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After the success of Hunters: Episode One, the fantastic sci-fi turn-based strategy title from Rodeo Games, it was no surprise when Hunters 2 was announced. Being a Strategy fanatic, I was extremely excited to get my hands on the release. Unfortunately, because of some badly timed events, and large backup of games, I wasn’t able to get the time to check it out. After playing for 5 hours straight this morning, I’m kicking myself for not having it on my device sooner. 

Like Hunters: Episode One, your thrown into a civilization which revolves around contracts. There are no governments, only corporation owned planets, and credits and contracts are the only things that matter. Unlike the first Hunters, Hunters 2 has an actual story line which you can progress through while also having access to daily contracts which you can play to earn more experience and money, helping you make it through the story mode a little easier, while also providing some extra challenge. 

Starting off, you’re able to choose between Easy, Normal and Hard difficulties, as well as being able to turn Hardcore Mode on, which makes it so that any team members lost during battle are lost forever. After a back-story dialogue scroll down the screen, you’re thrown into a tutorial mission where you’ll learn the basics of the game while also finding out that your employer wants you dead, presumably because of some information you posses. After all but a total of 3 members of your team have been extinguished. Making your way to the end of the tutorial level, the last 3 members are overrun. 

You’re then taken to the ship where you can check out the available menu options, Bridge (where you start your contracts), Comms (where you can connect to Rodeo Games, Facebook, Twitter, and check out GameCenter boards and achievements), Armory (where you’re able to equip your team members), Trade (which is the shop, where you can buy and sell items, as well as purchase new members), Manufacturing (which is where you can create your own weapons and armor) and Settings (which lets you change the difficulty, team color, music and effects volumes, and turn the Blood and Free daily Gifts on or off, as well as reset the campaign). 

Each member of your team is able to be outfitted with one weapon, and armor, with both having a major influence on how you play the game with those specific characters, with the armor dictating how many moves they can make per turn, and the weapons you equip possibly taking up more than one movement point. As they level up, more abilities will become available to them, giving your team-mates super human abilities, and extra special moves to help them tear the enemies apart. Since you are able to purchase more members from the shop, even leveled up members, this makes experimenting with weaponry and armor very easy, and adds quite a bit of depth to the already depthy strategic gameplay. 

The graphics in Hunters 2 are what you would expect from a sequel. If you’ve played the original Hunters, you’re familiar with the look of the environments and character models. Rodeo Games did definitely make the graphics sharper and more vibrant, with some fantastically created plantlife and outdoor environments added to the many buildings found in the first title. They’ve also added some very nice atmospheric graphic effects and animations to go along with the new graphics, making the game even more immersive than the original. Also accompanying the new graphics is fantastic music and sound effects helping to set the dark and dreary mood perfectly. 

This time around, Rodeo Games made Hunters 2 Universal, and with it being priced at $4.99, it’s a fantastic deal, especially considering the endless replay value, and extremely difficult challenges that await players in-game. GameCenter is also supported, with a leader board based on how many contracts you complete, along with 33 hard-to-unlock achievements, both also adding to the insanely high replay value. Rodeo Games has done a fantastic job creating a completely immersive world, and compelling campaign to go along with this amazing game. Hunters 2 has quickly become one of my favorite iOS strategy games, and right now, is definitely in the top 3 on my ‘Best of 2012’ list. It’s one game that strategy fans need to have on their iDevice. 

I’m still fairly new to the 4X genre, having only been into it for the last couple years, but what I’ve played so far, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with. Starbase Orion is easily one of my favorite iOS games to date, and Ascendancy, Civilization Revolution and Imperium Galactica II have totally got me hooked. Luckily for me, there were a few 4X ‘lite’ games to be found on the AppStore, and without them, I don’t think I would have gotten into the 4X genre like I have. 9 Colonies, Blue Libra and Vincere Totus Astrum played huge roles in my decent into the 4X world, and since then, I still find it hard to pass up on lite 4X titles. Astraware Limited’s Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space falls into this category of ‘4X lite’, and just like the other titles mentioned, it’s a great game to get if you’re just starting to uncover the many, many layers of the 4X genre, or even if you’re already deep into the genre, and are looking for a game that you can complete in 10-30 minutes. 

