Price: $2.99

Publisher: Polarbit

Reckless Getaway by Polarbit sets a new bar for excellence in 2D/3D driving on the App Store.  The game revolves around you dodging cops and obstacles yet the real fun comes by destroying your surroundings.  As the getaway car for a bank robbery (shown in an opening cut scene), the game puts you in several different vehicles in a quest to get away.  All the while a great soundtrack puts you in the mood to drive.

The controls are very well done and you will be able to pick them up quickly.  Weaving in and out of traffic earns you points (as does hitting cars and knocking them off the road).  Throughout the levels you will have several different vehicles at your disposal and each handles based on the size of the car.  The controls are incredibly responsive which allows you to make last second decisions like whether to jump a pit using the ramp or bypass it using the nearby dirt road.

The graphics are great and look very smooth on my iPhone 4.  Despite the utter destruction of the environments as you drive past at maniacal speed, you won’t notice any slowdown and the details all look fantastic.  The sound is also well done.  The music in the background gives you a fantastic back beat to the getaway and the crashes and explosions throughout are all well done as well. The production value on this game is incredibly high and a pat on the back should be given to the sound and graphic guys at Polarbit.

The real meat of the game is making a getaway and earning points.  You start with the possibility of earning 4 coins.  Each time you wreck you lose a coin with no way of gaining it back during that level.  These coins are important because getting enough allows you to unlock the next 4 levels of the game.  This is worth noting because as the game becomes more difficult in later levels, these coins are increasingly hard to get.  You’ll find yourself going back to an old level and replaying it a ton of times just to gain the 4th coin you missed the first time around.  That being said, it does provide a fun system of unlocking and rewards a player fairly consistently with new levels.

You’ll also find powerups as you’re driving through each level, each one providing some additional benefit to your car.  These help you rack up the points quickly which in turn help you earn towards those four coins mentioned above.  In all, the game is a blast to play yet won’t take much more than a few hours to finish.  Regardless, for just 3 bucks Reckless Getaway it is well worth it and I highly recommend buying it.

Overall Value for it’s $2.99 price point

Overall: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Sound: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Controls: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Price: $2.99

Publisher: Remedy

Reviewer: Cody Sharp

I remember playing RC Pro Am for the NES for hours at a time when I was younger.  If you aren’t familiar, it was a racing game that gave you the added ability to upgrade your vehicle with weapons, nitro, a better engine and more.  It was entirely awesome.  Even now I’ll open up the old NES emulator and play it.  After playing Death Rally, there may no longer be any need to.  The iPhone has finally got a game comparable to the original 1988 title.

Death Rally offers beautiful graphics, several tracks, tons of different modes and a lot of different cars.  Each of the cars can be upgraded with weapons (new weapon parts can be collected as you race), a faster engine, better handling or upgraded armor.  The sound within the game is top notch and so is the overall production quality.

The game does have some issues with camera angles as it offers two but for whatever reason will intermittently switch back to the other angle from time to time.  I prefer the second camera which follows along with the action right above your car while the first angle gives you more of an overall 45 degree view.  Nevertheless, besides this hiccup, the game runs smooth on my iPhone 4 and offers hours of gameplay options.

Remedy has already released several updates for the game including new cars, weapons and the like.  A game like this is easy to pick up and play and I have been playing it a lot over the last couple of weeks while riding the stationary bike in rainy/cold Indiana.  Take a bit of a leap and pick up this $3 title today.  No other racing/action game on the iPhone has yet to do RC Pro Am justice like Death Rally does.  Pure fun.

Overall Value for it’s $2.99 price point

Overall: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Sound: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Controls: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Price: $.99

Publisher: SteamPack

Reviewer: Nick Alfonse

Travel back in time to ancient Asia with SteamPack’s latest title, SamuraiTale, which tosses gamers into a story of vengeance and violence in traditional beat-em-up gameplay fashion. After the sword master, Detuka is murdered by assassins from Dark Crows, the young disciple Ryugetu sets out on a mission of redemption which is steeped in blood. Armed with just a samurai sword and his thirst for revenge, Ryugetu battles his way through the swarms of enemies in true hack and slash style.

SamuraiTale features our hero Ryugetu with his feet planted as if they were in cement, completely stationary like a statue in the center of the screen. Various enemies rush from either side, running at different speeds with unique attacks, requiring players to slash with precise timing in order to survive. A mistimed attack creates a delay where you’re left completely vulnerable, and with a strict “one and done” life meter, a single mistake pretty much means game over. Each of the four stages harbors a different boss character, with increasing difficulty and insane amounts of foes rushing towards you towards the latter moments of the game.

