Having already released its first iPhone game Miitomo, a bespoke social networking game, Nintendo is now teasing the next round of games headed to the iPhone and iOS devices. Notably, unlike Miitomo, these are going to be versions of existing successful Nintendo franchises: Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem.
Although Animal Crossing is not quite on the same podium as Super Mario, it is still major first-party intellectual property for Nintendo to release on non-Nintendo consoles for the first time. The new smartphone and tablet titles are expected to be released later this year, around October.
Fans of Bethesda’s Fallout games on Xbox, PlayStation and PC got the news yesterday that Fallout 4 will be launched in November – and the company also threw in a surprise bonus in the form of an iOS game. Fallout Shelter is a kind of blend of SimCity, XCOM and FTL in which you create your own fallout shelter and try to keep its residents alive and happy.
Fallout Shelter puts you in control of a state-of-the-art underground Vault from Vault-Tec. Build the perfect Vault, keep your Dwellers happy, and protect them from the dangers of the Wasteland.
Select from a variety of modern-day rooms to turn an excavation beneath 2,000 feet of bedrock into the very picture of Vault Life. Get to know your Dwellers and lead them to happiness. Find their ideal jobs and watch them flourish. Provide them with outfits, weapons, and training to improve their abilities.
As Overseer, you get to design the shelter and take care of its residents, but you can also send them out into the Wasteland to find additional armor, weapons and other handy loot … Expand Expanding Close
If there were prizes for turning a horrible experience into a positive one, Mark Major, a Reddit user who goes by the handle Kindlingapp, would have to win one. After breaking his back in a freak accident at a construction site, he decided to turn the experience into an iPhone game Plummet under the name Broken Back Games.
Seven years ago while in Beijng I had a freak accident.With no warning, I tumbled down a construction shaft and fractured my spine. My sole memory of the accident was the free falling plummet I had before hitting my head on the side. I woke to find myself at the bottom of a construction shaft with a sore head, tight chest and the broken pieces of a wooden plank which I had crashed through during my plummet.
It was a second unpleasant experience – being made redundant – that gave him the time to pursue the project. He started with hand-drawn stick-man graphics then partnered with a Serbian designer and Romanian developer to turn the idea into the game based on his real-life fall.
Plummet is due out on 4th January, and you can sign up here to be reminded.
According to Touch Arcade, which had an early peak at the game (Nguyen seems to be marketing this game despite pulling Flappy Bird for getting too popular), Swing Copters is just as challenging (therefore probably as addictive) as you pilot a helicopter upward through gates with menacing, swinging hammers that crash your flight on impact. The gaming site also has footage of early gameplay of the Flappy Bird successor as you can see below:
The official successor to Flappy Bird is said to be ready to soar on Thursday, August 21st, and be free with a single 99¢ in-app purchase to remove advertisements. Will Dong Nguyen’s next game be yet another hit or is the Flappy Bird concept too played out?
UK consumer watchdog the Office of Fair Trading is investigating in-app purchases in phone games aimed at children, reports the BBC.
The investigation was prompted by a 300% increase in complaints from consumers, and follows a high-profile UK case in which a police officer parent reported his own child for fraud after Apple refused to refund in-app purchases amounting to £3700 ($5680) … Expand Expanding Close
Infinity Blade is to the iPad what the Halo series is to the Xbox 360 (or the Gran Turismo franchise to the PlayStation 3). That is, a killer game – a title so compelling that not only does it showcases what’s possible on a platform, but is also so impressive that folks go out and buy the hardware just to be able to play that particular game. A killer title for iPad gamers has to be Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade.
Classed as the first iOS game to run on the Unreal Engine, Infinity Blade went on to become the fastest-grossing app in the history of iOS, selling $1.6 million in four days. Three major updates later, Chair Entertainment launches Infinity Blade 2, a sequel to the elegiac action masterpiece. Here’s the blurb:
Journey into the world of the Deathless tyrants and their legion of Titans. Build skills and upgrade characters… all while delving deeper into this mysterious, timeless adventure.
Expect forty new locations (up from ten in the original title), many new hit points, weapons and spells, plus a bunch of other nuances and nice-to-haves. Chair is already thinking post-launch, teasing an update with the Clash Mobs feature where a bunch of other players attack a monster with millions of hit points. In case you were wondering, IGNgaveInfinity Blade 2 a 10. A cornerstone of the sequel is, of course, graphics.
[slideshow] The game features console-quality lighting effects.
The game runs fine on the original iPad, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and third- and fourth-generation iPod touch. However, you’ll want to enjoy it on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S due to optimizations that really push the envelope of what’s possible on Apple’s A5 chip, especially in the lighting and shading department. Make no mistake, this is one game that you’ll want to show off to your Android-toting friends.
More information is available at the official site. The game hit the New Zealand App Store this morning. You should expect it in the U.S. store around 11pm Eastern time tonight at this URL, priced at $9.99 (a 941MB universal binary download). To celebrate the launch of Infinity Blade 2, Chair slashed the original Infinity Blade to just six bucks for a limited time. Release notes and more clips after the break, including Donald Mustard (creative director), Adam Ford (artistic director) and Geremy Mustard (technical director) talking the visuals.
