The Bard's Tale originally began as a trilogy of hardcore dungeon crawling RPGs released in the mid-80s for desktop computers and gaming consoles. In 2004, InXile Entertainment created a new The Bard's Tale for Playstation 2, Xbox, and PC. This game was related to the original series in name only, and featured 3D action-adventure gameplay rather than first-person dungeon crawling.
The Bard's Tale didn't take itself too seriously, and poked fun at all sorts of RPG and fantasy clichés, many of which were present in the original games in the series. For its humor and storytelling, The Bard's Tale is a fondly remembered adventure from the previous console generation.
And, we've now learned that this adventure is making its way to the iOS platform. The Bard's Tale on iOS will feature all of the content of the 2004 release, as well as iOS exclusive leaderboards and achievements. It will also have an in-app purchase system that will let you deck out your character with some sweet gear, but everything available here will also be available to earn through normal gameplay. The IAP is just for the impatient folk.
We're eager to get our hands on The Bard's Tale to see just how well the game translates to the touch screen platform. It's currently submitted to Apple, so if all goes well it will be launching soon. We'll let you know once we get a firm launch date or pricing info for The Bard's Tale on iOS.
As a huge Jurassic Park fan, I only need to hear about three notes of the theme song before I instinctively get… Well, probably more excited than a nearly-30-year-old should get over dinosaurs. We've heard more than a few rumblings of Telltale's plans to release the Jurassic Park-themed adventure game on the App Store, and it's finally here along with a brand new trailer that goes over all of its iPad 2 exclusiveness.
Jurassic Park: The Game 1 HD [$6.99] (say that three times fast) is the first installment in the series, and takes place during the events of the second half of the first Jurassic Park movie. I've always thought the Jurassic Park universe was fantastic, and am beyond stoked that I'll be able to delve into a new adventure on my iPad 2. It's unfortunate that Telltale has dropped iPad support, but if you've played any of their recent games on the device it'll be more than clear why they did it.
We'll have a review for the game as soon as we can sit down and spend some time with it, but in the meantime, if you don't feel like waiting feel free to mash the download link below.
We've nailed our collective pants to our chairs, but they keep flying off when we look at the first image from Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas. Finnish developer Cornfox & Bros describes it as a Zelda-'inspired' action adventure game that seeks to put the focus on puzzles and exploration instead of RPG sub-systems and menus. It's also gorgeous -- like, your-pants-will-pop-off kind of gorgeous.
The name of the game is derived from the fiction's ancient sea monster who "terrorizes" the World of Uncharted Seas. You'll play as a "nameless hero" tasked with killing this monster and saving his sister. In order to accomplish these things, you'll need to explore the world in boat and on foot, and undoubtedly plunge into some puzzle-y areas filled with treasure.
If you're a 90s-era adventure game enthusiast, then you are no doubt familiar with the Monkey Island series from LucasArts. These classic games have gotten the facelift and rerelease treatment on the App Store in recent years, with the excellent Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition [$2.99/Lite/HD/Lite HD] and Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge [$2.99/Lite/HD/Lite HD]. Each of these titles retains the core gameplay of the original versions while also adding optional updated visuals and additional modern features, and are pretty essential for iOS-owning fans of the series.
But if you weren't around for the originals, then there's a good chance you know Monkey Island from the episodic series reboot that Telltale Games codeveloped with LucasArts for the WiiWare and PC in 2009, called Monkey Island Tales. We quite enjoyed the game in our review from when the first episode came to the iPad last December, and the remainder of the 5 episode collection of Monkey Island Tales was released on iOS earlier this year with equally enjoyable results.
Bit Blot's 2D side-scrolling adventure game Aquaria [$4.99] for the iPad is a gorgeous and well-produced title with a sharp emphasis on world-building and character growth. It's good, and I think the reason why it strikes me as such a quality download has more to do with its atmospheric allure than anything else. Aquaria begs you to explore with every ounce of its being by consistently introducing mechanical novelties, alien setpieces, fascinating creatures, and drip-feeding a not-quite-but-totally convoluted story that keeps you thinking that you're on the precipice of figuring out what's going on with your mercreature in the game's beautiful underwater world. It has a few minor problems, though.
One of the bigger missteps in Aquaria is tied to the limitations of its new platform. Indie developer Bit Blot and its partners have masterfully replaced the cursor with finger, allowing for complete character movement without virtual pads. But the shooting and "singing" components? Those require virtual buttons and that sticks out. Also, when these actions are coupled with the need to evade, you may inadvertently start playing Finger Twister instead of Aquaria.
