The game defaults to tilt control, which is how I choose to play. You have the option of switching to touch control, but it feels like cheating. But after looking at some of the achievements, like “Stack a Burger to the Moon” I might have to rethink my strategy. The physics of the stack work nicely, so the higher it gets, the more it sways and the more difficult it becomes to control. The graphics are simple, clean and nicely designed. The only addition I would have liked to see would be some variety in the ingredients, or maybe bonus ingredients, but otherwise, no complaints here.

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I needed a new word puzzle game and I think this hit the spot. It’s simple to play, with a nice clear interface that’s uncluttered and easy to navigate. Overall it’s nice to see some design work go into something as simple as a puzzle game. I’m getting a little tired of the handdrawn look that a lot of ipod games have these days.

Available on the app store for $1.99

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This review will be unusually short for me because the game itself is short as well. You can run through this in a couple of hours when you’ve got some free time on your hands, but only if you ignore the putrid control scheme. No offense, Capcom, but this control scheme had me wanting to chuck my brand new 3GS out the window on several occasions. The control stick is on the left side of the screen and the option of inversion exists, but there is no option to decrease sensitivity which in turn results in frustration. On the right hand side you’ve got your walk/run, aim, and melee buttons. Boy, does this control scheme give you headaches! In fact, in your first play-through of the 12 levels equipped in the game, you will notice that enemies seem relentless and that the camera does very little to ease the pain. Clearly, this is something that Capcom needs to improve in future releases. So in terms of gameplay, yes it’s still the Resident Evil we know and love, but a lazy mobile edition.

There is no bonus mode or extra setting, yet (if any updates are even on the way), so you are stuck with the 12 story levels of the game. The game redeems itself a bit by adding the merchant to the mix, with whom you can upgrade weapons and buy or sell merchandise. However, this is not nearly enough to save you from the painful control scheme and jumbled mess that is the story itself. Cutscenes are just that: cut. The same tired formula from Degeneration is utilized here, and if we didn’t like it back then, we won’t now.

The graphics, on the other hand, are fantastic. Textures and models are done well and Capcom solidifies that the game is certainly worthy of bearing the Resident Evil name, but gameplay outweighs graphics and RE 4 does not provide. Sadly, not much more can be said as this review is directly relative to the content in the game. All in all, it was an okay purchase for $2.99 (I was fortunate enough to get it on sale) but certainly not worth $7.99 unless you are a hardcore RE fan, and even then you should only make the purchase if you have the money to spare.

Gameplay: 3/5, nice effort and the flow is definitely Resident Evil, but the control scheme ruins everything.

Graphics: 4.5/5, great graphics for the iPhone but maybe more cutscenes may help the mix. Stays true to Resident Evil 4 lore.

Sound: 3/5, the sound is okay, it feels as if they don’t have much to work with, but that eerie Resident Evil feel is there and the game partially captures the greatness of Resident Evil 4’s sound.

Presentation: 2/5, meh at best. Control scheme sucks, although it’s still awesome to be using a touch screen for navigation and such. Cutscenes would totally improve the flow of the story as opposed to the pictures with words that Capcom has provided.

Overall: 3/5, seemed to promise much more than it delivered. Game has little replay value and is not worth the $7.99 price tag. But a good purchase if on sale, especially for RE fans.

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To tell you the truth, I was never a huge fan of Doom 3; the game was remarkably dark and did not provide much satisfaction in my mind. Needless to say, when purchasing Doom: Resurrection for my 3GS I was hesitant, but for only $2.99 I felt the game could easily sway my opinion of the entire franchise that I had loved so much as a youth. Mark my words: this is damn fun!

At first, I was turned off by the mechanics of the game: it uses the accelerometer and does not allow you to make movement around the level but rather just to aim such as in a rail shooter. As the game progressed, even in the first level, I grew to enjoy the gameplay. The environments are designed incredibly well for an iPhone game. There is no doubt in my mind that it may be the best graphics on the iPhone yet, save MGS Touch and Resident Evil 4. Resurrection runs smoothly and provides more than enough levels for its price tag. In addition to the story mode, id provides us with “Free Play” and the recent DLC type update Challenge mode. Free Play allows you to select any of the 8 missions you’ve already cleared and redo it in case you’ve missed any secrets or wish to do it on a different difficulty level (4 in total). Challenge mode, which was an update that baffled me, gives you 40 challenges to complete and although the levels may be the same, the gameplay is still as fun as ever and gives a nice quickplay feel without having to progress through the story repeatedly.

