New releases round-up: Mikey Hooks, Amateur Surgeon 3, Abyss Attack, and more

At the end of every week, we take time out to look at the new and noteworthy iOS games from the past seven days in both words and video.

Following last week's mobile game apocalypse, this has been a relatively dry week for new games.

Which is just as well, really, as my voice is all hoarse and croaky from meeting up with my fellow Pocket Gamer staffers in sunny Manchester.

But if you want to hear a tired man mumble about new surgery simulators, invertebrate wars, platforms, and submarine shooters, please watch the video below.

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If not, you can simply read on for words. And prices. And App Store links. And pretty pictures.

Amateur Surgeon 3
By Adult Swim - iPhone, iPad (Free)

Amateur Surgeon 3 is a silly surgeon simulator from the masters of madness over at Adult Swim. In this game, you'll perform dangerous operations and transplants by using ridiculous utensils like a pizza cutter, a chainsaw, and a pair of car batteries.

It's a funny game with sharp writing and absurd characters, and the gameplay is good, too. You have to remember how to deal with each problem - from shards of glass sticking out of a pancreas, to a pair of lungs set in concrete - and then quickly (and carefully) perform the right actions without murdering your patient.

This one is a free-to-play game, so you can buy coins to upgrade your tools or enlist new tag team partners. And those partners (who give you special boosts) need coins or time to recharge. Same goes for blood packs - if you fail or quit, you must wait 30 minutes or pay.

We'll see how all that affects the game in our full review. On first impressions, though, Amateur Surgeon 3 is just as creative, funny, and compulsive as its pair of predecessors.

Mikey Hooks
By BeaverTap Games - iPhone, iPad (£1.49 / $1.99)

Mikey Shorts was brilliant. For one, it was an iOS platformer where the controls didn't completely suck. For two, there was an emphasis on time trials that made it perfect for bite-size minute-long sessions.

Follow-up Mikey Hooks is more of the same, but now with a new hook. Yes, a hook! In this Bionic Commando-inspired platformer, you can now latch onto specific pivot points with a grappling hook to swing over baddies, pits, and spikes.

It makes it even easier to pull off those satisfying speedruns. You know the ones. Where you finish the level in one graceful uninterrupted dash, then grab a three-star score and rise to the top of the leaderboards.

It also boasts all the great features of the original, and loads more content. An easy recommendation, really.

Abyss Attack
By Deep Byte Studios - iPhone, iPad (69p / 99c)

How has this never happened before? How did no one come up with this clever genre mash-up until now? Why hasn't there ever been an endless shmup until Chillingo-published shooter Abyss Attack?

It seems so obvious now.

So, Abyss Attack is a shmup where a steampunk submarine fires laser beams at jellyfish and neon-coloured seaweed. But it also keeps going on forever, and your job is simply to stay alive for as long as humanly possible.

It's perfectly playable. Sure, your gun is a bit wimpy and the controls aren't pinpoint precise, but there are fun power-ups (including Tesla coil zaps and massive spinning blades) and the Jules Verne-inspired world is nice.

But there are also the usual flurry of endless-runner tropes here, including but not limited to a shop full of upgrades, Facebook support, and "you died, do you want to pay 350 gems to keep going?"

I truly wouldn't be surprised if this game was turned into a free-to-play experience in a matter of days, so I say sit tight for a while.

Gleamer
By Emmet Morris - iPhone, iPad (69p / 99c)

Gleamer was going so well. It's a very modest little indie game about a square that bounces on boxes and picks up stars then explodes into a pretty little particle effect. You can only land on blue boxes because red boxes kill you. And because it's an auto-runner, you have to consider your timing carefully.

It's perfectly fine and I was getting quite into it. And then I hit a few levels where you have to have such exacting timing and pixel-perfection positioning that being a micron out of place will bring death upon you immediately. After about six identical deaths, I gave up playing.

The end.

Worms 3
By Team17 Software - iPhone, iPad (£2.99 / $4.99)

You know what you're getting yourself into when you play a Worms game. Squeaky-voiced invertebrates named after your friends or colleagues or characters from Eastenders take turns to murder one another with increasingly unrealistic weaponry. Under your command, of course.

This new one has all the stuff you expect - including multiple single-player modes, asynchronous online, and pass-the-handset multiplayer - and some new additions, too.

There's a card system, for example, where you play special cards to enact new parameters and dynamics. There are different types of worms, like heavy and scout. There's a survival mode, flying sheep, and homing pigeons. All in all, it's good fun.

When Ian Fell in the Machine
By Richard Bawden - iPhone, iPad (69p / 99c)

What happens when Ian falls in the machine? Well, you get a basic endless-falling game.

All you do is guide Ian's decapitated bonce down a never-ending series of platforms, avoiding buzzsaws and collecting coins.

It's slight and unremarkable, and I'm not entirely sure why I'm still talking about it. Bye! See you in two weeks.