Your Site for IOS Reviews

Search Results for: label/Tap/index.html

Number of Results: 28

Tone Sphere [Bit192 Labs] – $0.99

Ever since I bought my kids a Wii, and Guitar Hero, rhythm games have kind of been a family affair. Now, it’s kind of hard to find rhythm games on the iOS that the whole family can get into, especially with all of our different musical tastes, but Cytus and Groove Coaster are two games that usually result in my wife, 3 daughters and myself fighting over the iPad so we can try and break the last players score. Bit192 Labs, a one man development studio located in Tokyo, first iOS release, Tone Sphere, is now the 3rd rhythm game that my family fights over. 
Graphically, Tone Sphere looks more like an Autechre video or influenced by one of Proem’s CD covers, which, in my book, is beyond awesome. The abstract objects that twist, turn, zoom in and out, flash and more to the beats and sounds of the music not only present some amazing eye candy, but also effect the positioning of the circles which you need to tap, which helps to add to the challenge, difficulty and fun of the game. 
Tone Sphere contains over 20 songs split up between 2 Episodes, all included with the original purchase of the game. There are no extra IAP or DLC songs, which is a huge plus. The music throughout the game ranges from Prog. House+Trance, J-pop, Dubstep, Post Rock, Alternative, Hi NRG, and more. The controls are like most other rhythm games, tap, hold or drag the circles when the outer ring hits the inner ring. The circles colors also get darker as they get closer to when they’re supposed to be tapped. There is no rhythm bar like in Cytus, but it’s clear when you need to tap the screen the second you start the game up. 
There are 4 different types of circles, red, silver, black and hold. Red notes generally go along with the main beat or musical instrument/keyboard line for the song while the silver notes do the same, but are scarce and worth 10x the points. Black notes will always have an arrow in them, and you need to drag in that direction instead of just tapping them, and the hold notes are usually for vocals, drum rolls, or quick musical notes, and need to be held until they disappear to get all of the points for them. There’s perfect, great, way off, and miss hits, and the timing for them is about the same as Groove Coaster, nice and tight, adding to the challenge.
Each stage has a possible 6 star ranking depending on your combo, how many perfect hits you get, and whether or not you miss any notes. Starting off, you’re able to see 5 stars, and they each fill up little by little as you make your way through the song. Once you fill all 5 of them up, if you keep tapping on the circles perfectly, you’ll get the hidden 6th star. 
The difficulty progression throughout the songs is perfect. If you play them all in order, they get a little harder with each new song. You also unlock songs as you complete others, and once you play through 10 of the songs in Episode 1, which contains Normal Difficulty songs, you unlock Episode 2, which contains the same songs, but on Hard Difficulty, which, once you get into, is clearly a huge step up in the difficulty level. Each song also has it’s own difficulty ranking, displayed by stars over the song in the song selection list, which, even though it isn’t necessary, is a nice addition. 
The only bad thing I can say about Tone Sphere is that is has no pause button. If you hold down the Icon in the top right corner, you’re taken back to the song selection screen, which can be kind of a bummer if you get a call, or just need to pause the game. But that’s the ONLY bad thing I can say about the game. Tone Spheres is Universal and priced at $0.99 for a limited time, so if you’re a fan of the genre, make sure you pick it up ASAP! It’s a fantastic rhythm based iOS game, and fits perfectly next to Miku Flick, Groove Coaster, Cytus, Jukebeat… with GameCenter integration containing leader boards for both Episodes combined totals adding tons of replay value to the already high amount, it’s a no-brainer. Bit192 Labs has definitely made a mark within the genre, and I can’t wait to see what The Man’s brain has in store for us in the future. 
Posted in: , , , , , , , ,


June 24, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Stunt Bunnies Circus [Jujubee] – $0.99

