Justin Smith from Captain Games is probably most widely known for sparking off the Enviro-Bear 2010 phenomenon of 2009. The world’s first bear driving a car simulator made a huge splash on the App Store, and proved that beyond the surface of MS Paint quality visuals and purposely awkward control schemes could lie a surprising amount of depth and replay value. Also, you play as a bear driving a car through a forest. Not every video game lets you do that.
Those same principles of low-fidelity visuals, unwieldy controls, and high playability carried through to his next iOS release So Long, Oregon! [$1.99], and they are ever-present in his latest bit of zaniness know as Justin Smith’s Realistic Summer Sports Simulator [99¢]. Don’t let the ironic title fool you, there is absolutely nothing realistic about Summer Sports Simulator. In fact, it’s greatest attraction is just how NOT realistic it portrays the various Olympic-style events it contains.
There’s something about puzzle games that seem to attract the cutest, most vibrant visuals to the genre and SubTub [$0.99] is no exception. However, despite the bright and cheery graphics, this action-puzzler is no slouch when it comes to difficulty. In fact, if you can get past some control issues and bouts of shallow gameplay, SubTub has enough content and challenge for completionists to possibly be worth checking out.
SubTub is a game of naval superiority. You control a cute red sub through four sets of 18 missions that have you destroying the opposition on the open sea. In the case of SubTub, the open sea is a 6x9 grid of blue filled with other subs, aircraft carriers and more. Your weapons are underwater mines that are placed on the grid. While you have an unlimited amount of mines, each one has a fixed timer and a range slightly more than a single square. Complicating matters are a variety of other seafaring units, such as the rubber ducky, a ‘friendly’ unit that you can’t blow up with your mines (or touch on the grid, for that matter). In addition, mines are chainable, adding to the overall strategy.
You guys, I had the Worst Christmas Ever this year. No, it’s not because I didn’t get an iPad 2 – I mean, it’s pretty much a job requirement for me to be set in that department – so my (ex-) friends and (former) loved ones are off the hook for that. No, what I can’t get over is the fact that Santa did not leave me a puppy this year. Seriously, I blew up Twitter for weeks with links to dog videos and pet adoption websites and no one picked up on the hints? Collective friends and family, you are dead to me.
Luckily, RagTag Studio'sPuppy Panic [$.99] is here to numb my pain. A cute, well-made endless runner, Puppy Panic helped take my mind off of the callousness of those most dear to me by presenting me with a stable of eight (nine, if you count the secret one) puppies for me to race and play with. Each puppy has special abilities unique to their breed that help it in various ways throughout the game’s two modes. When you start with the Beagle, for example, you can double-jump really high, and when you get the Eskimo, you can bark and clear all the obstacles from your path.
In the crowded genre of endless games, developers need to do more than ever to distinguish themselves. Some attempt to do it via heightened visuals and presentation while others do it by modifying core gameplay elements to try and differentiate themselves from the pack. Stay Alive [$0.99] falls more in the latter category, with the endless arcade shooter making some changes to what is otherwise a standard leaderboard oriented endless game. While these changes are interesting (and possibly controversial), Stay Alive doesn’t particularly separate itself from the pack as much as it may like.
Stay Alive has you piloting a starship through a perpetual asteroid field littered with enemy ships taking pot shots at you. In addition to avoiding all these hazards for as long as possible, your goal is also to pick up as many floating orbs as possible, which are currency for the upgrade store. Also littered throughout the playing field are power-ups that range from more ammo to a temporary laser weapon that lets you destroy everything in sight. OpenFeint leaderboard support (Game Center is not supported currently) keeps track of total kills across all games, as well as the longest distance traveled during one run. As is the case with most endless games, the primary goal is to beat your (and your friends) leaderboard scores.
Normally, I would say "another day, another Chillingo physics puzzle game" as the developer pumps out these high quality iOS titles like it's nothing, but then I had to take a moment to stop. After all, Home Sheep Home 2 [$0.99] is not just any puzzler, it's a puzzler starring Shaun the Sheep from the Wallace & Gromit series, and if you have no idea what that is get off this website right now and go find out. It's that good, and I don't throw such idle threats around lightly.
The first Home Sheep Home title came out in May and earned a BAFTA award (see review here). Not too shabby since it started out as a free Flash game. Like the first game, Home Sheep Home 2 challenges the player to take charge of the three sheep Shaun, Timmy and Shirley and make their way through a series of levels. Fans of the original game that felt it needed more levels should be delighted that there are 40 in total to be explored here, so you should get more time out of it this go round.
Picture Super Mario Bros. Got a nice image in your head? Good. Now imagine Mario could never stop moving and would only change direction if he hit a wall. A little tougher. And what if absolutely everything could kill him in one hit, and there was no such thing as a checkpoint? That sounds like the sort of game that would have you cursing, spitting, and contemplating throwing your controller, and it also sounds a lot like Wind-up Knight [$0.99]
Occasionally a game will come out on Android that looks so good I slaver for a port. Wind-up Knight is one of those games. Released on the Android Market a couple months back, the side-scrolling adventure looked slick, adorable, and hard -- all the things I look for in a platformer. Now that it's arrived on iOS, I can finally confirm: this game is outstanding.
