Review: Virexian

With its neon-fused visuals, clusters of flashing sprites and a pumping chiptune soundtrack, Virexian is certainly one of the ‘schmuppest’ schmups on iOS. But even if it doesn’t bring much new to the table, this top-down arcade game had me utterly captivated from the get-go.

In Vixerian, you use a left (onscreen) thumbstick to march a 2D robot around a series of small close-quarter levels, while using a right stick to aim and fire a vast array of weapons. Your fodder is a constantly spawning swarm of AI bots, who with the exception of a few bigger fellas mainly exist to fall pray to whatever missiles, laser or railgun you’ve scooped up from their destroyed brethren.

Its frantic and fun to zip around each colorful arena, using a recharging dash move to jump out of danger, and the pixel-perfect controls make it easy to vanquish your foes even when things get hectic.

In the game’s rogue modes, you fight to keep your HP from hitting zero across as many levels as possible, while its arena modes task you with surviving waves of baddies in a single environment. In both modes, the procedurally generated battlefields keep you confined, and trapping yourself in a corner is the fastest way to a game over. This means you need to learn new areas and enemy behaviours quickly to stay ahead.

While the chaos onscreen can make everything a bit of a blur, the levels are clearly designed to allow players to build strategies on the fly. Soon after you’ve got the hang of moving and shooting, you’ll be swooping through narrow corridors, spinning around and obliterating enemies wooshing up behind, while leaving enough room to escape in a pinch.

Unsurprisingly for a shoot-em-up, learning how to use the large range of weapons also helps. The projectiles in Virexian are great to look at and have a decent amount of oomph, from the ‘bouncer’ which spews out balls of energy that ricochet devastatingly off the walls, to a laser weapon that skewers enemies with pinpoint precision.

The game restricts the weapons at your disposal any one time to two, but they are dropped frequently, allowing you to switch up your play regularly. Each gun also uses up ammo at different rates and needs time to reload – you are vulnerable during this brief period, creating an interesting power dynamic as your big bazooka bad-ass is momentarily transformed into a bipedal pipsqueak.

With its rather generic looking enemies and recognisable style, Vixerian is hardly breaking the banks for creativity. But it does its genre very well, giving the player a big basket of toys and a set of playgrounds they can dip into at a moment’s notice (or if you are like me, waste an entire afternoon on).

Review: Narcissus

Narcissus is a beautiful, fast-paced addictive little game – but it is a bit of a bastard.

Not in a bad way. Its a bastard in the loving sense, one that coaxes you through its frustrating platforming and encourages you to improve, no matter how close the two little runners onscreen were to completing the level before one of them missed a jump and fell helplessly into a space pit.

At least the game’s idea is a novel one. We’ve had more than enough endless running games that follow just one tomb raider type as he/she bounds through the undergrowth, but in Narcissus, you control two pixelated fellows as they traverse a number of floating space islands. At the start of every level gravity is inverted for each character, and so they run across the top and bottom of each island respectively.

The game gives you a few easy tutorials so you can get the hang of tapping either side of the screen to cause each respective character to jump. But then the platforms start to vary in size and become less symmetrical, creating different routes for each character to follow. With twice the amount of pixelated parkour to keep track off, a single lapse in concentration can lead to a remarkable speedy game over, which whisks you back to the start of the (thankfully brief) level.

The game waits until you’ve passed about three areas before its inner bastard really shines through. When your little sprinters jump off certain islands, their gravity is inverted so that they flip over and begin jumping off from the other direction. The game’s fast-paced nature means that its often not possible to keep track which way they are facing fast enough, and most of the time it feels like you are relying on luck to get through unscathed.

Then again, when you do beat a particularly stressful level, there’s always a chance the background for the next will swap to a lovely soothing turquoise. Narcissus has eye-popping pixelated visuals after all, and its protagonists leave a charming trail of cyber-bubbles behind them as they run. If only the little guys were a bit bigger, perhaps I wouldn’t have to squint to look and see if I had actually made the jump or if I am, in the nicest possible way, falling to my buggering death for the umpteenth time.

The controls also felt like they weren’t completely precise – often I swore I’d tapped before reaching the end of the platform, only to see one of ma pixel boys continue to run, fall and slide down the wall of the next island like an ACME cartoon. But this could be because the game is so relentlessly speedy, its characters are so tiny, and my own mind is so exhausted from pretending to be an adult all day that I couldn’t react fast enough.

