Category: Reviews

The Fighting Fantasy gamebook series has been a staple of many tabletop gamers’ lives for decades. It started in the early ’80s as a collaboration between Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, and over the years it became a beloved choose-your-own-adventure series of books. Almost every page could take you in any number of directions, and…

While Thor pumps his Nordic deity-grade testosterone into the multiplex, you can get a jolt of it on your iOS device just by buying Thor: Son of Asgard from the App Store. This game is a universal app that delivers plenty of gorgeous graphics and beat-’em-up gameplay, but little in the way of variety. The…

Often, games are sold by being the newest and the best. They have the best graphics or the most sophisticated characters and the most options. Swordigo doesn’t pretend to be the prettiest. Your character can’t be one of 12 classes and evolve in one of 100 ways. Instead, Swordigo goes back to the basics and…

The Real Racing franchise has been a tentpole fixture on iOS since the platform’s inception. With a bounty of licensed cars shredding up the most realistic tracks and vistas, we have always come away extremely satisfied with the end product. Real Racing 3 is the latest edition, and it’s published by Electronic Arts for the…

Freemium games have evolved quickly in the last few years, ever since games like Farmville and We Rule showed that giving away the store was a viable business model. Like in those games, everything in Tiny Tower is free to unlock, as long as you’ve got the patience to check in every few minutes or…

In 2009, we dipped and soared with the Glyder series of games from Glu Mobile. At the time, we raved about how the iPhone’s tilt controls and 3D graphics made for a sublime flying experience, but Glyder 1 and 2 are no longer available on the App Store. Fortunately, Chillingo and N-Fusion’s Air Mail fills…

Playing a good Sonic game is like riding a roller coaster designed by a psychopath. The levels send you hurtling ahead at breakneck speeds, only plow you into an enemy or skewer you on a wall of spikes with little warning. But that’s okay because health is plentiful. Better yet, when you’re stopped you can…

One of our favorite action games from the tail end of last year, BlastPoints, has just received a massive update. The biggest complaint we had with the game was that it can get rather repetitive. Well, Checkbox Studios have gone a long way toward fixing that. There are four new huge, colorful maps to fly…

“What’s this? A new iPhone game being released by Mistwalker Corporation and Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of such titles as Final Fantasy and The Last Story? Surely it must be some sort of epic quest, full of danger and dragons, sorcery, and swordplay, right?” “Well, no. It’s a actually game about surfing.” “Oh, I see……

When Terraria was first released, it was hard to think of it as anything but another Minecraft clone. Sure, it was two-dimensional, which compared to Minecraft’s blocky aesthetic could be considered an improvement, but aside from the visuals, it didn’t really seem like there was anything that was different about Terraria. You create a player,…

Ridiculous Fishing might seem like just another iOS game, but it’s actually a whole lot more. Every aspect of the game, from the rewarding upgrade system to the unique graphics, displays an intricate craftsmanship we rarely see on the App Store. This game is something special. In concept, Ridiculous Fishing is as simple as they…

Square-Enix, it’s time you received a talking-to. We know it’s been a tumultuous time for traditional game publishers; you’ve been doing things the same way for decades, but then the mobile market roared in and turned everything around. Nobody expects you guys to take to mobile game publication as easily as a Tonberry takes to…

Oh, has it been twenty minutes? Time for a new Asphalt game. Aw, we kid. We kid, because we love. The Asphalt series is one of the most popular racing series on iOS, and deservedly so: They’re solid games, fun to play, and easy to control. Each installment pushes out mobile visuals that rival this…

Over the summer, we were thrilled when DotEmu and SNK Playmore released Metal Slug 3 for iOS. With its iCade compatibility, pixel-perfect emulation, and Bluetooth multiplayer, Metal Slug 3 set a gold standard for arcade ports. Its predecessor Metal Slug 1 is still a fun game, but it also represents a slight step backward for…

Shall we play a game? Great! Let’s play WarGames. This iOS match-3 title is based on the ’80s cult film WarGames starring Matthew Broderick. Surprisingly, in this game, you play as the sinister artificial intelligence called WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) that Broderick squares off against to prevent nuclear war. The game follows the events…

Steven Spielberg’s App Store debut begins with his first iOS release, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. The film has been received successfully by UK audiences since its release on October 26, 2011. The United States release on December 21st will likely continue to receive positive reviews from critics and moviegoers alike.…

When North Americans talk pudding, we usually mean the cups of chocolate goo that mom and dad would pack in our lunch. However, in the UK, the term “pudding” can refer to any dessert dish, including quivering masses of lime gelatin that travel through broken-down Fun House rides. If you’ve never tried haunted house-flavored gelatin,…

The Shadow Sun is a game that I honestly thought we would never see. Announced three years ago, the game was promised to be something that would give us an Elder Scrolls-like experience for iOS from developers who had worked on games like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights. With a gameplay promise like that and…