Sometimes promotions never end. At least, that’s the case with Pocket Legends. In April, developer Space Time Studios kicked off an anniversary celebration that dished out free access to six areas for the generous asking price of $0. Now, the studio is announcing that those areas will remain free FOREVER -- or until we all die in 2012, one or the other.

That’s a deal, but you have to wonder how Space Time plans to make money while a large swathe of its instance-based content is free. That’s where this comes in: the studio has just announced a brand new “premium” area called the “Sandstone Caves.”

It’s made for players around level 20 to 25 and includes what you want: a new town, a new series of quests, new enemies, new bosses, and new weapons, armor and items.

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One of the big draws of Media Molecule’s Little Big Planet is its whimsical art direction, which marries burlap characters to a vibrant, textured world. This happens to be almost the same look that Robots vs. Wizards is shooting for with Paper Monsters, a similar kind of 2.5D platformer set for release on the iPod Touch and iPhone.

Over on our forums, game developer Robots vs. Wizards is giving our community several first looks of different pieces of the now-in-production game. On 4/7, we got a great look at one of the “baddies,” a troll-like dude.

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Soccer simulation games are a huge deal on mobile devices. You can’t give baseball sims the same kind of pat on the back, but perhaps we’ll be able proclaim something similar in the near future: Out of the Park Baseball is poised to make its debut on the smaller Apple handhelds later this month, bringing with it it’s own brand of MLB management.

For a little context here, Out of the Park Baseball is a text-heavy baseball manager. It made its first appearance on PC back in 1999. Since then, it’s seen a handful of iterations, each increasingly gaining more popularity and critical awareness. The games are good, so of course there's going to be a mobile port.

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There have been tons of crazy Kinect hacks since Microsoft released the accessory for the Xbox 360. In fact, there are so many it's difficult to choose which to use as an example, so instead, check out this list from GameFront if you want to see a good rundown. If you include tech blogs in your daily reads online, you've no doubt noticed that these Kinect hacks are popping up both more often and with even cooler functionality. Today's example is the first one I've seen that includes an iPhone. Sure, it's just a prototype, but it's cool to see it in action:

Basically, Singapore-based developer Rockmoon built a tech demo of sorts in Unity that takes two people to play. One flies the ship using Kinect-based motion controls, and the other handles the guns with a dual-stick setup running on an iPhone. Who knows what (if anything) will come of this project aside from a video on YouTube, but it's still neat to see.

As an aside, is anyone else amused by the fact that all of these Kinect hackers have come up with all this amazing stuff while all Microsoft has figured out is how to release an array of dancing games? That being said, Dance Central is a favorite in my household...

[via Joystiq]

Bad weather is often annoying in video games, but in 1983 Activision released a racing game for the Atari 2600 based entirely on the concept of driving in horrible conditions. It was called Enduro and on May 5, 2011 you’ll be able to check it out on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. That's, like, soon!

Enduro, just to be clear, is an actual racing game. The goal is always to pass other cars and “win” the opportunity to participate in the next race. The weather hook is a random element, but also a defining one: as you race, you’ll encounter snow, fog, and rain, all of which have an effect on the pace at which you can race.

For example, when it’s snowing, it’s not wise to put the pedal on the floor, as you’ll no doubt cause a wreck as you lose control.

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Lately we've been seeing some great puzzle games hit the App Store, and Burn it All [99¢] is no exception. Published by Bulkypix and released as a universal app, Burn it All greatly expands on the rope burning formula of Burn the Rope [$1.99 / Lite / HD] with a great new mechanic for actually lighting the ropes themselves that makes the game play totally different even though they may look similar in screenshots.

The object of the game is to ignite the ends of ropes by dragging a flaming lava rock to each end and watch them burn down before the timer runs out. The gameplay is loads fun and revolves around figuring out which ropes to burn in what order, which becomes increasingly difficult as the game progresses.

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Grim Joggers [$1.99] from 10tons Ltd is an interesting endless running game that was released back in January. It featured many of the common traits of the genre, like jumping pits and avoiding hazards, but also put a wrinkle in the gameplay by having you control multiple characters at once. During play your crew would slowly die off as they inevitably ran into traps, but your score multiplier increased based on the number of your survivors while passing set distance markers. This ensured that you were always striving to keep as many joggers alive as possible, and combined with the task of managing all of the characters at the same time it made for some hectic fun.

