Adding color to a black and white world isn't exactly a new concept in games, but Kaia Games' Color Bandits [99¢ / HD] attempts to add that layer to a side scrolling shooter with a resemblance to Contra in terms of gameplay, but not in challenge.

As far as story and setting is concerned, Color Bandits keeps it as simple as possible. An evil steam punk boss has stolen color from the world and you, a cat with a gun, needs to reintroduce color by blowing up robots. To do so, you'll travel across six different stages each broken up into three different levels, but the levels aren't levels in a traditional sense, they're just checkpoints scattered throughout each linear stage.

Control wise, you control the forward and reverse of you character with a slider on the left and the shooting direction with a right analog stick. The screen moves automatically to push you toward the right.

From there, enemies pop up and attack you in a wide variety of ways. For the most part, you'll spend your time dodging and shooting and for the bulk of the game, it's not a difficult affair. You can shoot somewhat randomly and you'll usually survive the onslaught. By the last couple of levels, you'll feel an actual challenge coming up, but it ends up being a little too late. Along the way, you'll get weapon power-ups, but you only get a small portion of bullets and most of the weapons feel similar to one another.

You can cruise through the main campaign in under an hour, but getting three stars on each level is a lot more complicated. The combo system is a bit unusual in that you rack up combos by shooting enemies, but the second one dies, the combo meter starts counting down. You don't lose the whole combo if you miss a shot, but it counts down quickly enough you'll get frustrated more enemies aren't the screen. By stringing together the combo kills you'll multiply the score of each kill and the higher the score, the more stars you'll get at the end of the level.

Once you get about halfway through, you'll unlock a survival mode, which is the same core game but the screen doesn't move to the right. The mode is all about high scores, which can be shared and compared on Crystal and Game Center.

Visually, Color Bandits has a hand-drawn aesthetic to it. The character and enemy designs look great and are tinged with a steam punk aesthetic without being overwhelming. As you improve your score and get more stars, the background starts to fill in with color. While they're relatively static, the backgrounds are well done and the transition from black and white into color is subtle, but works well.

The foundation of Color Bandits is a casual take on a Contra-style shooter but since you can't jump, the game can't ever get as complicated as Contra. It tries to make it up by bombarded you with enemies in the end, but it's going to be too little too late for a lot of players. That said, Color Bandits might be a better high-score game than it is a shooter.

Even looking at Color Bandits as just a high-score game, it's hard for it not to feel stale toward the end. The experience doesn't change throughout the levels, which for a game this short isn't necessarily a big deal, but it would have been nice if things were mixed up a little throughout. Even still, the high-score nature of the experience makes it an enjoyable experience for anyone who has that part of their brain take over when a score is in place. The controls are precise and work terrifically, even if the campaign isn't particularly amazing, the survival mode is well executed.

Ronimo Games’ Swords & Soldiers [$2.99 / HD] is a stripped-down, side-scrolling RTS that offers a decent amount of creative situational content inside a shell that otherwise doesn’t torture standard genre tropes. The gorgeous visual direction and whimsical writing emits an unusual, but comfortable warmth. Most levels boast sharp, sometimes dramatic change-of-pace mechanics or objectives with different factions. And there’s several different types, and modes, of play mixed into and out-of its feature-complete and content-rich campaign. Yet, at its core, this is still a game that revolves around troop spam just like all the others -- it's this other stuff that makes it a unique offering.

Sword & Soldiers first appeared on downloadable console platforms in 2009 and later on PC and Mac. Nothing I’ve noticed has been added since those respective debuts aside from the touch implementation found in this specific version, which is smooth to the point that it feels natural, as if this was the lead platform.

There are three goofy, well-animated factions: the Vikings, the Aztecs, and the Chinese. The campaign mode boasts three separate mini-campaigns using each where you’ll see the qualities that separate each faction from the other. The Aztecs boast mechanics that revolve around death. The Vikings, on the other hand, heal with spells and use defensive structures, while the Chinese can conjure statues that bolster spell casting. The mini-campaigns' weaves are a part of the whole tapestry and they spin into each other after a few missions. These plot points are as satisfactorily offbeat as the overall aesthetic.

