In their continuing effort to bring the ZX Spectrum faves to the modern masses, Elite have now announced their next title by the name of “Head Over Heels”. Originally developed by Ocean Software, this puzzle platformer features an isometric view, as well as controlling multiple characters with unique abilities; apparently the first of its kind.
As with their other titles, Elite have included their new iDaptive control system, allowing you to customize the appearance and positioning of any keys required to play the game, or even use your iCade to play! You can also choose to play it in portrait or landscape mode, and your progress will automatically be saved when you exit the game.
Head Over Heels is set for release May 11th, 2012 for iOS devices, and you can read more about it on their site.
May the force be with you! May 4th is unofficially known as Star Wars Day because it sounds very similar to phrase “may the force be with you”. To celebrate, Star Wars Pit Droids is free until May 6th.
Pit Droids is a puzzle game featuring the pit droids that make pod races happen. Anakin Skywalker could not have raced to victory in the pod races with out the support of the pit droids! Watto, the Toydarian junk dealer needs to guide is droids to safety as they run aimlessly into danger. There are 95 levels to keep you occupied for a very long time.
Developer: Kedlin Company Publisher: Kedlin Company Platforms: iPad (Reviewed), iPhone, iPod Touch Release Date: May 1st, 2012 Price: $0.99 Get It Here
Overview
Anyone who has flown in recent times has probably been on the receiving end of the tight security measures required to fly. Kedlin Company now offers you a chance to be on the other side of the x-ray machine in their new game Airport Scanner. Scan through passengers’ luggage and keep those dangerous objects off the plane!
Story
There is no story in Airport Scanner. So once again, you will have to make one up if you require a story to play a video game. I suggest an intense 24-esque scenario involving a conspiracy involving flooding passenger luggage with weapons to overload the TSA with work. Maybe throw in a conspiracy inside a conspiracy for good measure.
Gameplay
Airport Scanner is a game that will test your observational and management skills. Players will have to keep an eye for dangerous goods on an airport scanner that moves progressively faster as levels go by while ensuring passengers get on their flights on time. To make matters more complicated, players will also have to adjust barriers to ensure flight crews and first class passengers make it to the front of the queue while those boarding later flights are delayed. Extra points are rewarded for long combo chains of successfully identified illegal goods. To make it easier, special power ups are available in the store that are purchased with in-game currency earned from playing the game. At the end of the day, players will then be able to choose the harshness of punishment on passengers caught with illegal items. Lighter punishments means guaranteed fines but less money, harsher punishment rake in higher fines but players risk being sued.
Gameplay starts out at a leisurely pace, but quickly picks up to be a fast and furious affair that emphasizes time management and smart use of power ups. As the game progresses, players will need to shuffle the queue to delay passengers on later flights and move up first class passengers and flight crew. This adds an incredibly challenging dimension to the game play. Often I would find myself so distracted by the x-ray machine I would get dinged on time penalties from delaying the flight crew. As the levels increased, time for flights shrunk, passenger bags zipped across the conveyer belt faster, and passenger bags contained more and more illegal items. No longer could I get away with just tapping on the luggage and letting the TSA guards find the illegal items. Tapping all the items was vital to save time and I needed to start using the power ups I purchased from the store. Power ups range from highlighting illegal items to changing the speed of the conveyer belt. Figuring out effective combinations is an important part of succeeding in Airport Scanner. Combined with managing the passenger queue, I was both surprised and impressed at the level of depth involved in Airport Scanner. This is not a game to judge by the icon by any means!
A short mini game occurs after every day played in game. All the passengers hauled aside for carrying illegal items are put in a line and players are allowed to choose the harshness of their punishment. The lightest guarantees a payment of $15 to $100 dollars per person, while fair justice does not guarantee a payment but ranges from $100 to $300, while harshest judgement will ranges from $300 to $1000 dollars. However, the harshest payment not only chances no payout but a penalty of $100 to $1000. This mini game adds a much appreciated little extra to the game play.
