Got a dollar, or three? We’ve got three games for you, all for just under a dollar and all that are a little bit on the casual arcade side. Ninja Sword is a more involved take on the Fruit Ninja slashing dynamic, while Road Blaster puts you into a full-motion video driving game. Rounding out the list is GeoSpin, a fast-paced puzzler that keeps you thinking about color, shapes and three-dimensional space. Read all about all three below.
Ninja Sword (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Four game modes adorn Ninja Sword, a swiping casual arcade game that fans of Fruit Ninja will recognize. Like that game, your goal is cut as many flying objects in a row as possible by swiping your finger across your device’s touchscreen. Ninja Sword ups the ante a bit on challenge over Fruit Ninja, though: it requires you to slash certain objects in certain ways, which means you’ll have to react quickly not only to hit your target, but to assess the kind of move you need to make.
Apart from the standard challenge mode that tracks your score and increases in difficulty, Ninja Sword also packs a freeplay mode for practice, an endurance mode that sees how long you can survive in the game without missing, and a chaos mode that’s all about reaction time. You’ll also come across power-ups and pick-ups in the game that can change the experience mid-swipe, and Game Center support supplies leaderboards and achievements to keep you up with your friends’ progress and scores.
Road Blaster (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
This 1980’s driving game puts you behind the wheel as a Mad Max-style vigilante out for vengeance, or something. Road Blaster works like a few old games, in which you’re more playing along with the video (an old-school Japanese anime) by reacting to prompts than actually affecting the gameplay. Blinkers and indicators tell you when to turn and brake, and failing to do so sends you careening to your death.
You score points and hit checkpoints the longer you stay in the game without messing up a prompt. A batch of lives gives you a few chances to mess up, but fail to follow a prompt too many times and it’s game over. Achievements and leaderboards are provided through Game Center to help your score mean something to you and your opponents all over the world.
GeoSpin (iPhone) $0.99
It’s all about rotation with GeoSpin, a 3D puzzle game that pays special attention to colors and shapes. At the start of each of the puzzle’s levels, a shape is created by putting together lots of smaller geometric shapes to make a big 3D object. Floating around the central object are lots of smaller, colored geometric shapes. As you rotate the object around, your job is to quickly tap and drag the smaller shapes from the edges of the screen to match them with the ones that make up the object, which eliminates them.
The whole affair is timed — you only have a few seconds to match all the shapes on the object — and you’ll receive bonus points for clearing shapes quickly in succession. You’ll also earn more points if you clear certain shapes in order, or certain colors in order. Do both, and the bonuses compound; speed and an ability to keep lots of information in line are key to getting the highest score you can in the time you’ve got. GeoSpin requires iOS 4.1 or newer, however, so keep that in mind before you drop your dollar.
