As far as premises go, two dogs that are tied together by the tongue is a bit of an oddity. But on a platform that regularly sees us flinging birds at pigs or feeding candy to monsters, it's best not to ask too many questions. Besides, Tongue Tied's [$1.99] adorably vacant duo Mick and Ralph are so much better together than they could be apart.
Their predicament sets them up for all sorts of physics-based platforming challenges. You can slingshot them off each other, or send them flying in circles. One can hang by the tongue and swing below while the other walks. It's your job to shoot them over hazards or into tasty bones and keep them from harm, because they'll just keep on walking inexorably to their deaths. These dogs are really, really dumb. The game's developer Mojo Bones, on the other hand, is a very smart team. They've created a game that's both charming and challenging, packed it with replayability and promised a year's worth of free updates. Hard to say no to that.
During GDC this year, Team Phobic released Undead Ocean [$1.99], an action platforming title built from their experience with the excellent Bounce On series and a healthy nod to classic action platformers from the bygone 16-bit era. We liked Undead Oceanquite a bit when it initially launched, especially due to the fantastic level designs and copious amounts of hidden areas. It really felt like the kind of game I would have gobbled up back in the day on my SNES.
Originally, Undead Ocean was built with expansion in mind by way of adding additional islands with new levels via updates. It might have taken a while, but the first major addition to Undead Ocean has hit the App Store. This update includes a new island with 15 brand new levels, new enemy types and boss fights, new powerup items, new story cutscenes, and of course something that any good island adventure needs: a huge volcano. You can see most of these new goodies in the following trailer:
Undead Ocean is one of the better action platformers available on iOS, and today's update practically doubles the amount of content from the original release. If you're looking to try before you buy, you can grab Undead Ocean Dojo [Free], a free spinoff title that features an intro level not contained in the regular game which should give you more than a good idea whether or not you'll be interested in the full, and is a pretty cool game on its own merits as well.
Controversial is probably the best word for War on Terror [$1.99]. Originally a board game conceived by Terror Bull Games in 2003, War on Terror has precipitated everything from bans to death threats - true story, I swear. As you can imagine, when the iOS version was released, there was significant concern about it being forcibly annulled from the App Store. It wasn't, and I'm damn well glad for that because War on Terror is the sort of game you should at least play once.
Fans of the title should be forewarned, however. The iOS version is significantly watered down compared to the original. There is no Axis of Evil. There are no off-board negotiations or dealings. Defeated players do not become terrorist nations. You don't even get situational cards. Nonetheless, that doesn't change the fact that War on Terror is surprisingly fun and, once you've realized the genius behind it, devilishly clever.
One genre that seems to be overlooked a bit on the App Store is tank games. Sure, there’s certainly a ton of them available for download, but it always seems as if they contain the same boring gameplay, drab military-esque visuals, and awkward controls. Enter Tank Riders [$1.99], the latest title from Polarbit (maker of Reckless Getaway) which attempts to differentiate itself from the rest of the genre with vibrant visuals and objective-based campaign gameplay. Unfortunately, the lack of content, multiplayer issues and frustrating controls keep Tank Riders from reaching its true potential.
At its core, Tank Riders is a somewhat simplistic, top-down 3D tank driving game. Players run through approximately 25 colorful levels (with five additional tutorial levels) with the goal of either getting to the other end of the map or collecting items to advance to the next mission. At the completion of each level, players are scored via a number of categories (such as health and speed) and are ranked via a 3-star system.
The only way I can start this review is with a little history lesson, both for people who aren't familiar with Sonic CD, as well as those of you who might not have been reading TouchArcade since the summer of 2009. Let's start at the beginning, so everyone can truly appreciate just how wonderful the very existence of this game is.
Sonic CD, or Sonic the Hedgehog CD was originally released in late 1993 for the Sega CD, Sega's CD-ROM accessory for the Genesis console. Sega CD had actually come out earlier that year, and many gamers (myself included) couldn't wait to get their hands on one as the promise of full motion video powered gaming seemed incredible. Unfortunately, both due to the many technical limitations of the system, as well as the games themselves just not being very good, the Sega CD never really took off quite how I imagined Sega wanted it to. (There's actually a bunch of reasons I could also get into, but I digress.)
We've been giddy for the Sonic CD iOS release since it was finally officially announced back in August, Sega has finally revealed the release date for the game: and it's tomorrow! This will coincide with the release of Sonic CD on the console digital download platforms Xbox Live and PSN this week as well. Pricing on consoles will be $4.99, but iOS gamers get a special introductory price of $1.99. Sega has also confirmed via their Twitter that Sonic CD will be coming to Android and Windows Phone 7, but not until early next year.
