Heads up: Limbic Software is continuing to build on Zombie Gunship [$.99] with the release of a third residential expansion this afternoon. The expectation is that it'll expand on the fiction like the others, and hey, presumably give us another bodacious zombie-popping romp in the process, too. You can grab it now for the delicious price of $0.
Zombie Gunship is a little old by App Store standards, so here's a little refresher for your mushy stuff. From our review:
If you've played Call of Duty, you may remember the levels where you fly in an AC-130 and target the enemies below in a fantastic display of aerial firepower. Well, Zombie Gunship is based on that idea.
In the game, you look down over an apocalyptic landscape and wait for enemies to appear on your radar. Suddenly, a solitary human figure rushes from the shadows, trying to escape from hoards of brain-loving zombies. This is where you step in to save the day. You must shoot the zombies below, before they eat the few remaining humans or reach the bunker. If one lifeless zombie reaches the bunker, it seals itself to avoid being breached and your mission is over.
We're still loving this game, and judging from the response on the game's Facebook page, it looks like its followers aren't anywhere close to being done with it, either. That's good. If the title continues to thrive, we'll probably keep getting new content, too. Screens of the latest just below, by the way:
If you wanted a leg up in Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies [$6.99], Activision has your back. In an update that hit yesterday, the publisher has added a new in-game "Points Pack system" that allows users to purchase the game's currency for real money. There's a total of six tiers to choose from, ranging in price from $.99 to $49.99. The former gives you 12,000 points to play with, while the latter dishes out an astounding 2,000,000.
More interestingly, this update rolls in a couple of new weapons -- the Ray Gun and "the zombie-attracting" Monkey Bomb. Both hit at no-cost after updating, which happens to be the same offering price for all the update's nebulous bug fixes and optimizations. Content is something we've noted that Black Ops Zombies needs, so these weapons are certainly a welcome sight. Hopefully new, wholly original and game-specific maps are hitting soon, too.
After spending some quality time with a preview version of Int13’s new bullet hell shooter Shogun: Rise of the Renegade [Free] last week, we were eager to get our hands on the final version to see how it all came together. And sure enough, earlier this week Shogun quietly snuck into the App Store.
It was interesting that Int13 was departing from their typical augmented reality based games, like ARDefender [Free], and trying their hand at an established and nuanced genre like arcade-style manic shoot ‘em ups, especially with veteran shmup developer Cave basically cornering the market with their stable of high-quality ports. However, Int13 has surprised me with just how right they got Shogun, and while it might fail to totally impress the more discerning bullet hell enthusiast, fans of shmups in general will find a lot of action and fun brimming from the game.
Emotional Robot's FPS, Warm Gun, has received a notable update that aims to fix a lot of what owners have been rightfully grumbling about since the title's release. According to the game's latest patch notes, this update increases performance "across all devices by roughly 40%", which should help a lot of folks with frame rate woes. It also adds in more control schemes, improves the AI and UI, and resolves what Emotional Robot calls "random crashes." Yikes, that's a lot tweaks and fixes for a release game!
There's some content mixed into this update, too -- specifically, an all new map called "Coldshot" has been added to the multiplayer rotation. In celebration of all of this, Warm Gun's price has been dropped to $1.99 until the end of this month. But regardless of price, you definitely want to check in with our forums before diving into this one. You know, just to be safe.
Surprise! RAGE HD [$1.99], id Software's graphically off-the-walls tie-in shooter to RAGE, has been updated with two additional levels in a brand new update that also throws in higher resolution models, video output support, and various other enhancements and bug fixes. The house cleaning additions are free as always, but these levels, Kraken and Aqueduct, come at a cost: $.99, to be exact, via in-app purchase through the in-game Store.
We've spent a few minutes with each and can happily report that they are, indeed, levels that have been added to RAGE HD. One thing we didn't expect, though, is to be floored all over again by this game's look. Goodness, it's gorgeous. Get the same feeling below by glancing at some of the new levels:
That Epoch [$.99] update that Uppercut Games teased on our show a couple of weeks back is on its way out and will be available at the generous price of $0, while the game itself is celebrating the new update by going on sale for $.99. That's dollars off, y'all -- the usual price is $4.99.
In brief, the update rolls in an "ultra difficulty" mode that introduces harder to kill dudes as well as "trickier enemy variants." It also adds some needed visual tweaks that show off your robot's armor and weaponry and introduces new story content via new in-game pick-ups. Uppercut has updated the game's trailer to reflect all of this, so check it out if you don't dig the word picture we're painting you. Lookin' good!
