Hexen II is, obviously, the sequel to Hexen (which was the sequel to Heretic) and was developed by Raven Software and published by Id for the PC in 1997. This first person shooter utilizes a modified version of the Quake engine to add a roleplaying element to the game where players could choose from multiple classes, and increase statistics by earning experience throughout the adventure.

Like the other games in the series, Raven eventually released the source code for Hexen II, which is what is powering the following gameplay video:

The sticky situation that the developers of this Hexen II port face is that, while the actual game source itself has been made open source, the data files that make Hexen II more than just a modded Quake engine are not open source. The preview version we were given is utilizing assets from the free Hexen II demo, but the game itself can't hit the App Store until the developers work our some kind of licensing agreement with Activision.

We posted an extensive preview article earlier, and Gameloft recently released the following gameplay trailer:

Our review will be up soon, and in the meantime, there's a very active thread on our forums with forum members discussing the game.

App Store Link: Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front, $7.99

Apogee / Mobila Interactive's iPhone port of ROTT brings all there is to like about 1994 PC original to our favorite mobile platform. The game features 32 levels, a choice of five characters to play (each with unique attributes), five different, customizable controls schemes, and the original game's full soundtrack. A notable feature of the original at the time, the player can look both up and down — up to 45 degrees in either direction — to better take in the surroundings. And the original's horde of minions, comprised of ten digitized enemies (Apogee employees at the time), is fully represented.

I've spent some time with the game and can say that, while the standard formula of mouse + keyboard is definitely the ideal control method for an FPS such as this, the variety of control options offered in the iPhone port of the game, which utilize combinations of both touch and accelerometer controls, should make it easy for most players to find a system that they are comfortable with. It's not perfect — I'd like to see a sensitivity setting for the left / right swipe view controls, for instance — but it works well enough. And it's great fun to get back to this title I enjoyed so many years ago.

Back in 1994, ROTT was a nice alternative to DOOM. And, just as there's certainly a place for DOOM on the iPhone today, so is there a place for Rise of the Triad. For fans of the original, this is an automatic buy, and for anyone else who still enjoys an occasional round of DOOM on the go, Rise of the Triad is a nice alternative that may well be worth a look.

App Store Link: Rise of the Triad, $4.99

In Nova you play as Karl Wardin, an ex-space marine who has been reactivated to investigate some strange alien activity in a futuristic setting where the Earth has depleted its resources and no longer can sustain life, forcing humanity to live on nearby orbiting colonies. Admittedly, the plot isn't anything to write home about and the voice acting ranges from passable to downright cringe-worthy at times– Especially whenever Karl himself speaks. Thankfully, the gameplay itself more than makes up for these shortfalls.

The first series of levels will leave you wandering around on a space ship while you're guided by various characters communicating over the radio. An arrow guides you from objective to objective, and gameplay amounts to simply following this arrow, killing anything that moves, and flipping switches to activate or unlock different objects and areas. Deadspace fans will feel right at home when the game asks you to traverse the hull of the space ship, even going as far as to mention enabling your magnetic boots. What do you do while you're outside the ship? Run from pressurized area to pressurized area while avoiding incoming asteroids of course. (If you haven't played Deadspace, you do exactly this several times throughout the game– The hull is even laid out similarly.)

Eventually after fixing a few different parts of the ship and killing oodles of aliens, you will make your way to the bridge to initiate the self destruct sequence and escape back to your ship. You then fly down to a planet with beautifully rendered lush forests which also happens to be infested by these same (although slightly different colored) aliens. The rest of the game continues in a similar fashion, with different characters telling you where to go and what to do across 13 different levels that take place in five distinctly different environments.

The run and gun action is broken up by mini games, a level where you man the turrent on a warthog-like truck from Halo, and even a couple boss fights. Scattered throughout the levels are locked crates which must be opened by playing a brief mini game where you move different objects around on a grid to solve a puzzle where you're directing a laser beam from its source to the target. None of these are particularly difficult, and depending on how you feel about mini games you will either find these to be enjoyable distractions or just too annoying to bother with. Thankfully, it seems like there is enough ammo dropped by enemies and laying on the ground that the crates are optional but you will be forced to solve a few of these puzzles throughout the game as you "hack" things to progress.

Similar to Halo, your life is measured by a shield meter at the top of the screen which depletes when you take damage and recharges slowly afterwards. Your shield gauge also serves as your oxygen supply when you're in space, and your super abilities also take off a chunk of your shield's power. Super abilities? Oh yes, straight out of Metroid Prime you will slowly gain new abilities such as the ability to freeze enemies, shoot a charged up energy beam, and even run faster with speed boots.

If you've played Modern Combat: Sandstorm [$4.99 / Free], the controls in NOVA will be instantly familiar to you. If not, the game uses a virtual joystick on the left side of the screen for movement, and moving your thumb around the right side of the screen changes your view around. Different buttons frame the screen that do things like fire your weapon, toss a grenade, change weapons, reload, etc. There are two other included control schemes, one where the screen is split in half and moving your left thumb anywhere controls your movement while your right controls your view (essentially just removing the virtual joystick) and another with two virtual joysticks where you tap the screen to fire. I've found the default controls to be fine, although I did spend some time fiddling with the sensitivity.

Another nice feature is the ability to move all of the elements of the game's UI around. I've moved the reload button closer to the fire button because I'm a compulsive reloader in first person shooters, but you can customize it however you want. (Although currently this option only seems available by adjusting your controls mid-game, and not from the main menu.) Strangely enough, even though it seems that Gameloft has put a great deal of thought in to different control options and customizations, the ability to invert the Y-axis of the camera control is notably absent. What will leave you scratching your head even more regarding the lack of invert look is that Modern Combat: Sandstorm, a game which shares a similar engine to NOVA includes Y-axis inversion. You can however flip the screen orientation, something that should make iPod touch users happy.

The performance of the game is phenomenal on the iPhone 3GS with fast load times, high frame rates, and everything else you could ask for in a first person shooter. Meanwhile, reader reports all the way down to the slowest device in the iPod family have been said to be smooth. Even while playing online in NOVA's four player deathmatch mode, which surprisingly enough seems to be working just fine for everyone, a nice change of pace from Gameloft's recently released Modern Combat: Sandstorm multiplayer update.

Playing online requires both WiFi and a Gameloft Live account. Registering for Gameloft Live is easy, and once you're online you will have the option to play deathmatch or look at the worldwide leaderboards of players with the most points and kills. When creating a deathmatch game, available options include choosing one of the five maps, as well as enabling or disabling weapon stay and aim assist. Games can be set with a time limit or a frag limit, and both can be set to none to play for as long as you'd like.

When joining a game, you're thrown in to a lobby which lists available games that have open slots for you to join. Those of you waiting for an Eliminate "killer" will be disappointed to discover that currently there doesn't seem to be any random matchmaking, or the ability to have friends-only private matches. All you can do is create a game and hope that three of your friends join it before other people do.

Despite its limitations, online multiplayer (as well as local bluetooth/WiFi multiplayer) is a lot of fun and performs surprisingly well. I haven't come across any lag or connection issues, and so far it just works– Although the true test of NOVA multiplayer will be how well it holds up once players start getting good at the game and scrutinizing the weapon balance. It's too early to say how large the online community will get and what kind of staying power NOVA's online presence will have, but it seems quite enjoyable right now.

If you're a fan of first person shooters, or any of the previously mentioned console classics that NOVA is obviously inspired by, then you too will also likely really enjoy NOVA. It's one of the most ambitious iPhone games I've played so far, and despite the questionable originality of the game I've really got to hand it to Gameloft for creating such an amazing iPhone experience.

App Store Link: N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99

We'll have a review out shortly, in the meantime, check out the thread in our forums, with posts regarding the American release starting here.

App Store Link: N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99

Ngmoco's first update to their first person shooter Eliminate Pro is now available. The 1.1 upgrade adds a number of new features which we outlined just a couple of nights ago.

These features include:

• new "Knox" Map (pictured above)
• new pre-upgraded Prototype gear
• new Mods for customizing your abilities
• new custom armor graphics
• new player Ranks to achieve beyond level 50

Ngmoco promises more new content to come.

App Store Link: Eliminate Pro, Free

With the update having just gone live, it's really too early to tell much. Obviously, if you own Modern Combat already, go ahead and download the free update and give it a try yourself. Here are a series of screenshots from the game.

The game offers 3 different multi-player maps which seem fairly large, certainly compared to Eliminate's current maps.

Both Solo and Team games can be set up with time limits and kill limits. Total online players seem to be limited to 4 so Team play is really 2 on 2.

Once you join a match, you choose which class you would like to be which offers you different weapons.

The people that have been able to play a session seem to be impressed, but my experience so far is spotty. I haven't been able to stay connected to a match to really get into a game. [See update below]

As I said before, it's too early to say much about the gameplay as the update was just released. Over the next day, we'll see how the servers pick up and the user base grows. If you own Modern Combat, simply try the update out for yourself. If you were waiting for this update before buying, you'll have to wait a bit longer to get a clear picture. The discussion of the game is continuing in our massive forum thread.

App Store Link: Modern Combat: Sandstorm, $4.99

Update: It seems for those on iPhones, even though you must play over Wi-Fi, turning off 3G (or turn on Airplane Mode) seems to actually make a big difference in your Wi-Fi connectivity. It doesn't make sense, so we're not sure if this is a fluke or an actual bug, but if you're having trouble connecting to servers, try this. Now that we've been able to connect, things are running very well.

In the single player campaign, you play as an ex-marine named Karl Wardin living on a space colony far from Earth. You're called back in to service to report on some strange occurrences with a nearby lost ship. Needless to say, this isn't a routine reconnaissance mission and before long you will be blasting your way through a legion of angry aliens in your path throughout several different environments ranging from space ships, to underground, and even a lush jungle as seen in the hands-on video below.

The game consists of 10 levels across 5 unique environments, and along the way you will utilize an arsenal of 6 different weapons which cover all the first person shooter standards from the basic hand gun to sniper rifles, plasma guns, rocket launchers, and even grenades you can toss. There are two major boss fights in the single player campaign, one which is still a surprise and another that will pit you against a gigantic spider with secret weak spots that players must identify and shoot. The bosses are said to be absolutely massive, and a highlight of the game.

Here's a hands on video of the gameplay:

The damage system in NOVA works exactly like Halo, with an energy shield that absorbs damage then recharges over time. Metroid elements are tossed in with the addition of the special abilities you pick up along the way such as the ability to perform a melee strike, freeze enemies, or even get a brief burst of speed. Using these abilities drains your shield's power, so each of them must be used intelligently and in moderation to overcome obstacles and win battles.

NOVA was produced by the same people behind Gameloft's other recent first person shooter, Modern Combat: Sandstorm [$4.99 / Free] and while the touch controls were similar, NOVA is much more action oriented with emphasis on charging through the game and taking out enemies over finding cover and picking off bad guys from a distance. The pacing of the game is much faster, and much more intense with some monsters that will charge you and utilize special abilities such as grabbing and immobilizing you.

Like all Gameloft games, there is a great deal of effort put in to accessibility. The game not only will run across the entire iPhone and iPod touch product family, NOVA also comes with both an aim assist system and an arrow to guide you to your next objective. Both of these helper systems can be disabled if you want a more challenging gameplay experience.

NOVA isn't all about action though, there are also mini-games scattered throughout the game where you will need to solve puzzles to do things like hack computers or open hidden ammo crates. These puzzles involve moving around different mirrors and other reflectors on a grid to redirect a laser beam to hit one or more targets. This mini-game is also shown in the hands-on video.

Three difficulty modes are included, ranging from easy to difficult with the difficult mode locked by default. The single player campaign is said to be around the same length as Sandstorm, which took me 3-4 hours to complete. If you're looking for something to do following the completion of the single player mode, NOVA also will have four player online and local multiplayer over WiFi, or two player local multiplayer over bluetooth.

Multiplayer is deathmatch style, and is said to be both fast and intense with three included multiplayer arenas. Details are vague currently on how the online play is going to work, but presumably with how much emphasis Gameloft has put on Gameloft Live recently, that likely has something to do with how the online multiplayer system will work when finding and creating games.

That's all we know right now, as soon as we get more details on the game we will post more. As it stands, NOVA is due out before the holiday season, so we shouldn't have to wait too much longer to have the game in our hands.

In a surprise move, Activision has released Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies for the iPhone. This first person shooter is a Zombie survival mode adapted from the console version of the massively popular Call of Duty game. This Zombie mode was an unlockable mode in the console version and pits you against endless waves of Zombie invaders breaking down barriers as you try to defend your position by rebuilding barricades and upgrading your weaponry.

The iPhone version of the game includes one map "Nacht der Untoten" but Activision promises an add-on purchase for The Zombie Asylum, Verrückt in the near future. The game comes with both single player and multi-player Co-op modes that supports bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Online play. Yep, Online play. That means you can match up with 3 other players around the world and play together to defend your building. The gameplay video below shows some of this in action.

The game comes with three sets of controls: dual-stick, tilt, and swipe look. Both touch controls are usable though people seem to be preferring the dual-stick option over swipe-look due to the sensitivity of the latter.

The game begins with you in a house with boarded up windows. Waves of zombies slowly start attacking and you need to defend against their attacks. Windows are repaired with the press of a button, though having your attention split across the different entrances is a challenge. The ramp up is rather slow, but soon you'll have trouble surviving the oncoming hoard of zombies. As you kill zombies, you earn coins which can be used to buy better weapons which are found throughout the structure.

Online multiplayer works quite well and you can get quickly matched with others looking to play. Your co-players are seen running around the structure blasting zombies and repairing the base. Unfortunately there's no way to communicate with your partners during the game itself, but still, we were impressed by the inclusion of an online option (shown in the video above).

While the game is limited to one survival map at the moment, it's hard not to be impressed with the overall adaptation to the iPhone, especially with online Co-op play.

App Store Link: Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies, $9.99

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