Boom It Up!
Boom It Up! is a quick reflex arcade game where players must launch a cannon ball as high into the air as possible, much like the barrel shooting mini-games from the Donkey Kong Country series on the Super Nintendo. Obscure references aside, players must launch their cannon ball from one platform... Read More
Legend of Fat Ninja Review
Developers, if you call your game Legend of Fat Ninja, I expect to see a fat ninja. Not just a hearty ninja which is what we have in this offering. The main reason is after graduating from the Iron Skillet Academy, Fat Ninja is on a quest to find the best ingredients possible, but also to crush the competition with his nin-jitsu. This is accomplished by pinballing around the level like a loon, and would be a lot more amusing if our character was just a little heavier. If wishes were horses, r...
Burrito Bison Review
Last year we had the absolute joy of being able to play Juicy Beast's disgustingly fun classic GOBTRON on the iOS platform, but it wasn't long after its release that fans asked, 'Where's Burrito Bison?'. At long last the developer has paired up with Ravenous Games to release their luchadore-bison bouncing; gummy-bear squishing; city-smashing Flash hit to the App Store, but is it too little too late now? The App Store, and indeed the free-Flash game market itself, is redolent with game...
Sugar Kid Review
Cute protagonist? Check. Three-star system to unlock content? Check. Physics-based gameplay system? Triple check. It’s almost a recipe for mundanity by now, but A Crowd of Monsters and Bulkypix have taken the best aspects of these games, paired it with perhaps the most disturbing penalty system I’ve seen in a while and packaged it with quickly unlocking content that scales to your skill level with uncanny precision. This is Sugar Kid, and I don’t think I’ll be ...
Payback² HD Review
For gamers like myself, the idea of a truly open-ended experience can be daunting - it’s not that I can’t set myself goals and then achieve them, but that I kind of expect that sort of input from the people who made them game. As such the genre has never really appealed; at least not for an extended period of time. Thankfully there’s always Payback^2 by Apex Design, a resurrected iOS GTA-a-like classic that concentrates on bite-sized action-packed missions while still retain...
JAM: Jets Aliens Missiles Review
There are some genres that are pretty difficult to adjust an iPhone control scheme to, and one of these is the shoot'em-up and its sibling, the side scrolling shooter (maybe we should call these triple S games). The biggest challenges are moving your craft without your finger obscuring vision, and how to tackle the design of shooting enemies from your craft. Now there are many entries in the App Store that have solved these problems adequately enough to create an enjoyable experience, and the...
Electric Tentacle Review
Sometimes you feel ridiculous repeating the premises of some iPhone titles, but at least a lot of them seem to make sense, at least in their own strange universe. With Electric Tentacle, even its universe is an oddity. Animals shrunk to microscopic size, using electricity to travel through the highways and bi-ways of where ever you've been stuck, trying to escape the evil nanomachines. Keep in mind that this is a high score game based around seeing how far you can get before you head to the i...
Super Monsters Ate My Cond... Review
Though it's mostly gone out of fashion, one of the defining characteristics on the Super Nintendo was that most sequels (and even some original games) had the word 'super' in front of them. It was meant to invoke the image of just not any sequel, but an upgrade to everything that had come before. More revolution than evolution. In the case of Super Monsters ate my Condo, sadly it's the latter and not the former. Not that it's a bad release, but it falls a little short of the expectations us a...
Recess Riot Review
If you're going to use an art style reminiscent of the 80s in all its eight-bit glory, and the game is based around recess, you best do your research about the games of the time. I mean yes, I’m showing my age here, and there was jump rope and dodge ball, but we also played four square and wall ball! Well there is a 'coming soon' icon in the game, so hopefully this can be addressed in a future update. All kidding aside, Recess Riot is a collection of two arcade based mini-games ...
Bad Piggies Review
You'd be forgiven for thinking Rovio spent too long resting on their laurels after Angry Birds, opting to drive the franchise instead of seeking new horizons. Thankfully Amazing Alex found its way out of the studio (albeit as a re-branding of an existing game) and it was clear the studio was ready to try something new. Note, not 'different' - one can't claim that Bad Piggies breaks away from the physics-puzzle-and-three-star formula we've come to know so well, but it's most definitely a diffe...
Amazing Runner Review
It seems every man and his dog is throwing their hat in to the 'Temple Run' arena of game-a-likes, and Freyr Games are no exception with their Unreal Engine powered title Amazing Runner. Once you hit start you'll be placed on a futuristic track lined with golden gems that must be collected while avoiding obvious hazards such as the occasional 'robot' placed in your path or game-ending pits that open up before you. As with its inspirational title, tilting will move you back and...
