Episodic adventure in the action-FPS-RPG universe, coming this summer
For this first time ever, screenshots from the upcoming Telltale Games developed Borderlands adventure game spinoff are available, and they look very, very good. Tales from the Borderlands appears to absolutely nail the art style from the original shooter games – no surprise, considering Telltale themselves used a similar art style for their Walking Deadgames.
Controller support for the iOS port of Tales from the Borderlands has not been specifically announced yet. However, all of Telltale’s post-iOS7 games have supported MFi controllers thus far, so there is no reason to assume they’re neglecting it here.
Screenshots
Telltale Games says:
Today we would like to release the first ever screenshots from our upcoming episodic game series, Tales from the Borderlands, premiering for download later this summer.
In the first round of screenshots, players get a closer look at the upcoming series set on Pandora AFTER the events of the critically-acclaimed Borderlands 2 from Gearbox Software and 2K Games.
Featuring two playable characters, the story is told from two unique perspectives that will alternate as the story progresses. These characters include Rhys, a scheming, low-level data-miner within Hyperion who’s plotting his own grand ambitions; and Fiona, a clever and classic fast-talking con-artist born and raised on Pandora out to pull off the grift of a lifetime.
While they themselves aren’t vault hunters, both Rhys and Fiona will also come across vault hunters such as Zer0 and other characters from the world of Borderlands 2 throughout the series, as all events in Tales from the Borderlands will be part of the official Borderlands story canon.
Zombie Gunship Arcade – previously announced as an April Fools joke, then subsequently revealed to be a real game – is now available for all your side-scrolling zombie shooting needs!
Gameplay in Zombie Gunship Arcade is fairly straightforward. This game is part of the wave of Flappy-Bird-Inspired arcade games. That means difficult, reflex-based timing with one-button gameplay. For Zombie Gunship Arcade, that means tapping the button to fire your guns and elevate your ship, mowing down waves of zombies beneath you, and attempting to avoid shooting the innocent humans below.
While this gameplay seems superficially easy at first, you’ll quickly realize how false that is. Firing your gun to elevate your ship high enough, while at the same time not hitting the human characters below, requires timing and precision just as delicate as avoiding walls in Flappy Bird.
Shoot down at zombies to propel your plane up – just like real life!
As a Flappy Bird style reflex-based arcade game, you pretty much know what you’re getting with Zombie Gunship Arcade. The use of humans on the ground instead of walls in the air provides some welcome variety to the genre, but if you’ve long ago burned out on everything Flappy, it’s unlikely this game will change your mind. However, Zombie Gunship Arcade is polished, fun, and free to download. If it seems entertaining to you, there’s nothing to lose by giving it a try.
Editor’s Note:
Zombie Gunship Arcade also has the distinction of being the 300th game with MFi controller support! Perhaps it’s fitting that a Flappy-Bird-style game should get that honor…
With all said and done, the journey to 300 games took approximately 6 months. New games hit the store every week, with multiple compatible games generally hitting on Wednesday evening. Pricing of these games runs the gamut, with about half of the available games free or freemium, and the other half running between $.99 and $16, representing a fairly large spread.
Throughout the journey to 300 games, threemajorcontrollers have been released, each from a different company. In addition, even more controllers have been announced, to be available for sale in the coming months. Both SteelSeries and Moga have confirmed strong sales of existing hardware.
With WWDC on the horizon for June, the future for hardcore gaming on iOS seems bright. Many of Apple’s best engineers are working on an expanded Apple TV, presumably with game support. Apple’s controller hardware partners have announced major new products in the pipeline. The flow of new games with controller support is not drying up – if anything, it’s accelerating.
Afterpad was started a short 3 months ago, and in that time we’ve posted over 150 reviews, release notes, or links. We’ve broken major stories and cataloged every game. And we’re not slowing down.
I hope everyone reading this has enjoyed the work done for this site. And I hope you’ll join me on the journey to the next 300 games.
