Search Results for: label/iPad/index.html

Number of Results: 19

Tentacle Wars HD (FDG Entertainment) – $2.99

Strategy titles have found a new home, it seems, on the touch screen of the iDevice. More and more real time, turn based, and 4X strategy titles, along with board games are finding their way into the AppStore, taking full advantage of the multitouch screen. FDG has brought Tentacle Wars, the Flash game available from Lumarama, to the iPad, and it feels like the game was specifically made to be played on the touch screen platform. 
Tentacle Wars looks a lot like a Galcon clone on the surface, but once you get into it, the depth starts to show. You’ll need to take control of cells inside an infected alien organism by branching out, and using tentacles to connect from cell to cell. Each cell that you have control of is only allowed a certain number of tentacles, so deciding which cells to attach to is very important. 
To connect to another cell, you need to make sure you have enough energy in your starting cell. Each link in your tentacle requires energy, so if you don’t have enough, you won’t be able to make a tentacle long enough to connect. Once you do connect, depending on your situation, you can either sit there and feed energy into the cell, or cut your tentacle and send all of the links, and their energy into the cell, which is much quicker. 
Connecting to an enemy cell will start feeding energy into it right away. If you have enough links and the enemy cell is low enough on energy, you can cut the tentacle, and send all of the links into the cell, taking it over. If the enemy cell has enough energy to make a tentacle, it will almost always battle it out by sending a tentacle back towards you. This sends half of your tentacle back to your cell, and you’ll send energy through the tentacle until either cell runs out of energy. The cell left wins, and gets both cells. To complete each mission, you will need to form a strategy and pull it off fairly quickly, or else you’ll be overrun by the invading cell in no time. You should be able to complete each mission with plenty of time left. If you’re cutting it close, chances are you should rethink your strategy. As you progress through the game, you’ll come across different enemies which are more intelligent, but the rise in difficulty is handled very well. There are no crazy difficulty spikes. 
Throughout the 40 campaign missions, there are some stages with empty cells that you’ll be fighting to take over, barriers blocking your way so that you can’t connect directly with another cell, and multiple infections fighting for control of the area. Each mission has a 3 star rating system based on how much energy you have at the end of the stage, and how quickly you complete the mission. The number of swipes you make is listed as well, but has no effect on how many stars you receive. 
There are two organisms to try and save, each having 20 missions. The mission selection screen shows a path of cells, with some branching off to other areas. This opens up two or three different missions, so if you’re having trouble with one mission, you almost always have the option to play others, and come back to missions you’re having a hard time with later on.  
There’s also a Multiplayer Mode, which matches you up through GameCenter, and has you battle over an arena. It’s just like completing a mission level, with the objective being to take over all of the enemy’s cells. I was really surprised at how many people were playing online. It only took between 5 and 10 seconds to be matched up every time I went looking for a match. 
The controls in Tentacle Wars are flawless. To connect two cells, you just draw a path from one to the other. Tentacles are cut by swiping a line through them, and will be cut right where you swipe. Since those are the only controls you have, keeping an eye on all of the cells, and quickly deciding what to do next is never hindered by imprecise or unresponsive controls. 
To further draw you in, the graphics, animations, and environments are fantastic. Graphics wise, it does look a lot like Galcon, but under the cells, there’s a black and white background with various moving cells and other objects, which definitely gives the feeling of being deep inside an organism. Completing the atmosphere is the music. Taken from www.strategicmusic.com, it’s some of the best background music I’ve heard in an iOS game, and fits perfectly with the game’s graphics and feeling. 
Tentacle Wars is only available for the iPad, but FDG is working on making an iPhone version as well. Priced at $2.99, having a great challenging campaign mode, with more organisms to save coming in future updates, and a multiplayer mode that gives the game endless replay value, it’s a great buy for fans of strategy games. There’s also GameCenter support with two leader boards, one for your total campaign score, and another for the total number of multiplayer wins, and 11 achievements most of which having to do with multiplayer battles. This also offers up quite a bit of replay value even if you’re not too keen on playing online. FDG has done a wonderful job porting this flash game to the iOS. I’m pretty excited to get into the future levels, and sink more time into the multiplayer battles. Tentacle Wars is definitely a game that will be staying on my iPad for a long, long time.


