Super Monkey Ball was one of the real gems of the GameCube era, and now a version of it is set to bounce its way onto iOS this summer.
But this isn’t your grandpappy’s Super Monkey Ball. According to SEGA, the game takes inspiration from the classic arcade game, pachinko, and features AiAi and the rest of his monkey pals as they attempt to thwart the evil machinations of the dastardly Prof. Boscis.
If you’re an iOS gamer, chances are you’re fed up of games loaded to the gunwales with in-app purchases. The so-called “freemium” trend for games is annoying for two main reasons: One, in many cases it makes games virtually unplayable if you won’t shell out the extra cash for IAPs. Two, it’s misleading because the games aren’t really “free” at all, any more than you could say that it’s free to go to the theater, but you have to pay cash if you want to actually watch a movie.
It’s this second point that antitrust authorities in Italy are taken issue with, under the heading of unfair commercial practices. They’re investigating Apple, Google and Amazon, alongside French game developer Gameloft, for allegedly misleading customers by advertising mobile game apps as free, when they actually require purchases in order to be played beyond a certain point.
I suck at table tennis. Like, it’s embarrassing.
I’m alright at serving, and I can usually return, but if anyone smashes at all or puts any spin on the ball, I fold faster than a laundry robot. I still like the idea of table tennis, though, which is why I’m glad we have video-game versions.
And Table Tennis Touch, which is out now for all of your iOS devices, is easily the best one I’ve ever played.
I know I’ve said it before, but video games hate bricks.
And to that end, here’s yet another title about destroying those square bastards. It’s called Bricks, and it has a novel approach to smashing things that gets as fast-paced and exciting as it does embarrassing to be seen playing.
It’s probably not that bad if someone catches you, but you may raise some eyebrows. Here’s why.
When your girlfriend grabs the iPad and won’t give it back, you know you’ve got a hit game in your hands. Well, her hands. Seriously, I had to arm-wrestle her to get the iPad back so I could do this review.
Demons vs Fairyland seems at first glance to be yet another cute, fixed-path tower defense game with free-to-play in-app purchases, but the sheer breadth of options available to upgrade your tower defenses, along with the adorably cute artwork and epic music, take this game to a whole new level of awesome.
But seriously, she still won’t give the iPad back.
The most addicting game to ever hit the App Store will make its triumphant return in August. Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen tells CNBC that he has a new version in the works, but this time it won’t be as addictive.
I really can’t get enough of twin-stick shooters.
I don’t know what it is, but they have a very specific kind of frantic energy that appeals to me without being overwhelming. And I like them so much that every time I have an opportunity to play one on iOS, I give it a chance despite the fact that my iPhone has no sticks to twin, so the touch controls usually suck.
Ekon the Cyborg is a new two-pad shooter that somehow has controls that work. And I’m as shocked as anyone. But beyond that, it’s a nostalgic and colorful romp that is pretty much made of my childhood.
If you’re looking for the next super-addictive iOS hit, you may have found it in JoyJoy, which arrives in the App Store tomorrow, priced $1.99.
The game, which comes from developers RadanGames, was actually released on Xbox Live Indie Games a few years ago, but this mobile version has been totally revamped. It’s an above-view arcade shooter in which you see off wave after wave of assailants using a wide range of weaponry.
Is it wrong that — regardless of how many times I get burned on either Michael Bay Transformers movies, or video game movie adaptations — I’m still excited at the prospect of a new Transformers game?
DeNA and Hasbro has just announced the official tie-in game for the upcoming Transformers sequel, Age of Extinction. As with the movie, the mobile game will be landing on iOS devices (as well as Android and Windows Phone) this summer.
Here’s a quick, funny, and surprisingly challenging word game for movie buffs.
Plot Twistz presents you with a slightly modified plot to a famous film, and your job is to figure out the name of the augmented movie. You get the answer by changing one letter of the original title, which doesn’t sound like much, but you’d be surprised.
