Star Paint is a well-implemented version of the classic “untangle” concept. However, there’s nothing to make it stand out from the crowd, and the absence of auto-save alone is enough to make me hesitate before recommending it.

33rd Division is the second release from Craneballs Studios. Their first release, Blimp, was a very interesting and beautifully created pseudo-platformer, this new release delves into the hugely popular path drawing genre.

Garters & Ghouls Preview

I’ve had a few days now to play through a preview version of Garters & Ghouls, the first original IP that Namco have created for the iPhone. It’s great to see one the the giants of the video game industry developing new games on such a new platform as the iPhone.

The story of Garters & Ghouls is very fitting for the Halloween season. You have been brought back from the dead to fight the Thrum (think multi-species zombies). The game is a dual stick shooter with various weapons and enemies to hunt down. Your goal is to clear each level by destroying the portals and the evil creatures that come from them. You do this through 25 different levels set in many different scenes including graveyards, churches, and various carnival-like areas. There are of course power-ups that can be bought with gold collected from the dead Thurm.

The game itself, while a little rough around the edges still, has done something that most games of this genre haven’t, it’s held my attention. I’m not sure what that says about the game or me, but it has interested me. Could be the garter belts.

Garters & Ghouls is expected to launch right around Halloween. We’ll let you know as soon as it has launched.

Hit the jump for more screen shots.

Continue reading Garters & Ghouls Preview »

Are you ready for some football? Madden 10, the latest in the biggest selling sports game franchise is here, and it’s here for the iPhone.

Timeloop is a cute & crafty cartoon time travel game that has you thinking of what puzzles need to be solved in order to save the poor scientists! The concept is quite ingenious and provides one of the better experiences on the app store.

Interesting idea for a game but the execution leaves us with little fun other than a few squishes of some busy business men. Got boring too fast *yawns*.

Urban Ducklings may sound like the subtitle of a really bad Howard the Duck sequel, but it’s actual a pretty nifty new casual arcade game. Thanks to the Iphone’s unique controls, Urban Ducklings gives the classic “cross the road” genre a new twist (pun intended).

Puzzlings is a whimsical, kid-friendly match-3 with a focus on item collection. While it’s too easy for experienced gamers, it does offer a polished product that should please the casual crowd.

Are you ready to lay some pipe? Pipe Mania is a revamped port of the classic computer game that puts your plumbing skills to the test. Puzzle games are a dime a dozen on the iPhone, but this is in the upper tier and perfect for fans old and new.

If you enjoy worms, but are looking for something with a little more depth, I don’t think you could be wrong in purchasing Star Hogs.

Kill All Bugs solid game mechanics paired with its visual and auditory theme give it a compelling experience for the player. This game is a must for anyone that enjoys tower defense but doesn’t want to break the bank.

Harbor Master is an addictive, fun, competitive game where your goal is to dock & unload cargo from as many ships as possible. With 3 levels to test your Harbor Master skills, get it now before I dominate all the Highscores!

You’re a sheriff in the wild west taking down bandits, “tapping” your resolve to take down the bad. Wyatt Earp meets Wac-a-mole!

It may not be The Sims, but for a buck you should take a look.

Toki Tori is a puzzle platform game that is cute, polished and fun. You have 4 worlds and there are 80 levels to get through (collecting eggs as you go) so you will have plenty of gameplay ahead of you!

Dig Dug Remix is really two games in one. We are not only given the classic that was brought to our screens back in 1982 (eek I don’t remember – honest) but also the remix version which is thankfully juiced up a bit. In this case, I am definitely preferring the remix to the classic.

A battle card strategy game that starts out feeling like challenging game of Chess but soon feels more like a simplistic game of Checkers

Tony Hawk on the iPhone – It’s 100% Real (Update: 5/13)

Update: 5/13/2008 6:30pm Pacific

We heard back from Dan Chavez from LTI Gray Matter today. They are the company that ported the game to the iPhone and released the video yesterday, for Tony Hawks birthday.

The rest of the story is that it was done as a tech demo to show that there is a desire by users for the Tony Hawk franchise on the iPhone. Will we ever see it released, not too likely at this point.

Not that Tony Hawk is scheduled to announce the next version of his franchise on Friday. It’s possible that the iPhone may factor into that, but then again, they might just focus on the third gen consoles.

