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Pocket Gamer's Christmas Freebies #1 - SHADOW BLADE

They'll never see you coming

Pocket Gamer's Christmas Freebies #1 - SHADOW BLADE
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iOS

In the run up to Christmas, Pocket Gamer has teamed up with the developers behind some of this year's best games to give you ten award-winning iOS games for free. Come back every day for the next two weeks to get your games.

Our first game is Crescent Moon and Dead Mage's ninja simulator Shadow Blade. Download it for free on iPhone and iPad, here.

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Shadow Blade is a game that should not work. It's a fast-paced, ultra-precise, twitchy action game where one wrong move could leave you in a pit of spikes or on the business end of a bad guy's katana.

How are you supposed to play that by mushing your fingers against a slab of touch-sensitive glass? It's like trying to ace Guitar Hero by dipping your face into a bucket of custard.

But - miraculously - Shadow Blade does work, and offers a pair of control schemes that let you dart about these obstacle course levels with ease. You'll be bouncing over enemies, zig-zagging between walls, and lunging through glass like a deadly ballerina.

This game is ostensibly about being a ninja and mincing enemies into a puddle of mushy red pace, but I think of it as a speed-run challenge game. To me, it's about getting from A to B as quickly as possible, making no missteps or miscalculations.

To ace a Shadow Blade level is to get through it in the bare minimum number of moves, steps, and jumps.

Shadow Blade

As soon as you grasp the controls, though, new threats are introduced. Homing missiles chase your heels and snipers try to ice you. This is a game with a menacing difficulty curve, but you always have the tools to handle it.

At review, we said "A vibrant, fast-paced, special platformer that works perfectly on touchscreen, Shadow Blade is well worth as much of your time as you have to spare". So, yeah, go download it.

Stay tuned to find out what's behind tomorrow's door!

Follow us on Twitter (@PocketGamer) or Facebook to make sure you don't miss tomorrow's free award-winning iOS game.
Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer