Supergiant Games' follow up title to Bastion takes you on a journey through Cloudbank, a fictional city that looks incredibly beautiful. The turn based combat and exceptional soundtrack will make you fall in love with this game...read more
Fallout, one of the most beloved franchises in the video game world, has made its debut on iOS - and what a debut it is! If you've always fantasized about how to build the perfect vault to defy even the worst catastrophes, this is the right game for you...read more
There has been a rumor a few weeks ago that Valve, the famous game developer behind Half-Life and Portal, might be interested in bringing their distribution network Steam to smartphones. Well, turns out it wasn’t just a rumor after all. Trade mag MCV has been speaking with Valve’s marketing head Doug Lombardi and Jason Holtman. To the question if Steam would be possible on mobiles Doug Lombardi answered:
“We do feel we’re late on mobile across many of Valve’s services. It is something we’re starting to look at now. People are starting to ask us for it. The more requests we receive, the more we feel the need to act on them.”
So, I guess we should all start sending Valve some E-Mails.
Kodeo80 is currently working hard to finish their upcoming retro platformer 1-bit Ninja. And while it may look like a classic retro platformer at first, it’s actually in 3d. If you drag the top of the screen, the viewing angle changes and reveals the 3 dimensional nature of the game. This effect not only looks pretty cool, it’ll also reveal hidden passages that you can’t see in the classic 2d view.
What’s also special is the control scheme. 1-bit Ninja developer Kodeo80 got rid of the left button in order to streamline the controls for touch devices. The left side of the screen will make the Ninja run to the right, while the right side of the screen functions as jump button. While this has the benefit that you wont have any visible buttons that you need to keep an eye on, it will be interesting to see if it doesn’t feel like there’s “something missing”. According to the devs, 1-bit Ninja is almost complete and will be available towards the end of May.
Pulse: Volume One is Cipher Prime Studios’ 3rd game, and yet again it’s all about music. After Auditorium and Fractal, this time it’s a rhythm based game. But unlike all the Rock Bands and Guitar Heros out there, you will not have to press fixed buttons with the right timing. No, Pulse features an original ring layout. The great thing about this layout is that it can be adapted to a song’s time signature. So if there’s a song with a 4/4 time signature, Pulse will use 4 or 8 rings. If the song’s got a 3/4 you’ll have to deal with 6 rings. Brilliant.
Right now, Pulse comes with 8 songs, with the difficulty being the songs themselves. The difficulty gradually increases with each song up to a point where it requires finger-bending magic to clear them with 100%. For me, it became pretty difficult once the game requires you to tap different notes at the same time while they are moving into opposite directions. If you spend enough time with it, Pulse will clearly turn you into the master of multi-touch. Check out our gameplay video below to get an idea of how Pulse works.
Now, you might say 8 songs for $4.99 sounds a bit steep. And it actually would, if Cipher Prime didn’t already promise to add 4 new songs every month for free! The devs are working closely with local artists to get all sorts of genres into Pulse. The 8 songs you get right now are all produced in-house by Cipher Prime themselves. But worry not, these guys have proven more than once that they’ve got a talent for putting hypnotizing tracks together. And they have nailed it again in Pulse. Each song has a distinguish mood and oftentimes I couldn’t help but immediately replay them, that’s how catchy they are. But it’s not just the Songs that are outstanding, it’s the whole package. The presentation is also great, with a very minimalistic and clean design.
But before you storm to the App Store to get this game I have to ask you for one thing: Please, please play this game with headphones! Cipher Prime clearly has put a lot of effort into their songs, it would be a waste to play them through the iPad speaker. That said, I can fully recommend Pulse: Volume 1. It’s definitely one of the best rhythm games I have played so far.
If you’re a fan of puzzle games, then you’re probably also a fan of the App Store – it has brought us an incredible amount of great puzzle games. And Burn it All, one of the newest entries of the genre, keeps the fun going with a simple idea that was translated into a charming iPhone and iPad game.
And the idea really is simple: You will have to burn down ropes, pieces of wood and bats (mean, isn’t it?), by dragging a flaming lava rock onto them. If done in the right order, all the ropes will have burned down within the levels’ time limit. That’s it. But the task will get more complicated as the game gradually introduces new types of ropes, obstacles and lava rocks. Later on in the game you will have to evade water drops that instantly cool down your flame and you will have to deal with with ropes that burn slower or faster than the usual one.
Depending on how fast you can clear the level, you will be rewarded with up to 3 diamonds. And getting all of them can be quite tricky, because you will not only have to figure out the right order to light the ropes up, but you will also need to be navigate the lava rock super fast and precise around the screen. But despite that, the levels never become really difficult. The game does offer a pretty clever twist in world 3, but while it’s a clever idea, it isn’t all that challenging. The most difficult levels are the ones where you need to avoid water drops, so more of them would have been welcome. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though, but with the levels being completed that fast, it would have been nice to see some more content. However, new levels are already announced via future updates, something I’m definitely looking forward to.
Despite these little shortcomings, Burn it All is a very fun and polished game and comes as universal app for $0.99.
Firement, the Australia based studio behind App Store hits like Flight Control and Real Racing, has been acquired by EA. This emphasizes just how serious EA is taking the mobile games sector. And it’s actually not the fist time that Firemint and EA are working together; Firement was developing games like Need For Speed Most Wanted and Madden for EA Mobile before they had major success on the App Store. Firemint’s CEO Rob Murray has just released a statement on what to expect from the acquisition. He says this is a “pretty exciting move” and ensures that Firemint will continue “business as usual”.
There has been a rumor a few weeks ago that Valve, the famous game developer behind Half-Life and Portal, might be interested in bringing their distribution network Steam to smartphones. Well, turns out it wasn’t just a rumor after all. Trade mag MCV has been speaking with Valve’s marketing head Doug Lombardi and Jason Holtman. To the question if Steam would be possible on mobiles Doug Lombardi answered:
