Fallen World [Oddity] - $2.99

Beat-em-up titles on the iOS are kind of hit or miss. Very few have really nailed the gameplay, mechanics, controls and action needed to keep fans of the genre satisfied, but those that have did an amazing job. Mutant Fridge Mayhem, Combo Crew and Best Park In The Universe are a few that stand out above the majority of the failings in the AppStore. And now, we’re pretty close to adding another to that incredibly small list; Oddity’s new post-apocalyptic brawler, Fallen World.

You take control of a cybernetic ninja who’s been tasked with protecting another cyborg that can take down and dismantle the machine army. Yes, it is a little Matrix-y, but for fans of the cyberpunk genre, that is hardly something that’s considered ‘bad’. 

Starting off, the tutorial does a great job of quickly and easily understandably explaining everything you’ll need to know about the game. Movement is controlled by tapping where you want to move to while attacking is done automatically by running into enemies. While this might sound like a turn off for beat-em-up and brawler fans, and believe me, it was kind of a turn off at the beginning of the game, but once you get further along [for me, it was when I hit stage 5], the controls really do wind up fitting the game, and having a brawler/beat-em-up that isn’t centered around button mashing is a refreshing addition to the genre. Along with the tap to move and auto attack controls, you’re also given 3 icons along the bottom right side of the screen. The first places a soldier and the second places a ‘Torrent Gun’ both of which are placed where you‘re standing at the time and both of which will help you to attack the onslaught of enemy waves. The third icon is your Wind Blast power. Your Wind Blast does a little bit of damage to the enemies, but its primary use is to clear the area of enemies, giving you a second to breathe. 

In each stage, you’ll need to fight off wave after wave of enemies that are split up into 3 phases. You’ll face off against machines and other cyborgs, each offering up a different type of attack. While this doesn’t really play into any sort of strategy as different weapons are not required to take out different enemies, it does help to keep the gameplay feeling fresh. While there are some enemies that will stand back and attack your soldiers and guns, placing them all over the stages is pretty much what you’ll wind up doing while you run back and forth, replacing downed allies and trying to take out enemies before they reach the center of the stage where the young cyborg you need to protect is housed in a protective shield. Beating down enemies will earn you ‘Purity’, which is used to place soldiers, guns and use your wind power. Whenever you earn enough Purity to activate one of these, the icons light up at the bottom of the screen and a little blue orb will start to orbit around your body. You’re only able to have 3 Purity orbs available at once though, so using them as soon as they appear is a good idea. However, also keeping one around so that you can use your wind attack if things get too hectic around the cyborg you’re protecting. As you progress throughout the game, enemies get more abundant as well as stronger. Luckily, you’ll also be getting stronger as you make your way through the game by spending earned experience points on upgrades and other special abilities. 

You’ll earn experience in-game by defeating enemies, but will also get a nice little chunk of experience if you can successfully complete each stage. These experience points can be spent in the upgrade shop to make your attack stronger, increase the number of enemies you can hit at one time or increase your movement speed. You’re also able to upgrade your soldiers, guns and wind attack as well as the center cyborg’s special missile strike that triggers automatically, her shield strength and the amount of ‘Purity’ which is earned each time an enemy is taken out. You’re also able to re-play previously beaten levels in case you get stuck and need some extra experience to level up a bit, which is always a nice addition to a game like this, especially given the gaming platform and audience. 

The environments do change as you make your way throughout the game which does keep it visually appealing. However, each area is the same size and shape (square) and do not have any sort of environmental hazards or structures that you’ll need to avoid while running around the ‘arena‘. The graphics and animations are solid and very well presented, with the brighter items like your sword, Purity orbs, fire and more standing out against the dark backdrops and atmospheres. The physics work well in conjunction with the controls, though at first, getting comfortable with your character running around like he’s kind of on ice is something that might take a while. Once, or if, you do get comfortable with it, it’s more like controlling a floating character instead of a running one. Tightening up the running physics would probably make the game feel better, but it’s not something that really takes too much away or distracts from the gameplay as a whole. 