Score-chasing arcade games are a god-send for iOS gaming. They’re a perfect fit for the platform, with endless play, quick gaming sessions, and tons of drive that always keeps you coming back for more. In my opinion, the AppStore will never have too many score driven arcade titles. The most recent addition to my Score-Chasing folder on my iPad is Chillibite Entertainment’s Stunt Bunnies Circus. 
This tap based arcade game has you controlling an extremely quick and agile rabbit who’s trying to save all of the falling rabbits from smashing into the floor. It sounds pretty basic, and the main idea is, but once you add in the fireball tossing rabbit, fireballs around the falling rabbits, cannons shooting rabbits every which way, the different types of rabbits, the snarling lions, combos needed to gain coins, things can get pretty hectic pretty fast. 
There are two modes of gameplay, Story, and Arcade (which is unlocked after completing Chapter 2 of Story Mode); Story Mode has you going through 8 level chapters, adding different mechanics as you go along, and slowly progressing in difficulty. Here, you need to try and save as many bunnies as you can from hitting the ground. Only being able to catch 5 rabbits in a row, you’ll need to keep making sure you drop them off before the next wave starts or else you could wind up missing quite a few of them. You’re able to earn coins if you catch more than one rabbit per tap, but you’re also able to align yourself mid-air. This does require more taps, and quickly, but once you get the hang of it, pulling it off is incredibly fun. As you catch bunnies, you’ll fill up a bar on the right side of the screen. Once this is full, you’ve completed the level. Arcade Mode is basically an endless mode. You’re able to miss 5 bunnies, and then it’s game over, but here, you’re able to earn quite a few coins which you can spend on power-ups which can help you get through Story Mode. 
With the coins that you collect in both gameplay modes, you’re able to purchase one time use power-ups. There’s Rocket Fuel, which doubles your jet pack speed for one round, Crash Mats, which gives you 3 mats which will each save one bunny from hitting the ground, and a Fire Jacket, which protects you from up to 10 fireballs in one round. Prices for these are fairly high, with Rocket Fuel priced at 100 coins, Crash Mats at 200, and the Fire Jacket at 500, they’re pretty much only there for Story levels that you’re having a very hard time beating, or when you’re ready to try and get a high-score in Arcade Mode. But you can pretty much count on either playing through the vast majority of the levels with no power-ups, or purchasing coins through IAP (1,000 coins for $0.99, 2,500 coins for $1.99 and 10,000 coins for $2.99). Now, I have nothing against IAPs in games, but having consumable items (and ONLY consumable items) in your game, with consumable IAP, and games that push you towards IAP with INSANE difficulty, or having to wait for 10+ hours before getting a couple gold pieces, kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Luckily, here, they aren’t required to play through the whole game, as you only need 1 star to move on from level to level, so you’re really pushed towards getting better at the game than purchasing coins, which I view as a positive addition to games. 
With Stunt Bunnies Circus priced at $0.99, being Universal, having pretty much endless replay value and GameCenter with a leaderboard and 26 achievements, it’s a nice score-chasing tap based arcade title. It’d be great to see even more bunnies added, some playable characters which could be unlocked, or more power-ups, but as it is now, it offers up some nice variety, a great challenge, especially if you’re going to go for 3 stars on every level, nice graphics and animations, and all-around entertaining gameplay. It’s very clear they know what it takes to make a fully rounded iOS title, and I’m hoping to see more from Jujubee Games in the future. 
Posted in: , , , , , , , , ,


June 14, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Cytus [Rayark Inc.] – $1.99

