Category: Mobile Game Releases

Normal service resumes again today, and there’s a lot to catch up on. Still kind of bummed there wasn’t much more to write about from PDXCon regarding mobile. The Stellaris spin-off was definitely a point of conversation but other than saying “we messed up,” there wasn’t much more for them to say.

Meanwhile, in mobile gaming…

Out Now

This is going to be a bit of a disjointed section this today because there’s quite a few things to catch up on from the past couple of weeks.

First thing’s first, y’all saw Bad North last week, right? Our review is in-progress and coming as fast as we can, but I’ve been playing it on Android and it’s pretty legit. It’s a minimalist game so you may not be able to play it for long periods of time, and the controls are a tiny bit fiddly, but it’s still pretty good.

Add to that is the fact that Rome: Total War – Alexander is now available on iPhone (making the game iOS Universal), as well as Android devices. This is the last of the Rome: Total War releases to complete their mobile journey. You can read our Rome: Total War Alexander review here, otherwise, what are you waiting for?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN9Hu0lTqY0?controls=0]

Go here for device requirements.

It also seems 7 Wonders: Duel released onto both iOS and Android this week, to absolutely zero fanfare (hats off to the Stately Play community for the tip). It distils the typical 7 Wonders gameplay into a more competitive one-on-one mode. We’ll try and get on this as soon as we can, but it might have to wait a week or two.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ-hBqfTVtg?controls=0]

As for other releases this week, there have been a few things that have caught our eye, but nothing we’ve actually played yet:

• Cursed Castilla (iOS) is a classic console arcade game that’s been ported to iOS, complete with a baked in Arcade UI.
• The Swords of Ditto (iOS & Android) is a “compact” action-RPG from Devolver that people have been saying positive things about.
• Undead Horde (iOS) seems like one of those games that’s high-concept/but low budget. You are a necromancer who must raise zombie armies to conquer a fantasy Kingdom. Bills itself as a ‘simulation’. 

Updates & Future Releases

There are a couple of things to put into this section as well this week, let’s run through the big ones:

Pacific Fire, which we reviewed this week, has been updated recently. I’d tell you when, but I’ve never been able to figure out the date for these things on the Google Play store and since it’s Android only, I’m stuck.

Dota Underlords has received another big update this week, which adds in a few things like Duo Mode, a new ‘Insects’ pieces type and the Underlords themselves. The Trese Brothers are also up to their usual tricks, with a new Star Traders: Frontiers update that adds new talents, new content and tweaks a variety of things.

Black Desert Mobile’s full release isn’t until December, but if you’re an Android user in Canada, Chile, Sweden, Malaysia, Turkey, Ireland or Australia, then you’re in luck! The popular MMO’s mobile port has just been soft-launched in these countries, so you can jump in right now and check it out. Not sure if the same will happen on iOS or not.

EVE Echoes – the latest EVE Online mobile spin-off seems to actually be happening (unlike War of Ascension which we were expecting last year before it disappeared), will have an Open Beta in December this year, and there’s a playable build at CCP’s FanFest Vegas event this weekend. I’ve got one of our freelancers in situ taking a look, so I’m hoping to bring back some impressions of what it’s going to be like. In the meantime, enjoy this gameplay trailer:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cai8fwFa0I?controls=0]

Sales

Got a couple of sales for you this week that are worth checking out:

Seen anything else you liked, played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!

A strange thing that occasionally happens to me is that I get what I’ve referred to as Paradox dreams. Not because they are self-contradicting, but because they occur when I play too much of one of Paradox’s grand strategy games, such as Crusader Kings 2 or Europa Universalis 4.

Essentially, my brain ends up thinking of ways I can improve my position in these games via my dreams.

Pacific Fire has gotten my attention in such a way that I had one of these ‘Paradox dreams’ about it. So, what’s so special about this mobile wargame that it has kidnapped my subconscious?

A PACIFIC UN-PACIFIED

Pacific Fire does not have much in the way of astounding graphics like you may see from AAA mobile studios like the big brains behind Clash of Clans or Candy Crush (people still play that, right?), or a very engaging story, but neither are really missed. Pacific Fire knows what it is good at, and has cut everything else in favor of compelling and engaging gameplay.

You are given several scenarios to try your hand at, pushing air, land, and sea units between bases in order to complete your objectives for the scenario, generally on a strict turn limit of x amount of months. Notably, the game uses WEGO, a turn method that sees both sides make their moves simultaneously, then showing how the action played out at the beginning of the next turn. This format suits Pacific Fire wonderfully, as the Pacific theatre’s naval engagements were defined by the opposing fleets guessing the other’s position, attempting them to coax them into a decisive battle on their own terms.

This brings us to the most important element of Pacific Fire, the order in which all these moves take place. There’s a grand total of fourteen steps to combat resolution, but essentially it boils down to this: air units arrive at their destination and dogfight with enemy air units, the surviving bombers attack their respective land or naval targets. The naval forces then move to their destination, fight the enemy naval forces, and bombard any land units. Lastly, land units resolve their combat with the enemy. This turn ordering allows for clever strategists to replicate the great naval battles of the Pacific, with smartly deployed squadrons and fleets able to negate an invading army’s numbers.

In a nice touch, planes and ships have their own sets of stats, which determine how they function in battle. Generally, newer vehicles operate at a higher efficiency. On a similar note, land units have 3 stats that determine combat capability: men, tanks, and guns. Men are the overall strength of the unit, tanks help the unit in offensive battles, and the guns help on defense and help protect the unit against enemy bombers. This layer of attention to units adds a degree of thoughtfulness to how you should utilize your army, making successful actions pleasing to pocket generals

ISLAND HOPPING

That’s all very well and good, but what about the context surrounding these engagements? Pacific Fire comes with a total of 13 scenarios (1 of which also operates as a tutorial), with a focus on specific areas of the war. There are several scenarios from the Allied side that capture the struggle to survive as war broke out and the Japanese overwhelmed the British, French, Dutch, and American holdings. These make for good starting scenarios, as the map is smaller, and the Allied player needs to worry about deploying smaller numbers of units rather than the entire Pacific theatre. Even while these are certainly scenarios aimed towards a beginner, Pacific Fire is not an easy game. Leaving a base without fighters to defend it can see enemy bombers quickly killing hundreds of men, leaving the player in an unwinnable position for the scenario.

The scenarios covering the later parts of the war are generally more challenging, a particularly campaign covering the time period around the Battle of Coral Sea (still haven’t managed to beat it). Even more intimidating, there are 3 full Pacific campaigns available, with increasing complexity and difficulty. While several scenarios can be wrapped up over the course of a lunch break, these will be campaigns that take a longer stretch of time.

Disappointingly, there are less playable scenarios for the Japanese, but these are very interesting scenarios. One follows the Japanese in the Burma campaign, looking to push into China and India with 0 naval forces in this scenario (a companion to the much harder Allied version of this campaign). Another notable scenario uses the “What If” of an invasion of the Japanese home islands, using civilians to hold off the Americans until a peace can be brokered. The Japanese don’t play significantly different to the Allies, but there is one key difference. Both sides will in a scenario have an “Industry Score” that determines how many reinforcements will be deployed at the end of the turn. The Allies gain Industry Score over time, but the Japanese player’s score depends on how many bases they hold. As they control less territory, the Japanese are less able to replenish their forces, which follows the “rules” of the history well.

While Pacific Fire does a lot right, the few flaws it has are amplified by the focus that is placed on the gameplay itself. In some of the smaller scenarios, it’s easy to feel as if there is a “right” answer to unit movement and placement, making these scenarios feel more like puzzles than proper warfighting. This may not be an issue to all players, but for a game that has several solid wargaming scenarios, these can be disappointing, as one wrong move can mean that a win is impossible.

Similarly disappointing is that with a lack of multiplayer support, the game is entirely player v. AI. The AI is… interesting. It’s difficult to realty get a feel for it, as the AI deciding to sit on a base for several turns without moving could either be a cog in a larger strategic plan, or it could be the AI not properly utilizing all of its forces. It does seem easier to lure AI naval fleets into an engagement than it does to bait an army to attack, but that may be just contextual.

CONCLUSION

Pacific Fire is a surprising hidden gem. I hadn’t heard of it at all until the Editor asked me to write a review for it, and I’m very glad he did. My other mobile games have become completely forgotten in the last week as I’ve used my work breaks to figure how to withstand the Japanese assaults on Mandalay, or how to crack the defenses around Truk. Pacific Fire has some shortcomings, but is overall an excellent use of your time, both when awake and, in my case, when asleep.

