Category: First Looks »

Rocket League Sideswipe's second season just came out today and we're pretty excited. In case you missed it, Psyonix's ground-up reimagining of Rocket League for mobile was our top pick for Game of the Year in 2021, and as time has worn on, we're event more convinced it was the right call.

Just like many other service-oriented multiplayer games, Rocket League Sideswipe's new season is all about switching things up a bit and giving you new rewards for your committed play. As was the case with season one, all of this new stuff is available completely free of charge, so although there is a battle pass and currency to grind out, there is no way to pay your way around it (and hopefully this continues to be the case moving forward).

Feral Interactive's next ambitious mobile port is 2014's Alien: Isolation, a survival horror game where you play as Amanda Ripley (Ellen Ripley's daughter), developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. We got some advance access to the mobile version of the game and have been working our way through it. See the video above for a healthy chunk of the game in action, as well as some additional impressions below.

The first thing to note about this game is that it is pretty technically demanding. If players want to experience Alien: Isolation on iOS, they will need the following:

• A supported device running iOS 14.8 or later

• At least 11GB of free space to install the game (though it is recommended to have 22GB available)
  Continue reading Everything you need to know about Alien: Isolation on iOS »

Rocket League has finally made its way to mobile, albeit in a slightly modified form. Rocket League Sideswipe pits teams of two against each other in a sport where the object is to use cars to knock a gigantic ball into a goal point. Since its launch earlier this week, we dove into the game to get a sense of how it stands in comparison to the original Rocket League as well as a standalone mobile experience. Watch the video above to view some extended gameplay of it and read on below for our thoughts on our time with it so far.

It seems the primary goal for the creators of Rocket League Sideswipe was to make an experience that feels as frenetic and tense as traditional matches of Rocket League but in a streamlined format that is easier to play in bursts and while using touch controls. For the most part, it seems developers Psyonix nailed this goal. By making the playing field a flat, 2D space and shortening matches to 2 minutes, Rocket League Sideswipe feels super satisfying to control and easy to play on-the-go whenever you have a few minutes.

This week, one of the absolute best real-time strategy games for mobile got a big new update. Kingdom Two Crowns now offers a new campaign type for purchase, and it puts you in the saddle of ruling over a Norse kingdom. I spent quite a bit of time with this new expansion, entitled Norse Lands, to see what kinds of things it offers beyond the base game. For the most part, it gives a new coat of paint to what is already a fantastic game, but there are a few twists it puts on the base game to make it a worthy pickup for anyone who enjoyed it.

The first thing to note about Norse Lands is it isn't free. This expansion is the first paid add-on for the game and it costs $ 3. For that price, you unlock access to start a new kingdom inspired by Viking culture and lore. A couple of things to note about this unlock before you even start playing it: This introduction of a fourth biome to the game doesn't coincide with expanded save slots, so if you've been managing kingdoms in all three of the base game's modes, you'll have to get rid of one to start Norse Lands. Secondly, the minimal UI in Kingdom Two Crowns might make it difficult to understand how to start a game using the new expansion. To access it, make sure to swipe over to Norse Lands when you see the new game title card to make the switch official.

The chill town-building experience Townscaper has finally come to mobile after finding success on PC and console. If you haven't come across gifs or video of it in action, the idea is quite simple. In it, you simply tap around on a body of water to make algorithmically-generated town pieces pop into existence.

Initial taps make a road or walkway pop up, but tapping that roadway makes a house, and then a tower. At any point you can tap elsewhere to begin making new areas to work with, and if they are close enough together they'll pop together and transform into a cohesive whole.

Out of the countless new games that are being released every day there are a few titles that seem to catch people's attention more than others. One of these is Tuyoo Games' latest release, Magnum Quest. This 3D Strategy Idle RPG has already over a million downloads on Google Play Store alone in just a bit over a month since its release on 10th of August and it just received a new update. Given this chance, we dove into the game to see what it’s all about.

Earlier this week, Pokémon UNITE released on the App Store, bringing the formerly Switch-exclusive MOBA to mobile devices. We dove in to check it out, and have some key takeaways you might want to know before deciding to pick it up yourself. Read on below, or feel free to just scrub through our comprehensive overview video above.

