Home » Articles and Reviews by 'Alex Beech'
Space rougelike FTL: Faster Than Light is warping on to the App Store at midnight
Wonderful starship rougelike FTL: Faster Than Light has finally made its way from PC to the iPad, where it will be landing on the App Store at midnight tonight. For those of you unaware of the Kickstarter success that is Subset Games's FTL: Faster Than Light, it's a rougelike that casts you as a starship captain being pursued through space. Warping haphazardly from point to point, you can never be certain whether you are about encounter friendly aliens who will offer to repair your beaten ship, or a barrage as meteors that will destroy what remains of your shields. You have to manage your resources, prioritising what perks to construct and which items to repair at each stage of your journ…
iPadStuntcar construction puzzler Loco Motors has our pistons firing
Mixing Wacky Races with Angry Piggies, Minority Media’s vehicle constructing puzzler Loco Motors came screeching onto the App Store a couple of weeks back. Your main objective in Loco Motors is simple: make it to the finish line. To do this, the construction puzzler has you build your own vehicle, which you must steer over jumps, lumps, and bumps. Creating your automobile a simple task thanks to the games intuitive interface. You can draw, move, and erase the frame by selecting the relevant option from the bottom of the screen. Its a similar story for all of the other parts too, which can simply be dragged into your construction window before automatically rotating an…
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - The Official Game Review
We are willing to bet that Captain America: The Winter Soldier - The Official Game is not a direct translation of the source movie's plot. This is because so many of Cap’s iconic nemeses that appear in this game that, were the movie to follow the story, you would need to bring a sleeping bag into the cinema along with your popcorn The Super Soldier is now operating as a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. under orders from Nick Fury. You must guide him and a small two man strike force into a…
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Sneaky platformer Stealth Inc. currently on sale on the App Store
Curve Digital Games fantastically sneaky platformer Stealth Inc. has just had it price slashed, meaning you can now steal a copy for just 99p / 99c. Guiding a tiny clone around a lethal laboratory maze of death, your only goals in Stealth Inc. are to survive and escape. Leaping and sneaking through each levels’ various puzzles, you will have to stick to the shadows as you deactivate all the traps and avoid traps on your way to the exit. It is challenging fun,as the ingenious puzzles require a blend of insight and experimentation to solve. Luckily, the game’s impressive art direction means that you have all the information you need to solve each challenge. This extended…
Multiplayer turn-based strategy game UFHO2 lands on iPad
UFHO2, a geometric turn-based multiplayer strategy game, was originally launched on PC after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Now, after more than two years, developer Tiny Colossus has finally bought the game to iPad. Competing against your friends, you must guide your alien avatar around a maze collecting as many gems as possible along the way. You can complete a set number of moves each turn, and a time limit in which to make your decisions. The mazes are made up of seven interlocking hexagonal areas, each with seven further hexagonal rooms inside them. With both areas and rooms able be rotated during your turn, you will find yourself opening and closing off multiple paths a…
Boom Beach Review
Boom Beach is developer Supercell's follow-up to the phenomenally successful Clash of Clans. This lineage is obvious the moment you boot up the app, with the cartoony visuals, resource management, and tower defense-style battles echoing its fantasy-inspired ancestor. However, rather than dump you in a Nordic netherword, Boom Beach has you establishing a base on a small tropical island. Your army has arrived to battle the evil Blackguard forces that have captured the surrounding…
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Get Assassin’s Creed Pirates for a steal on the App Store today
If you've been on the fence about Assassin’s Creed Pirates, now might be the perfect time you climb onboard. You see, Ubisoft has just dropped the price of the naval battle game to £1.49 / $1.99 This mobile tie-in to Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag has you sailing the Caribbean as Alonzo Batilla, an eager young Captain willing to do anything to make his fortune. Taking part in fierce naval battles, you must scupper enemy vessels, and capture anything from frigates to Man-o-Wars to aid your conquest of the West-Indies. The latest update also lets you partake in whale hunting. It may be a little less glamourous - and it but more cruel - than the game's other…
Escher-inspired puzzle game Monument Valley will be turning heads this Thursday
