Gameloft has released their new side-scrolling platformer game Castle of Magic [$5.99] into the App Store. We previewed the game back at E3 and thought it looked great.

The game really has that console feel to it with polished animations and intricate level designs. There seem to be a wide variety of level design elements to keep things interesting, as well as a number of secret areas that can be found.

The game was actually briefly released on Tuesday and then re-released later in the day. This did allow some early reviews from those who have already had time with the game (sizzlakalonji):

First of all, I was pretty starved for what I felt was a "true" platformer for the iDevices, and this certainly fills the void.
....
Overall, the graphics are impressive, colorful, clean and sharp. The sound is fine, as someone mentioned before the music isn't Nintendo, but what is except Nintendo? I like the sound effects, and the small elements of voice added. I like the level designs, and the first boss battle was fun as well, although pretty simple to defeat. I have high hopes for the rest of the worlds, and wholeheartedly recommend this for anyone at the current price, which I feel is quite reasonable for a game of this quality.

After we've spent some time with the game, we generally agree with these sentiments. The game carries an overall polish and level of detail lacking in many other iPhone titles. The levels in particular seem very well designed with an attention to detail as well as secret areas to explore:

So the second world is a pirate ship. Imagine my surprise when I miss a jump and fall to the water below, and instead of dying like I expected, I discover an underwater portion to the level! I also find a new power-up, the SWORDFISH! You can now color me officially impressed!

There are perhaps two areas of possible contention for a game like this.

Game length is always a concern for any level-based games. Castle of Magic has 5 worlds with multiple levels within each. The official gameplay estimate is about 3.5 hours playing straight through. Each level, however, seems to have additional areas and a number of gems to collect so completing these levels fully will likely take you a fair bit more time. Simply trying to get to the end, however, will result in relatively shorter gameplay time.

The second area is of controls. The game offers Gameloft's typical virtual-dpad and button layout. If you've played other Gameloft games, you'll be relatively comfortable with these controls. As always, however, there is some level of clumsiness with any virtual-dpad control on the iPhone, though this does not seem to be a major impediment to the game. Regardless, I suspect this control scheme is the best (only?) option available for such a traditional platformer. While iPhone-specific games like Rolando or Toy Bot have the luxury of mixing swipe/accelerometer controls, Castle of Magic is seeking to mimic the traditional console platformers so many have grown up with.

Our gameplay video shows us playing the game after only a little practice:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Overall, a solid title from Gameloft that's going to appeal to any platformer fan.

App Store Link: Castle of Magic, $5.99

With iPhone 3.0 on the verge of being released, you'll be interested to know that the first 3.0-ready apps have already started trickling into the App Store.

• TouchGrind ($4.99) from Illusion Labs has been updated to version 1.2.1 which supports 3.0-specific features.
  

  A new update is out for your favorite skateboard/fingerboard game is out. This time we bring you new 3.0 sweetness, which makes Touchgrind one of the first games out to utilize the new features 3.0. You can now access your music library from within the game, allowing you to create the perfect skate playlist and see which song that is currently playing via the super sweet popups (ok, they aren't that sweet, but still pretty nice).

• Tap Tap Revenge 2 (Free) from Tapulous now offers support for Push notifications.
• Star Defense ($5.99) from Ngmoco will be seeing a version update tomorrow that will support their new Plus+ platform, according to Silicon Alley Insider. The service is being described as an Xbox Live-like service:
  

  What is it? Sort of like Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox Live service, but free for players. It lets you have a profile, friends, records, game histories, and challenges across multiple games. (It'll eventually plug into Facebook and Twitter, too.)

  It seems these features will leverage the 3.0 firmware.

Apple's iPhone 3.0 firmware will be officially released on Wednesday, June 17th. The update is free for iPhone owners and will cost $9.95 for iPod Touch owners. The 3.0 update introduces a number of interesting features that will be applicable to iPhone gaming. We'll provide further updates with notable iPhone 3.0 supporting games over the next few weeks.

All these games will continue to support the older firmwares, of course, but the new 3.0-specific features will not be available to those users.

The battle of the prices continues to heat up in the App Store with Gameloft offering two dramatic sales on a couple of their high profile titles. Both Let's Golf [link] and Asphalt 4 [link] have dropped from $4.99 all the way down to $0.99.

We were reasonably impressed with Asphalt 4 when it came out back in September 2008. A number of better racing games have come out since then, but it's still going to be hard to beat for only $0.99.

Meanwhile, Let's Golf is a much more recent title and received a rave review as a high quality arcade-style sports game for the iPhone:

Gameloft provides a very complete golfing experience for the iPhone in Let’s Golf at a fraction of the price you would expect to pay for an identical game on a "real console". Our forums have been going wild with praise for the game, and as of this writing, Let’s Golf is sitting at a comfortable 4.5 stars in the App Store. If you liked the Hot Shots series, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not picking up this game.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

We're not sure how long the prices will remain in place.

App Store Links: Let's Golf, $0.99 and Asphalt 4, $0.99

I have fond memories of hours spent playing Activision's 8-bit, movie-inspired title Ghostbusters on my Apple II as a kid.  Some of you out there surely share these fond memories.  And so, it was with high hopes that I awaited the release of Ghostbusters for the iPhone after Sony Pictures Television's announcement of the forthcoming game early this year.  The game has arrived and, as my earlier post indicated, it has slimed the App Store.

But sadly, not in a good way.

Ghostbusters for the iPhone sounded pretty meaty.  As we posted back in March, Sony indicated an iPhone version of the game was on the way, alongside the the X360 / PS3 / Wii release, and that it would feature a storyline written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and would effectively serve as the third installment of the big-screen ghost-hunting story, according to Aykroyd.  Voice roles from most of the movie actors were promised, as well.

This appealing description may apply to the home console version of the game (which I've spent no time with), but it definitely does not apply to Ghostbusters for the iPhone, which is a port of the mobile version.

In short, Ghostbusters for the iPhone is basically Magnetic Joe 2 [App Store], but with lesser graphics and choppier animation.  Though it does feature a dash of Ray Parker Jr....

The goal of the game is to use your proton packs to move a ghost through various mazes from start to finish, ultimately trapping it in the ghost trap at level's end.  The game features all five NY boroughs and three play modes that are unlocked based on skill: Adventure (standard play), Time Attack, and Ghost Fever (limited ammo), as well as a novelty collect-the-Ghost-Cards mechanic.  The player must avoid slime covered walls and pedestrians to prevent the ghosts from taking over the city.

If you have an '80s Ghostbuster poster framed in gold on your wall, you might enjoy the home console version, but even the most diehard fan will be haunted (in a bad way) by this release.  Spectral goodness, this is not.

App Store Link: Ghostbusters, $4.99

Here are a collection of notable Lite versions of games that have come out in the past week or so. Each is probably worth your time to download. Game titles link directly to the App Store.

• Knights Onrush Free - More Games' take on castle defense. We posted some favorable impressions about this game when it first came out:
  

  The most succinct way I can describe Knights Onrush is castle defense meets Pocket God. The way all of the different defenses are animated really reminds me of the different punishments you can put your Pygmies through. The enemies are varied enough that you need to use different tactics to defeat them, and as you progress through the levels the choices of when to use which defenses add an unexpected layer of strategy to the game.

  I've never really been one for castle defense games, but I've oddly found myself really enjoying Knights Onrush.

• iSamurai Lite - First demoed at the iPhone Launch Party, Toy Kite's sword fighting game uses the iPhone's accelerometer to virtually sword fight with your opponent. A unique iPhone game that can be surprisingly fun.
• Vans SK8: Pool Service Lite - A free light version that lets you try out the controls in this skateboarding game. Tricks are performed using the iPhone's swipe controls while the accelerometer steers your skateboarder.
• StoneLoops! of Jurassica Lite - We really loved the full version of this game when we reviewed it. The full version remains at only $0.99.
  

  StoneLoops! of Jurassica sets the current standard for fantastic match three marble shooting games and is hard to pass up at the promotional price. It's incredibly fun, and comes packed with enough content to keep you busy for quite some time.

At WWDC we had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Owen Goss of Streaming Colour Studios. Owen is a 30 year old former console programmer who decided to take a chance at starting his own game company last year. Owen had previously worked at EA as an interface and gameplay programmer as well as Propoganda Games and was most recently involved in the development of the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean game for the Xbox and PS3.

iPhone gamers may know him from his color-matching game Dapple [$0.99], though he also gained some notoriety from a blog post he made back in March in which he detailed the (lack of) sales of his first iPhone title. The blog post received wide circulation after being posted to Slashdot.

After 6 months of development, his iPhone game had sold a disappointing 131 copies worldwide during the first 24 days on the market--very short of the numbers he would need to sustain a long term business. The reaction was massive and varied. Goss received both positive and strongly negative feedback about his results. He says, however, that his plan had always been to be open about his sales numbers good or bad. Back in 2008, when he decide to start his own gaming company, he did his research about the indie gaming scene and found a significant reporting bias. In that, success stories are much more likely to be told than the many failures.

