Meridian has submitted their latest game for approval in the App Store. Alive 4-Ever is a dual-stick zombie shooter but the developers claim it's "definitely more than a shooting game". And based on the description and video, it seems that's clearly the case.

Alive 4-Ever is a zombie shooter in which players have a selection of 4 different characters coming from different backgrounds, trying to rescue hopeless survivors from a small town that was attacked by a deadly virus which turns dead people into zombies. Sounds pretty familiar, but there's more.

Besides the shooting component, Alive 4-ever has added other different elements like rescuing survivors and searching for vaccines, which highly increased the longevity of the game.

The game also offers bluetooth multiplayer allowing up to 4 person cooperative play. 30 missions are offered that includes goals such as eliminating a given amount of zombies, rescuing survivors in a given time frame, getting vaccines, defeating the big boss. There are 16 weapons in all that can be purchased throughout the game, and player experience points accrued can be used to upgrade basic player stats.

Meridian has provided us with this exclusive gameplay video which shows off boss fights, rescuing survivors and more:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

While survival shooters have been a very popular genre in the App Store, so far, every release has seemed to lack the depth that we've been wanting. Alive 4-Ever seems like it could finally fulfill that desire. We'll take an in-depth look when its released. Alive 4-Ever has been submitted to the App Store for approval and will be released at $2.99.

Konami announced at GamesCon that they are releasing the "the definitive kart racer" for the iPhone with up to 6 person multiplayer (presumed to be local). The game offers a 3D cartoon style and brings ten classic Konami gaming heroes to the track across 16 themed circuits.

Using the traditional third-person view, players guide their chosen character around the laps, using whatever they can to steal an advantage over their CPU or multi-player rivals. Nitro boosts can give a welcome burst of speed, while a wide range of extras that can be picked up during the race and can be used to slow down opposing karts.<

There are five single-player modes and linked multi-player races and competitions. The press release also mentions a partnership with Polarbit who was responsible for the early and popular Crash Bandikoot Nitro Kart 3D kart racer for the iPhone.

Here's a trailer of the game which is due for release in August:

Thanks Pug4Death

Sony announced yesterday the plan to introduce new downloadable "mini" games on their Playstation Store starting on October 1st:

"The minis development process has been designed to open the door to a broad range of developers to encourage new talent and creative ideas to PSP. minis are being developed by some of the most creative studios from across the globe from GameShasta, a medium-sized development team based in India, to HoneySlug a three-man team in Camden, London. Some developers, such as Creat, have already created content for PlayStation Network; others, such as Subatomic Studios. are bringing their experience in the mobile phone market to PSP."

iPhone gamers will be familiar with some of the launch titles. Amongst them: Fieldrunners, Hero of Sparta, and Minigore.

Fieldrunners was the first iPhone game to announce a transition over to the PSP, but it appears Sony is continuing to poach some other indie titles from the iPhone market to fill out their new "mini" game strategy. It gives successful iPhone developers another potential avenue for their products.

An official version of Luxor has finally arrived into the App Store tonight and is the first non-Ngmoco game to use their Plus+ social network.

Luxor is a popular match-3 ball shooter similar to Zuma but with the ball launcher mounted along the bottom of the screen rather than the center. Luxor was first released in 2005 and claims to be the "#1 Marble Shooter Game of All Time". The game has spawned a number of sequels and the prominent iPhone clone Stone Loops that we (and many of our readers) quite enjoyed.

The iPhone version of Luxor is a high quality production with beautiful graphics and a number of control options. The game offers 3 different control mechanisms:

• Slide to move, tap to fire, swipe down to swap balls.
• Slide to move, release finger to fire, shake device to swap balls.
• Tilt to move, tap to fire, tap with two fingers to swap balls.

Luxor offers only one game mode which takes you across 88 levels of an Egyptian-themed map. The game comes with the usual collection of powerups such as fireballs, lightning bolts, and more. This developer video shows the game off:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Luxor's implementation of Ngmoco's Plus+ network, however, is a bit disappointing. While it offers online achievements and global leaderboards, it doesn't take advantage of the challenge system which makes Plus+ so interesting.

