Back at E3 I sat down with the guys from TrueAxis to check out their upcoming game Space Tripper and get the low down on some upcoming Jet Car Stunts DLC. As you may recall, just before E3 was WWDC, during which Apple release the gold master for the then upcoming iOS 4 upgrade. Not long after, it was released, leaving TrueAxis now not only scrambling to finish the DLC pack, but also add in all the iOS 4 refinements they wanted to. After "some headaches," as they described it, the upcoming Jet Car Stunts update is currently in Apple's hands waiting for review.

This update is bringing an additional 26 levels available for a DLC purchase of $1.99, as well as the levels from the lite version being added to the full version for free. The previous impossible difficulty levels are now playable in casual mode. Best of all, Jet Car Stunts has been updated to not only have full screen anti-aliasing on both the 3rd generation iPod touch and iPhone 3GS, but also full Retina Display support on the iPhone 4.

If this is the first you've heard of Jet Car Stunts, you simply must check out our review. It's a platformer that's been cleverly disguised as a 3D racing game where you must use your jet car to overcome insane obstacles, jumps, loops, and other stunts. The visual style is delightfully retro, with extremely simple 3D models set on top of an endless sky. The game runs at an astronomical framerate, and is one of the few games we've awarded 5 stars since the inception of our ranking system.

You really can't go wrong with Jet Car Stunts, and with the addition of the upcoming DLC pack and other enhancements, this great game is getting even better.

The much anticipated first persona shooter Archetype has finally launched in the U.S. We first spotted the game having beta launched in the Czech App Store a few weeks ago as it prepared for its international launch. Archetype is an online 5-on-5 team deathmatch game that works over Wi-Fi, 3G and EDGE.

Anyone who has ever complained about the "freemium" model of Eliminate now has a chance to put-up or shut-up. The developer says in their game description "No gimmicks, no tricks: iPWNAGE IS JUST $2.99."

We've given the game a quick spin for a couple of games over Wi-Fi. The game runs very well on the two devices we were able to test initially: the iPhone 4 and a 2nd Generation iPod Touch. Controls are very smooth and as you have come to expect from an iPhone FPS: left to move, right to aim/shoot. The game comes with 5 different maps with 6 weapons (Battle and Precision Rifles, rapid-fire AutoMag, shotgun, missile launcher, and brutal melee axe) as well as 2 different types of grenades.

Controller options include invert aim axes, auto-fire on/off, aim sensitivity, vibration on/off, display joysticks on/off, and display radar on/off. The game natively supports the iPhone 4's retina display.

The game comes with 3 different modes: Team Deathmatch, Challenge, and Training. The bulk of the game seems to be focused around the online Team Deathmatch. The developers have 5 different regions covered with servers: U.S. East, U.S. West, Europe, Asia, and S. America. You can easily toggle between them though presumably it originally places you with the group you are closest too.

Since it has just launched within the hour, the number of players available hasn't picked up yet. I've been involved in a few matches with 2 on 2, so I haven't seen the full 5 on 5 action quite yet. Early impressions have been very positive, but we'll post a full review after we are able to spend some time with it. The whole package seems very professionally put together. As with any online multiplayer game, however, the trick is going to be able to build up a sustainable player pool and to see how the servers can hold up.

More impressions are trickling into our forums.

A couple weeks ago we first caught wind of Archetype, an online first person shooter by iPhone developer MunkyFun which is comprised of veterans of LucasArts and the creators of both Shift [99¢] and Ivory Tiles [99¢] for the iPhone. Much like ngmoco's Eliminate [Free], Archetype is said to work over WiFi, 3G, and also EDGE connections. Players will rank up as they play, earning experience and winning medals along the way.

The main differentiator between Archetype and other similar online shooters is that Archetype will be playable with up to ten players at once, in teams of five, with an assortment of six different weapons to choose from. We're anxious to see how the game works, and likely won't have to wait too long as per the Archetype web site the game is launching in "early July" for $2.99.

For more information on the game, including a few hands-on impressions from a few people who managed to snag the game early, check out the thread in our forums. I'm not entirely sure how MunkyFun is going to be able to provide a solid 5v5 first person shooter experience that will even play well over EDGE, but needless to say we're going to be keeping a very close eye on this game to give it a try once its released.

Austin, Texas based iPhone developer Pangea Softwarehave been making video games since their inception in the late 80's. Originally targeting the Apple IIGS, Pangea has been hopping to each new Apple platform as they're released, this time tweaking their existing iPhone games to run at the native 960x640 resolution of the iPhone 4's Retina Display. As mentioned in our first impressions post on gaming with the iPhone 4, increasing the output resolution of existing games doesn't really add to gameplay at all... But it sure does look good.

