5/5 - page 2

If Breaking It Isn’t The Answer, Smash Hit Doesn’t Even Want To Hear The Question [Review]

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Smash Hit

Sometimes, you just gotta break something.

Smash Hit by Mediocre Game Studio
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free ($1.99 unlock for full features)

But you probably don’t want to break your own stuff, and people get mad when you smash up their things. This is where gaming often enters the picture: It’s an environment in which you can demolish the crap out of things with no consequences. And it’s even more satisfying when the things break realistically.

Smash Hit is a game about literally that, and it’s incredibly satisfying.

God of Light Presents An Elegant Metaphor For Puzzle Games [Review]

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God of Light

God of Light has a simple, fun concept. It has pretty graphics and some cool music by British electronica outfit Unkle. And it has realistic light physics. And all of these are great, but a lot of games look and sound good.

God of Light by Playmous
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $1.99

But God of Light is special because in addition to all of these good qualities, it also offers something else: a meditation on what puzzle games are, what they do, and how and why we play them.

And the best part is that the developer accomplishes this not by telling us, but by building all of these qualities into the gameplay and mechanics.

Primal Flame: Play With Matches For Great Justice [Review]

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Primal Flame

Primal Flame is one of those games that’s immediately impressive. Its brief loading screen at startup is gorgeous, and the title screen presents the obligatory social-networking links in its own cave-drawing aesthetic so that they fit in while still remaining recognizable.

Primal Flame by Irrelevant Fish
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $2.99

But I’m not here just to talk about the title screen, luckily for you, and once you stop gawking at it and actually start Primal Flame up, it just keeps on being amazing.

You start with a black screen covered in specks with the sounds of a forest at night. Brighter lights start drifting down from the top, and you run your finger along the screen. Sparks fly and grow and burst into flame, and then you’re playing one of the most unique games I’ve ever seen.

Tengami‘s Beauty Will Make Your Eyes Pop Up Out Of Your Head [Review]

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Tengami

Tengami has gathered a bit of a following during its development due to its beautiful, pop-up-book art style and zen-like demeanor. It has relaxing music, a dialogue-free narrative, and puzzles that are clever and occasionally very tricky.

Tengami by Nyamyam Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $4.99

The game is out now as a universal app for iOS devices, and it has a lot of expectations to live up to. Can it live up to the excitement?

It absolutely does, delivering an endlessly fascinating experience in one of the most beautiful packages you have ever seen.

Card Wars: Adventure Time — Absolutely, You Can Floop The Pig [Review]

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Card Wars

Fans of Cartoon Network’s megahit Adventure Time are probably familiar with “Card Wars,” an episode in which heroes Finn and Jake square off in a ludicrously complicated collectible card game.

Card Wars: Adventure Time by Cartoon Network
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $3.99

If your first thought after seeing that installment was “I have to play that crazy-ass game,” you’re in luck: It’s now available for your iPhone or iPad. While not quite as complicated as the on-screen version, Card Wars offers the same basic card-and-board gameplay with 3D monsters battling it out for fortune and glory.

And behind its zany exterior lies a deceptively deep experience with Floops galore.

Eliss Infinity Improves Upon An Already Amazing Game [Review]

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Eliss Infinity

The original Eliss wowed everyone back in 2009 with its multitouch controls, cool music, and increasingly frantic gameplay. Now, we have Eliss Infinity, which includes the original game and a few more modes to keep even veteran players interested.

Eliss Infinity by Steph Thirion
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $2.99

Eliss is a puzzle/action/insanity game in which you have to manipulate the sizes of “planets” to make them fit inside of rings. You do this by combining smaller ones by dragging them into each other or splitting larger ones by pulling them apart with your thumbs. But differently colored planets can’t touch, or they’ll eat each other away.

That’s the basic idea. But Infinity has a lot more to offer.

You Are Legend In Overlive [Review]

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Overlive

This just in: Someone has made a game about zombies.

Overlive by FireRabbit
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $1.99 (lite version available)

You probably weren’t expecting that, huh? A zombie game? It’s crazy on the face of it.

Now, look: I hate zombies as much as the next person. Maybe a bit more, even. Stupid shambling a****les. But that doesn’t mean I want to spend all of my gaming time killing them. I have a lot of other things to pretend to kill, like Nazis and Pokémon. So I’ll admit that I wasn’t immediately sold on Overlive, a new undead-themed gamebook with role-playing-game elements, even though it’s hard to go wrong with me once you start offering choices and stats.

