Rayark's 'Implosion' Release Pushed Back to January of 2015 Posted: 23 Sep 2014 01:41 PM PDT
It featured a slick sci-fi look, killer graphics, and fast-action combat that had me instantly excited for its release. A couple of weeks later, a new video showed more of the game in action as well as how it controlled on the touchscreen, and that video just fanned the flames of excitement for me. All the while Implosion has only been given a vague "2014" release window, and for quite a few months after those initial videos it was fairly quiet on the Implosion front. Then this past July, Rayark released yet another new video (embedded below) showing off Implosion in its latest form as well as announcing support for MFi controllers in the game. Which is great and all, but… let's release the game already, eh Rayark? Well, sadly, it looks like Implosion isn't going to hit that 2014 release window, as in a new interview with Taiwanese gaming site AppGame.com [Translated by Google] Rayark reveals that they're now targeting a January 2015 release for Implosion on iOS and Android with more platforms to follow after that.
Delays are a bummer for sure, but in the end, I'd always rather wait a little longer for something I'm excited for to be ready to go rather than have it rushed out in a form the developers aren't happy with just to hit an intended release date. The extra time is bound to make Implosion even better, and per the dodgy translation of the interview, Rayark hopes that the game will "become the flagship of ARPG type of game" on the mobile platform. If any new information about Implosion surfaces before January we'll let you know, and until that time be sure to check out discussion of the game in our forums. |
Apple Store Now Selling the MOGA Rebel Posted: 23 Sep 2014 01:16 PM PDT The MOGA Rebel launched last week on MOGA's site, but now you can pick it up direct from Apple and from Apple Stores. A listing has gone up on the Apple Store site today listing the MOGA Rebel for its standard $79.95 price. And you can pick it up at certain stores today, in case you want to go pick it up right now. This certainly makes it more convenient to pick up the gamepad when you're buying your new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus – which the controller's extendable arm supports.
Apple has sold the other MFi gamepads before, and has used the SteelSeries Stratus to demo MFi games in Apple Stores before. Certainly, it wouldn't be a surprise to see demo units for these controllers at Apple Stores at some point – a full-size gamepad could help sell core gamers on iOS gaming seeing that a full-size, Xbox-style gamepad is available. Jared Nelson called it the best iOS controller you can buy right now in his review. While $79.99 still is more expensive than console gamepads, having it available as an ambassador of what iOS gaming can be to an audience that thinks gaming is all casual games can be a serious boon. |
'Heavy Metal Thunder' Review - About As Metal As A Text Adventure Can Be Posted: 23 Sep 2014 11:13 AM PDT Cubus Games is a relative newcomer to the surprisingly burgeoning gamebook market on the App Store, with Heavy Metal Thunder [$2.99] being just their second release. Mobile gamers have been getting spoiled lately by the heavy competition between the existing gamebook publishers, with each new release finding new ways to push beyond what was possible with an actual paper book. Heavy Metal Thunder won't be joining that particular arms race, but it does deliver a reasonably exciting adventure with some occasionally shaky but always enthusiastic writing. In most ways it's a very orthodox entry into the genre, though I do give it credit for its strong use of audio, and while it may lack in ambition, it's a very well-put together, enjoyable bit of pulp sci-fi action. Heavy Metal Thunder uses the trusty old amnesia device to set up its narrative. You wake up in the void of space, with little fuel for your jetpack and even less oxygen. Even worse, you can't remember who you are or how you got there. You have to make your way to safety, and it's a longer journey that you might guess. Perhaps, if you want, you can even get a bit of revenge along the way. There are plenty of roads to the end of Heavy Metal Thunder, and it's impossible to see everything on one trip through. Having so many viable solutions does make for a slightly easier gamebook than most, but the scale of the adventure should keep you from being too bothered by it.
