4×4 Jam – Off-roading on the Go

Do you long to be in the rough? Do you pine to conquer the great outdoors riding in a powerful off-roading vehicle? Do your gaming glands yearn for the sweet, sweet, freedom that is off-roading? Yes? Mine too, that’s why 4×4 Jam by Invictus Games Ltd. is a blast of fresh outdoor air. It is a 4×4 experience, an off-road romp, and a lot of fun.

4×4 Jam is off-road racing game, where there are no walls. The game plays on vast expanses that you can literally keep driving on. The expanses are nicely rendered with good draw distance and lots of bumps and hills and off-roadiness. There are two landscapes as of this writing, Green Fields and Desert, and both are realistically recreated. There are also two car types included. You can pick a 4×4 off-road truck or an off-road beetle. Additionally each comes with four color schemes you can pick. The developer has said that there are more landscapes and more vehicles already under development.

The gameplay is easy to pick up. In the Race Mode and Jam mode, there are gates that you have to cross as checkpoints; they are marked by to yellow smoke pillars. They are very easy to spot even from a distance. At the bottom of the screen is 3D directional arrow that, will point you to the next gate. It does its job well as I frequently found myself off course but who cares because the directional arrow show me just where to go. Also of note, located right above the speedometer is an upright button. Seeing as how when one is off-roading, a flipping car is a common occurrence, the developers were nice enough to include a one-touch “flip car” solution.

There are three game modes that take place on these landscapes. The thus far unmentioned mode is Free Roam. Simply put, pick a vehicle and just drive till you cant drive any more. The next mode is Off-Road Race. You pit your off-roading skills against up to three AI’s. You have to race through a series of gates around a course in the vast landscapes. Then comes Jam mode. This mode is such a blast! You and up to three comps race to up to 15 gates randomly placed around the landscape. Its like an open-ended race. I have still not bored of this mode. Jam mode maintains its fun because it uses what the game does so well; generate fun-to-drive-on terrain, and keep the action close.

The real joy of this game though is the physics. The vehicles bounce around on their suspension with each bump of the road and elevation change. Also the vehicles respond differently depending on the levelness of the ground or the terrain. More fun follows when you learn the right moments to nudge your opponent at the top of a hill to send him flying over and crashing down. The more you drive in this game, the better understanding of pathfinding and elevation changes you will get. This games physics system allows for an added layer of depth that you wont find in many racing games on the iPhone. The developer has said that more modes are on the way.

My only real complaint on this game is for better gate recognition in Race mode. Sometimes while racing, you will miss a gate by what appears to be nanometers. You have to stop come full circle and hit the gate. In the higher difficulties this one small error can cost you a whole race. In Jam mode this isn’t as issue because the gates are randomly generated so you are already coming from all angles. In the much more linear Race mode, this is a bummer. Also in a sidebar, a little more customization would be nice. How about letting us pick the color for the vehicle.

All told, 4×4 Jam has that pick up and play ability. Hop into it for some off-road fun. Jam is one of the best modes in any racing game on the iPhone. From the vast landscapes of outdoor goodness to its cheap price ($3.99) and the promised content update, 4×4 Jam shapes up to be a bright spot in the mostly dark crowd of iPhone racing games.

Worms: Amazing, On the iPhone 3GS

Have you ever wanted to wage full-out warfare with a bunch of charismatic invertebrates? Have you ever had the urge to unleash a suicidal explosive sheep onto your foes? Now you can, and its all in your pocket! Worms from Team17 brings you classic Worms action straight to your iPhone and brings it with style… sort of.

Firstly, let me say, there have been many reports of extreme laggy gameplay on all of the itouch and iphone devices save for the 3GS. I have a 3GS and am reviewing based on my experience on the 3GS. Thank you. Worms is a recreation of the classic Amiga game of the same name. Worms tasks you with controlling a team of worms whose goal is to destroy the other team of worms. Once you do, you win the match. Simple, and therein lies the beauty.

Worms visuals and audio both have been greatly improved. The worms move and animate smoothly and with comic style. All of the weapons have a distinct look and effect. The landscapes are rendered nicely. The landscapes are randomly generated making each one stand out as unique. The sounds are entertaining and comical. The worms are always saying things that sound cute in their wormy voices (”Lock and Load!”.) There are many voice sets that you can apply and more even to unlock. My favorite is the Angry Scots speech set.

