Daily News Courier

Real Boxing on Project Shield looks like a knock-out

NVIDIA has posted another Project Shield teaser, this time showing off the controls of the clamshell playing Real Boxing — an unreleased title for the Tegra platform. 

Real Boxing looks like a smash hit in the making. A full career mode, mini-games to build your character, and action inside the ring filled with blood are the keys to a great boxing game, and Real Boxing has all this and more. Since it' designed for the Tegra 4, you'll have extra texture packs, better physics, more polygons, and everything else that comes along with NVIDIA sponsored games. I'm a sucker for boxing titles, and I cant wait for this one. 

Having a built-in controller for games like Real Boxing should really take things to the next level of fun. Android, and quite a few games support external controllers, but I've found this can often be a bit janky and require a lot of setup to get things working. Having the controller as part of the device, and titles made especially for use with it, should allow us to throw all the left hooks and upper cuts we can handle. 

There's a video after the break, be sure to have a look — especially if you're a fan of boxing games like I am.

Source: NVIDIA

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Star Command gameplay video showcases awesome strategic space combat

The fine folks at Warballoon have released a hefty 13-minute gameplay sample of their upcoming spaceship simulation game, Star Command. The video shows off nostalgic 16-bit-style graphics and broad, compelling mechanics, all set to the hilarious commentary of some of the dev team members. 

Throughout Star Command, you hire new crew members with varying skills in science, engineering, and combat. Over time, you put them on missions to improve their skills and unlock new perks, as well as upgrade the ship's various rooms. Completing missions requires some light role-playing through various dialog options, tactical combat when your ship gets boarded, and finely-honed reflex-driven mini-games for ship-to-ship combat. I missed these guys showing off gameplay at PAX East last year and I've been kicking myself ever since. 

A lot of my friends have been playing FTL lately, but Star Command looks so good that I've been holding off just in case I get burned out on the space sim thing. Star Command will be available on Android, iOS, Mac, and PC, though there aren't any details on price or release date. Considering how polished everything is looking, I would be surprised if it didn't land before the holidays. As for price? Well, this might be one of those "shut up and take my money" situations. 

Hit up Star Command's home page for more screenshots and info. 

Crazy Taxi Arrives in the App Store

The Tiny Bang Story

The Tiny Bang Story has been out for PC for a while now, but just got released to the Google Play store a few weeks ago. It’s a great port with a beautiful hand-drawn art style, and Android certainly needs as many of these games as possible. Made by Herocraft, makers of Farm Frenzy and a Top Developer, The Tiny Bang Story is a brain-teasing puzzler and hidden object game. It has all the necessary features like puzzle pieces and mini-games with a very soothing soundtrack and a beautifully drawn world.

In a semi-steampunk world, an asteroid strike has demolished the landscape into puzzle pieces, and it’s your duty to put it all back together. You’ll have to complete five levels with multiple scenes to find all the puzzle pieces and put the world back together. There’s no textual help and very little story beyond what’s in the description of the game so it’s up to you to figure it all out. There are a few places where you may get stumped for a while, but The Tiny Bang Story does a good job of not ever leaving you too stranded.

The gameplay for The Tiny Bang Story is a fairly simple point-and-click adventure. Even the mini-games won’t test your dexterity or speed that much so you can relax and enjoy the game at your leisure. For this reason, The Tiny Bang Story is great for the mobile platform. You can pick it up, find a few puzzles pieces, figure out a brain-teaser, then put it down for a while without losing any progress or having to finish the level. As you begin the game, you’ll come across puzzle pieces scattered throughout the level. Some are easy to spot while others are blended into the background. There are about 25 puzzle pieces in each level, 125 in total, and you have to fit these together at the end of each level to put the world of The Tiny Bang Story back together. The mini-games themselves are really just to help you find all the puzzle pieces.

The brain teasers are an amalgamation of flipping pictures, matching numbers, and turning maps to allow you to open chests or hidden rooms. This doesn’t stray from the norm, but some puzzles will stretch your mind muscles and leave you confused longer than you should be. Even the devilish Venn Diagram puzzles only have so many options; you just have to keep turning until it falls into place. You can also get hints by swatting the bugs on the screen, but I found that takes almost as much time as scouring the screen. The artwork and soundtrack are worth the price of admission alone. While you’re stuck trying to solve the map puzzle, enjoy the serenity of the sounds pestering you with their simplicity.

The only drawback I had for the game was the installation process. It took a few tries and crashed often at the beginning before the game finally took off. I noticed a few of the same remarks in the Play store reviews. After you buy the game, you’ll have to install about 100mb of data which doesn’t finish properly sometimes so you’ll have to start over. Even though the game took me about 4.5 hours, I felt it could have had another planet that you needed to puzzle together. The atmosphere and graphics lend themselves well to extra levels, and I would love to see Herocraft expand this world.

The Tiny Bang Story is a must-play if you’re at all interested in casual or puzzle games. There’s nothing devious about the mind games, but Herocraft has put a great atmosphere, game, soundtrack, and world together which makes The Tiny Bang Story one of the tops in the Puzzle class. You can get the game in the Play store for $2.99.

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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 Android game available now in Google Play

EA Sports has delivered another mobile version of one of its popular PC and console gaming titles. The latest Android game from EA to land in Google Play is Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12. Available now for Android 2.1 and higher, the game wants golf fans, or at least simulated golf gaming fans, to hit the greens on the go.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 allows players to choose their course and golfer. The namesake of the game is obviously an option, but other playable characters include Anthony Kim, Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, Paul Casey, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson, and Camilo Villegas. There’s also the option to customize a player, so you can create yourself as an avatar.

Digital golfers can challenge their friends in one-on-one matches over WiFi or Bluetooth, as well as compete for the top spot on the leaderboard in tour mode. In tour mode, players will play real PGA courses like Pebble Beach and Doral. There’s also a Tiger Challenge set of mini-games that tests (and builds) skills. It offers a nice test of the touch-based controls for driving and putting.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 costs $4.99. The game may not work on rooted devices, so you might want to avoid downloading or keep an eagle eye on the refund window in case things don’t work out. There are also some problems with screen resolutions for certain devices.

Download from Google Play (North America)

Download from Google Play (Europe)

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