Back aboard the Gameloft party bus at E3 we got our first look at Ultimate Spider-Man Total Mayhem. When we saw it, the game played a lot like Gameloft's other third person action games, but totally drenched in all things Spider Man which any fan of the movies, comics, or cartoons will appreciate. The following trailer was released earlier today, which has a bit of gameplay footage towards the end:

Along with the trailer Gameloft also sent us a set of Retina Display resolution screenshots:

Spider Man is hitting the App Store September 1st, so if your spider sense is going crazy about that time, that may very well be why. In the meantime, swing by Gameloft's Ultimate Spider-Man Total Mayhem site which has quite a few details about the game including a listing of all the villains that you will come across.

Not long ago classic iPhone tower defense game geoDefense [$1.99 / Free] version 1.5 hit the App Store, adding support for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4 as well as the framework for DLC level packs. The first of those level packs was just released this afternoon, and a 99¢ in-app purchase unlocks brand new set of 3 medium levels and 3 hard levels. Also, these levels are immediately playable once downloaded so you can dive right in without needing to play any previous levels. While a game as good as geoDefense getting more levels is totally newsworthy by itself, it also gave us an excellent opportunity to pester developer David Whatley who is quite literally floating around the Caribbean as we speak.

Last time we spoke with Whatley he was extremely excited about the potential of the iPad, and told us that a sequel to geoDefense was coming which would be exclusive to the device. Since then, several things have gotten in the way such as the release of the iPhone 4, a Facebook game called Fantasy University, launch day ports of geoDefense and geoDefense Swarm for Windows Phone 7, and the never-ending question of what will make a worthy sequel to a game with the notoriety of geoDefense.

According to David, the recent update to geoDefense had a lot of work done behind the scenes to eventually ramp up in to an iPad version of geoDefense which is going to be the next title to be released by Critical Thought Games. From there, they're going to be testing the waters of the iPad App Store to see whether or not sticking to their guns regarding the iPad exclusivity of geoDefense 2 makes sense or not. Whatley admits that not doing an iPhone version of the sequel would likely be a big mistake, especially given the size of the market.

When talking to David about geoDefense 2, he mentioned the amount of pressure he's under to deliver something that will impress gamers, but not stray too far from what everyone has since come to expect out of the geoDefense series. He wants to take geoDefense to the next level, but he's still not entirely sure what that next level is. The situation seems eerily similar to Galcon [$2.99 / Free] and its successor Galcon Labs [$2.99] which despite the popularity of the original saw a lackluster response from gamers as it felt too much like an expansion pack, and not enough like its own game.

If you've beaten every level in geoDefense over the last year and a half since its initial release, now is a great time to re-download the game and try out the new levels. Admittedly, I'm fairly rusty but so far the six new levels completely live up to the difficulty level we've come to expect of geoDefense and are highly recommended for any fan of the game.

We've been following Dodonpachi Resurrection [$4.99] for a while now, from its first announcement, to the first gameplay trailer, and even the pricing and release date.  And after all this anticipation, developer Cave's follow up release to the excellent Espgaluda II [$8.99/Lite] actually lives up to the hype. In fact, I like it even more than Espgaluda II, though I'm not necessarily saying one is better than the other. They're very different beasts, and really it's worth owning both if you like top-down shooters. But Dodonpachi Resurrection feels like a more well rounded experience, and caters really well to both casual shooter fans and the most hardcore of them all. There's near endless replayability due to an ingenious scoring system, and Dodonpachi Resurrection deserves a spot on every shmup fan's home screen.

Visually, Dodonpachi is a very striking game. There is no fancy Retina Display support, as this is originally an arcade game running at an entirely different resolution, and it would be unrealistic for Cave to redraw all of the artwork to suit the iPhone 4. That said, the game still looks damn good. There are three different screen sizes to choose in the options. Small has a huge border area but makes the graphics look the sharpest. Large fills the iPhone screen with the game and a small border on the bottom, but the sprites and text look slightly blurry. Medium is the default and it's in-between the other two settings. I fancy the large setting, as I don't really like borders in my games and the blurriness honestly isn't that bad. The game is filled with tons of huge explosions, humongous transforming bosses, and dozens of enemies and bullets onscreen at any given time. No matter what screen size you play with, it all ends up looking really impressive.

There are two game modes in Dodonpachi, the original arcade mode and a new iPhone mode. Arcade has you choose from three different ships and three offensive styles. These styles can give you unlimited bomb use, a more powerful alternate cannon to switch to, or a combination of the two. They all can help you in different ways, and as such each ship and style combination has its own leaderboard in OpenFeint. The arcade mode is a lot of fun to be sure, but the iPhone mode with its unique scoring system and brand new Hyper Cannon weapon are what really stand out in the game.

In iPhone mode, there is no need to pick styles, just which ship type you want to use. A divided gauge in the upper right of the screen is used for the SM scoring system. A circular area surrounds your ship, and narrowly avoiding these bullets but letting them pass through this area (known as “scraping”) fills the gauge towards the M side while also building up a multiplier in the upper left of the screen. You can continue to do this all the way until your multiplier hits x1000, if you wish. When the M side of the gauge is full, you can hit the Hyper button to start your ship firing wildly, and control the direction of fire by touching the ship and turning it. If you touch the ship and spin it in circles during this time, you build up your Hyper Cannon which unleashes an enormous beam of destruction that obliterates everything on the screen.

Killing enemies in rapid succession is what fills up the S side of the gauge, and once it's completely full you will gain whatever your multiplier is at for every enemy you destroy. Essentially, you use this SM gauge in a yin-yang like harmony of avoidance and utter destruction in order to achieve incredibly high scores. It's really brilliantly designed, and it may sound complicated on paper but it's pretty easy to grasp onto after playing for a bit. Admittedly, I'm not a hardcore bullet hell shooter guy. I love me some shmup action, but more the typical brand of them, and I've always been apprehensive of the bullet hell type because they just seemed so difficult. Not so with Dodonpachi, and I really understand now how different a bullet hell shooter is and the different type of gameplay it brings to shmups.

And this brings me to what I really appreciate about Dodonpachi Resurrection, you don't have to play it any particular way. Yes, you can endlessly scrape bullets and build huge multipliers, then strategically destroy many enemies in search of massive scores and coveted leaderboard spots. Or you can play it much like a normal shooter, using the bombs and special weapons to destroy the many enemies and bosses in spectacular fashion as you progress through the levels to the end. Heck, I beat the game twice before I even fully understood the scoring system, and had a total blast doing it. This is one of the first games of this kind where I've felt like any type of gamer can get a lot out of the experience.

There's a lot more to Dodonpachi too, like the absolute spot-on relative control system, the excellent brand new music for the iPhone mode, many OpenFeint achievements to unlock, multiple options and difficulty levels, hidden modes, and more. But the bottom line is that if you're a fan of shooters in any way, you'll want to pick up Dodonpachi Resurrection. There's not currently a lite of the game (there's one on the way), but the introductory price of $4.99 will be going for the next few days before jumping to the regular price of $8.99. Also worth noting is that you'll need a 3^rd generation device or higher, or an iPad, to run the game due to the insane amount of sprites it pushes at any given time. A veritable love-fest is going on with players in our forums who are enjoying the game as much as I am, and as far as shooters go on the iPhone it doesn't get much better than Dodonpachi Resurrection.

TouchArcade Rating:

Last week, in a post featuring new screenshots from the upcoming iPhone version of Riven from Cyan Worlds, we pointed to clues of a new, previously unheard of forthcoming title spotted on the studio's website. At the time, all we saw of Stoneship (named after an age from Myst) was an ad banner commanding, "Never let your timbers be shivered!" and a tiny screenshot. Today, Cyan shared with Touch Arcade exclusive details and screenshots to help give readers a feel for what Stoneship is all about.

The upcoming Stoneship represents "a lighthearted new direction" for Cyan Worlds, the studio indicates. The game is a casual, top-down, turn-based, strategy puzzle game "with a bent toward the whimsical," we're told. The game sets you and your first mate on the high seas, charged with exploring, controlling, and protecting vast oceans and islands, under continual threat of a pirate siege. There are eighty three included levels to play through, with additional levels to come later, it appears.

