From the same team at ngmoco that brought us the groundbreaking Eliminate Pro, comes their next next first-person shooter. The currently untitled game is set in a present day environment and the action is more heavily grounded in realism than that of its futuristic predecessor. No graphics or artwork has been released yet (embedded image is promotional art for the original Eliminate).

Maps will run the usual gamut of jungle, desert, snow, or city, and it will feature 6 player deathmatch or team deathmatch over 3G and WiFi. Rather than focusing on the player unlocking and choosing different weapons for one character to use in the game, the new game will feature a robust lineup of different weapon class specialists. The 'energized suit' mechanic is also giving way to an interesting – although unproven – system where you queue up what type of mission you want to play, and earn credit based on the level of that mission. It's an intriguing idea, and a welcome change from the energy system in Eliminate, but it remains to be seen how this design choice will fare once unleashed on the masses. One thing I can say for certain, however, is that during my time playing the game, the only thing on my mind was the superb FPS gameplay I was experiencing.

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Towards the end of last year, developer ngmoco released TouchPets: Dogs onto the App Store. Despite some odd game design choices (mainly needing to constantly feed your dog to be able to even play with it), it was an engaging game and easily the best virtual pet app available in terms of graphics and depth. But one question that everybody always brought up was “what about cats?” Fear not, feline supporters, as TouchPets: Cats is on it's way. We were given a preview demonstration at a recent ngmoco media event, and our impressions were positive.

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We City – In a similar vein of ngmoco's previously released We Rule, We City takes things into a modern metropolis setting. You'll build up your own city placing streets, sidewalks, grass, buildings, cars and citizens anywhere you like on the blank land canvas. While the look of the game may invoke thoughts of SimCity, the focus on We City is more on industrial production and interacting with friends, rather than trying to manage the ins and outs of a functioning city. For example, you may build a bicycle factory in your city. Over time, you'll start producing the bicycles and end up with a nice supply. Your friend can then visit your city from their game and place an order for some bicycles from your factory. The end result is your buddy gets some bikes, you get some cash, and you both get some experience for the effort. There are a ton of different items to build in factories, like clothing, toys, and even video games.

You must keep a mindful eye on such things, however, as some items are perishable and will go bad if you don't check in on your city often enough. In our demo of the game, we witnessed a factory full of bicycles become rusty and useless due to neglect, forcing you to start over in the production process. In addition to factories, you can also build residences where the populace of your city can dwell. These will generate money for you, but like the factories, must be checked in on to reap all the benefits. Once a certain rent cap has been hit, the buildings won't generate any more money until that amount has been collected by simply touching a bubble above the building.

As you gain more experience and level up, new factories and items become available, as well as an increase in your land size. There's plenty of items that are merely décor, too, to add some life to your city. The game will be free to download and play, but if you don't want to wait around to bear the fruits of your factories, you can purchase in-game DLC, called ZAP, that will help speed up the process of doing things.

We Farm – Taking the same basic core concepts of We City and We Rule, We Farm let's you build the virtual farm of your dreams. You'll start off with a plot of land and place your initial farm building. Instead of focusing on the production of bikes and game systems, you will grow crops to sell and raise animals to enter into competitions. Once you've placed a baby animal on your farm, you must continuously love it by touching a heart icon above it's head. The more you love your animal, the higher chance it has of winning a blue ribbon in competition when it's finally matured enough to enter into one. If you send your animal off and it does win a blue ribbon, that animal then produces a commodity that will earn you some income. For example, and award winning sheep will net you some sweaters, and a cow some milk, etc.

Like We City, and most of ngmoco's games for that matter, We Farm encourages being social with your Plus+ friends. They can visit your farm and place orders for the products of your animals or the vegetables that you grow. You must also keep a watchful eye on everything here too, as your crops can go bad if you don't care for them. Animals won't perish if you forget to check in, but the chances of winning a ribbon at the Fair decreases the more you ignore them. Much like Zap in We City, you can purchase DLC to speed up the process of maturing plants and animals (called GRO here). If you don't wish to do this, both games are completely playable right from the get go – you'll just need added patience. As you earn experience and gold, many new items become available to add to your farm, as well as expanded land to build upon.

