games - page 49

I don’t need a game to constantly encourage me and tell me how well I’m doing or how good I am at playing it. I don’t need a game to take me by the hand and lead me along through its twists and turns. And I definitely don’t need a game to take pity on me if I’m not good at it right away.

And that’s a good thing because Octagon, a new twitchy arcade title by (mean) developer Lukas Korba, isn’t interested in doing any of that. Octagon wants to hurt you. It wants you to feel terrible and incompetent, and I have reason to believe that it’s actively trying to get me to break my phone.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s still fun. But holy crap, is it difficult.

Forget 3-D printing. The future of personal manufacturing is now 2-D printing – when you’re making iPhone keyboards that it. Using nothing but a keyboard printed onto a sheet of regular paper, along with Gyorgyi Kerekes’s new Paper Keyboard app, you can type and play games as if you’d dropped cash money on a real 3-D metal and plastic keyboard.

If you’ve ever wanted to make viruses fight, Pathogen will help you realize your dreams. Pathogen is a board game that has you infecting tiles to eventually take over the entire playing field. You can play versus the computer in an increasingly difficult campaign mode or challenge your friends.

Perhaps I’m not quite as good at “Go” as I thought I was, but Pathogen’s difficulty is undoubtedly the first thing you’ll notice. The computer in the campaign is prepared to take advantage of your mistakes at every turn.

I’ve frequently been so close to winning a match only to have the computer claim victory because I forgot to take over one of its pieces butting up against my wall of viruses.

It’s been a little while since I reviewed a fantasy game with a branching plot, so I picked up Sorcery! 2, a new title from developer Inkle Studios and designer Steve Jackson, co-founder of Lionhead Studios (maker of the Fable series of role-playing games for Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles) and writer of the gamebooks on which this franchise is based. Not the Steve Jackson who created the GURPS tabletop RPG platform, but that’s an amazing coincidence.

Sorcery! 2 is the second (duh) in what will be a four-part adventure series, and it’s equal parts visual novel, RPG, and gamebook. And it all takes place in a beautiful, hand-drawn world with multiple paths and interesting old men to talk to. I mean, I don’t think you only talk to old men, but I spent about an hour with the game, and I did talk to some old men of varying crotchetiness. And a restauranteur who may or may not have been a star-spawn of Cthulhu.

Why haven’t you downloaded this yet?

Your school experience might have differed from mine, but I remember one day in Industrial Arts (read: Shop class) when the teacher announced we would all be designing and building bridges. And at the end of the week, we would see whose construct could hold the most weight.

Now, I’m not a trained bridge-maker — in fact, none of us were because we were ninth-graders — so I knew that the next week would be among the longest of my young life because all I knew about structural engineering was something vague about triangles. Triangles are good, I think. Anyway, my bridge sucked. If I remember correctly, it snapped in half and then somehow caught fire.

And I’ve never felt that same sense of personal failure again … until I played Project Peon, an iPad game hitting the App Store today.

The genre of tower defense has been fairly represented on iOS over the past several years, with notable entries like Fieldrunners and Kingdom Rush turning in fantastic examples of fixed and variable path classic tower defense gameplay.

iPad-only RoboMouse HD, then, is a new, well-balanced entry to the genre, and while it brings nothing innovative to the table, it’s adorable and provides a solid set of features that make it an essential entry to any tower defense fan’s gaming library.

The Commodore Amiga has become a classic target for nostalgic gamers to relive their early gaming experiences. iOS has seen its fair share of releases from the retro computing platform, including Battle Squadron One, Alien Breed, Babylonian Twins, and Defender of the Crown, just to name a few. There are several more in the works, as well.

Today, however, developer Cope-Com announced the release of classic two-player shoot-em-up, Battle Squadron, for OS X and PC. It follows up a successful iOS release in 2011 as well as one for Android in 2012.

I’m sad to say that if you clicked on this review hoping that Girl Washing was a soon-to-be-removed “sexy” game for iOS that you’re in for some hot…laundry washing action. Yep. Girl Washing is all about a cute girl doing chores instead of you washing some totally objectified anime chick (thankfully).