The plot of the game is quite interesting, and the world it creates is something it's obviously planning to explore further. You get a fair amount of exposition dumped on you at times, though that should be expected from a book that's trying to establish a continuity instead of a simple one-off. I really enjoyed the variety of situations the game puts you through, and although the story is clearly a first chapter, I was more than satisfied with it as a stand-alone tale simply by virtue of how much ground it covers. The tone is a bit uneven at times, occasionally feeling a bit like it's trying a little too hard to be awesome, and going so far as to break the fourth wall a few times. Action scenes are very well-written, however, and although it's a bit clunky at times, the writing did a good job of conveying when things are a little bit off about someone or something. If I had to nail down the feel, there's an air of Starship Troopers about it, being farcical, violent, occasionally unsettling, and often pretty darned awesome. The gameplay takes a bit of a different route from a lot of other gamebooks. Heavy Metal Thunder is fundamentally about making choices, but it goes beyond just selecting from a couple of decisions at the bottom of each page. Your inventory is severely limited in this game, and you constantly have to make some hard choices about what you want to bring with you. On your first run through, you'll likely be hard-pressed to guess what most of it could ever be used for, and depending on where you go, you might not find a use for any given item. You also have to decide whether you want to bring more items that will probably open new choices, or items that will keep you alive through the more game-like bits. It's more fun to load your bag with the former, but you might not survive to use them without the latter. Weapons present a similar conundrum, since you'll want to bring at least one ranged weapon and one melee weapon with you, but that's essentially all you have room for, so you'll have to choose which of each type you really want.
The game's UI contributes to this, letting you see chapter by chapter exactly how many branches you've covered and how many remain to be seen. It's such a simple thing, but putting it front and center like that really makes me want to finish up every possibility. Maybe if I choose a different set of skills this time, and perhaps I should bring along that fitness magazine I found in one room but discarded to take more food rations? The game is about the right length to make replays easy and fun, though I wish there were extra save files to do so, especially since the game seems to be nudging towards your finished game carrying over to the next installment. Heavy Metal Thunder is mostly text, of course, but it features occasional full-color illustrations from time to time to liven things up. The art style is quite unique, with everything looking kind of ugly and worn down in a way that suits the unpleasant circumstances of the game's universe. The battles, done in the typical gamebook manner involving dice rolls, have a futuristic look to them, and interesting choose not to let you see either participant. I like how based on the damage you take and deliver, the text explanation that follows is a bit different. It helps the battles merge with the narrative instead of just being this weird mini-game you play now and then. For a gamebook, Heavy Metal Thunder makes very extensive use of audio, with lots of sound effects and a soundtrack that matches the game's theme well.
This isn't the only sci-fi gamebook available on the App Store, but among the selection, this is assuredly the one with the hardest edge to its narrative. It's also a very fair game, making it a pretty good choice for those who are new to the genre. At the same time, while the game isn't very challenging, having a number of viable routes makes for a much more replayable game than we often see in this genre. You will have to sacrifice certain things in the course of the adventure, and that will close doors to you later on, so if you want to really drink in everything Heavy Metal Thunder has to offer, you're looking at playing through at least a few times. This is a very solid gamebook, with plenty to see and a zippy pace, told through some bizarre, entertaining writing. Fans of gamebooks, especially those who may have been pining recently for a more typical entry into the genre, should certainly give this a look. |
'Tilt to Live: Gauntlet's Revenge' Coming in October, New Screens and Details Released Posted: 23 Sep 2014 09:09 AM PDT One Man Left has been quietly tinkering away on Tilt to Live: Gauntlet's Revenge, a spin-off of Tilt to Live 2 [$2.99] that started off as DLC reimagining of the gauntlet mode from the original Tilt to Live [$2.99 / Free (HD) / Free], and the good news is that the standalone game is now nearing completion. Release is scheduled for October exclusively on iOS, and we've got some new screens and details on the game.
