Uh, we hope you like deals because here's another. Telltale Games recently cut the price of (almost) every single one of its App Store games down to $2.99. This is the same maneuver that the studio pulled earlier this November in celebration of Thanksgiving, but we're all as appreciative as ever for the price-slasher-y. Who really needs originality with these things anyway, right? We'll take our savings however we can, thank you.
Of note, this sale extends beyond New Years, so you've got plenty of time to research any game you want in the package, if you're hesitant to pull the dollar trigger. Here is the list, by the way:
We've recommended this series a billion times, but you should really consider grabbing an episode or two of Tales of Monkey Island. Heavy on charm and wit, these are some of the best adventure games out there -- period.
Back in July I had the pleasure of welcoming one of my favorite shooters of all time, Cope-Com's excellent Battle Squadron, into the App Store in the form of a native iOS port of the original Amiga game. Today I'm happy to bring news of a new, lower-priced iPad-only release of the title featuring two-player, split-screen action and Game Center achievements as well as an update to the original, universal release.
The new iPad-only release, entitled Battle Squadron ONE 2-player [App Store], allows two players to face off on the same device, thanks to a new split-screen, portrait play mode that lets you and a friend share in the action (for those equipped with a friend). In this mode, each player is able to choose their own control configuration, and gameplay is as smooth and fast-paced as it is in the one-player mode. What's more, two-player network gameplay is planned for a future update.
A number of other improvements have arrived in this new release, as well. The game features 36 Game Center achievements and a new super-tough "Air Commodore" difficulty level (get it?) with a particularly intense level ending. Cope-Com has listened to player feedback and has tweaked every control mode and rolled-in a new one. The main user complaint was that it was "tedious" to have to move a finger all over the entire screen to control the ship. To address this, a drag control mode with 2x the movement vs. finger rate was added (with the original 1x control still available). Additionally, the joypad and tilt control modes have been adjusted to allow movement in all directions (analog) as opposed to the earlier release's 8-way (digital) movement.
Rocketcat Games's utterly fantastic action RPG, Mage Gauntlet [$2.99], is now bigger, better, and much more Universal. In a brand new update, Rocketcat has added Universal support and rolled in fancy new flip-screen functionality to one of our most favorite RPGs of the year. On top of this, it's rolled in various tweaks: some spells have been changed around, the rabbit's foot now increases hat drops by five times, revives grant a free spell, save files can now be exported via iTunes, and some levels have received some shortening to make them better.
Surprisingly, that's not all -- bug fixes and a few other notable changes have been introduced. If you're particularly curious about what's up, check out the game's new patch notes here or on iTunes. It's a long list. Also, if you're still somehow on the fence, definitely give our review a read. You don't want to miss this game.
Kinectimalson Kinect is an experiential game that does a solid job of luring its users into forming an emotional bond with its assortment of on-screen, rascally pets. As an adult, you see why the user's relationship to the pet is so important: without one, the entire experience falls apart. If you aren't clicking with your animal, you don't want to pet it, you especially don't want to get up and interact with it, and you sure as heck don't want to do the game's mindless assortment of mini-games alongside it.
Little ones, from what I understand, generally respond to its adorable baby cheetahs, its equally adorable Bengal tigers, and its other scarily expressive animals. When the game asks, kids enthusiastically move about and shout and jump, and reach to the TV.
That's well and good, but now Kinectimals has made the jump to iOS. Obviously, the Kinect hook has been dropped with this particular version. So, this begs the question: does the game and its, er, magic still work?
This version of Kinectimals seems like it's pretty close to the Kinect experience that it's based on, though we've also heard that it's strikingly similar to the Windows 7 mobile version of the game, too. In a nutshell, it's just a collection of mini-games starring several super cute cats that you can train to do tricks or participate in a wide range of not-necessarily-stimulating-for-adults activities.
Of note, this version, developed by Frontier Developments as well, incorporates "brand new ways to play with your cub" and offers an unlock for five additional cats on the Xbox 360.
