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Bee Leader [Flightless Limited] – $0.99

It’s not too often a simplistic game completely blows my expectations of it out of the water. But Bee Leader, the new game from Flightless Limited, has done just that. I never would have thought that a game that revolved around controlling a bee and collecting nectar would have hit almost every single addictive cell in my video game obsessed brain, but with Bee Leader’s gameplay and insanely good all around package have changed my views of video games that, on the outside, look boring, and like they’re made almost entirely for prepubescent children. 
Throughout the game, you will basically be doing one simple task. Exploring each of the levels, looking for nectar, smaller bees to join you, and clocks which add more time to your day. You have from sun up to sun down to collect as much nectar as you can and take it back to your hive. There are, of course, hazards and enemies which you’ll need to avoid as you fly throughout the stages. Clouds with lightning and rain, trains that spew up steam, windmills and rocks which can trap you, birds, snakes, skull throwing eagles, and the dreaded hornets are only some of the hazards and enemies you’ll need to navigate around while looking for nectar. If you’re hit by a projectile, or by a hazard, you’ll wind up loosing quite a bit of your already collected nectar, and god-forbid you run into a hornet. They’ll wind up chasing you down and corning you, taking all of your nectar if you let them. 
Bee Leader stands out in almost every single aspect. The graphics are cartoony, but very polished, the music and effects are outstanding, control-wise, you’re able to choose between a freemoving joystick which appears whenever you touch the screen, a set joystick on either the left or right hand sides of your device, touch anywhere and drag, tilting controls, and an option to use another device as the controller with the Joypad app. The physics and inertia of every moveable object is great, animations are smooth and level designs are top notch. But what I really love about the game is the scoring mechanics. Every smaller bee which you collect joins you, and adds to the amount of nectar you receive from the nectar balls as well as flowers, so the more smaller bees you have following behind you, the more nectar you’ll be able to haul away. The flowers have a ‘sucking streak’ which adds to the amount of nectar you collect so long as you don’t leave the flower. Because flowers also stick to you for a short amount of time, you can extend this sucking streak by jumping from flower to flower without stopping the collection of nectar, which allows for some nice bonus points. There’s also a honey bonus when you drop off nectar at your hive depending on how much nectar you’re dropping off. All of this, combined with the subtraction of nectar based on what you come into contact with throughout the stage makes the scoring system in Bee Leader fantastic. 
Adding to the great scoring is GameCenter support. For each of the 12 levels, there’s a separate GC Leaderboard, as well as a total score board for when you complete the game. There are also 10 achievements, but these don’t really add much replay value, as they’re all centered around the ranks you get in the game by filling up your hives with honey. However, there are plenty of stats which help round it all out by being able to post these stats on social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and through e-mail. 
Bee Leader is priced at $0.99, and the developers have stated that more levels are coming in future updates, which is great, because after playing and replaying levels trying to get the best scores you can, you’re only going to want more. The game is Universal for those of you who have iPads, or both and iPhone/iPod and iPad, which is always great to hear. 
So, final verdict? I can’t believe a game that revolves around making a bee fly around a level to collect nectar before the sun goes down is this fun. Incredibly fun. Right now I’m still stuck in the first two worlds (6 levels) trying to best my score and move up the GameCenter leaderboards, playing and re-playing levels over and over again. The only bad thing I can say is that the game might be a tad too short. With only 12 levels, if you aren’t interested in besting your score for the leader boards, chances are you’ll complete the game fairly quickly. For a dollar, it’s a fantastic buy, and will definitely wind up being one of my favorite casual high-scoring arcade games of the year. 

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May 26, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Jake Escapes [Just Funny Games] – $1.99

