We've been tracking Elite's retro game releases through its ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection [App Store] and associated apps for some time now. This weekend, Elite released another emulated classic that many gamers on both sides of the pond will recall fondly: Barbarian from Palace Software.

Barbarian (distributed in the U.S. by Epyx as Death Sword), originally released for the Commodore 64 in 1987, is a hack and slash fighter that places you, the barbarian, in a series of fighting pits on a mission to slash your way through warrior after warrior and ultimately defeat the evil wizard Drax and rescue the ample Princess Mariana. It's all in the spirit of Conan. The game was noted for its realistic character animation (despite its simplistic graphics), considerable gore, and pleasant dose of wit. More than all of these, perhaps, it was noted for its racy box cover art featuring a bikini-clad Maria Whittaker, who had recently made an appearance as a topless Page Three girl in The Sun, and some dude. The outcry was dramatic.

Being a title running in Elite's ZX Spectrum emulator, Barbarian: ZX Spectrum is, of course, the ZX Spectrum version of the game. Unfortunately, this was not one of the strongest ports. Due to limitations of the Speccy's hardware, the actual play area and the characters within are rendered in monochrome. The detail is there, but the presentation feels pretty sparse. Another negative in this emulated iOS release is the control scheme. Despite Elite's "iDaptive" control system, where button (or key) layout can be custom arranged, the types of wildly varying moves that you need to pull off in rapid succession to excel in this game are not particularly conducive to touchscreen-style D-pad play. Happily, the customizable controls let you move the D-pad out of the way of your character in landscape mode, but that doesn't help with the feel of the controls.

Barbarian for the C64 and other platforms of old featured both a single player campaign mode (the quest to rescue Mariana) and a two-player challenge mode. It's worth noting that the version presented here offers only a single player mode.

See a video of the game as played on the ZX Spectrum.

Barbarian: ZX Spectrum is a stand-alone title with versions for both the iPhone [link] and iPad [link], and will be appearing as part of a new download pack for Elite's ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection [link] on Friday, when the number of available games in the collection will reach 108.

As a fan of what I knew as Death Sword on the Apple II back in the day, I was happy to see Barbarian arrive on iOS, even if it's come in a non-native fashion. I'd wager that the happy customers here are going to be other oldschool gamers who have fond memories of gut kicks and decapitation as Palace delivered them. Those unacquainted will probably find this one wanting.

It's Easter weekend, and that means App Store sales (among other things). Have a look at a list of stand out titles for the iPhone and iPad that are probably worth a look while the gettin's good.

Electronic Arts

• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• Command and Conquer: Red Alert -- iPad: $4.99 → $0.99
• CLUE -- iPhone: $1.99 → $0.99
• Dead Space -- iPhone: $6.99 → $.99, iPad: $9.99 → $0.99
• FIFA 11 -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99, iPad: $9.99 → $0.99
• Fight Night Champions -- iPhone: $4.99 → $0.99
• Madden NFL 11 -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99, iPad: $12.99 → $0.99
• Max and the Magic Marker -- iPhone: $1.99 → $0.99, iPad: $4.99 → $0.99
• Monopoly -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• NBA Jam -- iPhone: $4.99 → $0.99
• NCAA Football -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit -- iPhone: $4.99 → $0.99
• Need for Speed Shift -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• Pictureka! for iPad -- iPad: $4.99 → $0.99
• Reckless Racing HD -- iPad: $4.99 → $0.99
• RISK -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• Rock Band Reloaded -- iPhone: $4.99 → $2.99, iPad: $9.99 → $2.99
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 -- iPhone: $4.99 → $0.99
• Scrabble -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99, iPad: $9.99 → $0.99
• Tetris -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• The Game of Life Classic Edition -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• The Sims 3 -- iPhone: $6.99 → $0.99
• The Sims 3 Ambitions -- iPhone: $4.99 → $0.99

Chillingo

• Etolis: Arena -- Universal: $1.99 → $0.99
• Sneezies Easter Edition -- iPhone: $1.99 → Free
• Zooloretto -- iPhone: $4.99 → $0.99

SEGA

• Altered Beast -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• Chu Chu Rocket! HD -- iPad: $4.99 → $0.99
• Super Monkey Ball -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• Super Monkey Ball 2 -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99

Gamevil

• Illusia -- iPhone: $1.99 → $0.99
• Zenonia -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• Zenonia 2 -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99

