Search Results for: label/0.99

Dragon Of The Three Kingdoms is a new side-scrolling beat-em-up/hack-n-slash/action RPG from WaGame Technology. In it, you play as Zhao Yun as you battle against the Nanman Barbarians. The game really reminds me of Dynasty Warriors, but in a side-scrolling, old-school format. The graphics are awesome, and very reminiscent of the SNES/SEGA era, and the animations are great. Walking looks kinda funny, but it’s not distracting, and the fighting animations are very smooth and presented very well.

The controls in DOTTK are tight, responsive, and very easy to use. You move Zhao Yun with a joystick in the bottom left corner, and have an attack button on the bottom right side of the screen, with a skill attack button next to it. When you fill up your attack bar under your health bar, another button appears next to the skill button, and stays there until you tap on it. In that same area is where you tap to ride horses, and elephants. Turning around quickly to fight off enemies that swarm around you is very easy to do, and you’re never stuck mashing on the screen trying to turn around in a hurry so you don’t loose a bunch of health.

Right now, there is one pretty major bug/issue. Whenever you die, and try to retry from the last checkpoint, everything on the screen becomes unresponsive. The developers have said that they’re working on a fix for this, but it seems like this is something that should have been dealt with during some beta testing. It is a shame that if you die, you need to exit the game, remove it from your multitasking bar, and re-start from the beginning of the level, instead of at the last checkpoint. Hopefully the developers get this issue fixed soon, because it’s a pretty major bug.

Aside from that, the gameplay is pretty good. You go through the levels, hacking and slashing away at enemies. If you press the skill button, the action pauses, so you can take your time choosing which skill you’d like to use given the current situation on the screen. There’s vases, crates, and treasure chests scattered throughout the levels, each dropping gold, health, and flags. You can use the gold to buy accessories in the shop between levels, and the flags to use your skills. The enemies also have an item drop rate that’s reasonably decent, and sometimes you’ll come across a full meal that restores your health fully. However, in order to use a skill or your special attack, you’ll need to press forward on the joypad while pressing the buttons, and this can get pretty frustrating during hectic battle sequences.

There are also some power-ups, but these drop rates are pretty low. Some will give you stronger attacks, some will increase your defense, and things like that. You level up while progressing through the game, but another thing I would have liked to see is the health refilled when you level up. Right now, leveling up doesn’t really do anything but give you another attack and defense point, which in the battle sections, doesn’t really help too much. There are bosses at the end of each level, and defeating them can sometimes prove to be quite the challenge. But it’s not overly difficult, and reminds me of old-school beat-em-up games.

Dragon Of The Three Kingdoms does have a lot of content, especially for being $0.99. It’s a solid action RPG, with the addition of side-scrolling levels, and is definitely worth checking out. There’s plenty of variation with the bosses and enemies, and really hit’s the spot if you’re looking for a game that matches the gameplay and difficulty of old-school beat-em-ups from the NES and SNES eras. There is, however, very little replay value here. Maybe if you could unlock more characters at the end of the game or play on a harder difficulty, the drive to replay the game would be there, but as it is now, you’ll play it once, and probably end up deleting it.

Dragon Of The Three Kingdoms is getting a score of 7 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon-of-the-three-kingdoms/id408207206?mt=8

Explodables is a new tap/arcade game from Bonpeach. Throughout the game you’ll go through levels, which are more like challenges, to complete the game. There’s also a Blitz Mode, which gives you about a minute to score as many points as you can. There’s red, blue, green, and white rockets, white rockets are wild, and can be any color you need them to be. The screen is broken up into 3 sections, blue on the bottom, green in the middle, and red on top, and you’ll always have a set color order that results in a combo. You can tap on the rockets anywhere on the screen, but you only get the massive point combos when you tap the rockets in their respective color sections, blue on the bottom, green in the middle, and red on top. If you miss a color, then the combo re-sets, and you’ll need to make the color combo again.

