Overview

In case its incredible graphics and game depth aren’t enough to impress you, Real Soccer 2009’s shockingly comprehensive controls will have you mesmerized and hooked in minutes. Stepovers, through balls, one-twos and spin moves aren’t supposed to be possible in a cell phone game, but this app does it all, and in a fun and flexible format. It’s a must-have for soccer fans.

Gameplay

A two-button virtual pad may seem limiting, but this game’s creative use of tapping and dragging allows for an amazing amount of control.

From lob passes and conservative tackles to fake shots and Marseille roulettes (couldn’t they just call it a spin move?) the in-game possibilities are stunning.

Real Soccer (as opposed to fake soccer) also offers a variety of game modes and options.

Users can play a quick exhibition match with European club teams, go for the Premiership title in league play or take on the world in an international cup tournament. There is even a penalty kick shootout mini-game and also a training mode to brush up on the controls.

The length, difficulty, place and time of matches are all flexible (although there are only 12 locations to choose from) as are team jerseys, formations, lineups and substitutions.

Unfortunately there is no multiplayer option at the moment (although it is set to be included in the next app update) and, although the game has real player names, the club teams and logos don’t seem to be licensed for most leagues, which isn’t a big deal since the players and team colors are the same, but seeing “Man. Red” instead of Manchester United, or “London” instead of Arsenal, was odd.

And no, you can’t play with the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Review

Real Soccer is amazing. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but it’s darn close. Its graphical beauty and variety of gameplay options have made it the early standard-bearer in iPhone sports games and the app is so well done that it’s genuinely difficult to put down.

I’ll admit, I had no idea what a Marseille roulette was, but as soon as I started tracing circles on my screen I fell in love with the move. And it was so easy to do, a testament to the game’s intuitive controls.

The flexibility of the app was also impressive, although the maximum game duration is capped at 15 minutes, so don’t plan on any 90-minute iPhone nail-biters. Also, while users can elect to play in the snow, no frozen-tundra-style snow storms seem to materialize during the game (although the grass does appear to be whiter than normal). But snow or no snow, who cares?! A 3D soccer game that lets you do a “flip flap” (that’s a juke move, for those of us not in-the-know) is worthy of being snow-less!

Real Soccer 2009’s graphics, controls and variety of game modes will leave you in an astounded stupor. It’s a great game that is likely to improve with updates, including the upcoming addition of WiFi multiplayer mode, and is definitely worth your money. If you’re a soccer fan, you shouldn’t be depriving yourself of this fun-filled title.

Gameloft, esteemed mobile gaming company and the creators of Asphalt 4: Elite Racing, are one of the more underrated developers of the current gaming landscape. Specialising in games catering to the handheld and arcade markets, it’s fair to say Gameloft have a respectful experience in this popular division. The Asphalt franchise has seen considerable success since its inception, with its unique brand of racing inspired by likes of Need for Speed, Burnout and even Project Gotham Racing. While elements of the game are similar to these titles, it still manages to stand out, and establish itself as an extremely competent videogame, making full use of the iPhone and iPod Touch’s utterly fantastic touch-screen interface.

With a total lack of buttons, you’d be forgiven for thinking a racing game wouldn’t work on Apple’s little machine. Thankfully, Gameloft has proven this isn’t the case, with three control schemes that all work well. The first control scheme, and arguably the most precise and reliable, uses the touch-screen. By pressing your fingers on the right and left of the screen you can steer your vehicle, with turbo and the brakes a quick button press away. Acceleration is automatic for all control schemes, a wise decision on Gameloft’s part, to avoid player frustration. For the second configuration, you need to tilt the machine to manoeuvre round bends, with a forward tilt enabling turbo. Sometimes the sensitivity becomes an issue, and you can be forever accidentally activating turbo, but it’s a decent alternative to the default that many players will utilise. The final and perhaps weakest control scheme places a steering wheel at the bottom left of the screen. By placing your finger over it you steer the car as you slide your fingers left and right. It’s another decent alternative, just a little awkward.

Upon entering the main game, the interface is initially confusing, with the ability to race just a click away. You get the option to change the track and mode from one screen, whether to play WiFi multiplayer on another, and finally a screen for car selection. Once you learn all the ins and outs of the menu interface, and read up on the help section, you’ll be pleased with how things are laid out, as it lends well to pick-up-and-play gameplay, exactly what iPhone games are made for.

You get five race modes to indulge in. There’s Duel, which is simply a two-lap race against one other car, and Cop Chase, where you assume the role of the police and need to take down the leading car. Less race orientated is Beat Em ‘All, which is similar to Burnout’s road rage mode, where you need to destroy your opponents cars, this time before you finish three laps – lack of crash damage detracts somewhat from the experience, but this is iPod not PlayStation. Cash attack is a mode where you need to make as much money as possible by smashing up scenery, clearing jumps and collecting cash icons, and finally you have the standard race mode, ironically one of the better games thanks to its no-nonsense, ‘we all know and love it’ status. This plethora of modes is certainly welcome, although dependant on whether you enjoy novelty, you may wish there was less arcade smashing and higher-octane racing, or vice-versa.