Jared Nelson at TouchArcade reveals that Limbic Studios, creators of the popular Zombie Gunship game, have a new side-scrolling interpretation of their zombie-shooting formula in the works, to be released on Thursday.
…This past April 1st, Limbic announced in our forums that Zombie Gunship Arcadeâa side-scrolling, 2D, “de-make” of their hit titleâwas in the works. As the story went, a catastrophic event with a soft-serve ice cream machine ruined all of Limbic’s equipment, and they didn’t have any backups of their work. So, the best they could do to get things back up and running on short notice was a simplified, retro-fied version of Zombie Gunship.
Well, it turned out that the whole announcement was just an April Fool’s joke⦠or at least, that’s what Limbic wanted you to believe. They’ve just sent word that Zombie Gunship Arcade is in fact a real game, and it’s coming this Thursday.
Zombie Gunship Arcade appears to bring zombie shooting to a Flappy-Bird-style game design, with the associated touch-jumping. MFi controller support will be included as well; with any luck, that means controller support might eventually be on the table for the original Zombie Gunship games as well.
Hit the source link to read more about this one, or follow us to be notified when Zombie Gunship Arcade hits the App Store.
Modern side scrolling shoot-em-up Trisector was just updated with improved controller support! Specifically, controller sensitivity was greatly improved, with more natural movement controls and clarified settings.
Classic shoot-em-up action
One particularly interesting this about this update does not appear in the release notes: the review time. This update spent approximately 2 days from submission to Apple to appearing on the store – an extremely short review time by any standard. Hopefully this represents a lasting change from Apple – the previous review time of 7-9 days wasn’t bad, but 2 days is significantly better for developers.
Anyways, fans of shoot-em-up games should definitely give Trisector a download. It’s a lot of fun, and features great controller support.
After a brief absence from the App Store, Spectre 3D is available once more!
The original Spectre was one of the first games to ever really engross me when I was a kid – I have many fond memories of playing it on my old Mac Plus.
This updated version of Spectre made number 1 on my list of classic Mac games you can play with a controller, against some strong competition. Give this one a download while you can. It’s an excellent update of a true classic from the golden age of Mac gaming.
Ars Technica reports news from brick-and-morter gaming retailer GameStop:
In a sweeping presentation to investors earlier this week, GameStop executives laid out plans to expand aggressively in the markets for mobile and Apple products while slightly reducing the number of storefronts devoted primarily to video games.
[…] Regarding Apple products specifically, Raines said, “We have spent a lot of time in Cupertino with Apple leadership and we have their support to grow Simply Mac.”
The possible ramifications for iOS gaming accessories such as MFi controllers are interesting. GameStop already carries a selection of controllers for iPhones and iPads. In light of this story, I’d expect that selection to expand.
Side-scrolling platforming game Leo’s Fortune is available now – no need to wait until midnight for this one!
Leo’s Fortune tasks you, as the titular ball-of-fur Leo, with recovering your stolen fortune of gold coins. You’ll do this across a series of levels filled with beautiful 2.5D graphics, challenging puzzles, and classic platforming.
Leo’s Fortune plays as good as it looks
I’ve personally been looking forward to this game since it was revealed at GDC last month. In the hour or so I’ve played so far, Leo’s Fortune lives up to every expectation.
I should have a full review up soon, but until then, suffice it to say that platforming game fans should give this an immediate download. It is one of the most polished games I’ve seen on iOS, and it also happens to be loads of fun.
In recent years, a new style of game has emerged and found a home on iOS. These games are defined by a clean aesthetic, straightforward objectives, and gameplay that is both simple to understand and rewardingly difficult. Modern classics like Super Hexagon, Impossible Road, Canabalt – even the infamous Flappy Bird – all represent this growing wave of simple games that aren’t afraid to be difficult.
