Games
It’s time for another installment of Windows Phone Central’s Xbox Live Developer Interview series! We jumped at the opportunity to speak with Chicago-based Iron Galaxy Studios, developers of the upcoming Ms. Splosion Man for Windows Phone (based on Twisted Pixel's XBLA hit), Wreckateer for Xbox Live Arcade, and many other fine titles. CEO Dave Lang fills us in on the challenges of developing fighting games, working with the Kinect, bringing the same game to both Windows Phone and iOS, and much more.
Head past the break for our lengthiest interview yet, filled with brilliant concept art and exclusive Ms. Splosion Man screens!
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While there's not much to the Windows Phone game Rapid Toss+, it's still a fun game to help pass the time with. Rapid Toss+ is a paper toss game where you're called upon to send your paper wads into the trash can. To make things challenging, you have to gauge your toss against the wind.
Rapid Toss+ is from the same development group that brought us Grow and does set itself apart from other paper toss games on the Marketplace with it's features. Rapid Toss+ offers five throwing distances/levels (level 5 is real challenging), five environments (office, moon, gravity room, winter land, and autumn land) and seventeen different backgrounds.
You also have two game modes with Rapid Toss+. A Classic Game where you simply try to sink as many consecutive baskets as possible. Then there is a Rapid Game where your racing against the clock to see how many baskets you can sink, as well as consecutive baskets, before the clock strikes zero. Oh... and to add to the fun of the Rapid Game mode, your paper wads are on fire.
You toss your paper ball by flicking at the paper ball. Angle your flick to the left or right to compensate for the wind. With the Rapid Game mode, your wind increases/decreases from one side, then switches to the opposite side of the screen. The wind in the Classic Game changes after each toss both in speed and direction.
Overall, Rapid Toss+ is a fun, feature rich paper toss game that is fun to play. If your looking for a challenge, try the furthest distance. When the wind speed is high, you really need to angle your toss to let the paper wad ride the wind into the basket.
There is a free trial version available for Rapid Toss+ and the full version will run you $.99. You can find Rapid Toss+ here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.
This morning Nokia and EA Games teamed up and finally released the long awaited ‘Mirrors Edge’ exclusively for Lumia Windows Phones. Coming in at 131 MB, the port is so far behaving nicely.
While the game is somewhat old (it came out years ago on iOS after being on consoles previously) it was quite the hit at the time and for good reason--featuring an interesting backstory, excellent graphics and relatively simple gameplay the traditional horizontal runner became a quick game for many people.
And that title is now available on Lumia Windows Phones via the Nokia Collection. What’s more, this is an exclusive Xbox LIVE offering meaning you get the whole package including achievements. The game itself ported nicely with smooth graphics, great sound and features un-lockable wallpapers which you can download for later use.
Fetching for $2.99 the game is well done and should provide Lumia owners’ hours of frustrating jumping. What’s more, Nokia and EA have many more games in the pipeline meaning Lumia owners will soon have a nice advantage over their non-Lumia counterparts. You can see that list here. Fear not though as these games will go to all Windows Phones once their “exclusive” restriction runs out--when that will happen, we're not sure (we're working on finding out).
Pick up Mirrors Edge here in the Nokia Collection for $2.99.
Mirror's Edge exclusive for Nokia Lumia Windows Phones
The Windows Phone Xbox Live title Mirror's Edge, from EA Games, is a 2D platformer with interesting gameplay taken from the 2010 console version. The player takes on the role of Faith and has to help her avoid corrupt authorities by performing a number of acrobatic stunts to bypass obstacles and other elements.
But before we continue with this excitement, be sure to note that Mirror's Edge is exclusive for Nokia Lumia Windows Phones for the time being.
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PopCap Games may be best known for their sublime Plants vs. Zombies (on sale for $2.99 this week!), but they actually produce a number of stellar franchises like Peggle and Zuma. We interviewed PopCap about those two series coming to Windows Phone last year, and we’ll continue to ask about them whenever we can. PopCap seems to work on one game for one platform at a time, and they’ve just completed a new Xbox Live Arcade release: Zuma’s Revenge. It just came out yesterday, but I’ve been playing the game for a week now in order to bring you this review.
The original Zuma Deluxe was an XBLA launch title way back in 2006. Basically an enhanced clone of classic arcade game Puzz Loop (aka Magnetica), the Zuma games puts players in control of a stationary frog who can rotate in any direction and shoot colored balls from his mouth. In each level, more balls roll on-screen along one or more paths. The frog’s job is to stop them from reaching the goal at the path’s end by quickly making as many colored matches as possible. It’s sort of like Bubble Town 2 but much, much better and more varied.
Head past the break for our full impressions and more screenshots.
