Admittedly, I have shied away from board games on the iPhone; very few of them offering the accessibility and multi-player fun of dusting off an old classic and sitting around a coffee table with friends. Even still, I had never heard of the award-winning German tile-based board game named after a world heritage listed French castle prior to our preview last month. But that's all water under the bridge now, as Carcassonne [App Store] is definitely hot right now and set to rocket up the App Store charts.

For those apparently hiding under the same rock as I have been; Carcassonne is a board game played with 71 tiles, artistically depicting fortified structures, fields, cloisters and roads (these being the key elements of the game). Tiles are randomly drawn and played on the table in turn by each player, of which there are up to 5 players at once, and placed next to each other so that each landmark aligns perfectly. Points are awarded by placing one of your limited tokens, your 'Meeples', on an element of the tile you've just played; be it road, structure or field. Points are scored both during the game and at the end, with completed city structures awarding bonus points.

Carcassonne has undoubtedly raised the bar high for spit and polish. Every menu, game screen or tutorial is painted in gorgeous wooden hues as a tribute to its hand-crafted, table-top origins. The tutorials themselves comprise both fully-voiced demonstrations and a thoughtfully illustrated game manual which does wonders to explain the initially abstract scoring system.

Carcassonne isn't a difficult game to grasp, but it does have an extraordinary amount of depth. Advanced considerations such as where to play your farmer Meeples (which aren't retrievable after placing them) so that they are in the largest field possible supplying the most completed structures (thus scoring points) will often prove the difference between a game otherwise left largely to luck of the draw.

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TouchArcade Rating:

Last month we posted an exclusive look at the upcoming iPhone version of the '90s classic puzzle / platformer Qwak, which started life on the BBC Micro and later came to the Amiga. We're happy to report that the game has just gone live in the App Store [link].

In Qwak, you control a duck (get it?). Your objective is to guide this green duck through level after level of platforms, fruits and gems (worth points), bouncing enemies, power-ups to help demolish said enemies, and keys to unlock goodies as well as the level's exit gate. Your duck can run, jump, and fire volleys of egg projectiles to knock out the baddies. Grab a bonus item and watch a hail of colorful fruit rain down upon you. Take too long on a level and meet a hail of spikeballs. In a nutshell, I call it frenetic, fun, and rather fruity (to be alliteratively wanton).

I've spent some time with the prerelease build of the game that developer Jamie Woodhouse provided, and it's been lovely to play. It's a touch-controlled game with a left / right control in one corner and jump and egg-fire controls in the other. The vibrant visuals move about the screen as smooth as glass on the iPhone 3GS test device and a very Amiga-sounding score accompanies the action. It feels both retro and highly polished. It's a game platformer fans won't want to miss.

See our previous article to read our interview with Qwak author Jamie Woodhouse.

App Store Link: Qwak, $2.99

One of our favorite iPhone developers has long been Illusion Labs. This indie development group has been responsible for iPhone classics such as Labyrinth (1 and 2) and Touchgrind. We also particularly loved Sway, even though it might not have seen as much commercial success as their other games.

The reason for our praise of their titles is that they perfect their games around an iPhone-specific control system and package them in a high quality product. Their newest game follows this model and brings the game of foosball to the iPad.

Focused around a multi-touch interface, the Foosball HD allows two players to compete with each other on a virtual foosball table. Each player has control of their respective players and can move their men using simple swipe controls. Forward and Back move the players horizontally on the field while Left and Right spin them in the appropriate direction. A single player mode is included but the real magic in the game is playing against a human opponent.

They took some liberties in cutting down a real life foosball table to fit it on the iPad, but the end result can be quite fun when playing against another human opponent. The above video shows Blake playing Jared, then Anders playing Jared.

Illusion Labs has already submitted Foosball HD so it should be coming out any day now.

While the Apple A4 processor and higher resolution screen of the iPhone 4 will be fantastic for gamers, what likely will cause the biggest splash in future game development is the addition of the electronic gyroscope buried inside of the device. This additional orientation sensor will likely add a similar dimension to gameplay as the Wii Motion Plus, an addon that also utilizes a gyroscope for incredibly accurate motion tracking.

While on stage during the keynote today, Steve Jobs showed a brief demonstration with a Jenga game that was able to rotate the stack of blocks while utilizing the gyroscope in addition to the accelerometers. When only using the accelerometers like games on today's devices use, rotating the stack of blocks worked, and was fairly precise, but once the gyroscope was enabled the difference was remarkable.