The controls over all are solid for the exception of a few hiccups. Swipes are sometimes mistaken as taps which can cause passengers to be accidently hauled aside, wasting precious time. I think having a separate button to speed up the conveyer belt instead of swiping would solve these problems completely. When things move extremely quickly, hit detection can be sketchy. I noticed this only happened on later levels with the speed power up enabled. I found this was a rare occurrence but an annoying one when it happened. Airport Scanner is an incredibly fun game that takes a simple premise and flies with it. Although it struggles with a few hiccups with its controls, the challenging and addictive game play more than makes up for the rare difficulties.
Visuals
Airport Scanner is a great looking game. The graphics are cartoony and the x-rayed luggage is well designed. Like real airport x-ray scanners, objects leave a coloured shadow. Airport Scanner manages to balance these items to be visually attractive while keeping the game challenging. The cartoony style of the game allows for some great animations including TSA guards punching passengers off screen and TSA guards furiously rummaging through passenger luggage.
The graphics look great on both the iPad and the iPhone’s Retina screen. Personally I enjoyed playing on the iPad’s screen more. Although the game is very playable on both platforms, it is much easier to spot items on the larger screen. Overall, Airport Scanner manages to pack a visually appealing game that looks great on all sized screens.
Audio
Airport Scanner continues to impress with its audio. The music is a modern take on classic arcade type tunes. Although only one song plays, I found it to fit the game and didn’t get repetitive after long periods of time. The sound effects are fun and finish the whole cartoony feel of Airport Scanner. Airport Scanner presents pleasant audio that players will have no problem listening to as they scan through luggage for hours on end.
Overall
Airport Scanner is a deceptive game in a really great way. The idea of the game is dead simple and could be easily written off as another bit of shovelware on iTunes. But those who write it off are missing a fantastic and addictive game. Kedlin Company manages to take a simple concept and add enough twists to make the game frantic and challenging. Add a great cartoony atmosphere and a modern take on arcade tunes and you have a fantastic deal at $0.99.
Friday, April 27th marked the opening of the Guild Wars 2 beta to those that pre-purchased the title and/or signed up for beta events. Delivering the impressions of the first open beta for Guild Wars 2 are Linkage Ayexe and The Poid Pipper.
The Poid Pipper
Being a role-play fanatic, I found myself enjoying the open beta on multiple fronts. I will be exposing the truth behind Guild Wars 2 player customization and storyline quests.
One of the most interesting aspects of Guild Wars 2 is player customization. There are a plethora of ways to make your character distinguishable from other players, and one way is strictly based on appearance. Paying homage to the original Guild Wars, players are once again able to colorize their beginning garbs. For experienced players this will not matter, but the initial color swatches sets an initial identity for starting players. Even further detail can be applied by adjusting facial features as well as personal affects of the character’s race and class. For instance, the Charr have horns that can be adjusted according to the user’s liking. My female Charr character happens to be a necromancer, thus allowing me to choose from three available masks that further develop my individualized background story.
Creating a character is a long process that helps you develop a personality for your new character. After you have attained a palatable appearance, you will be asked a series of questions to define your character’s identity. As the questions progress, a choice will be discerned among favoring ferocity, dignity, or charm. When faced with a question about my closest ally, I responded: “Death”. I was aiming to role-play a disease necromancer, so I decided to base my answers using wisdom rather than being blood hungry or seductive. Being a seductive necromancer would be wrong – just wrong…
Moving beyond the creation phase, players will begin at their racial starting areas. As I have created a Charr character, I can tell you first hand about that experience. Charr have maintained and recreated the prosperous city of Ascalon. Mastering technology is the Charr’s strong suit, but even now there is traitors among the ranks of each clan. As I had chosen the Ash Legion, I accepted a quest to spy on a warring clan and deal with them quietly. Needless to say spying was the easy part, and I “forgot” how to be quiet. The most interesting part about this series of quests was that they occurred initially in the open environment then transferred to an instance – similar to original title.
Even thought storyline quests require jumping into instances, dynamic quests can be found in the open environment. While was wondering around killing poor defenseless drakes, I noticed an emanating golden glow from my mini-map. Upon entering this area, I noticed a new quest to defeat an evil summoner. The cool part about entering these type of quests is that your experienced earned is based on the total contribution you have given in the fight. Yes, entering the tail end of a fight will still yield some experience.