It's Z-Day, baby, and the cure for what ails the undead populace isn't going to find itself. In SKS Games' upcoming survival-horror title End Night, you play as a grizzled marine dude on a simple quest: find the core components of a vaccine that might end the crazy stuff that's going on outside of a cozy lab. In a not-so-unusual video game turn of events, most of these ingredients have to be discovered in the wild.
It ain't going to be easy. It's the apocalypse, man; Z-Day. The dead have risen and are roving anxiously. Some are even armed or armored. These aren't your typical slow-walking types of creeps, either. In my short preview session, I met runners as well as amblers, and even had the pleasure of running into one or two seriously hopped up bullet-sponges.
Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time! [99¢] has everything a good zombie game needs: guns, girls, guts, green goo and a generous amount of cleaning equipment. Oh, come on. Don't raise that eyebrow at me. You know it's true. Every good shoot-out tends to leave an inevitable mess and Zombie Wonderland 2, unlike so many of its peers, is not afraid to acknowledge it.
Here, in this goofy little defense/time-management/real-time strategy title, you'll have the dubious pleasure of playing as the redneck stereotype Chuck. Being the responsible Zombie Cleaner (and someone totally oblivious to the idea of job security) that he is, Chuck will stop at nothing to rid the world of the cannibalistic undead.
Just before the new year, we caught wind of Taito's plans to bring one of its classic properties to the App Store. Originally released as RayForce in arcades in the early nineties, it made its way to the Sega Saturn with its name intact but due to trademark issues was released in various other international markets under different names, including Layer Attack, Gunlock, and Galactic Attack.
Now it's once again been resurrected yet again as RayForce [$11.99] for iOS devices, and is now available.
Taito is touting this as a pixel-perfect adaptation of the arcade original, which while being true to the original also looks like it hasn't been enhanced visually for the much more advanced iOS hardware. However, it does feature original arcade controls for purists as well as an easier iPhone control mode made specifically for the touch screen. Also, there are plenty of customization options so you can suit the play to your own particular style, and there is full Game Center support for leaderboards and achievements.
Since I never played much of the original RayForce back in the day, I'm really stoked to be able to finally give it some proper attention on my iPhone nearly 20 years later. Also, it will be interesting to see if Taito will bring the next installments in this trilogy, RayStorm and RayCrisis, to the App Store as well. As we dig into RayForce to see what it's all about, you can grab the game with the link below or check out some player impressions which are trickling into our forums.
While looking at the preview pics for Sleepy Jack [$0.99 / HD], I couldn’t help but recall one of my past favorite titles with a motif that revolved around dreams. That game is NiGHTS Into Dreams, of course, and any other gamer who spent long evenings discovering that magical world will surely feel a bit like Sleepy Jack’s developers might have been fans of it.
In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, both games send you into a universe in your dreams and challenge you to navigate it. In Sleepy Jack, you play Jack, a darling boy who is hurtling through a nighttime world at top speed and needs your assistance to proceed. To help him explore worlds of space, desert and the deep sea, you’ll need to arm your trusty pistol and get your dodging skills ready.
Last week, we told you about Glitchsoft's upcoming Star Marine: Infinite Ammo, a run 'n gun shooter that looks to capture the magic of classic action platformers like Contra and Metal Slug. A game like Contra demands precision in its controls due to the hectic action on screen, and it's hard to say whether or not that type of precision can be possible with virtual touch screen controls. Star Marine is hoping it's found the answer to this problem by taking a dual-stick approach to its control scheme, which is looking pretty good so far.
In our preview last week there were just screenshots for Star Marine, but Glitchsoft has just released a trailer for the game so you can get an idea of what it looks like in action.
From the trailer, a few things stick out at me as looking particularly awesome. It appears there are quite a few weapons to use, including one that looks a lot like the infamous spread gun from Contra. Also, I really like some of the enemies that are absolutely humongous, sometimes filling up the entire screen. Finally, Star Marine incorporates a feature that slows down your descent when you're falling through the air, giving you a better opportunity to lay waste to the enemies on the screen. I imagine this coupled with the dual-stick controls will allow a game like Star Marine to be quite playable with a touch screen.
Star Marine: Infinite Ammo is scheduled for a release this week, and we'll be looking to get our hands on the title to see just how well it turned out when it hits the App Store.
Wizard Ops [$0.99] by Phykentech is an on-rails 3D shooter with lots going for it. The gameplay is fast, controls are simple, and there’s some variety in the weapons and uniqueness in the sound effects. However, these positives can’t make up for the fact that the game is very short with not much room for replayability. Add in some performance issues, and Wizard Ops becomes one of those frustrating games that have potential but fall short.