LTI Gray Matter have removed the video from YouTube, but it was copied by someone else and we’ve switched it out below for the mirror.

Touch Arcade has more details.
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Earlier today, this video started making the rounds, raising quite a buzz.

The video shows what is reported to be Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 running on an iPod Touch. Make sure you watch it in HD for the best picture.

We can confirm that it’s 100% real.

That’s right — we had a chance to talk to an inside source and got the full story. This is a full port of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, soundtrack and all the levels included, running flawlessly on an iPod Touch. In the video, the white cord you see coming from the device is running sound directly into the camera.

The developer was tight lipped as to whether or not we’d actually see this port in the iTunes App Store. But what we do know is that if the buzz raised over this game video is any indication of the buzz that the full app would receive, the people clearly want it.

In a year when we’ll see some of the biggest game franchises coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch, we want to, no we NEED to see Tony Hawk on the iPhone as well.

By the way, happy birthday Tony Hawk!

Thanks to Touch Arcade for bringing this game to our attention.

Ok – This review took far longer than I had wanted. I couldn’t get my son off it long enough to have a go myself! Action packed, easy to use and a whole lot of excitement! Monster Trucks Nitro, is exactly that!

First Look: Need For Speed Undercover Now Available

EA Mobile really likes to surprise everyone with the releases of their iPhone apps. No release dates, just bam, there they are. That happened again today with the release of one of the most hotly anticipated iPhone games, Need For Speed Undercover.

The game which has been delayed more than once, was first seen last year in early forms has finally arrived. You can grab it now via this link. It will show up in the iTunes App Store indexes after they are next refreshed.

This game had also been mentioned as a possible launch title for the rumored Premium App Store — guess this puts that rumor to rest, for now anyway. The game was released for $9.99, not the rumored $19.99 point. Pinning $9.99 as the top price point for games for the iPhone.

The game features a story mode like all of the recent Need For Speed games. Luckily all of the movies can be skipped so that you can get to the racing. And the racing, at least in our initial tests, delivers good and smooth, performance. There are multiple race types and of course multiple cars to unlock.

We’ll have a full review for you soon. But so far this is shaping up to be a pretty good racer.

For full app description and some more screen shots, check after the jump.

Continue reading First Look: Need For Speed Undercover Now Available »

Release Date Confirmed: Peggle For The iPhone – May 12th

This is a virtual villagers / sim style game. You control the people to gather resources, defend your land and generate a thriving community. You play as a Frontier settler and it has nice graphics that makes the westward ‘cowboy’ theme look really fun. Like all sim games this can be a real time hog so be warned!

Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles To Be Released Next Week

According to Carmen Pearson, Public Relations Manager for Gameloft, Assassin’s Creed for the iPhone & iPod Touch is “slated to hit the App Store by early next week”.

The game, which has no price as of yet, will once again place you in the shoes of Altair, Master Assassin for The Order of Assassins, as he attempts to retrieve “The Chalice” from the Templars in an effort to end the Crusades. According to IGN, “Assassin’s Creed for the iDevices is indeed largely based on Altair’s Chronicles, the DS prequel to the very first Creed game.”

Continue reading Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles To Be Released Next Week »

The basic idea behind Cameltry is to guide a ball around a series of mazes, collecting points and avoiding obstacles by either tilting the phone or using your fingers. Created by the minds behind Space Invaders and Cooking Mama. You most likely will be disappointed for expecting something interesting from Cameltry.

Preview of a New Futuristic Racing Game from Handmark

We got a few juicy screenshots in the mailbag today from Handmark. They show a new futuristic racing game currently under development by Pazzazz (developers of Hellfire and GTS World Racing, both published by Handmark). The as yet untitled game is a fast paced Wipeout like racer with a variety of vehicles, tracks, and weapons. This game is the first of quite a few iPhone original titles Handmark/Astraware are working on. Up until this point they have focused mainly on ports of their portfolio of mobile games.

I was lucky enough to get a little hands on time with the app at GDC and it’s fast and smooth already. The release date is not yet known, but you can take a look at the shots below for a little preview.

We’ll have more info on this racer for you as soon as we get it.