So, you’re the best thief in the world. You’ve stolen enough goodies to keep you and your friends living like kings for more than a couple lifetimes. In fact, you’ve stolen so much, that the thrill is gone. Boredom sets in. 
Thankfully, you have a close friend who happens to be a genius scientist named Doc, and he’s just discovered that there’s a top secret alien artifact, known as G.R.A.I.L., housed in Area 51. This artifact could change the course of history. Your heart starts to speed up, and you feel that thrill once again. It’s time to push yourself to your limits, and see if you’ve really got what it takes to steal the most prized possession on the planet. 
Just Funny Games (developers of the unique puzzler, Trigonon) most recent addition to the AppStore, Jake Escapes, puts you through 17 Story Mode stages, as you try and steal the alien artifact, discover its secrets, and make your way around the world. There is also an Arcade Mode with the same 17 stages. There’s no differences between the modes that I can tell. Each of the levels have the same objectives, and same enemy layouts, which is awfully strange. 
The controls in Jake Escapes might take a little getting use to, but once you do, you’ll be able to maneuver around the face of buildings with ease. To climb up, you’ll need to swipe down, and to move left you need to swipe right and right needs a left swipe. You’re also able to move diagonally up left and up right by swiping in the opposite direction there as well. In each of the levels, there’s different enemies which you’ll either need to avoid completely, or tap on to shoot with a laser from Doc’s flying ship. Some levels will require you to shoot the enemies so that they drop certain objects, while others will just have you searching the building for an object out in the open. 
All the while, you’ve got a detective chasing you, adding some extra stress, and making you come to quick decisions on where to climb. Also adding some difficulty, there are some windowsills which are boarded up, and unable to grab. This means you’ll need to weave a path through enemies and the boarded up windows while running from the detective, and looking for the object in order to complete the level. 
Graphics-wise, the game looks great. Each of the character models are well designed, and the buildings have plenty of detail. Accompanying the nice graphics are great animations, both for Jake’s climbing, as well as the characters you’ll encounter within the buildings throughout the game. Guys tossing mannequins, artists painting, mimes and drunkin weirdos walking out on the ledges, kids throwing toys at you, and even bears ready to grab at you are all smoothly animated. The music and sound effects also go along perfectly with the graphic look and feel of the game.
A pretty big downfall for Jake Escapes is the lack of GameCenter or any other online leaderboard or achievement system. Even though they are coming in a future update, it’s always strange when a development company doesn’t include GameCenter in an action arcade game like this in the very beginning. Until the update goes through, there’s very little in terms of replayability. Also taking away from the replay value is the lack of any sort of scoring system. There’s no clock to see how quickly you complete a level, no score for taking out a kid who’s chucking toys at you, no special bonuses for multiple combos or big scores for beating the end of the game boss. It really seems pretty bare bones if you’re a huge fan of high score chasing or achievement collecting. And a nice scoring system would add immensely to the replay value, as well as general enjoyment for a game that’s set up like Jake Escapes. There’s also the no real noticeable difference between Story and Arcade Modes, giving even less drive to play through Arcade Mode once you unlock all of the levels by playing through Story Mode.
Hopefully more features can be added to Jake Escapes in the near future. Aside from the lack of all that I’ve mentioned, it really is a nice flowing, highly entertaining game with fantastic cut-scenes, a nice story, and great gameplay. Being Universal and priced at $1.99, it’s definitely worth picking up, but only if you’re willing to wait for some real replay value in a future update. The developers are closely working with players on the Touch Arcade forums, asking what features they’d like, what kind of achievements they prefer, and more, so hopefully, Jake Escapes will become a nice rounded out game when everything is said and done. But right now, it’s a little barebones to really stand out among some of the better action arcade games available for the iDevice.
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May 13, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Blocks Hurt! (Luca Giusti) – $1.99

With the insane amount of games released every week in the AppStore, it’s not too surprising that a few great ones get overlooked every now and again. December of last year was a crazy time for the AppStore, with the onslaught of sales along with all the developers trying to get their apps in before the week off that the AppStore would take, not allowing any updates or releases. Well, during this time, Luca Giusti happened to release a little game called Blocks Hurt! Just now finding out about the game, even after a couple sales and freebie give-aways, I’m kicking myself for not finding out about it sooner. 
Blocks Hurt! has you going up against various monsters that are coming after you. Your job is to stop them (surprise surprise!). But how you do it is what really makes this game stand out. You’re given a chain at the top of the screen which will carry blocks from the left to the right. Tapping on them results in them dropping straight down. You’re also able to tilt your iDevice to the left to slow down the chain, offering more precise block drops. 
Hitting enemies will injure them, but usually require more than one block to kill them. There are also special blocks, some giving you a special power-up, while others are attack blocks, and either blow up, shoot out projectiles, fling fire balls, ect. Getting power-up blocks really comes in handy, but in order to use the power-up, you need to fill up your power gauge, which is done by killing enemies, so you’ll need to make sure that you don’t just waste your power-ups on small groups of enemies. 
There’s only one game mode, but each level has a different objective. Surviving a certain amount of time, building a certain structure, or matching a certain number of blocks. There are also boss battles at the end of the 3 separate worlds, with 30 stages each, for a total of 90 levels. Each stage has a 5 star rating, and once you get past the first couple of levels, the challenge immediately starts to show itself. However, it’s not difficult in a frustrating way. There’s always a decent amount of time to complete the objectives, and every time you don’t 5 star a level will be because of your own screw-ups. But with tight controls, and the game always giving you exactly what you need in order to complete the objective at hand, it always winds up giving you more drive to complete a level perfectly if you don’t’ get it right the first couple times around. 
Blocks Hurt! is supported by GameCenter, and has 4 different leader boards, one for each world, and a total score board, along with 36 hard to unlock achievements. That, coupled with the 90 levels offers up tons of replayability and tons of challenge. The game is so wacky and fun, it’s feels like a weird brother of Riverman’s Pizza Vs. Skeletons. Priced at $1.99, it’s a fantastic buy. The developer is also extremely supportive. In an AppStore full of developers who either pull their games and re-release them or throw ads into their paid games when they don’t sell as good as they were hoping, or even just abandon their games all-together, Luca Giusti has stuck with it, which is extremely rare, and commendable these days. An HD version is planned for release this summer, along with an Endless Survival Mode. If you’re looking for a hidden gem that offers up fantastic gameplay from a developer that deserves to be supported, Blocks Hurt! is definitely a game to check out. 
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April 25, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Mech Guardian (SunTownship) – $1.99

Mech Guardian
SunTownship
Casual arcade games are kind of a staple of the AppStore. Easy to learn, easy to control, hard to master, score chasing titles have the possibility of drawing every type of gamer in. However, because of their crazy popularity, it’s fairly hard to find titles that stick out, and offer interesting and addictive gameplay. SunTownship, a 4 person development group based in China, has just released Mech Guardian, a title offering just that; interesting, addictive gameplay that stands out in a sea of titles. Great mechanics, enough challenge to keep hardcore gamers hooked while still remaining approachable for casual gamers, fantastic graphics, and a high-score chase that always leaves you with that ‘one more go’ desire.
The premise is simple. Use your mechanical creature to keep a body of water full of polluting robo-creatures clean for as long as you can by skimming across the top of the water, and using a claw to reach down and snag the ‘enemies.’ As you collect enemies, and raise your score, you progress through levels, with each level releasing more of the robotic sea creatures. So long as you can collect the creatures before they spew out their exhaust, polluting the water, you’ll be able to continue playing, raising your score, and quickly reaching more challenging levels. The enemies do warn you before they pollute the water, by having a red light on their backs start blinking and then blink faster and faster until they dump their waste.
There are quite a few different enemies, each with different swimming patterns, swimming speeds, sizes, as well as scores. There are also some enemies which you can not grab unless you activate a short term big claw power-up. This power-up allows you to grab any and all of the creatures in the water, as well as not having to worry about the size of the enemies slowing your claw down. It can also reach a little bit further, so you won’t have to move all the way over to the left side of the screen to grab an enemy that’s down towards the bottom of the water. Along with the super claw, there’s also a speed power-up, and bombs which are all collectible as orbs, and mixed in with the sea creatures. You’re also able to get a couple of these power-ups free every 24 hours in the game’s store.
The controls in Mech Guardian might seem a bit confusing at first, but after the first game, they’re pretty easy to get. Tilting your device will move your guardian across the top of the screen, while a gauge at the bottom of the screen lets you control your claw movement. It might have been a little easier to get comfortable with if the claw control was put in up-side-down, as the lower half of a circle, but it’s not too bad as is. To shoot your claw down, there’s a button on the movement gauge, and all you need to do is tap it. For the power-ups, there’s 3 buttons on the left side of the screen, each with a picture next to it of the power-up they represent.
The graphics and music are fantastic, making this score chasing arcade game pretty immersive, especially with headphones. The almost steam punk styled graphics are nice and crisp, and with Mech Guardian being Universal, they look great on both the iPod and iPad screens. Along with the chilled out ambient type BGM, it creates a sort of bittersweet melancholy atmosphere.
Even though there’s just one mode, and an upgrade shop or something along those lines would have really helped to round out the game. With the price at $1.99, being Universal, supporting GameCenter with a leader board and 16 hard to snag achievements helping to add to the replay value, all pilled on top of the fantastic, high-quality gameplay, makes Mech Guardian very easy to recommend. SunTownship has definitely provided a top notch gaming experience, and I can’t wait to see what they bring to the table in the future. If you’re a fan of the genre, this is definitely a title you should squeeze into that folder of great arcade games that will be locked on your device for a long time.
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April 5, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Glow Worm (AngryOrange) – $0.99

