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Fly Wars: Conflict is a new action strategy game from B&C Mobile. In it, you will move flies around each level, shooting other flies, and collecting poo, trying to kill the enemies before they kill you, and getting the best score you can. There’s blocks that you’ll need to shoot through, break, and bounce your bullets off of in order to defeat the other team, but the controls are somewhat finicky, making the gameplay harder than it needs to be.

To control your fly, you’ll need to tap on it, and then tap on where you want them to go. Aiming is done with a bar on the right side of the screen, but you can only shoot in about a 45 degree area. Now, if you’re aiming, and you try to tap on your fly to move it, you can’t. The game has one touch controls, and can get pretty annoying, even in the early levels. In a game like Fly Wars, where you need to move to different areas of the screen and set up your shots as quick as you can, having a multi-touch interface is almost a necessity.

Aside from the control issues, Fly Wars looks decent, and does have some pretty nice strategic gameplay. It might be hard to understand how to play at first, as the developer is not a native English speaker, and the instructions are pretty hard to understand, but once you catch on, which should be pretty quickly, it’s a piece of cake to play. You start off with the lowest level fly, who can only fire one bullet at a time. You’re also occasionally given helper flies that you can not move or control. After progressing through 3 levels, you’ll get the next fly up, that can fire two bullets at a time, and then every 3 levels after that, a stronger fly is unlocked. You’re given a total of 6 slots for flies, but you only start off with 1 slot open. Slots then open up about every 10 levels, so by level 11, you’ll be controlling 2 different flies.

The levels are split up in groups of 10, with 90 stages total. Each group of 10 levels is set in a different environment, with different objects to bounce your bullets off of as you move on, some of which are really pretty interesting, and do add quite a bit to the gameplay. The backgrounds aren’t really anything too special, but do fit the graphical style, and are noticeably different as you move on.

It does have a GameCenter leader board for your total score, but aside from that, there’s no achievements, and no real reason to replay any of the levels unless you die before beating them, so it’s a good thing there’s 90 levels. The scoring is alright, and the graphics are good. You’ll probably fight with the controls in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, the gameplay does get better. For $0.99, it’s a good strategy action game, and if you’re into the genre, it’s a game that’s definitely worth checking out. There’s tons of objects that do make the gameplay very interesting as you progress through the game, and with the 90 levels, it’ll take quite a while to finish the game. I am looking forward to updates that will hopefully add some multi-touch controls, and am very interested in seeing what B&C comes up with next.

Fly Wars: Conflict is getting a score of 8 out of 10.

Tapsteroids is the first iOS game from UNAgames, a two person team based in Italy. Daniele, who worked for 7 years on high-budget games for the Amiga, PC, and first-generation consoles, and Erika, a mathematician who works on 2D and 3D graphics. After playing Tapsteroids, hearing this information doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise. The action filled tap/arcade game has that ‘one more play’ feel to it, and it is made extremely well, with loads of polish, and tons of challenge.

In Tapsteroids, it’s your job to keep navigation routs safe to travel by wiping out waves of asteroids that are hurtling through space. To do this, you’ll be given an unlimited number of missiles, and are able to pick up extra weapons as you progress through the levels. To get rid of the asteroids, all you need to do is tap on them, and which-ever weapon you have equipped will automatically fire at it. The extra weapons are picked up by tapping on them, and selected by tapping on the space station, pausing the game, and then tapping on the weapon you’d like to use.

There are three difficulties in Tapsteroids, but when you’re playing, the difficulty automatically goes up as you progress through the game. Easy difficulty is levels 1 through 4, Medium is 5 through 9 and Hard is 10 and up. Selecting Medium or Hard difficulty at the beginning of a game will automatically start you at level 5 or 10. This might turn some people off, but if you’re into older games, and love the difficulty levels of old-school NES/SNES and SEGA games, you’ll probably feel right at home with Tapsteroids.

Only having one mode is something else that might turn people off. An endless or survival mode would be awesome to have, but as it is now, Tapsteroids is a very entertaining game, with tons of replay value. The GameCenter leaderboards and 21 achievements help add to that too. It’s a very professional game with loads of polish, and tons of potential for the future. If the developers keep adding to the game, this could easily turn into one of my favorite arcade tapers for the iOS. $0.99 is a great price for endless gameplay, and tons of action. Get it now, and start climbing up those leaderboards!!

