I’m sure we all remember The Incredibles’ back-story of superheroes giving up their jobs, due to being sued by citizens suffering from whiplash and such after being rescued. Double Fine’s free iOS download Middle Manager of Justice also taps into Pixar’s idea of going behind the scenes in the world of superheroes, giving you the …
If there’s one thing we can guarantee about Christmas, it’s that the jokes inside Christmas crackers will so atrociously terrible that not even those heavily intoxicated on brandy butter will laugh at them. Well, that and the fact that the festive animated short The Snowman will appear on TV at least once. The timeless classic …
There are at least two things going for Verticus. First, it’s got Stan Lee’s name above it, and that’s going to generate a fair smattering of interest. Second, it’s vaguely reminiscent of that sky dive, which is still reasonably fresh in the collective mind. I do mean vaguely though: thankfully alien attacks weren’t one of …
On mobiles just as any other platform, a very few games generate blanket coverage in the specialist press, seep into the mainstream media, and become so ubiquitous that they’re virtually sat in the corner of your bedroom winking at you. Certainly that’s been the case recently. Boomerang Blast I refer, of course, to the iOS …
Fix-It Felix Jr, the faux ‘80s arcade game from Disney’s CGI movie Wreck-It Ralph, is now available as a free download on the iTunes App Store. As Felix it is your job to repair the windows smashed by Wreck-It Ralph, while avoiding low flying ducks and the barrels that Ralph throws. The difficulty level ramps …
Punch Quest is free. And it’s brilliant. What more needs to be said? Let’s see. I quite often invoke Jetpack Joyride as a comparison for mobile games, and I’m going to have to again here: from your character bursting through the wall at the start, through the endless running and classy 16-bit graphics, to the …
Coincidentally, two articles elsewhere on this here internet today have invoked MS Paint in describing games – one a mobile game, the other console. So let’s see if we can’t learn something about the difference between console and mobile games. Christian Donlan described iOS beat ’em up Buddha Finger on Eurogamer at lunchtime thus: “The …
An imagined conversation Tom: “Sonic Jump? That’s just a rip off of Doodle Jump.” Dick: “Ah, no, the original Sonic Jump was released for non-smart phones back in 2006, pre-dating Doodle Jump by a good three years.” Harry: “SHUT UP I DON’T CARE IT’S NO FUN.” Some elaboration Functionally, there’s nothing wrong with Sonic Jump. …
The idea of Supermagical is neat: whack a story and some light RPG elements onto the classic bubble-popping game. It looks and sounds fantastic. What a shame, then, that the game goes out of its way to make playing it a real bloody chore. Turning the classic mechanic on its side makes absolutely no difference, …
Note to all: this is how to transfer a game to mobiles. Okay, so it’s not a conversion of Rayman Origins per se – but that’s the point. The wonderful UbiArt framework has been retained, but the controls stripped down to accommodate the touch screen. Which leaves a sticky condensed residue of the essence of …
Going by the product description for Happy Street alone it does sound like a blatant clone of Nintendo’s Animal Crossing. The idea behind it is identical, at least – to create a community for overwhelmingly cute animals to inhabit. They even talk in similar garbled tones. When playing it though it doesn’t take much more …
The App Store can be a sinful place at times. Take 3D Cartoon Land: Safari as an example. It doesn’t just pay homage to Nintendo’s Super Mario 3D Land – it’s a right bloody rip off. The list of similarities is as long as our arm. The hero is dressed in an identical manner to …
Mobile games are released at such an unrelenting rate, that I don’t generally find pre-release coverage very helpful. If I can’t click through and buy it immediately, then there’s every chance I’ll have forgotten about it by the time it’s released. But it’s been a pretty lovely week for announcements. Rayman Jungle Run Everyone loves …
If you purchased a Nintendo DS at launch then Zookeeper should be a game that’s familiar to you. It launched alongside the handheld in all three territories and, Super Mario 64 DS aside, it was one of the few games launch games worth buying. Ping Pals, The Urbz and Sprung: The Dating Game weren’t quite …
All week I’ve been confronted by frightening, freakish visions on every street corner. That’s right, I’ve been in Edinburgh for the Fringe. Boom! (And, more relevantly, also playing a bit of augmented reality iPhone thing Ghostbusters Paranormal Blast.) It’s a neat set up: a Google Map of your immediate neighbourhood displays calls for you to …