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SpinTrip – 0.99 (Clickgamer.com)

Platformers for the iOS have really started booming since the extremely successful release of League Of Evil. However, as much as I love platformers, it’s not too often fans of the genre can find a game that brings something new to the table, as the AppStore is getting over-run with “retro” platforming games. Thankfully, there are a couple developers out there that know that it’ll take more than a platform game with retro graphics to really stand out, and Ablemagic’s SpinTrip, published by Clickgamer/Chillingo just so happens to be one of those stand out titles.

You’ll guide a little ‘tisu, male or female (though your choice doesn’t effect the gameplay), through the magical world of Canoo. The evil Gnats have stolen a wise sage’s Shims, and you’ll need to use the power of the Chibs to get them all back. What does that mean in an understandable language? You’ll roll your character around the levels, collecting other characters that lend you their powers so that you can reach previously un-reachable areas to collect as many items as you can while trying to make it to the end of each level.
There are 9 different Chibs that you’ll be able to roll over, snag, and use, each with a different ability, and certain amount of times you can use that ability. There’s a yellow Chib, named Leaps, who gives you 12 high jumps per collected character, a blue Chib named Swims who enables you to float on water for 10 seconds, a purple guy named Sucks who lets you use suction cups to climb up walls and on ceilings, and other various Chibs that give you different powers to help you along.
The level design is pretty impressive after the first couple of levels, giving gamers plenty to explore, and areas of levels that are only accessible if players actually do explore, finding a certain Chib that will help them reach that hidden area. Every Chib you’ll need to get through the level by going straight through it is available along the straight to the end path, so if you want to just get to the end of each level as quick as you can, you won’t be bogged down by having to explore every little area, or need to go back exploring everywhere just to find one character that will give you access to the end of the level. But each of the Chibs abilities factors into the level design, which makes it even more impressive.
As for the controls, graphics, physics, and on a more forgiving note, the animations, everything is top notch. The physics do take some getting use to, but once you become comfortable with the idea that you’re rolling your character through the levels, not making them run through each level, it gets very easy to become accustomed to. The controls, set up like your typical virtual controlled iOS platformer, left and right buttons, along with a jump button, work extremely well. Each Chib that you pick up highlights an icon at the top of the screen, and on an iPad, are found around your basic left/right and jump/ability controls. When you want to use that Chib, you click on the icon, which makes them available for use, then tap the icon next to your jump button to activate that Chib. There are three different environments that you’ll progress through, each with it’s own distinctive look, and environmental feel, and along with the perfect animations, helps add to a very smooth, and highly enjoyable gaming experience.
SpinTrip is supported by Crystal for online leaderboards, which Chillingo seems to be using more and more, but it’s also supported by GameCenter, having 2 different boards, one for your Highscore and one for your Awesomeness score, along with 4 basic “find this many” achievements, and one hidden achievement. Each of the 16 levels has a 3 star ranking you can try and snag, but sadly, your star ranking is not shown on the level select screen, so finding those one or two levels that you only got 2 stars on is almost impossible. As always with new gameplay mechanics, there will always be people that wish the game just played like a regular old platformer game, so SpinTrip will not be favored by everyone, especially if you don’t like the idea of only being able to use one ability at a time, and having to collect that ability while going through levels, while having the number of times you can use that ability re-set with each level. But if you’re looking for something new a platform game, and either sick of, or have enough run/jump/goal platformers, SpinTrip is definitely a game worth your time. The game is only $0.99, and Universal, so if you’re still not sure, it’s not going to break the bank if you decide to check it out. It certainly has the potential to become one of your favorite iOS platformers.
SpinTrip gets a score of 4 out of 5.


Oscura – 1.99 (MTV Networks/Viacom/Chocolate Liberation Front)

MTV Networks is not really known for releasing quality gaming titles. Potty Racers, Ski Runner, Bigby: L.A.P.D., these games are not exactly going to end up on any “Top” lists. But with their latest release of Oscura, a platformer developed by Viacom+Chocolate Liberation Front, they might just be thinking of jumping into the high quality iOS gaming ring. And hopefully, they make a big enough roar that they’re pushed to keep going.

