We got a chance to go hands on with a few new titles from Ubisoft. Let’s take a look at the most casual title, Monster Burner.

Monster Burner is a casual puzzle shooter where you send fireballs up the screen to burn the advancing monsters. Part Puzzle Bobble, part Space Invaders, Monster Burner has 40 levels, power-ups (spells), and enough interesting social features to keep you interested for a while.

In our short look at the app, due out next week on November 3rd, we were pretty impressed. The game offers an interesting take and we’re looking forward to the release.

Recently, Gameloft called press members to Paris to celebrate their 10th Anniversary and to take a look at some new iPhone and iPad games. This is our first of a series of hand on preview articles on what we saw there. Most of the games we saw should be out this month, with more new ones following right behind them. So it was at Le Cite de la Mode et du Design that we got our grubby little hands on this most anticipated iPhone game.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is a port of the game of the same title released for Xbox, PS2, GameCube, and the desktop PC. It was also renamed Prince of Persia: Relevations and released for the Sony PSP. The PSP version is the one I’m most familiar with and remember playing it for some time. Unfortnatly I could never finish the game as it kept locking up at some point near the end (bad UMD most likely). The cut scenes and voice overs are transferred straight from the console version.

Continue reading Hands On Preview: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within for the iPhone »

Back in early February, Ubisoft announced an upcoming, mysterious app store game…an online, multiplayer game based on Assassin’s Creed II. Early this morning, Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer made its appearance on the App Store. Most startling, however, was its promotional price: for the first 48 hours of its launch, Ubisoft is giving the game away for free.

Afterwards, of course, the game will be converted to a paid one, with a supposed price of $2.99. We can only assume that the giveaway is meant to boost the ranks of players, since this is an online-only game.

Here’s some snippets from our preview article:

Titled “Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer,” this iPhone-exclusive title will feature some sort of four-player assassin deathmatch. The screenshots show a top-down view and feature environments inspired by the cities featured in Assassin’s Creed II.

It’s all live, and will use a WiFi connection for matches. You’ll have six powerups at your disposal, but perhaps your most important tool will be your assassin’s stealth, as you can take advantage of your environments and hide within crowds of citizens. The teaser website also mentions a “notoriety” system, which will use a “dynamic ranking system” to place players on the leaderboards, as well as built-in achievements. You’ll be able to challenge friends to matches, but I hope that random matchups are also included.

Be sure to grab the game while it’s free. Hopefully we’ll have our own impressions up soon!

$2.99

Assassin's Creed II: Multiplayer

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-03-01 :: Category: Games

It hasn’t been long at all since the release of Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery, but the folks at Ubisoft have already announced their plans to release a third Assassin’s Creed game on the App Store. Titled “Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer,” this iPhone-exclusive title will feature some sort of four-player assassin deathmatch. The screenshots show a top-down view and feature environments inspired by the cities featured in Assassin’s Creed II.

It’s all live, and will use a WiFi connection for matches, which is a bit disappointing—Bluetooth is so much simpler!—but it’s possible that that detail was simply omitted for brevity’s sake. You’ll have six powerups at your disposal, but perhaps your most important tool will be your assassin’s stealth, as you can take advantage of your environments and hide within crowds of citizens. The teaser website also mentions a “notoriety” system, which will use a “dynamic ranking system” to place players on the leaderboards, as well as built-in achievements. You’ll be able to challenge friends to matches, but I hope that random matchups are also included.

You can read the full details revealed so far on Ubisoft’s website. In the meantime, we’ll anxiously await the release of more information (or better yet, the game itself!). We’ve already seen two solid ports of the Assassin’s Creed DS games to the App Store, and this iPhone-exclusive title should be very interesting.

Ubisoft invited us to a preview of Assassin’s Creed 2: Discovery last week. In addition, we got a chance to talk with the producer, Ben Mattes about the game and Ubisoft’s plans for the iPhone.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is a 2.5D adventure game that takes place in the same story as the console version, but in 2 chapters of the story that are missing from that console version. There’s about 6 hours of gameplay along the main story line in this game that is definitely more arcade like than the console versions.

Assassin’s Creed 2 was accidently released a couple weeks ago. While no one will say exactly what happened, our best guess is that they were testing the infamous App Store approval process and forgot to set the release date out in the future.

Now the official release date is February 1st and the price is expected to be $9.99, but that’s not final. Ubisoft aren’t stupid, they just like other developers, know how to put their apps on sale to get exposure.

Read on for more screen shots and a video demo of Assassin’s Creed 2.

Continue reading Assassin’s Creed 2: Discovery Preview »

Ubisoft has today debuted the sequel to their multi-ward winning Assassin’s Creed game franchise, on the iPhone. Assassin’s Creed II Discovery. According to the game’s App Store description, the game carries the series on following Ezio on his travels to Spain as he scales cities, jumps rooftops and tries to rescue his fellow assassins.

But don’t get too excited just yet.

Hitting the store late this morning, the game officially became the first ever App Store gaming title to smash through that $9.99 price barrier, blasting it’s way into that previously rumored ‘Premium‘ price band. Unfortunately, the game was pulled just a few hours after it’s release, and is no longer available on the App Store .. for reasons unknown.

If the price holds up on the game’s return to the store, it could in fact retain that title for itself. Priced at $11.99, Assassin’s Creed II Discovery is reportedly exactly the same as that of the DS version, the main difference in this version however, compared to that of the original Assassin’s Creed II Discovery is more of a side scroller adventure, rather than a fully-blown immersive RPG.

Luckily, Touch Arcade managed to snag a copy of the game before it was pulled from the store. Checkout their in-depth gameplay video of Assassin’s Creed II Discovery in action below.

So, What’s this deal with Ubisoft pulling the game? Where’s the game gone? I hear you ask .. Well, we at 148 reckon the early pulling of the app could likely be due the game being approved by Apple yesterday, but Ubisoft having forgot to change the actual release date of the game on iTunes Connect, have realised later, causing them to panic and pull the app.

If you’re not already aware, this is pretty normal practice for developers of the App Store. When submitting an app a developer like Ubisoft can choose and set a specific date in which an application becomes available to the public. This allows them not only to hype the app before its initial store release, but in turn, also work to specific set deadlines with regards to the marketing surrounding the title. It’s likely this won’t turn out to be one of those purposeful PR stunts, although it’s not completely out of the realms of possibility.

First impressions of Assassin’s Creed II Discovery have been mostly positive from what I’ve seen so far, however some people still believe that a price point of $11.99 could be a little too steep for what they’re actually getting (if that indeed is the game’s final price point).

Be sure to check out the games page for full game descriptions and screenshots.
What do you think? Is an $11.99 price point worthy of such a game?