Since the early days of the App Store, users have gotten used to a two tiered app distribution model: the paid version which comes at a cost, but comes with a full range of features, and the free/lite version, which comes with a limited set of features, but comes as a free download. This model is in part thanks to the inability of apps to offer in-app purchases before iOS 3.0 was released, so Lite versions couldn’t offer upgrades to full versions. Although developers and publishers have had the ability to offer a single version of games that are unlocked via a purchase in-app, no major release has dared to try to change up the working model, until now.
Gameloft’s new Zelda-inspired fantasy action/RPG game Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden is being released to the App Store as a free download. The game, compatible with 3rd generation and up devices, gives you a small taste of the game before requiring you to pay $6.99 to unlock the full game in-app. Very few apps have tried the same trick so far – Time Crisis 2nd Strike HD, Astronut, and Tilt to Live HD being notable examples. This kind of model makes sense, theoretically – instead of confusing users by splitting the game into two different SKUs on the App Store, and making users go download a completely different app if they want to upgrade, you let them easily upgrade from a transaction in the app itself.
The problem is if users will be willing to adjust to this new model that Gameloft is trying out. Gameloft is likely hoping that more people buy the game given that they can try the game out for no cost. However, will the in-app purchase model to unlock the full game confuse too many people, who are used to the free/lite model? Will the barrage of one-star reviews that Gameloft is likely to get from users who feel like they’re being deceived by the in-app purchase to download the full game? This is a curious gambit from Gameloft, and it will be interesting to see how users react to it, and if future releases adopt a similar pricing model or not. If this is a success, this could be a potential sea change in the release structure of games on the App Store, or it could potentially doom the concept.
Developer: Candywriter
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.4
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4
Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Solitaire is (probably) as old as time. It’s seemingly been on every PC ever and I suspect more hours have been pumped into it than any other game, even scary big MMOs. So just how do you mix it up to make it new and exciting once more? Simple. Add a word game to it.
Word Solitaire: Aurora does exactly that. Following the traditional solitaire route, instead of matching up relevant cards, instead you have to create words. Each card offers a letter and it’s down to you to make the best words from the selection. Using a similar scoring system to Scrabble, the ‘harder’ letters like J and X offer more points so it’s in your interest to create more complex words than simple three or four letter combos. At times it really makes your brain tick and it’s a refreshing change of pace from the usual solitaire game.
A campaign mode offers 250 levels each of which gradually increasing in difficulty. Amongst these levels are Milestone levels which focus on specific letters of the alphabet and offer a varied challenge. There’s also a quick play mode with a wealth of options if you prefer just diving in briefly. More intriguingly is the daily puzzle mode whereby you can compete with other people across a global leaderboard. This is the mode you’ll find yourself returning to regularly. After all, who can resist that moment of fame, topping the leaderboard?
In my case I suck at creating words and am distinctly mediocre at all word games, but I do enjoy it. Word Solitaire: Aurora is certainly great fun providing a great twist on the solitaire format. Including so many great social tools such as the daily puzzle, leaderboards and achievements just makes for icing on the cake. It’s the kind of game that you’ll find yourself playing obsessively at first, but even after the initial excitement has gone, you’ll still be returning to it daily for the next challenge.
Developer: Fireflame Games
Price: $2.99
Version Reviewed: 1.2.2
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4
Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.88 out of 5 stars
There’s a reason why Match three titles are so prevalent on the app store: they’re addictive. They’re simple of course, very simple, but that’s what hooks you. It’s easy to drop into for how ever long you want to be gaming, making it a ideal genre for a casual or portable gamer. Puzzle Quest revolutionised this genre though by adding more depth to proceedings and including RPG elements. Dungeon Raid does something very similar. It’s not as deep, lacking a storyline to tie everything together, but it is rather good fun.
The game starts throwing you immediately into battle. In order to hit your enemy, you have to string together various gems. It’s very much like a Match three game but the difference is that you can match as many of one gem as you like. This is done by dragging your finger across adjoining gems and letting go. It’s all very easy to get to grips with, at least once you get over the fact that you can clear more than three gems at a time. Each gem correlates to something of use. Skulls and daggers for example damage your foe, while gold helps you buy new items and upgrade existing ones. Experience can be gained with new skills unlocked as you level up and potions restore your health.
The game is never-ending really. You just keep going, trying to last as long as possible while taking on new monsters. The monsters level up with you so the fight gets increasingly trickier adding a much needed dose of strategy to proceedings. The steady stream of upgrades encourages you to keep playing with a sense of gratification throughout. Ultimately though, you’re doing it for the sake of having the best high score which – if worthy enough – features on OpenFeint and Game Center.
All these features makes Dungeon Raid an ideal game to play whenever you get a spare 10 minutes, but also an ideal game to play for extended sessions. It is a little overpriced sadly at $2.99 but then it is also excellent fun. If it had a story mode, it’d be a must buy but even without that, it’s still an excellent purchase to make for Puzzle Quest fans.
The iPad may have a big and beautiful screen, but sometimes, you want to play those games on an even bigger screen, like your TV. Thankfully, there are a selection of iOS games that allow you to hook up your iPad and/or iPhone/iPod touch to the TV using the VGA adapter, and sit back and enjoy games on your monitor or HDTV.