There are 3 different types of campaign like scenarios in Weird Worlds which you’ll be able to play through, each depending on the type of ship you choose to command. There’s a Science Vessel, Pirate Corvette and Terran Frigate. 

With the Science Vessel, your goal is to catalog and capture unknown alien lifeforms. While you’re doing this, you’ll need to also catalogue new worlds and various deep space phenomena so that the information can be added to starmaps. Playing with the Pirate Corvette will have you exploring the galaxy and grabbing anything of value; technology, artifacts, lifeforms, weapons and hostages. The Terran Frigate’s goals are to make first contact with alien lifeforms determining if they are peaceful or ready for war, as well as obtaining all of the technology and artifacts you can that might be useful to the military. 

With each ship, you’re able to decide how large the map is, small, medium or large. As the galaxy gets bigger, you’ll have more time to explore the planets within it. The small map gives you 10 years, medium gives you 20 and the large map gives you 30. You must make it back to Glory, the planet you start your adventure from, before time runs out, or else the points you’ve collected while out in space will not be added to your score. You’re also able to choose the Nebula Mass, which slows down your ship dramatically, as well as the hostile alien’s combat strength. 

Exploring the galaxy is simple, tap on a planet, and two taps will pop up, ‘Engage’ and ‘View’. You’re also able to see how far away the planet is, and how long it will take you to travel to it. ‘View’ gives you a little bit of information about the planet, while ‘Engage’ will have you travel there. Once you’re on the planet, if there are any available materials, weapons, other equip items like shields, star drives, propulsion systems, and loads more, as well as alien beings, plant life, technology and artifacts, you can put all of these into your cargo hold, or equip your own ship with them. 

Unless you have an item which scans planets within your vicinity, you will not be able to tell if planets are occupied by alien beings or not until you land on the planet. If there are alien lifeforms, you can choose to engage them and find out if they’re hostile or friendly, or just leave them alone without finding out who or what they are. As you travel around the galaxy, you’ll also come across mercenaries which can be hired by trading them items from your cargo hold. Once you have hired them, they’ll fly alongside you in battle, helping you get out of tricky situations. You are also able to equip their ships with items found on the various planets, which does give the whole equip system some depth. 

Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space is only available for the iPad, and is $4.99. It does have GameCenter support, with 3 boards for the small, medium and large sized galaxies, but does not have any achievements. Right now, Weird Worlds would be much better if it had a lot more items and aliens to come across within the galaxy as right now, it seems like after you play through the game once with each of the ships, you’ve pretty much seen everything there is to see, and all that keeps you playing is the high-score chase. Hopefully the developers have something in mind to add to the replay value. The game is solid in all other aspects. It’s a great game for those of you who are looking to get more into the 4X genre, but are finding games like Ascendancy and Starbase Orion too complex at the moment, or for 4X fans looking for a game that they can play through in short spans. 

FDG Entertainment is responsible for bringing one of my favorite flash games, Clear Vision, to the iOS. Recently, they also brought Tentacle Wars, another popular flash game to the iPad. This week, they’re doing it again. Expand It, the popular flash game featured on Bored.com has hit the iOS world thanks to one of our favorite publishers, FDG. Expand It falls into the physics puzzler genre, but thankfully, it’s not your typical run of the mill physics title. You need to make your expandable blocks reach a certain height by making them bigger as well as using the interesting objects found throughout the stages. 

My first glance at the screen shots, I was kind of disappointed, thinking that it was another one of those ‘take out the blocks so that one block hit’s the platform’ type games. Boy was I WAY wrong. Expand It is an original and very unique type of physics puzzler, something the AppStore needs to see more often. To complete each of the levels, you need to tap on certain shapes that are in the levels to make them grow, and to activate various objects and hazards. Once you have the solution, all you need to do is make sure that one of your blocks winds up above the rainbow line towards the top of the screen for a couple of seconds, and voila, on to the next one.

