Top iPad Games of the Week
Week of Oct. 18

Apps Discussed

Monster Feed HD: The new king of tower defense games adds heros, spells, special abilities, and power-ups across 34 levels. Can you save your animal friends from the monster mobs?

Ultimate Race: Think you have fast fingers and laser-focused concentration? Test your reflexes and post your quickest times to a global scoreboard. Don’t mess up!

Puzzle Solitaire: This fresh take on one of the most popular card games adds a new element – fit your cards into a jigsaw puzzle shape. Addictively challenging!

Ultimate Hangman: Another fresh take on an old classic adds hilariously animated hangmen, global leaderboards, dozens of word categories (including SAT!?), and more. It’s equal parts fun and educational.

Reviews

You can read all of my past iPad reviews at Appolicious -- click here.

Monster Feed HD ($2.99)



A hellish hoard of monsters are out to eat a helpless herd of doe-eyed deer, and it will take every ounce of tower defense skill to protect them from being turned into venison stew. That and a single-minded focus on tower placement, mana pool levels, available spells, and strategic upgrades to your towers along the way.

After playing for an hour, I was seriously hooked on this instant classic. With so many other tower defense apps in the Store (Fieldrunners and Starfall anyone?), I can safely say that Day Go By Entertainment has created a new king of the genre in Monster Feed HD.

Pick your character (two to choose from), along with level difficulties ranging from easy to impossible, then dive in. The action is pitch-perfect, while the tower placements, upgrades, and spell-casting controls are spot-on.

Be careful where you place your defenses, lead your spell shots for the best effect, and don’t miss a single coin that drops from fallen foes to increase your bankroll to buy new offensive weapons and upgrades.

Let’s just be glad these baddies take a very linear path to the deer herd. (Or do they? Later levels introduce line-jumping spiders and other mobs that will keep you on your toes. Seriously!)

When you come right down to it, the spells really are the secret sauce that help this title shine, allowing you to freeze (slow down), incinerate (fireballs), nuke (BOOM!) or eat (CHOMP!) the baddies at will. Watch your mana levels as each level plays out, and be sure to pick up all the blue vials of extra spell serum when they drop to fill your pool to power the next shot.

With tons of new maps, game modes, and other enhancements on the way, and shipping with a solid core of 17 unique playfields today that can be played in two modes, you’d be hard pressed to find a better new game to grab this week.

Ultimate Race (FREE)

There are lots of apps that purport to increase your brain function, memory, and even hand-eye coordination through the guise of a game. Most are total cons.

Ultimate Race, however, lives up to the hype of challenging and strengthening the connection between your left and right hemispheres, while sharpening your reflexes and tempting your earbuds with some truly hypnotic tunes to get, and keep, you in the mood.

The game play is super-simple. There’s red balls and blue boxes marching across your screen, single file. Tap your personal red or blue controls to clear each one in turn. The chain will increase in speed, varying the number of colors that appear in the row.

The faster you clear each color away, the more breathing room you’ll open up. Make a mistake and the game either adds more colors to clear, or slaps you with a cross-eyed FAIL message and makes you start all over again.

The folks at Cervo Media say the app is loosely based on a military stress test, and I believe them. The faster the colors flash across the screen the quicker you’ll need to respond. Add in a killer two-player duel mode and prepare to lock horns with family and friends to see who can clear the line of colors faster.

After a few days of playing this title with my son and his young friends, we’ve all become addicted to its Winn3r and L0ser messages that pop up at the end of each quick round.

Clearly, I have some work to do on my aging reflexes. And Ultimate Race is clearly up to the task. Free or .99 to unlock additional play modes.

Puzzle Solitaire ($4.99)

Solitaire. It’s one of the most popular card games on the planet, and I have a long list of relatives and friends who enjoy relaxing to a quick game of this classic. Now iPad owners can take their obsession to the next level with Puzzle Solitaire. But is it worth a cool $5?

The fresh approach involves filling all the open tiles on your game board with cards. But not just any cards – you’ll need to place cards next to each other which are valued one less or greater regardless of their suit.

The faster you place cards in their proper spots to fill each uniquely-shaped game board, the quicker you’ll rack up bonus points. Plus, be careful of which suits you place next to each other, and in specific shapes, to tack on extra combo bonuses.

Arcade mode will get your blood pumping, while Normal mode is perfect for relaxing into a familiar experience.

If you play Solitaire more than once a week, then don’t hesitate to add this worthy app to your iPad collection today. If you’re a casual player, stick to your cards or give the free Lite version a try to ease your way into this addictive title.

Ultimate Hangman ($.99)

Who hasn’t played hangman? If you’re like me, then you’ve guessed your way to many a poorly-drawn stick figure which quickly met its maker at your notebook’s gallows after failing to guess the letters to the word in play.

Ultimate Hangman offers up the same experience, adding downright silly animations to keep you playing just to see what will happen next to your pen-drawn friend. All for the cost of a small cup of Joe.

With four different themes to choose from (Doodle, Chillin’, Christmas Snowman, Flower Power) and a massive 73 categories of words (including many in languages ranging from Spanish to Portuguese) to power each game, you’ll be hard pressed to get bored or repeat a recent word.

Plus, a full set of SAT Words (1-5) will even serve as much-needed practice for your college-bound kids.

After starting a new game and guessing a few letters, your hangman will start appearing with each incorrect choice. After a few mistakes, your little guy will come alive with stern looks, worried glances at the hangman and trap door below him, and generally twist, turn, and squirm through each guessing game. Move too fast or make too many mistakes, and its time for your drawing to meet his maker.

Guess correctly and he’ll shoo away the hangman, make faces at him, or even give him a swift kick off the screen.

Two player mode adds an additional element of fun, giving one player the ability to input a word for the other to puzzle out. (There’s a 14 letter limit, so jokesters beware!)

Who knew there was a game app for your iPad that was both fun and educational at the same time?