Three arcade-style casual games are on today’s Fresh Games list, bringing a little something for everybody. Etolis: Arena is your dual-stick shooting title; Thief Lupin! is a single-button platformer in which you’ll jump to avoid traps and grab loot; and Kick Buttowski is a deep and interesting distance launching title. Read up on all the details below.
Etolis: Arena (iPhone) $1.99
Some great science fiction graphics adorn Etolis: Arena, a two-stick shooter-type game that pits you against wave after wave of alien enemies. It’s standard fare for the genre, although Etolis is quite a pretty game, with a variety of enemies to defeat and weapons to unlock and purchase.
The more you play, the more elements you have access to in Etolis. You’ll eventually unlock multiple game modes and levels, such as “Dronez,” in which you’ll battle waves of enemies with only small arms; “Rockets,” in which you get rocket launchers to fight off aliens for as long as you can; and “Hammers,” in which your only weapons are big hammers. Game Center and Crystal support gives you access to leaderboards to see where you rank against other players, and you can also unlock achievements.
Thief Lupin! (iPhone) $0.99
Though super-simple, Thief Lupin! is deceptive and complex. You play one of four characters that has to work through tiny puzzle levels in a sort of Donkey Kong style — tapping the screen causes you to jump to avoid objects and traps, while grabbing diamonds on your way. Each new hallway is different: in some levels, your character will walk at a set speed from one side of the floor to the other and you’ll need to time your jumps; in others, you’ll only move when you jump.
Thief Lupin! includes more than 300 tiny levels spread through multiple sections, and you’ll unlock more abilities to customize things as you gather more diamonds and complete more levels. It only requires one button to play — tap anywhere and your character will jump in some capacity. You can share your capabilities with others using Game Center leaderboards, and your skills are rewarded with achievements as well.
Kick Buttowski: Loco Launcho (iPhone) Free
At its heart, Kick Buttowski is a distance game — you want to launch daredevil Kick as far as you can, and the further you get, the better your score. But the game is a lot more complex than that, which is nice, because it’ll keep you busy a lot longer and requires some engagement on your part to hit power-ups to do tricks and get more distance.
When you start, you’ll time your screen taps with a meter on the right side of the screen to pick up as much speed going down a ramp as you can. Once you launch, you can steer in this side-scroller by using the vehicle’s wings, and you get an additional boost using a two-liter of soda attached to your cardboard car. Make it through some rings and you’ll do stunts in the air, adding “Wow Points” to your total that you can use to upgrade your vehicle to get even further in each stage. Between all the things there are to hit, plus the upgrades you have to buy to stay competitive, there’s actually quite a bit to do in Kick Buttowski.
