Konami recently released Frogger [App Store] for the iPhone through the iTunes App Store.

Frogger for the iPhone is an adaptation of Konami’s 1981 arcade original featuring updated graphics, an updated soundtrack, and a choice of touchscreen or accelerometer controls–or both combined.

Like the original, the goal of the game is to direct five frogs, one by one, from the starting point at the bottom of the screen to their homes at the top before the timer runs out.  It’s a treaturous journey.  The lower half of the screen consists of a busy roadway with five lanes of speeding traffic.  The upper half contains a rushing river filled with logs, turtles, alligators and other such hazards.  The challenge is getting the frog home safely without getting flattened, drowned (this was always puzzling…), or eaten.  It sounds simple, but can be rather frustrating challenging.

The iPhone version offers both accelerometer and two types of touchscreen controls.  Moving your frog with the accelerometer involves “jerking” the iPhone in the intended direction of travel.  Touchscreen control works with either a tap in the intended direction relative to the frog’s current position or a swipe (anywhere on the screen) in the desired direction, akin to the “swipe” control mode of Ms. PAC-MAN for the iPhone.  Both control systems are active simultaneously by default, but either can be turned off in the game options.  After spending time with all control methods, the swipe technique seems the most precise.  The iPhone’s vibrate feature is also utilized by the game.

Frogger for the iPhone is…well…Frogger–not much more, not much less.  If you’re a Frogger fan, then you’ll enjoy this outing. If not, you may find a better value in some of the other $9.99 games.

As Pocket Gamer reports, Konami is enthusiastic about the iPhone as a gaming platform and will be bringing more content in the near future.

“We see the iPhone platform as an opportunity to showcase the legendary Konami brands in a truly unique fashion,” he says. “We look forward to releasing more of our popular titles for the iPhone soon.”

One thing to note: The official line from Konami is that right now Frogger is iPhone-only (not iPod touch compatible), despite iLounge reporting that they successfully installed it on an iPod touch.  Konami indicates it will be releasing a verison compatible with the iPod touch soon.  (Thanks chrisb3)

The list of games available in the iTunes App Store is growing daily, and among these are various free titles that are worth a look.  We thought we’d share a few of the free games we’ve been wasting spending time with lately.

Apache Lander

Apache Lander [App Store] from PosiMotion is an accelerometer controlled, simplified take on the classic Lunar Lander formula.  The goal is to land the helicopter safely on the heli-pad before the fuel stores are depleted.  Tilt the iPhone left or right to maneuver towards the heli-pad and control lift by tilting forward or back.  The helicopter consumes fuel at an alarming rate and requires an extremely delicate touch-down to avoid crashing (which you’ll do a lot).

Fire Drop

Fire Drop [App Store] from xCube Labs is another take on the popular “matching tile elimination” formula.  The game presents a play grid of simmering cauldrons of varying colors that advance upwards row by row.  Gameplay involves tapping on groups of three or more like cauldrons, causing them to burst into flame and disappear.  There are 15 levels in each of the game’s three stages, and at the end of each level a cheerful looking monk quips various words of wisdom.  After completing all three stages, the player will have apparently gained “full wisdom.”

BubbleWrap

Few things in life are as satisfying as sitting down with a fresh sheet of bubble wrap and popping to your heart’s content.  If you are no stranger to this truth, then have a look at Orsome’s free iPhone offering that may eliminate the need to run out and purchase your own block of electronic bubble wrap.  BubbleWrap [App Store] is virtual bubble wrap for the iPhone that not only delivers that satisfying POP!, but is a game as well.  Race against the clock and pop as many bubbles as you can–but watch out–the bubbles reinflate.  The more bubbles popped, the higher the score.  Simple fun for the obsessive-compulsive among us.

Cookie Bonus Solitaire - Free

Cookie Bonus Solitaire - Free [App Store] from Amplified Games is a version of the company’s $2.99 title Cookie Bonus Solitaire [App Store] that contains all of the features of the for-purchase original, but in a free, ad-sponsored format.  It’s also the only free take on standard Klondike solitaire available in the App Store.

Cookie Bonus features fairly standard solitaire gameplay with some nice bonuses.  Aside from one-person play, there is an online play mode that allows chat with other players during the game, high score comparison, badges and achievements, as well as an online profile that can be shared with others.  The game also features various built in cheats that can be called upon when in a pinch.

Tunnels

Tunnels [App Store] from TunnelsApp.com is a maze game in which you pilot a fast-moving ship through a narrow tunnel full of twist and turns with the goal of progressing as far as possible before crashing into a wall.  It’s rather simple gameplay, but even at the “Easy” level it’s quite difficult to keep avoid a crash for more than a few seconds.  (This author can not be held responsible for iPhones crashing into actual walls as a result of the challenging gameplay.)

