The power to rip the stuffing out of cuddly bears is in your hands

Following the worldwide success of Naughty Bear for the home console systems, 505 Games and developer Artificial Mind and Movement (A2M) today announce the release of an Apple iPhone/iPod^® Touch game featuring everyone’s favourite omni-present and, let’s face it, omni-moody bear.

“In the last six months Naughty Bear has captured the imagination of a very wide fanbase and very quickly become an icon within the gaming world and a beacon for the disenfranchised and the disgruntled everywhere,” said Tim Woodley, Head of Global Brand Management, 505 Games. “With the launch of the iPhone version, Naughty Bear fans can finally, and quite literally, take matters into their own hands.”

The iPod/iPhone version features a new top down view

“We knew that Naughty Bear was perfect for on-the-go gaming and we have put a lot of time into refining the experience to reflect the new format, controls and objectives,” said David Osborne, creative director at Artificial Mind and Movement.

Naughty Bear for the iPhone delivers an all-new way to take control of the vengeful title role and once again wreak havoc on every stuffing-filled foe that crosses your path. With a unique control system tailored specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch’s touchscreen inputs and a top-down viewpoint, the camera zooms in for up-close-and-not-so-personable signature kill moves which have become the trademark of our hapless bear.

One way of describing Naughty Bear is brutally cute

Following the already established formula of the console versions, the game features a vast array of weapons, objects and scare tactics for gamers to employ to maim, bash and slash their island cohabitants in the quest for ever-important Naughty Points, earned by exacting sweet revenge against any stuffed animal brave—or stupid—enough to cross Naughty’s path.

Naughty Bear is available now for Apple’s iPhone & iPod Touch through the App Store for £1.79 GBP.

Game: GT Racing Motor Academy
Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch
Developer: Gameloft
Publisher: Gameloft

In the interest of fairness, it is worth noting that I have never been a fan of driving games. Or perhaps I should say, I’ve never been a fan of “realistic” driving games. More often than not this genre of game is all about finesse and care, not slamming in to your opponents and causing them to spin out of control (which is always my preferred method of winning a race). The last time I tried playing a “realistic” driving game was Metropolis Street Racer for the Sega Dreamcast, and I managed to last about four races before I found that I lacked the skill to progress any further. So what exactly do I make of his portable version of a genre I have no love for? Read on to find out…

To start with GT Racing Motor Academy is impressive, there is no denying it. There are over 100 cars to unlock in the game, and dozens of tracks from all over the world to race in. While I am no car aficionado, the cars all look very much like their real life counterparts.

In terms of controls the game is very simple. In order to accelerate, simply push down on the accelerator in the bottom right corner of the screen, and to break press the breaks in the bottom left corner. Steering is handled by tilting the ipod, which works particularly well due to the gradual nature of steering in this genre of racing game. Like most racing games in this day and age, there is an on-screen guide that will help you determine the best speed and angle at which to take each corner. If the curved line is green then you are going at the optimal speed, likewise if it is red or orange then you are going a little too fast and will need to adjust your speed.

The number of licenced vehicles is impressive.

When you start the game you are required to complete a number of challenges, such as breaking in a designated area, before you are granted a licence that allows you in to the competition. There are 4 licences to unlock: C, B, A, and S. In order to unlock each rank you must complete a set number of races in the previous set of races, and then complete the required challenges. Events are broken up into general races, in which you take your purchased vehicle and compete against other drivers, and Sponsored races. The Sponsored races designate which vehicle you are to drive in, and can often be the most challenging races in the game simply because you have to use a certain car, and cannot just purchase a better one if you find you’re lagging behind everyone else. Fortunately, cash is awarded for coming in first, second, and third place, so even if you are not the best driver in the world, you can still earn some money to spend on new vehicles.

The graphics are crisp, clear, and brightly coloured

The real amusement for me came when, after completing the first few challenges and earning some precious money, I ventured into the in-game garage to purchase my first vehicle. Armed with a mere pittance I could only afford the most basic of vehicles. Browsing through the available vehicles, most of them vastly outside of my price range, I came across a familiar vehicle; the Ford Focus, the car that is parked on my real life drive way.

Taking the Ford Focus out for a spin I quickly found that it handled remarkably similarly to the real life model, and progressed through a number of early races, earning more precious money and unlocking more tracks to race on. The Focus served me well until about half way through the lowest category of races, when my opponents started to drive low-end sports cars that left me trailing behind in their dust.

The races take place in various locations from all over the world.

As well as the career mode, there is an Arcade mode that allows you to race any vehicle you like indepentantly of your career. Multiplayer options are also available, including local multiplayer over bluetooth and online multiplayer.

One new feature that has been introduced in this game is Gameloft’s achievement accounts, which are essentially the same as Microsoft’s Achievement and Sony’s Trophy system. By creating an account online you are able to register the achievements you unlock in your gameloft games and associate them with your account. This will keep track of your overall gamerscore and allow you to compare your score with your friends online. Unfortunately older Gameloft titles such as N.O.V.A and Rogue Planet are not compatible with this new service. Also, adding friends to your account is a bit of a hassle, as you need to visit Gameloft’s site in order to find your friends.

