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Draw Slasher: The Quest is a new side scrolling slice-em-up from Mass Creation. In it, you’ll take the awesome monkey, Hanzo, from Draw Slasher: Dark Ninja Vs. Pirate Monkey Zombies on a quest to defeat the evil demon lord that has attacked your village, and kidnapped your family and master. Along with the Quest Mode, Mass Creation has also included Challenges, Endless Modes, and Online Multiplayer.

Draw Slasher: The Quest is a huge step up from the first Draw Slasher game, giving us a stamina bar under our health bar that drains as we draw slashes on the screen. This allows for more slashes at once, and coupled with a quicker moving Hanzo, really adds to the amount of carnage you can dish out quickly. This makes the gameplay a lot better than the first Draw Slasher game, because if you remember, you could only have one slash on the screen at a time, and Hanzo wasn’t the quickest moving animal out there.

In Quest Mode, you’ll go through 6 stages of bloody mayhem, tracking down the demon that burnt your village and kidnapped your family and friends. Each of the stages has a boss battle, and an ability that you unlock after defeating the boss. These abilities are all upgradeable with experience points that you gain while slicing up monkeys and collecting the red orbs that are randomly spit out of the bodies of your enemies. You can also upgrade your health and stamina bars, each upgrade helping you a little more in your quest to save your loved ones. Mass Creation has also added quite a few new types of zombies. A Chef, slicer monkey, little zombie monkeys, interesting bosses, and ghosts of zombies, each needing different techniques to take out.

The Challenge Mode is filled with 25 different challenges, all unlocked from the moment you start up the game. Not having to finish one challenge to move onto the next is awesome. You’re also able to keep your upgrades from the Quest Mode, making Challenge Mode even more interesting as you progress in the game. Each challenge is different, and will test your slashing skills, and help you master new techniques. Getting 3 stars in each challenge will be quite a task, one that only the most skilled zombie slashers will be able to accomplish.

Survival, or Endless Mode, is set-up just like Dark Ninja Vs. Pirate Monkey Zombies. You’re given 3 options, Tower, Waves, or Hardcore, each having different scoring mechanics, and in Hardcore Mode, you’re given only your base health and stamina, making it extremely difficult. These modes where a great deal of time will be spent after you complete the Quest Mode, especially if you’re interested in climbing online leaderboards, as each mode has it’s own board in GameCenter. Online play is comprised of Survival and Competitive play. Here, finding a match with GameCenter’s Auto-Match can be kind of difficult, as there’s not usually people online waiting to play. But if you have friends on GameCenter who have Draw Slasher: The Quest, playing against them will be loads of fun.

The graphics are awesome. Slicing up the bosses in Quest Mode is pretty graphic, as each final blow is done in a sort of clip mode, where you trace lines on the screen, then watch as blood flies everywhere, and their limbs fall off. Throughout the game, the screen is almost always full of zombies, which means the screen is almost always full of blood and the zombie’s body parts. The animations are also very well done here, adding immensely to the atmosphere of the game. It’s also Universal, meaning retina and HD supported, so you’ll be able to see all the blood and gore the way it’s meant to be seen. Music and effects are pretty much the same from Mass Creations first Draw Slasher game, but I’m not complaining because they fit the game perfectly. The controls are also flawless, making gameplay very simple to understand and master. There’s two control options, a tap setting and virtual buttons, able to be set in the right or left bottom corners. With the Survival and Online Modes, along with 4 online leader boards, and 44 GameCenter achievements, there’s pretty much endless replayability. This is a top notch title easily worth the $3 asking price.

I’m giving Draw Slasher: The Quest a score of 5/5, and can easily strongly recommend it to adventure and action fans. Gamers who loved the first Draw Slasher game will love The Quest even more.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/draw-slasher-the-quest/id455087584?mt=8

Mighty Fin is a new arcade game from Launching Pad Games. In it, you’ll control a fish named Fin by tapping to dive, and letting go to fly up in the air. The further you dive down, the higher up in the air you’ll go, all the while collecting bubbles, and costume pieces, while avoiding obstacles, sharks, lobsters, and more. There’s 16 levels that change up each time you play them, meaning that you’ll never play the exact same level twice.

