Today ngmoco released two new videos on their upcoming four player online deathmatch game, Eliminate. Like all ngmoco releases, Eliminate is shrouded in secrecy and little bits of information are slowly being unveiled as the game gets closer to its impending release. Regardless, these two videos have quite a few interesting details in them and are much more meaty than your average ngmoco teaser. Both are worth a look if you're at all interested in Eliminate.

The first video released is a short trailer in the same style of the previous Eliminate trailers that exhibit the various technologies offered by Arsenal Megacorp, your employer in the game:

The second video clip is from the latest episode of the ngmoshow where producer Chris Plummer walks us through the upgrade system and the various weapon and armor available for purchase in-game:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

The in-game energy and credit system has been a highly controversial topic on our forums since they were both revealed. Something to consider though, per our WWDC coverage of the game, Eliminate will have an in-depth performance tracking system to match players up with other players of similar skill.

If this system works as intended, there will likely never be situations where you are in game getting stomped by players who have been able to purchase much better equipment than you. Those players will have ranked up enough that they will be fighting with players of similar skill and gear levels, leaving newer and lesser equipped players to compete on a more even playing field.

Details are still sketchy on most of the features of Eliminate, but in the meantime feel free to follow the official thread on our forums.

Action = Reaction Games has caused quite a stir in our forums with their latest release, Aves [App Store]. Openly branding it as a "tech demo," even in the iTunes description, the developers have packed some impressive features in to this game.

Aves uses GHOST binaural audio, which requires headphones, but creates an eerily realistic three dimensional effect to all the in-game music and sound. The animation technology in the game is called "BioReplicants," and has no preset animations for the birds flying around in the game. Instead, the physics model is built around a virtual muscular-skeleton system to create a bird rag doll that moves and flies identical to how a bird would fly in the real world.

It sounds like a whole boat load of marketing hype, but the sound is impressive and the animations are actually extremely realistic looking for an iPhone game. The actual premise of the game is far less exciting, and revolves around shooting a bow and arrow at these birds that fly around the screen. Aiming is very difficult, and beating any more than the first few levels is easier said than done. The developer is even offering $1,500 to the first person who can record a video of themselves beating level 25. (Which leads me to believe it's impossible or close to it.)

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

At 99¢, Aves is worth picking up if you've never experienced binaural audio or want another technically impressive title to show off the power of your device. If you're looking for anything more than a tech demo mini game, you're better off waiting for whatever next game the developers produce utilizing this technology.

App Store Link: Aves, 99¢

Here are a number recent game releases that we had previewed in the past. All seem to be solid titles, though none we felt compelling enough to highlight on their own.

Skee-Ball ($0.99) - The officially licensed version of Skee-Ball from Freeverse and Graveck. This game will feel familiar to owners of 10 Balls 7 Cups as it was created by the same developers, but with some notable improvements. There are some additional control options as well as the use of the accelerometer to add spin to the ball. The biggest upgrade, however, seems to be the integration of actual pictures of prizes that you can keep and integration with Plus+ for achievements and leaderboards.

As good a version of pure Skee-ball as can be found on the iPhone, but it's still just endless Skee-ball.

Against the Fire ($0.99) - Meridian's followup title to the well received dual-stick zombie shooter Alive 4 Ever. Against the Fire shares the same excellent dual-stick controls that control your player through the flaming levels. The goal is to save all the people on each of the 50 included levels. Unlike Alive 4 Ever, the game is more of an arcade game without any of the RPG elements we loved so much in their last title. Gameplay is also a bit simpler with a few power-ups on each level that are only active for a short period of time. The level designs are much more intricate with rooms and hallways that must be navigated to find the trapped people who you must lead to safety.

Overall a very well executed title, but we preferred the gameplay of Alive 4 Ever for the reasons listed above.

Moonlight Minions ($1.99) - Yet another entry into the tower defense section of the App Store which seems to be getting more and more crowded on a daily basis. All of the standard tower defense elements are in place such as six different towers that cover all the standard attack types (direct damage, splash damage, slowing, etc.) and each have a three tier upgrade system. Moonlight Minions also features Sentinel 2-style special powers such as Earthquakes or Lightning that are unlocked as you clear levels in the game. Each level can be played in classic or endless mode across three levels of difficulty.

The main thing that makes Moonlight Minions stand out from the pack is the whimsical fantasy art style. While it's a solid take on Tower Defense that may be worth adding to your TD arsenal, it's hard to say that it's better than many of the iPhone TD staples.

When I saw the Zombieland game iZombieland [App Store] show up in my RSS reader, I couldn't help but groan. Historically speaking, movie games have generally ranged from bad to mediocre with a few rare diamonds in the rough. Movie games ported to the iPhone so far have been leaning towards the "bad" side of the spectrum, so naturally I wasn't expecting much of iZombieland. (Especially with the "i" prefix plastered on the front.)

Much to my amazement, the game is actually a lot of fun and seems slightly reminiscent of 16 bit side scrolling gore-fests like the Splatterhouse series. Of course, like all movie games, iZombieland attempts to introduce the plot of the movie in to the game, but these giant blocks of scrolling text add very little and are easily skippable to get to the next level with even more zombies to mow down with the various weapons at your disposal.

iZombieland is controlled with a set of virtual buttons on each side of the screen. Instead of any kind of D-Pad, the right and left side each have their own corresponding buttons to shoot, move, or kick in that direction. When zombies are in range to shoot, targeting reticules appear on the available targets. If a zombie is too close, you won't be able to shoot its head off. In that case, kicking usually pushes them away enough to get a headshot.

If a zombie grabs you, a button will appear along the bottom of the screen that can be tapped to break free. As you kill zombies, a meter slowly fills that allows you to unleash a devastating attack that can clear the entire screen of zombies.

A variety of ranged and melee weapons are included in the game. Ammo is plentiful and is found in barrels and crates that can be broken open along with health packs and other weapons. The one slightly irritating side to iZombieville combat is dealing with melee weapon durability. There are few things more awesome than cutting down entire zombie armies with a chainsaw in each hand, but that fun quickly comes to an end as your chainsaw's durability runs low.

To replenish your weapon's durability, you have to break open crates and barrels to find another one. This can sometimes lead to annoying situations where you need to replay levels because you burnt through your melee weaponry too quickly and eventually come across a room that is too tight to use your guns because you will be mobbed by zombies before you have time to reload.

Here is a video of the most awesome weapons in the game, the dual chainsaws. The percentage that is constantly decreasing is the durability of my chainsaws, so you can see how fast it decreases:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

If you like killing zombies and having the screen of your iPhone filled with zombie blood, chances are you will enjoy iZombieland. The game doesn't feel like it's trying to cash in on the movie, and actually could stand alone as a fun sidescroller if you removed the Zombieland references.

App Store Link: iZombieland, $3.99

Rake In Grass, the developers behind Archibald's Adventure and Westbang, recently released a new level-based puzzler called Crystal Cave Classic for the iPhone.

The game is reminiscent of Boulder Dash, requiring you to dig through dirt to dislodge boulders while collecting all the crystals. The game, however, also introduces a number of additional elements that take it beyond Boulder Dash in many ways. Aside from the usual boulders, enemies, and crystals, there are breakable walls, encased crystals, acid, glass boxes, flip tiles and more.

Crystal Cave Classic delivers over 170 levels of play with a number of control options. The default controls, which I felt worked well, are a simple virtual d-pad. The game also allows you to also use swipe controls or tapping on the top/bottom/left/right areas of the screens for movement. In practice, however, I had some issues with accidental movements using the swipe controls, so stuck with the d-pad.

Here's the game in action:

The initial 15 levels serve as an in-game tutorial introducing you to the various elements in the game. The game offers challenging play even with amongst some of the early levels. Like many similar puzzle games, such as Bobby Carrot, there is a bit of trial and error involved in figuring out how the pieces fit together. Levels are skippable, and if you are one to easily get frustrated with challenges, the developer has gone to the trouble of compiling video solutions to all the levels of the game.

The game was simultaneously released for iPhone, Mac and PC, so there are some elements of the game that don't feel entirely natural on the iPhone. You'll likely find yourself trying to pinch zoom and pan a level, but the game instead offers zoom in and out buttons on the bottom left of the screen. A relatively minor issue, but one you will likely encounter. Meanwhile, Mac and PC demos can be downloaded as well, which will give you an accurate sampling of the iPhone game.

Overall, the game offers a solid level-based puzzle game with over 170 levels that should keep you occupied for a long time.

App Store Link: Crystal Cave Classic, $3.99

Joshua Rosen / Axios Games, the iPhone developer who previously brought us Sci Fly: Dogfight [App Store] has recently released his followup title, Above & Beyond Air Combat [App Store]. This new flight combat game offers considerably more depth and customization over his freshman title.

Above & Beyond Air Combat features three different play modes.  The two arcade modes, Gauntlet and Survival, serve as quick-play, pick-up game sessions.  Gauntlet sends the player down treacherous, windy canyon passes with the goal of flying through all the floating loops arrayed about the course.  Survival inflicts wave after wave of enemies upon the player with the goal of staying alive as long as possible and racking up points.  The core playmode, however, is Conquest.  It challenges the player to liberate island after island- -- 60 in all -- using the 12 available aircraft (unlocked based on progress) in an open-world playfield scenario -- smooth transitions, no load time. The game offers single player combat only across three levels of difficulty (Recruit, Veteran or Ace).

A core aspect of the game is aircraft customization.  Each aircraft has its own set of flight behaviors as well as a number of equipment sockets which can be filled with weapons, thrusters, or various other upgrades earned across any of the game's three play modes.  Weapons include machine guns, lasers, flak cannons, missiles, ray guns, and more.

The game features accelerometer flight controls, which work particularly well, with on-screen buttons that control thrust boost, slow flight, and weapons firing.  The options screen provides turn and pitch sensitivity settings along with the ability to invert vertical controls depending on your flight control preferences. Achievements add an incentive to build skill, while Open Feint integration lends a social aspect to the title.

Making progress in the core Conquest mode involves destroying all ground-based installations found on each island, as well as taking down air defenses bent on defending said island.  The action here would not be called "break-neck".  The first few islands' ground and air defenses are rather light and easily dispatched.  From there things get progressively more difficult with the appearance of air craft carriers, but I never encountered any scenarios that were truly hairy in my time with the title, playing in Veteran mode, the middle of the game's three difficulty settings.

See the developer's new gameplay video for a look at the action. (The original trailer, that gives a different look at the game, can be seen here.)

The well-tuned control system coupled with the unique, free-roaming gamespace mechanic and well done visuals make this an enjoyable arcade-style aerial shooter for casual air combat fans.  (The trail of smoke and firey destruction of enemies you've taken down is rather satisfying, I must say.)  However, the relatively mild pace of the game along with the somewhat repetitive island-to-island mission structure may not be quite enough for some of the more dedicated aerial combat fans.

Our forum readers are loving the game and the developer, who has chimed in on the forum post, indicates that new arcade modes and various other updates are likely in the cards, moving forward.

App Store Link: Above & Beyond Air Combat, $1.99 (Price Dropped to $1.99)

Igloo Games is one of the indie iPhone developers that can easily get our attention. They had one of the best launch titles on the iPhone way back in July 2008 with Dizzy Bee [$2.99] and their followup title Bed Bugs [$1.99] had the same charm and polish but with a very different gameplay concept.

The company has just announced their latest game called Flipside. Flipside appears to be a Match 3 game but with Igloo Games' style and charm. The game's board is made up of double sided tiles that can be flipped with a simple tap. Flip and move pieces to get 3 in a row.

The game comes with Surival, Puzzle, Verses AI and Peer to Peer play. While I know many might be apprehensive about another matching game, we're genuinely excited about another title from Igloo. The developers are also holding a Twitter contest where you can win a free pre-release copy of the game.

The game should be coming out around September 25th.

It's not even October yet and we're already seeing a whole load of Halloween themed games that are either released or in the works. Horror Racing, Chillingo's entry in to what's looking to be an oddly packed lineup of holiday games is a racing game that seems to have some strong similarities to Blizzard's Rock'n'Roll Racing.

Horror Racing is a arcade style top-down racing game. 15 tracks are included along with 3 boss races. Competing in Horror Racing involves upgrading your cars and utilizing various weapons and power ups to beat your opponents. There are 5 characters to choose from along with a pair of unlockable characters each having their own statistics and different vehicles.

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While Gameloft and EA are busy battling each other with their own respective full football games, NaturalMotion is taking a different approach in tackling the sport. Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley is part tech demo and part physics-based mini game that takes a fairly basic game concept and turns it in to something really fun.

