One of the best things Ubisoft has done in recent years (besides giving birth to Assassin’s Creed) was to reboot the Rayman series. The developers must have realised that Rayman’s true strength had always been the excellent platforming action. And so they released a graphically super impressive 2D platforming game with great controls, great gameplay and a very unique soundtrack called Rayman Origins.

Luckily, Rayman Jungle Run for iPhone and iPad has a lot in common with its bigger console brother. It looks just as beautiful and is a very polished, very fun game. The biggest difference is the gameplay; while you have full directional control in Rayman Origins, Rayman Jungle Run is an on-rail game where you only need to help Rayman avoid various obstacles. You’ll be doing this by simply tapping the left side of the screen to jump and fly, and the right side of the screen to punch.

In the first few levels, all you need to do and worry about is jumping. The game will then introduce you to the concept of floating and finally into punching stuff. This is done very intuitively and creates a very nice learning curve. At first I was a bit worried that Rayman Jungle Run might be too easy because the first few levels were no real challenge at all. I was proven wrong pretty soon when I tried to complete one of the challenge levels that you first need to unlock before you can play them. I probably tried that level about 50 times and have yet to complete it.

The game is split into four chapters with ten levels each. The levels are full of coins that, if you wish to collect all 100 per level, you often have to find secret passages for. Collecting all 100 coins in a level will gain you a special zombie tooth. In each of the four chapters there is one special challenge level that can be unlocked by collecting five of those teeth. All of the levels have a very distinctive art style and look and feel very different. But while they all look different, they also all look equally gorgeous! Rayman Jungle Run really is a beautiful game!

So it looks as good as Rayman Origins, but unfortunately it doesn’t sound quite as good. The music in Rayman Jungle Run is very similar, but it does sound very repetitive and might get on your nerves pretty quickly. It doesn’t help that there isn’t a huge variety of songs either. But compared to how much fun I had with this game overall, I can forgive the weakness in the music department.

So my verdict is quite clear: If you like beautiful and challenging platforming games on your iPhone and iPad, there’s really no way around buying Rayman Jungle Run. For what it offers I also consider it a steal!

Anomaly Warzone Earth [$1.99|$3.99] takes the concept of tower defense games and turns it upside down. Instead of defending yourself from wave after wave of enemies on your iOS device, this time around you are the one making your way through predefined defense structures. And I’m happy to say that the result is a game that feels very unique and stands out from the many casual games that are available for iPhone and iPad.

In Anomaly Warzone Earth our planet has been invaded by some nasty aliens and it’s your objective to fight back. Easier said than done, because throughout the campaign you’ll regularly have to face new alien structures that will try to stop you from succeeding. But it’s not just the aliens who are introducing new units every so often, you will also be given new troops to blast those defenses to oblivion. To make things more complicated, you can collect resources throughout the missions that will allow you to upgrade or swap specific units. But that’s not all, in order to keep things interesting as your troops are making their way through enemy lines, you are given a limited amount of special abilities which you’ll need to activate at the right time to support your troops.

As you can imagine by now, Anomaly Warzone Earth offers quite a bit of strategic depths that want to be explored and exploited. First, there’s the choice of troops, then there’s the route you plan to take, the choice of upgrades for your troops and the strategic placement of the special abilities. Such an amount of options could easily be overwhelming, but Anomaly Warzone Earth’s campaign does an excellent job at introducing you to each element and slightly increasing the difficulty. It manages to offer you a challenge that makes you feel you’ve accomplished something once you successfully finish a mission, without ever being too frustrating to move on.

Anomaly Warzone Earth was first released on Mac and Windows systems before it saw the light of day on iOS devices. So the first question that came to my mind was obviously if the controls translated well from mouse to touchscreen input. And what can I say, the folks at 11 bit studios really nailed this transformation. It actually feels as if the game was developed with touch controls in mind, that’s how well they work.

And it’s not just the controls that shine, the presentation is also more than satisfying. The mission briefings are fully voiced over and sound very professional. The music and sound effects fit the action on screen perfectly and the graphics are also nice to look at. Everything is very polished and makes sure that Anomaly Warzone Earth [$1.99|$3.99] feels like more than the sum of its parts. This is a game that strategy fans shouldn’t miss and I’m sure that it will introduce new fans to the genre!