Round and round the roulette spins. Here are five more random choices from Apple Arcade’s selection. Will we strike gold this time? Or just strike out? If you missed our first batch, as reminder: Apple Arcade is out, and with it over a 100 new games for you to try and explore at your leisure. There’s almost too many for us to consider individual reviews, although we know other outlets have gone down that route.

If you want to cut to the chase, read our list of our favourite Apple Arcade games so far.

So, we’re running a new feature where we take a randomly selected batch of five games across a spread of genres, and run through some quick reviews so that you can get an idea of what’s worth your time, and what isn’t. 

Hot Lava (Platformer) (2-Stars)

Normally I love everything Klei comes up with but this was a disappointment. Hot Lava has a pretty obvious premise: remember playing that ‘the floor was lava’ game when you were a kid? And it has a great theme: you’re pretending to be a character from a sweet 90s Saturday morning cartoon, with all the kitsch and bombast that comes with that genre. But the gameplay itself is just preset obstacle races with instant death when you fall into the lava.

What’s more, this precision 3D platformer does not work with mobile controls. One control option has you using the gyro in the phone to control your view, which is precise, but awkward if you’re in a space where you can’t move around. The other option is touch only, but doesn’t give you easy access to all of your abilities. If you have a controller, give it a try, but it’s not worth the hard drive space otherwise.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNXoTLn5ISs?controls=0]

Where Cards Fall (Puzzle) (2-Stars)

I guess ‘moody navigation puzzler’ is now a well-established thing, and Where Cards Fall is the latest entry in it. There have been some standouts in this genre, Monument Valley being the most obvious one, that built their deliberate pace around smart and mind-bending puzzle design. However, in this case, Where Cards Fall‘s slow pace, requisite for ‘atmospheric’ titles, meant that in my brief time with it I barely scratched the surface of the puzzles.

You walk a character through various isometric playing fields, dragging around packs of cards. The cards essentially are platforms that can be collapsed and moved to create paths that the hero can jump through. Lead him to the magic card portal exit and you get to watch an inscrutable vignette. In the time I spent with this game, the hardest part was the fiddly controls—it took a while to figure out that with some care I could control the size of the platforms created by pinching my fingers ever so slowly. The puzzles themselves weren’t challenging at all.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2PoSWgupUM?controls=0]

Mutazione (Adventure) (4-Stars)

This adventure game’s story is told with a light touch but it’s instantly compelling. Your character, Kai, has immediate motivation, as she attempts to fulfill her grandfather’s dying wish and understand what he had devoted his life to. The setting, too, is immediately intriguing: Mutazione is an island of mutated people and plants, whose characters are quickly and efficiently drawn.

The game starts feeling like a traditional adventure game, but its conversation trees are mostly for flavor (like obvious influence Kentucky Route Zero) and its puzzles all revolve around amateur botany. It’s occasionally awkward to control, especially the lengthy plant encyclopedia that is inexplicably indexless. But for players looking for a unique interactive story, Mutazione should be your first stop on Arcade.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_slT6nfE9g4?controls=0]

King’s League 2 (Strategy/Management) (3-Stars)

A sport’s management game without sports, King’s League puts you in charge of a team of fantasy fighters as they battle their way up the titular league. The story mode is entertaining with well-written (albeit broad) characters and it does a good job introducing the concepts of the game. If you don’t want to bother clicking through dialogues, you can also just jump in to creating your own custom team.

You recruit team members from town, choose training styles to mould them, and buy new gear. When you get into a match, most of the battle is handled for you, as your units march forward and bounce off one another. All you do is occasionally activate a special ability, when you have the chance. Because the matches are so simple, the team management is necessarily also simple. King’s League definitely has more of a ‘mobile game’ feel with its simplified gameplay. If that’s what you’re looking for, though, it might be a good fit.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkgHGN6gZy0?controls=0]

Shinsekai: Into the Depths (Platformer) (3-Stars)

Capcom takes a break from arcade ports to bring us this Metroidvania set at the bottom of the ocean. This is one of the best-looking games on Arcade and probably they best sounding. Headphones are a must if you want to get the full underwater experience. The game itself is a slow paced platformer with forgiving controls that work pretty well on a touch screen, with a swipe-anywhere stick and tap and drag controls for actions.