Granted, there's still room for gameplay specifics and other details on this one, but what we've got does paint an overall picture. And the screenshots provided us should help flesh out that picture, further.

Cyan plans to submit Stoneship to Apple in the next few weeks and, as well, confirms that Riven for the iPhone is still on track for a release this fall. We expect to post a full review of Stoneship coincidental with its release in the App Store. Stay tuned.

Retro game fans -- especially those with friends in meatspace -- are in for a treat with Revolutionary Concept's latest release, Karate Champ XL. Shortly after Karate Champ for the iPhone hit the App Store we reported that the studio was hard at work on an iPad version that would feature a two-player, split-screen play mode. The wait is over and we're happy to report that Karate Champ XL for the iPad [App Store] has arrived.

Karate Champ, which was rated one of the 10 most influential games of all time by IGN, is a 1984 arcade fighter that was one of the very first 2D, side-perspective, face-to-face fighters to hit the arcades. In Karate Champ, the player controlls a karateka with two joysticks, one for movement and one for attacks, that together allowed for a wide variety of attack combination. It is a match for points as well as a race against the clock; if both fighters are still standing when the timer runs down, he with the most points wins. It's simple by today's fighter standards, but is appealingly so to many, myself included.

Karate Champ XL features everything that the iPhone version has to offer, and then some. There are 12 different environments, two-player Bluetooth and WiFi support, the original '80s sound effects, all original bonus rounds, and a Super Large Chracter option. The onscreen graphics take advantage of the iPad's large, high-res display -- well, at least the cabinet fascia graphics do, as the in-game graphics are (happily) as pixellated as ever. The big feature of this version, however, is the split screen mode that allows two players to go literally head-to-head in a martial arts match. This mode looks great and plays like you'd hope; it's a smooth one-on-one fight experience that actually works quite well.

Karate Champ XL should be an instant buy for any fan of the game who's got an iPad and someone to go head to head with. But, even in single play the game looks better, with sharper graphics on the iPad than the scaled-up iPhone version.

A version 1.1 update of the iPhone version of Karate Champ [App Store] (which is priced 50% off at $0.99 for a limited time) is currently under review by Apple. It will allow for iPhone to iPad gameplay.

Quest of Knights Onrush [Free] was originally thrown together by developer MoreGames and Chillingo to spearhead a marketing campaign for their then primary focus, Knights Onrush [$0.99], a castle defense game. It turns out that their promotional app, a side-scrolling arcade beat 'em-up, was even better received than the game it was promoting, and in April we revealed that it was being made into a full fledged game. That game, Knights Rush [App Store] is finally here.

Knights Rush takes the formula of the original game-- what was essentially a limited, endless mode-only beat 'em up-- and breathes the life of an entire campaign into it. Not shying away from that very definition, developer MoreGames envisioned an 'entire campaign' to mean 40 sizeable campaign levels over 8 unique worlds, and a battallion of 50 different enemy types and 8 giant bosses to clog the daylights out of. Not to mention two very different endless modes that improve greatly on its origins thanks to the huge library of art assets now available.

The campaign begins with a short in-game cinematic where your knight, after a little soul-searching, gets pulled into an alternate dimension. It's a no-fuss opener designed to get you into the action as soon as possible, as it's clear this is where the developer has spent most of their time. You start with a tutorial level, where you are soon introduced to two other knights to battle with. Before beginning each mission, you spawn in a portal room, where you can select from one of the three characters: a human Roman-esque knight, an other-world looking, dual scythe wielding knight, and a dwarven, hammer wielding knight. They each play very differently and have their own set of skills and perks to unlock.