Through the levels, you’re usually given a set score to try and hit, but there’s also levels that challenge you to get 3 crowns, which are given off when you make a combo and get a multiplier circle, which you can then move around the screen. Placing this multiplier circle in the color sections that you need to pull off the combo gives you mega points, and moving it to follow the combo gives you crowns. For instance, if the color combo given to you at the beginning of the stage is red, green, blue, then you’ll need to tap a red rocket in the red section, a green rocket in the green section, and a blue rocket in the blue section, then a multiplier circle will appear, you’ll tap on it, and then move it up to the red section, tap a red rocket, move it to the green section, tap a green rocket, then move it to the blue section, and tap a blue rocket, then 3 crowns will appear. These crowns are the best way to get huge scores, and collecting 6 of them puts you into a bonus stage.

All of this might sound confusing, and it kind of is, but the learning curve is great, and you’ll get to experience everything one step at a time going through the levels. Blitz Mode is unlocked once you hit level 20 or so, I can’t really remember when I unlocked it, but it’s before you finish the rookie levels.

The graphics in Explodables are awesome. Very colorful, and stand out on retina supported devices. The movement and animations are smooth and very well done, and the music and effects go along very well with the game. There is a graphics option in the menu which lets you turn the graphics down if you’re experiencing lag, but I haven’t had any problems with jitteriness or any crashing at all. The tap controls are very responsive and accurate as well.

Explodables really is a top notch high scoring game, with GameCenter leaderboards for Blitz Mode and Levels 31 through 45. There’s also 45 achievements, all adding to the extremely high replay value of the game. Bonpeach has shown that they know exactly what it takes to make a professional, extremely polished arcade game for the iOS, and at only $0.99, Explodables is a great buy. Anyone who’s into high-scoring games with great scoring systems, and hectic gameplay should definitely check this out. I know it’s going to be on my iPod until it breaks, and I’m glued to Bonpeach, eagerly awaiting updates for this, and seeing what awesome game they come up with next.

Explodables is getting a score of 10 out of 10, and is recommended to everyone!

Acid Rain is a new swipe/tap casual arcade game from Bal Rokko. There’s only one game mode to play at the moment, called Flower. In Flower Mode, you need to tap or swipe on the drops of acid rain coming down from the sky, in waves towards the flowers, while trying to not hit the good drops of rain, or the lightning drops, which kill a flower if you hit them, letting them go down into the ground. The game is over when the gauge on the left side of the screen fills up with acid drops as they hit the ground, or if you hit 3 lightning drops, killing all 3 flowers.

The scoring in Acid Rain is extremely good, you get one point for each drop of acid rain that you tap to pop, but if you swipe through the drops of acid rain without lifting your finger off of the screen, you get a combo score. After swiping through 10 drops, your score will double, and goes up with each 10 drops that you swipe through in succession. Hitting a regular drop of rain while in the middle of a combo resets it to zero, so you really need to be careful not to hit the blue drops of rain coming down. Having a perfect combo swipe gets you 3 stars at the end of the level, which is 10 points for the first star, 25 for the second, and 100 for the third, all added together. So, for instance, in the first wave, if you swipe through all 8 acid rain drops, you’ll get 8 points, then because of the combo, you’ll get 3 stars, which will add up to be 135 points. Add on the 8 points for the acid drops, and you’ll have 143 points. You also get points for each flower that survives each storm, and this score also goes up as you progress through the storms. So a lot of work has gone into making Acid Rain a game that’s really focused on combos and high scoring.

There’s also power-ups that really help you build your score. One power-up is a rainbow that goes all the way across the screen, and turns each raindrop that goes through it into a rainbow drop. Popping each of these adds to your combo bonus, as well as gives you 10 points per drop popped, and is a great way to make your score skyrocket. Another power-up is a 500 point ball that you just need to swipe through or tap on to get. These 500 point balls are also multiplied by your current drop multiplier. So if you’re swiping through drops, and you’re on your 35th drop, and then swipe through the 500 point ball, it’ll be multiplied by 4 making it 2000 points, all of this, again, adding a ton to the scoring mechanics of Acid Rain.

The addition of GameCenter also helps drive this high-scoring affair, and adds quite a bit to the replayability of the game. However, there are no achievements, which would have been very nice to see in this game, considering you’re getting huge combos, big scores, and an insane number of rain drops while moving through wave after wave and storm after storm.

