Quick Hits brings you short and sweet views on some of the latest releases on the App Store.
Arachnadoodle by Connect2Media | $0.99
This game can be easily described as a sort of upside-down Peggle, where you’re launching the adorable Boris the spider (awesome) towards pegs, trying to weave a web incorporating them all in a certain number moves. You have various hazards to navigate around as you launch Boris around like a crazy spider. The game lacks some of that pure addictive joy that Peggle has, and it would also be nice if when you light up all the pegs in this game, if you could continue playing in order to strengthen your web even further, to get more bonus points at the end by catching more flies that get caught in your web. You get points for having extra moves at the end, but it would be nice to have the choice of what I think has more value – the points for the leftover moves or the points I could gain by using them. Arachnadoodle has 32 levels, and for 99 cents, it doesn’t really do a bad job at what it does, and isn’t a bad pickup, even if it isn’t a world beater.
Cell War 1.1 Update by Tipcat Mobile | $0.99
The virus-killing shmup has gotten a 1.1 update adding some key new features to the game. There’s now a virtual joystick control available, a Boss Rush mode that has you just fighting bosses one after another, OpenFeint implementation, as well as improvements to the game’s overall smoothness over the issues reported in version 1.0. Previous owners will appreciate the improvements, although the core gameplay appears largely unchanged. Shmup fans should likely enjoy this game even more now.
Skull by Arf Software | Free
Skull is similar to the recently-featured Talking Carl, where you have an object on screen that you mess around with and can you cause to mimic your sounds. This app’s biggest feature over Talking Carl is that it has advanced sound manipulation settings to make the skull repeat back what you say in a bunch of different ways. Getting it to play back your sounds in a comprehensible way may take more time and effort than you would think from a seeming digital toy app. It’s a bit more complex and much less intuitive than something like Talking Carl which provides just simple fun, but this app is permanently free since you people didn’t buy it around Halloween when it came out. There’s not much point to using it, but it could provide an interesting diversion for a few minutes.
Hippo High Dive by Imangi Studios | $0.99
Imangi, masters of the casual game on the iPhone, have dropped a hippo on the App Store. You tilt the device left and right to navigate your diving hippo in a pink tutu through a series of flaming hoops into the pool of water below. Successive levels start you out from higher and higher heights, giving this Scoops-esque game a level progression element. You want to fall perfectly through the hoops, but you can singe your hippo by touching the edge of the hoop as you fall, taking away only half of a life as opposed to a full one if you miss entirely. There are online leaderboards tracking a variety of stats. If you love “accelerometer-based falling object games” then Hippo High Dive is a wondrous use of a dollar.
SpringFling 1.1 Update by GTProductions | $0.99
First you fall, then you rise up again. SpringFling has gotten an update bringing a variety of bug fixes, new outfits to equip your spring with, and a new powerup that developer Alex Schwartz describes as being “ass-saving fans.” When you pick up the fan powerup, fans are deployed that save you from falling to your springy doom and give you a little boost up as well. Otherwise, the game is still the same old fun yet challenging vertical platformer, just with some new tweaks to it.
Disclosure: Review copies were provided for Arachnadoodle, Cell War, and SpringFling. Skull was available for free on the App Store at time of review. Hippo High Dive was purchased by the author.