The racing gameplay, thanks to the tight and innovative controls, is a lot of fun. Pedestrian cars are out and about and don’t frustrate too often, adding an air of authenticity and the feel of a living, breathing world. When you cause too much havoc the police become on your tail and you need to shrug them off or ram them to get back on track. When you race particularly flashy, utilising the most of your turbo, the news team ride by in a helicopter, which is a neat touch that doesn’t clutter the screen as you’d expect, instead heightening the action. The opponent cars all drive intelligently, and put up quite a fight, yet at the same time the difficulty is well-balanced, affording you a more enjoyable ride. It’s arguably a little too easy sometimes, but that comes down to the skill of the player - it just so happens that this player is extremely adept and skilful.

Over forty cars and a few motorbikes can be eventually bought, and each is completely licensed and recreated with finesse. Included in the mix are the Ferrari Scuderia, Lotus Elise, Ford GT and the Italian beauty that is the Bugatti Veyron. You can tune every car with new parts; however this part of the game feels slightly pointless, if only for the fact the advantage to customising your ride isn’t massive. It sometimes feels like a chore, especially having to apply the same upgrades to newly purchased cars, but petrol heads should reap the benefits. Because the money you get after the completion of events is significantly larger than the price of each vehicle, there’s no grinding to be had, and newly unlocked cars can be bought with ease - whether this is a bad thing is entirely subjective.

The visuals, and more importantly the tracks, is what makes Asphalt 4: Elite Racing stand out, and the lure of new courses needing to be unlocked is always high. With just under ten tracks, all with four events, this game will keep you busy. The locales range from Shanghai to Dubai, from Hawaii to Rome, and from New York to Las Vegas. The day courses are incredibly scenic, and instead of the same four buildings or sea views cropping up every corner, you get little shanty towns, to palaces, to waterfalls. Each course has been expertly crafted, and there’s always something interesting to see as you drive round them. The night courses boast fluorescent hues and sparkling lights, while the day courses contain coliseums, the Brooklyn Bridge, and sweeping tunnels, amongst other memorable monuments. You’ll enjoy the sight-seeing on offer in this game, and the fact everything is presented through fantastic visuals and the very best production values the iPhone and iPod Touch can offer, is impressive. Gameloft need applauding for the marvellous aesthetic they’ve created here. Sound is decent, with cute snippets of dialogue, predictable engine whirls and police sirens along with a harmless soundtrack. With a game like this, however, audio takes a backseat.

When you ask yourself whether it’s worth a purchase, the answer couldn’t be simpler. For a pocket money price you’re getting an extremely solid racer, one that ticks lots of boxes. Asphalt 4: Elite Racing is a great racing game, and possibly the best out on Apple’s handheld sensation. The tracks are the real star, with a fantastic range of interesting, replay-friendly locations, and thanks to the controls, you can enjoy them as they were intended. Just like the roads you’ll race on, this game is slick.

My first thought when I played Cartoon Wars was that it’s amazing how much blood a stick figure can generate. The stick figure in question is one of the many that make up the black and white cartoon tribe. They’ve joined their stick hands and are up in arms against the colored cartoon tribe which has been oppressing them for ages.

You will have to fight and help the black and white tribe conquer the enemy’s castle.. The method to do this is to produce units of stick figures by tapping on the icon buttons at the bottom of the screen. You have your own castle too, and a giant bow at the top; you can adjust the angle of the bow and shoot arrows with the help of a button at the bottom right of the screen.

An interesting feature is a ‘mana booster’ that stands behind your castle. I personally think the mana figure here looks something like the Statue of Liberty, but this supernatural force sure helps in the big fight. The more mana you upgrade, the more its production is.

Since this is the cartoon world, be assured that you will be facing a lot of imaginative and colorful enemies with all sorts of powers. But as you dissolve each enemy in a puddle of blood, your coins count increases. Use them to armor yourself with more than 30 types of units, and different kinds of upgrades.

The levels are unlimited, so Cartoon Wars makes for a long gameplay. The numerous upgrades along the way keep you busy making battle decisions, except when you hit a roadblock after level 31 cos you have bought just about every unit and upgrade. BLUE could perhaps get busy creating more of them?

The units produce really fast like rabbits (bad pun, I know), so no problem there, but it is difficult to control the aim of the bow. Cartoon Wars would also be a lot cooler if it could be played in multi-player mode, maybe with the two tribes against each other.

There are quite a few spelling and grammar errors, so that’s something to be taken care of too. Even with all this glitches, Cartoon Wars is a fun game with an interesting storyline. Where else do you find lil cartoon stick figures with mana in them?

The Best Comment gets a PROMO CODE of this Game.

Sally’s Spa ($1.99, download) is an enjoyable and surprisingly detailed business simulator that puts you in charge of running a spa. While the subject matter is clearly aimed at girls, the game is challenging and fun enough that some dudes might like it too. Overall, Sally’s Spa is a well-designed game that adds new challenges and bonuses from beginning to end, creating hours of engrossing gameplay. I found it addictive and rate it 7.6 out of 10, recommended.