It may sound surprisingly easy, but once you get past the first couple of levels, finding out the solutions could take multiple tries while finding out what each of the blocks and hazards do, and what actually moves within the levels and what size you need to have each of the shapes reach at what given times. After you think you’ve got a handle on the whole layout of the game, it ramps up the difficulty again, always seeming to add something new and unique as you progress.

Expand It has 4 different environments, each with 15 stages, offering up 60 separate levels to complete. Each of these levels has a 3 star rating, which can be achieved depending on how quickly you complete the levels. This does add a bit of replay value to the game if you’re interested in competing on the Game Center leaderboard, besting your own scores, or completing each of the 19 achievements. The game also has empty worlds showing that more levels are coming in future updates, which is always great to hear, especially when it comes to physics puzzlers. 

As for the graphics, animations, and physics; Expand It has perfected each of these. The graphics are incredibly cute, well still remaining very polished, and the animations for each of the blocks only adds to the great feeling of the game. Each of the moving objects in a level have been done perfectly, making sure that not one of them throws the flow of the game off. The physics are done to perfection as well, as each object has a certain weight to it, and does a very good job projecting that weight through the gameplay, especially on the stages where you need to have blocks be a certain size at certain times in order to complete the stage. 

As with other FDG games, Expand It is very reasonably priced, with both the SD and HD versions costing $0.99. A Universal version would be ideal so that people could compete on the same leaderboard, but with the inclusion of HD Retina graphics, I’m actually wishing more and more games would resort to this method of sales, lowering the price for each version making a $2 game $0.99, but keeping the SD and HD versions separate, as all of that extra space for heightened graphics isn’t’ needed on the small screen devices, and usually winds up being seen as a giant waste of space. If you’re a fan of the physics puzzler genre, and are looking for something new and unique, Expand It is definitely a game to check out. And since it’s released by FDG, you know the production qualities, and updates for the game are going to be top-notch, making it very easy to recommend and support. 

Radiangames has definitely made a huge splash in the AppStore with their previous releases of Super Crossfire, Fireball SE, and Ballistic SE. Earlier this week, their newest release, Inferno+, hit the AppStore, and as you might have expected, it’s one hell of a game. 

Originally released on XBOX Live like their previous titles, this enhanced version of Inferno includes 40 levels, multiple upgrades, 3 difficulty levels along with a special New Game+ difficulty, 20 Game Center achievements, Retina Support for the new iPad and iCloud saving. 

Unlike Radiangames past releases, Inferno+ is not a high-score chasing game. Instead, it’s centered around exploration, blasting away hoards of enemies and upgrading your ship. Granted, Super Crossfire, Fireball and Ballistic were all about blasting away enemies and upgrading your ship, but none of them included the exploration aspect, and considering this is the first title by Radiangames that includes exploration as a main gameplay aspect, they’ve done a fantastic job building Inferno+ around it. 

While you’re blasting enemies, you’ll be searching around each of the levels trying to find all of the orbs, keys, bombs, and hidden areas. The orbs are used to unlock upgrades and purchase items like extra drones which follow close behind you, and help destroy the enemies, bombs, which take out screens full of enemies, and keys, which unlock areas of the levels that are behind impassable boarders. 

You will need to collect all of the bombs you can because there are some enemies which require a bomb to take them out. There are also black holes which can only be dealt with either by completely avoiding them, or blowing them up. There’s also a shield power which you can upgrade with electricity, allowing for you to damage enemies while using your shield. In the later levels, switching between your shot and shield will be a maneuver you’ll need to get comfortable with in order to get through the game. 

Adding to the excitement and overall feel of progression, every 10 levels will take you to a boss battle. These boss battles can get very hectic, and are some of the most exciting sections of the entire game. It is kind of upsetting that you can’t go back and replay previously beaten levels, because these boss battles would get loads and loads of gameplay out of me.

There are also hidden areas which are behind the levels walls. In order to find these, you’ll need to either drag against the walls, or fire your shots directly at them. Your shots go through the holes in the walls, which can also be used to your advantage, as the enemies can not go through the holes in the walls. There are some holes which only open up after you reach a certain area of the level, and some which will close behind you after you’ve entered them, letting you only go through them once. 

