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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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It’s a Thursday on the App Store which is as just as good of a reason as any to set your games’ prices to free if you’re an iOS developer, or, at least, so it would seem. It sort of goes without saying, but due to the volatile nature of pricing on the App Store, you better grab these games now if you’re interested in them. Few things are more annoying in the world of iOS gaming than missing a killer freebie.

Get your downloading finger ready:

Beyond Ynth, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – An absolutely fantastic puzzle game where you play as a little ladybug doing your best to survive each level, often by rotating curiously sectioned off boxes. Do not miss this game while it’s free. If you want to give it a go on your iPad, there’s Beyond Ynth HD [ $0.99 (HD)], too.

Braveheart, Free – [Forum Thread] – You probably have a lot of games on your iPhone, but how many of those games have you searching for the Holy Grail? (Not many, I’d guess.) You’ll hack and slash your way through all sorts of normal monsters, boss monsters, and other monsters. If you’re looking for the iPad version, Braveheart HD [ Free (HD)] is what you seek.

Escape The Ape, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This jumping game puts you to the task of drawing lines to create trampolines for JoJo the monkey to bounce on. While it looks simple, gameplay is deceptively deep especially when you start reaching higher altitudes and need to work harder to collect power ups.

Fish Tycoon, Free – [Forum Thread] – I’m including this game in the list because these dumb Tycoon games are responsible for soaking up countless hours of my time, going all the way back to my Palm Treo 650 days. Or, before that, now that I think about it. …And now, fair reader, I place this curse upon you.

Highway Rider, Free – [Forum Thread] – Have you ever been sitting in traffic when some dude on a motorcycle recklessly lane splits you at what seems like a million miles an hour? Well, in Highway Rider, you can be that jerk. The point system even encourages it, in fact.

Swordigo, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – A side scrolling action RPG that is just fantastic. Imagine if you took something like Zelda II and released it in 2012, that’d be Swordigo. Download it. Play it. Love it. Trust me.

Towers N’ Trolls, Free – [Forum Thread] – I love tower defense games, you love tower defense games, and this is a tower defense game. It’s a pretty good one too, so if you haven’t scratched that whole laying out towers and murdering creeps itch in a while, here’s your chance.

Trigonon, Free – [Forum Thread] – The gimmick of this puzzle game is that it takes place in the factory of your mind. Your thoughts are represented by steel spheres, and you’ve got to get them out. Seems reasonable, and looks cool.

Vermes on Mars, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – An interesting shooter where you control a small squad of robots (which are all upgradeable). You position them, and tap to target. It takes place on Mars, and your enemies are worms. The control scheme is worth giving this game a try.

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Behind the scenes, 5 Ants‘ astoundingly gorgeous point-and-click stealth and adventure hybrid continues to grow from what we saw at GDC this year. In a recent conversation with us, a rep from the new Barcelona-based studio revealed three new levels, each of which is zanier than the last. Below, you can view what we saw: a camp, a candy store, and a robot.

One paper these things definitely don’t go together and we’re thinking that’s kind of the point. 5 Ants is embracing and expanding on the charm and absurdity of Tiny Thief, and these things are starting to get expressed in more than just character and scenario design. We couldn’t be more pumped after viewing these, but there’s still a wait ahead of us. Tiny Thief isn’t scheduled to hit iPad until later this summer.

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We didn’t think it’d take long for former Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling to find work after leaving Activision last month, but we didn’t anticipate that he’d be employing himself. In an exclusive with Game Informer digital on Monday, Bowling revealed the formation of his own studio, Robotoki. He also announced that his new digs will be pumping out titles for console and PC, as well as phones and tablets.

“As a developer, our focus is on creating a universe first, experiences second, and game mechanics last, “ Bowling told GI. “With focus being on universe, we aim to create experiences that transcend platforms and genres and allow our players to connect to our world, their characters, and gameplay via any medium: console, PC, or mobile.

“However, how they experience the world is unique to their device. The mobile / tablet experience should not mimic the console or PC experience, it should be additive to it, not supplemental. Allowing them to support their console and PC experience, continue their progression, but by experiencing the world in a meaningful and unique way.”