The graphics in Acid Rain are great, very vibrant, even though you’re mainly playing in the rain and the sky is usually grey, the rainbow, rainbow drops, and green and blue rain drops really pop when they’re set against the grey background. The flowers also dance while you’re playing, and really are quite cute. The animation of the rain popping is really good as well, and there’s a line that follows your finger as you swipe across the screen. Some levels also include a wind mechanic that makes the rain drops swing back and forth. All of this really adds to the atmosphere and great polished look of the game. It is retina display supported, but not Universal.

All-n-all, Acid Rain is a solid casual arcade game that’s good for gamers of all skill levels, and all ages. Later in the game it gets pretty challenging, as they throw in 2 acid drops per row of rain, and I’m assuming there’s 3, eventually, but I haven’t gotten that good at it yet. It’s very polished, and there’s more content to come with future updates, which I’m really excited about. Especially the addition of the next game mode. At $0.99, it’s a great buy, and isn’t going to be deleted from my device any time soon.

Acid Rain is getting a score of 8.5 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/acid-rain/id412650688?mt=8

Think of all the cliche alien movies you have seen this year. About 100% of them have huge Michael Bay- esque explosions and  awesome futuristic weapons.  Alpha Balls also has to do with an alien invasion but fortunately does away with all the over used explosions so common in main stream media.
When you first start up the game you are brought to a menu screen where you have a few different options.  You can check out the gamecenter leaderboards and see how your friends are doing, go through the tutorial, and finally start a game.  There is only one game mode; Survival, and it is score based.  You can try to compete for a high score by playing survival for a long time or just play it for fun.
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The main enemy in the game is an alien spacecraft that is trying to destroy the earth.  They’re not using heavy arms or swarms of enemies but are hedging the success of their mission on throwing large balls at our planet and hoping we are obliterated. But dammit were AMERICA we don’t stand for shenanigans like that!  Our awesome and high tech solution is to shoot balls back at their balls so that they are pushed away from our planet, hopefully hitting our annoying neighbors.  The ball shooting device is similar to a tennis serving machine and machine-gun fires the balls right back at them.  In order to shoot you drag your finger on the lower part of the screen in the direction you want to fire.  Keep in mind you have a limited amount  of ammo that replenishes slowly so you really have to be strategic in where and what you shoot of.  Unfortunately that means you cant have extreme firing rampages like in Rambo but that would just make the game too unbalanced. If you tap the screen with 2 fingers a charged shot is released that has more impact power than the regular shots. Using this ability decreases the shot meter by 5 shots which you could have used defending your base. You start off with a shield but that diminishes when it gets hits more than once which leaves no room for error. The game gets really intense later on in survival mode and will have you hooked trying to save your base.
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Overall this is a great physics based shooting game but is a little lacking on content.  More enemy types besides the 2 currently in the game would make the game more strategic as well.  I give it a 4/5 stars.
Info:
Releasing Sept. 1st
Price: 0.99
Devs: Appsolute Entertainment
Note: Pictures will be added once the game is released along with the unreleased video.

Dino Survival is a new tilting arcade game from SomeHand. There’s two different game modes Meteor Garden, and Last Place. In Meteor Garden, it’s your job to collect as many fruits as you can, while avoiding randomly falling meteors. You’ll need to grab fruits as fast as you can, back to back, in order to get big combo bonus scores, and one hit from a meteor, or go too long without any fruit, and it’s game over. In Last Place, you’ll face more pattern oriented meteors, all falling at once. While trying to get out of the way of the meteors, you’re given one fruit, for each pattern, to try and collect. Get hit once, or miss out on too many fruits in a row, and it’s game over.

The controls in Dino Survival are nice and responsive, but you’re only able to choose between three different calibration options, and no sensitivity options. Almost every tilting game in the AppStore should have calibration and sensitivity options, because, of course, we all like to hold, and play, our iDevices differently. Also adding a joystick for gamers with iPads would have been a great idea, as it can get pretty tiring tilting your big iPad around for any length of time.

