An upcoming mobile game will throw players into the struggle immediately following the death of the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.
Star Wars: Uprising, which is due out later this year for iOS and Android, is a real-time strategy game that picks up after the destruction of the second Death Star at the end of the third film as the decapitated Empire struggles to maintain control over the galaxy.
Check out the announcement trailer below.
If you’re a gamer, odds are you have a perfect run, high score or really impressive combo that you list among the highlights of your “career.” Personally, I TKO’d Mike Tyson in Punch-Out!! when I was 10 or 12, and I did it when everyone else was out of the room. But I swear it happened, you guys.
Unless you have enough free time and determination to play one thing until you can beat it with your monitor turned off and your keyboard flipped around, however, your greatest moments can’t hope to compete with the four amazing speedruns shown in the videos below. These players have left “good” far behind them, passing through “really good,” across “crazy good” and over “suspiciously good” to enter a realm of pure skill in which merely beating a game is considered “a start.”
These people play a bunch of difficult titles pretty well, is what I’m getting at.
If you’re like us, you’ve been playing the crap out of the amazingly addictive online arena game, Vainglory, since it came out for the iPad and iPhone, ganking enemies from the safety of the bushes, releasing the Kraken, and pushing down the lane to smash the opposing team’s base crystal to win the game.
While the development team at Super Evil Megacorp has released updates in the past, they’ve just dropped the most major update yet: the introduction of a character skin system to customize the look of your heroes as they dash across the map, wreaking havoc and crushing the enemy team.
There are six new heroes with two tiers of customization out in the update today, with a ton more to come.
Here’s how it’s going to work.
Hearthstone addicts players rejoice! Blizzard’s incredibly compelling digital card game is now optimized for your iPhone or iPod touch.
We’ve heard rumors that some folks even use their iPhone while in the bathroom. Gross! If you’re one of those people, though, get ready to never stop playing Hearthstone again.
Sure, the video game company behind mega-hits World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, and Diablo III has had a version of this easy-to-learn, hard-to-master two-player collectible card game on the Mac and iPad since 2013, but this is the first time you’re able to play it on the small screen without any jailbreaking or hacking needed.
“Hearthstone is now officially supported on iPhone and iPod touch,” says the App Store description. “…Featuring an all-new intuitive interface hand-crafted for the mobile experience, it’s never been easier to take Hearthstone with you anywhere you want to play.”
A game like Real Racing has sophisticated graphics that, combined with the motion sensors of an iPad, give you the sensation of being behind the wheel.
The only thing missing is the actual wheel.
Ivaylo Kalburdzhiev wants iPad users to have a more comfortable drive when they play anyone of the more than 450 tilt games.
The CEO of KOLOS, slavic for colossus, has developed a gaming wheel for the iPad that launches on Kickstarter today.
République Remastered is the gorgeously rebooted Mac and PC version of Seattle-based Camoflaj’s intriguing episodic stealth video game that originally came out for iPad and iPhone in December of 2013.
The development team took the opportunity to completely revamp the game within the updated game engine, Unity, moving the entire project from Unity 4 to Unity 5. By making this the first game release ever with the Unity 5 engine, they got early access to the engine in return for documenting their process.
“When Unity 5 was announced we saw our chance to make good on our two-year old promise to make a PC and Mac version of République,” writes the team on the Unity blog. “In addition to spending months completely reworking the game’s controls and UI, we knew we’d benefit from an increased wow factor on this new platform. From our dumpy office in downtown Bellevue (surrounded by industry titans like Bungie and Valve), we’ve put our heart and soul into this ambitious and at times, difficult, project.”
Check out the official game trailer below to see how they succeeded in making this already stunning game even more gorgeous.
You’ve collected all the coins, you’ve beaten all the enemies, and you’ve finally gotten to the right castle and saved the princess.
Now, in order to avoid a nasty time paradox, you’ll have to do it all again. In reverse.
Spoiler Alert, from developer MegaFuzz and publisher tinyBuild Games, is the first platforming game you’ll play backwards, un-collecting every coin and un-killing every monster to make it back to the beginning. This is the first time the game is on iOS, as well.
Check out the trailer below for a quick taste of gameplay.
When it comes to video games that will make you think, few are as cerebral as “dystopian document thriller” Papers, Please, a Mac game released in 2013. It casts the player as a passport inspector for a fictional Soviet bloc state who must keep track of increasingly arcane rules to let people in or out of the country … even when a mistake can cost him his life.