Goss has reflected about the reasons for his lack of success in his blog, and also told us that he may have invested too much time into the 1.0 release. Coming from a console background, he had a strong desire for the 1.0 version to be feature complete and rock solid. He remains proud of the fact that he has not had a single crash report since the game's release. In today's iPhone market, however, such a thorough development cycle may not be realistic for small time developers. In the recent past, we've seen numerous examples of less ambitious 1.0 titles that have evolved over time after gaining some initial traction.

Goss isn't giving up, though. He remains optimistic about his future plans and is continuing to market and work on Dapple. His long term goal is to build his own brand around quality games and is working on additional titles. He's also helped organize AppTreasures.com, a cross promotional effort between multiple independent iPhone developers, to help boost sales of Dapple. Dapple has just seen a 1.2 version update that adds global high scores and a number of other user interface tweaks and fixes. Goss has even temporarily dropped the price of his game to $0.99 for the next week.

Owen Goss has been a regular in our forums with as OTrain13 and some early forum reactions to the game were posted in the original Dapple release thread from February. You can give the game a try yourself with the free Lite version.

App Store Link: Dapple, $0.99, Dapple Lite, Free

EA has recently dropped the price on two of its high profile titles: Tiger Woods and Need for Speed. Both are excellent games that were originally priced at $9.99 and are on sale temporarily for $6.99.

We took a close look at both Tiger Woods and Need for Speed before. At the time of it's review, Need for Speed was declared the "best iPhone racer". That title has been a bit more highly contested since the release of Real Racing, however, but Need for Speed still delivers a very high quality and fun arcade racer.

Need for Speed

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Tiger Woods

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

App Store Links: Need for Speed, $6.99, Tiger Woods, $6.99

Sony Picutres Television has just released Ghostbusters [App Store] for the iPhone and iPod touch.

They’re here to save the world again! It’s up to you to take on the role of the entire Ghostbusters team. Equipped with outrageous gadgets, help our heroes capture a wide range of supernatural baddies in this new casual game, thanks to unique & easy one-touch gameplay.

Features listed by Sony:

• The authentic Ghostbusters universe: official characters and their outrageous gadgets, funny and frightening ghosts, famous locations from the 2 movies.
• All 5 NY boroughs and 10 hidden ghost cards.
• Challenging levels with 3 game modes: Adventure, Time Attack, and Ghost Fever!
• Interactive objects & environments: teleporters, monsters to avoid, and slime, air-vents, and pedestrians.

Ghostbusters is being discussed by our readers in a forum thread.  Stay tuned for our closer look, shortly.

App Store Link: Ghostbusters, $4.99

As Gamasutra reports, Sega of America President and CEO Simon Jeffrey is leaving the company to join iPhone game studio ngmoco and head their new publishing arm.

Known as Plus Publishing, ngmoco's new publishing arm will partner with various other iPhone developers to allow them access to the studio's currently in-the-works "social player network."

Jeffery is excited about the move.

"I've been in the video game business for a very long 22 years, and I've pretty much worked in big, established companies that whole time since the beginning," Jeffery tells Gamasutra. And he says he's excited to see a "polarization" in the industry, an alternative to the hit-driven blockbuster model.

"People have stopped talking about the $25 million games, and we're talking about the $25,000 games," he says. "That shift in gaming has happened remarkably quickly, and I really want to be part of that."

"In a very, very short period of time, [Ngmoco has] built a nascent organization into something that's emerging as a potential leader in the gaming space on the iPhone."

Ngmoco promises more details on Plus Publishing soon, but the idea seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of Xbox Live for the iPhone.

Keene indicates that Plus Publishing doesn't require the capital or creative collaboration of the main label, but taps into the company's talent base.

Expect more "deep creative collaborations with the Secret Exits [Zen Bound] of the world," says Keene. "But we also found these groups of other types of developers and publishers who want to address the iPhone, and admired what we've been able to do in terms of focusing on the audience and device, and getting the most out of it," Keene explains.

Thus the Publishing Plus arm, to be headed by Jeffery, is "really our attempt to try to extend some leadership to these other areas, where there are great things to be done," Keene says.

The move to iPhone gaming of such a notable figure in the gaming industry is a clear indication of the iPhone's relevance in the mobile gaming space.  Stay tuned for more details on Plus Publishing soon.

