When we recorded our podcast yesterday (which will be released shortly), we said EA was one of the most progressive game publishers out there. It’s investing the most in the digital future, especially in the direct-to-consumer phone and social realm. This morning, it made us look like total geniuses with the announcement of “Origin,” a digital download direct-to-consumer service set to hit PC and mobile devices in the near future.

News of Origin is still in the early going, but here’s what we know. On the PC, it’ll offer a similar experience to that of Valve’s Steam platform. Like Steam, you’ll be able to grab digital versions of retail games through a chunk of UI that connects you to a store and your friends. Unlike Steam, you'll be able to order physical versions of games, too, much like you could via the old EA Store.

You can check out a beta build of the application here if you so desire.

On the mobile side, Origin will be a “mobile platform that gives you access to your profile and lets you connect and play with friends in EA’s leading smartphone titles,” according to the EA Web site. EA namedrops Scrabble [$2.99 / HD] and a mobile variant of Battlefield 3, though it’s up for grabs what other popular titles Origin will include on and after launch.

We’ve got some questions about the mobile branch of the service. The wording implies that it’s a straight-up third-party store, which is something we’re not sure if Apple will allow. But if it’s like, say, the Pogo Games [Free] app, EA will be in the free and clear, though then there’s a question of how fleshed out Origins’ games are destined to be.

EA makes it clear that it’s not going to talk anymore on the subject until E3 begins, so stay tuned until next week. E3 kicks off on June 7, 2011.

We’re not in the business of covering Call of Duty proper, but I thought it’d be cool to clue you in on the latest development with the series, Call of Duty: Elite.

If you boil it down to its marrow, Elite is a stat-tracking service similar to Bungie.net for Halo games. With Elite, you’ll be able to see detailed maps of each skirmish you’ve been in, as well as glance at statistics, interact with friends, and participate in tournaments and other competitions, some of which will have prizes.

One of the key differentiators is that Activision plans to release a mobile version of the app for the iPad, Android, and iPhone. At a demo late last month, in fact, demonstrators showed off the functionality on the iPad and enthusiasts seem to agree that it worked.

On mobile, Elite will have a dedicated app, ensuring that the experience is native. Like with the web site, you’ll be able to view all of the aforementioned, except on the go. But unlike the web-based application, you’ll also be able to rig push notifications.

There’s a certain promise with Elite that extends beyond the information gathering. The three pillars, according to Activision, are “connect, compete, and improve.” The former two can be taken care of utilizing the suite of tools inside Elite, but the latter, one of the other key differentiators, is something that hasn’t been done well before.

Unfortunately, Activision hasn’t elaborated on what Elite will do to help you become better at the game. It also, in case you’re wondering, isn’t ready to talk about price, but it has made it known that Elite will operate on a subscription model.

As of now, we know the service will work with Treyarch’s recent Call of Duty: Black Ops, as well as other forthcoming Call of Duty titles like Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. If you're lucky, maybe you'll be able to get into the beta for the Black Ops stuff, which has apparently started.

I fully expect mobile companion apps to become increasingly more common as these huge online-focused games become more and more a part of our culture. I just wonder if a subscription model is really the way to go. Regardless, this is another thing we’ll be learning more about at E3. We’ll be sure to pass along the important details to you.

[Via IntoMobile and GiantBomb]

The Fling joysticks for the iPad are fantastic little contraptions. Two suction cups, a conductive joystick, and a cleverly designed plastic spiral all work in perfect harmony to provide a tactile gameplay experience that is absolutely incredible in dual stick shooters. (Or, really, any other game with a virtual joystick.) Also, it seems like every time I post about this we get comment threads full of naysayers. To that I say, if you have any doubt about the Fling, you really need to give 'em a try at any Apple store.

With that out of the way, ever since we originally posted about them for the iPad, gamers with iPhones and iPod touches have been asking when there will be a smaller version for their devices. That day, apparently, is today. The Fling Mini is currently available for preorder. A pair will run you $24.95 and they should start shipping in mid to late July.

We'll have a hands-on of the Fling Mini at some point next week. With all the WWDC and E3 insanity, I'm not entirely sure when we'll have that hands-on, but it's very high on my list of things to check out.

Develop, a super industry publication that focuses mainly on development topics and inside baseball, has just released its annual “Develop 100” article, a listing that ranks the top 100 game developers of the year. Normally, we wouldn’t cover this kind of thing, but 2011’s list is remarkable in that it ranks several smartphone-focused studios at the tiptop of the gargantuan list brimming with behemoth houses with hundreds of staffers.

