“Samurai II: Vengeance” is the sequel to “Samurai : Way of the Warrior”. Both are reasonably successful iOS titles, developed with the game development system Unity, and featuring quite gorgeous cell shaded, smoothly animated graphics of Japanese fighting characters. But how does this touch screen title translate onto iMac and MacBook Pro?
I am a big fan of Unity as a development system. And it is great to see it getting more and more of a foothold in the gaming industry – opening up opportunities to a massive indie cottage industry, as well as some seasoned devs. who want an easy to use, world class game engine at their fingertips.
And the general quality of games like Samurai : Way of the Warrior, and its sequel I am reviewing today, are a great advert for part script / part code / part GUI developed gaming titles. And why not? Heavyweight’s like Epic’s Unreal engine are also primarily script driven game engines at the end of the day.
The first thing you’ll notice about either of Mad Finger Game’s ancient Japanese themed hack and slash games are the beautiful graphics, and the smooth animations of your player character as he traverses levels hacking enemy Samurai fighters into many pieces.
Gameplay is super simple, but unfortunately weirdly crippled on OS X. Arrow keys, or the W, S, A & D keys, control the direction your character moves around levels. And you then either use the right or left mouse button to control light or heavy attacks – respectively. This is really unintuitive, especially for a title that already works on iOS with just a touch screen.
The control system is made all the more frustrating because you don’t seem to fully control who your player is attacking with the direction keys. Rather your character seems to pick the closest enemy – most of the time.
In effect what seems to have happened with Samurai II is that the aspects of the control system which make touch screen play simple enough to be fun, but not frustrating for iOS users, have been swapped out for even less control on a system which has both a mouse with multiple buttons, and some 50 or more keys on a keyboard.
Once you get over the confusion of the control system and come to terms with it you can enjoy the linear, but beautifully rendered multi-level scenery of each game section. As you progress through levels there are barrels to smash up for extra points. You can also choose different combo attacks, and level up those attacks as you progress – doing fun things like chopping your enemies in half with your Samurai sword. Those enemies can then peel into two halves when you deliver your final blow, and the screen and environment get splattered with blood as your foes die. Which is fun – and well done.
Enemy Samurai sword fighters attack in varying waves in each level. And there are enough different ways to dispatch them, to whatever heaven or hell medieval sword fighters go to, to keep you entertained for a while.
Scattered around the levels are lots of environmental effects, like petals from trees, as well as puzzles which open the way to new levels. And these are well executed and very pretty to look at. As are the various levels of depth you get in the multi-height maps.
But all the time you seem to be alternating between what seems to be intuitive attacks on your enemies and mad flailing around. This is because the way that the game decides your targets for you is either randomly in sync with your wishes, or is on a wavelength all of its own. This is daft when you consider we have a mouse in our hand, and are able to control the way our character faces, but are not able to control who he attacks in any sensible way.
For the price Samurai II is probably worth it on a mobile device, and even perhaps on a desktop machine for the stunning visuals alone. But the gameplay needs a lot more depth, and lot more work on the way it interacts with you, the actual player! So overall this game unfortunately leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.
“Samurai II: Vengeance” still needs some work for the desktop version, which is a shame as the music and the graphics are superb.
Pros
Cons
$9.99
Category: Games
Released: Mar 15, 2011
Version: 1.0
Size: 41.0 MB
Language: English
Seller: MADFINGER Games, a.s.
© MADFINGER Games, a.s.
Rated 12+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Fight Night Champion [rating: 5/5]
I finally played my iPhone battery dead and that is one of the only reasons I am putting down my phone to write the review for Fight Night Champion. Fight Night Champion for iPhone is a new offering by EA Sports that is mobile version of the widely popular console game. I have always loved this boxing simulator on console but was unsure on how smooth it would be on my phone, well it’s great! Fight Night Champion continues in the footsteps of its predecessors as being a top boxing game.
Fight Night is a very popular series on the consoles and that is where I had my most experience with the game coming in to this review. I was afraid it would seem like a port when I played it on the iPhone but this game feels like it was designed for the device.
You have the choice of 3 different game modes that provide a wide diversity of game play. Fight Now, Legend Mode and Multiplayer are the 3 game types you have to choose from and each one seems better than the next. Fight now lets you jump right in the action if you should find yourself just wanting to get a quick game in. It allows you to play with fighters like Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson and many others. I was very impressed with the list of fighters in this game and this is what I feel makes the Fight Now mode exciting. You aren’t necessarily playing towards a long term goal or against a friend but it’s pretty sweet to play as Muhammad Ali against Mike Tyson.
The next mode is Legacy Mode. This allows you to create a fighter and build him up or to take a former great and rebuild them. The game plays just as the console game but has its own feel and always seems like it was made for the iPhone. From customizing your fighter to selecting a training regiment, you are in control of your career and quest for greatness.
