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Side-scrolling shooter Door Kickers: Action Squad lands on the Play Store for $2.99
The PC version has glowing reviews on Steam
It's always nice to see a well-reviewed console-quality game make its way to Android. This time around, Door Kickers: Action Squad is coming to the Play Store, and you can pre-register for the retro side-scroller right now to be notified when it's available for download.
Capcom has been steadily porting many of its classic games onto Android for the last 6 months. The newest title to come to the Play Store is Ghouls'n Ghosts MOBILE, the sequel to Ghosts 'N Goblins and a brutally difficult side-scrolling platformer in its own right. The game has been optimized for mobile and it includes new content, but is that enough of a draw to get past the difficulty expected of a touchscreen controlled platformer?
Horror comes in many flavors... just don't tell that to whoever's filming the seventh Paranormal Activity movie on some Hollywood lot right now. Case in point: Steam's horror section is a cavalcade of creepiness, with games like the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise sitting alongside Amnesia and The Evil Within. And lest you think it's only possible to scare in three dimensions, there's also DISTRAINT, an indie 2D side-scroller that's dripping with horror themes. The game popped up on Steam last year, but now it's available in the Play Store for free.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a unique puzzle game, a casual take on Risk, and another Noodlecake shooter-platformer. Without further ado:
The original Gunslugs' mix of bullet-filled, NES-inspired, platforming nostalgia attracted hundreds of thousands of downloads. Now, two years to the day since we covered the original release, developer OrangePixel is back with a sequel, the creatively named Gunslugs 2.
You know how it goes - some games just play better with physical buttons, and the latest title from Crescent Moon Games, Shadow Blade, feels like one of them. Yet if you disregard for a moment that you've ever used a gamepad before, this game won't remind you incessantly the way most side-scrollers do. The control scheme, which consists largely of taps and swipes, is actually pretty intuitive. With enough practice, it really makes the game worth playing.
MotoHeroz first launched as a WiiWare title back in 2011, and it would remain one of the best releases available for the platform. The game is ultimately the product of a side scrolling platformer that bred with a racing game, and the result is a challenging title that combines the look of the former with the physics of the latter. In the end, MotoHeroz is a ride worth taking, and now you can find the keys sitting in the Play Store.
Bounty Arms is a moving experience, but not because the game itself is any good. It hints at what the future holds for mobile gaming. This game looks every bit as good as a current generation console title, and on a high-end device, it runs quite well. But there is more to quality gaming than pretty looks, and Bounty Arms falls flat in just about every other area. At the very least, this five dollar game is free of both ads and IAPs. That's worth something - just not enough.
Hero of Many is a side-scrolling game featuring that silhouette style that so many indie games love these days. You play as a glowing nucleus of energy, leading a "swarm of water beings" around, fighting bad, black water thingies. They are definitely not sperm cells.
When I was a kid, I always dreamed of having dark hair, wearing a cow skull on my head, and running through a magical land of swinging hammers, random cliffs, floating platforms of land, other areas of extreme peril. Alas, I'm bald, have no bulls to speak of, and this magical land I've dreamed of for so long is nowhere to be found. Just when I thought my lifelong dream was a bust, we stumbled across MANUGANU. The similarities to my childhood wishlist are uncanny. Just take a look:
If you subscribe to the vastly-oversimplified concept of a multiverse, then you must believe that, given an infinite set of potential universes, all possible things can and must occur in at least one world parallel to our own. Which means that somewhere, on some alternate version of Earth, Super Mario Bros. stars a textured-yet-pixelated biker named Manley who is trying to track down his kidnapped motorcycle. Kidnapped, that is, by aliens.
You may have gathered from one or two of our previous posts that there are some Starcraft fanatics lurking around the offices of Android Police (and shouting things like "power overwhelming!" from the editor's desk). So when we saw what's basically a Metroid-style side-scroller apparently starring everyone's favorite autonomous crystal harvester, we had to jump on it. Gene Effect doesn't star an actual Probe, but there's plenty of potential in the game even so, especially if you're a fan of exploration and eye candy.
If you're of the opinion that games these days are entirely too easy, what with automatic saves, regenerating health, and veritable labyrinths of handy chest-high walls, then you'll want to pick up side-scrolling classic Metal Slug. It harkens back to a simpler time (namely 1996) when men were men, women were women, and gigantic tanks bristling with missile launchers were waiting at the end of every level.
Following up on the success of the self-billed "blockbuster casual platform action RPG" Illusia, GAMEVIL recently released Illusia 2 to the Play Store, promising a "thrilling storyline full of twists and turns," and "endless customizable options."
When you name your game "One Epic Game", you have one of two options: either fill your game with high-powered hardware, gnarly baddies, and over-the-top villains, or not take it seriously and call it ironic. Game developer Grip Games chose to do both. One Epic Game is a side-scroller set in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies that's aware of just how trite that premise is.
Despite rumors that the game would be delayed until 2012, Sega released Sonic CD to the Android Market today, bringing nostalgic Sonic action to your Android device for just $1.99.
Wind-Up Knight is a high-end 3D action game that will destroy you. That is the first sentence of the Market listing for the new game from development team Robot Invader. Pretty big words to live up to, don't you think? Whether it will actually destroy me or not will have to be seen, but, after watching the gameplay trailer, I can safely say that it looks awesome.