Also hidden throughout the game are special bonus levels. These can usually only be found by using extra keys picked up throughout the game, or purchased from the shop area. These bonus levels give you 30 seconds to make your way through a level, picking up as many orbs and bombs as you can. 

The graphics in Inferno+ are very similar to Ballistic and Fireball, with loads of circular enemies, each distinguishable by their colors. The levels are also designed with neon boarders, and the animations for explosions are also very similar to those found in Fireball and Ballistic, only not as extravagant. The controls allow for a static and dynamic control stick as well as switching the move and fire arrangement. There are also sensitivity settings and you can set the joysticks and bomb and shield buttons anywhere on the screen, which is a fantastic addition. On top of this, you can also use the Joypad application and use another device as your controller. 

Even though there’s no scoring system, and no GameCenter leaderboard, I think Inferno+ might just be my favorite game from Radiangames. If there was a scoring system alongside the gameplay, Inferno+ would blow Radiangames previous titles, as well as loads of other dual stick space shooters, out of the water. But the game centering around exploration and upgrades kind of makes up for the lack of a scoring system. With Inferno+ being priced at $2.99, being Universal, and developed by Radiangames, who are fantastic with player feedback, and with supporting their releases, it’s hard not to support a development team as responsive as they are. If you’re a fan of dual-stick shooters or exploration games, Inferno+ will be right up your ally. If you’ve already purchased Radiangames previous releases, you’ll pretty much know what you can expect with Inferno+, but if you’re new to Radiangames, this would be a fantastic title to get to know them with. Chances are, it’ll wind up on my top 10 games of 2012 list, and never leave my devices. 

AAA developers moving over to iOS development is enough to get any iOS gamer excited. There’s always loads of potential that comes along with the title of ‘AAA Developer’. Unfortunately, more often than not, we’re shown what AAA developers really think of the mobile device when we’re given something that doesn’t really hold up against most indie developed titles. Thankfully, there are those few that really understand what the iOS device can handle, and give mobile gamers an outstanding gameplay experience. 

Kotomon, developed by Monstars Inc. is the latest addition to the AAA Developer list, with Osamu Kodera, a 20 year game development veteran who worked at SEGA (and designed the boss encounters in the game Rez. as well as creating Lumines, a critically-acclaimed hit), and moved on to the Xbox 360 PS3 as the technical director of Child of Eden and Sawako Yamamoto who has 10 years of experience, and started at CAPCOM, moved onto Electronic Arts Japan, and oversaw releases of Star Wars and James Bond 007, finally ending up at Q Entertainment guiding multiple projects and helping to produce Child of Eden. In October 2011, Sawako and Osamu founded Monstars Inc, a mobile development project, with Kotomon being their first release. With all of that experience, it’s hard not to expect a lot from Kotomon. Unfortunately, the game falls a bit short of expectations. However, if you go into it not expecting a AAA effort, you might wind up being pleasantly surprised. 

Kotomon has you guide a little red character throughout 24 short levels. There is no story, and no real feeling of progression as you make your way through the game. Joined by other little creatures, you’re able to move using a floating joystick control scheme, and can pick up the creatures simply by walking into them. You’ll need to use these different creatures to destroy the enemies throughout the levels by tapping on the screen once you’re holding one of them, which makes you throw the creature at the enemies. The more enemies you destroy with an enemy, the higher your combo score will be. The main goal of the game is to get 3 star rankings in each of the levels by quickly killing the enemies by grouping them together and getting combo scores. 

Each of your little creatures have different attributes, like the little blue guys being quick and able to travel pretty far, they have a light attack, but are able to follow enemies, while the big lumpy white creatures are slow, but a lot stronger. The smaller purplish creature can be flung straight and is very quick, while the red guy shoots fire. Each of the creatures adds to the gameplay, and you’re able to take 5 creatures with you into battle, so figuring out what creatures have a leg up on the enemies within a level will usually allow you to get a higher score, and 3 star rating. 