We'll be playing with this throughout the day, and will bring you some more details a bit later. As a side-note, we're absolutely loving the fact that Microsoft is down for actively supporting the Xbox 360 and its games via iOS. The future! It's here!
Infinite Dreams has jollied up its tower defense title Jelly Defense [$2.99] in celebration of the season. In a new content update that you can grab right now for the price of free, Infinite Dreams has added two all new winter-themed levels, laid down a new music track, dropped in some new leaderboard support, and thrown in a new endless level. Reindeer and cookies are a part of this package as you'll see, and of course, so are optimizations and refinements.
Jelly Defense is a straight-up tower defense title; it's not going to offer you anything you haven't seen before mechanic-wise. But it does have a ton of style. Seeing Infinite do Christmas like it has in Jelly Defense is definitely a treat, so give these levels a look if you haven't updated your app yet. Oh! And if you're on the fence about it, take a gander our our official review.
Last week, we let you know that Rebuild [$2.99], the city-building time sink that we loved in our review and on our podcast, would soon be getting support for the original iPad, and today that update is now here. Rebuild was originally an iPad 2-only title, due to some technical limitations that the developer explained on her blog.
But, since that initial release, she has toiled away to lower the RAM requirements for the game which now allows it to be played and enjoyed on Apple's first iPad. There are further enhancements to the visuals for those of you who have been playing on an iPad 2, as well.
Also explained in that blog post is how difficult it would be to add Game Center support since the game was written in Flash and she'd have to dip into some Xcode-only stuff in order to patch the online service in. However, this has also been tackled on the development side of things, as Game Center integration with leaderboards and achievements is also available in this latest update.
If the technical limitations of your original iPad were preventing you from enjoying this excellent title, then now would be the time to spring into action and see what you've been missing out on with Rebuild.
Uppercut Games's ridiculously awesome cover-based shooter, Epoch [$2.99], is seeing its first price reduction since its November launch. For a limited time, you can grab it at $2.99 instead of its usual $5.99. I ran this deal past a few of our math wizards, and they're telling me this is 50 percent off the regular price, so that's cool.
Epoch was a big hit with us. We awarded it a lot of stars, and loved how it made cover actually feel good. That's a rare thing in third-person shooters, even though there's a billion-plus-two of them out there on shelves at the moment. Give it a shot if you didn't grab it yet, or hey, read our full-length review and decide.
Today, 5th Cell and Warner Bros. unleashed an update to Scribblenauts Remix [$2.99], the iOS port of the popular franchise from the Nintendo DS. The big new feature in this update is something they're calling Scribblespeak. Scribblenauts is a game where you're able to type in just about anything you can think of, complete with descriptive adjectives, and it will be created for you within the game. This is intended to be the way you solve the many puzzles in the game, as you can create objects that you need to complete the tasks that allow you to pass a level.
However, while that's all well and good, the serious fun in Scribblenauts Remix is just thinking up the craziest objects or creatures that you possibly can, and then making them fight each other. At least, that's how I get my kicks, and that goes for just about everybody I know too. This sandbox-like aspect of Scribblenauts Remix is the thing that ensures this wonderful little app will never leave my device.
You'd think from the buzz that the gamification of daily life was a new thing. That we need expensive devices and fancy apps to build rewards into the tasks and chores that otherwise fail to motivate us. But as anyone who's spent time bagging groceries knows, you can turn anything into a game if you try. Bagging groceries is like Tetris -- and your goal is to fit everything into place just perfectly that the bag is full, the eggs are unbroken, and you can still lift the thing into your car.
Bag It! [$0.99 / Universal HD] puts those life skills to good use. Turns out bagging groceries is actually so much fun. Seriously. This little gem almost slipped by us, but I'm sure glad it didn't. In Bag It! you're tasked with bagging up a friendly collection of grocery items, like Sir Eggward and Sunshine the juice carton. Like their real counterparts, they have weight to them, and fragility. A carton of eggs is easily crushed, a watermelon less easily so.
