games - page 63

For a game that’s been downloaded over 170 million times and spawned countless ripoffs, the sequel to Temple Run came as a complete shock. The smash-hit endless runner started sneaking into App Stores around the world yesterday, and it went live in the U.S. late last night. Imangi Studios, the small company behind Temple Run, had no promotional material or teasers leading up to the release.

But now that Temple Run 2 is here, fans of the original can sprint, jump, slide, and fall through a new and improved world. With zip lines, new power-ups, characters, and a mine cart, Temple Run is better than ever.

If you don’t like to pay for games on your iPhone or iPad then you’ll want to hurry up and take advantage of the promo Rovio is having on their Angry Birds Rio game. You can download Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Rio HD from the App Store for free right now.

Even though it doesn’t have all the crazy new action of Angry Birds Star Wars, or Angry Birds In Space, there’s still a lot of fun to be had in Angry Birds Rio. The app has been made the “Free App of the Week,” so you have a few days to take advantage of the special before it goes back to costing $0.99 and $2.99.

Source: iTunes

This is not Pacman. No. It looks like Pacman, it sounds like Pacman. But it’s called Not Pacman for a reason: it’s not Pacman.

How does it play?

Like Pacman. A bit.

As we reported a couple of days ago, the iOS game from the National Rifle Association (NRA), NRA: Practice Range, has been coming under fire from various media outlets and political organizations for being a shooting game that is rated for anyone four years of age and up.

Apparently, Apple heard some of the outcry, and revised the rating in the App Store, which now says the shooting game is “Rated 12+ for the following: Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence.”

Pangolin is a cute little puzzle-platformer for iOS that might either drive you mad with rage or mad to the point of insanity. Or both. It’s tricky, challenging, and offers plenty of repeat play opportunities.

You may not know Spicy Horse, but you’re sure to have heard of American McGee, its CEO, from his long association with critically acclaimed video games stretching back to Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, and (of course) American McGee’s Alice. He subsequently built a game studio in Shanghai called Spicy Horse, which has just been given the greenlight on Steam for its new game, Akaneiro: Demon Hunters.

DeNA, the social gaming company that now owns ngmoco, just launched a new, free, 8-bit retro role-playing game, D.O.T. Defender of Texel, to the iTunes App Store and the Google Play store.

Texel is a world made of dots, at the end of a wormhole, waiting for you to jump in and save the world. The battles are turn-based, and you choose who will fight each battle by swiping across a grid of characters to place your fighters on the battle field.

We told you about FTL back when it came out back in September of 2012, added it to Day 9 of our Awesome 2012 Advent Calendar, and put it in uur Editor’s Picks For 2012’s Best iOS And Mac Games article. Can you tell we love this game?

That it’s a full 50% off again on Steam is icing on the cake, so we wanted to let you know where to spend that spare $4.99 you might be sitting on.

The Caliber Advantage is yet another iOS gaming pad, but this one has one major advantage: It comes from Zagg, well-known accessory maker and purveyor of some of the finest iPad keyboards known to mankind.

Move over, Mojang! The Blockheads, inspired by such open-world exploration games as Mojang’s certified hit, Minecraft, is the best implementation of the genre yet, out Minecrafting even the official Minecraft game released for iOS some time ago.

You start the game as either a single or 2 player experience. The two player game promises online multiplayer with voice chat via Game Center, while the single player is what I’ve spent my afternoon messing with on both my iPhone and iPad mini. It’s seriously sticky, with all the kinds of things that made me sink hundreds of hours into the Mac version of Minecraft a couple of years ago. There’s crafting and mining, day and night cycles, sleep, a huge open world to explore, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlZfco05AZM

There’s a new game in town, coming to the Mac early this year, according to Haemimont Games, developer of Tropico. Omerta: City of Gangsters has you work your way up the criminal scene of 1920’s Atlantic City. Start running small jobs, recruit new gang members, and take down other mobsters, grabbing their territory as you take them out. Eventually, you’ll set up your own city-wide crime syndicate and rule Atlantic City’s seedy underground.

Lucky Frame, developer behind indie hit iOS games Bad Hotel and Pugs Luv Beats, announced today that its anticipated follow-up game, Wave Trip, will release on January 22, 2012. So, in just two short weeks, you’ll be able to control a mysterious geometric astronaut, helping her travel through worlds of beauty as well as danger, saving her friends via music and beat-based gameplay.

This is Hundreds, a game from the same people who brought you Canablat and Wurdle, among others.

Hundreds is a multi-touch tapping challenge for your mind and your reflexes. Rather like Letterpress, it has a gorgeous minimalist look to it. Where so many games are all about collecting stars, this one encourages you to look for empty spaces.

It’s not often that you get to say something like “Lewis and Clark RPG,” right? Not Lois and Clark, but LEWIS and Clark, the famous explorers from American history, who did a whole lot of exploring, have a trail named after them, and will always be associated with Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who traveled with them to serve as guide and translator.

The Meriwether Kickstarter project has 50 hours to go to get as far past the initial funding goal (which it hit today) as it can to help fund even more historical awesomeness, like special outfits for Lewis that raise his stats, the addition of a Girardoni Air Rifle, an endless arcade mode, and a bizarre nightmare dreamscape extra bonus level with giant sloths and wooly mammoths.

The Steam Holiday sale continues through this coming weekend, as the Valve-owned digital distribution portal extends its amazingly deep discounts for a wide variety of games, including the Mac variety, until 1 pm Eastern time on Monday, January 7th.

The Mac games included in the sale are some great ones, including Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a game we included in our top scariest games list last October. This formerly $19.99 game is now up for sale for a ridiculous $4.99.

If you’ve been playing Borderlands 2 since it came out for the Mac a while back, you’ll know how very wacky and inappropriately violent it is. If you’ve already blasted your way through the main storyline and side quests, though, you might be feeling a little bereft at the end of your time on Pandora.

No worries, then, as Aspyr’s got your back, with their port of the DLC, “Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage,” available now on both Steam and the Mac Game Store.

If you haven’t been playing Borderlands 2, what’s up with that? Get on it, Vault Hunter!

Games! They’re awesome. There are a ton of them released every year, making best of lists like this one fairly difficult. In the interest of our space and your time, we’ve narrowed the field down to ten, with what we feel are the best of the best games out there for Mac as well as for iOS. All of these games were released this year, and while all of them may not be blockbusters you’ve seen on other end of year roundups (this is on purpose), they’re all of them worth your time and money.

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the following top ten games for iOS and Mac.

One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.

Hiding behind door number 24 is a little game that will help you extract revenge upon all your family members and friends. It’s Hero Academy.

Life is Magic is a location-based free-to-play game that uses your actual location to populate its fantasy/steampunk-themed role playing game (RPG). We reported on it back in September after a meetup with the game developers at PAX, but the game is live on the App Store now.

It’s like an online multiplayer game that turns the real world around you into a gorgeously illustrated land of magic, complete with dungeons, monsters, and treasure. The combat will feel familiar to anyone who’s played a turn-based JRPG game like the Final Fantasy series.

One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.

T.G.I. it’s Day 21, and today’s delicious little morsel? The addictive iOS game 10000000.

Raise your hand if you think spelling and grammar are fun. Raise it up. A little higher. Aha, I see you there. And your friend! Both of you, come closer and listen, because I need to tell you about this unique new iOS game where you win points by spotting spelling mistakes.

On this week’s CultCast, we’re ending the year with our favorite gear! Don’t miss our “End of Days, Faves ‘N Raves,” where pitch our favorite apps, accessories, games, even shows, of 2012.

But before that, we’ll break down the whole Instagram debacle for you, and tell you why you should be paying attention to the big I’s plans for your personal pics.

All that and Tim Cook, person of the year?

Join us, friends! Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Show notes ahead!

Madfinger Games announced on its Facebook page today an update to multiplayer FPS game, Shadowgun: Deadzone on both Google Play and the iTunes App Store. The update includes two new maps, new weapon upgrades, a chat feature in the main menu, a new way to play with groups of friends called Gangs, new hats, Rewards for finishing Zone Control or DeathMatch, and an increase to max player ranks (up to 50).

Poor Negative Nimbus. He’s so sad, and so full of water, it’s a challenge to sail across the sky without drenching the happy hot dogs and caterpillars out for a picnic lunch, while still watering the happy flowers along the way. What’s a depressed cloud to do?

Apparently, the answer is to launch on Android, via the Google Play store and the Amazon Marketplace. That’s just what CloudKid’s fantastic game, Negative Nimbus, has done for the holiday season.

Borderlands 2 from Aspyr is now available to download at the Mac App Store, almost exactly a month after it debuted on Steam — and there’s good news and bad news.