The second installment of Gameloft's video podcast went live this morning, and much like the first episode revealed a bundle of in-game footage along with their plans for the future. Notable things in this podcast include:

• Driver side by side comparison between iPhone and PSone.
• A brief overview of the plot behind H.A.W.X.
• Avatar's producer Jon Jandau discussing the iPhone game.
• GT Racing Motor Academy's career mode and new Jaguar XKR.
• A look at NOVA's local and online four player multiplayer.
• A quick mention of the already-released Modern Combat: Sandstorm update.
• Guitar Rock Tour 2 DLC - 99¢ for 3 song packs.
• Real Soccer 2010's upcoming graphical update.
• Let's Golf now has Gameloft Live and Oregon Trail is getting Facebook Connect.
• NFL 2010 will be available worldwide.
• The unveiling of a new game, Bridge Odyssey which appears to be a physics-based bridge builder that looks similar to Tiki Towers.

Elite Systems has announced that they will be bringing the classic arcade game Paperboy to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Paperboy was an arcade game originally released in 1984 by Atari. Your job was to deliver newspapers to your customers while riding your bike.

We've got little information on the iPhone version aside from a couple of screenshots. It appears there will be a "classic" mode (above) and a 3D mode (below):

Elite is hoping to have the game live on the App Store by late next week.

Simon Watson recently released a unique and very nice puzzle game called Chromixa. Chromixa takes your basic jigsaw puzzle and adds the element of light mixing to create an interesting new game.

The game carries a simple but effective art style and you are presented with a series of puzzle pieces which must be properly combined. Aside from filling the goal shape, you must also overlap the pieces properly to also achieve the goal color. The game uses mixing properties of real light that should be familiar to some already. Red, Green, and Blue all combine to form White, for example.

Chromixa offers very easy to use touch controls. Dragging pieces allow you to naturally move them into place, while tapping on them allows you to use a circular guide to rotate them to the right angle. There is a nice snap-to-grid functionality so you aren't required to make pixel-perfect rotations.

The developer's gameplay video shows how the game is played:

The game comes with 48 puzzles across easy, medium and difficult categories. Easy is predictably easy, but I wasn't able to breeze through the medium levels. The developer also does a very nice job by adding a few mini-games to prolong playability. These mini-games offer similar color-based tasks to keep you busy when you aren't trying to navigate through the puzzles.

Overall a nice and original puzzle game that should appeal to fans of jigsaw or tangram-like games. The forum thread also has more positive feedback from early adopters of the game.

App Store Link: Chromixa, $1.99

It's been a long four months since we first got word that Namco would be bringing Pac-Man Championship Edition to the iPhone, but at long last, it has arrived.

Pac-Man Championship Edition was developed by the original Pac-Man designer Tōru Iwatani and released for the Xbox 360 through the Xbox Live Arcade in mid-2007, to rave reviews. Joystiq called it "the first true sequel to Pac-Man since Mrs. Pac-Man." The Xbox Live version features high-definition graphics, surround sound, and a wonderful future-retro feel that brings to mind Geometry Wars.

Unlike the original Pac-Man, all mazes and playmodes in Pac-Man C.E. are set against a timer. The goal is to score as many points as possible within the allotted time. But there's a balance to be struck in order to unlock consecutive levels and move through the game as the game speeds up the better you are doing. For example, I had a hard time moving past the Challenge level of the game because I was gobbling power-pellets and going too aggressively after ghosts early on. My score jumped so high so fast that the action became too fast to handle and I couldn't actually make it to zero on the clock -- and the only way to unlock the next maze is to successfully ride out the timer.

Each maze is basically divided into two halves, left and right. When you eat all the dots on one half, a bonus item (fruit) appears on the opposite side of the maze. Once eaten, the opposite (empty) side of the maze gets re-filled with dots, and so on. To drive the pace of the action, the arrangement of dots laid down upon eating a fruit, as the timer approaches zero, may change. In fact, the actual layout of the maze on a given side may change, as well.

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The holiday season is all about giving, and it would seem as if this freebie and slashed game price gravy train isn't coming to an end anytime soon. As usual, the standard game sale disclaimer is in place in that the prices in this listing is current as of this posting-- If you want any of these games, grab them quick before they return back to normal.

Pentanimals, FREE - Little White Bear Studios' latest puzzle game features 72 different puzzles with animal themed blocks that must be arranged to fill the game board. Don't let the cute art style fool you, as some of the later levels may have you hopelessly stumped.

Santa's Sack, FREE - A holiday themed game with tilt controls. Maneuver Santa (and his sack) under falling presents to catch as many as possible while avoiding snowballs. Miss ten presents and it's both curtains for Santa, and Christmas is ruined. I had intended on describing this game with as many double entendres as possible, but it's Christmas and this game is far too cute for my filthy innuendo.

Spheric, FREE - A marble shooting game with an interesting gravity gimmick. Tilt your device to move the spheres around and hit the launch button to fire additional spheres on to the game board. Online scores are tracked by AGON, which was added in a recent update.

Earth vs Moon, 99¢ (Originally $1.99) - A fantastic Missile Command-like game, Earth vs Moon takes classic gameplay, a great art style, and adds a hefty helping of Armageddon humor in to the mix. There's also a free lite version to try and we reviewed the game when it was first released.

Hi, How Are You, 99¢ (Originally $1.99) - If you pick up only one game from this entire roundup, let it be Hi, How Are You. Recently updated with even more extras, tweaks, and bug fixes, this puzzle platformer's one fault is that it might be a little too out there for a lot of people. I loved the game in our review, which I recommend reading before buying this game just so you know what you're getting yourself in to.

Ancient Frog, $1.99 (Originally $4.99) - A completely original puzzle game where you move a frog from one side of the screen to the other in order to munch on a fly. You can only move one leg at a time, and making your way across the screen usually involves a lot of fancy footwork. We thought the game was great in our review. Recommended if you're looking for a relaxing puzzle game, or you just like frogs (or alternatively just hate flies).

What started as a children's book phenomenon in the late 80's and early 90's has since been transformed in to a few different video games, and most recently, an iPhone game. (Not to mention a short-lived TV series and a future movie.) Where's Waldo? [App Store] brings 12 different settings to find Waldo (also known as Wally in some corners of the world) and his friends along with countless other items.

If you've somehow managed to avoid the last 20 years of Waldo-mania, the books consisted of large pages filled with clutter all fitting in to a particular theme. The early books only had Waldo himself to find, but other characters slowly filtered their way in to the books as time went on. Aside from finding Waldo, each book also came with a list of other objects to find in each setting, which could keep kids (and adults!) busy for hours on end-- Especially if you're a Where's Waldo? completionist.

The Where's Waldo? game plays exactly as you would expect. You can scroll around the page using your finger, and tap on objects when you locate them. Each of the 12 worlds comes loaded with Waldo, his friends, the scroll, and tons of other things to find. Each time you load a level, you're given a new random set of objects along the bottom bar to find on the page above, providing tons of replay value until you manage to memorize where everything is.

For fans of the book series, Where's Waldo? is a must-buy. The familiar settings included in the game are an excellent blast from the past, and the few random objectives seem to generally only take a minute or two to find-- Making for a great game to play for a few moments at a time. If you're not particularly tied to the Waldo series, there are better hidden object games with more variety on the App Store, although few posses as much charm as Where's Waldo?.

App Store Link: Where's Waldo?, $1.99

Yet another one of the Gameloft games we previewed in Paris was released this afternoon, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X [App Store] is an air combat game that takes place in the somewhat expansive Ghost Recon game universe. Featuring complete voice-overs, 13 missions, 26 planes, and local multiplayer, H.A.W.X. can easily fly with the existing competition on the platform.

Much like Driver, so far the version of H.A.W.X. available on the App Store seems identical to what Gameloft showed us a few weeks ago.

From our preview:

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.

I suppose comparisons between H.A.W.X. and Namco's recently released Ace Combat Xi (which we already reviewed) are somewhat inevitable, especially with how close to each other the games were released. Here is my take on the games so far:

Both are highly competent aerial combat arcade-style games, and each of them come from popular game series-- Although Ace Combat likely has more fans than the Tom Clancy game universe. Actually flying your jet in each game feels great, but H.A.W.X. does fall behind in the HUD department. In Ace Combat, your screen is loaded with various widgets and instruments that at least in opinion really add to the atmosphere of the whole experience. Your screen in H.A.W.X. is fairly barren, and there isn't even an artificial horizon.

Where H.A.W.X. flips on the afterburners and pulls ahead of Ace Combat is in the included content department. The initial load-out in H.A.W.X. includes twice as many missions and planes, which are all unlocked by playing the game instead of via 99¢ microtransactions (as in Ace Combat). Also, H.A.W.X. has four player local deathmatch and team deathmatch multiplayer.

H.A.W.X. seems to be winning the immediate battle, but there's something in both games for fans of the genre to enjoy. With so few competent dog fighting games on the App Store, both H.A.W.X. and Ace Combat Xi are worth considering.

App Store Link: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., $6.99

Secret Exit has discounted two of their games as a celebration for both titles being featured by Apple.

Zen Bound is their premiere gaming title that was released in February. It has also been listed amongst Apple's Best Games of 2009. The game is a calm and meditative puzzle game about wrapping wooden sculptures with rope. It's definitely a differnt sort of experience but one that we loved. A lite version of the game [App Store] remains available to try, but the full version has dropped to $1.99.

Stair Dismount was their followup title that we described bordering on toy more than a full game in its current form, but done in their usual polished style. Stair Dismount has been discounted to $0.99 temporarily, and a submitted update brings global high scores as well as new levels.

  
New levels in the 1.2 update of Stair Dismount

App Store Link: Zen Bound, $1.99, Stair Dismount, $0.99

Raptisoft's Hoggy game is a great puzzle platformer that has stayed under the radar in the weeks since its release.

In the game, you control the title character Hoggy a strange blob-like creature whose girlfriend has been captured by the Moon Men. Your job is to collect the keys across 45 levels to unlock the doors to her release.

Each level requires you to collect all the fruit while avoiding baddies, bombs and other obstacles in your way. Hoggy is controlled well using tilt for movement and a single tap on the screen reverses gravity. Hoggy will flip from the bottom to the top of screen and vice versa with the tap of your finger. This maneuver becomes quite natural and is essential to your success.

The game's levels are varied with plenty of different enemies, obstacles and triggers along the way that keeps the game fresh. This video shows a couple of different levels you'll come across:

Hoggy offers great level designs, intuitive controls, and variety of enemies in a nicely polished package. A lite version offers 14 levels for you to get a feel for the game. Overall, Hoggy comes highly recommended.

App Store Link: Hoggy, $1.99, Hoggy Lite, Free

AppventCalendar's latest freebie is the action platformer Wheeler's Treasure. We're big fans of this game which made an appearance in our Best iPhone Games of November 2009 roundup and garnered a 4 star rating.

Wheeler's Treasure has a feel of part mini-game and part platformer and is one of the most original games we've seen. The goal of the game is to see how many yards you can accompany a wheel through a sidescrolling environment filled with all kinds of obstacles. You can use the wheel to shield yourself from enemies, avoid hazards, swing, jump, and more. Your character is moved using simple swiping gestures, and buttons in the bottom corner of the screen control the use of your items.

See our full review for details, or just go ahead and download it.

We felt the game had a longer learning curve then most pick-up-and-play games but we do recommend you stick with it, as the gameplay skills and strategies will soon become apparent.

App Store Link: Wheeler's Treasure, Free (Today only)

Streaming Colour's latest game, Monkeys in Space: Escape to Banana Base Alpha [App Store] is the end result of developer Owen Goss's series of nine video blogs that covered everything from early prototyping to the game's release-- And are totally worth watching if you're an aspiring iPhone developer or are just interested in a look behind the scenes of indie game development.

Your task in Monkeys in Space is to direct colored monkeys to a space station of the matching color. To accomplish this goal, you draw on the screen to create what looks like a tractor beam to pull the monkeys to safety. For additional points, monkeys of the same color can be chained together using similar drawing gestures before finally sending them off to their respective space station. The game is over when two monkeys that aren't part of the same chain collide.

3 maps are included, which are slowly unlocked as you rescue enough monkeys and the game saves exactly where you were when you quit or are interrupted-- A feature which should be far more common than it actually is. If like many of our forum members you have an unnatural obsession with OpenFeint-enabled games, you will be happy to know that Monkeys in Space features both online leaderboards and a set of achievements to pad your OpenFeint score.

Monkeys in Space has gained a considerable fan following on our forums, and while the contest is over now, Owen even had people creating fan art for the game:

There's no doubt that the chaos management genre is quickly becoming just as packed as the match 3 section of the app store, but the gameplay in Monkeys in Space manages to be different enough from the Harbor Master and Flight Control standards that it feels fresh. As you progress in the game and get more comfortable with the chaining mechanics it seems like you get even more brazen with how many monkeys you will chain at once-- Usually resulting in a rogue monkey crashing into your massive 8 monkey chain you're working on.

If you're crazy about these kind of games, Monkeys in Space is a worthy addition to your collection. If you've enjoyed docking boats, landing planes, steering Santa's sleigh, commanding soldiers around, and all the other things you do in these games... Why not help some monkeys get back to their space station?

App Store Link: Monkeys in Space: Escape to Banana Base Alpha, 99¢

Apple has compiled a list of what they consider the best iPhone games of 2009. The list is part of their iTunes Rewind 2009 where they are highlighting the best content across 2009 in music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, podcasts, and apps.

Apps are broken down into games and more traditional applications. Anyone who follows TouchArcade regularly should be familiar with most of the games on this list. While we've only recently given out star ratings, our currently rated 5 star games are well represented in the list.

The game names are linked to iTunes alongside links to our own reviews of the games.

• Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor - Review
• Real Racing - Review
• Zenonia - Review
• Ravensword - Review
• Earth vs. Moon - Review
• Sally's Spa - Article
• Ragdoll Blaster - Review
• Canabalt - Review
• Blades of Fury - Review
• Doom Classic - Review
• Sway - Review
• geoDefense - Article
• Flight Control - Review
• Alive 4 Ever - Review
• Fantastic Contraption - Article
• Samurai: Way of the Warrior - Review
• Backbreaker Football - Review
• Meteor Blitz - Review
• Rolando 2 - Review
• Star Hogs - Review
• Paper Toss - Article
• Boost 3D - Review
• Doodle Jump - Review
• Zen Bound - Review
• Stick Wars - Thread
• Eliminate Pro - Review
• Tap Tap Revenge 3 - Review
• Call of Duty: Zombies - Review
• iBomber - Review
• Jet Car Stunts - Review

Congratulations to the developers who made the list. We'll be compiling our own "best of" list for 2009 in the coming weeks.

Namco is finally delivering Pac Man: Championship Edition to the iPhone this Thursday, December 10th. Pac Man C.E. was a new Pac Man game that was created by Tōru Iwatani, the original creator of Pac Man. The game had been exclusive to the Xbox Live Arcade until recently, and will finally grace the App Store.

Pac Man C.E. carries forward the same basic concept and gameplay of the original but spices up the play enormously, making it an action-packed race against the clock:

The game is bound by a time limit in which the player must score as many points as possible, and the game ends when this time limit is reached or the player runs out of lives. The game speeds up as the player scores more points, and slows down slightly when the player loses a life.
....
Each maze is divided into two halves. Eating all the dots in one half of the maze causes a bonus fruit to appear on the other side, and eating the fruit causes a new maze to appear in the original half. In most cases, the maze patterns vary significantly throughout the game and some change over time.

We've managed to spend a little time with the game already and already think it plays great. The make or break feature on the iPhone is, of course, the control scheme. Namco seems to have put a lot of thought into the controls for such a fast action game and offer 4 different types:

• Dual d-pads
• Thumb Swipe
• Pointer Swipe
• Directional buttons

Each control scheme seems to make sense in its own way. The presence of a dual d-pad, for example, allows you to perform quick turns as the accuracy of tapping one pad and then another is far less an issue when using two thumbs.

I stuck with the thumb swipe action which worked quite well for the most part.

This video shows the thumb swipe as well as a bit of the Directional buttons towards the end:

The basic game comes with 20 Mission levels and 5 Championship Mode levels. Namco will be offering an expansion pack which includes an additional 100 Mission Levels, 10 Championship levels, and 15 Challenge Mode courses. Unfortunately, there is no online component to the scoring.

What we can't yet comment on is the value of the included game levels and value of the expansion pack, but the core gameplay itself seems great. Namco does seem to be holding back the bulk of the content for an in-app purchase, so the relative pricing of these elements will be key. We'll have a full review when the game arrives on Thursday.

With the slightly bad taste of The Chronicles of Inotia still fresh in the minds of some gamers, the announcement of Inotia 2: A Wanderer of Luone [App Store] was met with some understandable concerns. The first game in the franchise was plagued with a terrible menu/inventory system, boring battles, and extremely limited RPG elements, so is Inotia 2 (pronounced "In-oh-tee-ya," for those curious) even worth taking a glance at? After spending some considerable time in the world of this sequel, I can confidently say that it's a completely different game than its predecessor in all of the best ways.

Inotia 2 isn't really bringing anything new to the table, even in terms of the app store. Games like Dungeon Hunter and (more similarly) Zenonia have already pioneered the action-RPG genre on the platform, but Inotia 2 makes up for that by being more polished, more accessible, and arguably deeper than any that came before it.

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In what will likely be the first of many Gameloft games released this month, Driver [App Store] appeared out of nowhere this evening. Originally previewed at the Gameloft press event in Paris a few weeks ago, Driver is a nearly complete port of the 1999 PC and Playstation game with only very minor omissions. (Notably the original's extensive instant replay editing system.) The graphics have been revamped, the interface has been completely re-worked to be finger-friendly, but otherwise the game is the same as the original.

In Driver, you play as an underground NYPD detective who was chosen by the force for his impressive driving skills to infiltrate the filthy underbelly of four in-game cities. You will be tasked with a series of missions that will have you racing around the city, evading the police, and generally doing most of the things you do in Grand Theft Auto games without the ability to ever get out of your car.

The final version of the game available on the App Store seems absolutely identical to what we saw in Paris. If you've grown tired of the snack-sized game experiences that seem so widespread on the App Store (Not that that's a bad thing, those are some of my favorite games.) then Driver is just what the doctor ordered.

Driver is a complete game with four massive real-world cities to drive through, and multiple endings. The original game was very well received, and aside from improvements to the graphics and tweaks to the interface, the iPhone port seems even better than the game I remember spending so much time with in the late 90's.

I have to commend Gameloft for the great job they've done with this game, and I think I speak for iPhone gamers everywhere when I say I hope Gameloft continues to port more of these classic video games. If you like objective-based driving games, running from the cops, and getting air-- Look no further than Driver.

App Store Link: Driver, $6.99