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Flingy

Ryan Johnson — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:40:22 +0000

Aptly named Flingy, the new climber game by Cogniflame Pty Ltd is a love story that uses physics and momentum to propel the plot. In this game Mrs. Flingy has been abducted and placed high atop a seemingly insurmountable climb. To rescue Mrs. Flingy you’ve got to ascend vertically using only your rockets, grapple, and momentum.

Unlike other endless climbers where you automatically ascend upward or have the ability to bounce and leap, Flingy requires you to use a grapple to cling and fling yourself from sphere to sphere in order to make progress. This is no easy task. To invoke your grapple all you have to do is touch the screen. Touch on a specific sphere to connect to it and touch anywhere on the screen to let go. When you clamp on to a sphere you twirl around. The sooner you release yourself from a sphere the more momentum you’ll carry to the next one. In order to climb high you need to perfectly time your release over and over and over again. The slightest mishap can cost you valuable momentum, rendering you to a complete stop.

There are a variety of spheres that can both help and hurt you. Some fill your jet packs with fuel, igniting your rockets, sending your spinning with tons of momentum, some expload to give you a nice boost upward, helping you skip ahead a couple of spheres, and others do nothing to assist your momentum, they just provide a temporary place to connect.

Flingy is a cute game that has potential. One thing that stands out to me is that it definitely takes some getting used to before you’ll be good at it. I find myself getting stuck quite a bit mainly because it’s really easy to have your momentum stopped if you connect to a sphere wrong, and if you connect to a sphere that doesn’t provide momentum then you’re pretty much toast. If I could change anything about the game it’d be to energize it a bit with additional momentum boosters, and perhaps a faster pace of play. I like the overall idea of the game, and the challenge it presents, but at times it seems a little bit frustrating because of how easy it is to get stuck and how there really isn’t much you can do to get unstuck aside from falling to your doom.

Pros:

Challenging, pretty fun once you get the hang of it
Can be pretty addicting at times

Cons:

Is pretty easy to get yourself stuck
Could use some additional bonuses and a faster more engaging pace of play

Version Reviewed: 1.1

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iOS 3.0 or later

Dodonpachi Resurrection

Ryan Johnson — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:55:22 +0000

Dodanpachi Resurrection sets the bar for the way ALL touch screen arcade shoot ‘em ups should be. It’s touch screen controls are flawless and it’s borderline overwhelming action combine to create an ultra engaging and hard to put down gaming experience. Put in some eye drops because you won’t be able to blink once you start playing!

Created by Cave Co., Ltd, Dodonpachi Resurrection oozes fast-paced action. In keeping with it’s original 1990’s personality, you come out guns a blazing automatic fire style as you shepherd your rocket ship through a continuous onslaught of enemy ships and incoming fire. In true arcade flair, the energy and lights put out by the game are sunglasses worthy, and the importance of supreme bobbing and weaving and butt kicking is imperative.

If you like casual flying shooters where you can timidly slide your finger from side-to-side across the screen you’re in for a rude awakening when you play Dodonpachi Resurrection. This game is over the top fast, requires you to take crazy angles, navigate through tiny windows of safety, simultaneously hold down buttons, and do it all at a ridiculous pace. I literally find myself navigating in a continuous zig zag motion when I play.

As you’d expect Dodonpachi Resurrection doesn’t disappoint in the weaponry department. In addition to the standard auto shot you have at your disposal a high powered laser and a hyper cannon. The hyper cannon emits a constant stream of fire that can be distributed at various angles. You can also enhance the fury of the hyper cannon with charge ups. Charging it up three-times unleashes a powered up hyper cannon that makes other weaponry look like pea shooters. I wish I had one in real life!

I think it’s pretty clear that I love this game. I’ve played quite a few manic shooter arcade games and this one certainly stands out as one of the best. Often times games like this struggle to provide controls with the responsiveness required to meet the fast-paced demanding nature of the game. Cave certainly figured it out. This game has some of the most precise touch-based controls I’ve seen. Equally impressive are the abundance of options and game modes. When it comes to options/settings you can completely customize the game controls and experience from button locations to screen size, so no need to worry about “getting used” this game. If you a fan of loud, vibrant, fast-paced manic arcade shooters then you definitely need to check out Dodonpachi Resurrection.

Pros:

Sick graphics, responsiveness, and ultra-fast game-play
Touch screen controls are second to none
Can customize button layouts and screen size
Authentic arcade-style game experience

Cons:

Priced a little high in my opinion; but still worth it

Version Reviewed: 1.0.3

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iOS 3.1.3

Prince Of Dragon

Ryan Johnson — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:16:45 +0000

The Dark Lord has given the land of Babylon a proverbial FU, taking rule over the land and spreading pain, suffering, and darkness to a once happy people. You are the Prince Of Dragon, the only one that can harness the power of a once untamed beast to overthrow the Dark Lord’s reign and to restore Babylon back to greatness.

