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Firemint’s Spy Mouse [$.99] probably won’t spawn a billion copycats like Flight Control [$.99 / HD] and it lacks the jaw-dropping 3D prowess of Real Racing 2 [$4.99 / HD], but it’s a mechanically solid and visually pleasing game that, in addition to being flat-out entertaining, breaks down a lot of stealth game barriers of entry. Basically, I'm just saying it's really good.

Stealth games are notoriously fickle things; genetically linked to arcade stock that treated players like quarter-pumping cattle, stealth’s central conceits have revolved around failure, punishment, and the gaming of its systems instead of things like fun and rewards. Spy Mouse mitigates a lot of the not-so-fabulous parts of its mechanics by being pretty up-front about its moment-to-moment stealth: it clearly shows you enemy pathways, its top-down perspective quickly gives you a handle on what you can do and when, and it’s mechanically simple, which eliminates execute grand schemes or interact with complicated systems in second-long bursts.

In a couple of words, it’s strikes me as a ‘balanced’ game. It isn’t super action heavy and as forgiving as the new Splinter Cell title, but it’s also not as stringent as an early Metal Gear or a Hitman. It’s challenging without being stupidly hard; its AI is predictable but capable; its level design provides allows for autonomy but doesn’t sacrifice vision; its boss battles are tough while simultaneously entertaining; and it gives you just enough information to succeed without overloading you.

It’s also pretty pure. This is a game about a mouse grabbing cheese underneath cats’ noses. The cats patrol on highlighted pathways, while you move around similarly to how you draw a plane’s path in Flight Control. It’s indirect, but it serves the game well and keeps pacing on an even keel, ensuring few stealth "Oh Crap, Get Behind The Wall Quick" messes.

There are times in which I really, really want more direct control over my character, but those are few, and frankly, it’s because I’m approaching situations in stupid ways. Just like Flight Control, Spy Mouse is all about economy of movement and good planning; it’s not about dancing in front of cats and stumbling away in the nick of time, even though you can, if you want, do just that.

What strikes me as odd is that the core mechanic in this joint isn’t its biggest draw. I’ve been having more fun with the situational content that you apply movement to, as opposed to drawing raw joy from stalking around behind corners. For the better, Firemint has loaded Spy Mouse with oodles of levels, all of which have something fun or strategy-light to offer. It even throws in a bunch of power-ups, side cheese, and hidden areas into the mix, brightening up and differentiating the overall offering, while still maintaining a cohesive feel.

And, sure, while Spy Mouse does a great job of tossing out a lot of stealth game garbage, trial and error are still very much a part of this package. The catch is that it does a fantastic job of putting you right back in to the action in a snap, Super Meat Boy-style.

Artistically and visually, I love what I’m seeing. I’m not the kind of dude who usually reflects on this stuff, but it’s hard to deny the appeal of the soft, Disney-like overall aesthetic. It oozes character without beating you over the head with it, and, you know, its colors and contrasts also look pretty sharp on ‘HD’ devices.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m pretty pleased with Firemint's latest offering. It’s a neat change of pace from a talented development house, and more importantly, it’s a fun and good game. Give it a try, especially if you're into stealth without a lot of the mess.

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Earlier this year, Activision decided that it was done with Bizarre Creations and closed the studio after not being able to find an adequate buyer for it, which stuck me as unfathomable since this is the studio responsible for fantastic games like Blur, Project Gotham Racing, and so on and so forth. Regardless, since then, creators at the studio have made their own independent studios. Hogrocket, led by former Bizarre designer Pete Collier, Geometry Wars [$.99] creator Stephen Cakebread, and community manager Ben Ward, is one of those, and thankfully, they’re pooling their talents in service of an iOS game.

Todays news is a release date: the first game from the studio — which remains unannounced for the time being — is coming September 1. In a recent chat with Eurogamer, Collier talked up the release and the challenge:

"We're mega excited to be releasing our very first game here at Hogrocket. The shift from AAA to mobile has been a really rewarding challenge and this launch marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for us. We hope you enjoy the game,” he said.

We’ve played the game and can’t comment on it at the moment, but what we really wanted to do here is throw down some context. We’re currently trying to wrangle a good time to talk to Hogrocket for an episode of The TouchArcade Show, so we thought it best to give you some sort of foundation to work with. We’re awesome like that.

