We ran in to Subatomic Studios back at the Penny Arcade Expo in September, and part of my chat with them included the mention of the new levels in the PSP version of Fieldrunners [App Store] eventually making their way to the App Store. These new maps are coming next month when the game is relaunched as the first member of OpenFeint's gold game program. Fieldrunners: Gold Edition will have an in-game store where these new maps will be sold as downloadable content, as well as being the first game to include OpenFeint 2.4 which will boast a number of new features including an in-game instant messaging service. Note, the "Gold Edition" will be a free update to current owners of Fieldrunners.

Similar to our monthly game ratings, the OpenFeint Gold program aims to pick out games which are not only of the highest quality, but also make excellent use of the OpenFeint service. They seem to be setting the bar fairly high in nominating Fieldrunners as the first game to get their gold rating, and it should be interesting to see what games they choose in the future.

Here are two screenshots of the upcoming levels, Frostbite and Skyway:

Each will feature new towers, new enemy units, and will require new strategies.

Fieldrunners was among the first of the highly successful tower defense games for the iPhone, and it's always nice to see original App Store classics like this still getting attention from their developers.

App Store Link: Fieldrunners, $2.99

In Karnival, [App Store] you play as a boy with the arm of a goat who decides to take his talents on the road by starting his own carnival that travels the country offering rides, fortune tellers, snack booths, and 30 different included oddities and attractions that are slowly unlocked as you play the game.

Karnival features gameplay that will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played any of the Tycoon series of games such as RollerCoaster Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, or many others. In the game you have control over every aspect of your carnival from what rides go where to ticket prices to even keeping your attractions in good repair. You have to intelligently build your carnival to maximize karma, fame, and money earned while (hopefully) keeping your taxes and payroll low enough to turn a profit each day.

Karnival has an intuitive touch based interface to handle all the different carnival management functions, and features a tutorial which does an excellent job at explaining all the ins and outs of running a successful carnival. While the controls and interface do their job well, there were definitely times where I wished I was playing this game with a keyboard and mouse.

If there's any down side to Karnival it's that once you progress in the game a bit, you could drive yourself crazy with the micromanagement of your different attractions. Like other Tycoon-like games, you can mostly let your carnival run itself, or endlessly tweak your business to maximize profits and other stat gains.

Overall Karnival is a game that is a lot of fun wth a surprising amount of depth. The art style and music give the game an atmosphere that's exactly what you would expect of a freaky carnival. With both a story mode that has you traveling across the country as well as a basic sandbox mode, Karnival should keep Tycoon fanatics busy for quite some time.

The game has received strongly positive feedback in our discussion thread, and the developers have chimed in with tips and answers to questions.

App Store Link: Karnival, $5.99

Auditorium is an abstract Flash puzzle game which shares a lot of gameplay elements with the various games on the App Store that utilize the gravity of objects to change the path of other objects on screen. Instead of guiding rockets or spacemen around the screen as in G [$1.99] or Gravity Sling [Free], in Auditorium you have to guide a flow of light particles in to the audio containers on the game board.

Each level has a different set of movable pieces that all have different effects on the flow of these particles, from simply controlling its direction, speed, or even attracting or repelling the flow. The early levels start in grayscale, but quickly make way to vibrant colors and different audio containers that can hold each the various particle colors.

The game itself is so unique that it's extremely difficult to describe. Thankfully, there is a free demo that only requires Flash to play available at PlayAuditorium.com along with a whole slew of videos on YouTube showing how to solve the various levels in game such as this one below:

According to EA Mobile's Facebook page, Auditorium is coming "Fall/Winter 2009" and will have 25 levels played through 5 acts.

While this week has been filled with news and reviews of fast paced games, I've always had a weakness for word games on the iPhone, even though I'm fairly terrible at them. Here are three recently released or recently updated word games that are all worth checking out–

Guess the News [99¢ / Free] – Surprisingly enough, the news is good for more than material to auto-tune. Guess the News pulls news stories down from various RSS feeds, and turns them in to puzzles to be solved. You're given a brief description of the article, then need to guess the headline from the pile of letter tiles on the game board. Puzzles are broken out in to several categories such as health, sports, and even "odd stories". For instance, I recently played a few games in the technology category that had me guessing the titles of Engadget posts. Guess the News features three difficulty levels which control how much of the headline is already completed at the start of each puzzle, and with the dynamic content fetching provides infinite replay value.

