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Real time base defense games have generated quite a following in the iOS gaming world. Cartoon Wars was my, and probably a whole lot of other’s, first foray into this genre. Even though there’s not a whole lot of variety throughout the genre, they really seem to sell well, and are almost always fairly addicting. I recently was able to get my hands on Funny Hell, developed by Fazen and published by the ever popular Bulkypix.

Like others in the genre, Funny Hell has you sending out various characters to battle the enemy. However, in Funny Hell, you’re given a mission or two at the beginning of each stage, which does set it slightly apart from other titles. The first 10 of 50 levels, that are split up across 5 different worlds, each leading you closer to the center of ’hell’, and each having an available 3 ‘skull‘ ranking, are set up like tutorial levels, adding another character to the line-up, and getting you acquainted with the enemies, and gameplay in general. Most of these levels are completed when you send out a certain number of characters, or kill a certain amount of enemies. After this, the gameplay picks up fairly quickly, with the first real stage’s mission having you survive for 3 minutes and 30 seconds, which, believe it or not, can prove to be quite the challenge, not often, but sometimes to a frustrating extent. There are more of these mission type levels as you progress throughout the game, having you save up a certain amount of coinage, or kill a certain amount of one type of enemy. It does add some extra strategy behind the already fairly strategic gameplay. Each of your characters has a certain ability, generally either shooting a projectile, or having a strong attack. There are some which both fire projectiles and melee attack, but cost more as well. You will need to go through some trial and error figuring out which enemies require which units to be sent out to ensure the most possible damage is done, but once you figure it out, deciding when on the battle field they should come into contact with each other also becomes part of the strategy. You’re able to build an offensive attacking stone type character on the side of your base, which tosses projectiles out, but only within a certain range. If you’re having trouble with some enemies, sometimes waiting for them to make it down towards your base so that you can also attack with that stone character is the best course of action. It makes for some challenging, and entertaining gameplay.

The graphics and animations are fantastic. Graphics-wise, the game is fairly cartoony, and very vibrant with loads of color. The character and enemy designs are done very well, and fit the extremely vibrant cartoon looking environments to a “T”. The animations for attacking, movement, falling objects, coins bouncing around, death, they’re all fantastic, really adding quite a bit to the entertainment. The BGM that’s included with the game brings it all together to create one hell of a great base defense game.

Funny Hell is definitely a release that deserves it’s $2.99 price tag, and then some. Being universal, and coupled with incredible replay value, emphasized by the addition of GameCenter leaderboards for Coins, Killed Monsters, and Skulls, along with an incredible 60 achievements to try and unlock. There’s quite a bit of challenge here, especially if you go ahead and try and grab 3 skull rankings on each stage. Having missions for each of the stages does bring some originality to the game, which is great to see within the base defense genre. It looks like December is a great month for Bulkypix publications. Fazen has created an extremely polished, and well produced title, and I can’t wait to see what they bring iOS gamers in the future!

As I said in our review for the Bulkypix title, Funny Hell, base defense games have gained quite a bit of fans in the AppStore. The iDevice is a prefect platform for the genre, and almost all of them do well in the AppStore, because the genre has such a dedicated following. However, it’s hard to find one that brings something new and original to the table. Here’s where Soma Games (developers of Bok Choy Boy and a favorite of mine, G: Into The Rain) picks up at with their release of Wind Up Robots, a base defense game with a fantastic story, loads of polish, an awesome upgrade system, and great gameplay. You’ll control various robots that have been built by Jack, the grandfather of a young boy named Zach. These robots are used to vanquish the darkness that dwells within the world. You’ll use them to guard Zach of the evil that’s trying to get at him while he sleeps.

In order to do this, you’ll need to equip your robot box with the robots that you want to use for the stage. As you progress through the game, more robots are added to your arsenal. Once you have your set-up, and start the level, each of the robots are shown at the bottom of the screen. To select them, all you need to do is tap on them, and then tap on where you want them to go on the bed where Zach’s sleeping. While you do this, evil creatures will start spawning at the end of the bed, and will be making their way towards you. If you end up placing your robots on the edges of the bed, you might just miss the evil creatures walking in the middle, so it’s best to have them placed more towards the head of the bed, at least at first. With this lay-out, you risk not being able to defeat the creatures before they run into Zach’s head, taking away his “Z’s”. So in the beginning of the game, there is quite a bit of risk/reward, and strategy in where you place your robots. After a couple levels, you can start using the shop to upgrade your robots with the coins that are picked up as you defeat enemies in-game. Here, you can increase their attack, defense, speed, and more, making it easier to place them in various places around the bed, not needing to risk them passing you and running directly into Zach. The money you collect, as well as the upgrades you purchase also carry over to a new game, which is awesome. If the game becomes too difficult, starting over can drastically decrease the challenge depending on how upgraded your robots are. This comes in handy, especially when younger kids are playing.