Digital Chocolate

• 3D Brick Breaker Revolution 2 -- iPhone: $1.99 → $0.99
• 3D Mini Golf Challenge -- iPhone: $1.99 → $0.99
• California Gold Rush 2 -- iPhone: $1.99 → $0.99
• Icy Tower -- iPhone: $2.99 → $1.99
• Tower Bloxx Deluxe 3D -- iPhone: $1.99 → $0.99

99Games

• Create a Mall -- iPhone: $3.99 → $1.99, iPad: $4.99 → $2.99
• Mystic Emporium -- iPhone: $2.99 → $1.99, iPad: $3.99 → $2.99
• The Jim and Frank Mysteries - The Blood River Files HD -- iPad: $2.99 → $1.99
• Winemaker Extraordinaire HD -- iPad: $4.99 → $2.99
• WordsWorth HD -- iPad: $2.99 → $1.99

Various:

• 1945 Air Strike from Gojoy Co. -- iPhone: $0.99 → Free
• Across Age DX from FDG Entertainment -- iPhone: $3.99 → $0.99
• Beyond Ynth from FDG Entertainment -- iPhone: $1.99 → Free
• BattleZone 3D King of the Hill from Noumena -- iPhone: $5.99 → Free
• Blokus from Gameloft -- iPhone: $4.99 → $0.99
• Caligo Chaser from Com2uS -- iPhone: $2.99 → Free
• Cro-Mag Rally from Pangea -- Universal: $3.99 → $0.99
• Dogs Playing Poker from Candywriter -- iPhone: $2.99 → $0.99
• Galaxy on Fire 2 from Fishlabs -- Universal: $9.99 → $4.99
• Game Dev Story from Kairosoft -- iPhone: $3.99 → $1.99
• Geared 2 from Bryan Mitchell -- Universal: $0.99 → Free
• Great Little War Game HD from Rubicon -- Universal: $2.99 → $0.99
• I Dig It from InMotion Software -- iPhone: $0.99 → Free
• NewtonApples from Edenpod -- iPhone: $1.99 → Free
• Pinball Ride Unlimited from Massive Finger -- Universal: $4.99 → $2.99
• Race After 1977 from Xpect Games -- iPhone: $2.99 → $.99
• Reverse Maze from Ironshod Limited -- iPhone: $0.99 → Free
• Road Blaster from Revolutionary Concepts -- iPhone: $1.99 → $.99, iPad: $3.99 → $.99
• Silverfish from Chaotic Box -- iPhone: $1.99 → $.99
• Tehra Dark Warrior from StormBASIC Games -- iPhone: $3.99 → Free
• Train Conductor from The Voxel Agents -- Universal: $0.99 → Free
• ZombieSmash from Gamedoctors -- iPhone: $1.99 → $0.99, iPad: $3.99 → $1.99
• Many graphical adventures from Anuman

Much of this list was pulled from The Big Easter Sales Thread in our forums, where these titles on discount are being discussed.

Enjoy your new games!

If you haven't seen Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, that's a problem you really should think about fixing this weekend. Evil Dead is streamable on Netflix, and both Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness are able to be rented (or purchased) on iTunes. The series follows the battle between Ashley "Ash" J. Williams and his encounters with the deadites, the evil offspring risen by the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. If you like campy horror movies, there really is no finer trilogy.

Anyway, Army of Darkness: Defense takes the popular hero-based castle battle genre and applies a thick coating of Bruce Campbell to it... A combination that could make any genre amazing, but the setting of Army of Darkness lends itself particularly well to the genre. In the game, you play as Ash, and can dispatch all kinds of different forces in various battles with the deadites. The gameplay is fairly standard for a castle battler with a hero you control, with upgrades that you can purchase for Ash himself, the troops you dispatch, as well as your castle. Where Army of Darkness: Defense pulls ahead is in how incredibly well Backflip Studios has implemented all aspects of the movie into the game. I won't spoil too much, but this game basically redefines fan service.

Army of Darkness: Defense is launching on May 12th for 99¢ on the iPhone and iPod touch along with a HD version for the iPad which will be priced at $2.99. Additionally, each game will have entirely optional in-app purchase where you'll be able to buy packs of coins to spend on upgrades. Keep in mind, you earn these very same coins by actually playing the game, so unless you're the kind of person who wants to dump their money into the game to instantly upgrade everything and completely break the difficulty curve... There's not much reason to buy coins.

