If you haven't noticed by the explosion of new game posts today, it's Wednesday, which arguably is the best day of the week for iOS gamers as we're teased with the new releases which start in New Zealand and slowly trickle across the rest of the planet until we finally see them stateside at 11:00 PM Eastern. There's a surprising amount of really big name titles this week, so it'll be interesting to see what gets love from Apple during tomorrow's App Store featuring update.

Gun Commando

First Impressions: 'Gun Commando' Offers Both a Familiar and Fresh First-person Shooter Experience

Graphics in Gun Commando are really simple, with blocky environments and textures, but it has a really cool stylized look that makes it feel like you're playing an '80s cartoon. The levels are simplistic and are all really bite-sized, which is well-suited to mobile. You aren't likely to get lost working your way through them, but there are 3 trophies to search out and collect in each one and plenty of little secret areas to find that give you additional goals to shoot for.

Forum Thread: Gun Commando - (by Ripstone Ltd) [Universal]

First Impressions: 'House of the Dead: Overkill - The Lost Reels' - Sega's Classic Arcade Shooter Comes to the Touchscreen

The game is broken up into three different "movies" which each contain four levels and a boss fight at the end. The initial download gives you the first movie, Papa's Palace of Pain, as well as a locked second movie Ballistic Trauma. You unlock that second movie merely by playing through the first, but the third movie, Naked Terror, must be purchased for a $1.99 IAP. I don't mind so much having to pay for additional DLC levels in games, but on day one in a paid game that already only comes with two chapters it feels a bit weird.

Forum Thread: The House of the Dead: Overkillâ„¢- The Lost Reels - (by SEGA) [Universal]

Nearly a gig installed, Iron Man 3 is a behind the back endless runner flyer where you control Iron Man blasting down a highway (and other locales). The game starts by asking you not only if it can send you push alerts, but also if it can have access to your contacts, and the free to play stuff just gets stranger from there.

Forum Thread: Iron Man 3 - The Official Game - (by Gameloft) [Universal]

If you liked the iOS versions of Lego Harry Potter then chances are you'll dig this latest Batman incarnation, as it seems to be in the same vein. Or, if you just like Batman and other DC heroes, you'll probably get a kick out of it too.

Forum Thread: LEGO Batman: DC Super Heroes (by Warner Bros.) [Universal]

There's not a really tidy way to categorize Chillingo's Madmonster. It's not a runner, even though it does task you with guiding a tiny monster dude around a world from left to right in an endless charge. It's not a platform game, even though its core mechanic revolves around that monster bouncing up and down and smashing various objects. It's a game that sits in the middle between these two genres, satisfying neither's conditions as neatly as I want it to. And while I'm being wishy-washy: it's not a thrilling game, either, though it is a competent arcade-y game.

Forum Thread: Madmonster - (by Chillingo Ltd) [Universal]

The original Random Heroes was pretty cool, but Ravenous is hoping to ratchet things up in the sequel with new mechanics, new enemies, and plenty of hew heroes to play as. Check out the latest trailer to see the new game in motion.

Forum Thread: Random Heroes 2 - (by Ravenous Games Inc.) [Universal]

This one does depart in a few key areas. Most likely, folks are probably going to latch onto the new unicorn customization component and the systems that revolve around it. As you run, you collect metallic tears. With these, you can buy pieces of equipment or parts for your robotic unicorn. Want a flaming mane? Sure, it's in there. How about a new sternum? Yup, you can grab that, too.

Forum Thread: Robot Unicorn Attack 2 - (by [adult swim]) [Universal]

Rewinding a bit, Talisman Prologue on mobile is a fantasy-ass fantasy RPG. In it, you play as an adventurer tasked with doing hero-y deeds. As a Barbarian, for example, one of the quests charges you with saving a princess from a duo of ogres and taking her back to the castle. The first Monk quest has you looking for a cross and delivering it to the Chapel because looking for artifacts is pretty cool. Other adventurers have more... narratively adventurous quests, but you get the idea. Also, all the production design in the game is traditional; it has that rugged, old-school pulp fantasy book look that extends all the way to creature design and into font.