Multiplayer was very intriguing because it allowed for me to take on my wife in a boxing game. It was awesome and she truly enjoyed beating up on me and of course the bragging rights after I let her win. These three very diverse game types give you many options and ways to play this game. The three types work together to give this game awesome replay value.
The controls are very straight forward and I like that because it allows you to use them to the fullest extent. They allow you do everything you do in the console game but make it so that it is not extremely complicated to do on your phone. I found it very easy to learn how to play defense and also to let the haymakers go. Touch gestures are most of the controls in this game except for the movement around the ring by your fighter and that is controlled by the accelerometer. I found these controls to be genius because they allow you to get into the game by moving your phone, and sometimes your entire body when you get into, and your thumbs to have complete control of your fighter. The control mechanism is crucial to a game like this and EA does a great job of giving you everything you need.
This game has a killer presentation and I was constantly wowed by the sights and sounds it displayed. From the different fighters to the different venues the game never got mundane or monotonous. The menus are sharp and to the point and make everything very simple to navigate. The fighting sounds and announcing are awesome and really go a long way in getting you into the action. I had my volume cranked and found myself getting totally immersed in the gameplay. EA’s quality, as usual, is great and they make this game a joy to pick up and play. Again, the visual and audio aspects of this game never make you think it’s a port and that is important for a game that is so wildly popular on consoles. This game has a presentation that is second to none.
Pros
Cons
$4.99 (View in iTunes)
Category: Games
Released: Mar 01, 2011
Version: 1.01.21
1.01.21
Size: 385 MB
Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
Seller: Electronic Arts Inc.
© 2011 Electronic Arts Inc. EA, EA SPORTS and the EA SPORTS logo are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. All trademarks are the property of their respective owner.
Rated 12+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later
Back in the day when games were loaded via cassette tape and played with joystick instead of a controller there was a major battle taking place in the gaming world and that was between two rival fighting games. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat fought a battle both on and off screen which is still going on today. The latest punch in the battle comes from the Mortal Kombat side with the release of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for iPhone.
Mortal Kombat is a 2D fighting game that focuses on special moves and combo’s that ultimately lead you hopefully performing a fatal ending move that Mortal Kombat has made it’s own. It’s classic stuff and for any fan of Mortal Kombat they are in for a treat.
The classic button bashing controls are there, from the traditional red knobbed joystick in the left corner of the screen to the 5 or 6 button layout on the right the controls are surprisingly responsive and given time provide the perfect opportunity to unleash those deadly combo’s that MK is famous for. They are also fully customisable, however I recommend finding one and sticking with as remembering those combo’s are vital to succeeding in UMK 3.
If you can’t remember the basic combo’s you can review them via the ‘i’ button in the top left corner of the screen but like other version of Mortal Kombat you will need to work on the combo’s that launch the special moves.
There are four game modes in UMK3; Arcade, Local Multiplayer, Survival and Shao Karnage which all offer the same carnage in slightly different ways.
Arcade sets you an a winner takes all battle against the 13 fierce enemies that are as eager to rip your head off as you are to rip theirs. It’s certainly not for the feint hearted but the blood and gore certainly don’t have the same shocking impact that they did when this game was originally released on the old consoles. There are 4 difficulty levels which really crank the difficulty level up.
Survival mode challenges you battle through as many kombatants as you can with a single amount of energy while Shao Karnage challanges you to do as much damage against the ultimate Mortal Kombat killing machine as you can in 90 seconds.
For me though the fun really begins with the Local Multiplayer mode which allowed me to pit my skills not against the computer controlled enemies but against my friends and lash out some real frustrations on the iPhone’s screen. This really took me back to the good old days of playing MK when we would fight each other into the early hours. The special codes that enable special ‘features’ are also fun to use although it would be nice to be able to access them in single player mode too.
Nothing really has changed since those time, if you love Mortal Kombat than you will love this rendition of the game which you can carry around in your pocket, if you aren’t a fan of button bashing fighting games you should probably move along.
At $6.99 it’s going to leave a bit of a dent in your wallet compared to other titles in the App Store and so I’d only recommend this game if you are a fan of the genre and specifically this series.
$6.99 (View in iTunes)
Category: Games
Released: Dec 16, 2010
Version: 1.0.4
1.0.4
171 MB
Languages: English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Spanish
Seller: Electronic Arts
© 2010 Electronic Arts Inc. All Rights Reserved. ULTIMATE MORTAL KOMBAT 3 is a trademark of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Rated 12+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence
Frequent/Intense Horror/Fear Themes
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later
My history of fighting games has been of the fantasy fighting type, from Tekken and Battle of Toshinden to Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. The fantasy aspect of these games allows fighters to defy the laws of gravity and perform acts unknown to man and these features always made these games much more enjoyable for me. I’ve tried Mike Tyson’s Punch Out and Frank Bruno’s Boxing but neither appealed.
