Push Panic [Free] is a fast paced (and fun) puzzle game that up until recently was published by Appular. According to Push Panic's developers in our forums, Appular is getting out of the publishing game and has taken all of their published titles off of the App Store. So, in response, Push Panic has been re-released and made free for a brief period of time.
Keep in mind, if you ever downloaded Push Panic before, you'll need to re-download it again during this freebie promotion. With Appular removing the original Push Panic from the App Store, you'll effectively be locked out of any future updates and being able to re-download the game. Push Panic is a neat game too, so even if you didn't own the original, you should download it while it's free.
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.
Looks like we've got one more big release to add to today's list. Kairosoft has just released their latest simulation title called Pocket League Story [$2.99]. By now you're probably familiar with Kairosoft's method of operation: pick a theme and develop a simplistic but deceptively deep simulation around it, then fill it to the brim with cute and colorful retro-style visuals and mobile friendly gameplay.
Pocket League Story appears to be no exception. The theme of choice this time around is soccer, or football depending on which country you hail from. You'll build up a team of players, train them, and then take on the rest of the league. You also have the ability to sell your team's own merchandise, build a gym for training, and even build your own stadium. The goal is to increase your fan base as you progress your team's abilities through competition.
It looks as though all the components are here of another solid Kairosoft simulation, especially if you're a fan of footy. We'll be digging in a lot deeper before passing final judgement on Pocket League Story, but if you're generally a fan of Kairosoft's work you probably can pretty much guess what you're getting here. You can pick it up for $2.99 which is an introductory price, and at some point it will raise up to their usual $3.99.
We'll have a full review of Pocket League Story in the near future, and until then you can check out impressions in our forums which are starting to trickle in.
Here's a small shout-out for our American iPad-owning but not iCade-owning audience: Bed Bath & Beyond, which seems like a strange place to buy an iCade to begin with, is apparently liquidating their inventory at $49.99 a pop. You can head on over to their site and order one, or check to see if any stores have them in stock locally. In the Chicago area, it seems like almost every nearby location has them, but your milage will vary.
It doesn't seem like Bed Bath & Beyond ships outside of the USA, so our friends from abroad lose out on this deal. You likely have universal healthcare though, so I'd still argue you're winning overall even without $50 iCades.
Surprise! Grand Theft Auto 3, which saw a release this December 14 at $4.99, is now just $2.99 in celebration of the holidays. If you were one of those day-one guys saying he'd wait until a price drop before taking the plunge... well, here you go.
This is part of a larger Rockstar holiday sale, by the way. Until the after New Years, you can also grab the studio's decidedly more mobile-friendly Grand Theft Auto joint, Chinatown Wars, at $5.99 instead of its usual $9.99. Beaterator, a music creation game, is also on sale. It's now $1.99 rather than its everyday $2.99. Deals!
Since Grand Theft Auto 3 is so fresh and all, swing by our review if you're on the fence. Spoiler: it's GTA 3 -- a fun, exciting open-world game that brimming with all the things we take for granted in a GTA -- but with virtual controls.
A lot of people don't like Square Enix's App Store prices mainly because they're so much higher than the norm. Good thing about the holidays, we guess, is that all of these prices tend to fall. And they have. Again. This year. Starting now and extending until after New Years Day, you can grab just about every Square Enix title at a much lower price. For example, Final Fantasy Tactics is $11.99 instead of $15.99. Another example: Chaos Rings Omega is $5.99 rather than $11.99.
Here's a full list of what we've seen. Do note that Square is also offering up a bunch of actual apps at a lower cost, too. Just hit up its publisher page on iTunes to see those:
All the Taito stuff on sale are must-have kind of games, as we've mentioned many times before. Forced to pick a straight-up Square game, we'd say Final Fantasy III is probably the best value on the list. It's a great game on iPad especially, and has enough touch hooks to feel decidedly less port-y than its other stuff.
Developer CAVE is looking to make it a bullet hell holiday for its fans by getting in on the year end sale bandwagon. CAVE just recently dropped Bug Princess [$4.99/Lite] into the App Store, a game which we liked a whole bunchwhen it released, and thought was quite reasonably priced to boot. Now, you can pick up all of their previous major iOS titles at a discounted rate from now until January 10th.
If you aren't sure about a purchase, each and every one of these games has a lite version you can check out, and there are even versions of Espgaluda II that are split into separate "Arcade" and "iPhone" standalone apps that are available for a cheaper price. Also, make sure you're equipped with at least 3rd generation hardware or above, and in the case of Espgaluda II HD, you'll need an iPad 2 specifically to run that bad boy.
At any rate, all of CAVE's games are high quality offerings worthy of your dollar, so be sure to hit up this sale while it lasts.
Dead Space [$.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.
Final Fantasy Tactics [$11.99] on iPhone and iPod Touch has inspired numerous, uh, passionate e-commentaries since its release earlier this year. One of the components we've seen the most bickering about has been addressed: Tactics' latest update zeroes in on the port's decidedly unspectacular visuals on retina devices and supports the screen.
To be clear, the text is still tiny on iPhone 4S, for example, but it's apparently much less blurry overall. Also, the UI is noticeably sharper, and various assets like facial graphics and icons have been updated to mesh with the retina support. This update also rolls in some nebulous "bug fixes."
Off-topic, here, but we definitely want to note that Tactics is available at the lowest price it has ever been since its August release: as of December 19, it's $11.99 instead of $15.99. Still steep in comparison to other App Store games, but better.
If you already own the game and choose to update, note that you'll lose your auto-save data in the process because, reasons.
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.
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.
Jelly Defense creator Infinite Dreams is joining in on the sales fun alongside a gaggle of other developers. Until the 21st of this month, you can grab all of its games at a (now) freshly discounted price. Games like Let's Create Pottery and Jelly Defense, for example, are now just $.99, while others like Shoot The Birds and Sky Force have gone entirely free.
Here's the full list of what it's offering. And do note that these only extend a few days -- this isn't your everyday seasonal sale, in other words.
We definitely suggest Jelly Defense at this price. Sure, it's pretty middle of the road as far as its tower defense play is concerned, but the art and character really makes it a must-have kinda game. Infinite really wants you to check out Can Knockdown 2 at its free price point, too, for what that's worth.
Push Panic [Free] is a fast paced (and fun) puzzle game that up until recently was published by Appular. According to Push Panic's developers in our forums, Appular is getting out of the publishing game and has taken all of their published titles off of the App Store. So, in response, Push Panic has been re-released and made free for a brief period of time.
If you were thinking, "Hey, I haven't shot a zombie in awhile" this morning, well, we've got great news for you: Nexon Mobile has released Combat Arms: Zombies [$
Here's a small shout-out for our American iPad-owning but not iCade-owning audience: Bed Bath & Beyond, which seems like a strange place to buy an iCade to begin with, is apparently liquidating their inventory at $49.99 a pop. You can 
Surprise! 
A lot of people don't like Square Enix's App Store prices mainly because they're so much higher than the norm. Good thing about the holidays, we guess, is that all of these prices tend to fall. And they have. Again. This year. Starting now and extending until after New Years Day, you can grab just about every Square Enix title at a much lower price. For example, Final Fantasy Tactics is $11.99 instead of $15.99. Another example: Chaos Rings Omega is $5.99 rather than $11.99.
Final Fantasy Tactics
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 
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.
Jelly Defense