Once I started playing it, though, Overlive won me over.

Spell Quest: Grimm’s Journey Gives New Meaning To ‘Spellcasting’ [Review]

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Spell Quest

I’m a big fan of words. The idea that you can arrange letters and spaces in such a way as to change minds, inspire emotion, and create art is powerful and almost magical.

Spell Quest: Grimm’s Journey by Bacon Bandit Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

And the idea that you can do the same thing to ruin someone’s day or knock them down a peg is a different kind of magic, but just as eagerly sought. Spell Quest: Grimm’s Journey falls into the latter, “words can hurt” camp.

But they’re hurting monsters, so it’s probably alright.

Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider Is An Entertaining Combination Of Several Elements [Review]

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Atomic Fusion

Science is cool, and Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider wants you to know that.

Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider by ByteSized Studios
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $1.99 (free through Level 10)

It’s a tough game to describe. It’s kind of like a shooter, but you don’t shoot anything. It reminds me a bit of Tilt to Live except that nothing is really trying to kill you. You’re basically just flying around collecting stuff. So maybe it’s also a little like Katamari Damacy but not nearly so goofy.

Whatever it is, though, it’s fun.

Simian Interface Just Throws You In And Tells You To Swim [Review]

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Simian Interface

If you’re used to games taking time to explain what they are and how you play them, then Simian Interface may not be for you.

Simian Interface by Vested Interest
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

But you should play it anyway, wuss, because you don’t need that much instruction to understand this one. The game leaves it up to you to figure out what it wants and how to do it, but it’s really not that hard to figure out.

And if you put the time in and go along for the short time it takes to play through it, you’ll get a unique, entirely satisfying experience.

Feed Me Oil 2 Is The Most Fun Ecological-Disaster-Based Entertainment Ever [Review]

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Feed Me Oil 2

If you played the original Feed Me Oil a couple years ago, you probably fell in love with its surreal graphics and fun, physics-based puzzles. If you didn’t, the name is probably confusing the hell out of you. Because you really shouldn’t feed anything oil, right? That’s super gross.

Feed Me Oil 2 by Holy Water Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $2.99

Don’t get stuck on that, though, because Feed Me Oil 2 is out now, and it features the same addictive gameplay with shinier graphics and some new tools to get that oil where it needs to go.

And where it needs to go is, like, right into the mouth of a weird, animal-like hill or something. But again, don’t dwell on that because if you do, you’re missing out on a great game.

It’s Hard To Review Ski Safari: Adventure Time — Because I Can’t Stop Playing It [Review]

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Ski Safari: Adventure Time

That headline isn’t hyperbole. I’ve started this review three times, but I kept thinking of things I should “check out” in the game so that I could make sure I was writing the thing properly. But mainly, I just wanted to keep playing the new Adventure Time version of Ski Safari.

Ski Safari: Adventure Time by Cartoon Network
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

If you haven’t played the original, it’s a twist on the endless runner genre: The endless skier. The hapless hero has to give it all he has to outrun an avalanche that is barreling down the hill behind him. He can do backflips for points and can hitch rides on the local wildlife for speed boosts, and all the while, he’s collecting as many coins as he can.

Ski Safari: Adventure Time is the same thing only with 100 percent fewer skis and way more characters from Pendleton Ward’s awesome cartoon series. So basically, it’s better in every way.

Donate Money To Charity When You Play This Spooky Game [Review]

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Nightmare malaria

Nightmare: Malaria is the story of a little girl with malaria. In her dreams, she is thrust into a horrible nightmare world where she is trying to save her teddy bears from a horrible world infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes and vats of bubbling disease. Your goal is to guide her through the world and hide in screened tents to ward off the infected bugs.

Nightmare: Malaria by Psyop Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

You can download the game for free, but between each level you’ll see a prompt for a microtransaction. This won’t unlock features in the game, and you don’t need to contribute money to win, but the $3 purchase is actually a donation toward providing mosquito nets to people at risk for contracting malaria. You can donate as often as you want, and the whole game is designed to educate players on the dangers of the disease. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Against Malaria Foundation work tirelessly to help eradicate malaria, but your small contribution can provide preventative measures to people who can’t help themselves.