Both We City and We Farm looked especially nice on the iPad, and the added screen real estate really helps once you've built up a massive area. Like We Rule, both new games will be free to play, so easy enough to check out if these sort of games interest you. Both games are expected later this year.

Semi Secret Software's survival side-scroller Canabalt [$2.99] went universal this afternoon, and while (like most pixel art games) it looked great upscaled on the iPad, Canabalt is even more awesome running at the full 1024x768 resolution.

If this is the first you've heard of Canabalt, check out our review:

Canabalt for the iPhone is a port of the extremely popular flash game of the same name. Absolutely everything has been preserved in the transition, and Canabalt is a perfect for a mobile gaming device. It loads quickly, and the games (unless you're really good) rarely last any more than a couple minutes. ...Read More

Canabalt can be played for free online, and the paid iPhone game is nearly identical aside from the fact that you're clicking your mouse instead of tapping with your finger. I really can't recommend this game enough. We awarded it five stars in our October '09 Best iPhone Games Listing, and it's one of the few games that not only has stayed on my phone since it was released last year, but also a game I play nearly every day.

A word of warning before updating, Canabalt 1.4 does seem to wipe out your local scores when you install it. If you have any insanely high local runs you'd like to immortalize, screen shot them before installing. Also, some forum members have reported frame rate issues with the new update, but so far I've tried it on every device I have access to and don't notice it running any different than before.

I met with the guys from True Axis in the hall outside of the media lounge on the last day of E3. Having flown all the way from Australia, and dead tired from three days of non-stop video game insanity, they let us in on their plans for the future of Jet Car Stunts [$1.99 / Free], its sequel, and a tilt-controlled sidescrolling shooter, Space Tripper.

Space Tripper is a port of the PC/Mac game with the same title by PomPom Games. True Axis have taken this game filled with bullets, enemies, lasers, bosses, and all forms of other mayhem and turned it in to what they're calling "the most optimized iPhone game of all time." It's immediately evident that they've put tons of work in to this game, as much like Jet Car Stunts, the framerate of the game is incredibly fluid, even with tons of things going on.

Controlled with the accelerometer, you tilt to move your ship and touching one side of the screen turns your ship around while the other changes weapons. Like any good shooter, there are times when your ship is absolutely surrounded by enemies and bullets, and as you can see in the following video, the bosses even fill up half the screen just like they're supposed to in a game like this.

While Space Tripper looked really awesome, True Axis is hard at work both in increasing the content available in Jet Car Stunts as well as putting together its sequel, Jet Car Stunts 2. Currently the sequel is little more than some concept images of the many cars they plan to have in the game. Everything from a monster truck looking vehicle with huge tires to a sports car with wings like a fighter jet will be included, and True Axis is hoping to make each car feel a little different. There are also plans for some kind of level editor, although no details have really been fleshed out yet.

A 26 level pack is coming to Jet Car Stunts very soon, and if you've been looking for an even greater challenge in the game, this DLC is going to be for you. The levels True Axis showed off included driving upside down, flinging around high-banked curves, and even a level with a crazy jump that required you to essentially bounced your car off airborne barricades like a jet powered pinball.

As mentioned, this level pack should be available any day now, and the sequel likely won't appear until next year. They're hoping to have Space Tripper released next month, and you can expect a review from us as soon as it hits the App Store.

Today is the day that all the wonderful things we heard about during the WWDC keynote regarding the future of the iPhone OS, now officially dubbed iOS 4, are available to everyone. This update is completely free, and only requires you to plug your device in to the computer you usually sync with then waiting for it to download and install in iTunes. There are over 100 new features in iOS 4 according to Apple, but so far my favorite two are folders and multitasking.