Tapsteroids is getting a score of 8.5 out of 10

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tapsteroids/id453097220?mt=8

                           There’s no way that I can start the review until I say something about that icon. Now that icon is EPIC! Alright I’m glad I was able to get that out of my system. Now what is To-Fu 2? To-Fu 2 [0.99] by HotGen Ltd. is the sequel to their wildly popular first game called To-Fu: The Trials of Chi which you can actually pick up for free right now in celebration of the release of the sequel! So, just in case you’ve never heard of this game (if that’s even possible) you can go pick up the first one for free on your iPhone/iPod Touch and or iPad. If you’re not familiar with how the game works then I’ll give you a little recap.  In the game you control To-Fu who can stretch. You have to ping, stretch, rebound, and stick him throughout the levels. There’s 3 emblems that you can earn in each level. The first one is completing the entire level in a certain amount of moves or less. The next one is collecting all the Chi in the level. To get the last one all you have to do is finish the entire level by hitting the Fortune Kitty (this is the easiest one to achieve). You don’t actually have to collect all the emblems in one try. You can always go back to each level and try to get a certain one. Now, that I’ve been able to bring you up to speed if you haven’t played To-Fu before or haven’t played it in a while, I think it’s a great time to tell you about all the

 new features and goodies! The first new feature is the Time Trial mode. You’re given a certain amount of time to try to collect as much Chi as possible, with the ability to hit extra time bonuses to give yourself more time. I’m just gonna say that this is a great new feature, it definitely adds to the replay value of this game. There’s also new game features such as the rotating rebounding platforms and the “Super Ping”. The “Super Ping” allows you to break through obstacles. To activate it, all you have to do is hold down where you want it to go for a few extra seconds and it charges into the “Super Ping”! Another new feature is the store, where you can spend real cha-ching (money) if you’d like to. You can purchase new costumes, themes, and you can unlock all the levels in the game. The coolest IAP that I would not mind purchasing at all is the Golden To-Fu. The Golden To-Fu sort of works like the Angry Birds Mighty Eagle. The Mighty Eagle allows you to complete the level, but can only be used once every so hours. The Golden To-Fu works in the same way. It takes you right to the Fortune Kitty and collects all Chi en route. Just like the Mighty Eagle this also has a time limit of once every 8 hours. So if you purchase it, use it wisely! Overall, I found this game to be magnificent. It keeps what made the first one so successful and it builds off of it! The difficulty level is definitely higher than the original, but who wouldn’t like a challenge? The first 15 levels will re-introduce you into the game, with the next 85 levels to be challenging and a blast at the same time! If you’re a fan of the original then there’s no way in the world that you can pass this up. Also, if you’re new to the game I’d advise you to go pick up the original first and play a little bit of that before you play this one. My final rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars. You can go pick up this amazing sequel for just $0.99 (universal app for your iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) from HotGen Ltd.

Get ready to become Anook and Nooki and bounce from ice cube to ice cube in Anooki Jump [$0.99 (UNIVERSAL)] from Bulkypix. Anook and Nooki are two Eskimos who need your help to bounce as high as possible. The mechanics and the game will sort of remind you of Doodle Jump, but the game is completely different. For one thing, there’s no monsters that are trying to make you die. You’re probably wondering how you can play as 2 characters in this game. We’ll it’s actually really cool how you do it. Both of the Eskimos have a health bar. You start the game off with one of the characters and as you bounce higher the characters health that your bouncing with starts to deteriorate. Along the way there’s sort of a “pit stop” I guess you could say with the energized Eskimo waiting. When you land on it, your characters swap out and your immediately thrown back into the game with

the well rested Anook or Nooki. If you fail to swap out, your health will go down and once it reaches the end then it’s immediately game over. There’s a bunch of power-ups in the game that allow you to jump a decent amount of distance such as the star, the ballon, and a few other things that raise you higher up. With power-ups comes obstacles. Some of those obstacles are the bomb that spins you out of control for a little bit which makes jumping hard to do. Another one is the oil spill that gets you stuck in it, which requires you to shake your device to get out of it. There’s also a sort of Jack-in-the-Box that you can land in which can either shoot you straight up or shoot you straight down. So, that can be considered a power-up and an obstacle. In the

