Archive for the ‘sale’ tag
‘Babylonian Twins’ for iPhone, iPad On Sale
Last week we took a look at Rabah Shihab's excellent platformer Babylonian Twins, a game 16 years in the making, and very much liked what we saw in both the iPhone and iPad versions. Now is a great time to give the game a try, as the developer has just put both versions of Babylonian Twins on sale through the end of the weekend.
Babylonian Twins [App Store] is now $0.99, down from $3.99, while Babylonian Twins HD [App Store] is on sale for $1.99, down from $4.99.
Not liking the way his home country, Iraq, was being portrayed in video games at the time, Shihab began development of the title with the goal of countering that negative image. While he did manage to release a well-loved demo of the game for the Amiga (the original platform), the harsh conditions caused by the economic sanctions of Iraq at the time left the game hanging in semi-complete obscurity for years. Luckily for iPhone gamers, the developer has brought Babylonian Twins — both a port and a re-imagination of the Amiga original — to the iPhone.
App Store Links: Babylonian Twins, $0.99, Babylonian Twins HD, $1.99
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Square Enix Running Two-Week Sale on All Games
Yesterday we posted our close look at the excellent RPG Chaos Rings [App Store], an iPhone exclusive and the latest from Square Enix. In celebration of the release of this new title, the studio today began a two week sale on all of their games.
- Final Fantasy, $8.99 → $6.99 [ review ]
- Final Fantasy II, $8.99 → $6.99 [ review ]
- Crystal Defenders, $7.99 → $5.99 [ review ]
- Vanguard Storm, $4.99 → $3.99 [ review ]
- Sliding Heroes, $2.99 → $.99
- Hills and Rivers Remain, $6.99 → $4.99 [ review ]
- Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes – Encore, $9.99 → $7.99 [ review ]
- Final Fantasy XIII Larger-than-Life Gallery, $8.99 → $5.99
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Live Bloggin’ The Apple iPhone OS 4.0 Keynote
Apple's surprise media event unveiling the iPhone OS 4.0 is set to begin shortly. We'll be providing live updates, and focusing on things that specifically pertain to iPhone gaming or things iPhone gamers might be interested in like all of our other keynote coverage in the past.
Steve Jobs just took the stage, and started things out by talking about the sales figures of the iPad. On Saturday they sold 300,000, and as of today they've sold 450,000. Apple apparently is making them as fast as they can, but notes that Best Buy is already out of stock. On the first day, 1 million paid apps were downloaded, and since then 3.5 million have been. (In addition to 600,000 eBooks.)
Photo courtesy of .
Jobs also mentions that there are over 185,000 apps in the App Store, with over 3,500 iPad apps. He then took some time to show off the more impressive iPad apps in the App Store currently such as the ABC app, Netflix, the Marvel comic book reader, and others. Shifting gears to talk about the iPhone, Steve mentions they've won three JD Power awards for customer satisfaction, and currently holds 64% of the mobile browser market share. Apple has sold over 50 million iPhones, with 85 million combined devices between the iPod touch and iPhone.
iPhone OS 4.0 is coming this summer, with a developer preview available today.
Photo courtesy of .
Photo courtesy of .
Among the seven "tent pole" features of iPhone OS 4.0 is multitasking. Steve goes on to demonstrate how multitasking is going to work. With multiple apps running, double clicking the home button raises a window that looks a lot like the bottom dock of the iPhone showing what apps are running. Tapping an icon instantly switches to that app.
Photo courtesy of .
To explain how this all works while preserving battery life and performance, Steve hands things off to Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone Software. iPhone OS 4.0 will provide seven multitasking services. The first of which is audio streaming, and Forstall specifically cites Pandora as an example of an app that will shine with this functionality. Developing applications to utilize this functionality is apparently extremely easy, as it only took the Pandora developers a day to make the app background aware. Skype also works fantastically with this new functionality, even allowing you to accept calls while running in the background.
Doodle Jump spotted:
Photo courtesy of .
The next multitasking function is background location. Apps that use the GPS functionality such as TomTom will be able to continue routing while in the background. This raises obvious privacy concerns, and a new settings menu will be available to enable and disable location services per application, as well as showing a small arrow icon next to the battery indicator.