Review Round-Up:

Graphics: 4/5 Levels are brightly coloured with impressive recreations of real life vehicles and tracks.

Sound: 3/5 Car sound effects are as good as you would expect, and the music is entirely what you would expect from the game. Thankfully you are able to play your own music instead of the ingame music if that is what floats your boat.

Gameplay: 4/5 Wonderfully smooth controls contribute towards creating a great car porn racing game that will appeal to any fans of either Sony’s Gran Turismo series, or Microsoft’s Forza games.

Longevity: 4/5 With over 100 vehicles to unlock and dozens of races to compete in any fans of driving games will have hours and hours of fun playing this game. The introduction of the Gameloft achievement account may well provide added longevity to achievement whores around the world.

Overall: 4 Hard Rights out of 5. Gameloft once again show why they are one of the best developers of console like games for the iPhone/iPod Touch, producing an excellent “realistic” racing simulator with tons of content. Costing a mere £3.99 on iTunes, you would be hard pressed to find a better racing game on the iPod.

[starreview tpl=16]

Have you played Peggle? If not then you should have done. It is one of the most addictive casual games out there and is now available on pretty much every platform, from PC to Nintendo DS to 50p LCD watch from your local garage - Do you remember those watches? They sell now at £30-£40 as ‘retro’ watches… Ridiculous - Which brings me very smoothly on to Arachnadoodle. It’s a 59p iPhone/iPod game that is reminiscent of Peggle and almost as addictive, even though it is fairly limited in variation and backgrounds.

The aim of the game is to help the spider touch each blue/cream peg on the screen by making him jump. Control is done by touching any point on the screen, which then becomes your centre. Drag and hold in the direction that you want to jump, varying the length to contol the power, and then let go! The little spider will fly up and either arc back down to the ground for a safe landing or ricochet off walls. He can also stick to furniture or be frazzled by light bulbs. When the spider passes through pegs it webs them, connecting it to the next peg it meets. If it doesn’t meet another peg then you don’t score and you must try again. Blue pegs can be passed straight through, but cream pegs swing you back down towards the ground.

All of that make sense? Well, basic tactics include following lines of pegs and bouncing off walls and bumpers (much like a pinball machine) to get the most out of each turn. You only have a set number of turns to attach every peg and complete your web. If you can’t complete it in the moves allowed then I’m afraid it’s GAME OVER! But don’t worry too much as levels unlock as you progress, meaning you can go back to the level that beat you at any time.

So many pegs so few moves

There are also 2 kinds of bad bugs that will hinder your progress. Both are common house bugs, including an exploding beetle and electrically charged flies… Ok, maybe not that common - They’re probably Australian. The Death’s Head bugs explode on impact, destroying a wide area of your webbing, and are almost impossible to come back from unless you hit them near the start, which is a tactic I used on multiple occasions. They really are a menace to your game, but the levels where these are found are much more interesting and challenging. The spark flies act just like a light bulb and will bring your current jump to an abrupt end; stopping you from hitting any more pegs. Although, you don’t lose any of the web that you made on your way. These are not as dispruptive as the Death’s Heads but unlike those, the Spark Flies don’t run out of juice; they will keep electrocuting you if you keep hitting them.

A hand drawn, cartoon style, is all that it is needed for this kind of simple concept game. The little graphical flares, such as sparks and slow-motion when hitting the final peg, are extras that add a little excitement to whatever you are doing. The clean 2D graphics were never meant to amaze, but please, and they do this well. However, the backgrounds are a little lazy: the same few walls and furnishings are used repeatedly, albeit mirrored or coloured differently. They could have done a little more in terms of background design. It reminds me of magnolia walls in rented housing; looks clean and does the job… but it’s boring.

I would have liked to see some more themes than the kitchen, bathroom and living room copied and pasted again and again. But then again, I am talking about a 59p game focussed on gameplay, so who am I to complain really?The bugs are very cute and are what you’ll be looking at most of the time anyway.

Bonuses for long chains of web

At the end of each of the 32 levels level a horde of flies buzz across the screen and get caught depending on the strength of the web you have weaved, which is determined by the amount of links between pegs. Basically, how awesome you are at the game translates into the number of flies you catch. There are 3 types of fly; purple being the strongest. Purples can escape all but the strongest of webs, but give you the most points if caught. Here is where replayability comes in. There are online leaderboards and a few achievements using the OpenFeint system, where you can compete against friends and other players worldwide for the highest scores. This will be a gem for high score hunters.

Review Round Up

GRAPHICS:
3/5 Does everything it needs to do. Cartoony characters, ergonomic display, yes the backgrounds are repeated and sterile but it’s still a nice looking game.

SOUND:
3/5 Music is fine, nice sound effects but it has the option to switch these off and keep on whatever you are currently listening to or even access your music files through the options menu. This should be an option on every iPod/iTouch game.

