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FishMoto Review
Call me crazy, but I get this overwhelming nostalgic urge for playing Earthworm Jim when playing FishMoto by Overpowered Games. I put it down to the main character feeling like it belongs in world designed by David Perry - seriously look at it... it's a 'cat faced' fish in a sealed fishbowl, atop a vehicle with springs for legs. But I digress. FishMoto falls in to the same category of skill based racers as iStunt, challenging you to collect all the available 'fish' in a level be…
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challengeChaos Rings Omega Gets Update, New Level Cap, and Boss
Japanese RPG behemoths Square Enix have given their fan base a massive reason to jump back into the wonderfully rendered world of Chaos Rings Omega. The game has been given an update, which takes the level cap up to 110 and slaps in a new hidden boss for you to find and euthanize. There are also two new Piu-Piu collections and a bunch of new weapons to be looted. On the cards in future updates is the addition of Japanese voice acting. Don’t come crying to us if your favourite character turns out to have the voice of a squealing 8-year-old girl, though. We gave Chaos Rings Omega an awesome 5 out of 5 on review. If you give the App Store gatekeepers $11.99, however, it can be all you…
Tiny Tower Review
If we were to think of all the freemium farming/city creation titles as a sort of time-restricted version of Sim City, then Tiny Tower by NimbleBit is a scaled down and time-restricted version of Sim Tower. Some may balk at the comparison to what is considered a classic, but if anyone is going to pull this off it's the company that brought us Pocket Frogs. Tiny Tower places you in the middle of a vicious cycle of trying to attract 'Bitizens' to live in your tower in order to employ th…
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D.A.R.K. Review
When someone says they're making a futuristic shooter with power-armor clad soldiers versus horrific creatures, the first thing that always springs to my mind is Space Hulk. This is more indicative of the era I grew up in though and while I salute the fine work of Games Workshop, titles like Dead Space have done a lot to move things forward. D.A.R.K by Gamelab and Chillingo has aspirations of joining these elite works, but ultimately it's yet another twin-stick shooter. After awakenin…
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Remedy's Explosive Death Rally Reduced To Free
Death Rally, Alan Wake, Max Payne, Max Payne 2: the sum total of Remedy Entertainment's gaming output since 1995. Not what you would call a prolific developer then, but, by heck, an influential one. Their debut release, Death Rally, was, of course, rejigged for the iPhone a couple of months ago, and earned a very creditable four stars from our Andrew. If you are still sitting on this particular top-down racer fence, mind, the news that Death Rally has gone free for a limited time could push you over the edge. What's more, since AppSpy reviewed Remedy's heavily armed driving game, the devs have upgraded its chassis with a new vehicle, paint jobs, achievements, and challenges Fancy wiping…
Survival Mode Brings Depth To Mighty Fin
AppSpy is, of course, the best resource on the planet for iPhone game reviews, yet with only one full-time reviewer on board to cover the scene, the odd beaut is bound to slip through our trawl net. That's why each month we publish a round-up of the Top 10 iPhone games sourced from the Quality Index. In May, Launching Pad Games's casual arcader Mighty Fin leapt like a salmon to fin-ish 3rd on the Qi countdown, only beaten out by Chaos Rings Omega and First Touch Soccer. We ourselves awarded it a 4/5, praising its single-finger simplicity, clever level design, and infuriatingly catchy soundtrack. The solitary piece of criticism levelled at Mighty Fin was its - cough - shallowness, which m…
Ionocraft Racing Review
What has no wheels, is powered by steam and goes really really fast? Actually I'm probably certain there's a legitimate answer to this, but the answer I'm looking for is an Ionocraft. In this time-trial racer from PAN Vision you'll race against the clock (and yourself) in an attempt to outfit and customize your vehicle to your liking. One shouldn't underestimate the importance of customization either as the placement of things like thrusters, stabilizers and steering jets can greatly…
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Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Review
