Another title in the onslaught of tonight's releases is Ark of Sinners Advance by Bulkypix. Set in the Anima: Beyond Fantasy universe, Ark of Sinners seems to draw considerably from the existing pool of lore that an already established universe provides. You play as Celia, who according to the previously linked Wikipedia page is a member of a faction who is "implanted with technology infused with magic."

The game opens with a brief tutorial that gets you familiar with is 2.5D action-oriented gameplay that leans heavily on virtual controls all over your screen that handle jumping, attacking, movement, and evasion. Jumping feels a little weird since how high you jump is directly linked to how long you hold the button down which always translates to being a little weird to me. After the tutorial, you're greeted with a brief cutscene that covers the protagonist being inflicted with some mild amnesia with an off-putting amount of side-boob.

The meat of the game seems to be action-oriented platforming, rampaging from area to area brawling with gated fights where you cannot progress past a certain area until you've killed all the dudes on screen. Eventually you'll come across some blue glowing orbs which serve as "Lost Time Memories Points." These are used to fill out an impressively vast screen of character upgrades ranging from increasing your hit points to adding new moves and combos to your combat arsenal.

First impressions of the game are giving me almost Bayonetta-like vibes, especially when you combine the gated combat with the huge combat capability upgrade system. Of course, like most of these virtual control-laden platformers, I'm guessing how much you enjoy the game will be closely linked with how you are with virtual controls. Even in the early portions of the game I've found myself slightly frustrated with falling and dying unintentionally, although I'm anxious to see if this gets better or worse as I get deeper into the game. The original WiiWare title was basically ravaged on Metacritic, so I'm not sure how hopeful I should be on that.

Forum Thread: [NZ] Ark of Sinners Advance - (by Bulkypix) [Universal]
International App Store Link: Ark of Sinners Advance, $2.99

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Ark of Sinners Advance should be available on the US App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially much earlier if you're in a region east of the USA. To be alerted when the game is available, open this story in the TouchArcade App [Free] and add it to your watch list. A little after 11:00 PM tonight you'll get a push alert with the download link.

Zen Studios has been pinballing back and forth (see what I did there?) with their recent pinball game updates and releases. First, we saw Zen Pinball [Free] proper updated with the three new Star Wars themed tables that we'd been hearing about for the month prior.

The new Star Wars tables were awesome, but Zen Pinball hadn't yet been updated for the iPhone 5 or iPod touch widescreen (tallscreen?) so owners of those devices were left with a letterboxed experience.

Then a few weeks later, as Zen had hinted it was going to do, a standalone version of the new Star Wars tables was released as Star Wars Pinball [$1.99]. The initial purchase of Star Wars Pinball gave you the Episode V table with the additional two tables available as in-app purchases, similar to how buying new tables works in Zen Pinball.

The kicker, though, was that the standalone Star Wars Pinball did include widescreen support, so if you were dying for that you might have been quick to purchase that version and maybe even double dip if you'd already bought the tables in Zen Pinball previously (that is exactly what I did, by the way).

So just about a week after all that we again bounce back to the regular Zen Pinball, which at long last was updated with full widescreen support for the iPhone 5 and 5th generation iPod touch. Not only that, but four brand new Marvel tables have been added to the available in-game catalog, including an Iron Man table which you can see embedded below.

Zen Studios may have been a bit sporadic in how their latest stuff has been released on the App Store, and I'd imagine that has a lot to do with Apple approval shenanigans and whatnot. The important thing is that Zen Pinball, one of the finest pinball collections on iOS, now looks and plays great on my pinball device of choice, my iPhone 5.

If you've been anxious for that as well or are interested in some new Marvel tables, give the new update to Zen Pinball a look.

When Zen Studios originally announced Star Wars Pinball in early February, they had stated the three new tables based on the iconic series would hit as both DLC for the existing Zen Pinball [Free] app and as a brand new standalone game. Then when the Star Wars DLC finally hit Zen Pinball towards the end of the month, there was no sight of said standalone game.

For whatever reason it was running a few weeks late, but Star Wars Pinball [$1.99] has just launched in the App Store as its own separate app, and it comes equipped with widescreen support for the iPhone 5 to boot, something we can't say for its older Zen Pinball sibling.

For the $1.99 download of Star Wars Pinball you'll get the table based on Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, with the Clone Wars table and the one themed after Boba Fett available as in-app purchases for $1.99 each, all the same price as in Zen Pinball.