The tower defense genre has arguably seen a good deal of growth and evolution with many significant new releases this year. Defender Chronicles: Legend of the Desert King [$2.99] is one of the latest, and delivers a solid fixed-path TD game with RPG elements offering gamers a new twist. Whether or not you’re into the fantasy medieval theme, the gameplay itself provides enough challenge and depth that you may want to check it out.

Defender Chronicles is one of the more visually beautiful games you will see. From the 5 beautifully drawn maps to the equally detailed defenders and enemies, the details and effort from the developer is obvious so you won’t be short on eye candy. One unique aspect is the 2D side view in which the game is played. Think of it an elaborate staircase viewed from the side.

The 2D view itself provides a different dimension to the genre. The game definitely involves quick thinking and understanding the enemy because the attack waves can be intense and rapid. In many cases, you will want to think through where specific defenders are placed based on the type of enemy which will attack by land and air. Also, plan ahead because when as a defender is upgraded, he is also temporarily unavailable. And if your defender is overrun, he won’t appear at his post for a period of time which obviously can be bad.

With an epic soundtrack conveying the medieval theme, each quest is briefly introduced with voiceovers and text which is well presented and shows the polish of the game. The text may be difficult to read for some, but the accented voiceovers help that a bit. The voiceovers can be overdone (you can turn them off), and even as you upgrade or rejuvenate defenders, accompanying voiceovers will shout battle cries.

The objective is to defend the General Headquarters by destroying enemies which in turn earn gold. The gold can then be used to upgrade defenders, and in the case of Defender Chronicles, victories that can be applied to RPG elements. An optional tutorial is presented in the first quest, but to a certain degree I wish an overview of the different enemies and bosses were also included for reference.

As the Hero, you command 6 types of defenders—warrior, archer, berserker, ranger, halfling, and mage—each with its own unique abilities and upgradeables. Your defenders will battle a variety of enemies from Gnoll Captains, Orc Chieftains, and Queen Goblins to the fearsome Wyrm Rider Duo, Awe Inspiring Giant Golems and Meat Chomping Slimeballs.

The RPG elements add to the overall gameplay and the replayability. The Hero can be upgraded in terms of skills, powers and defenses. This comes of in the form of skill points and stars earned. Depending on the level of difficulty and the success you have, you earn stars and points that can be used to upgrade your hero and unlock new quests, artifacts, and features. You will find yourself playing levels over just to earn more items to take into the subsequent battles.

The game offers 5 standard maps/levels—Great Sands, CloudPass, Marshwood, Breewich, Silver Keep— which represent battles against the evil Orc Hordes and the rising Undead, and can be played in any of 4 difficulty settings: casual, veteran, master, heroic. In addition, there are 5 game modes – campaign, freestyle, extended, classic and classic extended. A coming 1.2 update will add an additional map with more planned on the way.

You earn stars as you progress which opens the door to two additional resources — the Trade Shop and Great Library. With Trade Shop, items such as armor, swords, magical rings, and other equipment can be acquired to upgrade your hero. You can also spend stars in the Great Library, which unlocks 8 secrets including an extra map, music and two additional defenders. Note that a few users seem to have had issues with crashing but a submitted 1.1 update is said to have corrected this issue. Apart from this, the game has been very well received in our forums.

Defender Chronicles is a fixed path TD with specific build spots for placing defenses. Fixed path vs. non-fixed path comes down to preference for many, but frankly, each offers enough differences in gameplay that I think you shortchange yourself by focusing on one over the other. Defender Chronicles combines a solid TD game with RPG elements all wrapped up in a polished presentation. While the tutorial could use additional work to explain certain elements, the game itself presents enough variety in terms of upgrades, unlockables and replayability that make Defender Chronicles a standout in the genre.

Chillingo and a dozen other companies are presently sponsors of this site, but that does not affect our choice of coverage or influence our reviews.

We missed a couple of high profile game launches released last week in the excitement of WWDC, so we're going through our backlog now. Mecho Wars was one that we'd been anticipating for some time and plan on take a closer look at shortly.

We took a sneak peak at this title in early June. This turn-based strategy game was compared favorably to the DS's popular Advance Wars series.

I know it’s kind of cliche to compare any portable turn-based strategy game to Advance Wars, but Mecho Wars is hard to liken to anything else. Just like as in UniWars, the touch interface works great in this game, and really feels just like playing Advance Wars on the DS with the stylus.

The initial version of the game does not yet contain online-multiplayer but that should be coming in about a month. The initial reactions have been very positive. From forum user Moggy Lloyd:

My first impression of Mecho Wars is that it is a very good game. In fact, it's slightly more than a first impression as I was playing it for several hours last night and found it hard to stop!