Anyway, Girl Washing is a weird take on a matching game. Rather than swiping to move clothes into lines, you’re actually assembling the game pieces on a grid, trying to match five items together. When you do, the clothes end up in a washing queue that you then have to drag into the washing machine. Soon, all the laundry starts piling up and matching five pairs gets incredibly difficult. I’ve spent a few hours beating my head against the seemingly automatic fail state Girl Washing pushed on you if you put even a sock out of place.

I’ve played and reviewed my share of endless runners, but Ooga Jump, a new game from Bolt Creative, takes endlessness to that other axis.

If you thought I was going to say “to new heights,” shame on you.

Ooga Jump is an “endless jumper” that was originally a minigame in Bolt’s earlier title, Pocket God. You control a Pygmy who for some reason or another is taking an infinite voyage upward via a series of platforms and collectible goodies. On his way, he encounters deadly statues, spiders, meteors, and wind, all of which want to cut his trip short by making him really, really dead.

Finnish developer and all-around success story Rovio Entertainment announced Monday a new cross-over collaboration with Korean-based GungHo Entertainment, the makers of the almost as highly successful match-three mobile game, Puzzles and Dragons.

The pissed-off avians will show up in the popular role-playing/color matching mashup as an Angry Birds-themed dungeon from November 18 through December 1 of this year. You’ll get to challenge the Angry Birds as enemies in the dungeon, in contrast to their hero role in the Rovio-produced titles.

Maybe I’m just a sucker for a dramatic Blade Runner-style soundtrack, but this new shooter from publisher Crescent Moon Studios and developer Tasty Poison Games (Pocket RPG) looks pretty darn exciting.

First person shooters are hard to do well on iOS, especially with a lack of physical buttons, but if anyone can do it right, these folks can. Of course, with the possibility of a physical controller due to Apple’s new controller code in iOS 7, things can only get better.

Check out the trailer to see the game in action.

I’m a big fan of physics-based puzzles, but the trouble is most of them relate to altering an object’s trajectory as it falls rather than manipulating things.

Drei by Etter Studio GmbH does away with falling oranges and rolling balls and offers instead increasingly difficult building block puzzles that require you to balance objects, shapes, and negotiate with other players.

Developer Gaijin Games’ Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien quickly became one of my favorite games this year when it launched for consoles and PC back in February. It had a lot of personality, precise gameplay, and was just challenging enough to keep you on your toes but not enough to be frustrating.

The iOS port, Bit.Trip Run!, keeps the original’s levels, fantastic graphics, and entertaining narration from voice actor Charles Martinet (the voice of Nintendo’s Mario). So it’s mostly the same game. But it drops the necessarily accurate button controls in favor of taps and swipes for the mobile platform, and that really cuts the game down a few notches. I’d almost say that it makes it unplayable, but that’s not quite the case.

But it does take a great deal of patience to play well.

The fine folks at Gaijin Games released the sequel to their hit Bit.Trip Runner game on Thursday and we can’t seem to put it down.

Originally set to be called Bit.Trip Runner2: Legend of Rhythm Alien, Bit.Trip Run! is a super fun romp through the whimsical environments as Commander Video, the Bit.Trip mascot, of sorts. If you play long enough, you’ll unlock seven other characters, including a pickle, along with 40 different costumes to run with.

Here’s a quick video we recorded to show you the fun.

If you fancy yourself an expert on abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols, you might want to have a go at Name It!, a new trivia game that focuses on those three things (known collectively — and somewhat awkwardly — as “AASs”). It’s a pretty niche subject, really, but the game covers a lot of ground, including such disparate topics as Presidential history (“POTUS”) and the term “YOLO,” which stands for “I have failed at life.”

Name It! throws a startling number of questions at you across four rounds. And it’s all great fun until you get tired of it.

Who doesn’t love bugs? Kids of all ages love them, of course, and in new educational app, Grandma Loves Bugs, they’ll get a chance to explore the wonderful world of the many legged creatures with ten super fun mini games and eight instructional bug videos for young kids.

