Author Archive for Eric Pankoke
10 New App Store Games To Watch [Jan. 30 - Feb. 5]
This week racing fans can let out their impulsive urges with Reckless Racing 2, the third Reckless game to grace us with its presence on the iOS platform. If it’s half as entertaining as the original or Reckless Getaway, there’s no question that it’s a must have. If you prefer things a bit more supernatural Capcom has released an iOS port of their acclaimed Nintendo DS game Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Among other things you get to possess items and rewind time because you are, after all, dead. If you’re still craving that Pokemon fix there’s Terapets, a monster capture / combat game with 300 different creatures to trap. Good luck catching them all!
Greedy Penguins in Review – Sometimes something fishy is good
Sometimes I fear that a particular genre will start to get old, especially when the App Store gets littered with games from that genre. The physics puzzler is one such genre that comes to mind, but thankfully Greedy Penguins isn’t the game to make that fear come true. This cute puzzle game about feeding some hungry aquatic birds can be challenging, but it is also satisfying and often quite entertaining. Control is a bit troublesome, which I have a feeling is due to the small iPod Touch screen, but overall the playing experience has been top notch.
10 New App Store Games To Watch [Jan 23 - 29]
Gamers that like a nice mix of strategy and RPG have a couple of options from this week’s 10 New Games To Watch list. Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land drops them in the midst of World War I to fight some nasty supernatural beings. If you like your games a bit on the lighter side there’s Dungeon Crawlers, a more satirical look at the whole dungeon delving genre that still manages to provide some deep game play. If you want to throw strategy to the wind there’s Zombie Bunnies, an over the top destruction fest featuring undead rabbits and 99 levels of randomly generated mayhem.
Dungeon Of The Damned in Review – A Name Says So Much…
At first it sounded like the perfect marriage – dungeon crawling and classic point and click adventuring. That alone was enough to entice me into trying Dungeon of the Damned, never mind the cool “old but new” graphics and nostalgic interface. Unfortunately execution isn’t always as good as concept, and sadly what Dungeon Of The Damned has turned out to be for me so far is a boring traipse through a lifeless dungeon with no adventure game elements, little combat and frustrating puzzles. The lack of a map doesn’t help anything either.
10 New App Store Games To Watch [Jan. 16 - 22]
Fighting game fans can rejoice this week as they get another port of a classic one on one combat fest, Soulcalibur. The game sports 4 game play modes and a whopping 19 character roster for all your pixel pounding needs. If you like good old fashioned platform games with stylish art and cool music then you need to check out Jazz: Trump’s Journey. Strategy junkies should enjoy Time of Heroes, a turn based strategy game that sounds like the iOS answer to the Fire Emblem series. A universal binary and iCloud save game support mean you could play it wherever you want with whichever device you have close at hand. Time management freaks have a unique offering in Order Up!! To Go, a game that takes the backdrop of a Diner Dash style game and puts you in the kitchen instead of on the serving floor. Best of all the game is free, so you’ve got nothing to lose if you want to take a peek.
RayForce in Review – Awesome but short and pricey…
I’m always on the lookout for the perfect scrolling shooter and I’m beginning to think such a beast doesn’t exist. Fortunately, while not as a whole unblemished, RayForce has many of the qualities I’d expect in my ideal candidate. On the other hand, it has a couple of big discretions that actually push it back below some of my favorite iOS jaunts. So enough with the opening paragraph rhetoric already, let’s find out what this game is all about!
10 New App Store Games To Watch [Jan. 9 - 15]
Chillingo was the big winner this week with two selections in my watch list. Woody Woodpecker has made his debut on the App Store, though I’m not sure if his outing will appeal more to racing fans or Tiny Wings (TMA Review) enthusiasts. On the other hand, Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time should undoubtedly appeal to players that like to blow zombies away. Now if decimating aliens is more your style, then Star Marine: Infinite Ammo might just fit the bill. Of course, if you’d rather take out aliens while flying a ship, you’re probably more interested in Rayforce, a port of a popular mid-90’s arcade game brought to us by Taito.
Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds: Minigame Adventure in Review – Isn’t That A Long Title?
The War Of The Worlds is one of those properties that in my opinion has never really been used to its full potential, except for possibly the radio broadcast that scared a nation in 1938. I must admit that I never would have dreamed of anyone turning the saga into a musical, however, let alone making a mini-game extravaganza out of said musical. Sadly, the concept is much better than the execution and little things like interface inconsistencies and constant crashing make the game not very much fun to play. Boring mini-games don’t help either.
Super Crate Box in Review – Just One More Time, Please…
There’s no question Super Crate Box is a silly game. You basically run around one of three levels collecting crates and killing monsters to stay alive. It’s like a side view FPS with no fancy graphics and no point. The funny thing is that it is also one of the most addictive games I’ve played in quite a while, and that says a lot since I’ve spent almost every day for the past week playing Treasures of Montezuma 3. There’s something about the simplicity of the game combined with the retro pixel graphics that to me makes it a whole lot more interesting than the previously released Muffin Knight, a game clearly inspired by this one. All I know is I’m glad to be part of the crate collecting revolution.
10 New App Store Games To Watch [Jan. 2 - 8]
Things still haven’t quite picked up from the holiday break yet, but I did find a few games to talk about this week. Old school RPG gamers might want to give Dungeon Of The Damned a try, a dungeon crawler that harkens back to the days of games like Dungeon Master with some adventure elements thrown in to boot. If you’d like a simple action game you would probably enjoy Super Crate Box where your sole purpose is to dodge monsters and collect crates. It sounds awfully basic but a lot of people are saying it’s quite addictive. For those that wish to unleash their inner Jedi without spending lots of money on Knights Of The Old Republic online there’s Brisksaber, a cheesy looking promotional piece between a beverage company and one of the kings of filmmaking to promote the upcoming release of the 3D version of a certain galaxy spanning saga.
