Back in June, we learned that developer Godzilab was officially working on iBlast Moki 2, a follow up to their hugely popular 2009 physics puzzler iBlast Moki [$2.99/UHD]. Then late last month, we got the first look at screenshots from the game, along with a few new tidbits of information. Now, Godzilab has posted on their Facebook page that iBlast Moki 2 will be officially launching later this month on August 18th.

In addition, they’ve released a couple of new screenshots for the game, like the one above showing some Mokis riding around on duck motorcycles. Why are they on duck motorcycles you ask? Well, that’s because a duck is one of the many available items in the game’s robust level editor, shown in the screen below. Every level in the game was made using this same editor, and as such you yourself can recreate anything in the game using the editor and tweak it to your heart’s content. Of course, levels will be able to be uploaded and shared online with gamers around the world.

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Every iOS developer wants to hear great feedback about their game. Still, some compliments are better than others, and when it comes to a portable title, there is one phrase that is music to the ears every time: “I can't put it down!” When it comes to Bouncy Mouse [99¢/HD], the new physics-based game from Munkadoo Games, that’s the only phrase you’ll be able to think of -- because once you pick it up, you won’t want to put it down.

Bouncy Mouse has a happy-go-lucky feeling to it from the moment you begin to play. I loved the punch drunk happy look of the characters, which reminded me of similar designs from games like Taiko Drum Master. In Bouncy Mouse, you play -- surprise -- a mouse who has to navigate its way through brightly colored 2D levels to chase cheese and eventually attack a cat that lies in wait at the end. I have to admit, I went into it with a very skeptical attiude. There’s billions of platformers with the overly cute look on the App store, and the way you move the mouse by pulling it back and letting it fly just reminded me of Angry Birds, which does not need to be cloned ever, ever again.

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Battleship is one of those rare games that seems to fit in the computer gaming world even better than the physical board game world in which it was created. There's nothing like the tension while playing a friendly match with a buddy. In many ways, that tension is what makes a simple game like Battleship so appealing.

Battle Planes [$1.99] tries to invoke and expand on that appeal by taking the Battleship formula and twisting it a little by adding some variety and personality to the mix. While overall I would say Battle Planes does succeed in capturing some of that magic, some questionable design decisions prevent it from taking the helm as the best choice for this genre.

At its heart, Battle Planes is a tried and true Battleship clone: You and your opponent (Human or AI) put your three planes on a grid, and then take turns trying to hit and destroy the other's aircraft. Where Battle Planes tries to soar above the competition is in its changes to the core formula.

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The collective hive mind of TouchArcade couldn't possibly be more excited for Machinegun Jetpack, unless of course Halfbrick succumbs to our demands of including their own Phil Larsen as a playable character. Anyway, it seems that the previous video released by the Australia-based development studio was just the first of a series slowly teasing the game before its release in the (hopefully) not too distant future.

If this is the first you've heard of Machinegun Jetpack, it's a game we've been following for what feels like an eternity that continues the adventures of Barry Steakfries previously featured in Monster Dash [99¢] and Age of Zombies [$2.99]. Like those two games, Machinegun Jetpack takes a familiar game type (in this case, the cave flyer) and turns it up to 11, as evident by the previous video and made even more obvious by the latest surprisingly Phil-less developer diary:

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For relative Poker rookies like myself and my friends, keeping track of who does what and who has what gets progressively harder as the drinks flow and more and more people join in on the action. Card manufacturer Bicycle just released a new iPad app that might help. It’s called Bicycle Poker Night [$4.99], and it’s merely a game tracking device. You use your real cards on a real table, while the app keeps track of the blinds, the chips, and everything else for you. As long as you keep the whiskey off your tablet, it should prove to be a handy tool.

Hilariously, its super elaborate in the visual department. As you’ll see, you can drop in pictures for your pals, and watch the action unfold on a virtual table. I’d imagine you’ll see a good bit of promotional content, too, if that lower right-hand corner is indicative of future plans.

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If you would have asked me when I was sitting outside of the local Apple Store all night in line for the original iPhone in late June of 2007 with $600 burning a hole in my pocket if I thought this phone would spawn a device family that would be the catalyst to what could be the biggest shake-up of the gaming industry in decades, I would have let out a derisive snort and gone back to playing my Nintendo DS. However, the iOS ecosystem seems to be doing exactly that-- A few weeks ago we heard from EA CEO John Riccitiello who explained that consoles are shrinking and the iPad is their fastest growing platform, meanwhile, Nintendo significantly dropped the price of their 3DS that is struggling to compete in a world dominated by smartphones.

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Orange Pixel’s Meganoid [$.99] now has more content than before. The ultra-stupid hard platform game has been updated with a serious dosage of levels, bringing the ‘normal’ mode up to a stellar 90 different offerings. Sarge Mode (read: hard mode) is now up to 80 courtesy of this latest update pass, which also ushered in Game Center support, several bug fixes and tweaks, and the once Android-exclusive “Oreah Mode,” a backwards variant of the game. A total of 50 levels from this have been added.

On the studio’s official blog, Orange Pixel notes that it’s attempting to bring the total of all three modes to 100 levels, which explains the whole “more to come line” we’ve heard. When not dropping more content into Meganoid, it’s busy with its next platformer, INC.