Linkage Ayexe
The main thing I want to talk about in these impressions are the World vs. World PvP and the conclusive event that ended the Guild Wars 2 Beta weekend. These were two parts of the Guild Wars 2 experience that I had touched on in more depth during my play-through of the game.
The World vs. World PvP arena in Guild Wars 2 is, from what I can tell, a persistent battleground with three factions vying for control and domination over the other teams. These factions come in three colors, the Blue team, the Red team and the Green team. Each team has it’s own area that it must defend on a massive map while also attacking other teams territories to seize victory over them. Players capture specific keeps and other areas areas of interest across the map in order to seize them from the enemy and to eventually eliminate them. In my playthrough I actually got to see the Blue Team get eliminated from the game.
The typical battle consists of players battling each other over a piece of contested land that is usually from either somebody attacking something or somebody defending something. Generally these battles involve around 10 or so players on each side and this causes a large amount of mayhem on the battlefield. What makes these battles even more epic is when you get some seige weapons going. Players hand in supplies as they progress through the battle and use these to buy siege weapons. These make busting into a keep so much faster than it is without them. Believe me, it takes FOREVER to bust down a gate with just skills.
Overall I found the WvW PvP to be quite enjoyable and it is likely that players will be playing this just as much as the PvE side of the game, if not more. It’s fun, it has scale and you really feel as though you have a purpose. Well done Arenanet.
The second thing I’m talking about is the end of Beta event. This event started in the first area that the Norns go through after they’ve completed their first mission and are now free to explore the world. In the first few minutes, there was much confusion as to what we were supposed to be doing, so we attacked various critters to increase our servers score. Fortunately, someone on our server had an Arenanet contact and was able to guide us through the event slightly and we found our way to a small rabbit that we had to kill. A white one. And nobody had a Holy Hand Grenade. In fact, there were many Monty Python jokes being thrown around at that time.
After that we zerged our way Northward, further into the Shiverpeak Mountains. There we found a small keep with an evil Black Moa bird inside. Players of the Guild Factions campaign will remember this bird being at the end of a very tedious quest. Trying to tame this beast was quite the chore. So what does Arenanet do, they make more of them and they make them strong. Thanks guys, you must really hate the playerbase :P!
After a few hours of hunting critters the servers closed and it was time to go. And that concluded the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend.
Conclusion
All good things must come to a close, and sadly the administrators for the beta closed down the servers leaving us testers with only the opening screen for Guild Wars 2. I was sad to see such an epic night of battling Champion Black Moas and Pigs finally draw to a close. No matter what level you were, people were there to partake in the event to slay champion creatures. I feared that I would die too often when embarking in high leveled areas climbing up the Shiverpeak Mountains, but players were more than gracious to revive one another. And my good friends that is what makes Guild Wars 2 the richest MMO beta I’ve played yet – the community.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Alpha is the prequel film to Ghost Recon Future Soldier. Today, the trailer detailing the relationship between Ghost Recon Alpha and Ghost Recon Future Soldier was released. This 25 minute film follows the Ghosts as they are dropped behind enemy lines to assassinate a war criminal wanted around the world. The film features the four playable characters in Future soldier and takes place on one of the maps available in adversarial mode. As a bonus, a secret code is hidden in the movie that can be imputed into Ghost Recon Network. This code unlocks a exclusive weapon in Ghost Recon Future Soldier.
Ghost Recon Alpha has Academy Award winners and nominees working on the film including Hervé de Crécy and François Alaux who earned Oscars for Logorama. The film will be available on www.uplay.com on May 13th and the DVD will be part of the Ghost Recon Future Soldier Collector’s Edition.
In an announcement that equates to an earth shattering explosion, Madman have confirmed that Transformers: Prime, which they licensed as part of their Hasbro deal, will be crash landing onto the prime real estate that is DVD, in case you didn’t expect that when they licensed the title.
They plan on rolling out the first volume of Transformers: Prime on the 20th of June at price of $19.95. This release of Transformers: Prime looks to be more than meets the eye as this DVD will pack the punch of 110 minutes of unbridled Transformers madness that would excite anyone who has ever been interested in the colossal franchise that tends to transform with each new iteration. This particular iteration boasts some impressive CG visuals that of course suits Transformers to a tee because it features transforming robots (a staple of CG visuals).
