The clue is in the name of the game. Retro. Because RetroCosmos is harking back to the old days, the days even before Galaga and Defender ruled the arcade halls around the world. If there was a big timeline of arcade games where we would place Fabien Chereau's title, it would be sandwiched between the original Space Invaders and the more colourful Galaxians.
This looks promising - seven spinning dials with various coloured marbles that need to be lined up so they can disappear, to be replaced by more random coloured marbles. This sounds like an arcade/puzzle game that I could get used to. Unfortunately, it's missing some mojo to lift it out of the sea of nice ideas in order to make it to gaming nirvana.
It's not one hundred percent clear if this game is officially derived from a "Bomber Man" licence or if it's just very clever use of language in the Ovi Store description ("Brave Pipyakas, the offsprings of Bombermen, settled down in cozy world of watermelon trees"), but I'm not that bothered, because what's on offer here is a wonderful mix of exploration, adventure and arcade action.
Here's something unusual - an application from Offscreen Technologies which, depending on the version you grab, isn't necessarily free! Video Poker Touch is one of their titles which is sold as a commercial app - which makes a review even more appropriate, as you need to know whether it's worth buying. In summary - possibly! - it depends on how hooked you are on the concept of video poker and how concerned you are about the relative 'flatness' of the game. As hinted at above, there is a free version, but only for Qt-compatible handsets and with in-game ads.
If you've ever fantasised about blasting off into space and saving the the world, then Celestial Navigator might be the game for you. Be warned though, there's a rather twisted plot quirk. You play the game as a number of pilots from a world of Teddy Bears! Even more twisted is that you have to embark on a series of ill-fated missions where each Teddy inevitably dies. If you have the right stuff to avoid astronomical obstacles, and the grit see countless Teddies perish, then you might be who we're looking for...
It's rare that you trace the rise of a new genre of game to a single title, but that's what Firemint's "Flight Control" managed when it was released on the iPhone. It stayed in the iOS family for a long time, but it's now working through the conversions and onto other platforms, including Symbian. I was hoping for the Concorde of line-drawing games, but instead I feel like I'm the last person to board a Ryanair flight to London Prestwick.
Time to break open the oldie game ideas from Lunasoft as they ask "how long can you keep your toy paper plane flying through the air, avoiding the obstacles in your path?" This is a simple idea that's been addictive (for me) in other versions. How does Paper Plane compare?
We reviewed Alawar's Farm Frenzy last year. Well, the farmyard madness is back with Farm Frenzy 2. Sequels are always difficult to get right though. If you're a mobile gamer looking for a frenzied challenge of screen bashing and resource management, with a dash of cuteness; then you should read on to find out more!
I've long been a fan of sports simulations, bringing outdoor games and activities into the virtual world of your always-with-you smartphone. So, even if you're stuck on a train or just lying in bed, you can still go driving, for example, whether in a car or on the golf range(!) Mobile Darts aims to take that most unathletic of sports and bring it in similar virtual form into Symbian smartphones. Which it does, at the expense of introducing an unexpected level of ability frustration...
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. Look, this is going to be painful, maybe you should just stop reading now. You see, last week there was a bit of a scuffle in the AAS chat room, because Pipe Mania had shown up in the Ovi Store and we all wanted to review it. I got the short straw (I just didn't realise it at the time). Put together by AppsOnGo, this doesn’t appear to be a licenced version of the game, and while it does have the same starting point as the traditional PipeMania, it rapidly goes horribly wrong.
