Hey! You! Yeah, you. You loved Oblivion, can't get enough of Skyrim and all those subsequent "arrow to the knee" memes. You probably wish there was something at least vaguely similar on your phone or iPad, right? Well, there is. It originally hit in late 2010, so you might already have it. If you don't take a peek at our review:

You start off in Aralon by choosing one of three races - a human, elf, or troll - and from there you further refine your character by choosing its class. Both humans and elves can be male or female and pick from warrior, rogue, ranger, and mage classes. Trolls can only be male and either a warrior or a rogue. Each class has its own skill tree to master as your character levels up, and they all play quite differently from one another giving plenty of reason to play through the game as each. You then customize the look of your character model using a decent selection of hair and face choices, and although the options here aren't as robust as what you would find in a console game, it's certainly the most extensive on the iOS platform.

The story of Aralon then begins, and follows a tale of betrayal and a Kingdom on the brink of collapse. As fate would have it, you are the key element to solving these problems and restoring The Kingdom of Aralon to its previous state of peace and harmony. It's certainly the kind of story that follows clichés of the role-playing genre, but it's interesting nonetheless and serves as a good motivator to carry on and see things through. …Read More.

Aralon has aged surprisingly well, and for its sale price of 99¢ your cost-per-hour-of-entertainment in this game is down to mere pennies. Give it a look, especially if you're into semi-open world RPGs. We made an awful lot of noise about Aralon when it was first released, but, I suppose it's possible there are people out there who haven't heard about it or still haven't picked it up for whatever reason.

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines. As Nimblebit's Pocket Planes continues to barrel through its beta period, we've had a chance to try out one of its new features. It's been added since our GDC preview and we're pretty sure you're going to like it.

You know how Tiny Tower [Free] and Pocket Frogs [Free] have missions you can complete—stock this much of certain items, or breed certain colors and patterns of frogs? Pocket Planes is going to have missions, too, but they're competitive. For these ones, you're going to need a little help from your friends. Or rather, your flight crew.

A new Flight Crew challenge will be posted every so often—maybe twice a week. The challenges look to be pretty simple: deliver as many jobs (pieces of cargo and passengers) to a certain city somewhere in the world. You can't just take any old thing, though. Everything in the game has a destination, and the destination needs to match the city for this to work.

Your Flight Crew can have as many or as few people as you can muster, but the more the better: the crews who manage to bring in the most jobs will win some very cool in-game prizes. Like, say, the bad boy below. Look familiar? Nimblebit is hard at work making up some very cool secret planes as we speak—here's hoping for a good ol' fashioned airship. And on top of the cosmetics, it sounds like there will be a Bux reward to boot.

Now Pocket Planes is still a work in progress, so none of this is set in stone. But currently, the only thing you need to join a Flight Crew is a Game Center account (which you don't need to share with your crewmates) and a common Flight Crew name. If I were the sort of person who wanted to get a leg up on the competition, I might use that information to hit the forums and start drumming up a good team of people. While I was at it, I might try to recruit a few of the folks who have put 2323 pages of forum posts into trading frogs in Pocket Frogs. Those dudes seem like they might have the dedication for the job.

The rest of the game is coming along nicely, from what we've seen, and it looks like Zynga hasn't caught on to it so far (fingers crossed!). Nimblebit isn't ready to commit to a release window yet, but it can't be too far over the horizon at this point. So stick around—we'll have much more to show you as Pocket Planes gets ready to touch down.

It's been sort of a slow news day, so while we're busy plugging away at busting out reviews from yesterday's release onslaught, here's two great deals you should be aware of. Actually, before you get either of these you should take a good long look at Ballistic SE [ $1.99 ] as I've been having a blast with it since it came out last night. But, anyway, on with the show.

Smash Cops, $2.99 - [Review] - [Forum Thread] - Normally $2.99 and free for a limited time, Smash Cops is a really cool driving game where you (get this) play a cop, and smash into other cars. It's worth checking out for the controls alone, because the way you drive the car is by "pushing" it with your finger. It's hard to explain, and feels a little weird as first, but once you get into it you'll wonder why more top-down games don't employ similar controls.