Spaceward Ho! (Ariton) – $4.99

There are some genres that have truly embraced the AppStore, using the iDevice’s unique touch screen capabilities, and basically feeling right at home on the platform. Puzzlers, Racers and Point n’ Click titles really make it feel like the iDevice was made to perfectly suit them. Strategy games are also definitely falling into this grouping of genres, and slowly, but surely, 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) titles are finding their way as well, and these are being sucked up by fans of this niche genre like an addicts choice substance. It also helps when these titles are ports of old-school titles, as a lot of iOS gamers are 30-40 year olds who found out they can fit gaming into their lives again by playing on their phones.
Spaceward Ho!, originally an Amiga and Mac title released in 1990 released by Delta Tao Software, has made its way into the AppStore, accompanying Ascendancy as two of the more notable old-school 4X games that have graced the iDevice, and the two man California based development team, Ariton (who also developed the Spaceward Ho! port for the Palm Pilot), has done a fantastic job transferring the game over to the touch screen.
Spaceward Ho! is not your typical depthy 4X Strategy game. Actually, on the surface, it’s very basic when compared to titles like Master of Orion or Starbase Orion, but underneath the surface, it does have quite a bit of depth. It’s probably better placed next to titles like 9 Colonies and Vincere Totus Astrum, offering up gameplay that can last an hour, or even play through as quick as 10 minutes.
When starting a game, you’re able to decide exactly what kind of game you’ll be playing. You’ll be able to choose what kind of system you’ll be thrown into; Thriving, Abundant, Advanced, Normal, Backward, Barren, or Outpost. How many other empires you want in the star system, choosing between 1 and 8, as well as their IQ, being able to pick between 50 and 200, in increments of 10. The enemies home system, like yours, Thriving, Abundant, ect… but you can also decide to have this be based on their IQ. How many years to advance with every turn, 10, 20, 30 or 50, whether or not to allow Best Buddies, and the Shape, size, and Density of the universe. All but the size influences the difficulty, which you’ll be able to see go up and down based on your choices.
Once you decide the settings, you’re taken to the Galaxy screen. Here, you can see your home planet, as well as all the other planets in the galaxy. To get started, you can double tap on your home planet, and be taken to the ship/satellite creation screen. Here, you can build various ships and satellites, adjusting their Range, Speed, Weapons, Shields, and Mini (amount of material used to build them). As you progress through the game, your researchers will automatically research different technologies, increasing what you can use as stats for your ships.
In the Info section, along the left side of the screen, you can adjust how much money you’ll spend on the different technologies by dragging the gauge’s. In this area, you can also view your entire list of planets that you’ve colonized, adjusting how much money you spend on the planet. You can adjust it so that you spend more on technologies, or put the money back into your savings. At the top of this bar you’ll find your total money and metal (the only resource that you’ll need to worry about in the game). The metal that you collect from around the galaxy is used to build your satellites and ships, so sometimes colonizing a planet just to take the metal from it, and then evacuating is a very good idea. At the bottom of the info section, you’re able to either hide the information or change to view your history, which is a list of every major event that has happened in the game. There is also a little box which tells you who the other players are, and if they’re an enemy or ally.
The game is complete when you either friend or defeat all of the other players. You can keep playing, colonizing the rest of the planets, or seeing how strong you can make your ships until you run out of metal, but it’ll be pretty boring since there won’t be any opponents. If you’re familiar with the original Spaceward Ho! this is basically an exact port. You can not view your technology level vs. the other players, there’s no ‘browse all fleets’ or ‘browse all planets’ and network play has not been implemented yet, but the developers have said that they are working hard on giving us GameCenter Support, Multiplayer features, and an iPhone build of the game. Being priced at $5, it’s a great title to pick up if you’re a fan of the 4X genre. It’s also one of the best 4X games you could pick up if you’re new to the genre. It’s very easy to learn, has a great ‘help’ section, which is also pretty short (unlike some other tutorial or help sections in other 4X games that are 50 pages long, and would take 2 hours to read through) because all of the unnecessary complexity that’s in other 4X games has either been weeded out, or is taken care of automatically. There is also an Auto-Play option, which lets you watch the game take over your decisions, which is a great way to learn how to play the game quickly. The developers are very active on the Touch Arcade Forums, and have an ‘Ask Us’ section on their website dedicated to answering questions. Having such active and supportive developers makes wanting to support them very easy.
[iPad Only]


Unstoppable Gorg Landing This Thursday!