The gameplay is a lot like Tiny Wings, which means that yes, this game is great for everyone, from hardcore gamers to casual gamers, and everyone in-between. With 16 levels, each randomly generated, you also get Survival and Endless Modes with each one of them, meaning that there’s essentially endless replay value with Mighty Fin, and that’s always a great selling point. Each of the levels has scores for bronze, silver and gold medals, and a bubble path for you to try and follow, along with gold bubbles that help boost your score, and 60 different costumes to find and unlock so you can dress Fin up throughout the game.
The graphics in Mighty Fin are outstanding. Very polished, and very cute. Along with great animations for each object and life-form, the whole world of Fin is one that’s very vibrant and colorful, and pops with retina supported devices. The controls are tight and very responsive, and along with the physics, it makes for a game full of great arcade type action and you’ll never experience accidental deaths at the hands of the game.

The endless and survival modes for the beginning of the game can be quite easy, but don’t let that turn you off from the modes, because once you unlock some of the later levels, you’ll have your hands full trying to climb your way up the 24 GameCenter leaderboards. There are, however, no achievements, which is strange, because this game could have quite a few challenges that would be great if added to an achievement list.
The latest update for Mighty Fin was HUGE, doubling the size of the game. This gives me loads of hope for the future of Fin, especially if the developers keep adding content like this. It has certainly become a game that every gamer should have, joining the ranks of Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, Cut The Rope and Fruit Ninja, which is quite the achievement for any company. Being Universal, priced only at a buck, and full of content and endless replayability, it’s definitely worth more than you’ll pay for it.

I’m giving Mighty Fin a score of 5/5, and it’s really a game that’s recommended to everyone.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mighty-fin/id434539624?mt=8

iBlast Moki needs no real introduction, the physics-puzzle game from Godzilab is one of the most popular on the iOS, snagging the #2 game spot of all time on metacritic. So when iBlast Moki 2 was announced, everyone was eagerly anticipating this sequel, and for good reason. In iBlast Moki, you use bombs and other items to get Moki’s into the portal at the end of each level. The physics are amazing, the level design is top notch, and the environments are varied, and extremely vibrant. The sequel includes even more kinds of bombs and items to help the Moki’s reach the portals, the same amazing physics, even more interesting level design, and more vibrant environments, and it takes advantage of retina and HD display. There’s also a level editor and a level sharing service thrown in for endless hours of entertainment and fun.

In iBlast Moki 2, you’ll encounter some very interesting bombs, and you don’t need to play for hours to get into the new game mechanics. They are thrown at you almost from the beginning. Paint bombs that each have different characteristics, ropes, and balloons are some of the first you’ll see. There’s also objects that you can stick your Moki’s to in order to get them to the portals at the end of the levels. In the game, it’s your job to place bombs throughout the levels, and set them to go off at specific times in order to fling the Moki’s to the end while collecting all the flowers in each stage, and doing it as fast as you can. Your regular bombs are the ones that you’ll really have to play with trial and error getting the timing just right, making them explode at just the right time to send your characters off in another direction. This is done easily because the level resets every time you press the stop button in the lower left corner. The paint bombs, however, are more about where you place them, and timing isn’t really an issue with these. You’re given red, green, and orange bombs. The red acts as a bouncy liquid, and once your characters or any other objects touch it, they bounce up into the air. Green bombs act as glue, making your characters stick to whatever objects get covered in the liquid when the bomb goes off, and orange bombs act as turbo speed bombs, drawing your Moki to them, and shooting them forward at faster speeds.

Because iBlast Moki 2 is a physics-puzzle game, the physics are a huge part of it, and Godzilab has done an amazing job with them. Everything feels real, and sometimes it might seem like you’ll have to be a physics major in order to get the solutions on the first or second time through the level. I actually would not be surprised if Godzilab had some physics majors help them with this aspect of the game, as they’re done so perfectly. This, coupled with the superb level design, add a ton to the challenge of getting up on the high-score board that’s in-game in the pause menu. The top 3 scores for each level are shown, and if you’d like, you can pay 1 Moki coin, which you earn throughout the game, to see these top solutions. This, is something that’s already upsetting people. Some gamers work for hours on a level trying to get the best score they can, and then their solution, if one of the best, is saved to the server, and accessible to everyone for 1 Moki coin. Godzilab has commented on this issue, and said that they will come up with a fix for it in a future update, but until then, the best solutions for each level are there, ready to be seen by everyone, unless you play offline. This is the only bad issue I can find with iBlast Moki 2 though.

