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Monster Trucks Nitro: Trucker’s Edge

Craig Grannell — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:00:50 +0000

Vrrrmmmmm! MONSTER TRUCKS! Actually, I’m not Am-er-i-can, and since US import Grayson isn’t within earshot, I cannot ask what the appeal of BIG TRUCKS is, bar when you’re a kid and use them to run over next door’s cat. (That never happened, by the way, if you’re reading, Mr Griffiths of number 5. TIDDLES RAN AWAY.) What I can say is that they make for a pretty fun game, at least when they’re part of Monster Trucks Nitro. VRRRRRRMMMMMM! (Continued...)

Bang per (no) buck(s)

Craig Grannell — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 14:58:10 +0000

Often, the best games are those that strip a genre back to basics, leaving it in its purist form. In this modern age of hugely complex 3D shooting games, Westbang has long been a breeze of fresh air, battling against the stench of shit that emanates from the bulk of iOS shooters. Westbang cunningly eschews mid-1990s (and on) fare, instead drawing influence from Sega classic Bank Panic (or, as Suv points out on the comments, Gremlin’s blatant 1986 rip-off Westbank). You’re in a sheriff in a suspiciously busy bank. Doors randomly open. If it’s a customer, don’t shoot; if it’s a bandit, shoot—but only after they draw (because you’re one of the good guys). Over the game’s 25 levels, things speed up and 21 different characters are introduced. The basic tap controls are first-rate and the game looks, sounds and plays great. For 59p/€0,79/99¢, it was a massive bargain, but it’s currently free, do download it now.

Linkoidz: Magical alien balls drop

Craig Grannell — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:23:25 +0000

Magical Drop is great. Magical Drop for iOS is a pile of steaming shit. As a huge Magical Drop fan, the combination of the previous two statements has resulted in HULK SMASH anger for me since iOS gaming took hold; but now Linkoidz is here to save the day, providing similar dynamics to Data East’s title, but without controls that make you want to take a baseball bat to your device. (Continued...)

Little Red Sled: Snow drift

J Nash — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:33:34 +0000

J NASH, YOU BLOCKHEAD.

Poker Race: Mum mum mum maaah

Craig Grannell — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:31:26 +0000

Unlike Podgamer’s resident poker fiend RevStu, I’m not a card shark, nor even a card goldfish. I am rubbish at poker. Also, I don’t like poker. Strangely, though, when poker is smashed into another game with a hammer, I find it quite compelling, such as with weirdo ten-pin/shuffleboard/poker hybrid 10 Pin Shuffle and freebie Poker Race, which is what this review is about. Mum mum mum maaah. (Continued...)

Naughty Bear: The wrongest game of all

RevStu — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:25:53 +0000

Oh, this is wrong. It’s so, SO wrong. It’s ultra-wrong. It’s the wrongest thing ever. It’s Naughty Bear. The bears of Perfection Island are having a party, with yummy cupcakes for all. But they haven’t invited Naughty Bear. This makes Naughty Bear sad. And when Naughty Bear is sad, things happen. Bad things. (Continued...)

No, Human: Rock opera

J Nash — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:21:26 +0000

One of splendid outer space deflection puzzler No, Human’s finest elements is the atmospherically perfect soundtrack of uncluttered, slightly melancholy classical piano pieces. Once again exhibiting the grasp and sensitivity that made Thief the Musical a byword for unscalped tickets, three unemployed louts from Exmouth have transformed the new game’s 80 zen levels of hypnotically replayable high score asteroid flinging into a rock opera that’s already enjoyed very nearly a run in very nearly a theatre. We contractually present an excerpt of what leading critic Preddington Quatt is already calling in sick to avoid. (Continued...)

NB: Not “chess on speed”

RevStu — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 22:07:18 +0000

This is a real favourite of mine. I used to play chess when I was a wee laddie back home in Scotchland, but in this fast-moving modern world I don’t know anyone who has the attention span/mental discipline for it any more. Speed Chess (or Chess – The Speedgame, as it appears to have clumsily renamed itself), currently selling for the bargain price of 0p ($0.00/€0,00) is the perfect solution. The picture tells the story, really. The rules are the same as normal chess, but you only have five pawns and one of everything else. You can play against another human or three levels of CPU opponent, and it took me about 40 games to beat it even at “Student” (the lowest). The move clock can be set to 20 seconds (the default), 60 seconds or off, which somewhat defeats the point. Apart from the fact that it says “Times up” if you let the clock run out, it’s excellently presented and generally lovely. I can think of literally nothing else to tell you about Speed Chess. Bye!

