At GDC, TouchArcade met with Marc Ecko Entertainment who is publishing the Dexter iPhone game that is due out this summer.

This high profile game has received a lot of attention ever since its original announcement back in July and generated even more buzz after some high quality screenshots were released. While there had been some doubters about the possibility of such high quality renders on the iPhone, after seeing the game ourselves, we have to admit the graphics quality of the 3D rendering engine is remarkable.

The game engine was developed by Icarus Studios and is a port of their MMO engine. This engine is said to be rendering the full 3d environment with 30,000 polygons at 30 frames per second on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. The high definition video embedded below offers a peek at the game.

Meanwhile, the game itself seems to remain very true to the brand and television series with close tie-ins to the first season of the show. The game revolves around the main character Dexter who is a serial killer governed by a strict moral code. For every action you take, it may adversely or positively affect your "Mask" level, which must be maintained or you'll be exposed. If you are entirely unmasked, the game ends.

Dexter plays as a 3rd or 1st person perspective adventure game in a fully 3d environment. Both "joystick" and tilt/button controls are offered and appear to provide a solid control system to the game. Also key to the gameplay is the collection evidence in different storylines to capture more victims. Stealth also plays a major role in the game and you find yourself sneaking behind obstacles in order to avoid detection while stalking your prey.

Once Dexter gets his victim back to his lair, you must try to force them to confess to their own crimes before killing them. The tools available to you include a cleaver, knife and bone saw, each with their own unique iPhone accelerometer gestures to use them.

This video shows several of the environments and control systems:

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Overall, we were very impressed with what we saw. There is typically a bit of a stigma against these officially licensed games, but Marc Ecko Entertainment appears to be delivering a very high quality game in both iPhone experience as well as loyalty to the television show itself.

The game will be delivered in 4 episodes with the first out this summer. The first episode will deliver 8-10 hours of gameplay. All four episodes will be delivered by September, when the next season of Dexter begins. If you are interested in a further walkthrough of the game, another YouTube video looks at additional features of the game.

Touch Arcade visited the offices of ngmoco today for a hands-on preview of the company's upcoming 3D tower defense game Star Defense.  Stephanie Morgan, the game's producer, walked us through the features of this upcoming title and gave us a chance to try our luck at their fresh, new spin on the tower defense proposition.

Star Defense is a path-based tower defense game set across various planets in a far away starsystem.  A footpath meanders its way around each planet, ending at a valuable mineral resource facility.  Hovering above the start of each path is the spacecraft of the sinister, invading aliens, which beams wave after wave of creatures onto the path where they slowly advance towards the mineral resource.  The player's task is to defend the resource by placing various defense towers along the path, rotating and zooming the planet in and out as needed (swipe, spread, pinch) to find the ideal placement.  40 waves of aliens destroyed unlocks the next planet, 60 waves destroyed wins an achievement, and 80 waves destroyed is a perfect win of a planet.  But if 10 aliens manage to withstand your defenses and reach the mineral resource, it's game over.

A few details:

• 7 planets available in the launch version (5 spherical, 2 cubic)
• 5 different tower types inflicting various types of damage: electrical, physical, fire, and reduced speed
• 10 types of invaders
• Limit of 30 towers placed on a given planet
• 3 levels of difficulty

We spent considerable time with the game and found it to be very playable with natural controls and great responsiveness.  The planetary graphics and accompanying galactic backdrops are impressive and the overall play mechanic feels very solid. Make no mistake, tower defense fans are in for something special.

Ngmoco was kind enough to allow us to capture footage of Star Defense gameplay during our visit.  Note that the developer build we were playing was basically a "God mode" build, with all towers enabled, cash levels set to maximum, etc. and so the gameplay shown does not represent the balance or typical play strategy of the upcoming release version.  This video simply serves the purpose of demonstrating the game's features.

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Morgan indicates that the game is currently undergoing subtle game balance tweaks and is close to release status.  Star Defense will hit the App Store sometime in April.

As you can tell from our coverage, GDC 2009 has been in full swing and TouchArcade has been meeting with developers and bringing you the latest news in iPhone and iPod Touch gaming. And we still have a number of meetings scheduled today and tomorrow.

IUGO has organized an iPhone Dev Union party with a large representation from our own forums. Freeverse, Firemint, TouchArcade, FuelGames, and IUGO will be sponsoring drinks at the gathering.

Blake has posted a flickr set of ongoing images from GDC 2009 which will also be updated with photos from tonight's event.

The iPhone Dev Union party is at the San Francisco Marriott Lobby Bar at 8 p.m. (more details here). Our twitters: arnoldkim, blakespot.

Touch Arcade had the chance to sit down with Freeverse at GDC and discuss two notable upcoming iPhone titles.  The publisher demonstrated the Paramout / Freeverse title  Top Gun and Flick NBA Basketball, an official NBA license.

Top Gun

Top Gun, based on the 1986 movie, is a 3D aerial racing shooter in which the player takes the role of an Navy training recruit in the Top Gun flying ace program.  In the game, movie main characters Maverick and Iceman are instructors who lead the trainee through various flying scenarios, offering cutscene advice in a manner similar to the company's Days of Thunder.

The player uses accelerometer-based controls to pilot both an F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter and a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber through various training scenarios. The game features a number of flight environments, including desert canyons, the aircraft carrier USS Kittyhawk, cityscapes, and island chains--10 different environments in all.  And, while training is the mission at hand in all of these settings, as fate would have it, enemy migs have a tendency to intrude, and must be dealt with.

Features:

• New texture format yielding increase in iPhone 3D performance
• Normal mapping allowing for realistic and flexible lightsourcing / shadows
• Time of day changes -- real time lighting (shadow / sunlight / etc)
• Ten environments including canyon settings, USS Kittyhawk (carrier), cityscapes, island chains, southwest terrains, etc.
• Lock onto four enemies at a time
• Weapons: vulcan cannon, sidewinder missiles
• Ground-based anti-aircraft turrets
• 50 frames per second gameplay on 2G iPod touch

We spent some time with the title and found the game to be very impressive.  The 3D animation is glass smooth and the accelerometer controls are highly responsive and feel "just right."  Anyone who enjoys a quality non-simulation flying game is in for a treat.

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Top Gun will be making it's App Store debut "very soon."

Flick NBA Basketball

An upcoming title of a different sort is the company's Flick NBA Basketball.  Not a full-court basketball title, Flick NBA Basketball is basically an iPhone adaptation of the All Star Challenge.  The player takes the role of a big name NBA player--the strongest player from every team is represented in realistic 3D models--and takes on various skill challenges such as the 3-point challenge, half-court long shot, ball spin, and horse (draw your moves on the court and watch it all played out in 3D).

While the 1.0 title will focus on shooting, Freeverse indicates that future updates will expand the title in various ways.

Flick NBA Basketball will be available in time for (or during) the playoffs, which begin April 19.

Another developer we met at GDC was Alexander Kral of Javaground, Inc.. JavaGround had been a mobile developer since 2001, but is now introducing their first original iPhone game in the coming weeks and offered us this exclusive preview.

UniWar is a turn-based strategy game that resembles Advance Wars. You command and build an army on a grid-map with the goal of controling all the bases and destroying your enemies. New units may be purchased with money that you've accumulated. As you learn the advantages of the terrain and your units, you can improve you gameplay to defeat your opponents.

The most interesting part of this game, however, is its implementation of multiplayer. The game offers an asynchronous online multiplayer option which allows you to play against people across the world at your leisure. (This is a similar system to Newtoy's Chess with Friends [App Store]). In Uniwar, you can join up to 20 different games to play in parallel. When you make a move in one of your matches, it is sent up to the server and is transmitted to your opponent the next time they launch their game. This type of turn-based system frees you to play the game at your leisure.

Aside from online multiplayer, you can also play against the computer, against a friend on the same device or play a campaign mode with 20 missions.

Different maps support different configurations and a different number of players. Team play allows 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, and 4 vs 4 configurations.

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UniWar is expected to be submitted to Apple later this week and should become available shortly after that. Pricing has not yet been announced.

As a developer's conference, GDC also attracts a number of game researchers such as Blair MacIntyre who is an Associate Professor at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.

We met with Mr. MacIntyre about his research into Augmented Reality and how it might apply to the iPhone. The demos and possibilities he introduced were truly remarkable.

Augmented Reality is described as a combination of real-world and computer-generated data, where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time.

He and his graduate students have put together some proof of concept demos on the iPhone which could pave the way to future gaming concepts.

This embedded video demonstrates a Augmented Reality Virtual Pet application on a current generation iPhone. The iPhone overlays an animated image of a dog on realtime video input from the iPhone's camera. The result is a pet that appears to reside in the real world in front of you. MacIntyre then shows off a far more sophisticated Zombie shooter (what else?) using non-iPhone NVIDIA reference design platform.

The Zombie-shooter demo serves to show the more impressive possibilities of the technology. In the game, tapping on the screen shoots the zombies in your crosshairs. Moving the camera around and in/out changes your view and if you stay still too long, the zombies start throwing limbs at you.

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MacIntyre reports that his research has found that those playing these Augmented Reality games with others were more social and interactive as compared to those playing more traditional games against each other.

More extensive demonstrations of the above concepts are provided in these videos: Augmented Virtual Reality Pet on iPhone, Augmented Reality Zombies on Tegra.

Some of MacIntyre's students plan on taking these concepts and executing a true iPhone game based on the technology, especially if the rumors of a more powerful iPhone with advanced video processing capabilities are true. The next generation iPhone is rumored to be released as early as this summer.

We first reported back in August that Cyan had quietly announced that they were porting their classic graphical adventure Myst to the iPhone.

One beta tester was given permission to post screenshots of the testing version of Myst. The authenticity of the images was confirmed by a Cyan employee.

On the beta version of the game, the tester had this to say:

I think it's Ok to say that It really looks GOOD on the iPod screen, And I am finding the gameplay easy to manage with the touch screen! I am duely impressed

Click on thumbnails for full images:

The Cyan employee also indicated that Myst will "hopefully" arrive in a month.

Thanks ponyboy

At GDC, Touch Arcade had the opportunity to sit down with Yichel Chan and Kathy de Leon of mobile development house Glu, makers of Bonsai Blast [App Store], to discuss a number of the company's forthcoming iPhone game titles.

Glu's upcoming games offer a very diverse collection of genres so there will likely be something of interest for everyone.

Build-A-Lot

Originally a PC game, Build-A-Lot is a light simulation in which the player buys and sells land, develops blueprints, builds and expands houses, and creates a functioning community that--hopefully--makes the player a wealthy tycoon.

The game features a career mode, in which certain set goals per level must be met to move forward (though catastrophies and such can happen mid-level that must be dealt with), and a story mode in which the only goal is to make a certain amount of money.  The iPhone version of Build-A-Lot is an improvement over the PC original, adding enhanced graphics and various new gameplay elements.

Build-A-Lot will be priced at $4.99.

Cooking Star

Cooking Star is a food management game that is a collection of eight different mini-games, each one payable across five different levels of difficulty. 

Some examples are Tofu, where the player must properly slice a cube of tofu being dropped into a cooking pot into tiny pieces using finger gestures and Kabob, which involves cooking (and not burning) a series of kabobs on a grill by tapping to select, flipping (the iPhone) to rotate, and shaking to add salt.

Additional mini-games will be made available in future updates.

Wacky Worlds Mini Golf

Expected to debut in July, Wacky Worlds Mini Golf is a zany golf game set in a most bizarre world.

While lining up shots and putting true are the name of the game, things are made interesting by moles, gophers, ladybugs, and the like wandering the course and popping out of holes. This colorful title features non-traditional controls (line up a shot, set the desired swing strength, move the camera to achieve a preferred vantage, and tap to swing) and four (bizarre) worlds, each featuring 10 holes.

No price has been determined for Mini Golf.

Cops and Robbers

Forthcoming Cops and Robbers is a (foot) racing / acrobatic game in which you and your roommate are strapped for cash and can't pay the rent.  The solution?  Turning to a life of crime.

The game involves running through a series of city levels that have a Crash Bandicoot feel and involve parkour-like moves while collecting diamonds to pay the landlord. 

The game features a very interesting twist on the "ghost" re-play mechanic.  Once you've completed a level as one of the robbers, you can then replay it as a cop chasing your robber ghost. So you must best your previous time in order to "catch" yourself.  After that, you're back to a robber being chased your cop ghost.  A very clever mechanic that ensures replayability.

Cops and Robbers will retail for $4.99.

This video shows a bit of the gameplay, but due to the loud ambient noise we simply muted the audio. The final game, of course, has appropriate sound effects:

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Glyder

Glyder, set for an early April release, is a flying exploration game in which the player is wearing a set of wings and most fly freely about various environments collecting floating  gems.  Achievements--50 in all--are unlocked for performing various feats such as visiting every area of a given world, achieving maximum possible velocity in a power-dive, and taking mini-trips.

There are no enemies and there's no way to die in Glyder.  It's just about the gliding.

Glyder will be priced at $1.99.

This video shows a bit of the gameplay, but due to the loud ambient noise we simply muted the audio. The final game, of course, has appropriate sound effects:

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Chillingo announced two new upcoming titles at GDC today. One is a new 3D boxing title, while the other is a classic favorite.

Touch KO

This Fight Night inspired game is written by two U.S. based game designers Adam and Matt Mechtley.

Touch KO gives the gamer a chance to advance through a boxing career, starting from humble beginnings in a run-down gym, all the way to the glamorous grand arena for the title fight. The game allows for full 3D customization of the virtual fighter including facial and body, clothing and even tattoos. It features innovative game play making use of the unique multi-touch and accelerometer capabilities of the device.

The launch timing of the game is described as "imminent". We will be able to spend some time with this title later this week.

Boulder Dash

Chillingo has also managed to sign a deal to co-publish Boulder Dash for the iPhone alongside First Star Software, Inc. The iPhone version of the game will include all 80 levels of the original classic and 4 additional bonus levels.

Now celebrating its 25th year anniversary, this world-renowned tricky puzzle and dexterity game first made its debut in the early 80s across several personal computer platforms, including Atari, Commodore 64 and DOS. It is one of the few gaming titles to be ported from a personal computer game to a coin-operated arcade game, four different times in fact, and still enjoys a large loyal fan base today. The hit game’s principle remains: players have to collect sparkling diamonds whilst avoiding numerous traps and enemies, all the while watching out for falling boulders, in a race against time.

We were big fans of this early title and have been hoping for a suitable iPhone version. Some clones have come and gone but the control mechanism has always been at issue.

First Star Software seems confident in their iPhone port, however, and state that they have re-engineered Boulder Dash for the iPhone and iPod Touch to make use of "multi-touch; ‘pinch’ zoom; the ability to switch between portrait and landscape modes on the fly". The game is expected to be released in early Q2 2009.

Chillingo and H.Grenade developer Shay Casey provided us with a new gameplay video and development notes on his upcoming shooter Circuit Strike One. We've been keeping a very close eye on this title since it was previewed. The first gameplay video was especially impressive.

They company has since signed up with Chillingo as a publisher.

We've included Casey's notes here in full and embedded the new video below.

Damn, it's been awhile. A lot of work has gone into optimizing the game engine and assets to run smoothly on the iPhone hardware and provide the best game play experience. It has been a constant trade off between new AV Sync effects and what can be done well with the current tools and SDK. A lot of content has been added, only to be deleted later when it just doesn't work the way it was intended. Then new stuff goes in. Rinse and repeat. We are still tweaking this balance and will continue to, up to the very last second until release.

Those of you who have been following closely will see some new gameplay mechanics ... like the wall hack! No more grinding the edge of the arena. Now, the ship just dives through, stalls the audio playback for a second and re-emerges on the exact opposite location just like Asteroids. Well, just like Asteroids if it had a follow camera and a super sexy 3D environment! : )

Bullet Time is fully functional on the iPhone and it is demonstrated a few times in the video. The audio warp that goes along with it makes it a blast to experiment with. Activate and deactivate on beat or just activate for a drum fill and then deactivate after the break. Does this add anything to gameplay?... no. Is it fun and a great way to waste time? Hell yes! We can only hope that you will enjoy it as well because it took forever to get it right.

You might notice the Achievements in the main menu as well. 36 in total of varying difficulties are planned. Some are there to help new players learn more advanced mechanics, others are there to give you much needed moral support during the phase where you basically, still suck ; ) The difficult achievements are there for the diehard gamers out there. People that are marginally OCD and just need to collect everything because they can. Additionally there will secret Achievements unlocked only by those that play it a lot or just like to experiment.

Of course, we are holding onto a few secrets ourselves! We can't tell you everything, can we? You will just have to play it early and often if you want to be in the know. But notice that you don't see any Arena variety or new enemies. That and a new seriously sick Bullet Time feature that we hope will make the initial release.

Note: The video and screenshots are compressed so some things actually look a lot better in real life. Then again, most of the textures in the game are compressed too, so some of it looks exactly like this : ) Either way, we can tell you first hand - it looks pretty decent!

It shouldn't be much longer until it is in the App Store but just like id Software likes to say, "it will be out when its done." In other words, go big or go home.

At GDC, we had the pleasure of speaking with mobile game company Gamevil. This Korean-based gaming company has been around since 2000 and has focused only on mobile platforms since 2004.

Their first iPhone game was Baseball Superstars [$4.99, Lite], a well received sports game in an under-represented category on the iPhone.

Gamevil has been continuing to offer regular updates to the game and told us that they have been following our forums very closely to address concerns and criticisms. The latest Baseball Superstars update is due on April 1st and includes enhancements in the sprite graphics and eases up on the difficulty level of the game. New features include:

• Overall graphic upgrade
• Day/Night time backgrounds (depending on your local time)
• G-Points needed to unlock special characters have been significantly reduced.
• Coca Cola logo has been inserted in the background. (Coca Cola – Gamevil alliance)

Zenonia

Gamevil also revealed that they are bringing their Zenonia aciton-RPG to the iPhone. Zenonia is a successful existing Korean mobile title that has already sold over 600,000 copies. The game appears to be a very deep RPG with many nice details including day/night changes, slower movement when carrying many items, as well as the usual leveling up system, and skill upgrades.

