AppAdvice Game Of The Week For September 14, 2012
Every week, our staff will handpick a game from the past two weeks that we believe is a must-download for your iPhone or iPad. These games will always be from a wide variety of genres, but they are chosen because our own staff members love it and can’t quite put it down. So here are this week’s picks! Enjoy, and happy gaming!
Blast-A-Way
Puzzle fans will love our Game of the Week pick. Blast-A-Way is a colorful 3-D playground of blocks, bombs, and robots.
Players will take control of cute robots (each with their own personality), who must save the “boxies,” which are mini-robots. These little guys will be scattered all over the level, either freely waiting for you to rescue them, or they will be stuck in blocks that you get to blow up with bombs.
Controls are easy, as players will just drag a path from the robot to where they want to go. Various bomb types will be available on the level, and dragging a path over them will make the robot pick them up. You can only have one bomb at a time, so it’s important to plan out your strategy so that you don’t leave an important bomb behind. Once you have all three boxies (or less if you lose one or can’t get to them), drag your robot to the exit portal. Some levels will have multiple robots for you to work with, so you will have to make sure each one gets to the exit.
The bombs are the real fun of the game. Each one is unique and serves a purpose, such as the impact bomb that explodes once it touches something, sticky bomb that will stick on and explode after a brief amount of time, and a teleportation bomb, which players can use to get themselves into otherwise unreachable places. Each bomb will have a color, and it can only be used with like-colored blocks. Later on, you’ll have sponge bombs that absorb the color of blocks they bounce on before exploding, and even color gates that change the colors of your bombs.
Blast-A-Way features five areas with 16 levels each. For each area, blocks will be made of a different material and have a varying look, so it’s always a nice refreshing change of scenery.
We’ve been loving this game at AppAdvice lately, and it’s highly recommended that you check out this casual puzzle game for yourself.
Make sure to read Lory Gil’s full review here.
Honorable Mentions
Wild Blood
Our Honorable Mention pick this week will have you taking up the sword as Sir Lancelot in an epic adventure game with a similar style to that of the God of War and Devil May Cry series.
The story is that Sir Lancelot had an affair with King Arthur’s queen, Guinevere — who knew he’d be such a lover? So Arthur struck a deal with Morgan Le Fey, who ends up opening the gates of hell to unleash darkness upon the world, and Lancelot. Oh, and she takes Guinevere hostage, of course.
You will be eased into the basic game mechanics, so it becomes easy to control once you get used to it. Using a virtual joystick on the left, and action buttons on the right, you will hack-and-slash your way through Wild Blood. The targeting system makes it easy to attack, and you will be warned of nearby enemies with an indicator on the screen.
As you progress, you will get elemental spell attacks with your sword and other weapons, as well as other damage upgrades. You can level these up at save points, which are scattered throughout the world.
Wild Blood is action-packed and is the first Gameloft game to utilize the Unreal Engine, so it looks great. If you’re looking for a fun hack-and-slash to pick up this weekend, make sure to check out Wild Blood.
For more about Wild Blood, check out Sean Capelle’s full review here.
Super Hexagon
Here’s a bonus for this week, guys! Terry Cavanagh, the creator of VVVVVV, has created another amazing 2-D arcade game, Super Hexagon.
In this twitchy reflex game, you must move a single point in the center of the screen around to avoid crashing into an encroaching wall. You move left or right by tapping on that side of the screen. It sounds simple, but the game is a bigger challenge that you think it to be.
There are three difficulties that you have to start with: Hexagon, Hexagoner, and Hexagonest. The difference between all of these are the speed and obstacles that you will come across. Each game you play will last no more than a minute, but 95 percent (just an approximation from my experience) of them may be only a few seconds long. The objective is to last as long as you can. After every 10 seconds, the pace picks up and you will face more obstacles than what you started with. It’s a huge challenge that will keep you addicted for hours.
Once you clear each difficulty, you will unlock “Hyper” versions — good luck with those, because you will need it.
The game is extremely fun and addictive, despite the difficulty level. A personal tip of mine is to practice with Hexagoner first, and then go back to Hexagon — it becomes much easier, since it will seem like slo-mo compared to Hexagoner (and Hexagonest, for that matter).
Get more information about Super Hexagon with my full review here.
For video coverage of these games in action, don’t miss Robin’s AppAdvice Daily below!