With 90 levels spread across 6 different environments, and a level editor that lets you share and download created levels, there’s pretty much endless gameplay. A cut-throat leaderboard helps immensely with the replay value, and like I’ve said, some people will spend hours with one level, and some might even spend weeks creating one. iBlast Moki 2 could very well end up being the best puzzle game in 2011, maybe even the best puzzle game for the iOS, period. The scoring mechanics are great, the graphics are cute and polished, physics are perfect, level design is mind bending, and the gameplay is endless. For $3, it’ll be pretty much impossible to find a better puzzle game out there. It’s highly recommended to fans of the genre, and new-comers to the scene alike, and is on sale for launch, so you can grab it now for a buck! The universal version is $3, and should shoot up to $5 soon. If you don’t have it yet, make sure you get it soon, because it’s going to be a game that you end up buying eventually after hearing everyone you know talk about it.

I’m giving iBlast Moki 2 a score of 5/5, with a strong recommendation to get it now.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iblast-moki-2/id437400857?mt=8

Ruffled: Feathers Rising is a free-roam 3D game from Pixelloop. In it, you play a bird set on taking revenge on the humans for invading their land. Just so happens that the only way you can take revenge on them is by covering them in feces, which actually makes for a pretty good game.

You’re given 5 different areas to exact your revenge; Residential, City Park, College Campus, Construction Yard and Downtown. Each is a huge open world in which you get to fly around collecting worms and gold pieces, flying through time circles, and nose-diving down to dump poo on unsuspecting people and cars. You’ll have different amounts of time for each level, starting at 5 minutes, and going up to 10, to rack up as many points and achievements as you can. There’s also practice modes for each level, which let you fly around, getting to know the layout of the level. Collecting worms adds to the amount of poop you get to drop on people and cars, while flying through rings extends your level time. You’ve got a rage meter at the bottom of the screen that rises with each successfully landed poo, and once it’s filled, the time stands still, and your points multiply. Entering Rage Mode is the only real way to get awesome scores.

Each level is filled with pedestrians and cars, and are pretty big. Flying around is done automatically, and you control your flight by pressing and dragging on the left side of the screen. The controls work reasonably well, but adding tilt controls would really help give the player the feeling of flight. The right side of the screen is tapped on when you want to drop one on someone. Each time you do, the camera follows your poop until it hits an object. This makes crashing into random objects in the world a pretty common occurrence unless you can manage to keep steering your bird while the camera is locked on your poop.

The graphics in Ruffled are pretty good. Environments are varied and detailed quite well considering how big they are. Walking and driving animations are a little funny looking, but they work. You can tell that each moving object is following a strict lined out path, but this does make it easier to plan your attacks and follow people around. The game runs relatively smooth, and hasn’t crashed or lagged out on me once. The music and effects fit the game and add to the atmosphere very nicely.

One thing I love about this game is that you can play it one of two ways. You can go achievement hunting, exploring the levels as thoroughly as possible, picking up every item you see. Or you can focus more on pooping on the people and cars, flying around in Rage Mode, and going for a high-score. I also love how each level is progressively longer than the last, and all unlocked from the moment you start up the game. So you can pick a level depending on how much time you want to spend playing the game.

There’s enough replayability to keep Ruffled on your device for some time, but without online leaderboards, you’ll only be able to beat your own previous scores. There’s also no story beyond the first intro images. It’s be great if after you finished a level, you’d get a cut-scene or series of images having the bird flying back to the flock, and telling of his wild escapades and achievements. If animations were cleared up, the story was expanded on, online functionality was added, tilt controls were thrown in, and the performance was cleaned up a tad, this would be one hell of a game. It does have Universal support going for it, so you can experience the great environments on both your iPod and iPad in the same resolution, and $2.99 for this open-world free-roam game is a pretty decent price. I do have high hopes for the game though, as the developers are active on the Touch Arcade Forums, and listening intently to iTunes AppStore reviews.

