With Mid-Autumn festival on the horizon, we received many beautiful gifts and invitations from @NewbeeCN, Perfect World, QG, IMMVP, Famulei http://pic.twitter.com/fre83fIrCL
VGJ.Thunder & VG are battling it out in the Perfect World Masters CN Qualifiers #LIVE http://ift.tt/2xDWV1z; #Dota2 http://pic.twitter.com/mgGwIFA0z5
Good news, Clash Royale [Free] players. Your favorite game is about to get a brand new mode, and it looks and plays very differently than everything else we've played before. This new mode is called Touchdown, and it can only be played in 2v2 (at least for the time being). The developers showed off Touchdown earlier today, and you can check it out here. This mode is a draft-only mode and is played on a field with no towers, rivers, or bridges; instead, it's played on a field with two end zones, one on each side. Every time a troop walks into the end zone, you get a crown. At three crowns, you win the game. Most minions can only be played within a specific part of the field, and spells can be played anywhere on the field.
Some cards are excluded from the Touchdown mode possibly because of how they would pretty much break the game. Hog Rider, Miner, Flying Machine, Mega Knight, Bats, Cannon, and some other cards (all subject to change at this point) won't be available, most of them for obvious reasons. The mode will be coming our way in the October update, so get ready for some Touchdowns.
With Mid-Autumn festival on the horizon, we received many beautiful gifts and invitations from @NewbeeCN, Perfect World, QG, IMMVP, Famulei http://pic.twitter.com/fre83fIrCL
“Ambushed by foul invention!”
After the rough time Nintendo had attracting third-party games to the Wii U, it’s encouraging to see everything from Stardew Valley to Attack on Titan 2 rush to the Switch. And the latest game to join Nintendo’s bandwagon? None other than the game of mind-shattering dungeon crawling, Darkest Dungeon.
The announcement was subtly made today on Twitter, where the Darkest Dungeon team uploaded some video footage. If you wait until the end, you’ll see the camera pan back to reveal the game you’ve been watching was fully rendered on a Switch.
Darkest Dungeon is a turn-based roleplaying game where players form adventuring parties to loot abandoned ruins and clear them of monsters. Outside of physical dangers, each hero is subject to mental afflictions which worsen as they witness horrible events. Successfully completing missions involves managing your party’s health and emotional states equally, which is no easy task when you run out of torches.
Wait for it… wait for it… http://pic.twitter.com/7nx0zpDglG
— Darkest Dungeon (@DarkestDungeon) September 29, 2017
Darkest Dungeon has yet to offer a Switch release date, but you can pick it up for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, or iOS today.
The Thargoids of Elite: Dangerous are still mysterious, but they aren’t invulnerable.
Earlier this year – after various hints, mysterious sightings, and investigations of bizarre artifacts – the Thargoids officially made their return to the Elite: Dangerous universe. This alien race of warlike insects first appeared in the original Elite games, and have quickly become one of the strangest features of the popular space sim.
And after all this hype, Elite’s players finally managed to blow some up.
The first kill recognition goes to Joshua “Harry Potter” Chamberlain and his clan, the Smiling Dog Crew clan (SDC). Chamberlain recently told Polygon that SDC killed the Thargoid vessel in advance of other Elite players by at least two hours.
Thankfully, SDC was recording the battle, which acts as both proof and a handy tutorial on destroying the ship. The Thargoid craft – referred to as a cyclops – can be destroyed by disassembling it over time. In the twenty-minute recording, you can watch how the SDC knocks off its petals until a vulnerable heart is exposed. The trick is to make use of anti-xeno missiles which were released in-game only a few days ago, as seen in many other YouTube videos pouring in.
To be clear, the task isn’t without danger: One Elite player managed to destroy another cyclops only for their ship to be destroyed from the shockwave.
If you’d like to destroy a Thargoid ship of your own, Elite: Dangerous is available for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One systems.
You can celebrate Fallout’s 20th birthday without spending a single cap.
The original Fallout was released on September 30 1997, and while its isometric RPG gameplay differs vastly from the series today, it remains a gaming gem. And if you haven’t played it before, don’t take my word for it: Download it for free and scavenge the wasteland for yourself. From now until 11:59 Pacific Time, you can snag Fallout on Steam absolutely free.
Fallout tells the story of the legendary “Vault-Dweller” who first emerged from Vault 13 to track down a replacement water purification chip. While exploring the remains of post-apocalypse California, the player will discover a brewing Mutant invasion plot, the hidden outpost of the Brotherhood of Steel, and the loyal canine Dogmeat. (Unless you upset Dogmeat and kill him in your first encounter, that is.)
Even compared to today’s Fallout games, the original has an ridiculously steep learning curve – as you’ll learn fighting small rats just outside the Vault entrance. But in terms of characters, story, and open-world exploration, Fallout was well ahead of its time.
Just remember to grab Fallout before midnight Pacific Time, before it returns to the Vault once again.
Time is running out to make any final purchases – or downloads – on Nintendo’s precursor to the eShop.
Before the eShop became Nintendo’s shopping platform of choice, it conducted digital sales using the Wii Shop Channel. It was here that players could first purchase classic games for the Virtual Console, or obtain original digital content under the WiiWare brand. Now, two consoles later, the Wii Shop Channel’s time is finally coming to an end.
In a notification published on Nintendo’s Japanese site, the publisher confirmed it will wind down the Wii Shop Channel service next year. Starting on March 27 2018, customers will no longer be able to add Wii Points to their accounts. Further Wii Shop Channel purchases will be discontinued on January 31 2019. (And just so we’re clear, these closures extend to the backwards compatible Wii software bundled into the Wii U.)