Music based games on the iOS are almost always a disappointment. Miku Flick and Groove Coaster are the only ones that come to mind that have really kept my attention for more than a couple of minutes. Now, Rayark’s first iOS title, Cytus is another game that I can add to that very small list. Having incredibly easy to understand controls and gameplay along with fantastic graphics and all coupled with a great soundtrack, Cytus might just be my favorite music game on the iOS to date. 
Cytus’s gameplay is centered around tapping on bubbles when the line following along with the tempo crosses over them. Helping you figure out what bubbles need to be tapped, they grow from grey into a brightly colored mix of purple, blue and pink when the tempo line is going up, and yellow, green and orange when the line is going down and they’re ready to be hit. This makes for some very simple gameplay, but offers up the possibility of some very complex tapping, and developer, Rayark takes full advantage of that. Starting off, you’ll be able to play through only a couple of the available tracks, and only Easy Difficulty will be accessible. Once you complete songs with specific ratings, usually a B or above, you’ll unlock more tracks, and getting an A will unlock the Hard Difficulty for that track as well. 
There are 15** available tracks within the game, and with a fairly wide mix of genres ranging from Jazz and Pop to Trance and Drum & Bass, there’s a pretty high chance that you’ll fall in love with at least one of the songs in the game. Even if you’re not a fan of the music, it fits in perfectly with the graphic look and feel of the whole game, and is by no means cheesy like quite a few of the music games available. 
However, even with the great gameplay, awesome graphics, nice music and all around fantastic feeling of the game, there are a couple of issues. The bubbles that you’ll be tapping on do have a fairly large area for a ‘Perfect’ hit and a ‘Good’ hit. This does make the gameplay a little more easy than I originally thought it would be when watching videos of gamers playing songs on hard difficulty. There’s also some sections which, unless you know the song and bubbles by heart, are almost impossible to hit right because of where your fingers are placed right before. This is mainly an issue when there are bubbles that need to be held down on the screen for extended periods of time, and not when there are just bubbles that need to be tapped quickly. While holding down on these, there’s almost always quick tap bubbles that don’t appear until you let up off of the screen, either hidden under the line of the held down note, or directly under where your fingers are. 
There are 3 leader boards on GameCenter, one for your Total Easy Score, another for your Total Hard Score, and one for your Total Score which combines the totals of both difficulties. This does add quite a bit of replay value to the game, especially if you’re a high-score chasing GameCenter addict like myself. With Cytus being Universal, and priced at only $1.99, it’s a no-brainer. If you’re a fan of Musical Rhythm Based games, Cytus is one iOS game that you need to have on your device. There’s also more songs coming in future updates, which will be available for free, which is always great to hear. For their first iOS title, Rayark has done an outstanding job with Cytus. Hopefully this is just a glimpse of what they have in store for iOS gamers in the future. 

** There are actually 19 tracks in the game. Once you unlock hard mode on the track “Precipitation” you can drag up or down on the screen with two fingers, unlocking the secret. Sorry about this.

Posted in: , , , , , ,


June 6, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Tap the Bomb – 0.99 (Parogames Limited)

Parogames first release, Parodise, a casual arcade slicer with one hell of a story, completely hooked me from the first time I played it. The amount of work that went into the story, as well as the crazy amount of content, different modes, great graphics, polish, and how insanely fun it was to play made me a fan of the developers very quickly. So when I heard about Parogames second release, Tap the Bomb, I was incredibly excited to check it out.