Games publisher NetEase wants to transport you back to Middle-earth with The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War, the brand new strategy game for fans of Tolkien’s Iconic world. It's been a while since gamers have had a chance to play a proper The Lord of the Rings game, with the last title being Middle-earth: Shadow of War, released way back in 2017 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. However, whilst Shadow of War was an RPG available across multiple platforms, including console and PC, The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War has been designed from the ground up exclusively for mobile devices, built around strategic play with a unique social interaction aspect in which you work together each season with other players to battle and conquer.

An Epic Story

The story is an original tale from Middle-earth. Set in the same universe as the trilogy, The One Ring, which was thought to be lost, has reemerged, waiting in the bowels of Dol Guldur - the Dark Fortress of Mirkwood. Soon war breaks out over the news of its return, tempting the world of men, Dwarves and Elves alike to seek out its dark properties in an attempt to wield its immense power. As the player you will have to strategize and battle your way through many foes who want to take possession of the One Ring for themselves. You will need intelligent planning; using clever tactics to keep one step ahead of your enemies and those that want to reclaim the One Ring to rule them all!

A few months ago, one of our favorite stealth action mobile titles, Space Marshals 3, got a story update that nearly doubled the original game's length. Support for the game isn't showing any signs of slowing down, because just this week another content pack came out that adds a fresh batch of challenges for you to test out Burton's gadgets and your own sneaking skills on.

Called Bounty Mission Pack #1, this addition to Space Marshals 3 adds 12 new levels that are disconnected from the game's main story. Instead, these isolated maps offer one-off challenges in both "action" and "stealth" modes, which reward you for taking a certain number of enemy targets in a specific way.

Steam Link Spotlight is a feature where we look at PC games that play exceptionally well using the Steam Link app. Our last entry looked at Roguebook. Read about how it plays using Steam Link over here.

For this entry, we looked at what would probably make a good case for reinterpreting Doom as a turn-based affair tuned for mobile. Jupiter Hell may not be on the App Store, but it sure as heck feels like it should, and it brings sci-fi horror, heavy metal, gore, and gunplay together in ways that remind me of old-school 90s shooter aesthetics.

We were obviously big fans of Genshin Impact when it launched last year, so much so that it grabbed our Game of the Year award. Since that time, though, the game (and our enthusiasm fo it) had gone somewhat quiet.

You see, Genshin Impact is a service game, but since last winter there had been precious little added to the experience. Post-Dragonspine, a couple of story quests showed up and a trickle of new characters came and went, but there was nothing really new and exciting for players to latch onto--regardless of whether they played daily or dropped off months ago. This summer showed a glimpse of excitement with a temporary archipelago being added to the game, but the whole experience felt like stopgap effort designed to prevent more of the player base moving on to something else.

iOS has always been a great place to play card and board games digitally, provided the game selection available was to your taste. I've made bunch of great discoveries over the years by trying out titles like Root and Lords of Waterdeep, but what I always secretly wanted all this time was a way to play Dominion on the go.

Thankfully, it seems like I'll be getting exactly what I've been waiting for soon, as Temple Gates Games is currently finishing up a digital version of Dominion for mobile and PC. In a certain way, I already have it, as this version of the game is already in open beta and you can play it right now. If you have any interest at all in Dominion or deck-building games, you should sign up right away.

Baba Is You released on iOS this week, and you should probably play it. If you're unfamiliar with the 2019 puzzle game, it's ostensibly about pushing things around as a little sheep. The only catch is that some of the objects you can push around in levels just so happen to also be the words that dictate the game rules, allowing you to change their meaning at will.

Now that I have my quest legs, Divinity - Original Sin 2 is feeling more and more like an epic quest than a curiously rich playground. It also seems like a good sign that I'm ready to break free of the chains keeping me in this starting area to crack open this game and really see what's lying underneath.

It only took me four entries in this journal to finally advance some quests instead of just pick them up! Fort Joy has been an entertainingly complex starting area, but it always just seemed I was spinning my tires trying to find the key to moving things forward. I was getting into fights and learning things about the world, sure, but my quest log just seemed to keep adding tasks and I wasn't sure exactly how to check them off the list.