The game takes place on an island where dark creatures are tucked away by a magical light held in a lighthouse outpost. Inevitably, the power crystal that harnessed this magical light exploded, scattering shards of the crystal all over the island, and covering the land in darkness. Oscura, as the light keeper, now has to embark on the dangerous task of collecting all of these shards, and restoring the light.
The controls are simple enough, touch on the left side of the screen to move left, the right side of the screen to move right, and touch both sides of the screen to jump. To jump while standing still, you’ll need to tap on both sides of the screen. If you hold down, you’ll end up going in one direction or the other. You are also able to double jump, and swipe on the screen to slow down time once you have enough power in your time gauge, which fills up as you collect shards of light. Generally, most platformer fans are not very big on games that don’t have virtual controls, but with the recent releases of Bring Me Sandwiches, Bean’s Quest, and the controls used here in Oscura, we’re quickly learning that platformers don’t need virtual controls to have controls that work wonderfully.
The graphics in Oscura are done in silhouette style, and along with the animations, character models, physics, colors that are used, and music (by Matt Murphy, and Chris Sullivan), all comes together to create an incredibly immersive, beautiful environment. As for level design, towards the beginning of the game, it’s a little bland, and pretty linear. But as you move on into the last half of the game, the designs get a lot better, using enemies and hazardous objects to reach platforms, and hidden areas you’ll need to find if you want to collect every item in the levels opens up quite a bit of options with the design, and Chocolate Liberation Front has done a great job taking advantage of that.
You’re able to collect 4 stars at the end of each level, one for time, one if you do not die, another for collecting all of the light shards, and lastly, one for collecting all of the gears. This is basically where all of the replay value is within the game, as collecting all of these stars will take gamers multiple playthroughs. There is no OpenFeint or GameCenter support, but with the star ratings, it doesn’t really take away from the replay value, but it is something that would be very welcome in a future update.
There are presently 7 levels, each taking about 1 to 3 minutes to beat, meaning that you will probably finish the game in about 15 to 20 minutes. This is where a lot of gamers will get turned off, and probably end up passing up this great game. Thankfully, as I mentioned, there are star ratings that you can try and grab once you complete the game, and grabbing all of them is a pretty nice challenge. There are 5 more levels that are said to be coming in the future, and hopefully the onslaught of very low ratings in the AppStore will not discourage the developers, and cause the game to never get updated, because even though there’s an ending for the game after you beat the 7th level, it’ll drive you crazy knowing that the developers had more in mind. There’s obviously more to the game, and Oscura is an adventure that deserves to be complete.
For $1.99, Oscura being Universal, and the amazing look and gameplay in this title, it’s definitely a game that platformer fans should check out. Chocolate Liberation Front has created an incredibly beautiful and well rounded game that is sure to grab quite a few extremely loyal fans. But, if you are not a gamer that goes after star ratings for levels, and is done with a game after they beat the last level, then you will probably feel like your $1.99 was not spent very well. Hopefully there are enough gamers out there that do play certain games to completion, and will try and step up to the challenge of getting every star filled in every level, because it would be a shame if Oscura faded into the pile of thousands of monotonous games floating around the AppStore.
Oscura gets a score of 4.5 out of 5.


Tiny Token Empires – 0.99 (Bulkypix)

Bulkypix has become one of the bigger iOS developers/publishers over the last couple years or so, putting out numerous popular games, loads of which have hit Apple’s New & Noteworthy list. I only bring this up because it all makes their latest release, Tiny Token Empires, for the iPhone, a bit of a mystery.

