When we first looked at Team17 Software's Worms [App Store], we saw a lot of potential but so much of the game was ruined by odd controls, spotty performance, minimal camera adjustments, and other issues. Team17 has been busy for the past month working on an update that address nearly all of the complaints that people have had about the game.

Worms 1.0.1 brings the following improvements:

• The option to change graphical settings for increased performance in game.
• More responsive camera controls, including the ability to make the camera zoom further in for a closer look at the action.
• The ability to flip the game screen based on the orientation of your device.
• Improved Ninja Rope controls allowing even more death-defying rope stunts.
• The ability to unleash devastating weapons on your enemies from the safety of a parachute.
• Shorter AI enemy thinking times.
• Highly improved back-flip and jump controls, including a new finger swipe method to make sure you never accidentally jump worms into the water again.
• The facility to customise the game even further by creating your own enemy teams.
• Plus, a whole bunch of improvements to touch responsiveness and performance across all devices!

I felt the most significant changes are the ability to zoom out to see nearly the whole battlefield, as well as a ability to toggle graphical fluff to improve performance on older devices. The "low quality" graphics are hardly even noticeable too, all the toggle seems to do is turn off the animated backgrounds and particle effects which add nothing to the gameplay.

Here is a comparison of "high quality" on the top and "low quality" on the bottom:

All in all, this is a solid update to Worms and anyone who was waiting for the initial launch issues to be addressed can now feel confident in downloading the game. Worms still lacks internet multiplayer, so if that's an important feature to you, take a look at IUGO's Star Hogs [App Store].

App Store Link: Worms, $4.99

Just when you thought the App Store prices have gone as low as they can go, here's another solid game that's being offered for free.

Dropship was one of our favorite iPhone shooters when it came out in December, and introduced us to one of the best dual control stick control systems for the iPhone.

The game succeeds on many levels, but perhaps the most critical piece that they got right were the controls. Your ship is controlled by your left and right thumb which can be placed anywhere on their respective sides of the screen. Left thumb controls thrust and right thumb controls the direction of firing. There is a slight learning curve to this control method, but it ultimately allows very good control of your ship and avoids the major problems that come with a fixed button system (using up screen real estate, and accidentally hitting the wrong button).

We're not sure how long this free pricing will last, but there's no reason not to get it now.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

App Store Link: Dropship, Free

Phil Hassey has released a major update to his excellent iPhone strategy game, Galcon [link], one of the most highly recommended games in the App Store.

The update brings the following changes, as Phil lists them:

• Awesome new graphics and menus for a visual experience second to none!
• Added in-game settings menus.
• Left-handed mode!
• Easier access to multi-player game!
• Added friends feature allows in-game friending!
• Instant access to community, including ranks, forums, and chat room!
• Upgraded in-game controls!

For those unfamiliar, Galcon is a fast-paced arcade strategy game set in space. The game begins with a galactic playfield filled with planets of varying size. The green planets belong to the player, neutral planets are grey, and planets of any other color belong to the enemy. The goal is to take over all the planets.

Phil has done a fine job of evolving Galcon, with numerous updates since its July 2008 initial release.  Anyone who doesn't already own this one should at least give the free, lite version [App Store] a try.

App Store Links: Galcon, $2.99, Galcon Lite, Free

Besides id Software's dramatic sale on Doom Resurrection and Wolfenstein 3D Classic, other developers have recently cut prices on some solid games that we've covered before.

Here are a list of sales on games that are worth considering:

• 4x4 Jam ($3.99 -> $1.99) - An open field off-road racer that we enjoyed.
• Farm Frenzy ($4.99 -> $0.99) - a time management game set on a farm.
• Zooloretto ($4.99 -> 0.99) - an original board game won Australian game of the year in 2007.
• Metal Gear Solid Touch ($7.99 -> $2.99) - popular franchise turned tap-shooter.
• DropSum ($2.99 -> $0.99) - a very enjoyable match-based game
• NFL 2010 ($7.99 -> $4.99) - one of the better football games in the App Store.
• Star Defense ($1.99 -> $0.99) - 3D tower defense

TouchArcade was given the opportunity to preview the upcoming Snood game for the iPhone. The iPhone version of the game was developed by Monkey Gods and will be published by EA.

The game's release must be imminent, and looks like it should please long time Snood fans. Like many, my exposure to Snood was on my Mac in the late 90's. While the game seems to have received a number of upgrades since, the original version is the one that I'm most familiar with.

Snood for the iPhone preserves both the Classic gameplay with original graphics but also provide enhanced visuals as well as a number of new play modes. The game offers both single player and two player modes. Single player modes include Story, Classic, Time Attack and Puzzle modes across 5 different difficulty levels (child, easy, medium. hard, evil) and can be played with either the original or new graphic sets.

This video shows Classic and Puzzle modes using both the old and new graphics:

The game's goal is to eliminate all the Snoods from each level by matching them up in groups of 3 or more. Additional Snoods are fired onto the board with a canon at the bottom of the screen. Extra points are awarded for bank shots and chaining eliminations in sequence. iPhone controls allow you to touch on the screen to aim your canon with a button to fire. Controls work well, but like on the Mac/PC version it takes a little time to learn how to aim consistently.

Perhaps most interesting is that this new version of Snood seems to offers a 2-player mode that allows both Live online one-on-one matches as well as Challenge matches where the opponent plays at a later time.

These head-to-head matches are coordinated through Facebook, but since the Facebook version of Snood hasn't launched yet, I haven't been able to test out these features. We'll take a closer look when Snood officially launches. We expect Snood for iPhone to arrive any day now.

We secured a preview copy of Chillingo's latest side scrolling kill everything blood bath, Inkvaders yesterday. I don't normally like these kind of games, but I've found myself oddly drawn to Inkvaders. (No pun intended.) The art style is great and really reminds me of the "Duck Amuck" Daffy Duck cartoon where Daffy fights against the cartoonist. Everything has a hand drawn feel to it, and the game often breaks the fourth wall as fingers straighten things and hands turn pages.

Here is a gameplay video of me going through the tutorial, and the first two levels:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

The controls are simple and work like every other side scrolling shoot 'em up. The left and right arrows obviously make you move left or right, the jet pack allows you to hover for as long as your fuel meter allows, and the red button fires. There are three weapons in game, and each can be upgraded multiple times. Killing aliens and picking up floating rocks gives you money to buy upgrades. Crates are randomly scattered throughout levels that can be picked up by touching them. The crate labeled with the letter "R" starts rush mode, where the music ramps up and swarms of aliens come from both sides.

Three difficulty modes are included, as well as a story mode that is said to take around two hours to complete as well as an endless endurance mode. Inkvaders is still under development, but will likely be released soon. When it finally does come out, we'll take a more in depth look at the game.

In honor of QuakeCon this weekend, Id Software has significantly dropped the prices of both Doom Resurrection [App Store] (Originally $9.99, now $2.99) and Wolfenstein 3D Classic [App Store] (Originally $2.99, now 99¢). If you were holding back on getting either games, now is the time to buy as the sale will only run until QuakeCon is over on the 16th.

Doom Resurrection utilizes Doom 3 assets to create a game with visuals that hold their own even when compared to the graphical giants of the App Store like Real Racing. Not quite a traditional first person shooter, Doom Resurrection is on rails and is controlled using the accelerometer to move a targeting reticule around the screen. In our review, we found Doom Resurrection to be "pretty awesome" and at this price hopefully some of the rails naysayers will take the leap of faith and give the game a try.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Wolfenstein 3D, first released in 1992, is the game that popularized the first shooter person genre. In the iPhone version, all six original episodes are included with 60 total levels and four different control layouts. The controls in the iPhone Wolfenstein 3D are generally regarded on our forums to be among the best for first person shooters, so if nothing else the game is worth checking out to see John Carmack's idea of how games like this should be controlled with the limited input methods available on the iPhone.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

App Store Links:

• Doom Resurrection, $2.99
• Wolfenstein 3D Classic, 99¢
• Wolfenstein 3D Classic Lite, Free

The first version The Game of Life [App Store] was originally created by Mr. Milton Bradley himself all the way back in 1860 after his lithography business started to dry up, since his major product was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln without his beard. Honest Abe grew a beard, the portrait was no longer an accurate portrayal of the then soon to be president, so out of desperation Milton moved on to other projects such as printing a few copies of "The Checkered Game of Life" that eventually went on to start the Milton Bradley empire and turn his brand in to a household name.