In the time I had with it, I saw a lot of potential, but not too much interesting or challenging happening in the first hour or so. The slow pace is also a blessing and a curse: easy to handle with touch controls, but often dragging out basic movement in ways that kill the pace of the game. Your goals are also not entirely clear, which can be a motivation-killer in a wide-open game like this.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47F-9RQrZgE?controls=0]

Still nothing too amazing this time around. I’m standing by my assessment that Arcade will probably be packed with a lot of good-but-not-great titles that are polished but not innovative. Let’s try again next time–hopefully the wheel will land on one of the new games Apple just added!

Versus: Unfriendly Frenzy has a rhythmic name that just rolls off the tongue, and its gameplay is every bit as dynamic. The presentation and play experience are zippy, the theme is zany if a little vacuous, but the strategy is ultimately flat. This ain’t Civ 5, folks, and it was never meant to be. As a series of rapid-fire tactical skirmishes, Versus shines, as it also does with local multiplayer. It has clearly been well-polished and is quite fun, but the lack of depth in decision-making and interactions makes the overall experience middling.

It’s real time strategy in a lightweight sense: two commanders duke it out on a single-screen map by spawning units down the lanes of the map. These forces march to the other side of the battlefield, fighting any enemies they come across and ultimately damaging the base if left unopposed. Every one of these units costs energy, which regenerates automatically over time. Your leader can be re-positioned and becomes the spawn point for any or all new units. Honestly that’s 90% of the game, so it is practically pick-up-and-play accessible.

I suppose because Starcraft & Warcraft cast long shadows, there are three factions. There’s some notional asymmetry amongst them: the Circus, Muscle Faeries, and Junkyard. Each one has a roster of six units, three (or rarely four) of which must be selected as a squad. Some are area-of-effect attackers, others demolish buildings quickly. There are tanks and glass cannons alike. It’s a bit like throwing rock-paper-scissors to finagle an advantage in a match, for the melee/ranged/flying matchups serve as soft counters to each other. Standard stuff, nothing fancy or wrong with it really, just a tad uninspired. To be fair, the visual and thematic design is kitschy and eclectic, so at least the aesthetics are colorful.

The extensive single-player campaign does a thorough job parcelling out how everything works in stages. It give tutorials on different units, win conditions, terrain effects and power ups, and moreover separates these new elements into their own missions. A generous interpretation to this campaign structure would be to say it onboards the player gently and has a leisurely difficulty curve. The cynical take is that there’s more padding here than mechanically unique challenges. As ever, the truth is somewhere in the middle. While the campaign storyline does follow the quest to steal and use the Pixie Protein Powder to revive ‘dark magicks’ it is constantly jumping around point-of-view and setting. New cartoon characters are introduced and dismissed rapid-fire, and the missions are generally beaten using the exact same operating procedure. It’s a fever dream, yet also dreary at times.

Seize power ups early, increasing your force’s power level and consistently turning the tide of battle in your favor. That’s it. The specifics of faction matchups and squad composition are only of trifling concern. If ‘strategy’ means long-term planning to you, implying some overarching ambition and design, then Versus is a weakling in terms of strategy. It is, however, tactically intense. Because of the obstacles and unpredictable spawn behaviour of those power ups, timing and quick wits are crucial. A flurry of micro-skirmishes between forces proves pivotal, so to master those, you have to position your leader correctly and tap the right mixture of units in the right window of opportunity. Unfortunately there is no real way to micro-manage the flow of battle beyond this. Contrast that with, say, Iron Marines, and you have a weird hybrid where battles are set into motion without much additional oversight or fine control. In this respect it strongly resembles a lane-pushing or tower-defense game.

The single game element that keeps Versus from getting totally stale is the power-ups. There are ones which beef up a unit type’s health, speed or attack, but there are also one-off ones, which can freeze the enemy commander or create a super-unit. Power-ups have to be used manually, and while the unit stat upgrades have the longest tail of influence, the short-term ones are no joke, either. They are decisive and unpredictable, so they keep the game from becoming a tedious overlong tug-of-war match. It’s a mid-range objective to give additional momentum, and the trick works.

The theme of the game, as well as it’s overall presentation were clearly going for Saturday morning cartoon, and they hit that aim. Each faction has a few key players and personalities, all of which bicker and quibble over every little thing, just as a way to generate dialogue to break up the battles. Heavy dialects drive home how unsubtle the whole affair is. The story, much like the gameplay, is best digested by kids.