Here is a brief video of the gyroscope portion of the keynote, the quality is mediocre but you can easily see how the phone is able to track Steve's various movements then translate it to the game world:

The game that immediately sticks out to me that would benefit the most from this extra degree of control would be a game like Zen Bound [$2.99 / Free], as I imagine manipulating the objects you wrap could be even easier with yet another degree of control. It's not hard to think of other games that could be enhanced by the extremely precise motion tracking, especially if you've ever used a Wii Motion Plus and have seen just how much the addition of a gyroscope can improve how accurately a game can track your movement.

Like anything on the App Store, it's up to developers to implement these new features. All we can do is wait and see what they come up with once they finally get the device in their hands.

This morning in sunny San Francisco, California I lined up ridiculously early for the Apple keynote outside of Moscone. After hours and hours of waiting, we finally filed in to the convention center and up to the massive meeting room to watch Steve Jobs take the stage and officially reveal the new iPhone.

Dubbed the "iPhone 4", it comes packed with the same A4 processor found in the iPad, a new gyroscope sensor, a screen that is 4x the resolution of the existing iPhone, and plenty of other awesome features. From a gaming perspective, the additional horsepower provided by the A4 means much like the iPad, existing games will load up faster as well as have higher frame rates. New iPhone 4-enhanced games will look even better on the device, although I can't wait to see how developers tag these games as "HD" is already in use to signify an iPad game.

The iPhone 4 will debut at $199 and $299 for 16GB or 32GB models, with the iPhone 3GS taking the iPhone 3G's current spot as the $99 "entry level" iPhone. Pre-orders for the new device will begin June 15th, and Apple plans on shipping out the new handsets on June 24th.

Even bigger news is that the iPhone OS is not only officially dubbed "iOS 4", but it will also be available for free, even for iPod touch owners. (Although, unfortunately the first generation iPod touch won't be capable of running iOS4.) This should be a boon for developers, as they will no longer be pressured in to supporting ancient OS versions for the sake of compatibility if everyone can upgrade for free.

We'll be taking an in-depth look at what all of these things mean for us at TouchArcade later today. In the meantime, take a look at the Apple site for the new iPhone and be sure to watch the video.

WWDC 2010 is about to kick off. We are on the scene to cover new Apple announcements as well as meet with game developers about their latest creations. Apple is widely expected to launch the new iPhone as well as provide more details on iPhone OS 4. As always, there will likely also be a few surprises. Live coverage available at MacRumors amongst other sites.

Developers attending the conference should contact us by email to arrange meetings. Stay tuned.

There are quite a few options for RTS fans available on the App Store, all of varying degrees of quality. Typically they suffer from one of two different problems. Either the complex nature of the game is too convoluted to be effective with a touch screen interface, or the entire experience is too stripped down and lacks any substance in order to accommodate accessible controls. Although there has been some strong entries in the genre, it doesn't really feel like anyone has got it “just right” yet.

That all changed last month with the release of Land Air Sea Warfare [$4.99] by developer Isotope 244. LASW gets it “just right”, offering a full console-like RTS experience with brilliantly executed, easy to use touch screen controls. The only features lacking in LASW are a proper single player campaign and multiplayer. That first issue is somewhat of a non-issue actually, as the amount of options available for play is just ridiculous. There is endless replayability due to the randomized maps and the amount of customization available in this game. In saying that it lacks a campaign, all that really means is it lacks a cohesive storyline to play through. If this is something that you look for in an RTS, then you may feel disappointed with LASW. If all you need is solid, highly configurable battles against an intelligent and scalable AI, then LASW will more than fit that bill.

As for multiplayer, it's not included in this current release but remains an option for the future. If you're looking to get your battle on against real life human opponents, you may look to the multiplayer-focused Armada: Galactic War which we previously reviewed and found to be excellent. It's conceivable that owning each title will fulfill all your offline and online RTS needs for a long time to come. A list of ideas for future updates to LASW has been posted by the developer in our forums, and includes a bevy of balance tweaks and performance optimizations. The game is really solid right now though, and only stands to get better through updates.

While it's tough to detail every last element of a game as robust as LASW, if you're already a big RTS fan, I'll offer you this advice – go buy this game right now. You need it. You'll love it. It's a truly excellent single player RTS affair. If you're on the fence, you can download a demo of the game on your Windows/Mac computer from the Isotope 244 website to get an idea of what it's like. Also, the game's forum thread has been overflowing with positive remarks since release. Forum member steelfires nicely summarizes the game with a review in our User Review section as well. Or, you can do like so many of us have done at times, and just click that Buy Now button with reckless abandon. I don't think you'll be disappointed. A game the caliber of Land Air Sea Warfare doesn't come around all that often on our devices, and surely should not be missed.