If you take a gander, you’ll see that 2D Boy, the creator of World of Goo [$2.99 / HD], is sitting at number two. Zepto Lab, the creator of Cut the Rope [$.99 / HD] sits at number three just below God of War developers SCE Santa Monica, while Media Vision, The Coding Monkeys, 1337 Game Design, and Rockstar Leeds round out the rest of the top ten. Respectively, these houses built Chaos Rings [$12.99 / HD], Carcassonne [$9.99], Dark Nebula [$.99], and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / HD].

Nintendo grabbed the number one position, if you’re wondering.

That’s a lot of surprises in just the top ten, so I did a little digging. The digital version of the list notes that, for the first time, Develop is using Metacritic data “for the backbone” of the rankings, which means that numbers at the end of reviews and not sales are dictating the listings.

If that sounds weird to you, we’re on the same page. Smartphone press and popular enthusiast games press are two different beasts and their respective games are wildly different in terms of scale, depth, complexity, mechanics, and markets. Also, Metacritic used in this way isn't the best measure of quality, either -- niche games tend to only be reviewed by niche reviewers.

But anyway, at the end of the day here, we’ve got a listing that is composed of 50 or so iPad and iPod Touch developers included with studios like Rockstar North. I think that’s neat, though I’m not sure the metrics used here is something I can get behind.

Next week is going to be insane. WWDC. and E3 are both taking place at the same time. If you're a gamer, there's going to be so much news to take in next week that it might take two weeks to read it all.

If you're a developer, there are two ways you can contact me to set up a meeting at either event if you haven't already:

1. Solve this CAPTCHA to get my Google Talk name (which is also my email address, hence the anti-spam captcha) and shoot me an instant message. I'll be around all day and most of the weekend, and able to get you booked into a meeting slot and collect all pertinent pieces of contact information very quickly.
2. Send an email to tips@toucharcade.com with either "E3 2011 Meeting" or "WWDC 2011 Meeting" in the subject line so I can filter your message properly. Include what days you're going to be at the event in question, contact info, and anything else you feel is relevant to booking a meeting with us.

Scheduling meetings via IM is highly preferable, since I don't need to play email tag! I can't wait to see everyone next week, and while I'm sure that covering two major gaming events in one week will make all of our collective hairs just a little more grey, it will be worth it.

Fans of iOS RPGs have a new one coming soon to look forward to. Developer Minoraxis, most well-known for their Fruit Juice Tycoon series, is taking a stab at the KRPG realm with their upcoming title Fantastic Knight. The game will feature two different playable characters, the young prince Wenrick and the female warrior Erien, each with their own storylines that intertwine with one another.

The battling in Fantastic Knight will be the real-time hack ’n slash variety, with a deep skill system filled with both active and passive abilities to be explored and upgraded. There will also be a large number of weapons, armors, and items to collect and upgrade. One rather interesting inclusion in Fantastic Knight is what the developer calls the Forgotten Continent. It sounds like this will be some sort of survival mode or dungeon trial mode separate from the main campaign that tasks you with completing whole dungeons that have been scaled to your own level and skill set.

Fantastic Knight is already submitted to Apple and waiting for approval, so we should hopefully see it in the next couple of weeks. It will launch at $2.99 as a universal app with Retina Display support. There's a thread in our forums for discussion of the game, and we’ll take a look at Fantastic Knight as soon as it launches.

Remember Boost 3D? It came out in late 2009, and we absolutely loved it in our review. It's a tunnel racer with a sky high framerate and an elegant simplicity to it. The game is so simple, in fact, that we really didn't mind that it didn't get updated for close to two years. Some games are great just the way they are, and this was a perfect example of that.

When I first heard of this update which was so massive that it even required a name change to the whole game, I was completely apprehensive. I thought the game was perfect the way it was, and usually "massive update" means the introduction of power-ups, levels, and all kinds of other nonsense that would get in the way of the previously mentioned elegant simplicity.

Thankfully, this update manages to completely enhance the game, all the while maintaining everything we first loved about Boost 3D. Instead of a single game mode, there are now three: Time trial, survival, and even multiplayer which works via Game Center.

I've yet to be able to get a game going (since the update just launched, I assume) but here's how it's supposed to work-- Players have 60 seconds to finish the race, at which point the player who has travelled the farthest wins. The blocks change color depending on your position in the race. Sounds awesome.

Aside from using Game Center for multiplayer, there is also total Game Center (and OpenFeint) for online leaderboards and achievements. Both the Retina Display and the iPad are now fully supported, and there are a number of other tweaks and fixes including a totally redesigned HUD.

Boost 2 is on sale for 99¢ in celebration of the relaunch. It was the best tunnel racer when it was originally released in 2009, and I'm having a hard time thinking of a better one that has been released since then-- Especially with these new enhancements.

Those crazy geniuses over at ThinkGeek recently invited me to visit their Fairfax, VA Megaplex headquarters. (We're more or less neighbors, you see.) Today I headed over and spent an hour surrounded by an inspiring cloud of creativity.

And I brought my camera.

For those somehow unfamiliar, ThinkGeek is basically, in short, the best geek toy store in the world. They started off in the late '90s with just a handful of folks and have grown to about 70 in all, spread about an office space that rivals Pixar for complete awesomeness / workplace heaven. It's one of those rare places where, no matter how hard you might be working, it can't possibly actually feel like work. And, I'm quite sure the amazing atmosphere plays no small role in the amount of ridiculously fine products they create and send out the door.

Jamie, whose business card reads "Evil Schemes, Nefarious Plans," gave me the tour, along with "PR Manager / Righteous Dude" Shane. I saw recent products, long ago products, and products still in the design pipeline (that I wish I could talk about -- they're awesome!). I also saw the offices, design shops, photo studios, and fun rooms that make them all possible. Everything I saw I wanted to take home with me, basically. But, of all the wondrous gadgets and gizmos, it's the original April Fools iCade unit that I most want to share with readers.

At the Megaplex I met Ty who originally envisioned the iCade, as well as Hans, one of the product designers. They showed me a mid-stage, two-button iCade prototype as well as the original April Fools unit, complete with slide-in, foam-and-paper iPad. (The iCade landed on ThinkGeek's 2010 April Fools page, after the original iPad had been announced, but before it shipped.) I was also treated to the original pen-and-paper design sketches that brought the unit to life. And, button count aside, the 'Fools unit looks pretty darned close to the shipping model.

Jamie explained that the iCade was designed to interface with the iPad in the guise of a Bluetooth keyboard for reasons of simplicity, as opposed to taking the route of tying straight into the unit as a custom control device. A bundle of example code and docs for developers working under various frameworks is coming, but it's true that a game can interface with the iCade by just looking for the keyboard codes that it sends -- a pretty simple and straightforward arrangement.

ION Audio's fortuitous relationship with Atari has given early adopters a nice set of games to chew on, but Jamie made me aware of certain forthcoming titles that will support the diminutive cabinet's controls -- and I promise that gamers won't be disappointed.

And, while it's not directly iOS related, one of the other stand-out items I saw during my visit was the April Fools Playmobil Apple Store. It's genius and, well, who doesn't want one? I grabbed a few photos of the setup, but I'm afriad we probably won't be seeing this one spring to life, like the iCade did. [Sad face]

A visit to ThinkGeek's Megaplex. What a great way to spend an afternoon!

The last time I discussed the Back to the Future series, I noted that I’ve hit a creative wall of sorts in terms of coverage. The initial two episodes hit all the same notes that the third episode does, so it’s hard to find something meaningful and fun to share. Of course, I’m also couching this in the opinion that every episode is well produced and their respective new, or even reproduced, mechanics are sharp and solid.

If you missed out on the first episode [Free] though, now is the time to grab it. It’s free on the App Store until June 31, 2011. You have the entire month to push “download” and grab what is, easily, one of the coolest modern adventure games out there.

If the fact that it’s free isn’t enough to convince you to give it a download, go ahead and check out our review for it. Overall, it’s an ambitious beginning to a serial that treats its source material with the proper reverence. It might lean on a more casual-level of skill, but it’s still fun to play.

In other Back to the Future news, Episode 4 [$6.99] is now out on the App Store. We will, of course, continue our coverage of the series so look forward to our impressions down the road. Now, push “download” already. Jeesh.

UPDATE: For whatever reason, the first episode of Back to the Future is now back at $6.99. The press releases all mention that the game will be free until July 31st, so they might have potentially jumped the gun on setting it free. Either way, we're trying to get to the bottom of things.

UPDATE 2: Aaaaand it's free again.

Have you ever signed up for a cheap vacation, only to find the room is half the size you expected and the "beach-front" view is actually a back alley and a pile of dirt? That's pretty much what Fin, the pint-sized hero of Mighty Fin [$0.99], gets when he decides to sign up for Shady Sal's suspiciously cheap Round the World Tour. Instead of dirty sheets, he's dealing with sharks and frigid waters in a vacation he'll be lucky to survive.

Guiding Fin through the deadly waters involves the same sort of one-touch gameplay that made Tiny Wings [$0.99] such a winner. You can press down to make Fin dive, and release to make him jump. He swims toward obstacles full-speed ahead while you react to keep him safe. Along with spikes, jellyfish and other deadly foes, each level is filled with points bubbles. These boost your score and telegraph the best way around upcoming obstacles. Since each level is randomly generated when you play it, this extra assistance is handy.

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Feed Me Oil [99¢ / HD], from Chillingo and HolyWater Games, is a game about petroleum. Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas-tea. Bubbling crude. Your role is to guide the expensive black liquid from the broken pipe to the designated area, to clear each level.

Liquids are difficult to render realistically, so I wondered how well the oil effect would be delivered on-screen. And I wasn't disappointed. The oil looks and sounds like a thick, gooey, black substance, either flowing as a stream or breaking into separate globs. The oil is the main character of this title and it's depicted well. While there's other physics-based games out there, the gushing oil effects make this one particularly interesting. The rest of the graphics appear to be heavily influenced by the popular World of Goo, which features similar large-eyed cartoon creatures, shown in profile.

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Yesterday, I was quite excited to see Konami release an iOS version of their classic arcade beat ‘em up X-Men [$2.99], and I quickly downloaded the title as soon as it hit the US App Store. The good news is that this is a totally competent port of X-Men that’s just how your remember it from 1992, and it plays just fine using virtual controls. The bad news is that once the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia wear off, X-Men is a simplistic and repetitive game at its core compared to modern offerings.That doesn’t mean it isn’t any fun though, and it’s still a total blast to kick the snot out of legions of Magneto’s henchmen using your favorite X-man or woman.

X-Men was always at its best played cooperatively with friends, with the pinnacle being the dual-screen arcade cabinet that allowed for all 6 players to play together simultaneously. This feature has been faithfully retained in the iOS version thanks to local WiFi cooperative play. I don’t have enough devices to confirm whether you can play with all 6 players at once or not, but I did play through a 3 player game using an iPad 2, iPhone 4, and iPod touch. The connection was both easy to set up and reliable throughout the game, and cooperative multiplayer in X-Men is just as much fun as I remember it being.

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In the Fall of 2009, developer Godzilab released a new physics puzzler called iBlast Moki into the App Store. Back before the App Store was littered with physics-based puzzle games, iBlast Moki brought fresh gameplay ideas, an intuitive touch interface, clever level designs, and a fantastic visual style that really set the high-water mark for the genre. iBlast Moki drew critical acclaim from practically every outlet that covered it, including our own glowing review.

Back in April of this year, Godzilab started hinting on their Facebook page that they were working on a sequel to the first iBlast Moki. Yesterday, they officially announced that iBlast Moki 2 is on its way to iOS with a tentative release set for July or August.

Nothing is known about the gameplay in this new entry, though I imagine it will build on the foundation of the first game. Also, they’ve hinted that there is a brand new gameplay component which has to do with the bomb-shaped Moki above, and that the game is running at a rock solid 60 fps, which is an improvement over the original.

If you for some reason missed out on iBlast Moki the first time around, it’s definitely worth a download while waiting for the sequel to drop. The game was recently updated with Retina Display support and Game Center, and just a couple of weeks ago the previously iPad-only version was updated to be universal. You can find links to the original iBlast Moki below.

We’ll keep our eyes open for more information on iBlast Moki 2 as we get closer to its planned Summer release.

If Tetris went out, got trashed, hooked up with an old-school shooter like Space Invaders and then spit out a video game love child, the offspring would resemble MecaPix [$.99 / Lite]. It’s a slick combination of two genres that seem like they’d mix no better than oil and water, but what Robotalism managed to make is a fun, sharp pairing that strokes the shooter and the puzzle itch with the same scratcher. I just wish it wasn’t tuned for us non-mutant folks.

Think of MecaPix as Tetris with guns, but also in reverse. In Tetris, the object of the game is to stack together a continually descending assortment of blocks in order to create a line. In MecaPix, the object is to create and shoot your own blocks upwards towards falling blocks. When a successful collision is happens, the falling blocks disappear into the ether. If you miss a block or eighteen, these rogues blocks steal a pip from your overall health bar.

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Remember back in late February when Gameloft announced that they were going to be using the Unreal Engine in future games? Since then, every time Gameloft announces a game rampant speculation has exploded on our forums regarding whether or not it's going to be the first Unreal Engine game. Heck, I'm even guilty of getting in on the speculation game.

According to a tweet this morning, March of Heroes will be Gameloft's first Unreal Engine game, with more details being released next week at E3. That's all we know right now, so feel free to go wild guessing what kind of game it's going to be.

My money is on some kind of military-centric first person shooter, but judging by trends in recent first person shooters for iOS, consoles, and PC, that's pretty much guaranteed.