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November 23rd iPad and iPhone review round-up: Battle Copters, Starlit Adventures, Blocktagon, and more

A Bronze sort of a week

November 23rd iPad and iPhone review round-up: Battle Copters, Starlit Adventures, Blocktagon, and more
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iOS
| Battle Copters

Well, we're a bit late with the round-up this week. Blame the fact that most of us were out of the office at some point last week.

Also, we're pretty lazy. So just thank your lucky stars that you're getting one at all.

Anyway, here's a round-up of some of the other games that came out this week.

We've played them, we've looked at them with our critical eyes, and we've ranked them using a ten-point numerical score.

Battle Copters

Fly helicopters around reasonably sized arenas, blasting other players and bots with bullets and rockets. It's very free to play, and the controls take a while to click.

When everything slots in to place though, it's a slick and entertaining hovering dog-fight. The rhythm of the action is pretty fresh, and the explosions are all big and boomy.

There are lots of slightly confusing menus, and plenty of currencies to tut at, but if you like flying choppers around and blowing things up, you'll probably get a kick out of this.

7/10

Blendoku 2

Sort of a mix between a sudoku and a GCSE art class. You need to move hues around a board to create a sequence of colours that lead to the ones locked in on the screen.

It's a neat idea, and while it's not the most challenging puzzler out there, there's enough going on that you won't begrudge it its simplicity.

It does sometimes descend into trial and error when there are multiple colour paths on the board, but there are a huge number of levels here, and it's not your standard match-gumph puzzler either.

7/10

Blocktagon

There's a bit of Super Hexagon here, as you might imagine from the title. But where that game sent you cascading down a hill with little care for your safety, this one's a little more gentle.

Coloured blobs slosh in from the side of the screen, and you need to twist an octagon around so they hit a part of the shield that matches their hue.

Get it wrong and you open a gap in your shields, exposing your core. It's fun, but it feels a bit like a twitch game with the training wheels left on.

6/10

Tower Dash

An endless jumper with a bit of a twist. Rather than just leaping, here you're twanging around on a grappling hook. You tap to fire it, and it alternates between shooting right and left.

Hit the sides of the tower you're ascending and it's game over. Ostensibly it's a high-score chaser, but there's asynchronous multiplayer as well to challenge your friends or strangers.

The core loop at the centre is pretty tight, and the graphics are pretty smooth too. It won't challenge the likes of Crossy Road, but it's still a pretty decent lark.

6/10

Starlit Adventures

The offspring of Downwell and a Saturday morning cartoon. It's not as cruel or original as the vertical roguelike, but you're still smashing your way down through the earth.

Instead of gun-shoes, here you're riding some sort of animal that can bash through blocks. You unlock new equipment as you go, and your aim is to get to the base of the tunnel without dying.

It looks gorgeous, it's surprisingly challenging, and if you've got youngsters in your brood then they're going to lap it up.

7/10

Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.