This was going to be an absolutely insane week for releases already, but when you throw a heavy hitter like the beloved Sonic CD, coming with all sorts of enhancements and bonuses over the original, into the release mix then things quickly get turned up to 11 and beyond. We'll let you know as soon as Sonic CD officially hits the App Store, and you can be sure we'll be playing the heck out of it with a review soon to follow.
Rovio Mobile is celebrating the second "birthday" of Angry Birds [$.99 / Lite / HD / HD Lite] in style. Of course, the app has been updated with new levels -- specifically, 15 birthday-themed levels, complete with cake and candles and hats. But Rovio is also taking the celebration to the streets. Starting at 11AM, Barnes & Noble stores around the country are holding exclusive events complete with prize raffles and Mighty Eagle scavenger hunts.
As we revealed on Twitter, Barnes & Nobles at The Grove in Los Angeles is probably going to be the best place to see this party in action. Rovio's North American GM will be there, and he'll apparently be carrying tons of swag with him. If you're going to go, send us some pictures. We'd love to see that "Birds & Noble" sign in particular.
Love it or hate it, Angry Birds is huge. And it's huge enough to score a re-branding partnership with a popular retailer for a good chunk of a Sunday afternoon. While it seems silly, this kind of thing does wonders for our favorite phone and tablet hobby, so here's to hoping the momentum continues.
One of our several iPad Game of the Year contenders, Anomaly Warzone Earth HD [$1.99], just got a great update and another price drop. The headlining addition in version 1.2 is iCloud support. Starting now, your save games are pushed to the cloud and can be retrieved on any device with the game and rocking iOS 5. 11 Bit has also continued on its incremental visual update spree, too. Multi-sample anti-aliasing, post-processing, and extra details on clouds and dirt have been added, as well as red outlines for enemy towers.
Regular non-Universal Anomaly Warzone Earth [$.99] has also received a price-slashing. It's now $.99 instead of the usual $1.99. The HD version, which as you have observed already hopefully, is now sitting at $1.99 instead of the usual $3.99. If you haven't read our review and don't either version of this game, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's an impressive game that's worth your time.
A couple of weeks ago, Tough Guy Studios released their first iOS game called Time Ducks [$1.99], and I'm going to be honest, I bought it based solely on the fact that it was called Time Ducks. I figured with a name like that, there was no way I could go wrong. As it turned out, Time Ducks ended up being a pretty fun and unique take on line drawing games, and it sort of sat on the back burner as something I'd been planning on writing about.
Unfortunately, in the iOS space, there are just so many games coming out on a daily basis that good intentions can oftentimes slip by the wayside. Well, a few days ago, Tough Guy released their trailer for Time Ducks, and it's so absolutely insane that it basically forced my hand in the matter as I had to share it with the rest of you. If you're familiar with groundbreaking classic films, then the Time Ducks trailer might look familiar to you, but even if you aren't familiar with the source material there is plenty to enjoy in the craziness found within it:
There's nothing that gets me more giddy than when one of my favorite iOS games gets a sweet update that adds some new content and functionality, especially when that game has already been out for a while. It's great to see games getting support far into their lifespan, and over the weekend my giddiness was increased to the max when Pix'n Love Rush [99¢] and its iPad counterpart Pix'n Love Rush DX [$1.99] both received great new updates.
The Pix'n Love Rush games are no strangers to updates. They've been updated three times before with major new features since the original iPhone version release back in June of last year. This latest update adds yet another new gameplay mode and also makes the previously iPad only version Pix'n Love Rush DX into a Universal app, so you can throw that bad boy on your iPhone or iPod touch if you wish. It's kind of a bummer that if you had some nice high scores saved to the iPhone version that they won't transfer over to DX, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to have one less app taking up space in my iTunes.
As for the new mode, it's called On/Off Rush and is a smart little piece of puzzle platforming. There are two different types of objects to collect, suns and moons. Suns can only be collected during the day, and moons during the night. Touching special switcher walls will turn the level from day to night. Your character moves automatically, so you're tasked with jumping at the right times to collect the proper item depending on if it's day or night.
It's quite clever, and gets increasingly difficult as you progress. Collecting correct items in a row increases a multiplier and adds time to the clock, allowing you to continue on. Accidentally grabbing a moon during daytime (or vice versa) resets the multiplier and adds no time to the clock, and eventually your time will run out. There are two different flavors of On/Off Rush, and Arcade mode where missed items mean less points and a Puzzle mode where every item must be collected through multiple trips through a level, but time is the commodity.