Graphics-wise, Dino Survival is cute, and polished. The animations are good, and the shadows for the falling meteors get bigger and bigger as the meteors get closer to hitting the ground. The addition of fruits makes the game more vibrant, as do the 5 environments. There are 2 unlockable dinosaurs, but they don’t have different playing mechanics. There’s no movement difference between any of them, and no special attributes for the unlockable characters. Having this would have made a big difference in the game.

GameCenter leader boards exist for both game modes, but there are no achievements. In a game like Dino Survival, where you’re collecting items and dodging things continuously, achievements are always nice to have. But the lack of them doesn’t hurt the gameplay too much, and the leader boards help add replay value to the game.

In the end, Dino Survival is a solid casual arcade game, and SomeHand has shown that they can put a good game together. However, it does feel like there’s a lack of content here, and if SomeHand had spent just a little more time adding little different mechanics, and maybe some power-ups, or more modes, Dino Survival could have easily been a must buy game. Right now, Dino Survival is free, but the price will go back up to $0.99 soon, and if you miss out on the free promotion, you can rest assured that this game is worth the $0.99 you’ll spend on it, especially if the developers keep adding to the game, and making it the best they can.

I’m giving Dino Survival a score of 6 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dino-survival!/id458568138?mt=8

Goop is a new casual arcade game from Fine & Dandy Games. In it, you will try and save the Eeeps by getting them from one side of the screen to the other without letting them get hit by the dripping goop. There’s 4 different environments in which you can try and save the Eeeps in, each with different goop set-ups. Four different characters, each with different mechanics and ways of moving helps add a bit of strategy to the game as well.

The graphics in Goop are great, nice, polished, and presented in Retina Display. The four environments are each wonderfully colored, and are extremely varied. Each one of the Eeeps are different colors, pink, bright green, dull green, and purple, making it easy to tell which Eeeps you are dealing with, and needing to get across the screen. The controls are good and responsive, you touch the Eeeps to make them jump forward, and tap, hold, and drag them left to pull them backwards a bit.

Goop is definitely a nice pick-up-and-play game, easy to waste a few minutes on whenever you’ve got a couple minutes to spare. It’s easy enough to be accessible for kids, but challenging enough to keep even adults entertained.

There are 4 different leader boards on GameCenter, along with 22 achievements, adding quite a bit to the replay value. There is, however, no mode select, or difficulty change options, though the difficulty does go up as you play, changing the rate and timing of the goop drips. Having different modes made for a game like Goop would have been a great idea. The game seems to be set up perfectly for a Challenge Mode, or something of that sort. A Story Mode would have also been a great idea for the game, finding out why they’re away from their home, or why they need to get back would have made the game more entertaining.

With the 4 different environments, there’s not much content in the way of gameplay. Each world is the size of the screen, and does not scroll. Most games with one-screen levels give us way more than 4 levels, so seeing this was kind of disappointing.

What really does stand out are they graphics, easy playability, the climbing difficulty, and the scoring system. Once you get a certain number of Eeeps across the screen, you’ll enter bonus modes, increasing your score quite a bit, and driving you to get more and more Eeeps across the screen. The climbing difficulty helps keep the game entertaining to hardened gamers, and the leader boards and achievements add that extra challenge.

In the end, Goop is a cute casual game that’s great for kids as well as adults, and casual to hardcore gamers. It could just use a bit more content and gameplay. But for $0.99, it’s a great buy, as it’s a game that could potentially stay on your device for a long, long time. Fine & Dandy Games have shown that they know what makes a game accessible to everyone, and I’m excited to see what they’re next offering to the AppStore will be. I do hope to see more done with Goop, but it’s worth buying as is now, as it’ll give you more entertainment than 4 quarters spent at the arcade.