First off, the iPad version of Tiny Token Empires is $8.99, and the iPhone version is $0.99. This should be a big clue that there’s going to be quite a bit of the game left out of the iPhone version, and sadly, it’s there, but only available through IAPs. To get the full Tiny Token Empires iPhone game, a total of $7.92 (+tax) will need to be spent. Now, I’m all for premium pricing in the AppStore, but generally, only when a developer comes out with a premium game that deserves that premium price.
In the AppStore description, it says that Tiny Token Empires includes 5 campaigns, one per nation for over 15 hours of gaming, 5 nations, 5 heroes, 25 generals, and 50 kinds of units, including 5 kinds of puzzles, with 3 difficulty levels, and 4 other games modes, including solo and multi. So most customers will go into the purchase thinking, “wow, that’s quite a bit of gameplay for my $0.99!”, and it really seems like that is what Bulkypix is counting on. There is no mention of IAPs in the description, and nowhere does it say what you get for your $0.99. Here is what the dollar game consists of.
You’ll get OpenFeint support, the Roman campaign, which contains 4 missions, a Free Mission mode where you can either play as the Romans or Egyptians, in one of 5 different missions, choosing one of 3 difficulties, and a Quick Battle mode, which lets you play a randomized match-3 game against another empire, and that OpenFeint support; you‘ll have access to one leader board. Now, this doesn’t sound too bad for $0.99, except that this is everything that’s included in their PC demo. So with that in mind, and after playing the game for an hour, you’ll feel more like you’ve paid $0.99 for a lite version of the game.
However, the game is decent. You’ll start off with a town, build it up with defenses, an army, and more buildings, earning money with each turn, which enables you to build more of your town up. You’ll take your army, and move it from one section on the map to another, expanding your empire, and having a match-3 battle whenever you come across a territory that is already occupied by another ruler or civilization. The first 4 Roman campaign missions that you are given feel more like a tutorial though, with a “wise elder” telling you what you need to do to get through each mission, and then letting you half-way do the last mission on your own. Once you complete that, you’re done with the main game. You are given partial access to the free mission mode, and can play a randomized match-3 battle, but as for the main meat of the game. Done. In the game’s description is also says that there is a “multi” mode, but it’s not found anywhere in the game.
It’s almost impossible not to compare Tiny Token Empires to Puzzle Quest, because they are the two big match-3 adventure turn-based RPG type games in the AppStore. Puzzle Quest, with 3 chapters, with the first chapter being free, and 2 and 3 being $0.99 each, with over 40 hours of very impressive quest filled turn-based match-3 gameplay, and Tiny Token Empires, a little under $8, 15 hours of not so quest filled turn-based match-3 gameplay, with a demo/lite verison that costs $0.99.
I don’t want to say that Tiny Token Empires is a bad game, because it’s not. It’s put together extremely well, has nice graphics, and decent music. It’s user interface is a little clunky, but not so much that it gets in the way of the game. It does have some smoother looking animations sequences than Puzzle Quest, and it has free mission and random battle modes to go along with the campaign. I don’t think the game feels like a premium priced game though. A lot of gamers do not like the “pay-as-you-go” pricing model, and here, Bulkypix is charging iPod gamers for what they’re giving away to PC gamers. It doesn’t rub players the right way, and I have no idea how Bulkypix is going to come out of this one on top.



Alphadia – 2.99 (Kemco)

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.
The story of Alphadia takes place in a world free from war for 100 years. Either bored, or seeing something worth pursuing, the Schwarzschild empire has begun it’s conquest for world domination. You’ll control Ash, his brother, sister, and two mysterious characters, as well as others who join your party along the way, as you try and find a way to stop the quickly expanding Schwarzschild empire.
The story is, as to be expected from Kemco, extremely well translated, and very immersive. Feelings for the characters comes quickly, and the story is the main drive of the game. Where in SoE, the deep upgrade, equipping system was equal to the story, in Alphadia, the story takes the drivers seat, with everything else in the back.
Not to say that the equipping and leveling up system isn’t great, because it is. Each character, as well as enemy, has a certain element that they are familiar with, and have control over from birth. For instance, Ash’s element is fire. This means that almost all of his spells throughout the game will be connected to fire in some way. He is also most resistive to fire based enemies, and can have his butt handed to him by water enemies if you’re not careful. There are gems in the world that you can equip, and which give you either more control over your element, or give you the ability to use other elements, though not as powerfully as you can use your familiar element. All leveling up, and points are handled automatically by the game, so all the player needs to worry about is equipping a weapon, armor, and one accessory. This simplified leveling up and equip system makes the game a lot more accessible to casual RPG gamers, but there’s also formation handling, which can drastically change the outcome of big battles, so the whole formation, equip system is not so dumbed down that hardcore fans of the genre will find it boring and simple either.
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.
Alphadia gets a perfect score of 10 out of 10.


