One of the more interesting titles I got to see a demonstration of at Sega's iPhone Games Day today was Kingdom Conquest. The game is attempting to blend aspects of MMOs, real-time strategies, card battling, and dungeon crawlers all in one combined online experience. It may sound like a tall order, but it appears that Sega is actually on their way to pulling off this unique idea.

The RTS part of the game has you building up a city by placing buildings and using resources much like you would set up a base camp in typical RTS fashion. Harnessing resources like stone, iron, and wood allow you to build up different structures with different purposes. You'll also need to amass an army to capture territories of opponents. The different types of units you can use in your army are portrayed in a card-battling style similar to games like Magic the Gathering. Each card has its own attributes and special abilities, and there will be ways to earn unique cards to add to your collection. Winning in battle will depend on the effectiveness of the cards that comprise your army.

The dungeon crawling comes in to play when you try to take control of special towers around the map. Once you attempt completing a tower, the game switches into a 3^rd person hack 'n slash game controlled with an analog stick and buttons where you must complete 5 levels of a dungeon floor filled with enemies and a huge final boss. Beating a tower can net you special items and resources for use in your city, as well as new monster cards and experience points. There will be 3 types of characters to play as in this part of the game - a barbarian, a swordsman, and a cleric. These characters can be outfitted with various weapons and equipment, and can be leveled up as you progress in the game.

Finally, the MMO portion comes into play with the online components of the game. Kingdom Conquest requires an EDGE, 3G, or WiFi internet connection to play. You can view other players cities and face off against them in an effort to take over their territory. The online progress is persistent, and you can join with other players and form alliances as you play through a season in the game. You can join into online auctions with other players to trade and buy items, as well as send messages and check various online statistics and rankings. Additionally, the dungeon crawling portion of the game can be played with up to 4 other players cooperatively, similar to raiding in other MMO games.

If this all sounds complicated, a “messenger” character in the game will give you various quests to complete that help you learn the different facets of playing before engaging in online battle. Kingdom Conquest will be a freemium title, which will be free to play but contain a shop full of various in-app purchases. These purchases can do things like increase your production, attack, or defense, as well as other offensive boosts. It remains to be seen how this will affect the balance of the game, and if spending more money will allow you to conquer players unfairly over those that choose not to spend anything. At any rate, the game looks great so far, and you'll be able to try out Kingdom Conquest for yourself sometime late this fall.

Today at Sega's iPhone Games Day, they revealed two more emulated Genesis titles that will be hitting the iPhone. Gamers who had purchased a Genesis prior to the Sonic the Hedgehog craze should be instantly familiar with the original system's pack-in game Altered Beast. The other title is the cult classic run and gun shooter Gunstar Heroes from Treasure.

While the previous emulated titles offered by Sega have sold really well, there has been an underlying feeling of disappointment from many gamers due to the poor performance of both the controls and actual game emulation. Recently, Sega has updated this emulator after working hard to optimize the performance and tighten up the controls. Virtual buttons may not be ideal for fast-paced arcade style games like these, but after playing both titles today I can safely say that they perform much more admirably than previous games have in the past.

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Altered Beast - Originally a popular arcade title, Altered Beast was ported to the Genesis to show the capabilities of the new 16-bit system in bringing a similar experience to the living room. For those not familiar with the game, Altered Beast is a side-scrolling beat 'em up where you play as a warrior who has been resurrected from the grave in order to rescue Zeus's daughter Athena from the evil demon Neff. You'll fight a slew of eveil creatures, and can collect orbs that will incrementally beef up your hero into stronger and stronger variations, culminating in a powerful werewolf type creature.

Altered Beast is a classic to be sure, but time has not treated the gameplay very well. After the evolution that the beat 'em up genre went through during the 90's, Altered Beast feels pretty dated. It's still quite a bit of fun, and has a strong nostalgia factor. It plays surprisingly well in Sega's updated version of their iPhone emulator, and I was amazed that I could actually make it to the first level's end boss and defeat him. It's a shame that this port isn't the superior arcade version of Altered Beast, but if you enjoyed the Genesis version then you will likely enjoy this one as well.

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Gunstar Heroes – One of the most revered developers of the past two decades is Treasure, who are famous for creating such classics as Dynamite Headdy, Radiant Silvergun, and Ikaruga. Their first title though was Gunstar Heroes for the Genesis. Similar to Contra, Gunstar Heroes is a side and vertical-scrolling run and gun shooter. It is mostly remembered for the intense amount of frantic action you would be subjected to at any given time, as well as the interesting weapons and intense battles with humongous bosses.

