New Apps of the Week

The highly anticipated sci-fi shooter Midnight Star is now available for iOS devices. The game was created by an all star team of developers including Alex Seropian, the co-founder of Bungie. The story was written by science fiction author John Scalzi (Old Man's War) and his tie-in graphic novel is now available for free (first chapter) on the App Store.

Midnight Star Synopsis

Set 120 years into our future, Midnight Star takes players aboard the MSRV-Joplin, a research vessel newly outfitted with military weaponry to explore a mysterious signal coming from within our Solar System. When disaster strikes, they're transported across the universe to take part in an epic war whose outcome will determine the fate of humanity...

Critics seem to love the game but user reviews are mixed only earning Midnight Star a 3-star rating on the App Store. There are a lot of positive comments about the graphics but the inability to control your character's movement and in-app purchases are earning the game a lot of negative reviews.

The highly anticipated Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect by Orpheus Interactive is getting hammered in the Customer Reviews section of the App Store. Even though the game supports iOS 6.0 it doesn't support older hardware such as the iPhone 4s and iPad 3. This is causing the game to crash which has earned it a two star rating. There is also very little talk about the game on the Touch Arcade forums and there seem to very few, if none, industry reviews, making it very hard to judge if this one is a dud or just suffering from a few release glitches. Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect is available on the App Store for $1.99.

Releasing games based on popular older movies seems to becoming a trend these days. First the lackluster Princess Bride game hit the App Store a few weeks ago, and now the creators of RuPaul’s Drag Race: Dragopolis have released Mean Girls: The Game for mobile devices. Mean Girls: The Game is a tower defense title where players must "fight off the new clique from piecing together the Spring Fling Tiara and taking over North Shore High School." The game is available for $3.99 on the App Store.

Three members of Mojang's development team held a live stream and answered questions from fans about Minecraft: Pocket Edition. The team mostly talked about the upcoming 0.11 update they are currently working on. You can watch the full video below or click here for a good summary of the event.

Lots of mobile gaming news is coming out of PAX South which is going on right now in San Antonio, Texas. Touch Arcade got an early look at tinyBuild's upcoming puzzle game Divide by Sheep and Undead Labs Moonrise.

There was a lot of App Store activity this week but before we jump in here are two quick news items. Touch Arcade discovered a countdown page and inactive mini site referencing Dungeon Hunter 5. The clock is counting down to January 12th, so expect more to be revealed about the game on Monday. You can watch the teaser video titled "Stand Against Chaos" in the trailers section below.

Microsoft is now offering the first month of Office 365 for free. The free month is available on both Personal and Home subscriptions. Users need an Office subscription to access the advance features on Microsoft's Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for the iPad and iPhone. Subscriptions can be bought through any of the three Office apps.

Talk about left field, Gameblend Studios released Princess Bride - The Official Game to the App Store this week. There doesn't seem to be a specific reason for the release, except that it is an awesome idea. The game features four mini games based on the 1987 romantic comedy. The games are: Survive the Shrieking Eels, Scale the Cliffs of Insanity, Cross swords and duel with Inigo and Wrestle against a Giant! Princess Bride the game is available now on the App Store for $3.99.

Apple this week announced that the App Store broke records in 2015. The App Store raked in close to half a billion dollars in app sales and in-app purchases on New Year's Day, and sales saw a 50% increase in 2014, helping developer earn $10 billion in revenue.

The Pokémon Trading Card is getting a 160 card expansion called Primal Fear on February 4th. The expansion will include Primal Reversions, two new theme decks, twenty-five trainer cards and more.The Primal Fear cards will include digital codes so players can use them on the iPad and online version of the game.