I was a little worried before playing that this would be a case of style over substance - something pretty to look at that wouldn't have much under the hood. But that fear was well and truly allayed. This is a very strategic, tactical and absorbing game. There is a lot of depth to it and it's been great fun to play so far.

At the moment, the bulk of the game appears to be the single player campaign mode which is reported to have 13 stages across 3 acts. We'll be doing a formal review of this game shortly.

App Store Link: Mecho Wars $4.99

If you're over ball-rolling Labyrinth-type games, then you may want to skip this story. But even if you think you are over them, you should still check out the gameplay video for Fayju Ball [$0.99].

Like many other games in the App Store, Fayju Ball has you tilting your phone to try to get the ball(s) into the proper spots. This game, however, stands out in its use of puzzle elements as well as the 3D physics involved. The game contains 50 levels.

It starts innocently enough with simply moving a ball into the proper hole. Later levels, though, require you to change the color of your ball by hitting the proper colored block and then settling into the correct hole. But what really makes things interesting is when you realize that you can flip your iPhone over in order to get the balls out of the holes again or that you have to turn your iPhone on its side to properly line them up with holes on the side of the box.

You should really watch the video to understand the physics involved:

App Store Link: Fayju Ball, $0.99

One of the development teams we met with at WWDC was Super Happy Fun Fun who has been in the mobile business for 6 years. Since September, however, they've been especially focusing on iPhone titles. They work both independently and also with Tilt n Twist to develop titles.

Snowboarding TnT

The first Tilt n Twist / Super Happy Fun Fun title Snowboarding TnT [$1.99] was just released tonight. We recorded a quick video of the game at WWDC:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

The game offers 6 different levels with 30 different tricks that can be invoked using the accelerometer. Power ups including speed, trick multiplier and time bonuses. Snowboarding games on the iPhone have been poorly represented thus far. We haven't had much time to spend on this title, though some first forum impressions on an iPhone 3G were a bit disappointing.

App Store Link: Snowboarding TnT, $1.99

Big Buck Hunter Pro

Another game that Super Happy Fun Fun will be releasing later this year is an iPhone port of the very popular Big Buck Hunter Pro arcade game. The arcade version allowed you to (obviously) shoot bucks while avoiding does to see how well you would fare. A unique aspect to the Arcade game included the use of online accounts to coordinate tournaments. The iPhone version of the game will incorporate these networked games using the same login ids. The game is expected in Q3 2009.

Dark Castle

Finally, in our conversation with Super Happy Fun Fun CEO Mark Stephen Pierce, we discovered that he was one of the original developers for the Mac classic Dark Castle. Additionally, through a series of events, his company has managed to regain the rights to the title.

As a result, Pierce indicated that they do have plans to bring Dark Castle to the iPhone and is tentatively scheduled for 2010.

BonusLevel.org has recently released their quaint little iPhone tower building physics puzzler Moonlights [link] through the App Store.

Moonlights is a tower building game somewhat similar to Tiki Towers and World of Goo. Each level starts off with a simple, initial geometric shape (or shapes) with the objective of adding nodes to each shape in order to build a tower (or towers) to touch the night sky's moon (or moons) for three seconds.  In certain levels, celestial objects stand in the way, and the number of nodes that can be added are limited.  In some instances, earlier nodes can also be removed in order to keep building. Some levels feature bubbles that can be used to levitate simple structures towards the target moon(s).

Touch controls are used to add or remove nodes, and tilt can be used to slide the structure(s) about the screen (or control bubble-assisted ascent).

Moonlights is simple on the surface, but only a brief session with the game reveals it to be a very challenging puzzler.  There's a real "I've got to try it just one more time" draw that makes it hard to put down and a solid value at just $0.99.

Moonlights has been very well received in our forums. See a gameplay preview video for a closer look.

App Store Link: Moonlights, $.99

While we were at WWDC 2009, Koduco showed us their then-upcoming, free iPhone checkers title 3D Checkers [App Store].  The game has since appeared in the App Store.

Simply put, 3D Checkers is the best checkers game available for the iPhone.  And, well...it's free.

The game features drag-and-drop gameplay, two play modes (player vs. player and player vs. computer), two AI difficulty levels, and two board designs.  Indeed, checkers is not the most hardcore of games, but anyone who enjoys a little of the red and black (or white, in this case) would do well to grab this one.

App Store Link: 3D Checkers, Free