Word Spin [$1.99] – As seen in the above trailer, this game has two parts to it, the first stage amounts to rotating and positioning the various wheels loaded with letters to line up as many words as possible. You then tap the top of the screen to lock the wheels in place, then find every word you possibly can as you rotate the locked set of word wheels searching for valid words. Once you get good enough, you can compete both against friends by sending email challenges where they will play against your exact configuration of the word wheels or by submitting your score to the global online leaderboard. The gameplay mechanic is solid and provides an interesting spin (See what I did there?) on the word hunting game formula.

Words With Friends [$2.99 / Free] – Everyone who owns an iPhone or iPod Touch should have either the free or paid version of this game on their device. Words With Friends takes the game of Literati (a variant of Scrabble) and adds excellent asynchronous online multiplayer with recently added push notifications that alert you when it's your turn in any of your active games. The free version is ad supported, but otherwise fully featured, and according to a recent presentation by the developers at GDC Austin, Words With Friends and Chess With Friends [$2.99 / Free] has 50,000 active users daily.

I've had numerous Words With Friends games going for months now with nearly every friend of mine who owns an iPhone, a clever in-game search function will search the Words With Friends player database for friends of yours you want to start a game with, and if the game can't find them it will offer to send them an email invitation. Everything about the game is implemented so amazingly well that you owe it to yourself to at least try the free version if you're even remotely interested in word games, especially with the recent update adding push notifications. If you need people to play with, stop by the Words With Friends thread on our forums.

As is the case with most Gameloft games, very little is known about these two games short of the contents of their trailers. Thankfully, there is quite a bit of gameplay shown in both of them so it's not very hard to get a feel for each game.

The Settlers – The last in a long line of Settlers games starting with the original that was released on the Amiga all the way back in 1993. The Settlers is a real time strategy simulation game that historically has had a fairly relaxed gameplay pace which should translate well to the iPhone. The amount of units moving on screen at once is fairly impressive, and with how few of the games there are of this genre on the App Store, The Settlers should easily stand out from the pack.

Castle Frenzy – Castle defense games have seen a remarkable amount of success on the App Store, from the numerous games with simple stick figures to highly detailed games like Knights Onrush that all share the same basic gameplay elements. Castle Frenzy seems to have the same array of defense upgrades and abilities seen in most similar games, with the most notable difference being its colorful 3D graphics. It's hard to say what if any effect this will have on gameplay, but from the trailer alone Castle Frenzy seems to be one of the coolest looking castle defense games if nothing else.

We once again had the opportunity to speak with id Software's John Carmack today. This time about Doom Classic [App Store], the iPhone, and his plans for the future among other things. We've included the audio of our complete interview in podcast format in our TouchArcade podcast [App Store], but have summarized several of the highlights here.

When we asked Carmack about the lack of 3G multiplayer in Doom Classic, it turns out he left it out because he doesn't feel the ping times over the cellular network are conducive to a good multiplayer experience, and unfortunately doesn't have plans to implement 3G multiplayer in any of id's action-twitch-FPS games– which pretty much covers most of their catalog.

Carmack isn't quite yet sure how exactly they will deploy Doom's vast array of extra content. In our previous interview he mentioned the likelihood of bringing Doom 2 levels along with several other level packs to Doom Classic. The two examples he gave for how they might roll out this extra content were either in discretely buyable level packs, or a completely different "premium" version of the game with every level that exists for Doom.

Most interesting is that he does have plans to eventually implement the ability for Doom Classic gamers to enjoy all kinds of player-created customized maps and other content, and cites Wolfenstein 3D Classic's [App Store] latest update which utilizes a specially formatted link inside of mobile Safari to import this data in to the game as an example of what they would like to do with Doom Classic. Carmack seemed very excited about the potential this system has.

For those concerned about missing specific Wolf 3D control options (such as strafe) in Doom Classic, Carmack told us he regretted not simply including all of the Wolf 3D control methods and that he will likely add these missing control layouts in a future update.

The next game we will see on the App Store from id Software will likely be Quake Classic, which will eventually be followed by Quake 2 and then Quake 3. The release date for Quake Classic, however, is likely several months off, and he's still shooting for one iPhone game per quarter. Carmack also reports that another "from scratch" iPhone-specific game is still in the plans at some point next year. This game hasn't even gone into the design phase, but he expects it to be based on Rage and be a combat/action/racing game.