It’s finally official. Unstoppable Gorg will be landing on the App Store this Thursday. If you don’t know anything about this game, then you must be living under a box. It’s a new tower defense game that allows you to move your satellites once you place them. Check out the trailer below to get a sense of what I’m talking about.

The game will be released on the following platforms:
Thursday January 19, 2012
PC & Mac (through Steam)
$9.99
iPad
$4.99
First half of 2012
Xbox LIVE Arcade
Price: TBA
Make sure you keep an eye out for the game once it releases!


Virtual City Playground HD- FREE (G5 Entertainment)

Virtual City Playground HD [FREE] by G5 Entertainment is sort of sequel to their popular Virtual City HD [$6.99]. I’ve never actually played the original game so I can’t tell you how this stacks up to the first one. Well, in Virtual City Playground you get to build your city from the ground up. There’s a bunch of missions to complete in the game and a lot of cool buildings that you can build. As you build more things you start to notice more and more people starting to move into your city. You can only do so much at a time because a lot of the game requires you to use your energy to build things. As you earn more coins you can

expand your city. I actually like the integration with Facebook. A lot of these freemium games allow you to post what your doing in the game on Facebook, but this game actually gives you an incentive to post that you just leveled up. If you’re new to this game like me then you might have some trouble at first. This might be the first time that you might actually have to… read the instructions. YIKES! After you get a hang of it then you’ll have a really good time with it. Even though it’s a neat game I do have a few problems with it. I find that loading your city takes longer and longer as you progress farther in the game. The progressing in the game seems a bit slow for impatient people like me. This is also a game that I feel like you actually have to make some in-app purchases to move faster, because a lot of this stuff that you need to build your city seems to be pricey. Well in the end this game is free so you can always make the final verdict for yourself. Overall I found the game to be fun, but too slow for me. My final rating is 3 out of 5 stars. Go download it today. I’m pretty sure that a FREE game won’t break your bank account! Well what are you waiting for… get your building on!

Virtual City Playground HD- [FREE]
Trailer:


Swatter Hit HD Plus- 0.99 (Dumadu Games)

I’m pretty sure that everyone’s familiar with mosquitoes. They’re those pesky little insects that annoy us while we’re outside in the summer. All we do is swat at them the entire time. Well, now it’s time for revenge. In Dumadu Games latest game Swatter Hit HD Plus [$0.99(iPad Only)] you can finally get your revenge on the mosquitoes. The game has a very simple objective, that is to swat the mosquitoes. The only control you need is your finger. Just tap wherever you see a mosquito to kill it. If you miss killing a mosquito it returns later, but this time it gradually grows bigger which

makes it even more difficult in killing it. You can earn 50 bonus points by killing the mosquito with a coil around it. You’re probably thinking that “this game is too easy” well it’s not. As in every game there’s something that makes the game more challenging. At any moment a spider can drop down. If you hit the spider you automatically get 50 points deducted from your score. If you hit the mosquito on a rocket then it’s instantly game over. There’s also a danger bar that increases if you don’t kill them. If that fills up then it is game over. That’s pretty much all there is to this game. I did find ads on the main menu when I booted it up just like the last Dumadu Game that I reviewed on the site. I haven’t seen it since though. I also noticed there’s a Game Center glitch. I only got a score of about 2,000 but it registered as over a 1,000,000,000 points on Game Center. Overall I found this game extremely fun and it’s a very good cheap time waster for your iPad. My final rating is 4 out of 5 stars. You can go pick up Swatter Hit HD Plus for your iPad for only $0.99 here. I couldn’t find any gameplay footage or any trailer online so I’m just going to attach a photo of the Game Center glitch so you can all bask in the glory of my billion points! :)


