Deals deals deals! In the spirit of Easter — obviously a time of fasting on your expenses — a lot of EA mobile games have dropped in price for the weekend. Yes, even Android games.
Other than hot deals, there are some interesting and crazy games this week, so let’s stop wasting time on this introduction.
Weekend deals:
EA has a ton of deals across iOS and Android platforms. The titles on sale (listed below) are all $0.99 for the linked platform unless indicated otherwise. If the title is not on sale but is still only $0.99, I’ve included it as well.
- Dead Space (iPhone, iPad)
- Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12 (iPhone)
- Max & the Magic Marker (iPhone, iPad)
- NBA Jam (iPhone)
- Fight Night Champion (iPhone)
- Battlefield Bad Company 2 (iPhone)
- Rock Band Reloaded – $2.99 (40% off) (iPhone – may not be available outside of NA)
- Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (iPhone)
- Need for Speed Shift (iPhone, $2.99 on Android)
- Reckless Racing (iPad, regular $0.99 price on iPhone)
- The Sims 3 (iPhone, $2.99 on Android)
- The Sims 3 Ambitions (iPhone)
- FIFA 11 (iPhone, iPad, $1.99 on Android)
- Madden NFL 11 (iPhone, iPad)
- NCAA Football (iPhone)
- Tetris (iPhone, $1.99 on Android)
- MONOPOLY (iPhone, $1.99 on Android)
- SCRABBLE (iPhone, iPad)
- CLUE Secrets & Spies – A Hidden Object Game (iPad)
- The Game of LIFE (iPhone, $1.99 on Android)
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert [it’s RA3] (iPad, regular $0.99 price on iPhone)
- RISK: The Official Game (iPhone, iPad)
- Worms ($1.99 on Android)
- Bejeweled 2 ($1.99 on Android)
The Android deals seem to be regional, as they are pretty expensive on the Dutch Android Market which only showed localized pages. I gave up on the Android Market website after trying to change my region without logging in, so just check out EA’s Android sale page for the links to buy those games. I’m confident that you can figure it out if you are an Android user.
SEGA has a similar sale going on, but not as many games:
- ChuChu Rocket! HD – $2.99 (iPad)
- Super Monkey Ball – $0.99 (iPhone)
- Super Monkey Ball 2 – $0.99 (iPhone)
- Altered Beast – $0.99 (iPhone)
Weekend highlights:
The Last Ace of Space (iPhone, $0.99)
Astro Crow’s The Last Ace of Space is one of the more interesting variations on the runner genre (e.g., Canabalt) I’ve played. Instead of focusing on a single touch mechanic to jump across gaps, you also use a variety of mechanics like sliding under enemies, tapping or flicking enemies, and tapping the screen like a madman to escape an ever-following giant slime monster. Collecting 3 beans allows your flying pig pal to fart you away from that monster and reset the distance bar indicating how close it is to eating you — which decreases as you get hit by obstacles.
Over time, control indicators disappear from the HUD and things become very hectic as you use both thumbs to survive. While technically you can die if you don’t escape the slime monster that hunts you, I never had any real issues escaping it. All my deaths came from gaps, which actually allows you to focus more on all the tap controls than having to worry about impending doom from behind like in something like Hook World.
It’s currently 50% off as a launch promotion and for $1 I recommend it. Although there is only one level, it becomes hard enough to keep replaying it for a highscore. Also, the clean art style and price makes up for any longevity issues you may have. At its heart it is still a runner game, so let your prior experience with those games be the judge.
Bunny The Zombie Slayer (iPhone, iPad, $0.99)
Hothead’s answer to the Easter spirit is to turn the Easter Bunny into an egg grenade lobbing mammal that protects yet another garden from a zombie invasion. I didn’t get around to playing this, but the trailer should really be clear enough. It looks like a fun distraction from conversations with in-laws if you have to visit them over Easter.
Coin Drop (iPhone & iPad, $0.99)
Full Fat Games’ Coin Drop is pretty much an evolution of Peggle with 180 levels that are really hard to 3-star. I only got to play this for half an hour, so I’ll reserve judgment for a more extensive review later next week. In a nutshell, you throw coins into a Peggle-like level with moving elements to catch bad blue coins and score points. For now, if you like Peggle and cute-ass coins: buy it because it’s fantastic.
Starbase Command (iPhone & iPad, $0.99)
This game was free for a day and I didn’t get around to play or post it as a Free App of the Day when it was one, but it’s still worth checking out if you are a tower defense fan. You protect a starbase from incoming space ships of different classes (frigates, carriers, cruisers) by building different kind of turrets on asteroids. Ion cannons drain shields, gauss cannons do heavy but slow damage, fighter wings counter other fighters, etc.
