Mobile Categories

Since its release in 2010, Playdead's award-winning platformer Limbo has sold over three million copies, an impressive number for any studio's first official title. Yesterday, the Dutch developers dropped a bit of surprise on the gaming world, announcing that their monochromatic side-scroller will release on iOS on July 3rd.

The most common complaint leveled against mobile gaming is the seeming lack of "console-quality experiences" - which, despite being a bit of a moot point (it's a tablet, not a console, correct?), is grounded in some real complaints. There are too many money-hungry free-to-play games, and way too many physics puzzlers and endless runners in the App Store - so when Firaxis and 2K announced a fully-featured handheld port of the award-winning XCOM: Enemy Unknown, it presented an opportunity for the platform to show off its skills beyond forgettable $1 titles.

As somebody who is at least reasonably intelligent, there's a good chance that you wouldn't allow your children access to your credit card in a toy shop. You probably wouldn't give them a thousand dollars to hold either. Apparently, though, if you have over your phone, fail to use the included parental controls and your kid spends way too much on doughnuts, smurf berries and skins, it is the manufacturer of the phone that is at fault.

Well, that didn't take long. After announcing an iOS version of their award-winning strategy title earlier this spring, Firaxis Games wasted no time optimizing XCOM: Enemy Unknown for the touch screen: on Monday they announced the game would hit the App Store this Thursday for $19.99. That's right, the full XCOM experience (save for DLC, though Firaxis could always release this later as an in-app purchase) will launch for $10-20 cheaper than most retailers currently sell the console/PC version.

Shelter is a zombie-themed card game for mobile devices. Card games seem to be really hot now and zombies are never not the flavour of the week, so the combination of the two is something I'm amazed hasn't happened on this scale before. Shelter takes both ideas and pushes them to their max, mixing deep card mechanics with a Walking Dead inspired graphic novel style of storytelling. As an idea, and in many parts of the gameplay as well, Shelter is just as exciting as it should be. Occasional issues and a repetitive nature, however, may be too much for more ...

Not long after the release of Kingdom Rush on iOS in 2011, Ironhide Studios announced a sequel for the game - and save for a few screenshots released during the holiday season, they kept a pretty tight lid on development of their next tower defense title, which finally hit the App Store last week. I don't know if I'd call it a true 'sequel' - but as a version 1.5 of sorts, Frontiers brings the same fantastic gameplay as the original, with enough tweaks and additions to keep the experience fresh.

For the most part, iOS and Android ports of board games are pretty straightforward, relying on the convenience of having classic tabletop titles without all the plastic pieces, dies, and paper objects needed for the physical product. Warhammer Quest is a different kind of digital interpretation, taking the multiplayer board game and transforming it into a enjoyable, but familiar-feeling tactical dungeon crawler.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is one of the touchstone RPG's of my life. It's the first BioWare game I had ever played, having missed the large majority of them as a person who spent most of my time on consoles as opposed to PC. Thinking back, it might even be the first proper western RPG I played as I spent most of my RPG hours playing games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. Who'd have guessed at the time that a game with the Star Wars license would be so essential to the hobby?

Stop the press! The biggest news of the gaming day - and it's been a day filled with gaming news - is that the next update to the iOS includes the ability to use third party controllers with the system. Announced yesterday, very few details have been shared, but the very news will be enough to open up a whole new world of mobile gaming, and it might even make a few old favourites even more of a pleasure to play.

Designing an endless runner game that catches the attention of the public must be a challenge. The App store is flooded with them, because they are great for quick gaming sessions and they don't typically require complex inputs from the player. How does Dead Ahead set itself apart from the pack?