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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

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

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.

Tower Defense games have been  becoming increasingly common since the beginning of the App Store.  Anomaly: Warzone Earth radically changed the tried and true formula by putting you in the place of the attacking forces.  How will this new tower defense game hold up to the new standards of customers and how does it improve and change the genre? Find out after the break!
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Thank you for watching Channel 9 News now back to the story of the day. A local game company called Lambadu Games has released their game into the loving hands of Apple.  Unfortunately the expected release date is not in fact the 18th but the 25th which is a surprising and heartbreaking development to us all. The good news is that we will be able to give you a detailed look at what is actually in this game so it will be just like you have it on your device except you wont and we will….just saying… Anyways this seems to be a very good remix of the genre and I feel will be well received in the gaming community.
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The first amazing change they introduced is the fact that it is played in the vertical position(that means up and down) which is always good because it makes you look like your doing work or something else you should be doing.  On the playing field you have a few places where you can set your towers.  You cant just set them anywhere and I imagine that you will be forced to strategically choose where you want certain towers to best win the round.  Another interesting innovation is the fact that you can place a tower next to a  tower of a different type and influence it to have a different attack like a slow splash attack for instance.  New towers are introduced through the course of the game  and you combine different towers to form entirely new ones.  After you beat a level you get BioMatter which you can use to buy things in the inventory shop that will upgrade all your towers on the field.  In order to gain their benefits you have to equip them in the slots which also adds more strategic elements to the game.  Overall this is definitely a nice turn on the genre and reminds me a lot of GemCraft except more fun and better visuals.
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There are 3 different modes to play through Novice, Veteran, and Elite.  I assume there are different levels after you complete each mode but there is a possibility there are not as well.  Regardless that will give you a opportunity to stock up on the BioMatter and earn new powerups.  As far as replayability goes you can try to score a perfect on each level which can be very difficult as it is very likely a lucky enemy will slip past your carefully planned defenses.  One of my favorite things about the levels was that there is a huge boss  at the end of each of them so you always have to be thinking of the endgame and what defenses you should put up.
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Overall, this is a excellent take on the genre and quite a few new features make the game fun and enjoyable to come back to. Combined with excellent retro graphics and a lovely shop system this game will find itself on your device for a very long time. You can play it on all devices as it is a Universal Game.  Its coming soon to an AppStore near you on the 25th! I rate it a 9/10.

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!

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

Before I begin the review I must say that there’s no way you could miss this game on the App Store if you were roaming based on the icon. Just look at that icon! It’s EPIC! Okay enough with my love of the icon, time to get into what Vermes On Mars [$0.99 (Universal)] by Aztlan Games is all about. Vermes On Mars is a sci-fi based shooter game with the setting being the “Red Planet” or Mars for short. In this game you guide 4 vehicles around in search of the assorted worms hiding in the soil. The worms pop up out of the soil whenever you get close to them. The mission is to try to defeat all the worms in a level. The controls in this game are very simple. You can tap on the left or right side of the screen to switch from moving and

shooting. Moving your vehicles is extremely simple. All you have to do is swipe on the area of the screen that you want your vehicles to move to. Then they will line up along the area that you swiped on. When it’s time to shoot, just tap on either the left side or the right side of the screen (your choice) to switch over to the shooting mode. Just swipe on the part of the screen where the worms are at just like you would do if you were trying to move. Your vehicles will turn their attention to shooting in that spot that you directed them to. In the shooting mode you can’t move your vehicles so just tap on either side of the screen again to switch into a different mode. Each level has a given time limit that requires you to find all of the worms before you run out of time making it GAME OVER! As I mentioned before, there’s an assortment of worms that have their own special attributes. Every worm has their own way of destroying your vehicles. Some happen to be deadlier than others. Sometimes a level gets hectic so you can use some of the power-ups that you’ve earned located at the bottom of the screen. There’s a power-up to heal your bots, to destroy all the worms in sight coming after you, and even more. At the end of each level you gain money that you can use in the workshop to upgrade your current bots weapons, health, and magnetic field. You can also purchase

new bots that are much stronger than your previous ones. There’s currently over 30 levels to play through so you’ll have enough to upgrade your bots. The only bad thing is that you can’t replay levels that you’ve already beaten. Other than that this game is a lot of fun to me. Overall Vermes On Mars is an entertaining sci-fi shooter with nicely done visuals and a great user interface. My final rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars. It would be 5 out of 5 stars if you could replay previously beaten levels. You can check out Vermes On Mars by Aztlan Games for only $0.99 here. It’s also universal so that’s a plus!