Now though boxing has been replaced by Mixed Martial Arts as the top fighting genre and so perhaps now is the time that a fighting game based on reality can actually compete with the fantasy titles of the genre.
The main part of MMA by EA Sports is the career mode where you can build your fighter as you see fit, from name, looks and hair to tattoos and skin tone you can either build a fighter in your own image or how you would like your image to be!
While it’s fun to make you fighter look like you getting on and fighting is what we’re here for. There are three modes of game-play, Exhibition gives you instant gratification as you are thrown straight into a battle while, challenge mode, as the name suggests, sets you a specific challenge which you must complete to unlock the profile of one of the MMA’s real life fighters.
The main fun in the game however is the Career mode, here you get to test your fighter against the best real MMA fighters in the world. As well as designing the look of you fighter he will have a set of stats that you can build to strengthen your fighters abilities. Health, stamina, speed, striking, grappling, submission and take-downs can all be updated independently so you can focus on a specific attribute dependent on your fighting style.
Fighting style is important as when building your fighter you have to choose its style, choosing the appropriate style will give an additional boost to the relevant abilities. These abilities can be built upon by training your fighter in one of four training ‘mini games’. Any one of Spar, Speed Bag, Heavy Bag and Lift Weights can be played between fights and depending on your success can add up to five points to your abilities. The games use a combination of speed, timing and accuracy using the touch screen, gestures and the accelerometer to succeed and they all add a nice additional challenge to the game. It would be nice of these games if these could be played separately too as both practice and to track high scores.
One you’ve completed your initial training you can take on your first opponent. You start ranked at 10th and your aim is to reach number one and the only way to do this is to beat the nine fighters above you.
Initially despite the brief hand on tutorial I found that I was unable to defeat even the first fighter. However, as soon as I realized that you had to weaken your opponent before you could use any of your submission moves, I made much better progress.
All the controls are gesture based which have been expertly implemented. Previous fighting games I’ve played have all been based on a d-pad and a variety of action buttons, however these gesture based controls where swiping and tapping the screen in various combinations result a range of punches, grabs and throws works very intuitively.
As we have come to expect with most EA games these days the graphics are second to none. The fighters look just like their real life counterparts right down to their tattooed bodies and the rings look like you are standing in one waiting to get your head knocked off of your neck.
Commentary is provided in the game but like most games much of it gets repeated which can get a little annoying at times. Hearing the rousing tones of Jimmy Lennon Jnr introduces the fighters is always welcome though. The range of intro music for your fighter is good though, although having the ability to pick the intro from a song in your iPhone’s library would have been a nice touch.
Career Mode in MMA by EA Sports is a little short and once you’ve built your fighter up and have learnt the basics you can move through the game relatively quickly. However the addition of the Challenge mode does add extra value for money. It would have been great to see a multi-player option so that you could battle it out with your friends but that is not to be.
Overall MMA by EA Sports is a great addition to the iPhones arsenal of fighting games. It’s certainly converted this fighter to the bone breaking, stomach churning, bare knuckle rawness that is Mixed Martial Arts fighting.
MMA beats all fighting games, hands down!
Pos
Cons
$4.99 (View in iTunes)
Category: Games
Released:Oct 20, 2010
Version:1.1.16
1.1.16
110 MB
Languages:English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish
Seller:Electronic Arts
© 2010 Electronic Arts Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Rated 12+ for the following:
Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content or Nudity
Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence
Requirements:Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later
Back in July we reviewed a new game named Samurai: Way of the Warrior HD and were suitably impressed with it’s beautiful graphics, blood drench gore fest and wonderful Japanese environments. There were shortcomings, so I was interested to see how in less than 6 months does Samurai II: Vengeance match up to it’s predecessor?
The first major improvement is that the game is now a multi-device application which will work on both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad for a single purchase. This means that the beautiful graphic novel style graphics look great on twice as many devices than before.
The two game modes still exist with the ‘game’ mode allowing you to massacre your way through seven chapters of increasingly challenging samurai fighting action while the Dojo is a fight to the death as a stream of attackers launch wave after wave of attacks onto you.
One of the major changes is the control mechanism. In the original Samurai the game utilized the full touch screen to enable gesture based controls, in Samurai II: Vengeance the more traditional d-pad and action buttons have been established which in my opinion provide more robust and accurate controls.
Another huge change is the interactive nature of the beautiful environments. Barrels placed around the levels can now be slashed open to earn cash that can then be spent on upgrading your special combo’s. Having access to these powerful combo’s become more and more important as you progress through the game as the enemies become stronger and more resilient.