8 Bit HD Plus- 0.99 (Dumadu Games)

Get ready for a new 8 Bit game that requires strategy and quick reflexes. That game is 8 Bit HD Plus [$0.99 (iPad Only)] by Dumadu Games. In this game you control Speedy a Petite Car and try to save it from the unstoppable enemies. As you play through this never ending game your goal is to try to get as much fruit as possible. You can also gain lives by picking up the 1 UP power-up, but you can only hold up to 9 lives (sort of like a cat). During this game you have to dodge the enemies by tapping on the left side of the screen to move left and the right side to move right. There

is 3 different modes to play through. You can play through 2 track, 3 track, or 4 track mode. Each mode gradually gets faster and with more tracks to dodge enemies that definitely makes the game harder. When you first boot up the game the only track unlocked will be the 2 track mode. The other 2 tracks require you to collect a certain amount of fruits to unlock them. It takes 500 fruits to unlock the 3 track and 1500 fruits to unlock the 4 track mode. That’s pretty much all there is to this game. It’s a simple but yet addictive game that you could spends hours on. I did find an issue when I booted up the game though. There was actually ads on the main menu in a paid game. Which is definitely a no-no in my book. It seems to have been resolved though. I haven’t seen any ads since. I also have one suggestion. It would be great if there were other power-ups in the game that allowed you to freeze the enemies or make Speedy indestructible. That would definitely make the game a hit! Overall I found this game to be really simple, but extremely fun at the same time. The 8 Bit graphics are very nice and the gameplay will have you thinking through the entire game. My final rating is 4 out of 5 stars. If you’re looking for a fun little game for your iPad that’s inexpensive then check out 8 Bit HD Plus for $0.99 by Dumadu Games here.

Trailer: 


Flick Tennis: College Wars HD- 3.99 (Rolocule)

The App Store has dozens of tennis related games, but I’ve yet to find that one tennis game that gives me a console feel experience. Well look no further Flick Tennis: College Wars HD [$3.99(iPad Only)] by Rolocule is the best tennis game I believe for the iPad. I’m no tennis buff, but I’ve played many tennis games on multiple consoles and iOS devices and this has to be the closest you’ll get to a tennis console experience on an iOS device to date.  This game utilizes the iPad’s big screen magnificently. The game combines tennis and a comic book adventure together. You get to play the role as a tennis prodigy who has to fight for his survival and become the best college tennis player. Throughout the 11 episodes, the story starts to evolve more. Once you begin an episode the comic book story appears. After reading it you’re led into a match against an opponent who you must beat to complete the episode. The opponents get more difficult as you progress throughout each episode. Your opponents level type varies between beginner, amateur, and

professional. They also have certain types that they’re better at. The different player types range from Defensive Baseliner, Aggressive Baseliner, Volleyer, and All Court Player. By now your probably wondering how the controls work in the game. Well the only control you need is your finger. All you have to do is swipe your finger to guide the ball. Different gestures can change how you hit the ball. For a basic ground stroke you use 1 finger to swipe up. To perform a slice you use 2 fingers and swipe up. Doing a drop hit all you have to do is swipe down with 1 finger. The last way to hit the ball is performing a lob by swiping down with two fingers. You can also move your player by tapping on the area of the screen that you want him to move to. If your not in the mood to play through the episodes then you can always create an exhibition match. You can customize the match type, how many sets, opponent difficulty, etc. At any time you can save any of your matches to come back to and play later. If you have a friend over you can start a head to head multiplayer match. This allows two

people to play the game at the same time (see image to the left). The bad part about it is no online multiplayer. So if you’re by yourself you’ll have to stick to creating an exhibition match. That’s the only downer to the game. Hopefully GameCenter support will come with online multiplayer to go with it. One last thing, there’s also a $1.99 in-app purchase to unlock all the episodes in the game at once. It’s not required, but if you’d like to unlock all the episodes without beating them one by one you can do so. With all that said this was definitely one of the best tennis experiences that I’ve ever had on an iDevice. Overall the game has stunning visuals and is definitely worth every penny. My final rating is 5 out of 5 stars. If you have an iPad then this game is worth a look at. You can download Flick Tennis: College Wars HD [$3.99] for iPad here.