Goop is getting a score of 7 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goop/id426940636?mt=8

There’s no doubt in the world that when you first see this game your first thought is “Wait, this looks just like Cut the Rope”! It does sort of resemble Cut the Rope, especially since the main character in this game Yammi bares a strong resemblance to Om Nom. Even though Save Yammi HD [$0.99 (iPad Only)] by Bulkypix looks like it might be a ripoff of Cut the Rope, it’s not. It’s actually the complete opposite. You could actually say that Save Yammi builds off of the things that made Cut the Rope such a success and they turn it into their own. In this game your goal is to deliver the cookie into Yammi’s mouth. In each of the over 100 levels you can collect the stars within each level to earn bonus points to boost your overall score. There is a

rope that you can use in this game, but there’s no cutting ropes. Instead you can draw the ropes. You can draw the ropes before you start the level by popping the bubble that holds the cookie. The bad part is that you can only draw the ropes you’ll need at the very second you begin the level, because the ropes actually start to vanish as time moves on. So that means by the time you’re near Yammi your rope that you drew might have completely disappeared there. One of the coolest things about the ropes is that once you draw it, it’s not completely straight. It actually acts like a real rope by sort of drooping down a bit once you set it. You’re also only given a limited amount of rope to use. I actually love the idea of being able to draw ropes. It might take you a couple of replays to get the ropes exactly where you want them, but that’s what keeps you playing and makes the game absolutely addictive! New elements in the game are gradually added over the 100 levels. There’s power-ups that allow you to float and a bunch more of other things. There’s also a great deal of obstacles such as electric volts to watch out for or lightning to avoid or risk getting your cookie obliterated into pieces! I also forgot to mention that the gyroscope in the game is extremely helpful and works perfectly. Overall, I found Save Yammi HD to be a fantastic puzzler. There’s definitely a lot more thinking in this game

then there is to me in Cut the Rope. The levels in this game were just very well done and though out. This right here is a true puzzle game. My final score is 4/5 stars. The game can be frustrating at times but in the end it’ll keep you coming back every time. So if you’re looking for a cute challenging game or your a Cut the Rope fan and you want more of a challenge then go check out Save Yammi HD by Bulkypix for $0.99 here. This game is only available for iPad… no I’m just kidding. You can also pick it up for your iPhone & iPod Touch for just $0.99 also here.

Star Galaxy has been pulled from the AppStore so that it can be re-released. When asked why, the publisher responded with;

At one point or another everyone has had some form of a pet in their life.  Be it a frog named Hoppy or a fluffy dog everyone cares about their pet regardless of shape and form.  But sometimes owning a pet can be too much and quite stressful on you and your relations with others.  Fortunately Pixaquarium; a new pet simulation game, takes the weight off your shoulders and lets you have the experience of having a pet without really having one.

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Pixaquarium as the name suggest focuses on you raising and caring for your very own virtual fish.  When you first start the game up you are allowed to choose what type of tank you want your fish to live in.  Then after you made your selection you are taken to the fish tank which has a fish egg in it.  After 30 seconds pass the egg hatches into either a boy or a girl baby fish which you can then name.  The baby fish requires a lot of interaction as you would expect and it can be difficult to keep it alive during this phase of its life.  Fortunately after just 59 minutes it evolves into a teenager which doesn’t require as much interaction and care. Then after 12 hours it finally evolves into a adult. The appearence of your fish changes every time it evolves and their are 44 different types of fish to discover. With only 2 evolutions per your fish’s life you will be playing this over and over again trying to discover all of the other evolutions.  All of the fish you have discovered are added to the Fish Book which catalogs them all and includes descriptions.   You cant access the book in-game but once your fish inevitably dies due to old age you can check it in the main menu.  It becomes necessary to check in every once in a while and is great to kill the 5 minutes you have off in the work day.  

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You can interact with your fish in 4 different ways, either by playing with it by dragging your finger along the screen, feeding it food, cleaning up its waste, or healing it from its sickness.  Those options may sound fairly limited but they are the same options that the very first Tamagotchi had.  I asked the developer if new interactions,new breeds of fish, and items your fish can play with would be included in a future update and he said they certainly would.  I also would like to see mini games but I suspect he is already working on some of those.  The art in this game sports the “retro” pixel effect which takes me back to the era when having a Tamagotchi was completely awesome. Their really isn’t any music in the game but that doesn’t really affect the feel of the game.

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Overall this is a highly addicting game that will have you checking back on your cute little fish often.  With tons of different fish breeds to discover you definitely wont be bored for a very long time!  