If you’ve ever dreamed of giving manicures and plucking eyebrows for a living, then Sally’s Spa is probably the perfect game for you. But even those who don’t have beautician dreams can find it challenging and, perhaps for men, somewhat educational. The object of the game is to manage your time and efforts in order to satisfy customers who enter the spa, as your revenue is tied to putting a smile on customers’ faces.

To do that, customers can’t wait too long for their next steam bath, facial, massage, etc, before losing patience. The game is based around earning (or losing) hearts that measure customer happiness. Apply the right kind of bubble bath and you’ll earn a heart. Ignore a customer too long and eventually they’ll get fed up and storm out of the spa.

To take care of a customer, you either drag them to the next station with your finger or tap on them to apply the treatments. Some of the stations have secondary tasks, such as choosing the right type of bubble bath or applying the right kind of hot stone for the heat massages.

After you successfully navigate the customers through the various spa treatments, they pay for your services based on how satisfied they are, which is visualized via a row of red hearts attached to each customer. You can also earn bonus cash by selling beauty products that customers purchase while waiting. To pass to the next level, you must meet the minimum revenue for each level.

Probably the funnest part of the game is buying upgrades to your spa. You can purchase workers who will control certain stations such as the steam baths or massage tables, freeing up your time to take care of other services. You can also purchase helpful items like scented candles that will soothe customers and make them more patient and herbal teas that will have the customers feeling a little bit more groovy about sitting in your spa.

As the game progresses and you become more successful, you travel to spas across the globe where new treatments are introduced, including fingernail trimming, eyebrow clipping, and foot massages.

My only complaint with Sally’s Spa is that it takes too long before the game becomes difficult. Perhaps it’s my familiarity with time management games (see my review of the similar Hell’s Kitchen), but I was about 2 hours into the game before I lost my first customer.

Conclusion
Sally’s Spa is a whimsical business simulator that is impressive in its detail and polished design. New challenges and bonuses provide hours of gameplay, making the game a value at lower prices (currently $1.99). We give it a recommended rating of 7.6 out of 10.

Games conceived by borrowing elements from other popular games are not often a success. Hero of Sparta was obviously inspired by Sony’s God of War series as well as the blockbuster movie 300. Yet instead of unwinding like a too-late facsimile, Hero of Sparta explodes on the iPhone as a superlative action game full of big thrills and the kind of hack-and-slash gameplay that hardcore gamers love. This is truly one of the best iPhone games of the year and a must-download for any fan of action games, including those that have already played God of War to death.

The game opens with King Argos waking up on a beach. His ship is shattered on the shore around him. There is a mystery to be solved here for sure, but Argos doesn’t use subtle means to unravel it. Instead, he kicks his sword and shield into overdrive, smashing through hordes of creatures straight out of Greek mythology. There is no shortage of monsters to cut down, either. The Oracle’s Island, and the several stages the follow it (Atlantis makes a cameo, for example), are crawling with Minotaur, centaurs, and gorgons demand to be run through with your powerful blade.

When you cut down monsters, you collect colored orbs that serve various purposes. Green orbs restore flagging health while red orbs are accumulated until you can level up your weapons, just like you might find in God of War or the Onimusha series. It’s an effect racket, since it keeps you from just running past enemies. Sure, you may want to avoid a few battles when you are close to perishing, but skipping too many means you cannot “purchase” the best upgrades and attacks and that will make some of the bigger battles tougher.

However, some of your fights against huge beasts, like a Minotaur, are cut short when you instigate a timing event. When the enemy is weak or presents the opportunity, a button appears on-screen. Press it to start the event. In these short scenes, time slows and little discs appear on the screen. If you press all of them as they appear, Argos slays the monster outright. Typically, the execution is accompanied by a somewhat gruesome animation, like Argos drawing his blade across a centaur’s throat. You are rewarded for pulling off executions with an extra number of colorful orbs, so always keep an eye on the lower right corner of the screen for the availability of these special executions.

Pulling off specials is easy in Hero of Sparta.

In addition to collecting orbs, you also earn special gear such a larger shield that can be used it a slam attack, a bigger sword, an axe, and more armor. The game is smart about doling out these improvements. It keeps you playing to see what you can earn next as well as if it unlocks another cool special move.

Recently, I hammered Gameloft’s Brothers in Arms for its awkward control schemes. They completely spoiled the game. Hero of Sparta is unburdened by its smart controls. You hold your device horizontally. There is a virtual analog stick in the lower left corner of the screen. Attack and defend buttons appear in the lower right corner. I had very few problems controlling Argos, and those that I did encounter, were in the beginning of the game when I was still getting familiar with the inputs. The attack and defend buttons are always responsive. Using them to unleash special moves and combos is easy. For example, when you get your shield upgrade, you can use it to push enemies back through a special move by pressing the defend button and then dragging your thumb up into the action. Right away, Argos releases a shock wave that flattens all nearby enemies. Gameloft’s virtual console controls here deserve to be looked at and imitated by other developers considering their own action games.