For the more switched-on endless runner fan, Narcissus presents a decent challenge. If you love Canabalt so much that you wish you could play two runs of it at the same time, you’re in luck, as someone’s made this much more colourful version.

But yeah, just to warn you: It is a bit of a bastard.

Evil Factory

As a general rule, I’ve found that the best games on the App store make their main gameplay hook obvious from the get-go.

Evil Factory starts by having you throw bombs at a giant walrus. Go figure.

It turns out that this the first of many charmingly animated boss fights you’ll face in this top-down action game, which sees a space cadet being interrupted by all manner of beasties as he descends into the depths of a mysterious facility.

In each level in Evil Factory, you face off against enemies with a variety of devious attacks, most of which can slap the life out off you in one hit. Some stages have you accosted by whole groups of soldiers, while others have one big behemoth with a life-bar the size of Saturn for you to chip away at.

Your fight back using ‘main’ weapons, which include bombs and molotov cocktails that can be placed at your opponent’s feet, and ‘sub’ weapons, such as flamethrowers, which can be used once during each fight. When you finally win, its time to head into an elevator and be taken down to the next boss, after a pit stop to stock up on additional weapons with in-game (or out-of-game) currency.

With each battle completed, you’ll also receive a bit of exposition from a tutorial lady over the comms. She’s one of a number of characters who provides assistance during your adventure, which sees a maniacal scientist sending in more and more bonkers creatures to annihilate you. However, after the fourth or fifth slightly ‘meh’ joke you’d rather she just let you get back to the slaughter.

If the story doesn’t gets you hooked on Evil Factory, the unremitting joy of meeting each crazy boss for the first time certainly will. Like Dark Souls or Titan Souls (or any kind of souls apparently), the thrill is in learning each enemy’s behavior through trial and error, and finding just the right moments to head in for the kill. It’s very satisfying when having been repeatedly ripped apart by a cyber-wolf’s laser roar, you finally whittle its health down to zero and watch it explode in a flash of light.

Nevertheless, the game’s controls don’t always help. As your scrawny hero is particularly vulnerable to attack, knowing when to dodge is vital, and so you need to become adept with the game’s onscreen thumb-stick button. Unfortunately this and the onscreen buttons for weapons are a bit small and fiddly to use. Evil Factory seems to realise this, allowing you to adjust the position of controls on the screen. It also handily slows time for a bit if you remove your hand from the screen entirely.

However, given the game’s pixel-perfect precision, one slip of your thumb and your character can immediately switch direction and find themselves back in the path of a fatality-causing projectile.

The game also doesn’t seem to have as many weapons or unlock-able equipment as other similar arcade-y titles, such as Jetpack Joyride. Nevertheless, the same absolutely cannot be said for the bosses themselves, all of which are incredibly inventive and have amazingly fluid animations. Almost all of them are cool to just sit and look at, even if spending any amount of time idle will lead your soldier to a grisly demise.

Evil Factory isn’t perfect, but it essentially allows you to tackle boss fights on-the-go, without the “build-up to the Elite Four” most games have you slog through. Now there’s a hook.

 

StickNinja Smash

Everybody was kung-fu tapping.

Karate chopping its way onto my iPhone today was StickNinja Smash, a subtly-named brawler in which bad-ass stick dudes duke it out in a dojo. It’s a game with lots of kicking, lots of punching, and a hell of a lot of tapping.

In StickNinja Smash, you play as a ninja with a massive head and a dangerously low BMI. Your goal is to fend off randomly appear enemies before they reach your magic sword in the middle of the stage. You’ll do this through the fine art of hitting, which can be achieved by a flurry of taps on the ninja in question. The more taps you get in on enemies, the higher your combo, and getting in ten hits will result in a powerful smash move that damages other foes.

Unsurprisingly, this control scheme has you attacking your phone with a gusto usually reserved for cancelling a misplaced Uber. However, its necessary to keep up the pressure, as ninjas who get too close to the sword will instantly pounce on it, taking vengeance on you for their much-punched brethren. What’s more, after a few waves some tougher lads appear on the scene with significantly more health and the ability to twat you if you aren’t careful.