The skill system itself needs some explanation, as it may not be apparent how it functions when first picking up the game. Each level, you begin by choosing a character, which is then spawned at level 1. Even if you come out of the first world at level 14, you'll still spawn in world 2 with your character reset. At first, this put me off, as I was having lots of fun with the progressive empowerement of my knight. In retrospect however, this seems to be a very clever implementation. Firstly, it allowed me to explore the breadth of each characters abilities over the campaign, mixing them in ways that I was not able to do in my first attempt. And secondly, it gave a nice sense of character scaling as I sliced through the 5 levels that make up each game world, leveling periodically without maxing out each and every skill.

Ultimately, each character has only 2 active spells that can be unlocked. Abilities are sorted into 'skills' and 'perks', and each level up you have access to 1 skill and a couple of perks. Perks supplement skills and your standard attacks, by adding benefits such as fire or ice to your attacks, or by increasing the rate at which you level or critical strike, or how much health is restored when you pick up health potions (or even how many additional skills or perks you earn each level). Skills on the other hand, include your two active abilities and several other passive abilities, such as attack strength or health bonuses. Each ability has 5 levels, and over the course of a world you'll generally be able to max out 3 or 4 of the reasonably lengthy list before having to reset.

As well as your active skills, the game includes a variety of consumable spells, from a crazy fox strapped with dynamite to your standard room-clearing freezes, proximity mines, or giant balls of energy. Though combat suffers a little from a tendency towards a truckload of frantic attack button mashing, the 3 skills nearly always at your disposal are crucial to surviving anything after about world 3. At this stage, the odds you face will progressively become more and more overwhelming and any previous thoughts of encroaching monotony are quickly swept away in the chaos. Unfortunately this doesn't extend to the huge, great looking boss enemies, who after the horde of enemies you have to wade through to get to, largely seem like pushovers. I would have liked to see a little more strategic varience to these encounters.

In any case it is clear that alot of time has been spent on the enemies in Knights Rush. Having 50 different enemy types is no small feat-- but having them all looking unique and with their own individual abilities and attacks is simply astounding. You'll encounter a host of different enemy knights, swamp monsters, giant crabs, giant spiders, the undead, wizards, vikings, golden scorpions, jumping iron-maidens...and more. These are then backed up by the legion of mechanical devices that are littered across each of the worlds. Worlds are replete with spiked traps, falling blades, rotating saws, raining arrows, giant boulders that fall from the sky, cannons, ballistae-- you name it, it's there. And in an interesting twist, these enemies can only be defeated by standard attacks (if at all).

Knights Rush has to be one of the most gorgeously detailed and painstakingly created game worlds we have seen on the iOS device. Each character and enemy is inked in a stylized fashion closely resembling that of Castle Crashers on XBL. The backdrops are equally lovingly rendered, richly detailed and set-off in layers to give a pseudo-3D effect that I absolutely love. Playing through the Super Endless Mode-- where worlds and enemies are randomly generated as you progress-- is a visual treat.

Finally, the standard Endless Mode rounds out the Knights Rush content, where levels you unlock in the campaign can be played endlessly. High scores for both endless modes are recorded in Chillingo's Crystal social platform, which offers additional replay value above and beyond the Campaign's 3 or so hours of game time (which can effectively be doubled or tripled if you decide to attempt Hard or Insane difficulties).

While some may initially be deterred by the few active skills available or the kitten-soft boss fights; you can't dispute that the sheer weight of content here resembles something more like what we'd expect from an expensive console downloadable title. That there are three very different knights to fight with further compounds the game's fun factor as you delve into their individual skill sets. All up, Knights Rush is a highly recommended addition to any action fan's game library, and should be a no-brainer pickup for beat 'em up fans. (Note, we did encounter a small bug where reloading the campaign following an endless mode sessions resulted in the wrong skill tree for our chosen knight, something we expect the developers will address soon but certainly not game breaking.)

If you're still on the fence, head over to our forums to read other readers' opinions and be sure to check out the (slightly outdated) gameplay trailer above as the game looks infinitely better in action.

Originally released in 1987, R-Type [$1.99] is almost as classic as it gets when it comes to arcade shooters. Since its initial release, the game has seen many sequels, as well as ports to nearly ever platform ranging from the Amiga all the way up to the XBOX 360. Like most arcade games of the era, the game is framed in a vague story with the player piloting the space fighter Arrowhead to defend humanity from aliens. The original R-Type (and competent ports) have been well received by almost everyone, as the gameplay and level design are still considered by many to be among the best the genre has to offer.

