Gadget Review: Mikey Digital external microphone for iPhone/ iPad

Review by Rob P. 

Why do you need an external microphone for your iThing? Well, if you’re an average user, you probably don’t. But if you’re a journalist, researcher, musician, student or podcaster, the Mikey Digital might just be the gadget for you.

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Review: Assassin's Creed Pirates (iPad)

Review by Matt S.

I'm not sure why, but the big publishers seem to struggle with coming up with compelling ways to bring their important franchises to the iPad. EA has both hits and misses in equal measure, and Activision has only made token efforts with its Call of Duty franchise.

On the other end of the spectrum is 2K Games, which is more interested in releasing premium-priced and full featured itirations of its games. Good on the producers over at 2K for that decision; it's good to see some publishers understand that there are genuine fans of gaming with iPads. Somewhere in the middle sits Ubisoft. It doesn't exactly produce AAA-games on the iPad, but what it does do is take its popular franchises and produce "mobile" titles that far exceed the normal quality of such things. Exhibit A - Rayman Jungle Run and its sequel. Not a "full" Rayman game, but a darned fine runner with all the Rayman charm packed into a small download.

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Review: The King of Fighters '97 (iPad)

Review by Andrew M. 

The king of the arcade games was the fighting games. There was always something appealing about going into a local arcade, whacking a dollar into the machine and button mashing your way to a victory. When fighters made the jump onto the console, they got a fresh lick of paint, but they held onto that brawling, button mashing goodness that made kids flock to the arcade.

However, the experience when playing these fighters at home was also different. I loved playing on the arcade machines. Perhaps because I was fighting for the most value out of my money as possible, but there was something different about the console experience, and I do think fighters lost something core to the experience as the arcades died away.

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Review: BIT.TRIP RUN! (iPad)

Review by Max S. 

Imagine running through an odd, magical world where monocle-wearing hills with eyes sitting on clouds (they are referred to as “Cloud Titans”) watch you as you jump, slide, and kick your way through joyously rhythmic level after level. Sound familiar so far? It should - that's BIT.TRIP at its finest. But then, suddenly, everything stops working. The music continues playing as the rest of the game grinds to halt and in no time at all you are dead and are forced to restart the level. That is not the platformer of the year I love.

Enter BIT.TRIP RUN! on iOS, the quasi-remake of Runner2, a fantastic console and PC title that released earlier this year. Not a whole lot has changed gameplay-wise in the move to mobile, but everything from the menus to the controls have been adapted to fit the touch screen interface of the iPhone and iPad. Other mobile additions include not-entirely unwelcome in-app purchases in the form of extra levels, silly costumes, and virtual gold, and iOS-specific leaderboards and achievements.

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Review: Gary Chalk's Gun Dogs (iPad)

Review by Matt S.

Tin Man Games is the indie workhorse of the iOS games market; every couple of months it releases a new gamebook title, and every couple of months I get hooked on the genre all over again.

If you've never played a gamebook, then you're probably younger than I am, but for the children of the 80's, the gamebooks were our single-player RPGs when we weren't able to get a group together for some Dungeons & Dragons. In the absence of narrative depth in the early PC RPGs and the likes of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, we instead read (and played) Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf. Tin Man Games has made a specialty out of the gamebook genre on smartphones and tablets - a natural platform for digital reading. What's especially exciting about these digital gamebooks is that they're often NEW books, and the prospect of new gamebooks is enough to excite the nostalgic amongst us.

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Heroes of Dragon Age; I just don't understand EA's mobile strategy

Opinion by Matt S. 

As a big fan of Dragon Age (yep, I even enjoyed the second one), I didn't really have a choice; when I saw that EA had released Heroes of Dragon Age on to the iOS App Store, I immediately downloaded it.

After playing for an hour I deleted it.

I don't have a problem with EA putting the investments that it does that it does into mobile market, in fact, when EA does a good job of it I more than welcome it - FIFA 14 is ace on iPad and Real Racing 3 might be laden with microtransactions, but the racing itself is compelling.

