posted January 26th, 2012 2:46 PM EST by Brad Nicholson in News
Man, these digital platform companions apps come out of nowhere. Today, Valve, the creators of Half-Life and everyone's favorite PC download platform, Steam, announced Steam Mobile [Free]. It's what you think it is, which is to say, it's a companion-y type of experience that'll let you chat with Steam friends, view Steam groups and profiles, check out video game screenshots, and just about anything else Steam-related, including sales.
Best part? It's available right now across iOS and Android. Worst part? This particular version is still in "closed beta." To get in, you'll need to sign into Steam through the mobile app as a way to "express interest in the beta." Users will be rolled into the beta eventually.
Steam sales are deadly for our collective wallets under normal circumstances when we're sitting at our computers. I'm not sure I'm ready to live in a horrible future where I'll be able to impulse-buy $2.99 PC games from the toilet.
posted January 26th, 2012 2:29 PM EST by Eli Hodapp in $0.99, News, Sales
Alright, so even though Meanwhile for iOS [99¢] isn't normally what would come to mind when you think of iOS games, it's something that I bet most people out there aren't aware of. Also, if you're the kind of person who likes Choose Your Own Adventure style books like the variety of gamebooks we've posted about in the past, this will be right up your alley. Maybe you've got kids that like comic books, Meanwhile would be equally perfect in that situation.
I first heard about its physical book form, which is worth checking out just so you can see the clever way its all laid out. You make decisions in the comic book, then follow colored lines to the next panel you should be reading. The amount of decisions included is just silly, as the book boasts 3,856 different possibilities. The plot follows a kid named Jimmy who goes from deciding if he (or, you, as the reader) wants vanilla or chocolate ice cream to deciding the fate of the world after encountering mad scientists, time machines, robots, and tons more.
The comic is targeted at kids in grades 4-6, so if you're an adult looking for some hard-hitting plot points, you'll likely be disappointed. If, however, you're just into comic books and want to check out a really clever implementation of a Choose Your Own Adventure style comic, this is 99¢ you have to spend. The way they adapted the actual book to iOS devices is fantastic. I particularly enjoy how you still see irrelevant (to your particular story path) panels as you read through the comic, which really just makes you want to replay it over and over again to figure out how to get to something you saw that was particularly crazy.
It's on sale today only, due to an update landing which adds completely re-mastered high resolution art. So, don't wait too long or it'll be back up to $4.99.
First, the news: IKAROS [$.99] creator Riverman Media has finally dated Pizza vs. Skeletons. The wonderfully bent, 100-level pizza rolling game is currently in submission and set to release this February 25 as a paid Universal app. Perhaps as a commentary on current iOS trends, Riverman notes on its blog that this release will be "the whole game, for one price" and all updates will be free forever.
And now for a reminder, because hey, it's been a really, really long time since we've talked about Pizza vs. Skeletons. May 2011, actually, was the last time we had anything meaningful to say about the project, which at the time, the developer was struggling to pitch. "How do you hype up something that has no clear genre, a nonsense plot, and a main character that's a thirty foot tall conglomeration of cheese and tomato sauce?” the reveal blog post asked.
But here's the deal: In Pizza vs. Skeletons, you control a massive, fully customizable pizza across a dizzying array of levels that'll have you smashing pyramids, killing robots, and hey, even rescuing puppies. "On one hand it's an ode to all the classic NES and SNES era game we all loved as kids," a new post states. "But it's also got tons of new stuff that has never been put into a game before, with mechanics carefully crafted for iOS." Say no more, guys. I'm sold.
The thing that's really drawing our all-seeing eye is its art style. This looks like the kind of game that Tim Burton would make if he actually had a sense of humor. Definitely spend some time with the images in this article, and get pumped with us!
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:
A dark, moody endless runner with an actual narrative hook? That's the elevator pitch for rComplex, according to the game's developer, InterWave Studios. Originally released for PC back in 2009, InterWave is breathing new life into the title with a Unity 3D powered re-imaginings across multiple handsets and platforms, including iOS later this February.