Created by Chai Studio, Prince Of Dragon is a non-stop 2D shooter with continuous automatic fire and side-to-side up-down game-play. To defeat the evil Dark Lord you’ve got to bob and weave between enemy fire, destroy most enemies in your path, collect bonuses delivered by a fairy, and eliminate bosses. Your character, the Prince Of Dragon, fire’s his weaponry endlessly with no effort required on your part. You can earn three bonus powers that make conquering enemies much easier. You can shoot off a burst of flames that eliminates anything in it’s path with a single shot (except for bosses), a shield which does the obvious, and dragon power that unleashes a barrage of fire and blasts that inflict major pain on your enemies. Aside from unleashing the occasional bonus power, the only thing you need to worry about while playing is navigating the Prince Of Dragon so he can more easily kill enemies and avoiding taking too much damage. Seeing that the most important aspect of the game is precision control this has to mean that the game controls are flawless doesn’t it?

I liked most aspects of Prince Of Dragon. I love 2D shooters, who doesn’t? But there were two critical aspects of this game that I didn’t like. The game controls are very erratic, making precision control a near impossibility, and the game itself is too easy. Why is it too easy? Well, I beat it in about 20 minutes.

So what’s with the game controls? Well, it uses a floating circular touchpad that shows up anywhere you touch on the screen. This sounds perfect because being able to invoke the controls anywhere on the screen helps you avoid covering up critical parts of the gaming surface as you play, unfortunately I found that way too often I’d be trying to direct the Prince Of Dragon one direction as he shot forward in the completely opposite direction, or didn’t move at all. The developers appeared to have offset this by making the game easier. As mentioned, I was able to play straight through to the end of the game in a single sitting. You can take damage over and over and you don’t miss a beat.

If the game controls get updated so they’re more precise and the difficulty of the game is increased it’d go a long way to upping my rating. I’d love this game if it had more levels, was harder, and really demanded strong gaming skills to conquer. The graphics, sounds, and so forth are definitely good enough, but the rest of the game needs some tweaking.

Pros:

Good graphics
Fun game-play

Cons:

Game controls need some major work, very imprecise
Currently too easy, I beat it in 20 minutes

Version Reviewed: 1.0

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iOS 3.1.2 or later

Fuzion2

Ryan Johnson — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:22:35 +0000

Here’s a freebie that you definitely shouldn’t pass up! Fuzion2 is all about saving the world from an atomic disaster–well sort of. There’s no huge explosions, no imagery of the earth in peril, all of that is pretty much left up to your imagination, but if you get yourself in the right mindset this is a kick butt game.

Created by Ninjamerica Games, Fuzion2 is all about fusing together like particles. This may sound a bit nerdy, but trust me it’s really addictive. The game presents you with a variety of challenges that require you to generate a certain number of points or accomplish a goal within a very short period of time (ex. 30 seconds). Sometimes you just need to fuse together as many particles as you can, sometimes you need to fuse together particles while also avoiding inert particles, and other times you to fuse together particles nearby dark matter in order to dissolve it.

It takes strategy and perfect timing to be efficient at fusing particles. Various different colors of particles bounce erratically around the screen. To fuse like particles together you must quickly touch the screen in a place where you think two like particles will exist. When you touch the screen it generates a mini vortex that temporarily sucks in particles that are close. If you time it just right with two or more like particles they’ll fuse together and explode.

Fuzion2 has 5 levels of game-play each one consisting of multiple goals. The game transitions seamlessly and quickly from one goal which makes for engaging and sometimes stressful game-play. You can earn a variety of power-ups that help make conquering levels a bit easier. There’s a Blueness Ray that turns nearby ions blue, an Ion Blast that obliterates nearby ions regardless of color, a Particle Accelerator that releases four extra ions into the reaction (big help), and an Atomic Clock that gives you 15 more seconds to reach your goal (also a big help). For a free game, Fuzion2 really offers a nice collection of features and challenges.

Overall I really like Fuzion2. I think it’s a well balanced game that offers a lot for a freebie and is certainly one I’ll keep going back to until I beat all the levels. If you’re a fan of puzzle games that require coordination, strategy, and at times can be a little stressful, then you’ll love Fuzion2. Definitely don’t hesitate to get this one.