To the game’s credit, it often leverages the unique abilities of each faction in missions, but the moment-to-moment action revolves around “troop spam” tak. It counts on it, in fact, because the game, at its core, is about management: can you manage building gold miners while also babysitting an upgrade tree and spitting out troops? That's the typical question it asks throughout the campaign, which does, despite being somewhat mechanically dull with its defend-the-castle missions, hold up over the haul.

Part of what makes Sword & Soldiers satisfying is that you don’t have to budget build orders, consider micro-details, or give much of consideration to strategies. You build and fight with a small number of troops in manageable streams, while complimenting your troop attacks with muddle, attack, or defensive-minded spells. This is RTS stripped to its core, and for what it's worth, it's a nice, easy-going approach that I enjoy. You're afforded time to zone out and simply enjoy the experience.

The game has a tendency to break down in some specific instances. When the AI decides to toss out globs of enemies to attack your streams of individual troops, there's not much you can do about that other than buckle down and hope you've picked the right troops in your streams, else they'll be knocking at your door soon. Also, some of the missions in the campaign mixes the action up by giving you simple defend objectives, no gold supply, or limited resources to work with. In some of these missions, it's obvious the designers want you to use a specific tool, and if you don't, you'll lose fast and hard annoyingly.

There is no online multiplayer, but it does offers a horizontal local two-player mode. I don’t have a pal that would be interested in giving this a go with me, but just in general testing I’ve noticed that, like in the campaign, mass and smart spell usage are the keys to success.

Sword & Soldiers might be shackled to side-scrolling RTS convention, but it’s smart and vibrant where it counts. The HD version in particular is the best, as the extra screen space goes a long way in bringing the game to life in a comfortable and manageable way. If you're in the mood for a full-featured title, this wouldn't be a bad one to scoop up. I dig it, at least.

Note: Although Chillingo is currently advertising Swords & Soldiers with us, advertising has no effect on coverage or review outcomes. For more information, take a look at our advertising and editorial policies.

Jonathan Lanis' Boost 2 [$1.99 / HD] is great. We've praised it to death and are always eager to hear more intel about the psychedelic, first-person racing game. And finally, there's news.  A Lite version is now available on the App Store. It went up earlier this week alongside a July 4 sale that has since ended.

Boost 2 feels like what happens to me after I guzzle protein powder. The world narrows into a neon tube and I’m rushing through it, man, all the while clenching my teeth and pushing it to the max. It’s primal. It’s first-person F-Zero without the opponents and a couple of gallons of Red Bull poured in for good measure. The goal in all the modes boils down to “don’t hit the neon obstacles” as your speed increases in ever-winding, cylindrical stages.

Looks neat, right? Give it a spin for free. I'm guessing you'll go ahead and grab the full version if you haven't already. If you don't, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore. Sorry.

It was back in February that we first learned about the guerilla porting project of Bungie’s classic Mac first-person shooter trilogy Marathon [Free] to the iPad. Lone wolf coder Daniel Blezek had taken it upon himself to take these games, which were by this time a part of the open source community, and adapt them for the touch screen. But, there were still questions about certain aspects of the open source licensing and whether or not things would jive with Apple’s App Store distribution methods. Silence about the Marathon iPad project in the months that followed hinted that it indeed might have hit a permanent roadblock.

Then just a couple of weeks ago, Bungie posted an interview on their blog with Daniel Blezek talking about the project. It turns out that they had caught wind of Daniel’s planned port and were stoked on it, and decided to officially get behind it. A refreshing turn of events considering some of the unfortunate turnouts of other fan projects like the Streets of Rage Remake or various awesome looking Sonic the Hedgehog games over the years.