Arch Fiery – 0.99 (Photics)

Earlier this year, developer Photics released an exploratory adventure game with RPG elements called Bot. It was made with GameSalad, and really did change my impressions of the engine. With a talented enough developer, GameSalad can really make something that people will want to play. Since then, there have been more talented GS developers coming out of the woodwork, to the point where GameSalad is no longer being laughed at when brought up. Anyway, back again, with another GameSalad game, Photics has just released an interesting plat former type game called Arch Fiery.

Sadly, one of the most interesting parts of the game, it’s story, is not found within the game it-self; only in the game’s description on iTunes. You’ll control a futuristic military weapon, a miniature star, designed to protect humanity from an artificial intelligence threat. However, during a systems test, the star ended up crashing in the middle of a forest damaging it’s propulsion systems. Now it can only jump. Having this actually put into the game would have made it quite a bit better. We’re suckers for cyberpunk type stories like this, and if Photics decided to reveal more story-line as the game progressed, it could have made for one hell of a game.
You’ll guide this star through 2 environments, and 24 levels. 12 forest levels, and 12 cityscape levels. An issue popped up for me here while trying to play the 4th level of the forest world, the game kept taking me to the 4th level of the cityscape world. This opened up the 4th city level while leaving the 2nd and 3rd levels still locked. The only way I could get to the 4th forest level was to play through the 3rd forest level. I’m not sure if there are any other instances like this throughout the game, but it can be kind of annoying not being taken to the level you tap on.
Aside from that, this game enjoyable enough, but chances are you‘ll see more of what the game doesn‘t have than what it does. Each level is set up like a small obstacle course, giving you objects to bounce off of once you jump off of the ground, platforms to rotate, opening up paths, and giving you 3 stars to collect, as well as fire orbs which make you larger, and in turn, gives you more opportunities to bounce off of harmful objects throughout the levels, and gives you more points at the end of each level. End of level points are determined by how many stars you collect, how many orbs of fire you collect, and how quickly you complete the level, while the ratings for each level depend on how many stars you collected. You can use either tilt or virtual controls, while tapping on the screen to jump. The physics are surprisingly well done, but it would be great if the star’s jumping height depended on how long you held your finger on the screen. Having only one jumping height never seems to add to a game.
Photics last game, Bot, changed some gamers perceptions of what GameSalad can do. This latest game, Arch Fiery, is done with the same sort of graphic style, and has the same sort of ominous feeling to it, but it’s screaming for more. Power-ups, larger levels, jumping height based on tap length, more exploration. For $0.99, it’s still worth checking out, as it is an interesting game that has it’s moments. But it needs more before it really stands out as something special in the AppStore.
Arch Fiery gets a score of 6 out of 10.


Eve Of Impact – 0.99 (Rik Schennink)

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.
You are given warnings on the sides of the screen, with a quickly decreasing number letting you know how close the asteroid is to Earth. You are also able to scroll around space by dragging on the screen, but staying in one section of space for too long could mean that Earth is destroyed by asteroids coming at you from another direction. To save Earth, you need to send missiles out and have them explode next to the asteroids, having the shockwave push the asteroid in another direction, not to hit the asteroids head on with missiles. This adds quite a bit of strategy to the game, as groups of asteroids can usually be dealt with by using one or two missiles, so it’s almost always a good idea to try and group the asteroids together. If you don’t group them, you could end up making more work for yourself, sending an asteroid in one direction, and then back to it’s original direction by trying to send another asteroid away. It’s also easier to change the direction of a missile based on the angle that it’s coming at you. If an asteroid is coming at you from the top right of the screen, sending it towards the bottom left of the screen will almost always be easier than trying to send it to the top left side. You can also hold down on Earth to send out a shockwave, destroying all asteroids close to you, but this takes up 30% of your slowly recharging planet’s shield. All of this factors in to how you’ll play and score in Eve Of Impact.
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.


