gaming - page 35

Heroes and Castles, Foursaken Media’s mix of a third-person shooter with the castle defense genre, is a heck of a lot of fun to play, and today the iOS game has gotten a big old update, with a ton of great stuff to extend the fun, possibly enticing new players to try it out as well.

There are three new characters to play and level up: a stealthy (and free) Assassin, a natural-magic Druid, and a brawny Barbarian character. You’ll be able to put each through their paces in a brand new single player campaign, available as an unlock upon completion of the original campaign, with an entirely new environment and a ton of new enemies to battle.

Hero Academy is a pretty fantastic iOS strategy game that plays out like a cross between chess and a tactical role playing game (RPG), played against a single opponent in asynchronous turns. Developer Robot Entertainment has created an experience that’s equal parts dead easy to learn and super fun to play, with a depth of tactics and strategy gameplay that hits the sweet spot for a fun on the go game.

Well, Hero Academy is now available on the Mac App Store, and it’s free to download and play.

In the latest free-to-play iOS game from the makers of Critter Escape, you’ll take on the role of a crystal mining critter who must take care of an endearing blob of muck named Chuck. You’ll be tasked with escaping the crystal mines with some flinging-action and bouncy platforming skill. You’ll need to keep Chuck fed with crystals, all while navigating through dangerous places and avoiding guards and exploding things along the way.

If you didn’t catch our post the other day about the newest game from living legend Sid Meier, the creator of Civilization and a heap of other ground-breaking games, here’s the nitty-gritty.

Meier’s newest masterpiece is called Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol; it’s a sort of turn-based tabletop miniatures game of whirling World War I dogfights, digitized for an iPad’s (or iPhone’s screen). It’s also partially free, looks amazing and is bound to be an instant classic.

What if magic truly did exist? What if there were beings that could travel the infinite worlds via portals of magic, and you were to apprentice to one of them, in the form of the Marquis de Hoto, a rabbit magician. An evil spell is cast across the portal worlds, of course, as you begin to learn your new trade. It will be up to you, and you alone, to stop the progress of evil.

Developed and published by Hamburg-based Daedalic Entertainment, The Night Of The Rabbit promises to be an adventurous, beautifully hand-drawn game for Mac and PC, coming May 29, 2013.

Company of Heroes: Campaign Edition is hands-down the best pure real-time tactics game available on the Mac to date; there’s nothing yet ported to the Mac that can even come close to matching the WWII squad-based game’s tactical action and realism.

While you won’t get many arguments about the above statement, gamers have had plenty to say about the fact that the Mac port has lacked a sorely needed skirmish mode since the day it arrived at the Mac App Store.

Not any more though — skirmish mode has just been added to the Mac App Store version. And Aspyr has sweetened the pot further by slashing the title’s price to $10.

With deep strategy titles Civ Rev and Sid Meier’s Pirates in back catalog, just-released Haunted Hollow and the hotly anticipated iOS version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown due out this summer, one could argue that 2K Mobile isn’t the hottest name in iOS strategy games right now — but it’d be a steep uphill battle.

Then add this bombshell to support the argument: Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol, due out next Thursday, may be the best 2K iOS strategy game yet.

Today is Star Wars day (for the less nerdy, here’s the punchline: “May the Fourth be with you.” Now look at the date.)

In celebration, Aspyr has drastically cut prices on all five of their ported Star Wars titles — both at the Mac App Store and at Aspyr’s own GameAgent site (though they’re slightly more expensive at the former). Two of the titles can be had for as little as $3.30 each.

If you’re a fan of Lucas Arts and Sierra Games adventure games like Grim Fandango, The Dig, Monkey Island, or King’s Quest, you’ll dig this fun game from Replay Games, Inc. Fester Mudd: Curse of the Gold, Episode 1 is a spot-on tribute to the gaming days of yore, with hilarious writing, painterly-yet-pixelly artwork, and some quirky puzzles to solve with various items needing to be used with various other items.

It’s also by the guys who are working on the upcoming Leisure Suit Larry remake for iOS, so you know it’s gonna be good.

Previously teased as an untitled Mystery Game, Anomaly 2 is releasing in just a couple of weeks. Coming May 15th for Mac (and PC, Linux), this real time strategy/tower offense game is the sequel to the 11 Bit Studios’ previous efforts, Anomaly: Warzone Earth and Anomaly Korea, both originally made for iOS.

If you pre-order now, you’ll get two copies of the game, one for you and one for a friend, for $13.49, which is 10 percent off the final retail price of $14.99. You can grab this special deal at Steam or the official Anomaly 2 game site. However, before you head off to Steam, the devs promise an extra gift come launch day if you order directly from them. So, there’s that.

If you haven’t played Ticket to Ride yet, all you need to know is that the iPad version is the most addictive board game I’ve played on the device. On the iPhone? Nothing even comes close (O.K., except maybe chess and Words with Friends).

This weekend the newest version of the game to hit the iPhone, Ticket to Ride Europe Pocket, goes from $2 to free. Don’t miss out on this one — and make sure you tell a buddy so you can play ’em.

Ok, so you’re a prince sent out to learn your magic at Bogsmarts, a magical boarding school for aristocratic youth in a far away kingdom. While you’re gone getting your Bachelor’s degree in petty magic, your evil aunts and uncles have predictably taken over all the smaller castles in your father’s lands, shutting you out of your rightful inheritance. So, it’s up to you to muster your troops and set off across the land, beating up your relatives’ troops, barricades, and (eventually) taking over their castles as well.