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, $0.99 - [Review] - [Forum Thread] - Normally $4.99 and recently slashed to 99¢, Ascension is a deck building fantasy-based card game. I had some small gripes with the mechanics of the actual game itself in my review, but as far as a paper card game to iOS port, Ascension is flawless and worth checking out just to see how well it translates. 99¢ is also a stupidly good deal considering the physical version retails for $39.99. An expansion with new cards is available in game for $2.99, which sells for $29.99 in the real-world paper version.

It looks like today is the day of really good updates for really good games that we really like a lot. Really? Yes, really. We were just treated to an update for our Game of the Year 2011 runner-up Anomaly Warzone Earth [ $1.99 ] that added support for the new iPad, and there was plenty of rejoicing.

Now, the rejoicing gets cranked up to 11 as our actual Game of the Year 2011, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP [ $2.99 ], has been given a similar treatment, bringing the visuals up to par for the beautiful Retina Display of the new iPad.

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One of the absolute finest games available on the App Store is 11 Bit Studios’ Anomaly Warzone Earth [ $1.99 ]. Don’t believe me? Well check out our glowing 5 star review of the game from when it launched on iPad last August, and then consider that we chose it as our runner up for Game of the Year 2011. It’s not just us, either, as Anomaly has received critical praise across the gaming universe as well as plenty of award consideration, including winning a prestigious Apple Design Award for the Mac version.

So yeah, Anomaly Warzone Earth is good. And today it gets even better, as 11 Bit has just released the latest update for the game which adds high resolution Retina Display support for the new iPad. Anomaly was a gorgeous game to begin with, and it held up pretty well even on the new iPad anyway, but the difference this update makes is quite dramatic. All the text and UI elements are razor sharp and the in-game visuals are as crisp as they’ve ever been, practically popping right off the screen.

Of course, while Anomaly Warzone Earth really sings on the iPad, it can also be played just as well on the smaller screens of the iPhone and iPod touch. The original iPad version became Universal late last year, and to celebrate the new update it is currently on sale for just $1.99. If iPads aren’t your thing, the iPhone/iPod touch only version is also on sale for 99¢ [Link]. Basically what I’m getting at is that no matter how you do it, you must experience Anomaly one way or the other, and with the new update and sale now is a fantastic time to dive in.

The highly anticipated update to Jetpack Joyride [ Free ] which Halfbrick has been teasing us with since we first checked it out at GDC has finally gone live in the App Store. Version 1.3 brings the major new addition of Gadgets to good ol’ Barry Steakries’ arsenal. There are 15 Gadgets in all which are unlocked with coins in The Stash area of the game. You can assign up to 2 different Gadgets to Barry at a time, and each one brings with it a special ability.

For example, the “Air Barrys” Gadget gives Barry a pair of sneakers that let him immediately jump into the middle of the screen, rather than waiting for the jetpack to slowly raise him to the same point. Or the Missile Jammer which will cause the missiles that target you from offscreen to come at you wobbly and slow. Or the X-ray Specs, which lets you see ahead of time what vehicle is waiting for you in the icon, as demonstrated in this latest teaser trailer.

As you can tell, these new Gadgets can dramatically change how you play the game, and if you thought you’d had your fill of Jetpack Joyride before there’s now a bunch of new items to unlock and use to reinvigorate you. There’s also new Game Center achievements and new mission types that tie into the use of the new Gadgets. And of course Jetpack Joyride is free to download and play, so if you somehow still haven’t gotten on board yet then what are you waiting for?

I think we were all expecting Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 [ $4.99 ] to be tonight's big release, but since it was released yesterday, this is what we're left with! Not that this is a bad haul by any means, but, you can't play as Mega Man in any of these games.

Like previous weeks, all of these titles should be available at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially much earlier if you're using the App Store in a region to the east of us. So, on with the show.

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Rovio's Angry Birds Space [$0.99 / $2.99 (HD)] hit the App Store close to a month ago, and we loved it in our review. (Shocker, I know.) The sole sticking point for us, and quite a few other people, was Rovio's implementation of a new IAP mechanic. Some levels were only available via a 99¢ unlock, which made us question whether or not Rovio would keep the free level updates gravy train rolling. Also, the Mighty Eagle shifted gears from a buy-once-use-a- bunch item like Angry Birds proper to a consumable IAP.