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It’s always interesting to see a popular mobile phone game jump to consoles. Xbox 360 has already received Fruit Ninja Kinect (which turned out pretty well other than the crummy menus), and Doodle Jump is coming with Kinect controls too. That only leaves one other major casual franchise to make the jump: Angry Birds! Well, just as Angry Birds Space is coming to Windows Phone eventually, so too are several Angry Birds games coming to Xbox 360 in the form of Angry Birds Trilogy.
Rovio’s popular bird-flinging series will be published on consoles by Activision (best known for their Call of Duty franchise). Angry Birds Trilogy contains the first three series entries: Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio, and Angry Birds Seasons. For those keeping score, only the first game made it to Windows Phone, where it has languished with only a single title update and no Mango support. A patch for 256 MB devices is supposedly coming, at least. But hey, at least it only costs 99 cents nowadays!
With the Xbox 360 being the number one console as opposed to the current third-place position of Microsoft’s mobile OS, we can certainly expect Trilogy to receive much better support as far as content updates go. However, free updates are extremely scarce on the 360 (Minecraft: XBLA Edition had to get special permission for regular updates), with PDLC much more the norm. Rovio and Activision haven’t commented on exactly episodes (sets of levels) are included in Trilogy or their DLC plans, so these things remain to be seen.
Head past the break for more detals, screenshots, and pricing info!
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Although we’re still stuck with plain ol’ Angry Birds on Windows Phone, Rovio may finally be embracing Microsoft. Rovio now has a few titles coming to the Windows Phone platform including Angry Birds Space.
The latest franchise though is ‘Amazing Alex’ which is just about to launch on iOS and Android. The game is another physics-based puzzler where users must place objects on the screen in a certain way to cause a chain reaction. The game isn’t an original Rovio title as another firm, Mystery Coconut, released it in 2011. Rovio later picked it up and tweaked it a bit (evidently it wasn’t much of a hit, initially).
In a tweet to the Nokia Blog’s Mark Guim, Rovio confirmed that “PC, Mac & Windows Phone versions are to come later, post launch”.
That’s good news and bad news, of course. The good news is Rovio is at least thinking of Windows Phone users which may be due to the Nokia intervention that has evidently occurred. The thought being that Nokia is assisting Rovio with the process of bringing games over to Windows Phone, either financially or with developer support. The bad news is iOS and Android still get it first.
No word on what “come later” means in actual human time but at least it’s in the works.
2XL Games made a name for themselves with off-road racer Baja: Edge of Control for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. After that, they switched gears to mobile development for several years, continuing to focus on off-the-pavement racing games. Now 2XL is back on consoles with Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad for XBLA and PSN. After coming away bored and disappointed from another recent XBLA racer (Bang Bang Racing from Digital Reality), I’m happy to report that 2XL has a grasp on making a downloadable digital racer both simple and fun.
Offroad features five different vehicles types, from Rally Cars to Trophy Trucks. Before you head to the track, you’ll choose one of 8 livery options for your vehicle and then customize it with upgrade points. Experience earned from completing races or performing in-race actions like big jumps and passing competitors can be spent on upgrading your ride’s acceleration, top speed, handling, and breaking. Nothing too complex, but the customization options are appreciated.
Head past the break for our full impressions.
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The selection of Xbox Live racers on Windows Phone varies widely in quality. Hydro Thunder GO and Need for Speed Undercover occupy the top end of the quality spectrum, while Cro-Mag Rally sits in a pool of ick at the bottom. Sadly, Cro-Mag Rally was also the only mobile Live kart racer for almost a year. Fast-forward to May 2012 and Namco Bandai surprised us all with Pac-Man Kart Rally. While it never matches the lofty quality bar set by the Mario Kart series, Namco’s racer still manages to be pretty fun, easily surpassing its only other Windows Phone competitor.
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Warning: This game comes with Bro-ops & could be awesome for your health
We’ve given you a sneak back in early June but now you too can get your hands on Glu Mobile’s Gun Bros game for Windows Phone. And it’s free.
The game is a classic top-down arcade shooter (reminds us a lot of SmashTV) where you and your ‘Bro’ go around and basically destroy everything you can. We like that idea. Plus you can upgrade you weapons along the way giving a unique level of customization.
We took it for just a quick spin (see the video below) on our Titan II and boy to the graphics look stellar…very arcade like and the controls aren’t too shabby (dual virtual sticks), so we’re thinking it should be good but look for our detailed review a little later.
Gun Bros is technically a ‘freemium’ game which means, well, that it’s free. The catch? There really isn’t one as you can play the whole game without paying a dime. But, if you want the cool experience with all the big guns, cheats and different options you will have to purchase those as you go along. Of course there are plenty of regular weapons and upgrades that are all free so there shouldn’t be too many complaints from you folks.
Anyway, less talk, more rock. Go pick up Gun Bros for Xbox LIVE here in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Sound off in comments on your thoughts about the game. Thanks, zebrasqual, for the link