Some features listed by the developer include:

Zenonia will offer over 40 hours of gameplay. We managed to get an early copy of the game which is still in development. The game is mostly complete, however, with the exception of language-localization.

Controls use a relatively standard virtual D-Pad for movement and an attack/action button. Additional attacks and skills can be mapped to other virtual buttons along the bottom of the screen.

We recorded this gameplay video showing basic attacking, leveling up and skills upgrades:

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Zenonia will likely be released in the next couple of months.

Id software's Wolfenstein 3D Classic appeared in the App Store last night.

Achtung! Play the legendary original game that launched the First Person Shooter genre. You are OSA super agent B.J. Blazkowicz and you must escape from Castle Wolfenstein and defeat the twisted Nazi regime!

The game offers all six original episodes with 60 levels for $4.99.

Wolfenstein 3D was first released in 1992 for the PC and was a massive success and has been rightfully described as the grandfather of first person shooters.

Game controls have been adapted to the iPhone and four different layouts of touch screen controls and the option to use tilt controls for either movement or turning. In practice the controls work reasonably well. Touch controls are demonstrated in this gameplay video:

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App Store Link: Wolfenstein 3D Classic, $4.99

Though there have been some discrepant reports, Macworld and Pocketgamer are reporting that EA is bringing a number of premium titles to the App Store this year.

The list provided include a number of EA's sports titles including:

• FIFA Soccer
• Madden NFL
• NBA Live
• SSX

Hasbro licenses:

• Connect Four
• Battleship
• Risk
• Clue

And other titles:

• Spore Creatures
• Mystery Mania
• American Idol
• Command & Conquer
• Monopoly - the original version
• Wolfenstein RPG

Of course, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Need for Speed are still in the works.  No details about the various titles were given.

We had a chance to sit down with developers from Belgian software house Fishing Cactus at GDC to have a look at the latest build of their upcoming gravity-based maze game Equilibrio.

Set in a colorful world the challenge may look simple but Equilibrio tests not only your reflexes but the old gray matter and is in perfect synergy with your iPhone device.

The basic concept of getting your ball to the exit pod to finish the level is turned upside down, literally, as you use your iPhone to tilt the world in either direction. Players carefully, skillfully move the spinning ball through corridors, along ledges to complete levels that are fraught with dangers. Move the ball too fast and it can shatter, leaving you to pick up the pieces and restart the level. Go too slow and the ‘equilibrio’ of the ball will not be powerful enough to spring to the desired spot!

The game features balls made of various different materials, such as rubber, glass, steel, stone, and paper, that each have their own gameplay characteristics.  Across the game's 60 levels, new elements and traps are constantly being introduced, from cannons and trampolines to deadly spikes and acid pools.

Features:

• Six types of balls
• Trophy system, like Xbox Live Arcade
• Three play modes: Random level challenge, Replay ghost challenge, Conquest
• Play against the clock, pick up stars for points
• Outperforming "par" for a level unlocks achievements
• 60 levels
• Possible integration of Facebook Connect in a future release

Have a look at our brief video of the gameplay. The first level shows a "paper" ball which is affected by fans on the field. Tilting left/right provides you with direction of movement and spikes must be avoided.

The developers indicate that Equilibrio will be submitted to the App Store during GDC and should be available for download at a price of $4.99 in the next few weeks.  We'll be taking a closer look when the game goes live.

Tag Games has released new screenshots and a new gameplay video of their upcoming game Car Jack Streets.

This sandbox-style game is said to be similar to the early Grand Theft Auto titles and has been highly anticipated amongst our readers.

Step into the shoes of Randal Meyers, a small time player in a big city. Your gambling debts to Italian mob boss Frankie have escalated to a whopping one million dollars and now he is calling in your debt. Do you have what it takes to stay alive, pay your debt and rise to the top of the criminal underworld?

You can go anywhere, drive any vehicle, shoot up the place with brutal weapons and take on both legal and illegal jobs to earn that case. Make your $50,000 a week payments on time or you’re a dead man!

Features listed by the developer includes:

• Play in real time
• Infinite number of criminal and legitimate jobs
• Detailed 3D city to explore
• Over 80 minutes of music from the hottest unsigned acts
• Online ranking for the biggest earners
• Lots of vehicles to steal and smash
• Big, heavy-hitting weapons
• Unlockable achievements and hidden stuff
• Clowns…

Screenshot gallery (click on thumbnails for full view):