It was easy to overlook the issues in the original Zombieville USA. When it hit, the App Store was as foreign and exciting as our new iPhones. Plus, there was no real measuring stick; we just knew it was a fun and cutesy side-scrolling shooter starring the world's favorite bullet-sponges, the undead. Zombieville USA 2 [$.99], on the other hand, has released in a period where we have expectations. Awesomely, Mika Mobile knocks them out of the park by both refining and creating within the confines of the original game.
Tightly-constructed, well-executed, charming, different and entertaining are all words I feel like I can freely use when describing Zombieville 2. For the most part, it's a near perfect iterative entry to the franchise. It artfully hones in on and turns up the volume on the two best parts of the original: the shooting and upgrade models. (more...)
Old school RPG fans (and I mean old school) should be quite familiar with the Wizardry series. More than 30 years ago, Wizardry helped define the pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons experience as an electronic computer game, and went on to spawn many sequels and spinoffs since. The most recent of these is Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls from developer Acquire. The game was a modern homage to the classic Wizardry games, and was released on the PlayStation Network as a downloadable title this past summer.
Now we have learned that Labyrinth of Lost Souls will be making the jump from PSN to the App Store this Thursday, Novermber 3rd. Despite being a fairly newly developed game (the original launched in Japan in late 2009), Labyrinth of Lost Souls is purposely entrenched in the archaic roots of the Wizardry series. Many of the modern aspects that you've come to appreciate from the RPG and dungeon crawling genres aren't present here, which is something that didn't quite resonate with a good chunk of the PlayStation 3 audience. However, I think a quirky, old school-inspired title like Labyrinth of Lost Souls will have a comfortable home on the App Store.
Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls will feature ten characters to choose from, and you'll need to create a party of six to take down into the depths of the two massive dungeons in the game. Leveling up your characters, finding items and weaponry, and dueling with scads of monsters are all on the agenda in Wizardry. The game will be launching for free with the first floor of the "Dungeon of Trials" available to explore and play, and a level cap of five for your party members. If you want to continue on, you can open up the rest of the game for a $9.99 in-app purchase. We'll have more from Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls after it launches later this week.
When it was initially released for DSiWare last year, Shantae: Risky's Revenge [Free / $2.99 IAP], was an underappreciated gem on a service that most people didn't bother using. Now, thankfully, the game might find a little more grounding with the wider release on iOS, but as we've seen time and time again, platformers are a difficult sale on touchscreens, and Shantae, despite its pedigree, will have to keep up.
The game is a sequel to the Shantae, which was released for the Gameboy Color well into the rein of the Gameboy Advance. It follows the story of the belly-dancing, hair-whipping Shantae, as she seeks out her arch nemesis, Risky Boots, in order to get a magical lamp.
Com2uS is certainly in the seasonal spirit. The publisher has added Halloween trimmings to a ton of its current line-up of titles, including Homerun Battle 3D [$.99 / HD], Tiny Farm [Free], World of Magic [Free], and even Piggy Adventure [$.99 / HD]. Starting now, you can deck out your farms with zombie horses and jack-o-lanterns, blow baseballs out of the yard while wearing a pumpkin on your head, use Warp Gates and pumpkins as pet in World of Magic, and enjoy 12 Halloween-themed levels and new musical tracks across Piggy Adventure.
In other related Halloween-ynews, Homerun Battle 3D is now just $.99, three dollars less than its standard, non-celebratory price. Piggy Adventure also sees a cut due to this event: it's now $.99 instead of its usual $2.99.
Now, I ask you to enjoy the funniest series of pictures from a video game ever. You can catch images of the other games mentioned in this post at Com2uS's blog.
We're greedy folks over here. When Grand Theft Auto 3was announced for the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2, we immediately started thinking about also playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and its successor San Andreas on our new-fangled devices. Digital Trends must have jacked into our hive mind because it apparently quizzed Rockstar about the possibility of seeing these two games come to iOS, too. The good news is that it's "very possible," according to Rockstar but it would also present a "technical challenge."
Obviously, we're not inside of Rockstar, so it's impossible to talk specifically about what might hold-up the process. Heck, we don't even know why exactly GTA3 is being restricted to hardcore tablets and phones at first, either, but it's probably safe to assume that a variety of factors, including sales of GTA3 and what shape the original code for Vice City and San Andreas are in, will be two bridges to cross when decision time comes.
Grand Theft Auto 3 for iOS was announced a few weeks ago. It should hit in 2011, but no specific release details outside of the year have been dished out so far.
Halloween is great. It's the only day of the year you can get away with dressing as the bug-eyed rabbit from Donnie Darko and not immediately be sent to a crisis center. Also, it turns out that it's also a great holiday to save some cash on video games. 2K Games has joined the price-cut party with some stellar deals of its own, all of which are slated to run into this weekend. And if you decide to buy, they could possibly occupy the entire thing. Games like Civilization Revolution are time warps -- you boot them up and all of a sudden it's 4AM .