Moving on to push notifications, Forstall mentions they've sent over 10 billion notifications since the service went live. Building on push notifications comes local notifications, done entirely on the phone to see alerts from apps you have running in the background. One example mentioned was a popup when a photo was finished uploading to Flickr.
Photo courtesy of .
Steve takes the stage again and announces folders to organize apps. The interface seems an awful lot like the various jailbreak app organization solutions. So far Apple is really knocking it out of the park with this keynote.
Photo courtesy of .
The iPhone mail client is also getting enhanced, with a unified inbox for each email account on the device along with a threaded email view for reading conversations. Unsurprisingly, the iPhone is also getting the iBooks app which will sync pages and bookmarks with other devices that have the app.
Forstall just announced "Game Center", Apple's own gaming social networking service that seems to handle everything Plus+, OpenFeint, and others do with presumably one unified login tied to your iTunes account. Matchmaking, leaderboards, and achievements are all part of it.
Photo courtesy of .
Also mentioned was Apple's own iAd advertisement services, which we expect to see making appearances in many free games that have historically relied on AdMob and other advertising networks.
iPhone OS 4.0 will be coming this fall, and sadly, multitasking will not be supported for the iPhone 3G and second generation iPod touch. That's it folks, Steve is taking questions now.
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Hands on Video of ‘ESPGALUDA II’- That Bullet Hell Game
It seems like I just wrote about this game a few days ago but we have some more information to share with you. Just in case you don’t remember, ESPGALUDA II is a bullet hell shooter from Cave, the leader in creating games of this type. Our forums have been since it was first announced. If you watch the new game play video we have below you will see why.
The official word on the release date is April 10th, 2010 with an introductory sale price of $4.99. The normal price is going to be set at $8.99. There will also be a lite version so you can see if you can handle bullet hell games before you buy. Also worth mentioning is, the game will only run on the iPhone 3GS and the 3rd generation iPod Touch. I can't wait for this one to come out.
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EA Holds Massive Spring Sale
In celebration of Spring, EA has discounted a number of their games until April 5th. The list includes a wide range of titles included below:
- The Simpsons Arcade – $0.99
- Spore Creatures – $1.99
- Madden NFL 10 – $4.99
- NBA Live – $4.99
- Spore Origins – $0.99
- Dragon's Lair – $2.99
- Monopoly (Classic) – $2.99
- Scrabble – $2.99
- Trivial Pursuit – $2.99
- Battleship $1.99
- Boggle – $0.99
- Connect 4 – $1.99
- The Game of Life – $1.99
- Yahtzee Adventures – $1.99
- American Idol $0.99
- <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/anytime-pool/id310787099
- Clue – $0.99
- Mass Effect Galaxy – $0.99
- Star Trek – $0.99
- Wolfenstein RPG – $0.99
- Snood – $0.99
- Mystery Mania – $0.99
?mt=8">Anytime Pool – $0.99
The sale lasts through the weekend until April 5th.
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‘Tilt to Live’ Getting New Game Modes in April
One of our favorite games this month was One Man Left's Tilt to Live, a fast paced object avoidance game that has also been getting feedback in our forums.
The game is presently on sale for only $0.99, so if you haven't picked it up yet, now's your chance. Riding on their early success. has revealed to us that they are planning a couple of additional game modes for Tilt to Live that will be arriving in April. The new modes are described here:
Code Red
Rather than guiding players along a polite difficulty curve, we’re chucking them off a difficulty cliff with Code Red mode. This gametype is best described as “Classic mode on crack”. Everything from Classic is there, but the red dots will spawn at their highest intensity right from the start. It’s tailor-made for experienced players that “just wanna get to the good part”, without enduring the buildup.
Gauntlet Mode
Run the Gauntlet to put your precision tilting skills to the test! In Gauntlet mode, players compete for the longest survival time rather than highscores or combos. Enemies waves will no longer relentlessly chase you. Instead, the dots work together to form an increasingly difficult treadmill course of smashers, battle axes, windmills, and more. It’s an entirely new gameplay experience! The difficulty curve will be comparable to our original gametype, a crescendo from manageable to kick-your-butt. Early dot obstacles and gameplay will be showcased in our teaser video, and even more sinister twists are in development as we speak.
Meanwhile, this video shows Gauntlet in action:
One Man Left promises more game modes, awards and weapons in future versions of the game. If you haven't picked this one up yet, we still highly recommend it.
App Store Link: Tilt to Live, $0.99
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Freebie Friday & Game Sales: ‘Earth Vs Moon’, ‘Transformers’, Gameloft Games & Others
I'm still kind of stunned it's already Friday, after GDC madness last week and playing catch up this week I'm not even sure where all the time went. Regardless, we missed our sales and freebies post this week, so I've dug up an extra helping of freebies in attempt to make amends this week. As always, the standard iTunes price change disclaimer is in effect. These prices are all current as of Friday afternoon, but due to the nature of the App Store are subject to change at any time. If you've got your eye on one or more of these games, you're probably better off grabbing them ASAP.
Earth Vs Moon, 99¢ → FREE
Quite possibly one of the best missile command spinoffs on the App Store, we loved Earth Vs Moon in our review, and since then it has only gotten better with updates. This one has been free for a few days now, and likely will return to normal price any time now, so grab it while you still can… And if you miss the free promotion, it's still totally worth a buck if you haven't heard of it before.
Other notable freebies include:
- Crazy Turkey Blast, 99¢ → FREE
- DJ Jones, 99¢ → FREE
- Kaloki Adventure, $1.99 → FREE
- My Brute, $3.99 → FREE
- TowerMadness, $2.99 → FREE
As far as game sales are concerned, a few Gameloft games were recently dropped to 99¢. I've had a good time playing through all of these, so if you don't own them yet, I can think of worse ways to spend $5:
- Blades of Fury, $4.99 → 99¢
- Dungeon Hunter, $4.99 → 99¢
- Earthworm Jim, $4.99 → 99¢
- Real Soccer 2010, $4.99 → 99¢
- Skater Nation, $4.99 → 99¢
And of course, there are a ton of other games with recent price drops:
- 2012 Zombies vs Aliens, $1.99 → 99¢
- Across Age, $6.99 → $5.99
- Alien Glyphs, $3.99 → $2.99
- Azkend, $4.99 → $2.99
- Battle for Wesnoth, $4.99 → $2.99
- Boom Brigade, $3.99 → $1.99
- Doodle Bomb, $1.99 → 99¢
- Dragon Portals, $4.99 → $2.99
- Electric Box, $1.99 → 99¢
- Fighting Fantasy: Deathtrap Dungeon, $2.99 → $1.99
- Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, $2.99 → $1.99
- Geared, $2.99 → 99¢
- Hottie Hookups, $1.99 → 99¢
- Occurro!, $1.99 → 99¢
- ReBounce, $1.99 → 99¢
- Tall Bike Joust, $2.99 → 99¢
- Thumpies, $2.99 → 99¢
- TRANSFORMERS G1: AWAKENING, $4.99 → $2.99
There are many other games with recent price changes, and you can see a listing of and on sale over on AppShopper. Stay tuned for more freebies and sales next week, same bat time, same bat channel.
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Friday Game Sales: Tons of Freebies, ‘Cobra Command’, and Most Square Enix Games on Sale
Hey what do you know it's Friday and once again we've got a huge list of games that are on sale and free. As usual, because of the nature of iTunes pricing, these can change at any time. All prices are current as of this posting, but if you've had your eye on any of these games you're better off not waiting around because you never know when they'll return to normal price.
One game you should really check out while it's on sale is Revolutionary Concepts' Cobra Command [$4.99 → $1.99], especially if you've never played an old laserdisc game. We enjoyed the game in our review and even included it in our year end listing of best retro games.
There's also a free version of the game and to celebrate their one year anniversary, Revolutionary Concepts is also making the two games developed by their sister studio Collect3 free as well: SNAP! and Animal SNAP!.
