Another big Thursday is upon us, complete with a big offering of new games. Horror fans will be pleased to see the release of the barely hyped but long-awaited Evil Dead, which lets you play through the events of the Sam Raimi cult classic. For something a little cuter and less demon-oriented, grab Hanging With Friends, a turn-based Hangman game from the makers of Words With Friends. After that is a match game for people with a DJ skillset called Cell Bound, where you’ll spin a disc in order to match cells of the same color, and iQuarterback 2, where you can hone your hand-eye coordination and eagle-eye aim.
Evil Dead (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Finally, it’s here – a top-down action-adventure game based on the cult classic Sam Raimi horror film, The Evil Dead. You play as Ash, Bruce Campbell’s character from the film, and follow the events of the movie as you work through the game’s 30 different levels. Along the way, you’ll wield weapons like axes and shotguns against demonic plants and possessed people.
Evil Dead is divided into two parts – the autumn levels, which cover the story of the movie, and the winter levels, which create an entirely new story for the game. You get Game Center support so you can track your Evil Dead scores on its leaderboards, and lots of gore as you hack up demons. Also, Evil Dead is currently on sale for its launch, so now’s the time for fans of the film to snag it.
Hanging With Friends (iPhone, iPad) $1.99
Also available in a free, ad-supported version, Hanging With Friends is just like Words With Friends, the popular Scrabble-like game, only it ditches crosswords for Hangman. The game supports Facebook Connect so you can quickly and easily find friends to play with, and allows you to take on 20 opponents simultaneously, just like Words With Friends.
While Hanging With Friends is a pretty standard Hangman game, it includes a few little improvements to keep the game interesting and help you when you’re stumped. For example, you can use the Instant Replay function to see your opponents guess at the word you’re trying to solve, and you can also gain hints from “lifelines” that you’ll have to use strategically through the course of the game. Best of all, Hanging With Friends is turn-based, so you can play it on your schedule, whenever you have a second.
Cell Bound (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Cell Bound is something of a matching game, in which you’ll need to stack cells of all the same color together. The cells float from the outside edges of the screen toward the center of a round plate, where they stick to a peg in the middle. Touch controls let you rotate the plate, along with the cells, so that you can intercept new cells with your groups of old ones. The idea is to keep all the colors the same to score points, while avoiding letting unlike colors bind together or letting the pile become too large.
You get three game modes with Cell Bound: its Blast Mode has cells binding to the wrong color turning black and basically being dead spots you have to clear out. When five cells of the same color are stacked together in Blast Mode, you can tap the center of the screen to eliminate them for a point bonus. Infinite Mode is more easy going, allowing you to keep playing and racking up points until you get bored or too many cells fill the screen. Finally, Timer Mode gives you a set amount of time to pull down as many points as possible by quickly making cell combinations.
iQuarterback 2 Pocket Edition (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Fire off a few laserbeam passes and hone your skills in iQuarterback 2, where you’re the quarterback and you’ll use touch controls to throw passes. The game packs two kinds of levels: those with moving targets, and those with stationary ones. The idea is to touch the screen in order to see the path of the quarterback’s pass, and release to throw. The closer to the bullseye you hit your targets, the more points you’ll earn.
High scores earn your quarterback Fame, which translates into unlocking bonus items and additional stadiums to play in, which can slightly alter the feel of the two levels as well as provide a new backdrop. Others, like special hats, give you Fame boosts during levels to let you earn a bonus. The more high scores you earn, the more cool things you can grab.
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