The gameplay of Backbreaker is structured in to a series of challenges where you run down a football field juking, spinning, and sprinting past defenders attempting to tackle you. You run by tilting your device forward, and the direction you run is controlled by tilting left or right similar to how you would control a racing game.

The different levels start simple, initially only asking you to evade a few defenders on a wide open field. Backbreaker quickly adds a twist with the inclusion of red lines on the field that you must run between without getting tackled. Step across one of these lines and you have to start the whole level over.

The red boundaries are eventually joined by zones on the field that award extra points when you run across them and during the last half of the game you will be darting all over the field both to stay in bounds and to rack up extra points.

The best (and by far my favorite) way to rack up points is by showboating. After you evade the last defender in a level, the showboat button will light up on screen. Holding this button down makes your player start one of a few included showboating animations such as spreading your arms out or high stepping. It's not that simple though, as the defending players will still chase after you after they get back up from their failed tackle.

This creates a hilarious balancing act between showboating for maximum points, but still making it to the end zone without being tackled. Since you don't have a very good view behind you, it's not uncommon to need to switch from showboating to sprinting, only to barely score a touchdown without being taken down.

Since there are only a few players to be rendered on screen at once, Backbreaker has much better player models than Gameloft's and EA's football offerings. Also, with the addition of the impressive morpheme physics engine, no two tackles are ever the same. After each tackle you're offered an instant replay, and I oddly found myself watching them quite often. Like most games that rely on ragdoll physics, there can be some funny (and highly unrealistic) anomalies, but by and large the tackle animations really are fun to watch.

Backbreaker is an unlicensed football game, so there are no NFL teams or players to be found anywhere within the game. Instead, there are a few generic teams bundled in for you to choose from. Your player can also be customized with skin color, number, and even your name which actually appears in game on the back of your jersey.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Five different sets of challenges are included, with 10 waves of defenders in each challenge. Bronze, silver, or gold helmets are awarded depending on your score, and you can revisit challenges as many times as you'd like to get gold helmets in everything. Once you complete the challenge mode, you can take a crack at endurance mode where you have to run through all 50 waves of defenders for one score total. There is allegedly some secret content that is unlocked when you beat the endurance mode, but I've been unable to successfully do that yet.

So I suppose the inevitable question here is whether or not Backbreaker is worth owning if you already have Madden 10 or NFL 2010. I think there is room for both (or all three) on your iPhone if you're a football fan. While EA and Gameloft's offerings provide a more complete football experience, Backbreaker is a fun mini game with cool graphics and animations that seems more accessible for playing in short bursts due to the simplicity of the game.

The best way I've come up with to describe Backbreaker is that it's the Doodle Jump of football. There isn't anything overly technical about the gameplay, but it has a strangely compelling aspect to it, especially as you're high stepping to the end zone.

Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley has been submitted to the App Store and should be available soon.

Golvellius: Valley of Doom has arrived for the iPhone. This 1987 RPG was originally released for the Japanese MSX home computer system and later brought to the Sega Master System.

The iPhone version of the game was ported by DotEmu with iPhone UI modifications as well as an intelligent save system.

Here's a gameplay video showing the controls which are virtual d-pad based.

As much as we like retro here at TouchArcade, it seems this one's likely reserved for those who happened to have played and loved the original version of the game.

App Store Link: Golvellius - The Valley of Doom, $1.99

Gameloft's Real Soccer 2010 is now available both Internationally and in the U.S. The game first appeared in international App Stores just a few days ago as Real Football 2010 with the U.S. version finally arriving tonight. The game, of course, is a followup to Real Soccer 2009 which was well received at the time. Gameloft has since added more content, better controls, online multiplayer and YouTube uploads of replays.

The early impressions from International adopters of the game found that the controls were indeed much enhanced, but early online multiplayer games have been laggy, from Metzas:

-The game is indeed improved from last year, but not in a major way. It is still in essence a dumbed down PS1-era Pro Evo clone.
-The controls are greatly improved. No fixed digital controls any more, the players run accordingly depending on the position of the analog stick and in all they feel smooth.
-The online experience so far has been disapointing. Having played 3 matches so far, each and every one of them had so much lag it was practically non playable (at least not enjoyable) so at this point at least, I wouldn't position the mode as a counterpoint to other app store offerings.

