During a Gameloft press event last week in Paris, we were given a sneak peek at a game that's so early in its production, we don't even have screenshots to show yet. While Asphalt is Gameloft's arcade-style racer series, GT Racing aims to help fill the void in the App Store for a true racing simulation.

Much like the Gran Turismo series (and other similar games), GT Racing allows players to race real licensed cars around real tracks. Details are vague currently due to the game still being in development, but they're currently aiming at having around 100 cars across 24 manufacturers that cover everything from familiar daily drivers to iconic racing cars. Most of the cars will have their own unique cockpit views, and the sounds effects of the engines are accurate to each car's engine type.

Gameloft is putting a lot of effort in to providing a realistic racing experience, and in the demo I was able to get my hands on, my '67 Shelby GT was wonderfully challenging to control around Leguna Seca. It was actually refreshing to play an iPhone racing game where you actually have to precisely control your car instead of just mashing down the gas and flying down the track.

Like all Gameloft games, they aim to make GT Racing as accessible as possible, with both brake assist and traction control that can be turned on for casual players, or disabled entirely for racing veterans. As you play through events in the game you earn money to buy upgrades for your cars, as you tune every aspect of your car by adding these aftermarket parts you will be given the opportunity to test track (just like Gran Turismo) before going back to competition races.

Weather effects change not only provide visual flare, but also change the way your car handles-- As obviously in the rain or snow the tracks will be more slick. Also included will be a set of rally tracks and associated rally cars, but currently the game doesn't have any restriction for what cars can race on which tracks. If you want to bring your Ferrari 458 on a rally track, you can, just don't expect to do very well.

GT Racing will have 6 player local multiplayer via WiFi or Bluetooth, online leaderboards for track times, and even a replay editor and YouTube upload capabilities. The graphics are phenomenal and the car models are among the best I've seen on the platform.

GT Racing is due out sometime in early 2010, and we will post any more information on the game as it leaks out of Gameloft.

Commanders, get ready for battle! Gameloft has just released the much-anticipated turn-based military sim Rogue Planet to the AppStore, and from what we’ve played so far we can tell you it’s everything we’ve been hoping for.

Fans of turn-based war games like Advance Wars and Military Madness will feel right at home here. Unlike previous iPhone attempts at tackling the genre, Rogue Planet felt like a natural fit from the first moment we fired it up. The space opera story about a ship returning to earth only to find it in the hands of a hostile force is exactly the kind of sci-fi popcornia that hooks a player on more than just gameplay.

Just like our initial impressions of the story, the touch screen mechanics feel as tight as you might want them to. Things move at a quick pace and everything is streamlined down to the basics. Move units, attack units. Lather, rinse, repeat. After playing the first few levels, we’re happy to say that they offered up great map layouts that never feel like you’re walking endlessly, marching and marching just looking for battles. Hardly a turn goes by without some form of combat occurring.

The other thing that both surprised and delighted us was the length of each battle. Developers try to tailor their efforts to what they believe is a "typical" iPhone experience, meaning quick bursts of gameplay without a great deal of depth or strategy. The catch, though, is that depending on the type of game you’re making you might be sacrificing everything that would have made your game great in the first place. In this regard, Rogue Planet unapologetically sticks to its roots and strays away from the bite-sized gaming experience that many iPhone gamers have come to expect. By the time we’d reached the third mission we found ourselves spending 30 minutes or more reach our objectives. It’s the same tried and true deep experience that has made games like Advance Wars such a success on other platforms.

The 2D art in the battle scenes and dialogue sections pops just as much as you’d expect from the trailer. There’s a very heavy anime influence to the art style. For some reason the whole experience reminds me of Macross. Maybe it’s the ship returning from space. Maybe it’s the choice in vehicles. Whatever it is, it works.

In addition to the single player campaign with 19 missions, Rogue Planet also offer local multiplayer over Bluetooth and Wi-fi. The absence of internet play stings a little, but Gameloft assures us it’s being worked on for the next update. In the meantime, those without iPhone pals hanging around their living room can still experience the feel of multiplayer in a single player setting thanks to the Quick Game mode. Quick Game let’s you fire up a multi-style battle against AI bots and here there are 3 levels of difficulty across 34 maps (19 from story and 15 new ones) playable with 2 different armies.

So far we’ve only had a chance to experience the single player campaign, and from what we’ve seen of the first few missions, it looks as though we might finally have a solid iPhone contender for the hearts of Nectaris lovers everywhere. We'll take a more in depth look after we've had some time with the game.

App Store Link: Rogue Planet, $4.99

We don't know a whole lot about this game just yet, but the gameplay trailer was just so damn interesting. Mission: Deep Sea is described as a 3D underwater multitouch game for iPhone and iPod Touch. According to the developer page, the premise sounds a bit like Avatar set under water:

For thousands years, mankind have trained animals for many purposes. With the final developments in nano-tech, the telepathic control of reptilians became possible.

You are the first soldier, who has the privilege of having a loggerhead sea turtle as a partner. During your various assignments you will see through turtle partner's eyes, and he will do what you wish to do.

So, you're a sea turtle on a mission. Here's the video trailer:

The game is due this month.

Touch Foo recently released a free Lite version of their iPhone platformer Soosiz. We loved the game in our review, declared it the best iPhone platformer and gave it 5/5 stars in our monthly roundup of the best October iPhone games.

The big twist to the game is its gravity-changing mechanic. When jumping to a platform above you, the entire world spins around and up becomes down. While this all seems like it might just be a novel gimmick, Touch Foo manages to utilize it fully across Soosiz's 7 worlds and 65 levels. The gravity experience is truly an integral part of the game, and not simply a tacked on afterthought. Triggering this gravity manipulation simply requires you to jump onto another platform, and becomes second nature very quickly.

The full version contains 65 levels with progressively more difficult and interesting levels. The Lite version only gives you the first 5 levels, so while you'll get a good taste of the controls, the levels remain very straightforward. Still, the Lite is a "must try" if you managed to miss the game before.

App Store Link: Soosiz, $2.99, Soosiz Lite, Free

UK-based Hidden Games has recently released a side-scrolling 2.5D point-to-point transport game with the feel of a cave-flier.  Cabby [App Store] is a lot of fun.

The goal of the game is simple: drive (pilot?) your taxi cab from place to place, picking up passengers and packages, dropping them off where they need to go. What makes things interesting is the fact that you're not negotiating city streets but the far more challenging environments of air, water, and space across 15 different levels. The various levels are made up of twisty cave-like routes, floating taxi platforms, moving obstacles, and even mines. Your cab is equipped with vertical and forward thrusters, and each type of atmosphere responds quite differently to them. The bit of vertical thrust that lifts you off the ground in an air environment might send you through the roof in a space environment. It's nicely frustrating to work with these rather different sets of physics while trying not to crash into a cab platform or a mine.

Each level has a set number of customers that must be ferried to their desired destinations before the level is complete. Along the way it's important to keep an eye on your fuel level. A quick stop to the gas station is sometimes necessary, though it will cost you some of the funds accumulated as you work the level. Happily, some of these funds can also be used to purchase new lives when you've wrecked one-too-many cabs.

Cabby offers two playmodes to choose from: Career mode and Arcade mode. The former takes you from level to level, earning as much money as possible and unlocking new cabs and levels as you go, while the latter allows for a quick game in any unlocked cab or level. The game features a left / right touch slider for direction control, with onscreen buttons for thrust and descent. And while the developer tells me that he's tried various control arrangements and that the current controls work well for most in playtesting, I find the touch points to be a bit small for my fairly large hands, which occasionally gets me into trouble in the game. Your mileage may vary, and the developer promises to look further into the control system as he receives feedback from users.

See the developer's Cabby trailer video for a closer look.

Despite my issue with the controls, I find that Cabby's obstacle-filled routes, varying and well-done physics, and money / fuel metering delivers a highly enjoyable and challenging game experience that is well-matched to the type of pick-up, 4-minute game sessions that best suit mobile gamers. But, if you're not convinced, give the free, lite version a try [App Store].