With folders, you can now have up to 2160 apps on your device, and multitasking now allows for apps like Pandora Radio [Free] to continue playing in the background. For a listing of the other features, take a peek at the Apple iOS 4 Software Update page.

One unfortunate thing to come out of this update is that first generation iPhone and iPod touch users are being left in the dust. If you have an older device, you will be stuck in 3.0 land, and only the third generation iPod touch, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 are capable of multitasking.

Before updating your device make sure you not only do one full sync to back it up, but you also check and make sure there aren't any issues reported with your favorite games running on iOS4. For instance, ngmoco just tweeted warning players of Eliminate [Free] and Touch Pets Dogs [Free] of potential performance issues while playing the game on iOS 4.

I've yet to encounter any serious issues in the games I regularly play, and many games and apps have had recent updates that have added iOS 4 compatibility. This is just something you should potentially be aware of before mashing that check for updates button in iTunes.

Zach Gage's Bit Pilot has gone free for today. The retro-inspired dodging game stands on its own with fast paced gameplay, well implemented touch controls and a great 8-bit soundtrack. The game allows you to control a small ship in an asteroid field using single or dual swipes. Use one thumb for smaller movements, or both for more rapid movements. All the while, your job is to dodge the asteroids and lasers while picking up bonuses.

The swipe/touch controls are very nicely done and responsive. This is game we enjoyed on its release, and should be picked up while it's free.

Practically coming out of nowhere, Archetype is an upcoming multiplayer-focused first-person shooter from developer Villain. While not available in the US App Store just yet, apparently the game has been released for a while now in certain countries (at least since the beginning of June in the Czech App Store). It boasts some promising features as well – up to 5 on 5 team battles over WiFi or 3G, or even the EDGE network. Yes, you heard that right, ten players total in a match. This trumps other online FPS games in terms of size of matches and amount of players on each team.

Other features of the game include 5 maps, 6 different weapons (all of which can be used to melee), in-game radar for tracking down enemies, friend list functionality, and a robust ranking system where experience is earned and medals can be awarded for certain feats. It all seems very Halo-esque – both in look and execution – which is perfectly fine by us. The control layout is a familiar dual-stick setup, and it appears there's many options for customization in this area.

Some members of our forum have gotten a chance to pick up the game, and so far impressions are fairly good. Member Vinyl Darhma notes that matching up with other players went quickly, and lag during play is minimal. The game shows you the level of ping so you know if you're running on a solid connection, and a veto system is in place to allow users to vote to skip an upcoming map or gametype. While initially the performance of Archetype sounds very positive, that could be due to the limited release as of this writing, and the real test will be how the game runs once released in all territories.

This video demonstrates the game's tutorial:

Regardless it sounds very promising, and with the success of other FPS online multiplayer games like Eliminate, N.O.V.A., Modern Combat, and COD: Zombies, there's obviously a huge demand for a game like Archetype. If Villain really can pull off their lofty goals with success, consider the bar raised for every online FPS going forward. We'll report back once we've had a chance to try out the game for ourselves. Until then, enjoy this gameplay video:

App Store Link: Archetype FPS (very few countries)

In a joint development from Bulkypix, Pastagames, and video game historians Pix'n Love, Pix'n Love Rush is a retro-inspired high score platformer suffering from ADD. The many influences that went into Pix'n Love Rush are hard to ignore. With nods to classics such as Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, WarioWare and more, Pix'n Love Rush is a retro gamer's dream come true crammed into an engaging pick-up and play package. Much like the graphical stylings, the concept is blissfully simple. Collect coins while negotiating the different platform environments, destroy enemies and avoid hazards. It doesn't sound like much on paper, but coupled with the randomly generated sequence of levels and a nifty score multiplier system that actually changes the visual style of the game, Pix'n Love Rush will have you helplessly coming back time and time again.