This first release of Transformers: Prime will feature 5 episodes of the extreme new take on the Transformers franchise. Also the first volume will bare the subtitle ‘Darkness Rising’ and will most likely involve the darkness of the Decepticons rising in some manner in an attempt to create some kind of bother for those lovable rapscallions, the Autobots.
Be sure to roll yourself out to stores of June 20th to pick up your copy of the hotly anticipated Transformer: Prime Volume 1: Darkness Rising. Let us know in the comments section below how excited you are for this huge release that is undoubtedly more than meets the eye, because it features robots in disguise. See what I did there? If you did, let us know in the comments below!
Did you know that Monster Burner has been revamped for the iOS and is now available for you to download thanks to our good friends at Ubisoft? You didn’t? Well you know now!
The revamped Monster Burner updates the not revamped Monster Burner as one would imagine. The update makes for faster gameplay and more precise fireball controls. The game itself is a pretty hectic puzzle game that would be a delightful addition to any iOS users library of iOS puzzle games that people seem to love so much.
Oh that’s right, one last thing! There is also a super special relaunch trailer to commemorate the game’s revamped relaunch on the iOS platform. You can check out the trailer below. It’s quite a delightful little trailer, so be sure to view it you crazy little reader you! Sound off in the comments section letting us know what you think of Monster Burner, or not, not like we are begging you or anything… We aren’t.
You can also download Monster Burnerhere right now in the iTunes Store, it’s delightful I tell ya!
Gumball: Suburban Karate Master Developer: Cartoon Network Publisher: Cartoon Network Price: FREE – Play Game Online Here
Overview: Flash games are a dime a dozen, but the entire medium itself is a decidedly mixed bag. Some of them are addictive, some of them are monotonous, some are fun, some are good and some are bad. It’s one hell of a mixed bag. You can dip your hand into the plethora of options available and you would never know what you might get.
Suburban Karate Master is a game that doesn’t aim for much more than being a simple time killer. It’s fun and would definitely excite the younger audience it is targeted towards, but it does little more and it doesn’t need to. It’s just a straight forward game that lacks ambition to be something more.
Story:
This is all in all a very simple game, it is based upon the Gumball cartoon series which of course airs on Cartoon Network. The game follows the titular character as he busts out his Karate skills against on coming obstacles and enemies. There is no storyline and no real tie in to the cartoon itself other than the characters it features.
Gameplay: Suburban Karate Master’s main focus is upon it’s gameplay. Things are relatively straight forward, you play the game with the space bar and up and down keys, the space bar being your attack button and up and down performing a jump and slide respectively. Gumball walks automatically which simplifies things to a simple button presser.
The major focus is on pressing the right key at the right time. For instance if a fire ball is hurtling towards you, you slide underneath it, if a fire hydrant is in your path you jump over it or if a ninja approaches you you attack him. If Gumball gets hit three times by one of the many obstacles that confront him it results in a game over. However if you last long enough to fill up your charge bar, Gumball summons one of his friends that boosts him past many obstacles. It’s all to the point and uncomplicated, which is of course absolutely perfect for Gumball’s target audience, the younger audience.
There is no complication in this game, it is just simple easy to understand fun. It may grow somewhat tiresome after a while, but for the most part it enjoyable and proves to be a nice little game to waste some time with. It aims low and lands neatly upon that goal.
Visuals and Audio:
From a graphical stand point, Suburban Karate Master is a throw back to old school 8-bit beat em up games. It definitely harkens back memories of NES side scrolling beat em up games with it’s simplified pixelated visuals. It is both vibrant and restrained, it is quite a bright game but also one that holds a lot back visually. For a franchise such as Gumball it definitely could have been more visually striking, it however was quite simple and somewhat droll.
The game does feature a nice soundtrack, although it appears to only comprise of one track, which in itself is a generic chip tune romp that feels incredibly familiar. Regardless, this is simply a flash game and as long as that one song sounds good then it doesn’t particularly matter. The audio matches the visuals and that is the bare minimum that Suburban Karate Master required. It doesn’t go above and beyond, instead it chooses to just sit satisfied with just doing the job it had to do.