Forum Thread: Talisman Prologue HD - (by Thumbstar Games) [Universal]

Late last year Lost Treasures of Infocom [Free] hit the App Store, and all sorts of horrifying traumatic memories of my childhood came flooding back to me as I inevitably got stuck in each of the games I tried following unlocking the whole $9.99 library of ancient interactive text-only adventure gaming. The sad thing (Well, that's debatable, I suppose.) is that once the advent of computer graphics hit, these text-only adventure games quickly became extinct.

The good news is that indie duo Carlos and Javier Cabrera (Who together make up The Cabrera Brothers, shockingly enough) have been bringing back this method of storytelling with the (relatively) recently released Mac and PC game Cypher which is billed as a "cyberpunk text adventure." Weirder yet, it's made in Unity, the game engine you probably know best from amazing looking 3D games like Dead Trigger [Free]. Cypher reviewed well, although it came with the obvious caveat of "You've got to be in to text adventures."

The reason this is all relevant is becomes The Cabrera Brothers are working on a new project, a horror adventure, that's going to be making its way to iOS devices as well. As someone who would've vastly preferred playing Cypher on the iPad, I'm pretty stoked to hear this news. One of my favorite things about the App Store is its ease of access facilitates crazy projects like this. I mean, a brand new text adventure in 2013? That's crazy, but I love it.

If you're interested in checking out Cypher for the Mac or PC, head over to The Cabrera Brothers' web site where you can download a DRM-free copy for anywhere between $15 and $25 depending on how many "bonus" items you want with it. Additionally, If you want to be alerted for news (and a potential release) of their upcoming horror game, make sure to add this game to your TouchArcade app [Free] watch list.

I still have fond memories of playing Plant Tycoon and Fish Tycoon on my Treo 650, as they were pretty perfect light simulation timer-based games that just seemed to work really well on the tiny touchscreen of ancient smartphones. Well, the Grow Brothers are revisiting that similar gameplay with Weed Farmer Homegrown [$3.99]. However, if like me, you assumed that Weed Farmer would be a super-simple game designed to prey on the same type of people who buy trucker hats at Spencer's, you'd be way off. As my first play session revealed, Weed Farmer seems to be surprisingly complex.

Cultivating your, err, crop, involves going through all the different stages of raising plants starting from germinating your seeds all the way up to ensuring maximum yield across 30 different plant varieties. You need to worry about bugs, fungus, hydration, and even nutrient deficiencies in your plants while you deal with your lighting, ventilation, and so much more- It's actually sort of intimidating.

Better yet, there's even a full online component which tracks multiple leaderboards for growers and even constantly backs up all of your data. Weed Farmer also has a shockingly active online community of players in their own forum to supplement the extensive guides and FAQs on how to play the game.

It'd be super-easy to dismiss Weed Farmer as just some dumb drug game, but it's totally not. Sure, the goal is to cultivate and sell marijuana, but I guess I never had reason to realize just how involved it all is. If you're in to simulation games, and don't mind the admittedly fairly strange subject matter, give Weed Farmer Homegrown a look.

I really want to like Gameloft's upcoming Iron Man 3 [Free], as I can totally get behind making a unique-ish game that actually feels like a cool little mobile companion game to an upcoming movie which will no doubt be a total slam dunk like the rest of the Iron Man series... But leave it to Gameloft to shoehorn in the weirdest free to play elements. Nearly a gig installed, Iron Man 3 is a behind the back endless runner flyer where you control Iron Man blasting down a highway (and other locales). The game starts by asking you not only if it can send you push alerts, but also if it can have access to your contacts, and the free to play stuff just gets stranger from there.