GAMEPLAY:
5/5 Fun and addictive. I could wish for more variation in the level designs and use of bad bugs but considering the 59p price tag the value for money is excellent. The peg webbing tactics provide some challenge but is accessible to most types of people and you aren’t punished for failing a level. As a lover of puzzle/tactical games I would prefer a little more difficulty but that doesn’t stop Arachnadoodle from being fun. You’ll instinctively pick up and start playing at every spare moment, which is exactly the aim for casual mobile games.

LONGEVITY:
3/5 Easy to pick up and play for minutes or hours, I’ve played for about 4-5 hours overall and I still feel the need to refine my scores. I’d love to see more levels and more of a challenge to keep me coming back, but I accept this as a value package for the price. I can’t wait for more.

OVERALL:
4 out of 5 Exploding Australian bugs. This is one of my most satisfying buys on the iPod Touch so far. Feels completely natural to pick up and play at every free moment. When can I get more levels?

[starreview tpl=16]

As a recent purchaser of an Ipod Touch, the most impressive thing I have found about this little device is the App Store. Being able to download hundreds of small, and more importantly cheap, games at the touch of a button is a huge step forward in my opinion. However there is a downside, and that is the popularity of the App Store; as any popular platform can tell you the more people there are buying your hardware, the more crappy rushed out titles there will be, as the PS2, DS, and Wii can attest. Glancing through the hundreds of games available, there appears to be a distinct lack of any real strategy games, and considering how well titles like Advance Wars have worked on the Nintendo DS, which also features touch screen controls, you would think that the Ipod would be the perfect platform for strategy games. It appears that Gameloft have noticed this gap in the market and are attempting to fill it with their latest title Rogue Planet.

The comparison to Advance Wars seems fairly fitting, as Gameloft have already established themselves as a talented developer that does like to borrow ideas from other developer’s games, with Advance Wars appearing to be their biggest influence this time round. The controls are perfectly simple; touch the unit you wish to command, and then touch where you want them to go. Each unit has a certain number of spaces they can move along the grid, much like chess pieces. If an enemy stands in their path you can tell your unit to attack, or commit suicide. At first I found the suicide attack pointless, but after getting further in to the single player I found that using it was a useful tactic if I had a weak unit that was surrounded by lots of enemies – the resulting blast damages every enemy in the surrounding area, which in some cases can cause massive damage. There are numerous types of units to control, such as tanks (the heavy duty fighters) engineers (the healers and repairers) and your basic soldiers. These controls are perfectly suited to the Ipod’s touch screen, and are very easy to pick up after a little practice.

There are a number of unit types available for you to command

In terms of single player experience, there is a fairly lengthy single player campaign. Between missions the story is told in a series of comic book style stills, and you often spend a lot of time navigating through menus to have conversations with the numerous crew mates on various parts of your space ship. While it is a good thing that they include a number of characters, who in general are well written enough to have their own distinctive voice, the constant shuffling between menus feels a little redundant at times. In terms of actual story, you control a team who returns to Earth after spending 35 years away from the planet on a mission, only to discover that earth has been taken over by robots. There are a large selection of mission types available, revolving around not only destroying your enemy, but claiming buildings, building units, and general exploration. The enemies you face are fairly intelligent, although they are not beyond making some bizarre choices that lead to their own downfall.

Combat is incredibly simple, yet there is great potential for tactical thinking

The missions in the story mode are fairly uneven in terms of length, ranging from as little as two minutes to nearly two hours. If the game actually had mid mission check points, or even the option to save your progress at any point then this would not really matter. As things stand, for a portable game on a hand held with a limited battery life, there would be nothing more frustrating that almost beating a lengthy level whilst on the train or bus, only to have your batteries die on you, meaning you’d have to do the whole thing again. For a portable game, it is not always portable friendly.

REVIEW ROUND UP:

GRAPHICS: 4/5 Brightly coloured, well designed characters, particularly in the cut scenes. The actual graphics for the battles are a little basic, but what do you really expect from a downloadable game?

SOUND: 3/5 Nothing spectacular, but competent. The main sound effects are explosions, so there is not really a lot you can do with that. The music is unobtrusive, but mostly forgettable.

GAMEPLAY: 4/5 Deceptively simple gameplay hides a surprisingly deep gaming experience. Being forced to move your entire team before the enemy can make their move means you have to consider every possible outcome. However, if you make a mistake, there is no cancel button, so once you select a course of action you are stuck with it.

LONGEVITY: 3/5 The single player missions vary drastically in length, with some of the early missions lasting a mere 5 minutes, while one mission in particular took over one and a half hours to complete. As of writing the game features no online multiplayer beyond games with friends on the same wi-fi network, although an update has apparently been promised to incorporate full online multiplayer at some point.

OVERALL: 3 exploding bridges out of 5 – Gameloft wear their influences on their sleeves once again in this deceptively simple strategy game that fills a gap in the market. The only real draw backs to this game is it’s uneven single player campaign, that seems to act as a simplified console game with little consideration given to the format that it is on.

[starreview tpl=16]