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Nintendo and iOS; there's simply no reason not to

Opinion by Matt S. 

Michael Pachter has riled up the most dedicated Nintendo fan base once again.

The cause for contention was this time over some rather frank and biting comments from Pachter that were reported on gamesindustry.biz, along with the idea that Nintendo should be releasing games on iOS (and Android, but for convenience this piece will just talk about iOS) platforms. After the story was published, my Twitter feed has been inundated with the usual retorts of "Pachter knows nothing" (because apparently not knowing stuff is how analysts keep their jobs at highly respected analyst firms) and "Nintendo should NEVER do iOS." And why should Nintendo NEVER do iOS? Because, obviously, iOS platforms lack buttons and as such it's inconceivable that they would actually play well.

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DDNet's Games of the year 2013: iOS Game of the Year

A couple of months ago we asked you to vote on your favourite games of the year (up to the end of October, except for the blockbuster of the year award, which is still running now on the site). You've voted and now, in the coming weeks, we will unveil the results.

The process: Earlier in the year we asked you, our readers, to rank nine different games per category in order of preference (or how interested you are in a game, if you haven't played it before). We have taken those rankings, averaged them up, and the resulting list below are the top four games - three runners up and the winner.

Though some traditionalists continue to hold out, more and more people are realising just how good the iPad and iPhone is for a host of games. Sure platformers and FPSers are often still patchy, but RPGs and strategy games, as you'll see below, offer some killer quality gameplay at a cheap price.

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Review: Luxuria Superbia (iPad)

Review by Matt S. 

Tale of Tales continues to prove that it is the preeminent developer of games that are not just artistic by accident; they're developed specifically to be art. And they're an eclectic team to say the least; after such dark projects as The Path and The Graveyard, Luxuria Superbia couldn't be more of a thematic foil. This game is positively filled with colour.

It's also a not-so subtle metaphor for the act of pleasuring a women. In Luxuria Superbia your job is to delve into the depths of a flower and stimulate it by rubbing on buds as they appear on the screen. The more stimulated the flower is the more colourful it becomes. In practice it's a little like a scrolling shooter, and points are accumulated by keeping the flower simulated. The twist is that if you oversimulate it the flower will climax and its game over.

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Review: Drive on Moscow (iPad)

Review by Matt S.

Drive on Moscow, the follow up to Shenandoah Studio's previous wargame, Battle of the Bulge, is a near carbon copy of the engine that ran the team's previous effort. That's a good thing because there are still far too few genuinely serious wargames available on the iPad, let alone ones that are as replayable and rich in depth as this.

As with Battle of the Bulge, Drive on Moscow follows closely a real conflict; in this instance the push of Axis forces to occupy Moscow before the winter could set in during World War 2. Of all the conflicts that marked World War 2 this is one of the most fascinating for students of history, as it pitted two supremely evil men (Hitler and Stalin) against one another, while desperate soldiers on both sides fought and died in a conflict that would mark the turning point in the war for the Allied armies.

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Review: Flowmo (iPad)

Review by Matt S. 

Flowmo lasts for around 30 minutes and in that time there's not a second of the experience that fits a conventional description of what constitutes a game. There's no definable characters, there's no linear narrative. It's abstracted in the extreme.

And it's wonderful.

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Review: Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (iPad)

Review by Matt S. 

I would never have thought that the developers and publishers of this game would have thought to release it on a platform with virtual controls. As a remake of a early-era game, Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD is the kind of platformer that requires precision skill across small and often rickety areas. And for many that kind of platforming is a no-go without physical buttons. 

But it works. It really works. Castle of Illusion is without a doubt the finest platformer available on the iPad, and the perfect experience to have sitting on your iPad for play on the go. It might not be the longest game, but for its price point, it's genuine quality.

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Review: Joe Dever's Lone Wolf (iPad)

Review by Matt S. 