Some good news: the multiplayer is a standout and somewhat redeems the rest of the game’s weaknesses. Finally all of the simplicity in design and inputs makes perfect sense: how else can you manage local multiplayer without split screen? It’s about as good as it gets in this limited format, though the strategy fiends would be infinitely better served by a pass-and-play game, and this feels more like an RTS game for parties.

‘It’s a bit rubbish, but I can’t stop myself from playing’. This phrase is a tidy bit of unfair rationalization, used as a preface to diminish every single so-called guilty pleasure. It leapt to mind several times while playing Versus: Unfriendly Frenzy, and though the game is well-made, it quickly runs out of interesting things to say or do. The guilty pleasure here is that of an easy, familiar challenge, and it is easy for any gamer to simply enjoy Versus, which for all its faults is at least well-executed. As a routine or background action, the battles are pleasurable enough, but the game demonstrates how difficult it is to straddle that fine line between simple and simplistic. For someone just looking to blaze through the game in a few hours and leave it behind with only dimly pleasurable hazy memories, it is perfectly adequate, but for long-term play it isn’t a keeper.

By Josh Brown 17 Oct 2019

As it’s likely there may not be a Friday update this week due to me being away, just thought I’d let you know about one game that’s just dropped onto mobile – Bad North. We were given the heads up about this a couple of weeks ago and I’m glad it’s finally here.

Just in case you’re still not in the know, Bad North is a ‘micro’ real-time strategy game where you control a small group of units that have to defend various islands from waves of Viking invaders. The islands vary in size and topography, and as you progress through the campaign you can get access to more/different units, upgrade your existing ones and even find loot to help you in your fight.

It’s a game that’s mainly about planning and making sure you have the right counters in play, but there’s a permanence to the choices you make. If you sacrifice that one unit to buy yourself some extra seconds, that unit is gone. Damage units take will need time to heal as well. Publisher Raw Fury are celebrating the mobile launch with this new, and slightly bizarre, trailer:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoD03SDbl1A?controls=0]

Bad North is available on both iOS Universal and Android for $4.99/£4.59. If you’re wondering what the ‘Jotunn Edition’ tag means, that’s just the name of the free content update they put out on the PC version a couple of months ago which added a bunch of new things for players to enjoy. It’s considered the ‘definitive’ edition of the game, although that’s not to see there won’t be further updates. We’ll have to see.

We’ll be working on a dedicated PT review as soon as we can, but in the meantime you can always read our sister site’s thoughts. I’ve played it myself and I can definitely say it’s good, and the niggles we had a launch have long-since been ironed out. It still might not be everyone’s cup of tea – this is a very simplistic strategy game at the end of the day, but you’re still required to make tough choices, sometimes on the spot. Still, pending our full review it still gets my personal recommendation, for whatever that’s worse.

Let us know if you end up picking up the game, and what you think of it.

By Joe Robinson 16 Oct 2019

By Joe Robinson 15 Oct 2019

Another day, another deck-builder, but does Aeon’s End have a sufficient number of tricks up its wizard-y sleeves to stand out in a crowded market? The first attention-grabbing feature is that Aeon’s End is a cooperative game that can be played in pass and play mode with up to three other players, but also works equally well with a solo player controlling a maximum of four mages. These mages have learned mastery over energy breaches, allowing them to cast powerful spells. One small problem; the breaches have also permitted the Nemesis to come a-calling. This guy wants nothing more than to destroy your home of Gravehold, and to slaughter a few mages along the way.

There are three types of cards in Aeon’s End; gems are the game’s currency, spells are used to inflict damage and relics have a range of special powers. At the start of each game, a supply of nine available cards is determined. You are free to either choose at will, select from a particular theme, or even go for a completely random set-up. This supply is selected from a range of 27 different options and, much like Dominion, this market will contain the same set of cards for the entire game.

Whilst in many similar games, currency is only used for buying cards, in Aeon’s End it has other uses too. The currency, a resource known as aether, can be used to open additional breaches, thus allowing the mage to prepare more spells. Or, it can be used to charge a mage’s unique power. These extra choices really add to the decision-making process, making players think carefully about the best way to distribute their limited resources.