I absolutely love the new On/Off Rush, as I do with just about every other aspect of Pix'n Love Rush, and I'm pretty gassed that the iPad version is now Universal. If you own either version of the game, then get to updating and check out the new modes, and if you don't own Pix'n Love Rush already then check out our previouscoverage as it's a game that really needs to be on your device.
You wanted it, and now it's here: The Game Bakers's beautiful real-time strategy RPG, Squids [$1.99], is now on the iPad. The team dropped the support as Universal, which means if you already own it, you can now play the game on iPad for $0. Otherwise, you can pick up the iPad and iPhone version for the usual $1.99.
During review, we got a chance to see Squids on the big screen, and even that non-optimized state, we were really impressed with how it looked and technically played. But here's some things we didn't get to see: the new 3D "anaglyph" version of the Halloween map, which has been rolled into this update on top of screen rotation functionality, new bug fixes, and new localizations including Russian, Japanese, and simplified Chinese.
If you've got some of those silly 3D glasses, give the Halloween map a spin and tell us what you think. We're currently digging around in TouchArcade's toy box, but we've been coming up empty.
Stories are hard to come by on the App Store. Most games don't bother with even a pretense of a story, and those that do tend to be crammed in rather painfully. It's understandable -- most iOS games are created by tiny teams, often just a programmer and an artist, so there's not much room or budget for writing.
Sometimes, though, a game comes by that shows that you don't need to sacrifice to tell a good tale. Some stories are as simple and eternal as boy meets girl, and they can be told over and over in brand new ways. These Robotic Hearts of Mine [$1.99] is one of those games. It's small, simple and charming, and it does an admirable job of bringing narrative to that least-storied of genres, the puzzle game.
Tower defense games are a dime a dozen these days and Wild Defense [99¢/$1.99], in spite of its zesty-fresh tropical flavor, doesn't bring anything really new to the table. Still, that doesn't stop it being a moderately entertaining affair. Less a game for the casual enthusiast and more for the hardcore fan, this one is for those who just have to have another tower defense game on their phones.
Functionality-wise, Wild Defense will be rather cut and dry for tower defense aficionados. Your objective is a simple one: protect your fortress from the enemy waves. To accomplish this, you'll have to drag and drop your units onto strategic locations in the map, all the while trying to maintain a proper composition of troops to ensure that you can deal with the various enemy types. In addition, you'll also have to do things like purchase weapons for your army, work with bombs, cast spells, defeat bosses and occasionally play the Wild Defense equivalent of Russian Roulette.
No one can deny that the advent of Angry Birds made a permanent change to the way people saw iOS gaming. Since its debut in December 2009, the simple bird-launching game has made approximately 27 boatloads of money, and continues to rake it in with merchandise sales such as plushies and more. Naturally, other designers were bound to try to imitate the formula and appeal to the gamers who were hopelessly addicted to hurling birds at pigs. And with that, clones were born.
Snappy Dragons [99¢/Lite/HD/Lite HD] is an Angry Birds clone, through and through. But I have to clarify, because at this point in the post-Angry Birds landscape, there are many different categories of clones, so it's essential to explain what exactly you're getting into. Well, aside from throwing stuff at other stuff.
Oh, hey, Kairosoft is getting into sales during the holidays! Starting now, and for a "limited time," two of the studio's lesser known but-still-as-awesome-as-ever simulation games are available on the App Store on the cheap. Both Pocket Academy and Hot Springs Story are seeing a drop from $3.99 to an agreeable $1.99. Money saved! Exclamation marks!
Before you take the plunge, you probably want to read our respectivereviews for the titles in question. While they combine the same charm and spirit of Game Dev Story, they both have angles and mechanics that may or may not appeal to you. Hot Springs Story, by the way, looks like awesome prep for the next game the studio has coming down the pipe: World Cruise Story.
As far as premises go, two dogs that are tied together by the tongue is a bit of an oddity. But on a platform that regularly sees us flinging birds at pigs or feeding candy to monsters, it's best not to ask too many questions. Besides, Tongue Tied's [$1.99] adorably vacant duo Mick and Ralph are so much better together than they could be apart.
One of our several iPad Game of the Year contenders, 
You wanted it, and now it's here: 
Oh, hey, Kairosoft is getting into sales during the holidays! Starting now, and for a "limited time," two of the studio's lesser known but-still-as-awesome-as-ever simulation games are available on the App Store on the cheap. Both Pocket Academy and Hot Springs Story are seeing a drop from $3.99 to an agreeable $1.99. Money saved! Exclamation marks!