Initially, zipping around and beating up enemies is quite cool, and if I squint I can just about pretend I’m in one of those Xiao Xiao cartoons I used to be into at the ripe old age of 9 (look them up, seriously). Also, holding the phone in both hands and tapping with both thumbs allows your ninja to flurry between enemies instantaneously, allowing for some dynamic death dealing as you clear the room in a flash.

However, there’s only so many dudes you can tap to death before it all gets very repetitive. Occasionally, the sword in the middle pops out of its holder and into your hands, allowing you to deal insta-death to everyone on screen, but after that its back to the same punch-kick-tap binge until it all becomes a bit of a dirge. You can level up and collect currency from each battle to unlock new costumes and zones to fight in, but it takes so many rounds to progress that before too long you’re likely to hang up your gloves and play something else.

StickNinja Smash fills that gap in the day we all set aside for a nice bit of virtual violence, but its hardly The Raid on iPhone (now that’s a martial arts game I’d like to see).

StickNinja Smash is out now on iOS.

Jumpy Tree

Jumpy Tree is a free-to-play game that has you bounding up an endlessly tall tree while trying not to be eaten by ravenous flowers. It’s a bit like Jack and the Beanstalk, if the beanstalk kept asking Jack if he wanted to watch another Candy Crush advert.

Starting out on the lowest rung of the botanical ladder, you tap the screen to make your little jump-suited avatar jump up to the next bud. With every branch reached, the camera pans around the plant in a style reminiscent of so many  impossible Crash Bandicoot levels, and another point is added to your tally. You can double tap to double jump (no surprises) or swipe to navigate across gaps. However, don’t stick around for too long, as each platform contains a furious geranium ready to go all John Wyndham on your arse.

As you progress up the tree, timing and an awareness of what’s coming up on the next platform becomes even more important. Flowers will spring up like venus flytraps and nab you if you are not too careful, so you need to look before you leap, and there’s a quite a lot of trial and error before you get into a steady groove of jump, survive, breath sigh of relief. Falling down gaps
results in your fellow falling down a few rungs rather than dying altogether, which quells the frustration somewhat. However, get eaten or swatted by a pesky plant hanging down from above and it’s game over.

We are never told the motivations of your strange little orange-adorned man making this perilous ascent (I like to think he’s Kenny from South Park making one last agonising trip towards heaven). Then again, if he’s not doing it for you, you can swap him out with one of a roster of colourful characters… as long as you are willing to pay for it. Sadly, the gems you collect in-game are just for buying a second try after you’ve failed, rather than any intriguing power-ups or hacks or anything.

With nothing else but a whack-the-pinata mini-game that only offers up more gems, Jumpy Tree is looking pretty autumnal when it comes to content. However, if you are just looking for your next endless addiction loop for free on iPhone, this beanstalk is definitely worth a clamber. It’s functional, it works, it will leave you cursing shrubbery more than you ever thought possible.

Jumpy Tree is out now on iOS.

App Review: Vulture Island

Vulture Island is an adventure game throwback that offers just enough charm to stop you from thwacking  your iPhone on a radiator in frustration.

After three explorers are stranded on a mysterious island, your quest is to help them escape by pillaging cash from platforming, chatting to locals, and avoiding all manner of beasties (including a particularly malicious sheep).

The game at first appears to be just another 2D platformer prised from the worn-out Mario mould. There are lots of colourful platforms, spikes, endless drops and enemy critters just begging to be jumped on, and the level select screen even peers down on the world view as your pixellated character scurries between locations.

However, once you’ve hopped into a couple of zones, you’ll notice that this island is much more Secret of Monkey-ish than first thought. Instead of beating one area and moving onto the next, all of the island’s levels are open from the get-go, with each of the three explorers having their own separate section to bumble around in.

Not all levels are immediately complete-able, and so it’s up to the player to find the right items to make progress through certain areas. Items can be discovered  by felling creatures and solving puzzles, or acquired from one of the island’s inhabitants, which include a haggling merchant and a booze-soaked pirate captain. The characters offer up hints enthusiastically, but are mysterious and vague enough to make you wonder if they are all in a Satanic death cult (which works pretty well for this sort of thing).

Figuring out where to go next and how to use items are the game’s main draws. Bizarrely given the game’s clear links to Mario, the platforming is actually a little off-putting. Jumping and moving in the game can feel a bit sticky and imprecise, as the characters all continue to run a millisecond after you let go of the tiny buttons at the bottom. This can occasionally be a nuisance when trying to avoid setting off a switch or, and I’m sure you can empathise, jumping through a cluster of large killer bats.