Pattern Making Co has released an update to their spherical puzzler Radius for the iPhone. Version 1.02 [$3.99, App Store] can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store.

Radius is a fast-paced action game that presents the player with a shiny sphere that can be rotated with finger swipes. In random locations all across the surface of this sphere, enemies are constantly spawning. The objective of the game is to stop them from destroying the sphere by tapping them to destruction. In time, the frequency and number of spawning enemies increases to a fever pitch.

The Radius update page indicates the following changes in the v1.02 release:

• Fixed Sphere Disappearing
• Fixed Spawn Rate Glitch
• Fixed Top Nav Appearing
• Fixed Game Crashing
• Implemented Tap, Drag, Stop Controls
• Implemented New Spawning Logic
• Optimized Graphics

We previously reviewed this title and found it to offer unique gameplay with a distinctive futuristic feel, but found the controls somewhat unintuitive.  While the “tap, drag, stop controls” that the developer has implemented in this title do help the situation, we find that the control method we feel is most natural–drag sphere and release when target orientation is reached– still suffers from unintended drift.

Our full review has been updated to reflect these latest changes.

Thanks to VeganTnT

A few weeks back we posted a roundup of all 99 cent downloads then available on the iTunes App Store.  Lemonquest’s 99-cent puzzler Circulate Prologue [App Store] had not yet been released when that story went live. But if it had, it would have stolen the crown.

Circulate Prologue is a bit of a teaser for the upcoming iPhone port of the popular PC puzzler Circulate, that will be available in October.  As Lemonquest describes it, Circulate Prologue plays as follows.

Put various spheres together by deftly turning the scenario this way and that. Ahead of its time, this game allows you to master gravity as you explode spheres in a spinning chamber. Circulate Prologue is easy to pick up and play, and is the perfect warm up for Circulate, a new twist on Puzzle games.

While the game originated on the PC, it seems as if it were conceived with the iPhone platform specifically in mind.  Various spheres appear in the center of the circular playfield and fall “downwards” with gravity, depending on the orientation of the iPhone.  As spheres accumulate along the edge of the playfield, they slide and move amongst themselves as the iPhone orientation changes.  The goal is to join three or more spheres of the same color to make them explode.  The more spheres that are joined at a time, the more points you’ll get.  It seems a tired format, but Circulate Prologue’s unique accelerometer-based control and convincing physics system breathes new life into the formula.  Making things more interesting, there are metal spheres that can only be exploded by tapping an adjoining bomb sphere as well as bubble spheres that float “upwards” and collect along the “top” of the playfield.

This prologue release features 30 levels which offer ample playtime.  What’s more, Circulate Prologue exhibits a rare degree of polish and features a very high quality soundtrack that accounts for most of its 19.7MB install size.

Circulate Prologue is easily worth 99 cents and deserves a place on every gamer’s iPhone or iPod touch.  We’re anxious to see what the full version brings in the coming months.

Igloo Games’ Dizzy Bee [App Store] was one of the first games we reviewed, and it remains amongst our favorites.

Dizzy Bee’s premise seems simple enough: tilt your iPhone to direct Bee to free the fruit and then to the exit.

And for the first level or two, you think to yourself that this is just a fun and easy exercise. Once “baddies” are introduced, however, you realize you have to take into account their movements which are also affected by the same tilting/gravity.

At $2.99, there was really no real excuse to not buy this remarkably polished and fun game. If you haven’t made the plunge yet, though, Igloo Games has just released a free 4-level version of the game called DizzyBeeFree [App Store].

The free game is identical to the full version but limits you to only 4 of the levels. A gameplay video remains available from the developer.

DS Media Labs has recently released FLOverload, a touchscreen-based rendition of the late ’80s Amiga classic puzzler Pipe Mania (more widely known as Pipe Dreams), for the iPhone.

FLOverload presents the player with a gamescreen filled with tiles marked ‘?’ that flip over to reveal pipe segmets when touched.  The object of the game is to quickly reveal as many of the obscured tiles as possible and arrange the pipe segments in such a way as to construct an unbroken pipe pathway from the starting point at left to the end point at right in order to allow an unobstructed flow of water across the gamescreen.  But, don’t tarry–as soon as the game begins, the water starts to flow…  Once a fully-formed pipe has been successfully created, the player can shake the iPhone to cause the water to quickly flow its path and conclude the current level.

Aside from pipe segments, certain tiles contain obstacles around which the pipe must be routed.  There are also bonus tiles that increase the score as well as stopwatch tiles that halt the flow of water for a short period.

The current version of FLOverload features 25 levels, but the developers indicate that a forthcoming update will bring an additional 25 levels and more overall “balance” to the levels in general.

Although I could find no details on the App Store info page or product website, FLOverload appears to support a community high-score board, but despite repeated attempts to interact with it, I could not successfully connect. Also worth a mention is the lack of gameplay documentation. The developer indicates, however, that a forthcoming update will bring instructions to the game.

FLOverload is a well done implementation of this formula and anyone who is a fan of the original should enjoy this title and find it’s $1.99 App Store pricepoint rather fair.

YouTube gameplay video:

Critter Crunch [App Store] is one of the many puzzle games the App Store has to offer. The original versions of Critter Crunch first appeared on mobile phones in 2007 and came with a splash, winning IGN’s Best Puzzle Game of 2007 and Biggest Surprise of 2007. Individual reviewers in the App Store also seem quite enamored with the game with an average rating of 4/5 stars.

This $9.99 game is an original variant of a classic puzzler. In this version, you play Biggs, a furry forest dweller with a long tongue, whose job is to clear the board by feeding smaller animals into larger ones. There are initially 3 sizes of animals (small, medium, large). Feeding two of the smaller ones into the larger ones causes the larger one to explode and take out any identical animals around it.

The game provides numerous tutorials to quickly get you up to speed. Controls are handled by sliding Biggs across the bottom of the screen and tapping on the screen to shoot out his tongue. The game offers a number of different modes that can be unlocked and a YouTube video from the publisher shows off the higher levels. The classic adventure mode presents you with progressively harder levels, while the puzzle mode challenges you to clear the board within a certain number of moves.

Despite all the glowing reviews, I can’t say I was particularly drawn into this game. The game was polished and reasonably fun to play, but I didn’t find myself making time to play it again. It seems I may be in the minority, however. If you love puzzle games and want some variety from the standard Bejeweled clones, Critter Crunch is worth a serious look.

The gameplay video provides a look at both Adventure and Puzzle modes:

Game Details

Name: Critter Crunch (v1.0)
Developer: Publisher X
App Store Link: Buy
Price: $9.99
Size: 9.8MB

Last month we covered Passionfool’s 3D puzzle game CubicMan for jailbroken iPhones. We were happy to see that an updated version of this title was in place on iTunes App Store launch day. The new version, Cubic Man Deluxe [App Store] from TeemSoft, is a much more polished evolution of the jailbreak original.

Gameplay on the new version remains basically the same as the old. As the YouTube video demonstrates, CubicMan Deluxe presents the user with an isometric game grid and the challenge of manipulating a rectangular object in such a way as to stand it up on a designated grid square, thereby moving to the next level. It’s simple and fun, but also highly frustrating–in a good way.

The core difference between the jailbreak version and the new release is a dramatically updated graphical look. The App Store version features backdrop graphics as opposed to a plain black field as well as the addition of walls and other edge boundary objects, all of which are now textured with Egyptian style graphics. It’s much easier on the eyes and makes for an overall more pleasant gaming experience.

CubicMan Deluxe features 80 unique levels of progressing difficulty, with new types of challenges appearing as the player moves through the game.

CubicMan Deluxe is a remake of the Flash game Bloxorz

Game Details

Name: CubicMan Deluxe v1.0
Developer: TeemSoft, Inc.
App Store Link: Buy
Price: $4.99 $2.99

RealNetworks’ mobile gaming division has released their first game for the iPhone based on the popular South Park television show.

The game, South Park Imaginationland [App Store], is specifically based on a series of 3 episodes from the television show about a place where “all the beings created by human imagination reside”.

I won’t get into the details of the plot of the television episodes, because honestly, I wasn’t aware of it prior to downloading this $9.99 game. In fact, it had been this unfamiliarity which had steered me clear of this title in the iTunes App store. I just didn’t have faith that a television show inspired gaming title would be any good. But I think I was wrong.

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Macworld’s Dan Frakes took the time to buy each one of the 18 Sudoku applications and determine which were the best of the bunch. Frakes managed to narrow the field to 3 top contenders.

Sudoku Vol. 1 [$5.99, App Store] by Hudson Entertainment was his first pick. Its described as the best Sudoku application for beginners in that it offers a tutorial mode to help guide you through the puzzles. While the game provides helpful tools and customizations, it only offers 50 levels and requires you to solve easier levels before getting to the harder ones.

Big Bang Sudoku [$4.99, App Store] from Freeverse offers a shiny interface and is said to be simpler to us than Hudson’s offering. This version also offers over 10,000 levels across four difficulty levels.

As his last pick, Frakes choses EA’s Sudoku [$7.99, App Store] which has been updated from the iPod version and delivered to the iPhone. The game offers 10,000 unique levels and beautiful graphics (pictured above). One unique feature to EA’s version is “Newspaper mode” which allows you to manually enter and play puzzles from a book or newspaper.

A more in depth look at each version’s interface is provide in the Macworld article.