When the first trailer for Monument Valley was released back in December, its topsy-turvy gameplay and Escher art style turned our heads in more ways than one. Now, developer ustwo has confirmed that beautiful puzzler will be hitting the App Store this Thursday. In the game, you take control of a little girl named Aida who is looking for forgiveness. You must lead her to the top of a series of towers by manipulating the environment itself, moving platforms and re-positioning objects to clear a path to the exit. As you can see from the video above, Monument Valley is a gorgeous looking game, realising a world which is as aesthetically pleasing as it is mathematically precise. Keep your…
Sometimes You Die Review
Describing Sometimes You Die is surprisingly tough. Reducing it to its mechanical elements does the concept a disservice. However, recounting journey runs the risk of ruining the various twists and meta-commentaries contained within it. It asks you to think about what a game is, what you consider fun, and what you are prepared to endure in the name of entertainment. That may sound pretentious - and at its heart Sometimes You Die is just that - but it is none the worse for it…
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Fight the future in new Plants vs. Zombies 2 sci-fi level pack
Popcap’s free-to-play tower-defense game, Plants vs. Zombies 2, has just received new set of levels, courtesy of the Far Future update. The update sends you and your army of botanical bombardiers into the future to battle an oncoming horde of sci-fi shamblers. As the game's 1970’s-style trailer shows, the update include two new plants - the wonderfully named Infi-Nut and Laser Bean - with which to battle your undead foes. The zombies also have their ranks bolstered with the addition of the new Jetpack Zombie. The Far Future update also introduces Power Tiles. These are scattered across the battlefield, and increase your plants' powers. Similarly, the effects of Plant Food ha…
The Cap is back on the App Store in Captain America: The Winter Soldier - The Official Game
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is now out in cinemas. And, by a startling coincidence, Gameloft's official iOS tie-in game has just appeared on the App Store. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - The Official Game is a top-down smash-'em-up which places you in the role of Cap himself. The story, co-written by Marvel’s Christos Gage, sees the Captain battling a host of his iconic villains from his comic past, such as King Cobra, Taskmaster, and the Winter Soldier himself. To reach each villain you must battle past all manner of criminal thugs with little more than an overinflated sense of justice, a shield, and a squad of armed S.H.I.E.L.D operatives. Still, if thing…
FLASHOUT 2 Review
If you are going to copy something, copy the best. We have to assume that is what Jujubee was thinking when it developed Flashout 2. Generously, you could think of it as an homage to Sony’s WipEout series, but it sticks so closely to the source material - right down to the graphic design - that it simply feels like a pale imitation. Races take place on metallic tracks that loop high above futuristic cityscapes. Though each track is littered with boosts, weapons, and jumps, they…
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Prepare for season 4 with Game of Thrones Ascent on iPad
Popular Facebook RPG strategy game Game of Thrones Ascent has just been released for iPad. Based on the Game of Thrones TV series and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books, the free-to-play game is set just after the death of the King’s Hand. It's up to you to harness the ensuing fallout to raise your character's status through the fiction's feudal hierarchy. You build your own character from scratch, deciding their upbringing, allegiances, and even what gods they will worship. Once established, you can send your noble on "thousands" or missions and quests, all in the service of expanding your territory and increasing your influence in Westeros. The gam…
Death isn't the end in fatalistic new indie platformer Sometimes You Die
Sometimes You Die is a new punishingly hard indie puzzle platformer from Philipp Stollenmayer. It seems influenced by games like Super Meat Boy, in which dying over and over is an integral part of the gameplay. But unlike other titles, Sometimes You Die it leaves your lifeless corpse in the level to aid in future attempts. You take control of a tiny silhouetted square which you must guide through each stage. Once dead, you will respawn and be able to bounce on through the level again, this time using you old corpse as a bridge or platform. If you're prepared to put in the time, you can fill pits with dozens of cubic cadavers in service of getting just one of your squares to the…
TriBlaster Review
If you've ever seen the 1981 arcade game Tempest in action, then TriBlaster’s influences will be immediately apparent. The new tube shooter utilises the same visual style and gameplay mechanics as the Atari classic, but it does so with enough flair to make it feel fresh. TriBlaster's early stages look like you are standing at the blocks of a neon-soaked 100m race track. As you progress though the levels, the shape of these stages begins to warp and twist to awesome effect,…
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