TouchArcade Rating:

Rozgo's Metroid inspired physics sidescroller has finally arrived for iPhone. We covered the game first back in October when it didn't even have a name. Inspired by the positive response, the developer redoubled his efforts and added new additional team members to take the game to the next level.

The game finally arrived yesterday on the App Store with a new launch video:

First impressions are being recorded in our discussion thread. So far, the response seems pretty positive, but with some rough edges. I've added the game to my list of games to try on my flight to WWDC.

The 2D side-scrolling brawler is a fairly popular genre on the App Store, with games like OMG Pirates!, The Simpsons Arcade, and most recently Pride and Prejudice and Zombies bringing arcade-style action to our touch screens. Adding another solid entry to the list is a collaborative effort from developers UltiZen and MoStar called Princess Fury. We previewed the game just a few days ago, and were impressed with the visual style and the idea of adding strategic elements to what is typically a simplistic button-mashing genre. With Princess Fury now available, we're happy to say that it has largely succeeded in bringing a new take to a tried and true formula, but doesn't delve deeply enough into the strategic areas and has a frustratingly imbalanced pace. It remains a graphically appealing experience that's chock full of action, and will reward players who are prepared to endure its faults.

You play as a young purple-haired Princess, wielding a sword larger than your entire body, laying waste to enemies across 20 different stages. Each stage is broken down into multiple sub-stages, and instead of being structured with a beginning and an end like most games of this type the levels in Princess Fury are more along the lines of elongated arenas. The goal of each sub-stage can vary, and this is what really sets it apart from your average brawler. Some challenges are as simple as defeating every enemy, or killing a boss. But others mix things up nicely. You might have to escort a character from one side of the level to the other, while fighting off enemy attacks and keeping that character alive. A similar version of this task gives you a stationary crystal which you must defend and keep alive for a predetermined amount of time.

My favorite of these challenges works similarly to a territories game type. Five crystals are spread evenly across the map. Your group starts on one side, and a group of enemies on the other. Emptying each crystal's life meter “owns” it for your team. The enemies can also control crystals, and it's a fight to see who can own all 5 at the same time. It can become a pretty heated battle as crystals are constantly changing ownership. This game type in particular really is a lot of fun, but all the different game variations work well and add welcome variety to the beat 'em up style genre.

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TouchArcade Rating:

Irish animation studio Straandlooper is really pushing the suggestive limits of the App Store with the first installment of their episodic adult adventure game, Hector: Badge of Carnage [$3.99]. This point and click adventure game (or, more accurately, point and tap I suppose) puts players in charge of Hector, a police officer from the town of Clappers Wreake. The game opens with a fantastically drawn and voiced over animated cut scene which really sets the bar for the rest of the game.

In the first episode, Hector is called in to do some hostage negotiation at a building being guarded by a sniper who has been picking off any policemen who enter his line of sight. Progressing through the game, like any similar adventure game, involves analyzing your environment, picking up items, and combining or using them in creative ways to overcome obstacles. For instance, getting out of the room you start in will require clever use of a old shoe, a spoon, a condom, and a paperclip.

The rest of the game continues in this manner, and aside from manipulating objects you will also need to interact with various characters in game through extensive dialog trees. The first instance of this requires Hector to talk his way in to making a young thug locked up at the police station to quite literally give him his pants. All of this dialog both pops up as text on screen and is accompanied by a voiceover, and the voice work is actually quite enjoyable.

I'm reluctant to mention much more of what happens in the game since so much of these kind of adventure games can be spoiled by mentioning future items or situations you'll find yourself in, what I will say is that Hector: Badge of Carnage will be a joy for any fan of adventure games or suggestive humor to play through. The writing is funny, the things you have to do and the actions required to do them are often hilarious, and the cut scenes are fantastic.

Really, the only down side to Hector: Badge of Carnage is the lack of an easy to use in-game hint system. Playing through the game I sometimes found myself flat out stumped as to what to do next, resorting to just tapping everything imaginable on screen, attempting to combine every item, and/or using every item on every nearby object. I suppose I'm spoiled by The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition [$7.99] which comes with a hint system that starts out very vague in attempt to point you in the right direction with additional hints that eventually just flat out tell you what to do-- A much better alternative than puzzling hints given to you by your partner Lambert who you need to get to first before you can get any assistance.