I feel like by now the behind the back runner freemium pay model has matured decently, as most of these games you know how they're going to work and how you're going to pay for them regardless of whether you're stealing an idol in Temple Run [Free] or running through underground lairs in Agent Dash [Free]. Iron Man 3 follows in a similar path, but adds the innovative feature of timers not only linked to each of these upgrades, but also to just playing the game itself. It's easy enough to say "Well, whatever" to needing to wait a bit before your armor upgrade takes effect, but needing to either wait or pay premium currency to skip repairing your suit between runs seems bananas.

It's too bad, too, as Iron Man 3 is actually a pretty neat game. The sense of speed is good, the different sections of the game split between flying on the ground and avoiding traffic and flying in the air with almost Fruit Ninja-style swiping to shoot your laser around is a lot of fun- Especially if you even vaguely enjoy the Iron Man universe. It's just so easy to reach that point where you hit a timer, say, "Alright, nuts to this," and go play a different game.

It seems like Gameloft has taken a really weird approach to the whole free to play thing recently, as the best free to play titles put the actual game in the driver's seat while the freemium elements are easily within reach in the nearby proverbial cup holder if you want to take a sip off of them. Take Nimble Quest [$0.99] for instance, you can grind away all day slowly collecting crystals with nothing getting in your way. The free to play road blocks run along side the game, instead of the Gameloft approach which throws very deliberate stopping points in a way that directly conflicts with the specific genre.

Constantly chugging potions is just what you do in dungeon crawlers, but in Dungeon Hunter 4 [Free], that's directly gated via a time sink. Similarly, the whole idea behind these endless runners is just constantly retrying... And it feels really weird when you can't just hit "retry," and instead need to wait for Jarvis to repair your suit. These repair time sinks, much like Real Racing 3 [Free], are mitigated a bit by unlocking different suits (the first of which takes 15 real-world minutes to "build"), but it still doesn't make the whole thing feel any less gross. Maybe things smooth out as you get deeper into the game, but my initial impressions of Iron Man 3 aren't great- Which is a real problem in free to pay games where users make that initial "Do I invest time in this or delete it" judgement call in the first few play sessions.

It'll be out tonight at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially way earlier if you're east of the US App Store region. If you want to be notified when the game is available, add it to your TouchArcade app [Free] watch list. Alternatively, you can just watch the game get burnt to the ground in our forums, which I'm sure will only get worse as the US App Store witching hour approaches tonight. We'll take an in-depth look at the game soon to try to figure out just how much you have to wait (or pay) to see all the cool stuff Gameloft shows off in Iron Man 3's trailer.

International App Store Link: Iron Man 3, Free

I was hoping to ignore this story, since it seems like the worst thing to do with these kinds of clones is shed more light on them, but it's blowing up too much across social networks to disregard. Remember the Ninja Fishing drama from about two years ago? Well, this is almost the exact same story and once again another developer has beaten Vlambeer at releasing their own game.

This time around, Bangalore-based developer Rubiq Lab has directly cloned Vlambeer's Luftausers with the just-released SkyFar. Just how blatant of a clone is this? Well, check out Kotaku's video from PAX East:

Aaaand here is the SkyFar trailer:

We're in contact with Vlambeer developer and all-around-nice-guy Rami Ismail for his thoughts on this most recent cloning, and expect to have some kind of statement from them shortly.

Update:

We obviously endured a bit of a scare when news arrived of LUFTRAUSERS being cloned and released ahead of our own release schedule by another developer. This time, however, it's not 'just' the idea of the game that has been cloned, but also the visual style.  This gives us much more room to fight the whole thing, and we fully intend to. The developer of the clone has gotten in touch with us after Twitter exploded and let us know that 'acttuly we genrated our assets, Codes and all newly' and that the gameplay as indicated on the screenshots 'is not there in game as in the screen shots. We just done those screnshots for public attraction'. They signed off with the note that 'we really dont think it links your game at all'.

We simply can't deal with the stress of another cloned game, so we've gotten in touch with Apple and Google to see if there is a way for for the issue to be resolved without us getting involved in yet another clone war. We're more than happy to see games inspired by our works and we encourage anyone to practice game design and development by recreating personal favorites - but the clones of both Ridiculous Fishing and LUFTRAUSERS take 'inspiration' a step too far and into the marketplace. We're extremely exhausted from dealing with cloning and even though this is an important issue to stand up against, we had hoped that we could just release a game without the cloning debate happening for once.

Ultimately, we refuse to accept this as a part of our industry. We believe that showing our games to our fans early is a better way of developing Vlambeer games than keeping secrets and just dropping the final result on people when it's done.

Now that we've got the chance, we'd also like to take a few seconds to use the clone as an argument towards why LUFTRAUSERS is almost certainly not coming to mobile - we just can't find a way to make it work as well as it should on touchscreen devices. LUFTRAUSERS is still hitting PC, Mac, Linux, Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita - with the latter being the most interesting device for those of you who would like to play LUFTRAUSERS on the go. We've been wrapping up development and we are on schedule to release the game later this spring.

Thank you so much once again to the fans, friends and press that have helped us out with Ridiculous Fishing and thanks so much to everyone for standing with us once again with LUFTRAUSERS. We hope this will be the last time we have to deal with this, but we're encouraged to know that if it's not, we won't be alone.

P.S. We really like the idea of a Vlambeer clone game jam (https://twitter.com/folmerkelly/status/326393858332180480) - we might organize that after we're done crunching on LUFTRAUSERS.

Thanks,
--
Rami & JW

Update 2: Rubiq Lab has given their side of the story in a statement to Kotaku:

Hey..We are a students we have done this game with our own effort of 1 year.
Tried a lot of tectonics to make this game on iphone.

Few weeks back 1 guys mailed us like this a clone of our game luftrauser & all.
We explained him SkyFar is not cloned from any of the other game.
He was like you used our assets of there game. So we explained him Skyfar has own assets with All work file Art, Sound,Codes....etc
Soo we thought because some jealous.then we stopped.
We used Many tools to finish this game.
It took a very long time & a lots of effort to bring it out.
In Media most of the things looks similar. Especially in GAMES & MOVIES.
They have seen our advertised links recently many times we were publishing.
Again they might of jealous.& Really using Bad words.
they commenting on our Page,Links with the bad words.
I there friend circles, community making all these issues with some 100s of people.

In present-day law, it is upheld that game mechanics of a video game are part of its software, and are generally ineligible for copyright. The United States Copyright Office specifically notes: "Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

Late last year the original AppShopper app was removed from the App Store due to some conflicts with Apple's ever-evolving app approval guidelines, but the companion app for our sister site is now back and better than ever. It's called AppShopper Social [Free], and it leverages the power of AppShopper.com with a friends list system so you can constantly stay up to date with what friends of yours are downloading, and things they want to download. Keep in mind, this is a totally different app, so if you've still got the O.G. AppShopper app on your phone, this new app won't conflict with that at all. The new version retains all the core wish list functionality, while adding loads of discovery potential for new and cool things and there's even in-line reviews from various app/game review sites.

If you like the TouchArcade app [Free] be sure to give AppShopper Social a try. Also, if you're looking for friends to add in the app, add the user "TouchArcade" to have games pop up in your feed as we review them. Neat, right?!

Regardless of the fact that The Conduit's reviews couldn't be more split, it's still really neat to see a console game this recent heading to iOS devices. Originally released in 2009, I think it's reasonably fair to say that The Conduit was High Voltage Software's attempt at bringing a Halo-like Perfect Dark-ish to the Wii, a console which lacked those kind of "hardcore" games that were exploding on other consoles at the time.

The Conduit is already available for Android, which typically means "coming soon" translates more directly to "It'll be out whenever Apple approves it" in iOS-speak. High Voltage even has a trailer put together of the Android version, if you want an idea of what it'll probably look like on iOS devices:

And, like all upcoming games, if you want to be notified when it's available for download be sure to add it to your TouchArcade app [Free] watch list.

In this day and age of checkpoint-laden shooters, disposable free to play games, and other flashy titles trying to stay afloat in the sea of the App Store it's pretty rare to have a game make you stop and think, or even let out an audible "Huh." Mr. Roboto Game Studios' upsets that balance with the just-released title Hope: The Other Side of Adventure [Free], a totally free adventure game of sorts where you "play" in bite-sized chunks and explore the story of what the stereotypical video game princess is feeling as she awaits rescue. It's super clever, as in most princess-rescuing video games the princess basically serves as a necessary MacGuffin to give a game a purpose beyond "Hey buddy, just complete these levels." I mean, we've seen this going back to the earliest games, and even persisting through modern-day titles. I'm not sure what the princess is even up to as you're collecting coins in Mario or Triforce fragments in Zelda is something many people even think about, as to the game, it's largely irrelevant.

Hope: The Other Side of Adventure is unlike any game you've played before, so much so that the developers even felt it necessary to include the following warning at the start of the game:

As mentioned above, you play as the princess and your control options are limited to moving around your cell, sighing, and crying. That's it. Each play session is five minutes long, and the tale is told over the course of six days. So far I've experienced the first "chapter" of the game, and really dig the setup. You hit the first stopping point quickly, at which point the game just tells you to come back tomorrow.

If you're into these kind of experimental games on any level this is something that should be on your iOS device. Give it a download, grab some headphones, turn down the lights, and take it in. Discovering this kind of thing is seriously my favorite thing about the App Store. If you want to know more about the game, the developer has posted an extensive blog entry [Translated] on the Mr. Roboto site, but I strongly recommend at least giving the first play session a shot before checking it out to avoid lessening any of the game's impact.

We'll post a deeper look at game next week once we've made it through the whole process as the developer intended. I can't wait.

Remember that tech-demo-y not-quite-a-game game Aves (Which has since been removed from the App Store) released in late 2009? It was a game with (then) great graphics, a really cool physics model, and a ultra-basic gameplay mechanic that just centralized around shooting a bow and arrow. Well, The Legend of Holy Archer [Free] takes that similar vibe and just runs with it, and keeps running, all the way to super-epic archery land where you're put to the task of firing arrows at huge monsters in several fantasy environments.

Despite definitely being an archery game, The Legend of Holy Archer almost feels more like a flying game. See, when you fire off your arrow, you can actually swipe around on screen to control its flight path. Monsters rarely (if ever) are a simple straight shot from where you're standing, so you'll usually need to bank around columns, avoid hills, and other terrain to hit your mark.

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While I'm not sure the opinion of our forums could be more split on how our community feels about Halfbrick's recently released Fish Out of Water [$0.99] one thing is for sure: We're absolutely stomping the in-game leaderboards. See, the way competing with others works in the game is by joining a "league" which then competes in some kind of cumulative score black majiks to compute an overall leaderboard.

The "TouchArcade" league was full by the time the game hit the US App Store, but it seems people have taken it upon themselves to just increment the number behind "TouchArcade," forming leagues "TouchArcade1," "TouchArcade2," and others... And we're doing quite well it'd seem, per Halfbrick's twitter:

I feel like we need to somehow intelligently re-organize our existing leagues to either put all the best players in one, or, at least equally distribute them across multiple leagues to ensure total leaderboard domination. But, hey, we're beating Halfbrick proper, Reddit, Bacon, and apparently the entirety of the People's Republic of China... So I guess that's pretty good.

Keep up the good work, everyone!

Fans of Terrarria are in for a treat this morning as Crescent Moon via their sub-label Forest Moon Games revealed some vague details on their upcoming title Mines of Mars. Per Crescent Moon's Josh Presseisen, Mines of Mars is a sci-fi mining game with "quests, guns, a jetpack, lots of pick axe upgrades." Oh, and "fantastic" music.

I'm imagining Junk Jack [$2.99] (Another great Terrarria-like) with a Sci-Fi spin, which has me super stoked. Anything even vaguely Minecraft-related seems to explode on the App Store, so it'll be interesting to see if a sort-of spinoff of a Minecraft spinoff sees similar appeal levels.

Regardless, if you want to follow along with the development of Mines of Mars, check out the forum thread where you'll also find a sneak peek at a track from the game's original soundtrack. Alternatively, you could watch list this game in the TouchArcade App [Free] and we'll do all the work for you.

I've been waiting for this game since it was first announced in summer of 2011, and I've got to say, it's about damn time we see Crabitron [$2.99 (HD)] on the App Store. Created by Two Lives Left, makers of the absolutely fantastic Wheeler's Treasure [Free], Crabitron puts you in control of a giant space crab with some of the best giant space crab controls we've seen so far in an iPad space crab simulator.

Essentially, you control your space crab's massive claws by making familiar pinching gestures on both sides of your iPad. It's best to just see the controls in action, so be sure to take a minute to watch the trailer:

Two Lives Left are also responsible for Crabstarter, a Kickstarter spoof where they're going to publicly share all of their sales data and you can "back" the game by just buying the completed version of it for $5 from the App Store- What a innovative concept! Anyway, we'll be taking a closer look at the game soon, but if you've been waiting forever for Crabitron like we have, you can grab it (or pinch it, I guess) off the App Store right now.

The Apple TV ecosystem is a curious one to watch, as when you think about it- All the ingredients really are there for a potentially killer video game console experience, but no one has really put them together yet due to various stopping points like AirPlay lag, Apple's refusal to allow third party apps to run on the Apple TV, and other obstacles. Well, Rolocule Games is making an effort to play inside of the rules set by Apple to bring a Wii-Like motion gaming experience to the Apple TV via Motion Tennis. Check it out:

It seems like a cool idea, and if nothing else I'm really excited to see how they've optimized the AirPlay mirroring lag that makes playing AirPlay games just ever-so-slightly annoying. From the looks of it, they're starting a beta process soon, so if you're interested head over to their site and drop your email. Alternatively, if you just want a heads up when Motion Tennis is actually available, add the game to your watch list in the TouchArcade app [Free].

We already posted about Com2uS's attempts to re-balance the IAP in their recently released online golf game GolfStar [Free], but today they're taking that a step further. In what seems like an attempt to spur more online multiplayer, they just launched a "Million-Golfer Appreciation Event" where one on one as well as ten player tournaments don't burn any of the consumable "Hearts" currency required to play the rest of the game. According to the patch notes of the recent update, this promotion will be running until next week.

As we've already mentioned, the actual golfing in GolfStar is a ton of fun, and easily up there with some of the best golf games I've played on the App Store- particularly as all the equipment and unlocks scratches my proverbial character progression itch quite well. Unfortunately, the actual gameplay is totally mired with some really crazy (and sort of confusing) IAP mechanics, bonus offers, and all that other gross freemium stuff.

So, this event should let you cut through the crap and just play the game against real people- A welcome change in this brave new free to play world we live in. Be sure to check it out while this promotion is running so you can join me over here in the, "Man, I wish I could've just paid for this game" camp.

The Brothers Marsh at NimbleBit (and honorary Marsh brother Tim, I suppose) just released the first content update to Nimble Quest [$0.99] which we first posted about a little over a week ago. There's a new hero to unlock in the game now, who goes by the name of "Bolas." He's available as the reward for clearing the "Dungeon 2" level. Alternatively, you could just flip out the two bucks for the IAP.

Bolas is a "elemental monk from the eastern planes." His attacks are a spinning disc with an area effect explosion attached to them. You know how hard Gizmo rocks? Imagine that, but magical. Here's a video of Bolas in action:

If you haven't tried NimbleQuest, now is a fantastic time to get on board. The game has basically become The Official Toilet Game of my household, which is basically on par with seeing that Nintendo Seal of Approval stamp on the box of NES games back in the day.