Hero of Sparta is also, hands down, the best looking 3D iPhone game to date. The world around Argos is richly detailed and painted with an impressive number of colors. The texture work on Argos, the monsters, and the environments is stellar. (During cutscenes, check out Argos’ face. That is some great texture mapping.) Hero of Sparta is illuminated by excellent light effects, too. Slowdown is rare. The soundtrack is loud and bombastic, as you might expect for a 300-style game. Gameloft informed me that an audio update is on the way soon, though, that will improve some of the audio production.
Closing Comments
With so many bargains on the App Store, I sometimes hesitate to recommend a $10 game. However, I have zero qualms giving Hero of Sparta a full-throated endorsement. This is a thrilling action game loaded with cinematic flair. The controls work exceptionally well; they never get between you and the game. Hero of Sparta could be completed in just five or so hours, but $2 an hour for a game of this quality is a deal. Make it one of your next downloads.

In Cro-Mag Rally you are a speed-hungry caveman named Brog who races through the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages in primitive vehicles such as the Geode Cruiser, Bone Buggy, Logmobile, Trojan Horse, and many others. Brog has at his disposal an arsenal of primitive weaponry ranging from Bone Bombs to Chinese Bottle Rockets and Heat Seeking Homing Pigeons. In addition to single-player racing where one player races against the computer, there are also several different multi-player modes (available only when running on OS 9) including Tag, Capture the Flag, and Survival. Two players can play on a single computer in split-screen mode, or up to 6 players can play over a network.

Cro-Mag Rally is an incredibly diverse and entertaining racing game, and there is nothing else like it for the Macintosh! The game is visually stunning, has incredibly fun driving physics, and is suitable for all ages. Download the demo to try it out!

Download Cro-Mag Rally and get behind the wheel of a prehistoric hot rod. Your iPhone is the steering wheel as you avoid obstacles and fire off primitive weapons like Bone Bombs and Heat-Seeking Homing Pigeons.

Cro-Mag Rally has 3 different difficulty settings: Easy, Medium, and Hard.

Pangea Software recommends playing in Hard mode since that is the most fun, and playing in Easy mode is essentially cheating. However, here is a list of what the different modes actually do:

Easy
• Only need to come in 3rd place or better to win a Tournament mode race.
• All cars have significantly better suspension.
• All cars have significantly better traction.
• CPU cars don’t know how to brake when approaching tight turns.
• CPU cars never shoot weapons or use Nitro’s.
• Europe cannons don’t fire.
• Jungle Pterodactyls never attack.
• Jungle Totem Poles don’t shoot.

Medium
• All cars have slightly improved traction.
• In Bronze and Iron Ages the CPU cars have additionally improved traction.
• In Bronze and Iron Ages the CPU cars have tweaked / improved acceleration.

Hard
• CPU cars are chosen randomly, therefore, there may be more than one of each type of car in the race.
• In Bronze and Iron Ages the CPU cars have highly tweaked / improved acceleration.
• In Bronze and Iron Ages the CPU cars have highly tweaked / improved traction.
• CPU cars that are behind the last human player are given additional speed and other physics tweaks to help them catch up.
• CPU cars don’t attack other CPU cars if they are behind the last player.

CRASHING AT LAUNCH?

Many people have been reporting that apps they buy on the App Store will not install and/or launch. While Apple figures out what the problem is, there are some things you can do which usually fixes it. Try these in this order until it is fixed:

1. Reboot your iPhone twice (hold down the power and home buttons for 10 seconds).

2. If that failes then you should re-download a fresh copy of the game. To do that, go back into the App Store (either on the iPhone or in iTunes) and click ‘Buy Now’. Don’t worry, if you’ve already purchased it then you will see a message asking you if you want to re-download it for free. You may need to delete the game first before you can download a fresh copy.

You can also see Apple’s App Store Troubleshooting Guide which has some additional information. If you need further help you can contact Apple’s Customer Support from the iTunes Help menu.

SOUND EFFECTS WON’T TURN ON?
There is a small bug in the iPhone OS which causes the audio in an app not to turn on once it has been turned off. The solution is this: go into the game’s Settings dialog and turn the Sound Effects: ON. Then press the Done button to save the changes. Now quit the game and relaunch it. That should turn the audio back on.

Tips for Driving
• Unlike most racing games where you simply hold down the acceleration button and never let go, Cro-Mag Rally requires a bit more interaction. In Cro-Mag Rally, speed kills - remember that. You’ve got to get used to letting go of the gas pedal and hitting the brakes, especially on the levels with tight turns like China and the Viking Village Yes, hitting the brakes slows you down, but in this racing game, “control” is more important than speed.

• Different tracks require different vehicles, and the fastest car is not always the best car. On most of the tracks, good acceleration and traction are actually the most important characteristics to look for in a car.