With the arrival of Luxor also comes a lively forum debate about which iPhone marble matching game reigns supreme. The contenders appear to be Luxor [$2.99], Stone Loops [$0.99 / Lite] and newcomer Atlantis Sky Patrol [$2.99].

Naturally, early-adopting Luxor fans feel it delivers the best marble experience. While I'll concede Luxor's graphics are nicer than Stone Loops, I'd be hard pressed to say that most casual gamers would be able to tell a big difference in the gameplay between the two titles. Luxor, however, does deliver a solid but straightforward port of the popular franchise which will please long time fans.

App Store Link: Luxor, $2.99

Digital Worlds' recently released iPhone game Gold Keeper [App Store] could best be described as a survival shooter, even though technically you're not shooting anything. Similar to games like Minigore, iDracula, and all the others, in Gold Keeper you must survive as long as possible only this time instead of playing a human fighting off swarms of monsters, zombies, and demons, you play as a demon fighting off an endless supply of humans.

Gold Keeper doesn't have any plot to speak of short of a vague description on the help screen, so you have to invent your own back story to the game. Personally, I'm not entirely sure that you're evil, even though you're a demon. The way I see it, you're a demon who decided to invest in gold. You're sitting in your cave counting your doubloons sipping an ice cold Zima when human looters decided to come steal your little demon spawn's inheritance. The human thieves intent on stealing your hard earned life savings refused to listen to reason, so you've got no choice but to slay them. It's all a matter of perspective.

The gameplay in Gold Keeper is basic, utilizing a virtual D-Pad to move around and a single on-screen button to swing your demon fists around. As you defend your pile of treasures, you eventually get a massive sledgehammer and finally a vicious looking blood covered cleaver. By killing humans and picking up power ups, the gauge on the right hand side of the screen fills up, allowing you to unleash the ultimate demon power that kills everything on screen.

As seen in this short gameplay movie, the cries of dying humans combined with the wicked soundtrack really make for a pretty silly experience. The pacing of the game is a bit slow and deliberate, especially compared to other survival shooters. Also keep a look out for the Turtles in Time-esque throwing enemies up in to the screen animation:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

That's all there is to it, survive as long as you can and when you die see where you rank on the online leaderboard. Gold Keeper has succeeded in keeping me entertained randomly for a few minutes at a time, but does suffer from repetitiveness like many of these types of games.

Though it's not necessarily the best implementation of this formula we've seen, the fantasy theme makes it stand out from the herd. The developer seems extremely open to new ideas in the discussion thread for the game and is in the process of making a list of changes for the next planned update.

App Store Link: Gold Keeper, 99¢

As suspected, we've received word from Gameloft that they are indeed bringing Earthworm Jim to the iPhone. The original press release describes the 1994 game:

Earthworm Jim centers around an ordinary earthworm who engages in normal worm activities- eating dirt, crawling and fleeing from hungry birds- that is until he comes across a high tech indestructible space suit. Jim takes refuge in the space suit while fleeing from hungry birds. The suit's powerful atomic particles cause him to grow and obtain newfound powers.

No word on target date for Earthworm Jim, but the news should give long time fans something to look forward to.

Meanwhile, Gameloft has also given us some details about their highly anticipated first person shooter Modern Combat: Sandstorm.

You are playing a U.S. soldier under orders to capture a high profile terrorist. Set in the Middle East, the game is reported to include multiple environments including a hospital, lab, palace, sewers, port, desert, buildings and more. A wide variety of different weapons are provided throughout including: M16 and AK47 rifles, RPG-7 grenade propeller, MP5A5 machine gun, M249 light machine gun, and M40 sniper rifle.

Three different control systems are offered

- Left d-pad movement, aim by sliding finger, button to shoot
- Left d-pad movement, aim by sliding finger, double tap target to shoot
- Left d-pad movement, aim with right d-pad, double tap target to shoot

Gameloft also pointed out that the game features a brand new engine that has not been released before. So, it is not a reskin of an exisiting title. The initial launch will not have multi-player, but is planned to be added in a later update.