But, seriously, keep your eyes on these guys. They know what they’re doing and it’ll be great to bring you more in the near future.

[Via Eurogamer]

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Back in January we reported that retro revival studio DotEmu signed a deal with noted Japanese development / publishing house Jaleco LTD to bring 17 arcade conversions to iOS. Since then we've seen the release of Avenging Spirit [link], Earth Defense Force [link], 64th Street: A Detective Story [link] and P-47: The Phantom Fighter [link] from the Jaleco collection.

Retro gamers will be pleased to hear we've just gotten word from DotEmu that the fifth Jaleco title is just two weeks away.

Originally released to the arcade in 1990, Rod Land is a colorful platformer that challenges you to help a fairy rescue her mother who has been trapped in a tower by an evil force that's building a mobile fortress with which to wreak havoc upon the land. Gameplay involves clearing each screen of baddies using your magic wand (or rod), collecting bonus items along the way for points. Your wand captures an enemy in a magic field that merely stuns them if released, or can be used to destroy them by bashing them to and fro against the ground, resulting in a power-up that can be used against other enemies. A level is complete when all enemies have been wiped out, but you'll want to collect every bonus item along the way, in order to get the max three-star rating for any level.

See a video of the arcade version of Rod Land in action:

I had no prior experience with Rod Land, and so upon hearing DotEmu's announcement, I grabbed the Amiga port to see what it was all about. An hour or so later, I sat the joystick down, pretty anxious for the iOS version to arrive — this game really is a whole lot of fun.

DotEmu's release will be a universal app (for iPhone and iPad) and will be localized in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. DotEmu CEO Xavier Liard informed me that Rod Land is the studio's most polished and well-implemented Jaleco release yet. The iOS version runs the arcade original under modified emulation and features positionable virtual D-pad controls.

I've just received a pre-launch build of the iOS game and will post a closer look when the title goes live in the App Store on September 6th.

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Settlers of Catan [$4.99 / HD] is considered, rightly, as one of the best board game-to-digital ports on the App Store. But other than just generally being sharp, it's also infinitely expandable, which is a great thing for the fans. Capitalizing on this is developer Exozet, who just shot Pocket Gamer a note that a new expansion is slated to hit later this year.

So, what is this upcoming expansion? Cities and Knights, which is easily one of the most aggressive expansions of the bunch. In it, you’ll develop cities while using knights to attack other players as well as help opponents defend the world from barbarians from across the ocean. The expansion also ushers in new cards that bolster the overall vibe of the experience.

Overall, there are a lot of fine details in this package, so if you're really interested in Cities And Knights, the Wikipedia article on it should sate your hot desire to learn more.

It’s unknown at the moment whether this will be an IAP or simply a free update, but our dime is on the fact that it’ll cost some dough. And, really, why wouldn’t it considering the amount of stuff it adds to an aging game. Speaking of that, actually, Catan was updated earlier last month with a new graphical pass and several optimization tweaks. Obviously, the developer is still very much behind its product.

[Via Pocket Gamer]

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In this week’s bonus edition of The TouchArcade Show, Eli and I chat with Graeme Devine, the creator of the newly released Full Deck Hold ‘Em [$2.99] for the iPad and iPad 2. Before sitting down to release games alongside his family, Devine was a designer and writer for several huge publishers and companies, including id Software, Apple, Ensemble, Atari, and Trilobyte.

We grilled Devine a lot about his resume and how that informs his work now. We also dug into what’s next on his slate. I don’t think you’ll come away from this conversation without learning a thing or two and also becoming as enamored with the man as we are. Devine is awesome and a joy to chat with.

You can download or stream the podcast right below, or hey, you can also subscribe to us on our feeds at iTunes or the Zune Marketplace.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-010.mp3, 29MB

Music notes and all of that are included at the back-end of the episode. If you’d like to shoot us a note, feel free to do so at podcast@toucharcade.com. This week we’re still looking for sound dating advice for our upcoming show this Friday, so don’t be shy.

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We think the next update to Liv Games’ Zen Wars [$1.99] needs to include a Rampart-like icon with a similarly constipated man pointing urgently at fire, but the update we’ve just received will keep us busy and, more importantly, on speaking terms in the meantime. In addition to a bunch of bug fixes, Liv Games has added a new “one life” multiplayer mode, which has been designed to dramatically whittle down the time spent in each online, cannon-filled affair. The old three life I Don’t Have Anything To Do Today mode still exists, so don’t panic, please.

