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Bad Hotel Review
It takes a certain kind of mad clarity to sit there and take the genre of 'Tower Defense' as literally as Bad Hotel does. Conceptually Lucky Frame's game is the same as it ever was - drop blocks as defenses against an onslaught of creatures bent on destroying your base, but this time around you're actually building the eponymous hotel, adding rooms to accommodate tourists and shoot down sentient clouds. I may have lost you on that last point. See, your task is simple - build a profita…
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Flip’s Escape Review
Warioware introduced us to the idea of the micro arcade game, in that you only had a couple of seconds to work out what you needed to do, and then accomplish that task to the best of your ability. These games usually revolved around one very simple mechanic and once you got the hang of it, there were options to see how far you could get. I bring this up because at its heart, Flip's Escape is reminiscent of those micro arcade experiences, and really, it's only once you work out how the…
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Critter Escape Review
Isn't it always the way. You're some weird anthropomorphic creature minding your own business chasing butterflies in a field, when you're captured by scientists and probed for study, only to have to sneak and attack your way to freedom. Critter Escape is a line drawing sneak game, popularized by such titles as Spy Mouse, in which you must draw a line to move your critter around the guards and to the exit. What this title brings to the table are challenge based stars, a host of interest…
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Puzzle Craft Review
'Casual' match-three mechanics; timers that spit out the occasional bonus; resource management tied to tiers of resource management... surely this is a recipe for disaster? It's a mix we've seen slapped together in the 'freemium' model, but is it really such a bad thing at all? Ars Thanea Games and Chillingo prove that you can have your cake and eat it too, pairing all the addictive elements of a freemium title together with a well balanced and deep sense of progression that feels rewa…
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Horn™ Review
When Phosphor Games came out with The Dark Meadow they proved one thing in particular - they know how to craft a world from the ground up. Their latest release Horn comes to us care of casual gaming giant 'Zynga', but its a far cry from the time-sink cash grabs of the past, teleporting players to a world that melds adventuring classics like Zelda and Fable with the visual appeal of Team Ico's best, and ties it all together with Infinity Blade's slashing RPG-lite gameplay. In short, it'…
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Random Heroes Review
[This mini-review is featured on the Friday News Wrap-Up for the 17th of August, 2012] After the wild success of League of Evil it's no surprise to see Ravenous Games attempting to recapture that perfect balance of gaming joy once again. Pairing up with Woblyware for another Flash-to-iOS release, Random Heroes may be a platformer, but it's less of a game about high scores and more akin to the old-skool games we saw pumped out by studios during the 80s and 90s. As the name suggests pl…
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Mad Skills BMX Review
One of the biggest hurdle to overcome when trying to create a competitive title such as Mad Skills BMX is in being able to make it approachable for casual players while still catering to the hardcore crowd. Turborilla's solution was an elegant one - focus on the flow of the controls and the feel of smoothly sailing through the air to nail that perfect landing, and newcomers or veterans alike will be hooked. Virtual controls are history in Mad Skill BMX and players can choose to either…
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Judge Dredd: Countdown Sector 106 Review
We've reviewed a couple gamebooks here at AppSpy before. For those unfamiliar with the genre, think of it as a cross between a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book and an RPG. In fact that's exactly what the Fighting Fantasy series was, having you make choices as you read, but also gaining stats and having to roll dice to get passed tricky situations or to win combat. Tin Man Games have been quite prolific in resurrecting this format digitally for the iPhone and iPad, with most tales being…
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Bucketz Review
Sometimes you just have to admire the level of dedication given to certain aspects of a game. Often it's the attention to detail in the programming, wowing the player with intriguing answers to the question of “hmm, I wonder if I can do this”. In Bucketz however, the dedication is in the level of commitment to the personalities of the characters in game. Not only are they are an amusing lot of sentient buckets with distinct characteristics, but every single level contains i…
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Flick Champions World Edition Review
National pride is at an all time high with the Olympics on, and Nawia Games is using their Flick franchise to cash in on this four year occurrence with Flick Champions World Edition. Instead of popular televised sports, now you're competing in Olympic events, and all the medals you earn work towards helping your nation to dominate the Flick leaderboards. The events this time around are running & hurdles, beach volleyball, swimming, kyacks, handball, hammer throw, javelin, and sync…
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Chimpact Review
OK. We all know that monkeys love bananas. Did you also know they apparently share our trait for greed when it comes to diamonds? The higher you go in the treetops, the more of these shiny gems are ripe for the taking. That's Chimpact in a nut shell... or should we say banana skin? There are canopies in the canopy the can be flung with your finger to slingshot the simian through each level. Each stage has a linear path with a couple hidden areas ripe with bananas or gems. If you follo…
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Trigger Fist Review
It's a surprise more effort hasn't been placed in to creating the next-best multiplayer shooter for mobile and handheld devices, especially considering their popularity on the PC and Console. Titles such as Modern Combat have gone a long way in picking up the slack, but now and then you crave something simpler; something more immediate, and Trigger Fist by Lake Effect Applications fills this niche perfectly. First impressions matter and it's not hard to get a classic Counter Strike ty…
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PITFALL!™ Review
For something like a 30th Anniversary you'd think Pitfall would be given a much larger 'hurrah' - the game has gone through differing types of 'remakes' over the years, but now the game has been reduce to an auto-runner. Don't get me wrong, it's a perfect match and ultimately works in Pitfall's favor, but with so many competitors it ran the risk of slipping under the radar. I guess that's the power of a name like Pitfall for a company like Activision - you just can't help but bring at…
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Kid Vector Review
In the last few years, there's been an increase in pixel art as a popular style for games. Some of this is that it can be easier to create, but the most prevalent reason is that it throws back nostalgically to the games of many of our childhoods, and as most of us have found out through our lives, mostly to our dismay, nostalgia can color an experience in a positive way based on its connections to our past, regardless of the experience's overall quality. Kid Vector has taken a differen…
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Commando Jack Review
It seems that the tower defense genre has been sort of played out for the last couple of years. Oh yes new games come out that add something interesting to the formula, and games come out that remind us why the genre became so popular to begin with, but it's only in the last year or so we've seen an evolutionary shift in tower defense, and what's more is that this shift is so simple, it's amazing not many developers thought of it before. I am of course talking about allowing the player…
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