App of the Week

Since it's Black Friday let's look at two highly anticipated games that have been disappointments. Both are free-to-play games titles released by big publishers, Capcom and Nintendo, and both feature popular IP from popular franchises.

The first game is Capcom’s Puzzle Fighter. The sequel to the popular Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. Puzzle Fighter was built from the ground up for mobile devices. The new version includes more characters from various Capcom franchises, real-time battles and Leaderboard support.

The App Store description describes A Boy and His Blob as a "reimagining of the NES classic," but the iOS version looks to be a port of the Wii version, which itself was a remake of A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia. A Boy and His Blob was originally released for the Nintendo Wii in 2009. It is is considered to be one of the better Wii titles, and it has now made its way to iOS devices.

It's hit or miss when it comes to mobile titles based on popular movies or television shows. For every cool, retro game like Stranger Things, there seems to be several bad Transformers or other lackluster movie-based titles available on the App Store. South Park: Phone Destroyer is one of the good examples of a television tie-in done right. It manages to avoid the common pitfalls of most fremmium games while sticking close to its source material. This doesn't mean that it doesn't suffer from the occasional skill pay wall, and that there isn't an element of pay to win, but you can enjoy it without spending a ton of cash.

Nobody is arguing that freemium titles shouldn't have a way to make money, but games that make you wait to play are pointless and nobody likes being forced to sit through ads. Like anything else, there are both good and bad examples of freemium games on the Apple App Store, and The Muscle Hustle is an example of freemium done right.

The free wrestling game is not ad supported, and it only has timers if you're defeated. You can purchase additional in-game currency (gold) to spend on character drafts, revives, additional characters slots and tickets to special events. Basically, you can choose to grind it out or spend real world money to get some extra benefits.

The App Store this week has gotten a little more spooky for October. Tons of apps have not only been updated with Halloween content, but several new horror themed apps have landed on the App Store for iOS devices. Here are 5 apps to get you in the Halloween spirit.