It’s not exactly traditional tower defense but if you like the genre — and like space settings — then you’ll find some good hours of playtime here. Games can run 10+ minutes easily and it’s hard enough to require a couple of playthroughs to get the hang of designing a good defense.
Destructopus (iPhone, TBA)
We wrote about this last weekend, but Glitchsoft has since provided us with a trailer that shows off the game and gives you a better idea what it’s about. And yes, it is still called Destructopus.
Tehra Dark Warrior (iPhone, free)
Spanish site VideoShock.es pointed me and Jim to this free game. I gave it a spin and despite the fact that it looks a bit generic, it was actually not bad at all. It’s a pretty basic 3D hack & slash game with upgradeable magic attacks and it can be a bit easy to get swamped by enemies at times, but it’s fun enough for a free game. Worth a download if you like 3D action games.
WTF?
Play Kalei (iPhone, $0.99; iPad, $1.99)
Here we have a bizarre game where you match kaleidoscopic images by rubbing your finger of a picture. You can use your own photos so yeah, that’s not creepy at all when you do human facse. Good luck keeping this app SFW by rubbing your custom pictures, Internet.
Tap Fish (iPhone, iPad, Android, free on all platforms)
Tap Fish has been downloaded over 10 million times on the iPhone, and it has been released on Android last week with over 500k downloads already. It’s a virtual fish tank game — with almost 50k ratings on the Android Market averaging a 4.5/5 — in which you have to pay money to buy Fish Bucks so you can buy cool things for your aquarium, as well as getting a million pop-ups in the process.
It works like a social game in many ways, including XP for things you can do only once every few hours, XP for every single little thing you do, posting to Facebook, adding neighbors, gameplay elements that take forever to actually do anything fun, a terrible tutorial, and all that jazz. That video doesn’t really do it justice though, and not because the game actually runs much smoother than the trailer shows.
It’s that it just doesn’t depict how it’s probably the worst mobile thing I’ve ever “played,” and it doesn’t show how it’s a testament to the idiocy of what millions of people play on their phones. And guess what, there’s nine of these Tap games.
Of course we are not the audience for this kind of stuff, as many casual players on Facebook appear to love this game in an insane way. So if you don’t like to play good games, I guess you could check it out. If you ever feel the need to state your dislike of Angry Birds or social games like CityVille in the future, please keep in mind that Tap Fish exists.
Laser Dolphin (iPhone, late April/early May)
Not to just be “that guy” who complains about mobile social games that make him want to kill himself, why not have some lasers on your dolphins? Dingo Games’ Laser Dolphin looks like Ecco with lasers, machine guns and light sabers. The graphics look a bit dodgy in this trailer, but what other game has a dolphin shooting lasers?
I read the developer’s name as “Dino Games” at first because it was late at night, but thankfully Australian community member Lelio noted that it had to be an Australian game “because the aim of the game is to save the prime minister from aliens and the company is called Dingo Games.” Can’t argue with that, or with weaponized dolphins for that matter.
Weekly news highlights:
- Two Worlds II: Castle Defense on the way, iOS versions in development
- Epic is not happy about dollar apps
- Robot Unicorn Attack is now on Android (get it here)
- Geoff Keighley made a 15,000 word Portal 2 feature, only on iPad
- Telltale is bringing iPhone adventure Hector: Badge of Carnage to PC/Mac and iPad
- Telltale also announced Law & Order: L.A. for PC, Mac, consoles, mobile and tablet devices
- Final Fantasy III is only $1 more on iPad than iPhone, still expensive as hell
- Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is now on the iPhone
Notable updates:
Mechanic Panic (iPhone, $0.99)
Mechanic Panic is one of those jumper games, but instead of jumping from platform to platform you jump from wall to wall. It’s highly addictive, and very much a pick-up-and-play kind of mobile game. A new update has added XP and unlockable skills to apply to your Mechanic as he tries to save civilians in a race to the top of an elevator shaft.
The update adds longevity to the pure highscore questing, and you can easily play this game for half an hour on end. You can also challenge friends online, and pay money to level-up and get skills faster — which you shoudn’t unless you are terrible at it. What you should do, is check it out and unlock stuff manually.
That’s it for this weekend. If you know of a ridiculous or cool new Android or iOS game, hit up Jim Sterling or myself on Twitter. Or post it in the comments!