Tap the Bomb is set-up like Fruit Ninja, except with TtB, you’ll need to avoid the fruit, and tap the bombs. Who woulda thunk it, huh? Bombs and fruits are tossed up, down, and in from the sides of the screen, and it’s up to you to destroy all of the bombs. There are great scoring opportunities, with bonuses for critical hits (perfect hits), multi-tapping (tapping on more than one bomb at a time), and chain combos (tapping on a bomb that explodes, hitting another bomb and making it explode as well). With your points, you’re able to buy upgrades from the shop, which, in turn, will help produce higher scores. There’s also achievements that, when completed, you can cash in for more points to spend in the shop.
In the shop, you’re able to increase the amount of points that you’re given for your bonuses, like how many points you’re given on top of your original multi-tap bonus, and so on. There’s also an upgrade for how often rockets fly by on the screen. These rockets cause huge explosions, and if tapped at just the right time, can set off a huge chain combo. The last item in the shop is a health pack, this allows for a one time use health booster, giving you back one of the 3 hearts you’ll start each game with. The prices for items in the shop are not outrageous by any means, and even more surprising; there are NO IAPs. So you won’t have to worry about being nickel and dimed to death just to get on to the GameCenter leaderboards. Speaking of that, there is one GC board, which displays your highest score, along with 11 achievements, all adding to the already high replay value of this high-score based arcade tapper.
Now, with Parogames first title, Parodise, the story was a fairly important aspect of the game, however, here with Tap the Bomb, it’s not so much. There is a ‘Dumpedia’ in the main menu, which gives you the plot of the game, telling you why you’re blowing up these different bombs, background on each of the different bombs, as well as the fruit, the special rocket, and info on some characters from their game, Parodise, and what roll they play in why you’re blowing up bombs. It is a very nice addition to the game, and to the whole original Parodise story, but having a cut-scenes or something like comic strip sequiences after you have a 1,000+ point game, or after maxing out certain upgrades, would have been an awesome addition. I was hoping for more story elements in Tap the Bomb after Parodise had a story for every day that you were there slashing objects, but the lack of it shouldn’t distract from how great this game is.
Also included in Parodise were plenty of different modes that you could unlock while progressing through the game. Sadly, in Tap the Bomb, there is only one mode. This does bring the replay value down a bit, but not too much. Hopefully more gameplay content will be added in future updates. Especially with similar games having 4 or 5 different gameplay modes, it’ll be hard to compete with them, even with the inclusion of a story and ‘Dumpedia’.
The graphics and animations are top-notch, the gameplay is challenging and tons of fun, the store is a great addition, story elements are fantastic, and the scoring system is great. Add on the fact that Tap the Bomb is Universal, and only $0.99, and you’ve got a casual arcade game that’s very easy to recommend. Parogames puts a crazy amount of work and polish into their titles, it’s hard not to want to support them. They listen very carefully to every players comments and impressions, and deserve way more attention than they’ve gotten in the past. Hopefully Tap the Bomb does well in the AppStore, as I’d love to see more games from them in the future.
Posted in: , , , , ,


December 14, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Mad Chef – 0.99 (Foursaken Media)

Casual games have grown significantly in popularity over the last couple of years. Angry Birds is almost always #1 in the AppStore’s charts, followed by loads of other casual games. Weather you attribute this to heaps of people having iPhones and access to the AppStore when they previously were never really into video games, or that loads of people just want to relax when playing games instead of really getting sucked into something that can take over parts of their lives, you can’t deny that casual games are a huge driving force for the AppStore. Thankfully though, there are loads of developers out there that know that iOS gaming has drawn in tons of hardcore gamers as well, and are doing their best to produce games that appeal to both the casual and hardcore crowds. Foursaken Media happens to be one of these development teams, and their latest release, Mad Chef, is a prime example of a perfect mix between hardcore and casual gaming.

The controls are simple; tap. Yup, tap on pieces of food flying through the air to throw your utensil at them. But it doesn’t stay that simple. You’ll take control of a street-side fast food vender in a big city, trying to feed the masses. As customers walk up to your cart and give you their orders, your sous chef will be tossing up every different kind of ingredient you’ve got in your fridge, and you’ll need to tap on the correct pieces of food that will combine to make your customers orders.
As you progress from day to day, you’ll earn money which can be used to upgrade various different things. Your utensils, you can buy more recipes, send your sous chef to school, buy a bigger fridge, and get power-ups. With each day that goes by, you are rated by reviewers who will add to your reputation, and give you stars. The higher your reputation, the quicker you’ll earn stars, and the more money you’ll make because you’ll be able to help more customers at a time.
Graphics-wise, there is a feeling of the same type of look from Bug Heroes, but the environment and objects are much more vibrant, with tons of color. The gameplay is very smooth, with no slow-down, even during the rush hour stages, where there’s food on pretty much every single little part of the screen (you’re also able to just tap away, as the customers eat whatever you can give them).
With Mad Chef being Universal, and only $0.99, having GameCenter integration with 8 different leaderboards and 18 achievements, and basically endless replayability. Mad Chef is a game that every gamer should check out. Seeing more game-modes in the future would be a very nice addition, and maybe even some multiplayer, being able to compete against players around the world to see who can make the most money in a set amount of time would really set Mad Chef apart from the pile of casual arcade games in the AppStore, but with Foursaken Media’s extremely great support of their previous games, it’s pretty safe to say that they aren’t finished with Mad Chef. Here’s hoping it grows and truly becomes something special in the future.
Posted in: , , , , ,