We know that the game will boast three different standard gauntlets to play in, across easy, medium, and hard modes. These gauntlets can be played in any order, but all give the player the goal of reaching the finish line and playing the bonus round at the end of each gauntlet, collecting pointonium along with way. Beating all three gauntlets, which are randomized each play session, unlocks the final boss gauntlet, where players will take on the Dot King himself. There will, of course, be Game Center leaderboards and achievements. Will the game make players "experience the full spectrum of human emotion" as One Man Left claims it will? Probably not, but I suppose we will all learn in October.
|
'Lith' Review - The Road Lith Traveled Posted: 23 Sep 2014 08:00 AM PDT Before I write anything else, I want to commend the developer of Lith [Free] on their courage. Making an entire game around a gameplay concept that is likely most famously remembered as "the puzzley bits that everyone hates in middling JRPGs" takes some guts. Lith is a puzzle game made up entirely of those puzzles where you have to slide across icy surfaces to reach an exit. Once you've stepped onto the ice, you can't stop or change direction until you reach a tile with some sort of traction or bump into a wall. The good news is that these puzzles are a lot more palatable when you aren't getting jumped by enemy fodder every ten seconds or so. The bad, or I suppose neutral, news is that although Lith has a few tricks up its sleeve, it's not going to win you over if you never liked that type of puzzle to begin with. The worse news is that there are some elements in the monetization that threaten to spoil the whole broth.
Initially, the puzzles are almost trivially simple, especially if you've encountered this style of challenge in other games before. Soon, the stages increase in size and the complications begin to arrive, initially in the form of that old gaming stand-by, the pushable crate. The chances are good you'll find yourself getting stumped even before the free levels are up, and it only gets crazier from there. If you like this kind of puzzle, rest assured, Lith has got you covered and then some. The controls are easy and functional, since all you can do is move in the four cardinal directions. You simply swipe in the direction you want the character to move in. If something needs to be pushed, you just swipe in its direction. It's sometimes a bit too easy to make your character move, and bumping up against a wall costs you a move, but generally, as long as you keep from getting over-zealous, you won't have any troubles here. The aesthetics are really pleasant, too. The graphics are made up of simple sprites for the most part, but the use of colors is very nice, creating very warm or relaxing environments by using somewhat muted tones. The music matches, with mellow tunes clearly intended to relax you in case of frustrations from not being able to solve a puzzle. It's not a show-off piece by any means, but for what amounts to a variation on Sokoban, it's at least got a good, consistent feel to it. Rounding out the presentation, you get a leaderboard for the game's survival mode, and a nice set of achievements that even have a fun Easter egg included. It's been a while since I played that old ocarina.
I also really dislike the fact that being able to play while zoomed out is something you have to unlock. You'll probably be nearly a third of the way through the game before you have enough star coins to unlock that vital feature, and that's if you don't spend any coins on anything else. With the levels increasing in size fairly early on, forcing players to zoom out, get their bearings, zoom in, move, and then do the whole process over again is aggravating. I suppose, however, that one could just pay for a star coin pack to unlock that useful feature right away. As I said, I like unlockables, but I'll never fully understand the thinking behind locking a feature that makes your game work better on a fundamental level. To add to this, the frustration of the dark levels becomes very suspect in light of there being an expensive unlockable to allow you to see better.
Lith is a decent game for patient puzzle fans. By focusing on a particular type of puzzle and building around it, you get some truly cool stage setups, and the game's presentation is stylish and welcoming. I'm not really happy with the way it opts to monetize itself beyond the full game unlock IAP, as it makes me very suspicious of the intentions behind some of the stage designs. Lith is surely worth the $1.99, but my problem is that it feels like it continues asking for more, especially if you have the misfortune of getting well and truly stuck on some of the stages. At least give me a couple stages to work on in case I run into a wall or something. Still, with a hefty chunk of stages available for free, there's no reason not to check it out and see if its way of doing things clicks with you. |
Radiangames' 'Inferno 2' Hitting iOS in Early October Posted: 23 Sep 2014 07:00 AM PDT
Well, good news everyone! A sequel to Inferno+ has been in the works for a while, and should be hitting the App Store in a matter of weeks. Here's a video of a complete playthrough of one of the levels in the upcoming Inferno 2.