Bowling’s vision for the mobile space sounds like a dream. We haven’t seen any game with the level of integration that he’s suggesting his titles will have. Also, we don’t see a lot of companion apps functioning as more than a database. This space has a lot of room to grow, so it’ll be interesting to see what Robotoki does.

Robotoki will be funding its own projects, by the way. And we’ll catch a glimpse of its first title by the end of this year. It’s currently slated for next-gen consoles, iOS, and Android.

[via Game Informer]

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Late last year, iOS game developer Two Lives Left released Codea [ $9.99 (HD)]. Originally known as Codify, Codea offered developers everything they needed to rapidly prototype an iPad game… On an actual iPad. Codea has come a long way since then, and today, the first game developed entirely inside of the app has been released.

Cargo-Bot [ Free (HD)] is a puzzle game where players program a robot to move crates around. 36 levels in all are included, there’s a 3 star grading system, and you can even record solutions to upload them to YouTube.

Cargo-Bot is free, and worth a look to see what’s possible inside of Codea. According to the Cargo-Bot site, the Codea Xcode Template used to convert the Codea files into an actual game that can be submitted to Apple will be released soon. Neat!

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PlayGround States logo, as it appears on Facebook.

“It’s been an amazing experience,” Double Fine founder Tim Schafer told fans via a live stream that celebrated the closing moments of Double Fine Adventure’s success on Kickstarter. The project generated over three million dollars worth of donations in a month. Double Fine had asked for $400,000. It wasn’t just amazing. It was magical.

Not every studio sees this kind of outcome. Lead artist and the brains behind Playground State, Barry Collins, is walking us through what his studio looks like, and what has happened to his game, after his project failed to receive funding.

Playground State was founded two years ago by Barry and his brother Brad to explore and express the ideas that Barry has had floating around in his head since childhood. If you look closely at its web site, you’ll notice that there’s no physical address. It’s just a collective “willing people” across the globe coming together to build a series of sci-fi titles called Knights. A PC title called Knights: Spiral Islands was to be the first.

Spiral Island became a known project thanks to Kickstarter and a warm reception by PC enthusiast web site Rock, Paper, Shotgun, which featured it in an editorial in February 2011. Spiral Island is described as an episodic online action-adventure game in which you, as a knight in the game’s sci-fi universe, battle evil across the cosmos. Its hook, outside of its UDK visuals, is its lack of boundaries: in one mission, you’ll be hacking and shooting Vikings, in others space bees, mushroom zombies, robots, and large crabs.

Concept art of a playable Knight. You'll see other Knights in the upcoming preview game.

It has the look and feel of something incredible, especially if it were to be expanded as planned. Spiral Island was pitched to potential donors as game design in motion, as it would have seamlessly integrated new scenarios and enemies in a constant steam.

For whatever reason, it didn’t receive sufficient support. The Kickstarter effort ended with a thud later that April. Playground was looking for $10,000. A hair over $1,500 was pledged across 36 serial donators. One pledger, for example, has backed 48 other projects.

It’s easy to see this as a knockout shot, but to Barry, it’s just a glancing blow, and now the team is looking to iOS and its vast audience to continue.

“The lack of funds was frustrating, but it didn’t really kill our ambitions or desire to make this work,” Barry tells TouchArcade. In the ultimate show of confidence, the studio grew. It picked up an artist, a musician, a sound designer, and a couple of programmers following the failed attempt at funding.

That Playground is reacting in the exact opposite way you’d expect isn’t lost on Barry, and he explains that the reason is tied into how deeply his core team believes in what the studio is trying to accomplish.

“It’s our baby,” Barry tell us. “Amazingly, after maybe an hour or two of rambling with the various team members, they all irrevocably become hooked on the concept and what it has to offer, and slowly but surely begin to own it. Right now we have a team of guys all on the same page and all excited about the small steps as much as the bigger one that will come later — Knights as a whole.”

The crab monster we originally fell in love with, but now fewer polygons for mobile.

While the team grew, so did Knights. It’s now more than a game: it’s a series of mobile titles based in the same universe that spans multiple platforms and genres. Barry has an idea for several projects, some of which are in early stages of development. The most important is an Epic Citadel-like preview title, built specifically for iOS to show off what his team can do.