If you’re a fan of Bungie or the Halo series then it may not be surprising that Marathon has launched on July 7th, or otherwise known as Bungie Day. As had already been announced, the game launched for free and comes with the complete first game in the Marathon trilogy, which contains 9 chapters and 27 levels. I'd like to believe that the remaining two games Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity will appear on the App Store in similar fashion sometime down the line, though there aren't any concrete details on this just yet.

The catch to the game being free, if you can even call it a catch, is that the whole game is in a standard texture resolution. Should you feel so inclined, you can download a high resolution texture pack as a $3.99 in-app purchase. The improved visuals admittedly do look nice, but they don’t look that much better than what comes in the game initially. Of course, I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you felt like throwing the four bucks at the game just to support such a great project, and received the slight visual upgrade in return as an added bonus.

Another interesting in-app purchase is the ability to buy a Master Chief mode for 99¢. What this means is that options for unlocking all weapons, infinite ammo, invincibility, and instant shields are all available in the pause menu at any time, as well as the ability to select any stage and save anywhere during play. The game saves your state when you exit with the home button, but actual game progress is normally only saved at specific checkpoints in each level.

All of these cheats may sound like they’d suck the fun out of the game, and for some people that would be true. But Marathon is a hard game, and its retro gameplay hasn’t aged entirely well. Whereas a game like Doom is more of a straight up blast-a-thon, Marathon contains many (sometimes) confusing puzzles and even relies on some light platforming elements that can be pretty challenging. The option of buying some cheats for a buck is actually a welcome one if you’re just looking to experience the game again with minimal frustration.

The game itself plays pretty well on the iPad’s touch screen. A virtual stick on the left controls your movement and swiping anywhere on the screen controls your aim. Buttons in the lower right control firing and switching weapons, though you can toggle an option to fire by tapping anywhere on the screen too. Opening doors and toggling switches lies right below the virtual stick, as does access to an overhead map. There’s not the fully customizable controls seen in other FPS games, but what’s here works pretty well.

If you like old-school first-person shooters like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D, then you should feel right at home with Marathon. It’s nothing groundbreaking as far as iOS first-person shooters go, but it’s a solid port of a classic game. Marathon tells an interesting story via the computer terminals spread throughout the game, and has a great moody atmosphere. Whether you’re new to the series or an old-school Mac gamer looking for a nostalgia fix, Marathon is an easy recommendation for free and is definitely worth considering the IAP upgrades for the total experience. You can drop your own opinions of Marathon in our forums, and we'll keep an eye out for news on the release of the remainder of the trilogy.

Holy cow, spending Monday fully engrossed in 4th of July festivities, Wednesday snuck up on me by surprise. But really, what surprise is better than a ton of new games being released?

Anyway, this week works like all previous weeks on the App Store. Developers can set specific future release dates for their games, and since the App Store is a global market broken up into regions, things are released incrementally. Thanks to New Zealand's proximity to the International Date Line, their App Store gets updated with new releases first. These releases then propagate out to the rest of the world until finally reaching the US App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern.

Here's an alphabetical listing of things coming out tonight that has caught our eye. Since there's been some confusion, keep in mind the screenshots come before the game link and description:

Block Breaker 3 Unlimited, 99¢ / HD - Forum Thread - I imagine the creation of this game involving a brain storming session where Gameloft just threw every idea everyone shouted for things that could be in a block breaking game onto a whiteboard… Then used that whiteboard as the feature list. There's tons of power-ups, multi-screen levels, boss battles, and so much more.

Deathsmiles, $4.99 / Lite - Forum ThreadIf bullet hell bullet curtain games are your cup of tea, there's no finer purveyor of said games on the App Store than Cave. Deathsmiles is of the horizontal variety, and instead of a traditional lives system has a "life point" system where you won't always be penalized by death depending on what you run into.

Finger Shoes, 99¢ / HD - Forum Thread - The object of this game seems to be fairly simple, you just walk with your fingers through the game world, tapping on all the star tiles as you go.