The music, wherever it is included, is sufficient and sounds exciting. I’ve yet to hear any music in the levels themselves, but rather in the menu screen; however, the sound effects of enemies are done well and stay true to the creepy vibe of the Doom series. The lack of music in story mode adds eeriness to a game already full of it, yet I can’t help but feel it is also empty.

Gameplay: 4/5, the only downside is that it is a rail shooter, but certainly this also adds to the enjoyment of the game. The “calibrate” option is a godsend and I commend id for including it.

Graphics: 4/5, for the iPhone the graphics are spectacular. I’m sure we’ll see better graphics in the future, but id truly does show off in this one. Maybe more enemy types next time? Although there are quite a number here, it just felt as if many of them looked alike or identical.

Sound: 3/5, wherever there is music, it’s good, but that’s not saying much. Sound effects are great but game feels empty through story levels.

Presentation: 4.5/5, easy to use, easy to master.

Overall: 4/5, for 2.99, the game is more than worth it and should be in every iPhone owners App library.

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I was intrigued by the title and was sold the moment I saw the graphics. These kinds of games were made for me. Bright colors, happy monsters, Japanese writing I can’t understand and food…the perfect game to cheer me up on the way to and from work.

Available for the iPhone and iTouch from the App Store for $1 (it says for a limited time on their website, so I don’t know how much it will be later, or when they’ll change it).

Also, get this:  In celebration of the success of the game, Mediatonic is having a contest, where the grand prize is a year’s supply of Battenburg cakes. Contestants must send in a photo of themselves eating cake, with bonus points for referencing the game, or birds somewhere in the picture. For full details, visit the official site. The contest starts today, July 20th – Aug 31st.

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During the one or two hours of gameplay, you control Jacob through about 5 different environments. Each of these environments has between 3-5 “combat situations,” in which you navigate the level shooting dudes and aliens. You must kill all the enemies in each level to move onto the next. Within each of these killing fields called levels, there are a plethora of power-ups that make the game surprisingly easy. The complexity that the developers have thrown in is through the controls, but more about that later. As you blow your way through each level, there are one or two conversations in between that fill in the “why” or “how” of each environment. You can either be nice, an ass or a normal person, all of which are chosen via touch controls. The UI for this is the same as advanced power selection, which can be clunky sometimes. The strangest part of the whole situation is that only the first line of text is voiced, I assume this was to keep the size of the download small. I believe that they should have just left that out and then I would not have felt like it should have been fully voiced.

Keeping with the moral choice aspect of the original Mass Effect, the developers have included this also in Galaxy, which allows Jacob to talk his way out of combat situations (that is it). Although I was a nice guy the whole time, I was really only able to avoid one battle. I don’t believe that any game changing choices are in this title and there is no real need for those choices if they don’t actually do anything. But, overall, the writing is good and still has the sarcastic flare that was in the original. Players of that original game will see and hear clues that prove this is a Mass Effect game, but the art style is drastically different. With a cartoony or even cel-shaded are style, the differences are obviously there, but you still feel like it is in the Mass Effect universe.

The biggest part of the game that a perspective buyer should be worried about is the controls. As long as you aren’t riding down the bumpiest road in the world and can tilt your iPod or iPhone, then you will be fine. The hardest part is trying to tilt and see which power-up you are trying to select and there is really no vibration feedback, which would have been nice. This same lack of feedback can make you feel like you are button mashing, but it doesn’t take too much away from the actual experience. Overall, it is easy to control and does not, in any way, hamper the gameplay.