Ruffled: Feathers Rising is going to get a 3.5 out of 5 stars from me

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ruffled-feathers-rising/id448835495?mt=8

Cubes Vs. Spheres is a new 3D physics attack game by ShockPanda Games, creators of Space Bunnies, a personal favorite of mine. In it, you’re job is to fling spheres into cubes, protecting the circled area around your sphere chute. You’re given 30 levels, 10 in each difficulty of Easy, Medium, and Hard. The goal is to blow up cubes as they make their way towards you using different spheres that you can buy in the between levels shop; trying to produce huge combos by hitting cubes with bits and pieces of cubes that your spheres smack into and getting 3 stars, and a P, for “Perfect”, by not letting the cubes hit your area that‘s marked off within a circle.

The game’s graphics are very minimal, but this makes it so that the engine can handle huge waves of cubes coming at you. The minimal graphics work so well, and look so polished, that it’s hard not to see how impressive they are while you’re playing. The level designs are great, and the structures in which the cubes come off of, and out of once they come towards you get more and more impressive as the move on. I found myself just scrolling around the levels sometimes checking out the structures, not paying attention to the cubes, and ended up with huge waves of them coming at me. It’s really a great looking game.

You’re given 6 different spheres, that come out of a chute inside of your area. They are selectable at the bottom of the screen, and do not appear until you decide which sphere you want to fling at the cubes. There’s your regular sphere, which you can upgrade to split into 3 and 5 other spheres by tapping on the screen after you fling it at cubes, a fire sphere that explodes on impact into about 8 smaller spheres, a big black sphere that squashes cubes, and can smash through them, hitting cubes behind it, a sphere that locks on to the closest cube to your area, a freeze sphere that slows down cubes, and a decoy that draws cubes to it, exploding after a certain amount of time. You end up unlocking these with credits earned throughout the game, and need to keep buying them in order to use them. This isn’t a real problem though, because you’ll earn enough credits in each level for about 15 different spheres or more, and helps add to the strategic side of the game.

There are only 3 different cube enemies in the game. Red cubes, which you will see a lot of, black cubes, which are mixed in with the red cubes, and are more powerful, and harder to destroy, and sometimes cubes that are almost invisible. There are not very many of the invisible cubes throughout the game, but you will be checking the sides of each level just to make sure you know when they’re there or not. It would have been nice having more types of enemies, maybe enemies that are immune to some of your power-up spheres. Seeing a flaming cube that could melt your freeze spheres ice, or an assassin cube that could take out your decoy would have been awesome. But with the three enemies in the game, you get enough variety to keep you busy, and with the cubes moving differently each time you play the levels, you’ll never have the exact same experience twice. This randomized intelligent movement is great, and coupled with the GameCenter leaderboards, 3 star and P rankings, and achivements, add immensely to the replayability of the game.

The physics in a game like this are very important, and ShockPanda Games has done an amazing job getting it just right. Seeing each cube explode when it’s hit with a sphere or bits of an exploding cube is awesome, and really nice eye candy and the spheres feel like they actually have some weight to them. The music in Cubes Vs. Spheres is fitting, minimal but kind of catchy, and fits with the atmosphere, but the effects for throwing spheres and hearing them bounce kind of made them sound like hippity hops that were filled to the extreme, and about to blow up. You are given two control schemes, one is tilt to turn, and the other is swipe to turn. Both work very well for this type of game, but there were a couple of times the screen would end up shooting upwards when I tried to fling my ball forward using the swipe controls. Not often, but it did happen. I’m giving Cubes Vs. Spheres 4.5 out of 5 stars, because even with it only having 3 different enemies, and experiencing a cube getting stuck way in the back of a level, unreachable, and having to replay that level, it’s an awesome game. Very well made, very polished, challenging, and a blast to play. The replayabilty is off the charts, and it’s one game that will never leave my device. For $0.99, including retina display, and being Universal, it’s a great deal. ShockPanda has definitely put a lot of time and effort into this game, and with them taking part in the Touch Arcade thread, I have no doubt that this game will get even better with only a few updates.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cubes-vs.-spheres/id434117289?mt=8

Vertex Blaster is a new dual-stick space shooter from Warner Skoch. In it, you travel around a sphere, blasting away enemies, upgrading weapons, dropping bombs and going for a high-score. There’s 3 different game modes, each with different play styles. Arcade Mode, Meteor Shower Mode, and Survival Mode. Giving us loads of gameplay packed into this great game.

Arcade Mode, which drives you to get as many points as fast as you can, giving you more powerful weapons the more points you earn. The quicker you gain points, the better the weapon you’re given. Usually going after asteroids here helps boost your weapon quicker, giving you a bunch to shoot at in a very compact area. Two types of bombs are key here, one is a decoy bomb, and the other is a regular, drop and explode bomb. Decoy bombs leave a decoy of your ship behind, and are very useful for distracting the multitude of enemies that will be swarming you on the sphere. You’re awarded more bombs as your score progresses, regular bombs every 100,000 points, and decoy bombs every 150,000 points.

Meteor Shower Mode is a mode without enemies. You’ll just spend your time blowing up waves of asteroids, and protecting buildings on the surface of the sphere. There’s no bombs in this mode, but you do get a repair beam which helps you keep the buildings up and standing. In this mode it’s very important that you don’t hit the buildings with your weapon, or it’ll damage them, and also make sure not to hit asteroids with your repair beam, or else they will get bigger, giving you more of a problem while trying to keep your buildings safe. The last mode is Survival Mode. In this mode, you gain points by staying alive. You can’t earn extra bombs, and you don’t gain points by killing enemies. This is more of a dodging mode, waving through the swarms ofenemies coming at you, trying to stay alive. You’ve only got one life in Survival Mode, so it tends to be the hardest mode out of the three, but is also just as fun. This mode is better for little spurts of gameplay.

The graphics in Vertex Blaster are great. The game looks and plays like a retro version of Super Stardust HD. The simple graphics are presented in retina display, and the game is universal, so you’ll be able to enjoy the nice crisp graphics on your iPad as well. You can also pinch to zoom in and out of the sphere, taking you closer in, or further away from the action, which is a very nice addition to the game. The controls are spot on, and very responsive, even though the sticks don’t move, you won’t really notice while playing, because you’ll be pretty focused on the super smooth action going on in the center of the screen. The bomb buttons are placed on the right side of the screen, one above and one below your firing stick. GameCenter leaderboards are included, along with loads of achievements, making the replayability factor pretty high.

All-n-all, Vertex Blaster is a nice solid dual-stick space shooter. One that I’m very happy to have in my collection. The only complaint I have is that a couple of times, in the pause menu, I’ve accidentally hit ‘Return To Menu’ instead of ‘Resume’ causing me to loose my game. If the developer made it so that you were asked if you were sure you wanted to quit, it would fix accidents like this from happening, but I can’t really hold it against the developer because it was my own fault. It would also be nice if there were more weapons added. It is very nice not having to pick up weapon upgrades, and that they happen automatically, but it seems like a variety of weapons would be a very welcome addition to this game. Auto Pause for when you take both thumbs off of the screen would be a very nice addition as well. Lots of dual-stick shooters have this mechanic in their game, and it seems to work really well. The last thing I would like to see changed is that you’re thrown right into the action after you hit the button for whichever mode you decide to play. Having a countdown once your ship hits the sphere would be a great way to avoid some unfortunate off-the-bat deaths. Vertex Blaster is getting 4.5 out of 5 stars, and is recommended to any fan of the dual stick genre. At $0.99, it’s an awesome deal, and will definitely give gamers hours upon hours of entertainment.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vertex-blaster/id453873865?mt=8