December 10, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

BigBot Smash – 0.99 (Ayopa Games/Andrew Wang)

Full on destruction games are kind of a niche genre within the AppStore, there’s really only a couple of titles that I can think of using destruction as a core mechanic, Destructopus, Robot Rampage, and to a lesser extent, Blast Zone Mega, and Burn The City, which is really more in the line of an Angry Birds type physics puzzler, but you get the idea. It’s not a genre that’s been well expanded on. Andrew Wang, and Ayopa Games (W.E.L.D.E.R., Chicken Rescue) are giving us one more title to add to that very short list. Inspired by the classic arcade game, Rampage, and taking influences from The Simpsons and Futurama, as well as trying to incorporate the customization of Mechwarrior, BigBot Smash is now available for our iDevices, and fingertips that are hungry for destruction.

To start it off, the controls in BigBot Smash will take quite a bit of getting use to, but once you do, even more problems show their face. There are two different control schemes included in the game. The first control method uses the iDevice’s accelerometer, tilting to turn the world that you’ll be destroying. This can be extremely difficult to use, as you’ll need to turn your device completely around to turn your robot around, and tilt it in pretty uncomfortable ways to turn. Tapping on the screen controls your robots projectiles, and tapping on the robot will make it jump. If you tap on a building that is close to the robot, it will smash it with it’s fists. Here’s where it gets even more difficult. If the building is just a little bit too far away, you’ll shoot at it instead of smashing it, which takes up quite a bit of time, which can be pretty frustrating in the Speedrun Mode, but outside of the Speedrun Mode, it’s just bothersome. Tapping on your robot also does not always make it jump, sometimes it will jump, and other times it will destroy the building right in front of it. There are touch controls as well, which have the same sort of issues as the tilt controls, except you won’t be tilting your device in uncomfortable ways, instead, you’ll be dragging your finger on the screen to change the robot’s direction. However, this also has it’s own issues, as more than half of the time, dragging your finger across the screen is registered as a tap, and will result in the robot shooting it’s projectiles. It’s not so bad that you won’t be able to play the game, but once you hit stage 4 in the campaign mode, and the game gets a little more hectic, you’ll be constantly wanting to turn the game off out of frustration. The same goes for the speed demolition and survival challenge modes, once the game reaches that point where the action picks up, the controls become a real issue.
The graphics are decent enough, and the draw distance is great, especially considering how many objects are on the screen at one time. Even after you destroy a couple buildings, and the debris is laying all over the ground, the draw distance hardly suffers at all, which is very surprising.
If you can look past these, especially the control issues, which could be fixed in an update, BigBot Smash does have quite a bit of fun gameplay at it’s core. Using three different robots, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, you’ll smash buildings, blow up buses, police cars, squish people by walking on them or jumping onto them, and shoot them with your lasers, which will give you a nice little laugh when the sound effects for this go off, and you can hear the people scream when they die. In the campaign mode, you’ll need to destroy buildings, looking for pieces of your robot girlfriend. Within most of the buildings are parts that you can use to upgrade parts on your robot, along with some power-ups, and recharging items. In the speed demolition, you’ll need to destroy a set amount of buildings before the clock runs out, and in survival mode, you guessed it, you stay alive as long as you can. Both of these extra modes will have you collecting bits and pieces to upgrade your robots as well, but are not saved or transferred over to the campaign robot, so you’ll start from scratch every time you start to play in these modes.
For $0.99, it’s not a bad game by any means. The controls can be worked with, and might actually just have so many issues if you’re playing on a small screen. Gameplay videos on the iPad show the game in a completely different light, and since the game is Universal, you won’t need to buy an HD version to find out. There are GameCenter leader boards, though only for Survival and Speed modes, but do have 48 achievements to try and grab. There is quite a bit of replay value, and the core gameplay looks like it could be great fun. But until an update hits with some tighter controls, it’s hard to really give the game a fair play on my small screen, but I’m excited about having the opportunity to.

