While NyxQuest [99¢/Lite/HD/HD Lite] may be new to iOS platforms, it is not a new game. Chillingo's greek-themed platformer has already been praised in its WiiWare incarnation, and it's also been available for PC and Mac via Steam since late last year. The question we have been mulling around since the game first popped up for discussion on our forums was an obvious one: Would we get a beautiful translation of the game for our portable devices, or would it merely end up being a shabby port?

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, you take on the role of Nyx, a winged woman who has come to earth to seek out Icarus, a mortal man who used to spend his every moment by her side. A terrible spat between the gods down on earth has left things in a bit of a shambles, and it's up to Nyx to find her way around and figure out what has happened to Icarus.

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If you're an online gamer that utilizes TeamSpeak to communicate to your guild, clan, tribe, improv group, or whatever else you might be doing that requires voice communication, here's some awesome news: An official TeamSpeak [$4.99] client has hit the App Store. The down side, if you'd even call it that, is it only works with TeamSpeak 3, giving you even more reason to upgrade to the new TeamSpeak software if you haven't already.

Being an official app, it sure doesn't seem to skimp on features. Not only is it universal, but it also sports all the functionally you need to use it as your main TeamSpeak client. It's got multi-server connectivity, both push to talk as well as voice activation. There's even support for common admin functions, contact management, and text messaging.

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Gameprom, one of the leading developers of iOS and Mac pinball games, have just revealed their latest upcoming table: Da Vinci Pinball. They’ve released a bunch of new screenshots for the game on the Da Vinci Pinball website, several of which you can see above as well as in the gallery below (click to enlarge). Here’s a quick blurb from Gameprom about the direction they’re going with Da Vinci Pinball:
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The Let’s Golf series is no stranger on TouchArcade. We enjoyed Gameloft’s initial outing on iOS, and fell in love with the eventual sequel. Gameloft looked to continue this tradition of being the premier iOS arcade-style golf experience with Let’s Golf 3 [Free] while dabbling with the freemium model for the first time in the series.

The good news is that, at times, Let’s Golf 3 does manage to successfully marry a freemium structure with classic Let’s Golf gameplay. In addition, Gameloft manages to expand on everything we loved about the previous two titles and provide a ton of content to work towards. The bad news is that the framerate is extremely erratic and can become so choppy that it actually interrupts the gameplay and causes miscues.

For those of you that have played Let’s Golf 2, Let’s Golf 3 should look rather familiar. Again, there are 108 holes to play through spanning six visually gorgeous regions, and a wide variety of clothing and props for your character to wear, most of which change your golf attributes in some form. In addition, the classic Let’s Golf gameplay remains intact, with very little change to the core game mechanics. If you enjoyed playing through the previous games in the series, you’ll most likely enjoy Let’s Golf 3, as it’s essentially more of what made the previous games great.

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One of our favorite iOS puzzle games would have to be Big Pixel Studio’s Land-a Panda [99¢/Lite/HD/HD Lite], released last March. If you remember the cannon shooting sections from the Donkey Kong Country series, and can picture an entire game developed around that idea with tons of levels and a sugary sweet art style, then you have a good idea of what to expect from Land-a Panda.

We really liked the game in our review, and although it contained plenty of levels initially, even more were added in an update last May, increasing the panda-launching fun even further. Now, the adorable panda couple of Yang Guang and Tian Tian are flipping down their shades, making witty puns, and heading to Miami in a newly released update. Yeeeeaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

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I don't often reflect on why I want to progress in a game. The journey is usually enough -- tell me that the hero wants the MacGuffin, and I will do what it takes to get him to it, no questions asked. Not so with Loopycube's Pickpawcket [$0.99]. Our stealthy feline protagonist wants to reclaim the classic paintings stolen from the cat art show, and dammit, so do I.

Not that the journey isn't fun -- its stealth action puzzles are quite entertaining. But the paintings awarded by completing each of the game's 60 levels are a great motivator. Loopycube painstakingly recreated 60 classic paintings, one for each level, and then filled them with cats. Impressionist cats, dadaist cats, renaissance cats, pop art cats: you name it, and it's probably in there. The paintings range from neat -- I'm particularly fond of The Kitty Night, a rendition of Van Gogh's The Starry Night -- to disturbing, like the anthropomorphic take on Alphonse Mucha's "Dance." How do you put a game down when the next level holds a reward like that?

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At first glance, Candy Boy [99c / HD] by Colorbox looks like a regular one-screen platform game - and to some extent it is. You control Casper, who runs, jumps and long-jumps around the level, climbing over blocks, collecting three coins and trying not to fall into water or holes. And in later levels there's enemies to avoid. Yup, that certainly sounds like a platform game. But, at its core, Candy Boy is actually a puzzle game, based on completing match-3 puzzles . There's no standard rectangular match-3 game-board though, as the blocks are often distributed around the platform level.

Here's how it works:  Casper walks around carrying a colored block of candy above his head, which he can drop anywhere on the level. If he places the candy next to two other candy blocks of the same color, they disappear. In many match-3 games the goal is to achieve a certain number of matches, or to move objects to the bottom, but here the goal is to destroy three "hateful worms" which have invaded Candy Boy's sugary homeland. The worms are colored too, and hide amongst the blocks, so by matching them with candy of the same color, you destroy them. They are stylized square worms, with wide open mouths!

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A month ago, I posted a hands-on preview of Manomio's iOS version of the classic Cinemaware strategy game Defender of the Crown. I'm happy to report that the game has finally landed as as Universal application (for iPhone and iPad) in the App Store [link].

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Back in February, Sticky [99c / HD] developed by Gamistry, was released for the iPhone. This month and the recent release of the iPad version made the game re-appear on our radar, and it still has some good things and not so good things about it.

The game opens with an entirely ridiculous storyline: Two scientists with ironic names - Dr. Bunsen and Dr. Globule - were trying to create the perfect energy source, but their experiment went terribly wrong and accidentally created an orange jelly creature, named 'Sticky'. Dr. Bunsen decided to adopt Sticky as his own son, and in a remarkable coincidence, their next experiment also had unexpected consequences causing Dr Globule to lose his mind and become evil. He's now locked in his laboratory where he's creating grey monsters, called 'toxins', to pollute the world.

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If you've got a first, second, or even 8GB third generation iPod touch, an O.G. iPhone or an iPhone 3G, it might be time to think about upgrading. Aside from missing out on a heck of a lot of cool games that require more recent hardware, quite a few developers seem to be dropping support of their older devices as Apple no longer provides iOS updates.

Freemium powerhouse ngmoco announced this afternoon that as of We Rule [Free] version 1.6, older devices will no longer be supported. Ngmoco, like many other developers who have made this decision to abandon older devices explains that in order to move the game forward they need to free themselves of the constraints of these older devices.

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Well, now we finally know what Julius Styles: The International is: a bad game. We committed a lot of resources to reporting on it pre-release, so I thought it’d be for the best to tell you all what was up with its quality. Like Joystiq, I could only stomach the first 30 or so minutes of the 3D “King’s Quest meets Alpha Protocol”-ish title, but those 30 minutes were pretty telling. Heck, the first two minutes were.

“They said I needed some time away,” a bad Wesley Snipes impersonator says after the title card. “Some space to think after the incident. Get in a little fishing. Maybe some swimming,” he continues as the game states he’s doing all this in Arctic Lapland.

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Early this morning Bloomberg ran a story regarding the latest Nintendo 3DS price drop fiasco from a side that you don't often hear from: Investors. As you may recall from the last episode of this mobile gaming financial soap opera, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has remained vigilant insisting that as long as he is in charge Nintendo will only be making games for its own line of hardware.

Investors don't agree, especially as Nintendo stocks dip to six-year lows. Specifically, Masamitsu Ohki, a fund manager for a Tokyo-based investment management company explains: “Smartphones are the new battlefield for the gaming industry, Nintendo should try to either buy its way into this platform or develop something totally new.”

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File this one into the Things I Never Thought I’d See On An iPad list: the real Hitchhiker's Guide. Like, the actual one. Hothead Games, the creators of several small downloadable titles like DeathSpank and the Penny Arcade series, as well as iOS titles like Kickin’ Momma [$.99 / UHD], Chormanoids [$.99], and Kard Combat [Free], have confirmed its intentions to bring a visual version of Douglas Adams’ fantasy guide to the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch this fall. The price will be $0, and it appears as if future entires will be paid downloads.

The app is being described as an “authentic experience,” which means it’s being shaped to be the actual device Adams described in his original radio series. It isn’t so much a game, but I think there’s a bunch of wiggle room here. No-one is saying that select entries won’t have game-like mechanics or gameification in them, so the door is open at the moment.

"We really focused on taking existing Guide entries and presenting them in a new, interactive way," Hothead Producer, Joel DeYoung said in a statement. (more...)

Octodad 2 hit its funding goal. The project raised around 120 percent of its benchmark, which I’d imagine has its fledgling indie development studio Young Horses stoked to finish up work on the follow-up to what was, probably, one of the craziest games I’ve ever played.

When we covered the fact that this sequel was coming, it was suggested that an iOS version was in future release plans. With money now in the bag, will we still see something? Maybe, says a representative from the studio. In an e-mail exchange with me, I was told that the studio updated its physics engine to its latest version for the sole reason of being able to port the game to the iOS platform, but Young Horses isn’t sure if it will port the first or the follow-up to the iPad 2. This is the first we’ve heard of the original getting a port. (more...)

If you’ve turned your attention from Tiny Tower [Free] to check out the other tower simulation game on the market, Mega Mall Story [$3.99], here’s a solid reason to jump back in: new content. Nimblebit has updated its free-to-play joint to version 1.3, adding a lot to the personality to the mix via a free update. The headliner is the new citizen dress-up menu, which allows you to change the costumes of your dwellers whenever. Along these lines, it’s also unleashed a new Web tool that gives you the power to creator your own custom citizen.

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