Modern Combat: Sandstorm has been announced to be released before September.

A little late to the all out price slashing fiesta we saw last week, EA has since dropped the prices on a few of their games this afternoon.

Need For Speed Undercover, $6.99 -> $4.99 - A mission-based racing game that had an insanely long development cycle that produced a game that was well worth waiting for. While Need For Speed Undercover runs great on previous-generation devices, it's on the short list of games you really should have if you want to stretch the graphical legs of your iPhone 3GS. At the higher framerate, the sensation of speed is even better. We enjoyed the game in our review, and along with Real Racing [App Store], Need For Speed is still one of the best full 3D racing games on the App Store.

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Wolfenstein RPG, $4.99 -> $2.99 - Originally produced by Id Software, ported to the iPhone by Firemint, and published to the App Store by EA, Wolfenstein RPG is a high-resolution adaptation of a J2ME game. The game puts a silly spin on the Wolfenstein universe and provides slow-paced turn-based combat originally designed for the user input constraints of a typical cell phone. Firemint did a wonderful job on the port, and as I mentioned in our review, as long as you're not expecting a fast paced shooter, it's a good time.

The Sims 3, $9.99 -> $6.99 - The latest mobile iteration of the Sims dynasty of video games, The Sims 3 is a fun, albeit watered down version of the original. Build mode is lacking in the iPhone version, so you are really limited in how much you can customize your house. Regardless, as we said in our review, if your favorite things about Sims games was cultivating relationships with other Sims, the iPhone game is great. If you liked tweaking your house and building Sim torture chambers, the iPhone game doesn't have much to offer.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

App Store Links:

• Need For Speed Undercover, $4.99
• Wolfenstein RPG, $2.99
• The Sims 3, $6.99

Bust-a-Move [App Store] (Also known as Puzzle Bobble in some countries.) was originally released in 1994 as a Japanese arcade game. A few months later, the Neo Geo home console version was released and since then there have been 23 different remakes and sequels.

Even if you haven't heard of Bust-a-Move, chances are the gameplay elements are at least somewhat similar to you as there have been numerous clones over the years. Bust-a-Move is played in portrait mode with a play field of different colored bubbles. At the bottom of the screen is a launcher that must be aimed to fire bubbles up at the bubbles at the top of the screen to make matches of three or more. Bubbles pop when matched and if there were any bubbles connected to the set you just removed and they don't have anything else to stick to they also get removed.

The game is lost when the bubbles from the top of the screen cross the line at the bottom of the screen. To make things a little more challenging, every few shots the "ceiling" of the level drops down, moving all of the bubbles on screen even closer to the bottom. Clear all the bubbles without dying and you move on to the next level. Special "power" bubbles are available including the star bubble, large bubble, rainbow bubble, line bomb bubble, bomb bubble and metal bubble. These bubbles cause different sorts of damage when fired.

Bust-a-Move comes with two different control schemes, one where you aim the launcher manually and fire it like a sling shot as well as one where you tap on screen to aim it. The sling-shot mechanism feels nice and is well suited for one handled play.

Included is a story mode that likely won't be winning any awards for plot development, but gets the job done regardless. Challenge mode features endless puzzles, and if you're lucky enough to know someone who has a Bluetooth capable device who also has a copy of Bust-a-Move you can play two player.

As mentioned previously, there is no shortage of Bust-a-Move clones. If you grew up playing Bust-a-Move, you'll also enjoy the iPhone version.

Like Snood, the primary target audience for Bust-a-Move are those who have a deep history with the game. Unlike Taito's Space Invaders Infinity Gene, Bust-a-Move is not a completely re-imagined version of the game, but a refined iPhone port of the classic. If you have no history with either Snood or Bust-a-Move, cheaper clones like Bubble Bash [$0.99] offer a similar experience for significantly less.

App Store Link: Bust-a-Move, $4.99

If you don't keep your nose glued to our forums or the various Twitter feeds of game developers, chances are you've missed out on these four bits of news that have popped up in the last couple days:

Zenonia 2 was revealed on Gamevil's Twitter. There's a thread on our forums with all of the images that have been released so far complete with fans of the original sharing their anticipation with other forum members.