Bike Baron [$.99] received an update a couple of days ago, but developer Mountain Sheep has managed to fit another rejuvenating splash of content in before the App Store freeze. And this one, guys, is just as cool.
This latest update specifically drops in a total of five brand new ice-themed levels with a new kind of material that allows you to morph objects into breakable ice. More in line with the yuletide spirit, though, Mountain Sheep has also added two new Santa characters equipped with jolly bikes via in-app purchase. You can view both of these before you buy, by the way, which is a welcome design decision. Here's a look:
Bike Baron is a surprisingly good game, and an especially welcome title on the App Store since we didn't have a Trials or anything near its level beforehand. Check it!
Dead Space [$.99 / HD] is one of the seemingly billions of EA-published games on sale right now, and it's also received a new update. On both iPad and iPhone, Dead Space now supports EA's polarizing social UI, Origin. In more satisfying news, it also now supports Game Center integration by the way of leaderboards and apparently runs "smoother" thanks to some technical tinkering on the back-end.
If you didn't know, by the way, this portable spin on the ridiculously good horror-action franchise is also ridiculously good. And not in that Game Boy port kind of way, either -- this thing is a full, complete product that has its own feel, mechanics, pull. In other words, it easily stands on its own. You should check it out while it's on sale for $.99 and get familiar. We'll be talking about it again this year.
Back in October, we were pleasantly surprised with Bring Me Sandwiches!! [99¢], a new platformer from Adult Swim Games and Grumpy Face Studios. First of all, any platformer on iOS lives and dies by how good its controls are, and Bring Me Sandwiches!! delivered on this front with several great options for controlling your character. Secondly, it took the basics of platforming and mixed in a dose of Katamari-like progressive collecting, which proved to be a really great addition to the genre. Finally, Bring Me Sandwiches!! had a truly excellent visual style that felt like it could have been ripped straight from a show on the Cartoon Network.
Yesterday, Bring Me Sandwiches!! got its first update, making it a Universal app and providing some other minor fixes and tweaks. All of the same content from the iPhone/iPod touch version of the game is available on the iPad, though sadly there is no transferring of game saves between multiple devices. The game plays great on the larger screen, and like the original version, gives you half the lower screen for movement and the other half for jumping (when using touch controls). This is important to me as I typically find the controls in platformers on the iPad to be awkwardly placed, and here you can basically just use anywhere that feels the most comfortable on the lower part of the screen.
If you're the owner of an iPad that you've been itching to get Bring Me Sandwiches!! on, now is a great time to drop your hard earned dollar on the new Universal version.
If you were to tell me that I’d be able to play a hockey game featuring Enviro-Bear [99¢] as a player, I’d say you were crazy. Yet, that’s exactly the case with Ice Rage [99¢], a simple arcade hockey game from Mountain Sheep. While Ice Rage doesn’t quite feature the deep gameplay found in previous Mountain Sheep titles, it’s still an enjoyable little arcade game, especially on the multiplayer side.
Billed as bringing the “8-bit hockey experience” to iOS, Ice Rage plays less like a hockey game and more of something akin to Pong. Games are played 2 vs 2 (one goalie and one attacker) on a very small rink. There’s also very little strategy involved; if your player has the puck you take shots at the opposing goal, and if you don’t have it, you smack the opposing attacker until you get it back. The controls also share Ice Rage’s simplicity: a virtual joystick and a button that doubles as the offense/defense action are the only buttons you have.
We don't celebrate a single holiday at TouchArcade Tower unless Gameloft throws a sale in celebration of it. And, guys, it looks like we're going to have Christmas and New Years in 2011. Starting now, you can grab, uh, a bunch, of the publisher's better games for that price, including the startlingly good NOVA 2.
We've got the list, so check it out if below if you're interested about what Gameloft is selling. Also, as we kinda mentioned already, NOVA 2 is our pick out of this list. If you're a fan of the Assassin's Creed fiction, Altair's Chronicles isn't all THAT bad at $.99, either.
We've come to expect EA to never mess around with its sales, and we're pleased to report that it certainly isn't messing around with its latest. From now, and presumably until shortly after New Years Day, all of the publisher's gargantuan premium catalogue is an agreeable $.99. That means games like Madden 12, Trenches II, and many others have been reduced up to 90-percent off the original asking price. Whoa, right?
This same sale happened last year around this time, too. You probably know the story, but EA managed to choke the App Store's charts with its titles and pushed everyone out of its way. It was a powerful move that set the yuletide savings tone moving forward.
We've got a list, but just as a note, we haven't listed every single EA game, just the ones in this "holiday sale."