If you've never played R-Type before, you might be in for a surprise as the game's notorious level of difficulty has landed it in lists such as IGN's Top 10 Toughest Games to Beat. The levels are crafted in such a way that you likely won't have much luck playing the game in a reactionary manner, and instead, will need to beat them through trial and error, learning the levels as you go. R-Type plays like what we now know as a typical shooter. You need to kill everything that moves, avoid bullets and enemies, fight massive bosses, all while collecting a wide array of power-ups on the way.

As far as the port is concerned, from a technical standpoint it's great. To make things easier on new players there's an unlimited mode with never-ending lives, as well as the standard normal difficulty and an unlockable insane difficulty. Three control options are included, touch controls which work like most other shooters where you drag your finger around the screen to move the ship along with tilt controls and even a virtual D-Pad. The virtual D-Pad is actually surprisingly cool too, as it changes the perspective of the game to look more like an arcade cabinet so your fingers don't cover any of the action. Auto-fire can be enabled or disabled, and you can move the on-screen buttons to the right or left side in the options.

The developers really did everything they could do to bring a faithful port of R-Type to the App Store, but I'm really torn on how I feel with it. R-Type reminds me of last year's Earthworm Jim port in that it's hard to imagine a better port of the game, but the control constraints of the platform almost feel like it's holding it back. Using your finger often obstructs the screen. Tilting feels off because your ship just moves at one speed regardless of how much you tilt. The virtual D-pad is good, but only as good as a virtual D-pad can be.

If you have fond memories of the original (or any of the ports), you'll likely love having the game on your phone and will be able to make whichever control option you prefer work well enough to get through the game. Also, at $1.99 it likely is the cheapest way to play the game, since it would cost at least that in quarters at the arcade to make it through the first levels. If this review is the first time you've heard of R-Type, you might find yourself frustrated with the way things used to be with brutally difficult arcade shooters designed to extract every quarter from your pocket. In that case, you might be better off checking out some of the other more forgiving shooters that feature modern day conveniences such as far more checkpoints and far fewer game over screens.

Back when Sega was releasing games like Sonic the Hedgehog [$5.99], Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [$5.99], and Streets of Rage [$2.99] wrapped in their Genesis emulator we were increasingly critical of the poor performance and mediocre controls. These types of games were built to be played at a high frame rate, with gameplay that basically requires the precision found in the original physical Genesis controller and just flat out didn't work that well on the iPhone. With every one of these games that Sega released, people posted in comments and on our forums asking where in the world Sega's massive back catalog of RPG's and other games that would work phenomenally within the constraints of the emulator.

Sega finally responded by releasing Shining Force [$2.99], an effort that was hard to say enough good things about in our review. Tonight they've released Phantasy Star II [$2.99], and much like Shining Force, the slow pace of the game completely negates any performance issues of control inaccuracies and instead just provides an awesome classic RPG in your pocket.

Phantasy Star II is the sequel to Phantasy Star, a Sega Master System game which didn't see another release in North America until it appeared on the Gameboy Advance and then the Wii Virtual Console. Playing the first is by no means required to enjoy the second, as the plot of Phantasy Star II follow the now entirely cliche story of ridding the world of ultimate evil while the backgrounds of the various characters that make up your party develop. Phantasy Star II has made it on to several greatest games of all time list, and it really should be played by any fan of turn based RPG's.

Really the only thing I could ask of this port is some further refinement to the emulator. Phantasy Star II badly needs a way to speed the game up as your movement is more than a little slow by today's standards, a "problem" other PC emulators have solved by allowing you to crank the speed of the game up. I somehow doubt Sega would ever implement these kind of tweaks, but enough complaining did get them to release two fantastic RPG's so far, so who knows.