Pros:

Good graphics, sufficiently challenging, offers a lot of replayability
Fast paced game-play, a good time-killer
Nice variety of challenges, very addictive

Cons:

Even though I haven’t beat it yet, it has 5 levels, I’d love to have more

Version reviewed: 1.0

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iOS 3.0 or later

Chain Disaster

Ryan Johnson — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:48:25 +0000

Here’s a freebie that’ll leave you wanting more. Chain Disaster, the newest app by omegaHern LLC, is the latest edition to the chain reaction genre of games, draws you in with it’s free price point, but unfortunately comes up way short of it’s predecessors. Unlike other popular chain reaction games which have multiple levels, a variety of themes, and cute and fun characters, Chain Disaster is plain, has only one level, no global leaderboard, and well — leaves much to be desired.

I’m a fan of chain reaction games. I can literally play Sneezies for hours. But Chain Disaster just doesn’t cut the mustard and here’s why. When I think of chain reaction games I think of them like puzzles. Games with multiple levels, that require real strategy and a bit of luck to advance in the game. Chain Disaster offers nothing of the sort. The entire object of the game is to beat your previous high score. To make it easier or harder on yourself you can adjust how many dots show on the screen. Obviously the more the dots the easier it gets, but aside from that you’re just touching dots, watching them explode, and then starting all over again. See what I mean by leaving you wanting more?

The saving graces of this game is that it’s free, but aside from that I don’t see very many pluses. The graphics are weak, the single level game-play is weak, and pretty much everything else about it is weak. Try it out if you’re curious to see how weak it is, but aside from a few minutes of life wasting not so entertaining entertainment, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a one and doner for you.

Pros:

It’s free

Cons:

Offers only one level
No global leaderboard
Only object of the game is to beat your previous high score
Takes literally one second to play

Version Reviewed: Version 1.0

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iOS 3.0 or later

Cut It Up!

Ryan Johnson — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:00:44 +0000

Be prepared to have lots of fun and be 100% frustrated at the same time! Cut It Up! is a strategic slicer where balls bounce erratically inside a variety of oddly designed shapes. Using your finger like a razor you must surgically whittle shapes down to size in as few a slices as possible without cutting any of the bouncing balls. It starts out as innocent as child’s play, but quickly ramps up into an enjoyable stress inducing head scratcher.

Cut It Up! is one of Apalon apps newest editions. First off I must warn you, this game is extremely addictive. Think of it like a puzzle that keeps on changing. Every time you take a slice out of a shape the objects within react differently. As the shape gets smaller and smaller the balls bounce faster and faster and the window of time you have to safely trim the shape shrinks dramatically. Your goal in the game is to slice the shape until the slice meter passes the target rope. The fewer slices it takes you to do this the better the medal you’re awarded with (gold, silver, bronze).

Cut It Up! consists of two episodes, each consisting of 20 levels. Each level presents you with a totally different shape and challenge. You can trim every aspect of the shape excluding white walls. As you can figure, the further you advance the more odd shapes and white walls you’re presented with. I can say for sure that you’ll come across many shapes that’ll have your number, and will take you several (many) attempts before you figure out how to defeat them.

Overall Cut It Up! is a really fun game. I wasn’t sure how I’d like it at first but it’s curiously challenging and fun. It has great replayability because it’s hard to let levels get the better of you. I’ve gotten caught up on several levels that frustrated me, but seem to keep going back for more punishment. Cut It Up! is fast paced so you can squeeze in a game here and there even if you only have a minute or two to spare. If you like puzzles and strategy games you should check this one out.

Pros:

Fun, fast paced, and both addictive and frustrating
Great time killer
Levels are challenging, has plenty of replayability

Cons:

Nothing major, a global leaderboard would be nice

Version Reviewed: 1.1

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later

100 Nazi Scalps

Ryan Johnson — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:39:12 +0000

Grab your baseball bat, sharpen your knife, and bring plenty of ammo because we’re going to go scalp some Nazis! 100 Nazi Scalps seems heavily inspired by Brad Pitt’s character Lieutenant Aldo Raine in the movie Inglorious Basterds. If you’ve seen the movie you’ll know that Lt. Raine is all about killing some Nazis, and by any means necessary. In the movie knives, bats, and guns are used to instill fear and to ultimately turn the tide on the oppressive regime. 100 Nazi Scalps is essentially the same, except you don’t use bats and knives to intimidate, you use them to bash and rip off some scalps!