The week of weird PR shenanigans continues with Ubisoft's surprise release of Assassin’s Creed Recollection [$2.99]. We've been posting about the few details that Ubisoft has been leaking out, specifically how the game boasts things like "deep tactical gameplay" and "challenging political battles."
Now that the game is finally released, we'll get to see just how challenging these political battles are. Hopefully my opponent doesn't use the "reveal 13 year long affair" ability. We're downloading the game now and hope to have a review up shortly!
If you don't own an iPad 2 and you're about to skim past this post, let me interrupt you for a second. You can play most of Rebuild [$2.99] right now for free, as the Flash game Rebuild 2. And you really should. While the iPad 2 version comes with a few extra bells and whistles and plays gorgeously on a touch screen, this is a game that everyone should play whether they have the newest, shiniest gadget or not. Just be prepared to lose a few hours of your life to it when you do.
I don't wave around non-words like "unputdownable" often, but Rebuild deserves it. Though it's not an especially deep strategy game, it has the perfect mix of exploration, danger and difficulty to hook anyone for at least an hour or two, and maybe much longer. And yes, yes, we're up to our necks in zombie games, but this is a zombie/strategy/city builder and that's not something you see every day.
Paul & Percy [$2.99] is a great little platform-based puzzle game for the iPad, released by Danish developers Kipper Digital. When they discover someone has stolen their butter biscuits (or "cookies", if you're American), Paul and Percy set-off on a mission to recover their delicious snacks. The two main characters look identical, so perhaps they're twins. Otherwise, they're just two dudes who live together, dress alike and share butter biscuits.
The interesting thing about this game is that the screen is split down the middle, with Paul on one side and Percy on the other. It's like taking two platform games, turning them sideways and then placing them against each other. Each character has their own separate platform level to walk around. But, they can stomp on certain brown blocks to push them through to the other character's side. So, when Paul stomps on a block, it becomes a step for Percy (and vice versa). By helping each other, they can both reach their teleportation portal and escape the level.
Today I saved the citizens of Metropolis from a missile launched from an unknown location. I flew into the sky and intercepted it in midair, then beat it to pieces. It exploded harmlessly over the city. But no time to wait for thanks -- a car full of criminals was escaping down the stretch of road in front of the Daily Planet. I handled them with my laser vision, if you know what I mean. Then that dastardly Lex Luthor unleashed a bunch of sticky bombs in the city. While I was gathering those up, fires started up on a nearby building. Then the meteors fell.
But hey, Superman [$0.99 / HD] can handle all that. All in a day's work, as they say. It's just too bad he couldn't be doing it in a better game. One that plays a bit less like The Hero, by Traplight Games, perhaps?
It's not that Superman is a total knock-off of The Hero. The Hero has style, charm and humor, and Superman has laser eyes, optional retina assets and the ability to beat up missiles while riding them. But the similarities are abundant.
Chair Entertainment's mucho-celebrated and super popular hack-and-slash RPG, Infinity Blade, is on sale right now for $2.99. We're not sure if it's on the cheap because of Black Friday, Thanksgiving or the latest surge of mentions courtesy Infinity Blade 2 coverage, but hey, that's not what's important here. The fact that it's three dollars cheaper and also an awesome game seems like the jucier material at the moment.
We're pretty sure 99 percent of you know, own, and probably dig Infinity Blade, so for you one percent-ers out there? Do yourself a favor: buy this game. Also, keep your heads on a swivel because Infinity Blade 2 is almost here. The follow-up is due out on December 1 and will carry a $6.99 price tag, which is the first game's usual price plus one. So far, it seems fantastic.
Uh, we hope you like deals because here's another. Telltale Games recently cut the price of (almost) every single one of its App Store games down to $2.99. This is the same maneuver that the studio pulled earlier this November in celebration of Thanksgiving, but we're all as appreciative as ever for the price-slasher-y. Who really needs originality with these things anyway, right? We'll take our savings however we can, thank you.
Kinectimals 
Last week, 
Today, 5th Cell and Warner Bros. unleashed an update to 
Chair Entertainment's mucho-celebrated and super popular hack-and-slash RPG, 