We declared Papers, Please one of the best freakin’ Mac games of 2013, but if you didn’t play it then, good news: It’s coming to the iPad this week.
Mikey Boots is out now for your iPhone and iPad, and it’s a rarity: a full-price iOS game without any in-app purchases or any ads. It’s a model that’s served developers Mike Meade and Mike Gaughen well with their previous Mikey games, Mikey Hooks and Mikey Shorts, both of which were chosen as one of the best games of 2012 and 2013, respectively.
I’ve played some of Mikey Boots and it’s just as fun and just as infuriatingly addictive as the last two. My kids beat my times through each level repeatedly and they lord it over me, like the little talented jerks they are. Twitch skills, indeed.
While the previous two titles had your little character, Mikey, running, jumping and grappling his way through level after level filled with crazy traps, spiky obstacles and tricky enemies, this one has him (or his female companion) flying through each level with a pair of rocket boots. How can you not love rocket boots?
Here’s a video to show you how that all plays out.
If you want to delve into the deep end with a massively online battle arena game, you can head on over to Riot Games’ League of Legends or Valve’s own Dota 2 with your computer, download a free copy of each game, and then dive in.
Or, you can grab a copy of Fates Forever, a surprisingly well-tuned and deep version of the popular game genre and eSports phenomenon. It’s been over a year in development by the team led by the founder of proto-Game Center Open Feint and one of the first hit game devs on the iOS platoform (Aurora Feint), Jason Citron.
When we spoke to Citron last summer, he was full of excitement about his promising game-in-development. The wait has been worth it, as Fates Forever puts on an impressive show, squeezing a fully-realized MOBA game complete with distinctive heroes and cunningly designed infrastructure that can encourage and include everyone, from those brand new to the genre to the more veteran MOBA players, all on the iPad.
This is a fantastic game, and you’ll want to check it out right now.
I’m a bit of a sucker for anything remotely magical, and I love the idea of blasting spells around to save the world. If you’re also excited by that, and love hordes of monsters too, then Storm Casters will be right up your alley.
Packing a library of spells so extensive that even the great Gandalf would be in awe, Storm Casters’ enchanting design aesthetics and whimsical outlook will make you a fan straight off.
Get Set Games (developer of Mega Jump) has a lot to be proud of when it comes to Storm Casters. The company’s latest dive into the world of dungeon-crawling and spell-casting is especially appealing to newcomers as well as fans of the roguelike gaming subgenre.
Imagine if you were actually a hunter of massive, dangerous creatures. You’d need to gear up, make sure you have all the weaponry and armor you’d need, enough ammo for your ranged weapons, and you’d have to be sure your giant swords are sharp enough to cut through touch monster hide.
You’d need to practice, for sure, and you’d probably get better over time, able to aim your sights at even more deadly monsters, because the bigger the baddie, the better the payoff.
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is exactly this. While hunting monsters is a ton of stressful fun, full of dodging and attacking and slaying, the rest of the activities in-game — choosing weapons, farming, hiring chefs and companions, crafting and buying better weaponry and armor — are equally as satisfying.
And now? It’s on your iPhone (or iPad), with some really excellent touch controls and better visuals than ever.
This is how my non-gamer girlfriend shows me which games are worth playing: She stays up until 3 a.m., wearing down the iPad mini battery to 22 percent while she tries to solve the next level.
This time, she bathed our dark bedroom in colorful reflected light while she moved Niko, Groggnar, Eek and Claude around on the screen in Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake. If it’s so important to solve environmental puzzles on the bright screen in the middle of the night, I know the game’s addictive.
This morning, still playing on the couch after charging up the iPad while she (finally) got some sleep, she told me like it is.
“It took me 15 minutes, but I finally got that level,” she bragged. “With three stars, bitch.”
Every once in a while, it’s good to take a step back from the more intense flavors of gaming available on your iPhone or iPad and just play a game that’s pure fun.
Grub, sequel to the hit game from independent game studio Pixowl, Greedy Grub, is one of those purely fun experiences that just begs to be played.
Last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, I got a chance to try this delightful little Snake-style game out on the developer’s iPad, and was enchanted by the visuals right off the bat.
Take a look at the video below to see what I mean.
Maybe you’ve just seen the latest X-Men film. A lot of people have, so odds are pretty good. And if it left you wanting to know more about the original Days of Future Past storyline, but tracking down the trade paperback and then, like, reading it sounds like a lot of work, here’s a game you’ll want to check out.
Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Past is out now for your favorite iOS device, and it aims to faithfully re-create the source material the way it originally appeared. This means that it’s the assassination of Senator Kelley that brings forth the robopocalypse (that character died in the first film, so he wasn’t available to die in the new one), and it’s Kitty Pryde, not Wolverine, who goes back in time to set things right.
Sure, you can play the whole game as Wolverine if you want, but if you’re a purist, you have a chance to do it “right.”
I suck at table tennis. Like, it’s embarrassing.
I’m alright at serving, and I can usually return, but if anyone smashes at all or puts any spin on the ball, I fold faster than a laundry robot. I still like the idea of table tennis, though, which is why I’m glad we have video-game versions.
And Table Tennis Touch, which is out now for all of your iOS devices, is easily the best one I’ve ever played.
I know I’ve said it before, but video games hate bricks.
And to that end, here’s yet another title about destroying those square bastards. It’s called Bricks, and it has a novel approach to smashing things that gets as fast-paced and exciting as it does embarrassing to be seen playing.
It’s probably not that bad if someone catches you, but you may raise some eyebrows. Here’s why.
Wingsuit Cute is a game about a bunch of adorable animals forced to glide through the air and collect snacks while under the constant threat of smashing their widdle snoots on rocks and trees.
It really downplays the animals graphically smashing their faces open, but that’s basically what’s happening. The game takes a sunnier approach, choosing to focus on the part where tiny mammals don wingsuits in search of thrills and noms. And it’s really cute. And kinda fun, with a fair amount of challenge to keep perfect-run seekers coming back.
But it’s mostly cute.
Once again, I’m here to tell you about a little minimalist game that has completely kicked my ass.
It’s called Lumena, and it doesn’t look like much until you play it and fail in like two seconds. And then you try again, and again you fail because the game is, in fact, so minimal that it doesn’t even bother to tell you how to play it. But after a while, you figure it out (it’s not really that complicated), and with newly found confidence, you give it another shot. And you lose in five seconds.
But stick with it because it’s way better than I’m making it sound.
Here’s yet another artsy, minimalist puzzle game you’ll want to check out.
Bicolor gives you some colored blocks with numbers on them, and your job is to swipe them around to make the entire screen a single color. It sounds easy — and it typically is, if I’m honest — but it has moments of beauty and elegance that make you forget that it isn’t challenging you. And it’s fun enough without the head-scratching because, like all minimalist puzzle games, it’s about calm, man.
And as long as you keep that in mind, the two of you will get along just fine.
If you’re looking to get away from it all, you might want to check out this game. …and then it rained is an arcade game full of sound, rain, and colors, and it’s the perfect game for a quiet few minutes away from the hectic pace of your life.
With true zen-like minimalism, there are just a few simple mechanics at work here, but it may just be the best game you play all week.
Check out the video below to see how it plays.
I like words. I like writing them, I like spelling them, and I like picking the perfect one for the sentence I’m creating. And I like playing with them, too, if you couldn’t tell from all the word games I choose for reviews.
But even if you aren’t a Word Nerd like I am, you’ll probably enjoy Fiasco. It’s a moderately paced competitive spelling game in which you create as many words of three or more letters as you can by dropping tiles, Tetris-style, onto a board.
You can get time and point bonuses for longer words, which is basically the only way to win. Because this game is pretty challenging.
Leo’s Fortune is one of the most beautiful iOS games I’ve seen in a while. But beyond its good looks, it also has an intriguing story, fun puzzles, and a ton of personality.
And I could stop right there, but then you wouldn’t hear about the cool physics and simple controls and the fact that the hero is a Star Trek Tribble with eyes like a Muppet and an undeniably amazing moustache.
This game basically has everything.
David is a brilliant and challenging game about a little square facing off against some giant, cheap-as-hell foes with nothing but a minimalist game version of a slingshot.
You can see what they’re going for here, but it’s more than just David and Goliath; this plucky little game reminded me a lot of Shadow of the Colossus, one of my favorite-ever PlayStation 2 games. It was also about a little guy killing giant things, but unlike that title, which is ambiguous about whether or not you should be destroying these beasts, David is pretty confident that these geometric a-holes gotta die.
And killing them will not be at all easy.
If you’ve ever wanted to slash and hack your way around a party full of your friends, now may be the time. Bonsai Slice is a new free-to-play multi-player iPad-only party game that has you using your iPad as a sword, slicing and dicing your way through a bunch of wacky objects. You’ll collect new swords, chase high scores and crazy combos, and compete with your friends in real time and online.
You can even play in single-player mode, but where’s the fun in that?
Check out the video below for a taste of the sword-swinging action.
