There's a new addition to the Fruit Ninja series, from Halfbrick and Krome Studios, that multiplies the fun of learning. Fruit Ninja Academy: Math Master.
:: STEAKFRIES! :: Read Review »The holiday season is upon us, and Australian developers Halfbrick have decided to make their complete iOS catalogue free for a limited time to celebrate. Listed below are the games on sale, listed the only way games should at this time of year: to the tune of 'Deck the Halls.'
Deck the Halls with Age of Zombies,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
'Tis the season to Fruit Ninja,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
Troul the Fish Out Of Water!,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
See the Monster Dash before us,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
Strike the harp and join the Colossatron,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
All of these are free for now,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
:: WEAK PUNCHThings are getting weird in Fruit Ninja, and it don't look good. You ya gonna call?
That's right, with Halloween even more around the corner than the last time I mentioned it was around the corner, Halfbrick has gone and put Ghostbusters in your Fruit Ninja. Ghostbusters gear for all the characters, special Ghostbusters fruit, a Ghostbusters dojo - they went all-out for the film's 30th anniversary.
You can grab the Ghostbusters update now for free, and you can download Fruit Ninja for $0.99 (assuming you haven't already).
Halfbrick Studios is rebuilding Fruit Ninja from the ground up, with the next update including a streamlined experience, as well as a new menu and UI. Players will be able to equip different Blades and Dojos, each of which will have different effects on gameplay. As each player slices and dices their way to the top of the leader boards, their score will list what combination of items they used .
To accompany this new look for Fruit Ninja, Halfbrick is also releasing a five part Origins webisode series on their new official Fruit Ninja Youtube channel. The series will expand the Fruit Ninja lore and introduce the new hero, Katsuro. You can watch the first episode, “Ninjas in Training”, today.
The Fruit Ninja update will be available across all platforms early this October.
Halfbrick makes some pretty great games. Games like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. In fact, I'm betting there's a pretty good chance you've already played many (if not all) of their games. But if you haven't, now is the best possible time to fix that.
At the moment, just about every single game in Halfbrick's library is on sale for free. This includes the aforementioned Fruit Ninja, Fruit Ninja HD, Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots, Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots HD, Fish Out of Water!, Colossatron: Massive World Threat, Age of Zombies, and Monster Dash.
Whew!
So if any or even all of those titles sound interesting, get yourself to the App Store and start downloading!
:: SATISFYING SLICE N DICEOver one million apps have made their way onto the App Store during its five years of existence. A million. That's a pretty miraculous number when you think about it. However it's not the amount of apps we have to pick from that I find so fascinating, but rather just how much things have changed since 2008. Pickings were comparatively slim at first, and many developers were just starting to dip a toe in the waters of Apple's new smartphone.
On top of that, the technology itself has changed tremendously in a relatively small amount of time. It makes me wonder if anyone from 2008 would even recognize current iOS devices, and by extension the App Store. Would a newer Apple initiate have any idea what they were looking at if they somehow managed to take a trip to five years ago? I think it warrants a look at how the hardware, the App Store, and the apps contained within it have evolved.
Handy apps like Pandora Radio, Last.FM, Facebook, and Yelp were to be expected, but that didn't make them any less impressive to have on a handheld platform. Others such as the intuitive personal organizer Evernote, the eerily accurate song-identifying app Shazam, eWallet’s convenient and secure account password management, and MLB At Bat with its extensive baseball coverage further capitalized on the particulars of the hardware and its general portability. Of course there were also some pretty unnecessary options out there, too. Flashlight kind of served a purpose but was also fairly pointless. It wasn't as bad as stuff like More Cowbell!, though.
At the same time, the games available on the App Store were beginning to show people that "mobile" didn't have to equal "mediocre." Sure there were a few simple ports of the odd classic such as Ms. PAC-MAN, Vay, and Scrabble, but there were also some impressive iOS renditions of popular console games like Super Monkey Ball coming out. Potential mobile gamers also had a few really special titles such as Galcon and Fieldrunners to tide them over. When all was said and done there were over 7,500 apps on the App Store by the end of the year, with more being added every day.
Many of the basic smartphone necessities were covered, but there was room for so much more. Especially while the technology was improving. Plenty of people used their iPhones as phones, sure, but with the addition of Skype they were able to enjoy the added functionality of instant messaging and voice chat without cutting into their data plans (so long as a wifi connection was present). Big companies were really starting to take notice as well. That same year Starbucks and many other big businesses threw their virtual hats into the ring with their own apps designed to make life a little bit easier for their iOS-using customers. Practicality was also becoming an even bigger focus. The Kindle app gave iOS users a practical e-reading option, and Dropbox was there being Dropbox. By which I mean "an awesome and super-convenient way to transfer files between multiple platforms." And this same level of refinement could be seen creeping into the games as well.
So many of the App Store's most notable games and franchises came out around this time. It was almost a mobile rennaisence of a sort. This was the year Real Racing first blew mobile gamers' minds, even causing some of them to question the legitimacy of in-game video footage until they were able to see the finished product for themselves. Zenonia was just a fledgling action RPG at the time, and while a lot of people liked it I doubt they knew just how many sequels it would spawn. The same goes for Pocket God, although with updates rather than multiple releases. Flight Control began to eat away at peoples' free time, Angry Birds and Doodle Jump hit it big (like, super big), and Myst and The Sims 3 further displayed the potential for major releases on mobile platforms. Oh, and Canabalt almost single-handedly invented and popularized a genre.
:: VISUALLY DICEY
:: DUNKING GOODNESSFruit Ninja slashes away its price and is now free to download. Use your fingers to slice away various fruit as you experience this popular slice-'em-up title.
One of the quintessential iOS games goes from for the first time ever and only for 24 hours. Grab it!
The undead are leaping for your lobes! Dust off your trusty machete and help Joey, our intrepid hero, show them some manners the Zombie Swipeout way!- The new arcade action game from the creators of ZombieSmash!
- Whose machete swing reigns supreme? Compete against your friends and earn medals in weekly tournaments.
- Machetes too cliche? Unlock and equip weapons with different abilities like the Head Slapper and the Prince of Cleaves.
- Level up and unlock cool powerups like grenades, liquid nitrogen, and more to combat the hordes. Zombies hate powerups!
- Whoops! Keep Joey alive or the game is over . . . or is it? Rescue Joey feature lets you fight on!
:: GORY SLICING
:: PLAID!