Created by Apalon, 100 Nazi Scalps is a 2D platformer with limited side-to-side movement, a fair assortment of World War II weaponry, and simple yet fairly difficult game-play. Enemies attack from in-front and behind, kneeling helps to avoid damaging gunfire but doesn’t protect you from incoming grenades. Essentially you need to scurry forward and backward rattling off as much gunfire as you can, kneeling to limit damage, and scalping any enemies that fall to their knees. Occasionally enemies will drop more powerful weapons so it’s important to snatch them up when you can.

If you want to do well in this game the most critical thing to master is toggling between and using weapons. Personally I found the weapons buttons to be very awkward to use. There are four buttons lined up horizontally, two that let you toggle from weapon to weapon and two that let you use the weapons. Not sure why they developer chose to set it up this way, but it’s something I would change as soon as possible. It took me several tries before I figured out how to use them properly. Essentially you need to swipe down across the far left buttons to switch between the bat and knife, and to change guns, and need to tap on the right buttons to use the weapons. The bat and knife don’t actually work until you’re literally in the face of enemies which seems a bit strange to me. For a while there I thought they didn’t actually work.

Once you get used to the weapons setup, which will will take a little practice, the game is pretty fun. I like the sounds and the bloodiness of the game. A fair amount of tissue matter and guts are displayed when you shoot people. The more powerful the gun the more impressive the result. Grenades are a favorite of mine as they make bodies explode into multiple piles of hamburger. I’d have to say the overall fun-factor of the game is only so-so. Mainly because you’re range of motion is very limited, and the fact that you can’t bust out your knife and bat until you’re up in the enemies grill kinda sucks. I wish you could jump around, throw punches, chuck knives if you want to, smash some skulls from further away than two inches, stuff like that. I’m a fan of the overall theme, love myself a good 2D arcade thriller, but unfortunately 100 Nazi Scalps as it stands today, doesn’t quite live up to it’s full potential.

Pros:

Fair amount of blood and guts
Great theme, love killing and scalping Nazis
Reasonable value for the price

Cons:

Weapons buttons are awkward and annoying; needs improvement
Only 6 levels of game-play
Challenging for what it is, but concept is too simple, needs more complexity

Version Reviewed: 1.07

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iOS 2.2.1 or later

Flight Ultimate

Ryan Johnson — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:21:45 +0000

One look at the screen shots for Flight Ultimate and I knew I just had to have it. When I learned that it was a flight sim with a funny twist I was even more intrigued. Unfortunately Flight Ultimate performed more like “Flight Not So Ultimate”, as it has rather limited directional control, is littered with broken English, lackluster visual effects, wacky mismatched sounds, and a humorous twist that results in surprisingly odd/ridiculous missions.

Created by iTechGen, Flight Ultimate is a bit of a tease with it’s attractive and realistic looking exterior. It’s graphics are pretty good, that’s definitely one of it’s pluses, but aside from basic flight movements it’s far from being a realistic flying experience. Directionally you can move up and down, and can bank relatively sharp turns, but unfortunately you can’t make steep vertical maneuvers, loops, or barrel rolls. The engine sounds are non-existent, there’s no way to adjust your speed, and even though you have weapons there’s no sight for aiming.

Essentially the game is made up of a series of missions that take place in a varrying array of landscapes. The first mission is called XXL COW as there is a “vicious” cow on the loose that’s terrorizing village residents with it’s abnormally stinky poop. Yeah, POOP! The object of the mission is to fly over the cow and take a picture of it. A picture of it? Yes. That’s the mission. Really. Subsequent missions are similarly strange. Mission 2 requires you to kill the XXL Cow using a fighter jet and missiles. The missiles look more like tracer bullets when fired and conveniently there’s no site or aiming mechanism so you more or less just point the nose of the plane in the general direction of the cow and tap the screen like a banshee until you hit it.

I wanted badly to love this game, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. As I played it I found myself begging for more. Give me more control, give me more freedom, give me more realistic weaponry and sounds, give me more interesting missions. Please!!! Unfortunately, aside from each level increasing in difficulty each of them was just more of the same. Odd/wacky missions, lots of misspellings and broken English, cheesy sound effects, and not so realistic flying.

Pros:

Graphics are pretty good
If you have a wacky sense of humor you may get a kick out of the missions

Cons:

Flight controls are very limited (no tricks or speed control)
Limited sound effects; cheesy sounding
Lot’s of misspellings and broken English

Version Reviewed: 1.0

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iPhone OS 3.0 or later

Ponk

Ryan Johnson — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:38:48 +0000

Gooey maneuverable balls, 3 game modes, and match 3+ puzzle game-play awaits in the well put together and moderately addictive Ponk. Using your finger you drag and place colored balls as they fall from the sky. The object is to stack like colored balls so they touch. When three or more balls of the same color touch they explode, often times setting of chain reactions. Each of the three game modes require a different strategy, but one thing remains constant throughout, you must match quickly and strategically if you want to survive long enough to score big.

