Category: Opinion »

I am someone who wrote Hearthstone off a while ago. It was hard not to try and stick with it. The game has incredible production values and a core of really great talent working on the game continuously to keep it feeling fresh and fun (full disclosure: I have a friend who actively works on Hearthstone). I can appreciate all of that from a distance, but when it came to actually playing the game, I would always bounce off of it.

It took me a while to realize, but the thing that always stuck in my craw about Hearthstone is how disingenuous it often feels. No matter how approachable it looks or fair toward free players it seems, the game is a hardcore collectible card game (CCG). The more that time went on, the easier it was for me to recognize this. From the separation of cards into the two buckets of Standard and Wild formats to single-player expansions like Rastakhan’s Rumble, the game was preoccupied with keeping multiplayer extremely competitive and single-player content extremely challenging. None of these updates spoke to me, a player that felt like occasionally dipping a toe into the game once every couple weeks.

To be fair, Blizzard has very few reasons to prioritize folks like me over their huge pool of dedicated players. I totally get that. But with each passing day, Hearthstone had started feeling less and less relevant to anyone who wasn’t already all the way bought in. That is, until now.

Steam Link has finally released for iOS! That’s right, you can play your epic backlog of PC games on the go now. Well… sort of.

While the Steam Link app was announced seemingly ages ago, it only got actual approval for release last night. Check out the video above to see what it looks like in action, and be sure to ignore my amateur Into the Breach skills. For some more detailed written impressions, see below:

Kingdom Rush: Vengeance just got updated once again to add more content to the game. This addition, called The Frozen Nightmare, adds three new levels, five new enemies, two new heroes, and some new achievements.

Overall, it’s not a huge amount of additional content, but it is free, so it’s hard to complain about. In case you’re thinking about whether it’s worth buying or re-downloading Kingdom Rush Vengeance to check out The Frozen Nightmare, here’s everything you need to know about it.

Back in 2014—during the height of Flappy Bird ‘s popularity—I would not have believed anyone if they said that five years later there’d be a fighting game released based on it. Here we are now, though: It’s 2019, Flappy Fighter exists, and it also just so happens to be the most competent mobile fighter there is.

Last week, Flappy Fighter dropped on the App Store, and it’s been quickly gaining attention. This is for good reason. The game is an homage to Street Fighter that uses Flappy Bird for its character design, and—within seconds of booting it up—you can tell it’s made with a lot of love and attention to detail.

I don't know if you know this, but superheroes are Kind of A Big Deal. Every other week it feels like a new Marvel movie is coming out and the hype train for each release is undeniable. Just look at how the upcoming Avengers: Endgame broke sales records and sales sites at the same time within hours of tickets going on sale earlier this week.

I’m not here to talk movies though. That’s not what this site is about. Alongside releases in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or MCU, if you're so inclined) are a plethora of the media tie-ins, not the least of which are mobile games, and I’m writing this to tell you that yes, indeed, there’s a fantastic superhero game that trumps all others, and you should all be playing it if you want your superhero fix. The only thing is, it's probably not a game you'd suspect.

There may be some decent Marvel mobile games out there. Heck, some might even be considered “good.” That said, the absolute best superhero game on iOS actually has no affiliation with Marvel, DC, or any other actual comic book publisher. Do you know where I'm going with this?

Imagine this: You’re Bethesda Game Studios, one of the biggest names in video games today. You’re renowned for bringing whole worlds to life through entries in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series, two of the most popular and beloved franchises ever made. Your track record is far from perfect, but that’s mostly because your output is known for being richly detailed and highly complex. People applaud even when you stumble, because the ambition of your projects is so staggering that no one else even dares imitate you.

Then, you decide you want to make a mobile game. What kind of game would it be? Given your huge audience, what statement would you want to make about the possibilities of gaming on the go, knowing that a ton of non-mobile-game-playing eyes will be watching your every move with rapt attention? Certainly not this, right?

Apple made a lot of waves from its special event this week. The announcement of Apple Arcade in particular, a subscription service that will deliver access to over 100 premium games starting this fall, sounds like a potential new step forward for gaming on mobile.

As great as this might sound though, there are lots of things Apple didn’t talk about as it relates to this new service. A lot of what Apple said yesterday may sound exciting, but I have my doubts about the service given what wasn’t covered in their presentation. There’s just too many unknowns, and—given Apple’s track record on games—I’m not sure Apple Arcade will seem all that great when we get the answers.

See below for some of the biggest mysteries looming over the announcement and my thoughts on why their absence has me worried about this service.

This week Activision has revealed that Call of Duty Mobile is real, it's coming soon, and it looks pretty awesome. We got all of that from a trailer, but it also got us thinking about what other Activision games we'd like to see coming to mobile. Because that's the sort of thing we think about here at 148Apps towers.

We've not included any Blizzard games in the list, since we had a bit of a deep dive into how they might work for mobile when the big B revealed it was looking to bring all of its franchises to mobile. Instead we've focused on Activision published titles - specifically ones with plenty of action, since everyone loves action and explosions.