Rage HD: Consoles and PCs won’t be getting the id Tech 5 engine and the full Rage game until the end of this year at least, but you can play the first fruits of the id Tech 5 engine on your monitor TV through Rage HD. Plug in your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad into your TV, and you can play id’s latest game on your TV, making those console and PC owners all kinds of jealous. While the game’s on-screen buttons can be a bit challenging to manage without looking at your device’s screen at first, the TV still displays the location of those buttons, so you can get used to the location of the buttons using that visual guide.
Released: 2010-11-18 :: Category: Games / Adventure
Max Adventure: Imangi’s dual-stick shooter supports TV out as well, allowing you to directly plug in and play on the iOS device of your choice. The game is easier to control in many respects than Rage HD is, due to the easy to use dual-stick controls that let you just use your left thumb to move, and right thumb to fire, with double-tapping on the right side of the screen used to activate your powerups. Easy to setup, easy to play, just as the game itself is.
Released: 2010-12-14 :: Category: Games / Adventure
The Incident: If you want to play this game on your TV, you’ll need an iPad and an iPhone/iPod touch to control it with. Despite the cost of entry, The Incident looks fantastic on an external display in HD. As well, the game runs in anamorphic 16:9 widescreen, meaning if you set your HDTV or monitor to stretch, it will fill the whole screen. The game also features simple controls that only require you to tilt your iPhone or iPod touch and tap anywhere on it to jump. This one is almost worth playing just so you can appreciate the irony of using the latest and greatest in portable technology to play an 8-bit inspired game on your TV.
Chopper 2: One of the very first games to support TV output, and one of the best. While you have to have two iOS devices to play the game with, one hooked up to the TV and one to use the remote controls with, the experience and feature set is probably the best. There’s anamorphic 16:9 widescreen, multiple control schemes to use for iPhone/iPod touch depending if you want to use tilt controls or not, and you can thankfully see your firing angle on screen, making the iPhone or iPod touch in your hands practically melt away and become a natural controller. The game thankfully also supports online save synchronization with OpenFeint, so you can easily take your game across whatever iOS device you want to use. You can even use your iOS version of the game to play the Mac App Store version of Chopper 2 remotely.
While the selection of TV-out enabled games is currently limited, the selection currently available is quite fine. As well, worthy of special mention is Red Nova, which supports remote controls but doesn’t support TV-out yet. While some form of standardization of remote and display-out protocols would help get more games supporting these features, for now, there is a quality selection of games to enjoy on the larger display of your choice.
While this is an iOS apps site, not all of us play games on just iOS devices. Shockingly, there are even games on other devices that people play on their PC or game consoles! One of these shockingly non-iOS games is Call of Duty: Black Ops. One of the neat features that the game includes for user individualization is the ability to create custom user emblems. By placing and morphing the various emblems available, users can create original designs (although some people have taken this opportunity to create designs that are either offensive or vulgar – sometimes they’re creatively offensive, but still offensive) to express their creativity.
Now, the problem is that to create or toy around with these emblems, you have to be actually playing the game to play with the emblem creator, and you might often be thinking of making an emblem between rounds of the game, never getting any time to actually play around with the emblem maker. Or, you might think that you want to play around with your emblem while you’re on the subway or train. What recourse do you have then? Enter Emblem Tools for Black Ops.
This unfortunately unofficial app replicates the functionality of Call of Duty: Black Ops’ emblem creator exactly – all 489 emblems are replicated in the game, which you can put in up to 12 layers, in a variety of colors. You can move, scale, and rotate them to your heart’s content. As some of the emblems are not available unless you play the game an obscene amount, or just don’t have a job, you can also use this app to toy around with those emblems that you will never be able to get. This is a relatively simple app, but thankfully does support fast app switching and the Retina Display for your on-the-go emblem creation. Call of Duty: Black Ops addicts may want to check this one out, though one can only hope that it proves to be a catalyst for some kind of official solution from Call of Duty publisher Activision that would allow users to modify their actual emblems via this app.
Since the early days of the App Store, users have gotten used to a two tiered app distribution model: the paid version which comes at a cost, but comes with a full range of features, and the free/lite version, which comes with a limited set of features, but comes as a free download. This model is in part thanks to the inability of apps to offer in-app purchases before iOS 3.0 was released, so Lite versions couldn’t offer upgrades to full versions. Although developers and publishers have had the ability to offer a single version of games that are unlocked via a purchase in-app, no major release has dared to try to change up the working model, until now.
Word Solitaire: Aurora does exactly that. Following the traditional solitaire route, instead of matching up relevant cards, instead you have to create words. Each card offers a letter and it’s down to you to make the best words from the selection. Using a similar scoring system to Scrabble, the ‘harder’ letters like J and X offer more points so it’s in your interest to create more complex words than simple three or four letter combos. At times it really makes your brain tick and it’s a refreshing change of pace from the usual solitaire game. 
The game starts throwing you immediately into battle. In order to hit your enemy, you have to string together various gems. It’s very much like a Match three game but the difference is that you can match as many of one gem as you like. This is done by dragging your finger across adjoining gems and letting go. It’s all very easy to get to grips with, at least once you get over the fact that you can clear more than three gems at a time. Each gem correlates to something of use. Skulls and daggers for example damage your foe, while gold helps you buy new items and upgrade existing ones. Experience can be gained with new skills unlocked as you level up and potions restore your health. 
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