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As Santa once said, good things come to those who wait. Wait, maybe that wasn't Santa. In any case, mobile gamers have been patiently anticipating The Shadow Sun, a fantasy RPG from Ossian Studios, since it was announced back in 2010. Slowly but surely it's now made it to release, but has it aged like fine wine or like damp bread in the meantime? Read on, adventurers! One big strength of The Shadow Sun is showcased right off the bat. I'm not talking about the dramatic soundtrack that starts as soon as you first fire it up (though that's nice too), but the extremely flexible character creation system. After picking your gender and a handful of appearance options, you get down to the nitty gritty with several points to put into attributes and skills. The effects of the six attributes are well-explained, and while there's no class system per se, making smart choices can help tailor your character to your desired play style. You might go heavy on Strength and Endurance if you fancy a warrior type who can wield two-handed weapons and wear heavy armor, or specialize in Intelligence for magic use. Charisma might be my favorite; higher scores can actually add dialogue options when you interact with NPCs. |
Monsters are infamous for having voracious appetites that cannot be sated, hence why they prowl the countryside and gobble up reams of sheep. Not little Om Nom, though. The star of the hugely popular Cut the Rope physics puzzler is content to nap in his box, surrounded by his stash of beloved hard candy. Sadly, when said stash gets stolen by spiders Om Nom's stubby little hand is forced, and he goes out into the wide world to take back what's rightfully his. Oh, Om Nom. Are we born monsters, or do we become monsters in order to survive life's cruelties? Cut the Rope 2 doesn't waste time with weighty philosophical questions. It simply wants to give you more good times with bits of candy swinging from the end of a rope. Thus, the premise for Cut the Rope 2 is identical to its predecessor: You "cut" ropes holding up candy in hopes that the tasty morsel will fall into Om Nom's waiting maw. |
Moody, atmospheric lighting; overly intricate locks on hidden compartments; creepy whispers in the dark - this is , all right. Actually, it's The Room Two, but you'd be forgiven for mistaking them. There's not much to differentiate Fireproof Games' latest from its 2012 debut. That's not entirely a bad thing, though. The Room was - and remains - one of the best mobile/tablet games of all time. In that game and its sequel, you find yourself locked in a titular room. The original game was the world's premier Hellraiser-puzzle-box simulator, and gave you a series of boxes with overly intricate puzzles to break your brain using the touch and gyroscope features mostly unique to smartphones and tablets. |
With the recent surge of , the giant robot battle genre has carved a significant niche, but has still been a non-factor on mobile devices. With the release of Mech Battle Arena, Glu Mobile aims to change that. Sadly, the final product is a game that's unpolished and outright bad in all the wrong places. From the start, something didn't feel right with Mech Battle Arena. When I first booted up the game, I was greeted with a tutorial that summarized the controls in battle. Combat uses a simple dual-analog style of control where the left side of the screen allows you to move your robot while the right side lets you aim, fire your weapon, and switch between weapons. While the controls are standard, the weapon switching buttons are unfortunately placed next to the fire button, where I found myself accidentally hitting them with frequency. |
We don't want to, you know, spread rumors, but word around the jungle is that pandas are having a hard time propagating. For whatever reason, the beloved black-and-white bears just don't like getting freaky and making babies. The panda species need not fret, however: Extinction is not as close as you might believe. It's all thanks to the herculean efforts of the mama panda starring in Panda Pop. We don't know how she's producing so many cubs, but oh boy, she's doing it. She doesn't have time to give lessons, unfortunately. All those cubs have been stuffed into bubbles by an evil baboon that assumedly wants to sell the critters like trashy tourist trinkets. You must help mama rescue her vast brood by matching three or more same-colored bubbles. If a baby panda is trapped in one of those bubbles, it'll float back down to earth. Yes, Panda Pop is yet another bubble-popper. Don't send it off to be processed into pet food just yet, though. Its content may be as surprising as black and white on a panda's coat, but the entire package is put together nicely. |
It was more than two months ago that I took my first tentative steps into the hunting game genre when I reviewed style game of dodging. |
Hotels are weird places. Whether it's a scream-worthy shower at the Bates or an extended stay at The Overlook, something strange is always bound to happen. Before you arrived at Hotel Enigma, one of the guests disappeared. Literally disappeared. Everyone is a suspect, so the hotel has been put on lockdown. Room by room you'll carry out your investigation, searching high and low for the items you need to solve the case! At Hotel Enigma, things are a little less murderey than most fictional hotels, though don't think there's an ounce less intrigue packed behind these cherry-stained doors. You'll move between areas completing round after round of hidden object scenes as you gather clues and learn about the guests currently lurking inside the hotel's walls. Eventually you'll find out what happened to your room's previous occupant, but you can bet your polyester necktie it won't be a simple whodunit. |
There's something romantic about the idea that someone could start out brewing beer in his or her own basement and wind up taking the world of adult beverages by storm. If you don't think trying to live out that fantasy sounds like good fodder for a mobile sim/RPG, Bit By Bit Studios begs to differ. Fiz: The Brewery Management Game has risen , you've got to start from the bottom of the beer world before you can get on. When a new game of Fiz begins, all you've got is your own character, three buddies, some rudimentary brewing equipment, a few recipes, and some big dreams. You also own a couch (good for sitting on) and what appears to be an eight-bit NES, which is appropriate since the game is rendered in retro pixel graphics.
The semi-mystical figure Cyrus Uprum drops by in short order to introduce you to the wonders of beer-making. A menu in the upper-left corner is where the magic starts, allowing you to access the recipes you know and additional ones you can buy or learn. The actual brewing process begins by buying the proper ingredients to fill a given recipe and assigning your team members to one of four tasks: cleaning, mashing and boiling, fermenting and packaging. |