Tag Games, creators of Car Jack Streets [App Store], recently sent us an early copy of their upcoming rhythm game B-Boy Beats. This oddly amusing game has you break dancing with your fingers to 17 songs from popular nerdcore hip hop artists MC Frontalot, Optimus Rhyme, and others.

When trying out this game I went through three distinct phases-- First off, I couldn't help but raise my eyebrow at another rhythm game, especially with how many there are on the App Store and how wildly the quality of these games vary. As I loaded up B-Boy Beats and went through the extremely simple tutorial, things weren't looking good. It wasn't until I was about half way through the first song the game has you play that I finally got it, and then couldn't stop smiling as my fingers were breakdancing up a storm.

The gameplay of B-Boy Beats amounts to keeping your index and middle fingers on the screen of your iPhone and moving them in time with the red and green circles to dance to the songs. This actually seems to take quite a bit of getting used to, as instead of most rhythm games where you're just tapping things along with a beat, you often need to keep one finger down while you move the other one around. Doing well takes an awful lot of brain power as when the songs speed up you almost instinctively just try to go back to quickly tapping like you do in Tap Tap Revenge and other games.

The following gameplay video shows me doing poorly in one of the early stages:

Once you get in to it, dancing with your fingers turned out to be way more fun than I was expecting it to be. I admit I had to look up what a "B-Boy" was on Urban Dictionary, so while I know almost nothing about breakdancing, I'm still really looking forward to this game's release on the 14th for $2.99.

It seems like the App Store is absolutely loaded with dual-stick shooters lately, similar to last year where it seemed like a new tower defense game was being released every other day. Even though the genre is getting more and more crowded, developers are still finding ways to stick out from the pack. Arodius [App Store] accomplishes this with extremely smooth sprite-based graphics and enough power-ups to choke a horse.

Arodius works like every other dual-stick shooter out there, except instead of taking the survival route the game is split in to individual levels where you have to clear a set number of waves usually ending in some kind of huge boss monster. As you kill the waves of enemies, they randomly drop power-ups which work exactly like a good vertical shooter with each power-up incrementally increasing your offensive power.

As you upgrade your weapons, you eventually get to the point that you're just spewing lasers and bullets across the entire screen. There's also a shield power up that allows you to withstand one hit and as you kill enemies a gauge on the bottom of the screen slowly fills up allowing you to unleash a huge area effect attack that takes out tons of nearby baddies.

All this madness can be seen in the following trailer:

Arodius has had an overwhelmingly positive response in our forums and I've had a good time mowing down legions of enemies with my souped up weaponry. If you're a dual-stick shooter fanatic, this is one you won't want to miss.

App Store Link: Arodius, 99¢

Well that was fast. X2 Snowboarding [App Store] just showed up for download mere moments ago, and only a couple hours after our hands-on preview.

We'll have an in-depth review soon, but currently this is the snowboarding game for future games in the genre to beat. X2 Snowboarding has great tilt controls, awesome cell shaded graphics, a single player game mode with unlockables, a licensed soundtrack, and even local multiplayer via Bluetooth and WiFi.

I was extremely impressed with the game in our preview, and look forward to it soaking up a good deal of my spare time in the future. In case you missed it the first time around, here is a brief gameplay video again:

App Store Link: X2 Snowboarding, $6.99

Origin8 already has a library of good games on the App Store, including both Sentinel and Sentinel 2, two of my favorite tower defense games. They're heading in a new direction with their latest title, Robot Rampage, a seemingly endless survival game where you play as a gigantic robot armed with a super laser.

Your massive robot is controlled with a variety of touch gestures. Tapping on the side of the screen causes the robot to move in that direction, holding a finger down on the screen fires the laster in that direction. The robot can also punch and stomp by tapping on either side of the robot's torso to punch, and tapping its legs to stomp. As you destroy your surroundings, a gauge in the top left corner fills up. Once full, you can tap and hold the robot to charge up a massive attack that clears the screen.

The following trailer released by Origin8 goes over the controls and other features:

Gameplay is fairly simple, and involves little more than destroying everything in your path and continually moving right. The difficulty ramps up nicely as the forces of Earth increasingly their efforts to stop you by deploying more soldiers, tanks and other defenses. Every ten blocks you clear restores your health, and when you finally die your score is submitted to OpenFeint.