Action Puzzlers have really found their place on the iOS. With titles like Robo5, Gears, Dark Nebula, Edge, Squirmee, Swingworm and loads more, developers have really taken advantage of the touch screen, and accelerometer capabilities of the iDevice, and at the same time, given us extremely entertaining and challenging gameplay. Angry Orange’s Glow Worm is one of the newest additions to the Action Puzzler genre, meshing together a nice challenge with arcade type gameplay, and toping it off with great graphics and tight, simple controls.
The goal in Glow Worm is to get all of the bacteria into your molecular orb. Doing this will not be an easy task, as you’ll need to avoid all of the hazards, make it through tough situations, and make sure that your glow worm does not run out of energy. As you guide more and more bacteria into your orb, you will gain little bits of energy for your glow worm, but not enough to be making mistakes around every corner.
In most levels, you’ll have to maneuver the bacteria around rotating X Cells, and avoid touching the Red Cells, which destroy the bacteria on contact. To clear a level, you need to guide every bacteria to the molecular orb. Missing one, like having one bacteria touch a red cell, or leaving it out in the open, or running out of energy will result in a failed level, though this doesn‘t become apparent until you actually complete what you can of the level, and nothing happens. Having no leeway with how many bacteria you need to collect to move on from level to level can get pretty frustrating, but that’s where the challenge comes in. However, there is almost always a pretty thin line between all out frustrating, and challenging. In the levels where the rotating X Cells cause the bacteria on both sides of the level to move on their own towards red cells, giving you hardly any time to collect them before they’re destroyed can seem a little unfair, but if you’re quick, it’s definitely possible to complete. Thankfully, Angry Orange has done a very good job walking the line of challenging while keeping the game fair.
To collect the bacteria, you’ll need to place your finger on the glow worm, and drag where you want to move to. Once you’re in position, tapping on the worm will cause it to turn into a magnet of sorts, drawing all the bacteria that’s within range close to it. Here is where the energy of the glow worm comes into play. You only use energy when the glow worm is acting like a magnet, so you’ll need to activate it, and then quickly turn this ability off, having the bacteria use the inertia to keep moving in the desired direction. If you keep the glow worm’s magnetism activated while dragging the bacteria all the way to the orb, you’ll run out of energy very quickly.
Right now, Glow Worm is $0.99, and Universal. There is no GameCenter or OpenFeint support, and no in-game achievements. There’s also only 18 levels, and with the strict level progression guidelines, there’s no star ranking system like in most puzzlers, leaving little to no room for replay value. But the graphics are nice and crisp, the BGM is great, and fit’s the feel of the environments, while the gameplay is challenging enough to keep you busy for a while. If you’re easily frustrated by puzzlers, Glow Worm is probably a game you’ll want to stay away from, but if you’re looking for a challenge, and don’t mind low replayabilty, and no online support, it’s a game that’s worth checking out.
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March 31, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Flick Rocket (Binary Square)

FLICK ROCKET
Binary Square
Retro arcade games have always remained fairly popular with old-school gamers throughout the years. But since the AppStore launched, it seems like they’re making a pretty big come-back. Most likely it’s because of the cheap prices iOS games have, but it’s also because there’s a lot of 20 and 30 year olds who are getting back into gaming because they can now fit in time to play games by having a phone/portable device that’s able to always be with them. Binary Square is definitely a development group that’s taking advantage of this, and giving iOS gamers high quality old-school-like arcade games. Flick Rocket fits right into that category.
The goal in Flick Rocket is to protect your city from the onslaught of aliens by flicking your rockets up at their ships and projectiles. Once they blow up all of the buildings in the city you’re defending, it’s game over. Sounds simple enough, eh? And it is, really just that simple, and it’s in this simplicity that the game shines. It‘s addictive old-school arcade gameplay that’s easy to understand, and takes a while to really master. Knowing where and when exactly to send your rockets will take practice, but once you finally get it, it just clicks, and feels great.
There’s also some great power-ups which really help out once you get to know what does what. There’s a shield which protects your buildings, a time-stopper, which freezes everything on the screen, extra buildings, and rockets that bounce off the edges of the screen. Along with this, some enemy ships also drop letters. If you collect them all, spelling out EXTRA, you’ll be able to play through a bonus stage.
Now, all of this is great, and fits right in with the old-school type of arcade gameplay. But the simplicity could also turn some people off. You do swipe, and a lot, over and over again, and with gamers being flooded with fully immersive deepthy games, there are some people who are sure to get bored with it fairly quickly.
There’s two modes in Flick Rocket, Arcade and Campaign. Right now, there’s only 3 different cities that you can try and defend, with 7 more ‘in development’. In Campaign Mode, you’re able to pick which city you’d like to defend, and play through wave after wave until all 10 buildings are destroyed. Each city has it’s own type of enemy. With Tokyo, you’re put up against Space Invaders type enemies, with line after line needing to be destroyed. Paris has you go up against a centipede type enemy, which breaks in half, and turns into more enemies every time you hit it with a rocket, and LA has you destroying asteroids before they hit your buildings, with each asteroid breaking into smaller asteroids. In Arcade Mode you’ll go from town to town, destroying all the enemies you can, and keeping as many buildings protected as you can, until all your buildings are gone, feeling pretty much like a survival mode.
It’s supported by GameCenter, having leaderboards for all 3 Campaign cities, and another for Arcade Mode, but there are no achievements. If you’re looking for something with lots of depth, or are sick of games that have a bunch of ‘coming soon’ levels, or just plain don’t like old-school arcade gameplay, you’d be better off skipping this one. But with Flick Rockets being Universal, priced at $0.99, having a pretty nice scoring system with great power-ups, offering a lot of challenge, and replay value with GC leaderboards, it’s a fantastic retro title that’ll give you the same feelings you use to have while going down to the arcade or bowling ally back in the 80’s or early 90’s, wasting time away quarter after quarter.
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March 20, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Neoteria – 1.99 (OrangePixel)


Neoteria
OrangePixel has proven, with their mobile game releases, that they are kings of the retro gaming world. Their lineup of Meganoid, Stardash, INC, Super Drill Panic and more now have another title that’ll eat up gamers lives; Neoteria, an arcade inspired retro shoot-em-up with the difficulty level fans of OrangePixel have come to love and respect. And really, OrangePixel development merged with shmup gameplay… a pretty hardcore fan of both couldn’t ask for more.
Gameplay: 4/5
In the game, you’ll start off with only Easy Mode selectable. As you progress through the first world, you’ll unlock Normal Mode, and once you complete the first world on Normal, you unlock Hard Mode, which, if you’re familiar with OrangePixel’s games, is basically where the hardcore gamers will spend most of their time. You’re given little snippets of the story as you make your way from world to world. The outer mining settlement is under alien attack, and it’s up to you to stop them.
There are checkpoints throughout each world, set up kind of like levels. Each has 3 stars which you can earn by playing on all 3 difficulties. The first star is for beating the level on Easy, second star for Normal, and third for Hard. There are different paths which you can play through on your way through each world, with each path leading to the same end boss. You are able to go back and replay previously beaten stages if you’d like to power-up your weapon, which you do by collecting the blue crystals that enemies leave behind, or if you’d like to try and travel through all the paths in each world.
Graphics: 4/5
As with other OrangePixel games, Neoteria is done in a retro style that looks fantastic. However, there is one little drawback. On the iPad, the graphics have a little blur behind them whenever objects are moving. This includes the backgrounds, environments, player ship, enemies, and projectiles. It’s not too much of an issue, because most of the time, you’ll be focusing on the crazy amount of enemies coming at you, and trying to survive, but it is there. I’m not sure if it’s there on the iPod, because of the smaller screen, but if it is, it’s not noticeable.
Controls: 4/5
The controls for Neoteria aren’t really what you would expect from a shooter like this, and it’s where the arcade inspiration really becomes apparent. On the left side of the screen, you’re given two buttons for movement of your ship up and down, and on the right side, there’s a fire button, but you can tap anywhere on the right side of the screen to fire. There is no auto-fire, so you’ll constantly be tapping on the right side of the screen to shoot. Here’s where those quick tapping abilities all you old-school gamers should still have come in handy.
In the Controls Menu, you’re able to move the buttons around as you see fit, which definitely comes in handy if you’re playing on an iPad. However, the touch detection area is pretty small, and does not go outside of the buttons at all. This can result in your ship not going up or down because your thumb is the slightest little bit off. This is understandable, since you are able to move the buttons around, and could potentially have the up button pretty much touching the down button, and you wouldn’t want the detection area to overlap. Being able to make the buttons bigger would be a nice way of fixing this, especially since they go invisible after a short time, and obscuring the gameplay area wouldn’t really be an issue with it.
To top it off, it’s also iCade and Joypad supported!
Content + Replayability : 4/5
Neoteria does not really have a whole lot of content, especially when compared to the insane amount of levels in OrangePixel‘s other titles. 3 worlds, each with 8 pretty short levels in them. I’m hoping that like their other games, Neoteria will get some nice content updates in the future. But like other shmups, the value is really in the replay value, not necessarily in the content, and Neoteria has it in spades. Yes, there are only 24 short levels in the game, but you’ll be able to play through them with each of the 3 characters, and finding out how to make it into the hidden paths could take a while.
There’s also the scoring system. At the end of each level, your score is based on the percentage of the level’s enemies that you wiped out, your shot accuracy, and the score you built up while playing through the level. This does add an extra level of replay value, as the first couple times you play through the game, you’ll probably be pounding away on the fire button, and then start trying to increase your score by getting higher accuracy percentages.
Neoteria is also supported by OpenFeint and GameCenter, with 12 achievements, and 3 leaderboards, one for each character (difficulty). So if you’re a high-score chaser, battling for a higher position on the leaderboards is sure to keep you busy for some time. Getting all of the achievements should also take a while, as a lot of them are for finding the secret paths, and 100% completing each difficulty.
Overall: 4/5
Granted, Neoteria isn’t OrangePixel’s best release to date, but I’m ecstatic that one of my favorite development teams released a shmup, one of my favorite type of games (yeah, I’m a platformer/shmup/strategy fanatic). The developers have said that they’re working on another control scheme, as a few players aren’t really comfortable with the current set-up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it got a few content updates as well. OrangePixel’s other titles have also been known to get very fleshed out/extremely polished based on player feedback, so the distortion with the graphics, touchy controls, and any other issues that there might be, have a very good chance of being dealt with.
At $1.99, being Universal, having iCade and Joypad compatibility, as well as the crazy high replay value that comes along with shmups and games having GameCenter and OpenFeint support, not to mention, it’s ORANGEPIXEL, it’s a great buy.
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February 25, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