Flick Golf Extreme HD, $4.99 - Forum Thread - Joining the existing iPhone-specific version of Flick Golf Extreme [$2.99] comes its HD counterpart. We liked the original Flick Golf, and thought the Extreme redo was just as much fun. If you've been holding out for an iPad-specific version, now is your chance.

Jules - Unboxing the World, 99¢ - Forum Thread - This game has been available for the iPad for quite some time, and is only now getting re-released on the iPhone. Gameplay is a little on the simple side, and hinges entirely on you rolling Jules around smashing boxes. The graphics look great on the iPad, and tilt-based games always seem to work well on the iPhone.

Magnetic Baby, 99¢ / HD - Forum Thread - Magnetic Baby appears to be the love child of both Soosiz [$1.99] and Tiny Wings [99¢] and I'm totally OK with that. I've become a total sucker for colorful physics-centric games, and look forward to giving this one a try.

Ninjammin Beat-Jitsu, 99¢ - Forum Thread - This insane looking game is a hybrid between an action platformer and a rhythm game. Oh, and it takes place in a dystopian future and it's universal. What more do you need?

One Man Army, 99¢ - Forum Thread - It's a little hard to categorize this game, as it includes elements from shooters, tower defense, and castle defense. Regardless, you're a one man army and from your pile of sandbags you mow down seemingly endless waves of enemies. One Man Army was released accidentally, it's coming later this month.

Puzzle Family, Free / Star Pack - Forum Thread - This free to play collection of puzzle games has a delightfully weird trailer, and tons of things to unlock both between the 8 unlockable games and the 20 unlockable family members. (Each with their own outfits and things to unlock.) The entirely optional "Star Pack" gives you a head start with a bundle of stars to go hog wild unlocking things.

Swords and Soldiers, $2.99 / HD - Forum Thread - I'm all for these kinds of castle battle games, especially when they have art this good. (Seriously, check out the trailer.) This game is high up on our list of things to check out tonight.

The King of Fighters-i, $7.99 - Forum Thread - Many days of my youth were dedicated to arguing in support of either Street Fighter and/or King of Fighters compared to other fighting games, and now finally both franchises are available on the App Store. Sadly, with the recent release of SF4: Volt and the implementation of online Street Fighter multiplayer, King of Fighters has some catching up to do.

Torture Bunny, 99¢ / HD - Forum Thread - In the early days of the App Store, ragdoll punishment games were shockingly popular. I'll be interested to see how Torture Bunny does, as admittedly being able to design your own torture chambers does sound intriguing.

We Are Hungry, Free - Forum Thread - This free game seems to be a very simple take on line drawing. It's unclear how entertaining it will be for adults, but I could see something like this going over great with kids… That is, if you trust your child with your iPhone and/or iPad.

Westward 2 for iPad, $2.99 - This sequel to the original Westward [$2.99] is (at this point) exclusive to the iPad and features similar realtime strategy centric gameplay as you settle your home in the west. Think of it as a much more complicated version of Oregon Trail.

Trouble Brothers’ Cargo Runners [$4.99] is a digital board game with basic issues that should have been ironed out prior to its release. Its tutorial is bad. Granted, it does a decent job in communicating major goals, but it fails in speaking to flow and strategy, which are constituent parts of the Ticket to Ride-meets-the-ocean-trading experience that Cargo Runners shoots for. Worse, it doesn’t feature a single-player mode -- an option that would have made the learning curve a more bearable ordeal and also would have given you something to do with the game when by yourself and network-less. As it is, you’re expected to play and fumble exclusively in live environments. That's not... ideal. And what's killer is that Cargo Runners has all the makings of a good game, but it’s being held back by these odd shortcomings.

