Best iPhone Game Updates: ‘Noblemen 1896’, ‘Arena of Valor’, ‘Choice of Games’, ‘Plague Inc’, and More

Hello everyone, and welcome to the week, and the new TouchArcade! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. Things are still a little on fire, and while I won’t bore you with the details, it’s going to be a bit tougher for me to gather up the updates until I can get things organized again. Worry not, though! I found some nice updates for you to check out anyway. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself using AppShopper or by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s dig in!

Galaxy on Fire 3, Free Galaxy on Fire 3’s switch to a free-to-play model didn’t sit well with most fans, and it stung even more when a specially-tuned version of the game appeared as a regular premium title elsewhere. I don’t blame anyone if they feel like it’s too little, too late, but you now have the option to get that premium experience with a single IAP. It fully unlocks the story mode and gives you the console experience other players are enjoying. Take on new bosses, head out on new missions, and more. If you passed on this due to the monetization model, you might want to give it another look now.

Choice of Games, Free This one had two updates in the last week. The most recent update adds a handy search feature that will be more essential as games continue to get added. A few days before, we got a new game. Rent-a-Vice has a weird concept, introducing us to a world where people pay money to experience dangerous things virtually through other people’s bodies. So you’ve got people that put themselves through terrible things so that others can experience those things by proxy, all for a nice payday. I haven’t run through this one yet, but unusual settings go pretty far with me.

Plague Inc., $0.99 I’m always impressed by how quickly this game sometimes acts. This new update celebrates the game receiving The Queen’s Enterprise Award for Innovation from Her Majesty The Queen, calling itself the Royal Update. There’s a great new interface, a weird scenario that has you trying to spread a popular board game instead of a virus, and a well-aimed shot at people that would probably kill us all in the new Science Denial scenario. Lots of new stuff to do, and a prettier way of doing it. Sounds like a solid update to me. Royal? Well, I’ll leave that to you.

Arena of Valor, Free Arena of Valor! It sure is a game, isn’t it? I won’t lie to you: I have not played this, and these update notes are a little vague. Normally, I’d look up some information in our forums or our news archives, but… well, this beautiful new design had its costs, and this is one of them. There’s a Death Match now, apparently, and the main menu has been given some extra attention. There are some new exclusive Hero and Skin Tokens, and some optimizations and presumably bug fixes as well. That’s all I’ve got to report. Sorry!

PKTBALL, Free Laser Dog makes some great games, and PKTBALL is as fun as any of them. In this new update, you can check out some skin. No, we haven’t convinced Carter to doff his pants for the greater good. Rather, every character now has three unlockable skins for you to unlock. It’s a little customization, but as the saying goes, a little goes a long way. How many playable characters are there again? Oh right, there’s one new one named Ava Airborne. That brings the total to… 42. Wow, better get unlocking, friends. That’s a lot of skin.

FINAL FANTASY Record Keeper, Free Apparently this is a pretty big update. I haven’t played this game in absolute ages, and I’m probably not going to start again, but I can still appreciate the work the developers are putting in. The new Record Dungeons retells classic Final Fantasy scenes in glorious pixel art, all woven into a brand new story. Well, they’re not going to stop riffing on nostalgia now, are they? Along with the new content, the UI has gotten shined up real nice-like, and a new Acolyte Archives has been implemented to help guide new players. There are other goodies to be found in this update, but I’ll let you dig into that yourselves.

MORTAL KOMBAT X, Free Is the iOS version of Mortal Kombat X really three years old now? Yeesh, we’re all going to be dust soon. Oh well. As you might expect, there are some nice things being given out to celebrate the anniversary. Like free Kard Packs! That’s neighborly of the developers. Some new characters, too. Shaolin Fist Kung Lao is a gold-tier character available for free through the challenge mode, while Klassic Jax Briggs (hailing from Mortal Kombat 3) is a diamond-tier character that can only be found via a lucky draw in the Elite Pack and the Elite Pack Pro. The latter is new and is joined by the Diamond Equipment Pack. More stuff to spend money on! Throw in some new equipment and an adjusted level cap and you’ve got… something, I guess.

Noblemen: 1896, Free Oh, a Foursaken game update. That’ll make people happy. Here’s what we’ve got in this new version: three new Noblemen skins, a new treasure system for the campaign that has you hunting for hidden treasure, 10 new campaign missions, new ways to earn Loadout XP, and some tweaks and fixes. Basically, there’s more missions, more to do in each mission, and more XP earned for doing those things. That’s a win all-around if you ask me. Oh, and as for those skins? There’s a Noblewoman, a Veteran, and a Gearman. Pro-Tip: Always beat Gearman first so that you get access to his weapon, which has a low cost and can fire in any direction. Wait, that might be a different game. Whoops.

World of Tanks Blitz, Free I know what you’re thinking: a new update for World of Tanks means new tanks. Way wrong answer, my friend! No new tanks this time around. But there are some cool things here, so don’t run away just yet. Replays have been added, allowing you to record, re-watch, and share your greatest hits with your extremely not-bored friends. Oh, a new map! The Alpenstadt map is a European village at the foot of a mountain ridge, which should provide plenty of opportunities for some bombastic battles. Crew voiceovers will now match the nationality of your vehicle, and a number of adjustments have been made to the UI. Finally, there’s the Blitz Football Championship. Get out there and score some goals to earn yourself an AMX CDC with a special football attachment. Neato.

MARVEL Spider-Man Unlimited, Free It’s been a while since I’ve bothered to include this game in these articles, but hey, I’ll take all the help I can get at this point. Looks like there are new characters, and as you would expect after all this time, the Spider-Mans are starting to run dry. So we’ve got Bombshell, Spider-Man Reign, Red 9, Spyder-Man from Armor Wars, and Spinner joining up. If you know who all of those are without checking, please award yourself this week’s coveted UMMSotW award. Wait, there are also some recruitable villains, including Baal, Ichor, and Poison Kraven the Hunter. Yeah. This might be getting too obscure even for my tastes.

That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!