Rail Rush Review
There's something inherently enjoyable about mine cart rides in videogames. From Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to Donkey Kong Country, they remain a memorable part of those titles. Wait, did I say enjoyable? I must have meant hair-tearingly frustrating. Well luckily Rail Rush isn't that psychotic. I mean it eventually becomes that way the longer you play for, but being in the same vain as Temple Run, this sort of exponential difficulty is expected. The formula here is pretty st...
LookOut - Blizzard Review
No one ever thinks about the plight of the poor snowball. Created to be hurled, rolled, exploded and forgotten. Even its dreams of growing and becoming something more can be stopped by the callous whims of the elements. In this tale of snowball survival the stakes are a lot higher, with literal elemental forces of fire, water, and earth among others, shooting cross screen to turn our balled protagonist into nothing more than a hail of white powder. In design Lookout-Blizzard plays a l...
STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN MO... Review
In only three short months STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN (SFxTK) has undergone a transition from its true home on Consoles and PCs to the mobile platform. Fighter fans may take exception to my wording there, but fear not, Street Fighter on iOS has (to date) been adapted almost perfectly for touch-screen devices. SFxTK is no exception to this and indeed it places even more emphasis on its ‘versus’ modes than ever before - sure you can enjoy the game single-player, but if you have WIFI th...
Gibbets 2 Review
Sometimes it’s hard to know whether a game is controlling badly because you’ve missed some key bit of information, or because the game itself has poor controls. Gibbets 2 by HeroCraft had me pondering this problem on the second level - which I might point out took quite a few tries before I worked it out - and ultimately it was a little bit of column A and B, but the damage had already been done. Your task, should you take it, is to aim a bow and rescue the people being hu...
Rayman Jungle Run Review
When it comes to the Rayman series, I feel as though it has been a slow-burner - though always fun, the success of its spin-offs has brought the series full-circle and we’re being reminded of what it feels like to play a high-quality platformer. Rayman Jungle Run may strip-out the depth of a regular Rayman game, but what’s left is far from casual in its challenge as you use taps to jump, glide, wall-run and yes, even punch your way through stages. To reduce the controls to...
Twang the Fox Review
Twang is an acrobatic fox that works for the circus to provide for his cubs. The evil Boscoe Carnivale has kidnapped them and mounting a rescue attempt will take all your tumbling prowess as you ascend ever skywards with all manner of obstacles in your way. Twang the Fox is one of those vertical platformers where you draw a line underneath your character to propel them ever further upwards, but really the word platformer may be misleading. Really this is like a rubber band aided game of pinba...
Oh Hi! Octopi! Review
A great title will only get you so far. I mean I can't be the only one who read Oh hi! Octopi! and thought “this is going to prove to be interesting”. Sadly with baffling controls and stale yet unique mechanics, this game doesn't have a tentacle to stand on, and with eight spare that is certainly a shame. Tapping the screen performs more than one function depending on the situation, and it's here where the trouble starts. When you have your move button double as your attac...
Wonderputt iPad Review
What do you get when you combine a funky, vibrant isometric stage with toads, submarines, volcanoes, and Stonehenge? The answer, cryptically, is the world of Wonderputt by Damp Gnat. It's in this world that you'll attempt to slingshot a ball in to a hole, hopefully picking up points along the way, but more importantly hopefully to have fun. Playing the game couldn't be easier as you hold down on the ball and drag away from it, slingshot-style, letting go once you're happy with your ai...
Monkey Slam Review
If you're a giant monkey, obviously you want to eat fruit... but what are you to do when said fruit is hidden inside of blocks and gems that are oddly hovering over your head all along your island paradise? Throw a smaller monkey up to crack open the blocks and harvest the goodness inside of course! Monkey Slam is a version of Breakout, replacing the ball and paddles with monkeys, changing up the crazy power-ups and adding a dash more visual flair. Now Breakout as fun as it can be is known fo...
Super Hexagon Review
Sometimes the simplest titles can be the hardest to review. When there's depth, it can take a large paragraph or two to explain the mechanics at play, but on the opposite end, you may be clambering for anything to fill space. If it hasn't been given away yet, Super Hexagon by Terry Cavanagh of VVVVVV fame is a very simple game. One shouldn't take that as reason to overlook this title however, for we have a word for when simplicity meets quality, and that word is elegance. At the menu ...