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.

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.

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.

Fluke HD can be described as a simple yet addictive racing game for two to six players. It is a strictly single-player game that can be played against three increasingly challenging levels of AI or with friends in person. Fluke HD could be describe as “Snakes & Ladders” meets “Ludo.” The players race their four pieces to the finish line by rolling the dice, and the first to take all four pieces to the end wins.

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.

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.

I feel like I don’t need to explain how Back to the Future works to review this game. Of course, if you don’t know about Back to the Future, 1) what’s wrong with you and 2) why are you reading this review in the first place?! Anyway ... not long ago, Telltale Games said it was working on an episodic game for Jurassic Park, and as a huge fan, I kind of freaked out. However, I later found out it was pushed back for another title. All I could think was, “Another title?! Why the hell are you doing this to me? I hate waiting!” Well, when I found out what the new title was, I stopped crying about it and got even more excited! It was a Back to the Future game that would continue the story from the third movie.

Circuit Swap is a deceptively simple little game for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. I personally played on my trusty iPod Touch.

In the most basic terms, you have to plug batteries into the appropriate sockets to light up a little cityscape. You have a small board (4x4 grid) and need merely to move the battery across the screen into the socket — ideally in the fewest moves possible. That would be easy, if not for the twists — and therein lays the challenge.

Most times in life, the tortoise will outrun the hare, and that’s how it should be. But, when it comes to the iPad game Tilt HD: Flip’s Adventure in 1.5 Dimensions, the hare outraced the tortoise to market. After an extended development period without a formal launch for the iPhone, XEOPlay’s Tilt HD was quickly developed and launched alongside the iPad in April. However, an iPhone version of this reflex-driven puzzle game backed by a very strong environmentalist message remains in development.