These games buck the trend towards ultra-casual. They test your reflexes and your skill by presenting a high level of difficulty. They are accessible to the casual gamer, but they do not pander. They are straightforward in design, but unapologetically challenging. Unpossible builds on this style, but with an identity completely it’s own.
Unpossible levels
Unpossible is beautifully simple in it’s conception. You constantly move forward on a twisting tube covered in obstacles. Your job is to rotate around the tube to dodge those obstacles. The objective is straightforward enough, but as with most games of this style, Unpossible’s success depends on how well it executes on its design. Luckily, that execution is about as perfect as you can imagine.
The first time you play the easiest difficulty, you will die. Quickly. The next several times you play, you’ll die again within seconds. But that will be okay. The deaths will always feel avoidable, never cheap. You’ll reach for the continue button without thinking about it, eager to make it further, to make it through the obstacle that slipped you up. You’ll get better, slowly, over the course of many playthroughs. You’ll feel that adrenaline rush each time you make it past your previous high score, and hit that continue button as fast as possible when you inevitably crash again.
Unpossible has “it” – that elusive quality of design that makes you want to hit that continue button, over and over again, until you realize you’ve spent the past hour playing such a seemingly simple game, without a hint of boredom or frustration. That feeling is worth everything – it makes the difference between games that are classics and games that are forgettable. Unpossible has it in spades; this is a tough game to put down.
Beware the increasingly difficult array of obstacles
The levels are divided into 3 difficulty modes – Simplicity, Futile, and Ultra. Simplicity starts unlocked, with the more challenging difficulties made available after you survive 60 seconds in each of the easier difficulties. Rounding out the traditional levels are special “daily” levels. These have layouts that change every day, and feature independent leaderboards to compete on.
The leaderboards make Unpossible even better. Unpossible is completely a test of skill – every obstacle is avoidable if your reflexes are quick enough. Nothing prevents you from surviving forever. You won’t survive forever, but you might just survive longer than the rest of the people playing any given level. Once you get the hang of the controls, competing for that goal adds an extra dimension to the game.
Controller support in Unpossible is implemented quite well, though the sheer difficulty of the game really drives home some of the limitations of the current crop of MFi controllers. The lack of analog sticks on the PowerShell makes the type of fine-grain control necessary for the difficult levels somewhat challenging to pull off. The relative looseness of the analog nubs on the Moga Ace Power is more apparent in Unpossible than anywhere else. The SteelSeries Stratus works the best of the available controllers – its surprisingly solid analog sticks do a great job at registering even the finest grain movement.
Unpossible also permits the use of on-screen movement controls and tilt control. The on-screen buttons won’t be much good beyond the easiest difficulty, but the tilt controls are quite excellent, and give the MFi controllers a run for their money.
Unpossible plays well with controllers, but the game is still challenging (Source: Mfi4gamerz)
In terms of monetization, Unpossible is fairly straightforward. You pay two dollars, you get the game. There are no timers, ads, in-app purchases. You can’t buy your way out of Unpossible’s inherent challenge – everyone is in the same boat.
Thoughts From Other Reviewers
A couple of the owners of other iOS gaming sites and I decided to try something a little different with this review: rather than duplicating our efforts completely in writing three separate-yet-similar reviews, we’ve opted to share some resources between our reviews and cross-link each other.
Mfigamer Says:
Unpossible is played with easy to learn controls with options for touch, tilt and external MFi game controllers. Each control scheme is designed so the controls get out of your way. You’ll feel at one with the game allowing you to focus on your reactions and dodging skills.
The video was provided by Mfigamer at mfi4.gamerz.com, a forum dedicated to news and reviews related to MFi controller compatible games and hardware. He does great work chronicling the iOS gaming scene, and it was fun collaborating and discussing this this game together.
Conclusion
Unpossible’s asking price is more than fair for the quality of the game you get. For anyone who is a fan of this sort of beautifully simple, challenging, and addicting game that iOS seems to excel so well at, don’t think twice about giving this one a download.
