Game: Canabalt
Price: $2.99 / £1.79
Size: 12.5MB
Buy it now from the iTunes store:US/UK
Certainly you've played Canabalt by now, correct? Please tell us you haven't skipped out on this one-touch, monochromatic masterpiece, which was updated over the summer to become a universal iPad-native app.
Hopefully this won't serve as your introduction to the excellent iOS time-sucker, but if you somehow missed out, here's the rub: your 8-bit-stylized running man leaps from rooftop to rooftop during a presumed alien invasion, and all you need to do is tap the screen to jump. But it's not nearly as simple as it sounds, of course – towers crumble, alien pods crash mere steps in front of you, and narrow windows sometimes provide the only pathway forward.
Canabalt's been out on iPhone for a couple years now, so we forget from time to time just how well-designed and addictive it is. But as soon as we fire it up, we're immediately glued back to those randomized rooftop layouts, hoping to score a couple hundred more meters of distance (and yelling furiously when we don't). Join us, won't you?
Game: Trucks and Skulls
Price: $1.99 / £1.19
Size: 28.5MB
Buy it now from the iTunes store:US/UK
Trucks and Skulls may be the most blatant Angry Birds clone we've seen in the App Store, swapping the titular characters for birds and pigs, respectively, as well as environments and icons inspired by heavy metal album covers.
But for an obvious clone, Trucks and Skulls still manages to be solid fun. You'll pull back and launch the trucks towards towers housing numerous skulls – much like in Rovio's smash hit – plus one type of truck speeds up when you touch the screen, while another drops a bomb... yeah, you've seen this before. But if you're as hooked on Angry Birds as we still are, even a decent substitute seems brighter than usual until that expected Angry Birds Christmas app drops.
But Trucks and Skulls does offer one big original perk: the ability to create your own stages using a handy level maker, and then share them via e-mail with friends. We'd love to see a server-based sharing option in future updates, but this is a nice first step towards playing absurd, player-designed contraptions.
Game: Tap Tap Radiation
Price: FREE
Size: 20.2MB
Buy it now from the iTunes store:US/UK
Rather than port over its popular Tap Tap Revenge series of iPhone games to the larger screen of the iPad, Tapulous opted for a new approach with Tap Tap Radiation, a fast and fluid music game that makes solid use of the iPad display.
As one of 30+ free tracks (some must be downloaded in the app) thumps in the background, you'll tap three zones on the screen as the beat-matched icons reach their targets. But those zones aren't entirely stationary: they'll bounce around the display in different segments of each song, forcing you to pay attention as you bob your head to the beat. Plus, a handful of premium song sets – including a six-pack of Lady Gaga hits – can be purchased within the app.
Unfortunately, Tap Tap Radiation has essentially gone unchanged since launching alongside the iPad, aside from the occasional free track offered within the app. Hopefully, Tapulous will build upon this entertaining foundation with a proper sequel or thick update, but even if this is both the beginning and end of Radiation, it's a worthwhile download.
Dec 2, 2010
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