Tower Defense games have been  becoming increasingly common since the beginning of the App Store.  Anomaly: Warzone Earth radically changed the tried and true formula by putting you in the place of the attacking forces.  How will this new tower defense game hold up to the new standards of customers and how does it improve and change the genre? Find out after the break!
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Thank you for watching Channel 9 News now back to the story of the day. A local game company called Lambadu Games has released their game into the loving hands of Apple.  Unfortunately the expected release date is not in fact the 18th but the 25th which is a surprising and heartbreaking development to us all. The good news is that we will be able to give you a detailed look at what is actually in this game so it will be just like you have it on your device except you wont and we will….just saying… Anyways this seems to be a very good remix of the genre and I feel will be well received in the gaming community.
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The first amazing change they introduced is the fact that it is played in the vertical position(that means up and down) which is always good because it makes you look like your doing work or something else you should be doing.  On the playing field you have a few places where you can set your towers.  You cant just set them anywhere and I imagine that you will be forced to strategically choose where you want certain towers to best win the round.  Another interesting innovation is the fact that you can place a tower next to a  tower of a different type and influence it to have a different attack like a slow splash attack for instance.  New towers are introduced through the course of the game  and you combine different towers to form entirely new ones.  After you beat a level you get BioMatter which you can use to buy things in the inventory shop that will upgrade all your towers on the field.  In order to gain their benefits you have to equip them in the slots which also adds more strategic elements to the game.  Overall this is definitely a nice turn on the genre and reminds me a lot of GemCraft except more fun and better visuals.
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There are 3 different modes to play through Novice, Veteran, and Elite.  I assume there are different levels after you complete each mode but there is a possibility there are not as well.  Regardless that will give you a opportunity to stock up on the BioMatter and earn new powerups.  As far as replayability goes you can try to score a perfect on each level which can be very difficult as it is very likely a lucky enemy will slip past your carefully planned defenses.  One of my favorite things about the levels was that there is a huge boss  at the end of each of them so you always have to be thinking of the endgame and what defenses you should put up.
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Overall, this is a excellent take on the genre and quite a few new features make the game fun and enjoyable to come back to. Combined with excellent retro graphics and a lovely shop system this game will find itself on your device for a very long time. You can play it on all devices as it is a Universal Game.  Its coming soon to an AppStore near you on the 25th! I rate it a 9/10.

Before I begin the review I must say that there’s no way you could miss this game on the App Store if you were roaming based on the icon. Just look at that icon! It’s EPIC! Okay enough with my love of the icon, time to get into what Vermes On Mars [$0.99 (Universal)] by Aztlan Games is all about. Vermes On Mars is a sci-fi based shooter game with the setting being the “Red Planet” or Mars for short. In this game you guide 4 vehicles around in search of the assorted worms hiding in the soil. The worms pop up out of the soil whenever you get close to them. The mission is to try to defeat all the worms in a level. The controls in this game are very simple. You can tap on the left or right side of the screen to switch from moving and

shooting. Moving your vehicles is extremely simple. All you have to do is swipe on the area of the screen that you want your vehicles to move to. Then they will line up along the area that you swiped on. When it’s time to shoot, just tap on either the left side or the right side of the screen (your choice) to switch over to the shooting mode. Just swipe on the part of the screen where the worms are at just like you would do if you were trying to move. Your vehicles will turn their attention to shooting in that spot that you directed them to. In the shooting mode you can’t move your vehicles so just tap on either side of the screen again to switch into a different mode. Each level has a given time limit that requires you to find all of the worms before you run out of time making it GAME OVER! As I mentioned before, there’s an assortment of worms that have their own special attributes. Every worm has their own way of destroying your vehicles. Some happen to be deadlier than others. Sometimes a level gets hectic so you can use some of the power-ups that you’ve earned located at the bottom of the screen. There’s a power-up to heal your bots, to destroy all the worms in sight coming after you, and even more. At the end of each level you gain money that you can use in the workshop to upgrade your current bots weapons, health, and magnetic field. You can also purchase

new bots that are much stronger than your previous ones. There’s currently over 30 levels to play through so you’ll have enough to upgrade your bots. The only bad thing is that you can’t replay levels that you’ve already beaten. Other than that this game is a lot of fun to me. Overall Vermes On Mars is an entertaining sci-fi shooter with nicely done visuals and a great user interface. My final rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars. It would be 5 out of 5 stars if you could replay previously beaten levels. You can check out Vermes On Mars by Aztlan Games for only $0.99 here. It’s also universal so that’s a plus!