The graphics in Kotomon are fairly interesting. The character and enemy models are great, and it’s clear that tons of work went into creating them. However, the environments are pretty dull, and bring the interesting factor down quite a bit. The same happens to be true of the level designs. Each level is pretty much set up like an elaborate boss arena, which isn’t too surprising considering the background of Osamu Kodera. 

Judging by the animations and light shows that the floating orbs within each level show off, the game is supposed to flow alongside music. However, with the arcady action oriented gameplay, this is really thrown into the background. The enemies dance to the music, but other than that, music really doesn’t play a roll in the gameplay, which is sad, because having some sort of attacking system that was intertwined with the scoring system, making the attacks and combos even bigger, and maybe adding more of a lightshow within the animations for the enemies dying (instead of just a little puff of smoke) all based on the beat of the music track for the level would have been a fantastically awesome inclusion. 

It’s apparent that Monstars Inc. has some very good ideas swirling around, but I was hoping for more with Kotomon. Each level is more like a short type of arena based boss battle in which you need to play a couple times in order to figure out which critters will give you the best score. However, there’s no real drive to do this because of the lack of achievements and leaderboards. A story, and some more depth within the gameplay, attacking, and scoring system would have been great. Also, seeing another mode or two would really help out with replayability. With Kotomon being priced at $3.99, it feels like an expensive demo version of a game that has potential, but hasn’t taken advantage of it yet. Hopefully Monstars Inc. is planning on adding a lot more to Kotomon, because I’d hate to see it just get pushed aside and have yet another AAA Development team figure that no money can be made in the AppStore. It’s definitely a game you should keep your eyes on. 

It’s not too often you see a completely unique and original Strategy title, even on a platform that’s full of hundreds of incredibly talented developing teams. It’s even more rare for a Strategy title to end up taking the #1 spot on the iTunes Paid Game’s list away from Angry Birds. Plague Inc., developed by Ndemic Creations is just that. Plague Inc. has you evolving and spreading a disease, while trying to infect and kill everyone in the world before a cure can be found. Sound evil? It is. But it’s also one of the most interesting and addictive strategy games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing.

When you start your first game, you’ll only be able to start with a Bacteria and will be able to choose between Casual (no one washes their hands, research doctors don‘t work and sick people are given hugs), Normal (67% of people wash their hands, doctors work 3 days a week and sick people are ignored), and Brutal (compulsive hand washing, doctors never go home and sick people are locked in prisons) Difficulties. Once you complete a Bacteria game on Normal or Brutal difficulty, you’ll be able to unlock the Virus. Completing a Virus game on Normal or Brutal unlocks Fungus, then Parasite, Prion, Nono-Virus and then Bio-Weapon. Once you complete all disease types on Brutal Difficulty, you’ll be able to unlock special cheats, with no cure being able to be found, humans never taking action against you, and the unlimited DNA cheat, which lets you evolve your plague like you were God. 

Once you start your game, you’re able to choose which country you want to infect first. Once your plague starts spreading, you start earning DNA points. These are used to evolve your plague by choosing from literally hundreds of different attributes, all split up into 3 different types of evolutions; Transmission, which lets you decide what animals can be infected, and how your plague can travel, Symptoms, which lets you choose what symptoms occur, and how bad these symptoms can get, and Abilities, which give your plague the strength to survive in different climates, and how resistant it is to cure research. 

As the game progresses, little bubbles will pop up across the world, letting you infect more countries, gain more DNA points, and disrupt scientists research. 

You’re also able to check out the world news, which lets you know what’s going on in the world you’re trying to infect. You’ll be alerted when and where Olympics, as well as other National events are going to start, when certain countries are noticing infection, when they close down airports and seaports, block boarders, notice infection, start researching a cure, as well as some very sobering events, like when bodies are piling up so bad that they’re being buried in massive holes, when the dead are being burned, and more. There are also graphs which let you know which countries are and are not infected, how the cure is coming along, and how your infected to dead ratio is coming along. The background music adds to this very serious sort of feeling you’ll get while playing. And it will hit you, eventually. When starting a game, you might be rooting for complete world destruction, but once you read about the events and see the death toll hit the billions, watch your plague spread, see where the evolutions branch out to, and hear when governments fall, as well as the creepy ‘ring around the posies’ chant in the background, it all starts to get pretty intense. 