Pick it up now for the low price of [0.99]

Dust Those Bunnies is a new swiping arcade game from Gamers Rejoice. In it, you’ll be sweeping as many dust bunnies into a dust pan as you can in a certain amount of time while trying to avoid bomber bunnies and using power-ups. I should mention that this game was made using GameSalad. But it is one of only a couple GameSalad games that actually runs well on my 4th Gen Touch. In fact, I didn’t even know it was made using GameSalad until I read it on the Touch Arcade Forums. The load times are not bad at all, and the controls are nice, tight and responsive.

One of the first things you’ll notice about Dust Those Bunnies is the graphics. They’re black and white and look like a classic old film. They are done very well, and this decision to look like an old movie adds quite a bit to the polish of the game. The music sounds great, and with no sound effects, it adds even more to the feel of old silent films. There’s also a hidden sepia toned look for the game. We’re given two different game modes, one called Wage War, in which you’re given power-ups and 1:45 to get as many dust bunnies into the dust pan as you can. The other mode is called Commando, in this mode you’re given 1 minute with no power-ups to get as many dust bunnies into the dust pan as you can. Both modes are pretty challenging as you’ll need to keep an eye out for bomber bunnies that don’t look too different from the regular bunnies you’ll be sweeping up; one of their ears is a wick, and they have a different facial expression. You’re aloud to get of the bombers bunnies into the dust pan before they blow it up, and each one you do get into the pan takes away 25 points. If you manage to sweep them to the side of the pan, you’ll get 8 points.

The scoring system is pretty nice. You get one point for each small bunny you can swipe into the dust pan, two for medium bunnies, and 4 for big bunnies. If you sweep more than one bunny into the pan at a time, you’ll get an extra point for each bunny. For instance, if you sweep 4 bunnies into the pan at once, you’ll get 4 points, one for each, plus 4 points for the combo bonus, totaling 8 points. In Wage War Mode, there’s power-ups that will help you a lot with scoring, but that are clearly harder to get into the dust pan than the bunnies, being heavier and disappearing after a short time. There’s a disco ball, with which you’ll get 10 points for every bunny you sweet into the pan, plus the regular bonus points for sweeping more than one bunny in at a time. There’s also a dust buster power-up which will pick up every bunny you drag your finger over, including the bomber bunnies. Micro fiber cloths will help you out by making all the bunnies follow your finger, and a pocket watch will add 15 seconds to the timer. There’s also various items which will give you 10, 15, and 50 points.

Sweeping the bunnies into the dust pan isn’t as easy as it sounds. You need to get the speed just right. Going too fast will leave bunnies behind your finger, and going too slow will cause them to go in all sorts of different directions. In the loading screen before playing it says “This is sweeping, slow and steady sweeps will win the war.“, and it couldn’t be more true.

There are unlockables in the game as well. You can get new brooms, which unlock depending on how many total sweeps you’ve made, and each make it easier to sweep more bunnies into the dust pan. New enemies, each with a different maneuvering mechanic, are unlocked when you get a certain amount of total bunnies into the pan, and then there’s new areas to sweep on, each with different textures, and are unlocked based on how many total games you’ve played. You’ll also be able to unlock new music tracks as you progress through the game, and there’s in-game medals to try and snag as well. All of this adds a lot to the replay value of the game, as do the GameCenter leaderboards, One for both of the game modes.

With all of the content in Dust Those Bunnies, it’s a great game to get for $0.99. This is the introductory price, and I’m guessing the regular price will be $1.99. It hasn’t been said when the price will go up, but I’m guessing it will be like most introductory prices and go up about one week from the release date, which was August 25. It’s a pretty original game, which is something we don’t see too often in the AppStore these days, and it’s presented in a very professional manner. Given that it was made with GameSalad makes it even slightly more impressive. If casual arcade games that can be played by hardcore gamers as well is something you’re into, Dust Those Bunnies will be a great game to pick up. For me, it’s joining the ranks of Tiny Wings, Kosmo Spin, and other great casual games that bring along quite a hefty challenge. The only things I would love to see in the future is maybe another game mode, something like Endless Mode, mixing all of the different types of bunnies, the in-game achievements moved to GameCenter, and some more obstacles blocking your sweeping paths in the different environments you can unlock. Other than that, there’s not much room for improvement with this quality title from Gamers Rejoice.

Dust Those Bunnies gets a score of 9.5/10