We'll have to spend some time with the U.S. version to see if this issue persists with the online play in the U.S. A sample of the uploadable YouTube replays can be seen here:

App Store Links: Real Soccer 2010, $6.99 (U.S.), Real Football 2010 (International)

Pixel Mine Games has released the Chapter 2 update for their action RPG Underworlds [$2.99]. Chapter 2 adds more than 2.5x the content that was in the launch version of Underworlds. Features include:

• Visit a new city
• Level cap raised to 50
• Repeatable dungeons
• Thousands of new items
• New quests and creatures
• Revamped Interface
• Quest Log
• Mini-Map
• World Wide Agon Rankings with Facebook and Twitter support.

One area of major improvement in the game is an interface overhaul which improves the screen layout and character controls. While we very much enjoyed the first version of Underworlds, the new features seem to address any complaints we had.

This video walks through the many interface changes in Underworlds:

The Chapter 2 is a free update to existing Underworlds customers, and the full game is available for $2.99.

App Store Link: Underworlds, $2.99

10tons recently released a great new take on the line-drawing genre with Boom Brigade [$0.99].

Rather than managing flight paths or other vehicular trajectories, Boom Brigade uses the line drawing mechanism to control your soldiers in defending your base from invading enemies. In some ways, the game feels a bit like a real time tower defense.

The game offers you three differently armed soldiers to choose from: Minigun, Shotgun, and Bazooka. Each type has slightly different stats. The Minigun soldier has the least damage power, medium range/movement but the most health. Meanhile, the Bazooka soldier has lots of damage power, long range, but low health and slow movement. Gameplay involves drawing paths to for your solders who automatically fire at incoming enemies. Each weapon has a reload time so it's not a constant barrage of fire, and the invading enemies will start chasing the soldiers as they get close. As a result, the best strategy is to create a circular path around the enemies to corral them together to make most of your firepower.

Money, health and extra soldier (rare) powerups appear and can be collected. Money can then be used to buy weapon upgrades and base repairs. The game is over when the enemies overtake your base.

As much as I like the concept and mechanic of this game, I should warn you the game gets rather hard rather quickly as the enemy numbers increase. Once you are managing 3 soldiers at once, it can get very hard to multi-task properly. And once you lose a soldier, it's unlikely that you'll survive much longer. Upgrades are also hard to come by, and ultimately, this level of difficulty could be discouraging to new players. Also, I feel the game likely does suffer from the rather small size of the iPhone's screen, as the your maneuverability is rather limited given the available real estate.

The developer video shows the game in action:

Boom Brigade is a fresh new take on the line-drawing mechanic, and offers a very interesting but also very challenging game.

App Store Link: Boom Brigade, $0.99

Touch Foo's upcoming Soosiz game for the iPhone offers up a very interesting looking gravity-influenced platformer:

What makes the gameplay unique, is not the changing gravity alone, but the fact that the "planets" don't actually pull you towards them. The gravity changes only when the player character touches a surface. This opens up a lot of possibilities in level design and gives the player much more freedom.

In the later worlds, when the player has been familiarized with the basic gameplay, we introduce "gravity fields", which enable us to mix traditional platforming and gravity-defying platforming in interesting ways.

The team reports the game has been in development for 6 months and they have experimented with several iPhone style control schemes but still settled on a simplified button system.

The game has been submitted and should be coming out soon.

Ezone's latest iPhone game Scarecrow [$0.99] seems to be trying to edge its way into the casual iPhone game hall of fame. While sharing the same basic goals as the likes of Doodle Jump, Scarecrow also succeeds in mixing it up enough to avoid feeling like just another knockoff.

Like their predecessors, the scarecrow wishes to go high... very high. Instead of jumping on platforms, however, scarecrow is propelled by popping kernels of corn. Make sure to hit enough of them as you ascend to keep your momentum going. Hitting the explosive corn also recharges your own personal boost that can be triggered by tapping on the screen. This supply is limited so you need to use it sparingly.

Your path is hindered by a number of obstacles including chainsaws, spikes, and more that threaten to dismember you as you ascend. You can take a fair amount of damage to where you are just left with a torso flying upward.

If you've played other similar games, you can easily imagine the compelling nature of trying to get just a little higher. Scarecrow uses Ngmoco's Plus+ network for high score tracking and even allows Push challenges to your friends. Overall, a simple and fun game for only $0.99.

App Store Link: Scarecrow, $0.99.