For a limited time after the closing date, players will be able to redownload any of their Virtual Console or WiiWare games, along with the Wii U transfer app. Eventually, even those services will be shut down.
While most notable Virtual Console/WiiWare games are available on Nintendo’s other consoles, it’s a fairly sobering reminder on how it can be to preserve digital copies of our games.
As it stands, players have a little over a year to buy what they’d like and get their backups in order.
Currently, we are clinging desperately onto the end of September and unwilling to face the inevitability that October is mere days away, bringing with it an avalanche of video game releases. Will there be enough time in a normal human day to play a decent amount of them? We’ll have to wait and see. All I know is that Shadow of Wardor looks like it might be very special and Super Mario Odyssey will be a new staple.
As usual, we’ve got deals that’ll work in the UK, deals that’ll work in the US and some deals that will work in both the UK and US, as well as presumably many other places. Let’s get started.
UK & US Deals
As an added bonus for anyone who subscribes to Humble’s Monthly service – which gets you a stack of Steam games each month for £10 / $12 a month – the site also lets Monthly subscribers have access to the Humble Trove. The Trove is a library of DRM-free games that won’t shift or expire each month, featuring titles like Gone Home, Limbo, Shadowrun Returns, Teslagrad, Volgarr The Viking and much more.
More games added to Humble Trove with Humble Monthly
While you’re over there at Humble, you may want to take a look at the Bandai Namco Publisher Weekend sale, which is on from now until Tuesday, 2nd October, including things like Tekken 7, Dark Souls 3, God Eater 2 Rage Burst, and more.
Bandai Namco Publisher Weekend from Humble Store
Bundle Stars has its own collection of classic titles on offer, with a new tiered bundle up for grabs that’ll get you up to 15 games for £9 / $10. Here’s what’s up for grabs:
Here’s what’s on offer:
Tier 1 – 89p / $1
Tier 2 – £4.39 / $4.99
Tier 3 – £8.89 / $9.99
Nemesis Bundle 3 from Bundle Stars
This week’s GOG sale puts a particular focus on adventure games as well as some of the best sci-fi horror titles to have ever been made. Specifically, that includes the likes of System Shock, System Shock 2 and the nightmare-inducing I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. Here are some highlights from the range:
Up to 90% off in the GOG Weekly Sale
Sonic recently turned 26, and while he wrestles with the kind of existential crisis that can only come reaching and age that puts you hurtling towards the ‘late twenties’ side of things, Bundle Stars is offering up a whole batch of Sonic games with some nice discounts. Enter the code BIRTHDAY5 to get these prices.
Following on from the site’s ‘Very Positive Bundle 2’, Humble is showcasing some of its other favourites with the ‘Very Positive Sale’. All these titles are currently holding ‘Very Positive’ or higher ratings on Steam and while we can’t always trust user-generated Steam ratings, rest assured these particular titles are some quite nice ones.
Some highlights:
Very Positive Sale from Humble Store
UK Deals
As stock of the console begins to drift in a bit more consistently, Nintendo’s UK store has launched a ‘Build Your Own Bundle’ system on its main site. After choosing which console you want, you can pick a game, a carrying case, an amiibo and a free bonus gift (as tempted as the Mario hat is, you should probably pick a stand, screen protector or that Pokken Pro Controller). All that will run you for £349.99.
Build Your Own Nintendo Switch Bundle from Nintendo UK
If you head over to the official Ubisoft store today, you can grab one of (or all of) these little chibi figurines of some of the original Rainbow Six Siege crew. If there’s one thing to be said for Ubi, they know how to do their collectibles.
It may have taken an extra six months to see a UK release, but it hasn’t taken that long for the price to fall to slightly more agreeable ranges. The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ on Nintendo Switch, in its fancy boxed form with extra trinkets, is currently £27.95 over at TheGameCollection.
The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ on Nintendo Switch for £27.95 from TheGameCollection
Look, I’ve said it before and I’ll only inevitably say it again – Yakuza 0 is a delight and I adored all the dozens of hours I managed to pour into it. If I could befriend any video game character today, it would definitely be Majima. Conveniently enough, Yakuza 0 is down to its lowest price yet at Argos, costing you £21.99 for the time being.
Yakuza 0 on PS4 for £21.99 from Argos
US Deals
Hori is resurrecting its classic Fighting Commander controller to coincide with this week’s release of the Super Nintendo Classic Edition. This thing is officially licensed by Nintendo, features a full set of turbo switches and will cost you $25.
Hori Fighting Commander Pro Controller for Super Nintendo Classic Edition for $24.99 from Amazon US
If you’re in the mood for an Xbox, you can grab a shiny new Xbox One S console with a packed-in copy of Forza Horizon 3 or Halo Wars 2, pick two extra games for free and get the whole lot for $249. While stock lasts and all that.
Xbox One S bundles with two extra free games from $249 from Microsoft Store
GameStop has a bizarre amount of pretty decent discounts on a handful of console games including Yakuka 0, Persona 5, Puyo Puyo Tetris and Wolfenstein. All of those are things you absolutely need to play, by the way.
Quite why Nintendo is so persistent in making more 3DS consoles, I’m not sure. What I do know is that this Poké Ball styled New 2DS XL will have already won over many hearts just from the way it looks. It’s up for pre-order now and will cost you $159.99.
New Nintendo 2DS XL Poké Ball Edition for $159.99 from Best Buy
With that, we’re done for another week. Keep in mind that deals, prices and availability can change at the drop of a hat, so apologies if you miss out on something you wanted. I’ll be over at Jelly Deals, scouring the world wide web for more deals. Feel free to visit, or follow us on Twitter and give us a like on Facebook.