Shortly after yesterday's announcement of Super Mega Worm we received word from PlayCreek, creators of Stoneloops! of Jurassica, that they were bringing the original worm destruction game to the App Store. Death Worm was created by JTR back in 2006 and is available for free as a 3.5MB Windows game. PlayCreek is promising to take the original concept to the next level, and even has plans to keep the game updated with new levels, enemies, game modes, and other features. Two examples they cite for future updates are a Death Worm soccer mini game and a Death Worm castle defense game mode. There's also an iPad version in the works.

It's more than a little odd that there are two games being announced in such short succession that are based on such similar concepts, but if you got a chance to play Stoneloops! of Jurassica before it was pulled from the App Store, it's hard to not get excited for PlayCreek's Death Worm. The additional game modes sound beyond ridiculous, and I'm really looking forward to giving both Death Worm and Super Mega Worm a try.

Developers seem to love scheduling their release dates for Thursday, causing their games to slowly leak out over the world over the course of the day on Wednesday and we're in for another onslaught of releases tonight. These games should all appear for download in the US App Store at 11:00 PM EST unless you download your games from the various European or Asian App Stores, in which case they will be available much earlier (possibly even as you're reading this).

R-Type, $1.99 - We've covered R-Type a number of times in the past, including getting a sneak peek at it at the recent EA pre-holiday event. R-Type is a sidescrolling shooter that hardly need an introduction filled with huge bosses, tons of power-ups, and everything else that makes a shooter awesome. For more information, and impressions as the game trickles out over the world, check out the thread in our forums.

Dodonpachi Resurrection, $4.99 - Another bullet hell shooter from Cave which unfortunately only runs on 3rd generation devices and later due to the sheer amount of things happening at once on screen. We've been following this game closely, and bullet hell fanatics are already debating Dodonpachi Resurrection versus Cave's previous game, ESPGaluda II [$8.99 / Free] in the forum thread.

Phantasy Star II - Sega's classic Genesis RPG should be available on the US App Store tonight, although it doesn't yet appear to be available internationally. Sega often releases two versions, one American and one international, and while it seems unlikely it's possible that the international version simply hasn't been approved yet. Regardless, we're keeping our eyes peeled for it.

Knight's Rush, $2.99 - From the developers of Knights Onrush [99¢ / Free] and A Quest of Knights Onrush [Free] comes a full featured arcade style hack and slash which sounds like it has a ton of content. 50 enemy types, 8 bosses and 40 levels across 8 different worlds have people pretty excited in our forums.

Cave Run, $1.99 - Randomized survival platformers seem to be the name of the game lately between Monster Dash [99¢], A Skeleton Story [$1.99], and others. Cave Run is universal and has generated quite a bit of buzz in our forums, packed with an Indiana Jones-like theme and tons of obstacles to avoid.

We're going to spend the day working up reviews for as many of these games as possible, and if you've been looking forward to any of them in particular be sure to stop by the threads linked with each game as international forum members almost always post first impressions throughout the day.

Just a couple of weeks ago we brought you the first screens and info from the upcoming sequel to early App Store classic Blue Defense! titled Blue Defense: Second Wave. Since then, we've been able to spend some time with a work-in-progress build of the game and check out how Second Wave plays compared to the original. So far, it's shaping up really nicely. It takes the core gameplay of the first game and adds some interesting new features and a lot more content, retaining the simplicity that made the original such a joy to play but adding just enough depth to offer a really different experience.

The basics of Second Wave remain the same. You'll fight off waves of enemies with a perpetually shooting cannon firing from the center of the planet which you're trying to protect. A population of about 7 billion people act as the life of your planet, with that number dwindling with every enemy that penetrates your defense. If the population hits zero, the planet is lost and it's game over.

One of the biggest changes this time around is the ability to fire multiple cannons at once. Touching the screen at any time brings up an aiming reticule and a new stream of fire, with multitouch support for adding up to five additional streams along with the first cannon. A quick double tap on the screen locks an aiming reticule in place at that point on the screen, which can be dragged around and set anywhere you want to direct more firepower. You can set up to ten of these locked streams in addition to the five you can add by touching. Coupled with the normal cannon, that's a whopping sixteen streams of fire at your disposal.  These screens were taken from an iPhone 4 and showcase the Retina Display support in Second Wave (click to enlarge):

While this may seem like an unfair advantage, the game intelligently balances this out by making every stream share from the same pool of firepower. For example, one stream of fire will rapidly spray many bullets in one direction. Adding a stream cuts this in half, with less bullets firing more slowly out of each stream. This gets divided with each stream added, and by the time you get to the full sixteen, each stream is very slowly shooting just one bullet out at a time.