With Plague Inc. being made Universal with their first Update, as well as being priced at $0.99, it’s one game that strategy fans should not miss. Considering it’s hit #1 on the paid app charts, and judging from the iTunes ratings, as well as explosion of posts throughout iOS forums, it’s pretty clear that casual gamers are jumping in, and are becoming obsessed with the game as well. Considering it’s 2012, and the popularity of movies like 28 Days Later, Contagion, Quarantine, and a whole catalogue of virus related films, it’s not surprising that Plague Inc. has climbed up the leader boards so quickly. But it is pretty surprising seeing a strategy/simulation game hit the #1 spot. It’s definitely a game every iDevice user should check out, and is one game that I will be recommending to everyone I know. 

Puzzler games have really been expanding and growing when it comes to new and unique ideas spawned by past games. It’s no secret that Angry Birds (or Boom Blox, depending on how you want to look at it) has, itself, pushed the physics puzzler genre into many different directions, and has had its fair share of clones. But it’s always nice seeing a developer take the flinging mechanic and do something new and interesting with it. Nano Titans, developers of Foodies, an arcade puzzler, has just released their newest title, another arcade puzzler, Webbies. This time around, instead of bouncing your main character around to collect food, you’ll be flinging bundles of food at your characters. 

Seems that a grumpy old retired wizard doesn’t like the little woodland creatures hanging out around the forest all the time, and has come up with a formula that makes his arachnoid  friends webs ultra strong. Because of this, the food that the creatures always munch on is getting stuck in the webs. It’s up to you to fling it into their mouths so that they don’t starve. 

At first, the game seems really easy, and almost boring. But after you get past the intro levels, the game really seems to pick up, and gets some interesting mechanics thrown into the mix. Having more than one critter on the screen will give you different types of food, which are all mixed together in the webs, and you need to get certain types of food into specific animals mouths. This means you need to group the food together, shooting acorns into acorns, moving one piece of food out of the way of another so that you can get it to your critter, or in line with another piece of the same food and then to your critter. This gets ever more difficult as you progress, and moving platforms, sticky grabbers, logs, rotating cannons, moving critters and more all comes into play. 

Now, the scoring mechanics are really what push the game forward, and make it more difficult. Getting three stars in each of the levels will require you to combine the same type of food multiple times, getting a combo bonus score. Matching two pieces of the same type of food will give you 5 extra points, while connecting 4 pieces of the same type of food, without connecting a different type of food while in the process, will give you 25 bonus points. If you have two bunches of food, say one bunch of 2 and one bunch of 3, then the smaller bunch is multiplied by 5, and you’re given that many points, in this case, it would be 10 extra bonus points. Once the platforms come into play, bouncing food of them will also give you bonus points. There’s also bonuses for feeding a critter until it’s full, giving you 30 points, and feeding a critter til it’s full in one shot, which gives you 50 points. All of these different types of scoring bonuses will need to be used in order to get 3 stars in each of the levels throughout the game, and to compete on the GameCenter scoreboard. 

It’s great how a scoring system like this can really change how you play a game. If there were no bonuses for bouncing food off of platforms, bundling them together, or for other actions throughout the game, Webbies would be played very differently, and you have that option if you’re not into high-scores, which also makes this a great game for the younger iOS gamer audience as well. This is always a great thing to hear for those of us with children who are into gaming. 

The graphics, animations, sounds and effects, all come together to create a very polished looking and sounding package. With Webbies being Universal, $0.99, and containing over 100 levels, it’s a great buy, especially if you’re into arcade puzzlers, or games with great scoring mechanics and score chasing. There are no extra IAPs in the game, so it’s a flat out purchase. Nano Titans has already submitted their first update to Apple which adds an undo button. I’m a little worried that this might make the game a bit too easy, but I guess we’ll see when it hit’s the AppStore later on in the week. As it is, right now, Webbies is very easy to recommend to fans of the genre, even if you’ve gotten a little sick of the whole flinging puzzler type of gameplay like I have over the last year or so. Webbies might not bypass all of the typical used mechanics within the genre, but the way it’s presented, along with the scoring system adding to the way you’ll wind up playing the game, it really stands out inside of a genre that’s been flooded with titles over the last couple years. 