Did you know that Jelly Deals has a newsletter? It lets us bring the best deals directly to you each day. Subscribe here, if that seems like your kind of thing.
Puzzle Fighter from Capcom has finally soft launched on the App Store. Puzzle Fighter is the sequel to Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo and it was scheduled to hit iOS by the end of the year. It was playable at PAX and has officially soft launched in six countries right now and if you’ve been craving some Ryu and Chun-Li puzzle action, download it today. Match gems to take out your opponents through strategies involving combos and more. Puzzle Fighter has vintage arenas from Capcom games and it is free to play and has a very interesting art style to say the least. Watch the trailer below:
Puzzle Fighter is available on the App Store in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, and Singapore. If you have an account in any of those App Stores, you can check it out right now. Everyone else can pre register on the website.
More downtime! Oh goodie!
After last week, one would hope that Destiny 2 wouldn’t require yet another several hours of downtime for maintenance. Sadly, it’s just not meant to be.
The good news? Along with the latest hotfix, this time we’re only looking at 4 hours of downtime instead of last week’s promised 6. Which of course can still be frustrating, depending on the region you live in and your preferred play hours. At least you’ll be able to catch up on our massive Destiny 2 guide for tips in the meantime.
For your convienience, we’ve posted Bungie’s stated downtime hours below:
We will update this story if there are any changes or delays to Destiny 2’s schedule.
Bluehole has formed a new subsidary to specifically to handle everything related to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Most of us had probably never heard about PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds developer Bluehole until the game became a massive success story – perhaps larger than Bluehole even anticipated. For that reason, Bluehole is restructuring to create a subsidiary called PUBG Corp. This company will fully handle Battlegrounds development, along with any global business opportunities specific to the game.
In many ways, this changes little of PUBG’s current day-to-day development. At the same time, the announcement marks a new international expansion of PUBG’s operations. The subsidiary will be establishing new offices in Europe and Japan, alongside those created in the US. Current Battlegrounds producer and developer Chang Han Kim has been appointed CEO of the new venture, while new Chief Operating Officer Woonghee Cho will handle global operations.
“Given PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds global success, we want to ensure that we have the operational efficiency that is required to support the game globally,” Chang Han Kim said in a statement. “This new structure allows us to be nimble as we look towards the expansion of strategic business opportunities that include the game’s potential in the esports sector and the growth of PUBG as a true global IP franchise.”
Not bad for a title still in early access. The finished game is expected to launch for PC and Xbox One sometime this year.
The latest Assassin’s Creed Origins trailer manages be exciting and poignant at the same time.
Yes, I know we technically should judge video games on their gameplay, and not pre-rendered cinematics. But hot damn, some game trailers are stunning works of art in and of themselves. The new Assassin’s Creed Origins trailer absolutely belongs that list, highlighting a decline of Egyptian society which will supposedly give birth to the events of an entire franchise.
How does it pull this off? With sand. Lots of sand.
Technically speaking, the trailer has no story elements to speak of, and barely introduces Origins protagonist, Bayek. What it does show are snapshots of Egyptian life, from a priest removing a heart from a body, to a small cat exploring an alleyway. In all cases however, everything is slowly dissolving into sand – the people, the buildings, even that poor cat. All to tease that Egyptian civilization is entering its final days, and will soon be lost and forgotten in the sands. Powerful stuff.
And sure, the game itself will pirouette away from this poignant moment to highlight action scenes and brutal assassinations. But for just a moment, this trailer makes Origins feel like something unique and memorable. We’ll see how the game actually holds up when it launches for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 27, 2017.
The Red Dead Redemption 2 trailer has just enough details to suggest last year’s leaked map is genuine.
Once again, I must tip my hat to the absolutely insane fans who can uncover huge volumes of information from the barest of details. While the young John Marston theories are speculative at best, apparently players have uncovered evidencce to suggest to suggest last year’s leaked map is absolutely accurate.
In case you missed it, this map image was leaked to NeoGAF last year, and verified by an independent (but anonymous) source close to the game. Now fans within GTAForums have been taking screenshots of the trailer, making note of landmarks in the background, and using them to form a general layout of the game world.
This following images from the forums are a great example. Note the landmarks highlighted in red from the first image, which are reversed when facing the mountains from the opposite direction.
And sure, that could be a coincidence – but there are a great many coincidences. Considering each in-game cutscene has to be “filmed” from an in-game location, you’ll eventually cover every square inch of the map with enough footage.
Oh, and it gets better. If you go a step further and correlate trailer screenshots with height elevations from the leaked map, you get the following gif which matches visuals to map coordinates.
Now while I’m sure Rockstar could eventually turn the debate on its head with an official comment – or more trailer footage – there’s quite a bit of evidence suggesting these cartographers are completely right. Who knew video games could spark such an in-depth conversation on mapping and geography?
Red Dead Redemption 2 launches for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2018.
A slew of ESRB ratings suggest Rockstar Games will bring several gaming classics to the PlayStation 4.
As both a publisher and developer, Rockstar has a truly impressive back catalogue of games to play – although today’s console players can’t always find them on modern systems. Thankfully, a newly discovered set of ESRB ratings implies several PS2-era classics are heading over to the PlayStation 4. At a minimum, these should whet our gaming appetites before Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 comes out.
First up is Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and its sequel, Vice City Stories. Originally designed as PlayStation Portable exclusives, these GTA spin-offs became popular games in their own right and were quickly ported to the PlayStation 2. Anyone hoping to explore the classic GTA cities all over again should definitely check these out.
