Category: Gaming

Tap Tap Revenge 2

Tap Tap Revenge 2

Tap Tap Revenge 2 hit the App Store two nights ago, the application is the sequel to the wonderfully successful Tap Tap Revenge.

The sequel is very similar to the first version but there have been some improvements. The new game features over 150 free tracks to play with more tracks added every Thursday. The game has a whole new game engine which debuted with Tap Tap Dance, which makes for a much better 3D experience. Tapulous has also introduced “tap and hold” and “multi-tap” features in the higher levels.

Tap Tap Revenge 2 has 3 ways to play with your friends, Challenge mode lets you email your friends challenging them to beat your score, a progress meter lets them know how they did compared to you and Tapulous will let you know how they did. The two player split-screen mode which was so well done in the original is even better now, it has a brand new look and now has a progress meter. You can also use a vastly improved online play option.

The game also has career achievements but from what I have seen of the game there is no benefit from doing them except for the ability to show off how good you are at (or how much you play) the game.

Tap Tap Revenge 2 has some decent improvements over the original but I’m a little worried that it will end up being used the same way Tap Tap Revenge did, not at all. I haven’t played Tap Tap Revenge since about a week after I downloaded it, there just isn’t enough depth to the game. Maybe if you could unlock songs instead of being able to just download all of them it would be a little different. Or better yet if it featured a career mode similar to Guitar Rock Tour‘s. For fans of the original it is must have, otherwise it might not be that compelling.

Luckily the game is free so even if you don’t end up liking it you really only spent a little time and some hard drive space on it.

Tap Tap Revenge 2 – Free
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Zen Bound Review

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Zen Bound is a fantastic game from Secret Exit. The game is described as “a calm and meditative game of wrapping rope around wooden sculptures,” and that is exactly what it is.

The challenge in the game is to wrap the rope around the wooden sculpture so that a certain percentage of the sculpture is wrapped up. You can see what areas are wrapped based on the color change on the statue but you can also see your progress at the top of the screen.

There are three goals that you can reach for each statue, 70% completion, 85% completion, and 99% completion. Flowers blossom on a tree (where all of the various levels live), up to three flowers will blossom for each level (depending on which goal is reached). There are lanterns up the tree that light your way once enough flowers have blossomed. According to the in game help “once you reach the top of the tree, things will be different,” but I haven’t quite reached the top of the tree yet, I’m about 5 or so flowers away from doing so.

Now to wrap the rope around the statues Zen Bound uses a very simple control scheme, you just drag your finger around on the screen to spin the statue, if you want to rotate the statue just use two fingers and rotate it. You may also tilt your iPhone to change the angle of the rope.

The game is incredibly addicting and more difficult once you reach the higher levels, trying to fit the rope into tight corners gets complicated when the statue is split up into several different parts that all rotate together.

The music in the game which is an original score by “Ghost Monkey” and is available to all customers in 320kbit MP3.

The game has 51 levels with an additional 25 levels to come this month.

What is so memorizing about this game is how wonderfully simple it is, that isn’t too say it is easy because it can be hard, but the concept of the game is incredibly simple, anyone can pick up and enjoy this game very quickly.

Zen Bound is the kind of game that you can play for 5-10 minutes and then put down again, it doesn’t take long to complete a level but the replayability appears to be pretty high, it is well worth the $4.99.

Zen Bound – $4.99

Metal Gear Solid Touch Trailer

The game is basically going to be another tap to shoot iPhone game but it will have some interesting pinch to zoom features which will (hopefully) make tap to shoot gameplay fun.

Konami has revealed that there will be two editions of the game, the special “advance release edition” will come first and you will be able to save your progress for the “final release” that will come out later. The final release will be a free update to the advance release owners. The advance release edition looks like it will only include the first half of the storyline but the teaser website doesn’t make that very clear. The game looks really good and hopefully the fact that it is a “tap to shoot” game won’t hurt them. tap to shoot isn’t exactly the most exciting game genre out there but hopefully Konami can do it right.

“METAL GEAR SOLID TOUCH” OFFICIAL SITE.

Palm Confirms Games are in Development for WebOS

Palm did confirm that games are in development for webOS, and seems a little defensive at accusations that the OS can’t handle that stuff — Palm hasn’t changed its stance on app development, of course, there are no “native” apps allowed currently, but they seem more reticent to admit that web-style app development will limit gaming options.

Palm confirms games are in development for Pre, drops a few other tidbits – Engadget.

First Screenshots of Tiger Woods ’09 for the iPhone

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Craig Law of EA has posted some screenshots on the Touch Arcade forums showing the first glimpses of Tiger Woods ’09 for the iPhone. The game was announced in September and although a release date is yet to be announced the game will probably be out in just a few months.