Crescent Moon Games have definitely established themselves as one of the top developing and publishing teams in the AppStore. Aralon, Rimelands, Gears, Deadlock, Pocket RPG, and loads more have all gained a serious gamer following. Their constant support is also something that needs to be mentioned. Whenever there’s an issue, they’re on top of it, fixing it as soon as possible. Over the last year or so, they’ve turned their sights more towards publishing and working with other development teams, which has expanded their reach throughout various genres. RPGs, Platformers, Ball Rollers, Multiplayer, and now, with the latest release of Slingshot Racing, developed by Snowbolt Interactive, they’ve ventured into the Racing Genre. 

Over the last couple years, iOS developers have really started trying out new things with racing games. Draw Race, Jet Car Stunts, QuBIT, jAggy Race, FishMoto and others have utilized the iDevice, and tried to reach out beyond the typical racing formula that most racers stick with. Slingshot Racing is definitely a game that can be added to the list of games striving to push the boundaries of the genre.  

The controls are as simple as they can be; One Touch. Touching the screen makes your car fling out a grappling hook which attaches to rotating poles. Doing this lets you slingshot your car around corners. There is no gas or break, and your car drives on it’s own. The only thing you need to worry about is when to attach to these poles, and when to let go. Staying attached too long will result in you mashing your car into the side rails, while letting go too soon will cause the car to take the outer most part of the track, both causing the car to slow down dramatically. But once you get the timing down, you’ll be flying through the races, flinging your car around corners, and earning the 3 possible bolts (stars) for each stage. 

The campaign contains 64 races across 8 tracks, split up into different sections, each with an interesting name (like Winding Roads, Slingshot Mastery, Twist And Shoot, Wrap And Roll, and more) and containing 4 races each. Each of the races contain different objectives and hazards, also racing clockwise and counter clockwise during the day and night, which always keeps things fresh. There are 4 main different types of races. Racing against other racers, trying to place in 1st. Racing against other racers while a car eating machine trails behind you in an elimination type race. Solo racing while trying to collect bolts which are left on the track as quickly as you can, and solo time trials which push you to your limits trying to get the best time you can. 

There’s also a multiplayer mode which lets you play with up to 3 other people on the same device. Of course this is more comfortable while playing on the iPad, but playing with 1 other person on the iPhone/iPod Touch is also easy enough, and doesn’t hit the frustrating factor at all. Within this mode, you’re able to choose which track to race on, how many tracks to race on, the order of the tracks, the number of laps, forward or reverse, and day or night. Each of the other players will have their own corner of the device to control their car, and when you really get into a racing battle, this multiplayer mode can end up being loads of fun. 

Since each of the races are pretty short, usually just 8 laps, or anywhere from 20 to 60 seconds, the frustration you might usually come across in other racers when screwing up with one little mistake towards the end of a race isn’t really found here. You don’t need to be perfect in order to get a 3 bolt score, except for on the time trial stages. For these, it’s pretty difficult to grab a perfect rating. 

But if you are a fan of perfecting your laps, you’ll be very glad to hear that Slingshot Racing is supported by GameCenter, and has 18 separate leaderboards. That’s right, 18! One for your Total Bolts Earned, and boards for various stages throughout the game, ie; Shoot The Breeze Race 3, Sliding By Race 2, Slingshot Mastery Race 4, Melting Away Race 2, and so on. There are also 32 Achievements for you achievement hunters out there, all of which adds a TON to the already insanely high replay value. 

Right now, Slingshot Racing is priced at $0.99. Like most Crescent Moon games, it’s on sale for launch, and will go up to $2.99 after a limited time. With the game being Universal, and with the current price, Slingshot Racing is a MUST BUY! The steam punk influenced graphics, and great music and effects combined with the simple controls, challenging gameplay and basically endless replay value make Slingshot Racing the best casual racer I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing, and even one of the best racers on the iDevice. Hopefully online Multiplayer through GameCenter or through isolated servers will be added in the future. Slingshot Racing is just begging for online MP. Something else that would be great to see is some unlockable vehicles or cosmetic customization. Each of the cars is equal in terms of speed, acceleration, and all other aspects, but being able to choose the color, shape, and other cosmetic attributes would be a nice little addition as well. As it stands now, Slingshot Racing is still a game that everyone with an iDevice should own. Be sure and check it out, and get your race on! 

