GET OVER HERE!!!
We’ll kick off this week’s new game coverage with Warner Bros’ mobile MORTAL KOMBAT X release. A bit of a departure from the console and arcade classic brawler, instead this free-to-play iOS release is more of a Mortal Kombat re-skin of the studio’s 3-on-3, screen-tapping, tag-team, DC Universe, card brawler Injustice: Gods Among Us. MORTAL KOMBAT X features all of your favorite characters from the series (and some all-new fighters created especially for MKX) as well as their brutal fatalities. Players who also purchase the upcoming console or PC versions of the game will have the ability to unlock additional content in the iOS game and vice versa.
Moving onto some decidedly less gore-filled fare we have Retro Dreamer’s latest lite score-board driven game, SBACEBALL. You start off with a limited number of pitches and you simply tap the screen to make this cute little baseball playing robot swing to try to hit the ball through the various rings displayed on the right screen. It’s all about timing, and you must tap at just the right moment to make contact and get the ball to go where you want it. Bonus items will periodically appear like UFOs and rainbow rings which will earn you additional pitches and/or higher per-ball scores that’ll help you rise to the top of the leaderboard. SBACEBALL, while a bit awkward to say, is a fun, casual little time waster that will appeal to adults and kids alike.
Next is another publishing effort from one of my favorite studios, Noodlecake and the fifth game from the talented husband and wife development team of Jyri & Piia Kilpeläinen. Tiltagon is a challenging (you guessed it) tilt-based game where you need to guide your ball safely from suspended platform to suspended platform, collecting cubes, trying not to fall off the edge and avoiding all manner of crazy obstacles which (on the harder difficulty) will cause your ball to blow up on contact. When the only two difficulty options are “hard” and “hard+” you know the game is going to put up a good fight. Featuring a clean, minimalist art style and tight tilt controls, this little game will both entertain and frustrate you attempt, after attempt after attempt. See you on the leaderboards.
And now the paid apps…
Ravenous Games returns to the App Store this week with a second helping of their Medieval action platforming game, Devious Dungeon. In this sequel, appropriately titled Devious Dungeon 2, you’ll be taking on endless monsters, avoiding traps and finding treasure as you work your way through a randomized map of 5 different worlds. I recall enjoying the first game in this series, but my excitement has been a bit tempered by a number of early complaints in the App Store regarding the sequel’s controls, so you may want to take that into consideration.
Instantly eye-catching Climax has a cool paper-craft style and is a unique concept. Each level of the game depicts a famous scene from a popular film and you
must figure out how to interact with that scene to solve the puzzle, meaning that each solution is its own mini-game which must be solved quickly before the timer runs out. Sort of like one of those impossible quiz style games, but movie themed and seemingly more interactive. While I’m not sure of the replay value once you’ve solved all the puzzles, this one looks pretty neat. Climax is on sale for 99¢ (50% off) at launch.
Aliens Drive Me Crazy developer, Rebel Twins is back with another slightly quirky and satisfying chaos-filled game called Dragon Hills. Flipping the traditional fairy tale notions of damsels in distress on its head, the princess in this game is utterly pissed off after having her treasure stolen by the knight who was supposed to save her. You play as the angry dragon-riding princess, hell-bent on revenge, sliding down hills, digging through ground to avoid traps and leaping out over large lava pits; Basically destroying anything that gets in the way of her delivering swift justice upon the thief. It is a bit like Super Mega Worm meets Alto’s Adventure…with Boss Battles. So in other words…pretty darn entertaining.
How about a little arcade action?
First, for those who like a challenge, Trigonarium is a “hardcore twin-stick shooter” with “epic bosses”, multiple challenge modes and even local 2-player cooperative play. Check out the trailer on page 2 of the post…at 60 fps, this one looks pretty sweet!
Rototo: Space Survival is a more casual experience and less of a shooter and instead, more of a shielder (if there even is such a thing). Try to survive as long as possible, defending yourself against attacks by tapping to rotate your shield to block enemy projectiles. Stay alive the longest and you’ll survive your way to the top of the leaderboards.
How about one for the kiddos?
Tinybop has just released The Robot Factory, an amusing digital toy where your child gets to build his or her own robot from a collection of over 50 different heads, arms, legs, tentacles, exoskeletons and other parts, then test it out, modify and collect it in his or her showroom to visit in the future. It is a bit similar to Toca Boca’s Toca Robot Lab, but this one offers a good deal more in the way of customization and freedom for creativity as you can put your pieces on in any order and pretty much anywhere on the robot that you’d like. It really lets kids’ imaginations go wild.
And that’ll bring us to our two most expensive featured new releases of the week, Rogue Star and Implosion – Never Lose Hope.
Rogue Star appears to have a number of different elements going on. It’s space exploration and combat game in which you are trying to bid for and then deliver cargo to earn money to purchase upgrades for your ship which will in turn allow you to “delve deeper into the sector and reap the rewards of higher bounties and trading opportunities”. You’ll be battling pirates in deep space dog fights and engaging in fast-paced ship to ship combat. Rogue Star looks like it could be an interesting new game for fans of titles like FTL: Faster Than Light and Out There.
Finally, Implosion – Never Lose Hope is an action combat games set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the Human race faces possible extinction (again). Donning your deadly War-Mech series III battle suit, you are humanity’s last hope for survival. Featuring rich, console-quality graphics, controls especially designed for mobile gameplay and shorter mobile-friendly missions, Implosion is shaping up to be a title that was well worth the wait. I’m certainly looking forward to diving into this one more over the weekend.
And that’ll do it for this week.
I hope you all have a happy International TableTop Day tomorrow and play some physical or digital board game apps to celebrate.
 MORTAL KOMBAT X |
 SBACEBALL |
 Tiltagon |
 Devious Dungeon 2 |
 Climax |
 Dragon Hills |
 Trigonarium |
 Rototo: Space Survival |
 The Robot Factory |
 Rogue Star |
 Implosion – Never Lose Hope |
