Gaming’s biggest three days of the year, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is in full swing this week in Los Angeles. Developers are showing off some interesting new iOS titles, but in the meantime, a few new greats have just hit the App Store. We’re kicking off today’s list with Dream:scape, a new first-person game that uses Infinity Blade’s Unreal Engine 3. After that, there’s 2-D side-scroller 1000 Heroz, in which a new level becomes available each day, and Chop Chop Slicer, a Fruit Ninja-like slicing game with a sci-fi bent. Rounding out the list is a non-game offering in the form of Dreams of Burma, a 1,000-photo-strong trip through the country care of Fotopedia and National Geographic.
Dream:scape (iPhone, iPad) $1.99
A first-person puzzler using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3, the graphical powerhouse behind Infinity blade, Dream:scape is all about memory. It’s also about death, since it puts you in the shoes of a mysterious protagonist by the name of Wilson: a man virtually dead, possibly caught between worlds in a “dreamscape” of his own creation. That dreamscape looks a lot like a farm, complete with a small cabin, a river and a barn.
Armed with only a journal and your wits, you have to parse together Wilson’s memories from music and disembodied spoken dialog. Your primary tool is just exploration; wandering the dreamscape will start to give clues about objects, which you’ll need to open more of the dreamscape and more of the story. It’s an interesting trip down the rabbit hole that’s fairly different from most other games offered on iOS, and it looks great, to boot.
Chop Chop Slicer (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Slap a sci-fi theme and a Martian backdrop on Fruit Ninja and you’ll be pretty close to Chop Chop Slicer. The ninth game in the Chop Chop series from Gamerizon but one of only two to offer chopping, the game is all about defending your alien ship from incoming aliens, meteors and more, using your finger to approximate a blade as you use the iOS device’s touchscreen. Slicing objects knocks them out of the air as they come barreling toward you, and also racks up points.
In order to pull down the best possible score in Chop Chop Slicer, you’ll want to use fewer strokes to take out as many objects as possible. That means slicing more than one object and trying to cut them in two equal halves, as that results in a one-slice kill. Get that ratio too far off and the threat will keep coming, requiring multiple cuts. You get three lives each time you jump into Chop Chop Slicer, as well as online leaderboards and achievements through Game Center.
1000 Heroz (iPhone) $0.99
Every day is a new level for side-scrolling 2-D running game 1000 Heroz, because while the mechanics stay the same, the game changes every 24 hours. Using some basic touch-control buttons, you guide a character from one end of the level to the other, trying to complete the run in as little time as possible. Along the way are obstacles to dodge by jumping; if it sounds simple, that’s because it is.
But because of a fun cartoonish art style and some forward thinking, 1000 Heroz has a way of staying interesting. Each day, a new level is made available, starring a new hero. You can play yesterday’s level still, but if you play the newest level, you can compete on 1000 Heroz’s leaderboards. Each new level gets a leaderboard, allowing players to see where they rank in a brand new competition every day.
Dreams of Burma (iPhone, iPad) Free
A combination effort by National Geographic and Fotopedia, Dreams of Burma is a “photographic journey through Burma’s awe-inspiring scenery.” It takes readers through all aspects of the country, from shots of the Himalayan Mountains, its Buddhist statues, its people and more. The app contains more than 1,000 photos from Burma.
Dreams of Burma also includes a batch of additional features to round out its offering. There are wallpapers you can add to your iOS device’s lock screen or background, for example, as well as the ability to share photos through social media like Facebook or Twitter. You can view interactive maps and photo slideshows, and Dreams of Burma will even help you plan a trip itinerary for visiting the country.
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