Deck-builders are usually characterised by more shuffling than a Post Office queue on pension day. The physical chore of shuffling doesn’t affect us lazy digital gamers, but the resultant randomness certainly does. In Aeon’s End, when your deck is exhausted, you simply flip your discard deck and continue playing. It doesn’t sound like a big change, but it does provide the opportunity to plan future turns and prepare some killer combos. It also means that extra thought is needed when deciding on the order to discard your spent cards. If this isn’t enough to think about, there is also the option to keep unused cards in your hand for use in future turns.

Another area in which Aeon’s End excels is in the wide variety of set up options. Each game will pit the mages against one of four different nemeses. My personal favourite is the Prince of Gluttons who gobbles up the supply of cards faster than Pacman can munch dots. Or, maybe, Crooked Mask, who has a nasty habit of shuffling your deck whilst adding a few nasty corruption cards for you to deal with. All four fiends are not averse to playing a barrage of nasty cards, whilst also throwing a few henchmen into the fray. To up the tension even further, the power of each nemesis increases as the game progresses. Much thought has been spent on the design of all four nemeses, they are distinctly different and offer their own challenges. At times, their powers can feel a little harsh, but never unfair.

Another twist that adds to player anxiety is the way that turn order is decided. Aeon’s End does away with predictability by randomising the order at the end of each round. The turn order deck is always composed of four player cards and two nemesis cards. So, if you only play with one mage you will be getting four turns each round. This can impact on how you coordinate the actions of your mages. Especially since mages first have to prepare spells by allocating them to an open energy breach. Only on the following turn is the spell energised and ready.

There is a roster of eight mages, each with their own set of ten starting cards. These will be a mix of aether crystal cards, weedy spark spells and, more interestingly, one unique card.

Jian’s moonstone provides her with an extra aether which can only be used for purchasing gems. A specified set of five of these cards will make up the mage’s first hand. Xaos, for instance, begins with four crystals allowing him to buy a decent card from the supply on the very first turn. Mages also have a special ability that needs to be fully charged before use. Returning to our friend, Jian, she can use her black mirror ability to enable any mage to cast a prepared spell twice.

Aeon’s End has a lot of on screen information to keep track of which means that the game is a tablet exclusive. Even on larger tablets, the artwork is often sacrificed to squeeze everything onto the screen. There are also a large range of tiny icons to decipher which is a barrier to learning. Thankfully, a tap and hold will bring up a card in full detail, also giving you a chance to admire the illustrations. There is certainly more going on here than in many other card games, but it doesn’t reach Twilight Struggle realms of complexity. Developers Handelabra are a safe pair of hands, as their work on Sentinels of the Multiverse and One Deck Dungeon testifies. The lack of online options is a tad disappointing, but this is still a top-notch conversion.

Aeons End is a wonderful game, the control that it offers over deck management is especially worthy of merit. The cards seem to be very well balanced with no absolute stinkers or overpowered abilities. Variety is also a big plus, each mage feels distinct and each nemesis requires a different approach. There is a generous amount of content, with challenging difficulty levels, a choice of 27 different types of market cards, four nemeses and eight mages.

It’s been a bit of a mixed week – I’ve been trying to go back and look at some historically performing content and see what I can do with it, as well as testing the waters with things like the CoD Mobile guide, and skimming some stuff off reddit. The Mario Kart Tour Challenges article is still proving quite popular at the moment, so you may see that float to the top of the article list quite regularly.

Happy to say though that with most of that out of the way, I can start refocusing on some of our favoured topics. Quite a few games have been released recently that are more relevant to the core readership, so will be getting reviews sorted for them pronto.

Just as an FYI – I’m going to be at PDXCon next week from Thursday, so end of week posts might be a bit sporadic. It’s also unlikely that they’ll be a Weekender update next week, but if anything mobile focused comes out of the event I’ll be sure to write it up.

Out Now

There’s actually been a couple of new Apple Arcade games releases over the past week or so. We’ve updated our master list and added a ‘new’ tag to the newcomers, so check them out if you’re still looking for new games to try. We’re a little bit behind on our reviews, but we’re sticking with the batch-approach for now.

Xenowerk Tactics (iOS & Android) – $6.99 – Full Review Pending

You know what? I’m really, really glad this game exists. I noticed the other day we’d only reviewed four games between August/September, but after some digging I realised that’s about right, because there’s been nothing in the premium space worth covering lately. Xenowerk reads like it was made for us, and from what we’ve tested so far it’s a pretty decent real-time tactics game. It’s single-player only, but you control a squad of mercenaries who work for a corporation, and it’s basically your job to clean up their messes. It involves squad development and base management and all that XCOM-like goodness.

