are lame because there’s just nothing left to do in them that we haven’t done trillions of times in a billion different games. Brainsss offers something new in the space, and its core action is rich enough for me to give it a solid recommendation, despite cooling on this zombie … craze we’re still in.

Brainsss is a top-down strategy game where you control a horde of zombies on quests to assimilate people into your horde. In order to do this, you’ll need to treat the ever-growing horde like a fleet, splitting it up into pieces so you can trap victims spread across the game’s myriad of labyrinthine levels, which are often brimming with helpless survivors who are ready to bolt the second they see snarling beasts approaching. As you convert more people, you’ll be able to meaningfully split your horde into even more groups.

There are a few change of pace design elements that compliment the strategy. The “RAGE” meter in particular is hip. As you do damage, you’ll be able to enter into a berserk mode that ramps up your horde’s speed and intensity. On the other hand, the mission design is sharp, too. In one level, you might be stopping survivors from feeling to a helicopter. In others, you’re chomping on scientists who were incredibly fleet of foot before running into your horde. Another neat twist: Brainnsss also rocks NPCs that can harm your horde, like police officers and backyard pugilists that you have to disarm in specific ways.

Brainsss biggest problem is probably its habit of skewing casual. You’re not going to feel like you’re the smartest undead general ever while trapping dudes. The controls can be a bit spotty as well. To split your horde, you need to “paint” over part of it, and then point to a new location in the level. Grabbing a specific amount can be a hassle if your horde is bunched tightly. Otherwise, the point-and-paint controls are bliss: this is a game that feels like and operates like a game designed for iPad and iPhone.

If you’re still into zombie games, or just need to check another thing you’ve done with zombies off of your mental checklist, feel free to check this out. Brainnsss strategy and action feel pretty unique in a space that’s been done to undeath, and they probably really pop outside of this vacuum. I can dig it, at least.

App Store Link: Brainsss, $2.99 (Universal)

TouchArcade Rating:

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May 4, 2012 at 22:15

‘Mini Motor Racing’ Update Adds Online Multiplayer and More

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The Binary Mill’s Mini Motor Racing [$1.99 / Free / $3.99 (HD) / Free (HD)] was initially released late last year, and we liked it quite a bit in our review. It’s a slick little top-down arcade racer with some great visuals, an excellent soundtrack, and tons of content to play through.

In our review, we mentioned how much we hoped that the multiplayer mode, which initially was local only, eventually went online. Well, this recent update adds not only complete online multiplayer via Game Center, but also an entire new championship to race in. New cars have been added, a few tracks have been “remastered,” and there’s a number of other tweaks they threw in as well.

If you already own Mini Motor Racing, make sure you snag this update. If you were waiting on online multiplayer, well, it’s here, so get on it.

App Store Links:
    Mini Motor Racing, $1.99
    Mini Motor Racing LITE, Free
    Mini Motor Racing HD, $3.99 (iPad Only)
    Mini Motor Racing HD LITE, Free (iPad Only)

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May 4, 2012 at 22:15

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‘Omegapixel’ Review – Tacos, Pixels, Spaceships, and Free; What’s Not to Love?

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Do you like tacos? How about star fields, spaceships, and throwback games that trade polygons for pixels and full orchestras for beeps and bleeps that hearken back to the glory days of the Atari 2600? Developer Taco Graveyard serves up generous helpings of those elements and more (even the space tacos) in Omegapixel [ Free ], a fast and furious action game that throws in a fair bit of puzzle solving to keep you on your toes.

The first time you load a mission, Omegapixel might remind you a lot of Geometry Wars [ $0.99 ]. Using a virtual stick, you control a small space rig that zips around the cosmos and battles enemy ships. Unlike Geometry Wars, though, you barrel into enemies kamikaze-style instead of blasting them with lasers. While you’re floating like a butterfly and stinging like a battering ram with thrusters, enemies pour onto the screen in greater and greater numbers.

Enemy ships come in several varieties—some that make a beeline for you, others that converge on the pixel. On one stage, I flew around smashing into red ships that targeted the Omegapixel while blue pyramids followed my space vessel in tireless pursuit. Suddenly a vertical yellow line came sliding across the screen like a barcode scanner laser. If the line touched the pixel, I lost a life. Ignoring the red destroyers and blue pyramids for the moment, I flew to the far side of the yellow wall and tapped the lower right corner of the screen, which instantly swaps your location with the Omegapixel’s and vice versa. Teleporting put the pixel safely on the far side of the wall, but right in range of the red ships I’d let live to deal with the wall.

The key to victory lies in shielding the pixel from its enemies, while using it to shield you from yours. To get rid of the blue pyramids that zero in on my ship’s location, I had to lure them into the pixel’s fiery maw by either putting the pixel in between me and them, or waiting for them to draw close enough to touch before teleporting, which dumped the pixel right where I’d been drifting a second before. Easier said than done, especially with bouncers knocking the pixel every which way, red ships spiraling toward it, new purple walls that harmed me instead of the pixel sliding into view, and asteroids that, while harmless, distract you by stealing your attention away from real threats.