100 years later, the Milton Bradley executives decided they needed to do something special for their 100th anniversary and asked game inventor Reuben Klamer to come up with something to commemorate the occasion. Inspired by the original, Klamer developed the first version of what would become the modern Game of Life. Since then the game has been updated numerous time, gameplay elements have been added and/or tweaked, and many spinoffs have been made where the same basic game has been applied to the Family Guy, Pokemon, and even Sailor Moon universes among others.

In The Game of Life players travel around the game board landing on spaces that simulate the various events one goes through in their life from graduating highschool to eventually retiring. On the way you come across jobs, lawsuits, children, property, and life tiles. Life tiles represent major life events that are revealed at the end of the game, each rewarding different amounts of money to add to your retirement total. The player that ends their life with the most money wins the game.

As expected, the board game translates very well to the iPhone just like all of EA's other board game titles. Everything is controlled through a simple touch interface, and spinning the wheel to determine how far your game piece is moved is done by swiping your finger across the screen. It features single player with up to three AI opponents for four players total, and you can use one device to play multiplayer. It's unfortunate that there isn't any kind of WiFi multiplayer like Scrabble [App Store], but I suppose there is always hope for future updates.

My favorite thing about the iPhone version of The Game of Life is that you can fast forward through the turns of AI opponents. While playing games like this by yourself is hardly as much fun as playing against other people, not having to sit through full-length terms of computer players does a lot to make the game more enjoyable. At $4.99, the iPhone version is significantly cheaper than any version of the physical board game, so if The Game of Life is your thing, don't hesitate on picking this one up.

App Store Link: The Game of Life, $4.99

A little over a year ago, in the App Store's youth, Namco provided some of the first big name iPhone game titles with their release of rather faithful ports of Pac-Man [App Store] and Ms. Pac-Man [App Store] for the iPhone.  They quite recently followed these titles up with the release of Pac-Man Remix [$5.99], featuring modern graphics and enhanced gameplay.

Pac-Man Remix is indeed Pac-Man at its core, but features various enhancements that add variety to the well-known formula.  Aside from the standard maze full of dots and power-pellets, there are power-ups that enable things such as an invincible, mirror image Pac-Man ghost that helps with the dot chomping and the ability to jump over pesky, travelling arcs of electricity (a new hazard).  Many of the mazes are dual-height, with elevators and transporter pads providing access to the upper and lower areas.  What's more, at the end of each stage is a boss showdown that demands dodging skills beyond those called upon in the standard mazes of dots.  Animated cut-scenes between certain levels help illustrate play technique.

The game offers two methods of touchscreen control.  The swipe-anywhere technique introduced in the earlier Pac-Man for iPhone is available and works better, but still not ideal.  Alternatively, an onscreen directional button control mode is offered, but the layout is a bit awkward.  I'm guessing it will see little use.

Pac-Man Remix succeeds in delivering a colorful new take on the original Pac-Man formula, but what concerns me is the challenge that the game provides.  I began playing it on the default 'Normal' difficulty setting and got through all six stages in just over an hour.  The 'Hard' setting adds to the challenge, but the game just feels too easy -- far easier than either Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man.  And that certainly doesn't have you coming back for more. It's an official Pac-Man license from Namco, and that's a notable mark in the iPhone's repertoire, but at $5.99 -- big name license or no -- the game should provide more than an hour's playtime.

My recommendation on this one is to take a good look at the gameplay video to get a feel for the title and be quite aware that you're in for a short-lived gameplay experience, going in.  My guess is that only true, die-hard Pac-Man fans could find Pac-Man Remix a sound value.  The casual Pac-Man fan looking for a modern take on the formula may want to wait for the upcoming iPhone adaptaiton of the highly rated XBLA title Pac-Man Championship Edition.

App Store Link: Pac-Man Remix, $5.99