TapArena | iPad and iPhone Game Reviews

Unpleasant Horse Review: A Pleasant Surprise

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Tom in Action, Featured Reviews, iPad Games, iPhone Games

unpleasant horse header Unpleasant Horse Review: A Pleasant Surprise

Unpleasant Horse is the first game from 4th & Battery, a subdivision of PopCap. 4th & Battery was brought to life to function as a creative valve for the guys at PopCap; a platform that enables them to develop unconventional games that wouldn’t fit into PopCap’s portfolio. Which, at least in the case of Unpleasant Horse, are then released for free – now that’s the spirit!

Unpleasant Horse is a classic highscoring game. You’re in control of the black, unpleasant horse (hence the title) that hops from cloud to cloud, while it’s shredding peaceful, flying horses in between. The mechanics are quite simple: By touching the screen, you define the angel that your unpleasant horse will jump to the next cloud. If in between the two clouds happens to be one of the peaceful horses, the unpleasant horse will grab them and then crush them into spinning saw blades that are waiting on the ground. The longer you hold on to the innocent horses while they’re being shredded into gory pieces, the more points you’ll get. So the title is pretty accurate – it really is a rather unpleasant horse.

Besides looking for horses, you should also keep your eyes open for birds. Catching one of them enables a one-time double jump. These come in handy in case you have jumped into a direction where there’s no clouds or horses to hang on to.

So while this isn’t the deepest or most challenging game you can get on the App Store, it’s a small and fun title with a refreshingly bizarre setting – so it’s exactly what 4th & Battery were aiming for. And since this game is for free, there’s no reason why shouldn’t give this unpleasant horse a ride.

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Shadowgun For iOS: Now That’s Some Sharp Graphics!

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Tom in Action, iPad Games, iPhone Games, News

shadowgun press header Shadowgun For iOS: Now Thats Some Sharp Graphics!

Madfinger Games, the creators of the visually impressive Samurai II: Vengeance, have announced their upcoming game Shadowgun. It’s a third person shooter with incredibly sharp graphics. Madfinger Games call it “a new visual standard for handheld gaming”.

While that might be a bit too self confident (the next Unreal Engine games are just around the corner), I’m sure you’ll agree that this game looks gorgeous. It definitely has a Gears of War vibe to it. The dimensions of the character models and the colors immediately reminded me of Epic’s Xbox 360 must-have game. But Shadowgun is actually not powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine but the Unity engine. It’s great to see that there’s another development platform capable of outputting high-end graphics – competition helps pushing things faster and further. The developers aim to turn Shadowgun into “the best expression of quality production achievable on mobile devices”.

shadowgun press 01 Shadowgun For iOS: Now Thats Some Sharp Graphics! shadowgun press 04 Shadowgun For iOS: Now Thats Some Sharp Graphics!

The game is set in 2350 and puts you into the role of “Shadowgun” John Slade. Your task is to hunt down Dr. Edgar Simon, a geneticist who has built himself an army of cyborgs, mutants and the sorts. To get the job done, you’ll be given a wide range of weapons to mess around with.

At the moment that’s all we know and the four screenshots are all the material that’s available. There’s no fixed release date yet, just a vague “2011″. I’m really looking forward to see more of Shadowgun, this sure looks like one of the most ambitious titles for iOS to date.

shadowgun press 03 Shadowgun For iOS: Now Thats Some Sharp Graphics!

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Death Rally: Suggest A New Car And Win An iPad 2

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Tom in News

death rally header 2 Death Rally: Suggest A New Car And Win An iPad 2

Remedy has just announced to focus even more on community integration in their action-racer Death Rally. The idea is to let the community choose what new features they want to see in future updates of the game.

“After closely watching players’ interaction with the game and listening to the community’s discussions, it’s clear that our fans have great ideas on how to improve Death Rally,” said Peter Papadopoulos, Community Manager at Remedy.

This means that from today on, you will be able to take part in “community focused idea challenges” on Death Rally’s official Facebook site. The first challenge will last for two weeks (adding new ideas is only possible for the next 7 days) and you are asked to submit what type of car you want to get with the next update. If your idea ends up being the best rated one, it will not only be implemented into Death Rally, but you will also win a brand new iPad 2. Sounds fair to me!

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i3D Simulates 3D With Head Tracking On iPhone And iPad

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Tom in News

i3D has been shown off a few weeks ago to demonstrate the head tracking capabilities on front camera equipped iOS devices. Cool thing is, this proof-of-concept demo is now available for free on the App Store.

Head tracking technology itself has been around for quite some time now. I have first seen it in action in racing simulations, where it allows you to look around in your cockpit so you can see whats happening left and right of your car. Combined with surround sound, this created a very slick and immersive experience.

But don’t mistake head tracking with the kind of 3D that you can experience in the cinema or with Nintendo’s 3DS. What head tracking technology does, is changing the perspective of what you see on-screen, based on the position of your head. However, it wont add any real depth to the picture like the 3DS does. For this to happen, your eyes need to actually see a different picture. This is realized for example with special glasses that filter the image when you watch a movie in the cinema, or with a display that has a built in filter like the 3DS. The latter technology comes with very limited viewing angles in order to make the 3D effect visible.

So while head tracking doesn’t add real depth to the image, it still is an interesting technology that, if used in the right context, can definitely enhance a gaming experience. If you’re still wondering what the heck I’m talking about, go and grab i3D – it’s free and less than 4mb.

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Square Enix Released First Chaos Rings II Trailer

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Tom in iPad Games, iPhone Games, News, RPG

Now that’s a full load of Chaos Rings. Just one day after the release of Chaos Rings Ω on the App Store, which is set 10.000 years before the original Chaos Rings, Square Enix has uploaded a teaser trailer for Chaos Rings II. Unfortunately, due to my rusty Japanese skills, I can’t make out a whole lot from the trailer since it’s only available in Japanese. But from what the trailer reveals, the visuals look much improved compared to both the orignal Chaos Rings and the newly available prequel. There’s no word on a release date yet, we will keep you updated as we get new information.