Backflip Studios are going all-out in unleashing their lineup of freemium games onto the App Store. After launching Buganoids on both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad last week, Backflip Studios is now going through their back catalog of games released this summer, with NinJump now getting an iPad version, appropriately called NinJump HD.

NinJump HD is the same game as the iPhone/iPod touch version, just now with graphics and gameplay optimized for the iPad. The game really does look much more detailed and crisp than the original version did scaled up to 2X. As well, for players who may have been playing on their iPad and may occasionally have missed a jump due to tapping on the blank part of the screen in 2X scaling, you won’t have this problem any more. While it may have been coincidental, I set a new high score the first time I played the iPad version.

Speaking of high scores, the game is similar to Buganoids where high scores are synchronized between the two versions, so you can track your high scores on whatever device you play on, as long as you use the same OpenFeint login. All the OpenFeint leaderboards are the same as the iPhone version, as evidenced by the over one million entries present before the iPad version was publicly available.

NinJump HD is currently free (with the possibility of being a paid download in the future, according to Backflip Studios), with $0.99 in-app purchase to remove ads, similar to other Backflip Studios freemium games. However, the game may go to paid at some point according to CEO Julian Farrior, so downloading it now is recommended. The gameplay is the same great addictive ninja jumping action that the iPhone version presented, just now in iPad form.

Backflip were also kind enough to drop some details on the future of NinJump. First, Android will be getting a free version of NinJump later this year. As well, a new paid version of NinJump will be released, expanding on what the original free version presented, featuring “new levels, enemies and other content, with plans to add frequent updates on a regular basis” according to Backflip Studios CEO Julian Farrior. NinJump fans could have a lot to look forward to in the coming months for their ninja jumping game of choice.

FREE!

NinJump - HD

iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad
Released: 2010-09-23 :: Category: Games

Halfbrick, having already invented and mastered the object slashing genre with their popular app Fruit Ninja, are about to unleash their take on another casual gaming genre, albeit one more familiar to iOS gamers. Monster Dash is Halfbrick’s newest game, and is an endless horizontal platformer, similar in nature to Canabalt.

Monster Dash stars a sarcastic antihero named Barry Steakfries, who should be familiar to fans of Halfbrick’s PSP games, as he was the protagonist of the arena shooter Age of Zombies. In this game, he is running forward, shooting zombies, mummies, vampires and other types of supernatural horrors that cross his path. You have two commands – jump and shoot – and a health bar that allows you to track the damage you take from enemies and spikes before dying. You can pick up additional health and various weapons as you constantly run forward, including my new favorite weapon, the machine gun jetpack, which fires downward as it propels you upwards.

Monster Dash provides several different random locales for you to run forward in, although the only key difference is the visuals, but you will see different level types every 1000 meters. Every time you die, you get a humorous one-liner from Barry Steakfries, sporting similar smarmy and sarcastic humor as was in Age of Zombies (which still hasn’t been confirmed for iOS yet, despite being a perfect fit considering the popularity of twin-stick shooters on the platform), along with the ability to check OpenFeint leaderboards and to tweet your score. Monster Dash is an intriguing attempt to bring some more action to the endless platformer genre, which gamers will get to play starting August 19th.