Got your own suggestions as to which Activision games you'd like to see coming to mobile? Then do let us know in the comments section at the bottom of the article. It's a huge company with a massive back catalogue, and we'd love to hear your ideas about how it could bring some of those games to mobile.

Just like every Thursday, today we're taking some time to let you know what we think are the best games that have come out over the past week. We've had hands-on time with all of them, so you can trust us when we tell you that we're pretty clued up on this.

That said, you might disagree. That's cool, you can do that. But if you do, we'd love to hear why in the comments section at the bottom of the article. Maybe you've spotted something that you love, and you want to share it with the world? That's just one of the many services that the comments section can provide.

Click here and you can check out the games we thought were the greatest from last week. And now, without further ado, let's find out what the best games for iPhone and iPad that came out this week are.

Thursday is the day when most games come out on the App Store. So every week we like to spend Thursday telling you what the best of those games is. In a way we're providing a wonderful service, since it means you don't have to play anything rubbish in order to find the gems that have landed on iOS over the past seven days.

This week we've got a shooter, a twitchy arcade racer that features giant worms, and one of the strangest auto-runners that we've ever had the privilege of playing. Of course, with this being a pretty short list, there's a chance we've missed something out. If you think that's the case, then do let us know your own suggestions in the comments section at the bottom of the article.

Click here and you can check out what we thought were the best games that came out last week. And now, without any further words (except these ones), let's look at the three best games that came out for iPad and iPhone this week.

How has February already come to an end? That's craziness. Pretty soon it's going to be the summer and I'm going to be complaining about how hot it is all the time. So that's something to look forward to. That's not what we're doing here though - here's we're looking back to the three best games that came out in the second month of 2019.

It was tough choosing just three, and if you think we've missed out anything glaring then we'd love to hear from you in the comments section. Don't be mean about it, though, that's just mean. Hell, you might even agree with us - let us know about that too, it'll make us feel slightly better about the passage of time.

Click here and you can check out all of the other awesome lists we've been making over the past few months. Or, if you'd prefer, keep reading, and you'll discover what we thought were the three best iPhone and iPad games of February 2019.

Every Thursday here at 148Apps we like to make sure you're caught up with all the amazing mobile games that have come out over the past seven days. And today is no different - what you're reading right now is our break down of what we think are the top 5 games for iPhone and iPad that came out this week.

It's an interesting mix too, with an intriguing endless runner or two, a puzzler that's put its gloves back on, and an adaptation of a classic board game that's sure to get more than one or two fingers twitching with joy. If you think we've missed anything, then feel free to chuck your own suggestions in the comments section at the bottom of the article.

If you smash a click right here you'll be able to check out what we thought were the best games that came out last week. And make sure you check back regularly, because we're always making awesome content here at 148Apps and it'd proper suck if you missed any of it.

Back in August, a little game called Radiant One came out. It was a solid adventure game with great visuals and a story that hit me harder than I was expecting. I wasn’t in love with it, but I enjoyed my time with it a great deal. So much so that I gave it a nice four star rating and recommended it to friends who were looking for something new to play.

In the intervening months between Radiant One’s release and now, a lot has changed. For starters, the game has a new chapter, which is odd mostly because--in my playthrough of Radiant One--I was not aware this game was going to have multiple chapters. The game was short, yes, but nothing about it remotely suggested that the game would include a new or continuing storyline beyond what was in the initial package.

Upon hearing new stuff got added to this great game, I got excited and re-downloaded it. I wanted to see what else Radiant One might have up its sleeves. Would it be a continuation of Daniel’s adventures with lucid dreaming? Would it be more like an anthology? I could see things going in one of quite a few different directions, but if any of them were like the game’s base package, I was ready for it.

You could call Dragalia Lost Nintendo's outlier. It is, to all intents and purposes, a pretty expensive shot in the dark. It's got all of Nintendo's polish and shimmer, but unlike the other big N games we've seen coming to the App Store, this one isn't backed up with a massive license.

The game has already been successful in the territories it's been out in, raking in some massive numbers that Nintendo must be pretty pleased with. And that poses some pretty dramatic questions about the future of Nintendo's mobile business.

The bigger the company, the more it needs to fret about a game making bank - there are loads of people to pay, and material success is going to be way more important than critical praise. Nintendo has often managed to blend both of those things together, but the mobile gaming landscape is very different to the home console one, and Dragalia Lost could well be the a marker as to where Nintendo is going to be heading. In what way? Well, in quite a few.

You might have heard last week that Samsung has revealed a folding phone. It's called, quite imaginatively, the Samsung Galaxy Fold, and it was announced at MWC in Barcelona last week. It's certainly an interesting idea, and it isn't the only Android device that has bendability in its unique selling points.

The question is though, what sort of response is this going to elicit from Apple? A few years ago we could say quite conclusively that the response would be non-existent, but the time when Apple was the clear leader in terms of innovation are long gone - now it plays catch-up as much as Samsung and the others.

So will we be seeing an iFold any time soon? Or might Apple respond with some new ideas of its own? Those are the questions that we're going to ponder in this article. Hopefully you'll agree with us, but if you've got your own thoughts to add to these issues, feel free to let us know in the comments section at the bottom of the article.