Ravensword is an open-world roleplaying game that begins with a mysterious cut scene that mentions strange creatures wandering the countryside at night, villagers gone missing, and a king who hasn't been seen in years. Your character was found at the edge of the forest, and was brought to the nearby town of Aven where a friendly woman named Beatrice attempts to answer some of your amnesia-induced questions.

She mentions a nearby castle filled with evil, but obviously recommends you you stay away, and instead head down to the nearby Rat Donald's stand to take your first quest: Collecting five rats for the "dinner rush". He arms you with a club and then sends you off to the nearby forest to bash the surprising amount of giant sized rats. The rest of the game continues as you hop from quest to quest, leveling up, collecting items, and discovering more about your mysterious identity.

Ravensword has both third person and first person views, and the game's controls work a lot like the many first person shooters on the platform. A virtual joystick on the left side of the screen controls your movement, and swiping anywhere on screen with your right thumb allows you to look around. Swiping with two fingers changes your view much faster, and is useful for when things sneak up on you from behind.

Combat uses a lock-on system where you can tap an enemy, then start swinging by hitting the attack button in the bottom right corner of the screen. Double tapping an enemy brings up their statistics, and to see your own stats along with viewing the map, changing settings, or looking up your quest log is just a matter of tapping the backpack icon in the top right.

The graphics and music in Ravensword combine very well to create a whimsical fantasy atmosphere that permeates the whole game. Forum members have also reported that Ravensword even performs well on the first generation iPod Touch, but you can squeeze even more performance out of the game by toggling off shadows and foliage in the game's settings if you prefer a higher frame rate to visual effects. Ravensword runs like a dream on the iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation iPod Touch, a surprising feat given the level of detail in game and the fact that they're using Unity and not some highly optimized custom game engine.

The developers haven't been modest in their comparisons between Ravensword and other games, and have mentioned long-standing series like Elder Scrolls and Zelda as inspiration behind the game. While the game does have its limitations, it's an amazingly impressive effort for a two man development team.

Some of its shortcomings are things like lack of any real character customization, when you level up your attributes are assigned automatically and there aren't any skill trees to speak of– two features that have become somewhat expected in most modern RPG's. There's also no secondary skills or traditional magic you can cast, so in its current form you will be limited to swinging your melee weapon and (when you get it) shooting your bow.

Later in the game, things do start to feel a bit limited, but more because of the lacking diversity in weapons and armor than the inability to customize your character's skills. In games like Dungeon Hunter or Underworlds, different loot flows like water, and it seems like you're constantly upgrading gear– something I feel like I'm missing from Ravensword. Despite that, the game world itself and the plot line of the main quest kept me sucked in throughout and the impressive 3D engine gives the game an open-world feeling otherwise unmatched on the iPhone.

Overall, Ravensword is a great addition to the somewhat scarce landscape of RPG's on the iPhone. It has some flaws, but it's a lot of fun and at the end of the day that's really all that matters. With an estimated 6-8 hours of gameplay, and side quests to keep you busy long after that, I can't help but recommend Ravensword.

App Store Link: Ravensword: The Fallen King, $6.99

The Isle of 8-bit Treasures is more or less Rogue, wrapped up and packaged with a retro look and feel that seems more at home on an NES than an iPhone. But whereas Rogue is entirely set in a dungeon world, The Isle features a number of environments to play through, including dungeons, caverns, forests and ruins, across more than 60 missions. It has a feel that's somewhat reminiscent of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.

The game lets you choose between three different characters — Swordsman, Witch and Hunter, each with their own gameplay characteristics. Different areas of the island game world are accessed from a central map, some areas and weapons of which are randomly generated using songs in your iTunes library as seeds. The various play areas are full of roving creatures with which you must do battle, and three different types of objects — stones, powders and crystals — that can be collected to enhance your capabilities.  Each game area is completed when the heart shaped Valor icon is collected from the area's final floor.

The Isle brings an interesting twist on the weapons systems of most games of its sort. To the right of the on-screen play area is your vertical Weapon Reel. The Reel contains a light smattering of power icons by default and scrolls downward with each attack you perform. If a power icon appears in the window at the bottom of the Reel during an attack, your weapon delivers more damage than normal. Crystals collected along the way can be dragged onto your Weapon Reel to deliver a series of high-damage attacks in battle.

The game features colorful, whimsical, retro-inspired graphics and feels very smooth to play.  But don't let the graphics fool you, this is a rather difficult / challenging game.  Many's the time I've found myself slaughtered by a cartoonish enemy after just a few minutes of play. And while this presents a notable challenge, some readers in our forums lament the small number of floors in some of the levels (some just 3 or 4 deep), as compared to Rogue's far deeper dungeons. More troublesome, perhaps, is the lack of a mid-dungeon save feature. Tap out to the home screen or get on a phone call and it's back to the island map.  Hopefully Tecmo will address this unfortunate omission in a future update.