GravCat – 0.99 (Monster Robot Studios)

When booting up a game and hearing those couple of notes, and seeing the splash screen, it’s hard not to cringe. GameSalad. There’s so many reasons people usually don’t like games done with GameSalad, lots of long loading screens, unresponsive controls, frame-rate issues, lag, poor collision detection, weird physics. Every once in a while there would be a game that ran decently, and was good enough to put up with all the loading screens, and it’s happening more often now that GameSalad has undergone a pretty heafty update. Games made with the “new” GameSalad, while still suffering from lots of loading screens, don’t take as long to load, have pretty decent controls, and don’t generally have any bad frame-rate issues. Thankfully, Monster Robot Studios new game, GravCat, is made with the new GameSalad engine. The collision detection is still a little funky, and the physics can take a little getting use to, but really, it’s one of the few GameSalad games we’ve enjoyed lately.

You’ll control a cat with some pretty nifty gear in space. The trick is, he falls in whatever direction the wheels on the bottom of his gear are facing. It’s kind of a plat former, but mainly a physics based action arcade game. To progress through the game, you’ll need to guide the cat around each of the levels, collecting all 10 of the green gems scattered throughout. There are enemies that you can land on, but only with your wheels, along with other hazards, like mines, mini-suns, rocks with orbs trapped in them, spinning fan-like blades, water, and more, including bosses, and some power-ups to help you deal with everything.
The controls take a little getting use to, and can either be two arrows, one in each bottom corner of the screen, the left one rotating your cat counter-clockwise, while the right rotates him clockwise, and when pressed together, flip your cat 180 degrees, along with two arrows at the top corners that change the direction your cat is facing, left or right, which influences the path you “fall“ along, and when pressed at the same time launch your cat, which lets you break through certain blocks, and get the orbs that are trapped inside some rocks, as well as get through water faster, and more nifty little mechanics. There’s also a tractor beam button in the upper left corner that will pick up or drag some of the objects in the game. There’s also tilt controls.
The graphics are done surprisingly well, and everything is pretty vibrant, considering it’s done with GS. The physics, like the controls, take a bit of getting use to, and the animations are done pretty well. The enemies do sometimes look a little funky walking around, and the animation for destroying them is kind of weird, but, I hate to keep saying this, considering it’s done with GameSalad, I’m pretty impressed. The collision detection, like most GameSalad made games, does need quite a bit of work. There’s countless times I’ve bounced off of air surrounding a block, and then gone back to the same block and ended up actually colliding with it before bouncing off, and some spots that needed pinpoint precision to get through two rocks that were kind of close together, but that I should have obviously been able to easily fit through, because of the “bouncy air” surrounding those rocks. The collision detection did get to be pretty frustrating.
In the end, GravCat is a decent enough game. The fact that it’s made with GameSalad can sometimes be surprising, but at other times, will make you say “figures”. There are quite a bit of mid-level loading screens telling you what certain objects can do, or how to deal with those objects, which really does take away from the flow of the gameplay. A tutorial level or two might have been a better idea than having mid-level loading to get to an info screen, though I can kind of understand why it wasn’t done in tutorial levels, as there’s quite a bit of different game mechanics, and seeing everything right off the bat would have made the first couple levels pretty boring, but a middle ground, like tutorial levels every 5 levels or something could help with the whole flow of the game. Being $0.99, and having 40+ levels, with more content on the way, and some pretty interesting gameplay makes it worth checking out if you’re into arcade type physics based anti-gravity action games. It does lack online support, and with no leader boards, there’s no real reason to replay levels. Once you’re done with the game, chances are you’ll either delete it, or keep it somewhere on your device with other games that are waiting for content updates. I guess what I’m getting at is that if you can put up with the loading screens, and are willing to get use to a games controls and physics, and don’t mind not having replay value, GravCat is a game worth checking out. It’s clear that Monster Robot Studios is talented and willing to put time and effort into their games, but I can’t stop wondering what they could do if using Unity or Corona, and I hope we get the chance to find out.
GravCat gets a score of 6 out of 10.