Of all the nostalgic trips I've have on my iPad, Lone Wolf could have been the mightiest of all. As a kid I bought, read and reread Joe Dever's fantasy choose-your-own-adventure games more than anything else I read, I suspect. As Fighting Fantasy was proving to be the most popular gamebook series in the mainstream, it was Lone Wolf that was occupying my time.

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Review: Galaxy Factions (iPad)

Review by Sam M. 

In yet another casual strategy game for tablets, Galaxy Factions tasks you with commanding an outpost that has been charged in getting rid of the pirate colonies that have illegally settled nearby. Galaxy Factions takes the basic attack and defense formula we’ve seen before, and tries to mix it up.

You first have to build a base, your home of operations. From here you mine for resources that can be used to build defensive weapons, troops to attack other bases and buildings that will help your base function. The more walls and turrets you build the harder your base will be to destroy. That being said if your base lacks offensive power, then you won’t be able to destroy enemy bases.

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Review: Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas (iPad)

Review by Matt S. 

I suspect this game is going to annoy Nintendo fans. Without crossing into plagiarism, Oceanhorn is a faithful recreation of the basic Zelda aesthetic and gameplay structure, and not only that but it brings more new ideas to the famous formula than most modern Zelda games have managed.

The obvious inspiration for this title is Zelda: Wind Waker. Players come into possession of a small boat early on and from there the quest involves sailing from island to island, looking for precious objects and delving into puzzle-filled dungeons. As with Zelda games, environments only start to open up once you've acquired the right tool for progress through a barrier; for an easy example there are parts of islands blocked by objects that can only be destroyed by bombs.

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Review: Garfield Kart (iPad)

Review by Matt S. 

Ever since the original Super Mario Kart, it's been far to easy to throw a collection of loved characters together in a package where they race around tracks in karts throwing random weapons at one another.

Typically these games have been less than successful because a good racing game isn't that easy to produce. It needs balanced physics, well-designed tracks and thorough play testing in order to make sure that everyone's favourite character has half a chance of winning.

Against all odds Garfield Kart isn't that bad. In fact, it's quite enjoyable.

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Review: Treasure Seekers 3: Follow The Ghosts (iPad)

Review by Andrew M. 

G5 Entertainment definitely knows its niche in developing games that have worked well for years as time-wasters on computers. Whether they are games for people that aren’t inclined to dedicate the time that an AAA game demands or that don’t really see the appeal of more adrenaline-filled games, they are entertaining because once you start playing, there is an innate need for you to finish the game, even if it is little more than a digital version of the I Spy games we played as kids. The point-and-click adventures and hidden object games are G5's wheelhouse and the Treasure Seekers series has been successful enough that we have a new sequel in Treasure Seekers 3: Follow The Ghosts.

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Review: Pocket God: Ooga Jump (iPhone)

Jumping right out of its sandbox, Ooga Jump takes the Pocket God franchise to new heights; literally. Developer Bolt Creative has taken advantage of what the mobile phones are best at doing to give players a new way to experience its popular franchise. While you've seen everything this game offers elsewhere before, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be found all the same.

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Review: Batman: Arkham Origins (iPhone)

Review by Chris I.

With the console release of Batman: Arkham Origins just behind us, I stumbled across the iOS version of the title, noticed that it was a free download and decided to give it a go. Without any knowledge of the game prior to the download, I went into the title, well, blind as a bat to what I'd be doing. Once the darkness lifted, I’ve found that I’m enjoying myself quite a bit with this mobile title.

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Next generation mobile devices: the home consoles of tomorrow?

Opinion by Chris I.

With all the hype surrounding the vastly approaching next generation gaming console releases, it’s a joy to see gamers’ excitement filling the web and forum pages across the Internet.

But as I see what’s to come with these new consoles, it’s become quite apparent that it’s a lot more of the same that we already have. Sure there are improved specs, but the upgrade is not as visually obvious as it was in previous generations. Yet, with the economy just recently looming on the brink of another potential collapse and the production cost of games continuing to rise, I can’t stop myself from thinking even further forward. Why? Because I’ve had something in my home produce that “Wow!” factor numerous times now and it wasn’t a gaming console.

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