Despite its shortcomings, early adopters are enjoying it on the whole. The Isle of 8-bit Treasures is an interesting new take on a solid formula and should appeal to many iPhone adventure fans. Let's hope an update will make things less frustrating for an interrupted gamer.

See our brief video of very early stages of several game areas to get a feel for the game.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

App Store Link: The Isle of 8-bit Treasures, $4.99

Last month Wisp Games released a sprawling galactic role playing game set far in the future, known as Flatspace [App Store] for the iPhone and iPod touch.  An adaptation of the well-reviewed 2003 PC release, Flatspace is a large scale, open space trading game in the spirit of the legendary Elite, Galaxy on Fire [App Store] for the iPhone, and others of the sort.

The distant future. Space has expanded to such an extent that stars and planets can no longer hold form. Humanity still lives and works in space stations and ships, islands of light and technology in an otherwise cold and flat void.

Such is the backstory of the Flatspace game universe.  Upon reading the title of this game along with the backstory, I must confess that I was anticipating an amazingly clever and wholly new type of game experience that might harken back to Abbot's Flatland, or something like the same, but this is not the case.  Not that Flatspace is a let-down, but it seems the "flat" backstory is simply justification for a game of galactic proportions being rendered in top-down 2D (well, 2.5D) as opposed to 3D.  I just wanted to clear that up, directly.

At the start of a new game, you create a captain for your ship, choosing from among a variety of professions: Trader, Mercenary, Bounty Hunter, Space Pirate, Police Officer and Scavenger.  You're then equipped with a rather meager spacecraft and dropped into a random spot in the game universe.  From there you're out to amass wealth by way of completing various missions and trading items between space stations — that is, if you're on the straight and narrow.  Another approach is to basically become a space pirate, raiding, stealing, and killing in order to bring in the loot.  Whatever your approach, there are plenty of other space pirates out there to keep you on your toes — watch out for them.

Your ship has the ability to target and scan both space stations and ships.  This reveals important information about the nature of these vessels, so that you can decide whether to interact with them (and in what fashion) or to pass them by.  Your craft is armed with lasers, but available weapons upgrades, which include cannons, missiles and tractor beams, add to your abilities and are necessary to complete certain missions.  Control of your ship is handled via accelerometer for steering, as well as on-screen touch for control of weapons and various other ship features.

Flatspace for the iPhone features three different playmodes.  First off, there's the Standard Game, which lets you create a captain and begin amassing your fortune.  The Custom Game mode gives you control over the types of people in the universe (pirates, no pirates, etc.), the quantity and visibility of space stations, the numbers of asteroids and nebulas, and so forth.  The Arcade Game just throws you straight into the heat of battle, where the emphasis is on action rather than strategy.

Even with my abbreviated time with the game, it's clear that Flatspace offers significant play time to those who fancy a large-scale space RPG.  While more approachable than the seminal classic Elite, Flatspace is one of those games in which you can (and must) invest a lot of time.

The accelerometer-only steering can seem imprecise and the interface, a bit unpolished, perhaps reflective of it being a port of a PC game, but Wisp Games indicates that the first update is almost ready, which will include the option of non-accelerometer steering, video tutorials, and the ability to choose your initial bankroll for Custom Games.  And those who remain undecided can check out the free, demo version of the Windows release to get a feel for the action.

App Store Link: Flatspace, $2.99

Long ago, craftsmen of legendary art conceived an artifact of immortality; an engine of life to overthrow death and usher in the rule of peace. Yet one thousand years the Quinotaur reigns and fills the holes of the earth with horrors. Ascend from the deep where he has buried you, end the tyrant and destroy the source of his power – The Relic.

Play alone or with friends the intense hack and slash game that pits you against hordes of skeletons, spiders and evil wizards. Live the story, consume potions, collect spells and complete quests through a number of levels to uncover the secret of The Relic and finally restore peace to the world. Enjoy stunning graphics, animation and music that make the world of The Relic come alive.

The Relic will be playable with up to two players via bluetooth, and if you're on WiFi up to four players will be able to slash their way to victory.

While still under development, The Relic is looking very interesting.

Hybrid is an adventure roleplaying game with an extensive skill system all wrapped around a brawler-style fighting game. You play as Grey, a kid with a mysterious past protected by an equally mysterious guardian named Fairy through a quest that will take you numerous hours to complete that touches on a number of RPG cliches along the way.

With every enemy you kill, you gain experience points and in-game currency which can be spent on an impressively deep character customization and upgrade system. The combat is the star of the show in Hybrid, and as you fight through each level you eventually gain more moves, techniques, and magical attacks to dispatch your enemies. These attacks can be chained together to form massive combos, and fighting entire gangs of baddies at once can be fairly satisfying.