Next up is Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, which was marketed as “a film noire love story” in 2003. This excellent sequel follows New York Detective Max Payne as he tries to put the first game’s trauma behind him, only to reopen fresh woulds when the friendly hit-woman Mona Sax is found alive at a crime scene. Personally, I’d say this is Remedy Entertainment’s best Max Payne game thanks to its emotional punch ending alone, and well worth a re-release.
Finally, the PS4 will get Midnight Club 3, an underground racing game which favors high-speed racing over minor quibbles like “realistic physics”. From all appearances, this re-release will be the original DUB Edition as opposed to the DUB Edition Remix, but we’ll know for sure upon release.
While it’s not clear from the ESRB ratings, these games will likely be pure PS2 ports instead of full-fledged remasters. Which is a good thing, because fans should be able to enjoy these classics all over again at a reasonable price.
VGJ.Thunder & VG are battling it out in the Perfect World Masters CN Qualifiers #LIVE http://ift.tt/2xDWV1z; #Dota2 http://pic.twitter.com/mgGwIFA0z5
This week's podcast is a bit abnormal, as Jared is currently on vacation celebrating his wedding anniversary with his wife. To still have a podcast for the week, we recorded early in the day on Wednesday, which was actually before most of the new games came out this week. We shift gears and instead spend a lot of time discussing the new iOS 11 App Store, as we've been using it for a little over a week now to do our jobs and have both great and not so great things to say about it. We also discuss some of the bigger news stories from earlier in the week as well.
Don't forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com. We read 'em all, and love decoding messages written entirely in emoji. As always, you can listen to us with the links below... And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated!
As a companion to this audio podcast, we also do a video version of the same show that is exclusive to Patreon which allows you to see us playing the games we're talking about. Backers can view the most recent video episodes of the TouchArcade show by clicking here. Be sure you're logged in to see the latest content. For everyone else who is curious, you can check out our public patreon posts to see older episodes of the video podcast. If you like what you see, consider becoming a TouchArcade Patreon backer.
iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Stitcher: The TouchArcade Show via Stitcher Radio for Podcasts [Free]
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-325.mp3, 63MB
The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn't necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable "best" thing. Instead, it's more just us picking out the single game out of the week's releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one.
These picks might be controversial, and that's OK. If you disagree with what we've chosen, let's try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why.
Without further ado…
Modern Combat Versus [Free] has been hotly anticipated by our community basically ever since news of it leaked last year. A more official announcement didn't hit until over a year after the leak, with a supremely locked down soft launch in the Philippines which actually required players to use a VPN to connect and play the game. When there's a will there's a way, and judging by the amount of YouTube videos that spawned around the time, there were loads of people playing outside of the specific locked regions of the soft launch.
This week the game finally hit the App Store, and the response so far has been fairly mixed with the overall gist being that as far as an online team-based shooter is concerned, Modern Combat Versus is great. It's basically a Gameloft-y spin on a formula that lands somewhere in between Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 with a gritty, futuristic Call of Duty-ish military setting. Like Overwatch, the game has multiple classes as well as an ultimate ability which charges over time as you participate in battles. Gameplay is fast and fun, and feels a lot like what you might expect of a 2017 version of Modern Combat 5 [Free].
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be a modern Gameloft game without a controversial free to play system. Like practically every other game released these days, Modern Combat Versus features unlockable chests, similar to Clash Royale [Free]. They're doled out pretty regularly, but, just like every game that uses this method of unlocking stuff, there's a lot of waiting for them to open. Folks on our forums have argued that there isn't much point in playing after you have four chests unlocking, as your progress is entirely limited by those timers. That's true, I suppose, if the only reason you're playing MC:V is to get loot, but it disregards the fact that playing the game itself is super fun.
The most curious design decision Gameloft made with Modern Combat: Versus is that this chest system is how you also unlock additional characters, each with their own classes and abilities like Overwatch. My concern with this is overall game balance as when Blizzard released Overwatch they made it very clear that the reason all the characters would always be available to everyone is because varied teams are important to gameplay. With most people in our community only having a few characters unlocked, even after playing a considerable amount of time, I'm wondering if this is the best way to go about doing this or not.
Freemium shenanigans aside, I'm having a lot of fun playing Modern Combat: Versus. The game has only been out for a couple days now, so it's super difficult to say how much these things will impact gameplay in the long term. Of course you're not going to unlock everything instantly, that's not how these games work. I'm anxious to see how the unlocks unfold after sticking with the game for the next couple weeks. Chances are that Gameloft is running analytics out the wazoo in this game, so if they see any kind of player drop-off, expect all this stuff to be tweaked.
If you're looking for people to play with, a great place to find them is over on our Discord. We've got a Modern Combat: Versus channel over there, as well as just a whole server filled with really cool iOS gamers.
Two years ago now we launched our Patreon and since then while support from our community has been encouraging, we're still only half way to our goal to get back to firing on all cylinders. As you've likely noticed, there haven't been any new names on the site since Brad Nicholson left quite some time ago, as we're largely treading water trying to stay alive on the incredibly limited resources we have. I personally think third party editorial outlets like TouchArcade are very important to the health of online ecosystems like the App Store, and I believe we provide a significant value to our readers and iOS developers every day. All we're asking for is a value for value exchange, and if you feel you derive any value from reading TouchArcade (or anything from the TouchArcade community), please support our efforts to continue doing what we're doing. Here's all the ways you can do that:
Advertising
If you're an iOS developer looking to raise awareness of your game, advertising on sites like TouchArcade is a great way to reach a hyper-targeted audience of iOS gamers and industry influencers who view the site multiple times a day. We offer options ranging from sponsoring our podcast, advertising on our forums, or even completely re-skinning the site. Apple's editorial featuring games team constantly visits TouchArcade, along with (obviously) our whole staff, so having well-placed ads on a site like TouchArcade can be exponentially more effective at getting word out about your game than paying a PR person (likely way more money) to send us emails. For more information, contact our ad sales manager at ads@toucharcade.com.
