In the course of randomly selecting which mobile games we'll be featuring in our Gaming Apps of the Day, sometimes we come up with a week's worth of winners. This was not this week.
While we did manage to drum up a pair of keepers with the iOS version of indie masterpiece Aquaria and the pink and puffy goodness of Whale Trail, we also managed to score a punishing rhythm game, the Android port of the Java port of an excellent console game, and Cut the Birds, which features an excellent name and not much else.
Look on the bright side; it can't get much worse, right?
If you have a suggestion for an app for the iPhone, iPad, Android or Windows Phone 7 that you'd like to see highlighted, let us know.
Flattery, Thy Name is Cut the Birds
Cut the Birds is awesome. Not the game itself, mind you. Just the premise. I mean, it's not often you see a cheap knock-off go after not one game, but two. More »
Driver San Francisco Races Back to the Dark Ages of Mobile Gaming
Before the Android and the iPhone mobile gaming seemed a hopeless endeavor, where every game released felt like a cereal box toy facsimile of a more complete console experience. Gameloft's Android version of Driver San Francisco remembers those days all too well. More »
Ditch Your Jetpack, It's Time to Ride the Psychedelic Whale Trail
I've associated flying whales with music for a long time. I'd say that this has everything to do with the second sequence in Fantasia 2000, in which a family of whales takes to the air accompanied by Respighi's The Pines of Rome. What sounds like a goofy idea on paper becomes uniquely beautiful onscreen-the improbable soaring of those giant animals becomes strange and moving, and it's all accompanied by the surging triumphalism of the orchestra. More »
The iPad Gets an Underwater Computer-Gaming Stunner
I'd heard lovely things about Aquaria, the beautiful underwater adventure for PC and Mac. It was an underwater 2D throwback of a game, an action-adventure with mysterious new-agey music and a good story. But I haven't play it on the computer. I've played it on my iPad, for which it went on sale last night. It's handled the transition well, with just some manageable control issues. More »
Russian Dancing Men: Too Unforgiving to be Fun
Rhythm games are difficult to do well on a smart device without simply porting over the note-highway interface of Guitar Hero or Rock Band whose ship everyone has agreed sailed about three years ago. Russian Dancing Men (iTunes, universal app) delivers rhythm gameplay aided not necessarily by fast-twitch reflexes, but by truly listening carefully. The problem is it is difficult to the point of discouraging, inside of 10 minutes. More »