Monthly Archive: August 2011

Fractal Combat is a new aerial combat game from NewType K.K. It’s also their first offering to the AppStore, but it sure doesn’t show in their presentation. Fractal Combat is a very polished, top notch aerial combat game. The fractal graphics are wonderful, the music is great, and the controls are user interface are phenomenal. I really was not expecting what I got out of this game. The animations of the exploding enemies, along with the flaming bits of wreckage you see after the explosion is great. You rarely find this much attention to detail within games like this on the iOS, and seeing that it can be done, and done very well, might make you start to think less of all the other aerial combat games in the AppStore.

You’re given 10 missions throughout each of the 7 different landscapes, that‘s a whopping 70 missions. Each of the missions it’s your job to take out the targets, highlighted in red on the map. While you’re going after the targets, you’ll be bombarded by enemies that show up on the radar as yellow triangles. Each time you blow an enemy up, they leave behind some energy which if collected, gives you some shield. If you have no shield power, your armor, which is pretty much health, gets knocked down with each hit. Once you have no armor, you’re dead, and need to start at the beginning of the mission. If you happen to succeed in the mission, you’re awarded with a rating of 1 to 3 stars, along with credits which you can use to buy better weapons, generators,radars and even new ships in the garage.There’s 5 ships total that you can unlock byprogressing through the game, and then buy. Each has stronger armor, more shield capacity, and a different flight mode, or way of flying. For instance, you start off with a ship that has thrusters for flight, and the next ship up that you can buy uses magnetic rotors, each having drastically different ways of controlling them. There’s 7 different weapons, each with different speed, range, damage, and other attributes. 3 different radars, and 5 different generators. There’s slots in the game to have 6 profiles, so you can play the game on a device that’s shared between friends or family, and not end up playing each others games, or you can just start from scratch, and re-organize how you set up your weapons and which ships you buy.

You are given two choices of control options, a joystick which you can have on the left or right hand side of the screen, or you can use your devices accelerometer, and tilt while you play. You can also set the sensitivity, angle of accelerometer, and put the throttle on the left or right side of the screen. Fire buttons are on both the left and right hand sides of the bottom of the screen if you decide to use tilt controls, and on the opposite side of the screen of the joystick, if you decide to use that control method, enemies are also locked on automatically, so you can pretty much just keep tapping the fire button to blow them up. However, you are not able to change the Y direction, so pressing up on the control pad makes you go down, and pressing down makes you go up. Which is not the case for tilt controls, tilting the top of your iPod towards you makes the ship go up, and away from you to go down.This set up is a tad weird, but manageable if you’re use to default settings in most aerial combat games. You can also change the music and fx volume, which is always a nice option, and there is, of course, a reset to default option, just in case you end up screwing everything up and want to start from scratch. All-n-all, there’s quite a bit of customization going on in the options menu. But I think an option to turn the HUD display on or off would have been a good idea too, as it can seem kind of crowded on the screen, but not in a way that distracts from the gameplay.

The only real thing I think this game is missing is another mode, or a story. I know it’s not easy to create a story for a game, and it’s pretty much pointless to just cram a story into a game just for the hell of it, but if Fractal Combat had a story to go along with the missions, like why you’re fighting these ships, why they’re you’re enemies, something so that you know WHY, it would make this game a lot better. That, along with a survival mode, where you could take your fully equipped ship into a battle that only ended when you got shot down, would make this an even more amazing game. But with what it has now, Fractal Combat is still worthy of 4.5 out of 5 stars, and comes along with a strong recommendation from me. Anyone who’s into aerial combat, flight sims, or just action and arcade games in general should check this out one, it’s a game that you will never regret buying. It’s universal, and only $1.99.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fractal-combat/id422010858?mt=8

DEO, by Strapped To A Meteor, is a new platformer available in the AppStore. Strapped To A Meteor’s last game, Go Go Giraffe, was an interesting addition to the iOS platformer genre as well, but this time it seems that they’ve taken Deo a couple steps further in terms of gameplay, graphics, and presentation. And we as gamers could not be more happy about it.

As soon as you start Deo up on your device, you’ll notice the awesome graphics. You’re thengreeted with a short tutorial, explaining how to navigate the level select menu, and how to play the game. Controls are simple, touch the screen to start charging your jump, let go to execute the jump. The goal of the game is to make it around the rotating level to the red piece of real-estate without touching any black part of the levels. While you’re making your way around the levels, charging your jumps and landing on the grassy parts, you need to kind of be quick and time your jumps just right because the gravity stays the same while the level is rotating, so you could potentially end up sliding off of the level, or jumping right into a part of the level that ends up blocking your path if you’re not quick enough. The level design here is a huge part of the game, and thankfully, STAM has definitely spent an extreme amount of time working on the levels, and getting the physics and rotation just right.

Between levels, or after you die, there’s a nifty little screen jump that sounds and looks kind of like static. This little addition helps set the mood of the game, along with the dark graphics and rain, really create a gloomy atmosphere. Coupled with some light music, it conveys sad and bittersweet feelings while playing the game. Playing Deo for long periods of time just gives you the same feeling you’d usually get staring out the window while it’s dark, cloudy, and muggy. I personally love this sort of atmosphere within games.

But even with all of these very nice graphics, and good tutorial, there are some issues that might hurt the gameplay. The amount of charge that you give your character isn’t always clear, making it pretty hard to know how far or high he’s going to jump. Also, closing the app, then re-opening it, it can be pretty confusing to find out where you left off, and you might just end up re-playing previously beaten levels. This complex level select screen might turn people off of playing as much as they normally would, along with the unknown charge amount, you’ll probably end up playing levels over and over again, even after you beat them. This is a pretty major downfall for the game, as everything else is just top notch, and looks awesome.

There’s also no online leader boards for fast times, and in fact, no scores for the game at all. You pretty much just play the game to experience it. I don’t really mind this, as Dirt is one of my favorite iOS games, and is also just a game that you play to experience. But for a lot of people, no scores, no times for the levels, no leader boards, and no achievements can be a very big turn off. It’s very hard for me to rate Deo 3.5 stars out of 5 because they got so much right, but neglected quite a bit as well. I do have very high hopes for this game’s future updates, and even higher hopes for Strapped To A Meteor’s next game, because the jump from Go Go Giraffe to Deo was a HUGE one.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/deo/id452167352?mt=8

Bloo Kid is the first game for the iOS by Eiswuxe. It’s a platformer, soit’s a risky first game, but Eiswuxe has pulled it off almost flawlessly. You play as Bloo Kid, who is trying to rescue his girlfriend from the evil Wizard. You’re given 60 levels through 5 different worlds. Each level is the size of the screen, so don’t expect any side-scrolling goodness. But to avoid clutter, the developer has made it so that enemies spawn in different places of the levels, giving you waves of enemies to defeat before you complete the level.
With each level, you can get 3 stars. One star for beating the level, another for collecting the star that shows up at the end of the level, and lastly, for making it through the level without taking any damage.
With platformers, controls and physics are huge. If you can’t nail those, then your game will pretty much tank. Eiswuxe has done an amazing job here making the physics and controls work great. The controls are nice and tight, you don’t need to lift your thumb up to change directions, and the jump button is very responsive, and how high you jump is directly related to how long you hold on the jump button. The buttons are also placed very well, and are just the right size. The physics are great. The game doesn’t feel floaty or weighed down at all, which is always very nice to see. It makes the game feel like a game that’s meant to be played instead of a game that’s meant to be fiddled with, struggling with the controls the whole way through.

World 1 stars out pretty bland, but it’s designed for you to get a real grasp on the levels and how the game works. Eiswuxe decided to make the first world available in the lite version, which might have been a mistake, because most of the interesting gameplay comes after the first world. World 2 gets more difficult, and way more interesting, as you’re faced with enemies that throw objects at you, more platforms that move and take you to other parts of the level, bouncing spikes that you need to avoid, dashing enemies, enemies that you need to jump on in order to make it to other parts of the level, and enemies that need to be jumped on more than once in order to kill them. From here on, there’s not too many new enemies, but you will facemore and different ones as you progress. The level design as you go along gets better and better as well, and level design in a one-screen platformer is very important. But just like the controls and physics, Eiswuxe has pulled it off almost flawlessly. There are a couple of areas that it’s impossible to jump over spikes without an enemy being there, and a couple levels where the star is placed in an area where you’d need to jump on the last enemy in order to get there before the star shows up. You are given 5 hearts in each level, but having the stages set up this way just adds to the difficulty, and if you’re really worried about getting 3 stars on each of the 60 levels, this adds to the re-playability of the game.

At the end of each world, you’re faced by a boss, who takes 6 hits to kill. Each of the bosses has a special attack that you’ll need to figure out in order to survive the battle. Also, at the beginning of each world, you’re given a little clip of your girlfriend being taken to the next area where you’ll be playing. The animations in Bloo Kid are done very well, even when you stop running your character starts to take deep breaths. It’s got a cute factor to it, but it’s a game with difficulty for sure. Especially if you’re trying to get all the stars. Making it through some of the levels without taking damage might take you multiple tries, but each time you screw up, you’re going to end up cussing yourself, and not the controls or game. The retro graphics are fitting, as it’s a game that reminds me of older NES games with it’s frustration level, and difficulty, and that just draws me to it even more.
For their first game in the AppStore, Eiswuxe has shown that even though they’re new, they can make a professional game with top notch controls and physics, along with wonderful level design. You can check out the lite version in the AppStore, but it only contains the first world, which isn’t a very good representation of the entire game. I almost skipped out on this one because of the lite version, and it would have been a mistake on my end. But the lite version will give you a feel for the game, and let you check out the controls, physics, and first world level design for yourself. I’m giving Bloo Kid 4.5 out of 5 stars, and recommend it to all platformer fans. It could be a 5/5 game if it had online leaderboards, achievements, and some power-ups thrown in, but it’s definitely a game that you will play all the way through, and then most likely end up going back to just to try and get most or all of the stars. For $0.99, it’s a wonderful game.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bloo-kid/id452677855?mt=8

Zombie Crasher is the new endless running game from KTH, whos previous releases include Wild Frontier, Chroisen, and Crazy Cow. Now, with all the endless runners available in the AppStore, it’s hard to find reasons to buy yet another one. But KTH has done a very good job of creating an awesome endless runner. You have the typical tap to jump, double tap to double jump controls, but throughout the levels you’re also faced with killing zombies, and collecting coins and power-ups. In order to kill the enemies, you need to tap on the screen asyour character runs through the green dot in front of the zombies, and timing is everything.You’re also able to enter fever mode by hitting zombies and filling up the fever bar that’s underneath your health bar. Once you enter fever mode, you get double the points for killing zombies.

The coins that you collect go towards purchases you can make in the store. You’re able to buy health packs and various power-ups that last for about 10 seconds, and then place these power-ups into slots at the bottom of the screen. You can also save up your coins and buy extra slots at the bottom of the screen. If you don’t want to grind through the game in order to do this, you’re able to buy coins with an in app purchase, but it’s not required, and you can get the extra slots if you end up playing the game a lot, or over a long period of time, but the power-ups and health packs are pretty cheap. Some of the power-ups you’ll see while just running through the levels are a hamburger that boosts your fever bar a tad, some health, speed upgrades, and there’s also a couple power-downs that will make it so that you can’t jump as high, or slow down.

At the end of each level, there’s a boss that you’ll need to defeat in order to move on, each having different attacks that you need to dodge in order to win. For instance, with one boss, you need to tap on the burgers that he throws, but not tap on the grenades. Each of the grenades that he throws ends up going back to your character, who hits them back at the boss. Another boss is a dog that you need to grab onto and repeatedly tap the screen in order to attack it, then hold your finger on the screen when it goes nuts and tries to buck you off. The bosses that you face at the end of each level are randomized, so the chances of facing the same boss at the end of the first level twice in a row are pretty slim.

The graphics are top notch, and the gameplay is buttery smooth. Just like their release before Zombie Crasher, Chroisen, it’s a very polished and very professional game. It might not bring anything new to the endless runner genre, but what it does have in it is done very well, and is put together in a way that is very entertaining and professional. I’ll be replaying this over and over and over again trying to get better scores, and maybe saving up to unlock some extra power-up slots. Having OpenFeint leaderboards and achievements is a big plus too, and does help add a lot to the replayability. I’m giving Zombie Crasher 5 out of 5 stars, and recommend it to anyone who’s even the slightest bit into endless runners. It takes almost everything I love in an endless runner, and puts it in a very nice and neat package, wrapped with zombies. It’s got to be one of the best endless runners I’ve had the pleasure of playing. $0.99 is a bargain considering I’ll probably get about 20 hours or more of gameplay out of it.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zombie-crasher/id443346591?mt=8

   This morning Mobigame announced that the next EDGE game, Extended, will hit the AppStore august 22, this coming monday. They also shared a picture of the game, running on an iPad 2, in full anti-aliasing (4xMSAA) glory and shared some bits of information: A new feature to sync your progress between iPhones and iPads. The game contains 44 levels and they are very different to those on the original game. And theres a brand new engine, optimized for all devices. Looking at the screenshot you can clearly see two cubes moving, so my guess? a co-op mode. Cant wait until monday…

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.

Blast Zone Mega is the first iOS game from Maximilian Bode. The goal of the game is to destroy cities by maneuvering a bomb through circles, avoiding planes, and hitting the bullseye on theground. You start off as a grenade dropped out of a plane, and each circle you successfully make it through, makes you bigger. Hopefully, the end result is you being a big flashing mega-bomb that can take out the entire city. You move the bomb while falling through the air with a joystick in the lower left hand corner. Planes seem to come right at you, and get in your way quite a bit. Getting around them without touching them and still making it through the redcircles in the air is quite the challenge. The first world is pretty easy, but by the second world, you’ll be ready to throw your device at a wall if you keep trying to get perfect scores. You can, however, just avoid the planes, and not go through circles, hitting the ground as a grenade if you’d like to just rush through the story mode, and unlock arcade mode.

There’s 12 story mode levels, and 9 levels in arcade mode. Doesn’t sound like much, but after the first 4 levels, the difficulty will make it hard to unlock arcade mode, and even if you do manage to unlock it, you can go back and re-play the game trying to get a better high-score. GameCenter, or OpenFeint would be a very welcome addition to this game, as it is pretty much structured around getting a highscore. Right now, your only drive for score is to beat your own local scores, which does take away from the replayability quite a bit. No achievements is also a factor when it comes to replayabilty. But even without online scores or achievements, Blast Zone Mega has a certain spark that just keeps me going back for more.
It’s difficult, but it’s got the perfect amount of difficulty, where you want to keep going back to try and get further and further in the game. You’re given 5 lives for each of the 3 worlds that are split up into 4 levels, and the deaths are never caused by the game, bad controls, or lag, it’s always reflexes that aren’t quick enough. So there’s no battling the control system in this one, and you only have yourself to blame for each life you loose.

The retro graphics are also very well done, picturing Blast Zone Mega being released in the days of NES/SNES and SEGA games isn’t hard at all, and just like most of my favorite old-school games, it has that ‘just one more time’ feeling after each game over. You will be able to fly through power-ups that give you a shield you can use to blow up planes with, and help add to your score, and they’re placed in pretty good areas, giving them to you right before a little cluster of planes comes your way.
For Maximilian Bode’s first entry to the iOS gaming industry, this is a great game. Really, for any developing company, this would be a nice entry to the AppStore. More power-ups would be great to see in a future update, as right now, the only one in the game is a shield that lasts about 5 seconds. Maybe some more modes, like something that has you go after the planes or something would also be nice to see. But as it is right now, I’m giving Blast Zone Mega 4 out of 5 stars. There is room for improvement, but it’s still worth getting if you enjoy NES/SNES/SEGA era games that keep pushing you to play regardless of their difficulty. I will definitely be keeping my eyes on Maximilian Bode to see what he comes up with in the future. Blast Zone Mega is available in the AppStore for $0.99.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blast-zone-mega/id455962619?mt=8