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Sponsored Feature - CocoaChina on resurrecting a legend with Contra: Evolution
Reviving the original hard-as-nails 2D shooter Contra on touchscreen devices is either a very brave or very foolish move, depending on your perspective. CocoaChina are the guys behind Contra: Evolution, and they are confident that they have made the game work on iOS devices. Foolhardy or brave? Let's find out... To do so, we talk to CocoaChina CEO Haozhi Chen about Contra's legacy; the work that has gone into getting the touchscreen controls just right; and the challenge of making sure newcomers and long-term fans of the series are happy with the title. Resurrecting a gaming legend isn't a task that many game developers would envy. It would be all too easy to just port the original and…
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Stay Alight HD iPad Review
Remember the years immediately after Angry Birds was released? You know: when almost every other game was a physics-flinger? We guess it's been a while since then, as playing a game like Stay Alight - which takes the mechanics that Angry Birds popularised and wraps them up in creepy yet beautiful world - is almost a novelty. The question is, can excellent presentation make up for all-too familiar gameplay? Stay Alight comes with an environmental message. Pollution is the source of thi…
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Where's My Mickey? Review
We'll give Disney its due: when they come across an award winning formula, they certainly know how to extract every drop of interest free from it. After Where's my Water?, Where's my Perry?, and other holiday and seasonal spin-offs we now have a version of 'Where's my' gameplay starring Disney's main mascot himself, Mickey Mouse. Who do they think they are, Rovio? We're just playing, of course. The truth of the matter is that in the world of bite-size physics puzzlers, the original Wh…
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Dark Nebula - Episode One HD re-release
Ah Dark Nebula, the review of your first episode takes us back to a simpler time in Appspy's history. A time when the videos were voiced by a young go-getter named Dave and the content and word choice of our writing had a lot of room in which to grow and mature. Go back and relive the memories if you dare. Now that this trip down memory lane has ended, you might be interested to know that Dark Nebula is getting a HD makeover with twelve levels of all new content. Not only that, but it's been confirmed that episode three is finally on its way. Have a look at the trailer. It is available on the App Store now for $0.99[App Store Link]…
League of Evil 3
The first two League of Evil games are known for popularizing the 'tough as nails' platformer on the iOS, and have been quite successful at it with their pixel style and strong controls. Now this week we see the release of the third installment, and suprisingly a whole new art style along with it. Have a look at the trailer. It looks to have a strong focus on character customisation, and it includes video replays that I'm sure can be shared. We'll certainly know more once the game is out and we review it.…
Gloomy Hollow Review
Welcome to purgatory. Welcome to Gloomy Hollow. What better way to spend eternity than by engaging in an action-RPG experience set in expansive worlds packed full of enemies, that's then broken down into small, manageable levels. Hell, if you find enough souls, you may even be able to buy your way back to the land of the living. Now, we've seen plenty of ARPGs on the App Store before. And yes, we've even seen bite sized levels before, but there's something in the design and presentati…
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Spiral Episode 1 Review
Spiral is certainly a strange beast. It features a very striking, and sometimes gorgeous visual style. It's got competent voice acting and an intriguing narrative. The gameplay not only offers variety, but incorporates touch controls relatively well. Saying all of this, the game plays havoc on your battery, and some of the aspects of the experience are not as well implemented as they should be. You play as Tempus, a young amnesiac who shares a body with a robotic arm called AVA. On co…
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Eden to GREEN
It's always nice to see console developers try their hand at mobile games. It can breed cynicism when they create a game in an established genre like tower defence, but iNiS (with such games as Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents in their catalogue) are no strangers to creating odd yet enjoyable play experiences. Eden to GREEN looks to continue this trend. Now, even though the gameplay trailer below shows the game running on Android devices, it is also released for iOS and is available right now. Here's the gameplay video: It's a war of plants and machines. The game sprouts an interesting mechanic where you can only plant new towers in the radius offered by others, limi…
Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage HD Review
Physics puzzlers: there's a ton of 'em about. One's got birds in. It's quite popular. Now there's another one. It's got some birds in too. But mostly ice. Ice and Vikings. And birds. It's called Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage. We think its dead good. Here's why. Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage is like a really good sandwich. It provides you with a nourishing core, surrounded by a bunch of easily digestible, but thoroughly satisfying layers. At its frosty heart, it's a game about slicing ice…
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Blip Blup Review
Sometimes, one tap is all it takes. Well ok, often it takes more than one tap. But one of the goals of the amusingly named block puzzler Blip Blup is to fill up each stage's tiles with colour in as few taps as possible. Upon tapping any tile, a blast of colour will shoot out in all directions, surging forward until it is blocked by a corner or barrier There's a preview function to help you out while you're still learning the ropes. Before releasing your finger from the screen, the ti…
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Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition Removed from App Store
It seems not only has Baldur's Gate: Enhanched Edition been removed from the App Store under the vague reasoning of "contractual issues", this has halted the latest game patch and development on the sequel as well. Hopefully whatever is causing this can be sorted out quickly. After all the hard work from the developers to polish up and port this classic RPG the last thing anyone wants is a legal issue tearing things down. We will have to wait and see what happens. [Website letter]…
Friday News Wrap-Up 21 June 2013
With the App Store arrival of a certain highly acclaim UFO-centric strategy game, it's been a pretty big week for iOS gaming. Let's get stuck in, shall we? Modern Combat 4 gets Meltdown update The latest episode in Gameloft's premiere FPS franchise Modern Combat has just received its biggest update yet. Entitled the 'Meltdown Update', this downloadable expansion to Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour adds new maps, weapons, and multiplayer modes. First off, you can now explore the Fracture, Extraction, and Backfire maps. These will see fighting for your life on the streets of Barcelona, and blasting your way across the ice of Antarctica. As for fresh firepower, you'll gain access to a Spec…
XCOM®: Enemy Unknown iPad Review
The iOS version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown represents something of a gamble. Developer 2K China has spent time and money of porting last year’s console and PC strategy favourite to iPad and iPhone. This is no companion app – XCOM iOS is the real deal. Apart from some derezzed visuals and a slightly smaller map count, what you’re looking at is the complete XCOM experience in portable, touchscreen form. If you were abducted by aliens and missed the hype surrounding the gam…
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Rovio publishes Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage
With Angry Birds steward Rovio now taking smaller devs under its expansive wings, we're going to see some new iOS games with some seriously flashy trailers. The first game to get the Rovio Stars big budget video treatment is Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage. It's a 3D physics puzzler that bears a passing resemblance to Rovio's own bird-flinging franchise. However, instead of catapulting fowl towards pigs, you must swipe blocks of ice to free your viking buddies from their frosty tombs. You won't just be liberating Nordic warriors, though. There are chests of treasure to grab, quests to complete, and bosses to fight along the way. We suggest you have a look at the Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage t…
CRUSH! Review
As a species, humans are great at many things. One talent we share is the ability to recognise patterns (sometimes patterns which aren't even there). This is handy, as Crush! is a game based entirely around pattern recogntition. Clumps of coloured blocks make their way towards the base of the screen. It's your job stop this column of cubes reaching the bottom. Tapping a coloured block will cause all blocks of the same colour to vanish, making the stream collapse upwards. However, a ne…
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