It’s another big game day in the iTunes App Store, with this week’s haul being kicked off by the zombie apocalypse. Sure, there are a lot of zombie games out there, but none is as adult or engaging as Walking Dead: The Game. Telltale’s latest has some awesome writing and visuals, as does ORC: Vengeance, a top-down RPG with some incredibly good graphics. Arcade title Bucketz plays around with the Fruit Ninja formula a bit, adding balancing buckets to a game with flying fruit, while ParaNorman: 2-Bit Bub gives you a flinging puzzler in which you’ll guide a ghost dog as he climbs through various levels.
Telltale’s latest point-and-click adventure game has been out on PC and consoles for some time, but that doesn’t diminish the quality of the writing or the gameplay in the universal version that just hit iOS. Based on the graphic novel of the same name (and not the AMC television show), Walking Dead: The Game brings some great horror moments mixed in with lots of puzzles and interactions with other characters that will test your ability to think on your feet, act fast, and maintain your morality.
It’s important that we note that Walking Dead: The Game is definitely too adult-oriented and gory for kids, but it’s not all about killing zombies. In fact, the story is much more about how you choose to interact with other survivors; they remember what you say to them, how you treat them, and who you side with in an argument. This is the first of five episodes, but having already played the first two, I can’t recommend this game enough.
Isometric dungeon-crawler ORC: Vengeance will likely remind avid video gamers of PC title Diablo III right off the bat, and it does share some visual and gameplay elements with the extremely popular title. But ORC puts players in a role they don’t usually hold – that of one of the usual enemies in games like this, the hulking green orc. The game packs some awesome visuals and some great production values, as well as plenty of monsters to kill with your character Rok’s powerful attacks, executed through double-taps and swipes.
You’ll also spend a lot of time grabbing loot, upgrading Rok’s abilities and equipment, and increasing his stats as you gain levels through battle. There are tons of things to uncover, like lore books that fill in the backstory of ORC’s world, and iCloud support means you can sync your game with Apple’s cloud servers and have as many as four save files on one device.
Physics title Bucketz is a bit like Fruit Ninja as it involves flying objects that players have to intercept before they leave the screen. The goal isn’t to slice them apart with slashes though, but to catch them and drop them into buckets. Those buckets are arranged on a fulcrum, so not only do you get points for depositing items into each one, but you need to keep the weight of what’s inside both balanced to beat each level and achieve maximum points.
Bucketz also throws extra stuff your way, like stopwatches that you can tap to slow down time, and smoke grenades that obscure your visibility should you hit one. You can also earn coins to spend on power-ups between each level and to pull down bonus points. Game Center support brings achievements and leaderboards, and Bucketz features a style similar to the hilarious You Don’t Know Jack in terms of presentation, which means it’s in good company.
In time to promote the upcoming animated film ParaNorman comes 2-Bit Bub, a physics puzzler in which players take on the role of a bisected ghost dog as he attempts to prevent a zombie invasion. It seems Bub has been digging up bones from the graveyard, but those bones belong to zombies. If he doesn’t hurry and return them, the dead will rise and terrorize the living.
Each stage in 2-Bit Bub has players attempting to climb through the level, grabbing stars and eventually a bone to close things off. To do that, players can fling Bub in the air, using similar mechanics to Angry Birds. You’ll have to hit special rings from which Bub can hang in order to reach new heights and grab the bones. Your scores in each level can unlock extra content like posters and trailers for the film.
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