The animation is smooth and quick, with small spurts of blood leaping out from enemy assassin’s chests following a successful kill, as Ryugetu stands tall and poised in the face of death. In between levels, gamers are presented with some visual eye candy in the form of brilliantly drawn storyboards, accompanied with a few choppy blurbs of info about the story. As with many painfully obvious translated games, SamuraiTale has a couple English SNAFUs, including “Ryugetu finally gets the entrance of the castle,” or “Ryugetu finds that Dark Crows is not the only hit sqad (sic).” Seasoned gamers will know developers have been screwing this up since the 80s, but it’s still a clear lack of attention to detail, although not quite as side splittingly goofy as something along the lines of “All your base are belong to us.”

With a brimming soundtrack, SamuraiTale keeps the action pumping for as long as you can survive (which usually isn’t too long, unfortunately), and dots the background music with plenty of extra sound effects. The sound of enemy footsteps creeps up to Ryugetu, as a gritty slashing sound erupts with each kill, or a harsh metallic ping following a mistimed strike. Instead of recycling the same one or two tracks, SteamPack assembled a fairly full soundtrack, giving each stage and the menu screens their own dramatic, epic song.

Since Ryugetu doesn’t need to take a step in either direction, gamers will find themselves tapping up a storm in order to survive past the initial wave of Dark Crow assassins. Tap the lower portion of the screen on either side to attack low, and press the top part of the screen to strike high. Coordinating this is crucial, as certain enemies leap into the air while others charge on the ground, sometimes arriving within a split second of each other.

Grammar errors and jokes aside, SteamPack utilized the soundtrack and graphics to their advantage in an attempt to make a fairly one dimensional game more attractive than it actually is. In addition to the four stage story mode, there’s also an unlimited option which pits Ryugetu against a never ending onslaught of enemies, although the replay value here is pretty limited. However, for $0.99, I’m not exactly expecting SoulCalibur 5.

Overall Value for it’s $.99 price point

Overall: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Graphics: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Sound: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Controls: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Price: $.99

Publisher: Rock Pocket AS

Reviewer: Nick Alfonse

Side scrolling adventure fans, start stretching out your thumbs, as Rock Pocket is here to deliver another installment of patience testing fun. Immersed deep into a misty, spooky world, it is your task to carry our slightly cute monstrous friend towards the finish line while avoiding enemies and seemingly endless amounts of pitfalls. While the graphics and sound flourish in a wonderfully Halloween-esque world, Monster Mania isn’t without a few ghoulish problems of its own.

Set up as most adventure titles are, Monster Mania kicks our hero into action beginning with Scary World, featuring four stages of jumping, monster dodging, and racing challenges. Progress through each level successfully, and gamers can take on the challenge of mastering the next hair raising world as the difficulty continues to rise. Of course, this is all predicated upon your ability to actually finish the levels, which can easily become clouded with frustration as you stumble across the quirky and generally odd controls.

Nearly everything in the game is in various shades of black and grey, which is actually done wonderfully well thanks to silky smooth animation and plenty of backdrop accents. It almost looks like something out of a Tim Burton flick, with amorphous ghosts, graveyards, and lanterns shrouded in mist all dotting the various levels. Our hero is a diminutive sprite, with a massive blueberry colored head, cartoonish fangs, and a pair of antelope horns, although he’s a relatively fragile bugger when it comes to surviving Monster Mania.

Eerie, cartoony music plays throughout the titles and option screens with plenty of synth driven violins, chimes, and bass lines. Reminding me of cartoons such as Aaahh Real Monsters, there’s a pleasantly spooky vibe created, which only increases during gameplay. After you inevitably flip the switch which causes a wall of deathly sharp instruments to come chasing behind, the pace quickens, reaching a pulsating rhythm as your eyes begin to widen with suspense.

Despite the excellent elements utilized in the music and graphics, Monster Mania’s controls were insanely frustrating to master, even though they only consist of moving forward as fast as possible and jumping. Certain obstacles require a double jump to clear, such as pitfalls, enemy monsters, or plateaus dotted with gleaming jewels or extra lives. Now, it doesn’t help that your character is falling into these endless holes to his doom faster than Augustus into the chocolate river during Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but logic would usually dictate that pressing the jump button twice is an easy task. Unfortunately, the timing is incredibly odd, and a mistimed double jump results in death around nine out of ten times, making even the most relentless gamers grow weary after repeating the same level about twelve times just to reach a checkpoint.

With a lush display of graphics, haunting music, and an attractive price of $0.99, Monster Mania is great; until you start actually playing it. Maybe side scrolling adventure masters who’ve beaten all of the Mario titles a dozen times will take this down easy, but for the average gamer, I’d advise taking out an insurance policy on your iPhone before doing battle with this one.

Overall Value for it’s $.99 price point

Overall: Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Graphics: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Sound: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Controls: Rating: 2 out of 5 stars