Search Results for: label/Retro/index.html

Deliver Da Bomb is a new arcade game from Tapstatic in which you try to bounce a bomb from one side of the screen to the other side, blowing up a robot. It sounds pretty easy, and in the beginning it really is, as you can get enough bombs to the robot by just starting the first two bombs moving, and then tapping on the last group of men, then the middle group, then the first group, then back to the end and starting over again. The first 8 levels or so are played like this, but then you hit level 9, and it really starts to get difficult, especially on insane speed. Here is where they actually mix up the bombs shot by how high they start off, how fast they move, and in what order you need to tap the men in.

There’s two different game modes in Deliver Da Bomb, but they’re split up like difficulties. In Easy Mode, you’ll need to bounce bombs 3 times before they reach the robot, and in Hard Difficulty, you’ll need to bounce the bombs 4 times. With each of the difficulty modes you’re able to choose between 3 different speeds, Casual, Advanced, and Insane. Then to be able to play on Hard Mode, you’ll need to finish all the Easy Mode levels first, so it’s more set up like one mode that you just progress through in two, 25 level sections. Each bomb that you get to the end, hitting the robot, gives you one extra life point, and you can have up to 30 points for life. If you miss or drop a bomb, one point is taken away, and if you reach a life score of 0, surprise, game over.

The graphics are done fairly well, in a sort of NES-SNES retro type way, and the animations for movement, bouncing, and explosions are about what you would expect with a retro styled game. You are able to put a picture in the face of the robot, but it’s really small, so if you want it to be a picture that you’re able to see, it’ll have to be a close-up of something, or someone, and I prefer the default robot face. The sounds and music is inspired by old-school effects and music as well, and fit’s the game well enough.

Deliver Da Bomb is presented as an old-school arcade game that you can battle for a high-score ranking through GameCenter on, but there’s one pretty major problem with the scoring system; your score is cumulative, and adds up continuously. This means that you can raise your score to 50 thousand just by playing level 1 over and over again, if you so desire, but also that the #1 position on the GameCenter charts will not be the person who scored the most points in each of the 50 levels, but instead, will be the person who played the game more than anyone else, For a game who’s primary reason for playing is for getting a high score, this is a pretty big let-down, and to top it off, and really make sure the replay value goes down the drain, there’s no achievements.

Tapstatic has done a great job creating a high-scoring retro arcade game with Deliver Da Bomb, but it seems like they did a poor job in implementing the scoring system and GameCenter integration. However, these things could be easily fixed in a future update, and for $0.99, Deliver Da Bomb does deliver quite a bit of challenging gameplay, and is definitely worth the price.

Deliver Da Bomb is getting a score of 6 out of 10, with a little asterisk ** if this game is updated, and the scoring system is fixed so that you have a score fixed for each level that you can raise up by replaying the level instead of just adding to your total score by replaying a level over and over, it could be a 7 or 8 out of 10 game, and if more game modes are added after that, could easily score 9 or 10 out of 10 – and I do have some pretty high hopes for this one.

Super Drill Panic is the new retro arcade game from Orange Pixel, the developers of the awesome Meganoid and Time Chaos. In Super Drill Panic, you’ll make your way through 30 Levels along with two Endless Arcade Levels, while collecting coins, to upgrade items in the shop, hammers to smash through platforms, treasure chests that hold letters (spelling out DRILL once you collect all of them in a world), hourglasses that give you some breathing room, key cards that let you open doors, and glasses that make you invisible, all while trying to escape from a huge boulder trying to crush you or the jail bars from coming down on you.

Orange Pixel caught the attention of many gamers when they released the great platform game, Meganoid. This time, they have stuck with the retro graphics, but tried something new. Super Drill Panic is free. That’s right, free. It has ads, but you can’t complain when you’re not paying anything to play this great game. And it is one great game.

There’s two different characters available to play with, the female is unlocked after beating the first 15 levels. Each has a different set of worlds to go through, different shops, and different arcade levels. With the male character, you try to make it through caves while stealing the treasure and avoiding the boulder, kind of like a vertical version of hook champ, minus the hook, while with the female you try to escape the building after breaking into a vault, avoiding the bars coming down on you.

There’s plenty of challenge, as getting a high ranking at the end of each level is pretty decently hard to accomplish. The graphics are Orange Pixel Retro goodness, sounds, music, it all feels like an old-school Nintendo game, filled with action. I do, however, wish that I could get rid of the ad bar on the top of the screen, even if it was with an IAP, as I do feel this game is worth a buck or two. The arcade levels do add quite a bit to the replay value, but once you upgrade all your items, the replay value goes down quite a bit. For free though, it’s an amazing game, and highly recommended.

I’m giving Super Drill Panic a score of 9 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/super-drill-panic/id456374645?mt=8

Hyper Crush: The 8-Bit Adventure is the official platformer game of the musical group, Hyper Crush, made by Voxel Software. In it, you’ll play as all 3 band members, Holly, Preston and Donny, as you try to recover your special items and make it to The Moxy Theatre before your rival group, Slow Expand makes it there before you, stealing your time slot.

There are only 8 levels in Hyper Crush, and you’ll be forced to re-play each of the levels many, many times in order to get enough coins to buy Preston’s gun, which lets you break bricks. You MUST get this item in order to beat the game, because in level 5, you’ll start the level with a huge brick wall blocking your way. Once you get the brick breaking weapon, the game does become even more about collecting coins, and you’ll need to buy a pair of shoes in the shop as well that will let you make a huge jump in level 6. This amount of grinding can get pretty boring, and really take away from the gameplay experience.

The controls in Hyper Crush are pretty good, tight and responsive, but jumping feels a bit floaty. These floaty physics don’t really work well in conjunction with the tight controls, but it’s not enough to make you quit playing. Graphics-wise, the game is nice, and the environments look a lot like the original Super Mario Brothers, while the backgrounds kind of stand out against the platforms and bricks with their clear and polished looking cityscapes, but the mesh of the two goes together quite well, while the level select screen is set up exactly like World 1 of Super Mario Brothers 3. This tribute to Super Mario does bring back a lot of childhood memories, until you realize that you only have 8 levels and will be playing each of them at least 5 times in order to get enough coins to buy the items you need to complete the game.

All-n-all, Hyper Crush is a solid platformer that was executed poorly. The inclusion of a shop and the drive to collect coins along with the retro graphics don’t really make up for the lack of content and forced grinding. But then again, it’s really made as a game for the fans of Hyper Crush, so what do you expect? For $0.99 there’s plenty of great platformers in the AppStore that will give you more than 10 times the content.

Hyper Crush: The 8-Bit Adventure gets a score of 3/10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hyper-crush-the-8-bit-adventure/id448003049?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

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 AppStore is a hub for retro gaming goodness. Gamers in their 20’s and 30’s have been buying their childhood back a couple bucks at a time, and we couldn’t be happier about it. Eggcode’s latest game, Pixel Ghost, is their first addition to the retro platforming genre, and it brings with it some interesting mechanics. Pixel Ghost is not your traditional left and rightplusjump button platformer, instead, you drag the screen, moving the level left and right, while your character bounces off of the floors and ceilings of the stage. This may sound like heresy to NES era gamers, but Eggcode has taken some pretty big risks while putting Pixel Ghost together, and it works out surprisingly well.
The graphics are great, and very well done. Eggcode has decided to put the game inside of a TV screen, inside of your iPod screen, and since the iPod screen isn’t as big as the game’s TV screen, the game pans up and down depending on where your ghost is, to show more of the level. This risk with the graphics has paid off. It really adds to the retro feel of the game, and doesn’t hurt the gameplay at all. There’s also blocks that trail your ghost as it moves through the levels. They don’t do anything, but they look very cool, and I think were a nice addition to the graphics. The controls, swiping left and right to move the level, work surprisingly well, and are actually veryaccurate. They didn’t feel quite right at first, and I’m still hoping that they add some buttons to move the level in a future update, but after playing the game for a while, it does grow on you.

There’s plenty of hazards to keep you on your toes as you move throughout the worlds, trying to make it to the blue X at the end of each level. Spikes, guns, birds, blocks that disappear after you bounce on them once, and holes in the floor and ceiling. But there’s also some power-ups that will help you manage the tougher parts, like invincibility, and additions to your clock to help you grab a higher score. Coins litter the levels, and are also a major part of getting that huge score. Getting them all in each level will drain your clock, and prove to be quite a challenge, but it’s worth it if you’re trying to max out your score on a level. This would be more of a driving force ifGameCenter or OpenFeint were added to the game, but as it stands now, you’ll just be trying to beat your own scores on each of the levels. Hopefully an online leaderboard will be added in the future, but some might see this omission a pretty big oversight on the part of the developers.

Even with what some people might consider bad decisions on the developers side, this game is really surprisingly good. The graphics are, and work out, great, and the controls work out very well. It’s a pretty solid entry to the retro platforming genre, and a game that you won’t want to miss out on if you’re a fan. The soundtrack is also very nice, and adds to the retro feel of the whole game. For $0.99 it’s another buck you’ll be happy you spent trying to buy back your childhood memories. 25 challenging levels spread across 5 worlds will keep you busy for a while, especially if you’re interested in getting every coin in every level. I’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars, and recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a good challenging game.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixel-ghost/id453031769?mt=8