Also similar to Contra, Gunstar Heroes requires precision controls and quick reflexes in order to not meet your end. The lack of tactile feedback with virtual touch screen controls usually makes games like this nearly impossible to play, but after trying out the game today I was actually really impressed with how well it works. I'm not going to say that it's perfect, but certainly as close to perfect as a touch screen will allow for this type of game. Gunstar Heroes is tough as nails, and virtual controls won't make it any easier. But it's still very playable, and more importantly quite a bit of fun, especially if you enjoyed the original game. Controls aside, there are likely many players that will be grabbing the game just based on the fact that it's Gunstar Heroes, and I'll admit that it will be very cool to have such a classic available in my pocket to play at any time.

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What is really interesting is that both the titles shown today were originally 2-player co-op games, and this functionality has been preserved in the iPhone iterations via bluetooth. Since one of the biggest allures of both Altered Beast and Gunstar Heroes was teaming up with a buddy to play the game, it's nice that this will still be possible on the iPhone. Additionally, Sega is planning on updating some of their previous iPhone Genesis titles with bluetooth multiplayer, although no specific games were mentioned. Both Altered Beast and Gunstar Heroes were looking pretty good in action, and you can expect to see them released sometime this fall.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / Free] hit the App Store in late January of this year and we absolutely loved it in our review. Prior to its release, there were quite a few good Grand Theft Auto-like games, but none ever really approached the depth and complexity of a true Rockstar game. Chinatown Wars blew everything out of the water with a full Grand Theft Auto experience, complete with tons of missions to complete, a ridiculous amount of cars to steal, and even touchscreen based mini-games for various in-game tasks.

Chinatown Wars worked fine on the iPad, but like so many games with controls designed and optimized for play on the iPhone, it definitely needed some tweaking. Also, pixel doubling wasn't very kind on the game's graphics. Rockstar responded by releasing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars HD [$9.99] which is the same game from a content perspective, with completely redone controls and graphics for the larger screen of the iPad. The in-game lighting has been improved, polygon counts have been increased, and explosions even look better.

If you own an iPad, and you've ever been remotely interested in Grand Theft Auto games, Chinatown Wars HD is a game you need on your device. There just isn't anything else like it on the App Store, the higher resolution graphics look great, the controls work well, and overall it's really hard to find anything to complain about other than this it its own app instead of a universal update to the existing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the iPhone. However, with any luck, Rockstar might just roll these high resolution graphical assets in to a Retina Display update for the new iPod Touch and iPhone 4.

If you just bought a brand new iPod touch with a Retina Display or already have an iPhone 4, Square Enix's Chaos Rings [$12.99 / HD] is a game that is highly worth considering with the release of the latest update. Chaos Rings looked great before, and now looks even better with high resolution graphics, UI elements, and text. To sweeten the deal they even added multitasking support for instant switching between battling and whatever other apps you're using.

We liked Chaos Rings enough to award it five stars in our review, and really think it's a game that any fan of turn based RPG's should own. With this latest update, that's especially true if you have a Retina Display device.

Gameloft's impressive looking Real Golf 2011 made its appearance on the App Store tonight.

The latest sports title from the company comes in at $6.99 and offers real sports personalities including Join Anthony Kim, Natalie Gulbis, Camilo Villegas and more. Online and local multiplayer is also offered. The full list of official courses include:

• Evian Masters (France)
• Bethpage (USA)
• Harbour Town (USA)
• Pearl Valley Golf Estates (South Africa)
• Old Head (Ireland)
• Kiawah Island (USA)
• Kingston Heath Golf Club (Australia)
• Bali Ocean Course (Indonesia)
• Cherry Blossom Golf Club (Japan)
• Royal Loch Course (Scotland)

We haven't had a chance to put the game through the paces, but will take a closer look shortly. Early impressions are rolling into our forums.

Earlier today EA Mobile posted some screenshots from two of their previously announced upcoming iOS games on their Facebook page. Based on the little bit that is shown, it seems that fans of the previous iPhone versions of The Sims games will be getting a new iteration of that series called The Sims 3: Ambitions. For the more violence-prone audience, EA Sports MMA will bring the competitive sport of mixed martial arts to the touch screen. Click on any of the images below to get a larger view.

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The Sims 3: Ambitions - This newest Sims game looks to include all of the same customization and social interaction that you've come to know from the series, but with an added focus on fulfilling your particular character's passions and turning them into paying professions. In the PC version of Ambitions, you could become a firefighter and would have to put out hazardous fires and rescue other Sims from burning buildings, along with the more mundane tasks like properly maintaining your equipment. There were also more creative jobs like a tattoo artist or stylist that let you actually change the look of your fellow Sims. Other cool additions will be the ability to raise children and build and customize your own living spaces.