Noteworthy games that have been updated include:

Enigmo - Starting its life as a Mac game, Enigmo is a physics puzzle game that was voted Best iPhone Game at WWDC in 2008. In the game you move various objects around the game board to direct water droplets to their destination. Levels start easy and get so hard you will be desperately searching Google for the solution. (App Store)

Enigmo 2 - This sequel takes the same basic gameplay of the original and adds a third dimension to the puzzles, which makes things even more difficult. Before long, you're not only routing water droplets around, but also laser beams. Both games are worth having, although you should probably start with Enigmo before adding the complexity of moving puzzle pieces in 3D in Enigmo 2. (Review, App Store)

Warheads - Warheads is basically Missile Command combined with one of those oddly elaborate 3D fireworks screensavers. The gameplay is classic Missile Command with four directions to defend from instead of just one. The eye candy combined with the frantic camera shaking as missiles are exploding make for a pretty cool experience, especially on the iPhone 4. (Review, App Store)

Nanosaur 2 - Also starting as a Mac game, Nanosaur 2 was ported to the iPhone in late 2008. It hasn't aged very well compared to Pangea's other games, but the premise of piloting a massive dinosaur from the future who is equipped with a massive arsenal of weaponry couldn't get much more ridiculous and/or awesome. (App Store)

I'm glad to see so many iPhone 4 Retina Display updates coming along, especially this soon after the launch of the device. These are just my favorite games of theirs, they have many other iPhone and iPad games on the App Store that are worth checking out as well.

Engadget posts a hands on video of the iPhone 4 in action with ngmoco's new Eliminate: Gun Range game that supports the gyroscope.

As you can see in the video, the game is a gallery shooter but the use of the gyroscope can add more precision to the movements. (Sorry, not viewable on iPhone)

Not entirely well shown in the video is the fact that you can also move the phone in 3d space to change your aim. While some of the same gameplay can be reproduced with the accelerometers, the gyroscope adds more precision and also allows you to, for example, translate the device in 3d space. Rotating your body to the left, for example, will shift your aim accordingly.

After an epic wait this morning, I managed to get my hot little hands on an iPhone 4. After rushing home and loading it up with every game I thought would be worth trying on the device, the results were somewhat predictable. The small handful of games that have been released or updated to with support for the Retina Display are gorgeous, and everything else both loads faster and performs better. If for any reason you were sitting on the fence trying to decide if upgrading to an iPhone 4 (or the presumed 4th generation iPod touch when it's released) is worth it for gaming, it absolutely is.

I know we're kind of beating a dead horse at this point, what with posting high-resolution screenshots of the few games that take advantage of the Retina Display already, but the quality of the screen is truly something you need to see with your own eyes to fully appreciate. I was at the WWDC keynote, heard everything Steve had to say about it first hand, spent the following weeks wondering what it was going to be like, and it still exceeded my expectations. The pixels are so tightly packed on the 3.5" screen that games running at 960x640 look more like screenshot renderings you'd see in some kind of a magazine advertisement than any actual game you've played before.

Being unable to distinguish individual pixels really does make things look like they're just printed on the screen. Flight Control [99¢] is unbelievably crisp, and while better graphics doesn't change the gameplay in the slightest, the difference is even more amazing when I run the game side by side both on my new iPhone 4 and old iPhone 3GS. 3D games like Real Racing [$4.99] look absolutely fantastic, and even run at a great frame rate to boot.

One thing that is apparent in these 3D games is that while the output resolution has been increased, the polygon count of the in-game models seems to have remained the same. This can make blocky models stand out even more, and while it wasn't much of an issue in Real Racing, the low-detail players in the recently releasedNCAA Football HD [$7.99] really do stick out like a sore thumb as their little 3D stick legs prance about the field. I expect this to improve over time, as both of these games were likely quick and dirty upscale jobs. 3D games designed from the get go with the iPhone 4 in mind in the future will likely be where the true eye candy is.

Speaking of EA's NCAA Football HD, having yet another platform for developers to target could lead to an even messier App Store. It's too early to really tell how this is going to play out, but currently it seems EA is content splitting their releases in to a normal release for the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and the iPod Touch along with a "HD" release for the iPhone 4, and finally a "for iPad" release for the iPad. This gets even more confusing when you consider how many developers are already labeling things as "HD" for the iPad even though technically speaking neither the iPhone 4 or the iPad are a HD device. Let's all just cross our fingers that developers eventually just settle on single universal releases of their games as I'm sure everyone would rather deal with larger file sizes than potentially purchasing the same game three (or more) times.

Currently the best demonstration of the new gyroscope controls available on the iPhone 4 is ngmoco's Eliminate: Gun Range [99¢]. While the game is just a basic shooting gallery, controlling your aim both by tilting the iPhone 4 as well as moving it about in 3D space is worth 99¢ for the novelty alone. Real Racing also has gyroscope controls but overall they didn't make much of a difference compared to the regular version.

After fiddling around in both games, however, I was really am impressed with just how precise the sensor inside the iPhone is... Although the current implementations feel a tad gimmicky at this point instead of really adding any real benefits to gameplay similar to the iPhone 3GS compass-controlled games. To be fair, we don't believe either Firemint or ngmoco had actual devices in hand to test these games with, and it stands to reason that each implementation will improve once they're able to work outside of the iPhone simulator.

Just like 3D games that fully harness the power of the A4 chip, I expect it will also be a while before developers realize what's possible with the gyroscope. There's definitely some amazing potential waiting to be unleashed here, and maybe not even by using the gyroscope strictly as an input method. For instance, I suspect using gyroscope data could even allow you to play tilt controlled games in a moving vehicle, though haven't gotten confirmation on that possibility.