Stay tuned for next month, we'll have a full review to accompany the game's release.

Surely you're one of the eighty zillion people who have downloaded and played Words With Friends [$2.99 / Free] with friends, family, coworkers, and random weirdos you don't even know. It's a great game that I can't possibly recommend enough, despite the fact that it was recently assimilated into the Zynga borg. If you dig these kinds of asynchronous online multiplayer word games and are looking for a new fix, you've really got to give Prose With Bros [$1.99 / Free]. It follows a similar model as Words With Friends with a fully functional ad-supported version of the game that you can try first, along with an entirely optional $1.99 ad-free version for people who prefer tossing out a couple bucks to being inundated with advertising.

So what's Prose With Bros all about? Well, if the blatantly obvious title didn't give it away, you form prose, with your bros. Each player is given the same set of words, and they've got to string them together in the most amusing way possible. You submit your prose, and a panel of bros judge your work over the next day. Whoever gets more votes wins. Check out this exhaustive walkthrough the developers provided us:

I'm not entirely sure if Prose With Bros will have the insanely long lasting appeal that Words With Friends has had, but if you like silly multiplayer word games, there's really no reason to not download the free version and give it a spin.

Earlier this month we took a look at Elemental Rage [$4.99] from Oniric Games, a new metroidvania-style platforming game for iOS. Last week, the iPad version Elemental Rage HD [$6.99] was released in the App Store, and yesterday its small screen counterpart became available as well. As far as metroidvania games go, Elemental Rage is just about everything I could ask for. It might not be as complex or expansive as previous entries in this particular genre, but it has sharp graphics, tight controls, wonderfully designed levels, and is a great fit for a mobile game.

Elemental Rage starts out with you playing the young boy Huna who suddenly awakens to find himself on the floor of a strange castle. You quickly learn that an evil sorcerer has sucked the elemental spirits from your planet’s inhabitants, turning them into evil creatures. The last of the planet’s 4 Spirt Guides Talis, the Spirit Guide of Water, has summoned you as the last hope to save the planet. You must battle the many dark creatures and collect the missing elemental spirits spread throughout the castle to once again restore peace to the planet.

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Are you an iPad owner who has been patiently wondering when you can get your hands on Gameloft’s highly-inspired-by-Starcraft real-time strategy game Starfront: Collision [$2.99/Free]? There is a whole thread in our forums wondering just exactly that, and if you fall into that category there is some good news for you today. Gameloft has released 3 new videos of Starfront: Collision for the iPad depicting battles between each of the 3 available factions in the game (complete with slightly annoying play-by-play commentary). The video below shows off a battle between the Myriads and Wardens:

There are 2 more videos on their YouTube channel, one with a battle between the Consortium and Myriads and the other showing the Wardens versus the Consortium. Gameloft is usually pretty good about releasing native iPad versions of their games at the same time or not too long after their iPhone and iPod touch versions, but in the case of Starfront they’ve been taking their sweet time. Since they specifically mention the iPad 2 in their video descriptions, the extra time may have gone to enhancements tailored to the extra horsepower of that device, but we’ll have to wait to find out for sure.

There isn’t a specific release date for Starfront on iPad other than “coming soon” but generally when Gameloft starts talking about something it isn’t too far off from coming out. Until then you can check out our quick impressions of the iPhone and iPod touch version of Starfront or drop by the release thread in our forums to see what players have to say about the game, and we’ll be looking forward to checking out Starfront: Collision on the larger screen of the iPad in the near future.

Revolutionary Concepts is running a sale on its iOS port of the classic '80s laserdisc title Road Blaster. Road Blaster for iPhone [App Store], normally $1.99, and Road Blaster HD for iPad [App Store], normally $3.99, are both available for $0.99 for one week only.

Road Blaster follows a campy story of revenge (not totally unlike many action movies from the '80s) where you are out to get justice against an evil biker gang who murdered your wife. You'll hop into your modified sports car and go after these heartless thugs across 9 different levels, with the option of three difficulty settings. Operate your vehicle using a virtual steering wheel or the brand new tilt controls.

The iOS version features remastered FMV sequences that are optimized for Retina displays (on iPhone), a choice of two different redrawn in-game dashboard consoles, a new soundtrack and plenty of new sound effects, and numerous optimizations over the original.

