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Sci-Fi Sim Adventure. The genre’s completely new to me, but I don’t think I could have picked a better game to introduce me to the genre than DigitalFrog’s Space Frontier. Starting off, it has a great interactive tutorial that’s very easy to understand and shows you exactly what you need to know in order to make it through the game. During the tutorial, you’ll notice how much work has obviously gone into creating a great looking universe to play in, with loads of details, great object and item designs, and a fantastic atmosphere.

So, the whole object of the game is to build houses and make money, out in space. There will be some competition, especially from a character named Felipe, and his android, Doomsday, both with egos larger than the solar system you’ll be competing in. There are a bunch of little things you’ll need to keep your eyes on while you’re in the process of trying to build and make money. The sector that you’re building on will have a safety meter, which slowly decreases as you progress through each level, you’ll need to spend money to constantly keep this meter as high as you can so that your sector is not hit my an asteroid, which could destroy or damage buildings. Also, building your different types of houses requires you to spend minerals, which you will need to buy to replenish, as well as requires you to have enough robots to build them. This means that if you have 4 robots, you can only build a couple houses at a time, sometimes only one building at a time, depending on how many robots it takes to build that specific object.

Now, I know this technical stuff sounds kind of boring, but if you’re into simulation games, I think you know where all of this is going. There are 40 missions, or stages, that you’ll need to complete in order to beat Felipe. Each mission gives you certain tasks which you must complete in a given amount of time. You aren’t necessarily required to beat this time, but Felipe’s time is marked on the timer, and if you want to beat him, you will need to beat his mission times. As you progress though the game, you will unlock more and more buildings which will help you gather income, raise money, and fund the sectors. You are able to build, buy, sell, and destruct buildings, each of which has different attributes, different amounts of income, and effects your sector differently. Each time you start a mission, you are given a certain amount of cash in the bank, a certain amount of robots, and a certain amount of minerals, once the minerals and original bank money is depleted, you will be required to refill these on your own.

It might take multiple tries to beat each of Felipe’s times, but once you get the hang of everything, and multitasking, constantly keeping your eyes on the sectors safety, income, bank, minerals, and task progression. One thing I would absolutely love to see added in the future would be GameCenter. DigitalFrog has provided an in-game leaderboard that connects to their servers, which does help with the cheaters on GameCenter, but it takes away from competing against your GameCenter friends. Thankfully, there are in-game achievements. 54 to be exact. Some gamers love it when developers have their own leaderboards and achievement systems. I happen to be someone who happens to like when developers do this, but do understand why people want GameCenter integration. Still, it’s hard to say that no GameCenter is an issue when the developers do such a great job with their own in-game leaderboard and achievements like DigitalFrog has done here. You are awarded scores based on how quickly you complete the missions, and you can replay each mission, so making your way up the leader board, as well as competing against Felipe’s times does add quite a bit of replay value to the game. There’s also a Casual Mode that’s unlocked once you complete all of the regular campaign missions. For my first Sci-fi Simulation Adventure game, you can color me extremely impressed, and be sure that I’ll be searching the AppStore (and Steam) for more games in this genre. $3.99 is really a great price for the amount and quality of the content provided here with Space Frontier, and better yet, it‘s Universal! If you’re a fan of the genre, it’s one title you definitely need to check out, and if you’ve never heard of the genre, Space Frontier is probably one of the best, if not the best, game that you could first get, as you’ll end up being hooked from the moment you complete the tutorial levels.

With enough titles being released in the AppStore, a lot of them start to play similar to one another, and it’s not too often you’ll come across a game with some interesting mechanics. Lucky for us, there are developers out there that see and recognize this, and don’t want to just make a game that’s like other games, but a game that brings something, not necessarily new to the table, but something that‘s not done often, and can actually pull it off, fitting it into their game flawlessly. P@ssword Studios first release into the iOS scene just so happens to be one of these titles. Unknown Defender, a base defense arcade shooter in which you’ll need to mix up different types of energy to make new types of projectiles, also researching your opponents, and finding out what types of energies they are resilient, and which they are weak against.

The controls in Unknown Defender are pretty simple. You’ll drag your finger across the screen to control which direction you want your gun to point, and then tap on the different energies you have unlocked at the bottom of the screen to fire. Each different type of energy has a certain amount of shots in storage, so you’ll need to be careful when deciding what to shoot at the enemies. After the 5th Stage, you’re able to mix the energies you have unlocked, and can create much more powerful shots. To use these, you’ll need to make sure you have enough of the energies stored up, and then tap on your cannon, which will bring up a menu, brining the game almost to a stand-still, then deciding which mixture of energies you want to fire at the enemies heading towards the bottom of the screen. Once enemies make it to the bottom of the screen, they’ll start attacking your base. There are some enemies that will start attacking with projectiles of their own once they’re about halfway down the screen, which makes for some added strategy in deciding which enemies are a higher priority.

After you get more accustomed to the game, there’s two more modes alongside the Normal Mode. Rush Mode, which offers weaker enemies, but more of them, and an Extra Mode, which is pretty much a Hardcore Only mode, offering the hardest challenge. Both the Extra and Rush Modes offer the same type of upgrades, and Stage 5 Mixing Energy options that the Normal Mode offers, but with different types of strategies involved. There are only a certain number of Stages in each Mode. Normal Mode has 25, while Rush Mode has 30, and Extra has 15.

For $0.99, it’s an excellent take on the base defense arcade shooter, offering multiple types of gameplay, and strategy, along with loads of experimentation with upgrades and energy mixing. There is no GameCenter or OpenFeint support, which does take a bit away from the replay value, as well as the drive to get the best score you can. It can also feel like your finger that’s controlling the direction of your gun gets in the way quite a bit, though, with the current set-up, and gameplay. But it’s fair to say that P@ssword has given gamers quite a bit of gameplay, with pretty interesting mechanics that are definitely worth checking out if you’re tired of the same games being basically re-skinned and sold within the AppStore. Here’s hoping they stick around, and release, at least, a couple more games for the iOS in the future.

Unknown Defender gets a score of 7 out of 10.

Strategy gaming is a genre I’m fairly new to. Not to say that I’m not fully immersed in it. Over the last 3 months, I’ve buried my head into quite a few RTS and Turn-Based Strategy titles. More often than not though, I felt as if they didn’t offer enough depth. There has always been the desire to have more control over an aspect of the game, or wishing that the story was deeper, the history of the characters revealed a bit more, and so on. Enter Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion, developed by Witching Hour Studios.

At it’s core, Ravenmark is a very well fleshed out turn-based strategy game based on rock-paper-scissors mechanics. Each of the 4 different groups of fighters has a group that they‘re strong and another that they‘re weak against. But it’s everything that’s added on top of the core gameplay that makes Ravenmark a strategy game that stands out amongst the crowd.

You’ll also command higher ranking officers, each of which has a special ability which can be used right away at the beginning of a battle, but then will need to recharge over a certain amount of turns before it can be used again. You’re also able to give Standing Orders to your troops, which helps save on command points, because once you give them an order, they’ll perform that order until it’s complete. You can command troops to keep moving forward, or follow an enemy until the enemy or the troops are dead, or keep them standing in one place, regaining HP. As if that wasn’t enough, you’ll need to keep an eye on what order all of the units move in. If you’re not careful, you could end up moving a group of troops to an area where an enemy just was, because that enemy was able to move before you. You’ll also need to keep track of which way your troops are facing, or else an enemy could wind up attacking you from behind, getting an extra bonus.

