iOS games - page 10

Created in 1981, the Ultima series of computer games has a long and storied history. Richard Garriott (Lord British in-game) created Ultima while working at a ComputerLand, selling copies out of Ziploc bags and eventually getting picked up by a publishing company, creating his own publishing concern (Origin Systems), and finally selling Origin to Electronic Arts in 1992. In 1997, EA released Ultima Online, widely accepted as the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Fast-forward to today, and Mythic Games, along with publisher EA, has created a loving tribute to the Ultima franchise with Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar. These days, most EA games are created with a free-to-play aesthetic, and Ultima Forever is no exception.

What’s surprising, however, is just how little that matters: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar is a delightful top-down MMO that’s easy to play without spending a dime. Which, ironically, is the reason many of us will.

Looks like the venerable video game company is looking to get in on some of GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons action with Taito’s own arcade-music mashup iOS game, Groove Coaster Zero.

The two companies have just announced a new collaboration in which Groove Coaster Zero gets original and remixed background music from breakout hit Puzzle & Dragons as playable levels in Groove Coaster Zero. In addition, Puzzle & Dragons will get some special Groove Coaster Zero-themed dungeons along with classic Space Invader characters. That’s a mouthful, but super exciting, and it’s coming August 12.

Zepto Labs just released a new update for its popular Cut the Rope: Time Travel game. Now you can travel back in time to the Disco Era, complete with shiny disco balls and a groovy, disco-flavored soundtrack.

You’ll need to travel with Om Nom waaaaaay back in time to the world of the 1970s, meeting up with an ancestor who’s got all the moves, but one problem. All the spotlights in the era are destroying the candy. It’s up to you to cut the ropes and position a shiny disco ball to keep the spotlights from ruining all the sugary goodness.

Last week, The Drowning released on iOS to mixed reviews, many of which echoed our own. Most reviewers praised Scattered Entertainment’s control scheme but panned the gameplay itself as shallow and repetitive.

The game has been doing well, however, hitting the top five most downloaded free apps list on iPhone in 16 countries, and the top five free apps on iPad in 42 countries.

This week, then, The Drowning is getting a global in-game event: The Toxic Beast Hunt, letting players take part in a boss hunt together and compete for prizes, though to truly win, you’ll need to buy some gold.

One of Apple’s Best Apps of 2012, Pixowl’s The Sandbox is a fantastically inventive mobile game that encourages players to create entire worlds and works of art, right on their iOS or Android devices. The Sandbox has reached five million downloads across app stores, and has over 300,000 unique worlds shared in its Online Gallery. That’s a lot of stuff, folks!

The new update for iOS today brings vehicles to the pixel-based world-building game, letting you carry yourself and crafting materials in a Truck from one place to another much faster. Or, if you’re of a combative turn of mind, grab a Tank or twelve and create a battle world to experiences the horrors of war, digitally.

There are new, more advanced contraptions as well, like Conveyor Belts and Multi Electro contraptions, letting you create and manage even more complicated machines and systems within your world.

My kids and I have been watching episodes of Adventure Time, Cartoon Network’s disturbingly funny cartoon show. The adventures of Finn, Jake and a cast of crazy characters is compelling television, and hilarious on many different levels.

Legends of Ooo – Adventure Time originally launched for iOS last year in June, and while it provided some of the same fun and voiceover work as the cartoon show in a goofy little iOS package, it only came with one episode, “The Big Hollow Princess.”

This oversight has been corrected this past weekend with the release of the second episode, “The Library of Doom,” an all-new story and adventure game with new voice overs for the characters within. Even better, Episode 2 is absolutely free for a limited time as an in-app purchase. Shmow-zow!

If you haven’t gotten to check out The World Ends With You: Solo Remix yet, it’s completely understandable. Publisher Square Enix has a reputation for charging much more than the typical iOS game when it releases its popular games onto Apple’s touchscreen platform. It totally makes sense you might not want to pick it up for $17.99 for your iPhone, let alone $19.99 for your iPad.

If I said that the game, originally released to the dual-screen Nintendo DS, is completely worth every penny of the asking price, would you pick it up? Probably not.

But what if I said that both versions are now much less expensive, with the iPhone version in the App Store at $9.99 and the iPad version at $10.99? If you love innovative, brilliant gaming on the go, you’ll go grab a copy right now. Who knows how long the sale will last?

The endless runner genre continues to iterate across a variety of gaming apps for iOS, with clones and actual, unique ideas vying for the same space. Knightmare Tower, from Juicy Beast Studio, is one of the latter: a vertical endless runner with a twitchy, compelling take on the genre.

Players take on the role of a Knight, whose gameboy gaming session is interrupted by a letter from the local king. All of the king’s princess daughters have been captured by an evil skull, and must be rescued (sigh). Tired trope aside, the Knight leaps into action astride a wooden rocket ship, intent on flying to the top of the evil castle tower and rescuing a princess per level.

I play a lot of iOS games on iPhone and iPad. There are so many games out there, so much content, that it can be extremely difficult to find something you’ll like without having to download a ton of apps, try them out, and then discard them as they don’t quite scratch the itch you’re needing, well, scratched.

Free apps or paid apps, both cost something to download in time, cash, or both. So, I figured, why not start doing some of the heavy lifting here, and help you find fantastic games to play, without all the work?

That said, I found a gem of a game this week, and it’s only $0.99, with no further in-app purchases (IAP) to sully the experience. Blitz Block Robo is a fantastic little game that hits all the right notes.

Let’s get this out of the way right up front, ok? Scattered Entertainment’s The Drowning is a drop-dead gorgeous free-to-play game with a well-designed control scheme that (almost) makes playing a first-person shooter (FPS) worthwhile on a touchscreen. This is, in fact, an important release for those three facts alone.

Ultimately, though, the game suffers as a direct result, I think, of these very same features. I went into the game expecting to find at least some console-level depth in storyline, level design, and the like. What I found, however, was much less interesting.

Two guys named Mike met up on the TouchArcade forums a few years back and bonded over their love of retro platform games with a hook. A literal hook, to be specific.

Mike Meade and Mike Gaughen competed with each other to see who was the best Hook Champ player, moving on to challenge each other over Super QuickHook. When those speed runs came to an end, the two Mikes decided to make their own hooking endless runner, and Mikey Shorts, an App Store Best of 2012, was born.

On Thursday, August 8, the long-awaited sequel is set to release in the App Store. Mikey Hooks aims to be everything Mikey Shorts was and more, with a host of new ideas and features to keep us all jumping and hooking our way to joy.

Released last month, Kingdom Rush: Frontiers is the followup to the critically-acclaimed Kingdom Rush, one of my personal favorites in the Tower Defense genre, what with its cute little hand-drawn characters, wacky sense of humor, and some of the most finely-tuned tower defense levels I’ve ever played.

Kindgom Rush: Frontiers, then, just got a marine-flavored update today with six new nautical-themed creeps to defend against, two new heroes to deploy when things get rough, and some extra maps and achievements to keep you entertained far beyond the already stellar gameplay of the original release.

Video games are often praised right out of the gate due to their amazing graphical fidelity and smooth animation. A less visible but equally important feature of any game, especially in the realm of first-person shooters, is the control scheme.

DeNA / Mobage’s The Drowning, out today as a universal iOS app, has seemingly nailed both of these things in a game that’s taking the iOS gaming world by storm. And perhaps shotgun.

The developer behind incredibly successful free to play iOS game, Puzzles & Dragons, is back with a new free to play title called Freak Tower.

Launching the game for the first time allows prospective tower builders to walk through a tutorial that gives a decent overview of the game. The idea here is to build a tower, one floor up at a time, and fight off various monsters that climb said tower to steal the food that’s dubiously placed on the roof.

Id Software’s seminal first-person shooter franchise, Doom, came to the iOS platform back in 2009, with Doom Classic. It debuted as a $6.99 game, and we were all willing to pay for admission to a game that stole our hearts (and our free time) as young gamers.

About a year later, Doom II RPG showed up on the App Store at $3.99. It’s the sequel to 2005’s Doom RPG, a turn-based, more strategic take on the Doom universe.

Both titles are a part of gaming history, and they’re both available for $0.99 on the app store today. How long will they stay at this low price? Who knows? Not us.