end this game is pretty addictive. The only thing I’ll say is that I’m not a fan of the colored world. It’s cool that every time you play the background is a different color, but it would be even better if the backgrounds were actually themed. Also, tilting on the iPad feels clunky, but well most tilting games on the iPad do. Overall, Anooki Jump is a cute game that you could easily spend hours trying to beat your high score by getting higher and higher. My final rating is 4 out of 5 stars. Anooki Jump is a universal app so you don’t have to double-dip if you have an iPad and iPhone and would like to play on both. You can grab Anooki Jump for $0.99 from Bulkypix !

Virtual City Playground HD [FREE] by G5 Entertainment is sort of sequel to their popular Virtual City HD [$6.99]. I’ve never actually played the original game so I can’t tell you how this stacks up to the first one. Well, in Virtual City Playground you get to build your city from the ground up. There’s a bunch of missions to complete in the game and a lot of cool buildings that you can build. As you build more things you start to notice more and more people starting to move into your city. You can only do so much at a time because a lot of the game requires you to use your energy to build things. As you earn more coins you can

expand your city. I actually like the integration with Facebook. A lot of these freemium games allow you to post what your doing in the game on Facebook, but this game actually gives you an incentive to post that you just leveled up. If you’re new to this game like me then you might have some trouble at first. This might be the first time that you might actually have to… read the instructions. YIKES! After you get a hang of it then you’ll have a really good time with it. Even though it’s a neat game I do have a few problems with it. I find that loading your city takes longer and longer as you progress farther in the game. The progressing in the game seems a bit slow for impatient people like me. This is also a game that I feel like you actually have to make some in-app purchases to move faster, because a lot of this stuff that you need to build your city seems to be pricey. Well in the end this game is free so you can always make the final verdict for yourself. Overall I found the game to be fun, but too slow for me. My final rating is 3 out of 5 stars. Go download it today. I’m pretty sure that a FREE game won’t break your bank account! Well what are you waiting for… get your building on!

Defen-G Astro is a new action defense game from Innodis in which you place characters alongside and on top of each other along the 2D levels to protect your tower from being attacked by wave after wave of enemies. The gameplay is simple enough, you select your character from the available characters at the bottom of the screen, and then place them anywhere where a shadow of the character appears on the battlefield. You can tap on the character to upgrade them, up to 3 times, or sell them for a fraction of what they cost, with each character, and upgrade, costing a certain amount of stars. Then you defend the tower behind you while wave after wave of enemies come at you, replacing characters, or units, if the enemies defeat them. It’s like a 2D version of Defense Of Fortune.

The controls are simple, and really, these types of games work extremely well on touch screen devices. Tap, tap, tap tap, tap. As you progress throughout the game, you’ll collect more units, and abilities which are stored on the top of the screen automatically, and can be used by tapping on them once they’re charged. There’s defensive abilities, kept on the top left of the screen, and also some magic spells, which are placed on the top right of the screen. These abilities range from Health and Shields to Extra Stars that when tapped on, spit stars out at you that you’ll need to tap on to collect. These charge during battle, as well as get quick recharges from enemies that drop refill orbs. The characters/units, are also picked up while you progress throughout the game. After starting with 2 units, you’ll eventually build up your units, and be able to select which ones you’ll want to use in each battle.

The graphics in Defen-G Astro are very nicely done, and very polished, with environments being vibrant, but easy to see the action played out against them. Animations are done extremely well, and look great. From the movement to the death animations, everything is done in a very professional manor. The level select screen is placed in space, where you’ll move from star to star going through constellations, finishing each of the levels, and completing the shape of each one. This is kind of strange, because the level select screen shows you battling on stars, but the backdrops for each level are usually snow-caped mountain tops, open fields, or volcano scorched landscapes that don’t really reflect you battling it out on a star. Then again, having a backdrop of space with a couple stars in it would get pretty boring very quickly.