If the game looks vaguely familiar, that's because it's an offshoot of the Arkedo series on the Indie Games Channel of Xbox Live, in particular the third game in the series 03 Pixel! (also co-developed by Pastagames). The purposely chunky pixel graphics look like something that would have blown you away running on a TI-83 calculator over a decade ago, but still manages to ooze all sorts of charm. The gameplay foundation is rooted in platforming, but not in the traditional sense. Each level is presented in a small chunk, and lasts just a short amount of time (some longer than others). For instance, you may start out on something akin to a Mario Bros. game, progressing from left to right. Then the next level may be a series of platforms moving upwards, and some even auto-scroll so you have to keep up. These bite-sized levels appear in a random order and are nicely varied, and much like WarioWare you must always be ready for what may appear next.

Left and right arrows control movement, and separate buttons control jumping and firing. You can only shoot straight up in the air Space Invaders-style and must be cautious with your bullets as the ones that miss the mark will fall back down to the ground, possibly hitting you if you aren't careful. Collecting coins with a plus symbol will net you 250 points, and touching boxes with a minus symbol with deduct 500 points. There are enemies to take out with your weapon, sometimes moving and sometimes stationary, but there are also angels which must be protected from both the bad guys and your own errant bullets. Grabbing coins without getting hurt while avoiding minus boxes will work towards building up a multiplier to x2, x5, and x10. A handy indicator in the upper right corner shows you how close you are to each one, and similarly a heart icon in the upper right displays your remaining life. Beyond worrying about what level type is thrown at you next, you must constantly be getting the good stuff while avoiding the bad stuff, and it's a wonderful challenge of your dexterity.

One of the neatest aspects of the game is how the background style changes with each multiplier gained. These different backgrounds are just as saturated in retro as the pixel graphics themselves, featuring accurate representations of the original Game Boy, the Game & Watch series of LCD games, and even a theme styled after the failed Nintendo Virtual Boy (headaches and eyestrain thankfully not included). It's hard to explain the burst of excitement you feel from moving from one theme to the next, but it's definitely a huge part of the appeal of Pix'n Love Rush. The Game Boy art is especially authentic, and made me feel as if I'd entered a time warp back to 1989 when I first fired up the legendary system. There's currently 7 different background themes spread across the games 5 minute timed mode and Infinite mode, with more planned in future updates. It's a nice variety of the bite-sized levels, and while you'll recognize certain sequences as you spend more time playing the game the random nature in which they're presented ensures the game feels different just about every time you play.

There are a couple very minor issues I had while playing, the most notable being the placement of the jump and fire buttons – they're just too far apart for my liking. There's nothing worse than knocking your multiplier down a level because you jumped into an enemy when you meant to shoot him. Otherwise the controls function just as well as virtual controls can on a touch screen. The other issue is the quirky way in which high scores are recorded. OpenFeint is integrated for achievements and leaderboards, but currently your score will only be uploaded if you break the one million mark. This isn't too terribly difficult to do once you've played the game some, but still seems a little bit too inspired by the hardcore nature of old-school arcade games. These two issues are on their way to being rectified, however, as both Bulkypix and Pastagames are actively addressing feedback in the game's forum thread. Even with these minor complaints, Pix'n Love Rush comes together beautifully to create a game that's perfectly suited for long or short play sessions, and beckons to be played over and over as you work towards high score glory.

TouchArcade Rating:

With the release of the iPhone 4 less than a week away, many readers are surely counting down the days until they can call Apple's most powerful pocketable device their own.  The iPhone 4 boasts hardware enhancements that will allow for more sophisticated applications of every sort -- but especially games.  Its "Retina display" packs four times as many pixels as the current iPhone into a display of the same physical size, yielding a 326 pixels-per-inch, razor sharp display that makes jaggies a thing of the past. The 1GHz Apple A4 processor, which is currently used in the iPad, will allow for more complex games with improved physics and AI. And, finally, there's the gyroscope which will allow for incredibly accurate in-game motion tracking.