Well, an update just hit which addresses our suspicions. 10 new levels are now available for free, and the way the Mighty Eagle works has been slightly tweaked. Just by downloading the update you'll get a pack of 20 Mighty Eagles for free, and each day you'll earn one additional Mighty Eagle. This goes a long way in making buying the Mighty Eagle feel a lot more optional, but I still can't help but miss the unlimited use of the Mighty Eagle in completed levels like previous Angry Birds games.

But, whatever, if you just ignore the Mighty Eagle, Angry Birds Space is still a ton of fun, and highly recommended. If you've cleared all the initial launch levels, give these ten new ones a spin.

Earlier this month, Foursaken Media dropped their latest iOS title Sky Gnomes [ $0.99 ] into the App Store and we thought it was pretty great in our review. You play as a gnome hurtling straight down through the sky riding a homemade rocket collecting snowflakes, coins and items in an effort to reach a landing zone as quickly as possible.

While that’s an awesome enough premise on its own, what pushed Sky Gnomes to the next level was its fantastic daily tournaments that matched you against the ghost runs of like-skilled players in competition for the best race time. Throw in a ton of upgradeable items to trick out your rocket and Sky Gnomes came together to be one of my favorite recent releases.

Today, Foursaken is sweetening the pot with the first of many planned content updates for Sky Gnomes. The big addition in this update is two brand new characters to play as: Girly the female racer and Skinny the uh, skinny racer. Each come with their own set of unique stats for their rocket, offering a change of pace from the original racer Gnomey. These new racers don’t come cheap though, as each one will set you back 10,000 coins.

Speaking of coins, this update also lowers the costs of all first tier upgrades and trinkets for your rocket, making it easier and quicker for new players to start customizing their machine. There are also a myriad of tweaks and bug fixes, as well as an empty menu screen that serves as a teaser for another major addition coming to Sky Gnomes: 1 vs 1 battles. More new characters are also in the works for future updates.

If you haven’t checked out Sky Gnomes yet, now might be the time as today’s update adds even more cool features to an already great package, with more new stuff already on the horizon.

We didn't think it'd take long for former Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling to find work after leaving Activision last month, but we didn't anticipate that he'd be employing himself. In an exclusive with Game Informer digital on Monday, Bowling revealed the formation of his own studio, Robotoki. He also announced that his new digs will be pumping out titles for console and PC, as well as phones and tablets.

“As a developer, our focus is on creating a universe first, experiences second, and game mechanics last, “ Bowling told GI. “With focus being on universe, we aim to create experiences that transcend platforms and genres and allow our players to connect to our world, their characters, and gameplay via any medium: console, PC, or mobile.

“However, how they experience the world is unique to their device. The mobile / tablet experience should not mimic the console or PC experience, it should be additive to it, not supplemental. Allowing them to support their console and PC experience, continue their progression, but by experiencing the world in a meaningful and unique way."

Bowling's vision for the mobile space sounds like a dream. We haven't seen any game with the level of integration that he's suggesting his titles will have. Also, we don't see a lot of companion apps functioning as more than a database. This space has a lot of room to grow, so it'll be interesting to see what Robotoki does.

Robotoki will be funding its own projects, by the way. And we'll catch a glimpse of its first title by the end of this year. It's currently slated for next-gen consoles, iOS, and Android.

[via Game Informer]

Late last month we mentioned that TouchArcade Game of the Year Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP [$2.99 / $0.99 ] had been nominated for nearly every category it could vaguely fit in at the Canadian Video Game Awards. If you follow the development team on Twitter, this was spoiled over the weekend when the actual award show was held, but here's what Sworcery took home:

• Best Game on the Go
• Best Downloadable Game
• Best Indie Game
• Best Original Music
• Innovation Award

These awards are selected by a jury, with the exception of Game of the Year which was a public internet vote kind of thing. (Game of the Year was FIFA Soccer 12, by the way.) What makes sweeping this awards show so amazing is that S&S was up against "real" AAA titles like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Assassin's Creed Revelations.

If you haven't played the game yet, you're running out of reasons. Check out our review for more details. Oh, and if you know someone who might be interested in the game but doesn't have an iOS device, it was recently released on Steam as well.