It remains to be seen what exactly will be in the iPhone edition of The Sims 3: Ambitions, but based on these screens chances are it will be similar to its PC counterpart. An exact release date hasn't been given aside from Summer 2010, and with Summer just about to be over we might very well be seeing the game released in the coming weeks. Until then you can join in the discussion going in our upcoming games forum for The Sims 3: Ambitions.

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EA Sports MMA - While this title was announced way back at E3 in June, there still isn't a whole lot of information about it. What we do know is that EA Sports MMA will be a mixed martial arts fighting game similar to the popular UFC, but without actually being affiliated or licensed by the UFC.  Still, if you follow the sport of MMA you should recognize some of the fighters in EA Sports MMA like Randy Couture and Fedor Emelianenko who are shown in the screenshots below. It also appears that you will be able to customize and train your fighter.

Again, a firm release date hasn't been set for EA Sports MMA, but we would venture to guess that it can't be too far off since screens are being posted on Facebook. What we're really interested to see is how the game will actually control with the touch screen, and how much depth there will be in regards to different moves and holds. We'll let you know if we hear anything more about EA Sports MMA, and in the meantime head on over to the upcoming game thread to talk about the game in our forums.

France-based developers Movingplayer and publisher Bulkypix have been hard at work lately on Yslandia, the latest MMO to shortly hit the App Store. Already released in Canada for testing purposes and set to hit US and international stores any day now (together with the US-based servers), this distinctly European take on the traditional eastern-influenced MMO formula had my attention from early on.

That Yslandia hails from a European developer is not something to be understated. It permeates every facet of the game-- just as PC gamers saw a remarkable departure from traditional RPG paradigms in the popular Polish-developed title, The Witcher-- so too does Yslandia show off its own influences and underpinnings, for better or for worse.

The most immediate evidence of this in play is in the artwork and in-game sprites. Gone are the cutesy, bright color palettes and heavily cell-shaded artwork usually seen in MMOs. Instead, what we have here are more detailed sprites with a purposefully subdued tone; emphasizing a realistic brush as trees and houses and even characters are painted in modest colors. The artwork in general brings to mind a water-color painting; not as visually striking as the color explosion of most JRPGs, but not without its own charm.

In so far as the gameplay is concerned, MMOs traditionally have been about lengthy solo leveling experiences (read: grinding) with a smattering of teamwork needed in certain encounters. Yslandia on the other hand is more focused all around Player vs Player combat and social interactions (but with its own share of grinding). The three islands that make up the initial release of Yslandia are comprised of respective starting islands for the Simeh'a Alliance and the Zaa'me Coalition (essentially, Light vs Dark), and a neutral territory called Gilda where all the PvP combat goes on. And it's on this latter island that most of your time in Yslandia will be spent.

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About a month ago, we detailed the announcement from Capcom that the female character Crimson Viper would be added to the roster of Street Fighter IV for iPhone. And as we speculated then, she won't be alone. Today they have announced that original Street Fighter II combatant E. Honda will be joining her in the forthcoming update, following the previous update that added Cammy and Zangief as playable characters. Personally this announcement has me really excited, as E. Honda marks the completion of the original cast of characters from the arcade game, and he is also one of my favorites to play with. Capcom has released some new screenshots and video of E. Honda in action (click to enlarge):

And here is some gameplay video of E. Honda on the iPhone:

As with the last update, this one will be free to previous owners of the game. Besides the addition of Crimson Viper and E. Honda, Capcom has hinted that some other surprises will be in store for fans of Street Fighter IV. The previous update hit the App Store a few weeks after the announcement of the second character, so hopefully this news of E. Honda means that we'll be seeing these new characters in the game within the next month. Be sure to check out our preview of Crimson Viper for additional screens and video of her in action as well.