During the WWDC 2010 keynote, we saw Steve Jobs demonstrate the new iPhone's gyroscopic capabilities in a Jenga-like demo app. It was an impressive display of motion-tracking tech that went beyond what we had previously seen from the iPhone. After all, you need a gyroscope to pull off that kind of control, right?

Developer Vishal Srivastava of Subversus Interactive might beg to differ.

As TechCrunch reports, Srivastava, formerly with Microsoft, has created what he calls the "Perspectiverse Engine" that allows the iPhone 3GS and iPad to track motion in a fashion that yields seemingly impossible results from a device lacking actual gyroscope hardware. His system allows the user to manipulate their body in the physical world and see corresponding motion in the virtual world, making the iPhone or iPad feel quite like a window into that world.

According to the developer,

[The engine] uses a combination of device sensors to constantly align the game world with the real world. No matter how you orient your phone, north in the game universe is the same as north in the real world, south is south, up is up, down is down, and so forth. This allows you to interact with that game universe as if you were in it.

And, I can tell you, it works far better than you're probably guessing. If you've got an iPhone 3GS or an iPad, you can give it a try right now with Srivastava's Magic 3D Easter Egg Painter [App Store], a Universal entertainment title that allows you to paint a 3D easter egg by moving around it in virtual space. (And it's on sale for $0.99 through this weekend.) The effect, even in this rather basic application, is pretty amazing.

The developer will soon be releasing a rather more interesting game title called Gyromaniac (previously known as Colonoscapade) in which you move your body around in order to find your way through a human colon and various other internal systems. A demonstration video shows the app in action (and gives one much appreciation for the trials of poor Lemmiwinks).

Srivastava began work on his Perspectiverse Engine long before we knew that the iPhone 4 would sport a gyroscope (it was put together last July, in fact). So, is he daunted by the news that came in the iPhone 4 unveiling? Not at all. The physical gyroscope will improve the accuracy of his engine on new hardware, while on supported devices which lack a gyroscope, the engine will do its thing to simulate one.

And for other developers that like what they see in this system, Srivastava tells us that he is definitely open to the possibility of licensing the technology for use in others' apps, but his first order of business is to build a range of apps on top of the engine that showcase its capabilities on current hardware.

Stop whatever it is you're doing and download these two games immediately. For a limited time both Tilt to Live [Free] and Skullpogo [Free] have dropped their prices to, well, free. Both games are incredibly fun high scoring games and small enough to download over 3G to boot.

We absolutely loved Tilt to Live in our review, and went on to award it 5 stars for the month of March. If you read our articles in EGM, we also included it in our list of must have iPhone games.

Tilt to Live is at its core, an object-avoidance game wholly utilising the accelerometer of the iPhone or iTouch to maneuver your arrow around the battlefield. I say battlefield, because that's exactly what is going on here– the dots are out to get you and will stop at nothing. And it is remarkable just how much personality One Man Left have managed to inject into such a straightforward concept. These are certainly no ordinary dots– these perilous periods make a point (ha!) of chasing you around the screen; coalescing into arrows and other shapes then hurling themselves at you at breakneck pace, or circling you like vultures, slowly closing in until it is impossible to escape. Make no mistake, touch even one of the hundreds of dots on screen at once, and you are history.

Tilt to Live has gotten even better since then with an update that added two new awesome game modes as well.

Skullpogo is also a ton of fun, in it you jump on various baddies while riding a pogo stick. There are power-ups, combos, and everything else you need from a high scoring game, and it even has some really great pixel art. We never actually reviewed the game, but we did discuss it during one of our podcasts, and everyone liked it a lot.

So, really, download these games. Now.

Parked outside the west hall of E3 this year was a black party bus covered in Gameloft logos and graphics from their latest games. Inside they walked us through a few games that are nearing release, and a few others that are coming soon. The star of the show was Ultimate Spiderman Total Mayhem, a 3D beat 'em up obviously based in the Spider Man universe with an art style straight out of the Spider Man comic books.