Late last year, iOS game developer Two Lives Left released Codea [ $9.99 (HD)]. Originally known as Codify, Codea offered developers everything they needed to rapidly prototype an iPad game… On an actual iPad. Codea has come a long way since then, and today, the first game developed entirely inside of the app has been released.

Cargo-Bot [ Free (HD)] is a puzzle game where players program a robot to move crates around. 36 levels in all are included, there's a 3 star grading system, and you can even record solutions to upload them to YouTube.

Cargo-Bot is free, and worth a look to see what's possible inside of Codea. According to the Cargo-Bot site, the Codea Xcode Template used to convert the Codea files into an actual game that can be submitted to Apple will be released soon. Neat!

Need more CCG action in your life? Great! You and Ubisoft are on level. Earlier this morning, the publisher finally popped the lid off of Might & Magic Duel of Champions, a free-to-play card game set in the Might & Magic universe.

Ubisoft didn't divulge hard mechanical details in today's announcement materials for whatever reason, but it has confirmed the following about the game: (a) Duel of Champions will have collectible cards, (b) players will fight each other with these cards, and (c) users will also be able to buy these cards. So, yeah... this sure is card game.

More information will be coming to the game's official web site, and apparently a beta is open right now in France. We're doing our best to dig up some more substantial details so stick with us. If the Assassin's Creed card game proved anything, it's that Ubisoft knows how to fund decent tabletop experiences.

[images via PocketGamer]

The always-up-to-something Crescent Moon Games has sent over some lovely new screenshots and information for an upcoming title that they’re planning on publishing called Razor: Salvation. Developed by Siegecraft [ Free ] creator Blowfish Studios, Razor: Salvation is a first-person style shooter played from a fixed position where you have a 360 degree view of the environment and must blast away attacking aliens while simultaneously trying to save endangered civilians.

Expect Razor: Salvation to boast a healthy amount of weapons, items and upgrades as well as an advanced enemy AI that has your opponents reacting dynamically to changes in the environment and the assault you’re bringing to them. And as you can see, the game also looks super impressive so far, with full support for the new iPad Retina Display as well as “specular bump map textures and full screen pixel effects” – techie talk for fancy visual stuff, I reckon.

One other interesting tidbit about Razor: Salvation is you will somehow be able to create factions with your friends and then compete with other factions around the world for supremacy. There will also be regional rankings and leaderboards to track who’s best at blasting the most enemies or rescuing the most civilians.

Razor: Salvation is shooting for a May or June launch as a Universal app, and as alway more discussion and details for the game can be found in our forums.

Developer and all-around great guy David Frampton from Majic Jungle Software, creator of the early App Store breakout success Chopper [$2.99 / Free ] and its greatly improved sequel Chopper 2 [ $0.99 ], has revealed to us his next upcoming iOS project called The Blockheads.

As you can see from the embedded screens, The Blockheads looks heavily inspired by the sandbox game Minecraft, and David isn’t shy about stating as much. However, he notes that during the development process he tried to make sure that The Blockheads let’s you do the sort of things that make Minecraft fun but tried to do them in a different way. For example, there is a crafting component to the game, but David explains the different approach he is taking to that in The Blockheads:

Instead of needing to know recipes and being able to craft everything in one location, there are many different kinds of workbenches, each with a handful of items they can craft. The crafting interface lists what is required and describes what the crafted item can do. This creates a technology tree of sorts, easing the player into the game, and slowly making more advanced items available.

The Blockheads is being built from the ground up with touch screens in mind, and it will try to utilize an non-abrasive freemium approach. Essentially, there will be an in-game currency which you can spend real money to acquire through IAP and speed up certain processes, but it is also earned through play and won’t be required to enjoy the game.

We’ve been enjoying an excellent 2D Minecraft/Terraria game on iOS for a while now with Junk Jack [$2.99 / Free ], but I still think that there’s plenty of room for iteration in the genre and a chance for a good title to stand out in the sea of the many Minecraft copycats and clones on the App Store. The Blockheads sounds like it has a lot of promise, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

You can keep your eye on the game’s website for updates, and of course we’ll bring you any new information that we get on The Blockheads as development continues.