It’s stressful, but the kind of stress that leaves your senses crackling from adrenaline. Cobbling together a plan and pulling it off in a matter of moments never failed to invite a thrill of accomplishment. The game almost becomes more of a twitchy puzzler on later levels, forcing you to remain aware of the pixel’s location at all times and pull each enemy type from your memory log the moment it comes into view so you can react to the new threat appropriately.

As you play, you’ll collect credits you can use to deck out your ship: explosive teleports, extra armor plating, defense mechanisms for the Omegapixel, a line of energy that flares between you and the pixel when you teleport, incinerating anything it touches. You can earn credits the old-fashioned way by clearing Story and Arcade missions, picking up credit packs that randomly appear during play, or just drop real money on IAP credit packs and splurge on upgrades.

Like all games that control with virtual sticks, Omegapixel’s controls suffers from minor virtual-stick touchiness, but my fried reflexes cost me more missions than occasionally spot controls. Other than said spottiness and grating music (the sound effects are the right kind of bleepy retro, but the soundtrack, which you can disable, sounds like an 8-bit game that froze right in the middle of a high chord) Omegapixel is a ton of fun, and especially shouldn’t be missed at its current price of free.

App Store Link: Omegapixel, Free (Universal)

TouchArcade Rating:

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May 4, 2012 at 22:15

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Long Awaited Sequel ‘Defender Chronicles II: Heroes of Athelia’ is On the Horizon

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The original Defender Chronicles [ $1.99 ] launched in the summer of 2009 and offered a unique take on tower defense with its vertically designed levels and inclusion of RPG elements. We thought it was great in our review and we even picked it as a top strategy game of 2009. Since that time Defender Chronicles developer Gimka has been hard at work on a sequel, and at long last the game is nearly upon us.

Gimka has recently posted some information about Defender Chronicles 2 in our forums, and based on some comments there from beta testers the sequel is even better than the original. It’s set to include 4 new heroes, 32 new abilities, 4 factions and 57 different units. There will also be a whole slew of new items and equipment to play around with, and the maps in Defender Chronicles 2 will be bigger and longer than in the previous game. Finally, it will be a Universal app with Retina Display support.

Click through the following screens provided by Gimka that introduce some of the characters in the game.

Unfortunately, one thing we don’t know about Defender Chronicles 2 just yet is a specific release date, but we’ve been assured that it’s coming relatively soon. Next week some additional information as well as a new trailer will be released, and we’ll be looking to get our hands on the game early to check it out. Keep your eyes peeled for more on Defender Chronicles 2 in the very near future.

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May 4, 2012 at 18:15

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‘The King of Fighters-i 2012′ Review – One of the Best iOS Fighters, Now with New Characters and Online Play

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It was in July of last year that SNK Playmore brought their classic fighting game franchise to iOS with The King of Fighters-i [ $4.99 ], and it was the only game that could really stand up to the then current standard for touch screen fighters Street Fighter IV [ $4.99 ], and in many ways it even exceeded it. Which series you prefer is largely a personal preference thing, but I always felt that The King of Fighters-i edged out Street Fighter IV in overall quality and playability.

The problem was that by the time The King of Fighters-i hit the App Store, the superior sequel to Street Fighter IV had already been out for a month. It was called Street Fighter IV Volt [ $6.99 ] and it came packing everything that made the original game so great plus additional characters, new features, and most importantly online multiplayer. The online matchmaking worked surprisingly well in Volt, and despite The King of Fighters-i being absolutely fantastic it was still just a single player- or Bluetooth multiplayer-only game, and online battling was the new hotness.

Now nearly a year later SNK Playmore is taking a page out of the Volt handbook with the just-released The King of Fighters-i 2012 [ $6.99 ]. This latest entry in the iOS KOF series contains everything from the first game that was great in addition to – much like the release of Volt – new characters, new features, and online WiFi multiplayer. Since basically everything from the first game is included in the 2012 edition, you might want to read our original review of KOF-i as well as the details of its extensive update to get the nitty gritty on the game.

As for what’s improved in The King of Fighters-i 2012, for starters the roster has been significantly expanded from 20 playable characters to 32. Art of Fighting, Psycho Soldier, Kim and Ikari are the 4 new teams of 3 that make up the new additions. Also, there are 2 more characters – Nests-style Kyo and Classic Iori – available as DLC for $1.99 each. These are alternate versions of existing characters, and they’re certainly entirely optional purchases, but it will be interesting to see if more characters end up coming down the road and if they’ll be paid or as a part of free updates.