SZC: Beyond Dead – 0.99 (Monster Robot Studios)

Beyond Dead
Metroidvania titles are essentially few and far between when compared to the sheer amount of games within every other genre. So every time a Metroidvania title pops up, I can’t help but get excited. When I first saw the screens for Monster Robot Studios (GravCat, Bridge The Gap, Occupy App) new game, Beyond Dead, my jaw just about hit the floor. The game looks like a great homage to old-school Metroid games, and for those of you who don’t know yet, Metroid II is my favorite game… OF ALL TIME. One little drawback though; GameSalad.
Gameplay; 3/5
Reminiscent of Metroid titles, something has gone wrong with terraforming project 1470. Two mercenaries, Tank and Vera, respond, and are after the truth. They make their way to the Asteriae system and need to explore the asteroid facility to find out what exactly went wrong. As you progress through the game, you’ll pick up stronger weapons, extra abilities, and battle zombie-like humans, along with monstrous beings, and slowly discover what’s happening within the facility. The story is well told, with no grammatical errors, and unfolds at a steady pace.
The action, however, is a bit on the slow side. You can shoot at and jump on your enemies, though both attack methods are fairly slow when it comes to killing. To avoid taking too much damage, you’ll be doing quite a bit of the run away, stop, take a couple shots, run away, stop, take a couple shots, ect… and that’s until you come across some stairs, which you’ll fall through if you’re going after a zombie because you’ll need to aim your weapon the correct way to use the stairs. While exploring, jumping can feel more like a hassle than anything, with a lot of platforms seemingly just out of reach until you try and make it to them more than a couple times.
There’s also the loading times. Typical GameSalad loading times, though moving from room to room is done in a flash, hitting the Pause button, or going to your Map will take about 4-5 seconds to load, and 4-5 seconds to exit, breaking up the gameplay quite a bit. The loading times between sections of the world aren’t so bad, as you’re given a pretty nifty picture to look at while the game is loading, but entering the Map and Pause menus can be a hassle. This is even more upsetting because of the exploration in the game. Don’t get me wrong, the exploration in Beyond Dead is fantastic. Completely reminiscent of old Metroid titles, which is great. Actually, it’s probably the strongest feature of the game. But breaking up the strongest feature of the game with loading times for the Map is… upsetting. I found myself constantly wishing that Monster Robot Studios used a different game engine.
Controls: 4/5
Control-wise, you’re given two options;
No-buttons:
Touch and drag anywhere on the left side of the screen to walk. Drag your finger up or down to adjust your aim. Double tap to dash. Tap anywhere on the right side of the screen to fire your weapon. To jump, swipe your finger up on the right side of the screen, and when you get weapons, you can slide your finger down to put the safety on or take it off. If you put the safety on, touching anywhere on the right side of the screen is your action button.
Buttons:
You’re given 4 arrows on the left side, two for left and right movement, and two in-between the movement buttons for aiming your weapon up and down. On the right side of the screen, there’s a jump button and a fire button, as well as dash and safety on/off buttons.
You’re able to change the controls in the pause menu, and are also able to make it so that you’re given the d-pad on the left side, while having the no-button set-up on the right, or having the buttons on the right, and the no-button set-up on the left. The only issues I have with the controls is that you don’t jump until you let go of the jump button, instead of jumping right when you touch the jump button, and sometimes the movement buttons are slightly un-responsive, causing your character to stop moving while walking, or in the air. Aside from this, the controls work pretty well, and being able to mix and match control set-ups to fit your gaming style was a great idea, implemented fairly well.
Graphics: 4/5
The graphics for Beyond Dead are really not bad, and at some points, when there are objects dangling from the ceiling close to the camera, like in the trash compactor area, look very nice. The animations for firing your weapon, jumping, enemy deaths, projectile collisions, explosions, they’re all there, and they’re not bad, but again, I can’t help but think that if this much effort was put into the game while using another engine, like Unity or Corona, that the game would look amazing.
Content: 3/5
Right now, Beyond Dead only contains the first ‘episode’. More episodes are in the works at the moment, and talking to the developer, I can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be added, but ever since the ordeal with Grokion, it’s hard to really push any game that has more worlds coming, or future episodes being made. But with Episode 1, there’s about 45 minutes of straight line gameplay, and then about an hour (maybe a little more) of exploration if you’re interested in looking for extra weapons, an energy tank, and just getting to know the whole game’s world.
As it is right now, there’s not a whole lot of replay value, if any, but hopefully GameCenter will be added in the future, and include achievements, and maybe a leader board for number of zombies killed, quickest times for completing the episodes, things like this, as they would give gamers incentive to run-through the game again after completion.
Overall: 3.5/5
You can tell that Beyond Dead has had a lot of work thrown into it. The graphics are great, especially considering they’re done within GameSalad, and the exploration throughout the first episode is done in a way that drives the game forward. Like I’ve said already, I can’t help but wish the game was made with another gaming engine, because Monster Robot Studios obviously has the talent it needs to create a very nice Metroid-like exploration action-platformer. For a dollar, and future episodes promised, at no extra price to those who pick the game up now, it’s worth buying, especially if you’re a fan of the Metroidvania genre. Just don’t expect a super polished, epic exploration game.
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February 23, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

