Running With Ninjas [Justin Hogie] - $0.99

Shoot-em-ups. They’ve grown in popularity quite a bit since the introduction of the AppStore and iDevice. The touch controls make pin-point accuracy and quick movements that would otherwise be impossible as easy as dragging your thumb across a 3.5 inch glass screen. However, the 3D, 3rd Person/On-Rails shooter genre has been basically left out of this Shmup Revolution, with only a couple of titles available for the platform; Wizard Ops, Denizen, Dark Break, ExZeus, TheMars, Battle 3D 2: Iron Punch, and the more open-world type game, Battle 3D: Robots Sky. These titles have provided iOS gamers with countless Space Harrier type entertainment. But sadly, aside from these titles, there’s not others for fans of the genre to sink their teeth into. One-man, Australia-based Justin Hogie obviously knows this, but has still taken a wild chance with his first original iOS title, and created another game we can all add to that extremely short list; Running With Ninjas. 

Running With Ninjas is an Endless 3rd Person On-Rails Shooter that puts you in control of a ninja running through the jungle and mountains while being attacked by, and attacking, other ninjas who are bound and determined to take you out. RWN contains one gameplay mode which has you defeating as many ninjas as you can before your health completely runs out. When you start out, you’ll only see 2 different enemies; Red and Green. Red enemies will throw Shurikens straight forward and once defeated, add to your special meter; displayed as writing under your health bar. Green enemies do not attack you, instead, once defeated, they will slightly refill your health bar. As you progress through the world, you’ll soon realize that these are not the only types of enemies. Bosses with strange turtle like shields on their backs, purple enemies that throw Shurikens directly at you, yellow enemies that toss bombs and more will all be after your head, and when all of these different types of enemies are on the screen at the same time, things can get a little hairy. 

Once you defeat a boss, a scroll appears. These scrolls, once collected, give your ninja special powers, and this is where the special meter comes into play. After you collect a scroll, a special power is unlocked. To use this special power, you’ll need to draw a shape in the middle of the screen. This does take some getting use to, and I still think that buttons up the sides of the screen, or easier swipe gestures, like just swiping left to right, or up and down would have been a better fit, especially since the gestures are a little hard to remember, and can take more than a second or two to pull off, that is, if you can pull it off correctly. Each special power requires a certain amount of power from your special gauge. Once you have enough power, you can draw a certain symbol on the screen, and POW, enemies are in for some trouble. 

The controls are fairly simple; you’re given a button for jumping, and a button for throwing your own Shuriken. Moving left and right is controlled by tilting your device. Normally, I don’t think I would have checked out a 3rd Person On-Rails Shooter that was tilt controlled, but the controls in Running With Ninjas fit the game extremely well. Also making it feel even better is the great camera control. When you tilt your device, your character moves, but so does the environment. This makes it a lot easier to focus on the gameplay, and not worry so much about where your character is located in the gameplay area. However, if you’re not comfortable with the tilting environment, you can always turn this option off in the settings menu, making the environment stay level as you tilt. I have experienced some issues with the controls, like an occasionally unresponsive jump button, some jitteriness while moving in the air, sometimes resulting in taking damage when I should have avoided a bomb, and some slight sticking of the character while on the edges of the gameplay area. However, these were all occasional, and not game-breaking by any means. 

The graphics are pretty minimal, with very little details in the environments and characters, however, this does help to make the bright enemies stick out like a sore thumb, making it easier to focus on them while running at full speed through the environments. The animations are well done, with nice enemy appearance and death animations, cool looking special powers, and nice running animations also add to the feel and polish of the game. 

With only one gameplay mode, and some needed tweaks that could make the gameplay a little smoother, not everyone is going to jump on the Running With Ninjas bandwagon. However, if you’re a fan of the genre, and willing to take a chance on a game that has some very solid core gameplay mechanics, for $0.99, you just might be very surprised. In the near future, Justin Hogie has said that GameCenter leaderboards and achievements, as well as possibly another gameplay mode that would revolve around preset challenges and levels, along with some additions to the enemies, stages, and special power scrolls. Hopefully RWN sells well and gets enough attention that these things can be added, because right now, Running With Ninjas shows an extreme amount of promise, and provides some great endless gameplay.

Read More

Fur Fighters: Viggo on Glass [Muffin Games] - $1.99

Previously released games, ported to the iOS. A perfect way to buy back childhood/teenage memories for pennies on the dollar, as we proclaimed in our review of Metal Slug 3. This time, we’ve got our hands on Fur Fighters: Viggo on Glass, a Dreamcast title back from one of the best years of Dreamcast gaming; 2000. If you ever played the original, then you already know that Fur Fighters is one of the best and most underrated Dreamcast titles around. Those of you who haven’t heard of Fur Fighters until now. Get ready to get hooked. 

Back in 2000, IGN gave Fur Fighters a rating of 8.3, saying “a wonderful, whimsical personality radiates from the lavishly detailed characters and surroundings” and that “Fur Fighters is like nothing else in the gaming scene.” And they couldn’t be more right. At the time, the graphics, characters, story, gameplay, all of it was incredibly well done, looked beautiful, and was, in fact, like nothing else gamers had seen before. In Fur Fighters: Viggo on Glass, you’ll control 6 different characters, each with their own special and unique abilities, taking them on a mission to stop General Viggo, who’d kidnapped the hero’s families and babies, from taking over the world with his army of bears.

As you go from area to area, blowing the bears to fluff, collecting gems that keep the warp gates for each of the characters open, you’ll need to change between each of the characters so that you can use their abilities to reach certain areas, collect all of the weapons, solve puzzles, collect each of the babies who only come to their parents, and progress through the game. The training area at the beginning gives you a very good idea of what goes on throughout the game. In the training area, you’ll need to collect each of the 6 babies, and use each of the characters and their abilities to get through it. For instance, the cat can climb walls which have cat scratches on them, the raccoon can crawl through very small areas, a kangaroo who can jump higher than anyone else, ect. 

Graphically, the game looks just like it did back in 2000. But if you haven’t had the pleasure of playing the original, the world of Fur Fighters is very reminiscent of Super Mario 64. Big blocky objects, basic, but polished animations, and a general cartoony feel to everything. Killing the enemies causes them to blow up in an explosion of fluff, and the characters language is pretty interesting, adding another level of cuteness to the game. Actually, Fur Fighters, from the outside, looks a lot like a game made specifically for kids. But once you get into the game, and start blasting away, and getting into some of the harder puzzles, that perception is put to rest fairly quickly, with the game offering up a pretty decent challenge. 

The only thing that the game really suffers from is the controls. It’s fairly clear that the developers were trying to copy the movement of the Dreamcast joysticks perfectly. But on the touch screen, this results in some pretty funky movement. You’re given two invisible joysticks, one for movement, and one for looking around. But once you touch the screen, and start dragging slightly in one direction, the camera, usually tends to move pretty fast. To really control the game, it requires small swipes to turn and look around, kind of like flicking a joystick. The shoot and fire buttons are halfway up the right side of the screen, which is kind of a pain as well. A lot of times, I’ll wind up shooting when I want to jump, and jumping when I want to shoot. Hopefully the developers will tinker with the controls a bit, and make the buttons configurable to anywhere on the screen. As it is now, the game is playable, but it takes some getting use to, and in the end, could definitely use some tweaking.

Fur Fighters: Viggo on Glass is available for the iPad, and priced incredibly low at $1.99. Two bucks for this great game is a steal, and those of you who are lucky enough to have played it in the past already know that. But for those of you on the fence, you really should dive right in. Even with the control issues, which the developers have said that they’re working on, and that some options will be made available in a future update, but until it hits, we won’t really know how it’ll effect the game. The gameplay is fantastic, and offers up a great challenge, and memorable experience. It’s definitely a game you should check out if you’re a fan of mid-school third person shooter/adventure gameplay. 

Read More

'Star Warfare: Alien Invasion Review' - $0.99 [Universal]

Star Warfare: Alien Invasion is a dual-stick, first person shooter game where you are matched up against hordes of vicious aliens through a 30 stage campaign.  You can also play these levels in co-op with your friends through GameCenter.

Gameplay: 4.5/5

The object of the game revolves around one fairly simple objective: Kill as many aliens as possible. In singleplayer you are treated to 5 different arenas that each have 5 levels of difficulty to play through. After you complete a level you gain some virtual currency which you can use towards buying new weapons or pieces of armor.  You can also choose to select survival mode for each the arenas allowing you to test how long you can stay alive. This is a great way to earn a large sum of money.  In co-op you can play through these arenas with your friends or choose to attempt to beat one of the three bosses. These bosses are very tough and only experienced players with decent armor and good weapons should even attempt these missions.  There is a max of three players that can join your game.  If they die they are booted from the game if they do not have a revive potion.  Then the remaining players are allowed to keep on playing until they die since all co-op missions are survival.

Controls: 4/5

The controls are two control sticks, one for moving and one for aiming.  You tap the right stick to fire and are allowed to aim while firing which is extremely useful in intense situations.  To change the direction that you are looking in, swipe the screen above the dual sticks.  I have not had any issues with the controls on the iPad but have not had a chance to test it with my iPod yet. They definitely serve their purpose well.

Graphics: 4/5

Nothing to complain about here. The graphics look very professional and are quite good.  They fit in well with the mood the game is setting.

iAP: 3/5

This is where the game loses some of its selling points as it does have a rather large collection of iAP's. You can choose to buy a material called mythril which can be redeemed for more in-game money or for exclusive weapons.  Though there are a fairly good amount of weapons ripe for picking the really kick ass ones cost a small fortune in mythril.  With packages of Mythril up to $99.99 dollars in price it is rather clear that they hope to make a lot of money off of these iAP's.  Luckily you don't necessarily need mythril to complete the game and are really only used for cosmetic purchases and unique weapons.  I wouldn't put off buying the game just because of the in app purchases as the core game experience is really good.

Overall: 4.5/5

Overall this is an awesome FPS shooter with intense alien action and a co-op mode that lets you join forces with your friends. This is definitely a worthwhile purchase at the small price of $0.99.

Read More

EPOCH. - 5.99 (Uppercut Games)

The Unreal Engine is really starting to pick up ground with developers as more and more games being created within it are being released. The latest development group to take advantage of this amazing engine is Uppercut Games, who has just released their first iOS title, EPOCH.. Now, generally, saying that a game is a development company’s first on the iOS brings with it some skepticism, but in the case of Uppercut Games, that weariness really drips away when you find out that it’s 3 guys who have worked on games like Fallout: Tactics, Freedom Force, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, and XCOM.

So, with the recent release of Shadowgun, a lot of Gears Of War fans came out of the woodwork, and, before Shadowgun was released, there were quite a bit of people that were saying a cover-based shooter would be nice to see on the iOS, but until that first real title that focused on utilizing cover within gameplay came out, people really didn’t know how big of following there would be for a game like that on the iDevice. Since the release of Shadowgun, and the insane amount of players that stepped forward to throw their two cents in, it’s pretty clear that iOS gamers will have more and more cover-based shooters tossed their way in the years to come. But I’ve kind of gone off topic, as it’s clear that while playing EPOCH., you can tell that it wasn’t just thrown together since the release of Shadowgun to take advantage of the amount of cover-based fans.

EPOCH. takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where an on-going battle between robots is taking place. You’ll need to fight your way to a building while searching for a woman, picking up bits and pieces of information along the way by picking up transmissions, from before the world was destroyed, after each battle.

To control your robot you’ll use swipes and taps on the screen to jump, flip, and go in and out of cover while taking on waves of robots. To destroy the robots, you’ll need to tap on which one you want to focus your fire on, and then dodge the incoming fire by jumping and rolling between the 3 places of cover you have to choose from. There are 4 different robots, each with a variation of it, that fires different projectiles, or has a different firing pattern, really giving you 8 different enemies that are mixed and matched, creating quite a bit of variety with what you’ll encounter along your journey.

The difficulty goes up at a very good pace, giving you a chance to learn the game, and get to know how enemies work. You’ll start off only being able to play on Easy, and then unlocking Medium after you beat the game for the first time, then Hard after beating it the second time. All of your equipment that you pick up and purchase with credits earn after each level are carried over with each playthrough, giving it a strong Infinity Blade feel. You’re also given experience, with the game increasing your attack and defense as you level up.

Now I know it may sound boring, tapping on enemies to auto-fire at them, and swiping to take cover, but Uppercut Games has done an amazing job taking this sort of gameplay mechanic, and making it extremely fun, and incredibly challenging in the mid to later difficulty levels. Mixing up the enemies will have you franticly swiping and changing which enemy you’re focusing on constantly, and after you get through a level of heavily armed bad-ass robots, you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something. Throwing the perfect mix of agility into the cover-based shooter genre, and how it’s all pulled off was an amazing design decision. Needless to say, the graphics are incredible. Utilizing the full potential of the Unreal Engine, EPOCH. really brings the post-apocalyptic environment to life, giving gamers an all around immersive game; not only with the story, but with the gameplay, sounds, action, and graphics.

The main game is only about an hour long, but like Infinity Blade, and Dark Meadow, you’ll keep playing over and over again, gaining more experience, equipment, and bits of the story as you progress. Uppercut has nailed the exciting, entertaining gameplay that gives EPOCH. an incredible amount of replay value, and has definitely earned it’s $5.99 price tag. It has been named as the iTunes game of the week, and for very good reason. The future of iOS gaming is looking brighter and better with releases like this, and gives players loads of hope that the AppStore will not turn into just a freemium, “let’s do whatever we can to get as much money out of these gamers as we can” type of store.

EPOCH. gets a score of 5 out of 5.

Read More

Battle Bears BLAST!!!-0.99(Skyvu)

I'm sure almost everyone has heard of the popular game series Battle Bears featuring lovable bears and the Huggables who would love nothing better than to hug them to death. This crazy story actually starts in the second BB game which is the prequel to the first original one.  BB3 on the other hand has no storyline and the only thing linked to the previous games(they are free right now) are the main characters Wil and Oliver.

The controls are very simple in this game and in fact it is boasted that you can play with just one hand. You use the finger of your choice to drag a aiming reticle across the screen inflating huggables to the popping point as you do so. The weapon you use to blow up hordes of these huggables is a microwave.  Let me get this straight now before I go any further, this is by no means a hardcore game akin to the last two Battle Bears but a casual game that incorporates the same characters in fun high score gameplay. That being said it is certainly not a bad game in fact its just the opposite just know that its in a different category than its predecessors.

There are two game modes called 60 seconds and Survival.  In Survival you of course try to get the highest score possible without dying.  Its game over when you either shoot Wil who from time to time runs across the screen or get hugged three times by the Huggables. In 60 seconds you have exactly 60 seconds to get the most amount of points possible while trying to get the combos that show up at the top of the screen.

A nifty feature included in the game is the Objective system. There are 10 objectives total that you gain by completing certain goals in the two game modes. When you finish a objective you get a new item you can use to customize your bear.  The Backpack is the place to go to customize your bear and a variety of skins and costumes are available by of course completing the objectives. Also you can change the properties of your microwave and that influences aspects of the game like making enemies faster and doubling the points you get from each one popped. Bombs can take out a whole screen of huggables and are dropped randomly by Wil who will run,float,fly,or skip across the screen hysterically.

Overall this is a great arcade shooting game that's just perfect for those 60 seconds you have in the restroom stall before people start getting suspicious or for long devoted playthroughs trying to beat your friends high scores.  There is a lot of content for your 0.99 and future FREE updates have been promised to the people who have already bought it.  I was able to get a bit of a insiders tip on the contents of some of the update which at the moment will include: a pirate themed level, more costumes, and more gameplay modes.

What are you waiting for? Get your Bear on!
Link:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battle-bears-blast/id435136423?mt=8

Read More