Blue Skies…Shooting at Me…

• Developer: Rocking Pocket Games
• Version: 2.0
• Cost:Free for Lite version / $5.99 for Full Version
• For: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch
• Download URL

To add to the gameplay, you have options of purchasing weapon upgrades, and you have a basic storyline in between levels to complete the package. Okay, the storyline is cheezy really doesn’t add much to game and the graphics are uncharacteristically amateur.  Nevertheless, even the demo is full featured and enjoyable to play.

It’s a Creature-Eat-Creature-World Out There

• Developer: Electronic Arts
• Version: 1.0.0
• Cost: $9.99
• For: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch
• Download URL

Back in March when the iPhone 3G and app store was announced, a little tech demo showing a version of Spore on the iPhone was the talk of the town for quite a while.  It was probably one of the most anticipated games for the iPhone for quite a while.  Flash forward to September, and Spore arrived, and as of this post I’ve been playing Spore Origins on and off for about a month now.

Does the game live up to the hype?  From a sales perspective, I’m not so sure.  It quickly disappeared off of the Top Paid Apps in about 2 weeks and haven’t seen it come back since.  In terms of my impressions, the game is beautifully created and really shows off the power of the iPhone as a gaming device.  The graphics - from the multi-layer background to the smooth animation, is visually very pleasing (although my creature is anything but ugly) and the music and sound effects blend perfectly into the gameplay.

On the game itself, the premise is very simple.  You control a little creature of your own design, that swims around and makes its way from primordial goup until it reaches deep water.  Throughout this little journey, the creature must swim through different areas and do two things: eat and avoid being eaten.  There are little colorful tadpoles which you compete with other creatures to eat, the larger of which would also be happy to eat you as well.  As you progress through the different levels, you get larger in size, and creatures that used to take a bite out of you now become part of your dinner menu.  After each level, you also get the option of “evolving” your creature - adding new features such as spikes, teeth, and armor to make you stronger, faster, or easier to capture food.
The app uses the tilt controls on the iphone as used on many games.  However, the controls don’t seem as sensitive as many of the driving games out there, which is a positive - I for one still can’t get used to the highly sensitive controls.

Overall Thoughts

Spore Origins is beautifully done - great graphics, sounds, and controls.  It really shows what a great game system the iPhone can be.  The only negative against the game is the lack of variety in the gameplay - there’s really only 2 things to do, eat and avoid being eaten.  After the 10th of so level, this starts getting repetitive and definitely reduces the replay value of the game.  Recommended if (when) the price drops.

App Score: 4.0 out of 5

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A well designed game with a smart pricing strategy

• Category: Games
• Developer: IUGO Mobile Entertainment
• Version: 1.1
• Cost:$3.99
• For: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch
• Download URL

Game developer IUGO promised “intuitive touch and tilt controls, physics-based game play, and platform action mixed with puzzles” in iphone game Toy Bot Diaries - Entry 1; and they delivered. If you are looking for a game that requires both your knowledge of physics and puzzle solving skills, and at the same time deliver cute characters, you don’t need to look any further.

Toy Bot Diaries is one of the rare iphone games out there that truly uses iphone’s tilt function naturally. In fact, tilting your iphone left and right is the basis of movement in the game. Game play is heavily physics-based. In addition to tilting, you move Toy Bot through the 4 levels (with sub stages) by touching metal objects on screen to trigger grappling hook and magnet boots. The controls are so well done that I forgot I was playing a game on an iphone. I hope this would set the minimum standard of game control for iphone games for the next little while.

Back to the actual game: - you aren’t provided with a lot of instructions, so you need to figure out most of it through game play. At the same time, you are also figuring out how to navigate the different obstacles each stage. After all this app is also a puzzle game. Be prepared to get a little frustrated (or a lot) when you are stuck and not know what to do next. It happened to me a few times, but I am the type to persist through challenges. Some may feel so frustrated and just abandon. Dying means going back to the previous savespot, and there are many throughout. If you get really stuck at a spot, you may find it quite repetitive as you perform the same action again and again to make it through to the next savespot.

Game controls for Toy Bot Diaries, as mentioned above, is first class. The game has also got some pretty good graphics and music to go with it. One of my complaints is its lack of indication whether you may be falling into a tunnel to death or onto the next level. Another maybe the length of the game.

The Scoop
This game is part 1 of a series of episodes. It takes an average of an hour to finish the game. For $3.99, it is a fun little game for the casual iPhone gamers out there. But don’t look for a lot of replay value here.

App Score: 3.5 out of 5

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To launch our new Download Center, we’ve uploade CubeRunner Level Pack 1.0.  This level pack contains a collection of the twenty best level packs for CubeRunner found on the Internet.

To download this file, go to our Download Center now!

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