Rovio’s point and click puzzler, Tiny Thief, has just dropped in price from $2.99 to $0.99. That’s not a bad discount, and it’s happening right now for we don’t know how long.

It just might be time to jump on this one, then, as Tiny Thief is a great game.

This story-based science fiction game for the iPad comes from Giant Spacekat is looking really good, what with its Mass Effect-style choice-making, all female cast, and real-time combat system. The team is so excited, in fact, that they’ve started up a Kickstarter project to polish it up as well as bring it to Mac and PC. [UPDATE: The Revolution 60 folks emailed us to say that the initial funds will go to porting to PC, while a $10,000 will help ensure a Mac version. They apologize for any confusion.]

With 29 days left to go, the project has already raised over $2,700 toward the $5,000 goal, so chances are good for success.

Elevens is a solitaire card game in which players lay down cards, face-up and in a grid of 3X3. They then remove the cards in groups when they add up to eleven, and go until they can go no more.

Cassandra’s 11 is based on this game, in that you must tap cards from a grid when they add up to eleven. Tap a Nine and Two card, for example, or a Five, a Four, and a Two. What takes this universal app from developer Plexonic to the next level is the puzzle aspect.

If you haven’t gotten enough zombie survival horror action on your iPhone or iPad, here’s some great news for you: 2013 Infected Wars is a new entry to the genre, and it uses Epic’s gorgeous Unreal Engine for mobile to bring you what looks to be a solid 3D third-person zombie shooter with all the trimmings.

In what may be a first for a mobile game, 2013 Infected Wars developer, Action Mobile Games, is promising co-op multiplayer for the full story campaign, which could be a great way to get with your sisters and bros and just mow down the reanimated undead.

Check out the gameplay trailer below to see what we mean.

This frantic, wacky 2D endless runner from Illinois-based development studio High Voltage Games (Zoombies, The Conduit HD) has just been chosen as the iTunes App Store’s Free App of the Week. To celebrate, Le Vamp is now completely free to download and try out for the next few days.

Hurry, though, the special offer only lasts through August 1 at 11 pm Central US time.

Out today, TurtleStrike brings iOS and Android gamers a new, turn-based strategy game with over 80,000 combinations of weaponized, armored turtle warfare. You’ll get Tesla coils and kamikaze turtles, a missile named Big Bertha, and the chance to compete in tournaments that have real monetary rewards.

Sound like fun? You bet your shell it does.

Auroch Digital just announced the development of a digital version of a classic Games Workshop board game from 1987, Chainsaw Warrior, coming to iPad and Android soon.

The original board game is one of the only single-player board games I know of, putting you in the role of the only hope for humanity as scary creatures come flooding through a dimensional rift in the heart of Manhattan, circa 2032. Of course, you’re the guy that must come out of retirement to battle the evil monsters, which have already destroyed the world’s bravest and brightest. It’s up to you to chainsaw your way through wave after wave the evil hordes. Wait, that sounds like a video game, doesn’t it?

The fine folks at Lucky Frame are at it again, this time with an iPad-only multiplayer dueling game, Gentlemen!. It’s a bit of a departure for the team that brought us music-based games like Pugs Love Beatz, Bad Hotel, and Wave Trip, but it’s intriguing nonetheless.

An extreme departure from the look and feel of its first iOS game, Lili, BitMonster’s upcoming Gunner Z is a gritty, scary delight. The developer just released a launch trailer with a stunningly gorgeous bit of the old ultraviolence in this scifi-themed shooter, soon to release on iOS.

The trailer is dark, gritty, and full of awesome night vision battle scenes, showing off the amazing scenery, the scary undead armies, and a host of armored vehicles ready to take on the hordes.

Launched today into the App store, A Thug In Time promises dual-stick shooter action on the go across 65 levels, 35 weapon types, 20 unique enemies, and eight mini-bosses to blast through.

You’ll need to survive through various times in history, including the Wild West, 1930s Chicago, and the Viking Age, decapitating, freezing, burning, and riddling with bullets all who get in your way. There are in-game power ups, including the fire bomb, the freeze bomb, and the cutter blades to slice and dice the way to victory.