DariusBurst – 10.99 (Taito)

DARIUSBURST SP
With the hardware for iDevices getting more powerful year after year, it’s no surprise that iOS gamers are seeing more and more games ported over from other platforms. Luckily, quite a few of these games that are being ported over, are getting enhancements, and cost a fraction of their original price. Taito, recently bringing RayForce, a shmup from the early 90’s, released in Arcades, on the Sega Saturn, and Windows, over to the iOS, also decided to port over one of their newer titles, DariusBurst, a PSP and Arcade game, released only in Japan. Taito has also added quite a few features to the iOS version, giving it an all new SP Mode with new enemy patterns, and revised boss battles, as well as the Assault ship from the arcade version of the game, and new music.
Gameplay: 5/5
With DariusBurst SP (Second Prologue) the setting switches between under-water and space levels, with the bosses being mechanical sea-creatures. This makes for 8 possible run-throughs of the game, and is a great change of pace from the standard World War/Vietnam shoot-em-ups that have cluttered the AppStore over the last couple years.
You’re able to choose between 4 ships, with 2 being locked when you first start the game. To unlock these, you’ll need to do a full run-through of the game in either Original or SP Mode, and to get the second locked ship, you’ll need to unlock Mission Mode, and complete 2 missions in Level 3. Each ship has their own strengths, multipliers, and burst shots.
Like other Darius games, you’re able to choose 5 stages while progressing through a pyramid set-up, having 11 levels in total. While blasting away, you’ll come across various enemies that will be colored either red, blue, or green, each powering up your shot, shield, and missiles.
There are 3 different gaming modes; Original, SP, and Mission. With Original Mode, you’ll be able to experience the original PSP version of the game, with the same enemy patterns and music. The SP Mode gives you a chance to blast through different enemy patterns, and revised boss battles, and all with a remixed soundtrack. With Mission Mode, you’re given 8 different levels to play through, each with 4 missions. You’re only given one life, and are put up either against a regular level without a boss, or only a boss battle, and are set to try and score as high as you can within those parameters. Mission Mode is unlocked once you’ve completed two different paths through the game in either Original or SP mode.
Scoring Mechanics: 4/5
The scoring system in DariusBurst is fairly simple, at least, compared to some of the other depthy scoring mechanics some other Bullet Hell titles have. You’re given a Shot Multiplier which increases as you take out enemies throughout the level and each time you’re hit, your Shot Multiplier goes down. The fastest way to increase the Shot Multiplier is to take out large groups of enemies with your burst shot.
Each ship has their own Burst Multiplier, which is added on to the Shot Multiplier. Each ship has their own Burst Multiplier. For instance, Legend and Next Zero ships both have a 6x Burst Multiplier, giving them a top multiplier of 96x. The Assault ship has a 7x Burst Multiplier, topping out at 112x. To take advantage of this, killing the last enemy in a formation, as well as the mid-bosses, bosses, boss pieces and large enemies will give you the highest scores.
You’re also given bonus points at the end of the game for the amount of ships that you have, getting 10 million bonus points for not dying once. There are also some routes that will give players more points than others. Basically, use your Burst to take out large groups of enemies, large enemies, mid and end level bosses, and try to not get hit or die, and you’ll score big.
Graphics: 5/5
The graphics in DariusBurst are fantastic. 2.5D gameplay adds more depth than you would think, with ships able to fly by on the “right” and “left” sides of your ship before coming into “firing view”, and the backgrounds that move alongside the foregrounds where the gameplay is taking place looks gorgeous. There’s also areas where you might get dizzy because of the speed and way that the background moves about, giving the illusion of the ship turning down a 3D corridor, and out into space. Animations for the enemies, especially bosses, as well as the explosions, all look incredible. With the game being Universal, it really shines on the iPad 2, with crystal clear and very crisp visuals, it’s definitely one of the best looking games I’ve had the pleasure of playing on an iDevice over the last couple years.
