This week’s Fresh iPhone games includes a SEGA throwback, the sequel to Myst, and other quirky titles worth checking out.
Riven: The Sequel to Myst (iPhone) $5.99
Riven was a big deal on the PC years ago, with a large and expansive game world that players explored in a point-and-click adventure. There’s a big, immersive story here — reflected in the fact that the game weighs in at about a gigabyte of data, and will take lots of time to download.
In bringing Riven to iOS, developer Cyan Worlds has added a number of specific improvements, like a bookmark save system, hot-spot hints to help progress through the story, touch controls for panning around the game world and the ability to zoom on anything for more detail.
Altered Beast (iPhone) $0.99
Another day, another port of an old Sega game to the iOS platform. Altered Beast is a 1988 Greek-themed arcade beat-em-up. The side-scroller rolls you forward inexorably toward boss fights and hordes of enemies, all of which you have to punch or kick until you can gain enough power to become a beast.
There’s not a lot of variety in the play, but Altered Beast is challenging in that old-school gaming way. As you battle through different bad guys, you’ll eventually gather power-ups to transform into a beast, like a werewolf or a dragon. Suddenly you’re a killing machine that’s pretty hard to destroy. That’s when Altered Beast gets interesting, and intense.
WINtA (iPhone) Free
Game developer ngmoco has dropped its answer to the rhythm game, a genre dominated by games like Tap Tap Revenge and Rock Band. WINtA is similar to Tap Tap Revenge, for example, but instead of having prompts descend on the screen, the game features a grid-style play field. It resembles a phone’s keypad, with different buttons lighting up in time with the music.
The game links up with ngmoco’s Plus+ network for achievements and leaderboards, and the company also plans to keep adding tracks, as well. WINtA is was created by Masaya Matsuura — the creator of the PlayStation’s Parappa the Rappa, one of the first rhythm games on the market — and bears a lot of innovative hallmarks for the genre.
Buccaneer Blitz (iPhone) $2.99
Pirates and arcade action are part of the package with this real-time strategy game. Like other strategy games, you’ll raise a fleet of ships and try to take down other pirates and capture their islands to win, but Buccaneer Blitz also has a few tricks hidden in its peg leg.
For one, you can always manually take control of your ships’ cannon and open fire on enemies. RTS games traditionally have the player issuing orders to computer-controlled combat units, but here you can take control to try to sway a battle in your favor. Buccaneer Blitz has full Game Center support for leaderboards and achievements, as well as a head-to-head online mode so you can take on other iPhone swashbucklers online or locally, using a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection.
House of Glass (iPad) Free ($4.99 in-app upgrade)
Part point-and-click game focusing on exploration, and part puzzle-solver, House of Glass has you exploring a mysterious house and manipulating 3D gems in various puzzles in order to move through it. The puzzles all present you with shapes that can be fit together in different ways — tangram puzzles that you might remember from school — and the puzzles can be solved in multiple ways.
House of Glass includes 30 puzzles, not to mention the stuff going on in the house that’s not gem-related, and presents a pretty deep and enthralling story. The game can be pretty challenging, but the puzzles at least include a hint system, and the whole package includes Game Center support. Downloading and starting up the game is free, but accessing the full version will run you $4.99 in an in-app purchase.