If you're looking for something else, hit up EA's publisher page on the App Store. You'll see its entire selection, including games that were already $.99 courtesy its Daily Deals seasonal program.
Oh, it's that time again. Capybara Games's Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery [$.99 / UHD] is on sale for one day in pre-celebration of the solstice. Normally $4.99 as a Universal app or $2.99 in its "micro" variation, the game is now just $1.99 or $.99 respectively. In a post on the game's blog about this sale, the Superbrothers team also extended a thanks to the game's current fans and noted that this "has been a heckuva a year and we're all profoundly grateful."
Sword and Sworcery will, no doubt, be in our discussion for Game of the Year, so we highly advise you to grab it while it's on the cheap. If you'd like a couple of in-depth reasons why you should own this thing, feel free to read our review.
We would argue that if there was just one more thing Taito's Groove Coaster [$.99] needed, it would be way more dubstep. Now, the game's latest update unfortunately doesn't include any dubstep, but we'll take it anyway because it includes a total of five more downloadable tracks, including a trance mix of Jingle Bells that we're sure you'll never forget. A new ska track, as well as an acid house joint -- "Thrase Beat -- are the other notables joining the downloadable roster.
Oh! And in the spirit of the holidays, Groove Coaster, Space Invaders Infinity Gene [$2.99], and Cooking Momma [$3.99], have gone on sale for a "limited time" -- or until the iTunes freeze clears we're presuming.
In a bit of a surprise today, Ubisoft released Prince of Persia Classic [99¢] into the App Store. Now you might be thinking, "Hey, Ubisoft. Didn't y0u already release a classic version of Jordan Mechner's influential platform adventure last year?" And the answer to that is, yes, it's called Prince of Persia Retro [99¢]. That game was basically a perfect port of one of the earliest versions of the game, Prince of Persia for Macintosh, with some very sub-standard virtual controls tacked on. The nostalgia factor was there, plus it was cheap and Universal, but Prince of Persia Retro was far from the ideal way to play such a finicky game that demanded precision control.
Today's release is actually another port, this time from the 2007 Prince of Persia remake that was available on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Prince of Persia Classic is essentially the exact same game as the original – same level layouts, same enemies and hazards, same storyline and one hour time limit – but completely redone with fantastic 3D visuals and what appears to be a more zoomed in camera to better suit iOS. Sure, if you're a purist then that might not sound like such a great thing. But if you love the original gameplay and can appreciate a shiny new coat of paint, then Prince of Persia Classic fully delivers.
As for the translation from controller to touch screen, obviously it's much more difficult without tactile feedback but at the very least the controls feel leaps and bounds better than those in Prince of Persia Retro. There's a more intuitive use of action buttons, and there is a slider for movement as opposed to directional arrows which gives you more control over running or walking. The controls aren't perfect, and they make an already difficult game that much more frustrating, but I think they're the best they can be while still being true to how the original game played and they certainly shouldn't prevent you from playing through the game with a bit of practice.
So if you're in the mood for some good old fashioned Prince of Persia gameplay, but want an extra dose of shiny, then Prince of Persia Classic is where it's at. From my limited time with the game, it appears to be a very faithful port of the 2007 remake with virtual controls that are about as good as you can expect from a touch screen. You'll get a headache from some accidental leaps to your own death, but after a bit of play it's pretty easy to work within the confines of the controls in order to play through the game.
As an aside, some players in our forums seem to be having trouble installing the game on an iPod touch device. Indeed, the App Store notes that it's compatible with "iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S" only, with no mention of any iPod touch or iPad devices. I'm not sure if this was just an oversight when uploading the game to iTunes or if the game really does require the two latest iPhones in order to run. If you own an iPod touch or iPad, it might be worth waiting a few days to see what the final verdict is on that, but if you're an iPhone 4 or 4S owner and enjoy yourself some Prince of Persia, then I'd jump all over Prince of Persia Classic for just 99¢.
Justin Smith from Captain Games is probably most widely known for sparking off the Enviro-Bear 2010 phenomenon of 2009. The world’s first bear driving a car simulator made a huge splash on the App Store, and proved that beyond the surface of MS Paint quality visuals and purposely awkward control schemes could lie a surprising amount of depth and replay value. Also, you play as a bear driving a car through a forest. Not every video game lets you do that.
Bike Baron
We don't celebrate a single holiday at TouchArcade Tower unless Gameloft throws a sale in celebration of it. And, guys, it looks like we're going to have Christmas and New Years in 2011. Starting now, you can grab, uh, a bunch, of the publisher's better games for that price, including the startlingly good NOVA 2.
We've come to expect EA to never mess around with its sales, and we're pleased to report that it certainly isn't messing around with its latest. From now, and presumably until shortly after New Years Day, all of the publisher's gargantuan premium catalogue is an agreeable $.99. That means games like Madden 12, Trenches II, and many others have been reduced up to 90-percent off the original asking price. Whoa, right?
Oh, it's that time again. Capybara Games's 
We would argue that if there was just one more thing Taito's 
