Phosphor Games' Horn is a pretty great adventure that most iOS gamers would do well to experience, and it's currently free.
If for some odd reason you haven't helped the young apprentice save his village (and the rest of the world, really), well there's no time like the present is there? And if that's not enough, there's also the challenge modes that will keep you busy well after the main story has concluded.
For the time being, you can grab Horn off the App Store for free. I'd suggest you avoid dawdling.
That's what Man of Steel makes me do. Let out an overly-elongated sigh. It's a mediocre Infinity Blade clone that's half-complete at best. It makes last year's Avengers Initiative look inspired by comparison. That game at least dared to have multiple settings! This game is definitive proof that Batman is better, at least at Infinity Blade knock-offs: Arkham City Lockdown is a rather respectable title.
Man of Steel is a carbon copy of the Infinity Blade combat model: one-on-one fights, attacks in the cardinal directions, blocking, parrying, dodging, two different special attacks that charge up, tapping on the screen to win grapples, all that fun stuff. It's nothing new. There's no exploration outside of combat, any progression is done through menus. Players earn experience which can be used to upgrade Superman to higher levels, and fight in the Survival mode to grind for additional XP, though that mode also provides the bulk of the replay value. Thankfully there's no hackneyed "forced to start over" mechanic like in Avengers Initiative.
The game is dominantly familiar, but let me at least praise what little good it does. Dodging used as ninety-degree turns, which can be used to send enemies careening into the environment, which can cause experience bonuses and additional damage, is at least original. Sending enemies flying into the sky to be wailed on is pretty cool. Yet, there's something about the way that Superman just senselessly damages his surroundings that feels out of touch with the character. It's part of the phenomenon that Zack Stentz, co-writer of the Thor movie, describes well. All in all, the game is okay, but I never really had much fun with it. It's a very short game, and the fact that $4.99 doesn't even get players a universal app is an insult.
The biggest insult is that the game is seemingly half-complete. There's notably only one environment: Smallville. Sure, there's different parts of it, but the action never actually leaves there. It gets to just be so dull after a short while. Then, the final level comes around, which is a triple-decker insult: it rehashes bosses, including rehashing the first boss as the last boss in a three-boss sequence, and then it turns out that it's the end of the game. No big fight against Zod--it's "to be continued."
What's not to be continued is this game's continuing presence on my iPad.
Phosphor Games' visually-stunning, Unreal Engine-powered game The Dark Meadow has gotten a new free-to-play version, Dark Meadow: The Pact. This is the same game as the full Dark Meadow released last October, but now designed to be free-to-play, with gold and Sun coins available for in-app purchase, that can be spent on equipment, health kits, and bombs. Originally, the full version of the game was going to just transition from its current $5.99 price to free-to-play, but there was user backlash to this move. However, the plan was apparently for those who had purchased the game to get the Premium pack of items, which disables ads, grants 5 health kits, 13 bombs, 15,000 gold, 150 Sun coins, and disables ads for free. Now, the two versions are split, with the Premium pack gifted to those who buy the $5.99 standalone version, though the free version also offers this pack as a $5.99 in-app purchase.
However, a new business model is not all that comes with the game. There are new levels and a new boss to fight, new weapons to use, a map to help explore the world, and new "Fast Travel" warps so players don't have to restart from the beginning of the game. Plus, it's now compatible with the iPad Retina Display. The 1.1 update with these new features and The Pact version are both available now.
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