To top it off, Defen-G Astro is GameCenter supported, giving us two leaderboards, one for the campaign mode, and being your total score built up throughout the game, and the other for your high Infinite Mode score. Infinite Mode being an endless battle that you play until your tower is destroyed. However, there are no achievements, so you achievement hunters out there are kind of out of luck. But with the addition of Infinite Mode, generally one of my favorite modes in these types of RTS/Defense games, and the ability to replay each of the levels with one of 3 difficulties, there’s an unlimited amount of replay value, limited only by your desire to play the game. Defen-G Astro is a very polished, very entertaining, and challenging action defense game, one that’s actually quickly becoming one of my favorite RTS games on my device. For $2.99, it’s got tons of content, and loads of gameplay, and is definitely a game that all fans of the genre should pick up.

Defen-G Astro is getting a score of 9 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/defen-g-astro/id450698191?mt=8

Pokemon has been at the root of most peoples early childhood and even later on in life.  Some feel ashamed to have once been a part of this huge phenomenon but others still embrace it today.  After much tension and debate over Nintendo porting over a Pokemon game to iOS they still remain stubborn and adamant to not let that happen.  Fortunately Puppysauraus, a game that plays similar to Pokemon has been released, but it is not the type of experience most imagined.

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From the first time you open up the game you realize that it is marketed towards the younger market.  The graphics are cutesy, the colors are vibrant and the creatures names are no where near threatening.  I remember my first thought being, I hope my friends don’t see me playing this.  But the game has turned into something of a guilty pleasure with me and some of my fond memories of playing Pokemon have been brought back to life.
You start off by being asked if you are a boy, girl or robot. Then you get to choose your skin color and then are off on your journey.  You receive your first Twee, which is the equivalent of a Pokemon and are briefed on the history of the game and why you are venturing out on your quest to stop/collect the Twees. Shortly thereafter you initiate your first battle.
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The battle system is quite unusual to say the least.  You can have up to 3 Twees on the battlefield at one time and can not switch others in its place if one retreats. Then you get to choose what move your Twee performs on its opponent. There are many different attacks like “Bap”, “Tag”, and Freeze all of which correspond with a cute little animation of your character doing that to the other Twee.  Needless to say as this is a kids game, none of the creatures get harmed and the attacks are done in good fun which is where the over cutesy nature really struck me cold. Then you can try to catch wild Twee which appear randomly across the map. To catch a Twee you don’t use a Ball or kind of catching mechanism. You make them your friends by performing specialty moves like “Nuzzle”, “Dance” and others to make their love meter fill up and thus join your team of Twee.  To initiate one of these battles you have to run into a sparkly portal found randomly around the wild area you are in.  If you clear an area of all the Twees you get a special reward.  You control your character with the aid of a joystick which feels fairly responsive.  From a menu you can change your Twee Team, tweak the settings, and check your teams stats.  When you want to quit all you have to do is exit out of the app and it will save exactly where you were when you left.  Included with the game is the ability to upload your own drawings into the Twee world for others to catch and battle.  All you need is any drawing app like Doodle Buddy or Sketchbook and your ready to draw!
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The music is amazing and really gives the game an epic soundtrack.  The sound effects are a little annoying in battle but I got used to it after a few matches. Visuals are as mentioned before, geared towards kids and are very pastel colored in nature. In-game Menus on the other hand leave a little to be desired.  The standby Twee menu utilizes the basic blue and white list menu which does not correspond with the mood the game has set.  My only other complaint is that I would like to see a clothes and hair shop where you can change the look of your character and thus personalize your experience.
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Overall if your into Pokemon or just want to be a kid again then this is the game for you.  Just don’t let your friends see you playing it! I give it a 4.5/5.
Itunes Link: http://itunes.apple.com/app/puppysaurus/id432228575?mt=8

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VenomBlast is an updated, re-release of Pictosoft’s shmup, Zapa Ray. Pictosoft has done a pretty nice overhaul of the original game, giving us better graphics, different sounds, IAPs, a special fighter ship, and loads of tweaks. There’s also 3 hidden levels, unlocked after you beat the game on Normal, Hard, and Hell difficulties. Getting through Normal will be a challenge in itself though.