You Can Buy The Room 2 Right Now, And That’s All You Need To Know [Review]

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The Room 2

In my review of The Room a few months ago, I said it was the best mobile game I’ve ever played, and I meant it. The Room 2, the iPad-only sequel to the puzzle-box escape title, is out now, and it’s more of the same.

The Room 2 by Fireproof Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPad
Price: $4.99

And I have absolutely no problem with that.

It’s really good. It’s really, really good. If you played the first one, you should play this one immediately. And if you didn’t play the first one, you should play it, and then you should play this one, and then you’ll be all set.

So, yes. You could say I am a fan.

Fiz Captures All The Complexity Of A Microbrewery With None Of The Smell [Review]

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Fiz

Making your own beer is hard work. It’s a series of intensive scientific processes, and a mistake at any one of them can ruin hours of work and possibly poison someone. But if you get it right, it’s a middle finger right to the face of Big Beer.

Fiz by Bit by Bit
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $1.99

Is “Big Beer” a thing? I’ve lost track of which corporations are evil.

Fiz is an independent management game about independent brewing, and it tasks you with building up your own brand from the garage up. And that’s every bit as complicated as it sounds. More so, actually, because numbers are also involved.

Assassin’s Creed Pirates: Nautical Pun Meaning ‘It’s Good’ [Review]

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Assassins Creed: Pirates

Assassin’s Creed IV launched on consoles this fall and offered all the ship-on-ship action gamers required. Developer Ubisoft, not one to let a good idea go un-reused, has now released Assassin’s Creed Pirates, a sidestory about one man’s rise from prisoner to fearsome buccaneer captain. It ditches the main series’ free-running in favor of a completely seaborne experience.

Assassin’s Creed Pirates by Ubisoft
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $4.99

Does Pirates rake in the booty, or does it walk the plank to plunge the briny deep to Davy Jones’ Locker? Could that last sentence have been any more forced?

You’ll find the answers to these questions and more after the break.

Come Back For More Of Addictive Battle Arena Strategy Mashup The Gate [Review]

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The Gate New Wave Of Enemies

I’ve played digital card games on my iPad before, including some heavy hitters like Might And Magic: Duel Of Champions and Magic 2014.

I’ve played some real-time battle arena games, like Raid Leader or Skulls of the Shogun, and enjoyed them as well.

The Gate by Spicy Horse Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

But I’ve never, until now, played such an engaging mashup of the two gaming genres. What Singapore-based Spicy Horse has done here is create nothing less than a sublime, well-balanced, purely addictive combination of collectible card game, arena-based real-time strategy, and a training/leveling up system that just begs for exploration and mastery.

The Inner World: A Throwback Game In a Modern Package [Review]

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The Inner World

The Inner World is one of those “throwback, but in a good way” titles that reminds us of how good we have it nowadays. That sounds harsh, but remember that a time existed in which point-and-click adventures were everywhere. Very few of them gave you any help or hints, and all of them required you to play Amateur Psychic with the developers.

The Inner World by Studio Fizbin
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $2.99

This is what I’m saying (slight spoiler, but it’s the first puzzle): I have no reason to believe that a drunken worm would make for a good slingshot.

And it’s a good thing that The Inner World is so cute and sympathetic to its players or that would really annoy me.

Legend of Equip Pants Is Delightfully Self-Aware [Review]

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Pants 1

Legend of Equip Pants is an episodic adventure/role-playing game that revolved around the acquisition of pants. You play as Sir Pantsalot as he quests to find, well, pants to wear. You start out partially clothed in armor and generally terrorize the innocent populace with your lack of lower body covering.

Legend of Equip Pants by Zach Johnson
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

Each episode is fairly brief and has only a handful of solutions. In the first episode, you must acquire a costume or pumpkin pants to enter a party. You can either get a pumpkin and take it to the pantsmith or borrow cursed “underwere” that turn you into an underwerewolf! League of Epic Pants hardly takes itself seriously, and these bite-sized levels don’t overstay their welcome. You really only need a few minutes to appreciate the concept of underwerewolves, and the game’s developer realizes this.

Draw Out The Evil In Darklings [Review]

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Darklings

Dark and light should probably sit down someplace and talk. They’re always fighting.