It’s also pretty hilarious if you love puns.
Have you ever experienced that giddy feeling of good fortune when a slot machine starts pouring out quarters, or a winning poker hand lets you put your arms around a big pile of chips and pull them towards your side of the table? Dragon Coins, a combination arcade “coin-pusher” and casual RPG, recreates that feeling every time you play.
It’s a dangerous precedent. Dragon Coins literally piles on the treasure when you’re on a roll, emulating the psychological appeal of casinos. As long as you are able to put the game down from time to time, or grind out low-level battles to earn extra experience, you probably won’t end up mortgaging your home or draining your kid’s college fund to pay for this game.
If you like rhythm games at all, stop reading right now and go download Record Run.
I can elaborate if you insist, but here’s what you need to know: It’s from the developer of Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Dance Central. It’s a colorful runner with simple gameplay and personality for days. And with a few taps, the game will make a level from any song stored on your iOS device.
Oh, and it’s free. Just go get it right now.
Bouncing, huffing and puffing through a beautifully-rendered cartoon world, avoiding jagged rolling wheels and collecting coins, Leo’s Fortune may just be the year’s most lovable iPhone game. But which games did its creators fall in love with?
Following our exclusive look inside behind the scenes of Apple’s iPhone “game of the month,” we asked Leo’s Fortune designer Anders Hejdenberg to name his current top five iOS games. He said he’s most impressed by titles that pair intriguing artwork with novel gameplay mechanics.
The highly imaginative Monument Valley, for instance, won him over quickly. “It didn’t take long to finish,” says Hejdenberg of his experience playing the game, “but during that time I experienced quite a few moments where I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this is really cool!’ That rarely happens when I play games, so it was definitely worth the price of admission.”
Here are the other iOS games currently taking his breath away. (You’ll find download links available below the gallery.)
If you’re even slightly pop culture savvy, chances are that you’re a fan of The Walking Dead. If that’s the case, you’ll be happy to known that the latest episode of Telltale Games’ superb The Walking Dead adventure game series is set to appear on Mac and iOS this week.
Hundreds of new games come out every week in the App Store. A select few are the next must-play title that everyone will be talking about (and ripping off) for the foreseeable future. Most of them are perfectly decent but may not receive the attention they deserve. And then you have the third group: games so odd, bizarre, and head-scratching that you’re not sure what to make of or do with them.
They aren’t necessarily bad; they’re just confusing and weird. And worst of all, people may never know that they exist. But that’s why we’re here.
Here are some of the strangest games to drop into the App Store this week, and they’re all about playing with fat stacks of cash. Or change. What you do with this information is between you and your iPhone.
Wingsuit Cute is a game about a bunch of adorable animals forced to glide through the air and collect snacks while under the constant threat of smashing their widdle snoots on rocks and trees.
It really downplays the animals graphically smashing their faces open, but that’s basically what’s happening. The game takes a sunnier approach, choosing to focus on the part where tiny mammals don wingsuits in search of thrills and noms. And it’s really cute. And kinda fun, with a fair amount of challenge to keep perfect-run seekers coming back.
But it’s mostly cute.
More details are trickling out about Gameloft’s eagerly awaited first-person-shooter Modern Combat 5: Blackout, which is set to arrive on mobile later this year.
The first big reveal concerns a new unified progression system, which will aim to bring together the single-player campaign and online multiplayer modes by letting experience earned in either contribute toward your character’s overall level. This will also hold true for the game’s weapon mastery system also, meaning that whether you unlock a new weapon in campaign or multiplayer you’ll be able to use it in both.
If you’ve ever wanted to tap nervously on the screen, listen to repetitive dubstep, and watch colorful pills fall in front of your eyes, now there’s an app for that. Intake: Be Aggressive is a self-described “psychedelic shooter” for iPad that carelessly toys with the concept of club drugs, but without the trippy fun.
