Entries Categorized as 'Games: Casual'
August 10, 2009
Hidden item games started becoming popular earlier this year when someone finally got up the energy to draw up a bunch of artwork for it, and there have been quite a few of them over the past number of months, so it’s safe to say that while it’s a genre that can always survive new entries due to having limited replay value, there hasn’t really been anything new under the sun with the fried egg hidden in it.
Anicombo have evidently felt the same way and worked out what the next logical step for the genre should be: Throw some 3D at it. Or some of it, anyway, as the end result…
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August 2, 2009
iBright has some interesting timing. Just last week my wife downloaded a game called Sky Wire [lite] (iTunes links) which I thought was a pretty unique little tightrope walking game, though the graphics and sounds left a lot to be desired; it was quite plain overall, and not really worth a review. It wasn’t bad enough to be full of FAIL, but it wasn’t really good enough to say very many good things about.
But then along comes Bryce Katz of iBright Studios to submit a very similar concept called TightWire, developed by Wasted Pixel, and one look at it told me that this is how you do a tightrope walking game. …
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July 29, 2009
There are plenty of copter/cave flyer games out there, including on the App Store. I never really saw the attraction to the original game. It boiled user interaction down to such a basic level (one button) that it just didn’t engage me. It was okay for the first few minutes, and then it just got boring. Lots of people have tried to improve on the formula, and some have done fairly well, but it wasn’t really my cuppa.
So along comes a fellow named Konstantin from CyanSoft (no relation to the Myst people) submitting iHawky for review. I took a look and at the time I checked it out it…
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July 26, 2009
It has been frought with delay after delay. Chris lost a developer, and had to find a new developer. It took several weeks in App Store limbo before someone bothered to take a look at it. But now, finally, Theme Park Madness 1.1 is now live on the App Store.
This latest release features 6 all-new tracks, all of which are considerably larger and far more complex and challenging than previous tracks, where much more judicial use of speed and brakes are required to successfully complete the level. Each of the new levels packs its own theme. Three of them are space themed and accessed at the top…
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July 26, 2009
Railroad Madness then joins the throng of path management games, putting you in charge of a rail line where you are required to direct both cargo and commuter trains to their proper destinations without sending one to the other’s station or, even worse, sending trains crashing into each other. The rail lines consist of an orderly tangle of tracks with arrows at each of the intersections. Your job is to rotate the arrows in the path of an oncoming train to redirect it to where you want it to go. Cargo trains — identified by by orange, red and green cars — must be…
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July 22, 2009
Since we’re on a freebie and extreme advergame bender — but mostly because this one is also new and review-worthy — we’re going to move from sliding down plastic tubes to bouncing around on metal ones.
This one was commissioned by AXE body spray, a fragrantly divisive deodorant if ever there was one. Some people love it, others hate it and think it’s trendy and used exclusively by douchebags with bottled oompah-loompah tans, deadly hair and a curious, medically unexplained condition that contorts their facial muscles into a kissy-faced rictus whenever a camera is pointed at them. (Go ahead, try it! The more directly the lens points at them,…
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July 18, 2009
You know I don’t review genres that I feel have been well played out. Matching games of the Bejeweled variety certainly fall well into that category; there are a million of ‘em, and very few really offer anything significantly better or different over the basic concept. There have been a few that I have reviewed that were good enough or novel enough to catch my attention, but on the whole I tend to ignore the genre.
Interactive Fan, whom you may remember as the developers of the excellent Fan Caps, a game that spent a considerable amount of time on Frapstr’s top ten list to your right, have decided that they don’t want to…
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July 11, 2009
Look at this game. Would you look at it? Those terrible, awful graphics. Looks like a second grade art class project cobbled together in MS Paint. So why the hell does it have, at the time of this writing, 52 5-star ratings and only one 1-star rating on the US iTunes store?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because Enviro-Bear is genius, that’s why. Pure, simple, crudely-drawn genius.
The problem in trying to impress upon you, dear readers, the greatness of this artful game is that great art cannot possibly be conveyed to the proper degree in mere words. It must be seen, must be played to be fully appreciated. But being that…
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July 9, 2009
Coming up with an original idea is pretty damn hard these days — frankly, there just aren’t many new ideas left. The popular thing to do then is mash up different concepts to make something new, yet oddly familiar.
Orbius falls comfortably into that category. The primary objective of the game is to turn all of the red orbs blue by moving your ship around and shooting at them. Your first problem is that they don’t just go straight from red to blue, but have to be shot twice; once to clear them of colour and turn them white, and the second time to colour them blue. Your second problem…
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June 23, 2009
You’ll be glad to know that wasn’t a euphemism.
Monkey Sling is another entry in the stable of distance games that seems to take the approach that if you can’t beat ‘em with bling, bury ‘em with bonuses. Not that Monkey Sling isn’t pretty, mind you, it just isn’t really any prettier than its peers — subjectively speaking, that is. It is well designed though, but let’s look at what it is before talk about its attractiveness.
In the main, of course, Monkey Sling does a pretty good Kitten Cannon type deal, except you physically pull back the sling the monkey is nervously waiting in and let go to send him soaring. …
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June 19, 2009
I hope you have some Gravol or Pepto Bismol handy, ‘cos we’re about to mangle roaches. Manually.
Artificial Life is back with more original content, and this time they’re out to bug you. (They said it, not me. Blame them for bad puns.) Verminator sets you up with a career in pest control of the Blattidae variety. Specifically, they set you up with a career in pest control ideally suited for a budding young psychopath, because you don’t get luxuries like bug spray or even fly swatters. All you have are your own two hands and an affinity for things that have crunchy shells and soft, gooey insides. You,…
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June 19, 2009
I would like to preface this review by saying that I never played 1.0, and while I can point to some new features in 1.1, I couldn’t tell you everything that’s different with it, so I’m just going to approach this like any normal review and point to what I do know is different.
Urban Kick Academy can be filed away in the catalog of existing distance games inhabited by the likes of Kitten Cannon, Hot Dog Down a Hallway, and Monkey Sling (which I will also be reviewing), but throws in the butt blast from Ow My Balls! and adds just a splash of autoerotic electrocution. (Okay, I made that last…
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