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" - Trite as the adage may be, kart-racers found their balance of fun, skill and challenge some time ago, so it's no wonder recent releases have had more than a few things in common. Despite this the iOS has been sorely lacking in strong contenders for the genre, that is until now. Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing packs in everything you'd expect to see in a kart-racer while managing to make the clashing worlds work in its favor. It's hard to imagine h…
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Colourful RPG Tiny Lights Illuminates The iPhone
Tiny Lights is an intriguing-looking iPhone RPG, which has been co-developed by Fluid Pixel and Darling Dash. Oh, it's out now, too. In the game, you play as a group of Pikmin-esque tiny lights, all of varying colours and abilities, and all pottering about in a world basked in darkness. It's not some kinda' cutesy cakewalk, though. In addition to finding the pillars of power that have been stolen by the greedy light eaters, you must collect coins, find scrolls, make friends, and scrap with enemies. All before breakfast. Tiny Lights is available now for iPhone and iPod touch priced 99c.…
Friday News Wrap-Up 24th June 2011
This week's Wrap-Up is in the bag, but something seems a bit wrong... ahh that's right, the Game of the Week. Sadly the additional footage for this segment was causing problems, so I'll just have to announce it here - if you feel you have to pick up something rather than nothing this week, make sure it's Hard Lines (5/5). Besides being a familiar game to jump in to, it's hard to hold back the smiles while slamming your snake/line/cycle around the screen. And now, the main feature:…
1-bit Ninja Review
Retro trappings in iOS games are no new phenomena, but when you take your inspiration from something as odd as Super Mario Land from the Gameboy you've certainly decided to take the road less traveled. 1-bit Ninja by Kode80 may look like this classic title, but mastering its secrets will require a trip in the third-dimension. The graphics and soundtrack aren't the only thing to be given a lo-fi treatment as players can only 'move forward' and 'jump'. It's unusual for a skill based pla…
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BackStab Review
On one hand we've already had an Assassin's Creed game on the iOS - your mileage may vary on how successful it was for you, but we got one. On the other, Gameloft have decided to give gamers what they expected to see, albeit with a pirate-y touch in BackStab. Henry Blake has been betrayed by his supposed long-time friend Kane for crimes against his people and after four years Blake is finally given the opportunity to escape his imprisonment and seek revenge. So far, so standard, but i…
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Celebrate Sonic’s Birthday With Sega All-Stars Racing Game
A certain special somebody (or rather someTHING) is 20 years young today. Nope, not my nephew Samuel, but Sonic...Sonic The Hedgehog. The speediest of speedy anthropomorphic hedgehogs first whizzed onto a Sega Mega Drive / Genesis near you on 23rd June, 1991, and has zoomed onto countless platforms since. One of these is, of course, the iPhone, which The Blue Blur has graced on no less than five occasions already. The pick of the bunch, hitherto, is undoubtedly Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode 1, if you were wondering. The latest Sonic experience to appear on Apple's touchscreen is Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, a Mario Kart-inspired arcade romp featuring ten of the Japanese game maker's…
Peggle-Style Coin Drop! Reduced To Free For Limited Time
Selected by Andrew as one of our Top 3 iOS games of April 2011, Full Fat's Coin Drop! is a nailed on blend of Pachinko and Peggle. With a title that perfectly encapsulates its gameplay, Coin Drop! invites you to tap on the iPhone's touchscreen with precision timing and watch a copper or five tumble into the receptacles at the bottom. As they cascade down south, the coins must demolish obstacles, rescue girl coins, and eradicate evil blue coins. In its most recent Just Desserts update, the publishers have incorporated 15 brand new levels into Coin Drop! What's more, Full Fat have - ahem - dropped the price of the game for a limited time to free. Yep, nada. Reminds me of many a lost penny…
Absolute Instant Review
One of the biggest advantages a touch interface has over traditional means when it comes to the shoot'em-up (shmup) is the ability to quickly translate every single twitch you make in to an accurate, analogue command to move your character. The downside of this was the need to go back to the drawing board in order to balance the gameplay to account for instantaneous and finessed movement, but Absolute Instant by Mobili Studio goes one step further - now you can teleport. With such unp…
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