I expected more from Cipher Prime Studios, the makers of Splice: Tree of Life and Pulse: Volume One. Intake: Be Aggressive is a very simple tapping game where two different colors of pills fall from the top of the screen, and your job is to tap on them to chain together a combo. You can tap the space at the very bottom to switch colors and prevent the chain from breaking.
Saunter up to the bar, pardner, and we’ll tell you all about our little town here.
We need a sheriff around these parts and you look like you’d fit the badge nicely. Here’s a gun; get out there and collect rewards, shoot wild animals and round up the bad guys.
Oh, and don’t mind the funny green light ’round these parts. It’s just how we get things done.
Once again, I’m here to tell you about a little minimalist game that has completely kicked my ass.
It’s called Lumena, and it doesn’t look like much until you play it and fail in like two seconds. And then you try again, and again you fail because the game is, in fact, so minimal that it doesn’t even bother to tell you how to play it. But after a while, you figure it out (it’s not really that complicated), and with newly found confidence, you give it another shot. And you lose in five seconds.
But stick with it because it’s way better than I’m making it sound.
Don’t Starve is a brilliant yet brutal video game that will not hold your hand as it leads you inexorably toward a messy, starving death.
Until now, it’s been a single-player affair, which just reinforces the theme of loneliness present in every ticking second of each of the in-game days and nights.
Klei Entertainment, at the frantic urging of its fan base, is finally bringing a final feature to the game that we all wanted: a shared experience.
This summer, we can huddle together with other players, avoiding the rampaging hounds of doom and giant tree monsters bent on our destruction in ecstatic togetherness.
I’ve been playing video games for almost 30 years. I like to think that I’ve developed a certain level of hand-eye coordination and an ability to recognize patterns and learn rules reasonably quickly.
But Spirit Run: Fire vs. Ice, a new endless runner from developer Lunagames, made me question all of that. Suddenly, I was transforming when I wanted to jump, and jumping when I wanted to slide, and just falling the hell off of things that I normally wouldn’t.
That isn’t to say that it’s a bad game; it’s actually quite good. But be prepared to feel like a monkey trying to do algebra. You know, if that’s a thing that one might call upon monkeys to do.
If you’re a fan of strategy simulation games, you’ll probably already know the Anno series, which arrived on PC back in the heady days of 1998 and has continued as a successful franchise since then.
Developers Ubisoft recently announced that they will be bringing an original entry to the series to iPad, later this year. Called Anno: Build an Empire, you’ll begin by colonizing an uninhabited island, which you then harvest for resources, eventually building your way up to fully-fledged civilization — with various colonized islands under your control, which you can trade between.
Imagine a game that mashes up the best of a classic strategy game like speed chess and a modern hit like League of Legends. If you do, you’ll probably come up with something like Aerena: Clash of Champions, a steampunk-themed turn-based strategy game that uses the hero mechanics of other massively online battle arena games like Dota 2 in a painstakingly created digital board game arena.
The game will go free-to-play this Wednesday on Steam (it’s already out for Android tablets — iOS versions to come soon), and is a great new gaming experience — we’ve been playing it all morning. It takes only a short while for the casual gamer to learn how to play, but there is enough strategy and balanced mechanics to give core players a ton of depth.
If you’re super savvy, though, you’ll grab the early access copy today for $10, which nets you a full $30 worth of downloadable content, extra heroes and more. Either way, Aerena is a brilliant game and deserves your attention.
For you gamers out there that aren’t looking to spend an arm and a leg for Call of Duty: Ghosts you can now experience this award-winning title for pennies on the dollar … thanks to Cult of Mac Deals!
Fighting as both a U.S Marine and British S.A.S. soldier, in Call of Duty 4 you will utilize sophisticated technology and weaponry to take control of the battlefield and to lead your squad to victory. You’ll get hours of action packed, gun wielding fun with one of the best FPS franchises out there. And all for just $9.99!