VenomBlast is a great looking shoot-em-up, with beautiful environments, and loads of variation with the enemies, in fact, there’s over 100 different types of enemies throughout the whole game. The boss battles are huge, and very well scripted, and can throw out some pretty nasty bullet sprays. To make things clear, even though there are tons of bullets fired in VenomBlast, it is not a bullet hell game. The scoring is simple, with each enemy having a set score for killing it, and no multipliers or bonuses are given. There’s also no real bullet patterns, all of the bullets are shot depending on where you’re positioned on the screen. This setting might upset some people, as having more bullets and bullet sprays on the screen doesn’t necessarily make for a better game. Bullet Hell games have eye candy bullet patterns, that can weave in and out with each other, and that you can dodge through if you know what to look for, and know what the patterns are going to be like. With huge bullet sprays shot directly at you, there’s not a specific way to weave through the bullets, you’ll just have to keep moving around, and with a little luck, not get stuck behind massive walls of undodgible bullet sprays.

Pictosoft has found a nice little solution to this problem though. Spotlight; the Fire Ball ship. In VenomBlast, you’re given 3 ships, one to start out with, and 2 to unlock with credits, all 3 being upgradeable. The original ship, named the Vulcan, is your typical shoot-em-up type fighter, having a strong blast, and wide spread once fully upgraded. The Guided Laser ship has projectiles that follow and hit ships anywhere on the screen; In front of you, behind you, or on either side of you. Then the Fire Ball ship shoots fire balls (go figure), and has fire balls that circle the ship. This spray of fire cancels out almost every type of bullet shot at you by enemies, and is a real life saver in the more hectic areas of the game. Each of the ships also fires missiles, that can be upgraded between levels, that lock on to enemies, and are pretty destructive.

The controls in VenomBlast are done pretty well, as we’re given relative touch controls, along with 2 buttons that can be placed on the right, left, or one one each side of the bottom of the screen. One button fires a nuke type shield that wipes out all bullets and most enemies when triggered, and the other button controls your ships, letting you switch between all 3 in the heat of battle. Double tapping on the screen lets you fire a bomb that clears out bullets, and causes massive damage. You only fire when you’re touching the screen though, and in a game that has numerous enemies coming at you from all directions, forcing you to pick up your thumb or finger in order to see them, this can be a real problem. Along with the buttons, the UI is made up of a battery symbol in the top right corner which is your health bar, a shield counter to the left of that, and your bomb counter next to the shields. Shields deploy automatically when you’re hit, and look like wings coming off of your ship, which is a nice little animation.

Compared to other iOS shmups, VenomBlast is a pretty hectic shooter, but it really has some stunning backgrounds and great animations with the enemies and even better with the bosses. There is an Easy Mode if you’re finding the game a little too hard, which is nice for new-comers to the genre, and your scores are shared on GameCenter throughout 5 different leaderboards, one for each difficulty, and one for all difficulties combined. The In-App-Purchases are for unlocking harder difficulties, extra lives, and buying more credits, each of which can be unlocked or bought in the between-levels store, so you’re not forced into buying anything extra unless you just want to pretty much skip ahead in the game. For $0.99, VenomBlast is a great shooter, definitely worth checking out, even if you purchased ZapaRay before it was pulled from the AppStore. It’s got plenty of challenge, and enough replay value added on with the extra bonus levels and leader boards to keep any veteran of the genre busy for quite some time.

VenomBlast is getting a score of 9 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/venomblast/id452950951?mt=8

 I think we all can agree that this August has been an awesome month for game releases and many of my favorites have gotten sequels that drastically reinvented themselves.  There have also been alot of other unique releases that deserve mention as well.   Ladies and Gentlemen this is..The Best of the Best!

Pocket RPG-(Crescent Moon Games) 0.99

Though  released on the iPad before the iPod, this Wednesday it was made Universal. Pocket RPG is now fast becoming our favorite game with three different characters and tons of exploring and looting to do you’ll be spending all your free time with this amazing game. App Store Link

Mega Mall Story-(Kairosoft) 3.99

 If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to be the manager of a mall then this game is for you.  It puts all the elements of business and turns them into something extremely fun.  You can build shops, invest in the surrounding community and expand your very own mall.  Pick this one up today! App Store Link