The first episode of Hector: Badge of Carnage will likely only take you a few hours to play through, or substantially less if you're constantly looking up what to do next online. Beware, it ends in a cliffhanger, and I really can't wait to see what happens next.

TouchArcade Rating:

Rocketcat Games' much anticipated successor to Hook Champ has just been submitted to the App Store. The final version of the game has reportedly changed significantly since we first saw it in April. According to Kepa Auwaue:

17 levels that involve exploring for treasure and secrets. There's unlockable levels and equipment for beating these levels as fast as you can. And there's still a very in-depth Endless Survival mode, where you run from a crushing Avalanche. There's 60 different sections for Avalanche Mode alone, many of which have secret alternate paths. Avalanche Mode alone has more content than most games that are just a single-level pick up and play mode. All this, and the fun stuff from Hook Champ is still there, such as upgrades, extensive leaderboards, ghost races, and so on.

First day buyers will get two exclusive hats and an early buyer's discount. Here's the latest gameplay video:

Here are some of the latest screenshots:

Gamevil's Soccer Superstars [$4.99] recently hit the App Store, bringing the same classic sprite based graphics, gameplay that will take you back to the Super Nintendo days, and RPG style progression of super players that will have you saying "just one more game" long after you should have stopped playing. Much like Baseball Superstars 2010 [$4.99 / Free], this extra layer of depth provided by the RPG elements inside the game somehow manage to make the Superstars games incredibly appealing even to those of us who don't normally get that involved in sports games.

So far reactions in our forums have been positive, with some people having issues with the controls. In Soccer Superstars, the movement of your player is controlled using an analog stick of sorts, but to keep you from constantly needing to keep your left thumb on the screen your player will just keep running in whatever direction you touched last. It seems like once you wrap your head around this somewhat unconventional control scheme, Soccer Superstars is just as much fun as Baseball Superstars, a personal favorite of mine.

We're going to be taking a closer look at this game in the near future, but in the meantime, Soccer Superstars is a safe purchase for anyone who likes arcade style soccer games and/or endlessly filling experience and stat bars to advance a roster of characters.

Board gamers will be pleased to learn that the hit German tile-based game, Carcassonne has finally arrived in the App Store. The official port includes original artwork, 8 different AI players, and even internet multiplayer with push notifications.

Build a medieval landscape, tile by tile, claim landmarks with your followers and score points. As a winner of the prestigious "Spiel des Jahres" award in 2001, the game allows for a plethora of play styles and strategies.

The game comes as an iPhone-only verison, but a universal iPad version is on the way. The iPad universal will be a free update to existing owners of the game, and the game will reportedly go up in price at that time. First impressions are rolling in our forums.

Activision recently released a pseudo-sequel to the surprisingly popular Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [$9.99], a first person zombie defense shooter made famous by its online four player coop multiplayer modes that we were very impressed by in our review. Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies II [$9.99], aside from having a title that's an even bigger mouthful than the first, comes loaded with the new Shi No Numa map. Shi No Numa is a very large swamp filled with buildings, new weapons, monsters, and zombie traps that fans of the original game will no doubt quickly fall in love with.

What's odd about this "sequel" is that the only thing different it has over the first, which is little more than the new map and everything in it, is available via a DLC purchase in the original. Also, Zombies II has Verruckt and Nacht Der Untoten (the two old maps from Zombies) available as optional DLC. Basically, it doesn't matter which game you have, as each one has the content of the other available in DLC packs.

If you've enjoyed Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies, be sure to check out the in-game store to give this new map a try. So far, the thread on our forums is filled with people who are having a great time with it, so if you have yet to pick up the game it might not be a bad idea to dive directly in to the sequel to have the newest map which most people will likely be playing. You can always pick the others up later.

Last month Konami made a cryptic announcement about an iPhone exclusive Castlevania game in the works. Billed as a "action-puzzle RPG", we weren't really sure what to expect of the game. Well, a trailer was posted on IGN today that shows quite a bit of gameplay, but I'm still left scratching my head as to why Konami is utilizing the Castlevania IP by releasing a block matching game instead of... anything else.

With gameplay very similar to Capcom's Puzzle Fighter games, players will make their way through a puzzle adaptation of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, battling monsters with split screen block battles. I'm anxious to take a look at this game when it's finally released on the App Store, and doubt I'm alone in hoping that there's more to Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night than a tired matching mechanic with heaps of Castlevania fan service.