Robot Rampage is set to launch for $1.99 as soon as its approved by Apple. The graphics are just as high quality as the rest of the Origin8 games and the whole thing is dripping in awesome cheesy B-movie Sci-Fi charm. Keep an eye out for Robot Rampage in the not too distant future if you're a fan of giant robot destruction.

I've been a fan of extreme sports games since Skate or Die on my NES, and while there have been a number of really great skateboarding games on the App Store, the available snowboarding titles have left something to be desired. X2 Snowboarding is the first snowboarding game I've played on my iPhone that does a great job of combining all the vital components of a good extreme sports game.

Most immediately noticeable in X2 Snowboarding is the cool cell shaded graphics that encapsulate the entire game. All of the different snowboarders you can choose from look really cool, and both the snow and weather effects are well done. When you're doing good in game, multi-colored snowflakes explode from your character and when you wipe out you often kick up a huge puff of snow. Even with all this visual flair, X2 Snowboarding runs at a really high framerate on my iPhone 3GS, although because of the limitations of preview builds I wasn't able to test performance on previous-generation devices.

The game is controlled with a mixture of tilting to steer and using a number of different on-screen buttons. When you're airborne, or on a rail the buttons disappear and a trick interface shows up as an on-screen snowboard with different tricks you can perform depending where you touch. For instance, nose or tail grabs are executed by jumping off a ramp then touching the top or the bottom of the snowboard.

Doing tricks fills up your "joost meter" at the bottom of the screen, and using this stored up joost you can go in to a slow motion adrenaline mode for a brief period of time, rewind back before a wipe out, or even boost to fly off ramps. The system works really well, and any mistakes you make are easily undone thanks to the rewind function.

X2 Snowboarding is a really in-depth game with many different mountains with different courses, hidden coins to find on each course, and snowboards you can buy with those coins. Each of the riders have different statistics, there's a replay system, and much like other extreme sports games you can string together massive combos for huge point totals. X2 Snowboarding has already been submitted to Apple and is expected to be released very soon. We'll take an in-depth look at the game as soon as its available.

Halfbrick Studios has been quietly releasing underrated games since its establishment in 2001. With games on Xbox Live Indie Games, PSP Minis, WiiWare, and the DS (among many others), Halfbrick knows their way around quite a few different systems. Now, Halfbrick's own Phil Larsen has confirmed with us that the Australian-based studio is ready to officially announce the first of "a whole heap" of iPhone games: Blast Off.

Blast Off is an arcade-style puzzle game in which the goal is to rescue stranded astronauts and carry them through a warpgate to safety. Gravity from nearby planets will affect your rocket's flight path, and the trick to figuring out the best solutions to these puzzles is using this to your advantage.

Here's a trailer for the game:

Blast Off got plenty of favorable coverage when it was released for the PSP minis service, with IGN calling it "the best PSP mini yet." New features aplenty will be added for the iPhone version, including global leaderboards and a brand new "Endless Mode."

We think that Halfbrick has a lot of promise as a studio, especially if one takes a look at their past releases and future games. If you own a PSP, check out this trailer for one of their PSP Minis releases, an excellent little game called Rocket Racing:

While Rocket Racing hasn't been confirmed as one of the "heap" of games being created for the iPhone by the developer, it serves as a good example of their talent as a studio and their knack for creating high quality, smaller games.

Gizmodo found an awesome video of someone in Korea playing the recently released Taiko no Tatsujin [App Store, Japan Only], a drum game which hasn't made its way to the US or European App Stores yet. Taiko Drum Master, as its known around these parts is played with a set of thick drum sticks and a matching drum pad that plugs in to whatever console you're playing the game on.

Naturally, the iPhone port utilizes your fingers on the touch screen, but obviously fails to provide the feel of actually using the drum sticks. Since the iPhone uses a capacitive touchscreen, you can't just use any old drum stick to beat on the screen as you need something electrically conductive. (Which is why your finger works, but a typical stylus doesn't.) Thankfully, it would seem cased meat products are the perfect replacement for Taiko drum sticks:

I had joked with friends who were complaining about the lack of a stylus with the iPad that they could just use a hot dog. At no point did I really think someone would actually decide to use cased meat to beat on the screen of their iPhone. Perhaps the hot dog stylus will be more popular than I originally thought.

Last week we got a sneak peek at Indeeo Games' recently released line drawing game, AirStrike Defense [App Store]. Featuring three modes that the game hops between with each mission, AirStrike Defense asks players to control ships and/or planes in a variety of different combat scenarios.

Regardless of which unit type you're controlling, both naval and air forces are maneuvered by drawing lines originating from the ship or plane. Both are capable of boosting their speed for a brief period of time, and handle much differently depending on the unit. For instance, massive battle ships move and turn extremely slow, while smaller ships move much faster, and your jets move even faster.

Gameplay is structured through a series of mission, each with slightly different objectives. Some naval missions ask you to navigate a fleet of battleships through an ocean full of mines, or avoid bombers trying to sink your ships. Air missions involve bombing enemy ships, and there's a combination mode where you're managing your air offensive while protecting your naval fleet.

The sea missions are fun, but I found the various bombing missions to be the most enjoyable by far. As you progress through the game, you'll need to take out entire fleets of enemy battle ships with your bombers and your performance is graded by your overall bombing accuracy. Achieving a high accuracy score is easier said than done, as it takes quite a bit of skill to precisely drop bombs on enemy fleets filled with a variety of ship types that all behave differently.

Where things went south for me was when AirStrike Defense has you managing both bombers and ships at the same time. Instead of having everything take place on a single screen, you hit a button in the top left corner that switches in between the screen with your air forces bombing the enemy fleet and the screen with your fleet avoiding the enemy bombers. It's confusing and disorienting constantly switching back and forth between both battles to manage all your units at once.

While I wasn't crazy about the combination missions, AirStrike Defense does a great job at mixing up the objectives enough to keep gameplay fresh. The line drawing controls work great, and there is a ton to work towards in the game as you slowly get access to different types of ships and planes. AirStrike Defense is definitely worth a look if you've enjoyed line drawing games in the past, and want something a little more involved than Flight Control and similar spinoffs.

App Store Link: AirStrike Defense, $2.99

Late last month IUGO announced their new dual stick shooter, Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet [App Store] which appeared for download not long ago. In the game you play as Daisy Mae, valiant heroine of a desert trailer park, who defends Earth from a never-ending swarm of aliens with nothing other than her good looks and guns... lots of guns.

The atmosphere of the game is straight out of a classic B-movie, with everything from the numerous ridiculous weapons, to the silly looking aliens, and Daisy Mae's clothing which gets more and more skimpy as you unlock additional outfits. There whole game is even wrapped in a film grain filter that I think looks really cool but is easily disabled in the options if you don't like it.

Gameplay is standard for a dual stick survival shooter. You have three lives, and can restore lost lives by picking up lipstick power-ups. As you kill more and more aliens, a meter fills in the bottom of the screen that you can tap to taunt nearby aliens, which apparently makes them drop dead. There are a bunch of different aliens to kill, and even some giant aliens which take up a huge chunk of the screen.

My favorite thing about Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet is that it seems to be one of the few dual stick shooters that actually has collision detection with obstacles in the game world. You can use the old cars, signs, and random garbage strewn about to your advantage, and it really adds a lot more to the game compared to other dual stick shooters where you can usually just run in circles killing everything that's chasing you.

Daisy Mae is certainly one of the more newbie-friendly shooters out there, thanks to the three control options it includes. Aside from the standard dual sticks you can just use one virtual joystick and a button to fire, or simply just use the virtual joystick and let the game handle firing for you. With this third control option the game basically plays itself, and you really don't even have to move until the meaner aliens start spawning.

Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet is a fun survival shooter with tons of weapons and a cool atmosphere to it. An in-depth stat tracking system keeps track of kills with each of the weapons, total play time, and numerous other stats. Scores are even seamlessly submitted online without needing to register, but like other IUGO games you can optionally participate in the IUGO VIP system. The taunts and unlockable outfits are equally ridiculous, but the addition of terrain collision detection easily makes Daisy Mae worth trying, even if your device is already loaded with other shooters.

App Store Link: Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet, $1.99

Retro gaming fans can add another item to their "things in life to be excited for" list, as we just got word that Manomio, who brought us the C64 for iPhone [App Store] emulator, is currently working on bringing an Amiga emulator to the App Store.

Retro Gamer magazine recently talked with the developer and Manomio CTO Stuart Carnie, who indicates that games will likely be distributed as individual, packaged apps to keep the Amiga operating system hidden, allowing the player to focus only on the games themselves. There's not much information right now as to just which Amiga games we'll be seeing on the iPhone, but Retro Gamer indicates that, among the games on the way, is Archer MacLean's classic fighter International Karate +.

"We've ported an Amiga system and have secured some great games," says Stuart. "It runs at full speed on a 3GS and similar hardware and at a respectable frame rate for the 3G devices. IK+ plays very well."

For readers unfamiliar with the Amiga, it is a 16-bit computer released by Commodore in 1985. A far more complex system than the C64, the Amiga featured a powerful central processor, various custom co-processors, and a multitasking operating system that enabled audiovisual feats previously unseen in a consumer system at that point in time. While it did not see enormous popularity in the United States, it was wildly popular in Europe and is considered by many to be one of the very best game platforms ever created. (And it's a platform I happen to hold quite close to my own heart.)

The Amiga was so capable a game machine back in 1985 that even today's gamers without any particular retro inclination should enjoy the vast majority of titles with which Manomio is about to gift us.

Have a look at this nice sampling of 100 Amiga games in 10 minutes.

UPDATE: We sought further details of the upcoming Amiga emulator from Manomio upon hearing the initial report. Carnie kindly got back to us and, while not ready to discuss further IP at the moment, provided us with a few details about the emulation core they're using.

In order to get the speed we needed, I spent about 6 weeks and wrote a 68000 CPU core in about 60+% ARM assembly. Surprisingly, certain games (IK+) run respectively on a 3G device, which means it should do well on a 2nd gen touch device too, given the 25% faster clock speed. The 3GS has a far superior memory architecture to the older devices - it can really push bytes around and fast...

He indicates that they've been testing a number of scrollers, including Xenon II, Turrican, Ghosts 'n Goblins and R-Type (not that these are necessarily among the IP they have secured for release in the App Store), all of which "are just perfectly smooth."

You can be sure we will bring additional information on Manomio's latest as we receive it. I can't wait to see what's in store for iPhone gamers from the world of Amiga gaming.

Indie developer Knife Media recently let us in on a project they've had in the works for quite some time now. Originally developed for the PC, Choma was a finalist in to the 2009 Unity Awards amongst tons of other entries. Choma is a platforming game with a diverse art style that varies greatly between levels, in the game you play as Choma who according to Knife Media "a small bouncing fruit with a big part to play".

Check out the following early gameplay trailer:

Knife Media boasts Choma will be the one of the first "true AAA titles" exclusive to the iPad, and they're shooting for a release window of mid to late 2010. Judging by the gameplay trailer alone, Choma seems quite similar to Rolando. Ngmoco has not said anything publicly on the fate of the Rolando series, or whether or not there is a Rolando 3 in the works, so if Knife Media plays their cards right it's entirely possible that Choma could be the Rolando of the iPad.

Kotaku got the scoop this afternoon on a surprising development in the Pocket God [App Store] universe: A comic book series is coming.

The Pocket God comic is a collaboration between Bolt Creative and indie comic company Ape Entertainment and will initially be released as a digital four issue mini-series with print issues and a trade paperback coming later. Both companies are excited at the prospect of the comic book, as Bolt Creative is bringing an army of over 2 million fans to the table, while Ape Entertainment and publisher iVerse Media could potentially expose tons more people to the pygmies of Pocket God that may not be iPhone gamers.

Pocket God has been an amazing success since its release nearly a year ago. Initially, there was so little to do in Pocket God that we were reluctant to cover it, or even label it a "game". 30 episodes later and the amount of interaction players now have with the pygmies is amazing, with multiple islands, environmental objects to interact with, mini games and even an in-game store that offers customization such as theme packs and even additional pygmy dances.

All that's left now is to see how they work the "You KNOW You Like Pocket God" catch phrase in to the comic books, and what kind of story they can spin in a comic based on a game with no plot to speak of. For more information, check out the interview with developer Dave Castelnuovo of Bolt Creative and David Hedgecock of Ape Entertainment on Comic Book Resources.

We just got word that Gameprom's set of three pinball games for the iPhone are coming to the Mac in one application that is going to serve as the hub for all of their desktop-sized pinball ports. The Pinball will allow you to play full screen high resolution versions of Wild West Pinball, The Deep Pinball and Jungle Style Pinball and bring several new features to the table such as greatly improved graphics, as well as a stereoscopic 3D mode that will require red/blue 3D glasses to play.

Available along side the launch of The Pinball is the companion iPhone app Pinball Remote which will allow players to utilize their iPhone as a wireless controller while playing The Pinball. You will also be able to use Pinball Remote to browse scores online, as well as purchase other pinball tables to play. Gameprom mentions Wild West Pinball available for free for users who download Pinball Remote, but has yet to reveal pricing details on both The Pinball Mac game or additional tables for Pinball Remote.

Here is a video of Pinball Remote and The Pinball in action:

Gameprom is hoping to launch The Pinball and Pinball Remote on March 1st, and being a Mac user who obviously owns an iPhone, I'm anxious to try these games full screen on my iMac.

In 1941, Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges published the first book featuring decisions the reader could make to change the way the story ended through two different branching points that asked readers to flip to a particular page depending on which option they choose. Several other early game books were released over the years, but it wasn't until the late-70's that the genre exploded with several different series of varying complexity-- The most popular of which was undoubtedly Choose Your Own Adventure with over 200 titles that were almost always checked out of my local library.

Fighting Fantasy

Fighting Fantasy is a similar series that was released around the same time that distinguished itself from the rest of the game books by implementing a single player dice rolling system to determine the outcome of fights and other situations (like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons).

The first entry in the Fighting Fantasy family of books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone hit the App Store recently and is a phenomenal fit for the iPhone. Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain [$2.99] sends players on a treasure hunting quest to locate the treasure of a powerful warlock, who as you may have guessed, stashed it deep inside of Firetop Mountain.

Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

Throughout the journey players collect keys, fight orcs and dragons, and finally face the warlock himself. Getting to the end is easier said than done, and much like the game books of my childhood, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is filled with sudden death and countless ways to make mistakes, even if you're rolling your dice well.

Gamebook Adventures

Even though Fighting Fantasy books have nearly a 30 year lead on the recently released Gamebook Adventures, the team at Tin Man Games have put together an equally remarkable and entirely original virtual game book for the iPhone. Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes [$4.99] is the first in of an up and coming game book series by author S.P. Osborne. Much like the Fighting Fantasy books, throughout the adventure you will need to use dice to determine which fork in the story you take by winning battles and succeeding in various challenges.

Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes

The premise of An Assassin in Orlandes involves an assassin who is on a killing spree eliminating the nobles of the city of Orlandes as a part of a massive conspiracy that is slowly revealed, assuming you make the right choices along the way. Gamebook Adventures features much better illustrations and dice animations, which honestly make very little difference in the overall experience since most of your time is actually spent reading.

Tin Man Games also released the following trailer:

Both titles play comparably and are both worth consideration, so if you're looking to try just one, simply pick the plot that most appeals to you. I'll be looking forward to new entires on the App Store from both series of books, and have my fingers crossed on both hands that we'll see iPad-optimized versions as both game books are practically begging for a bigger screen to be displayed on.

App Store Links:

• Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, $2.99
• Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes, $4.99

Macworld Expo 2010 kicks off this week and TouchArcade will be in attendance. If you are a developer and want to meet up to show us your games, feel free to contact us at tips@toucharcade.com.

We will also be attending GDC 2010 from March 9-13, 2010 also in San Francisco, CA and PAX East 2010 from March 26th-28th in Boston, MA. Feel free to start contacting us (email) to meet at those events as well. We welcome all developers to reach out and get in touch. If you have nothing specific to show, we'll also be around at the various organized social events and can be contacted via Twitter (@arnoldkim at Macworld, @arnoldkim / @hodapp / @blakespot at GDC, and @hodapp at Pax East).

Meanwhile, IUGO is again organizing a party for GDC, so at a minimum we'll see you there.