Gangstar had a teaser site for the game with screenshots and video revealed via Gameloft's Twitter along with announcing that the game will be launched at $6.99 when it is finally released.

Madden 10 for iPhone was reportedly pushed back to September. We still have yet to hear any details on the game, its control method, or anything else outside of knowing that it's eventually coming to the App Store. When in September it's going to be released is currently anyone's guess.

Mad Monkey Studios released another tech demo from their upcoming 3GS-only game project that we covered when it was first announced. We don't have any more information than that, according to this video the game is going to be "sketch shaded":

The video shows a cool direction for the art style of their upcoming game to be taking, but it's hard to get too excited over tech demos without having any idea what the final game will even be about.

Gameprom's Wild West Pinball [App Store] and The Deep Pinball [App Store] both have significant updates that are currently sitting in Apple's App Store approval queue.

It seems like one of the most requested features that we've seen from our readers about these games is the ability to lock your camera. If this was an issue for you in either of these games, as soon as these updates drop you will be able to pinch the screen to zoom out and lock the camera to see the whole table. If you get tired of this viewpoint, the opposite pinching gesture makes the camera pan back in to how it's usually displayed.

The Deep update also adds the ability to toggle both the in-game music and voiceovers, and the changes to Wild West are far more significant: a slightly redesigned table, some improved animations, as well as music and missions have been added. The upcoming soundtrack to Wild West can be downloaded here.

In previous versions of these games, you were able to shake your phone as much as you wanted to bump the table. Gameprom has finally put a limit on how much you can do this by adding a tilt sensor. The effect this change will have on the global high score list should be dramatic, as previously the best way to cheese a high score was to shake your iPhone like crazy to keep bumping off the bumpers in Wild West's bank and The Deep's sunken ship.

Both updates have already been submitted and Gameprom is just waiting for Apple to throw the approval switch. In the meantime, if you haven't downloaded either of these games, they are two of the best 3D pinball games on the App Store even in their current pre-update state and easily worth $0.99.

App Store Links:

• Wild West Pinball, 99¢
• The Deep, 99¢

Two weeks ago, a small indie team called Krabl released their first iPhone game Ynth [$4.99 ] into the App Store. The game is an original iPhone platform puzzler that offers a unique game mechanic in which you as a small bug must rotate a box across marshland while avoiding the various obstacles. All the while you need to avoid falling into the water, getting killed by spikes, or being crushed by falling objects.

It's an interesting concept for a game -- and yet remains one that I want to like more than I actually do.

Technically the game is very well produced with good controls and nice artwork. On screen buttons allow you to jump left/right or (if you are against a wall) rotate the box you are in 90 degees left/right. Loose rocks inside the box can crush you, and you can only survive a fall of a certain distance. Additional elements, such as one way doors and springs add to the difficulty in later levels.

The game is hard to explain but this developer video shows the gameplay well:

Each level requires some trial and error to solve so even in the early levels you'll find yourself playing them again and again (and not always in a good way). The developers do provide a generous Lite version which offers 9 levels from the full version and gives a very good taste of the game. The full version contains 60 levels.

We're not sure if the gameplay captured us enough to fully recommend, but it's certainly worth a try for those looking for a different kind of action puzzler.

App Store Link: Ynth, $4.99, Ynth Lite, Free

Gameloft announced today that they had obtained the rights to develop, distribute and publish Earthworm Jim for "mobile, WiiWare(TM), PlayStation Network, with an exclusive one month run on Xbox Live(R) Arcade."

Initially released in 1994, Earthworm Jim's games garnered such a cult following that the character's popularity took him far beyond video games into an animated TV series, Toys and Comic books. Earthworm Jim centers around an ordinary earthworm who engages in normal worm activities- eating dirt, crawling and fleeing from hungry birds- that is until he comes across a high tech indestructible space suit. Jim takes refuge in the space suit while fleeing from hungry birds. The suit's powerful atomic particles cause him to grow and obtain newfound powers.