If I had to give you an idea of what Tiny Tower [Free] is, I’d say something like: It’s free(mium), it’s fun, it’s highly addictive. With Tiny Tower, developer Nimlbebit has really hit the sweet spot when it comes to designing a fantastic freemium title. And if I tell you that the already great Pocket Frogs [Free] was from the same developer, you know what to expect.

The gameplay is rather simple: Your goal is to grow your Tiny Tower by adding new floors, moving in new citizens (called bitizens) and employing them in the various businesses that you set up in your tower. To get things done, you need two resources: Money in form of coins, and time in form of Towerbux. Everything in Tiny Tower has its price and after you bought it, it will take some time until it’s available. That’s where the Towerbux come in – you can spend them to shorten that time. So, how do you get hold of these two resources? Earning coins is very straight forward; just sell the stuff in your stores to your bitizens and you’ll get some coins for it.

Towerbux on the other hand are pretty hard to come by. Every now and then your bitizens tip you a Towerbux when you find someone for them or take them to the floor they want to. You’ll also get some for certain achievements like putting a bitizen into his dream job or fully stocking one of your shops. So you do come across them here and there, but you won’t get nearly enough to add new floors all the time.

Well, this is where the freemium concept comes in. You can buy Towerbux as an In-App Purchase to accelerate your progress. Unfortunately, Nimblebit has changed the way that Tiny Tower behaves quite a bit since its release. So while a few weeks ago you could build along pretty quickly without the need to buy any Towerbux, the game is nowadays significantly slower if you don’t make use of the In-App Purchases. While these adaptions to the gameplay mechanics are obviously not the most popular ones, it is understandable from Nimblebit’s point of view – something needs to put food on their tables after all.

But don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean that you can’t play the game without spending money on it. You definitely can. And it’s still fun, too. You just need to be comfortable with the slow progress and that there’s not that much to do all at once. The beauty about this is that, obviously, the game is available for free on the App Store, so go ahead and give it a try! But have in mind: Tiny Tower [Free] can become pretty addictive!

“More of the same” is often used as a negative expression. But if you think back at how great the original Cut The Rope [$0.99|$1.99] was when it was available for your iPhone not even 1 year ago, it’s clear that “more of the same” is a positive thing for such a great game. In the (unlikely) case you are unfamiliar with Cut The Rope, here’s the wrap-up: It’s a physics based puzzle game featuring a little creature called Om Nom that lives inside a box and wants to be fed with candy. And it’s your job to make sure the candy makes it into Om Nom’s mouth. Easier said than done.

Cut The Rope: Experiments [$0.99|$1.99] is not so much of a sequel, but more like an expansion to the original game. I’m sure that the devs at ZeptoLab were aware of that fact and that’s the reason why it’s not marketed as a sequel. Right now, the game comes with 3 boxes that each feature 25 levels. The first box is pretty much a recap of everything you’ve been introduced to in the original Cut The Rope and gets you back on top of its gameplay. The 2nd box introduces a new item, a button that automatically aims at the candy and, once tapped, shoots a rope at it. In the 3rd box the game gives you buttons that you can detach and reattach thanks to suction cups. It’s fun to start messing around with the new objects to get the hang of them. They give a completely new way to interact with the candy and it’s pretty satisfying to nail the perfect timing that the two buttons often require.

Besides these new items, everything pretty much stayed the same. Of course, there’s a new little intro video to set the scene as well as some new backgrounds and sound effects. But overall, everything’s still the good old Cut The Rope that we know and love. Why fix it, if it’s not broken, right? The UI works, the controls are tight and little Om Nom as adorable as always.

Like in the original Cut The Ropes, there are already new levels announced for you to download on the App Store in free updates. And that’s something I’m definitely looking forward to, because it doesn’t take long until you’ve mastered all of the 75 levels. But ZeptoLab offered top notch support and a ton of new content for the original, so I’m confident that Cut The Rope: Experiments will grow nicely over time. It’s worth mentioning that this time around, ZeptoLab released the game themselves without a publisher taking care of it. And I think that explains quite a few things about Cut The Rope: Experiments. If you’re a indie developer and you just separated yourself from such a big name like Chillingo, you should probably look into three things: Get your own name out there, strengthen the brand that you’ve established and get some capital to ensure liquidity and give you the option to reinvest in future projects. So in my idea, Cut The Rope: Experiments is more than just a sequel, it is ZeptoLab first and important step to become completely independent.

The quality of Cut The Rope: Experiments makes me confident that ZeptoLab has what it takes to release many more great titles on the App Store. But see for yourself, Cut The Rope: Experiments [$0.99|$1.99] is a great puzzle game that you shouldn’t miss if you’re a fan of the genre.