• Remember that Cro-Mag Rally’s tracks have lots of curves and bumps, and when you hit a bump and get airborne, you will continue to spin in mid-air. When you land after getting airborne, you are likely to skid out if your car has poor traction, and recovering from an uncontrolled skid is much easier with a car that has good acceleration. When driving in a bumpy area try to keep going straight, otherwise, you will inevitably get into a mid-air spin which typically results in a skid-out upon landing.

• If you are involved in a skid-out and your car comes to rest aiming backwards, don’t bother wasting time turning the car around. Just start driving backwards until you get a good opportunity to turn back around. The cars in Cro-Mag Rally work just as well in reverse as they do going forward - it’s just a little more difficult to get used to steering backwards.

• In single-player mode, you are always going to start each race in back of the other cars. The initial melee of crashing that goes on at the start of each race as all of the cars try to get in the lead can determine the outcome of the rest of the race. If you can avoid crashing into any of the other cars right off the starting line and wiggle your way into first place, then that will usually double to triple your odds of winning the race. Let the other cars lose time by smashing into each other in the first 15 seconds of the race; you try to avoid it.

• If you are in a fast car or in a car with the Nitro activated, don’t try to over-steer to avoid hitting steep parts of the terrain. You will usually crash if you attempt to do that, so instead just let your car hit the slope and if you get airborne, just hope you’re flying down-stream.

• The Logmobile, and the Chariot are two of the most speed-oriented cars in the game, and the CPU does a good job of driving them. Therefore, these are often going to be “the cars to beat” in many of the races. If you are in a car with better acceleration and traction, then a good strategy is to ram into the Logmobile or Chariot whenever you get a chance. The CPU artificial intelligence is always going to be worse recovering from a crash than you will be.

• When playing in Tournament Mode it is best to focus on getting the Arrowheads on the first lap. This is helpful because then you will have 2 full laps to focus solely on winning the race. If you are constantly having to worry about staying in 1st place and getting the arrowheads on every lap then you are going to lose.

• Most racing games (and Cro-Mag Rally is no exception) have a gameplay feature which gives players in back and advantage over those in front, thus allowing the players in back to catch up. In Cro-Mag Rally, you are given a little extra speed the farther you fall behind in the Place rankings. For example, you may notice that the Geode Cruiser goes about 20% faster when it is in 6thplace compared with its speed in 1st place. What this boils down to is the fact that even if you are in 6th place and all seems lost, you actually stand a fair chance of winning the game. However, the CPU cars also have the same advantage, so keep that in mind.

Tips for Powerups

• Once you get good at handling these cars, this tip is the sure-fire way to win: choose a car with excellent speed and poor to mediocre traction and suspension. This alone will certainly result in losing the race, but if you can manage to pick up all of the Sticky Tire, and Super Suspension Powerups then you’ll blaze past all the other players. It is often worth the trouble and loss of time to actually turn around to pick up a missed Sticky Tire powerup than to pass them by. High Speed combined with Sticky Tire powerups will greatly improve your odds of winning!
• Avoid using the Oil weapon on the first 2 laps. The CPU cars’ artificial intelligence knows to try to avoid the oil slicks that are on the ground. The CPU can probably do a better job of avoiding these than you can, so odds are that if you drop an oil slick down on the first two laps, the only car that will hit it will be yours. However, on the third lap you should always try to use as many oil weapons as possible. This will slow down the players behind you, and you don’t have to worry about ever running into your own oil slick since you’re already on the final lap. However, on some of the difficult tracks it may be a good strategy to use the Oil weapon as much as you can early on so long as you are in 1st place. Anything you can do to keep the other cars well behind you at the start of the race will help, however, be prepared to take your own medicine when you lap around.

• Unlike the Oil slicks, the Land Mines do not stay around forever, therefore, it is safe to drop those down on any lap - you don’t need to worry about running into your own land mine on the next lap.

• Never throw a Bone Bomb backwards on a bumpy road. If you’ve played the game for more than 20 minutes, you probably already learned this the hard way. Bone Bombs have a tendency to hit the ground prematurely on bumpy terrain, and the shock wave from the explosion behind you will send you into a spin. Only throw Bone Bombs behind you when you are on level terrain.

• If the race is really close and there is a faster car coming up behind you, here is a strategy which works well: Get the Sticky Tires powerup, and then lob a Bone Bomb in back of you. Even if you get hit with your own Bone Bomb, odds are that you will recover from the skid faster than your opponent since Sticky Tires reduce the spin from an explosion.

• The Roman Candle is one of the most effective weapon in the game. No aim is required, and they have good range. However, there are two things to be aware of when using the Roman Candles: 1) If there are no opponents in range when you fire a Roman Candle, the projectile will come raining down on YOU. 2) Never rapid fire a barrage of Roman Candles as fast as you can. Instead, fire one off every 1/2 to 1 second. This will increase your odds of a direct and repeated hit.