Specifically with the bug pass, Liv Games has eradicated the “players playing” bug which showed a perpetual 0, as well as tidied up an issue with survival that kept users from earning achievements. Lastly, Liv has also tuned up the transparency of the HUD when you’re working around the top of the screen.

Zen Wars is a pretty radical game. Jared “Sleeping Beard” Nelson gave it some major props in his review from earlier this month, which you can view here if you’re stilling thinking about jumping on the Zen Wars train despite its awful, awful icon.

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Chillingo sure knows how to be timely. Their newest game, Conan: Tower of the Elephant [$1.99], was slated to come out around the same time as the 2011 film remake, which means that they hope lots of people will stroll out of the theatre feeling all barbarian-like and search the App store to find this game. I have to hand it them though, giving a nod to one of the original Conan the Cimmerian stories with the title and storyline was a nice touch.

Like the original Robert E. Howard short story it is based on, Tower of the Elephant sees Conan setting his sights on a great tower in order to steal a precious gem from a demon sorcerer named Yara. Using comic-inspired cutscenes to illustrate story arcs and top down gameplay in order to complete quests, the game offers an attractive presentation and makes it pretty easy to slip into the world of Arenjun.

A simple tutorial opens the game, teaching you how to interact, attack and manage your inventory. Controls are basic, with a d-pad for movement on the bottom left and a large circle for attacks on the lower right. I found that the d-pad was sometimes unresponsive for a moment after an event where I talked to someone, but for the most part it was accurate.

When it came to battle, attacking and defending were both available, but I found that hacking away at my enemies was the most effective method of taking them out. Well, they don't call these games "hack and slash" for nothing (although when it comes to fighting bosses, that defend button will be much more useful). You also have a bar that fills up as you fight and allows you to pump up your attack for a short amount of time when you need it — really handy for when you get jumped by a gang of grubby thieves who are dumb enough to think taking on a barbarian is a good idea.

A lovely, hand-drawn world map is available in the menu to show you your way as you explore these lands, along with a menu to keep track of your quests and inventory. These interfaces are really pleasant and I enjoyed using them. Seeing at a glance how to find a merchant or the location of a treasure chest made the game easy to navigate. In addition, whenever Conan gets a major quest, a small arrow will appear before his feet that shows you where to go. One of my biggest pet peeves is wandering around a world map with no idea where I'm going, so I appreciated this bit of attention to detail.

Of course, there are fetch quests as well, but I found that the story and gameplay was streamlined in such a way that I actually enjoyed even doing something as simple as going to collect a copper pipe or take out a band of thieves. Everything in the game is executed well and caters to making the player comfortable while experiencing the game universe, and it really shows in the final product. Even purchasing new items and armor was easy, giving single options rather than a huge list of things to choose from and stats to compare. Some gamers who enjoy that process will not like this. For me, it took away a step that would normally distract me in an iOS action title and allowed me to get back to the gameplay.

Also compatible with Game Center, you can watch achievements pop up as you play. Tower of the Elephant also offers access to a service called Crystal, which offers perks such as profile customization, sharing game results on Twitter and Facebook, and inviting friends to play the game. You can sign up for Crystal within the game as well, which was cool to me — I hate having to surf to some other website on my phone to do that type of thing.

You won't do anything wildly new in Tower of the Elephant, but what you can do is enjoy some good old fashioned gameplay where you kick butt and take names, enjoy quests, and rack up achievements for it. What could have been a boring movie tie-in turned out to be a solidly enjoyable entry in Chillingo's action library. If you're in the mood to kill stuff and feel like a badass, Tower of the Elephant is a winner.

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In this week’s podcast, we get into another discussion about the handheld vs mobile space in which I declare that handhelds like the Nintendo 3DS and the forthcoming PS Vita still have a shot to fill a niche that mobile devices can’t. I’m of the mind that these devices’ big budget games and, generally speaking, their more fleshed out and engrossing experiences are a unique attraction that should draw new audiences and those of us with iDevices that want a bit more.

As terrifying as it is, Sony and I are on the same wavelength on this. Despite the fact that the PS Vita will draw on a lot of the extra functionality that makes handheld gaming so much more attractive with a phone, Sony believes that its retail products will provide the extra oomph to battle purely mobile platforms and their games’ comparatively lower-budget and lower dev time experiences.