I have to make a confession: I’m in love with this game. Pix’n Love Rush, while being such a simple game, does so many things incredibly right. In its core, it’s an old-school jump ‘n’ run with 3 distinct game modes that will keep you busy for a long time. And all of it is tied together with an incredible art style.

The first game mode is called “Classic Rush” and puts you in full control of Pix’, a cat like character that can run left/right, jump and shoot things. You’ll need those abilities to rush with Pix’ through constantly changing levels where you need to collect positive coins and protect butterflies to earn points and avoid negative coins and shoot bats to keep your points and not lose any of your lives. It sounds simple, but the great level design will definitely keep you on your toes. “Classic Rush” can be played either with a 5 minute time limit or an endless mode that’s only limited by your ability to stay alive.

The second mode is “Cursed Rush” in which you only have to do one thing and one thing only: Jump. At the right time that is. While Pix’ is running at a constant pace, you need to make sure that he jumps over all the gaps to arrive safely at the end of each level.There are 5 levels that want to be finished, each more difficult than the previous one. Especially the later stages require you to memorize the levels, otherwise there’s almost no way to successfully make it to the end.

The third mode is “Rainbow Rush” and unfortunately this mode is only available in the iPhone version of Pix’n Love Rush. This mode is a variation of “Cursed Rush”, where Pix’ again keeps on running to the right. This time however, you need to make sure that he doesn’t bump into any of the walls. It’s a nice take on the gameplay and definitely a fun mode as well – that’s why it’s really a shame that this update, released over two months ago, didn’t make its way to the iPad version yet.

What makes Pix’n Love Rush so outstanding is the level of polish and the incredible presentation. The old-school, always changing pixel art looks stunning and the catchy chip tune soundtrack somehow never gets old. It’s hard to describe, but all the elements in Pix’n Love Rush are so well combined that this game is more than the sum of its parts. The only thing that disappointed me is the outdated iPad version – especially since I really like the way this game is presented on the iPad. If it would have at least been a Universal App, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but paying more money for the iPad version that comes with less content feels wrong – no matter how well its presentation is. If you’re into platformers and/or old-school games, do yourself a favor and get Pix’n Love Rush for your iPhone [$0.99] or iPad [$1.99].

Gameloft’s new third person shooter 9mm is often compared to Remedy’s Max Payne. In case you’re not familiar with Max Payne, it was a celebrated third person shooter released in 2001 with a distinct feature called bullet time: For a limited amount of time you could slow down everything in the game except your ability to aim. This enabled you to take out several enemies at once all while dodging their bullets at the same time. Ah, what a satisfying feeling that was. Now, why the heck am I talking about this? Because that’s the exact gameplay mechanic that found its way into 9mm. And Gameloft managed to nail it.

And that’s great news. The shooter mechanics in 9mm are amongst the best you can get on your iPhone or iPad right now. The controls are buttery smooth and I especially like the way the camera tilts when you aim – it’s just a slight movement, but it really gives a nice touch to the overall experience.

You’ll spend most of your time shooting bad guys and that’s a good thing – because that’s what 9mm by far is most competent in. There’s the occasional quick events mission that you need to endure, some button pressing to open doors every now and then and some not-so-great dialogue and story in between. You play as John “Loose” Kannon (I know…), a cop who likes to bend the law if that’s what it takes to get the bad guys into jail. Early on in the game, he kills the brother of a drug lord and finds himself in a drug war where his own family becomes a target.

But worry not, all the story bits are kept very short, so you can get back into the action before you could be bothered by it. However, there’s one thing the cutscenes are good for: You get the time to admire the graphics. 9mm is a gorgeous game – if anyone would have told me a few years ago that we’d soon get games with such graphics on our mobile phones, I’d have called them illusional. Just have a look at our screenshot or check out the trailer and you’ll get an idea of what to expect.

The single player campaign clocks in at about 3 to 4 hours. That’s not particularly long, but 9mm offers a fair amount of replay value thanks to a mission rating that keeps track of several stats like your accuracy for example. I strongly suggest to pick one of the higher difficulty levels though (and/or disable auto-aim), I found the game to be balanced on the easy side. Once you’re done with the campaign, you can jump right into one of two multiplayer modes: “Free for all” (death-match) and “Cops ‘n’ Gangstas” (team death-match). Gameloft’s online service, Gameloft Live, will keep track of your progress – the more and the better you play, the faster you’ll level up your character and unlock new and better weapons.