• The Homing Pigeon weapon is the best weapon to use for a rear attack. If there are cars coming up on you from behind, nothing does as good a job of neutralizing them as the Homing Pigeon. This weapon is not all that good for a forward attack since they are slow-moving and tend to detonate in front of you unexpectedly which can cause you to be blown up by your own Homing Pigeon much of the time. Primarily use these for rear attacks.

• Even though they look really cool when you fire them, the Bottle Rockets are not a very effective weapon in racing mode. They are too slow and have poor aim in the twisty terrains of the racing tracks. However, they are excellent weapons for use in the battle arenas during multi-player games.

• This probably goes without saying, but never activate a Nitro powerup right before a turn in the road. That’s the fastest way to get your face imprinted on the rock wall.

• Of all the weapons in the game, the most difficult to use is the Freeze Bomb. These require very good aim and timing, but if you manage to hit an opponent with it you’ll be in good shape. They are very effective weapons when they hit their target.

Battle Tips
• In Survival mode, all of the cars take damage equally. The big Geode Cruiser is just as frail as the Logmobile, so don’t just pick the Geode Cruiser because it looks tough. It won’t protect you from enemy fire any better than any other car.

• In the Stonehenge arena there is a Druid in the middle of the track. Every time you touch the Druid you get 20 seconds of Sticky Tires, 20 seconds of Super Suspension, and 20 of whatever weapon you currently are holding. Therefore, a good strategy is to pick up 1 Roman Candle and then touch the Druid. Now you have 20 Roman Candles to blast away with!

• When playing Quest For Fire mode, it is always a good idea to steal one of your opponent’s torches whenever you drop one of your torches at your base. Take the enemy’s torch and hide it somewhere. He can still see it on his map, but you can at least make it inconvenient for him to go get.

• Try to get to the top of the big pyramid in the Aztec battle arena. The best weapons are there. Here is the trick to getting to the top of the pyramid: get a Nitro powerup and then head to the side of the pyramid with the ramp. Activate the Nitro and that’ll give you enough speed to make it to the top.

Gamevil’s Zenonia has been the subject of fan lust for a few months now, ever since we first got our hands on it at GDC 2009.
Though the final product isn’t perfect, Zenonia knows its audience and treats it to an adventure of epic proportions. This game blows the iPhone’s other action RPGs away with obsessively detailed gameplay and a monumentally huge game world that will keep many exploring for weeks on end.

All is not well in the land of Zenonia. The forces of light, led by the Holy Knights, are locked in conflict with the dark side, represented by the Dragon Clan… and the game’s mysterious young hero, Regret, is stuck in the middle.
No spoilers here, but suffice it to say that Zenonia’s story runs through many classic RPG themes. The countryside’s infested with monsters, the magic seals that keep chaos at bay are weakening, and Regret isn’t even sure who he is, let alone which side he’s on.
It’s boilerplate stuff, but it’s artfully written and there’s a nice touch of humor behind it. There’s a lot of dialog in this game, to be sure, but it doesn’t feel like a chore to read it (although we did notice an unusually high number of typos and grammar errors). The characters banter and swear at each other. They seem aware of how goofy some of the plot twists are, and they occasionally even joke about being stuck in a game. Many of these RPGs take themselves far too seriously, but Zenonia isn’t one of them.
You also have some control over where the story goes. The game is peppered with moral choices that steer Regret towards the light or dark sides. These affect your selection of quests over the course of the game, adding to replay value.
Zenonia’s story is woven around a solid core of exploration, item collection, and combat. Superficially, Zenonia plays a lot like Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past–you walk around a landscape from on overhead perspective, whacking enemies with your weapon. The game’s virtual d-pad works fairly well for movement, although we wish the dash move had its own button instead of requiring a double-tap.
But Zenonia combines this basic gameplay with much more complex RPG mechanics. For instance, you have your choice of three character classes, which each have their own items and skills. You have a full inventory, and you can equip multiple pieces of armor and magic talismans. There’s a full skill tree to work through, for adding special attacks and passive abilities to your character. You can upgrade your magic items by combining them, and run up to five quests at once. Some quests are only available at certain times of day. Basically, Zenonia has the feature set of a full PC console action, not an iPhone game.

This insane level of depth is great for those who want to really get lost in a game, but it may turn off more casual players. In fact, some of it just seems like overkill–it’s a pain to keep your equipment in good repair, and you even have to eat from time to time to keep up your strength. Detail is one thing, but is all this stuff really necessary?
Plus, not everyone will have the patience to deal with the high level of difficulty. Like many Korean RPGs, Zenonia requires a good deal of grinding. You’ll run into several points where you simply won’t be strong enough to beat a boss, or make it through a certain area. That means you’ll have to pull back and run through some sidequests until you’ve leveled up enough to punch through. Luckily, you can save the game at any time (and it saves automatically on call interrupt), so you can hop in and out whenever it’s convenient.
Zenonia’s anime-style graphics are vibrant, colorful, and full of artistic flourishes. The animation deserves special praise. Characters display emotion bubbles during dialog that add weight to the conversation, and motion-line effects during combat sell the action. The music’s a mostly forgettable collection of short loops, but at least there’s a lot of them.
At the moment, the App Store is tilted heavily towards casual, throw-away games that are good for a few minutes of entertainment here and there. Zenonia is the exact opposite. This is a real video game that demands serious levels of time and attention.
But for those eager to make that kind of commitment, there’s no better buy than Zenonia. You’ll be playing it for weeks, if not months.