Wizard Ops has you playing the role of a fire mage once part of an elite group of wizards that served the royalty of the kingdom. After the queen dies in an accident, the king irrationally imprisons the wizards in dungeons throughout the land. When the king’s daughter is subsequently kidnapped, he reluctantly releases you and charges you with freeing your brethren and taking down the enemy forces that hold the princess captive.
Lots of folks out there became new iOS gamers over the holidays, and one of my personal App Store favorites that may not be on their radars just got iCade support in an update. Madgarden's excellent Saucelifter! Heavy Disc [App Store] is a Choplifter clone that started life on the PC and landed on the iPhone in early 2009. Since then, it has seen numerous updates, getting iPad support as as universal app and receiving various gameplay tweaks here and there.
Gameplay involves piloting your flying saucer to various Earth-based prison barracks, blasting open the doors, picking up your captive crewmates, and dropping them off at the transporter where they're beamed safely back to your alien world. This is made challenging by evil Earth forces, including tanks, laser turrets, fighter jets, and flying attack drones.
There are a lot of nice touches to the title. The stylized, vector-based 2D graphics lend the game clean, future-retro visuals, with a day-into-night changing skyline that adds nice variation to the scene. A letter-box effect alters the aspect of the play area to provide early warning of incoming enemies. It's extremely well done.
On the iCade, the leftmost six buttons control fire / autofire in the three relevant directions -- left, down, and right. I greatly enjoy Saucelifter! via tilt-control, but I have to say that gameplay on the iCade more closely delivers the kind of fun I remember having in front of Gorlin's helicopter classic, hour after hour, back in 1984. Other iOS controller accessories that feature iCade emulation, such as the iControlPad, should also work fine with Saucelifter.
Those not sold on Saucelifter! should at least have a look at the Lite version [link].
If you were thinking, "Hey, I haven't shot a zombie in awhile" this morning, well, we've got great news for you: Nexon Mobile has released Combat Arms: Zombies [$4.99], the first-person spin on the fairly popular series' Fireteam mode. Users have been reporting all kinds of crash bugs since its release, but a new update might have firmed that out. Either way, it's still available at its special holiday pricing of $4.99.
Earlier this October, we brought you a first-word because it looked so darn impressive. Functionally, the game does more than look pretty -- it offers players "a hand-picked selection" of guns, has a ton of carnage, customization, and control schemes, and even gives current Combat Arms Online players free weapons in its combat shop with the redemption of a bonus code. Gotta love tie-ins.
As a kid growing up with my NES and Super Nintendo, there weren't many things that were as bad ass as the Contra series. These action platformers featured tough main characters, tons of sweet weapons, huge boss battles, and bullets flying everywhere – basically everything a 10-year old boy could ever want. Destructopus [99¢] developer Glitchsoft's latest title Star Marine: Infinite Ammo takes heavy cues from that classic Contra series, as well as similarly strong action games like Rapid Reload and Metal Slug. And so far, it's looking pretty awesome.
One of the biggest issues that pops up when talking about a game like this on iOS is controls, as the Contra games were brutally difficult back in the day even with physical controls, and they demand a degree of finesse that's really difficult to achieve with virtual touch screen buttons. Glitchsoft hopes to avoid any control issues by using a clever dual-stick setup which will allow for a range of movement and abilities to the main character while still allowing him to fire in any direction at the same time.
Time will tell whether or not a game in the vein of Contra or Metal Slug can be accurately translated to a touch screen device, and I'm definitely eager to find out. Word on the street is that Star Marine is already approved by Apple and is slated for a launch sometime this month, and you can be sure we'll check it out then. In the meantime, jump into some Star Marine discussion in our forums.
Update: Glitchsoft got in touch and informed me a few of these screens are a wee bit outdated, so here's a few new screens that are a bit more fresh:
Heads up: Limbic Software is continuing to build on Zombie Gunship [$.99] with the release of a third residential expansion this afternoon. The expectation is that it'll expand on the fiction like the others, and hey, presumably give us another bodacious zombie-popping romp in the process, too. You can grab it now for the delicious price of $0.
If you wanted a leg up in 
Surprise! 
That 
Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time! [
Just before the new year, 
Last week, 
Wizard Ops [$
If you were thinking, "Hey, I haven't shot a zombie in awhile" this morning, well, we've got great news for you: Nexon Mobile has released Combat Arms: Zombies [$
