A young man washes up on shore without knowledge of where he is or how he got there. An elder teaches him swordplay and sets him off on an epic quest. A small blue blob that lives on his arm breaks the fourth wall at every opportunity.

This was almost the set up of any classic role-playing game, a fact that Pixel and Texel's Fara [$0.99] is happy to point out. With tongue firmly in cheek, the action RPG leads players through most of the cliches of the genre -- fetch quests, boss battles and awkward romantic subplots, among others -- though it never quite transcends those cliches itself.

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When it comes to what makes a good game, I usually boil it down to two basic rules: create a gameplay experience that is fun, and extend that experience long enough to make it satisfying. Monster Island [$0.99 / HD] (and Monster Island Begins [Free / HD]), the latest title from Miniclip, does a great job satisfying both tenets in droves. In addition, its colorful artistic flair, solid gameplay, and interesting in-game store ideas make the game one worth exploring.

At its core, Monster Island is a physics-based puzzler that has you tossing ‘minis’ (basically small alien balls) that have a variety of attributes, with the goal being to take out the enemy monster thugs. Minis range from Blui, a mini that explodes only after it stops moving, to Sticky, a mini that sticks to whatever you throw it at (and will subsequently let other minis stick to it) and so on. Each level gives you a predetermined amount (and type) of minis, and your goal is to simply use them and try to take out the baddies in as few throws as possible.

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Adult Swim has been on a roll lately publishing flat-out incredible games, and if you thought Monsters Ate My Condo [99¢] great, the publisher has somehow managed to ever-so-slightly one up themselves with Bring Me Sandwiches!! [99¢]. The premise is simple, and delightfully ridiculous-- You play as Jimmy Nugget, a hapless employee of Stuffy's, a local fast food joint. For some reason, you and you alone have been put to the task of feeding an evil alien would-be overlord named Gourmo who has the strangest taste in sandwiches.

The idea is to make a sandwich by collecting ingredients from around the platform level. You can start with a basic cheese sandwich, but, you can add non-standard fillings like burgers, apples, oranges or hot-dogs. And then, what the heck, let's throw in: Wine bottles, flowers, tins, potted plants, beach-balls, and much much more. Each time you add another filling, your sandwich gets taller, until you're carrying around a giant towering treat filled with the craziest ingredients. A sandwich meter of sorts lets you know when your sandwich has grown large enough to please your alien master.

Soon, Gourmo starts placing more specific food orders: "Bring me ...1 sandwich with a cat!"  The particulars of his order are displayed as icons at the top of the screen which are ticked off you collect them.  To find the ingredients, you must explore the busy levels, which include buildings to climb, bouncy roofs, clothes-lines to cross and water hydrants to smash so you can ride the gushing water into the air. There's dissolving clouds, larger items to push around, locked sections that need a key and even hidden areas to discover. And all this time, you're still carrying around a massive sandwich, which expands and contracts depending where you are.

Once the food is prepared, you take it to a waiting alien representative, who transports it up to the obese invader Gourmo, who devours it hungrily. There's an indicator on the screen which always points towards the alien, so it's easy to find. As the game progresses, you're put to the task of building multiple sandwiches as well.

When you make a second sandwich, your slice of bread gets larger, so you can dump bigger fillings on it, like crates, televisions or satellite dishes. Apparently Gourmo isn't too fussy about his nutritional intake. When you make a third sandwich, you're given a VERY large slice of bread, which allows even larger fillings, like say, a fridge. I won't keep listing the ingredients, but according to the "Food Journal" in the main menu, there's heaps of fillings to discover.

After a while Gourmo starts asking for other things to eat; like cake. But food's not the only thing to collect. There's also 29 alien spaceship parts to discover (one per stage) and presumably these help you reach "the mysterious Planet Nuzz" mentioned in the iTunes description. There's also special pick-up items like the alien rocket pack for double jumping, or a food-magnet to attract out-of-reach items.

It''s not always easy to walk around with a towering sandwich. Birds and dogs are attracted to it and a protesting hippie might hit you with his protest sign, knocking  some fillings off your bread. Naughty children might fire slingshots at you and beware of dogs and nasty little girls on pogo-sticks. These hostile characters can all be slapped onto a large piece of bread and fed to the alien. Problem solved.

