Just last Monday we checked out the trailer for Kiloo’s Frisbee Forever [Free], and were impressed with what looked like a bright, colorful, arcade-style game of frisbee flying. It was a pleasant surprise to see Frisbee Forever launch for free, though it does contain rather prominent IAP. It doesn’t appear anything will ever be required to be purchased in the game, as everything can be earned through just playing the game, it just looks like it will take a very long time to do so. Still, Frisbee Forever is an extremely well done game that is a ton of fun, and there’s no risk for giving the game a try.

Frisbee Forever contains 10 different environments each with 10 levels for a total of 100. Flicking your frisbee will set it in motion and gameplay involves simply steering the frisbee left and right through each of the obstacle filled courses. There are touch or tilt controls, which both work nicely, and the elevation of your frisbee is handled automatically. Flying through various circular and triangular checkpoints will allow you to keep your momentum going until you reach the finish. As you fly through each course you’ll try to collect the many stars along your route, with medals awarded at the end based on how many you’re able to get.

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I thought the original DrawRace [Free] was super cool when it was first released. It combined the familiar drawing mechanic that everyone at the time was going nuts over with a racing game. Playing the game amounted to drawing your path on the track, and the speed of your car was controlled by how fast you moved your finger on a particular segment of the racing line. It's a slick little setup, although it does seem to have a considerable learning curve since you need to draw your whole racing line at once.

Enter DrawRace 2: Racing Evolved, the sequel to DrawRace that just looks awesome. How awesome? Well, if I had to pick one thing to criticize about the original DrawRace it's that the game was a little basic. The sequel has a new career modes, leagues, leaderboards, 180 challenges, 16 cars, and 30 tracks.

For more information on DrawRace 2 check out the official site which also has tons more screenshots, or swing by the thread in our forums. I can't wait.

Have you played Let's Golf [99¢ / HD] or Let's Golf 2 [$4.99 / HD] yet? If you like arcade-style golf games, Gameloft has really nailed it with their clone of Hot Shots Golf. We liked the original a lot in our review, and the sequel improved upon the formula further. Gameloft released the following trailer this morning for Let's Golf 3:

What am I expecting from the third installment in the series? Mostly just further improvements much like Let's Golf 2. I doubt 3 will have anything that new or amazing, but I'd be happy as a clam with some new unlockables, a new set of courses, and some new characters. Let's Golf 3 is "coming soon" which in Gameloft-speak could mean next Thursday!

Back in March, Warner Bros. and Square One Studios released an official modern remake of the classic Tapper series for iOS called Tapper World Tour [99¢/HD]. It took the same basic gameplay of the original where you had to man several bars at once, serving approaching patrons before they reach the end of the bar while collecting empty glasses and cash tips. Tapper World Tour added a few extra bells and whistles to this formula, like multiple drink types, specialty drinks that triggered abilities, and funny sideshows that would pause the action briefly and allow you to catch up on your orders.

We really enjoyed this reboot of the Tapper games in our original review, and especially loved the beautiful artwork that was hand-drawn by classic animator Don Bluth. The many different characters and environments oozed all sorts of personality, and allowed you to travel to locations around the world serving drinks. Today a new update is available for Tapper World Tour that expands these locations into Europe.

There are 40 new levels across 4 new European cities - Paris, Dublin, Munich, and Corsica - each with their own new type of sideshow, 20 new patron types, and 12 new drinks. There is also a new power-up, the “Lane Freeze”, which will stop customers from approaching a bar counter of your choice for a short period of time. I really enjoyed Tapper World Tour before, and I’m having a great time playing through these new levels too. If you haven’t yet checked out Tapper World Tour, the game is on sale for a limited time to celebrate the new update.

It's Wednesday again, which doesn't mean a whole lot other than we're that much closer to Thor being released in theaters this Friday. I've heard good things about it, but I'm always a sucker for comic book movies. If you don't care about Thor, chances are you care about the bucket full of iOS games that are being released this evening.

The way this works is that developers can set a specific release date for their games on the App Store, but since it's a global market, games are released on that date in each region. Fellow sorcerers who have unlocked the mysteries of time zones will know that this means since it's Thursday in New Zealand first, games are released there nearly a day ahead of the US market. All of these games should be available tonight on the American App Store at 11:00 PM EST:

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100 Rogues [Free] had had a torrid history of updates, bug fix updates for those updates, then bug fix updates for those bug fix updates (which also often introduce bugs). Regardless, it's a super-fun roguelike, and even though things get broken, they've added a ton of cool things in the life of the game both for free through updates and via in-app purchase.

The developers also have a great blog that's a really entertaining read if you like seeing what game developers think of other games, as it can provide a lot of insight on design choices in their own projects. We reviewed 100 Rogues a year ago (to the day, actually) if you want to know what you're getting into before you download it. But really, despite its problems, I've still had a bunch of fun playing it, and totally recommend giving it a shot while it's free. It's even universal!