Supporting Us on Patreon
Patreon is our primary funding source these days. If you're unfamiliar, you're able to more or less "subscribe" to creators (like us) whose content you value. We offer several different tiers of support, which grant things like cosmetic rewards on our forums, as well as access to a Patreon-only chat channel on our Discord server. All Patreon backers also get a video version of our podcast. Developers who support us on Patreon on the "Indie Developer" tier and above get access to a developer chat on on Discord for direct access to TouchArcade staff (and other developers), along with other developer-exclusive content like a business insights email newsletter, event reports, and more. We're also in the process of working with a few different highly relevant companies for exclusive discounts for Patreon backers, although nothing has been finalized just yet.
Overall, a good way to look at our Patreon is to think of TouchArcade as a magazine you'd subscribe to. If you used to pick up a copy of GamePro every month for five bucks (back when magazines only cost five bucks), kick us $5 instead. We provide way more content than print magazines ever could, in an infinitely more timely manner. If you'd like to support the site for more than that because we've saved you money over the years by helping you avoid bad games or by highlighting games you wanted when they were on sale... Even better! The way we look at it is that there's nothing more valuable than time, and we work well over a full time schedule to try and save YOU time by not having to sort through the crap on the App Store. If we've provided value to you in any of these ways, please consider giving back to us with your support.
Amazon Prime Members Can Subscribe to Us on Twitch for Free
If you're an Amazon Prime member, you get way more benefits than fast shipping that you might not even be aware of. One of those perks is Twitch Prime. Once you link up your Amazon account with Twitch, aside from a bunch of random gaming-related freebies, you'll also be able to subscribe to one Twitch channel per month for free. We hope you use that free subscription on our Twitch channel. Something to keep in mind with these free Twitch subscriptions is they do not auto-renew. You'll need to manually re-subscribe every month, so if you'd like to go one tiny step further for us, set a recurring reminder on your iPhone's calendar to remember to do this.
Subscribe on Twitch and/or Cheer with Bits
If you're not an Amazon Prime member, you can still subscribe to our Twitch channel, it just costs $4.99. Something to keep in mind with this is the Twitch revenue share is 50/50, so if you just want to support the site and don't really specifically care about Twitch, your dollars go way farther over on Patreon as they take significantly smaller payment processing fees. But, hey, if you just love Twitch and want the perks that come with a subscriber, rock on.
Another thing you can do on Twitch to help us out is cheer us with Bits. It's a new thing Twitch recently added that let you more or less "tip" the active streamer with a Twitch-exclusive currency that gets added to our account which Twitch eventually pays out on. Much like subscriptions, the revenue share on Twitch Bits isn't great, but you can get them for free if you're willing to view some ads on Twitch. Cheering is pretty fun while streaming as there's a whole lot of fanfare when Bits come in, they get added to a tip cup, and Twitch chat gets all excited.
Shop on Amazon Through Our Affiliate Link
If you do a lot of shopping on Amazon, visiting the easy to remember URL http://ift.tt/2pHr7VS and clicking through our link gives us credit as the referral for everything you buy. Amazon then gives us a very tiny percentage of the sale, which they'd otherwise just keep for themselves. They have widely varying commission rates, but everything (short of just buying cash gift cards) awards us something.
Amazon Pantry items are among the highest commissions Amazon pays, so if buy a lot of non-perishables and other home goods on Amazon, clicking our link first would be amazing- It also helps keep the joke alive that TouchArcade is in part supported by toilet paper sales since mobile gamers spend a lot of time playing on the toilet.
One-Time Contributions via PayPal
One thing a lot of people have asked us for is the ability to do one-time payments via PayPal. As part of setting up everything to make our Twitch channel work, we also have a more user-friendly way to do one-time payments. Click here, fill out the form, and it'll toss you over to PayPal to complete your payment. All of your PayPal information remains confidential, so we'll really only know what you fill out on the one-time contribution page. If you want to cover PayPal fees, there's a checkbox for that too. One thing to keep in mind with this is that since this whole thing is built with Twitch in mind, it's outside of all the automated stuff we've built for Patreon. If you don't care about those rewards, rock on. Additionally, if we're streaming when you donate, it'll automatically read your note on stream.
Whitelist TouchArcade on Your Ad Blockers
I know this is a ultra-touchy subject for some people, but if you use an ad blocker, please whitelist the TouchArcade domain. We (to the detriment of our own success) run the site with minimal ads which are manually screened to avoid anything that spawns pop-ups, auto-plays sound, or anything else annoying. We respect our readers, and while we'd be doing tons better if we had full-screen and totally irritating interstitials, I think all that does is encourage more people to block your ads. If you just block everything because you assume all sites these days have in-your-face ads, just try whitelisting us. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. And, hell, if you really want to block our ads, just kick us a few bucks in one of these other ways and we'll be square.
Tell Your Friends and/or Share Our Stories on Social Media
If you love TouchArcade, but really just aren't interested in supporting the site financially, you can still do us a solid via word of mouth. If a friend of yours just got a new iPhone, recommend they check out TouchArcade to find some great games to download. Additionally, we go out of our way to produce great long-form content which typically doesn't generate that much search traffic. For instance, Shaun's amazing RPG Reload series, which I think is some of the best content we publish, are among the worst performing articles on the site. If you read something here that you find insightful, or otherwise interesting, please take a moment to encourage your friends to check it out on Twitter or Facebook. You might think one share doesn't mean much, but we can clearly tell the difference in site analytics.
Thanks for Reading
As always, thanks so much to everyone who has supported us over the years. You're the main reason we're still around, and we hope to keep doing what we've been doing for years to come. Hitting our original Patreon goals would allow us to hire more writers, attend more events, refresh the site, and potentially even explore options with our iOS app. We've managed to successfully fight against the tide of needing to run SEO-bait listicles, get involved in sponsored content, and all the other gnarly things web sites are doing to stay alive all because of you.
Thanks everybody!
While we're primarily supported by a mixture of Patreon, Twitch subscriptions and Amazon referrals these days, site sponsors go a long way in making up for the funding shortfalls of our Patreon never reaching its goal. To show our appreciation, we are now publishing these posts thanking our sponsors each week- Both to give them a little extra visibility and hopefully to get readers who love TouchArcade to give their games a look to similarly support their efforts in allowing us to continue to provide everyone with awesome third party mobile games editorial which the App Store ecosystem badly needs.
Running ads in our second story spot on the front page is Gamesture who is promoting their turn-based RPG Questland [Free]. It launched in late August, and people seem to really dig it on our forums. Like so many games now, it has a friend code sharing system, so if you get into the game and want some free gems and keys be sure to swing by this thread where you can find a bunch of codes and even post your own.
A new entry in our sidebar rotation is from Bitty Blip for Connectron [Free]. It's a reflex-based retro-inspired arcade game of touching shapes and dragging lines to prevent orbs from exploding. There's 21 levels in all with 10 geoshapes that must be completed on each, loads of in-game items, leaderboards, and tons more. Best of all, it's free.
Still running ads with us is Czech Games Edition who just released Through the Ages [$9.99]. The best way to describe this game is like if you took Civilization, but turned it into a board game, then ported that board game to iOS devices. Folks over on Board Game Geek have loved the physical version, and things should only get better when you get rid of all the cards and game pieces and instead replace them with one easy to play app (like most complicated board games).
For developers out there, give Appodeal a look. They've been running ads in our sidebar for a really long time now, and what they provide is a platform for intelligently serving ads using one SDK which connects to over 35 different ad networks. While I've never used it myself, I've heard horror stories from developers on what a nightmare it can be juggling all the different ad networks to display ads in game. Appodeal simplifies all that, giving you more time to work on your game instead of figuring out how to implement one more ad network. Additionally, their service is totally free to use.
Ketchapp is practically a household name now, but even if you haven't heard of Ketchapp specifically, chances are you have a few of their games on your phone. Their most recent title is Hop [Free], but Ballz [Free] and Fidget Spinner [Free] have both been glued to the top of the charts for what feels like forever. Ketchapp has been running ads in our sidebar for a super long time now, and we appreciate their continued support.
Sponsoring the podcast this week is Eldritch Games for their game Deliria [$1.99]. It's a base building and defending game where you're defending a mining colony and exploring alien worlds. Your mission is to mine up Delirium, which is this super powerful energy source and to explore the world to figure out what the heck is going on in Dimension LG7 where the game takes place, all while upgrading everything and mining as much Delirium as you can.
Thanks a ton to our sponsors this week, as well as all of our community members who continue to support us. Combined, you all allow us to keep doing what we're doing. If there's any developers, publishers, or folks from third party services that might appeal to iOS developers who are curious about sponsorship opportunities here at TouchArcade, reach out to our ad sales manager, Marianne, at ads@toucharcade.com. We have a lot of different options which can fit any budget.
If you're a Digimon fan, you'll be glad to know that Digimon Links, a game that's been out in Japan for a while now, is on its way to our shores, and now we got the first English language trailer that shows off the game's features. Digimon Links lets you train Digimon on your farm, which requires you to build various buildings that give your Digimon perks in battle. You will also use that farm to deal with some unexplained phenomena, whatever those are. Then, you take those Digimon to battle using the game's 3 vs 3 turn-based system, where leader skills, signature and legacy skills, and attributes and resistances help you make it through victorious. I'm sure you've never heard of a battle system like this one, right?
The game also lets you part up with up to 3 other online players and take part in co-op battles. And since all players share the AP required to activate the various skills, you'll have to work together if you are to carry the day. If the co-op battles work well, they are going to be quite fun to play. No word yet on release date, but you can pre-register for Android if you want to.
With EA's FIFA 18 now out for PC and consoles, many amateur soccer players and managers are getting back into kicking the ball around and buying packs to build their Ultimate Team. If you are one of many who own the game (I'm one of them, too), don't forget to grab the FIFA 18 Companion [Free] app to make your life much easier and to manage your squad on the go. The Companion app allows you to manage all aspects of your club—players, managers, consumables—while you're on the bus or waiting at the bank (to get more money so you can buy more packs). You can also keep a closer eye on the transfer market so you can pick up that great attacker you've been eyeing for a while. And, of course, you can buy more stuff on the go, especially special offers or lightning rounds.