To promote the launch of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II, Square Enix dropped the price of most of their other games. They haven't drastically slashed prices, but if you've been looking to pick up some of these games, Square Enix sales are fairly rare:
- CRYSTAL DEFENDERS, $7.99 → $5.99
- Hills and Rivers Remain, $6.99 → $4.99
- SLIDING HEROES, $2.99 → 99¢
- SONG SUMMONER: The Unsung Heroes – Encore, $9.99 → $7.99
- VANGUARD STORM, $4.99 → $3.99
And of course there is a whole bunch of freebies:
- AirBear, 99¢ → FREE
- Compression, 99¢ → FREE
- Kachina, $1.99 → FREE
- Rasta Monkey!, 99¢ → FREE
- Sky Force Reloaded, $1.99 → FREE
- Vector Tanks (Classic Version), 99¢ → FREE
TONS of great games are on sale this week, this is just my pick of games we've covered that have had price drops:
- B-Boy Beats, $2.99 → 99¢
- Battle Blasters, $2.99 → $1.99
- Battle of Puppets, $1.99 → 99¢
- Bird Strike, $1.99 → 99¢
- Bridge Odyssey, $2.99 → 99¢
- Castle Frenzy, $1.99 → 99¢
- Doodle Bomb: Physics Puzzle with a Bang, $1.99 → 99¢
- Geared, $2.99 → $1.99
- Giana Sisters, $2.99 → $2.99
- GROUND EFFECT, $1.99 → 99¢
- Isaac Newton's Gravity, $3.99 → $2.99
- Riddim Ribbon feat. The Black Eyed Peas, $2.99 → $1.99
- Robot Rampage, $4.99 → $1.99
- Speed Forge Extreme, $2.99 → 99¢
- Space Harvest, $1.99 → 99¢
- Scoops – Ice Cream Fun For Everyone, $1.99 → 99¢
- VANQUISH: The Oath of Brothers, $2.99 → 99¢
- Zombie Cannon Carnage, $1.99 → 99¢
And while we haven't given The Quest series much love here on TouchArcade, I know quite a few people who absolutely love these old school style 3D RPG's.
The Quest Gold, The Quest, and all the expansions are on sale:
- The Quest Gold, $9.99 → $5.99
- The Quest, $5.99 → $2.99
- The Quest – Hero of Lukomorye I, $2.99 → $1.99
- The Quest – Hero of Lukomorye II, $2.99 → $1.99
- The Quest – Hero of Lukomorye III, $2.99 → $1.99
- The Quest – Islands of Ice and Fire, $2.99 → $1.99
- The Quest – Mithril Horde, $2.99 → $1.99
This is just a small selection of games with recent price changes. For the full list, check out AppShopper where you can find and with recent price drops.
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PopCap Makes it Rain with ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ Launch
If there's one thing that PopCap is really good at aside from making impossible to put down games that appeal to hardcore gamers, grandmas, and everyone in between it's having those game smash sales records.
The original Plants vs. Zombies [App Store] release for the PC was PopCap's , and per a press release this morning, the iPhone release is performing just as well.
Since its release, there have been over 300,000 units sold on the App Store, making Plants vs. Zombies the highest grossing launch in App Store history. PopCap is no stranger to greatness on the App Store, as Bejeweled 2 was the first paid app to reach 3 million downloads, and they're responsible for three games that have been #1 on the paid app charts as well: Bejeweled 2, Peggle, and obviously Plants vs. Zombies
If this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies, you absolutely must check out our glowing review:
The 88 Metacritic score of the original Plants vs. Zombies (complete with 100's from multiple sources) just goes to show how great this game is. The iPhone port is absolutely phenomenal, and even though it's lacking a few game modes, there's always hope for them to be implemented in the future either via an update or a DLC add-on. There isn't a lite version, but there is a that I highly recommend trying if this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies.
Now that Plants vs. Zombies has decimated App Store sales records, hopefully PopCap will throw iPhone gamers a bone and somehow implement the missing game modes found in the PC version. I've still got my fingers crossed at least.
App Store Link: Plants vs. Zombies, $2.99
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