Update: Sorry, folks. Looks like the sale has ended. The moose out front should have told you.

Atari is a company that is synonymous with video games, producing some of the very first hits in arcades during the 70s and 80s and sparking off a home console movement shortly thereafter. My first console was the Atari 2600, and although many of those games don't hold up that well today, many of them remain surprisingly good, and all are capable of tickling your nostalgia bone.

That's really the driving force behind Atari's Greatest Hits [Free], a collection of 100 of Atari's games from throughout the decades that have been translated to work on iOS hardware. To celebrate Atari's 40th(!) anniversary, the company is currently offering the entire 100 game package for free.

Well, technically the game has always been free, at least initially. You could download the shell app along with one game for free, and the rest of the catalog was available via in-app purchases. However, for the anniversary sale if you act quickly enough you can download the game and all in-app content is set to be free, and will remain that way as long as you keep the game installed on your device (i.e. this isn't tied directly to your iTunes account like normal IAP would be, so you can't re-download these games at a later date again for free).

But hey, that's still quite a deal. The Atari's Greatest Hits app itself is merely just ok from a playability perspective, I'd say. Most games have multiple control options so that there's bound to be something that suits you, but nothing ever feels ideal. However, if you have an iCade, the app fully supports it and that would clearly be the way to go.

Also, the actual game library isn't exactly going to set your pants on fire, despite the huge number of included games. There's some gems to be sure, but a lot of the real classics from Atari's arcade and home console heyday were 3rd party titles that aren't included here. For the full skinny, check out our review of Atari's Greatest Hits when it initially hit the App Store last year.

At any rate, Atari's Greatest Hits is a thoughtfully-designed little slice of video game history that fits snugly in your pocket and, despite some playability issues and a lack of heavy hitter titles, that fact alone is worth downloading the game while the in-app content is free. Better hurry, though, as it sounds like the promotion is only running until the end of today US time. And don't forget to keep the app installed in order to be able to keep all the free games you end up downloading from the collection.

Astronot [$1.99 / Free] is kind of ugly. Gameplay takes place in a tiny window framed by what looks like a Tiger LCD handheld casing, complete with chunky red virtual buttons and a colorful graphic featuring the game’s protagonist with an asterisk wedged squarely up his backside. Said protagonist and alien enemies are melted piles of pixels, reminiscent of something out of VVVVV held over a hot stove like your least favorite G.I. Joe. Oh, and those worms Eli And Brad mentioned in the video preview they put together? Yeah, they’re snakes, but look like frumpy, sad sock puppets.

So Astronot’s an ugly game. But it’s not a bad one. It’s a game made by Wade McGillis, a talented young man whose Twitter bio reads, “I don’t like what I make.” A game with a trailer like this. A game not so bad it’s good, but a genuinely good game that’s kind of bad.

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In February of 2011 we learned that Daniel Blezek, a programmer and passionate fan of Bungie’s classic Marathon first-person shooters, was bringing the trilogy of games to iOS. Things went quite for a while after that and people started wondering what was up, but several months later it was revealed that Bungie themselves had given the project their blessing.

During the second half of the year, both Marathon [Free] and Marathon 2: Durandal [Free], the first two games in the trilogy, hit the App Store. And the kicker? They were free. But not just that, they also played surprisingly well on the touch screen and offered optional enhancements by way of inexpensive IAP. Yesterday, the classic trilogy finally became complete when Marathon Infinity [Free] launched in the App Store.

If you’re familiar with the iOS incarnations of the first two games, you’ll pretty much know what to expect with Infinity. You get the complete game in standard definition for free, which still looks pretty darn good after all these years, but alternately for $1.99 you can download the high resolution texture pack to take things up a notch. Then there’s a Master Chief mode for 99¢ which will give you tons of cheat options and a level select, an another 99¢ IAP for a variety of different crosshairs.

Just to reiterate, you can get the entire Marathon trilogy in Universal form for your iOS devices of choice for the low price of zero. The IAP is non-essential and serves as more of a tip jar to show your appreciation to the developer, but it does offer some interesting extras if you so choose. If you were a fan of Marathon back before Bungie became known for Halo, or if you have an interest in old-school FPS games, then all 3 Marathon games should be a part of your iOS game collection.

If there was a list of things that I never expected to be talking about today, Duke Nukem 3D [$0.99] getting an update would probably be right near the top. But that’s just what has happened as MachineWorks has issued a new update for 3D Realms' classic first-person shooter that looks to address the long-derided virtual controls in the game.

For a quick backstory, Duke Nukem 3D launched in the App Store way back in August of 2009. Id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D [$1.99 / Free] had hit iOS several months earlier and received critical acclaim, mostly centered around how well their controls worked. With a Doom [$4.99] iOS port also on the horizon, having Duke Nukem on my iPhone seemed like the greatest news in history for a long-time FPS fan like me.

However, the initial version of Duke had possibly the worst controls I’ve ever encountered. I mean downright unplayable. To the developer’s credit they quickly issued an update about a month later with a bunch of new control options, but sadly it did little to help. Sure, some people could find a scheme that was workable for them with some heavy tweaking of options, but the controls still felt pretty bad and have remained that way ever since.

Until today that is, closing in on 3 years after the last update to Duke Nukem. Surprising to say the least, but unfortunately it’s also a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the controls are actually quite decent now, offering an improved (but still lackluster) dual-stick option as well as a very good "drag anywhere to aim" scheme which really nails it. It may have taken a long time (that’s an understatement) but I can finally enjoy Duke Nukem 3D on my iPhone. Also, it appears that the visuals have been cleaned up considerably, and actually look quite good for a 16 year old game.

Now for the bad news. The update is full of bugs, one of which can render your controls unusable. You can avoid causing this by going into the control options before loading or starting a new game and selecting and then deselecting the dual-stick controls, but that will erase whatever custom scheme you might have previously created by dragging the virtual buttons around the screen. Basically, it’s not much of a solution.

In addition, there’s also a bug that silences the sounds from the game which I’ve only been able to fix by saving my game and killing it from the multi-tasking screen and then starting it up again. Also, for some reason the end-level stats screen is upside down and they've disabled the mirror reflection effect in the game. Finally, advertisements have been inserted into Duke Nukem 3D which will pop down when you first start the game and when wake your device from sleep with the game running. Lame.

As delighted as I was to see a surprise update to one of my all-time favorite games, unfortunately this latest update for Duke Nukem 3D is a complete mess. If they can sort out the bugs then I really believe the new controls are a huge improvement, and bring the game more in line with the newer FPS games on the App Store. However, given the lack of attention paid to the game the past few years that seems like a pretty big “if”, especially since the iPad version Duke Nukem 3D SE [$0.99 (HD)] hasn’t been updated at all. Also, I’m not crazy about ads being put into a game that I previously paid for.

At any rate, Duke Nukem 3D is currently free right now, so if you didn’t have it already you might as well grab it just in case they do sort out the bugs. If you could manage just fine with the controls the way they were before, then you’ll probably want to hold out on this update altogether until (and if) they can fix this situation.

Any gamer who has been at it for as many years as myself certainly has a shortlist of particular standout favorites that set themselves apart for one reason or another, having indelibly left their mark upon his or her twitchy gamer brain. One such game that can be found on my list / burned into my brain is the Apple II title Wings of Fury, written by Steve Waldo and published by Broderbund in 1987. It's a side-scrolling, carrier based aerial shooter set in the Pacific during World War II. The mission of the game is to use your Hellcat's canons, bombs, rockets, and torpedoes to wipe out island installations, enemy ships, and defend your carrier against aerial attacks. It's a lot of fun and is particularly challenging due to the somewhat realistic flight mechanics and the need to delicately land on the carrier to refuel / rearm.

Others out there who, reading this, fondly recall Wings of Fury (it also made it to the Amiga [video], C64, DOS, etc.) will be pleased to know that a rather well-done iOS remake has been put together by Korean studio Idea Spoon Games and released into the App Store.

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Do you like tacos? How about star fields, spaceships, and throwback games that trade polygons for pixels and full orchestras for beeps and bleeps that hearken back to the glory days of the Atari 2600? Developer Taco Graveyard serves up generous helpings of those elements and more (even the space tacos) in Omegapixel [$0.99], a fast and furious action game that throws in a fair bit of puzzle solving to keep you on your toes.

The first time you load a mission, Omegapixel might remind you a lot of Geometry Wars [$0.99]. Using a virtual stick, you control a small space rig that zips around the cosmos and battles enemy ships. Unlike Geometry Wars, though, you barrel into enemies kamikaze-style instead of blasting them with lasers. While you're floating like a butterfly and stinging like a battering ram with thrusters, enemies pour onto the screen in greater and greater numbers.

Enemy ships come in several varieties—some that make a beeline for you, others that converge on the pixel. On one stage, I flew around smashing into red ships that targeted the Omegapixel while blue pyramids followed my space vessel in tireless pursuit. Suddenly a vertical yellow line came sliding across the screen like a barcode scanner laser. If the line touched the pixel, I lost a life. Ignoring the red destroyers and blue pyramids for the moment, I flew to the far side of the yellow wall and tapped the lower right corner of the screen, which instantly swaps your location with the Omegapixel's and vice versa. Teleporting put the pixel safely on the far side of the wall, but right in range of the red ships I'd let live to deal with the wall.

The key to victory lies in shielding the pixel from its enemies, while using it to shield you from yours. To get rid of the blue pyramids that zero in on my ship's location, I had to lure them into the pixel's fiery maw by either putting the pixel in between me and them, or waiting for them to draw close enough to touch before teleporting, which dumped the pixel right where I'd been drifting a second before. Easier said than done, especially with bouncers knocking the pixel every which way, red ships spiraling toward it, new purple walls that harmed me instead of the pixel sliding into view, and asteroids that, while harmless, distract you by stealing your attention away from real threats.

It's stressful, but the kind of stress that leaves your senses crackling from adrenaline. Cobbling together a plan and pulling it off in a matter of moments never failed to invite a thrill of accomplishment. The game almost becomes more of a twitchy puzzler on later levels, forcing you to remain aware of the pixel's location at all times and pull each enemy type from your memory log the moment it comes into view so you can react to the new threat appropriately.

As you play, you'll collect credits you can use to deck out your ship: explosive teleports, extra armor plating, defense mechanisms for the Omegapixel, a line of energy that flares between you and the pixel when you teleport, incinerating anything it touches. You can earn credits the old-fashioned way by clearing Story and Arcade missions, picking up credit packs that randomly appear during play, or just drop real money on IAP credit packs and splurge on upgrades.

Like all games that control with virtual sticks, Omegapixel's controls suffers from minor virtual-stick touchiness, but my fried reflexes cost me more missions than occasionally spot controls. Other than said spottiness and grating music (the sound effects are the right kind of bleepy retro, but the soundtrack, which you can disable, sounds like an 8-bit game that froze right in the middle of a high chord) Omegapixel is a ton of fun, and especially shouldn't be missed at its current price of free.

Late last week Capcom surprised everybody by announcing an iOS port of their classic arcade fighter Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 [$4.99]. In all honesty, I suspect this was a cleverly timed release to casually tie in with 'The Avengers' movie coming out next week, but whatever the motivation I’m not complaining. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is one of the most beloved fighting games in history, and prior to the downloadable rerelease on XBL and PSN in 2009 it could be kind of a difficult game to play unless you owned the Dreamcast or the somewhat rare PS2 or Xbox versions.

With that said it’s fairly mind blowing then that today you can download the entire original game onto a device that fits snugly in your pocket (or to your iPad if you’d rather, since the game is Universal, though it’s extra snug trying to jam that in your pocket). The iOS version of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is really cool for what it is, basically a cheap nostalgic trip, but it’s plagued with several major problems that drag the experience down, making it feel more like a novelty rather than another solid iOS fighter.

The major sticking points in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 are that it’s difficult to control compared to the other top iOS fighters, the 12 year old visuals have not aged gracefully, and the overall performance leaves a lot to be desired. However, the virtual control setup that Capcom has come up with for the game is pretty clever, and just having a classic like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 in my pocket is worth putting up with its shortcomings. It’s just a shame because with a little more care I think this port could have been a whole lot better.

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Since he started making games for iOS, indie developer Jeff Minter of Llamasoft has really been cranking them out. The guy has been making games -- and, rather unique games, I might add -- for over 30 years, but I don't believe he's ever dished out one after another faster than he's doing for Apple's platform. And that's really good news for iOS gamers because all of his iOS titles are rather well done and worth playing. His latest title, Five A Day [link], which just landed in the App Store, comes close on the heels of Gridrunner for iOS, his excellent remake of his original 1982 VIC-20 game and one of the best shooters on the platform.

When we first reported that Minter was developing for iOS, about two and a half years ago, we mentioned a Time Pilot-style game that he was working on, set to be his first iOS release. Well, time passed, Minotaur Rescue arrived, and we never saw anything else about that supposed first iOS release. That is to say, not until now.

Five A Day is a shooter (with bananas), but it's equally an ethereal experience of sorts. It's a kind of spacey, zen sort of thing. It's a little hard to describe, so I'll let the author.

...it should’ve just progressed into a good old banana-oriented shooter as originally intended but by accident it sort of went all New Age and ambient. While still actually retaining the characteristic of actually being any good, of course. It didn’t just turn into a useless ageing hippy of a game that lies around smoking weed and listening to Steve Hillage and burbling on about auras and crystals without ever doing anything useful. Redolent it may be of joss sticks and wind chimes but it’s still jolly good fun and will kick your arse quite handily on the higher levels, just you wait and see.

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Lately it feels like racing titles on iOS place a greater emphasis on realism (whether in visuals or controls) and less on simple, enjoyable gameplay. Retro Racing [$0.99] looks to rectify that with an emphasis on fun, fast gameplay that sacrifices depth for arcade basics. While Retro Racing suffers from being way too short, the experience it does offer does a good job taking you back to the days of classic top-down arcade racers.

As its name implies, Retro Racing harkens back to the old days of top-down pixelated racers. Each track is chock-full of turns, obstacles, and (most importantly) power-ups. Power-ups range from tires (which improve turning), to acceleration and top speed upgrades, to the standard nitro boost. While the goal of each track is to finish in third place or better in order to advance, you’ll find that later tracks essentially require you to focus on power-up collection (while navigating the tracks flawlessly) in order to have a chance at advancement. It plays like a simpler version of old-school console racers such as R.C. Pro-Am.

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Way back in 1984, English teacher-turned-game developer Mike Singleton released a vast and innovative adventure gamed for the ZX Spectrum home computer called The Lords of Midnight. The game was extremely well received and garnered high praise for its gameplay, the expansive world in which it is set, and its use of a clever graphical technique known as "landscaping" to render the scene with pre-scaled sprites. The Lords of Midnight turned out to be Singleton's most well respected title and is considered by many to be one of the best video games ever created.

Versions of The Lords of Midnight were soon released on a few other (mainly European) platforms of the day, and in 1991 DOS PC versions of the game and its sequel, Doomdark's Revenge, were released, originally developed as reverse engineered fan conversions by Christopher Wild. (Singleton gave his stamp of approval to Wild's conversions -- see Wild's 2004 Retro Gamer two-piece article / interview with Singleton.) Not long after, Wild began thinking about doing Windows versions of the games and thus began his work on The Midnight Engine, a system that would allow the Midnight games to run under modern operating systems and, thanks to data abstraction, would also allow new games to be created under the same framework.

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I came to Jeff Minter's oeuvre late, around the time of the XBLA release of Space Giraffe. I mention this not (only) to display the depths of my ignorance, but to provide context: there's more to love in Gridrunner [$0.99] than just nostalgia. For anyone who missed the heyday of the Commodore 64, Minter's iOS titles might seem a bit unapproachable, but consider giving them a shot – they might surprise you.

Gridrunner wears its roots proudly, but it isn't a dogmatically faithful recreation of the 1982 original. Or, rather, it isn't only that: both the Vic-20 and Commodore 64 version of the title are present here as optional modes. The real fun is in the remake, which takes the things that made Gridrunner great from the start and runs with them. The grid and its cruel lasers, the little ship that faces them down alone, the flying droids and the missile pods they leave behind – all these things return. This time they bring along retina graphics, power ups, new foes and moments of bullet-pulsing glory.

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Most of us have played the game "Snake" which came pre-loaded on Nokia phones back in the day. You know the one: Eat pellets to make your snake longer, but avoid your own growing tail. There's various snake incarnations on the App-Store, such as Hard Lines [99¢] which we reviewed favorably back in June. But right now, I'm really enjoying Hyper Snake [99¢] by ClawHammer-Games.

Hyper Snake uses accelerometer tilt controls to steer the snake and there's no other control options. This will put some people off, but the tilt controls are really superb, with three different tilt configurations available depending on how you hold your device. I used the slightly-inclined setting and the tilts were totally responsive. It's easy to move slow and precisely, or to accelerate the snake rapidly.

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When Apple announced, four years ago, that they would be releasing an iPhone SDK (for free) and opening an App Store where developers far and wide could peddle their creations, it became immediately clear to us that iOS (née iPhone) gaming was going to be huge. As developers jumped on board and began crafting titles for the platform, many noted that a game creation environment emerged that harkened back to the early-'80s home computer days when a single developer could sit down with an idea, bang out some code, and sell his game at the store down the block -- a floppy wrapped up nicely in a zip-lock bag. The barrier to entry was, again, nil.

Plenty of major studios began porting iOS versions of their large console titles over, sure, but it's really been the wonderful indie developers out there, following that development model of olde, that have contributed most of what's really special to iOS gaming. It's also worth noting that a great many of the true App Store gems adhere to the gameplay model that was the standard back in those early days of video games, both in the home and in the arcade: simple gameplay that's instantly engaging, delivering "just one more game" fun in short play-sessions. They really knew how to do it way back when -- fields of encroaching Asteroids, a furiously barreling Centipede, the quick thinking demanded of a Missile Commander, and the battle with gravity that is Gravitar. Wonderful stuff.

I'm thrilled to report that something incredible has just been revealed that stands to generate gameplay opportunities for iOS gamers that marry that white-knuckle gaming excellence of decades past with the here and now of a particular mobile gaming platform. In perhaps the biggest news ever to come out of an iOS game studio, Seamus Blackley, co-creator of the Xbox, has formed the startup Innovative Leisure and has pulled together a team of famous designers from the Atari of the '70s and '80s to create original, new games for the "new arcade," which is this team's term for the iOS platform.

The veteran Atari developers in question, or "Jedi Council," includes Ed Rotberg, creator of Battlezone; Owen Rubin, creator of Major Havoc and Space Duel; Rich Adam, creator of Gravitar and co-developer of Missile Command; Ed Logg, co-creator of Asteroids and Centipede; Dennis Koble, creator of Touch Me and Shooting Gallery; Bruce Merrit, creator of Black Widow; and Tim Skelly (of Cinematronics, not Atari), creator of Rip-Off. In all, 11 developers of olde, along with several young interns, make up the group. "This is the dream team from Atari," says Blackley.

As Blackley told VentureBeat,

“We had that big collection of games, and we love the history of game design,” Blackley said. “I’m lucky because I love games and following that love has always done me well. Once we figured out the iPhone is the new arcade, that games from the old days fit this new audience and their on-the-go lifestyle, we knew what to do. There is already a group of people who know how to operate and innovate in this space. They had the longest string of hit games in history. And they wanted to get back together again.”

Blackley's partner in the venture, chief executive Van Burnham, came to know many of the early Atari game designers in writing her 2003 book Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age 1971-1984. She introduced them to Blackley, and the like-minded group formed a close relationship. During this time, Blackley and Burnham created their own arcade in an LA warehouse, which they called the "Supercade," filled with rows and rows of vintage cabinets, gathered to illustrate the history of gameplay, as viewed by its curators. And, it is within this arcade in LA that the team of designers will work together on their new iOS creations, so as to gather inspiration by the games that surround them.

To start, the team came up with 30 game ideas in all, narrowed the list down to the 10 best, and pitched them to the publishing house THQ, who indicated they wanted them all. Right now, seven of the titles are in development. (THQ has first right of refusal on all of the team's titles, in exchange for funding, but Blackley indicates he can shop around any ideas the publisher dismisses.)

As a particular retro game lover -- and lover of those titles that stay close to that lean formula of decades past -- this news excites me in ways not easy to express. And, I have a feeling I won't be the only one whose hair stood up on the back of their neck in hearing it. Rest assured we will bring full coverage of any and all news out of Innovative Leisure, including further details the team will be sharing at next week's DICE Summit in Las Vegas.

Read the full interview story over at VentureBeat, and the photo gallery at Time is worth a look.

Breakout-style games can be tough to create. On one hand, their relative simplicity and timelessness offer gameplay that can be considered universally accessible. On the other hand, this simplicity challenges developers to incorporate new gameplay elements to avoid being classified as stale or boring. This is the exact problem with Transformoid [$0.99], the latest in a long line of Breakout clones. While the steampunk-inspired game does offer a different take on some standard elements, in the end there’s simply not enough to overcome what is otherwise a somewhat boring take on the genre.

As far as core gameplay is concerned, Transformoid stays very close to its roots. The game places you and your paddle at the bottom of the screen versus the blocks up top; there are no barriers or enemies looking to destroy your paddle or any other twists in the formula. In this regard, Transformoid doesn’t offer anything unique or innovated, although it does offer plenty of levels to play in, along with elements that seek to separate itself from the competition, particularly when it comes to physics manipulation.

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Lots of folks out there became new iOS gamers over the holidays, and one of my personal App Store favorites that may not be on their radars just got iCade support in an update. Madgarden's excellent Saucelifter! Heavy Disc [App Store] is a Choplifter clone that started life on the PC and landed on the iPhone in early 2009. Since then, it has seen numerous updates, getting iPad support as as universal app and receiving various gameplay tweaks here and there.

Gameplay involves piloting your flying saucer to various Earth-based prison barracks, blasting open the doors, picking up your captive crewmates, and dropping them off at the transporter where they're beamed safely back to your alien world.  This is made challenging by evil Earth forces, including tanks, laser turrets, fighter jets, and flying attack drones.

There are a lot of nice touches to the title. The stylized, vector-based 2D graphics lend the game clean, future-retro visuals, with a day-into-night changing skyline that adds nice variation to the scene. A letter-box effect alters the aspect of the play area to provide early warning of incoming enemies. It's extremely well done.

On the iCade, the leftmost six buttons control fire / autofire in the three relevant directions -- left, down, and right. I greatly enjoy Saucelifter! via tilt-control, but I have to say that gameplay on the iCade more closely delivers the kind of fun I remember having in front of Gorlin's helicopter classic, hour after hour, back in 1984. Other iOS controller accessories that feature iCade emulation, such as the iControlPad, should also work fine with Saucelifter.

Those not sold on Saucelifter! should at least have a look at the Lite version [link].