Posted in: , , , , , , ,


December 1, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

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.

Posted in: , , , , ,


October 23, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Airhead Adam – FREE (OrionArts)

Casual arcade games have become a staple of the AppStore over the last couple years, so it’s no surprised that this is the genre a lot of developers start off with. OrionArts has chosen this path, and done so wisely. Their first release, AirHead Adam, is a well thought out, easily accessible, perfect for all ages yet still challenging addition to the casual arcade genre.

In the game, you’ll control Adam as he searches the galaxy for his beautiful lost girlfriend, traveling through space in a bubble filled with air. You’ll need to guide Adam by tapping next to his bubble to push him in the opposite direction and gather air bubbles to keep him breathing, and stars to get upgrades. There’s also various hazards and obstacles in each level that you will need to destroy or avoid in order to progress through the game. Rocks, aliens, and space ships that shoot at you are around corners, and sometimes you’ll get boxed in by one, two, or all three of these. To get out of it, you’ll need to tap on Adam, and drag in the direction of the object you want to destroy, and he will shoot out some of his air in a bubble that will explode when it hits whatever object you’ve aimed at, and if you hit a space ship, collectable stars come flying out of it. You’ve got to be careful though, because this takes away from your air supply, and running out of air is a game over.
The screen moves at a steady pace, so you’ll constantly be moving Adam upwards through the rock maze, grabbing air bubbles. If you fall behind, and go off into the bottom of the screen, it will cost you an air tank, of which you will start off with one, but can buy more in the shop. This is sometimes a useful thing to use in levels that you’re having a hard time with, because once you sink into the bottom of the screen, and use your extra air tank, you will shoot up through rocks, bubbles, stars, aliens, and space ships quite a ways, putting you further into the level, and so long as you beat the level with your extra tanks, you will not have to play that level again, unless you want to come back to it later in the game when you’re more powerful. There are also power-ups littering each stage, shields, and meteors, as well as big air bubbles and huge stars, and it’s a good idea to try and collect each of these that you see. Some are hidden within big orange rocks and metal tanks, but there are also aliens hidden in these, so it’s always a gamble when breaking them open. However, it would have been nice to see more power-ups, like increasing your air bubble shot power for a short time, point multipliers, or speed increasers and decreasers.
There are 36 levels in the game, split up with 9 in each difficulty, Easy, Normal, and Hard. The levels are all lined up the same, like level 1 on Easy is the same as level 1 on Normal, but the speed is changed, and there’s a few more blocked in areas, and hazards making it just slightly harder. Normal and Hard levels are unlocked once you complete all the previous difficulties levels. You can also pay to unlock these, but if you haven’t gotten the previous difficulty mastered, chances are, the levels will be pretty frustrating.
This brings us to the IAPs. Now, at first, these might turn you off. Chances are, you’ll earn about 120 or so stars in the first 4 levels, and in the shop, upgrades to power-ups are all 1000 stars for the first upgrade, and more after that, and new characters are 4500 stars. With that, you might start thinking that it will take until level 30 or something to unlock one upgrade. However, at the end of your game, when you die, you are given the option to redeem stars that you have earned throughout your game while achieving various achievements. Things like getting 20 bubbles in a row, or 15 stars in one level, and these add up VERY quickly. At the end of my first game, I made it to level 9 on the easy levels, and ended up with 1500+ stars after everything was said and done. So gamers are not pushed as hard towards the IAP as you might think at first.
AirHead Adam is supported by OpenFeint and GameCenter, as well as having FaceBook and Twitter options to upload and share your high-scores. Within OF and GC, there’s a whole slew of leader boards to try and top, including ones for Best Overall Score, Best Overall Time, Total Easy Mode Score, Total Normal Mode Score, Total Hard Mode Score, your Best Time In Easy, Normal, and Hard, your Best Overall Fast Time, Top Bubble Combo, how many total Stars Collected, and more, along with 47 achievements. You can play the game slow and steady, collecting all the bubbles you can, or fast and dangerous, collecting only the minimum amount of bubbles, and getting to the end of each level as quick as you can. Both ways of playing have leader boards, and with that, it adds quite a bit of replay value on top of the leader boards, because you’ll want to go back and see how quick you can get through the levels if at first you went slow, getting the highest bubble combo you could, or go through slow, getting as many bubbles as you can if you flew through the levels the first time. There’s loads of planned updates, and right now the game is priced as free, so it’s definitely worth checking out, as even if you don’t buy any IAP stars, there’s plenty of gameplay to keep you entertained, as well as challenged. OrionArts has definitely proven that they know exactly what it takes to make a cute, fun, challenging casual arcade game that’s good for all ages, as well as keeping it full of gameplay even though it’s free, while giving gamers the option to support them through IAPs that are not necessary to complete the game. If they keep up this basic model with future games, they could very well be sitting pretty on top of a fairly large list of titles.
AirHead Adam gets a score of 8 out of 10.