Pix’n Love Rush: Metagaming, the only true gaming

RevStu — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 10:45:57 +0000

Here’s one for those of you joining us late, and because this game still hasn’t sold enough copies. Anyone who’s been reading anything I’ve written for any amount of time will probably already have noticed that I have very little time for videogames that want to tell stories. There are plenty of fields of culture available already for people who want to be told stories. Books, films, comics, TV, theatre and even music are all ideally suited to story-telling, and frequently do a brilliant job of it. You wouldn’t hire a footballer to come round and do your plumbing, so why would you look to videogames for storytelling? What I’d like to draw your attention to instead is a glorious example of the art (dang!) of a videogame being a videogame. The unwieldily-titled Pix’n Love Rush (59p/€0,79/99¢), in fact, goes beyond being a videogame – it’s a metagame. That is to say, it’s a videogame that’s about being a videogame. (Continued...)

Bubble Pets: Once you pop, you can’t stop

Craig Grannell — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:00:31 +0000

Despite offering no tactile controls, iThings are fab for Whac-a-Mole games. The ability to frantically tap the screen, rather than using some kind of analogue ‘stick’ or ‘rodent’ to move a ‘hand’ shows that, yes, iOS works far better than other systems for some types of games. This is one of them. In fact, Bubble Pets is the best of ‘them’ and by ‘them’, we mean ‘Whac-a-Mole games’. (Weren’t you paying attention? We’re only on the intro.) This is largely because instead of aping a fairground game or having you beat to death cartoon moles with a shovel, Bubble Pets instead tasks you with rapidly tapping on pixelated cartoon animals of all kinds, living in vibrant pixelated cartoon worlds. (Continued...)

Castle Smasher: Royally good

Craig Grannell — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:30:52 +0000

As you may have read, our own RevStu thinks Angry Birds should be shot in the head. But not everyone in the tranquil surrounds of Podgamer Village agrees. I quite like the game, but the somewhat imprecise nature of aiming often makes me want to smash my face off with a broken bird table. Castle Smasher, by the ever-reliable Donut Games, is a similar sort of game, but its gameplay is such that I never feel the need to smash my face off with a castle. Because that would be stupid. And also because Castle Smasher is a lot more fun than Rovio’s game. (Continued...)

World Series Of Poker Hold’Em Legend: Liquor in the rear

RevStu — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:05:32 +0000

Speaking as someone who’s tried pretty much all of them, World Series Of Poker Hold’Em Legend is the best poker game on the App Store* by roughly the width of the Atlantic. It plays a very decent game of poker, with an excellent career mode and some terrific local and internet multiplayer, but the real standout feature is the speed. You can skip past almost anything with a quick tap of the screen, so if you’ve folded your hand you can be playing the next one inside three seconds, rather than sitting around forever waiting for the CPU players to finish it. (You can, of course, watch the hand play out in full if you want to.) You can take down an entire tournament this way in about eight minutes, making it the perfect portable poker pal. The only way it could be MORE perfect, in fact, is if it was free. Which, by fortunate chance, it currently (and temporarily) is. You know what to do with an open door, don’t you? (Continued...)

Speedy Pigs: Pork chop-chop

J Nash — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:27:56 +0000

The trouble with Speedy Pigs is that because you’re concentrating on hippos and narrow rope bridges it needs to be clearer when your unhinderably accelerating pig stops burning. Aren’t games terrific? (Continued...)

Phoenix: Shmup outreach program

RevStu — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 02:00:37 +0000

It’s not the first time we’ve asked the question, but do you love the look of Espgaluda 2 and Dodonpachi Resurrection, only to lack the appropriate hardware/funds/time to play them? (Since both games need a 3GS CPU or better, come in at a stiff £5.49/€6,99/$8.99 price point and require a minimum play session of 20 minutes or so for a single game.) Well, this time we’ve got you something that’s not just a decent substitute for people with older hardware, but is in at least one important respect better than either of Cave’s bullet-hell masterpieces. Come over here by the kitchen for a minute. We’d like you to meet Phoenix. (Continued...)

This dog is free from fleas

RevStu — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:22:47 +0000

…is the only sense in which the word “free” is legitimately applicable in Namco’s new App Store blurb for Pac-Man Championship Edition (“NOW FREE: CHALLENGE MODE! NOW FREE: ALL 30 courses and 120 missions!”), as in “this game is now free from in-app purchases”. What’s actually happened is that Namco have effectively made the game more expensive, by putting everything from the expansion pack into the normal edition and charging the previous full price of both of them (£2.99/€3,99/$4.99) for the new unified app. Previously you had the choice of just buying the base edition – which contained enough content for many players – and adding the expansion pack later, whereas now you have to buy it all straight away. (Actually, if you previously bought the base edition and didn’t buy the DLC, this update WILL give you it for nothing – Scrupulous Fairness Ed) But Pac-Man CE is great, and will inevitably be reduced in price at some point in the near future, and the updated version has a new virtual-analogue joypad option and incorporates GameCentre achievements and leaderboards, so we’re giving it another mention anyway. Call us old softies.