Cargo Runners revolves around making the most money in the shortest time frame. In a typical game, which supports up to four human players, you’re tasked with collecting four pieces of cargo that matches up with a need in a port on the world map. When a ticket is turned in, you receive the cash stated on the port’s contract. The not-so-subtle push and shove here is that other players might be vying for the same contract as you. If they collect it, you’re out of luck.

You roll dice to collect moves and cards, the latter of which adds a bit of spice. With cards, you can steal opponents’ cargo, as well as pick up extra pieces of cargo and even complete certain objectives. Each card has a different color differentiating its use. The blue and green ones, from what I gather, should be used every turn. The yellow ones are sort of the rough equivalent of a Wild Card in UNO. You want to hold on to it for a clip and use their trade route-blocking or contract-gathering powers at the right moment.

Figuring out when that right moment is, however, is an issue. This game dearly needs a better, more comprehensive, and an interactive tutorial that teaches you when to do things and how to think about the game. It's hard to soak in game logic via live play. As with any board game, Lady Luck has a huge hand in a lot of game-side affairs, which can be especially trying when you’re flying blind.

What kills me about Cargo Runners is that it looks great and has legitimate entertainment value. It’s one of the sharpest, most cohesive digital board games in general, though I suppose that says more about the fact that Trouble Brothers’ created this version without a physical one to look at; the actual board game hasn't materialized.

Most of our problems might be addressed in the future, provided enough people buy into this version of the game.

In a recent message board post, Trouble Bothers’ Jeff McCord said, “And yes, absolutely we too would love to have found a way to launch Cargo Runners with AI, but to do so would have been at the expense of one or more of the other critical priorities listed above. As soon as we start seeing income from the game it will help us to add other great new features, included AI (and or) solitaire play, as soon as we can.”

The studio is also sharing other thoughts with our community, so check out that thread if you're into where the game might be going and what's going to be addressed in the future. There is also a hefty amount of Wizard Hex [$2.99] talk, which, oddly enough was another Trouble Brothers' pseudo-board game title that lacked a solid tutorial.

Cargo Runners' shortcomings are too big for us to give it an official recommendation, but we'll happily follow this title as it morphs into something that represents a value and makes good on the promise that we've seen flashes of while playing with this version. That's not to say there isn't a shred of value in this specific version. If you've got a solid group of board game pals, for example, this is almost perfect for you.

Just as a little technical note here, the matchmaking system is slow, and worst case, doesn't work. We've been getting server errors quite a bit, lately.

Monster Hunter: Dynamic Hunting [$4.99] received an update earlier this month that rewards its most invested players with harder content. In version 1.01, “Real Hunt” was added. It’s a masochists' take on the “New Game Plus” model that allows anyone who beat the game to enter into it and experience the title all over again with stronger monsters, less item drops, no way to see monster health gauges or attack predicators, and zero continues. So, if you like fretting about lost progression or item enhancement, this seems like the mode just for you!

In other update news, Capcom notes that several bug fixes have been addressed in this version of the game. The studio gets no more specific beyond “minor.”

Dynamic Hunting doesn’t rank too high on our “games we like” list, but it is a solid romp for fans of the series and people who really get into Infinity Blade-style [$4.99] over-the-shoulder fight / swipe fests. If you’d like to learn more about it, check out our day zero impressions piece. If you’re more into chatting with people about the game make sure to hit up the message board.

Just as they did about a year ago, Donut Games is throwing a “Crazy Summer” sale and offering up 3 of their titles for free for a limited time. What is especially cool about this deal is that all 3 of these games are among the back catalog of Donut games that have recently been updated with universal iPad support, Retina Display graphics, and Game Center integration with leaderboards and achievements.

Cave Bowling, $0.99 - [Review] - [Forum Thread] - Released back in January, Cave Bowling offers up a fun brand of physics puzzler wrapped in the guise of a wacky game of stone age bowling. Set the angle and power of your shot and try to knock down all the pins set up in each of the 60 stages. Just knocking down all the pins can be tricky enough, but to earn a 3 star grade you’ll need to collect out of the way bonus items too. It’s so quick and simple to retry that it’s almost impossible not to try over and over until discovering the best solution.

Paracute, $0.99 - [Forum Thread] - Not one of Donut Games’ more prominent titles, Paracute is nevertheless a really fun “fall down” style game. You control a little teddy who is floating down a cave in a parachute and must avoid enemies and the hazards of the terrain on your way to the soft pillow landing pad waiting for you at the bottom. The game is played in landscape orientation and navigating your teddy left and right is handled by touching either side of the screen. There are hearts spread throughout the cave which can be collected for an increased score, but often you’re risking a crash by trying to snag hard to reach hearts. There are 30 levels each with the signature Donut Games 3-star grading system.

Icy Escort, $0.99 - [Forum Thread] - Similar to another Donut game Rat On The Run [99¢], Icy Escort is a platforming game with a puzzle twist. You control a mother penguin as she collects her missing penguin children who have been blown all over the game’s 30 levels. The catch is that your penguin moves on her own, so you must choose the right path through each level in order to collect all of your children and any bonus items with a fast time. There’s even a bonus mode included called Penguin in a Bathtub that’s a really fun side-scrolling avoidance game that adds nicely to the overall package.

If you have yet to add any of these titles to your Donut collection, then don’t even hesitate to grab them while they’re free. Especially Cave Bowling, which is not only the game I think is strongest out of the 3 but it’s also never been free before. I also might add that it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on Donut Games in the App Store as they have a habit of having random sales on their titles. Whether free or for their standard price of 99¢, pretty much any of the games from Donut Games is a safe bet to download.

Realm of the Mad God is one of the only web-based games I care about. It’s a dual-stick shooter with RPG and MMO trappings. You play as one of several different projectile-slinging, weapon-swinging character classes in a legitimate life or death adventure that revolves around collecting loot and killing monsters. In action, it’s a delicious and chaotic mess of stat bonuses, furious collection, cutesy particle effects, trading, and quest taking.

The thing that I find so remarkable about it is how stripped-down it is. You don’t need to engage with other players, there are no quest givers, and the loot flows like water as you scramble around the world putting beasts and boss monsters on ice. And while perma-death is a mechanic, it doesn’t sour the experience. It enriches it. Your dude matters. He has a life!

You can check out the game in your browser right now and maybe, just maybe, as some point in the future, you’ll be able to check it out on your mobile device.

This very afternoon, I got in touch with Rob and Alex at Wild Shadow, the studio behind the game. There are no short-or-long term plans to bring Realm of the Mad God to mobile, but there’s still a chance it could come to the platform.

“We don't really have an long-term plans for mobiles either -- it's mainly due to the twin-stick interface we're using,” Rob told me. He mentioned that he recently gave a dual-stick shooter a go on his iPad and wasn’t happy with the virtual stick interface. I totally get where he's coming from.

There’s also the issue that Wild Shadow would need to contract a possible port out, but the main problem resides in the controls.

“We’d love to get Realm of the Mad God onto mobiles, if we could find someone willing to do the port who can solve the interface problem,” Rob said before asking if me if I had any ideas on solving the interface issue. I bumbled about and said I would turn the question to you guys instead. So... have any good ideas? I’m desperate to have this game on my iPad or iPhone, so fire away, PLEASE.

[Big thanks to Rock, Paper, Shotgun for turning me on to this game]

Old games get news legs on mobile. Can we call that a fact, yet? Regardless, yet another aged and half-forgotten title is in the process of being translated to mobile platforms. In a chat with Joystiq, Bazinga Studios said that it’s interested in reviving The Neverhood on new-fangled devices, provided it can wrestle the licensing from its IP guardians.

In 1996 I was too busy being wowed by Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, so I missed this particular CD-ROM adventure game, but as you can see, it has a fun art style characteristic of a time when there was a lot more clay than CG in mass media. Also, it's classic point-and-click just like our daddies made them.

It seems like the project is moving forward despite the legal conversation. The Facebook page for the game has several screenshots as well as tiny updates regarding the platforms its set to grace, which at this point are iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and Windows 7. According to this page as well, several of the game’s original designers are on this project.

Looking good, right? We’ll be keeping our eyes on this one, for sure.

[Via Joystiq]

Kotaku Japan is reporting that an official Pokemon game is on its way to the App Store and Android marketplace in Japan this summer. Provided the translations we’ve seen are accurate, it’s called Pokemon Say Tap? Apparently, it’s a rhythm game that has you tapping on Pokemon-themed cards in time with the game’s music.

When it hits it’ll be available for $0, which should strike you as an uncharacteristic move for a publisher who rails against the App Store when promoting the its comparatively high-priced 3DS and its high-priced games. But this probably isn’t a Nintendo-published joint; rather, it appears to be a The Pokemon Company title. The Pokemon Company is an affiliate of Nintendo and has licensing and marketing power over the well-loved, well-travelled IP. So, not-official, but official. You see what I'm getting at?

This does seem to have some amount Nintendo backing, though, if a listing on the game’s official JP page and a credit on the title screen itself is any indication of this kind of weighty stuff. I have a feeling the accreditation and promotion is more about "Hey, we're Nintendo; we do Pokemon!" than it says about Nintendo's plans for the App Store, which I'm almost positive there are none. Sorry, folks.

Either way, an official Pokemon app is on its way. I wonder if Nintendo or The Pokemon Company will start cracking down on the immense amount of unofficial Pokemon stuff on Android and the App Store?

[Via Kotaku Japan]

Back in January we heard the excellent news that Cope-Com would be bringing an exact port of their classic Amiga shooter Battle Squadron to iOS. Originally released for the Amiga in 1989 (arriving on the Genesis / MegaDrive the following year), Battle Squadron is widely considered one of the very best Amiga shooters ever released and is probably my personal favorite 2D shooter of all time. And, I know Arnold Kim spent plenty of time with this one on his Amiga 500, as well.

Since the original announcement, I've previewed several pre-release builds of the game and have loved every minute of it. I'm happy to report that, at long last, Cope-Com released the Universal application (for iPhone and iPad) Battle Squadron ONE [link] into the App Store. And, any self-respecting shooter fan (of a retro bent or no) needs to take notice.

At its core, Battle Squadron ONE for iOS is an exact rendition of the Amiga original; it is a line-by-line C/C++ adaptation of the original 68000 assembly code. The game features four scrolling level environments, huge numbers of enemy craft, 24 different weapons (four types with six power levels each), Nova Missile smartbombs, four powerful end-bosses, and three different levels of difficulty. Three different control modes have been worked into the iOS version: direct touch (at both "Amiga speed" and "keep up with my finger speed" modes), tilt, and virtual joypad. Game Center integration and daily leaderboard updates are there, and a simultaneous two-player mode is coming in a free update.

Have a look at Cope-Com's gameplay video, with co-creator Martin Pedersen narrating. A longer demo that I captured of a recent, pre-release build of the game can be seen here.

To ensure solid performance, the developers have limited Battle Squadron ONE to iOS 4 and the iPhone 3GS, 3rd-generation iPod touch, iPad or better.

Amiga Computing magazine, way back when, gave the original Battle Squadron a 109% review rating. I was thrilled with my $40 purchase of the game in 1989. Battle Squadron ONE, at $1.99 USD, is excellent gaming, folks. Do not miss it.

Back in April, we learned that developer SoMoGa was hard at work on an iOS port of classic RPG Lunar: Silver Star Story, and today we finally have the first screenshots from the game. SoMoGa was responsible for porting the Sega Saturn RPG Vay [$4.99] to the App Store in 2008, and did a pretty fantastic job doing so. While Vay was a somewhat obscure title, the Lunar series has a pretty dedicated following worldwide, and has seen several different releases and remakes over the years.

Originally, Lunar: The Silver Star was released for the Sega CD back in 1993. A remake of the game, called Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and featuring enhanced audio and visuals, came to the more powerful Sega Saturn console in 1997, but only in Japan.  This remake eventually did make its way to North America by way of the PlayStation console in 1999.

This leads me to one thing a lot of people have been wondering since the announcement of Lunar: Silver Star Story Touch, which is exactly what version of the game the iOS port would be based on. SoMoGa played it a bit coy in an email to us, explaining that the version these screenshots are taken from is based on the Saturn remake, but that the Sega CD version is getting ported as well.

I don’t know if that means there will be a completely separate release of the original or if there will be some sort of mode inside of the game that lets you play with the original graphics and sound. SoMoGa promises to clarify this further soon, but if you’re a purist looking for the original game experience it looks like you’ll be in luck one way or another.

Expect more news on Lunar: Silver Star Story Touch soon, and you can look for the game to hit the App Store sometime before the end of the current quarter, which basically means sometime before the end of September.

When I think about excellent but underrated games on the App Store, Marco Mazzoli’s Spirit [99¢/HD] immediately comes to mind as a prominent example. Launching back in February of last year, Spirit is a neo-retro arcade game that uses a control mechanic that’s perfectly suited to the touch screen. You control your tiny “Spirit” with your finger, and as enemies appear on the screen they are dispatched by quickly circling your Spirit around them, creating a vortex that sucks them in.

Things get increasingly hectic as more enemies show up and you try to encircle them in a vortex without also running right into them. Ultra-responsive controls ensure that it’s never the game’s fault when things eventually go sour, and a nuanced scoring system adds layers of strategy to the gameplay. Last November a new Pulse mode was added into the game which basically turned the core game on its ear and offered a completely new way to play. It almost felt like Pulse could have been its own separate game rather than a free update to the existing Spirit app, but I didn’t complain.

So, Spirit is pretty brilliant, and I like it quite a bit in case you couldn’t tell. It’s also been a well-supported game, receiving quite a few updates in the past year and a half since its release. However, one thing Spirit has been missing is high resolution visuals, and the colorful neon lines in the game look a bit jaggy on newer devices. Thankfully that problem has been rectified with the latest update to Spirit.

The developer has redrawn all the graphics in the game to utilize Retina Display and iPad resolutions. Like its classic arcade inspirations, Spirit has pretty minimalist visuals, but the extra fidelity of the high resolution art definitely makes a big difference. Aside from the visual improvements, this update also brings a slew of minor optimizations and tweaks, most notably better performance on older devices. Also, Spirit has a snazzy new icon.

If this is the first you’re hearing of Spirit and you enjoy a good arcade-style high scoring game, then you should definitely give it a try. Both Spirit and the iPad native Spirit HD are currently on sale for just 99¢, and are easily worth every penny. There is a dedicated group of players in our forums who would agree, and when it comes to original arcade experiences they don’t get much better than Spirit.

The Incredible Machine [$2.99] for iOS has been updated to include the content that spurred its recreation in the first place. The entire 1993 version of the Rube Goldberg puzzle game, including its pixilated visuals, is now accessible within the app for the price of free.

Also, more challenging puzzles have been added. A total of 15 “expert” missions are a part of this update, adding to an offering of around 75 total puzzles designed, in part, by Jeff Tunnel, the dude who created the original game.

Tunnel joined up with Playdom in 2010 after founding PushButton Labs in 2009. He was with Sierra On-Line when The Incredible Machine was originally created and published.

Remember Casey’s Contraptions [$2.99]? That’s the physics-based puzzler that we prefer in this specific genre, but it’s wild that its source material, the original The Incredible Machine, is now available within a re-make that came out a month after Casey’s Contraptions launched. I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime happenstance. We were a part of history, people! Do we get a prize or something?

[Via PocketGamer]