I'd like to see Zen Studios get widescreen support into the original Zen Pinball, and according to their Twitter it's on the to-do list. But if you held off on the Star Wars DLC before because you weren't interested in the whole package, or you're just dying to play with widescreen support, you can check out the standalone Star Wars Pinball right now. Oh, and just in case you missed it before, if you're like me and you love pinball but are completely terrible at it then check out this video series we came across to tighten up your game of silver ball.

So Zen Pinball [Free] has all the Star Wars Pinball IAP tables in it now, but it's sort of become vaguely apparent that unless you were around during the 80's when pinball was a thing you probably don't know how to actually play pinball. I mean, I understand the basic concept, but most of my pinball playing strategy involves focusing on specifically not losing the ball... And I think a lot of people are the same way.

I sort of made it my mission to snag Pinball Arcade [$0.99] last weekend and actually play through tables completing objectives and playing pinball how you're supposed to. Turns out, it's really hard- Particularly if you're not that well versed in the various techniques of ball control, bumping the table, and other things that you eventually just learn to do after hours and hours of pinball playing. This eventually lead to searching for "pinball tutorials" on the internet, and came across a fantastic grouping of videos by the Professional & Amateur Pinball Association.

Attack from Mars Tutorial from PAPApinball on Vimeo.

The above video is of the table Attack From Mars which is available inside of Pinball Arcade. It's super neat watching someone play the table who knows what they're doing, and learning some of his tricks has made me do better in the game.

Anyway, I just figured this collection of videos was worth mentioning. Pinball ports on iOS devices almost always seem to turn out to work really well, and it seems like you have a lot more fun in them if you actively try to get a little more next-level on your pinball play. Check out the rest of the videos if you like this one, they've got a bunch of really great tutorials for tables that are available on iOS.

We've been talking about the new Star Wars Pinball from Zen Studios for the past few weeks, and as of earlier today the update that contains the three Star Wars-themed pinball tables is now available as an update to Zen Pinball [Free]. From what Zen has indicated before, a standalone version is set to be released as well, though we haven't seen any signs of it in international markets just yet. If a standalone version sounds more appealing to you then you might want to wait to see if that version pops up, but if you're eager to grab the game through the Zen Pinball app then you can dive right into that now.

As mentioned, Star Wars Pinball is a collection of three pinball tables, each available separately in Zen Pinball for $1.99 each. If you missed out on our previous coverage but are curious what the tables are like before you plunk down the cash, then have a look at the table based on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, or this one for the table based on Boba Fett. The final table is based on The Empire Strikes Back, and is embedded below.

Of course, you can also get impressions from our community in the forums too. I've only spent a little bit of time with the tables so far, but they seem extremely well done, and a are likely insta-buys if you're into Star Wars and/or Zen Pinball in any way. Check 'em out, and we'll let you know when we catch wind of the standalone release of Star Wars Pinball if and when it hits.

PinWar [$1.99] isn't a game for the pinball aficionado. The tables lack the (literal or figurative) bells and whistles of other pinball games, and the physics aren't right at all. No, PinWar is pinball for the masses. It's fast, it's fun and it's fiercely competitive—assuming there's another pair of hands nearby to enjoy it with.

Unlike your typical pinball experience, there's no real scoreboard to dominate. There are Game Center leaderboards, but they're for things like "Levels Reached" or "Medals Earned." The competition in PinWar is of the playground variety—just you and a friend across the table, duking it out for bragging rights. Or not. PinWar also has its strong points of the single-player variety, they're just not the ones you might expect.

The game's biggest surprise is that there's no way to just sit back and play pinball. Either you battle against a local opponent or a less-than-impressive AI, or you complete single-serve missions on gimmick boards.

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TouchArcade Rating:

Last week we first found out about the upcoming Star Wars Pinball, and today the guys at Zen Studios blasted out another email with a brand new trailer showing just how shockingly elaborate the game is going to be for a, uh, pinball game. The table shown in the trailer is from The Empire Strikes Back and takes place on the main deck of a Star Destroyer.

The developers mention activating "missions" in game by hitting all the letters to spell out "STAR WARS" at which point you can choose from five different scenes to play through before finally activating the "wizard mode" to battle Darth Vader himself. Take a look:

Next week they're giving us a detailed look at the Boba Fett (!) table, and hopefully we get a few more details on how all the auxiliary mechanics of the game work out. Judging from that trailer though, we're looking at the most weirdly elaborate pinball game I think I've ever seen... And I'm totally OK with that.