Gameplay: 


Cado HD- 2.99 (ClearCut Games)

Cado HD [$2.99 (iPad Only)] by ClearCut Games is the latest physics-based game to hit the App Store. The first thing you’ll notice when playing the game is that the graphics in the game look pretty nifty. They look like they were hand drawn by a sharpie. That’s actually really cool if you think about! In this game you guide Cado, a ball shaped character with an eye to it’s destination which is the portal. Guiding Cado is actually very simple. All you have to do is use the 2 touch controls in the game to rotate left or right. There’s no option for tilt controls which is actually good. This game takes a lot of precise movements which you couldn’t do if you were tilting the device. As you progress through the 40 levels (20 more to come in a future update) you

start to notice sharper turns and spikes that make you restart if you run into them. That’s why precision is key in completing the levels. Throughout each level you can collect the star that’s hanging around. It’s not required to collect it to move on, but it does give you a reason to come back to the game and try to get it. In the later levels there’s a key that you must collect. The portal is usually inaccessible because it’s locked until you retrieve the key. Thankfully this game does not have a time limit because I would always lose. You really need to take your time and be patient especially later in the levels. I really like the part in the main menu where it gives you your Cado game playing stats. It will tell you things such as how many times you’ve died, rotated to the right, rotated to the left, total wins, and how to get rich quick. Well not the last part, I wish though! I actually got the privilege to test Cado while it was in beta. I sucked at it! I only collected about 20 of the 40 stars in the levels. That’s probably do to the fact that I tested it on an iPod Touch. Playing it on the iPad was a completely different story. I’m actually great at it on the iPad! I completed the entire game with the star for each level in just under

an hour. The game definitely needs that update with the 20 levels pronto! Also, Game Center support really needs to be included to make the game feel complete. Overall the levels were very well designed and the game provides a fun experience that I couldn’t put down until I completed everything there was to complete. My final rating is 4 out of 5 stars. You can check out Cado HD for iPad for only $2.99 by ClearCut Games here. Don’t have an iPad? Well don’t worry then! Cado for $0.99 is available for iPhone/iPod Touch here. Happy rotating!

Gameplay: 


HexRoto HD- 0.99 (Hill Stone Animation Studios)

What is HexRoto you may ask? Well, HexRoto HD ($0.99- iPAD ONLY) by Hill Stone Animation Studios is a puzzle game that’ll have you thinking every single move you make. In the game there’s colored balls in each level. Your objective is to get the certain colored ball in the appropriate highlighted position. Trying to move the balls correctly takes strategy. To move the ball you want all you have to do is tap on a certain ball to rotate all the other balls clockwise. A little confusing, eh? Trust me it’ll make a lot more sense when you start playing the game! As you move on

through the 45 levels, the difficulty gradually increases over time. More balls are required to be rotated which takes a lot more thinking then rotating 2 or 3 balls. To achieve 3 stars on a level you must rotate everything in the least amount of moves as possible. The more moves you make, the less amount of stars you’ll gain. This in turn makes you want to come back to the game to test your brains capability and acquire more stars. With that all said, HexRoto HD is a great little puzzle game to exercise the ol’ brain, but it’s missing a few things to me. Some mind stimulating music in the background while playing would be great. When I hear silence in a puzzle game it makes me over think. That’s just me. Also, GameCenter support would be a nice little update. The biggest thing I feel  it’s missing is a time challenge mode. I would love to race against the clock to get all the balls where they need

to be. Overall the game is a nice little puzzler, but to me I feel it needs a little more to be just perfect. My final rating is 3.5 out 5. If you like puzzle games then you can go check out HexRoto HD (iPad only app) for a mere $0.99. Don’t have an iPad? Then don’t worry! You can download HexRoto for iPhone and iPod Touch for $0.99 also! Not sure if you want to play the game yet? Then go check out some gameplay footage that I found below.