N.O.V.A 2 teaser trailer

Those of you who played the solid FPS N.O.V.A will recognize most of the gameplay from this trailer. However, near the end there is two seconds of new footage from N.O.V.A 2, and my my, it is looking fantastic, dare I say it, almost console quality. We currently have no more information on N.O.V.A 2, but we should start seeing more in the coming weeks.

All I can say is ...wow

 Gameloft’s effort at console worthy graphics looks as though it is starting to enter new, exciting stages.

Gangstar – Miami Vindication Preview

As most of you will know, Gangstar Miami Vindication was launched a few days ago now, to many imbalanced reviews. Some sites say its great while others say its trash. Tap Planets review of Gangstar is on its way soon, and the news is good….

Ultimate Spiderman – Total Mayhem Review

With great power, comes great responsibility. Normally taking responsibility means being blamed for a groups behaviour because “You’re the responsible one” or looking after your mates prize goldfish while he is on holiday. As riveting as aforementioned responsibilities sound, you now have a new one. As Spiderman, it is your responsibility to pummel every wrongdoer you see, and have fun while you do it. Ultimate Spiderman – Total Mayhem is an astonishing game, a game with a level of polish and expert design you don’t usually find on the iDevices. The combat is mighty satisfying, making it an almost arcade-like treasure. This is one game your don’t want to miss.

If you have ever played any Spiderman games on ye-old PS1, then you will roughly know what to expect. You won’t find a large free roaming city, or any sort of free roaming areas actually, but tightly scripted, highly fun levels that take you through a large number of insanely detailed environments. In a nutshell, each of the games 12 mission play as follows. You have to work your way through the level, climbing walls and jumping in platform sections, shooting webs and swinging through the air and organising encounters between your fists and various areas of the crooks anatomy, in other words, beating the crap out of them. Those are the 3 main things you will be doing in Spiderman Total Mayhem, and they all work well, but  by far, the main drawcard is the combat. I would hazard a guess at saying there is anywhere between 15 – 25 different combo attacks, ranging from the simple fist meets face, to the more inventive web rodeo, which you can probably guess, is equally hilarious as it is effective.

The graphics are quite possibly Gamelofts best effort yet. Spiderman himself looks fantastic, with hundreds of animations, making his movement smooth and joy to look at. It’s nowhere near as comprehensive and fluid as say, Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series, but for a game on a mobile device, it is very impressive. On my Ipod Touch 2G, there is a small amount of pop-up to be found on outside levels, but not enough to hinder the experience. The menus are bright and colourful, once again transporting you to that comic book world. Without ruining plot spoilers, the last level has an amazing looking web slinging section at night, where you swing through the skyscrapers of NYC. As it’s night, there are a numebr of bright lights and neon signs, and I can honestly say, it looks astounding.

The Cut Scenes in the game are rendered using the in-game graphics, and they are written well. Not laugh out loud material but not embarrassingly sub-par, like it was copied off a public toilet door. The voice acting is also of the same quality better than the usual effort, but wont win any Oscars.

Overall, Ultimate Spiderman – Total Mayhem is a game that definitely belongs on your iDevice. If you are a fan of console beat-em-up style games, you will find a lot to like here. The Graphics are brilliant, the gameplay is tight and the voice acting won’t make you cringe with embarrassment. The app store has been waiting a long time for a must have action game. Now it has one.

9/10

Mirror’s Edge iPhone Review

Cuz I gotta have faith
Mmm I gotta have faith
Because I got to have faith-a-faith-a-faith
I gotta have faith-a-faith-a-faith

Yes, George Michael got it right. You definitely “Gotta have faith”, Faith in this instance, referring to the lead character of the Mirror’s Edge franchise. Mirrors Edge for iPhone is a great game, that thoroughly deserves a place on your springboard.

The concept of Mirror’s Edge is relatively simple. The city in which Faith lives is overrun by government types, which means the citizens have no privacy in their communications or everyday happenings. So in an effort to evade this privacy lockdown, people employ “runners”, highly skilled athletes who hand deliver messages all across the city, traversing over rooftops and the like. Think bike courier but err without the bike… you get the picture.

So it’s your job, as Faith, to run across the stunning skyline, jumping between buildings, sliding under obstacles and generally looking awesome as you traverse the games 14 missions.  You control faith simply by swiping in the direction you wish to travel, swipe up to jump and swipe down to slide. Therefore, timing is extremely important and you often find yourself caught up in a hypnotic rhythm. These intuitive controls really help immerse you in the game and feel much more natural than simply pressing buttons. Speaking of buttons, the other plus side of this control system is there are no virtual buttons, so you don’t have lots of stuff clogging up the screen space (apart from you frantic fingers).

The graphics are quite honestly stunning, particularly the levels with the blue skies, as the look remarkably similar to their console big brothers. Faiths animations are also very impressive, with each move flowing nicely into the next with no jerky animation crossovers. I am not in possession of a 4th generation device, but the graphics still were amazing on my 2G iPod Touch. The performance was smooth with no visible glitches or stumbles and I can only imagine how buttery smooth this would play on a 4th Gen device.

Each level takes about 2-4 minutes to complete, depending on how fast you traverse them. You can play the levels through story mode and most levels contain a number of hidden red bags for you to find. Also included is the speed run mode, where you have to do each level as fast as possible. Let me tell you now, it takes a great deal of precision to get the 3 star rating for each level, and it was probably the game mode that kept me coming back the most.

The odd thing is, the only problems I have with this game are what wasn’t included. Everything in the game is close towards the perfect end of the scale. It’s just disappointing that things like local multiplayer, that were present in the iPad version, have been taken out. Obviously, split screen is not possible on the iPhone, but it would have been nice to see some local bluetooth or wi-fi multiplayer race modes.

Overall, Mirror’s Edge is a game that I can easily recommend. I believe the free-flowing gameplay that the series tries to capture is better suited to 2-d than first person like the console versions. It might be a bit on the short side, but it is still owrth the purchase. As my first review it might seem like a cop-out but I must say Mirror’s Edge, without a doubt, is the best game I have ever reviewed.

SCORE:          8/10