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

Tom Clancy's HAWX is Gameloft's take on the massive Tom Clancy game universe by Ubisoft. Taking place after Ghost Recon 2 for the XBOX 360, HAWX has you flying various fighter jets and bombers to complete objectives in an entirely voiced-over campaign that is packaged with a brand new game engine by Gameloft that has been under development for nearly 8 months now with a full team of 25 developers.

With both tilt and virtual joystick controls, HAWX has a simple interface that should make the game accessible to most gamers. You will initially have 3 planes to choose from, and as you play through the game more will be unlocked for a total of 25 fully licensed planes like the F-14A Tomcat, the F-22, and other popular planes that most gamers familiar with the genre will recognize.

13 missions and locations are included and vary between infiltrating enemy airspace, dog fighting, and bombing. The environments you fly over look amazingly realistic, as Gameloft utilized high resolution satellite imagery to build and texture the environments.

Levels range from Washington DC, to Rio de Janeiro, and even Chicago-- And as a native of the Chicago area, it was amazingly cool to fly over Soldier Field, then follow the various highways while dropping bombs. The satellite imagery is detailed enough that if you're familiar with the locales you're flying over, you can easily pick out landmarks, streets, and other locations.

Each of the planes comes with their own unique cockpit view along with different strengths and weaknesses. At the start of each level, the game suggests the best plane to use, but you can use any plane on any level-- Which can substantially increase the difficulty if you're dog fighting with a bomber, for instance. Also included is local multiplayer both over Bluetooth and WiFi with a maximum of four players to compete in either a deathmatch or team deathmatch.

The graphics of HAWX were impressive, and everything from the environments to the plane models themselves look absolutely phenomenal. Each level also takes place during different times of day, so there is a wide range of lighting effects that change depending on when the mission is taking place-- And as with all Gameloft games, HAWX will run on every iPhone and iPod Touch model.

HAWX is due to be submitted soon, and ideally will be released before the end of the year. While Gameloft was reluctant about talking about their plans for the future, they never seem to use a game engine they develop only once. Because of this, it isn't very far fetched to suspect that Gameloft could have plans to release even more flying games in the not too distant future.

Skater Nation is Gameloft's upcoming open-world skateboarding game which really puts the other skateboarding titles available on the platform to shame when it comes to overall depth and complexity. Obviously inspired by the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series of games, Skater Nation runs inside of a game engine that was described as a "sibling" to the one used in Gangstar to have a completely open city with multiple environments with absolutely no loading time as you travel from place to place.

The city consists of ten highly skater-friendly locales that range from indoor factories to an outdoor skate park, and even a street that was inspired by Lombard Street in San Francisco. (Although notably absent was the half mile line of cars waiting to drive down the street.) Featuring two main game modes, you can either freely skate around the city, or choose one of 6 initially available skaters and progress through a career mode where you will complete a series of 36 challenges, and unlock both equipment upgrades and 2 additional skaters.

Unlockable equipment includes 10 skateboard decks, 10 trucks, and 10 wheel sets. Each of these skateboard components increase your skater's statistics to allow you to jump higher, skate faster, and otherwise increase your performance. The missions the various characters in the game will give you to complete are straight out of the Tony Hawk games and consist of doing tricks on specific obstacles, scoring a certain amount within a time limit, racing from checkpoint to checkpoint, and others.

The game is controlled using a virtual joystick and two buttons which handle all the different moves your skater is capable of. While the library of tricks you can do is nowhere near as vast as modern console skateboarding games, all the main grind types and board flips are in place. Skater Nation has a combo system that will be familiar to anyone who has played a skateboarding game before, with strings of tricks that can be tied together with manuals for massive point totals.

While the game itself was cool enough, what really blew me away was the replay editor. Much like Skate, you will be able to rewind the last 3-4 minutes of gameplay to save replays of cool tricks, jumps, or combos you were able to pull off. These replays can then be uploaded to YouTube, and Gameloft even has plans to implement a website to tie together all of these YouTube videos with features such as the ability to vote on your favorites.