Here's the full list of what 2K is offering on the cheap. Take note that Sid Meier's Pirates, which is another great time sink, has hit rockbottom sales-wise, too:
I've been playing Civ Rev on my iPad for a long, long time now, so I've got zero problems with telling you to buy this thing now. Despite being a simpler version of Civilization proper, Civ Rev's easily manageable strategy components are deep, compelling and satisfying. Give it like an hour or so to learn and then wave goodbye to your fun-fun iPad free time for a couple of months. Also, this is the biggest sale it's ever seen. I mean, it's eleven dollars off! Definitely jump all over that while you have the chance.
Huge news, dinosaur enthusiasts: work on Telltale Games' Jurassic Park: The Game has wrapped and it's hitting this November 15 across almost every major platform under the sun -- with the exception of ours. Fear not, though. According to a press release, the iPad version is slated to hit the App Store "shortly after" this sweeping release. We can only guess what the hold-up is, but it's known that dinosaurs are feisty talent to work with and probably don't enjoy being shrunk to fit onto 10-inch screens. Or put into parks, for that matter.
Jurassic Park: The Game, from what we gather from other reports, is a spin on the Telltale adventure game formula, as it'll supposedly be much more action oriented. It's been compared to Heavy Rain on a few occasions, too, though that really doesn't tell us much.
Interestingly, this game will take us all back to Isla Nublar during the events of the first movie. Somehow, it'll squeeze in new dinosaurs, new locations, but also pay its respects to the beasts and places we fell in love with in the first place. Neat!
We're closing in on another holiday, guys, and that means one thing: sales. This week, Sega was the first to open up its library in celebration of Halloween. Until October 31, you can save up to 80-percent on some of it's more... unimpressive iOS efforts, including Gunstar Heroes and Virtua Fighter 2. I'm not sure if the hook for this was to scare us with lower prices or questionable games, but hey, a sale is a sale.
Nothing says spooky like ChuChu Rocket, right? In all seriousness, though, we're pretty stoked that Sega is slashing the price of this one in particular. It's a cool, fast-moving puzzle game that actually plays well on the iPad. You can catch our original review here, if the less-than-a-dollar price point isn't luring you in immediately. Here's our words of caution on Brick People by the way.
Gameloft doesn't miss sales opportunities, so it's not much of a surprise to see a very select number of its titles get a price-slashing treatment this week in celebration of Make Kids Fat Night. Starting now and for a 'limited time,' you can save a bunch of dollars on decidedly un-spooky titles like Gameloft Action Pack, its MMO Order & Chaos Online, and Shrek Forever After: the Movie: the Game.
We're not 100-percent behind any of these, but we will note that the Gameloft Action Pack has a total of three decent titles bundled inside of it: Gameloft's answer to God of War, Hero of Sparta, its WWII shooter Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes, and its Mortal Kombat-ish homage, Blades of Fury. You could do worse with your dollar. For example: you could buy candy.
Putter King Adventure Golf [99¢] is released by Putter King, a company with real indoor miniature golf franchises, so these guys should know how to design a fun and challenging mini-putt experience. We were keen to see how their real-world ideas would translate onto our iOS devices. The good news is: They've done a pretty decent job of it.
This game sports four different modes: Championship mode is a regular single-player round of mini-golf. In Time trial mode, you're racing against the clock to sink the ball in the shortest possible time on any specific unlocked hole. Multi-player mode allows 2 to 4 local players to take turns on the same device (there's currently no online multiplayer). But before you play the other modes, you may want to invest some time on practice mode, to hone your skills. It would be nice if there was a career mode or tournament, to tie multiple games together, but there's currently not.
Bit Blot
It was easy to overlook the issues in the original 
When it was initially released for DSiWare last year, Shantae: Risky's Revenge [
Halloween is great. It's the only day of the year you can get away with dressing as the 
We're closing in on another holiday, guys, and that means one thing: sales. This week, Sega was the first to open up its library in celebration of Halloween. Until October 31, you can save up to 80-percent on some of it's more... unimpressive iOS efforts, including Gunstar Heroes and Virtua Fighter 2. I'm not sure if the hook for this was to scare us with lower prices or questionable games, but hey, a sale is a sale.
Gameloft doesn't miss sales opportunities, so it's not much of a surprise to see a very select number of its titles get a price-slashing treatment this week in celebration of Make Kids Fat Night. Starting now and for a 'limited time,' you can save a bunch of dollars on decidedly un-spooky titles like Gameloft Action Pack, its MMO Order & Chaos Online, and Shrek Forever After: the Movie: the Game.