The Companion app also offers some new Daily and Weekly challenges you can actually complete on the go, which will definitely help you grab more packs and cards. You can also share your team and brag about how great (and expensive) it is. There are many other benefits of having the Companion app, and since it's free, it's pretty much a no-brainer.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is all the rage, as you probably very well know, and, understandably, mobile developers want to join the party. We wrote a couple of days ago about Guns Royale, which is a cartoonish take on the popular battle royale game, but there's another PUBG-inspired game under development right now, Bullet Strike: Battlegrounds, which goes for a more "realistic" take on the formula and looks a lot more like PUBG than Guns Royale does. We wrote about Bullet Strike a few months ago, and starting tomorrow, you can pre-register for the game's Android version, if that's your platform of choice.
If you've been following the game's development in our forums, then you know that the game looks and plays a lot like PUBG, which I know many of you are happy about since there's a reason the PC game is so popular. The game has you join up to 19 other players in real-time and try to fight it out in an ever-shrinking map until only one person is left. The game comes with leaderboards and competitive seasons, with a replay feature and tournaments coming in the near future. If Bullet Strike nails the PUBG feel, it's going to be very popular once it releases. Keep an eye on our forum thread if you want to join the iOS testing.
Gwent, the card game that grew out of The Witcher 3, has been received very well by card players because it offers a different flavor than the likes of Hearthstone and Magic, but no official word that it's coming to mobile yet. So, Reaver Games is stepping in to fill that gap with an upcoming game called Runewards, a card game that uses most of Gwent's mechanics. The basic idea behind Runewards (and Gwent) is you play against your opponent in a best of three matches, and your goal is to have more points on your half of the field than your opponent at the end of each round. A round ends when one of the player passes or runs out of cards.
The fun aspect of these mechanics is you often try and bluff your way to victory by tricking your opponent into thinking you have better cards than you do or by letting them use too many cards to beat you in one round and then taking the other two easily. Now, there's the question of when does imitation become copying. Most collectible card games use the same mechanics with very slight variations, but there's always a line I suppose. But with Gwent not making its way to mobile, the opportunity was there for someone to take. If you want to learn more about the game and sign up for the beta, head over to our forum thread.
Severed [$1.99] from Drinkbox is another game in the "I released on console but play best on mobile" club. Read our glowing review of it from Carter here. Severed is a dungeon crawler with a fantastic art style and gameplay that matches the quality of the art. I own it on 3 different consoles and iOS and it plays like a dream on touch. It originally launched last year on iOS and then had an update that added 3D Touch and iMessage stickers. It is now down to just $1.99 which is a historic low for the game. Watch the trailer for it below:
The latest update that arrived a few days ago has a few visual fixes for iOS 11. Severed won an Apple Design Award earlier in the year and was Apple’s 2016 game of the year. With this super low price, it has never been a better time to play as Sasha while you slice and dice your way to find your family. Check out the forum thread for Severed here. It is one of the rare games that I will buy on every platform whenever the release happens.
Pocket Mine 3 [Free] from Roofdog Games is the best Pocket Mine yet. The franchise has done really well for them with Pocket Mine [Free] and Pocket Mine 2 [Free] crossing 9 million downloads when Pocket Mine 3 released. There's a lot to like and appreciate when it comes to QOL changes and general polish here. There are a lot of games on the App Store that allow for sharing friend codes and the likes to get more social and we have a dedicated section in our forum just for that. Check it out here. Watch the trailer showcasing how much better this game is compared to the previous entries below:
If you’ve been digging and need a friend, look no further because we’ve got a forum thread where friend codes are being shared. You can view the game forum thread for general discussions on Pocket Mine 3 here and check out the friend code sharing thread here.
Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition [$9.99] launched on the App Store a few years ago and it also happens to be the only release from Overhaul Games that was left to be updated for iOS 11. Well the update is here in the form of a massive patch that brings it to version 2.4. This patch has fixes across the board and quite a few useful additions.
There are new portraits, enhancements to party creation, multiplayer fixes, new customization options, and more. One welcome addition is the Story Mode difficulty option which will be great for newcomers to RPGs in general where your character cannot be killed in combat. The full patch notes are available in PDF form here which is a lot more detailed than the App Store release notes for obvious reasons.
Check out an interview where Eli and Brad spoke to Overhaul Games about the release a few years ago. Read our review of the original release on iOS here. You can check out the forum thread here. This update makes Overhaul Games’ full catalogue on iOS compatible with iOS 11. I’m glad we didn’t lose these ports to the 32 bit appocalypse.
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the RPG Reload Play-Along. Each month, we'll be playing an iOS RPG together, sharing laughs and tears in equal measures. The post on the front page (like this one!) is basically here to announce the game in question and give a few tips on getting started. The real action will be happening in the TouchArcade forums, where you'll find a thread dedicated to each month's featured game. Sign up if you haven't already, post your screenshots, ask for advice, or just chat about your misadventures with others. We've got a great community of RPG fans here at TouchArcade, so let's make the most of it!
September saw the Play-Along finally changing gears from our JRPG-laden summer. Instead of menus and medieval settings, our intrepid Reloaders got a dose of action and the abstract with Supergiant's Bastion. With the game being a little on the short side and fairly straightforward, the thread wasn't among the busiest we've seen this year. On the other hand, a few commenters opted to narrate their adventures in a similar style to the in-game narrator, so I still think it was a win overall. Thanks to everyone who participated in the September Play-Along, and I hope to see you join us again!
As is usually the case with my larger-scale projects like this, I have a schedule written fairly far in advance for the Play-Along. I wasn't sure if my original schedule was going to hold out this time around, but fortunately, the game got its 64-bit update and all is well. Thus, it's time for the RPG Reload Play-Along of Square Enix's Final Fantasy Tactics [$13.99 / $15.99 (HD)], the legendary TRPG that has a place in the hearts and devices of many of our readers. Now, I know what some of you are thinking: this is a really long game, and one month isn't enough time. I agree! So like Final Fantasy 5's Play-Along, this one will be two months long. That's right, you have all of October and November to get through. Let it never be said that this is not the TouchArcade age of kindness to the readers!
