Reviews & Articles

Distilled down to its essence, Wind Up Robots by Soma Games is a tower defense game with movable towers. That, however, isn’t saying much or giving it the kudos due. There’s a story behind the game. Zach is a little boy who is just a little wary of the dark and things that go bump in the night. His grandfather Jack has made him a little wind-up robot, which doesn’t just keep him company — it seeks out and destroys the boogeymen! How cool is that?

Shadow Era is a free-to-play collectible trading card game. This high-quality strategy card game starts by prompting the player to create a human character from a selection of battle classes. There are more than 100 beautifully designed game cards in Shadow Era.

Do you remember the old text-based role-playing games? Where you looked around the scene, picked up seemingly unrelated objects and used them to solve a puzzle? Or maybe you grew up helping Guybrush Threepwood through his adventures in the Tales of Monkey Island. Well, Kaptain Brawe leaps right smack bang into the middle of that genre.

Mad Blender is a fun game that is aimed at purely entertaining people. The point of the game is to take a photo via the iPhone’s camera or use an existing iPhone’s photo album image and throw it in a virtual blender. One can even crop a portion of the photo so that only a part of it ends up inside a blender.

Running a sushi restaurant is not easy, especially when you have large supermarkets as your competition. The key is winning over customers by offering a large variety of fresh sushi. GoGo Sushi is an insanely fun little iPhone game in which you serve various types of sushi to an endless army of customers.

Going Nuts is one of those games. You know? Easy to learn, easy to play, darned difficult to master. You’re a flying squirrel. Easy, right? You launch yourself off a platform, and moving left or right by tapping the screen of your iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch, you maneuver your squirrel, picking up the good nuts, leaving the bad nuts, avoiding trees and swooping into rays of sunshine. Not that easy. First there’s the control. Someone suggested dragging your fingers on the screen, I think rapid tapping is better as I get excited, and then both thumbs are dragging both directions and the poor squirrel doesn’t know what to do and smashes slap bang into a tree.

The iOS has certainly put its own spin on how puzzle games have evolved, and Crazy Escape is no different. Are there puzzles to solve? Yes. Timed for additional excitement? Yes. Super cute cartoon graphics? Yes. Penguins? Yes. Penguins!

Yaniv is one of those games that you take on trips as it guarantees a great time with your family and friends. These days Yaniv is available on the iPhone, iPad and the iPod Touch.

Puzzle games have changed a lot since their original conception: graphic engines, game mechanics and overall presentation. However, the addictive and aggravating nature of them has remained. With the advance of technology, developers have been able to craft games around the touch mechanic. One of the newer games to use this mechanic is known as Save Yammi for the iPod Touch.

Naked King is an insanely fun 2-D real-time strategy game. The goal in Naked King is to destroy the enemy’s castle. To accomplish this, you have to use both your strategic and tactical skills in two key areas.

Gemz is one of the most exciting diamond puzzle games that has been available in Apple’s App Store. Apparently the game has been so popular that its developers have ported it to both the Android and Java platforms as well. This way, just about any mobile device user can download the game and be a part of the fun.

For anyone that has spent countless hours playing Microsoft Window’s Mine Sweeper, I am happy to announce that there is an even better version for the iPhone/iPad world. It is called Mine Sweeper II, and it will blow you away.

Lately I seem to be playing more Facebook games than “real” games, but if it’s a game and I’m playing it, doesn’t that, by definition, make it real? I suppose hardcore gamers would disagree, but essentially, a game’s a game.

Minicars Touch is a game in which you race a car by using your finger to control its steering. There are a number of different race tracks in the game, and they differ in both size and design. The computer-controlled cars in the game are not easy to beat, but as you get better at drag-steering, your racing prowess will get better.

You should play Twin Blades: The Reaping Vanguard because sometimes there is nothing else to do except mindlessly slash through zombies.

I remember being a kid and enjoying Highlights’ Hidden Pictures. Of course, what kid didn’t enjoy that. Now, developers in the casual gaming department have gravitated toward hidden-object games because almost everyone knows the basic premise. One developer has mixed this with adventure elements to create Treasure Seekers 3: Follow the Ghosts for the iPod Touch and iPhone.

