At first glance it appears that despite his name Captain Antarctica is not your usual game hero. However, it’s soon apparent that with a plethora of upgrades and gadgets Captain Antarctica is no ordinary penguin and is ready to take on the task of rescuing his family and friends.
You responsibility in this task is to steer Captain Antarctica though underwater caverns to defeat the multiple bosses across 6 initial chapters, (chapter 7 is listed as “Coming Soon”). While 6 chapters may not seem like a lot of value for the $1.99 price tag each chapter is full of challenges.
The ultimate objective of each chapter is to negotiate your way through the dangerous underwater caverns and all the dangers they hold. From a variety of dangerous sea creatures to more volatile dangers such as mines and torpedoes there are dangers around every corner to hinder your progress.
Controlling Captain Antarctica through these dangers is done either via the accelerometer or via the touch screen, personally the most successful control system is the accelerometer but it’s nice to have the choice.
Each of the chapters include multiple Experiments (challenges), this means that you’ll need to repeat the chapters multiple times to complete them, the early chapters contain single digit challenges, however by the time you reach the final chapters will be double digit experiments for you to complete.
You are aided in these challenges by the option to purchase power-ups and upgrades to your existing skills. You have magnets, shields and jets and of course extra lives at your disposal and they can be purchased by coins.
You earn coins by completing the experiments in each level, but you can also purchase coins via in-app purchase. The balance between gaining coins in game and having to buy them to progress is fairly balanced so if you don’t want to buy them you don’t have to.
GameCenter integration is hit and miss, sure there are 32 achievements to unlock but rather than having leaderboards for each chapter there are just two for total coins and total distance traveled.
The game is great looking game to with bright, colorful two dimensional graphics which despite their 2 dimensionality provide great depth to the game and the jaunty music is well pitch to the game.
Captain Antarctica HD is a fun arcade game which has that vital ingredient of convincing you to need just one more try before you put it down and will appeal to players young and old alike.
[rating: 4.5/5]What we like
What to know
While car racing games dominate the App Store racing market there are those that prefer 2 wheeled transport and for those people there’s a new ride in town in the form of Rock(s) Rider, a new universal game that’s available in the App Store right now.
Rock(s) Rider is a trials based motorcycle game where your opponents are both a variety of obstacles and the clock and is based in a DaftPunk style warehouse full of ramps, jumps, loops and fireworks, yes fireworks!
If you’ve played Bike Baron before then you’ll have the basic idea of what you are in for here, however while Bike Baron is cartoon style arcade game, Rock(s) Racer is more of a simulator, with a few bells and whistles added for good measure.
The graphics look great, from the line-drawn design on the I game navigation to the industrial graphics of the levels themselves you aren’t going to be disappointed and the pleasure is matched in the audio department too where a pumping soundtrack and great sounding audio effects create an environment which you’ll want to keep coming back to.
Despite the claustrophobic confines of the warehouse each level is packed with action and controlling your two wheeled chariot over and through these obstacles is fun, challenging and at times frustrating.
These frustrations come from some of the level designs which can often leave your motorcycle trapped in a position that it can’t get out of. Sure you can go back to your last check point but the fact that you can even get stuck is, as I mentioned before, frustrating.
That frustration aside the game is a lot of fun, the controls are accurate and have multiple configurations so that you can choose between virtual buttons and touch controls but a combination of them both too, add to that the ability to control the sensitivity of them means that you have no excuse to control your bike with skill and accuracy!
And the bike responds well to these controls to and after a few rides you should be able to get the bike to do pretty much as you please. Of course that may sound like the challenge to the game is over at that point, you’d be wrong though as the real challenge comes not only from control the bike but from anticipating the tracks, collecting the relevant objects and finding the hidden objects too.
All of this takes place across 24 progressively difficult levels, bonus levels and additional levels promised at a later stage too, as you progress you will unlock features for your bike and character as well as a 3 wheeled bike that you can use on the bonus levels. Once you think you’ve mastered the various tracks though you’ll find yourself racing side by side with the bosses who are out to prevent you taking their crown.
Leaderboards and 40 achievements are provided via GameCenter integration which provide additional challenge to the game and while it’s a Universal app there is no synchronization of your progress between devices.
Rock(s) Rider, despite its frustrations, is a fun and challenging game, if you like you racing action on two wheels then this could be $2.99 well spent.
[rating: 4/5]What we like
What to know
Growing up I would frequently send and receive greeting cards that used the poems and character of Purple Ronnie, a stick figure, funny guy who always brought a smile to my face, and in Fancy Pants for iPhone and iPad I was taken back to that time as the lead character in this game reminded me of him.