Available sometime towards the end of this summer, Ultimate Spiderman is controlled like all third person Gameloft games, with a virtual joystick that controls your movement and a set of buttons that handle your punching, web slinging, jumping, and other actions. As you fight more guys, an energy bar increases below your health that allows you to unleash an "ultimate combo" which sends Spider Man in to a web-spinning frenzy, damaging everything on screen.

The demo Gameloft was willing to show was fairly brief, but I did get a chance to fight a whole mess of bad guys, fight a mini-boss of sorts, and even experience a few quick time events where your spider sense kicks in to do things like avoid falling obstacles. The first level included everything you would expect in a Spider Man game, fighting on streets, climbing up a building, and finally hopping from roof top to roof top.

The second level they showed involve quite a bit of web slinging. Vaulting yourself forward and swinging between buildings is interrupted by a seemingly constant stream of incoming missiles which using your spider sense you can avoid and leap off of. Overall, both levels were pretty cool, but like quite a few recent Gameloft games, the various gameplay components that make up Ultimate Spiderman all feel transplanted from other titles. Fighting had almost had a Hero of Sparta [$1.99 / Free] feel to it with spider webs mixed in, controlling Spider Man felt a lot like controlling Iron Man in Iron Man 2 [$6.99 / Free], and there was even some rail sliding portions that reminded me of the exact same segments from Avatar [$6.99].

This isn't entirely bad, as if you haven't played these other games all the things that make up Spider Man will seem to go together very well-- But, if you have been playing every Gameloft release, it will be very apparent that you're just playing another conglomeration of Gameloft gameplay mechanics with a Spider Man skin on top. Hopefully when the game is finally released it will include a bit more to set it apart from other Gameloft games aside from the Spider Man license.

Other Gameloft games included Hero of Sparta 2, which picked up where the original left off with you going back to attempt to lift the curse from your homeland and go head to head with Hades. Launching for both the iPhone and iPad, Hero of Sparta 2 will likely be an easy purchase for anyone who enjoyed Hero of Sparta, as the game offers more of the same but this time with substantially better looking graphics.

Let's Golf 2 is also in the works, and just like Hero of Sparta 2, it's Let's Golf with even more holes (108 in total), more playable characters, more stuff to unlock, and better looking graphics across the 6 included environments. I had a great time with Let's Golf [$1.99 / Free], which is incredibly apparent in our review from last year and it's actually still my favorite golf game for the iPhone. I'm really looking forward to Let's Golf 2.

A sequel to Dungeon Hunter [$4.99 / Free] is in development as well, with three classes and much like the original Dungeon Hunter 2 has plenty of loot to gather, quests to complete, and monsters to slay. The biggest new feature in Dungeon Hunter 2 is online co-op multiplayer. Yes, online co-op multiplayer. Gameloft was reluctant to discuss exactly how the multiplayer would work, but if it's implemented well Dungeon Hunter 2 could potentially be absolutely amazing as few things are more fun in my opinion than dungeon crawling with friends.

Other than that, a bunch of Gameloft games which don't have iPad versions are getting upscaled to HD releases. These include Splinter Cell Conviction [$9.99], Blockus [$4.99], and The Settlers [$4.99 / Free]. Each game is basically the same as the iPhone version with higher resolution graphics with the main exception being Blokus which is coming loaded with single device multiplayer.

Resolution Interactive has just released a new teaser video for their upcoming sequel Aqua Moto Racing 2. We loved the first and so are excited to see what they have to offer in their sequel.

"Resolution Interactive is currently working on the sequel to it's popular game Aqua Moto Racing which promises to deliver great water racing and some of the best graphics seen on any handheld platform. With state of the art wave physics this game truly has to be seen to be believed. You'll be able to race in exotic world locations with amazing details. Start earning cash by participating in races and winning Championships to unlock better jet skis on your quest for legendary status.