You know what’s missing from the iPhone game library? More adult-oriented type games. Not sexually explicit material, just games that actually have an edge. Amateur Surgeon from Adult Swim fills that void with an entertaining blood-soaked, gross-out surgery game that uses the iPhone touch controls in fun (and disgusting) ways.

You play as pizza delivery boy Alan Probe. Not satisfied with life as an ordinary pie man, your dream is to become a surgeon. Problem is, you only have basic tools like a pizza cutter to get the job done. With the help of a really strange doctor who provides you with more tools to further your career, you help patients suffering from various ailments in your makeshift surgeon’s office called Probe & Bleed Back Alley MDs.

Three different files filled with 27 patients and 3 bonus patients await you. Fix up one patient and move on to the next. Each patient has a variety of ailments and sicknesses that you must fix such as removing bullets, killing ants inside someone, killing an overgrown tapeworm, and even blinging out a pimp with gold plated body parts. Each patient is different and really fun to operate on.

All of your not-so-medically-approved tools are available to you via the easy to access touch controls on the screen. Use the pizza cutter to open up your patient. A yellow line tells you where to slice. The salad tongs are used to remove things like glass, pieces of wood, bullets, etc. Your lighter is used to cauterize the incision you’ve cut open, and the pain relief gel is then used to heal the wound. Use the household stapler to staple shut open wounds and gashes. A dustbuster sucks up blood spots and various liquids presents on your patient’s body. Wield the chainsaw on bones and organs. The corkscrew is used in conjunction with the pain relief gel to increase your patient’s heartbeat. Once his heart stops beating, your patient is close to death. The car battery is used to stop and start the heart, and to also kill various bugs in the body. The Etchy Sketchy helps find objects hidden under the skin. You can always zoom in for a closer look and to help you with your cuts and staples.

Each patient has a certain amount time before his clock expires, but don’t be too hasty in trying to save him. Even though the game tells you the basics in tools and procedures, sometimes you’ll have to do a little experimenting on your own to find out exactly what it is you’re supposed to do during an operation. Even though it is occasionally frustrating, it still adds replay value because you want to go back and retry the surgery just to see the next sick and twisted patient in the game.

You’re given a grade on each patient once you’ve patched them up. The grade depends on how fast and clean your surgery is. Don’t worry if you see a lot of D’s and F’s. I’ve gotten plenty of those with the occasional ‘B’ and one ‘A’. Getting an ‘A’ unlocks your first bonus patient called BUM, a robot with some issues that you have to access from the rear. You can always go back to each patient to try and improve your grade. Future patients are seen in shadows, and some of the forms are really gross looking. It just makes you want to keep playing to see what’s next.

The graphics are really colorful and each operation is different from the previous one. The colors are bright and there’s no shortage of red. The sound effects are great, from the disgusting sound of you slicing open your patient to the bone-crushing sound of the chainsaw. Dialogue between the patient and Alan Probe is also pretty funny. It’s not a game for kids, but then again, I didn’t really see anything that disturbing besides some adult humor they may not get anyway. The music was pretty good but isn’t needed to enjoy the game.

Who hasn’t played those fun little fighter games in the arcade where you fly around and shoot everything in sight? Hopefully you have, because if you haven’t then you’ve really missed out on life. iFighter is the iPhone implementation of this classic arcade game, obviously using the iPhone “tilt” sensitivity instead of keys to move your plane around. They’ve made a few significant improvements over the arcade game, and the game is solidly playable overall, but there are definite areas that could use improvement in future updates. However, most of my gripes are relatively simple things; the game is fundamentally sound.

For those of you unfamiliar with this genre of game, the premise is simple: you start off with a small fighter. Everything you see is either an item to power you up or heal you, or a bad guy to shoot at. Throughout the levels you can pick up various upgrades that give your iFighter additional abilities, including bombs, wingmen to help you, and more powerful guns.

The options are extremely flexible, which is one of it’s best features. Besides the default “tilt” movement feature talked about above, you can go into the Settings menu to change it to all sorts of different movement options. Plus, you can turn on or off auto-fire, give yourself a name, change game difficulty, send high scores, and calibrate the tilt feature. The gameplay itself is fun and engaging. Who doesn’t like flying around shooting everything you see, right?

For experienced gamers, fear not! This game is a CHALLENGE. I may not be a gaming master, but I do consider myself pretty well-versed in this particular genre, and I struggled quite a bit on Medium difficulty. If you’re looking for a game that will test your pilot/fighter gaming skills to the max, look no further, I’m still struggling to get past Mission 2.