Today also marks the return of the studio's Karate Champ FREE [iPhone, iPad] to the App Store, which gives a nice taste of the full iOS conversion of the classic '80s arcade fighter.

It’s been a bustling time for acquisition news in the past half a year or so with the popularity and success of mobile gaming rocketing through the roof and mobile gaming companies making moves to put themselves in the best position to ride the wave of continued growth. The big news last fall was developer Ngmoco being purchased by Japanese-based DeNA to the tune of $400 million. Around that same time Chillingo was purchased by EA, later in the year Zynga acquired NewToy, and back in January Firemint acquired fellow Australian developer Infinite Interactive.

All of this activity left everybody wondering what the next big acquisition would be on the mobile scene, and today we learn that the extremely popular mobile social network OpenFeint has been purchased by Japanese company GREE.

OpenFeint has grown by leaps and bounds since first being founded in August of 2008. While it rapidly became the dominant social platform for iOS gaming, it expanded its reach by extending to the Android platform and currently maintains a userbase of more than 75 million players across both mobile operating systems. OpenFeint is used in more than 5000 games and has over 19,000 registered developers, and is the largest mobile social network in the US.

Japanese-based GREE is the leading social platform for mobile in Japan with a userbase of 25,000 players, and is the fastest growing technology company in that country. The two company’s combined user base of 100 million positions them as the largest mobile gaming social network in the world.

Despite the purchase, it appears that OpenFeint will continue to operate much as it always has. The entire OpenFeint team and Founder/CEO Jason Citron (pictured right) will retain their roles with the company, and their plans to open additional offices internationally and double their current staff in 2011 will continue.

This purchase gives GREE a quick entry into the US market with an already established company, and OpenFeint will benefit from GREE’s additional expertise at developing and expanding social gaming platforms. GREE has purchased OpenFeint’s outstanding stock for $104 million, but will contribute additional capital beyond this towards improving and growing the existing OpenFeint service.

There are currently no plans to merge the OpenFeint service with GREE’s to create one uniform service, rather they will tailor each of their products to specific regions. We expect to hear much more about the future plans of OpenFeint post-acquisition and we’ll bring you any new developments as they happen.

Congrats Jason!

I don't care if you need to go diving between couch cushions scrounging for change to be able to afford to do it, but if you own an iOS device, you need to download Dead Space [99¢ / HD] while it's on sale for 99¢. Dead Space for iOS is a phenomenal taste of the Dead Space universe if you've yet to dabble in the "full" console titles, and at 99¢, flat out cannot be beat. We thought it was great in our review, and a recent update addressed our main gripe with the game's controls.

There are a ton of other games on sale for the holiday weekend. We'll go through and list out the good ones soon, but in the meantime do not miss Dead Space. If you want to trudge through all the games on sale yourself, head on over to AppShopper to find a listing of absolutely every game that has had its price drop. Do this after you've downloaded Dead Space.

Alright, I'll admit my curiosity has been seriously piqued by Gameloft's upcoming MMORPG. Order & Chaos Online could have some serious potential, especially judging by the following trailer which shows just how many players can be on screen at once in the game:

Unfortunately, details are practically non-existent outside of this trailer and the previously released teaser. Will it be a buy once then play forever game like Guild Wars? Will Gameloft employ the newly implemented iTunes subscription functionality? Will Order & Chaos be free to play with all kinds of IAP? It's hard to say, but I'm thinking we'll find out soon. Historically speaking, Gameloft rarely ever releases trailers for games that are at least somewhat close to release.

If you'd like to join in on the rampant speculation taking place on our forums, it's a pretty good place to hang out with other people remarkably excited for the game.

Even though an iOS version of the fantastic Portal series of games are nowhere to be found, this isn't stopping the release of official spin-off apps of sort on to the App Store. This one in particular is home to several interesting nuggets of information that any Portal fan will enjoy. For instance, Valve Software didn’t always have a clear vision for Portal 2, which hit earlier this week on the PC, Mac, and HD consoles. At one point early in its creation, Portal 2 was a prequel set in the 1950s. Also, it didn’t have portals.

This is according to game journalist Geoff Keighley in his brand new magazine-style app called “The Final Hours Of Portal 2.” [$1.99] It’s essentially an interactive article -- with loads of text, some videos, and even pictures -- that tells the story of the creation of Portal 2 and brings to light a lot of cool, previously unknown information.