GameCenter is not supported and there are no in-game achievements or leaderboards.  There’s no time limits or actual scoring system, but if these were added, as well as GC and leader boards (along with achievements, of course), it could definitely add quite a bit of replay value, difficulty and drive to the gameplay. While we’re bringing up the negatives here, there’s also no auto-rotate for the screen and the game displays ‘up-side-down’ (making you hold your device with the home button on the left side instead of the right). You can turn the music and sound effects on and off separately, and there is an option to clear your saved data, but aside from that, there’s no difficulty settings and no added control options. Priced at $2.99 and being Universal, it does seem a bit bare. However, within the brawler genre on the iOS, this isn’t really a rare thing and the polish and addictive gameplay does help to draw your attention away from it’s shortcomings enough to justify the reasonable price-point. Hopefully more will be added to Fallen World, as it shows an incredible amount of promise and could very well stand out as one of the better titles within the genre. A few little additions would go a very long way here. But as-is, it’s still a game that’s worth recommending. 

Read More

Combo Crew [The Game Bakers] - $1.99

One of my favorite iOS games over the last couple years has been one that not many review sites gave much credit. Mainly because of the included IAP, even though it did nothing to harm the actual gameplay and was completely un-intrusive throughout, The Game Bakers action oriented turn-based RPG, Squids and Squids Wild West are two completely stand out titles on the platform and while they didn’t do too well in sales, it’s hard to deny that they set a new standard for many iOS gamers as to what a great RPG on the touch screen should be. 

Since the release of Squids and Squids WW, The Game Bakers have been working on something else completely suited for the touch screen, and while those words usually constitute half-assed gameplay and gimmicky controls there are some rare occasions where ‘from the ground up for the touch screen’ has pushed genres forward, keeping them fresh and incredibly entertaining on a gaming device that’s starting to be taken a little more seriously as a ‘real’ gaming platform as time progresses. Before I go off on a tangent, the name of the game? Combo Crew. A swipe based brawler that’s easy for this reviewer to call ‘one of the best on the platform’.

Combo Crew is a tower based brawler in which you’ll start at the bottom, and have to fight your way to the top in order to take down Mr. Boss. As you progress through the tower, you’ll unlock skills, allowing you to switch out moves to your liking and style of play. The controls are very easy to get use to and actually, are quite a bit more comfortable and natural feeling than any virtual controls I’ve experienced in a brawler. First off, a quick swipe on an enemy will have your character attack them. This also sets them up as your primary target. If you want to change targets, you can either swipe or tap the enemy whom you’d like to focus your attacks on instead of the one that’s currently selected. 

There are some enemies that will block almost every attack you make, this is where your charged attack comes into play. To do this all you need to do is swipe the enemy, but keep your finger down on the screen, letting go after you’ve ‘charged’ your attack, and you’ll knock the enemy, and any enemies who happen to get caught in the crossfire, all the way across the screen. 

The special combo attacks are where it gets kind of tricky in regard to how you want to play, how quickly you want your character to attack, the range of attacks you want them to have and so on. Using two fingers to swipe anywhere on the screen, you can swipe left, right, up or down, giving you the option of pulling off 4 different combo moves. As you complete segments of the tower, you’ll be able to purchase and equip different combos with varying length and strikes, allowing you to pick a combo that starts off with a sweep kick for those pesky blocking characters, ends with an uppercut so that you can get that extra mid-air strike in, or combos with a longer/shorter string of attacks depending on how quickly you want to be able to get our of the action, or how quickly you want to build up your multiplier. 

Counter-attacking is also a big part of Combo Crew. While you’re attacking the enemy, there’s almost always going to be multiple enemies on-screen who are not seeing the business end of your fist or foot, and they will decide to come after you. These characters are always shown with a fairly large exclamation point over their heads. In order to counter their attacks, you’ll need to tap anywhere on the screen when the exclamation point is visible. This queues up a counter move that you’ll pull off as soon as you’re done finishing whatever attacking action you’re in the middle of. Here’s where short combo moves come in handy, as some of the longer combos will leave you open to attack for a longer period of time since you can’t stop a combo once you start it. Miss out on the chance to counter, and you’ll loose your multiplier as well as your super combo meter.

Yes, there is a super combo meter. While you’re off kicking some serious butt, a gauge will charge in the upper left corner right beneath your health bar. Once this is filled up, an icon with a fist on it will appear under the bar. You can either choose to tap it straight away, or wait and see if you can pull off some more moves to charge up the bar for a second or third time, strengthening your combo attacks. Once you do tap the fist icon, the background will go black, and everything will stop. This is where you’re given a chance to totally ruin the day of anyone unlucky enough to get caught on the screen. Once the background disappears, you can place your finger on the screen, and quickly swipe through all of the characters multiple times. After a couple of seconds, your super combo meter will start to drain and you’ll go on a complete rampage until it’s drained, quickly following the path of the line you drew with your finger, giving you the chance to rack up a massive multiplier. 

There are two gameplay modes; King Of The Tower, where you’ll have the chance to fight through 7 levels of the tower, each with 5 stages to try and perfect by snagging the 3 medals: Complete the stage without getting hit, beat the gold medal score and get the top local score. There is also a sort of Endless Mode called Combo Crew Mode. Here, you’ll be able to fight through stages of enemies that become increasingly difficult. In each stage there are multiple waves that you’ll need to fight off, and once you loose all of your health, it’s Game Over. However, you’re also able to get ‘rescued’ by Facebook friends and other gamers through e-mail addresses. This gives you the chance to get saved by another player to keep on fighting in a co-op mode and better your high-score. While I’m not too sure many gamers will like the idea of people working their way up the leaderboards because they have more friends with the game than them, there are a couple of forum threads, and players on The Game Baker’s Facebook page that are handing out their e-mail addresses, so finding someone to help you out isn’t really something that’s hard to do, and since you’re also able to earn currency by completing objectives and beating stages, there’s still a massive amount of drive to play the Combo Crew Mode if you’re going at it solo. 

Starting off the game, you’re given two characters with some pretty different fighting styles. There are also 2 unlockable characters which you can purchase for 20 game pieces each. Game pieces are earned by completing objectives in both gameplay modes. No worries about having to dump another couple of dollars into the game, as it’s completely IAP free, putting everyone at the same playing field from the get go. Each of the characters has 20 available combo moves, giving the game a total of 80 distinct combo moves to try and unlock. On top of this, there’s also boosters that are consumable items that you can purchase in the shop, like a burger that completely refills your health, fries that double your life gauge and completely fill it up, a green chili that fills your super combo gauge and more. There are also permanent upgrades/perks that you can buy as well which will increase your life gauge, add booster slots, increase your damage and more. Needless to say, there’s a lot to unlock in the game. 

Graphically, Combo Crew is just as polished as The Game Bakers previous Squids titles. The animations are top notch and the gameplay is incredibly smooth. However, it is kind of lacking in the environment department. There are different looks for each level of the tower, but they don’t do much to make it feel different. If you’re not really paying attention, it can almost feel like you’re playing in one room over and over again throughout most of the game. As long as I am bringing up one of the very few negative things I can say about Combo Crew, I might as well get this out of the way as well; there is no co-op mode through GameCenter. I know that some gamers will be kind of upset by this, but it’s not a deal breaker at all, though I do hope to see it added somehow in the future.

Outside of that, Combo Crew is priced at a measly $1.99. Since the game does not have one little shred of IAP to be found inside of it, and is Universal and is, without a doubt, one of the best beat-em-up/brawler titles available on the iOS, it’s a game that’s pretty much impossible for us not to recommend. If you’re a fan of the genre, Combo Crew is a must get. And with The Game Bakers working on incorporating even more into the game with updates and taking player feedback very seriously, the future for the game looks incredibly bright. You won’t want to miss out on this one. 

Read More

Best Park In The Universe [Heavy Boat Games + Cartoon Network] - $2.99

One of our favorite beat-em-ups/brawlers here at The App Shack has got to be Grumpyface Studio’s Mutant Fridge Mayhem. Published by Cartoon Network, it contained the gameplay that previous beat-em-ups promised, but couldn’t deliver. This wasn’t too much of a surprise, as Grumpface’s previous releases (Bring Me Sandwiches!, Wispin and Super Mole Escape) are all top notch titles on the platform. But what Mutant Fridge Mayhem did for us was open our eyes to Adult Swim’s fledging gaming brother and since it’s release, we’ve been keeping a close eye on Cartoon Network’s releases. Earlier this week another brawler came out of the Cartoon Network studio and this time it’s developed by Heavy Boat Games (developers of quite a few Cartoon Network games; Ben 10 Hack, Pickle Farmer, Copa Toon Champions, Toxic Targets and many more, most of which can be played on Cartoon Network’s website - they're also the developers of Jumping Finn Turbo, available in the AppStore) and is set in the world of the popular Regular Show titled Best Park In The Universe. 

Mr. Maellard and Benson are called away to a Park Management Conference, leaving Mordecai and Rigby in charge of the park. Benson promises that if the park is clean when they return, everyone will get some days off. On the other hand, if they screw up, they’ll get fired. Deciding to impress Benson, Mordecai and Rigby call together the whole gang to upgrade the park. While they’re starting work, a strange man comes up and says that he has what it takes to turn the park into the best park in the Universe. Deciding to trust him, Mordecai and Rigby make the deal. Once they shake the stranger’s hand, a huge portal appears in the sky and ends up swallowing the entire park. Now it’s up to the two mischievous characters to save their friends, the park, and still show Benson and Mr. Maellard that they know what they’re doing. You’ll face off against aliens, monsters and strange park workers while you tag team between Mordecai and Rigby making your way through 15 stages spread across 3 crazy worlds. 

Similar to the recent release of another brawler, Combo Crew, Best Park In The Universe uses a series of swipe gestures instead of virtual controls. To move your characters, all you do is tap on the screen where you want to move to while attacks are based on swiping gestures that can be done anywhere on the screen. Swiping left has you attack left, while swiping right attacks right. To change characters, all you need to do is tap the character icons in the top left corner of the screen. Each character also has a special attack which can be used once your special meter is filled up, and is triggered by tapping two fingers on the screen at once. 

As you make your way through the game, you’ll gain experience by defeating enemies and picking up items that are scattered throughout the stages. Each time you level up, you’ll be given a point which you can use to upgrade your characters. The upgrades are a great addition and done in a branching tree format. Unlocking these upgrades will either increase your characters hit points, the amount of damage you can take, the amount of damage you dish out and add more attacks, allowing you to swipe up and down in the middle of a combo to pull off special moves. By the time you upgrade your characters completely, you’ll have quite a few different swipe combos at your disposal adding some depth and complexity to the gameplay. 

The first couple of stages are not very big, but as you progress, the levels do start to open up, with multiple paths to explore, and even though there is only one ‘right’ path to each stage’s exit point, it does help add to the variety within each stage. Also adding to the variety are the world’s backdrops. In the first world, you’ll be fighting your way through the park while the second world has you battling it out beneath the park and the third world is a station in space. Graphically, the game looks almost identical to the cartoon, and the animations are incredibly smooth and quick, complimenting the responsive controls. 

Although GameCenter is supported, there’s no scoring system, which means that there’s no leaderboards. However, there are 15 achievements to help to drive the game forward. However, unlike most brawlers the lack of leaderboards and a scoring system does not take anything away from the game. While it could help add to the replay value, that’s not the driving force behind the gameplay, which is actually kind of a refreshing change of pace. You’re not required to beat every single enemy in a level in order to progress, and you don’t have to visit every stages branched areas to complete them. It does add a more casual feeling to the game while the gameplay still provides a nice challenge for those who are willing to try and beat down every enemy and visit every area in a level. But I doubt many of us would complain if leaderboards and a scoring system were added in an update.

Priced at $2.99, it is a bit ‘high’ compared to other iOS titles, but the amount of polish and entertainment value presented in the game definitely justifies the extra buck or two. Not to mention more characters, another world with 5 more levels, endless levels and multiple modes are planned, we’re incredibly excited to see how this game grows with future updates. If you’re a fan of beat-em-ups/brawlers, don’t let the Cartoon Network publication make you overlook Best Park In The Universe. Alongside Mutant Fridge Mayhem and Combo Crew, it’s very quickly become one of our personal favorites on the platform, and we really can not recommend it more.

Read More

The Gods: Rebellion [Calvi + Chillingo] - $0.99

**This review was contributed to The App Shack by Alister from the Touch Arcade Forums**

Over a year ago our Chinese counterparts were given a delightful treat by the folks of Calvi games. That delectation was a title which was all about slashing, dismembering and kicking some serious ass like any proper brawler provides. It was a UE3 powered game called Infinity Of God. Ever since I saw the gameplay videos and features about it, I've been itching for it to be translated and available for localization. Luckily, a well known and highly regarded publisher took the game under its wing and made it playable for all of us. Now bearing a new name to make its international debut, Chillingo proudly presents, The Gods: Rebellion.

In this game you play as Fu Xi, the Dragon God, which came down from the celestial heavens in order to liberate mankind from the oppressive rule of his fellow deities. Somehow I see the protagonist as a Prometheus like figure from the East rather than a god of war. So people who might think the story is a carbon copy of another very popular game can be rest assured, it's not. The narration of the tale is delivered through animated cut scenes that have caveman like art which gives an epic/ancient feel to it. Though I am quite far from nominating it for a world fantasy award, I find the story line to be good enough to entertain me and keep me interested.

Now for the most important part; how it plays. There are various defensive maneuvers you can do such as blocking, dodging and countering an attack. While there are two types of offensive actions such as the dragon fist attack which is weak yet fast and  the blazing axe attack that deal more damage at a slower pace. Another entertaining mechanic to this game are the combos. There are simple combos and  there are special combos which end with a bang. Clearly, the combat system truly shines because of the various ways the player can approach the game. The different facets of the combat also have certain distinctions that can be either a pro or a con, so strategy plays a factor in the gameplay department as well. I also find the over-all controls to be responsive and precise.

Another brilliant factor to this game is the AI. Each opponent you face attacks and moves in different ways. Some enemies can stop your combos by blocking and others will interrupt your momentum by attacking quickly. Plus some enemies also have diverse properties which make their attacks unblockable or can't be countered. I also like the pace and timing which the bad guys come at you. It makes the battles more exciting. So if you're going to do some brainless button mashing, then prepare to die as this is a game of skill and timing. Awareness of the situation that's happening around you is essential, thus doing something at the right time is key to your success. Clearly making progress towards the game feels like a rewarding experience.

It's also interesting that the game doesn't contain any puzzles, unlike some other brawlers that have been released for the platform. But if you're looking for some alternate experiences, or some breaks from all that hacking and slashing, there are some segments in the game where the objective is to avoid traps. Another important thing to mention is the character progress can be attained by collecting soul points that enable you to purchase upgrades, a mechanic  similar to Devil May Cry, God of War and other games within the genre. Pretty much it stays pure to its general concept, which is to generate as much action sequences as possible.

Though this game might not have jaw dropping graphics or contain ridiculous amounts of effects, it still looks quite good. I beleive that it's more crucial that an action game should have a solid frame rate so that there's no glitches or lags. I also like the button size and the camera distance and angles because you can see a lot, if not most of the things, around you. As they say, the threats that you don't see coming are the one's that will kill you. The game also contains IAPs which can be used to purchase upgrades and unlock other characters that you can use. Having played a lot, I don't feel them to be intrusive or necessary since it's your skill that can carry you through. You can definitely finish the game without purchasing a dime.

My only critism about the game is a lack of variety in the enemies you'll face. I would like to see different faces, yet it's very good that you can really distinguish them apart from each other. A classic case of quality vs. quantity. So far as to what I've experienced from my playing sessions, this is the best and most proper brawler available on the iOS. It stays on its main context/goal to give you an action packed extravaganza that you yearn for. If you've been a fan of the genre and are looking to bring a bit of violence and blood into your life, then check this title out. For the very affordable price of a measily $0.99, what more can you ask for.

Read More