With the iOS 4.1 update that added Game Center out in the wild today, we're seeing an avalanche of new updates for older games that are utilizing these new features. Previously we've only seen games that received achievements and leaderboards, but now it seems that three games from Pangea Software are the first to offer real-time multiplayer. Here is the information for each game provided in the press release from Pangea:

Nanosaur 2, $3.99 Nanosaur 2 is a 3D action-adventure game where you pilot a time traveling pteradactyl from the future.  Previously, Nanosaur 2 was just a single player game, but new in version 2.0 are six new levels and three new multiplayer modes including Capture the Eggs, Battle, and Race.  Thanks to iOS 4.1, users with Game Center enabled devices can now play against each other by inviting friends or using Auto-Match to play against people around the world.  In Capture the Eggs mode players are on teams, and they have to retrieve all of their team’s dinosaur eggs before the other team.  Battle mode, on the other hand, is pure excitement as players collect weapons and blast each other out of the sky.  The race mode also involves a lot of heat seeking missiles, blasters, and cluster grenades, but your primary goal is to race around a track.  Up to four players can play together in Nanosaur 2, and the game uses the Voice Chat feature of iOS so you can smack-talk your opponents while you unleash a barrage of firepower on them.

Cro-Mag Rally, $1.99 Cro-Mag Rally is Pangea Software’s caveman racing game where you race primitive vehicles such as the Bone Buggy, Geode Cruiser, Logmobile, etc. around prehistoric and ancient racetracks.  The new 2.0 version of Cro-Mag Rally now supports multiplayer networked racing thanks to Game Center, so up to four players can race against each other using any of the vehicles in the game.  Additionally, version 2.0 is now a Universal Binary app so it runs on the iPhone / iPod Touch and the iPad.

Enigmo, $2.99 Enigmo is one of the all-time best selling iPhone games with well over a million units sold, and it is the winner of an Apple Design Award for Best iPhone Game.  Enigmo is a physics based game where you try to direct flowing streams of liquids to solve puzzles.  Version 4.0 of Enigmo adds a new multiplayer mode where up to 3 players can compete to solve puzzles.  Like Nanosaur 2 and Cro-Mag Rally, Enigmo also supports Voice Chat.

We've had a chance to try out these new multiplayer features and are really happy with the results. Connecting into an online game is incredibly simple as you can choose to search out a game against random people or very easily invite one of your Game Center friends. The voice chat also works really well, and trash talking while racing against forum moderator Zincous in Cro-Mag Rally was a ton of fun indeed. Voices are clear and there is a mute button if you get tired of hearing how badly you are getting beaten by your opponent.

We didn't experience any lag while playing, but this could be due to Game Center being so new, and it will be interesting to see how the experience holds up in the coming weeks as more and more games get online multiplayer. As of right now, the Game Center integration in these three titles breaths new life into the experience, and they are definitely worth checking out for the multiplayer and voice chat functionality. We'll be anxiously awaiting to see what other titles receive the Game Center online multiplayer treatment down the line.

Following the fairly underwhelming first Game Center game Ms. Pac-Man, we're now starting to get into some of the good stuff. Updates with Game Center support for both Flight Control and Real Racing from Firemint have just gone live in the App Store. Each game will take advantage of achievements and leaderboards offered with Game Center integration.

Firemint's previous Cloudcell online integration will still remain, so even if you can't access Game Center you'll still be able to access achievements and leaderboards like before. If you can possibly tear yourself away from playing Ms. Pac-Man for a few minutes, make sure you grab these latest updates and check out the Game Center functionality in Flight Control and Real Racing. More Game Center updates are slowly trickling out, and you can follow this thread in our forums where a current list of Game Center enabled games is being maintained.

So, Namco's Ms. Pac-Man is one of the first games to support Apple's new Game Center leaderboard system. As you can see from the screenshots, the game supports leaderboards and achievements through Apple's new social gaming network:

I'm sure we'll see more Game Center supporting updates shortly.

Imangi Studios' Harbor Master HD has seen a number of additions since its original iPad launch in April. The base game includes a single map and can be downloaded for free, but they've since added four new maps for $0.99 each as in-app purchases. The map above is called the Bermuda Triangle and includes pirates, monsters and cyclones to make your line-drawing life a bit more difficult.

But with the latest updates, they've also added a clever rewind feature that lets you restart the game right before that last fatal mistake:

We've also added a really cool feature - rewinds. With rewinds, after you crash, you can choose to rewind (or undo) the crash, and continue playing where you left off. You can only use ONE rewind in a game, and you get a limited number of rewinds total. When we launched the update, we gave people 5 rewinds, and then they could earn 1 rewind for each 1000 pieces of cargo they ship. So they more you play, the more rewinds you earn, and therefore you can use a rewind more often.

You start off with 5 rewinds and can use one in any particular game. Rewinds are then earned for longer play time or can be purchased via in-app purchase ($0.99 for $2.99 for 20, $4.99 for 40).

