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GooMonsters is a new top-down hack-n-slash game from DigitallyBold, the makers of Fly Away Rabbit, which was on the CNET 100 in 2010. With their success of Fly Away Rabbit,DigitallyBold has set their standards pretty high. GooMonsters is a great example of that. In GooMonsters, you play as a girl who ends up stranded on a remote island in the middle of the ocean. When you come to, you realize that your dog has gone missing, and that there’s tracks leading off to the distance. Following them, you find your dog, only to see him right before he’s taken away by a Goo Monster. Now, you need to battle the Goos in order to save your dog,Fluffy.

Starting off in the Campaign Mode, you’ll go through 26 stages, each having one of 4 different missions to accomplish, Vanquish, Survival, Collector, and Trainer. Vanquish missions give you a certain number of Goo’s to kill while in Survival missions, you just need to stay alive for a certain amount of time. Collector missions give you a certain number of items to pick up, and Trainer missions require you to stand next to a Goo for a certain amount of time without killing it while other Goos come at you. You only have one life, but unlimited retries, if you die you start the mission over from the beginning.

There’s 11 mini-games that are unlocked while you progress through the Campaign Mode. These are pretty much mini-missions, not unlike the missions in the Campaign. For instance, the first mini-game you’ll unlock is called “Green Overdose”, in it you’ll try and kill as many Green Goos as you can in one minute. The second mini-game puts you up against Goos that explode and Black Goos that stick to you and slow you down, seeing how long you can survive. It’s a nice addition to the game, but some more differences here, really separating it from the Campaign Mode would have been nice.

There’s also a practice mode, where you can select which Goos you want to practice against in a sort of training level. If you get hit, you just re-spawn at the center of the screen with the stage cleared of enemies. It’s nice for getting use to the different goos you’re having problems with if you get stuck in Campaign Mode. You can also find a weaponry area where you can unlock different bombs and weapons setting their buttons next to your attack button. Once you unlock a bomb or weapon, you don’t need to buy more, they slowly recharge after each use. There’s lots of different items here, bombs that attract goos, drones that help you take out goos, weapons that emit high-frequency sound waves that have vibrations that blow goos up. Unlocking these weapons and bombs is a big part of the gameplay, using them to your advantage will be critical in moving on in the game, and DigitallyBold has done a great job giving us loads of different items to buy. There are no IAPs in the game, everything is unlocked with in-game points, and everything recharges, you don’t need to keep purchasing weapons after you’ve unlocked them, which is very nice.

There’s numerous colors of Goos, each with different abilities. Green Goos don’t really do anything, and you can just hack-n-slash at em all you want, they also are the only Goos that don‘t hurt you if you run into them. Blue Goos leave a puddle of blue goo on the ground, if you walk into it, the goo splatters onto the screen, blocking your view of a small area for a short time. Yellow Goos leave an acidic puddle on the ground that can damage both you and other Goos. There’s loads more, each with different attributes.

The controls in GooMonsters aren‘t what I was expecting from the screen shots. You tilt your device to move the character, holding on the button in the left corner to stop and stand still, rotating your device to turn around, and tapping the button in the right corner to attack. You are given calibration options before you start levels, but no sensitivity options, and I found myself wishing I wasn‘t needing to tilt my device as much as I was quite a bit while playing. During the first couple missions, I also couldn’t help but think that the game would play a lot better with a joystick and attack button. I did get use to the tilting controls, but I still really think that some control options should have been added into the game, and hope that they are thrown in in the future. The controls as they are now are very responsive though, and do end up working pretty well. The graphics are nice and polished, and the animations for the goo moving around and splattering on the ground are nice, and there‘s different animations for each different goo. You can tell that a lot of work went into making each goo look and move differently, and this does add quite a bit to the gameplay. The music and FX are fitting for the graphics and gameplay as well. The game does run very smoothly, no lag or jitters, and the game hasn’t crashed once on me.

There are GameCenter leader boards for the campaign, along with separate boards for each of the mini-games. There’s also 58 achievements, all of which adds a ton to the replay value. I’m going to give GooMonsters a 3.5 stars out of 5, and if you’re into hack-n-slash games, this is one worth checking out. At $0.99, it’s a great deal, and includes lots of content to keep you playing and re-playing for quite some time.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goomonsters/id432923253?mt=8

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

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

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

SqueezeBastard is a new action-puzzle game from the relatively young studio of Kxh Games (Zombie Revenge, Doodle Rush, Mini Rocket). You play as a girl who needs to save herkidnapped pet from monsters that have taken it hoping for a ransom. But what-do-ya-know, you’re broke! Now it’s your job to squish monsters by pushing blocks at them in order to save your cute little pet from the hungry monsters who are dying to eat it.

The controls in SqueezeBastard are relatively nice and minimal. You’re given an invisible floating joystick, and a push button. It is kind of hard to navigate through some of the puzzles, because they’re set-up diagonally, so you might find yourself fighting to get into the right spot at times, which can seem like a pretty big down-fall when you’re weaving your way through the block maze filled with monsters. But once you get the hang of it, it seems like less of a chore, and more of a pretty decent game design. Having the board set diagonally gives the game an extra bit of challenge, especially when lining up your monster killing shots.

The graphics are really good, though the game is not retina supported at the moment, so their true beauty doesn’t stick out like it should. There isn’t a lot of diversity throughout the world of SqueezeBastard, only moving from the forest to the castle, but while moving from stage to stage, you’ll be confronted with different game mechanics that will open up new moves and ways to play. The first additions you’ll see are tiles that move blocks in certain directions for you. Once you push a block onto them, they shoot the block in the direction of the arrows moving on it. This comes in handy for hitting monsters that are around corners that you’re sometimes not able to squish any other way. You should be careful with these though, because sometimes they can shoot a block right back at you. Boxes of explosives are also mixed in with the blocks, and can blow up a nice section of blocks and monsters around it just by pushing them into an edge.

There’s also portals that not only let you through, but also the blocks. Looking to see if a monster is in the right spot next to a portal, you can kill them from the other side of the level. Things like this really add to the game a lot, and make you plan out your attacks more tactfully. Enemies that can break through blocks are also thrown into the mix, and staying out of their way until you can line up a good shot really does add to the challenge.

The scoring could use some more work, as you’re not given any combo bonuses at all. It would be nice to see the developers add some sort of combo for hitting two or more monsters with one block, or killing a certain number of enemies back to back in a short period of time. You do, however, get a bigger score for collecting the jewels that pop up around the stages once you defeat all the monsters in that level. Racing to get them all before the level ends can be pretty challenging. There’s also a treasure chest in each level, figuring out how to open it also adds to the challenge, and quest for a great score. Though all of this kind of seems pointless withoutGameCenter or OpenFeint leaderboards. Achievements would also have been a great addition to this game, and would drive the need to play, and re-playability quite a bit as you are also able to replay previously beaten levels by selecting them at the map screen.

The music and FX fit the cute graphics and gameplay, and the game does play very smoothly. For a puzzle game, it doesn’t really bring any new mechanics to the genre, but what it does have is done very well. You can tell that a lot of time, effort and thought has gone into the making of SqueezeBastard. For $0.99 it’s not a bad or regrettable purchase at all. However, with retina display, and online ranking not put into the game, I’m going to give it 4 out of 5 stars. There’s not a lot of room for improvement within the game, but it’s missing that drive to play it, and re-playability. If they are added in the future, this could very well be a 4.5 or 5 star game. Still worth getting if you’re looking for a good new puzzle game with quite a bit of action to waste away the end of summer with.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/squeezebastard/id454921319?mt=8