The single player part of the game includes everything that was in last year’s version: an arcade ladder in 3v3 team battles or 1v1 flavors, an endless survival mode, and an excellent training mode. The lengthy Challenge mode from the original game returns, with some new challenges thrown in for good measure. A brand new single player addition to KOF-i 2012 is a Time Attack mode. Here you must battle through 10 straight opponents as quickly as possible, with a Game Center leaderboard tracking your best overall time.

Time Attack is a nice addition to an already great single player offering in The King of Fighters-i 2012, but that’s not why we’re here. We came for the multiplayer. Naturally, the Bluetooth local multiplayer mode from the original game made its way into 2012, and remains a fine option for squaring off against a buddy in your same vicinity. However, the real draw in the new online WiFi multiplayer mode.

The online portion for KOF-i 2012 works about how you might expect if you’re familiar with Volt – that is, it’s pretty good but not great. Naturally there is a bit of lag at times, but nothing too earth-shattering. Finding a match can also take a long time but I imagine that will clear up a lot as more people get the game. When talking about real-time multiplayer on a mobile device like the iPhone, it’s hard to expect perfection. For what it is the online matchmaking in KOF-i 2012 is really fun for people who get tired of fighting against the CPU all the time. With the right expectations, it really is a killer feature of the new game.

So, with a large portion of The King of Fighters-i 2012 being nearly identical to last year’s release, whether or not you should buy this new edition will hinge on how important new characters and online play is to you. With a whopping 12 new fighters added to the roster, I think it’s worth upgrading just for that, and people in our forums are totally digging the new version too. Along with a decent online offering and KOF-i 12 is likely a worthy upgrade for fans of iOS fighters. One thing is for sure though, Street Fighter IV Volt now has some serious competition, and it looks like the future is pretty bright for fighting games on the App Store.

App Store Link: THE KING OF FIGHTERS-i 2012., $6.99

TouchArcade Rating:

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Written by admin

May 4, 2012 at 2:15

‘Ski Safari’ Review – An Endless Runner With Style

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We’ve had our share of decent endless runners lately, and Defiant Development’s Ski Safari [ $0.99 ], looks to continue that trend. With adorable graphics, great controls, and a decent amount of content, hits all the right notes for the genre and should be checked out.

Ski Safari challenges you to last as long as you can against an impending avalanche while you race down an eternal slope. In order to accomplish this, you’ll need to build up your speed (and score multiplier) and keep it up as long as possible. You can gain speed by performing a wide variety of tricks or by picking up ‘vehicles’ that range from penguins and yetis to hawks to even a snowmobile. Of course, several types of obstacles (rocks, ski cabins, e.t.c.) stand in your way to slow you down. It’s an interesting system that plays out like a constant tug-of-war between you and the never-ending avalanche. In some ways, the speed system is a bit vaguer than other endless runners but I think it adds to the tension and enjoyment.

Of course, Ski Safari wouldn’t offer much in the replayability department if it only offered a simple race against inevitability. Thankfully, a decent objective/leveling system similar to the likes of Jetpack Joyride is always in play, offering nice distractions during the race. Completing sets of missions raises your rank and multiplier, allowing you to gain more points (and speed). While the mission system doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the table, it’s still a welcome addition.

Like many endless runners, Ski Safari’s controls are a simple mixture of taps and holds. A quick tap will have your skier jump while holding down on the screen starts a backflip. Your backflip speed depends a lot on your velocity and vehicle, adding a bit to the strategy of whether or not to actually start a move. The control scheme definitely hits the mark for being accessible while offering just enough potential for strategy to keep you coming back.

You’ll notice that once you get the hang of the gameplay runs can take quite a bit of time (relatively speaking) before they get hard. However, I don’t really see this as an issue as there are plenty of objectives to complete while you’re skiing and the ever-increasing multiplier means that you’ll eventually be able to reach those higher scores faster.

I’m a fan of Ski Safari’s lighthearted and playful presentation. Everything from the initial runs while asleep in bed to the mischievous music and cartoony visuals just illicit an amusing feeling. This continues with the pun-filled trick names and animal/vehicle companions. Obviously competent gameplay is an important facet for endless runners, but having well executed presentation goes a long way towards keeping me coming back. Thankfully, Ski Safari succeeds in all those aspects.

There are a few minor issues that I think keep Ski Safari from elite status. I really would have liked to see some sort of in-game use for all the coins you collect in a run. Even if it only offered cosmetic changes, an in-game shop goes a long way towards replayability. For that matter, while Ski Safari does a great job with its randomly generated runs, I hope that scenery changes are in the works for future updates. I really love the vehicle system and hope to see more options as well.

Still, Ski Safari definitely deserves to be put into the upper echelon of endless runners. The great presentation, well-implemented control scheme and overall enjoyable gameplay simply lead to a game worth playing. If you’re looking for the next great (and cute) endless runner, look no further and check out Ski Safari.

App Store Link: Ski Safari, $0.99 (Universal)

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]


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May 4, 2012 at 2:15

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