I'm what you might call a pinball dilletante. Oh sure, I've played a table here and there, downloaded a few pinball games and poked around, but I lack discipline. I dabble, I don't commit. I've never learned to play with real accuracy or attention to the goals of the game beyond keeping the ball in play.

Momonga Pinball Adventures [$2.99] has changed all that. I discovered a reason to learn to be accurate, to pay attention: furthering the adventures of a ludicrously cute flying squirrel named Momo. A momonga, to be precise—a Japanese dwarf flying squirrel. He is the ball in this game of pinball, and he's on a mission to save his people.

Pinball adventure games are a niche within a niche, so maybe it's best to think of Momonga in broader strokes. It's a game of tiny challenges, a handful of which are stitched together to build a level. A beautiful level: Momonga Pinball Adventures is better crafted than most of what we see on iOS, with lush 3D environments that vary wildly and a simplified style that looks great on the small screen. Paladin Studios says that one level can take up to two months to create, and the effort shows.

But let's step back to the content of those levels. The game's story mode presents a series of fairly straightforward challenges of the flipper-control sort. Knock Momo into a few targets, then a few moving targets, then a few still targets immediately followed by moving targets. For anyone with more skills with a flipper than me, there probably won't be much need to slow down—especially with only 9 major levels.

Of course, that's just the trip through the game's simple, charming story. After each level is finished for the first time a series of challenges unlock. These present new reasons to run through: breaking every block in a level, collecting all the stars, or dipping into more obscure paths and procedures. When you've cleared a few of these you'll also unlock an odd little endless mode that has nothing to do with pinball. It's delightful nonetheless.

There are a few stumbling blocks on the way to freeing Momo's people and really sinking your teeth into Momonga Pinball Adventures. Failing at challenges can be a huge hassle, for instance—the relevant portion of a level might be midway through, after a good chunk of loading, a few cutscenes to skip and a section or two that needs completing. Failure is generally this game's biggest problem: I find myself wondering what a three-life limit adds to the experience aside from frustration.

Otherwise it's all about the pinball physics. They're good, but not great. The action is pleasantly fast. The flippers feel good, with a simple left-side/right-side tap control, but they can't pull off some of the light lobs or quick shots experienced pinball players might expect. There's also no way to tilt the board—it's not a board, it's a level. That's the saving grace, really. Momonga isn't built like a pinball game, so it doesn't suffer badly for missing some of pinball's finer features.

Momonga's Pinball Adventures is already a winner. In part for its impressive look, certainly, but the charm and challenge of the game are a big part of what makes it so loveable. If anything stands in its way now, it's simply that Paladin Studios has already squeezed everything it can out of the existing content—new levels are all that will keep the game going now. Given what goes into them, that might take a while. Just don't mistake this for a complaint: more Momonga will be well worth the wait, and there's plenty of tiny squirrel action to love for the moment.

TouchArcade Rating:

Earlier this afternoon, Jared and I sat down with Momonga Pinball [$2.99], a pinball game with an impressive layer of presentation slapped on top of it. In the game, you'll play as a flying squirrel tasked with taking down a band of owls that sacked his village and, as if that wasn't enough, kidnapped all the folks who were living in it. In practice, this boils down to flipping the squirrel into targets across a bunch of colorful objective-based levels.

Think pinball, but with adventure game sensibilities thrown in for good measure, and you've got a good idea of what this game is all about. If that word picture doesn't do it for ya, we've got some video below.

We're still not sure about Momonga as a whole. If you don't dig pinball at all, you probably won't dig this. But the visuals are off the chain. See if it clicks with you.

Back in late September we told you that Matmi's whacky, fast-paced pinball title Monster Pinball was getting a well-deserved HD makeover and Universal support in the form of a new app called Monster Pinball HD [$1.99], and that game is now available on the App Store.

The original Monster Pinball launched way back in May of 2009, and was among my favorite games of the time. It's ultra-fast physics and absolutely insane table designs (there is one that's literally a concave bowl) would make the hardcore pinball simulation enthusiast shudder, but that's also what made it so unique and fun. Monster Pinball was also noteworthy for its fantastic art direction, which to me always felt like the cheery world of Pixar met with the dark tones of Tim Burton.

All of this translates quite well to the new Monster Pinball HD. It looks fantastic on widescreen displays like the iPhone 5, and feels even more at home on the larger screens of the iPad mini and full-sized model, though it doesn't appear to be running at full Retina resolution on the iPad. You'd be pretty hard-pressed to tell though, as it still looks fantastic. Another neat addition is the ability to play in landscape orientation on the iPad, which feels much more comfortable to me.

Other big new features in Monster Pinball HD include Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements, and the ability to unlock each of its 6 tables for individual play. Monster Pinball was always really unique for having 6 different tables that were interconnected, and it's a whole different experience playing them as individual tables. You'll need to complete a table unlocking mission for each of them before you can play them individually though, which isn't always so easy.

I'm having a total blast reliving my love for Monster Pinball in a modern package, and just hearing all the zany sound effects and music is taking me back to a time when I poured countless hours into this game. I'm already on pace to do so again, and I'm loving it. If you like pinball games, and aren't necessarily worried about realistic physics, then Monster Pinball HD will make your head spin… in a good way. Definitely give it a look, and stop by our forums to leave your thoughts.

Gameprom is one of the developers that really saw the potential of iOS devices as digital pinball havens. The elongated screens, the intuitive touch screen controls, the accelerometer that let you “shake” a table to give it a proper nudge. It just seems a perfect fit.

Since their iOS debut of Wild West Pinball [$0.99] all the way back in April of 2009, Gameprom have gone on to release a number of different pinball games, each typically being more elaborate and technically advanced than the last. It’s up for debate whether you can jive with Gameprom’s brand of ball physics compared to real life tables, but the bottom line is they perform well, look spectacular, and are lots of fun.

Over the weekend, Gameprom released their latest table simply title Arcade Pinball. The theme this time around is classic arcade games. There’s a huge display screen in the middle of the table that plays various mini-games that have passing resemblances to ones you might have grown up with in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. There’s also a mini-table in the upper corner that looks like it’s modeled after Q-Bert but plays more like a little pachinko machine. Check out the dubstep-laden trailer below.

The new Arcade Pinball is pretty cool, and should feel right in line with Gameprom’s other offerings if you’re into them. Here’s where things get tricky though: due to some weird licensing issues, there are several ways you can actually buy the different Gameprom games. Let me see if I can break it down for you in the least complicated way possible.

Their original 3 pinball games, Wild West [$0.99], Jungle Style [$0.99], and The Deep [$0.99], are all currently free in their iPhone standalone versions. A good way to gauge if you’ll like Gameprom’s brand of silver ball is to download any or all 3 of them and check them out, since you know, they’re free and everything.

However, a better and cleaner alternative is to buy one of their pinball collection apps. There’s Pinball HD [$1.99 / $1.99] which includes the 3 previously mentioned tables plus has access to most of their other collection by way of in-app purchase: AC/DC Pinball, Da Vinci Pinball, Snow Pinball, Slayer Pinball, and the new Arcade Pinball.

Then there’s yet another collection, aptly named Pinball HD Collection [Free / Free], which includes all the previous tables mentioned for purchase as well as the 3 licensed ‘80s movie tables from the standalone War Pinball [$1.99 / $1.99 (HD)] app (those 3 tables are based on the movies Platoon, Navy Seals, and Missing in Action, and are all pretty sweet). Pinball HD Collection is the way to go if you want all of Gameprom’s pinball games in one single app (or theoretically 2 apps, since none of their pinball games are Universal). Also, none of your purchases transfer between apps, which is kind of unfortunate.

Aside from a confusing amount of ways to buy their tables, I love Gameprom’s pinball games and will continue to buy and re-buy them if I have to, though I seriously hope there’s not yet another collection on the horizon. At least their prices are pretty cheap, with all tables running beweeen 99¢ and $2.99, and the new Arcade Pinball clocking in at $1.99. For sake of simplicity I’ll just list the links to the Pinball HD Collections below, since they're currently the most definitive collections, but definitely check out their free offerings if you haven't yet and at the very least there are enough different options for buying these games that something is bound to suit you.

iOS has always been a fantastic fit for pinball games, what with its elongated screens and tilt functionality, and plenty of fantastic pinball games have graced the platform in the last several years. In 2009, Cowboy Rodeo delivered fantastic iOS renditions of the Amiga classics Pinball Dreams [$1.99 / Free] and its sequel Pinball Fantasies [$2.99]. They were decidedly retro, but the gameplay definitely stood the test of time and each game still holds a place amongst my very favorites on the App Store.

One bummer though was that when the iPad finally came along in 2010 there was no elegant way to bring either of the games to the larger screen without drastically tweaking the original artwork, which the developers verified looked totally ugly. However, in July of last year Cowboy Rodeo found the solution to this by retaining the exact same gameplay but recreating all of the visuals in 3D, resulting in the Universal Pinball Dreams HD [$3.99].

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We didn’t have a lot of arcades in my hometown while I was growing up. Even worse, the few that did exist specialized in video games and air hockey, with nary a pinball machine in sight. Still, whenever I managed to get my hands on a one, it was always such a dazzling experience of light, sound and skill. Perhaps that’s why I can’t stop playing Pinball Arcade [$0.99 / Free], the inaugural iOS title from FarSight Studios. FarSight’s ability to create near-perfect replications of actual pinball machines leads to a game that is not only full of incredibly deep pinball machines, but also captures that feeling of fun and excitement in an iOS game.

As its name implies, Pinball Arcade features classic arcade machines from various eras with the simple goal of mastering each one to get the highest scores possible. Each table also includes 'Goals' (read: achievements) that can be solved which lead to more complicated objectives. The entry price includes one machine (‘Tales of the Arabian Nights’) with three more available for purchase within the game via IAP. Tables range from somewhat simple layouts with interesting twists (‘Black Hole’) to lengthy epics chock full of interactive items and objectives (‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’). Unlike most games with IAP, you can actually try each table before you buy, providing an opportunity for actual research before you even consider purchasing another table.

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TouchArcade Rating:

We've been incredibly excited for Farsight Studio's upcoming Pinball Arcade since we first heard about it this past October. Following their critically acclaimed Pinball Hall of Fame Gottlieb and Williams collections that have appeared on various platforms over the years, Farsight is now working on what they hope to be the ultimate pinball video game with Pinball Arcade. Featuring tables from historic pinball companies like Bally, Stern, Williams and Gottlieb, Pinball Arcade is also set to be updated and expanded frequently following release and should eventually contain at least 50 classic pinball tables, making for the ultimate virtual collection.

Pinball Arcade is slated to hit just about every platform you can think of, including iOS. Last month, we checked out a trailer that showcased several of the tables in action, though the footage didn't seem to specifically be from an iOS device. However, their most recent video demonstrates the Tales of the Arabian Nights table from Pinball Arcade running on an iPad 2, and it looks absolutely fantastic:

Pinball Arcade is scheduled for an early 2012 launch – which is like, now – and I've got my money on us seeing it in the App Store before the end of the month. The first tables to launch with the game are Tales of the Arabian Nights, Ripley's Believe It or Not, Theatre of Magic, and Black Hole. They hope to add 2 new tables per month via updates, and each month a different table will be featured as "Table of the Month" and offered at a discounted rate. For launch, the first Table of the Month will be Tales of the Arabian Nights, which will cost 99¢. The other 3 tables will run either $1.99 or $2.99 each, according to Farsight's Twitter.

Be on the lookout for Pinball Arcade to hit hopefully really soon and check out our forums for some discussion on the game.

[Thanks Jeff!]

This seemed to slip through the cracks a few weeks ago, but The Pinball Arcade, a project we told you about in October, has released a new video showcasing several of the tables that will be included in their game. The Pinball Arcade is an effort to bring digitized representations of some of the most beloved real life tables to have ever existed to the iOS and many other platforms, all in one tight little package. Developer FarSight studios, well known for their work on the Pinball Hall of Fame series, has partnered with four of the biggest pinball manufacturers in history in order to secure official translations of their pinball games into The Pinball Arcade.

In the following trailer, you can see Tales of the Arabian Nights, Theatre of Magic, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, and Black Hole. It's downright uncanny just how similar these digital versions look and sound to their real life counterparts:

The Pinball Arcade is slated for an "early 2012" release, and should come equipped with all the games shown in the trailer. The plan is to then frequently update the app adding new tables, for years to come, until you have the ultimate pinball collection sitting right in your pocket. I'm eagerly anticipating actually trying out the finished product, so we'll be keeping our eyes out for a solid release date for The Pinball Arcade in the coming months.