The mini games include Spot the Difference, Magic Coloring, Letter Match, bug Spelling, Counting Fireflies, and more. The live action nature videos are fully narrated and teach kids all about the wonderful world of bugs, too. The artwork and pedagogy are spot-on, as well, so parents can feel comfortable releasing their tiny bundles of joy onto their iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

Check out this adorable video to see what we mean:

Yesterday, I reviewed the first part of The Hunting, an interactive zombie film for iOS devices. I had some issues with its actual interactivity, which mostly amounted to swiping to put on pants and a meaningless choice between leaving a house through a window or a door.

Part 2 is out now, and unlike the first installment, it costs money. But it’s longer, has more interesting decision points, and is scary as hell.

So basically, remember the problems I had with the first one? Forget them.

If you love Epic’s trilogy-concluding game of immortal swordsmanship, Infinity Blade III, things are getting better. As is their wont, Epic has opted to release a massive 1.1 Infinity Blade III update that adds a huge number of improvements, as well as new content including a new location and an enemy, the fearful Deathless Bloodmage.

Just over a week after 2K announced there would be a sequel to their turn-based strategy dogfighting game Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol, we now have details about pricing and release date, along with a wee screen shot to whet our appetites.

The Hunting is an interactive zombie film made for — and with — the iPhone. It presents a world in which the undead rise because of a spontaneous global failure of antibiotics. But that’s not really important; the main thing is that zombies are in the room.

The first part of the story runs about 12 minutes, and it sets the scene pretty well. Your character (you) wake up, put your pants on, and discover that a bunch of things are on fire in the distance, and some ugly sucker in your kitchen wants to kill you. You do a bit of swiping and tapping, make a couple choices, and then you’re done.

It’s very short, but what’s there is promising.

https://youtu.be/HsQqY0O8Qcc

Majesco Entertainment contacted us Wednesday with its launch trailer for upcoming game, Romans from Mars, an endless-wave castle defense game that will be out on the App Store this Thursday.

The game places you behind an upgradable ballista, which is the only thing keeping the armies of Mars (the god of War, thank you very much) from conquering the Earth itself. Jupiter, who likes to get back at Mars, gives you a little extra power, as well, including the elemental powers of Fire, Ice, Earth, and Lightning. You know, just in case that crossbow isn’t quite upgraded enough.

Romans from Mars will be free to play, with in-app purchases to speed up your progress. It is available in the App Store (as well as Google Play) starting tomorrow. For now, enjoy the trailer above.

Think you’ve seen the last of The Walking Dead on your Mac or iOS device? Think again.

Telltale Games, the award-winning developer of recent hit games The Walking Dead: Season One and Fables: The Wolf Among Us, announced Tuesday the coming premiere of the second season of The Walking Dead video game series for Mac, iOS, PC, and home game consoles later this year.

The Walking Dead: Season Two is available for pre-order right now from Steam and the Telltale Games Online store.

If that headline reads like the tag for a family-friendly animated film — possibly one released during the holiday season — it’s because Mimpi, an adorable platformer from developers Crescent Moon Games and Silicon Jelly, has all the charm of those movies. The good ones, I mean. The bad ones aren’t charming at all.

But a cute visual style isn’t enough, so Mimpi also has puzzles, hidden items, and items to unlock. And it all happens across eight big levels, each with their own visual and play styles.

In short, it’s a cute game and plenty of it.

Back in 2010, when the idea of the iPhone as a great gaming device was generally scoffed at, the game developer dudes at One Man Left offered up an instant classic called Tilt To Live. It didn’t try to minimize the iPhone’s weaknesses; instead, this brilliant little gem seemed like it was built specifically for the iPhone, and perfectly harnessed its strengths. The result was a beautifully addictive game that had the player frantically twisting and tilting the iPhone in order to both survive and destroy a horde of menacing…dots. Yes, dots.

Now, over three years and one strategy game later, One man Left is finally revealing details, in the form of a short video, about their the ridiculously titled Tilt To Live sequel — Tilt To Live 2: Redonkulous.

It’s a little hard to describe what exactly Device 6, the new project from developer Simogo, is, exactly.

It’s kind of a visual novel. It’s also kind of a puzzle/escape game. But it’s also its own unique animal, a challenging artistic experiment unlike anything I’ve seen before. It will confuse you, impress you, and ultimately provide one of the most memorable experiences the App Store has to offer.

So, yeah. It’s pretty good.