All in all, 9mm is probably one of the, if not the, best third person shooter available for your iPhone or iPad right now. The action is satisfying, the controls are slick and the visuals are amongst the best iOS has to offer. You like action? Get 9mm. It comes as Universal App for $6,99.

How good are your reflexes? No, don’t answer – play a round of Boost 2 on your iPhone or iPad and show me your high-score! This game will definitely challenge your reaction time, and no matter how good your reflexes are, it will push you to your limit. The important part in this case is, that it’s a whole lot of fun to get there!

In Boost 2 you’re racing through a tunnel in ego-perspective at an ever increasing speed while you need to avoid crashing into any of the randomly generated obstacles. It really is a simple concept, but it’s executed incredibly well and with a great amount of polish that makes it a joy to go hunting for the high-score. And Boost 2 never fails to give you this “just one more try” feeling that turns this game into a highly addictive affair.

You control the game by tilting your device left and right. This works incredibly well, is super precise and an excellent fit for iOS devices. And like in almost any tilt controlled game you have the option to calibrate the tilt-controls to your likings in the options menu.

Boost 2 comes with two singleplayer modes (Time Trial, Survival) and one multiplayer mode. In Time Trial, there’s a timer on top of the screen that counts down to zero. Your goal is to never let it get there by adding precious seconds every time you hover over a boost field. Once you’re in boost mode, you have not only added a few seconds to the timer and are faster, you can also crash once without it resulting in a game over. However, crashing means you will lose time and if you crash again, it’ll also mean game over. So crashing should be avoided at all cost.

In Survival the goal is again to get as far as you can, but it works a bit different. There are no boosts, the speed will increase gradually over time until you reach maximum speed. This also means that one crash results in game over. Also, Survival mode is not available from the beginning. You first need to score 2000 points in Time Trial to unlock it.

The multiplayer is classic 1 vs 1. You both get to race for 60 seconds at the same time and the one who’s travelled the longer distance wins. Boost 2 indicates who’s currently leading by displaying red blocks to the one behind and blue blocks to the leader.

To sum everything up, Boost 2 offers some great instant action whenever you feel the need for an adrenalin rush. The presentation is great and the controls are precise and a perfect fit for iPhone and iPad. The game comes as universal app and at the time of this review it is currently on sale for $0.99.

Ah, Monkey Island. Just hearing the name of this classic point-and-click adventure makes me already feel all warm and fuzzy inside. If you are amongst the older generation of gamers, I bet you feel the same. And once I tell you that The Secret Of Monkey Island: Special Edition is a great remake that works incredibly well on iPhone and iPad, then you’ll probably stop reading and start downloading this game on the App Store this instant. And in case you are new to the Monkey Island franchise, let me tell you that you’re in for a real treat!

The Secret Of Monkey Island was first released in 1990 and was very well received by both critics and gamers. Considering that this game is over 20 years old, it is amazing how much fun it still is today. If nostalgia is what you’re looking for, I’m pleased to say that you can play through this game in its original glory complete with the original music and user interface. However, the special edition also comes with some new features. If you want to, you can turn on some brand new graphics and fully voiced over dialogues. Personally, I really like the new presentation. It’s modern yet very truthful to the original. What’s really neat is the option to compare the two versions at any time – you just need to swipe across the screen with two fingers and the game instantly changes its look.

In The Secret Of Monkey Island you’ll help a guy named Guybrush Threepwood to become a real, mighty pirate! Problem is, this guy is not exactly what you would imagine when you think of pirates. That’s also the impression that practically all of the characters in the game will have of Guybrush, which will result in some hilarious dialogues. The gameplay consists of talking to people, collecting and combining various items, and using these items in the right places or with the right people. The typical point-and-click affair. In case you get stuck, you can access a built-in help system by shaking your iOS device. Every time you shake it, it will become more specific up to a point where it basically tells you exactly what you need to do next.

You control the game by pushing around a context sensitive pointer on the screen. This might seem a bit awkward at first, but I got used to it after just a few minutes and found it to be an excellent match for a point-and-click adventure. It’s not as straight forward as using a mouse on your PC, but it works well enough to not get in your way of enjoying the game.

The Secret Of Monkey Island: Special Edition is a great version of a game that helped to define a whole genre. Unfortunately, you will have to choose between the iPad [$4.99] and iPhone [$2.99] version. In case you prefer to play your games on the go let me tell you that the game works very well on the smaller iPhone screen.

When I saw the first trailer for Dream:scape about two months ago, I got very excited about it. It looked like Dream:scape was shaping up nicely to become an incredibly atmospheric adventure with great visuals, that are backed up by the Unreal Engine. Now that the game was released today and I have finished the story, I’m happy to say that Dream:scape delivered on these expectations. But unfortunately, a lack of polish and some frustrating moments are holding it back from living up to its full potential.

To begin with, Dream:scape is not so much of a game as it is an interactive story in which you rarely ever need to do something other than walk to the right places. The character you are guiding through the game is lying in some sort of coma and the doctors explain that he has zero brain activity. However, you find yourself waking up in a cornfield where a scarecrow tells you that this is your Dream:scape where you are about to unlock memories of your past. You are given a diary that functions as both a map and an aggregator of information to document the story for you. From then on you will spend your time unlocking the secrets of this man’s past. To do so, you need to find items that will unlock new places and new pieces of the story as you progress. The game lasts for about two or three hours and the excellent storytelling will keep you hooked until you finally know all the secrets.

But like I already mentioned, there are a few things that might frustrate you along the way. To begin with, there’s the map that’s pretty inaccurate. At the beginning of the game I was more concerned with where I was and where all the places are that I need to go than with anything else because I couldn’t make sense out of it. Then there’s an unnecessary amount of backtracking. Sometimes you can only pick up items if you are at the right point in the story – so although you know you will need this item later on, you’ll first have to walk across the whole map, trigger the next part of the story, backtrack across the whole map to get the item and then backtrack again to use it. That’s already frustrating, but the fact that the character walks faster diagonally than forward, which made me spend most of my time running sideways through the game, makes things even worse. The third point that I have to criticize are the controls. While the dual analog stick layout is proven to get the job done pretty well in free roaming 3D games, they sometimes just refused to work for a moment. And the few gesture based action sequences seem to have a problem with gesture recognition: I was only able to solve the last sequence when I tried it with a capacitive pen after I failed 15 times with my finger.

Luckily, Dream:scape shines bright, very bright in one area and that’s its story. The atmosphere is great, the voice-overs are excellent and the storytelling always makes you want to find out what happened next. It really keeps the whole thing going and makes up for a lot of the criticism. Like I said, the game is roughly two, maybe three hours long and you’ll spend quite some time of it wandering around. So I wont go any deeper into the story here as it would pretty much spoil the whole experience.

There’s a lot of criticism in this review, but I felt like I needed to address the game’s shortcomings. However, Dream:scape really delivers big time with its story and atmosphere, and creates an experience that is very outstanding on the App Store. Most of the shortcomings could also be addressed in future updates, which I really hope for. Dream:scape is also Speedbump Studios’ first game, which might explain and excuse some of the quirks it has. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience that Dream:scape has to offer and if you appreciate a good story, you should definitely give it shot. It comes as universal app for $1.99.

Kosmo Spin is the first game of developer Simogo, the swedish team who just recently brought us the great Bumpy Road. And much like Bumpy Road, Kosmo Spin also focuses on a unique way of controlling the game.

In Kosmo Spin, you’re asked to defend a planet from a breakfast stealing, ball shooting UFO. And as the name suggests, you will do so by spinning the planet that your little guy with the square head is standing on. The square head comes in handy to defend the planet by bouncing all sorts of balls back into space. If a ball hits the planet, the impact will make it impossible to spin it for a few moments, thus rendering you defenseless against the alien’s beam laser. That beam laser is also the only thing you’ll have to fear in Kosmo Spin. If the alien catches you, it’s game over.

That makes it important to bounce back as many of the balls as possible, so you’re always able to escape the beam laser. The balls come in different sizes and with unique attributes. Some are faster than the others, some require you to bounce them more than once to get rid of them, and some are shot in a different angle, making it harder to get to the right spot.

Besides an endless modes where the UFO gradually gets faster and faster, there’s also a quest mode. In this mode, Simogo has prepared special tasks for you, like surviving for 10 seconds while the UFO is ridiculously fast or to not let the UFO beam up any food for 10 seconds. The tasks range from very easy to very hard and come in great variety.

If you’re looking for a polished casual game that’s very easy to get into, then Kosmo Spin should catch your attention. It comes as universal app for as little as $0.99.