A couple of weeks ago, we reviewed Elemental Rage from Oniric Games. Taking cues from classic game series such as Metroid, Castlevania, and The Legend of Zelda, Elemental Rage offered up a really enjoyable brand of action platforming. It had solid virtual controls, great looking graphics, and an interesting storyline to follow along with. It may not have been quite as complex as the games that inspired it, and it is a bit on the short side, but was there was a ton of fun and totally worth at least a couple of playthroughs.

If you’ve been mulling around the idea of checking out Elemental Rage, but haven’t quite been able to pull the buy button trigger, then I have some good news for you. Lite versions have been released for both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad versions of the game. The lite version features just the first mission of the game, but will definitely give you a good taste of the controls and gameplay to help you decide if you’re into forking over for the complete game.

If you like any of the previously mentioned games, or just good platforming games in general, then don’t hesitate to give the lite version of Elemental Rage a try. It has turned out to be one of my surprise favorites out of recent releases, and plenty of members in our forums are loving the game as well.

Back in mid-March, Big Pixel Studios released their colorful physics puzzlers Land-a Panda [99¢/Lite] and Land-a Panda HD [$1.99/Lite] into the App Store. In it, you shot a rotund panda named Yang Guang from cannon to cannon across cleverly designed levels in an effort to unite him with his mega babe girlfriend Tian Tian. It features 80 levels, each with 3 coins to try and collect in each, as well as Game Center achievements and leaderboards for every world. In essence, Land-a Panda is like an entire puzzle game built around the barrel shooting sequences from the Donkey Kong Country series, and it’s just as fun as that description sounds, as we found out in our review.

As we mentioned in that review, there was clearly hints that additional worlds containing new levels would be added in the game, and Big Pixel has just released the first update for Land-a Panda that does just that. This new fifth world is called Panda Island and contains 20 brand new levels to play. These levels feature some new obstacles to deal with as well as new types of cannons to use and enemies to avoid.

Another new feature is an optional action button in the bottom middle of the screen that you can use to activate cannons and other mechanisms in the game. By default, you tap directly on these objects to activate them, but some gamers in our forums and elsewhere felt that this forced you to frequently block too much of the screen. The new action button alleviates this issue, though I have become so used to the normal controls that I still find them superior, but it’s nice that the option is there.

Game Center also gets a new leaderboard for Panda Island as well as a few new achievements. Also, the main menu screen now dynamically changes based on the time of day, which is really just a minor cosmetic addition but is the kind of detail that I love nonetheless. If you’ve already been enjoying Land-a Panda and have worked your way through the initial offering of levels, then snag this new update for 20 new challenges to conquer. If you haven’t yet been bitten by the Land-a Panda bug, definitely give the free lite version a try.

It seems it’s never a dull moment for Crescent Moon Games, who after their successful release of Gears [99¢] last week are already back with a new game in the works. It’s called Deadlock and it’s an ambitious dual-stick shooter that will feature cooperative and competitive online multiplayer for up to 8 players.

I’ve been playing a preview build of Deadlock for the past several weeks and have to say I’m really impressed so far. The Game Center connection used for matches is solid even in this early state, and the core dual-stick gameplay is perfectly suited for competitive matches. Deadlock will initially ship with 5 levels and 3 game modes including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture & Hold.

One of the big features of Deadlock is the robust load-out system that has a few similarities to recent Call of Duty games. There are more than 30 different weapons in the game, including assault rifles, sub-machine guns, pistols, grenades, and more. These weapons can then be augmented with attachments that offer better aiming or additional damage, and your player can equip various types of armors that affect your stats as well. Most of these items will be unlocked as you earn the 30 available ranks in the game through playing.

Here are a couple of very early screenshots of the parking lot level in Deadlock:

While other dual-stick shooters have dabbled in various types of multiplayer before, we’ve all been waiting for that one killer app that feels built from the ground up for online play, and Deadlock aims to be that game. All I can say is it’s off to a great start based on my time with early versions of the game. Crescent Moon is aiming for an early June release for the game, and we’ll have much more information on Deadlock later this week including a video of the game in action. There is currently a discussion thread for the game in our forums as well.

Our ratings for games we reviewed April are now in place, and we now present to you the ones that are on the top of the heap. Each game reviewed receives a 1-5 star rating relative to the other games from that month. Generally, a 3 or higher is considered a "good" rating.

Our final scores are not the product of any traditionally objective measures such as graphics or sound, but simply reflect the games we would most recommend to others.

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Robot vs. Wizards’ Paper Monsters looks a lot like Little Big Planet. So much so, you have to question the vision and scope of the project. Is Paper Monsters a cash-in bereft of its own unique cadence, style, and tone? Or is it its own game? I followed up with the studio after our original posting, hoping that I could get some answers to you.

After talking with a representative of the project, I feel like it’s safe to say that Paper Monsters is its own deal. Media Molecule’s 2.5D side-scrolling platform title has had a huge impact on the project -- that’s clear. But, Robots vs. Wizards is looking to create its own game within the whimsical, familiar aesthetic.

“I initially started wanting to bring something like LBP to iOS. I guess that shows,” a representative for Robots vs. Wizards told me via e-mail. “However, while it does look like LBP, it plays and feels a lot more like a Mario game.”

Then they told me you can jump on bad guys’ heads.

“[Paper Monsters] is a lot less “floaty” and physics-based, and you can blast bad guys with fire balls, so that makes it a little more action based,” he continued. “So far you can swim or turn into a dragon. There are also flying levels with the ladybug Box-coptor.”

“I think once more and more levels are shown it will look less like LBP -- which could be good or bad, I guess.”

If there’s one thing LBP doesn’t do well, it’s action. Media Molecule’s game is about content creation, so the focus is on the tools as opposed to the “game” part. If Robot vs. Wizards succeeds in its execution on Paper Monsters, it’ll be providing an experience that surpasses what even Media Molecule offers.

“We are putting TONS of effort into making Paper Monsters feel original,” the rep told us. And I believe it.

No release date or price has been set yet, but we do know now that that game will be an Universal iPad and will feature “graphic enhancements” for iPad 2 owners. It’ll also ship Game Center and all the functionality that comes with the service.

When released back in 2009, the original Zenonia was one of the first full fledged action RPG's on the App Store. Gamevil received heaps of praise for both the first and second installment in the series, and Zenonia 3: The Midgard Story [$4.99] seems to live up to the ever-increasing quality iOS gamers come to expect from their sequels.

The first thing I have to say about Gamevil is that their art style is fantastic, they really are masters of sprite-based animation and this game looks amazing. They've managed to provide a great retro pixelized feel while still taking full advantage of the crispness offered by the Retina Display of recent iOS devices. Zenonia 2 looked great, and 3 somehow looks even better.

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EA is on a roll lately buying up high-value mobile gaming outfits. First Chillingo for a stack of $20 million dollars in cash, and now Firemint. Details are vague at best right now, with news of this just going public a few moments ago, so we're not entirely sure what the terms of the acquisition are. According to TechCrunch, the deal is expected to close in the next four weeks and Firemint will be rolled into the katamari that is EA Interactive (or EAi). EAi is EA's division that focuses on digital business including EA Mobile, Pogo, and Playfish.

Firemint has had an amazing track record of fantastic game releases, so it's not much of a surprise to see them the target of what likely was a high-dollar acquisition. Firemint's catalog of games on the App Store includes classics like Flight Control, the Real Racing series, and will soon be home to the upcoming Agent Squeek.

We're going to get to the bottom of what this means for both Firemint, as well as fans of Firemint games. However, considering it's currently around 2:00 AM in Australia, these details might not come until tomorrow.

Several weeks back, we took a look at the video for Vampire Rush [$1.99/HD], developed by A-steroids and published by Chillingo, and the game has since launched as part of last week’s influx of new releases. Vampire Rush is a tower defense/hack ‘n slash hybrid, and if that sounds familiar that’s because the same sort of genre mishmash was used in Dungeon Defenders [$2.99] released late last year.

The problem with Dungeon Defenders, though, was that it was an excellent game that was not a great fit for the iOS platform. The complex gameplay and cluttered interface marred what would be a great experience on a full-fledged console. Vampire Rush takes the opposite approach, providing much more streamlined gameplay and an accessible interface. While it is a much easier game to grasp, it’s almost too simple, and is hampered with some imbalances and a high level of difficulty. Despite this, Vampire Rush is still a lot of fun, and with some minor tweaking and a dose of extra content it could be a standout example of this unique mixed genre.

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Cipher Prime, the Philadelphia-based developer of the award winning, multi-platform title Auditorium [Free], is getting set to release their newest rhythm-based music game exclusively (for now) on the iPad. Called Pulse, the gameplay will have you tapping and sometimes sliding a series of dots in time with a circle that pulses from the center of the screen in rhythm with the music. It’s certainly not easy to explain, so it might be best to check out this gameplay video from IndieGameMag:

Pulse is looking like an interesting new entry in the rhythm-based music game genre. I think one of the strong points will be that the gameplay seems to have been built around the included songs in the game, with a range of genres covered from electronica to heavy metal to chip-tunes. Cipher Prime has also stated that Pulse would only be possible on a device with a large multitouch screen, hence the game only currently coming to the iPad, but they haven’t entirely ruled out an Android version sometime in the future either. No word yet on if an iPhone or iPod touch version could be possible.

According to the Cipher Prime blog, Pulse is already approved by Apple and will be releasing this Thursday. We’ll take a closer look at the game then.