I should note that Valve doesn’t open up a lot to the media, so this is both a pretty rare and privileged kind of story and definitely a cool way to throw your support behind a gifted writer. Beware, the app is home to some minor spoilers. Really though, if you're the kind of person who is contemplating purchasing a supplemental app to read about Portal 2, you've likely already beaten it, so this shouldn't be much of an issue.

...And if you haven't played both Portal and Portal 2 and you own a capable PC, Mac, Xbox 360, or PS3, you really need to fix that.

[via Kotaku]

I’ll get this out of the way: if you dug what Telltale Games did with Back to the Future Episode One, you’ll dig what it does with Episode Two, entitled “Get Tannen.” You might even like it more. Telltale mixes up the puzzles and formula much better this time around, providing a snappier, and wholly less dull experience. The catch, though, is that the solutions to what is ailing Marty and Doc feel more obvious this time around.

If you couldn’t get behind the first game, there’s nothing for you here: the title doesn’t appear to strike a narrative chord that the first game didn’t already, and Telltale liberally re-uses a lot of the original’s assets. In this specific episode, you’ll go back to the 1940s and roam many of the same streets and locations. So, if it didn’t hook you, don’t bother.

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Alright, so I'll fully admit I was likely a little more excited than I should have been about the (then) upcoming Dragons' Den game when we first posted about it last week. It's one of my favorite guilty pleasures that I watch on TV, as I've always had an odd interest both in wacky inventions and business ideas as well as everything that takes place behind the scenes when people try to raise money for those inventions and ideas. The Wikipedia article has an exhaustive listing on the history of the show, but it originated in Japan and was popularized in English-speaking countries by the UK version originally broadcast on BBC Two (then eventually BBC America).

The show involves inventors and businessmen entering the "Dragons' Den" and presenting their business idea to a panel of investors, or, "dragons." These entrepreneurs come with a financial goal which must be reached for them to get the money, and the meat of the show involves the dragons duking it out, both with each other as well as the entrepreneurs when it comes to just how much of the business they're getting for that amount of money. In my opinion, this is all wildly interesting as each of the dragons come from a different business background, and potentially have the knowledge and connections to turn a small startup into a multi-million dollar hit.

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9 to 5 Mac reports that it has heard from a source that Apple has been providing developers at high-level iOS gaming companies with new prototype iPhone models based on the A5 system-on-chip found in the iPad 2. The developers are said to have been given access to the devices, which look exactly like the iPhone 4 from the outside, to assist them in preparing for advanced graphics and computational performance available with the new chip.

They already have select developers working on versions of their iPhone applications that take full advantage of the next-generation iPhone's speedier and much more powerful hardware. These developers, seemingly from high-level gaming outfits, have been given what is essentially an iPhone 4 but with an A5 processor instead of an A4. The device itself is virtually identical to the iPhone 4, and there is no way anyone can tell it's not an iPhone 4 based on the phone's exterior.

The source is reportedly calling the prototype iPhone an "iPhone 4S" in a nod to the iPhone 3G-to-iPhone 3GS transitioned, but that appears to be an unofficial name. The souped-up iPhone 4 is also said to reside in a company safe when not in active use, an understandable move given Apple's penchant for secrecy.

The report notes that this A5-based iPhone isn't necessarily the next-generation iPhone rumored to be released in September, but may simply be a sort of mid-stage custom upgrade to give prominent developer partners access to hardware performing at nearly the same level as we will see with the fifth-generation iPhone. Apple is of course expected to pack in other new features such as an upgraded camera and presumably a world-mode wireless chip for the next iPhone, but those features are apparently not included on these development units.

This past weekend we learned that Square Enix would be releasing a native version of Final Fantasy III for iPad [$16.99], and the game is now available for download in the App Store. In case you’ve been trapped under a rock for the last couple of months, the iOS version of Final Fantasy III is an enhanced port of the 2006 Nintendo DS title, which itself was a complete 3D remake of the 1990 Japanese Famicom game.

About a month ago, Final Fantasy III [$15.99] was released for iPhone and iPod touch devices, and we found the game quite entertaining in our review. Despite some thoroughly old-school game design, this role-playing game still managed to be a whole lot of fun, and both looked great with Retina Display graphics and was a joy to play with the touch interface.

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