The ability to add streams adds a tremendous amount of strategy in how you choose to play the game. It's such a big help to be able to quickly direct additional fire towards incoming enemies from any direction, or lock a stream of fire towards a dense group of enemies. Besides the ability to add streams of fire, you also get a new weapon in the form of the planet cannon. Touching your planet and swiping in the direction you want to fire launches a humongous beam of destruction that's as wide as the planet itself. The planet cannon vaporizes anything in it's path, but comes with limited uses.

Here's a short video of the preview build (no sound in this build):

These additional offensive options take Second Wave to a new level, and I haven't even gone into the gauntlet mode yet. Gauntlet mode is essentially a campaign that has you defeating set levels with predetermined numbers of waves and various difficulties, but we'll leave some of this for when the game is released. The major stuff is done and it's just entering the polishing phases now, so it shouldn't be too much longer before we'll be taking a look at the final version of Blue Defense: Second Wave.

Last month, we were treated to the fun and fast-paced Fastar! from developer John Kooistra and Cat in a Box Games. Fastar! is a sarcastic take on action-RPGs that has you blazing through side-scrolling levels as fast as possible, all while collecting coins and upgrading your character as you defeat the game's many square enemies. The funny thing about Fastar! is while it's technically taking jabs at the many action-RPG games out there and the genericness of their enemies and gameplay, it actually accomplishes being an incredibly fun game while doing so.

You can read all about Fastar! in our in-depth review of the game and get a good idea of the gameplay from the trailer:

If you have yet to pick up Fastar! you're in luck as the game has just gone free for a day. We really liked the game, and found it to be a great fit for the iPhone. Players in our forums are also loving the game, and if you've been on the fence about it since its release there's now no reason not to check out Fastar! while it's free for the day.

One of the most underrepresented sports on the App Store is ice hockey, which is perplexing as even if you aren't really a fan of the sport itself, hockey has historically made for a fun video game. Back in early April we finally got an attempt at a real ice hockey game for the iPhone, Hockey Nations 2010 [$3.99/Lite]. While it looked and controlled fairly decently, it was missing that intangible aspect that made it a fun game to play. In what was somewhat of a surprise release, seasoned sports game developer 2K Sports has brought NHL 2K11 [$1.99/Lite] to the iPhone. While not the prettiest game around, it's an absolute blast to play and features a full season mode, official NHL teams and players, and more options than you could ever possibly need in a portable hockey game.

NHL 2K11 controls similarly to Hockey Nations with an analog stick for player movement and three virtual buttons for performing actions. There are separate buttons for passing and shooting on offense, with the power of each determined by how long you hold the button down. On defense these same buttons serve to change players and perform checks. The third button gives your player a speed boost on offense or defense. Your actions can differ based on where you are in relation to other players allowing for simple poke checks or full blown body checks. Passing also works really well, letting you bounce the puck off the boards to a teammate or set up for a one-timer. The controls are really uncomplicated but still allow for depth and strategy.

What is really impressive about NHL 2K11 is the absurd amount of options at your disposal. There's typical game settings like difficulty, toggling penalties, choosing NHL or international style time and icing rules, and more. You can set line changes to automatic, manual, or turn them off completely. A ton of different camera angles and zoom options are available including locking the camera in place. A season mode lets you choose a team and play through an entire season in pursuit of the Stanley Cup. Rosters can be altered, saved, and loaded with or without a trade deadline and salary cap. What's in NHL 2K11 is comparable to what you would find in a full console sports title, and caters well whether you're looking for a casual hockey experience or something in-depth.