But even though the team is growing and excited about the games Barry wants to make, it has a horrible issue: it’s hemorrhaging programmers. It can’t keep one on staff, and this is putting a kink in the size and scope of the Knights games Barry wants to make. Barry says they’re in a spiral of simplification, as no one has the expertise to implement complex content into builds. The lack of a revenue stream is undoubtedly one of the culprits here. It’s also the reason why it’s bothering with a showcase project in the first place, and opening its doors for outsourcing work.

“This constant tug of war is what pushed us to our current goals of producing a very basic, free to download visual demo — a means of walking around a crazy environment full of eye candy and talking to basic scripted actors within the world. This will lay the ground work for follow-up episodes to come afterwords,” Barry tells us.

That Knights is blowing up, too, isn’t lost on Barry. He says this game has two goals: to nab exposure and be a launching board. Barry believes it’ll generate new ideas for future Knights games, and argues that the scope in this game is much more manageable than the one he put out there with Spiral Island.

This is how Playground wants to tackle on-screen FPS controls.

Another game is another iPhone and iPad-specific title called Knights: Arena. This is also a victim of the rotunda of programmers cycling through the studio. It’s an FPS that revolves solely around online play: team deathmatch, capture the flag, and so on. Barry, with a lengthy Internet sigh capping off what he tells us about Arena, says the studio’s goal is to establish a revenue stream as quickly as possible. It needs to hire at least one, dedicated programmer. “But that in itself is a Catch 22,” he says. “Need a programmer to make revenue, need revenue to get a programmer.”

Playground State’s ability to keep its legs churning in the mud seems unreal, but it’s a human reaction. With a teeth-gnashing kind of pride, Barry plans to continue marching on beyond his studio’s funding failure. He doesn’t just want to make games — he wants to see his dreams realized.

“I don’t quite know how we managed to grow in quality, strength, and numbers. Faith in Knights among the team is stronger than ever today, despite everything,” he tells us.

“Knights is one of many projects I dream of making. So this is the blood, sweat, tears part of paving the way to eventually being able to produce these with a real budget and fully paid team. This is it. This is what I love. It’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

That’s why Barry is up for using Kickstarter again. He has at least two in the works right now. One is for an extensive indie bundle that features developers in the Vancouver area. The other is for Knights: Arena or a single-player variant of that idea, which he wants to launch “at the same time that we launch the free demo, so people can see or play it and discover it that way.”

Barry talks about Knights: Spiral Island in his Kickstarter promo.

Spiral Island’s crowd-funding failure didn’t come without costs in terms of people and revenue. There were lessons learned, though. The first was scalability. “No need to come out of the gate with a massive universe to embark on hundreds of small stories in other universes. A single story is good enough, or if finances and or programming get in the way, as we are discovering, there are still options,” he tells us.

“We did not go into this expecting it to be quick and easy, and it has not been quick or easy either,” he says.

And let’s say these Kickstarters don’t pan out? Barry isn’t worried. “We will keep pushing along until we are earning revenue on our own, find the right investment deal or get the attention of a publisher that wants to work with us.”

“But no matter what, this project will see the light of day, and as a series of mobile games to start.”

Towards the end of our Barry conversation, we pressed “pause” so we could ask what makes him so idealistic. His vision for these Knights games still seems almost too ambitious considering the lack of funding. The risk of what will happen if these ideas die could be monumental to the studio’s future and Barry. These games are the realization of his dreams, after all.

Honu are a species you'll be able to talk to in a preview. Here's one in a warrior outfit.

“Knights in general is an extremely ambitious concept,” he says. “It started big and the scope of the games we want to tell based in this setting have been cut back for the sake of getting something to market sooner. “

“The concept of Knights being so grand just means we always have room to grow. We realize that we may only ever produce the Knights preview or only ever get as far as Knights: Arena because there’s a real possibility that Knights is lame and we are all crazy people working away on an idea nobody else likes. “

“For me this would just be a continuation of exactly what I have done for 11 years, which is to just hire myself out to whatever studio wants to pay me, and doing so in mass with others is old hat. The grind of tracking down clients and deadlines, milestones, massive delays in payment and so on… it’s all a part of the job. But, Knights, to me, is a way out of this, to finally get all the ideas my brother and I have been brewing up for decades. It’s time we produce things we want rather than the things that pay the bills.”

Barry says that he likes to focus on what could happen with some success. He could hire programmers, no more lost time on contract projects, and the people he’s surrounded by could be supported.