This is a pretty famous game, but for those who aren't in the know, Final Fantasy Tactics is a turn-based tactical RPG spin-off of the popular RPG brand. Originally released on the PlayStation in 1997, the game was remade for the PSP in 2007 under the title Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. The iOS version of the game, which released in 2011, is an enhanced version of that remake that addresses some of its technical issues and bugs. The initial release had a few problems, but Square gave it a serious overhaul in 2013. Whatever the version, Final Fantasy Tactics is famous for its excellent story, enjoyable use of the Final Fantasy job system, and its brilliant soundtrack. In its time it was easily the most popular Japanese TRPG released in the West, and it even had two sequels that don't really get talked about that much.
At its core, Final Fantasy Tactics is a fairly straightforward TRPG. The game consists of a series of battles that take place on a grid. Combatants take their turns in order based on their speed, and on each turn you can move the unit and use some sort of action. Your goal is typically to wipe out the enemy side, though there are occasionally other stipulations to keep in mind. Between battles, you can visit towns, shop for new items and equipment, and so on. What makes Final Fantasy Tactics stand out from a mechanical perspective is in its job system. As you beat up on enemies, you'll earn experience points and job points. The former level you up like in any other game, but the latter have a different use. When you accumulate enough job points, you can use them to unlock new abilities for that character. You can mix and match any earned abilities, so much like in Final Fantasy 5, you can create some incredibly powerful characters if you know what you're doing.
If you're playing the game for the first time, I recommend just playing it normally. It's a fairly complicated and challenging game as it is, so I wouldn't recommend trying any special rules or challenges. The main advice I'll give you is that due to the way the job system works, you're better off focusing on a regular group of characters instead of spreading things out. Since many of the plot-based battles will force you to use the named story characters, I'd highly recommend making them part of your regular team as soon as they're available to you. Otherwise, you might find them under-powered in a battle where you are required to use them.
Don't forget to use your job points, either. The game won't remind you, so if you don't use them, you'll be making things a lot harder for yourself. Oh, and always make sure you're keeping at least two save files. Grinding is possible in this game, but certain battles go directly into another one, and if your only save is between them, things can get sad in a hurry. One warning about grinding, however. While the story battles are fixed, random battles scale according to your level. If you grind too much, you might find the enemies getting very difficult while you're still sporting some ancient gear. Grind responsibly.
Now, for those of you who have played Final Fantasy Tactics before and are looking to add a little spice to this playthrough, I've found a few fun options. You're free to play normally, choose one of these, or even do your own thing, of course. These are just some suggestions.
No Random Battles for Story Characters: You can't avoid some of the random battles, so it's almost impossible to keep random battles out of the works completely. But you can choose your party for those battles, and under this rule that party should only consist of generics. This keeps your story characters from becoming too powerful and forces you to carefully consider how to spend their limited supply of job poins.
The Pokemon Challenge: Make Ramza into a Orator as soon as possible. The direct route is to switch him to a Chemist immediately and reach level 2 in that job, which will open up White Mage. Switch to that job and reach level 3, which will open up Mystic. Change to that job and reach level 3, and Orator should be available. Now, for the rest of the game, your party can only consist of story characters that are forced on you, Ramza as an Orator or White Mage, and four monsters. Feel free to swap out the monsters as you like.
Shades of the Fiesta: You'll only be using Ramza and three other characters. Pick four jobs, randomly if you like. You can only use those jobs and abilities from those jobs, and like the Fiesta, each character must be using a different job as their main. You can only use other jobs if they are prerequisites to unlocking your selected jobs, and must not spend any of your job points on abilities from them.
No Multi-Classing: Characters may only use skills from their current job. Feel free to change jobs as you like, but you cannot equip any of the abilities you've learned from other jobs. A little extra bite, but definitely doable.
There Can Be Only One (Job): This one can be tough. Pick a job or roll one randomly. Your party should consist of Ramza and other characters, but the catch is that they must all be using that job and only that job. Warning: I'm not 100% sure every party can beat the game this way, so go at your own peril.
Ramza Solo: Are you tired of having fun? Want to see the true hell that Final Fantasy Tactics can be? Well then, you might be looking for the Ramza Solo run. This is just what it sounds like: you, Ramza, the occasional mandatory guest character, and a whole lot of bad guys to take down. You can beef up your Ramza as you like, but you can't bring any other characters into a fight unless the game saddles you with them. It can be done!
Whether you choose a challenge run or a normal playthrough, make sure to come and join us in the TouchArcade forums to discuss the game. As ever, all you need to do to join is to grab any version of the game and head on in to the October/November 2017 RPG Reload Play-Along thread in the forums. Don't have a forum account? Well, that certainly won't do! Fortunately, accounts are free and pretty easy to make, so I'll go have a sip of my tea while you do that little thing. After that's settled, all you have to do is pop in to the thread and say hello. You can share your adventures, get advice, or just chat in general about this month's game with your fellow Reloaders. Oh, and if you've got screenshots, do share. We love screenshots!
As for me, I'll be back next week with the next Classic Reload. Hold on to your pants, friends, because I'm going to be taking a look at a TouchArcade favorite that recently got a 64-bit update. Mikey Shorts [$0.99] is on the menu, and I don't mean that literally because who eats a kid? Not me! Ha. Ha-ha. Phew. Anyway, I'll see you all next time. Thanks for reading!
Next Week's Reload: Mikey Shorts