That said, the game’s nostalgic look and limited number of levels work allay many of its irritation. It’s hard to be annoyed about tricky jumps while watching your protagonist’s head bobbling back and forth like Churchill the dog as they run along. Plus, as all the levels are open, the game’s ending always appears as if it’s in sight, which provides a lot more motivation to get there.

Vulture Island is easy to get into, but smart. It  requires a fraction more brain power than standard gaming apps, while offering a light and airy adventure all the same (satanic death cult aside).

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Vulture Island is available on iOS now 

App Review: Mars Mars

Mars Mars is a 2D side-scrolling platformer that dooms a variety of unlockable astronauts to endlessly jetpack across the red planet, like some sort of Sisyphean torture for Elon Musk.

The game sees you tap to propel your space dude from a platform and gradually lower them onto the next in an ongoing sequence. With every jump, you use the limited fuel in your jetpack to make tiny or large adjustments. Landing on a platform too quickly will cause your subject to explode in a shower of debris and smoke clouds, and pop you back on the previous platform to try again.

You’ll initially be traversing the barren desert we all know and love from blurry Curiosity Rover footage and Matt Damon blockbusters. However, after a few jumps you can call in a new character / prisoner to land on the planet and take over, changing the appearance of the level entirely. If you’ve ever wanted to jump across a purple disco-punk world dressed as the late Steve Jobs, scooch on over to the App Store, son!

Even if it’s not exactly a science lesson, Mars Mars is still fun to dip into thanks to its intuitive controls. Tapping either side of the screen controls the left or right booster, and holding them down together causes a gung-ho rocket boost skywards, which is often useful for hopping over lengthier gaps and cliff faces. You hit a rhythm, and soon enough you’re building up a streak of jumps that would make the bunny from Pixar’s Boundin’ proud.

That said, once you’ve been on Mars for a bit, there isn’t really much to keep you interminably jumping across it. The odd space tree or black hole will pop up to hinder your progress in the next jump, as some collectable currency tokens that can be put towards having characters land more quickly on the world. There’s even random opportunities to pose for a GTA-5 selfie every now and again. And yet without any upgrade system for the jet pack, the only motivation for the rather straightforward gameplay appears to be waiting for the next scenery facelift – basically everyone’s problem with No Man’s Sky, just on a slightly smaller scale.

Other games, such as Tiny Wings, have already had players addicted with fairly simple, straightforward mechanics, and Mars Mars is perfect for short plays in the post office que. Just don’t launch your expectations too high for an experience so repetitive they named it twice.

 

 

 

Leo’s Fortune

You’re gonna have a ball. AND THE BALL IS SO FLUFFY I’M GONNA DIE.

Leo’s Fortune might have straightforward mechanics and a rolled up bit of flannel for a protagonist, but don’t let that fool you. This iOS platformer has gameplay that flows like a babbling brook, graphics so pretty you can feel your eyes dilating in sheer wonder, and exceptionally gentle voice acting that sooth your cochleas into submission. It is a cup of tea of a video game, and well worth the price.

The story is a simple one, told via charming (and more importantly, skippable) cutscenes in between levels. Russian monarch-type puffball Leo has had his gold nicked, and is on a quest to bound, leap, and float his way through a variety of levels to get it back. Entering the lands of his three suspected thieves, the game moves from stunningly rendered forest environments to swamps to castles, all while ramping up the difficulty of its platforming.  Spikes, obstacles with spikes, or spike-filled caverns (with spikes on them) regularly pop out to hinder Leo, and so you’ll need your wits about you to prevent an instant death, and a slightly creepy grunt from your furry friend.

It’s therefore a good thing that there’s very little to learn in Leo’s Fortune. A swipe upwards will fling Leo into the air, and holding down on the screen will cause him to float Rayman-style across gaps. You can also swipe down mid-jump to butt-slam Leo into to the ground, as well as weigh him down in underwater segments. Moving requires dragging on the screen with a handy bar popping up to show Leo’s max speed, but those seeking more precision can also use more classic on-screen touchpad controls if need be.