We really liked Grim Joggers when we reviewed it in January, and the game was subsequently updated once in February and again in March, each time adding a new playable level among other features. Now a free version of Grim Joggers is available called Grim Joggers Freestyle [Free]. More than simply a generic lite version, Grim Joggers Freestyle is actually a competent little package on its own.

The full version of Grim Joggers features 5 different themes to play in, each with their own unique visuals, enemies, dangers, and Game Center leaderboards. Grim Joggers Freestyle is a single mode that features a new environment with a mixture of elements from all 5 of those themes, along with its own leaderboard and set of achievements. This means you’ll be running into life ending dangers like man-eating plants, polar bears, artillery shells, and aliens all in the same level.

Grim Joggers Freestyle is free to download and contains ads in-between games, but these can be instantly skipped so aren’t too much of a nuisance. The mashed up style of gameplay is worth checking out even if you own the original Grim Joggers, and I’d love to see this mode updated into the paid version of the game someday. If you haven’t yet given Grim Joggers a try, then Grim Joggers Freestyle is a great taste of what you’d be getting more of in the full version, and is definitely worth giving a download.

Danish developer Kiloo, who you may remember as the collaborator with Manomio on the licensed Commodore 64 [$4.99] emulator app, inked a deal at the end of March with Wham-O, creators of the Frisbee, to develop a game based on the classic flying disc.

Called Frisbee Forever, you’ll send your Frisbee flying using a flick gesture and then direct it through the 100 different levels using either tilt or touch controls. Each level is rendered in colorful 3D graphics and filled with targets to fly through and items to collect. There will also be 100 different styles of Frisbees to unlock, collect, and use in the game, as well as an assortment of achievements to earn.

Frisbee Forever looks pretty sweet so far, and I’m a total sucker for the bright, cartoonish look of the graphics. The game is already approved by Apple and is scheduled to release this Thursday. There is a discussion thread in our forums for Frisbee Forever where Kiloo has already announced that an additional snow-themed level pack is near completion as part of the game’s first update, along with Game Center integration for the current set of in-game achievements.

Frisbee Forever will launch with universal iPad and Retina Display support, and we’ll take another look at the game when it launches later this week.

This weekend has seen a few notable App Store discounts. Here's a quick roundup of the stand-outs.

Ozone -- $2.99 → Free, Ozone HD -- $4.99 → Free [ review ]

Geardome is offering both the iPhone and iPad versions of Ozone [iPhone, iPad], their clever game of precision problem solving, at no cost for a limited time.

Ozone puts you in control of an inflatable ball that can be moved about various maze-like levels by way of touch-directed bursts of air. The goal is to collect all of the yellow orbs strewn about each of the game's more than 50 pseudo-3D levels in order to exit each maze. But there's more in each level than just yellow orbs. You must negotiate a wide variety of obstacles and enemies in order to make your way through each level. There are, among other things, moving traps, doors to unlock, weapons to collect and use, spikes to avoid, and end-bosses to contend with. A steel ball power-up renders your ball impervious to damage and able to plow through certain walls for a short period. Some pathways require you to deflate your ball in order to fit through, and then it's fingers-crossed that an air pump is just around the corner, because when you're out of air, you're out of luck. And those bursts of air that move you hither and yon — they're not freebies; each burst lowers your air level just a bit.

We reviewed Ozone a year ago and just loved it. I still consider it one of the most engrossing iOS games out there. Don't miss your chance to grab it for free.

Game Dev Story -- $3.99 → $0.99 [ review ]

Kairosoft has dropped the price of their excellent Game Dev Story [App Store] in honor of their follow-up title, Hot Springs Story [App Store], which was released in late February.

In Game Dev Story you'll play the president of a fledgling game development company as you direct your crew of designers, artists, and coders in an effort to create a string of successful video games over a 20 year time period. Beyond just making games, you'll need to grow your own brand name by running a game convention booth, attending awards shows, advertising, and managing an ever-changing fan base. As your company expands, you'll have the opportunity to move into larger offices and hire a bigger team of employees, all of whom can be leveled up and trained (at the expense of  higher salaries) so as to create better games. If you really become a big company, and have employees with the right skill sets, you can even create your own console and compete with the well established big boys in the hardware game.

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