Carmack also reveals he does follow the TouchArcade forums/comments to see how people are reacting to his games and was complimentary of the iPhone gaming community.

These are just a few of the points of our discussion with John Carmack, but the entire 20 minute interview is worth a listen. If you'd like to hear more about id Software, their games, and Carmack's feelings on the iPhone and the App Store, you can either subscribe to our podcast in iTunes, or download the file directly.

App Store Link: Doom Classic, $6.99
TouchArcade Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes or Direct Download (M4A, 10MB)

We felt somewhat obligated to review a game as huge as Eliminate Pro [App Store]. Following its epic development cycle, it's hard to think of many other games which were as highly anticipated among our community. But it's not just Touch Arcade forum members who have been waiting for Eliminate, as countless other developers have all been anxiously holding their breath to see how successful the microtransaction-powered gameplay is from a business perspective.

If it wasn't apparent by now from reading our other coverage on the game, we really enjoy Eliminate. The classic four player deathmatch gameplay is enhanced with an RPG-style progression system which adds a great deal of depth to an otherwise simple game. Power-ups littered throughout the maps spice up battles, and when it's working as intended, the matchmaking system seems to do a decent job of making sure the game you get thrown in to is reasonably matched.

While we did feel obligated to review Eliminate Pro, since you can download and experience everything in the game for free, there isn't much reason for me to dwell much on the gameplay. Instead, I'll try to clear up some common misconceptions I've seen in comments and in forum posts, along with offering some helpful tips and hints for new players.

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Agharta Studios' Rogue Planet was the surprise of WWDC this year for me. I had a last minute meeting with CEO Aurelien Kerbeci where he pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and proceeded to blow me away with a game that was so far above and beyond my expectations that I was nearly speechless.

During this meeting, Kebeci mentioned that the game was still in development, but at the time only had two weeks to go before submitting their game to Apple for approval. We posted this in our exclusive preview, the forums caught wind, and then Rogue Planet vanished without a trace. Emails to Agharta Studios were met with cryptic responses about a mysterious "big name" publisher and a September release date.

Needless to say, we were left scratching out heads, and nothing came of Rogue Planet aside from forum members randomly bumping the thread asking if anyone had any new information every once in a while. That is, until today, when the following video appeared on Gameloft's YouTube channel:

As you can see from the trailer, Rogue Planet is a turn based strategy game with the same amazing art style seen in Agharta's other game,1112 [$4.99 / Free]. We posted other details in our preview along with a gameplay video, but it has been so long since we last saw the game that it's hard to say how much of it is still the same from what was shown at WWDC.

Per the video, Rogue Planet is going to be released on the 24th, and assuming they can stick with that date I have a pretty good idea of what I will be spending my Thanksgiving holiday weekend playing. Needless to say, as soon as we get more information about this game we will post it, and hopefully will have a better preview very soon.

Agharta Studios' partnership with Gameloft as a publisher is a very interesting one. While Gameloft seems to have dabbled in publishing other titles in the past, for the most part has done much of their iPhone game development in house.

If you were a PC gamer in the mid 90's, the very mention of Command & Conquer likely brings back memories of massive battles, elaborate bases, the cumbersome Westwood Online multiplayer, and best of all- The game coming with two discs to give one to a friend to play against without having to buy a second copy of the game. Westwood was eventually acquired by EA, and through numerous sequels and spin-offs there have been over 30 million copies sold across the franchise.

Command & Conquer Red Alert [App Store] like the other games in the Red Alert family takes place in an alternate universe where World War II never occurred thanks to some time traveling trickery by Albert Einstein which resulted in the Soviet Union rising to power due to the Allies never developing nuclear weaponry. Unfortunately, the iPhone game doesn't do much to convey this fascinating game setting, but other games in the series that do a better job of this are worth checking out if you're an alternate history fiction fan.

The controls in Command & Conquer Red Alert work shockingly well. I consider myself real time strategy fan, but there are not only few of these games on the App Store, but even fewer that have controls that make for fun gameplay. The user interface has remained constant since the preview we did early last month:

The screen is framed with all kinds of interface elements, and while seeming slightly cluttered, everything works well enough and I never felt like the controls were getting in the way of what I wanted to do in the game. The battlefield can be zoomed using standard pinching gestures, and to change your field of view you can either swipe your finger around the screen or touch the mini map in the top right corner.

Lining the right side of the screen are all the buttons and menus for building your base as well as training units. Just like the PC version, units can be queued up to train multiples at once. Placing a new building in your base is as simple as tapping it from the "build" menu, at which point a grid appears on top of the terrain and your building can be placed with familiar green and red highlighting indicating valid placement.

Once you've got your army built, you can organize units in to three squads assigned to the three buttons on the left hand side of the screen. To select units, you can either tap them to select individual units, or by tapping a button on the bottom left corner of the screen you can drag a selection box around units on the battlefield. From there, another button on the bottom of the screen allows you to assign your current selection of units to one of the three buttons on the left side of the screen.

The graphics and sound in Command & Conquer Red Alert are absolutely phenomenal. Everything is rendered in beautiful 3D graphics, and some of my favorite tracks from other Red Alert games have made their way in to the iPhone version. In these two categories, the game excels.

However, like most games from long-standing franchises that wind up on the iPhone, Command & Conquer Red Alert is substantially trimmed down. On one hand, this is without a doubt among the best RTS games available on the platform, but on the other, the game is very minimal and when I step back from my incredibly fond nostalgia of the Red Alert series, it seems like a $9.99 vessel to sell downloadable content packs.

The amount of content the game itself comes with is disappointing, to the point that I didn't mention it in the preview as I was fairly certain they were going to add more in to the game when it was finally released. Unfortunately, it has remained the same. Without looking to the in-game store, the content in Command & Conquer Red Alert is limited to two brief campaigns which feel more like tutorials and two skirmish maps you can play against an AI opponent.

The single $0.99 DLC pack which is available with the launch of the game offers six additional skirmish maps and a couple extra units. In the future EA plans on releasing a free update to add local multiplayer via WiFi or bluetooth, but currently you're stuck playing these maps against an AI controlled army that has no difficulty adjustment– likely creating gameplay that will be boring to veterans of the genre and frustrating to newcomers.

So in the end, how much you enjoy Command & Conquer Red Alert will largely depend on what you expect out of the game. For an iPhone game, EA does a great job with the controls and stellar music and graphics make watching and listening to the game much more fun. Unfortunately, the game does feel remarkably bite sized, with neither very much content nor much replay value without buying more maps via DLC. And launching a $9.99 game with a $0.99 DLC just doesn't sit well, especially when the downloadable packs don't feel as optional as they should be.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

We generally try to avoid discussing game pricing, as everyone feels differently on what is and isn't an acceptable price for a game. It just seems to me, that if you're launching your game at the top-end of the App Store pricing spectrum, it shouldn't require an additional DLC pack for gamers to feel like they're experiencing a more complete game– especially in a Command & Conquer game which historically have come with an unbelievable amount of maps.

If you can get around feeling nickel and dimed buying what seems like something that should have been included in the initial version of the game, Command & Conquer Red Alert is great. Unfortunately, with how little content is included, I'd suggest waiting to see how the multiplayer updates pan out.

App Store Link: Command & Conquer Red Alert, $9.99

Eliminate [App Store] has been somewhat of a sensation on our forums since its initial release in Canada. Our Canadian members (as well as quite a few "Canadians") have really enjoyed having early access to the game, and aside from the somewhat expected reactions towards the energy system and in-game microtransactions, it seems like everyone is having a lot of fun.

We extensively previewed Eliminate last month, and very little has changed since then short of some tweaking of the energy system and increasing the recharge time. Still, as mentioned in the preview, you can play Eliminate for as long as you'd like to without paying a penny– Your character advancement will just be slowed as you will only earn credits (the in-game currency used to level up and buy equipment) while you're energized.

I highly recommend downloading Eliminate. It's free, you've got nothing to lose. Regardless of how you feel about the payment system ngmoco is using to fund the game, it's still one of the more impressive multiplayer games available on the platform, and experiencing that won't cost you anything.

Update: Eliminate is available in most major iTunes markets, it seems there are still some countries that haven't seen it yet, but most European stores as well as the US store are currently stocked with Eliminate.

App Store Link: Eliminate, Free