After being hurt five times, such as falling into a hole, your health meter is depleted and the stage ends. Although you can restart from a checkpoint, with the same score, stage time and sandwich percentage you possessed back at that point. Discovering a red heart will restore some health. Or, If you collect 50 coins, you earn one heart. With all the sandwich making, it's easy to forget this is also a platform game.

There are four chapters to play (USA, Mexico, Italy and Japan) with 29 stages in total, including four auto-scrolling stages which play like an endless runner in a platform game. Each chapter has one bonus stage to unlock. The chapters are all uniquely themed. For example, the Mexico chapter has a desert setting with prickly cacti and kicking donkeys, with Mexican-style music, bandits in sombreros and Mexican food items to collect, like tacos. The last stage in each chapter is a larger level, which can't be by-passed with the skip level function. Plus there's a special final chapter, at the very end of the game which you need enough spaceship parts to unlock.

Instead of a star-scoring system, three slices of gold bread are awarded for each level, based on specific targets for score, time taken and number of food spills. These three goals can each be achieved in different runs, which provides an incentive to replay levels. Although just by reaching the end of a level, you unlock the next level, even if you fail the time, score and spill targets.

Three control options are provided, including tilt, touch (choose one half of screen for running and the other half for jumping) or buttons. The developers even get bonus points for implementing buttons that can each be individually re-positioned on the screen. Although strangely, when the game starts you're presented with two control options to choose from, as this wonderful button option is not mentioned. Although it's available, in the options menu. My only criticism is that the jumping is a bit awkward when bouncing off someone's head, sometimes requiring multiple attempts. Apart from this the controls work perfectly fine.

We gave the last wacky game from Adult Swim, Monsters ate my Condo, a five star review, and Sandwiches!! is another quality well-constructed release, with similarly vibrant graphics. It's amusing, varied, highly entertaining and excellent value for a dollar.  Also, for you hopeful iPad owners out there, while an iPad version isn't available (and also isn't currently in the works, per the developers) it also hasn't been ruled out as a future possibility.

I'd imagine the dudes over at Rocketcat Games are a little tuckered out at the moment. On the same night its glorious action RPG Mage Gauntlet [$1.99] hit worldwide, Rocketcat also dropped a bunch of tweaks and improvements into its "Hook" line-up of games. And you thought you were productive when you managed to clean the house and polish off that proposal.

Here's a run-down of the changes according to the patch notes: Hook Worlds [$.99] now supports flip-screen on retina devices, Super Quick Hook [$2.99] now supports retina display visuals and multi-tasking, and Hook Champ [$2.99] now boasts crisp retina support as well flip-screen, multi-tasking, and better OpenFeint functionality. All three games also have an updated in-game news catalog for your pleasure, too.

We're all pretty big on the Hook games and we're stoked to see that each is boasting a new, more refined look on our fresh devices. Ironically, we're little too engrossed with Mage Gauntlet to put a tremendous amount of time back into Hook, but hey, the game's look nicer. That's neat.

Let's address this right up front -- Robo5 [$0.99] looks familiar. If you took Atlus's PS3 opus Catherine, stripped out the psychosexual drama and replaced boxer-clad protagonist Vincent with a robot, you'd end up with something like this. But say, for the sake of argument, that you wanted to enjoy excellent box-climbing puzzles without being chased by horrifying nightmares. If that was something you were looking for, you'd be well advised to take a good look at Robo5.

But that isn't to say that this is an effortless rip-off. Along with quite a number of stellar box-climbing puzzles, Robo5 boasts a compelling story about a robot seeking its identity. It also has a visual style that's downright charming, in a steampunk sort of way.

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Back in 1996, during my sophomore year in high school, I have many a fond memory of playing Wave Race 64 endlessly with my buddies. At the time, Wave Race 64 was a technical marvel for its fantastically realistic water effects, and even today the visuals are still pretty darn impressive. It also didn’t hurt that it was an incredibly solid experience in the gameplay department, especially with 3 friends by your side all vying for the top spot in any given race.

Now 15 years later and developer Vector Unit is readying Riptide GP for iOS, another watercraft racing title with impressive water effects, but one that can fit in the palm of my hand. We’ve already seen a pretty stellar watercraft racer with last year’s Aqua Moto Racing 2 [99¢], but Riptide GP looks to differentiate itself with a more arcadey and over-the-top brand of racing, as well as your more traditional racing game track designs.

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The sixteen bit era of gaming was filled with a ridiculous amount of action RPGs. Which of these games of this age is the "best" is a debate that has been raging since before it was even possible to argue about it on the internet, and likely will keep burning on the internet's Matrix-like future successor… Only that argument likely will be a little more interesting as we'll all know Kung Fu, how to fly helicopters, and other things like that. I've always been a Link to the Past man myself, but regardless of what your favorite was, I think we can all agree on one thing: It'd be fantastic to go back and experience those games as they were the first time we played them. Before we knew what was in store for us after exiting the Castle Hyrule sewers, or what was on the other side of the teleporter at the Millennial Fair.

This is where Mage Gauntlet [$1.99] comes in. I think the best way to describe the game is as a dusty old Super Nintendo cartridge you just discovered and didn't even know you had after your parents threatened you into coming back home and cleaning your old video game crap out of the attic before they "clean" it themselves. (And by "clean" of course they mean "throw away.") It's a lot like The Last Rocket [$2.99] in that they take the 16-bit inspiration to such deep levels that it could pass as a SNES game, instead of just utilizing pixel art and chip tunes because it's in style.

Mage Gauntlet focuses on a single-player story mode that puts you in charge of Lexi on a quest to initially prove yourself to a local wizard named Whitebeard. Without spoiling too much of how it all plays out, you're quickly equipped with a magical gauntlet that allows you to command various magical spells. Throughout your adventure you come across a cast of other characters, journals, and notes which progress the story while accomplishing your typical rid-the-world-of-evil quest which manages to strike a great balance between funny, delightfully cliche, and totally classical without ever being overwhelming or trying too hard.

The game is controlled as you'd expect it to be, with a series of buttons as well as an invisible virtual joystick for movement. They work great, and I really like how you can touch basically anywhere on the left side of the screen to move Lexi around. Lexi has a basic melee attack which swings whatever weapon you're equipped with, as well as a dashing attack that's activated by holding the attack button down. You can also momentarily sprint by tapping another button, and while both of these maneuvers feel fairly optional early in the game, as you encounter enemies, you'll need to do much more than mash attack.

The truly unique twist of Mage Gauntlet is the magic system. In the game world you'll come across both magical urns of sorts as well as some enemies which will spew magical energy when destroyed or defeated. You can hold up to four spells at once, and using them is as simple as tapping a button in the top right corner of the screen which pauses the action and brings up a magic sub-menu. You select your spell, target it (if applicable), and the game resumes. The spells you get are random, but can be made less random using equipment (more on that later).

This whole system works fabulously. I love how magic feels rare, which forces you to value having a spell on deck much more than similar games which allow you to just blast away with whatever your favorite or most effective spell is to your heart's content or your mana bar is empty. In addition, since spells are randomized, it's really cool how you're forced to come up with clever solutions to a battle, utilizing a spell that might not be optimal for the situation by any means but still works by mixing up your strategy. One such instance, for example, was when I was getting mobbed by orcs, with a few spell casters. A chain lightning spell would've really helped, but charging through, silencing the casters, and hacking all the orcs down with my sword worked too.

Loot is plentiful in the game, and aside from looking cool also offers various benefits. For example, you can equip trinkets to increase the likelihood of a particular spell (or set of spells) appearing, and if you're really decked out you might even have a complimentary suit of armor that does something like up the critical strike rate of that spell. Swords have all different kinds of effects from doing more damage, to potentially restoring health or even providing a magical spell randomly. Pets provide constant passive bonuses, and of course, it wouldn't be a Rocketcat game without a healthy array of hats to collect.

Taking all this into account, gameplay is what you'd expect out of a typical action RPG with a very basic stat-based level up system, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. A overworld map display serves as a level select screen of sorts, and you make your way through each area until finally fighting the local boss. Each area has several sub-sections that must be progressed through as well. How long it takes you to get through Mage Gauntlet will largely depend on what kind of gamer you are. If you square off against every monster, search for every secret, and leave no area of the map unturned, you can spend a significant amount of time in the game. Alternatively, if you're the kind of person who just powers through things from beginning to end, dashing past monsters, and ignoring secondary pathways, Mage Gauntlet can be completed in only a few hours.

After beating the game, you'll unlock master mode which mixes up the levels, adds some new secret areas, fresh loot, double the enemies, and other variants. Beating the master mode earns you a second ending, and after that you can go back and replay individual levels for a higher rating to unlock in-game pets. An arena mode is planned as well for the game's first update, although details on that are fairly vague currently. Also, since Mage Gauntlet is all pixel art, it scales beautifully on the iPad in 2x mode-- In addition, Rocketcat plans on making the game universal as well.

Rocketcat games has had a fantastic track record for releasing games on the App Store. Their previous three games, Hook Champ [99¢], Super QuickHook [$2.99], and Hook Worlds [99¢] all relied on a very similar hooking and swinging mechanic which made us wonder what else they were capable of. Well, it turns out that they can absolutely nail making an action RPG, and you wouldn't hear me complain at all if they similarly turned Mage Gauntlet into a vaguely derivative trilogy of games.

I feel like people who were around to enjoy the original 16-bit-era action RPGs likely will appreciate Mage Gauntlet the most, but there's plenty here to love even if that doesn't apply to you. Like other Rocketcat titles, Mage Gauntlet is launching at a special price, and early buyers also get a promotional pack of hats (and a pet). If you miss this release window, don't worry, you'll be able to buy those items through in-app purchase. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, there's other IAP items you can buy, but they genuinely feel so optional that there's basically no reason to buy them unless you just want to support Rocketcat further than just buying the game.

So seriously, go download Mage Gauntlet. The time you spent reading this review could've been much better spent playing this incredible game.

It's been kind of a couple of weeks, what with the release of iOS 5, the iPhone 4S, and developers straying in a big way from the standard Wednesday night onslaught of releases. But, whatever, we'll soldier on because tonight's array of games is host to some seriously awesome stuff. Charge up your iTunes account, make yourself a sandwich, walk your dog (if applicable) and do whatever else you need to do before getting down on some serious iOS gaming action tonight. Like previous weeks, all of these games should be released at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially much earlier if your iTunes store exists in a region to the east of North America.

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Rockstar is continuing its celebration of Grand Theft Auto 3's ten-year anniversary with a new trailer that thanks the game's fans and reminds them of the good times spent in its open-world city. I don't know how it'll hit you, but it kinda freaks me out because (a) I don't want to be so old and (b) a lot of what it does is still the foundation of what's being done now in non-fantasy open-world games. Think about it, man. It's living, breathing history.

Awesomely enough, we'll get to re-experience it all over again. Undoubtedly, you're aware that a touch version of GTA3 is in the works and will debut on top-tier tablets and phones in 2011 and will subsequently be released on other handhelds down the road. The footage in the video above is not from this version, by the way.

Knowing what we know of the Rockstar PR cycle, don't be too surprised if GTA3 pops up sooner than later. I'm not exactly sold that touch controls will make it a better game, but I can't wait to give it a try -- after I pop a few aspirin. Arthritis!

You wanted it, apparently, so Remedy Entertainment is dropping it into Death Rally [$.99]. This morning's update to the arcade racing title re-born adds a beta online multiplayer for up to five dudes. From what we're seeing, the online is just like the typical campaign component, except actual people are pummeling your rear and scuffing your 'caps. Only six maps and one car are available at the moment, but we're fairly sure that number will go up in future updates or IAP opportunities as soon as Remedy is finished testing.

Interestingly, this pack rolls in a few new 'additions', including a multiplayer variant of the Shrieker, which offers a "separate level advancement" from cars in the single-player mode. You'll also notice some better anti-aliasing on the iPad 2, a new Flamethrower weapon via IAP, and some new achievements.

Death Rally is senseless fun. We totally re-realized this earlier today when putting the multiplayer through some paces to test its awesome-ness. If you're still in the market for something a little silly, a little violent, and pretty frantic, this is probably definitely it. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have more death to rally.

We've heard some rumblings lately about Order & Chaos Online [$6.99] accounts getting hacked, and the attacks were recently confirmed by our pals over at PocketGamer. Order & Chaos, if you're unfamiliar, is Gameloft's fairly blatant riff on World of Warcraft, complete with characters, monsters, and areas that might look a more than a little familiar to anyone who has played WoW before.

Anyway, the cause of this security breach as well as how deep this rabbit hole goes has yet to be revealed, although Gameloft says they're actively investigating. A thread on the official Order & Chaos forum indicates that players of both mobile and Facebook versions of the game have been hacked.

If you've ever played Order & Chaos and you're the kind of person who still uses the same password for everything, it's a good idea to change all your others. While you're at it, check out this New York Times article on creating strong passwords, and maybe even think about getting some password management software. I'm partial to 1Password myself, which basically exists for all platforms you'd ever want to access your passwords on and gracefully keeps all your data in sync via Dropbox.

Migrating from a single password you use for everything to a password management suite and different passwords for everything will take a little getting used to, but consider this: Once you start doing that, security breaches like this are entirely insignificant. Thanks to 1Password, I use a different password for everything. Order & Chaos getting hacked makes no difference to me, since all anyone would ever be able to access with those login credentials is my character… As opposed to desperately hunting down every login form that you've used your favorite password, "password", for.

Update: I was just reminded that Order & Chaos uses Gameloft's Gameloft Live service for logins, and if that is what was compromised, if you've ever created a Gameloft Live account it might be a good idea to get busy with the password changin' too.

Late in 2010, Semi Secret released SteamBirds [$1.99 / HD], a turn-based aerial dog-fighting game based on the Flash game of the same name, which we thought was "tons of fun". Apparently other people liked it too, as it's reportedly been played by 12 million people worldwide (including the online Flash version). Well, the original makers of the game, SpryFox, teamed up with HalfBrick to release a sequel – Steambirds: Survival [Free/HD]. And it's definitely worth checking out (again!)

It's a top-down dog-fighting game where you play a pilot with the Allies, fighting against the Axis powers, to protect the United Kingdom. But the cool twist is that it's also turn-based. Your aircraft has an arrow in front of it, which represents the distance and direction it will travel in the next turn. You can bend the line to control your plane's flight-path.

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Back in August, we received the squeal-inducing news that Sega was readying a port of the classic Sonic CD for downloadable markets on home consoles and mobile. And by mobile, that meant it was coming to the App Store. But, this isn't shaping up to be just a mere port. Instead, Sega has enlisted the work of Christian Whitehead, a gifted software programmer who basically created his own game engine from scratch that was capable of running Sonic CD (among many other things, I'm sure) on multiple platforms with all sorts of optimizations and enhancements.

This Sonic CD project from Whitehead actually sparked off more than two years ago, and it's still crazy to me to think that it's actually finally materializing as a real, official release. Today, Sega has put out another trailer for the upcoming Sonic CD re-release, which you can see below:

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Kyotokei: Polarity shooter [$1.99] is a bullet-hell horizontal shoot'em-up which appears to be quite heavily inspired by Ikaruga, which hit the arcades in 2001 and was deployed on the Xbox 360 in 2008. Kyotokei was released on the Wii earlier this year, with two player co-op mode, but this iOS version delivers just the single player mode.

This side-scrolling game has five levels to beat, with three difficulty levels (Easy, Normal or Hard). You're given the traditional three lives to play with, but also receive two credits to avoid the "game-over" message and continue your game a little longer.

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Developer Two Tribes recently celebrated the ten year anniversary of their wonderful little puzzle platformer Toki Tori [$2.99/Lite/HD/Lite HD]. The game originally launched back in late 2001 for the Game Boy Color, and due to that system's life cycle coming to an end and its successor the Game Boy Advance garnering all sorts of buzz, it never really received much recognition, despite being an especially excellent puzzle platforming experience.

Then, in 2008, Toki Tori finally got a chance to receive the accolades it deserved when a remade version hit the downloadable WiiWare service on Nintendo's Wii platform, with slick 2.5D visuals and several new or reworked levels over the original. This enhanced remake of Toki Tori earned high review marks and award nominations from the gaming media at large, and it was this version that was ported to the App Store in mid-2009, with a brand new touch control scheme and several other bells and whistles. We weren't shy about how much we liked the iOS version of Toki Tori in our review, and even included it in our Best Games of 2009 roundup that year.

So, what exactly am I trying to say with this longwinded backstory? Well that's simple – Toki Tori is good. Like, really good. And now it's finally getting a sequel. Two Tribes has announced in our forums that a sequel is in the works, and they have provided this super teaser-y teaser trailer to whet your appetite:

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