A new trailer for the game is embedded below, and you should check it out. Basically, you play as a mysterious dude with a lot of stamina who is being chased by a dream-like tentacle monster. As you run, you'll steadily "piece together the events that led to your current situation," and ultimately the mystery. Well, unless you die. You'll probably be boned on that front, then.
The just-released Paper Monsters [99¢], co-developed by Robots Vs Wizards and Crescent Moon Games, has been in the works for a long time. In fact, development originally began way back in mid-2010, and we didn’t learn until well into 2011 that Crescent Moon had actually jumped into the project to give it a graphical makeover (as they’ve been known to do from time to time).
With such a long development cycle, it’s easy for the hype over a game to do one of two things: either people start to lose interest as the months drag along, or the hype builds up to the kind of level that would be hard for any game to deliver on. Well, Paper Monsters finally has reached the App Store, so if you’re part of that first group then it’s time to start paying attention again.
posted January 25th, 2012 8:00 PM EST by Jared Nelson in News, Upcoming Games
Paris based developer Int13 are experts in the field of augmented reality on mobile devices. They showcased this on iOS in late 2010 with the release of ARDefender [99¢], an augmented reality tower defense game. In terms of content, ARDefender was a bit one note, though it did receive a nice update this past October that fleshed out some of the features. However, despite being a pretty simplistic game, the actual tech behind ARDefender was really solid and incorporated into the gameplay better than almost any other AR game I've played before. Also, it was just plain fun to play.
Now Int13 is taking a break from the augmented reality for their next iOS release in order to pay homage to a genre they enjoy: manic arcade shooters. A project that originally started back in 2010, Shogun: Rise of the Renegade is a bullet hell shooter in the same vein as the classic shmups that were prominent in arcades in the 90s, and like the ones CAVE has been so generous with porting over to the iOS platform. I’ve been playing a preview build of Shogun for the past week or so, and am super impressed with the title so far. You can check it out in motion with the developer's trailer for Shogun below:
Big swords and slow-motion make us feel good on the inside, so we're obligated to share this trailer with you. Before you gander at its splendor, here's some context: this is a side-scrolling action RPG from White Whale Games. It's called God of Blades, and in it, users will "assume the role of a nameless spectral king" against a horde of demon dudes. From what we can tell, the action model breaks down to whacking demons with overly large weapons until they fall down. It sounds cool in theory.
No word on release other than "soon," and we're not 100 percent sure what platforms it'll appear on or, hey, even its price. We're guessing these kinds of things will be announced on the studio's Twitter or Facebook in due time.
posted January 25th, 2012 2:10 PM EST by Eli Hodapp in Games, News
Whoa! It's Wednesday again, which is hard to believe because I've had such an insanely busy week. But, like most Wednesdays, the sun has risen, or potentially already set in your neck of the woods… And a whole new slew of iOS games have appeared. Like every other Wednesday since this whole Wednesday night release trend started, all of these games should be available at 11:00 PM Eastern. Or, potentially much earlier if you're east of North America.
Also, yes, we're running really low on relevant Wednesday images we haven't used before for these posts. Anyway, on with the show!
Need more Tiny Invaders [$.99 / Free] in your life? Cool, because conveniently enough, there are more now. In a new major content update, Hogrocket has dropped several new levels into the puzzler, all of which follow a fresh narrative hook. After the President is infected at the end of the game, a new threat emerges: a man who apparently has a resistance. In the pack, you'll have to take over this dude to "truly claim overlord status." Neat!
We've got some other related news. Hogrocket tells us that its just released a free-to-play version of the title that packs in 15 levels from the get-go. After that, users are asked to pay for additional level content. Read our glowing review and give this a spin -- this is a neat puzzle title with tons of interesting choices and characters.
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!
Last week, Spry Fox released an iOS version of Triple Town [Free], their hugely popular match-3 town builder for the Amazon Kindle, and more recently for Google+ and Facebook. We really liked Triple Townin our review, and it’s personally been my biggest obsession of the past week. The ability to upgrade the game tiles by making matches and the limited amount of space to work within added a tremendous amount of depth to the gameplay far beyond your typical matching game.