The graphics and animations in Wind Up Robots are incredibly well done. They create an atmosphere that totally immerses gamers in to the gameplay. Considering the monsters only come out at night, you will be playing in dark rooms throughout the game, but because of this, the robots bight colors, and the light given off by them while taking care of the creatures, really stands out in a fantastic way. It’s not so dark that you are unable to see the objects found throughout the rooms, which is great, because they really give you the feeling that this is a house with a young boy living in it. Really, the game’s graphics and animations remind me of Disney movies, Toy Story in particular. The music is also a great addition to the atmosphere of the game, bringing the entire gameplay experience around, full-circle, making it an incredibly smooth, polished, fun game to get yourself wrapped up in.

For $0.99, and the game being Universal, it’s a fantastic buy. GameCenter is included, with 4 leaderboards for the Quick Play Survival Levels, adding even more replay value to the game. There are also 22 achievements to try and unlock, which also throws quite a bit of replay value at ya. The gameplay is suited for both adults, and kids, though it can get pretty challenging, which is where the carried over upgrades comes into play. If you’re a fan of base-defense games, and are looking for something new and original, Wind Up Robots is a perfect title to pick up. Soma Games has done an incredibly good job, and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us in the future, both with updates for Wind Up Robots, and for future games they might end up releasing!

The Unreal Engine has considerably opened up the world of iOS gaming since it’s introduction late last year. Games taking advantage of the engine generally have incredible graphics and fantastic gameplay. Dungeon Defenders, Infinity Blade, Dark Meadow, Gyro13, these are titles that truly take advantage of what Unreal can do on the iDevice. However, there are a few titles that really do not grab onto everything that Unreal has to offer. Sadly, Puya Dadgar’s title, Arrow of Time is one of these titles.

First off, the graphics in Arrow of Time are done fairly well, however, the animations are really clunky, and not very impressive. Most of the time, it looks like characters are sliding along the ground while running or walking, and it looks like multiple frames have been left out of most of the animations.

There are various cut-scenes throughout the game, which are not terribly voice-acted, but there is no option to skip, and no pause button, so you’ll need to set aside a certain amount of time when you have no chance of being bothered. Some of the cut-scenes give you information which you’ll need in order to progress through the game, so they can be fairly important.

Summed up, Arrow of Time is a game that still needs a lot of work. It feels like a demo or beta version of what could eventually wind up being a decent game. Considering the game was made by two people over a period of 3 months, it’s not incredibly bad. However, the game shows that it was made by two people who worked on it only for 3 months. Priced at $1.99, it’s one of the cheapest Unreal powered games you can get in the AppStore, and the game is Universal. There is no GameCenter or OpenFeint integration, but the game doesn’t really call out for it. Basically, if you’re dying for a 3rd person action adventure game, Arrow of Time might be worth picking up. It does have 8 ratings in the US AppStore, 7 of them are 5 star ratings, however, if you read them, most of them sound like they are from friends or people that might know the developers. Hopefully, Puya Dadgar has plans of working on the game, and fixing as many issues as they can in future updates, but as it is now, it’s a very frustrating experience.

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.

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.

Polarbit is no stranger to the AppStore, and their games are not lost on iOS gamers either. Fuzzies, Raging Thunder, Armageddon Squadron, and more, have all invaded iDevices, and marked their territory. The next obsession for Polarbit fans is now here; Tank Riders. This 3D tank battle game with both single and multiplayer modes offer up some pretty exciting gameplay.

You’ll guide a tank through 25 campaign levels using one of two control schemes; a virtual joystick for movement, and tapping where you want to shoot, and two virtual joysticks, one for movement, and one for firing projectiles. However, the second control scheme requires that you tap on the joystick every time you want to shoot, which can kind of get frustrating in the heat of battle. There are 3 star rankings for each level, based on score, which does help add to the replay value a bit.

Now, I’d love to get into where most people would like to be spending their time in the game; multiplayer. But after spending roughly a total of an hour and a half in the game room waiting for other players, I was saddened when NOT ONE other person showed up. So I can’t speak for what multiplayer is like, if it has lag, or if players have found cheats yet. I can say that there are 5 different maps to choose from, and they all look great from the small icon pictures of them that are shown, and there are no level systems, so everyone will start out with the same amount of health, defense, and weapons. Aside from that, I hope that sales pick up so that we can actually play multiplayer games.

Priced at $1.99, and being Universal, it’s a great buy. However, with multiplayer suffering, the lack of GameCenter, and only 25 single player levels, there’s not a whole lot of gameplay available at the moment. If sales pick up, I can see multiplayer becoming a big deal, especially if it’s got smooth gameplay. There are a couple of issues, like occasional short time freezing of the game, not triggered by anything specific as far as I can tell, and the sound cutting out for a short time if you get a call and come back to the game in-progress, all of which can be fixed with updates. Tank Riders is still a top notch tank battling game. One that looks and plays great, and is from a very responsive and supportive development group, so you know it’s only going to get better and better with future updates, which does make it fairly easy to recommend. If you’re a fan of the genre, or just action/arcade games in general, you should definitely pick it up, and help spread the word so we can get some multiplayer gaming on.

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.

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.