Earthworm Jim was even awarded the "Best Genesis Game" of 1994 by the Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine. The ridiculous premise of a ordinary worm piloting a super advanced cyber suit combined with a cast of characters such as Professor Monkey-For-A-Head, Bob the Killer Goldfish, and Princess What's-Her-Name made for a game universe that perfectly catered to silly gameplay elements such as attacking by having the suit whip Earthworm Jim himself and riding a aptly named "pocket rocket" through asteroid fields.

Here's a video from the Sega CD version:

While an iPhone version has not been announced specifically, given Gameloft's massive iPhone efforts, it seems likely that we'll see this coming to the iPhone and iPod touch eventually.

First of all, if you haven't already, I'd give some serious consideration to picking up Doom Resurrection [App Store] as today is the final day of the $2.99 sale. If you need some help clicking the "Buy Now" button, check out our review of the game.

Doom Resurrection is an on rails shooter that utilizes the graphical assets from Doom 3 to creating a gameplay experience that feels like a Doom game, despite the inability to control your character's movement. Since the $2.99 sale started, more and more people who were initially hesitant about the rails aspect of the game have seemed to since come around to enjoy Doom Resurrection for what it is, rather than what it isn't.

Over the weekend, Doom Resurrection 1.1 landed, bringing a new bonus map and a challenge mode with 40 available challenges. I completed the original version of the game shortly after it was released, and challenge mode has definitely breathed some new life in to Doom Resurrection for me as it once again has first page icon status on my iPhone.

Challenges range from scoring, accuracy, speed, and other goals. For instance, the first challenge asks you to score at least 300,000 in the first level. Each kill you make without taking damage increases your scoring multiplier that resets back to zero as soon as you get hit. Reaching (or exceeding) the target score requires you to maintain a score multiplier, which will involve some memorization of the levels to be prepared to take out some of the surprise attacks before getting hit. Another challenge that uses the first level of the game has you beating the section with 100 health, 75% accuracy, while grabbing all secrets and items.

The new bonus level is called "Gooey Reactor" that is absolutely loaded with all kinds of enemies throwing things at you. I've been slowly progressing through it on the marine difficulty level. I've got to seriously tip my hat to anyone who can beat the new level on the nightmare difficulty level, as four hits basically kills you and there isn't ver much health spread around.

The new update combined with the $2.99 sale has rocketed Doom Resurrection up to the seventh spot on the overall App Store top ten. At the sale price, Doom Resurrection provides a significant value, and an even greater one if they continue adding new levels and challenges.

App Store Link: Doom Resurrection, $2.99

Self described as a Sudoku challenger, Hidato [App Store] is a number puzzler that requires you to fill in the sequence of numbers across a partially filled board. Numbers must be connected either side-by-side or diagonally in sequence, and there is only one solution per board.

The gameplay seem simple but seems to fulfill a similar sort of immersive satisfaction as a game like PathPix. The developers are also offering a good sampling of 10 puzzles for free in a Lite verison [App Store] that should give you a good taste of the game. The full version of the game contains 100 boards.

The game is very well made and is worth a try for those interested in these types of puzzle games.

App Store Link: Hidato: Puzzle Pack 1, $1.99, Hidato: Puzzle Pack 1 Lite, Free

Independent developer Zach Gage recently posted a gameplay video for his block-dropping puzzler that is due in the App Store any moment now.

It's rare that we preview these block-drop/puzzlers, since they typically play better than they look -- but Unify looks pretty great already:

Instead of a single piece falling from the top of the screen to the bottom, two pieces move in from the sides towards the middle, simultaneously. The goal of the game is to make combinations of 4 or more of the same color, so that they disappear.

Once blocks disappear, all the blocks on top of them move in towards the center, giving you the opportunity for combos.

Gage had also sent in a video of a 3D audio concept game called "Face It" designed to be used with the iPhone 3GS's compass. He recommends you use headphones to listen to this video as it otherwise won't make sense.

No word on when Face It might make it to the store, but Unify is already well into the approval process.