Jetpack Joyride-(Halfbrick) 0.99

There’s no doubt about it that Halfbrick has done it again. This has got to be one of the best releases all summer. Do whatever you have to do to get this game. You won’t regret this purchase. This is truly a fun and addictive game. By addictive I mean you will literally be hooked on this game for hours and hours and hours… well you get it. Go download it now! App Store Link

Edge Extended- (Mobigame) 0.99
Based off of the success of the very first Edge Mobigame went and made a sequel to that game. This definitely feels like a true sequel and is true to the originals length and complexity.  To read up more on this game check out our Review of it.
 App Store Link

Contre Jour- (Mokus) 0.99
 
A blend of game and interactive art this breathtaking puzzler is one of the most innovative games we have ever seen.  With a blend of Cut the Rope, Angry Birds, and other games mechanics you’ll surely be entertained! App Store Link

Infinty Field-(ForzeField) 0.99
This is the first dual stick shooters that has actually stuck on my device for more than a week and is perfect for those few fleeting moments you have during your bathroom breaks and when your teacher is looking the other way.  All in all I highly suggest you try this game out for the low asking price of 0.99.  I promise you wont be disappointed. App Store Link

Temple Run- (Imangi) 0.99
Endless runners are a well done genre in the App Store but this game takes a turn where few other dare to go….3D.  You are frantically running away from the angry temple guardians who feel you violated the sanctity of their temple. By swiping you jump, turn and slide around all sorts of obstacles and passages. The replayabiltiy is off the hook and I have once spent 2 hours straight playing the game.  I highly recommend you try this for the low cost of 0.99. App Store Link

Up And Up is a new slingshot type adventure platform game from Swift Seven Multimedia, a 2 person outfit located in Sweden. Up And Up is easily one of my favorite games to come out in the last couple months, and the attention it’s getting, or lack of, is pretty surprising. Maybe it shouldn’t be, as there’s quite a few games I feel really deserve a lot more attention then they’ve gotten, but I can almost always understand why. The controls might be a little funky for some people at first, people might have been expecting to get something else, but with Up And Up, it’s a pretty straight forward adventure game that has you stretch and slingshot your character through the beautifully made levels, is made by indie developers, and is made for both casual and hardcore gamers. These types of games usually do pretty well in the AppStore. Then again, most of the games in this genre weren’t released the same week as Jetpack Joyride, Samurai Bloodshow, Frogger Decades and Crimson: Steam Pirates. So here’s hoping I can shed a little bit more light on this great title.

In Up And Up, you’ll play as a bungy monster who’s trying to escape from the rising lava, falling bats, angry frogs, and more, while using objects, tools, and power-ups to help you get to safety. There’s 2 worlds, each with 15 levels to try and make your way through, collecting the 8 pieces of cheese, finding the golden bat, and trying to beat the secret level times for even higher scores and a better star rating.

The enemies are stylish, and varied, while having a pretty big impact on how you make your way through each of the levels. Sometimes you’ll need to quickly jump from one hook to another to avoid one falling on you, other times you’ll need to wait until it’s safe to move through an area, and sometimes you’ll just avoid spots completely. The objects that help are very well placed, and varied as well. Yellow hooks that let you do a super jump, and jetpacks that run on depleting fuel, which you can also pick up while riding them, can be found scattered throughout the levels, along with green goo to bounce off of on the sides of the walls, moving hooks and more.

The graphics are very nice, and environments are extremely colorful and visually pleasing. The game is also supported by Retina Display and is Universal, so you can experience the game in all it’s visual glory. S7 has certainly done everything right for their first release in order to leave a lasting and very nice mark on the AppStore gaming community, except for leaving out online services. They will be added very soon in an update, but leaving them out in the initial release, along with releasing it the same week as many other big name games, might just be why this game has been knocked to the back of the pack in terms of ‘must buy’ games. I, however, am very, very glad that I have been able to experience this game, as it’s definitely left it’s mark on me. I’m eagerly awaiting GC support, future levels, and whatever S7 has in store for gamers in the future. At $1.99, Up And Up is a must buy game.

Up And Up is getting a score of 9.5 out of 10, and would get a perfect 10/10 if it included online support in this v1.0 release. Once it’s added, this might just be the first review I end up changing the last paragraph of, and re-posting with a 10 out of 10 score after it gets updated.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/up-and-up!/id459530491?mt=8