As an avid role-playing game fan, I was glad to get my hands on a copy of Ravensword: The Fallen King for the iPhone/iPod Touch. One thing I enjoy more than anything is a great story immersed in a fantasy world and filled with animated skeletons, giants and wiry little rat-like creatures. I still play Dungeons & Dragons and, of course, every RPG I can get my hands on that is released for console. Ravensword is a great addition to the digital RPGs on the market, but what makes it amazing is that there is so much to explore and the way it has been developed for a mobile device.

Doodle Control puts you in the role of an air traffic controller by allowing you to draw lines on the map, thus guiding various types of aircraft to a level specific airport. Although the above-mentioned summary makes the game sound very simple, that is its strong point. Doodle Control is very entertaining, intuitive to play and overall addictively challenging.

Pew! Pew! Starblast is, in a nut shell, a space arcade shooter in which you use your voice to fire missiles. The game is a nice rendition of some of the more popular 1980s space arcade titles packaged into a fun little game with both novel and effectively intuitive controls.

RabbitDash is an amazingly fun platformer. The player-controlled character is a running rabbit set in a left to right scroller-type arcade game. The goal of RabbitDash is to get the rabbit to cover the longest possible distance, which is set in meters while jumping from one floating platform to another.

The iPhone’s hardware and software interface provides game designers with unique ways of developing control inputs. If you have every tried making music on the iPhone with Ocarina, then you have probably wondered if there are any games that take advantage of the phone’s audio sensor. Blowing is one such game.

Jack of All Tribes follows the titular character as he goes to an amusement park for some R&R time. As he enjoys the latest rollercoaster ride, the last part of the ride has him falling down a waterfall and landing into a tribal society. Suddenly, he is elevated to the rank of chief. Now, it is up to him to lead the tribal folks to victory and find a way back home.

Have you ever been playing Rockband, Guitar Hero or any other beat game and suddenly had the need to play a zombie-filled survivor horror? Sometimes it can be tough to choose one over the other. But what if there was a game that merged the two game styles? A survival horror, zombie-bash AND a beat game? Well, 3G Studios Inc. has done just that. Like Dr. Frankenstein deep in his lab tucked away in the mountains, 3G Studios tinkered away at an idea. They took the best of both worlds, channeling copious amounts of brainwaves and high voltage into their secret project.

Goal Battle offers a great virtual experience in playing the world’s most popular sport — soccer, generally known throughout the world as football. This fun little app allows you to play in an intense shootout against either an AI-controlled or a human-controlled goalie via the Internet.

Forest Frenzy is an insanely addictive game in which you defend an oak forest from waves of lumberjacks, robots, gasoline barrels and other monstrosities whose only goal is to destroy your happy place. As the defender of the forest, you are tasked at shooting acorns at the attackers using a giant sling. As the levels in the game increase, so do the number of attackers.

I love jigsaws. OK, “love” might be a bit too strong as I rarely have the patience to stand there/sit for hours and complete it. Instead, I tend to look at the pieces, put some pieces together and leave. The process repeats until the puzzle is complete. Plus, it drives my mother crazy as she organizes them into perfect piles and I complete a large portion in a matter of minutes. The problem with this is that, like in any home, space is at a premium. It’s tough to find enough room to complete a 1,000-piece puzzle. Thankfully, an indie game known as The M on my iPod touch lets me get some of my jigsaw cravings under control.

PixiRacer is one of the most addicting top-down car racing games I have ever played. One of the truly unique features of this game is its accelerometer controls, which allow you to intuitively drive the car. For example, to move the car left, you tilt the iPhone to the left, and to move the car right ... well, you get the idea.

I love adventure games. Specifically third-person adventure games, an obsession brought on by the original Diablo by Blizzard. Armed with my first iPhone, I downloaded Solomon’s Keep for a very tolerable $.99. Little did I know then that this game would still have me excited to play it two years later!

I’m a big fan of tower defense games. Especially on the iPhone/iPad and the unique controls these devices offer. Unfortunately, there only a handful of tower defenses that are worthy of the tower defense connoisseur. The Creeps is not only one of those in the handful, but it might just lead the pack.

Galaxy Express is a free iPhone puzzle game in which a player is tasked in guiding a space ship to its destination. This game will appeal to anyone that loves “on-the-go” puzzles and enjoys brain teasers.