However, using either control scheme you really get a sense for how well Leo’s Fortune flows. It’s often reminiscent of classic Sonic, with plenty of loop-the-loops for Leo to slide through, although the game always stops short of playing itself. There’s also a few clever touches; Leo puffs up like a blow-dried cat every time he floats, which often allows him to wedge himself in between walls and wait for hazards to pass. This ability proves helpful for accessing switches as the game gets a bit fruitier with its challenges later on.

Along the way, Leo can pick up bits of his gold dropped by his pesky nemesis, with each piece serving the extra purpose of showing where to go next. However, aside from a few hidden gold pieces scattered around levels, it feels like there’s a couple of lost opportunities for alternating paths. Then again, the game’s eye-poppingly detailed environment and Leo, the most authentic fluffy moustached flannel on iOS, really flesh out the 2D world enough to make the game feel like its bigger than the system its running on.

Each level takes 5-10 minutes to complete, but Leo’s excellent controls and lenient checkpoints mean you’ll have polished off the game’s five acts in only a few hours. A few physics-based puzzles are thrown in which break up the rush somewhat, but are a bit on the easy side, mainly focusing on physics-based puzzles which won’t phase anyone who’s struggled through Limbo.

But even if its no Tolstoy epic, Leo’s Fortune is a charming specimen of a platformer which makes you glad to be alive, and also make you want to stick moustaches on your flannel and call it Pavlov and take it on adventures (just me then).

AYA

AYA is a horror game, presumably named after the noise Jackie Chan makes after a jump-scare. AYAAAAAAA

Not really. It is a horror game though, one that pits a girl named Aya against her deepest fear – being trapped in a monotonous maze with arbitrarily spawning, one-hit-kill enemies floating about. In the course of 13 levels, you must direct AYA to the gleaming white exit, while trying not to get brutally killed. One way to start the day on the tube I ‘spose.

Moving Aya through the topdown hell-holes is simple if a bit fineckety, using one of those multidirectional thumbsticks that pop up wherever you touch the screen. After a couple of simple challenges to teach the basics, AYA get’s a bit more monstery, sprucing up the dark environments with screaming white demons who, to say the least, aren’t very friendly. Using only the light of a dim lantern and a strong will, you’ll need to avoid enemies as if your life depends on it, which it does. There’s no way to fight back, and getting too close a demon will end in a faceful of Samara from the Ring and a lovely GAME OVER screen.

AYA’s rampant jumpscares probably aren’t too intimidating on an iPhone, so headphones to capture the macabre audio are vital. However the canned lightning sounds and white noise effects that initially feel unnerving start to get old by level 3. What’s more, the scream Aya makes when she’s discovered isn’t particularly bloodcurdling, it’s more like she’s found out the milk she’s just bought from the store has past the BBE date.

That aside, I still had a few jumpy moments playing AYA in bed at 2 in the morning, so it might be good for a horror fan needing a quick fix of adrenaline between the sheets. Ahem.

AYA is out now on iOS. Developer: Pine Entertainment 

Kubiko

Kubiko is an enchanting game in which you rearrange pixel cubes to make up lego-like figurines.

Each of the game’s 40 levels starts with a confusing mesh of blocks which you’ll have to crank and turn (similar to a rubix cube) into a recognisable shape. You’ll only have a limited number of moves to complete the object, and failing to do so will result in the blocks zipping back to starting position. Or square one, I should say (HA).

Kubiko gets tricky quickly. Without the ability to turn the object you’ll often have to magic up a mental image of the structure you’re trying to reach, before you’re even sure what is yet. The app’s developers claim the game improves 3D perception and concentration, although the game seems more akin to a quick bit of fun than gruelling Brain Training escapade.

Forcing yourself not to just trial-and-error your way through is tough, however. The game only give you a few moves, but often piecing out the correct combination of swipes merely requires experimentation. You want to focus on not doing that, as fewer moves used ends in a higher score. Still, if your lack of perceptual ability are driving you to distraction, the game can offer you a handy hint or two.

Across the game’s 5 chapters you’ll make up the faces and bodies of all kinds of creatures, humans, and miscellaneous stuff, from elephant to Albert Einstein. Ending up with a completed image is rewarding simply from the charming cubic look alone.

Kubiko strips 3D perception puzzling to it’s simple core. If you want a slightly less involved Monument Valley that still offers a quick fix, look no further.

Kubiko is out now on iOS. Developer: Zedarus Entertainment Ltd. Website