If you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch and a fan of the Mass Effect series, then you have already downloaded this game. At five dollars, you get an hour long experience that fills in a bunch of information about two of the characters in Mass Effect 2. Although this may seem like a short experience, you can play in short bursts, and make it last much, much longer. I can see a tv show coming out of this type of story or experience. If you are not a fan of the series then you may be a tad bit confused of who you are battling, but it is still a great sci-fi game. The hidden plus that this game brings is the inclusion of a special Mass Effect 2 item that can be unlocked by purchasing this game. If you plan on picking up the next game, then why not download this, learn more about the universe and get that extra add-on along with it (I have no idea what it is, but you will need a EA login).

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Peggle, for those who do not know, is a cross between Pachinko and Plinko (from The Price is Right). The goal is to hit all the orange pegs on the board with a limited amount of pegballs. Within each level there are five stages in which the orange pegs are situated differently. Each level has a different character associated with it and each one has their own power up that can be triggered by hitting one of two green pegs the stages. For example, the Crab character’s’ power up allows you to use pinball-esque crab claws on the side of the screen to keep the ball from falling off the screen. This gives you more time to generate points by hitting more pegs. When your score for one ball passes 25 thousand point intervals you get an extra ball. I have not gotten past three extra balls, so I have no idea if there is a cap to the amount of free ones you can get in one shot. Once you hit all the orange pegs, the famous song “Ode To Joy” plays while the balls bounces around into various slots at the bottom of the stage. If you hit any balls during this time you will get major points. The song is strangely fulfilling and satisfying, as usual. To achieve this greatness, you have to align your shots perfectly, but with touch controls, the iPhone version added a couple of extra features.

On the right side of the screen there is what can only be describes as a cog. This wheel gives the player the opportunity to line up their shoot with great precision. This is a necessary feature for those players doing insane shots, but I only used it a few times during the main story. This could have been caused by the fact that I have played and beaten every version of Peggle released, except the XBLA version. Call me obsessed, but there is nothing wrong with supporting an awesome series and Popcap is willing to give us a great game on every platform. As for more additions, there is a zoom feature used for even more precision. You can do this by double tapping on the screen, but it is unnecessary and I never used it.

The game has all the features of the original version. If you haven’t played that, this involves all the stages you have unlocked in a quick play mode, 40 challenge levels, which can be very difficult and all the main story levels in a Duel mode. So, if you have played the original, you know everything in this version. These modes are a good compliment to the main storyline and add a great amount of replay ability to whole experience. The last feature I want to talk about it the replays, you can save some great shots and watch them later or show your friends your Peggle greatness.

The experience here is exactly the same as the original release. Now, it can be in your pocket on a device you carry with you everywhere. At a five dollar price point, it is on the high end of App Store games, but still delivers in great quality we expect from Popcap Games. Keep up the good work Popcap and continue giving us Peggle and your other great titles on the App Store and we will continue to purchase them.

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If you remember playing Boggle, the board game, then you will know all the rules you will ever need to know about WordFu, minus a few changes. You start out with a group of nine cubes with various letters on them and you have a certain timeframe to select the ones you want. When you shake the iPod or iPhone then the cubes are sent flying giving you new letters. These will be used in the next part of the game to make various words (think Scrabble) with these letters. When you select you word, you shake the iPod or iPhone, again, to check your word. If you are right, you get points, if not, you lose them. Simple yet super challenging. And that time frame taunts you each time you look at it, making the game more suspensful.

As for graphics, the animations are great, but the color pallette is quite bland, yet it keeps with the asian feel of the game. The generic martial arts noises are good and add to the game instead by letting you know whether your word was right or wrong. Other than that, the physics of the game are great and the dice feel like they are completely real. The other must have for these games are acheivements and in WordFu, there are a slew of them to be had. There is also some great email integration where you can challenge someone to beat your top score and their are rumors of Twitter integration coming soon. I can’t wait for those because many of you will never be able to beat my pitifull score of over 125! A Wifi versus mode comes with the package and solidifies the game as one of the better games available in the App Store. With over 6200 games released so far, it is hard to get noticed, but ngmoco and demiurge have a hit on their hands. At only a dollar a pop, we all win. Go now and download this game via the App Store, hold off on your fast food value menu purchase and get something that will keep you challenged for months to come! Although it seems this product seems perfect, it could use a little more work on the back end with more modes, which ngmoco will probably give us via updates. Happy FU-ing for all!

For more information about ngmoco, check out their website or on iTunes

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