App Store Games of the Week: July 2nd Edition

• by Ryan Rigney
• July 02, 2010 09:05 AM PT

It's a well-documented fact that hundreds of apps and games hit the iTunes App Store each week, but how many of these pocket-sized endeavors are worth your hard earned cash? Each week, we pick out the best (or simply the most notable) of the bunch for our App Store Games of the Week.

Over the past two years, Apple's iTunes App Store has slowly been transformed into an exotic all-you-can-eat buffet of puzzle games, and Coatsink Software's Pinch continues this delightful trend of unbridled innovation. Players must guide multi-colored "norbs" through a small top-down maze, combining and pinching them apart to form new colors and different sizes of norbs that must be used to overcome a variety of situations. 72 levels (and counting) of varying difficulty are challenging but quick, making it the perfect game to pull out for a fast two-minute session.

Many puzzle games come naturally blessed with inherent hooks that manage to engage and consume the player until some sort of annoying human need like "hunger" or "dehydration" takes over and forces them to stop. I don't know if it's the solid soundtrack, stimulating color-combination aspect, or the quick, intuitive nature of the puzzle design, but Pinch is one such puzzle game. My one complaint with the game is that, because of the zoomed in nature of the interface, it's not possible to see the entire level without scrolling, making the game a little cramped on the iPhone. My iPad said that Pinch can totally stay over at his place though, so I hope that the developers keep that in mind. 

Take one part iPhone and Flash favorite slider-puzzle, another part pipe-connecting puzzler, slap them together before submerging in a water-themed template, and what results is Aqueduct, a clever little game that aims to hurt your brain. You'll have to zip and connect tiny bits of pipe around over 140 levels before conquering this game, and evil little conveyor belts, gates, and warp panels will do their best to stop you in your tracks. Bring a box of tissues and a heart monitor for when you finally reach the last of the game's six difficulty levels; it's going to get ugly.

With it's crisp, penciled-in art style and fresh soundtrack, Aqueduct provides a pleasant setting for its puzzles. I joke about the sometimes brutal difficulty of the later levels, but the game does a fine job of consistently ramping things up over time, with easier levels at the game's beginning eventually progressing to tear-inducingly difficult. From a purely critical standpoint, it's hard to find fault with Aqueduct. There's a more than a substantial number of levels and the game is mechanically sound. It really all comes down to whether or not you enjoy super-challenging, slow-paced puzzles. It's a genre that I've never really been in love with (read: it makes me feel stupid) but you as the consumer will know at first glance if this is something you can get into. 

It would appear that I'm a bit of a hypocrite. Upon its release, I bought Diner Dash for my girlfriend, but refused to play it myself. The moment Star Wars: Cantina came out, however -- a like-minded title, but with a fresh coat of Star Wars paint -- I fast-clicked through the App Store without hesitation to add the game to my download queue.

The game was originally released in non-HD form on the iPhone earlier this year, but the more capacious size of the iPad screen serves as a better foundation for all the tapping you'll have to do to serve the resident Stormtroopers and Jawas at Tatooine's infamous Mos Eisley Cantina. A light story mode provides the setup for the game's 15 levels, which become progressively more difficult through the arrival of more impatient customers and the advent of more tables to contend with. An "endless" mode adds to the game's prolonged life, offering a new challenge to rise to after the core story mode has been conquered.

Cantina is an unashamed Star Wars skin for Diner Dash, but it's a gorgeous skin nonetheless, especially when upscaled on the iPad. The Diner Dash art style is oddly befitting for the Star Wars universe and characters, and the Cantina has never looked better. For those who are wondering, the legendary Cantina song is indeed in the game, but remixes of other classic Star Wars jingles are also present for variety's sake. I have no idea what audience THQ was aiming for when they made this unique blend of casual gameplay and iconic sci-fi, but it managed to keep me playing well past end-game.

Backflip Studios has earned my praise in the past for their excellent App Store releases (Ragdoll Blaster, Paper Toss) as has Team Phobic (Bounce On), so when I heard that they were teaming up to bring a 3D shooter to the iPhone and iPad, I got excited. Tunnel Shoot is about as fitting as a name can get; players will fly down neon-lit tunnels at ridiculous speeds, launching bombs and shooting candy-colored bullets to take out geometric enemies, all while dodging obstacles to stay alive for as long as possible. 

A thudding techno soundtrack compliments the futuristic graphical theme of the game, although much like the lone gameplay mode, it can get repetitive. As an iPad and iPod Touch owner, I'm a sucker for universal apps. This one looks great on both of my devices, but for obvious reasons of both visual quality and screen size, if I'm going to play it, I'm going to play it on the iPad. The game is on the cheaper end of the spectrum, especially for an iPad app, but that's pretty appropriate given the somewhat scarce gameplay available. If you're short on quick, twitch games, this is worth picking up.

When Donut Games isn't releasing another great new game, they're dropping massive content updates on old hits, sometimes more than tripling the amount of included content at no price to those who've bought the game. Such is the case with Castle Smasher, the company's second ever release on the App Store, which has recently seen an enormous update that lesser developers would've reserved for a sequel (or two). The game is thematically similar to the App Store megahit Angry Birds: aim a catapult, destroy castles, and take advantage of extra weapons and bonuses to beat levels in as few rock throws as possible. 

A steady stream of fresh elements (fire stones, enemy archers, and prisoners that must be freed) introduced throughout the game's 50 new challenge levels make the new and improved Castle Smasher as engrossing as it is difficult. I played through about half of the new challenge mode while waiting at a doctor's appointment and, despite my unwavering hatred for both waiting rooms and lackadaisical doctors, I had a blast. The included arcade mode and randomly generated target practice mode make this a well rounded package, so if you possess 99 cents that overpaid medical professionals haven't yet stolen from you, let this be the game you spend it on.

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