You also need to interact with the environment to open access to other areas. This doesn’t add any puzzle aspect to the game but the extra interactivity does add to the overall depth of the game. The levels are larger and grander than before although they are still linear in nature.
Samurai II: Vengeance is also Game Center enabled with 24 achievements and leader boards for all 7 levels and the Dojo. This adds extra value to the game once you’ve completed the game.
Although there are many similarities between the original Samurai and Samurai II: Vengeance there are enough tweaks and new features that make it a must have for those new to the genre and those who enjoyed the original.
$2.99 (View in iTunes)
Category: Games
Released:Oct 21, 2010
Version:1.0
1.0 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
82.4 MB
Language:English
Seller:MADFINGER Games, a.s.
© MADFINGER Games, a.s.
Rated 12+ for the following:
Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor
Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Requirements:Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later
I often found that with fighting games many people who find their favourite version stick with it. If you liked Mortal Kombat you didn’t like Street Fighter and if you liked either of those you wouldn’t like Tekken. I think this was more due to the control systems on each game that varied slightly and once you were used to one it was difficult to move to the other.
The fighting genre has never been hugely successful on the iPhone yet, partly due to the touch screen controls or the less than perfect graphics but now there is a serious challenger in the form of Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior from game developers Indiagames Ltd.
Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior is a 3D fighting game which leans on the martial arts side of fighting which is no surprise given the martial arts star who lends his name to the title.
The first thing you’ll notice about Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior are the beautiful graphics. From the motion captured characters including Bruce Lee himself to the multiple gorgeous locations that ooze quality and while the environments cannot be directly interacted with they are animated which add extra depth to the graphics.
Just as in life a game needs more than looks to be successful, Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior does not disappoint here either. The controls are simple enough, a virtual d-pad along with two action buttons to kick and punch are all you need and combinations for these buttons over a large variety of moves.
Not all moves and combos are available from the start but as you progress through the game additional moves become unlocked and enable you to grow your character the more you play.
While the controls are easy to pick up they will take a while to master especially some of the special and end moves that took me a while to accomplish. This is not all bad though as it keeps the challenge going and always provides you with a target.
There are multiple ways to play the game too. First, there is the story mode which is how you unlock most of the additional characters, moves and artwork! This mode combines a variety of challenges, from one on one fights, survival matches, where you have to fight multiple opponents in a row with only limited energy gains between matches, and tournament.
Completing these challenges help you progress through the game and earn you XP enabling you to level up and unlock the previously mentioned items.
After unlocking the moves you can assign them to your character so that you can customize him to your own preferences, this degree of control is nice and enables you to have some control over the style of your character.
All of the game-types that you get to play through the story mode are also available to play individually as well which adds additional value to the game. That’s before you even consider the 30+ achievements detailed statistics and artwork that includes stills from Bruce Lee’s movies.
The only thing missing for me from this game is a local multi-player which would enable you to fight your friends not to mention an online multi-player which would make your very own dojo!
Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior is a very accessible fighting game that pushes the iPhone and shows what is possible when a developer puts time, effort and energy into a game. If you want a great looking fighting game that will keep you occupied for a decent amount of time get yourself over to the App Store and spend three dollars on this great game.
Reviewed on an iPhone 4
Price: $2.99 (App Store)
Category: Games
Released:May 20, 2010
Reviewed Version:1.0
Size: 84.7 MB
Language:English
Seller:IGFUN LLC
© Bruce Lee Enterprises, LLC 2010. All Rights Reserved
Requirements:Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.
If you ever wanted to fight like a girl or wanted to take part in Pillowfight Championship then Pillowfight Girls for iPhone would be the perfect game for you!
Introducing first: fighting out of the left corner, this beauty is a Freestyle fighter. She stands 5-feet-9-inch tall, 25 years of age and a fighting style described as “Strong and fast”. She holds a professional Pillowfighting record of 20 wins and 2 losses, with 10 wins by knockout. She is the current, reigning, and defending Pillowfight Champion. Fighting out of Texas, USA. The sexy…. Jessie
Now introducing the challenger: fighting out of the right corner, This sexy babe is an aggressive fighter. She stands 5-feet-8-inch tall, 22 years of age and a fighting style described as “Hard and brutal”. She holds a professional Pillowfighting record of 14 wins and 4 losses, with 12 wins by knockout. Fighting out of Cape Town, South Africa. The stunning….. Julia
Join a sexy crew of hot women in the exclusive Pillowfight Championship! The game will be available for iPhone and iPod touch soon. Are you ready to fight like a girl?
]]> https://touchreviews.net/pillowfight-girls-iphone-upcoming-game/feed/ 0