There are a few gameplay shortcomings in this game, however, that prevent it from getting full marks. Most of them are simple programming nitpicks I have, but they make the experience less fun for each replay. First off, while being able to withstand more than a single hit is a nice improvement over it’s arcade counterpart, only having 1 life is troublesome, especially when dying causes you to restart the level completely (not to mention when you’re in the middle of a boss fight). Furthermore, the selection of weapon upgrades is limited considering the possibilities that the iPhone is capable of supporting.

Besides that, a basic storyline and a save feature would be golden and give this game a far higher replay value; having to completely start over each time takes the fun out of the game after a few times through.

In the end, though, the game is a good one. At $0.99 it’s well worth it for any gamer. Most certainly iWorth It. Take a look at some screenshots:

iFighter for iPhone

Another popular console franchise arrives on the iPhone this week with the debut of Resident Evil: Degeneration from Capcom. Based on the computer-generated movie of the same name, Resident Evil: Degeneration follows agent Leon Kennedy into an airport terminal that has descended into horror and madness. A plane full of infected people has crashed into the airport. The virus that turned the passengers and pilots in zombies is now spreading, infecting everybody from firefighters to military soldiers to baggage handlers. Kennedy must get to the bottom of what happened, keep the survivors safe from the undead, and escape with his own life.

The general plot is actually a great set-up to a fast-paced zombie thriller. Of course, Resident Evil: Degeneration is anything but fast-paced. All of the tenets from previous entries in the franchise such as tank-like controls and an uneven narrative (collecting a security card is treated with the same weight as rescuing a senator) are present. The story stuff is easy to get around because by this point, we know how the narrative is going to unfold. As awesome as Resident Evil 4 was, for example, it did not have a strong, cohesive plot to match the atmosphere and set pieces. But the clunky controls are not so easily dismissed.

You control Kennedy with a virtual stick. Pressing forward or back on the stick moves him accordingly. To turn, you must swipe left or right on the stick. This bolts Kennedy to the ground, though. Facing down the slow-moving zombies in the beginning isn’t too troublesome with these poky controls, but by the time you reach the dogs, it’s painful. Later zombies are able to close the gap faster and moving with all the haste of a glacier is frustrating.

To shoot, use an on-screen targeting button to bring up your gun. Kennedy raises his weapon and you use a laser sight to target the weak spots on incoming zombies. (The head is almost universally a good place to start.) You must tap another button to lower the weapon and be able to move again since Kennedy cannot walk and shoot. I noticed far too many bullets pass through zombies, despite the targeting laser fully planted right on a shambling horror’s face.

Certain action events require quickly touching buttons as they pop up on-screen, such as avoiding falling debris or a rampaging monster. The game does not use much tilt functionality, save for the reloading mechanism or shaking off a zombie. To reload your weapon, dip the iPhone forward and pull it back. This system never failed on me — it always registered that I wanted to reload.

When you need to interact with an object, such as door or computer, a virtual button appears. There is also an ever-present mobile phone button that accesses a map and your inventory. You grow your inventory by finding pick-ups, such as the trademark Resident Evil herbs, or buying weapons and upgrades from rogue agents looking to make a buck off the disaster. Yes, there is commerce in the middle of a crisis. The whole system requires a suspension of disbelief, particularly when most zombies you kill drop cash. (Extra suspension is required when dead zombie dogs also leave money on the floor of the airport.) However, the prevalence of cash means you have plenty of resources for upgrading your weapons (handguns, rifles, shotguns, and more), which is critical to beat the game.

And how long will it take you to beat the game? By my count, you’ll complete Resident Evil: Degeneration in about three hours if you explore every nook and cranny of the airport. Completing the game unlocks the mercenaries mode, which is a timed contest to shoot up monsters as fast as you can. You select your weapons, pick an area, and then dig in against the horde.

Three hours is not very long, but at least Capcom is only charging $6.99 for the game. But it’s not just the length and some off targeting that brings down Resident Evil: Degeneration. It’s the monotony of the quest. Everything is about opening doors. Gotta get the infirmary door open. Gotta get those duty free shop gates open. And between finding computers, codes, and cards, you shoot up some zombies. It all blends together after an hour or so.

Resident Evil: Degeneration is based on a previously released mobile title. Capcom scaled up for this port, but the mobile origins are always apparent. Many of the non-Kennedy character models are pretty iffy, composed of obvious polygons — and not very many of them. Textures are sometimes over-stretched. The camera is also your worst enemy in any tight situation, particularly if you have been backed into a corner. Kennedy’s head or a piece of wall will block the majority of your view.

Resident Evil: Degeneration was reviewed with version 1.0.
Closing Comments
Resident Evil: Degeneration is a decent enough game that I think hardcore Resident Evil fans will get some fun out of spending a few hours with Leon Kennedy. However, the controls are too often frustrating and the tasks presented to you are just so… tame. I still like shooting zombies in the face and there is charge when you see that first zombie do a back-flip thanks to a shotgun blast to the face. But Resident Evil: Degeneration never comes alive. It shuffles along like the zombies that infest it.