Created by Five AM Studio, Ponk is another twist added to the popular match 3+ puzzle gaming category. The game provides you with complete control of your destiny no matter which game mode you choose; Klassik, Kaboum, or Time Attack. Klassik mode is a lot like Tetris without the variety of shapes. The object is to prevent the balls from stacking to the top of the screen so as you can guess the more balls you can eliminate, the more levels you pass and the more points you earn. Kaboum mode is the one I probably like the most. It seems to require more strategy than the other modes. Kaboum mode is all about blowing stuff up (Uh…huh, huh…cool – Butthead). In this level you’ve got do all the same stuff as Klassik mode but in order to advance to the next level you’ve got to blow up all the padlock looking balls and mystery balls. To do so you’ve got to guide and position matching colored balls so they adequately surround the padlock and star filled balls. Sprinkled into the mix are some bombs, which you’ll want to use to enhance the power and depth of your explosion. Lastly there’s Time Attack, of which the title tells you everything. You’re working against an unforgiving clock and must dissolve like colored balls ASAP or you’re game will end really quickly.

There are some pretty cool features within the game. One of my favorites is the “more balls” option. Essentially it’s a button you can press at anytime to launch a sudden blast of balls. I get bored pretty quick so having more to do at once seems to keep me entertained. Another helpful feature is the “freeze” button. You’ve got to earn the power to freeze, but once all the green lights are full you can press it to stop all falling balls in their tracks. The freeze lasts quite a while so you have plenty of time to maneuver everything around to your advantage. Altogether there are 42 different achievements you can unlock as you play. Many of which enhance the gaming experience and help you blow up more balls with less effort.

Overall Ponk is a nicely put together match 3+ puzzler with decent replayability and a smooth interface. I didn’t find it to be as addictive as some of the other puzzlers I’ve played, but it definitely is a quality game worth trying out. The touchiness and responsiveness of the game are great, which should keep both youngins and older peeps pretty engaged. If you’ve been looking to replace one of your oldy but goody puzzlers it’s worth checking out Ponk.

Pros:

Nice clean graphics
Great list of features, 3 different game modes and 42 in game achievements
Online leaderboard, decent replayability

Cons:

Aims to be unique, but isn’t too far removed from many other match 3+ puzzlers

Version Reviewed: 1.0.1

Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iPhone OS 3.1 or later

Vampire Saga: Pandora’s Box

Rich DeBell — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:17:37 +0000

Developed by Alawar Entertainment, Vampire Saga: Pandora’s Box is more much than just another hidden objects game. Vampire Saga integrates hidden objects gameplay with puzzle solving and adventure game elements. In Vampire Saga: Pandora’s Box a grandfather tells his story to his grand son of when he was a young man who snuck onto a cargo ship to escape from a war. What he finds on the ship (Named Pandora) is much worse though than the war he departed. He passed out on a cargo ship that would take him to Boston, and when he woke up, all crewmen were gone. He searched all parts of the ship and under the water for clues. What he found were the dead captain on the seafloor, a dead crewman in a dingie, a nearly dead woman in the closet of the cargo hold, and more questions than answers. As we follow his adventure on the ship and on the small island, then to the present day in his apartment, a chilling story slowly unveils itself concluding with any exciting and surprising ending.

Features Include:

11 hidden object game scenes
Five mini-games
300 hidden objects
Animated cutscenes
A surprise ending!

Pros:

Great storyline
The game is difficult without clues, keeping it fresh and entertaining throughout
Graphics are good and scenes are very detailed, making finding hidden objects difficult (as it should be)
Sounds effects are wonderful. Both eire and compelling they perfectly match the theme of the game

Cons:

The cut seens are good however more animations in these would be preferred
Once played there is really no reason to play again, though this is the case with most games of this nature

Vampire Saga: Pandora’s Box is a fun and entertaining game following the Hidden Object mould. In a game such as this it’s the process of working through the game segment by segment, uncovering more and more clues and facts enabling you to solve problems and hidden truths which is the true fun factor. In this capacity Alawar Entertainment accompshied this goal. Though there are areas or details I would like to see improved or expanded upon such as the graphics, and the depth of the game these are minor. When your biggest complaint is that you want to see more I see this as a good problem to have and hopefully in future updates or games Alawar will continue to build on this success. Available in both standard(iPhone and iPod Touch) and HD(iPad) versions, there is something here for all mobile mac enthusiasts.