Like Zenonia, there are a lot of people who love Hybrid, there's a thread on our forums filled with fans of the game. I do appreciate all the work Gamevil has put in to the game, and as you level up and gain more abilities, watching Grey fly around the screen killing enemies is fairly spectacular.

Where the game fell short for me, however, was in the seemingly endless amount of button mashing and thumb swiping required to kill all the enemies on a level only to watch a cut scene with tons of dialog, then get back to mashing the attack button. Regardless, I still recommend trying the free version, because opinions on this game seem divided, and you could find yourself amongst those who can't get enough of Hybrid.

App Store Links:

• Hybrid: Eternal Whisper Free, Free
• Hybrid: Eternal Whisper, $5.99

As the title may imply, in Five Minutes to Kill Yourself, you've found yourself fed up with working in your monotonous office environment and have decided to off yourself. Utilizing various objects found around your office, you only have five minutes to do enough damage to put yourself out of your misery.

It isn't that simple though, as your bothersome coworkers often initiate unskippable conversations with you. Much like working in a real office, these conversations accomplish nothing other than wasting your time. In some instances, through dialog choices you might get a coworker to attack you, but most of the time they just pester you about lunch.

You can staple your forehead, drink toilet water, pee on computers, and countless other things. The amount of objects that you can interact with and the objects that can be combined with others for even more lethal damage is pretty amazing. The following video shows the game's tutorial, selecting clothing, and finally, killing yourself:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Five Minutes to Kill Yourself is also available as a free flash game on the Adult Swim website. It plays exactly the same as the iPhone version, the only difference is instead of using your mouse you use your finger.

Five Minutes to Kill Yourself should be available on the App Store very soon.

Update: Wow, we weren't kidding about it being available soon. It was just released moments ago.

App Store Link: 5 Minutes to Kill Yourself, $2.99

The developer describes the game:

Undercroft is a dazzling, epic adventure set in a fantasy world full of magic and monsters. It combines the atmosphere of classic role playing games with plenty of new features, and brings it all together with cool graphics and sophisticated level design.

The game features multiple environments, hundreds of items, and over 20 hours of gameplay. The developers have provided a lite version to try which will give you a feel for the game before committing to the full version.

App Store Links: Undercroft Lite, Free, Undercroft, $4.99

The developer lists the following features in this update:

• Survival Battle (Single and Multiplayer) — Try to stay alive for as long as you can. You will be rewared a new weapon – Golden Desert Eagle – if you can stay alive for 10 minutes or more.
• Horde Battle (Single and Multiplayer) — Slaughter wave after wave of zombies. You will be rewared a P90, M4 Super 90 and Golden AK-47 if you can clear wave 8, 16 and 24 respectively.
• Powerful New Weapons — Altogether 5 new weapons, 4 can be unlocked in the Survival and Horde Battle; 1 can be bought in weapon shop.
• Bonus Indicator — Bonus indicator has been added for scenes with challenge completed.
• Dual-Stick Transparency Setting — Player can choose from 3 levels of transparency – None, Half and Full.
• New ranking for Survival and Horde Battle
• Profile name length increased to 8 characters
• Reduced the detection area of Briefing Button
• Bug fixes

Meridian provided us with the following trailer showing gameplay in the v1.1 release.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

A planned v1.2 update will add Wi-Fi multiplayer gaming to the mix.  See our review of the initial release, posted in late August.

App Store Link: Alive 4 Ever, $1.99

Your quest (and associated subquests) will have you venturing across the land and killing (almost) everything that moves in a variety of different environments. The dungeons and villages you come across are beautifully rendered, greatly adding to the fantasy atmosphere and dark mood of the game. Just like the rest of the games that Gameloft has been releasing lately, there were several moments where I experienced a "Wow, I can't believe this is running on my phone" feeling as dimly lit corridors lead into giant expanses lit by candle with legions of skeletons to be slain.

Your character movement can either be handled using an on-screen virtual joystick or touch controls. The joystick is self explanatory, but with the touch controls enabled a small red cross will appear anywhere you touch in the game world and your character will run there. I've found myself preferring the virtual joystick, although touch controls work just as well once you get over the learning curve of figuring out the nuances of the pathing your character chooses to take to reach the point that you touched.

Along the right side of the screen are a series of buttons that cover both your basic attack and several magic abilities that are accessed by swiping right of left across a set of buttons next to each other that act like a virtual dial of sorts easily allowing you to quickly scroll through and select magic attacks.

Three classes are included, each with slightly different play styles. The warrior is heavily armored and can take a beating while you slowly dispatch your opponents. The rogue is more dexterity based, and without heavy armor must quickly kill foes to avoid taking damage. The mage uses energy based attacks and a magical shield to provide some protection while zapping the evil minions you come across in dungeons.

One nice feature in Dungeon Hunter that seems to rarely be seen in single player RPG's is both a health and mana bar that slowly regenerate on their own. You don't need to do any kind of health or mana micromanagement to make it through a dungeon, as long as you can last through a fight you can quickly regenerate back to full. I could see some RPG purists not liking this feature, but I thought it made the game a lot more fun as there was never a point where I just needed to start a level over because I was too low on life to make it past the next fight.

Dungeon Hunter has an impressive amount of character customization to it, almost to the point of being slightly overwhelming for a mobile game. Four statistics can be improved as you level up along with an array of skills that points can be dumped into as your character becomes more powerful. Your character can have items equipped in ten different equipment slots and your base stats combined with bonuses from magic items combine to form an extensive display of your numerical offensive and defensive ratings such as your critical strike or block chances.

While RPG veterans will be drooling at the sight of this much character depth in a portable game, I could easily see these same features being fairly frustrating to a more casual gamer as a lot of the options could be confusing if you're not familiar with how item and stat based RPG's work. On top of that, because of how much functionality is packed into these menu screens, most of the interface elements are very small and feel cramped.

Dungeon Hunter has an auto-equip system that will search through your items and equip the best available item for each slot, but the decisions it makes for what items you should be using seem to be based on the item level itself and not necessarily what class you're playing. For instance, I picked up a magic wand and the auto-equip button absolutely insisted I equip it on my rogue even though I had weapons that increased my dexterity that were better for my character.

On the same menu screens you will also be able to select one of the five fairies you will eventually pick up during your adventure that each come with their own offensive and defensive perks. These fairies all have different elemental powers associated to them and have highly creative names like "Wetty" and "Windy". (I bet you can't guess which elements they represent!)

Unfortunately, the dungeons themselves as well as the enemy spawns aren't randomized, but with the three character classes each providing a different spin on the gameplay, gamers who enjoyed their first romp through Dungeon Hunter will likely easily enjoy their second and third with the other classes. There are also four save slots in the game, so you will have more than enough room for three play throughs.

The pacing of Dungeon Hunter feels very good, and unlike Zenonia, I never ran into an area where I needed to grind for experience before going to the next. Quests are plentiful, and are given through characters in game with World of Warcraft-style exclamation marks above their heads. These quests cover the standard array of quest types that you would expect in an RPG such as finding an item, to talking to a person, killing a particular monster, etc.

If you like collecting loot, Dungeon Hunter is the game for you. The amount of items that drop from monsters or come out of barrels and chest is downright ridiculous at times. Nearly everything you kill will drop gold, and often an item. Chests are loot piñatas, and opening one almost always results in an explosion of gold and items. Your character can hold a near infinite amount of wealth because you can instantly transmute any item you pick up into gold regardless of where you are.

Outside of really high end magical items that are sometimes available from merchants, I was never in a situation where I didn't have enough gold to buy extra potions or other upgrades. I suppose hardcore RPG players might find the silly in-game economy to be annoying since there are rarely any financial goals that you have to work for, but similar to the regenerating health and mana bars and lack of grinding I thought this made the game more fun.

Dungeon Hunter does so many things right that it's really hard to get too worked up over the areas in the game that are lacking. The game doesn't auto-save when you quit, so if you get a phone call you will start back at the last checkpoint. This isn't as annoying as it sounds as you will hardly ever lose more than five minutes of progress, but still borders on unacceptable for an iPhone game. The load times can be long, even on my iPhone 3GS, although this is somewhat expected in graphically intensive games.

Forum members have complained about the level of difficulty in the game, and I agree that Dungeon Hunter is on the easy side. There isn't any way to increase the difficulty of the game and I rarely ever found myself in a situation where I got close to dying. I hope in the future Gameloft either adds the ability to increase the difficulty of the game or adds some kind of unlockable game modes that either up the difficulty or provide another twist on gameplay. I'd love to see something similar to Diablo II's hardcore mode where you only have one life to make it through the whole game.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Overall though, Dungeon Hunter is a blast. Until Blizzard releases an iPhone port of Diablo or Microsoft does the same with Dungeon Siege, Dungeon Hunter is a great alternative. If you like slaying monsters, earning experience, doing quests, and picking up an obscene amount of loot in the process, Dungeon Hunter is the iPhone game for you.

App Store Link: Dungeon Hunter, $6.99

Gameloft's Diablo-like action RPG Dungeon Hunter [$6.99] has returned to the App Store with a new version update.

The game originally appeared a couple of weeks ago but was pulled due to a major bug preventing game progress past the Forge level. This update offers a fix for this issue and brings the game back to the App Store.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

The game is now available for $6.99.

App Store Link: Dungeon Hunter, $6.99