A very cool idea, dubbed Project 72 from Dog Town Studios, has just hit the app store. Here’s the description:
STORY
Project 72 begun Tuesday January 5, when 4 boys from Venice CA aka Dogtown sat down for dinner and started to discuss what to do next. The idea of making a game in 72 hours started to take place. A few hours later at 8pm the project was officially on its way, deadline set to Friday January 8 at 8pm . Were they gonna finish it in time?
They did and this game is the result!
GAME
You guide your rocket through space avoiding running out of fuel and hitting all the obstacle.
When you collide with an obstacles you either slow down or get eliminated
* Asteroids and satellites will cause the ship to slow down.
* Black holes will pull you towards them until you run out of fuel and get stuck in space (GAME OVER!).
* UFO’s should be avoided at all cost as they will destroy you on the spot.
In order to travel far into space you need rocket fuel, there are fuel power-up’s that appear randomly throughout the game and you need to pick up as many as possible. There are also other power-up’s to help you on your mission such as a Shield and some Nitro.
Very polished looking game! Check out the screenshots:
DarkSonar, a new kind of submarine battle game, from TriApps has just hit the appstore! Here is the description of the app:
Missions
Find the enemies and destroy them.
Locate the base of the enemies and destroy it.
You must help our allied mother ship not to be sunken,
You must help our allies to destroy all the enemies.
And so on.
Weapons
You can switch your weapon at any time during the battles (missions) : like torpedo, homing, mine, bomb and decoy (If your ship is upgraded to use it)
Don’t forget to upgrade your weapons more powerful (Damage, Weapon Speed, etc)
Features
Single play mode only
Total 14 missions are included
Upgrade screen after each mission
Dynamic battles with great sounds
Intuitive user interfaces and easy to control
Prologue and Credits at the end of this game.
Here is a gameplay video:
The game looks really cool – I have never seen anything like this before. We’re going to try to get our hands on it and give it a good review.
A very nifty puzzle game, Project Void from IGotItGames, has recently hit the app store. It’s pretty unique, check out the description:
The goal is to use Tetris-styled pieces to cover randomly generated game boards. Along the way to the finish line you’ll encounter colored voids, tools and more. There are two game modes to experience – a more casual, friendly mode, and a hardcore timed mode. In the end, post your score online to give somebody else a run for their money!
Here is a gameplay video:
The game looks pretty challenging, and apparently the stages are randomly generated! We’ve added it to our review queue, so be on the look out for it.
Just learned that Mortal Skies – Modern War Air Combat Shooter by Erwin Jansen has just hit the app store. I’m a huge fan of shmups, and this game looks great. Here are is a gameplay video:
And here are some screenshots:
Game looks fantastic – despite reports of its difficulty. Probably going to pick it up sometime later this week. Hope you all enjoy it!
A very cool looking 3D racing game called Electro Racer from Discovery Networks International has just hit the app store. Here is the app description:
Get ready for an exciting new Racing game on the iPhone from Discovery International. The team that brought you Cannon Challenge, now brings you “Electro Racer”
High-speed arcade racing game Electro Racer, lets you pilot a futuristic alternative fuel hovercraft through two adrenaline packed race tracks. Collect powerups and glide through turns and jumps as you compete against computer-controlled opponents, and then upload your high scores to see how your performance ranks on the global online leaderboard.
KEY FEATURES:
4 Different Alternative Fuel Vehicles
Exciting 3D graphics
2 High speed race circuits
Online Leaderboards
If you like F-Zero, Ridge Racer, Wipeout, Need for Speed, or Asphalt 4, then you should play Electro Racer Today!
Check it out, definitely looks like a promising racing title.
In the far flung future mankind needed a way to carry out dangerous and complicated undersea missions. They turned to the most logical tool for the job. You guessed it: Telepathically controlled cloned sea turtles.
Let me run that past you again.
Telepathically controlled cloned sea turtles.
Thus we have the premise of Mission: Deep Sea. You’ll play as the pilot of one such turtle, taking on various missions with the main goal of saving the environment. The game’s controls are pretty intuitive and original. Each half of the screen controls one of the turtle’s front flippers, so you end up making actual swimming motions to move around. After only a few minutes of practice I was easily maneuvering the undersea terrain. I should also mention that the graphics are pretty good in this game. The sand textures look pretty believable and the water itself has a good murky look to it that gives you a feel for how dark things can be underwater. Your turtle itself looks great and animates fluidly, which is great because you’ll be staring at its back for the entire length of the game.