The graphics are extremely well done, with some of the best UI controls I’ve had the pleasure of having in a strategy game. The music, sounds, animations, everything within the game that’s surrounding the core gameplay and story is top-notch, and very easy to use, understand, navigate, and all comes together to form one of the best turn-based strategy games I’ve ever played. $2.99 is an amazing price for what the game has to offer, and is highly recommended for any and all fans of the genre, as well as newcomers. The tutorials are done very well, and you learn everything gradually, with the game essentially showing you exactly how to do each action, there’s not a whole lot of reading if that’s a turn off. Ravenmark is another game that shows that the iOS is capable of handling a hardcore title with plenty of substance and depth, and a game that gives iOS gamers wishing for more serious games to hit the AppStore another title to add to their list of definitive iOS games, as well as gives more hope for the future of iOS gaming.

Ravenmark gets a perfect score of 5 out of 5.

Kemco, developers of the amazing turn-based RPG, Symphony Of Eternity, have returned with an equally amazing addition to the genre, releasing Alphadia. The developers over at Kemco have proven that they know exactly how to make a turn-based RPG comparable to the likes of Final Fantasy, so when they came out of the gate so soon after SoE with their second iOS release, Alphadia, RPG fans knew they had to have it.

First off, the graphics. Alphadia doesn’t fully share the retro look of it’s sister title, SoE, but it does share the retro feeling. Even though the graphics have been redrawn to take advantage of the retina display on newer iPods, the game still feels like a retro title. This amazing mesh of modern and old-school graphics has created quite an awesome looking world for gamers to completely immerse themselves in, with amazing character models, wonderfully detailed environments, and cute character animations, it all comes together extremely well, sucking players into the world.

Now, if you’re a player who doesn’t really focus on the story, and is more into the turn-based battle systems, you’ll be glad to hear that you can tap repeatedly on the screen to skip through the story, then find out where you need to go using the map along with the quest icon in the pause menu. There are some areas where you’ll just need to explore a bit, randomly running into enemies that do not appear on the field, more like an older Final Fantasy game, until you enter the room with the character you’re needing to find in order to progress. There is a bit of exploration in the game, as you would expect if you’re familiar with Kemco, for instance, the map will only highlight your final destination, but in order to get there, you might need to find a tunnel that’s “somewhere north-east of this facility”, so you will come across plenty of battles to feed your battle system addiction. However, there’s also an Auto button if you’re more interested in the story and larger battles.

The only bad thing I can say about Alphadia is that the battle results screen sometimes feels like it’s getting in the way of the game. It doesn’t matter how quickly or how much you tap on the screen, the battle result screen has a set time that it’s shown.(PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ OUR CORRECTION OF THIS, THE BATTLE RESULTS SCREEN CAN BE TAPPED THROUGH!) This could be fixed in a future update, but right now, it can feel like it’s breaking up the game just a little bit too much. Aside from that, Kemco has given RPG fans another amazingly well done title to completely immerse themselves in. With the launch price of $2.99, it’s a steal, and must-buy for anyone remotely interested in playing a top notch turn-based RPG on their iDevice.

Tapping arcade games have become pretty popular within the iOS gaming community, especially ones where you fire missiles at asteroids to save a space station or planet. Eve Of Impact, by Rik Schennink is another game you can add to that list of tap firing action filled high-score chasing titles.

In Eve Of Impact, the goal of the game is to hold off the bombardment of asteroids so that as many people as possible can escape Earth, and survive. Your score is dependant on how many survivors there are, and your survivors score goes up faster the less missiles you use. You do have an unlimited number of missiles, so you can hit the asteroids with a barrage of missiles, but doing so will slow down your score. The way to score big is to figure out exactly when and where to tap depending on the incoming asteroids.

The graphics, animations, physics, and sounds all come together to create one hell of an immersive experience, especially for an arcade tapping game. The physics are top notch, and along with the simple controls, and beautiful graphics, you can really get sucked into the game. Then coupled with the animations for explosions, and trails, it all makes it a very smooth gameplay experience.