Overall:
At the end of the day, Gumball: Suburban Karate Master is an enjoyable time killer that offers fleeting fun. It will not get you addicted and it will not leave any real lasting impression upon you, but it will definitely provide you with some fun despite however vapid that fun may be. It succeeds, but it didn’t aim for much more than that.
For an online flash game, Suburban Karate Master is good but not great. It’s worth a look if you are a fan of the cartoon and it is certainly something to give the kids a go at. Just don’t expect much more than a few minutes of play before you have reached the limitations of this simple game.
Pokemon Conquest is now just a little over a month away from release, but if the new details revealed are any indication, this will be one worthy spin-off that should quench the thirst of Pokefans until Black and White 2 are released sometime later this year.
Taking place in the region of Ransei, players will take the role of a young Warlord who is linked with his Pokemon. Together, they must set out to recruit Warriors and strengthen the kingdom. Sound refreshing? Well, you should gawk at the new details below for even more insight of what’s inside.
Story: To save the Ransei region from Nobunaga, a powerful Warlord who is trying to take over Ransei, players must conquer different kingdoms to strengthen and grow their own kingdom. There are 17 kingdoms in total to conquer. Conquering all 17 kingdoms and ultimately uniting the kingdom will awaken the Legendary Pokémon and save the land from destruction. Story mode is organized by episodes. Players unlock episodes as they progress and each episode features a different playable Warlord and victory conditions.
Army Mechanics: Players can grow their army by recruiting defeated Warlords and their Pokémon. After a kingdom is conquered, players will also have access to the kingdom facilities such as training grounds, shops to buy items and mines for money. Players can also strengthen their army by linking with Pokémon. Warlords can have various linked Pokémon and switch between them before battle to strategically prepare for the type of battle they are about to engage in.
Battle Mechanics: Players will encounter a wide range of battlefields as they progress through the game. Each of the 17 kingdoms has a different type-themed battlefield. For example, in the fire-themed kingdom of Ignis, players can battle around lava flows, lava beds and fire spouts. Strategically using water-type Pokémon to navigate through this battlefield will help players conquer this kingdom. Additionally, players can use the kingdom training grounds to train their army or find wild Pokémon and link with them. After battling with a Warlord, the game automatically registers them. Using the built-in local wireless features of Nintendo DS, players can use their registered armies to battle with friends who also own the game.
Warlords and Pokémon: Each Warlord has a special ability that can change the tide of battle. For example, Warlord Oichi has the ability to heal all the Pokémon in a player’s army. Also, like Pokémon, Warlords have types that will determine how well they link to particular Pokémon. Some Warlords will have the ability to choose from and link with several different kinds of Pokémon.
Pokemon Conquest has to be the most unique title for the franchise to date, and this kingdom-conquering strategy game looks to target the older group of fans, while still remaining accessible to all involved. June 18th marks the release for Conquest on the Nintendo DS, so stay tuned, as there is sure to be even more details and trailers released as that date grows closer.
If you happen to have a low balance in your eShop account, you are in luck as this week’s Nintendo Downloads features the lowest priced eShop title yet. Bird Mania 3D has you steer a small bird to Africa. Along the way, this specimen can dash, soar, and glide to his goal, while collecting bonuses and stars, with 3D hand-drawn graphics in full display. Not a bad deal at all for just $1.99.
Next up is a RTS by the name of Amoebattle, where players have to stop a mysterious infection by getting microscopic. All single-celled troops can be controlled with the touch-screen, with plenty of amoebas ready to go to war. Amoebattle can be found on the eShop and DSiWare for $4.99.
Finally, after a good wait, Super Hang-On is the latest title to hit the Wii Virtual Console for 900 Nintendo Points. Super Hang-On has been ported time and time again throughout the years by Sega, and it seems these bikes are gassed up again for Nintendo and those looking for yet another arcade classic should take notice.
That wraps up this week’s downloads for the first week of May. So which title are you capturing this time?
Did you know that Monster Burner has been revamped for the iOS and is now available for you to download thanks to our good friends at Ubisoft? You didn’t? Well you know now!