“I just really hope people want to play a game about the Knights — the ultimate saviors of all things, the definition of heroic. Not a bad bone in their bodies, watching them take on any bad guy we can dream up and throw at them, across all history in any universe and time. I really want to play that game.”

When a Kickstarter fails, it’s not necessarily a catalyst for disaster. Barry is idealistic, and maybe too ambitious, but he’s not a quitter. He’ll keep creating. The success of Double Fine was magical, but the intensity of at least one man who didn’t win big is special, too.

While Barry’s story stands on its own, we are covering something larger here. This is part one of a two-part series of articles. In the next, we’ll introduce you to three more studios who haven’t had the greatest experience on Kickstarter. We’ll also discuss why we don’t normally cover games on the service and why we’re not certain of the long-term viability of crowd-funding sources like Kickstarter.

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Hero Academy [Free] is now a Universal app. Last week, Robot Entertainment spilled the beans on the update, confirming its existence and detailing one of the more exciting additions: a new team called “the Tribe.” It also announced the inclusion of a new game board and two new mechanics that accompany its arrival: barbed crystals and Resist boost squares. Lead designer Marcin Szymanski breaks down why these are important to the game on its blog:

Barbed Crystals are quite a departure from our board designs, giving the units responsible for our victory condition a way to fire at the enemy! We actually started off with some passive boosts for crystals on this board, such as innate damage reflection, but the active ability easily won out in playtesting. And, the new Resist boost premium square complements the Defense boosts that is already in place on other boards. On paper, it is a small change, but it actually changes various match-ups quite significantly.

This update isn’t without the usual glut of fixes and balancing tweaks. Robot has laid out everything on its blog, so if you’re into the nitty-gritty, go check it out. Also, take note that this version of the game now has an “undo” mechanic. Starting now, you can undo a single action with a tap of the AP wheel. Neat!

Hero Academy, by the way, is a fantastic turn-based strategy game. If you haven’t picked it up alongside most of the known world, you should. Our review is available for your reading pleasure here.

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We told you back in February that the newly-formed development studio Ninth Ninja in connection with Pom Pom Games was busy porting the popular PC title Mutant Storm to the iOS platform. Mutant Storm, in case you didn’t know, is a Robotron-esque arcade shooter that originally released for PC and Mac but is probably more widely known for its enhanced re-release as an Xbox Live Arcade title back in 2005 under the name Mutant Storm Reloaded.

While Mutant Storm coming to the App Store is exciting enough in and of itself, yesterday we learned via Twitter that Crescent Moon Games has jumped on board to publish the title. Also revealed is that Mutant Storm is running at 60 frames per second on the new iPad, and digging into the game’s forum thread developer Ninth Ninja goes into even more detail stating that it runs at 60fps on the iPad 2 and a respectable 30fps on the original iPad.

Considering how many crazy graphical effects can get going in Mutant Storm, that’s pretty darn good, and for new iPad owners the iOS version of the game will use the high resolution assets from the PC game to take advantage of the Retina Display screen. You can actually see comparison shots of the game at normal iPad resolution on the left and the Retina Display resolution of the new iPad on the right.

Mutant Storm for iOS is in the final stages of development, so it shouldn’t be much longer before the final version hits. Hit up the forums for some discussion and keep your eyes on this space for any more news related to the impending release of Mutant Storm on the App Store.

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Robot Entertainment told us that it wanted to support iPad and new iPad with a Hero Academy [Free] update, and it wasn’t pulling our collective tail. This morning, the talented developer announced that a Universal update, which will also support the high-resolution display on the new iPad, is coming “soon.”

In even better news, a new team called the Tribe is coming soon as well. Robot describes these guys as brutes: “powerful and ruthless, the Tribe are aggressive warriors that are always on the attack,” the announcement reads. A convenient class-by-class breakdown of this upcoming team is available on Robot Entertainment’s blog. We’re most impressed by the Warrior. This little green sweetie can instantly KO any wounded enemy unit under 50 percent health.

If we had to guess a date for these releases, we’re guessing April 8th-ish. Robot notes that it’ll be showing off a Universal build during PAX East. It’s hard to imagine that the official release version won’t appear during or soon after the event. We’ll see, though.

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