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We've been following the activity of gaming legend Graeme Devine's GRL Games since he left Apple and decided to start his own studio. A chat at GDC later revealed that the motivation for his departure from the company had a whole new layer of awesome to it: He just wanted to make games with his daughter. Since then they've released Full Deck Solitaire [Free] as well as Full Deck Poker Solitaire [$1.99 / Free].

Tomorrow, the Full Deck family of card games will get its third entry: Full Deck Hold'Em. We've had our hands on an early copy of the game, and aside from being an all-around awesome iPad-powered poker experience, the iPad 2 video chat functionality is just awesome. You can see a glimpse of how it works in the following video:

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Tribase Studios’ first-person running game, Requiem [$1.99], should be better. In a recent update, the studio added some graphical and optimization tweaks for users with third-gen devices, bug fixes, and has also re-worked tutorial for the iPad version. The cost? Free!

We gave the game a go after it generated a decent amount of buzz on our message board. It’s like a stripped down, more tightly constructed Mirror’s Edge. Taking place in a boy’s dream, you’re charged with running from a giant thug, all the while barreling through an environment filled with objects you need to jump, crouch, crawl, or spin away from. The perspective is a welcome touch in a market increasingly cluttered with uninspired hallway or military shooters. The visual direction is pretty radical, too, just like DICE’s first-person runner.

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Earlier this July, League of Evil [Free] creator Ravenous Games bumped the price of League of Evil back to its normal-ish tag of $1.99. The studio has once again fiddled with the price, though I’d imagine the new one won’t be the cause of too many e-groans. For the next 24 hours the game is $0. Free, guys! Free!

For those of you not in the know, League of Evil is the App Store’s rough equivalent of Team Meat’s imaginative, but sadistic action platform game Super Meat Boy. Boasting tons of levels, an fantastic lo-fi presentation, and a lot of challenge, League of Evil was an easy recommendation for us to make. At this price, it’s sorta a steal.

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One thing about Shift 2: Unleashed [$5.99/HD], just real quick: Don't bother. If I had to summarize EA's latest Need for Speed sim, it certainly wouldn't involve the word "unleashed." This is about as misleading a subtitle you could attach to something so tame and afraid to do anything outside its comfort zone.

I'm still high off the faster, crazier NFS: Hot Pursuit and the dialed back Real Racing 2, I think. Shift 2 exists in a limbo-like spot somewhere in between those titles, with a slightly heavier weight toward the realistic racing, which is something the franchise has only recently started dabbling in. We loved the first Need for Speed: Shift because it nailed what we wanted from a console approximation and it was a convincing, competitive iOS sim-racer. This sequel hits those same notes, but the standard, and thus what I expect, has raised since.

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We got a look at a few screenshots of Speedway GP 2011 last month, and while we're still incredibly light on details regarding what's going to be in the actual game, they shot us over a new trailer today which features an entire six seconds of gameplay footage.

Check it out:

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Oyatsukai’s Fractal Combat [$1.99] is an aggressively arcade-y third-person aerial combat game that initially reminded me a lot of Rogue Squadron. It isn’t a licensed product and its universe is nowhere near as fleshed out as the Star Wars fiction, but it does have a similar over-the-top sci-fi style coupled with a simple control scheme and targeting systems. While it’ll bore you at times with its uninspired instance-based content, Fractal Combat’s click-treat action and overall ease of use is entertaining in bursts. This isn’t a gold medal winner; it’s an okay game with strong drivers that’ll keep you invested in an otherwise shallow experience.

On a mechanical level, this is a third-person shooter first and foremost, which charges you with the wholesale slaughter of various randomly generated ships and ground-to-air missiles in a series of rote missions. As for the flight part of the deal, this is more of a hover game: momentum, speed, and general stick-jocker-y aren’t things that this does well.

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A huge update for Kard Combat [Free] wormed its way through Apple certification today and is now available for all owners of the premium version of the delicious card game. The tentpole addition is the four new mages: Demon, Chaos, Deception, and Arcane. Each deck adds a special a slew of special spells and new cards to use, and each is free for owners of the game. Two new modes of play, Challenge and time multiplayer, have been added as well, shoring up a suite of options that were already pretty satisfying to the player base. The former mode, by the way, is a basic riff on the Tower, while the latter should make for some much, much quicker online battles.

An update wouldn’t be an update without fixes and tweaks, right? New visuals, new sound, and new animations have been added in addition to multiplayer slot, mana counter, and several other bug fixes. Also, you’ll now be able to switch the difficulty of the game mid-campaign instead of having to start over.

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Eggcode's Pixel Ghost [0.99] is a retro side scrolling game, with the same style of play as Squareball [$0.99 / Review] from 2009. Your pixelated red ghost bounces up and down automatically, as you try to maneuver it through the level within the time limit, by moving the background. That's right, you don't move the ghost, you move the maze, by dragging the entire level left or right.  And you help the ghost avoid stuff, like spikes, bats, shooty things or holes in the maze. Some blocks disappear after being touched and sometimes there's no floor on the maze, so there's little room for error.

This game is quirky, because you're looking at your IOS screen, which has a television screen inside of it, which has the game playing on it-- It's like you're watching the game being played on a television set, hence the word 'pixel' in the title.  Because the whole TV doesn't fit on the IOS screen, your perspective pans up and down, following the bouncing ghost.  Plus the game background rotates continuously and to top it off, the television is on a slight angle, which all adds to the overall visual quirkiness.

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