At first, rail-shooters did not seem very appealing to me. Not being able to explore or move around at will in a seemingly open environment really took away from the gameplay. I couldn’t understand why developers would take away the ability to walk around. But over the last couple years, that view has changed quite a bit. Titles like Doom Resurrection, Red Gun, Silent Scope, and the ever popular Time Crisis, as well as the small amount of space type shooters like ExZeus, Dark Break and Wizard Ops have completely turned me, and made me a fan of the genre, which I’m very thankful for, because without a lot of these great titles, I wouldn’t have thought twice about checking out Infinity Blade, Dark Meadow, Rage or any other fantastic on-rails titles. What does this have to do with anything, you ask? Well, without all of these titles, Ninja Hoodie, by Ink Vial Ltd, would have completely gone under my radar, not getting even a second glance. And boy would I have been missing out.

The controls in Ninja Hoodie are spot on, and work very well for this type of game. You’re able to drag across anywhere on the screen to aim, and are given block and attack buttons in the lower right corner. The dragging works very well, and to keep your finger out of the action, you’re able to roll your finger around while it’s sitting on the ninja’s back, giving you nice and accurate control over where you’ll be flinging your Shrunken. There are also sensitivity options in the pause menu.

The health and power of your attacks is tied together with a bar at the bottom of the screen. While you’re flinging your shrunken around at all of the enemies on screen, the bar fills up with each successful hit on an enemy. When an enemy ends up hitting you, or you don’t block a shrunken from the enemy, the bar will go down. Each time the bar fills up, it’ll change colors, meaning that your attack is now stronger. The only bad thing about this is that the bar doesn’t really let you know when you’re close to death, which can be pretty frustrating, especially with bosses in the later parts of the game.

Aside from that, everything about this game screams awesome arcade set-up. The game is not supported by OpenFeint or GameCenter, but it does have it’s own in-game leaderboard, which, as you know, helps keep hackers from submitting their scores, but also does not allow for competing against friends. But for $0.99, it’ll be hard to find another rail-shooter with as much action jam packed into every single second of gaming that you’ll get with your purchase, on top of that, it has some extremely nice artwork within the comic-book cut scenes, and priced at $0.99, being Universal, and tons of fun, it’s a great buy for anyone who’s into arcade titles. Hopefully Ninja Hoodie is just the beginning of what Ink Vial Ltd. has to offer for iOS gamers in the future.

10tons Ltd. is definitely not new to the AppStore. Their first iOS release, Rope Raider, showing up in the AppStore on November 4, 2009, was, even then, a prime example of what 10tons could do with the platform. Since then, 15 more releases have followed, each time, gaining more of a following, though it’s fairly safe to say that Sparkle the Game has been their most successful endeavor, it’s very clear that they know exactly what it takes to create a top notch game, appealing to both casual and hardcore gamers. Their latest release, Swingworm, is yet again, another prime example of that.

In the game, you’ll guide a worm named Swingy through an amazing 95 levels by grabbing either the front or back end of the worm, and swinging it from platform to platform, collecting the Rubbaberries that are scattered throughout the stages. Once you’ve collected all of the berries in a level, an elevator will activate, and take you to the next level. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. In order to reach most areas, you’ll need to figure out how to use the momentum of the worm while swinging so that either his head or end will attach to the leaves, which are pretty spread out, and it can sometimes pose a small challenge getting from one to the next. Each of the levels has a possible 3 star ranking, adding quite a bit of replay value to the game. To get a perfect 3 stars, you will need to complete the levels as fast as you can. There is a time limit bar shown in the top left corner, each time it fills up, a star is removed from your ranking. Once you complete the level, you’re shown the total time it took you to complete the level, and what time you’ll need to get the next best star ranking, which is very nice. I really wish all star ranking based on time games did this.

The graphics and animations done for Swingworm are top notch. The game is split in to Episodes, with the first having 10 levels, then Episodes 2-4 having 15, and 5-6 having 20, each Episode has a different environment, which also introduces new obsticles, objects, and hazards you can use, manipulate, or need to avoid. For instance, some levels have ice blocks you’ll need to swing into to break, others will have logs that rotate, which you’ll need to swing around on, gaining momentum to reach other platforms. All of the graphics are done in a cute cartoony way, reminiscent of Joining Hands, with the backgrounds filling in the holes of the levels perfectly, and the story breaks between the episodes, with Swingy talking to Big Bug helping round everything out. The animations for Swingy’s, enemies, and other character’s movement, objects breaking, Swingy attaching to objects, and collecting Rubbaberries is all very well done, allowing for the gameplay to flow very well, and come together in a near perfect harmony. To top it off, the cute and bouncy soundtrack, fitting the game to a ’T’ completes the atmosphere.

With GameCenter leaderboards for total Episode times on each of the 6 Episodes, and 14 achievements, the replayabilty is extremely high, and the drive to better your time is constantly looking you in the face. It’s arguable that Swingworm is 10tons best release since Sparkle the Game, bringing all of their knowledge of what it takes to make a top notch mix of casual and hardcore gameplay fit perfectly into an action puzzler. $2.99 is a great price for this Universal build, especially with the insane replay value, and incredible amount of content. Swingworm ends up being a game that’s extremely easy to recommend for gamers of all ages.

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

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

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

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