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. 

Strategy Games are really hitting their stride in the AppStore, but one of my favorites has always been Tactical Warrior by James Pawliuk. Earlier this week, the two man team consisting of Mr. Pawliuk and Brandon Alter released their 3rd iOS title, LostStar Tactics, a turn-based strategy RPG with some great gameplay, nice graphics, and an interesting story to go along with it. But does it warrant purchasing when so much of the game is identical to Tactical Warrior?

When compared to Tactical Warrior, the whole set-up of the game and gameplay is almost identical. Moving costs stamina, unless you move to an orange tile and each attack or special ability you use costs stamina, while resting offers your character recovery of stamina. Each character, as well as enemy, has stats which you’ll need to learn so that you can know what attacks will work well, and what attacks will result in almost no damage at all. Even the party screen is an almost identical clone of Tactical Warrior’s. 

The character designs and environments, however, are fairly different. The characters have quite a bit of details, with some wielding some pretty badass looking weapons while the environments lean more towards lightly forested and murky areas, though the environmental objects still play a roll in where you’ll move your characters and how you attack with them. 

While exploring the outer reaches of space, you wind up finding something extraordinary. The planet Moridia, which legends say is home to mythical knowledge and treasures hidden in a mysterious ‘nebalua‘. An energy pulse takes your ship out while exploring, resulting in a crash landing on the unexplored planet. Now it’s up to you and your team to survive the attacking life forms, and find a way back home. 

Starting off, you’re able to choose between 3 different groups of fighters; Mechanic, who’s main focus is summoning – Warrior, who focuses on powerful attacks – and Councillor who focuses on flexibility. You’re also able to choose between Easy, Medium and Hard Difficulties. 

The game is set up kind of like a card based strategy game. Each character is able to equip various cards which allow them to perform different attacks as well as beef up their defensive skills. Once you earn enough experience through battles, you’re able to strengthen these cards up. Some battles will also give you cards as rewards, and sometimes you’ll be offered another character to add to your team. Each time you’re offered a reward, you’re given 3 choices to choose from. In the event of a new member being offered, you’re able to not add a member, and give some XP to your team. All of this makes the card equipping, leveling up, and even item equipping aspects of the game fairly deep. 

Aside from the cards, story and character design+environments, LostStar Tactics could easily be a sequel to Tactical Warrior. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Especially when I think about all the hours upon hours I lost because of Tactical Warrior. There’s also the price. $1.99. Hard to beat that, considering Tactical Warrior is $2.99, and worth every penny. But even with the fantastic gameplay, there are a couple of down-sides to the game. The game is not Universal, so those of you out there who hate playing games in 2X mode on your iPad will be pretty disappointed. There’s also no GameCenter, meaning no achievements to shoot for. Also, if there’s a player or enemy at the bottom of the screen underneath the text that says “touch a warrior to view his stats.” you’ll need to move the playing field in order to select them. It’s not a big deal, but something that kept on bugging me while I was playing. Actually, none of these ‘issues’ are really a big deal. LostStar Tactics is one of those games that’s good enough it’s very easy to overlook having to play in 2X Mode, and the lack of achievements or any online features. 

In the end, LostStar Tactics is a fairly deep turn-based strategy game with great RPG elements, also with a price that really can’t be beat. Hopefully it gets the attention it deserves so that more work will go into it, and hopefully we can get an HD or Universal version of the game. An online multiplayer mode would be amazing to see as well. But for $1.99, it’s a great buy if you’re a fan of turn-based strategy games. Even if you’re new to the genre, LostStar Tactics would be a great place to start. It’s easy to understand tutorial and simple gameplay that gets deeper the more you explore it is great for newcomers to the genre.