You might say Worms is a blast!

The gameplay is simple and well-balanced. You can move your worm left or right by tapping that side of the screen. You can make him jump or back flip, just don’t land in the water, that’s instant death. You can aim his shot (for most weapons) and you can hold the shoot button to adjust the power (for most weapons.) You must keep in mind the wind direction and speed with regards to how it will affect your shot. The weapons range from your standard bazooka, to drop-able dynamite sticks, and from your trusty ninja rope, to an actually teleporter. All sorts of weapons that do all sorts of things and all are fun to use. Some will prove themselves more effective in certain situations but that is a mark of balanced weaponry.

The game has two main single player modes. Quick match is the first and this will pit you against one CPU team on a random board with random rules (such as how many exploding barrels should spawn.) The other mode is challenge mode. In this mode you can complete a series of challenges for the worm teams and by doing so unlock new speech sets and tombstones for your worms. Both modes are extremely entertaining. Worms also has a multi-player mode which allows you to play against a friend via pass-and-play. You can also choose the kind of match you want, such as Gun Show or Sudden Death. This is a lot of fun provided you have a friend handy.

There are a couple of gripes, excluding the laggy gameplay on the other idevices. The scrolling around the board using gestures could be smoother. That’s not to say its bad, only that during timed turns I don’t want to have to waste time dealing with the camera, it should be more fluid or natural. Also, perhaps Team17 would consider adding a control scheme using dedicated buttons for movement left/right. Touching the left “area” of the screen to move left is imprecise and has led me to actually jump into water to my doom. Lastly, the tap to aim on certain weapons is a little inaccurate. The reticule would move half the distance it was supposed to. Sometimes all these little issues add up to you wasting a turn due to time limits. This happens infrequently once you get used the controls. Lastly, for real this time, please throw in a save on exit feature, it should be considered standard by developers.

In the final tally, Worms is a truly awesome game in your pocket. You open the app and you will be smiling shortly. Again, let me reiterate, It was this much fun on a 3GS. Once Team17 gets an update through to optimize for the other idevices it will rocket up in popularity. If you have an iPhone 3GS, Worms will not disappoint and is worth every penny at the current price of $4.99 (USD) in the appstore.

Galactic Gunner - Space 'Splosions

Once upon a time, there was an entertainment forum called an arcade. Arcades are dying, of late, but Ezone is trying to save some of what made arcades great. Remember how there used to be those arcade shooter games where you would go into this cockpit/cabin and would have a blast playing the immersive shooter experience?

Well, Galactic gunner smacks of those shooters. It also smacks of Starfox 64. If you like both of those, you will love Galactic Gunner. Even if you don’t know what Starfox is and have never been in an arcade, you may still love Galactic Gunner. Galactic Gunner is an on-rails, tap-shooter done with a great deal of care in the classic style of shooter games.

The Premise is somewhat sound. You are a gunner, and gunner only, no flying for you. Your pilot is an ace leaving you to concentrate on the shooting. The game takes you through 6 story missions, each of which has you destroy different targets. In the training levels, you blast apart asteroids so your ship can pass through. In my personal favorite missions, your job is to eliminate all Trepidoids squadrons around you. Each successful mission may not unlock the next. The way each mission unlocks is by achieving certain accuracy landmarks, such as 75% on the ateroids. The game also has a survival mode which is unlocked last and is exactly what you think it is. Throughout the game you will go up in rank which is represented by a colored medal in the corner of the main screen, that is the extent of that feature. Kind of superfluous, don’t you think?

Galactic Gunner features nice graphics, and appropriate sound though I think they nailed the sound of the blasters. The sound effect for the blaster is reminiscent of the classic Star Wars sound. Each of the different enemies look nice and I noticed no slowdown, even with multiple explosions on the screen. The gameplay is fluid and smooth and completely on-rails. Don’t go play this game with the illusion that you’re doing the steering. The tap to shoot gameplay mechanic works well in this game.

There are some issues. There are only six missions and one survival mode, albeit the game is only .99 cents but some might find it a small portion. Also there are some issues with regards to the tapping recognition. There were times when I was positive I tapped on all the enemies and yet when the explosions cleared, most of the ships came flying through as if I had never tapped on them. Lastly, the accuracy requirements for unlocking the levels, I think is a bit too high. Just to unlock the fourth level you need an accuracy of 80 percent which may not seem so bad but in the vastness of space, If your tap misses by of a fraction of an inch, the shot is wasted.

Those issues aside, seeing as how they can all be fixed with an update or two, this game is an absolute blast at its introductory price of .99 cents. If you love space battles, get it. If you liked Starfox or classic arcade shooters, get it. If you just want pick up and play explosions, get it. Galactic Gunner, by Ezone, packs a pretty significant amount of fun into a tiny package.

Tyrian - Need I say more?

Way Back in 1995, when I was but a lad, a vertical scrolling space shoot 'em up game called Tyrian was tearing up computer screens everywhere. Nearly 15 years later, Mobila Entertainment brought it back to life, squeezed it down to the iPhone, and all without losing a single bit of fun.

Tyrian is a game with a simple shoot 'em up premise but delivers loads of fun right to your iPhone. There are two game modes in Tyrian and each is worthwhile. The first game mode is the Full Game mode. In this mode, you collect money for every enemy destroyed and in-between levels you can access the upgrade screen, in which you can spend that money on weapons and shields and such. The second game mode is arcade game mode. Here, instead of upgrading your ship between levels, the enemies drop weapon upgrades and power-ups. It may seem like a small difference, but it totally changes the way you approach a level.

The game has four acts. Each act has you go about to different planets and tasks you with destroying as much as you can. There are enemies flying at you, squads of enemies swoop in from all directions, land-based foes, and each planet has a boss or boss-like battle at the end. The enemies are clever and inventive. The enemies progress over the game and they keep you guessing. Tyrian has one of the smoothest learning curves of any game I've played. Each planet has a secret level that you can get to if you destroy the one enemy or enemy squadron that carries the yellow secret level pick-up. On top of that some levels have an even more secret level that is even harder to find and its' pick-up is blue. All told there are enough levels to keep even the most hardcore shoot 'em up fans at bay. Other pick-ups include bomb-type weapons and data cubes used for advancing the storyline and providing depth to the universe of Tyrian.

The controls of this game really make it shine. It is played in landscape view and one finger controls your ship. It is responsive and smooth. Before you know it you'll be weaving in and out of bullet spreads and dodging for dear life. On the side of the screen you see some Hud readouts that also double as buttons. It is a really clever way to maximize on the screen real estate. Everything is responsive all the way through to the main menu.

The graphics are über-smooth. Animations that are so smooth, they might drip off your screen. Ok so that was figurative, but it really does look great and constantly smooth with no slowdown. Explosions look good, enemies are easily distinguishable, bullets stand out plus all of the weapons in the game look unique and change for every level they get upgraded. Your level 6 Multi-cannon looks weaker than your level 7 Multi-cannon. There is a serious amount of weapons in the game. There are front guns, rear guns and left and right sidekicks. Also, the game has minimal loading.

Another thing I want to mention: Tyrian has an extremely interesting and unique feature. At any point, in any of the menus, you can tap a small button on the bottom-right of the screen that will bring up the onscreen keyboard. Why, you may ask? Because one of Tyrians most popular features from its 1995 PC origins is its cheat codes. One was able to unlock all sorts of cool ships and game modes using cheats typed in at the menus. Tyrian's on-screen keyboard allows you to do that. I would like to thank the developer for supporting almost all the original cheat codes. (Hint: type "techno" at the main menu.)

Really, everything you want in an iPhone game is here. Pick-up and play, sweet presentation and graphics, lots of great gameplay, lots of great weapons, and an intricate upgrade system that allows for hundreds of combination's of weapon and ship load outs (Including a carrot ship shooting hot dogs. For real.) It's a steal at the current price of 1.99 and it would be a steal at five times that cost. Tyrian delivers on every level and even after a week of straight Tyrian I find myself wanting to play it right now. I think I will...