Turtle! Turtle! Turtle!
It’s quite unfortunate that my praise for Mission: Deep Sea has to stop here because the most important factor, the game part, is a poorly designed and boring mess. You’ll only have 5 missions to play through before the credits roll and each mission only takes around 3-4 minutes to complete. There is only one mission that stood apart from the others and actually took me about 15 minutes to complete and that was only because it was so poorly designed that you end up swimming around aimlessly until you find your objective. Also, four out of five missions task you with doing the exact same thing. You may be given some sort of different context each time, but in the end all you really do is position yourself in front of your objective to win. Even then, the game can be overly picky about positioning. The second mission tries to mix things up a bit by making you try and catch up to a moving target, and trust me when I say that this is the only remotely fun mission in the game. It’s never a good sign when your game peaks at the second level. The last mission is actually the only one that plays differently but unfortunately its so terribly designed that it just ends up being immensely frustrating.
There is a story here that the developers try to squeeze in during the last missions in order to give some semblance of a need for a sequel. Overall though, its pretty generic and easily forgotten. I also feel the need to rant a bit about the environmental protection themes present throughout the game. Let me be perfectly clear that I actually strongly support protecting the environment, but the way the game approaches the subject is just childish. In reality, sea turtles are an endangered species. In the game, this is no longer a problem because we simply solved it through cloning. Also, if you ever accidentally swallow a plastic bag (The only way to fail most missions.) you’ll be informed that everything is okay and the bag was removed through an easy and painless procedure, instead of the truth that your poor innocent sea turtle just died. Overall I found that this approach just trivialized an important issue.
You'd think that the only two cutscenes in the game would have actually been proofread
Overall, Mission: Deep Sea is a couple of great ideas held down by some absolutely terrible ones. The missions are repetitive and poorly designed, so much so that I simply cannot recommend it to anyone. Hopefully these significant flaws will be corrected in the eventual sequel.
Score
MustTap Score: Rusty Tap
It works, but I still wouldn't drink from it.
Bottom Line
Though it may seem interesting from the onset, Mission: Deep Sea just has too many flawed ideas for it to be worth your money.
Low Grav Racer, from Cobra Mobile, will be free for an unspecified period of time, so be sure to grab it while you can! Reminiscent of F-Zero, definitely one of those titles you gotta check out, and it’s free, so you can’t really go wrong.
Chillingo has let us know that Cogs, by Lazy 8 Studios, will be submitted very soon to the app store. Here is the description of the game:
Cogs is a groundbreaking puzzle game, where players build increasingly complex machines using sliding tiles in 2D and 3D environments. Multiple gameplay modes and difficulty levels are available. New puzzles are unlocked by building contraptions against the clock with as few moves as possible. This visually stunning and fantastic sounding game is perfect for puzzle fans of any age and ability!
And they even included a great gameplay trailer:
The game looks magnificent – maybe it’s just the inner Incredible Machines fanboy in me talking, but the game looks amazing. It looks like Pipe Dream and Incredible Machines had a love child, and the love child was dipped in holy water. We can’t wait to get our hands on it, and we’ll hopefully have a review up as soon as it comes out!
Flick Kick Field Goal, from PikPok Games, has just hit the app store!
Here’s the description:
See if you have what it takes to compete in the ultimate American Football Field Goal Kicking competition.
Field Goal features multiple kicking challenges, realistic graphics and insanely addictive flick to kick game play.
Flick Kick™ Field Goal Features
• Intuitive Flick Kicking: Control the angle and curve of your kick with the flick of your finger.
• Ultimate Football Challenge: 360 degree wind with shifting severity. Anything from a light breeze to gale force winds must be taken into account
• Multiple Game Modes:
– Sudden Death: The classic test of skill. No time limit, just keep making kicks to add multipliers to your score.
– Arcade Mode: kicks are taken from five different positions. Score as many points as you can. The last kick at each position will award you bonus points if you make it.
– Time Attack: Quick Fire Flick Kicking! Make as many kicks as possible within the time limit – Don’t buckle under the pressure!
– Practise Mode: Perfect your technique and learn how to become a kicking master
• Online Leaderboards and Achievements with OpenFeint Support : Show your friends that you’re the best kicker around
• iPod Library Access: play your favourite music during the game
• Stunning 3D graphics!