I really loved the original Inferno+ and I'm definitely looking forward to getting my hands on the sequel. According to Radiangames, Inferno 2 should be out in early October, and if everything goes smoothly with Apple submission they're shooting for next week on October 2nd specifically. We will of course give you the head's up once it's available. |
'Duke Dashington' Adds Time Trial and Game Center in 1.1 Update Posted: 23 Sep 2014 06:00 AM PDT Duke Dashington [$1.99] released a couple of weeks ago, and I enjoyed the game, but thought that there were some additions that could be made to the game to improve its longevity, without necessarily adding new content. The developer, Adventure Island, has promised that they were coming in an update, and they have delivered: Duke Dashington 1.1 is out right now, bringing a new time trial mode and Game Center to the game. The Time Trial mode involves rushing through the 30 levels in one of the four worlds as quickly as possible, with the game keeping track of time and deaths. Deaths will be the big determinant for level times, though there's plenty of room on the margins for competitive types to not dawdle in levels. But if you can manage to beat any of the worlds without dying, you deserve the high leaderboard spot you get.
There's Game Center leaderboards and achievements, though these are all for completing one of the four worlds, completing it in time trial mode, and completing it without dying. Still, these are all welcome additions, and do a lot to add to the replayability of the game. As well, if you have an older device like the iPod touch 4th gen, the game's playable on them now, so get after it! |
'Wraithborne' Gets Updated with New Content, and Goes Free-to-Play Posted: 23 Sep 2014 05:00 AM PDT Alpha Dog Games' Wraithborne [Free] has gotten its first update in over a year. Typically such an update, especially timed around an iOS release, would be about just updating the game for the new iOS version and new devices, which this one does, yes – there's iOS 8 support and iPhone 6 and 6 Plus compatbility. But the game has also gotten some new contents, and has been made into a free-to-play title. The game has been tweaked to improve the flow of the game and to make some improvements to how the game plays, including modifying the difficulty curve. There's new narrated cutscenes, along with new music and sound effects. New armor sets have been added. The running animation, which has been complained about before? That's been overhauled. There's a new control system too.
The game is free-to-play now, but developer Alpha Dog Games promises that it's got "non-punishing IAP" – mostly just the ability to buy new weapons and armor with gems, and to use life stones which can revive you. There's no energy system or online connectivity. This is most likely the last content update to the game, but it's not a bad way to go out if it is the last one. |
Mojang Is Slashing the Price of 'Scrolls' Before Its Upcoming iPad Release Posted: 22 Sep 2014 04:30 PM PDT
"We've realised that our current price point is not feasible for flatter, more touchy, machines," reads the announcement on the game's official blog. "As you probably already know, games are cheap on those things. Free-to-play would be an option, but we're not keen on the way that that form of monetisation can affect gameplay." Instead, Mojang has decided to lower the price of Scrolls on all platforms to $5. Customers who ponied up for the beta will receive $20 worth of "Shards," one of the game's two currencies which can be used to buy cards, pre-constructed decks, and cosmetic items.
Mojang haven't announced a firm release date, but they hope to move the game out of beta and release it on PC, Mac, iOS and Android in "late autumn," with cross-platform multiplayer in tow. "Late autumn" is also (probably) sooner than "late 2014," which is when Microsoft's recently-announced purchase of Mojang is expected to be finalized. There was some worry that the impending acquisition would somehow negatively impact Scrolls, but this latest news suggests (to me) that the game is moving forward mostly unhindered. |
Halfbrick Teases a Big Update Upcoming to 'Fruit Ninja' Posted: 22 Sep 2014 02:30 PM PDT Halfbrick's announced that a big update is coming to Fruit Ninja [$0.99 / Free / $1.99 (HD) / Free (HD)] in October. The game's being rebuilt from scratch, according to Halfbrick, and will boast a new menu system in this updated version, that will launch in "early October." One of the key details of the updated version of the game is that it will take the dojos and blades, which were at one point only cosmetic items, and give them gameplay effects. For example, the Great Wave dojo will spawn up to ten fruit at once, and the Autumn Blade creates a tornado when it slices pineapples. In-game leaderboards will show which combination of items are being used. Ahead of the update, Halfbrick's got some new videos on YouTube from their subsidiary animation house People's Republic of Animation, teasing what may come and showing off some characters that may be involved:
Fruit Ninja is an App Store legend, having been around since 2010, and the game has added in-app purchases at various points, but even it must adapt to the times. After all, it was around way back in the days even before free-to-play really took off, and look where we are now. Time will tell just how the changes affect the game, though. |
No comments:
Post a Comment