Bring Me Sandwiches!! – 0.99 (Adult Swim/Grumpyface)

A lot of gamers have been wondering, when will Adult Swim put out games that aren’t mere flash games ported to the iOS? Well, wait no longer. With their release of Monsters Ate My Condo, developed by PikPok, Adult Swim Games has shown that they’re willing to support developers who have an insanely good idea packed on top of insanely weird gameplay, and with the recent release of Bring Me Sandwiches!!, developed by Grumpyface (who also made a favorite of mine, Wispin), they have started their trend of weird, but crazy good games that seem to hit every single one of our brain’s addiction centers.

The game Bring Me Sandwiches!! is a plat former that puts you in control of Jimmy Nugget, an ordinary fast food employee. It’s your job to create sandwiches that an invading alien race is craving, and in return, they’ve promised not to destroy Earth. You’ll need to carry around a piece of bread, and run over objects, in turn, making the sandwich. Once you have made the sandwich 100% full, you need to find one of the various aliens floating around the levels, and give it to him. Each level has an objective at the beginning, sometimes you’ll need to find a cat and put it on the sandwich, other times, 6 chickens, or 4 sandwiches. In the case of multiple sandwiches, each time you take a 100% or more complete sandwich to an alien, they will give you another piece of bread, and you can then pick up bigger items than the last one, generally ending up with you picking up small buildings and people and placing them on the bread, making it a sort of feel like a plat forming version of Katamari. There are also 3 different “golden bread”, like stars, to try and get in each level. One for score, one for time, and one for completing the level without getting hit a certain amount of times.
There are 4 different environments, each with 6 to 8 different levels. You’ll travel from the US to Mexico, Italy, and Japan, each time having different objects in the levels, different enemies, as well as, of course, different looking environments. The graphics and animations are done amazingly well, with almost everything in each level being animated, and the graphics almost fitting perfectly as an extension of the crazy Monsters Ate My Condo. The music also just tops it off, completing the crazy cartoon world experience.
Now, controls. Controls are always a huge part of plat formers, as are physics, and Bring Me Sandwiches!! is no exception. Amazingly enough, there are 3 different control options, and the virtual buttons that are one of those options is not the tightest, most fluid feeling control scheme. For once, an invisible slider on the left side, and jump tapping on the right is incredibly accurate and tight, and leaves the bottom parts of the screen open and un-cluttered. There are also tilt controls, but there’s not many who favor those in plat formers, though if you are one of the few, they are tighter and more accurate than most. Combined with the perfect physics of the Bring Me Sandwiches world, the game comes together to create an amazingly smooth, perfectly fun plat former, that doesn’t require you to think about the controls at all while playing.
Grumpyface has shown that they know exactly what it takes to reach gamers addictive habits, exploiting them in a way we here at The App Shack can’t help but love. Following the new $0.99 trend with Adult Swim games, the amount of content, and crazy gameplay makes it a must-buy for fans of any iOS genre. GameCenter is included, giving us 13 different leader boards, one for combined score, one for combined time in each of the environments, as well as overall, and a total sandwich ingredients board, along with 22 crazy achievements to try and snag, adding tons of replay value. This is one game you don’t want to miss, as it’s one of the best plat formers available for the iOS. It’s also looking like the beginning of a trend we don’t want Adult Swim to stop; Crazy games that are insanely fun to play for the low-low price of one dollar. How could we ask for more?
Bring Me Sandwiches gets a score of 10 out of 10.


Robo5 – 0.99 (Yuguosoft)

Puzzle games have gone in all sorts of different directions since the iPod came out. The openness of the AppStore, coupled with the mind blowing amount of talented developers, and the range of possibilities that the touch screen brings to the table makes for some very interesting games. However, it kind of seems like puzzle games have hit a rough patch. Almost everything entering the AppStore these days is a physics based Angry Birds or Tiki Totems type game. So it was a real surprise when I started up Yuguosoft’s new action puzzler, Robo5.