Darklings by MildMania
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99 (50% off promotional price)

Their senseless war continues in Darklings, a new endless survival game from developer MildMania. You play as Lum, a being of light going up against the Darklings, evil beings who have stolen all the stars from the sky in a plan to plunge the world into darkness. Because that’s how the dark operates in these things.

Lum is alone against endless waves of evil beings, and only your quick shape-drawing powers can help it prevail.

Icycle: On Thin Ice Is A Cinematic Fever Dream [Review]

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Icycle 2

Playing Icycle: On Thin Ice feels more like interacting with a movie than playing a game. You guide the hapless (and naked) Dennis through an increasingly treacherous frozen wasteland with nothing but a bicycle and a warm hat. The world will shift, crack, and crumble all around you, often sending Dennis up an ice flow or down into frozen lakes. The animation is so seamless that it’s almost like you’re watching a cutscene.

Icycle: On Thin Ice by Chillingo
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

What is more game-like about Icycle is the emphasis on completing level objectives while performing dangerous jumps to collect ice chunks. Doing so will let you unlock new tools and eventually clothing for Dennis to use. I was worried when I started the game that Dennis would just stay naked, so I’m glad you have the option to clothe him. Of course, every time you careen into spikey ice, his clothes miraculously disappear, leaving Dennis to freeze to death on the ice–which is as charmingly animated as everything else in Icycle.

Tic Tactics Heard You Like Tic Tac Toe, So It Put Some Tic Tac Toe In Your Tic Tac Toe [Review]

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Tic Tactics

I grew up in the 80s, so I know how close we came to total nuclear annihilation when the WOPR computer became self-aware, as we saw in the 1983 documentary WarGames. The only thing that saved us back then was Tic Tac Toe, a game that became the savior of all humanity just by being stupid and largely unwinnable.

Tic Tactics by Hidden Variable Studios
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

Tic Tactics aims to solve its predecessor’s “what the hell, we’re bored” factor by adding eight more boards and some much-needed lateral thinking.

And it succeeds admirably.

Why Do YOU Think You Should Play The Shivah: Kosher Edition? [Review]

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The Shivah

The Shivah starts with a joke:

The Shivah: Kosher Edition by Wadjet Eye Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $1.99

“A goy came up to Rabbi Moishe to ask, ‘Why do rabbis always answer with a question?’

To which Rabbi Moise replied, ‘Why not?'”

First released in 2006, The Shivah is a noirish, murder-mystery adventure game centered around a money-deficient New York synagogue. Its hero, Russell Stone, is not a hardbitten private investigator or a disgraced former police officer like the genre typically demands. He’s a cynical rabbi with a heavy conscience who stumbles into the investigation completely by accident. It sounds odd, and it is, but it also totally works.

Now, developer Wadjet Eye Games has released The Shivah: Kosher Edition, an updated iOS and PC version of the original game with all-new graphics and music. If you’ve never played the original and you’re a fan of adventure games and (well-meaning) Jewish humor, it’s a great take on the well-trod genre.

Tilt To Live 2: Redonkulous Is. [Review]

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Tilt to Live 2

Tilt to Live is one of those high-concept games with a name that says it all. Kind of like Press X to Jason, but not quite as flippant or mocking.

Tilt to Live 2: Redonkulous by One Man Left
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $2.99

And it was popular, so a sequel was inevitable. And so we have Tilt to Live 2: Redonkulous, which came out last week for iOS devices and delivers on its name almost immediately.

It’s kind of hard to explain until you’ve played it, though, and you should definitely play it.

Stellar Wars Sucker-Punches You With Cute Robots Before Putting You To Work [Review]

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Stellar Wars

Its title may sound like a Star Wars-based mockbuster by The Asylum (the studio that brought us Sharknado and Atlantic Rim), but Stellar Wars, a new iOS title out now from developer Liv Games, is actually the followup to 2011’s megapopular Legendary Wars. Only this one takes place in space and stars a bunch of cute robots.

Stellar Wars by Liv Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $1.99

So it’s off to a promising start from that alone.

Once you get over the cute overload from those little guys, though, Stellar Wars reveals itself to be a complex, surprisingly deep melange of a bunch of different game styles that shouldn’t work together, but then they totally do.

Just expect to have to work for it.