The game is due "Summer 2010".

Indie developer Morgan Davies of Sauce Digital has been doing some interesting work on the App Store and taking some risks. His most recent games have tried to introduce some new and very touch-screen friendly control schemes: Monkey Tennis and Touch Soccer 3D.

The problem with innovation, however, is unfamiliarity. The biggest criticisms of both games have been the control learning curves, but for those users who have been able to get a hang of the controls, they seem to love it. But for some users, the controls never quite "click".

Lite versions are ideal for these types of games, and fortunately Sauce Digital has recently created two Lite versions for their games for you to try. If you're open to try something different, give these a spin.

This afternoon I met with the guys from Taito outside of the west hall of E3. Unsurprisingly, they have quite a bit on their plate right now both between updating their existing games, releasing new ones, and promoting an odd array of Space Invader themed utilities. Originally I was rather confused, both wondering why Taito would release these utilities and who would download them... Then I realized exactly who would download them-- The army of people with severe Space Invader fetishes like our own Blake Patterson.

These utilities all have been done before, but never with a Space Invaders theme. They're all free, and the calculator is actually pretty cool with various easter eggs if whatever you're calculating results in certain special numbers such as 1978, 41, and 10 others. They all include various advertisements for Taito games, and there is a 99¢ version of the calculator that strips these ads.

• Space Invaders Clock
• Space Invaders Battery Meter
• Space Invaders Business Card
• Space Invaders Calculator (Ad-Free Calculator, 99¢)
• Space Invaders Timer
• Space Invaders Flashlight
• Space Invaders Timer

Gardening Mama is in the works, an iPhone port of an existing Nintendo DS game. Just like Cooking Mama [$6.99 / Free], Gardening Mama will use the touch and tilt interfaces of the device to plant and cultivate various plant life instead of cooking. All we need now is a way to hook the two games together so you can cook in Cooking Mama with the ingredients you grow in Gardening Mama. Gardening Mama is still in development, but they expect it to be released later this summer.

Space Invaders HD is scheduled for release in July, and is going to be the classic game of Space Invaders redone for the iPad. It's a little hard to not roll your eyes at a "HD" version of a retro game like this, but they've actually done quite a bit to make the game really cool. Most notably is a single device two-player mode that works just like the cocktail table arcade machines, with players taking turns and the screen orientation switching just like back in the day.

Taito is using Space Invaders HD to test the waters before determining what else to do with the iPad, but not having "HD" versions of their existing games shouldn't dissuade you from checking them out on your iPad. The pixel art used in their iPhone games all look great with the iPad's scaling.

The next retro classic Taito is bringing to the App Store is Bubble Bobble, and I doubt I'm alone in hoping this game gets the same amazing treatment as Space Invaders did in Space Invaders Infinity Gene [$4.99]. Today all they were able to show is a basic demo of the game running with touch controls, but they assured me that Bubble Bobble for the iPhone would feature both a "retro" mode, and a new game mode they weren't willing to talk any specifics beyond telling me to not "expect something just like the original."

Moving on to game updates, Taito is committed to updating their popular games, both either through free updates or via in-app purchases. Cooking Mama has already had a few updates with new recipes, and there are even more coming. Taito is even debating recipe packs, potentially with seasonal or holiday themes.

Space Invaders Infinity Gene is getting a huge update, with both free and paid components. Everyone who owns the game will get access to a new ship, and the ability to turn the game sideways to shift the perspective in to a horizontal shooter. In-app purchases will be available to unlock different themes for the game.

These themes include Darius, Metal Black, and Night Striker. Each theme comes with their own unique ships, bosses, and remixed music that any fans of the original games should instantly recognize. Taito hopes the update will land on the App Store sometime next month.

As I mentioned before, they've got quite a bit in the works at Taito, and it's hard to not look forward to their future efforts on the platform especially with how great some of their recent releases have been-- Especially Space Invaders Infinity Gene.