Today the first update has hit for Triple Town, which mostly focuses on fixing bugs. Things like broken Game Center achievements, the inability to restart games sometimes, and tons of other quirks that come with a version 1.0 release have now been taken care of. The update description also goes on to say that there are several other known bugs that are currently in the process of being hunted down and fixed, one of which includes a problem with turns regenerating after exiting the app.
Star Warfare: Alien Invasion [99¢] is a first-person arena-shooter from Freyr Games, which features wave after wave of relentless attacking alien creatures. The aliens emerge from holes in the wall and from underground, or come flying, bounding or waddling straight towards you from all sides. And once you've shot them, the next wave arrives immediately. It's almost as if you don't even need to explore, as the aliens will come straight for you.
The single player campaign includes five maps, each with six levels of increasing difficulty to unlock (30 levels in total). A progress bar indicates how many of the enemies have spawned and if you survive to the end, your reward is currency to spend in an in-game store. The sixth level of each map is a "survival" level.
posted January 24th, 2012 8:57 PM EST by Eli Hodapp in Free, Games, News
Per the nearly standard operating procedure of "beta testing" wide-scale free to play titles, Canadians and "Canadians" can now get their hands on Zynga's latest iOS game, Dream Heights [Free]. It doesn't take more than a few quick glances at the screenshots and iTunes text to realize that Zynga has firmly focused their copy machines on NimbleBit's Tiny Tower [Free]. It's really incredibly just how blatant of a clone this is, as Zynga has gone far beyond just copying the premise of the game- They even directly lifted the restocking mechanics, elevator upgrades, UI elements, and more.
NimbleBit's Ian Marsh has taken to twitter with an image that perfectly exhibits just how shamelessly Zynga's "inspiration" is for this new free to play title of theirs with side by side screenshots and a hefty amount of trademarked NimbleBit snark.
Take a look:
(Click for full size, with many more comparisons.)
It'll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Historically speaking, Apple has had a very hands-off approach to even the most blatant of clones on the App Store. But, we are talking their very own game of the year last year that's being mercilessly knocked-off here, by Zynga of all companies. I doubt much if anything will actually happen, but I'm not sure how Zynga couldn't stir up a hefty helping of bad blood amongst anyone who realizes that such a large company is lifting ideas straight from a three (3) man development studio.
We'll have to see how Dream Heights does once it eventually sees its worldwide release. The amusing (and sad, to be honest) part of all this is that per another tweet, Zynga once attempted to acquire NimbleBit. If you can't buy 'em, clone 'em?
Buckle up; Adventure Bar Story appears to be pretty radical. I just spent a good chunk of time with a pre-release build of the PSP port, and while I do have a reservation or two about its virtual controls, I couldn't be happier with the overall port job and its core play, which is satisfyingly genre-bending.
Imagine if your everyday 16-bit JRPG hooked up with a management sim. In Adventure Bar Story, you control a young girl attempting to save her bar from being stolen or bought out by a renowned and rival neighborhood restaurant. In order to prevent this, she'll need to learn how to cook, buy or gather ingredients in RPG-like zones complimented by random battles, assemble the ingredients into a dish, and then profit.
Man, these digital platform companions apps come out of nowhere. Today, Valve, the creators of Half-Life and everyone's favorite PC download platform, Steam, announced Steam Mobile [Free]. It's what you think it is, which is to say, it's a companion-y type of experience that'll let you chat with Steam friends, view Steam groups and profiles, check out video game screenshots, and just about anything else Steam-related, including sales.
Alright, so even though Meanwhile for iOS [
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A dark, moody endless runner with an actual narrative hook? That's the elevator pitch for rComplex, according to the game's developer, 
Big swords and slow-motion make us feel good on the inside, so we're obligated to share this trailer with you. Before you gander at its splendor, here's some context: this is a side-scrolling action RPG from 
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