Skater Nation had great graphics, and was running at a high framerate on the iPhone 3GS test units. Like all Gameloft games, they are designed to be playable across the entire iPhone and iPod Touch product line. In my brief time with the game, the only thing I saw that I was disappointed by was the lack of any kind of ragdoll system for when you fall off your skateboard.

When you wipe out, the screen simply fades and you're back on your skateboard-- Unlike most other skateboarding games that include brutal ragdoll powered wipe-outs. Regardless, I had a great time playing Skater Nation, and look forward to its release. According to Gameloft, they will be submitting the game very soon and expect it to be released by the holiday season.

Those of you who were turned off by the Here and Now Edition of Monopoly that had been in the App Store will be pleased to find out that EA has finally released the Classic version.

Monopoly brings the classic Monopoly board game to the App Store. The game offers a somewhat gratuitously 3D view of the game and even offers internationally localized versions of the board. The game seems to pull your iPhone's region settings (see here) to present the proper board. The game comes with 3 levels of difficulty against AI opponents and also offers local Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (2 players), and Pass & Play for your friends.

There also appear to be plenty of rule customizations to give you the game you're used to (Auction option also available, but cut off on screenshot):

The game is embellished with 3D graphics and animations of your pieces moving from one place to another, and the game also allows you pick one of several 3D rooms in which to play the game.

App Store Link: Monopoly, $4.99

Driver

Gameloft has posted a teaser/cinematic video which reveals they are bringing Driver to the iPhone. The original Driver game was first released in 1999 to critical acclaim. The game plot was as follows:

Tanner, an NYPD detective gone undercover due to his impressive driving skills, must gain the confidence of the syndicate's bosses by performing increasingly difficult missions such as stopping or following another car, driving through windows, delivering a stolen car or scaring a taxi customer

No actual gameplay is shown, but we'll post more as we get it. Driver is due in December.

Meanwhile, a proper gameplay trailer for their Gameloft's upcoming skateboarding game Skater Nation was also released. This shows a lot of the gameplay for their Tony Hawk Pro Skater-alike. Full featured skateboarding games have been a rarity on the iPhone, so we expect this one to do quite well when it comes out.

Finally, Secret Exit released their first gameplay video of their Stair Dismount game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. We took a look at this interesting title earlier this week. This one's also due soon.

Pocketball is a fresh new puzzler that takes physics and navigation and wraps them together in a tight little package. In each of Pocketball’s 30 stages, you’ll need to stretch pieces of rope across different pegs to guide a falling ball to a like colored bin. If there’s a blue ball it goes to the blue bin. If there’s a green ball it goes to a green bin. You get the idea.

Things get complicated fairly quickly. Some stages offer up 2 or 3 different colored balls that you need to guide to their like-colored bins. Other stages have items scattered around the playfield with boosters that will give your balls a toss in a certain direction or nukes that will incinerate any ball they come in contact with. With a good deal of variety and some exceptional level design, no two stages ever feel the same.

The mechanics behind the game may be simple, but that doesn’t mean the puzzles don’t offer up an incredible level of challenge. You may find yourself returning to the same puzzle a dozen or more times before finding a solution. There’s a certain degree of logic involved, but after awhile we just found ourselves testing the waters to see where different balls might land after setting up different ropes. Unless a puzzle has an obvious solution, there’s a real “trial and error” vibe to the gameplay. Thankfully Pocketball is incredibly forgiving of the “let’s see what this does” guess work that’s required. With no real penalties in the game, you can try each level over and over until you get it just right.

Pocketball is also forgiving in that it won’t force you to complete a level to proceed to the next. If you’re stuck on a level or two, you can walk away, check out some more levels, and unlock the rest of the game without ever going back to a certain over-complicated nightmare. Likewise you can always go back at a later time and see if you can finally best the harsh mistress that is stage 13.

Pocketball offers up a tremendous level of challenge in an "easy to learn but impossible to master" puzzler. Despite a few nitpicky complaints (such as lack of music), this game did the puzzle fanatic in our hearts good. If you’re a fan of genuinely challenging puzzle games that are about more than falling blocks, Pocketball is $1.99 well spent.

App Store Link: Pocketball, $1.99

Black Friday discounts appear to be coming early as a number of excellent games have just been price reduced to only $0.99.

At that price, we highly recommend picking up every one of these titles.

• Enigmo 2 ($2.99 -> $0.99) - Pangea's sequel to their incredibly popular Enigmo puzzler. $0.99 is a steal for this 3D puzzler which we reviewed when it came out in September.
• Beneath a Steel Sky ($4.99 -> $0.99) - A classic reborn, this point and click adventure holds up well over the years and the iPhone-specific changes make it a wonderful adaptation. We reviewed it and found it to be a really great adventure game for both fans and newcomers.
• Loopy Laboratory ($4.99 -> $0.99) - Now this is a blast from the past. We reviewed this game back in October and really enjoyed it. It's a Chip's Challenge-type puzzle game in which you must escape each level by manipulating objects. The game was fun to play and had excellent controls. My main criticism at the time was it stayed too easy for too long, but for $0.99, it's really a winner.
• Ground Effect ($3.99 -> $0.99) - A very recent release that we really enjoyed. While a little rough around the edges, the sense of speed and stylings kept us coming back. An easy pick up at $0.99
• Aves ($2.99 -> Free) - And here's a freebie. We described this as more of a tech demo but an impressive one. It uses binaural audio and an impressive animation technology called BioReplicants.

Here are a few releases that have snuck by us over the past few weeks that are worth considering. Each game has its fans and both the gameplay video and forum threads are linked so you can dig deeper.

Chuck Norris arrives on the iPhone with an over-the-top side scrolling shooter. The controls aren't great, and the game reminds us of an old school side shooter, but Chuck Norris fans seem to be enjoying it. It's only $0.99 and you can join the discussion thread for more impressions.

App Store Link: Chuck Norris: Bring on the Pain!, $0.99

Demolition fans may enjoy IUGO's latest physics puzzler in which you place your quota of dynamic to see if you can level each building. There are 60 levels in all drawn in chalkboard style. The game is available for $1.99, comes with online leaderboards and new levels coming in the next update. Join the discussion.

App Store Link: Implode, $1.99

Fans of Matmi's beautifully styled Monster Pinball will be happy to see their latest pinball creation: Snowy's Christmas Pinball. The game is set across 3 distinct interconnected tables with various mini-goals per table. The game is a little early for the Christmas season and is available for $1.99. Join the forum discussion here.

App Store Link: Snowy's Christmas Pinball, $1.99

SEGA has announced that they will be releasing Super Monkey Ball 2 in time for the holidays and we were able to have some hands on time with the game. The original Super Monkey Ball was one of the launch titles for the App Store back in July 2008 and was an enormous commercial success. It also managed to single-handedly set the price ceiling for App Store games at $9.99 which carries through to today.

The sequel to the game Super Monkey Ball 2 takes the original and offers new levels, local Wi-Fi multiplayer, improved graphics and, notably, improved controls. Despite the success of the original launch title, one of Super Monkey Ball's criticisms had been the sensitivity of the control system, a point that had been acknowledged by Sega in the past. After playing a late build of the sequel, it seems they've made real strides in the controls. In particular, I found turning to be much more precise than in the original.

Super Monkey Ball 2 also begins to add in mini-games that have been popular in the franchise. The first mini game to ship with it will be Monkey Bowling, while Monkey Golf and Monkey Target will be added as free updates in 2010. Overall, the graphics also seem notably improved compared to the original. After a brief amount of time with the game, I was able to shoot this video embedded below. As always, playing games while video taping can be difficult, and this is made even more difficult with tilt-controlled games... but I still managed to have a pretty good showing.

Super Monkey Ball 2 will arrive in time for the holidays and offers 115 new levels. No price was announced.

MikaMobile, the developers behind Zombieville USA have just announced their followup project: OMG Pirates!.

