A solid beat-em-up on the iOS is a rarity, but one designed by a company specializing in RPG and strategy titles is even more of a long shot.
But between the colorful graphics, easy touch controls and fun story, The Game Bakers, the company responsible for the uber fun Squids games, have delivered an easily accessible fighter in Combo Crew.
Lending from some of the best Kung Fu movies of all time, Combo Crew is a martial arts film geeks best friend in terms of story. The colorful characters make progressing through the enemy-filled levels just as entertaining. The fact that the characters are all so different also makes the fun last longer for anyone who really gets hooked on the old-school fighting action. Between a girl who uses her hair as a weapon, the greatest action hero of all time and a cool gamer to choose from, every gamer will have someone they find cool.
As the case with all Game bakers titles, There’s plenty to do. The slew of unlockables gives method to the on-screen mayhem and provides the game with plenty of playability. This is a game you could easily spend hours with. For most iOS games, this simply isn’t the case.
While the gameplay and story make the game unique, the graphics are by far the title’s biggest selling point. Although the game looks great on the iPhone, the feast for the eyes isn’t truly apparent until you fire the game up on the iPad or iPad Mini. A colorful experience is saying it lightly. Combo Crew is beautiful.
Behind the wit of the pop culture references and the polish in the engine and stellar graphics, even after an hour or two, it’s easy to see The Gamer Bakers have delivered another winner in Combo Crew.
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports.
Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders.
His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023.
Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief.
Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale.
Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.
A solid beat-em-up on the iOS is a rarity, but one designed by a company specializing in RPG and strategy titles is even more of a long shot.
Leave a Reply