As far as older games running on the iPhone 4, they load tons faster, so much so that many of my favorite simple games (obligatory Doodle Jump [99¢] plug) have almost no load time at all. Also, unlike the iPad where running games in 2X mode makes most games look blurry or blocky, since the screen size in the iPhone 4 is identical all the old games look just like they did on the previous iPhones. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say they look a little better as often times text is rendered at the higher resolution, and the Retina Display has better color reproduction.

In my initial tests, the battery life on the iPhone 4 seems in line with what Apple has been boasting, and I've both been able to play games and use my phone for other tasks with substantially less drain on my overall battery percentage. None of my tests have been that scientific, but practically everyone with an iPhone 4 is reporting similar battery experiences. A bigger battery obviously means more play time, and who doesn't want that?

Overall the iPhone 4 is most definitely a worthy upgrade for any serious App Store gamer. I'm sure we'll see a similarly specced out iPod touch this fall (or potentially even sooner) that might be worth waiting for if you dislike AT&T, but overall I've been extremely happy with my day of gaming on the iPhone 4.

We mentioned earlier that Firemint was one of the first on the scene with "Retina"-display enhanced versions of their game. We managed to get some full-size iPhone 4 screenshots of the game which are included below.

Firemint lists the following features for the free update:

• Gorgeous new graphics perfect for showing off the Retina display with high resolution textures, more detailed car interiors, improved track corners, beautifully updated menus and exceptionally smooth graphical performance on iPhone 4
• Even more responsive and accurate controls on iPhone 4, with three-axis gyro support in addition to accelerometer
• Smoother graphics on iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3 with iOS4 anti-aliasing
• Support for iOS4 multitasking on compatible devices: switch effortlessly between your favourite apps

Screenshots off of an iPhone 4 (click for full size):

In many ways, its silly to be posting these screens since most of you are viewing them on a standard monitor. The appeal of the iPhone 4's display is said to be the extremely high dots per inch (DPI) that it outputs that results in a particularly smooth image. Still, we were just as curious to see the full size screens even if we can't fully appreciate them until Thursday.

Ngmoco has just released their first iPhone 4-specific title. Eliminate: Gun Range is presently an iPhone 4 only game that offers you a virtual firing range with full support for the high-resolution Retina display graphics as well as support for the iPhone 4's gyroscope.

The developer lists the following features:

• G-scopeâ„¢ virtual aiming control system with 3D gyroscopic precision
• 12 high fidelity weapons from the arsenals of today's elite militaries
• 144 target-shooting challenges set in three different HD firing ranges
• Win medals and compare your results with others on global leaderboards
• Requires iPhone4 technology. 3GS support and new content coming soon!

Here are full resolution screenshots. Click on the images for full size:

Obviously, we haven't played it yet, but it's great to see some early games with gyroscope support. We've been told that gyroscope controls will "feel" much better and far more accurate than existing accelerometer controls. We're anxious to give it a try.

App Store Link: Eliminate: Gun Range, $0.99 (iPhone 4 Only)

Twitter user @loyalmoses is one of the lucky people who got their iPhone 4 today who posted three full resolution screenshots of Flight Control [99¢] with the new iPhone 4 enhanced update that hit the App Store today. Click these images to see them full size, then imagine that number of pixels on a 3.5" screen. Yes, it blows my mind too.

We likely won't get our iPhone 4's until we pick them up on Thursday (I'm going to be at the flagship store at 5th Ave in New York City... yeesh.) so if you're one of the lucky ones who managed to get an iPhone 4 we're looking for impressions on gaming on the device. Please shoot us an email at tips@toucharcade.com if you'd like to be an official TouchArcade test bunny.

In a completely unexpected turn of events, Apple seems to have authorized FedEx and UPS to begin delivering iPhone 4's early. Some people are lucky enough to have their devices out for delivery today or in some cases even already delivered. Also, Apple has confirmed that other preorders will be arriving tomorrow, an entire day ahead of the original launch date. It's hard to say whether or not Apple is just throwing ravenous preorderers a bone, or if they're potentially attempting to defray the nearly inevitable launch fiasco experienced with the iPhone 3G when AT&T's servers simply could not handle all the activations on launch day.

Yesterday the developers of Carcassonne [$4.99] mentioned on Twitter that they've already got 1.1 submitted which contains high-resolution artwork for the iPhone 4, and if you own either Flight Control [99¢] or Real Racing [$4.99 / Free] updates are already on the App Store that take advantage of iOS 4 and the Retina Display of the iPhone 4.

One other thing that has us raising our eyebrow is that Real Racing just added full gyroscope support, which presumably means they've been testing on an actual device. This makes us wonder what other developers have been blessed by Apple with actual iPhone 4 hardware that will also have enhanced versions of their games appearing on the App Store shortly.

In the meantime, I've created a thread on our forums for any other confirmed iPhone 4 enhanced games that I encourage everyone to post in if they stumble across any other updates that mention anything to do with taking advantage of the iPhone 4.