Speaking with GameSpot, Sony’s John Koller said that Sony views mobile and the handheld gamers as two demographics, but he also reckons that mobile people who want the larger, bigger budget experiences will flock to handhelds — the PS Vita in particular.

"When you look at the type of consumer that's playing cell phone games currently, it's someone that enjoys smaller 'kill time' gaming and has not gravitated to the larger, richer, deeper experiences that true handheld gaming provides,” he said.

"We've certainly seen that on the PSP, and I know Nintendo has probably commented on it for their products, but as we go toward the PS Vita, I can tell you that as we started looking at that product and the market opportunity several years ago, we saw a real strong demographic for those deeper, richer, console-type experiences. We had them on PSP, but we've taken them to a new level on PS Vita with the entirety of new ways to play."

Our take has always been, via Sony messaging and Vita functionality, that Sony is aware that it’s competing against phones. It strikes us as weird that Koller is talking about two separate demographics. Regardless, the point Koller makes is a cogent one: as of right now, we don’t have a Half-Minute Hero or a God of War or a Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. You still have to grab a handheld for these kinds of experiences.

The jury is still out, though, on if people actually want to lug around something as big as a Vita or splurge on the tech when they could just grab a console, which will have even bigger and often more satisfying games.

[Via Gamasutra, Gamespot]

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We originally planned to describe Roping Rob [99c] as a "hook-throwing platform game", because modern gamers are familiar with that genre, thanks to popular titles like Super Quick Hook [$2.99 / Review]. However, according to the game description from developers, Wehaveapp, you're actually carrying a harpoon, so let's call it a "harpooning-platform game", which is technically accurate, but not quite as catchy.

The game opens with a background story, which does a great job of setting the context for the game-play. The 'Robs' are little creatures who work at the center of the Earth, where they ensure the core is constantly stable, hot and fluid. However, one of the Robs is defiant and wants to travel, to check out the Earth's surface. This game follows his journey through the Earth, with levels starting at the inner core and moving through the molten outer core, the lower and upper mantle and eventually to the crust, as he ventures to the Earth's surface.

I've always enjoyed games which take you on a journey, like the classic Gyruss (1983) where you progress through the planets in our solar system. Roping Rob uses this approach well, with each chapter being graphically depicted as a different environment, based on the Earth's layered geological structure. As you play, you're always very aware of your proximity to the surface, which encourages you to keep playing.

There's over thirty levels to complete, which is accomplished by locating and entering the glowing exit in each one.  As always, there's a range of obstacles along the way, including rotating platforms, spring-boards, barriers and buttons. You'll need to harpoon through small gaps and even use a massive drill to dig through the Earth. You'll have to dodge spikes, rolling boulders and poisonous fumes, to be successful in this platform game.

The gameplay controls are minimalistic, with no buttons or virtual pad. You simply tap the screen to throw your harpoon in that direction, and tap again to release it. Once your harpoon is impaled in a roof or wall, it automatically retracts, pulling you towards it.  You can either let yourself be pulled right up to the harpoon, or else let go to throw yourself in that direction while you have momentum.  There's no left or right walking, just harpooning.

This game is made using GameSalad, which often leads to a couple of knee-jerk negative comments, but it's best to judge a game based on it's own merits, regardless of which tools are used to develop it. Who cares how a game is made, providing it's challenging and fun. And this game is both of those things.  Although, there are a couple of minor gripes. Some loading delays occur at the start of levels, the screen sometimes changes orientation unexpectedly, or won't change orientation at all, and the sound effects can become annoying, such as the constant metallic *clang* of the harpoon. And Level 16 is actually impossible to complete, but the developers already have a fix for this, which was just released in an update, so the Rob CAN reach the surface!

High scores are stored (in-game) for each level, including time, number of harpoons used and number of tries.  However, the number of tries is showing as "1" for each level, despite attempting one nasty level many, many times. Also, there's a space for the total stats to be displayed, but that area is blank, presumably mistakenly. These issues have also been ironed out in the just-released update.

Roping Rob is a simple game, with basic yet strangely appealing graphics. There's a fair amount of entertainment provided, with replay value if you choose to better your own level completion times.  The big question is – what happens when the Rob finally reaches the surface?

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