Balancing in-app purchases is always a challenging problem for a developer. On the one hand, in app purchases need to offer a legitimate value in a consumable product. But that product can't be one that gamers feel is a necessary component of the game. I feel like the rewinds fill this sort of niche well, and I'd expect we'll see it more often in the future. As an added bonus, I've always thought the compelling feature of these chaos management games is the "oh no!" last second regret when death comes suddenly. Now you get a second chance.

Back in April, a fantastic little title hit the App Store called Solomon's Keep [99¢/Lite]. It was a dual-stick dungeon crawler that had you ascending through randomized dungeon floors filled with swarms of baddies as you leveled up your wizard collecting loot and gaining new abilities. We really enjoyed Solomon's Keep in our review, and the game got even better with an excellent 2.0 update. Now, developer Raptisoft (who also gave us the currently free platformer Hoggy [Link]) has created an endless survival version of Solomon's Keep titled Solomon's Boneyard [99¢]. The game uses the familiar mechanics of Solomon's Keep but offers a different enough experience that warrants a look even if you already own the original.

Solomon's Boneyard takes place 23 years before the events of Solomon's Keep. An adolescent Solomon Dark is learning the ways of dark magic and disturbing the graves at a local graveyard, and it's up to a group of newly graduated wizards to put a stop to him. You'll start the game by choosing from one of seven characters (three of which are unlockable) who each have their own unique set of abilities. There's a wizard with a focus on lightning attacks, one focused in fire, one who deals with ice, and so forth. You can also choose to purchase some helpful items from a shop prior to entering the boneyard, like additional potions or abilities to help you on your quest. Fans of Solomon's Keep will recognize these items and offensive abilities as they are essentially the same here.

Once you've chosen your character and geared up, you'll head to the graveyard where you catch Solomon digging up graves. He then sends his undead minions after you, and you'll fight off the endless waves of increasingly difficult enemies while trying to last as long as possible. The same enemies you face in Solomon's Keep are here too, including various skeletons, zombies, and bouncing flaming demons. Defeating these enemies gives you experience, and each time you level up you'll be able to choose from three available upgrades to your weapons or abilities. Additionally, special items can be dropped by the enemies that can give you an instant upgrade or other special attribute. The main goal in Solomon's Boneyard is to defeat as many enemies as possible in a given game, but the gold you collect from them is persistent and can be used to buy items from the shop for use in subsequent playthroughs.

Solomon's Boneyard is also a very attractive game. There is only the one graveyard map, but it's fairly large with obstacles to deal with like open graves and headstones. A neat dynamic lighting effect similar to Helsing's Fire [99¢] is used that casts real-time shadows from the gravestones and enemies in the game, giving the whole graveyard a dark and foreboding feel. Each of the wizard characters also have their own unique look, with different colors and styles of clothing as well as different body types and genders. It's a nice bit of variation compared to the single wizard character from Solomon's Keep, and owners of 3rd generation devices or higher will notice a higher graphical fidelity due to anti-aliasing.

Solomon's Boneyard doesn't claim to be anything but what it is, an endless survival-style version of Solomon's Keep. The seven different characters are fun to play with, and each game doesn't usually last more than 15 or 20 minutes compared to the hour or so it takes to get through Solomon's Keep. There's also a nice high score dynamic, as upon dying in a game your score is based on total number of kills, character level reached, and the amount of time you lasted during that run. These are tracked through OpenFeint with a separate leaderboard for each character, as well as a number of interesting achievements to unlock. If you enjoyed Solomon's Keep, then you should also enjoy the distilled gameplay experience offered in Solomon's Boneyard. Impressions in our forums are overwhelmingly positive, and if you like dual-stick survival shooters in general this is one you shouldn't miss.

TouchArcade Rating:

iOS 4.1 was just released mere moments ago. It features Game Center, HDR photography for the iPhone 4, and a ton of other features. Also, if you've got an iPhone 3G, while you won't get Game Center, at least you'll get a little bit of a performance boost compared to iOS 4.0.

iOS 4.1 is a free download for all devices that support it.

Apple recently unveiled a new Game Center web page detailing the features of the service and revealed that the 2nd Generation iPod touch will also be a Game Center-capable device. After delaying the Game Center release to iOS 4.1, Apple had previously announced that it would only be available on 3rd generation devices and newer. This latest development only leaves the first generation iPod touch and both the original iPhone and iPhone 3G out in the cold.

Game Center is launching soon with iOS 4.1 and already developers are committing to supporting it in their games. Forum member Project-79 has been maintaining a thread of assembled announcements and press releases from developers that will be supporting Game Center on (or soon after) launch. Notable titles include Flight Control [99¢], Angry Birds [99¢ / Free] and many others.