Even with all of the great features in NHL 2K11 it does have some shortcomings. Players are blocky and comprised of low resolution textures, which is pronounced when the game zooms in during replays. This isn't as noticeable with the default overhead camera in the game, but the tiny players are still pretty jagged, especially on the iPhone 4. While the visuals are not the best, they don't distract from the game too much as you can still tell what is going on, but they could stand to be better. The game description warns NHL 2K11 isn't compatible with first gen devices, but players in our forums have been able to run the game, just with a lowered framerate. You can always try the lite to see how it performs if you have an older device. Additionally, the AI in the game doesn't always make the smartest choices, and the audio portions of the game are lacking. Overall, NHL 2K11 has some “rough around the edges” spots, but overall none of these issues really diminish the fun of playing the game.

It wouldn't be hard for NHL 2K11 to claim the title of best ice hockey game on the iPhone, since the competition is sorely lacking. But it surprisingly goes above and beyond and offers a truly full-fledged NHL experience on a mobile platform. Even with such a robust experience, the game supports fast app switching and saving during season play which makes it well suited for on-the-go gaming. And on top of everything else, it's just incredibly fun to play. EA's NHL offerings have typically been favored over the 2K series on consoles, and it will be interesting to see if EA decides to throw their hat into the iPhone hockey arena. Until that time, however, 2K Sports NHL 2K11 is the clear cut choice for hockey on the iPhone.

TouchArcade Rating:

First time iPhone developer vol-2 just released their inaugural game on the App Store this afternoon. No, Human [$1.99] is a physics-based puzzle game set in space which begins with an amusing conversation between the humans proclaiming they will conquer the universe and the universe simply responding "Oh really?" From there, you're walked through a brief tutorial which explains that in order to rid space of humans, you must flick fireballs at various satellites, space stations, and/or rockets to clear each level.

50 levels are included, and as you progress through the basic levels you eventually come across targets that have shields which must be hit twice to destroy. Further on, you come across asteroids in space with their own gravitational push or pull that must be intelligently used to arc or repel fireballs along with others that have to be ignited by existing flaming fireballs before they can be flicked. Gameplay is basic and fairly linear with most levels only having one viable solution. Also, playing through all 50 levels only took me (and others on our forums) less than an hour.

But neither the short play time or simple gameplay kept me from enjoying the game one bit. In fact, I'd say it's one of the better physics-based puzzlers I've played recently because it's just dripping with minimalistic style. Each level has a clever title which oftentimes is a vague hint for how you should complete the level. At the end you're met with an equally witty remark fitting the theme of purging the universe of humans which persists through every aspect of the game.

You could easily complain about the length of the game, the limited replay value, the extremely basic implementation of online scoring, and a number of other things. However, it isn't often that I come across an iPhone game that I enjoyed enough that I played from start to finish in one marathon session. I almost like that No, Human plays this way, as it feels like an oddly complete experience. The game doesn't drag on long enough for you to get tired of it, and instead I just found myself saying "Wow, that was cool" as I completed the 50th level and my overall score was displayed.

No, Human satisfies quite a few things from my checklist of what I like to see in iPhone games as well in that it does a good job of resuming when you quit the game, it's universal, and even looks great on the Retina Display of my iPhone 4. The developer is active in our forums, and the web site even mentions a potential expansion pack in the works.

If physics puzzle games are your thing, this isn't a game you want to miss.

Deceased Pixel, developers of Tabletop Pong Classic [$1.99] and Snake HD [99¢] just revealed their next game to the world: Super Mega Worm. The game isn't entirely an original concept, as it already exists as a Flash game called Effing Worms which itself is based off a game called Death Worm. Regardless, the Flash version is a lot of fun, and I love games with pixel art, so Super Mega Worm is right up my alley.

According to the trailer, the premise of the game is that humans have destroyed Earth doing, well, humany kind of stuff. Earth unleashes its last defenses to restore balance to the planet-- A gigantic worm that eats everything. It's unclear from the trailer whether or not Super Mega Worm features the evolutionary upgrade system that makes Effing Worms so awesome, but I've got my fingers crossed. Super Mega Worm is coming soon, and we plan on taking a closer look at the game as soon as it is released.