Category: Mobile

With the success of Angry Birds: Star Wars it was only a matter of time before they made another one.  Angry Birds: Star Wars 2 brings the birds back to the Star Wars universe, but this time they are killing pigs in the prequel trilogy.

I was expecting the same game but with different characters, but Rovio surprised me and really put a ton of improvements in this game.  For starters you can now play as the pigs by doing the Pork Side quests, and as you gain points you can now use them to buy cheats by getting different birds and pigs in your level to make things easier.  They added a ton more unlockables and achievements as well, so there are multiple reasons to get the level just right.

If you are looking for a new time waster, Rovio really knocked this one out of the park, and it gets my recommendation.

I have been playing a lot of phone games lately, so you are going to get another app review.  The game in question is Where’s My Mickey? by Disney Interactive.  If you have played Where’s My Water than you know what you are getting in to here, but if not read on.

Where’s My Mickey follows Mickey Mouse as he tries to accomplish various things like start a lemonade stand, but sadly the water never works, so you have to dig around in the sand and get the water to Mickey.

The game is fairly simple, but it is fun figuring out the puzzles.  The real draw here for me was to be able to play a game with the old school Mickey Mouse in it.  It is fun to see the mischievous old mouse getting in to a little trouble, and this game gives off that old Disney charm, except I am playing it on a current day mobile device.

Like I said before, to get the water to Mickey you have to draw holes in the sand to allow the water to get through.  You also get bonus points if you do this quickly, get all the water to Mickey, and activate all three stars in the level.  This rarely took more than a few tries to do, but it is quite addicting to make sure that you get everything.

There are also Goofy levels that you have to pay extra for, but for me it was $0.99 for the game and $0.99 for the extra levels, so it was well worth the $2.00.  Granted this was on a Windows Phone, so the prices on your platform may vary, but I cannot see it being much more than that.

If you are looking for a little game to pass some time, and one that is not frustratingly difficult Where’s My Mickey? may be just the game for you.  Especially if you are fan of Disney like myself.

Halo Spartan Assault is a twin stick shooter that is obviously based in the Halo universe, but it does not contain Master Chief.  The game was released for Windows 8, Windows RT, and Windows Phone 8 devices.

The story follows Commander Sarah Palmer and Spartan Edward Davis as they mow down rouge covenant troops that attack the planet they are stationed on shortly after the Halo 3 ceasefire, and before the events of Halo 4.

The gameplay is simple.   You have one joystick area to move your troop, and one joystick area to tell your troop where to shoot.  There are also buttons to activate grenades and special abilities.  The problem for me is that I have big hands, so when I am playing on my 4.7 inch screen, I am covering half the action, so it can get a bit frustrating at times.

Still for a phone game it is pretty fun, and I like it when they explore other parts of the Halo universe besides the Chief and Cortana, and it does still feel like a Halo game, but I think it would be better if I had one of those gamepad attachments.

Now I know this game has been out for awhile on mobile phones, but hey I just found it so stop judging me!  Rayman Jungle Run is a 2D side scrolling continuously running platformer, so they pretty much got the idea from Temple Run, but than made it 2D and it stars Rayman.

The game is very simple to play.  Rayman is always running, so to keep him alive you either need to tap the left side of your screen once to jump, hold the left side of your screen to hover, or tap the right side of your screen to punch.  The further you advance the harder the challenges get.  The better you do on the runs the more cool stuff you unlock.

What I like about this game is that they added some more platforming elements, like wall jumping and swinging vines in to the game instead of just copying Temple Run, so it almost feels like a Sonic game, and that is much more fun.  It is a little pricey compared to your standard app at $2.99, but it is so well put together it is well worth the money.

The graphics are nice and cheery, and it brings back memories of playing Rayman on my computer.  The Rayman games used to be the only good platforming games on the PC, sigh, and now I feel old, but it is good to see the old Frenchman has got a few tricks left up his sleeve.

If you are looking for a nice game to play for a couple minutes or a few hours than give Rayman Jungle Run a try.  It has simple but effective controls, and it looks great.