VirtualControls
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Daily iPhone App: League of Evil 3 stays on the high-quality path
When it comes to virtual controls on a touchscreen, it's hard for developers to pull them off right. Either they're just not responsive enough, or they block the touchscreen, or your finger ends up sliding off of the "touchable" area at just the wrong second. The League of Evil is an example of touch screen controls done right. This game started out as one of the best platformers on the iOS App Store, and it's only gotten better. The latest version, League of Evil 3, just arrived last week. Unfortunately, it doesn't really offer any new moves. You can still jump, wall-jump and double jump as before, and each level has plenty of obstacles to sneak past and a special briefcase to collect. But the graphics have been updated to look better than ever, and if nothing else, this sequel offers over 80 new levels to play through. There are also new ways to watch replays, including ghosts and an Everyplay tie-in. This release also comes with iCloud saves (to track your progress across multiple devices) and a new bit of story told with hand-drawn cutscenes. Plus, the controls are smooth as silk, as you'd imagine. League of Evil 3 is yet another excellent platformer by Ravenous Games, and you can grab it right now for US$1.99.
Daily iPhone App: House of the Dead Overkill - The Lost Reels is gross but innovative
There are some really excellent apps arriving on the App Store tonight (including Firaxis' great Haunted Hollow), but before we tackle that new crop, I did want to mention this app, released last week by Sega. House of the Dead, if you're not aware, is an arcade shooting game, where you take on a whole haunted house full of zombies and demons with a light gun (and usually a friend, if you're playing in an arcade with quarters). House of the Dead: Overkill was a version of the game that came to Nintendo's Wii system a little while back, and this version, sub-subtitled The Lost Reels, is a revamp of that game, made specifically for iOS devices. Now, this game is gross, and if you've not into gory zombies and bad guys (and girls), then you probably won't get much out of this -- like I said, stay tuned for Haunted Hollow and a few other big releases tonight. But the main reason I wanted to mention this one is that it has one of the best control schemes for a first-person shooter on the App Store I've ever seen. Most FPS games don't end up quite making the jump over to a touchscreen interface without stumbling. There's two routes devs have gone so far: Either they just go all-in on clumsy and not-so-precise virtual controls, or they try something really nuts (Zynga's The Drowning and Industrial Toys' Morning Star are two upcoming FPSes with innovative control schemes). House of the Dead does have a pretty lame virtual control scheme, if you want to try things that way, but the game also has an accelerator-based control scheme, and that one's really fun. You tilt your iDevice around to guide your target, tap to fire, and the whole thing actually feels very intuitive. It's one of the best ways to play a game like this I've ever seen implemented on iOS. Unfortunately, the rest of the game is kind of a mess. To stay under the download size limit, Sega has cut off a lot of the in-game dialogue and cutscenes that made the original Overkill as charming as it was, and while the game costs $4.99, you actually have to buy extra levels and content via in-app purchase -- why Sega chose to do these things the way they did, I have no idea. Honestly, I can't really recommend this one at full price, though it's worth a try for a buck or two. All that said, however, that control scheme is very impressive. If someone can lift that scheme out of this game and put it in a game worth playing, I'd really appreciate that. House of the Dead: Overkill: The Lost Reels is available right now.
Daily iPhone App: Metal Slug X is a faithful, though flawed recreation
SNK's slowly been releasing all of its great old Metal Slug games from the Neo Geo library, and just recently, it worked its way up to Metal Slug X, which I think is the fourth iteration of the series? It's hard to keep track -- there's like 20 of them out there in history. At any rate, if you've ever played a Metal Slug game before, you know what to expect here: You control a soldier that runs on a constantly moving 2D battlefield, firing away at enemies and dodging all sorts of colorful incoming fire. The Metal Slug games are known for their high-quality 2D animation, and this game is no different at all -- the sprites are extremely complicated, well-designed, and while the action gets frenetic, it's extremely well-drawn and produced. This is actually an updated version of the game on iOS, with new bosses, new weapons, full Game Center integration and even multiplayer over Bluetooth. Unfortunately, even with those additions, Apple's iOS devices still aren't really the ideal way to play a game like this, as the onscreen controls are less than extremely precise, and putting your fingers on the virtual buttons tends to block out the action. Not to mention that these games tend to be fairly hard, and using virtual controls makes them even harder. But if you're going for this one already, you're probably a Metal Slug fan, so you'll know the drill. Metal Slug X is available now for US$3.99 as a universal version. If you've never tried the series and want to see what it's like, I'd say wait for a sale, as SNK regularly drops the prices on these as well.