Critically acclaimed real time strategy game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, has just hit the Mac App Store with a new Elite Edition, just for the Mac.

XCOM stands for Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, and the game lives up to its name, with turn-based tactical battles on a global scale, with a solid storyline and deep role playing game systems to boot. If you’re a sci-fi gamer who loved StarCraft I and II, XCOM is right up your alien-infested alley.

And now it’s finally on the Mac.

American McGee’s Spicy Horse Games (Akaneiro, Alice: Madness Returns) revealed its new real time strategy (RTS) digital collectible card game today, tentatively titled Hell Invaders.

When I hear about a game that uses miniature figurines with a videogame, I automatically think of Skylanders, Activision’s hit toy/video game that uses plastic creature figures placed on a special “portal of power” to use the creature’s special abilities in the videogame, on consoles and on iPad.

Sydney, Australia-based TableTop Interactive is going one step further to a fuller interactive experience, with mini-figurines reminiscent of tabletop games like Hero Clix or Warmachine, and gameplay that looks more like an action RPG like Diablo. The Kickstarter project is just getting started, with a £150,000 goal and 42 days left to get to it.

The App Store has a chokehold on mobile gaming, but Apple has yet to set foot into the world of living room consoles. And Apple doesn’t need to worry about competing with the likes of Xbox—the App Store has already created an incredibly vibrant and profitable gaming ecosystem.

You can mirror a game running on your iPhone to the big screen with an Apple TV. It works, but there’s more that could be done. That’s why a gaming startup based in India is bringing Wii-like motion gaming to the Apple TV. Instead of playing on the iPhone, you play with the iPhone.

The release of Iron Man 3 for Android and iOS is almost upon us, and Gameloft sent us a sneak peak of the 18 different Iron Man armor suits available to the player in the game.

These gorgeous images augment the trailer Gameloft released of their endless runner (the category of game Iron Man 3 falls into) last month. The game’s out on April 25; no word about price yet. More suits to get you drooling below.

Zynga, the veritable king of social game publishing, is bringing yet another card battling game to mobile platforms, starting with iOS today. War of the Fallen is a digital collectible card game, one that mirrors real-life card games like Magic: The Gathering. Zynga’s game is free-to-download now on the iOS App Store, and will come to the Google Play store, soon.

Hardcore Vault Hunters may have noticed that the opportunity to venture forth with their PC-based comrades — a huge boon that arrived in an update almost two months ago — was no longer an option as of early this month, when the latest Borderlands 2 patch hit PCs, throwing the two operating systems out of sync again.

But the two platforms are now synced again, thanks to Aspyr’s lightning-fast release of a Mac-side patch. They’ve also brought us the $5, Steam-only Ultimate Vault Hunter’s Pack DLC, which raises the level cap and adds a “super-rare line of weapons.” Yeehaw.

I’ve spent some time in Evoland, today, and I have to say I’m impressed. It’s more story than game, though there are all the trappings (pun intended) of the games many of us grew with baked right in. It’s a delight to play through, mostly because many of the older game mechanics, like turn-based fighting and random map encounters, don’t last too long.

It’s like getting to indulge your hankering for retro goodness without having to spend too much time with the lame stuff.

Another World (or, originally, Out of This World) is available on Steam for Mac now for ten bucks. The game has been likened to a proto action/platformer game, having been released in 1991, and then ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), the Sega Genesis, and the Apple IIGS in 1992. It’s a cult classic, exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and you can grab the 20th Anniversary version for Mac now on Steam.

Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions have made some amazing games over the years, including gems like Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, Costume Quest, and Brütal Legend. Then they took to Kickstarter to see if they could get their community to support them in the development of a new game, generically called “The Double Fine Adventure Game.”

Well, it’s named now, and it’s got its first trailer ready for you to see, above. The trailer itself looks at once whimsical and heartfelt, with a poignant musical piece and a bit of gameplay footage.

One Man Left is a game development studio most recently known for it’s multiplayer turn-based online strategy game, Outwitters, one of my personal favorite iOS games in recent memory. They’re first big hit, though, was Tilt To Live, an arcade survival game that had you tilting your iOS device to help a little triangle avoid all sorts of incoming enemies and grab all sorts of fun power-ups and points for as long as possible.

Today, the award-winning studio announced that they’re working on the sequel, outrageously titled, “Tilt To Live 2: Redonkulous.” I swear I’m not making that up.

The fact that we’re mentioning this game really hinges on one fact: It’s being released by Firaxis and 2K Games, two names behind some of the greatest games ever made: Sid Meier’s Pirates, XCOM: Enemy Unknown and of course, the Civilization series (and for a little bit here, let’s just forget that 2K is also responsible for the somewhat poorly received Borderlands Legends).

Demiurge Studios (Borderlands, Mass Effect) teamed up with Owlchemy Labs (Snuggle Truck, Jack Lumber) to announce that the Android version of Shoot Many Robots is now available for free on Google Play. Originally released in March 2012 for Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) and the PlayStation Network (PSN), Shoot Many Robots came out a month later on PC, via Steam, and should be released on iOS soon.