Coming completely out of nowhere, Konami has just released an iOS port of the classic 1992 arcade game X-Men. The game was just released in the New Zealand App Store a few hours ago, and will slowly filter out to the rest of the world during the course of the day, finally arriving in the US at 11pm Eastern time.

In case you didn’t already know, the thing to do back in the late 80s and early 90s was release side-scrolling beat ‘em up games. The genre really took off after the success of games like Double Dragon and Final Fight, but there were tons of other great beat ‘em ups during the era as well. X-Men is one of the great ones.

One of the great things about these games in the arcade was the ability to play simultaneously with your buddies. Hopefully the iOS X-Men utilizes some form of multiplayer to take advantage of up to 4-player co-op, whether it be locally via WiFi or Bluetooth, or – dare I say it – online through Game Center. Unfortunately the app description doesn't say.

Another thing to consider is how well the game will control using virtual buttons, though if the recent releases of Final Fight in Capcom Arcade [Free] and the remake of Double Dragon [$3.99] are any indication, then there is hope that the controls will be just fine.

At any rate, I’m stoked to get X-Men on my iPhone and iPad (it’s universal). Of course, that brings up the question of whether this opens the door for Konami to release The Simpsons Arcade Game or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, two other beloved beat ‘em ups from that era. Only time will tell, and at the very least X-Men is a great place to start.

You can check out early impressions from international gamers in our forums, and the New Zealand App Store link is below. We’ll take X-Men for a spin when it hits the US App Store later tonight and let you know how it turned out.

International App Store Link: X-Men, $2.99 (Universal)

The iOS version of the classic Bitmap Brothers game Speedball 2: Evolution [Link] is currently free for the next few days. Speedball 2 is a sports game of sorts, a mishmash of football and hockey (or fockeyball, as I call it) with arcade elements and a futuristic theme. It’s similar to the classic arcade game Cyberball, and originally released for home platforms back in 1990.

The iOS version of Speedball 2 contains a ridiculous number of modes and content to play through, and features improved graphics over the original. All of this and more you can read about in our original review of Speedball 2: Evolution.

If you were a fan of the original Speedball or Speedball 2, and for some reason you haven't yet picked up this version, then now is your chance to strike. For those with no emotional ties to the original games, Speedball 2 is still a must download while free as it offers satisfying fast-paced arcade action with a retro feel. It’s also a universal app with Retina Display support and Game Center integration, so definitely give this freebie a look.

It was just last week that Illusion Labs released Touchgrind BMX [$4.99], the bicycle-themed semi-sequel to their fabulous little skateboarding game Touchgrind [$4.99/HD]. We really loved Touchgrind BMX in our review, as it retained the essence of the first Touchgrind while also adding many new features and improvements. One thing we didn’t really like, though, was the rough edges on the visuals. The game looked quite nice overall, but some of the textures were a bit pixelated and edges were noticeably jagged.

Illusion Labs is taking a stab at rectifying this with a new update that adds Retina Display support. This is exciting news on the surface but comes with a huge caveat: in order to push the larger high resolution assets the frame rate in the game takes a huge nosedive. It’s far from unplayable, but if you’re used to the silky smooth performance the game currently has then you’ll find the frame rate pretty unacceptable.

You can click on the before (left) and after (right) in-game screens below to scrutinize the difference between standard versus Retina Display resolutions yourself:

While the difference is small, the Retina Display support does add some needed crispness and clarity to the game. Unfortunately, the trade-off is a poor frame rate, and that’s a sacrifice I’m not willing to make. Thankfully Illusion Labs had the foresight to allow the Retina support to be turned on or off in the game options in the Settings app. Hopefully performance can be improved over time, but until then I’ll just stick with the regular graphics. It does kind of suck though, seeing how good the game could look and having to go back to something less. Touchgrind BMX is still a beautiful game, and in this particular case it really is the gameplay that matters most anyway.

If the Retina Display graphics were mandatory, I’d probably advise avoiding this update to Touchgrind BMX. But since it’s merely optional, you might as well grab it. It does contain a fix for startup crashes that some users were experiencing too, and the higher resolution graphics haven’t appeared to increase the file size of the game.