Scrabble’s most recent update—the full-fledged integration of Facebook Connect—adds some competition to what was already a great word game. While the port does have plenty of flaws, it’s still the same amazing game of strategy, luck, and knowledge that’s been an incredible success for decades.

The classic java game, Bobby Carrot, is back on his fifth birthday with a port of the original game. Is Bobby’s earlier adventure worth your hard-earned carrots? Hop in and find out.

While major publishers work to port their blockbuster games to the iPhone, it’s the indie developers that are paving the way to the platform’s strong suits. Eliss brings innovation as well as targeted controls to the playing field, but how well does it actually deliver?

HotField is an entertaining game, but this port could use some more time in the oven.

GDC 2009 Wrap-up – iPhone Games Coming on Strong

If it’s one thing that GDC taught me it’s that the iPhone has a long way to go as a game console. It’s still a tiny little player in the whole gigantic video games world. But in the nine months since the app store launch, it has made some great strides.

For one thing, the iPhone totally dominated the Independent Games Festival Mobile awards. Not only did they will all the categories, they had most of the nominations as well. The iPhone is now, as far as most are concerned, the best mobile phone platform to develop on. As one developer put it, finally a mobile platform that doesn’t suck.

This past week we did get many clues about what 2009 will bring for iPhone games. First, this will be the year the big boys go full force after the iPhone market. EA, Chillingo, Glu, and others have announced some huge portfolios of games coming out this year.

We will also see an explosion in backend community systems, think XBox Live for your iPhone, and probably some consolidation of those services as well. Consumers aren’t best served by having multiple community systems, everyone knows that, but who will win out as the best? With GameSpy announcing they are bringing over their backend that already powers many console and desktop titles, they will likely start out in the lead. Then ngmoco announced they were opening up their platform to third party developers, another strong contender, but no release date announced. Then you have the underdogs such as OpenFeint, ByteClub, and a new contender, Agon. Then there’s also the Facebook Connect for iPhone that many systems are using. It’s not purely a gaming system, but many have adapted it. A force for sure, with Facebook having over 160 million users.

We also were fortunate to meet with some really cool developers and get a sneak peak at some of the great games coming out in the not too distant future.

Real Racing from Firemint
Release Date: Late April, 2009 at an unknown price
Without a doubt, the best we saw was Real Racing from Firemint. Real Racing is a racing game just short of a racing sim. It’s ultra-realistic and features some amazing community and asynchronous multiplayer modes. You even have the ability to publish hot laps to YouTube, automatically. The controls by default work great and are very responsive. This is one to watch for. Firemint are being close to the chest with the price on this one, but it will be released late April.

Touch Pets from ngmoco
Release Date: unknown
I’ll have to admit I was originally nonplussed on Touch Pets. But after spending some time with it I can see what the excitement it about it. For one this, this game is deep. There’s lots to do, lots of things to collect, there are missions to go on, there are achievements, tons of stuff. But above all, this game has a social aspect that could set it apart from all of the other virtual pet type games. This all ads up to a game that will be very enormously engrossing to many people, maybe even me.

Star Defense from ngmoco
Release Date: pretty soon at an unknown price
Tower Defense games are filling up the app store quickly. And many are really good. Star Defense takes a slightly different direction and adds 3D to the standard game. So instead of playing tower defense on a flat landscape, you play it on a 3D world. One of the more interesting parts of this is that, in one level, you are playing on a cube instead of a sphere. This basically divides up each level into 6 parts as you have to place defense on each of the sides since the weapons don’t seem to work around the corners of the cube. The game itself seems really well done and stable, and should be released soon. We’ll give it more playtime when it comes out and get a full review.

Star Trader: Moon Madness from HermitWorks
Release Date: very soon at $0.99
This game is an expanded version of the DopeWars genre that I’m sure everyone is familiar with. But it’s set in outerspace and uses the Quake engine to provide a 3D world where you can walk around and barter. The controls are a modified 2 location virtual touch pad as we’ve seen on other games and works well for movement and changing the angle you are viewing the world. The developers are releasing this at $0.99 and will be raising the price as they add features such as multiplayer in the future.

All in all a fantastic GDC. Had to great opportunity to speak with some amazing people. We’ll try to get full reviews of these games up as soon as they are available.