It’s free to try on Android – you get to play the first part before paying the full price as an IAP to unlock the rest of the game. On iOS it’s premium up-front. We’re going to try and get a full review on the table ASAP for you.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVXqyk3S6SY?controls=0]

Versus: Unfriendly Frenzy (iOS) – $3.99 – Review In Progress

It’s been a strangely good week for strategy gaming on mobile, with Versus: Unfriendly Friendly also releasing this week. We’ve already got Michael working on a review so hopefully that will drop next week. Versus is a real-time strategy game that boats outlandish factions and units and ‘fast-paced’ action. There’s a 29 level solo campaign, and you can play head-to-head against someone on the same device, which sounds interesting.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ny1TNTSIeg?controls=0]

And yeah, there’s another free-to-play gacha battler game, this time based on the Digimon franchise. It’s called Digimon ReArise (iOS | Android) I’ll be honest guys, I’m kinda burned out on this stuff at the moment so we’re going to wait and see with this one. If it proves popular maybe we’ll look into it in more detail but I’m not in any rush. Here’s a trailer anyway:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD5ttx_QEJc?controls=0]

Updates

A few things to update you one, some of which we accidentally forgot about:

Black Desert Online Mobile (iOS & Android)

MMO’s are an odd prospect on mobile – for the longest time, the term was appropriated by developers who made trashy F2P games, but as mobile tech improved it’s now quite possibly to put actual, ‘legit’ MMOs onto mobile devices. Black Desert Online is a fairly popular Free-to-Play MMO that’s been around for quite a few years now. It’s managed to walk that line between given players worthwhile content to engage in, and offering a business model that sustains them. Their freemium stuff is mainly cosmetics, although you can buy some shortcuts. I played it on PC for a spell and I actually had quite a lot of fun with it. The only thing was I didn’t think it facilitated party-play that well, but it may have improved since then.

We’ve known it was coming to mobile since E3, but what I forgot to mention a couple of weeks ago is that pre-registration is now available on iOS and Android. The mobile version is due to land in December 2019.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rrIBXJWOuQ?controls=0]

PS4 Remote Play App (iOS & Android)

Playstation recently updated their core PS4 Firmware to Version 7.0 this week, and with that came an update to their Remote Play app. The nuts and bolts of this latest update means that Android users beyond Sony Xperia phones can now get in on the action, and iOS users can now use their Dualshock 4 controllers with the app.

For Android, you just need to be running Android 5.0 or higher although if you have Android 10 installed, you can also get in on the Dualshock action by connecting your controller to your phone via Bluetooth.

You’ll need to have iOS 13 to be able to use your controller on that end of things. You’ll also be able to choose whether or not the on-screen controls remain visible as well as choose whether or not to lock the orientation.

Heroes of Steel RPG (iOS & Android)

Ticket to Earth isn’t the only game to seemingly get a fourth episode update this week. The Trese Brothers have taken a break from constantly updating Star Traders: Frontiers to release the “final” episode for their Heroes of Steel RPG, the Siege of Sur-Relliar Glacier.

Here’s the full change-log, if you’re still interested in playing this game:

• Epic end-game conclusion to the tale of the 4 Harbingers
• Battle across 7 new brutally challenging dungeons and maps
• Lock blades and magic with multiple major bosses across the climactic siege
• Face 15+ new monster types — Ice & Fire Drakes, Orcin Ravagers, Thorn Shamans, Unrequited Blades and more
• Loot 100+ new amazingly powerful weapons, armor and magical gear across the final dungeons
• Once beaten, you may invoke a New Game+ mode to replay the final dungeon and bosses again! (and again!)
• Fixed all issues with late-game bows named “FIX ME” and crafting out of Fierhold
• Fixed crash with “Great Flats” level loading in some situations

Sales

Only two sales of note this week:

• First up, following the release of Episode 4, Ticket to Earth has been discounted by $1 on iOs. Not Android.
• Kingdom: New Lands is an intriguing side-scrolling management/strategy game where you must try to survive against hordes of enemies that only attack at night. It’s half price on iOS and Android.

Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!