In the game, you’ll control a robot who’s trying to find out who he is, and why he is here. You’ll solve a series of box moving puzzles in order to move through the worlds. Each of the levels has 3 stars that you can earn, one for completing the level in a set amount of time, one for collecting all of the items, and one for having under a certain amount of box moves. Every time you earn 20 stars, a Diary, or challenge, level is unlocked. These give you more back-story on Robot Number 5, and the world he lives in, and when you complete the Diary levels, even more is revealed.
The controls in Robo5 are simple enough, tap and swipe. You’ll tap to move to a box, and swipe to grab and move boxes. You can also tap on the box you are already standing on to hang off of the side of it, enabling you to move around piles of boxes that might be in the way. You’ll need to move boxes around opening and creating pathways to get to the top of, and the exit, of the levels. In order for a box to stay in the air, or be held up, it needs to be touching another box on one of it’s 4 bottom edges. There are different types of boxes, expanding the puzzle element quite a bit. Along with the regular boxes, some will crumble after standing on them twice, some will start to count down from 5 and then explode after you step on them, some boxes can float in the air, some give off electricity shocks, and there are some which are shown with a big “?” on them, and these can turn into any type of box after you touch them, so you never really know what you’re going to get with them. Put all of these together, and there’s some pretty wild puzzles that you will need to get Robot Number 5 through in order to make it through the game.
The graphics are amazingly detailed, and some of the best I’ve seen in an iOS game. I would put them upto par with Unreal Engine graphics, even though they did not use Unreal to create the game. The atmospheres are very immersive, and along with the animations for movement, and the music within the game, it creates quite an amazing world.
With Yuguosoft pricing both the iPod and iPad version at only $0.99, it’s an amazing buy. It’s taken me about 10 hours to get to the last level of the game, which I am currently stumped on, but I still need to go back and get 3 stars in about 25 of the 40 levels, not including the 7 out of 8 Diary levels I have yet to complete. GameCenter integration completes the game adding quite a bit of replay value, even for gamers who manage to get 3 stars on every level. 6 leader boards, one for a combined score in each world, and one for your highest world score, along with 32 achievements, some being very hard to snag. For a puzzle game, Robo5 goes above and beyond the expectations of gamers, and gives them an incredibly immersive, amazingly thoughtful and enriching gameplay experience. I really can not recommend Robo5 enough, to any and all gamers. The difficulty in the later levels is pretty high, but once you get to the end of the levels, the feeling you’ll have is more than enough of a reward. Yuguosoft has definitely created a contender for Game Of The Year, and over the last week has easily moved into my top 5 of 2011, and has set a new standard for action puzzle games of the future.
Robo5 gets a perfect score of 10 out of 10, along with a VERY strong recommendation from The App Shack for fans of every genre.


Flip Riders – 0.99 (POWapp)

Side-scrolling racers have become pretty popular among iOS gamers over the last couple years. They seem to have a perfect amount of casual gameplay mixed with enough challenging high-score chasing to keep almost all gamers satisfied. The genre seems to be growing, though very, very slowly. Generally, with each new addition to the genre, there will be a little upgrade with graphics, some tweak in the gameplay, maybe an added power-up, but never really a huge jump like what POWapp has done with their latest release, Flip Riders. In this side-scrolling, star collecting racer, awesome graphics, tight controls, and some amazing physics have totally set a new standard for the side-scrolling racer genre.