OMG Pirates! is described as a "silly, bloody, cartoony homage to the classic 2D games of yesterday" not unlike Zombieville. The developers claim that they've stepped it up considerably when creating this game. OMG Pirates! is said to draw inspiration from beat-em-ups such as Castle Crashers, Double Dragon, etc, and includes a variety of enemies, locales, and boss battles.

We feel like we've struck a great balance between depth and playability - combat is performed with a simple two-button setup, one for attacking, one for defense, with different timing leading to different moves. Land enough blows fills your super gauge, which when tapped unleashes a spectacular finishing move.

The comes with a campaign mode, an unlockable "hard mode", and survival modes alongside some light RPG elements with increasing strength and moves. Reaching the maximum level will require more than one playthrough of the campaign mode. Here's the developer video:

OMG Pirates! is due to be submitted this weekend. We were big fans of Zombieville so are really looking forward to MikaMobile's following title.

App Store Link: Zombieville USA, $1.99

MiniSquadron [AppStore] brings to the platform a re-imagination of classic PC games such as Subspace Continuum and Soldat, but does so more in the fashion of the more recently released Altitude. Essentially, MiniSquadron is a 2D side-scrolling, physics-based aerial dog-fighting game. If you think that was a mouthful, MiniSquadron boasts 8 different levels, each with 12 increasingly challenging rounds and a whopping 56 different planes to unlock over the course of the game.

The game begins with you manning a simple, somewhat slow fixed wing aircraft, capable of firing only a single machine gun. Round to round you are presented with additional and varied enemy types to take down, each with their own attacking style, agility and armor. Through use of a virtual analog stick you control only the pitch of your plan, able to send it into loop-the-loops and other complex maneuvers as you wrestle for the most advantageous position in which to fire. You unleash your bullets by tapping on the right-hand side of the screen.

These straight-forward controls complement the frantic nature of the game; a fact that ramps up in no time as you find yourself facing an overwhelming number of enemy combatants, particularly in the latter rounds of each level. In order to master MiniSquadron, you have to become intimately familiar with your plane’s speed, turning circle and weapon of choice, as you’ll find yourself dodging a hail of fire from tens of other planes almost simultaneously while trying to whittle them down one-by-one. The combat really is MiniSquadron’s high water mark; an all-out romp that action fans should warm to  immediately.

MiniSquadron rewards your progress and feats with plane unlocks; each plane different to the next, with its own speed, armor and turning attributes. Additionally, planes that you unlock will possess one of several weapons, which start off as just additional guns, but later take the form of the cluster bomb for example, requiring a completely new approach to your aerial acrobatics to get the most out of. A range of in-game power-ups also bolster your arsenal, with quick burst omnipotent weaponry such as the Big Laser providing some of the more memorable experiences, in a throwback to the over-the-top Street Fighter super attacks.

The game is presented in its own charming, cartoony fashion, with smoke trails, weapons and plane damage effects looking particularly terrific. The variety (and eccentricity) of planes to unlock is impressive; with panda-faced planes to UFOs being awarded for completing certain requirements each level.

The 8 worlds to tackle are each accompanied by well-recognised classical compositions. Unfortunately, the current version does not support use of your own music; so if you do have something against classical music you’re out of luck until the developer pushes through an update- something that is being looked into according to posts on our discussion forum.

MiniSquadron also offers local WiFi play, which whilst a nice addition, seems a little out of place for a game that shines far more when heavily populated by combatants. If you can manage to get a few friends together though, there’s no doubt that there is a heap of competitive fun to be had here. MiniSquadron does seem far more suited to online play however, and its absence is notable seeing as how that was the hallmark of games on which it is based.

All in all however, MiniSquadron can be thoroughly recommended both to those who wish to take a trip down memory lane and to those who are new to the 2D dog-fighting genre. It is a well-rounded package that can be breezed through in a couple of hours, but offers you replayability as you unlock and learn to master the many different planes composing your sizable squadron. The game is also seeing overwhelmingly positive impressions in from our discussion forums.

AppStore Link: MiniSquadron, $2.99