Posted in: , , , , ,


October 15, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Finger Gravity – 0.99 (Wode Mobile)

Finger Gravity is a new physics based action puzzler developed by Wode Mobile. In the game, you’ll guide a hi-tech triangle through 39 intense levels, and two mini-games, each a way to perfect and test your skills. To navigate through the levels, you’ll need to tap on the screen in the direction you want your triangle to move, a line will then be drawn from your finger to the triangle, pulling it towards you.

Once you let go, the triangle will keep it’s momentum until either hitting a wall, or being pulled in another direction by another finger tap. Various hazards, obstacles, and enemies add quite a bit of challenge to the game while you try and snag each of the 3 well placed blue stars within each of the levels. With some skill, and maybe a little luck, you’ll be able to earn a 3 star ranking. To achieve a 3 star ranking, you’ll need to score over 8,000 points which are added up based on how many of the blue stars you grab, how quickly you do it, and how much total life, which is measured by a circle inside of your triangle, and slowly recharges, you’ve lost while bouncing off of walls and running into enemies. Scoring between 7,000 and 7,999 gives you 2 stars, and 6,999 to 5,000 will give you 1 star. Anything 4,999 and lower, and you will not be given a star.
To unlock the mini-games, you’ll need to get 30 stars for Finger Dodge, in which you guide your triangle around an open screen dodging mines and enemies that come flying towards you, and collecting stars that spawn in various places around the screen. Collecting a certain amount of stars will give you a shield which you can use to crash into the mines and enemies, adding to your points. 72 collected stars gives you access to the Finger Maze, where, you guessed it, you navigate through a maze as quick as you can.
The hazards, obstacles and enemies all fit together very nicely. There’s timed lasers, 8-sided cannons, pulsating mines, gravity orbs, rubber walls, portals, spider type enemies that move along a straight path, space ship type enemies that move in circles, and various types of walls/square objects to navigate around and through. All of these are used to put together some very interesting level designs, most of which have a quick and challenging solution to them, while others require a very slow, methodic, and well thought out course in order to get to the glowing green exit.
The graphics are done in a very polished and colorful vector style, while the animations add quite a bit of personality to almost everything within the levels. The music adds a sci-fi, outer space sort of feel to the whole game, while combined with the graphics create a great atmosphere.
Finger Gravity is supported by GameCenter, with a leader board for your total combined score of all 39 levels, along with 13 achievements. The replay value is pretty high, and it should take gamers a while to complete the game, especially if they want to snag all 117 stars. The difficulty level is pretty high on this one, and you should expect many, many deaths while making your way to the end of the game. You are aloud 5 level skips, in case you’re finding a level or two too hard, and just want to come back to them later, but being able to take your time in each level, almost all gamers, casual, and hardcore, will be able to see the end. The only bad thing I can say about Finger Gravity is that the framerate can get a little low, causing your triangle to skip a bit, and then disappear and end up somewhere else on the screen. With the game needing precision movements in order to get 3 star rankings, or even beat a level, experiencing these drops in framerate and skips can get pretty frustrating. It doesn’t happen every now and again, it’s very noticeable, in almost every level. Once this is fixed, Finger Gravity could definitely turn out to be one of the best games of the genre. At the moment, for $0.99, it’s worth picking up, because if you’re careful, and go through the levels slowly, the framerate issues won’t cause you too many “crashing into walls, enemies, or hazards” problems, but it will effect your score since your score is 1/3 based on speed, but this is a game that will keep your interest so long as a performance enhancement update is pushed out fairly quickly.
Finger Gravity gets a score of 7 out of 10.

Version Reviewed: V 1.0
Reviewed On; 4th Generation iPod Touch – iOS 4.3.3

Posted in: , , , , , ,


October 8, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Burn The Rope: Worlds – 0.99 (Big Blue Bubble)

Burn The Rope: Worlds is the sequel to the very popular Burn The Rope, by Big Blue Bubble (also responsible for Paper Munchers, City Of Thieves, Thumpies, the Fighting Fantasy series, and more). In Worlds, there’s more of the same great gameplay that made the original so popular, which is great, because companies that change up gameplay too much in their sequels, trying to find a new gimmick, generally upset the previous games fans. Big Blue Bubble has taken the approach of, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, expand on it”, and we really couldn’t be happier about this decision.

Fans of the original Burn The Rope will feel right at home when starting up BTR: Worlds. The controls work the same, rotating your device to keep the flame pointing upwards, but with better handling of the corners on each rope, which is a great addition, because there‘s more turns than ever in Worlds. You can also touch the screen to increase the speed of the flame. You’ll burn designs made of rope, trying to burn more than 60 percent of the shapes to move on. There’s also the bugs that change the flame’s color. Big Blue Bubble has added more of these bugs. There’s now fire bugs that when hit with a flame, will explode, causing everything in it’s radius to burn up, and sending multiple flames out in every direction, electric bugs, that when hit, will connect to another electric bug, and burn everything in-between the two, and more.
Within the Classic Mode, there’s 4 worlds, Jungle, Fantasy, Mechanical, and Space, each having 25 levels, and themes for each of the rope’s objects. You can play in any of the 4 worlds from the beginning of the game, as they’re all unlocked once you start. There’s also a Casual Mode, which gives you all of the same levels, without bugs. This means that there’s no colored ropes, and no extra special bugs you help or harm your progress in each level. Better yet, both Modes share progress, so if you’re having trouble with a specific level in Classic Mode, you can play it in Casual Mode, and then go back to Classic Mode, and try and finish the world.
Along with new bugs, new levels, and new mechanics, there’s bonus rounds, which come into play every 4 levels. In these bonus rounds, you’ll get to try and burn as many bugs as you can in a certain amount of time, giving you a time bonus for burning them all before time runs out. These bonus rounds do not effect your score on the game, and are more for fun, and adding to the gameplay. There’s also a new mode called Endless Burn, where you will get to play a snake-like game, where you’ll rotate your device to change the direction of a growing flame. Each bug you burn with the flame adds to the length. You can pick between 5 different types of flames, yellow, orange, purple, blue, and green, each with different size and speed, and each is unlocked by rating the game, liking the developer’s FaceBook page, sending your friend an e-mail, and things like that.
Also, to keep in the tradition of the original Burn The Rope, there are puzzles of the day, which are supported by ads. Free to play, but if you want to get rid of the ads for the daily puzzles, it’ll require an IAP of $0.99. This is a great way to add endless replay ability to the game, and give it more life on your device.
In the end, Burn The Rope: Worlds is done like Cut The Rope: Experiments. More of the same type of gameplay with a couple of expansions on the gameplay. Again, if you enjoyed the original Burn The Rope, Worlds will give you the same kind of great gameplay you fell in love with, just more of it. For $0.99, and loads of content, it’s a great buy. One that every puzzle fan should experience.
Burn The Rope: Worlds gets a score of 9 out of 10.
Links:

Posted in: , , , , ,


September 17, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >