Once downloaded and fired up, the tutorial level presented itself and I went straight in. Now I have to be honest and say my initial feeling was the game didn’t live up-to the hype of the trailer and any of the aforementioned TD games. It wasn’t lacking in colour or polish, but then neither are the Sentinel games, so why should I play this I thought? But my job here is to review and look at it objectively, if I had never played a TD game before I would have been amazed at the gorgeous graphics, the story and the audio which sounds like the bastard child of the Prodigy and John Williams (Star Wars), in fact the whole package was pretty promising. But on the other hand, not anything original.

The game mechanics follow that of most TD games – protect and defend your base from the onslaught of the enemy by strategically setting up towers (weapons). Each type of tower have certain strengths and weakness and you need to work out the effectiveness against different enemies. Now after playing Spice Invaders for about half an hour, I realised I may have been a bit unfair in my first judgement, the developers had ’spiced’ things up a little (sorry) with the multiplayer option. Finally I could pit myself and my defences against random strangers and friends (on Crystal, Chillingo’s network). It helps to get a bit of practice in 1 player mode first before jumping in, as well upgrading your towers and levelling up you character (pirate), as when I first went in, I was pitted against 3 other players all of which seemed to have better weapons, and as a result I was soon out of the game.

I haven’t managed to unlock the co-op option in multiplayer yet, so currently my battles consist of fighting 1-3 other players depending on how many people are online, but that’s more than enough to keep me occupied for now. Essentially it’s the same game as 1 player, defend your base from the enemy waves, although now there are potentially 3 sets of enemies to defend and destroy. Tactics play a huge part, especially a battle with the full 4 players as you can channel the enemies to other player’s base in the hope that they die first. If you survive the 14 or so waves or alternatively destroy all the other players first you are victorious and are awarded experience points and ‘spice‘ which acts as the in-game currency.

This brings me neatly along to the in-app payments. The game is free of course and you can play along fairly well without buying spice from the Spicery: 50sp for 69p to 1800sp for 13.99. However, to fast track your success or at least to equip yourself quickly with the best towers/weapons, purchasing spice is a luxury if you can afford it. You might also want to pay the £1.99 to remove the ads (yep I’m afraid so) and get a healthy portion of spice as well. However, the ads don’t appear too frequently and when they do, it’s only for a few seconds before you can skip it, personally it’s not a problem. All this said, I don’t agree with astronomical IAPs such as the £13.99 charge, there should be a cap of about a five or six for games like this, or the publishers should just charge £1.99 for the game but this is another discussion and about the freemium model and IAPs.

Overall, a great looking game, especially on the iPad with well composed sounds and a good game engine which makes Spice Invaders enjoyable and very playable. The IAP’s purchases could do with an overhaul to make this closer to a 5-star game but the multiplayer option definitely makes this a game worth investigating.

For those of you interested in the art and development of Spice Invaders, I recommend reading the On-5 blog.

Spice Invaders, 1.02
Developer: Chillingo Ltd © On–5 (9+)
Price: FREE

Spice Invaders, 1.02
Developer: Chillingo Ltd © On–5 (9+)
Price: FREE

There’s a new Chief of Police in town, and he’s put a ban on dogs, ordering them all to be captured! It’s your task to outrun those pesky cops and evade capture, whilst trying to rescue as many of your doggy pals as you can. Along the way you’ll need to eat food, collect coins, complete missions, and do all you can to avoid capture!

You’ll begin playing as Steve the Golden Retriever, collecting coins as you go which can later be spent on various items in the store. Unlock new dogs, collect custom clothing, unleash super power-ups, and call on the mysterious Big Dog for help!

KEY FEATURES
• Simple one-handed tilt-based controls
• 7 different dogs to unlock and customise
• Unlock additional bonus levels, power-ups, and Big Dog attacks by completing missions
• 90 unique missions
• Stunning HD graphics
• Game Center + OpenFeint leaderboards and achievements to compete with your friends
• Easy to learn but difficult to master, you’ll be coming back again and again!

Off The Leash, 1.0
Developer: Big Pixel Studios (4+)
Price: FREE

Score: Currently ranked, Distance – 1968m / Score 361300

The monsters appear from the right of the screen and you must destroy them before they reach the left egde of the screen by tapping on the blocks overhead to release them. The blocks appear attached to a chain which is constantly moving, similar to a conveyor belt. Thankfully, you are able to control the speed of the chain by tilting the device. To keep things interesting there are different monsters, some land based and some that can fly, so you have to keep on eye on them, while at the same time solving mini puzzles as each level is categorised into one of 3 battle modes: ‘Build the Wall’, Collect Blocks and Survive. These are all self explanatory from their titles, so I want go into them, but this really does make for a fun and interesting game.

Before dipping into the action, you need to first get past the fairly extensive tutorial, this might prove a slight barrier for causal gamers who want to jump in and start playing within a matter of seconds. I’m not sure if there is away to avoid this but I do hope people give it a try, as it has the potential to be as popular as Angry Birds. There are a few other niggles holding it back that, one of which is the menu screen, it’s slightly confusing. I understand that using the ‘chain’ as the graphical interface leads to the menu structure used but I think this could be simplified. Also, the icons could be slightly more polished, in fact the entire game could do with a slight graphical makeover to bring it up a notch and make it a superb game.

Be warned Blocks Hurt! is very challenging, it took me a couple of hours to complete the first scenario, however, this is a refreshing change as I think some casual games are becoming too easy. I’m hoping a future update will bring another scenario.

The audio is a bit hit and miss, but have no fear you can modify the options in the audio settings. The voice over is very humorous and the general sfx sounds good, so I leave these on, unfortunately the music can be a little distracting and the audio for the chain does get a bit grating, so I leave these unchecked. None of this effects the game play – it’s only a minor point.

Blocks Hurt! is a must have for fans of tower defence and matching blocks. Overall a fun, original game that is worth every penny.

Blocks Hurt!, 1.0
Developer: Luca Giusti. (9+)
Price: 69p

Using virtual buttons, to move left/right and jump/shoot, you control a little 8-bit character on a fixed platform level with one goal – survive and collect crates! The crates appear randomly, one at a time, and every time you collect a crate you are awarded a point and a new weapon. This is where the fun starts, because the weapon choice is random and you have no control over keeping a desired weapon. So you need to learn how to best utlise each weapon, as from the top of the screen, multiple enemies are let lose and just one touch kills you instantly.

At first I was completely taken back at the speed of the game and having no knowledge of it’s PC predecessor, I wasn’t prepared for the extreme difficulty. I think I died within 5 seconds, but because the initial games are really short (still only a few seconds), while you work out how to play and learn the enemies traits, as well as collect more crates to unlock more weapons, this is when the game grabs you. How can I die this quick? I’m better than this, aren’t I ? These were the sort of questions I was asking myself while hammering my poor screen – but this is the hook. Any self respecting gamer doesn’t want to be beaten by the game and have a low score.

My only gripe with SCB is with the controls, they don’t feel as fluid as they could be and sometimes the distance between jump and shoot is too much, even on the iPad when real estate is not an issue. With a game that relies on accuracy and quick reactions I hope Vlambeer and co address it, until then I can blame my progress on the controls in the heat of the moment!

Super Crate Box (currently) has 3 levels (Construction Yard, Rocket Silo and Moon Temple) each with their own pitfalls and this more than enough to contend with. My advice is to become one with the level, try not to panic too much and get into the rhythm of the game to get that all important score. You need to master normal mode on each particular level to unlock SFMT mode, I’ve only managed this on Construction Yard so far, but hope to reach it for the other 2 levels, stay tuned with APPZILLA’s progress on GameCenter.

The game is already due an update after the target, Vlambeer [the developer set] was reached in around 48 hours of the release -”As soon as the crate counter in the game reaches 5 million crates, we’ll have a nice update of Super Crate Box iOS”. I’m sure this will involve (unlocking) more characters and hopefully a new level.

Super Crate Box has really cool nice retro sounds with smart pixel graphics, but forget about that, it’s all about the game play and that high score, go buy this now!

Super Crate Box, 1.0.1
Developer: Vlambeer vof. (9+)
Price: 69p

- Challenge your friends online in the all-new arcade mode with Game Center support
- Use weapons including the shotgun, machine gun, and the ultimate machine-shotgun!
- Too many birds getting you down? Not a problem with the new bomb weapon!
- New power-ups to help boost your score
- New comic strip added to the story mode

“Forget duck hunt, you’re the best dogsitter in town and it’s up to you to protect your innocent pups by blasting down the mischievous birds trying to steal them!”

Bird Blaster, 1.2
Developer: Runaway Cog Studios. (4+)
Price: 69p

Please Note: The Icon used on our home page is for demo purposes only and doesn’t represent the official Icon for Off The Leash.

Features:

• Three different ways to evolve. Become a fast and agressive carnivore, a sluggish but fast eating herbivore, or an omnivore whose features lie somewhere in between.
• Play through 13 dreamlike looking levels.
• Fight giant bosses on your way to becoming a magnificent organism.
• Use GenLab to check your Sparkles DNA strand, your progress, status of your special skills, and plan what to eat next accordingly.
• Enjoy full iOs 5 compatibility, including Air Play Mirroring to play Sparkle 2: EVO on your big flat-screen FullHD TV.
• Unlock tens of achievements and enjoy Game Center features.
• Relax with great chilled-out ambient soundtrack.

Sparkle 2: EVO, 1.0
Developer: Forever Entertainment S.A. (9+)
Price: 1.49