[Every week, Gamasutra sums up sister iPhone site FingerGaming's top news and reviews for Apple's nascent -- and increasingly exciting -- portable games platform, as written by editor in chief Danny Cowan and authors Tucker Dean, Jason Johnson, Ryan Hibbeler, and Mike Rose.]
This week, FingerGaming covers Activision's recent releases
Guitar Hero and
Call of Duty: World at War Zombies II, along with other notable debuts.
Also within are the lists for top-grossing, most-downloaded free and paid Apps from Apple's store, as well as reviews for
Phoenix Spirit, Steam Pirates, Robot Unicorn Attack, and
Sketch Nation Shooter.
Here are the top stories from the last seven days:
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Top-Grossing Game Apps: Guitar Hero Overtakes Angry Birds
"Activision's iPhone version of Guitar Hero leads app sales across all categories in its first week of release, ending Angry Birds' multi-week reign as the App Store's highest-grossing title."
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Review: Guitar Hero
"Between its low presentation quality, questionable gameplay, and sparse tracklist,
Guitar Hero has a long way to go before it can match the polished experience
Rock Band offers on the iPhone."
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Firemint, Lima Sky, Gameprom Honored at Apple Design Awards 2010
"Apple has announced the winning titles in 2010's Apple Design Awards, a yearly competition honoring software that demonstrates 'technical excellence, innovation, superior technology adoption, high performance, and outstanding design.'"
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Review: Robot Unicorn Attack
"Be wary of all the pretty colors. This opiate/autoscrolling platformer isn't content with your spare time. This game will suck in your soul."
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Call of Duty: World at War Zombies II Premieres for iPhone
"World at War Zombies II introduces the new 'Shi no Numa' swamp level and a variety of new playable characters, traps, and weapons, including the zombie-frying Wunderwaffle DG-2."
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Review: Steam Pirates
"Steam Pirates bills itself as a 'casual RPG/Adventure game,' which is an apt description if and only if you use the term 'casual game' in the pejorative."
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Top iPad Game Apps: Solitaire, Paper Toss Head Paid Charts
"Electric Oyster's card game compilation Solitaire Classics HD tops the iPad game charts in its debut week. Last week's sales leader Pinball HD drops to third place, as Paper Toss ranks in at second."
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Review: Phoenix Spirit
"Phoenix Spirit provides a good couple of hours of enjoyable exploratory action, but a lack of real direction and purpose keep it from being truly great."
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Top iPhone Game Apps: Guitar Hero Sees Brisk Sales in Debut Week
"Activision's Guitar Hero finishes as the App Store's second-best selling iPhone application across all categories in its second day of release, as Miniclip's artillery sim Fragger takes third place in its debut week."
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Review: Sketch Nation Shooter
"Sketch Nation Shooter is developer Engineous Games' attempt to capitalize on both the touch-shooter craze and the mainstream embrace of user-created content. It's something to root for, surely, but it's not quite successful."