However, most of you will know Fancy Pants from the web version of the game that’s been around for a while now and the port over to iOS is a pretty accurate representation of the stick figured platformer although the opportunity to take advantage of the iOS unique control functions of a touch screen and accelerometer was one that should have been taken advantage of. Instead the controls are simply via 4 virtual buttons.
All that aside Fancy Pants {App Store} is still a lot of fun, it’s fast, smooth and addictive and has loads of content that will keep you coming back for more again and again.
The back story consists of the everyday story of rescuing your sister from a bunch of pirates who have kidnapped her, the story is fun, entertaining but following the story is not required and doesn’t take anything away from the game play.
After a brief tutorial you’ll soon find yourself running, leaping, climbing and crawling through large sprawling levels which are full of obstacles but also various challenges and things to collect. You don’t have to complete everything to move through the store mode, in fact having something to go back to the earlier levels to do is all part of the fun.
The artistic style of the whole game is one of simple line drawings but they spring to life as Fancy Pants charges through the 11 levels and multiple arcade challenges that you can unlock as you play through the levels. These arcade games can then be played separately and you can track your success across all of this via the Crystal social gaming network.
If you decide not to complete all of the side challenges then the game can be literally run through pretty quickly, the question is though, why would you!
Despite not taking advantage of any iOS unique control options the controls do work well and Fancy Pants moves around so fluidly that even when he’s not swimming under water it can seem like he is, and that’s no bad thing!
If you like platform games but want something that is a step up from the normal jump up, jump over, stomp, repeat, repeat then Fancy Pants is for you. Fancy Pants is only 99c at the moment and is a universal game so can be played on both your iPhone and iPad, however there is no iCloud support so you’ll need to complete the game on both separately.
[rating: 4/5]What to know:
I’m not sure whether FetchUp is purposely trying to jump on the ‘green’ bandwagon but with it’s story of an alien need to collect bio fuel to enable him to return home it could gain some extra fans with it’s green credentials.
FetchUp is a fruit collecting arcade game where you control an alien by tilting your iPhone or iPod Touch left or right so that he can catch the falling fruit in his basic. You may have thought that with such a progressive form of travel that collect fruit in a basket would be a little bit basic for an alien from the future but obviously that is not the case!
While the controls are as simple as tilting your iPhone or iPod Touch there are 3 difficulty levels and each one not only speeds up the action but also adds extra features. For example on the first level your alien simply carries the basket on his head and all you need to do is stand beneath it and it’s yours. Moving up to the next level and your alien is now carrying the basket and you can now change his direction by touching the left or right hand side of the screen.
Finally the hardest level adds the fact that any fruit falling on your head will reduce your energy which will ultimately lead you to a quicker death. The addition of these extra features between the three difficulty levels makes it almost into 3 different games and certainly makes moving between the three difficulty levels more fun.
As you run back and forth trying to catch as much fruit as possible other alien creatures will attempt to stop your progress by launching bombs at you which will cause you to lose one of your three lives instantly. Help is at hand in your fight for fuel and there are a number of power-ups that will aid you in your progress. The most beneficial to your high-score though is the multiplier. While this creeps up from 1x, 2x all the way to 6x if you are at 6x with a full multiplier bar shaking your device will double your multiplier again and you will see your score skyrocket.
The fun graphics look good and certainly lend themselves well to this genre of game. While the music and sound effects are pretty effective too while at the same time not being mind blowing!
This is yet another game that benefits from being part of the OpenFeint network and includes over 30 achievements along with leaderboards for 6 different categories of highscore all of which add even more value to a game that is already a lot of fun all be it a little repetitive.
It doesn’t quite have the can’t put down appeal of some arcade games but it’s still fun and should keep anyone who tries it entertained for a while at least.
The Good
The Not So Good
Reviewed By: Craig Willis
FetchUp Gameplay Video
Price: $0.99 (iTunes Store Preview)
Released: Mar 05, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.0
Size: 30.9 MB
Languages: English
Seller: Bounding Circle
© 2010 BoundingCircle.com
Rated 9+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.
Handjoy, small creative agency based in Prague, has announced its first iPhone / iPod Touch game called Jumboo. The game is ready to debute on Apple App Store within few weeks.
Jumboo is fresh summer arcade game for both casual and hardcore players. The main character of this game is big gorilla. You can control gorilla’s moves by simple slides of you finger and by tapping the screen you perform jumps.
Features
- Fast paced gameplay
- Stunning animations and graphics
- Progressive difficulty
- Online Leaderboard
- One big gorilla!
Your goal in this game is simple – you have to jump as high as possible – you can do short jumps, long jumps and chain them to juicy combos. Jumboo is easy to learn but hard to master game all players have been waiting for.
The game is in the final phase of the development process and its debute on Apple App Store wil be at the beginning of September 2009.
Jumboo Trailer
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