AdventureBay
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Two new titles released by Ngmoco, Adventure Bay and Star Wars: Imperial Academy
Neil Young and his company Ngmoco are running out of time to get all twenty new freemium products out that were promised earlier this year, but it looks like they're going to make a run at it anyway. Over the past weekend, Ngmoco released two brand new freemium titles on the US App Store. First up is Star Wars: Imperial Academy, a first-person shooter Star Wars game developed with THQ that basically plays like a Star Wars-themed skin of Eliminate. Unfortunately, iTunes reviews on this one aren't very good (framerates are apparently not great), but it is free, so if you're good with a blaster, it's probably worth a download anyway. Ngmoco has also released Adventure Bay recently. I'm surprised this one isn't just called We Island, because it's basically an island and pirate-themed version of the "We" series of games, from We Rule to We Farm and We City. You can build your own island (through waiting and spending in-game purchased Spice, this game's version of Mojo), do a little exploring to find treasure and collect items or do quests to earn money and fame. I can't say that it's bad, necessarily, but whatever you thought of We City will probably have you thinking the same thing about this one. So unfortunately, two less-than-impressive titles from one of the biggest iPhone gaming companies around. We'll have to see what Ngmoco plans next year. With the emphasis on "daily active users" and the freemium business model, it's possible that Ngmoco is just fine with how its business is going. But it would be nice to see a little more innovation on the gameplay side as well.