Rik Schennink has done an amazing job with his first iOS game. Eve Of Impact will give you hours and hours of strategic high-score chasing arcade gameplay. Right now, version 1.0 does not include GameCenter, so there’s no leader boards or achievements at the moment, but they are said to be included in version 1.1, along with a color tweak and music/sound settings, so the future looks bright for Eve Of Impact. Once GameCenter is added, and players are no longer chasing only their own local high-scores, the replay value and desire to play the game will go up quite a bit, but as it is now, $0.99 is a great price for this wonderfully made title.

Eve Of Impact gets a score of 8 out of 10.

It really seems like iOS RPG games have all pretty much been re-skins of previous releases, all following in the same suit, and getting spoon fed to gamers through the AppStore. There’s hardly any originality anymore, and even if there is, it’s generally only one little aspect. Thankfully, The Game Bakers have come to the rescue with their new release, Squids. It’s a stretch back and flick controlled exploratory strategy action game with a well crafted story, turn based combat, items to equip, and characters to level up. In other words, a new breed within the RPG genre.

In Squids, you’ll control 4 characters as you try and save the depths of the ocean from being overrun by an evil force called The Ooze that takes control of it’s host, and turns it evil. There are 21 beautifully hand drawn and painted levels to try and make it through by choosing which 4 out of 7 characters you would like to use. There are 4 different classes that each of the seven characters will fall under; Shooter: these characters can shoot projectiles at enemies that are within range. Trooper: these characters pack quite a punch. Scout: scouts have a boost ability, which means they can make it into some sections that other characters can not, and will almost always be able to get to the end of the level before everyone else. They can also use their boost ability (which is done by tapping on the screen after you’ve flicked them) to increase damage done to enemies, or hit them a couple of consecutive times. Lastly, Healer: healer characters are generally pretty weak, but if you bump into another character with a healer character, they will heal that character.

Now, to get to one of my favorite mechanics of the whole game. The hats that you are able to equip from the shop. Hats are hidden throughout levels in clams and treasure chests, and you can also unlock some hats after beating certain levels. The hats that you find in-game will be free once you get to the shop, and the hats that you unlock by completing levels will cost pearls. But, once you get a hat, you’ll notice they have stats, like heightened strength, defense, HP, but here’s the cool part, you can transfer those stats permanently over to the class of characters that the hat is made for. So if you get a hat that your scouts can equip, and it adds 2 hit points, 3 defense points, and 1 attack point, those points can be transferred over to all of your scouts, then your scouts will keep those points even if the hat is not equipped. It’s a very nice addition to the game mechanics, and really surprised me when I first noticed you could transfer stats over. Right away, it was one of the things I was telling people about, because I’ve never seen this done in a game before.

The game includes GameCenter support with a leader board and 22 achievements, so along with the star rankings, hidden stars, and training level, there’s more replay value than you’d first think with this being an RPG game. Squid’s story is well written and engaging, and the gameplay is packed full of action mixed with loads of strategy. It’s hard to believe the game is only $0.99, with the game lasting about 5 or 6 hours for your first play through, not including the amount of time it‘ll take to go back and get all the stars you missed the first time around or the amount of time you‘ll sink into training or getting the achievements/working up the leader boards. The Game Bakers have announced that they’re going to be releasing an iPad version in about a month, but if you really can’t wait, you can think of the iPod version as a 99 cent pre-release preview. It will be a little blurry on the big screen, but manageable. If you’re a fan of adventure, action, RPG or strategy games, this one is definitely a must buy. The developers are hard at work making the iPad version, as well as making the original even better by taking suggestions.

Squids gets a perfect score of 10 out of 10, along with a strong recommendation.

I’m not personally a big fan of turn-based RPGs. Though there are a couple that have really had an impact on me, but only a handful. Turn-based RPGs just aren’t really my thing, though the ones that I have enjoyed, I enjoyed immensely. What does this have to do with anything? Well, when I first saw that a new RPG had been released for the iOS, I didn’t even think for a second about checking it out until I heard a friend at work talking about a new amazingly immersive game he just bought. Symphony Of Eternity, released by Kotobuki Solution, just so happened to be that game. I ended up checking out some information that night when I got home, and when I read that it was a lot like the older Final Fantasy games, I immediately became intrigued as the old FF games are some of the very few turn-based RPGs that I have enjoyed to no end.

So, first off, the graphics. Symphony Of Eternity looks the part of an old-school game. However, there’s a modern feeling to it as well. The text parts are accompanied by pictures of characters faces that look pretty detailed, and some of the enemies that you’ll encounter have some pretty nice animations and elaborate graphic styles, as do the environments you‘ll fight them in. The world map, within towns, exploring certain areas, and the menus are all old-school styled though. It’s a nice mesh of old-school and modern styles, and all fits together very well. Nothing feels out of place, and the animations are well done. The music is very fitting of a turn-based RPG game, and actually reminds me a lot of some of the Final Fantasy soundtracks, and just like it did with FF, it adds quite a bit to the atmosphere and feeling of the game.

As you gain experience, and level up, you are able to distribute Merit Points among each of the characters. These will increase the characters offense, defense, magic abilities, magic defense, speed, and more. There are also tablets that you can have your characters equip. Each of the tablets gains points after battle, and gives each character certain abilities and has special skills and effects, like increased defense, a special attack, and adding to the character’s HP, all of which grows as you gain tablet points. So, there is obviously a ton of customization to play around with in the game, and all of it, of course, has an effect on how you end up playing the game.

Kemco has done an amazing job with Symphony Of Eternity, and I feel like I owe Kotobuki Solution for bringing it to the platform. I have seriously not had this kind of gaming experience in a long, long time. Everything about the game is top notch, and so incredibly well done, it’s really not so hard to believe that the only other games like it in the AppStore are the re-releases of Secret Of Mana, and the Final Fantasy games, and Symphony Of Eternity fits extremely well within that small class of astounding turn-based RPGs, that are all well worth their premium price-tags, if not more. It is $8.99, and very much worth the purchase. If you’re a fan of RPGs, or really just exceedingly well written, very immersive adventure games with loads of customization, you’ve got to pick up Symphony Of Eternity. It will grab your imagination and suck you into one incredibly amazing world.

Symphony Of Eternity gets a perfect score of 10 out of 10.

Link;

Full Version – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rpg-symphony-of-eternity/id465918332?mt=8

Version Reviewed; V 1.0.0

Reviewed On; 4th Generation iPod Touch – iOS 4.3.3

Bad Bugs On Fire is a tap-arcade game from Dan Themikman. In it, you try and keep your flowers safe from bugs by shooting them with rays from the sun, and moon, while they move across the screen. There’s 20 levels, and once you complete those, you unlock a special endless survival level.

The controls in Bad Bugs are simple to use, understand, and master. There’s 3 flowers, each having it’s own row that various bugs will follow while trying to get to the flowers. Tapping anywhere in this row sends rays from either the sun, or moon, depending on which level you’re on, that kill the bugs, with each of the different bugs requiring a different amount of rays to hit them before they die. Once the sun or moon hit’s the middle of the sky, you’ll shoot a beam of energy down onto the ground, and to move this, you simply hold down and drag where you want the beam to fire. There are two different types of clouds that fly through the sky, white clouds, which double your score for a short period of time, and black clouds, which drop different things on the grass, sometimes a bug, sometimes a green bug eater that will help you fend off bugs, but each of the clouds needs to be hit by rays in order to be activated. Sometimes you’ll have no choice but to hit them, because they’ll fly through your line of fire, moving slower than the bugs, and the only way to kill the bugs before they eat a flower is to shoot the cloud so it disappears.

There is a GameCenter leader board for the endless level, and 10 achievements, adding to the replay value of the game, but with a leader board only for the endless level, after you get through the first 20 levels, you probably won’t have any desire to go back and replay them. This also makes it feel like the goal of the game is more to unlock the Survival Mode than to actually make it through the game. If the survival level was unlocked from the beginning, it would probably feel like more of a second gameplay mode than just something that was thrown in to give the game some sort of replay value. It would also be nice if a cumulative score was built up going through the levels, and there was a total score leader board within GameCenter, as this would give you reason to go back and replay levels to try and get a better total score, especially since the scoring system is pretty nice, having a set score for each bug, but also giving you combo scores for killing bugs in quick succession.

Bad Bugs On Fire is still a decent game, and well worth picking up, especially for $0.99. It’s got nice graphics, with the oh so cool looking energy beams, a nice scoring system, a fair amount of strategy, nice action, and with the endless mode, plenty of replayability. The developer has also promised more levels in the future, along with the developer asking for suggestions, so there will be quite a bit of gameplay content, and the game might just end up getting better once it’s complete. But for what it is right now, it’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re into arcade tap games, and is a very nice step up from Dan Themikman’s last game, Epic Pencil, making me pretty excited about what’s to come in the future from the quickly maturing developer.

Bad Bugs On Fire is getting a score of 7 out of 10.

Links:

Full – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bad-bugs-on-fire/id445295545?mt=8

Fly Wars: Conflict is a new action strategy game from B&C Mobile. In it, you will move flies around each level, shooting other flies, and collecting poo, trying to kill the enemies before they kill you, and getting the best score you can. There’s blocks that you’ll need to shoot through, break, and bounce your bullets off of in order to defeat the other team, but the controls are somewhat finicky, making the gameplay harder than it needs to be.

To control your fly, you’ll need to tap on it, and then tap on where you want them to go. Aiming is done with a bar on the right side of the screen, but you can only shoot in about a 45 degree area. Now, if you’re aiming, and you try to tap on your fly to move it, you can’t. The game has one touch controls, and can get pretty annoying, even in the early levels. In a game like Fly Wars, where you need to move to different areas of the screen and set up your shots as quick as you can, having a multi-touch interface is almost a necessity.

Aside from the control issues, Fly Wars looks decent, and does have some pretty nice strategic gameplay. It might be hard to understand how to play at first, as the developer is not a native English speaker, and the instructions are pretty hard to understand, but once you catch on, which should be pretty quickly, it’s a piece of cake to play. You start off with the lowest level fly, who can only fire one bullet at a time. You’re also occasionally given helper flies that you can not move or control. After progressing through 3 levels, you’ll get the next fly up, that can fire two bullets at a time, and then every 3 levels after that, a stronger fly is unlocked. You’re given a total of 6 slots for flies, but you only start off with 1 slot open. Slots then open up about every 10 levels, so by level 11, you’ll be controlling 2 different flies.

The levels are split up in groups of 10, with 90 stages total. Each group of 10 levels is set in a different environment, with different objects to bounce your bullets off of as you move on, some of which are really pretty interesting, and do add quite a bit to the gameplay. The backgrounds aren’t really anything too special, but do fit the graphical style, and are noticeably different as you move on.

It does have a GameCenter leader board for your total score, but aside from that, there’s no achievements, and no real reason to replay any of the levels unless you die before beating them, so it’s a good thing there’s 90 levels. The scoring is alright, and the graphics are good. You’ll probably fight with the controls in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, the gameplay does get better. For $0.99, it’s a good strategy action game, and if you’re into the genre, it’s a game that’s definitely worth checking out. There’s tons of objects that do make the gameplay very interesting as you progress through the game, and with the 90 levels, it’ll take quite a while to finish the game. I am looking forward to updates that will hopefully add some multi-touch controls, and am very interested in seeing what B&C comes up with next.

Fly Wars: Conflict is getting a score of 8 out of 10.