Replay Value: 5/5
As with most other shmups, DariusBurst comes along with a huge amount of replay value, especially with the Mission Mode Stages. There’s 3 difficulties, selectable in the Options Menu, GameCenter support with 17 leaderboards, and a whopping 59 achievements. With all 4 of the ships having different types of play, learning how to best play with each of them, along with the different paths you can choose from in both Original and SP Modes, the amount of replay value is extremely high, especially if you’re a completionist who’ll go after all 59 of the achievements.
DariusBurst is set up like a quarter sucking arcade game, and because of that, it has the potential of staying on your device forever.
Overall: 5/5
Taito’s release of RayForce had quite a few fans of the shmup genre worried, as the controls were sketchy, and the gameplay not differing at all between iPhone and Arcade modes, but with the release of DariusBurst, and all of the extra effort that went into creating a special game for the device, Taito has re-claimed a spot directly under Cave on my favorite shmup+bullet hell developers list. The price of $10.99 is a GREAT deal, especially considering the PSP version is selling between $30 and a whopping $120, and doesn’t contain all the extras that the iOS version has. If you’re a fan of shmups, DariusBurst is a MUST BUY. Being Universal, beautiful on the iPad, smooth as butter on the iPod, and just a blast to play, Taito deserves to be supported for this. Hopefully other development companies see the support Taito is getting, and will take the iDevice more seriously. It’s games like this that push the AppStore forward, and give me hope that the device I use as my main gaming console will grow above and beyond ‘real’ gaming platforms.
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February 22, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

‘Tweetland Review’ – Twitter integration taken to the next level

Tweetland is a nifty app that integrates tweets from users of the popular social network into a smashing, car racing game.

Gameplay:4/5
The game puts you in control of a car racing past crazy traffic to try to get to the finish line.  Pretty simple, right? Wrong, as users on twitter tweet various buzz words the app translates that into game world obstacles you have to avoid. For example during one of my runs @rap_musicnews tweeted a tweet that involved the word “Meteor”. Sure enough a meteor crashed down in front of my vehicle and I was forced to swerve out of the way. With each level new buzz words are introduced making each level more and more hectic. After each level you can see the tweets that caused you so much trouble and even follow the users that tweeted them if your alright with the fact that they just made you fail the level. You get either a bronze, silver or gold medal for each level and you can rack up more points by crashing into the traffic you are trying to pass.  There are 24 levels and many promised updates supposedly coming soon. 
Controls: 3.5/5
The game utilizes one joystick in the bottom left of the screen which serves its purpose well enough. The reason it does not receive a higher score because at points it really infuriates me. I really can’t really put my finger on why I dislike it but it may be because of how floaty it is.
Content: 4/5
There are 24 levels already included along with a last level that will certainly test your reflexes. They are working on creating a iPad version as well as implementing Gamecenter into the game. Also they will be adding new buzz words along with new levels. 
Overall: 4/5
This is certainly one of the most unique games to hit the iOS platform and is fun as well. Great to play on a rainy day or on the bus. Certainly an easy buy at the low price of $1.99. 

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February 18, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >