gaming - page 18

Alright, so we’ve endlessly run, flown, swam, and jetpacked. Why not add skateboarding to that list?

Skyline Skaters is a new free-to-play endless skateboarder that transports you to a world with one of the most ridiculously strict police forces ever. I always thought it was weird in Jet Set Radio Future when the official response to graffiti was for a bunch of officers to run down perpetrators and hold them down so that their boss could come up and shoot them with his giant hand cannon.

These police are a little less hands-on, opting to chase down renegade skateboarders with a helicopter and catch them with a comically large claw. As for the game itself, it’s a fun time once you suspend that disbelief.

This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.

Games make up more than 65 percent of downloads in the App Store and Google Play, and a whopping 90 percent of mobile gaming revenue is generated by a freemium business model, according to Bertrand Schmitt, CEO of App Annie.

These are just two of the insights that came from a trends panel at the Game Developers Conference last month in San Francisco. The panel also included folks from gaming engine Unity and publisher/developer Pocket Gems.

Evolution, just released on the App Store, is looking like a badass free-to-play science fiction role-playing game with real style.

Build your base to collect resources, battle with your character in real time, solve environmental puzzles, and upgrade everything–weapons, armor, special abilities–as you go.

All of this and free to boot, Evolution promises to meet your sci-fi combat gaming needs on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

While the app store is updated every week, many new addicting games come with it. With so many developers creating their own versions of popular apps, only some succeed at adding their own original twists. The new app Tiny Frog is an arcade game that takes a familiar popular style of gameplay and adapts it into a new form. Help the frog reach as many lily pads as possible in 15 seconds. Do you think you can tap quick enough to get the highest score of all your friends?

Take a look at the video and find out what you think.

This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Tiny Frog – redBit games, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.

What are you doing?

You would tell yourself, “I am reading a review for Sometimes You Die.” You take it for granted that I am going somewhere with this. My opinion is just a shadow. A number.

Alright, I can’t keep that up, but before you leap into the Internet and punch me in the face, know two things: First, that was a taste of the narration for the oddball minimalist platformer Sometimes You Die. And second, I’m still recovering from my last face punch, so don’t be a jerk.

As for the game, it’s brilliant. You don’t even need to read the rest of this. Just go buy it and get it in your brain-hole.

Note: This article previously appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine, available in the App Store.

Godus is the upcoming game from god-game specialist designer Peter Molyneux. The game will play on Mac and iOS seamlessly, letting you create and nurture your own little island paradise on one platform and then watch it develop on the other.

“We want to reinvent the genre of god-games,” Molyneux told Cult of Mac from his vantage point in a suite at the swanky Intercontinental Hotel.

Remember that slick-looking Diablo-style hack and slash game we raved about, KingsRoad? We were astonished that such a full-on console-level action RPG game was available on Facebook when we saw it demoed at the Game Developers Conference a couple of weeks back.

Well, now we can finally come clean and share the news: KingsRoad is coming to iPad. You’ll be able to play with all your Facebook buddies, too, as the game will use the very same servers across all platforms.

Loot and raid on my Mac, and then take it on the go? Yes, please.

The phrase “here comes the boom” returns in a whole new form in the new app Boom Beach. One of the iTunes app store’s newest comers, Boom Beach is a combat strategy game where players overtake islands, uncover hidden powers, and build their troops. With easy controls, great graphics and so much more will you join the war in this new game?

Take a look at the video and find out what you think.

This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Boom Beach – Supercell, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.

Side-scrolling shoot-em-ups are typically exercises in excess. You have no shortage of enemies, power-ups, or ridiculously large bosses, and most importantly, you have all the bullets you’ll ever need. Just hit the button anytime, and bullets come out. That’s how it works.

“Oh, really?” says Exodite. “How about if it didn’t?” And that’s when things get a little weird.

By limiting your ammo, Exodite brazenly defies decades of tradition. And it’s kind of brilliant for that.

Note: This article was originally published in Cult of Mac Magazine, available on the App Store.

Flappy Bird came onto the scene with a bang, ruffling feathers from Hanoi to Hannover. Dong Nguyen, the developer of this seemingly overnight sensation, was as taken aback as the rest of us, evident from his shocking decision to stop offering the game for download as well as his recent decision to bring it back.

Game developers and publishers can only hope to reproduce this kind of crazy success. And each and every one of the people we talked to at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco was eager to share opinions on how Flappy Bird happened, how it might happen again, and why it was such a runaway hit to begin with.

FTL: Faster Than Light came out in September of 2012, and we’ve done nothing but rave about it since then.

The only thing missing from the FTL experience, though, was the ability to play the dang thing on an iPad. “How sweet would that be?” we thought.

Today’s our lucky day, then, as the developers behind the hot space-sim rogue-like have righted the wrongs in their universe by letting us all know that FTL would be available for the iPad (along with an Advanced Edition for the Mac and PC) this coming April 3.

It was a close call this week in our games department, as reviewer extraordinaire Evan Killham lobbied hard for his favorite, Words & Cards. Granted, it’s a great game, but I had to push back a bit. Plus, I’m the editor, so I win.

Star Wars Assault Team is kind of the perfect blend of role-playing game stickiness with digital collectible card game features, all put together with your favorite Star Wars characters to boot.

The writing is great, with plenty of nods to the iconic movie series, and we finally get to see something new: how you spell Chewbacca’s roars. Really, that’s worth the download right there.

Here’s our Game of the Week video below to show you a bit of the game play.

The gym is good for helping you lose weight, gain muscle and so much more. In the app Nerdy Workout players must help a nerd try to bulk up and improve from his trainee ranking. By tapping and holding the left and right sides of the screen, players can continuously help the nerd lift reps of dumbbells. As monsters fly by you must be careful and time your lifts to keep your arms from being bitten off. How many reps do you think you can do before it’s game-over?

Take a look at the video and find out what you think.

This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Nerdy Workout – Joseph Rothenberg, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.

Any old physics puzzler can ask you to fling a ball into a goal with a bunch of springs or conveyer belts whatever. And most of them don’t care how you get the ball there, as long as it does.

But Lightlands thinks you can do better than that, and it encourages you to get the ball to its home along the most efficient route possible.

You can still go the “no pictures on scorecards” route and just get the thing to the other thing, but where’s the challenge in that?

The hit bird slinging game Angry Birds has found its way on devices everywhere. While the Angry Birds series has brought developing company Rovio so much popularity, their branch company Rovio Stars aims to share the spotlight. The newest application from Rovio Stars is Word Monsters, a game that combines competitive head-to-head gameplay with word puzzles and monsters. Do you think you can beat all your friends and top the high score charts?

Take a look at the video and find out what you think.

This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Word Monsters – Rovio Stars Ltd., brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.

Look, Legos are for everyone, ok? With the huge success of the latest Lego Movie, it’s clear that playing with the building bricks isn’t just for kids anymore, if it ever was.

If you’ve been in a comic, toy, or hobby shop lately, chances are you’ve seen the little random minifigure bags that you can buy, not knowing exactly which minifigure is contained within, like a mini treasure hunt.

Funcom is banking on this craze with its upcoming release of Lego Minifigures Online for iPad, Android tablets, and PC, hoping to trade on the fact that one of the coolest features of the modern Lego experience is the little people that seem to come with every construction model set sold.

Sadly, there’s no Mac version planned as yet, but the iPad game will play the same as the PC and Android versions, on the same servers.

Cult of Mac saw a preview of Pirate World for Lego Minifigures Online last week at GDC, and we’re finally allowed to post it below.

I like Scrabble and poker, and I’ve often wished that there were some way to combine them. We could call it “Scroker.” Or “Pabble.”

I haven’t, actually, because who would think of doing that? Plus, those awesome names are copyright me. Don’t steal them.

Anyway, Ayopa Games did think of it, and now we have Words and Cards, a catchy and fun social mobile game that will have you spelling and trying to remember if a flush is better than a straight. Spoiler alert: It is.

It’s not that often that the Mac gamers out there get to download new content for a big title game like BioShock Infinite on the same day as their Windows-using brethren, but here it is.

Well-known Mac gaming company Aspyr has done just that, announcing on Wednesday that the latest and final episode of BioShock Infinite’s story-driven “Burial At Sea” module has just dropped on the Mac.

Disruptor Beam and HBO revealed on Wednesday the debut of Game of Thrones Ascent on the iPad. It was originally released in 2013 as a Facebook game, making last year’s Facebook Games of the Year list to boot.

Now you can play Game of Thrones Ascent on your iPad, leading the life of a noble in Westeros, collaborating and conniving with other players in a persistent online world.

I should warn you now, the iOS version of Shin Megami Tensei is perhaps the most bewildering game you’ll play on your phone. The game world is unforgivingly nondescript, and you navigate it in first person. It’s very easy to get lost indoors and bypass important people and doors until you get the hang of navigating. I recommend you pause briefly before entering any room to see if a nameplate appears — otherwise you’ll be running in circles. Also, Atlus’ strange control panel shell for SMT is a little unwieldy. I played in landscape mode in order to take screenshots, but I highly recommend playing in portrait mode as the interface buttons are smaller, easier to reach, and not covering the game screen.

You start off in the midst of a terrifying dream where spirits are being tormented by demons. You rescue your future teammates by saying their names, which breaks the demons’ hold. And suddenly, you wake up. A ghastly murder in a parking lot has set your bustling city on edge and a weird man named Steven is constantly sending you information about a demon summoning program. Yet your mother still wants you to go out and get coffee.

Developer Parsec Productions’ PC horror title Slender: The Eight Pages was one of my favorite games of 2012. It packs an impressive amount of horror and suspense into a very simple idea — being lost in the woods while an unbeatable enemy relentlessly pursues you — and it was one of the few games I’ve ever played that really and truly terrified me.

It makes sense that others would want to get in on that action, and while you have plenty of Slender Man games to choose from in the App Store, Dead Room: The Dark One takes the same basic concept and puts its own creepy spin on it.

And as fairly overt copies go, it’s pretty good.

The app store has found another craze almost as popular as Flappy Bird. Developers everywhere have been releasing their own versions of the hit app Threes, a tile-based game that has players swipe to add numbers. 2048 is an application that features this same addicting gameplay with its own twists and no cost. Can you reach the score of 2,048 or even higher?

Take a look at 2048 and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the multi-platform application 2048, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.

Finnish developer Supercell has a huge hit on its hands with Clash of Clans, and they’re releasing a brand new follow-up that looks surprisingly similar: Boom Beach.

In Clash of Clans, you build a base and defend it with your medieval warriors. You can also go out and attack other people’s bases.

In the trailer for Boom Beach, you might notice a familiar mechanic at work.

Penguins are pretty amazing.

Maybe you’ve seen March of the Penguins, and maybe you haven’t, but they’re brave little creatures who just happen to be food for some terrifying creatures. But they don’t let that get them down because they’re penguins, damn it, and that means something.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, but Adventure Beaks is a really fun new free-to-play iOS game where you lead an elite squad of penguins through a platforming adventure for fortune and glory. And you can jack some seals up while you’re at it, so that’s like icing on the cake.

But it’s the Antarctic, so it’s basically all icing, but you get my point.

Seeing how far you can go has been a common theme in many games in the App Store. Since the release of hit apps like Temple Run and Subway Surfers, players everywhere have become fans of this “endless runner” genre. The app The Collider is an original endless runner that has players dodge obstacles for as long as possible while in a rocket. Do you think you can handle the increase in speed and climb the high-score charts?

Take a look at The Collider and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application The Collider, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.