I have to say it is looking really good. I’m not really in to golf video games but I can appreciate the graphics in this game. These screenshots really show that the iPhone has some horsepower and stuff like this gets me really excited for the future of the iPhone as a gaming platform.

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First Screenshots of EA’s Tiger Woods ‘09 iPhone Game | Touch Arcade.

Review of Touchgrind for the iPhone

If you are at all interested in both the iPhone and skateboarding you know about Touchgrind
icon. You’ve probably seen the trailer for it at least a couple of times, just like I have. But, you may be skeptical as to how good the game is, I was too.

The game currently costs $4.99 and allows you to skate around a skate park doing tricks on rails, ramps, and boxes. The interface for the game feels surprisingly good, you place two fingers on the board and slide, flick, and remove your fingers from the screen to do various tricks.

For the first 10 minutes of playing this game I had no idea how to do any tricks. Being the occasional gamer that I am and former hardcore gamer I thought I would be able to figure it out pretty quick on my own, but I quickly realized that it was a little more difficult than the trailer made it seem.

The game does feature some really well done tutorials, you are basically just watching a video of how to do things while an explanation is written across the bottom of the screen but it gives you enough information to be able to do it yourself when you go into a Warm Up or Jam Session.

I’m not going to explain how to do all the tricks here but know that it was only a matter of about 20 minutes before I was doing tricks with ease.

The game features 3 play modes, Warm Up, Jam Session, and Competition. In Warm Up you are basically allowed to roam around the skate park doing tricks with no time limits or goals of any kind. Jam Session let’s you do the same but in this one you are challenged to beat your best trick (my current is 89,396). Competition gives you a time limit of 100 seconds to get the highest score you can, with those higher scores you unlock new boards you can skate with.

There is only one skate park, which is a little disappointing, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason they wouldn’t add new ones in later updates. But the park that is in the game does have all of the obstacles to make sure you have a good time skating in it.

Another problem I’ve had with the game is that there isn’t a large distance between the front of the board and the edge of the screen, so you end up having to judge when to ollie on to something based on the indicators on the screen, but it is very difficult to judge when or for how long to turn so you are positioned just right going towards the obstacle and it is hard to know how close you are to it. They have tried to help with some of those problems by letting you tap the magnifying glass button at the bottom right hand corner of the screen to give you a birds eye view of the park but you find yourself going between those two view modes and eventually getting frustrated. And, you can’t skate while in the birds eye view mode.

The game is great and it does have enough depth to justify its $4.99 price tag, but hopefully with later updates they will fix the couple of problems I did have with it. If you are at all interested in skateboarding or skate games I think this would be a great buy.

Touchgrind – $4.99
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Guitar Rock Tour Hits the App Store

Guitar Rock Tour was recently released on the App Store and it is one heck of a game. The game is developed by Gameloft and is essentially a Guitar Hero World Tour clone, for the iPhone.

The game has two instruments to play, Guitar and Drums, 17 licensed tracks including Beat it, In the Shadow, Girlfriend, Message in a Bottle, etc. and a Rock Star career mode that takes you from playing in your garage to stadiums.

I’ve played most of career mode with the Guitar on medium and it is a really fun game. The graphics look great, the notes aren’t too difficult to time and the songs are good.

I do wish there were more songs in the game but you’ll most likely have to wait for Guitar Rock Tour 2 for the iPhone before we get any more songs. Playing the Guitar feels great but the Drums are terrible. there are only two notes that come from the top of the screen but you have 4 different buttons to press for them, from the tutorial it seems as though you are supposed to hit the cymbals when two yellow notes come down but having to reach up that far and then reach down again for an upcoming note is very awkward. I’ve experimented a little bit and it seems that hitting both of the bottom drum pieces at the same time will also be recognized as a successful note but it isn’t very clear.

The game costs $9.99 and I think it is worth every penny. In the past I’ve complained about the prices of apps in the App Store but this is one of the few that actually seems worth the price.

So, how does it compare to Tap Tap Revenge? It wins hands down, not only can you play multiple instruments on songs that you may actually hear on the radio the graphics and the fact that you can clearly tell whether you hit the note at the right time or not makes Guitar Rock Tour blow Tap Tap Revenge away. The only thing that Tap Tap Revenge has over Guitar Rock Tour is a two player mode.

Two player mode would work really well with this, especially since you can play with two different instruments. You could play guitar while a friend takes the drums, but I guess the developers didn’t want to go in that direction or just thought that implementing it would be too much work for what they would get out of it.

At the time of writing this the app was a little crashy, but not to the point where it was unplayable, if I had my iPhone on for a long period of time it would seem to crash shortly after launching but after a quick reboot of the phone it would work fine, so I won’t hold it against the game. I’m sure Gameloft is already working on fixing these bugs and will be releasing an update soon.

Guitar Rock Tour – $9.99
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