Right now, there are 30 levels spread out across 6 different environments, with 3 stars to earn in each level, and each new environment can be unlocked with every 10 stars you earn. Stars are given to you depending on how many you snagged throughout each of the levels. 100% of the stars in the level will give you 3 stars, between 50% and 99% of the stars will give you 2 stars, and less than 50% of the stars will earn you 1 star. Once you unlock a new world, you can play all 5 of the new tracks in any order you like, so if you get stuck on one in particular, you can skip it and come back to it later, or even skip it all together, going through the rest of the game before coming back to it so long as you get 10 stars collectively throughout the other levels in the world. There are also 5 different characters to start out with, along with 5 more characters that you can unlock, each one becoming available once you open up another world. Each of the original 5 riders you’ll be able to use when you first start up the game has an experience bar that fills up as you progress through the game. This adds quite a bit of replay value, as filling up all of the riders bars will require you to play through the whole game with each of the riders. Something that would be nice to see would be stats and experience bars for the unlockable riders in a future update.
The controls are nice and tight, and there’s a panic button included, which uses points that you’ve earned by doing jumps, flips, and collecting the stars that are scattered throughout the levels, to slow down time, giving you ample time to re-align your rider before hitting the ground. This is more of a nice little addition to the game in the beginning, but once you reach the middle and late levels, you will constantly need to use the panic button in order to land in quite a few situations, multiple times in each level. However, if you press it too late, chances are you’ll just slow down time so that it takes you longer to smash into the ground. It’s good to press the panic button when you’re about three quarters of the way through your jump. The panic button is placed on the right side of the screen, along with your gas, break/reverse, and jump buttons. This could be seen as a problem if you need to make a very precise jump, needing to hold down the panic button and the jump button at the same time, but when you let go of the panic button, it takes a couple seconds for time to speed back up again, so tapping on the panic button will give you just enough time to re-align your rider, and pull off a jump before time speeds back up. On the left side, there is a slider that re-positions itself whenever you place your finger on the left side of the screen. If you’re more used to using tilt controls to pull off flips in side-scrolling racers, they have included accelerometer controls as an option as well.
As for the graphics, Flip Riders is one of the best looking, if not the best looking, side-scrolling racer I’ve got for my iPod. The environments are all easy to tell apart, the objects in-game are nice and polished, and the animations for everything are done very well. There’s also a graphic of your rider in the center of the bottom part of the screen, giving you a sort of close up view of them while they’re pulling off tricks and jumping around. It’s little additions like this that makes Flip Riders graphics stand out as some of the best in the genre. POWapp has done an amazing job creating a very polished, professional looking game.
But, we all know that graphics are far from everything when it comes to gaming. Physics on the other hand, can make or break a game from the first seconds of gameplay, and Flip Riders has some of the best physics of any side-scrolling racer I’ve ever played. The rag doll physics along with a perfect feeling of weight for the racers helps create some extremely smooth gameplay. The objects in the world however, do not really have much weight, as you’re able to push trucks off to the side, and sometimes sharks hit bridges and flop around like little stiff fish, but the racers bikes and the way they interact with most objects in the levels, like the bridges, ramps, loops and hills is all pretty damn close to perfect.
With Flip Racers having all of this going for it, it’s pretty hard to find any reasons why people would not like the game. But there are a few things that people might not like. The game can be extremely challenging. Almost every level will take multiple play throughs, each time getting a little further, being able to see what the next obstacle in the level is, only to smash right into it, miss-time a flip, speed into a hazard, or not have enough speed to make the next jump, resulting in you needing to start all the way back at the beginning of the level, needing to go through all the obstacles you already spent quite a bit of time trying to get through already. Dying 20-30 times in one level can be a fairly common occurrence, and the fact that each of the levels almost requires you to memorize them in order to make it through them can take away quite a bit of fun from the gameplay. This does, however, add an insane amount of replayabilty to the game, as it’s not something you can just fly through, and once you do get through it, you’ll have plenty of stars to go back and try and snag. It’s comparable to Reckless Getaway in this challenging, needing to memorize, multiple plays kind of gameplay that POWapps has incorporated into Flip Riders. But, for a lot of gamers, this is the icing on the cake, and can be a huge reason why they’ll end up loving the game. It just depends on your preferences. However, making it so that players can see further ahead of them would help out immensely, maybe being able to zoom out a little bit would help a lot of casual players not get so frustrated with the difficulty of the game.
Right now, Flip Riders is $0.99, but that’s a launch price, and will go up on October 23rd. The game is Universal, and does have GameCenter integration with 13 different leader boards, one for the total score of each world as well as one for the total times for each world, and an overall score leader board. There’s also 21 achievements that will take quite a bit of skill to unlock. This, on top of the already insane amount of replay value makes Flip Riders a no-brainer MUST buy for fans of the racing genre. There’s also a bit of platforming elements added, with the jump button, and it can sometimes feel like a mix of a racer and Sonic the Hedgehog, which is not very surprising, as the developers first game was a platformer, by the name of Shadow Candy: Sugar Rush. POWapps has definitely raised the bar within the side-scrolling racer genre, and with games like this, jAggy Race and Dream Track Nation, the future of side-scrolling racers is looking exceedingly bright.
Flip Riders gets a score of 8 out of 10.