The followup title to the extremely popular (and free) Jelly Car game has finally made its way into the App Store. The original Jelly Car was released back in October 2008 and has since developed a pretty massive following. The game is a driving/platforming game in which you drive a squishy car through squishy worlds, trying to reach the exit.

The sequel is being published by Walt Disney and comes with more than 30 new levels, new power-ups, and three new modes. The original free version remains in the App Store if you never tried it.

App Store Link: Jelly Car 2, $0.99, Jelly Car, Free

While this week has been filled with news and reviews of fast paced games, I've always had a weakness for word games on the iPhone, even though I'm fairly terrible at them. Here are three recently released or recently updated word games that are all worth checking out–

Guess the News [99¢ / Free] – Surprisingly enough, the news is good for more than material to auto-tune. Guess the News pulls news stories down from various RSS feeds, and turns them in to puzzles to be solved. You're given a brief description of the article, then need to guess the headline from the pile of letter tiles on the game board. Puzzles are broken out in to several categories such as health, sports, and even "odd stories". For instance, I recently played a few games in the technology category that had me guessing the titles of Engadget posts. Guess the News features three difficulty levels which control how much of the headline is already completed at the start of each puzzle, and with the dynamic content fetching provides infinite replay value.

Word Spin [$1.99] – As seen in the above trailer, this game has two parts to it, the first stage amounts to rotating and positioning the various wheels loaded with letters to line up as many words as possible. You then tap the top of the screen to lock the wheels in place, then find every word you possibly can as you rotate the locked set of word wheels searching for valid words. Once you get good enough, you can compete both against friends by sending email challenges where they will play against your exact configuration of the word wheels or by submitting your score to the global online leaderboard. The gameplay mechanic is solid and provides an interesting spin (See what I did there?) on the word hunting game formula.

Words With Friends [$2.99 / Free] – Everyone who owns an iPhone or iPod Touch should have either the free or paid version of this game on their device. Words With Friends takes the game of Literati (a variant of Scrabble) and adds excellent asynchronous online multiplayer with recently added push notifications that alert you when it's your turn in any of your active games. The free version is ad supported, but otherwise fully featured, and according to a recent presentation by the developers at GDC Austin, Words With Friends and Chess With Friends [$2.99 / Free] has 50,000 active users daily.

I've had numerous Words With Friends games going for months now with nearly every friend of mine who owns an iPhone, a clever in-game search function will search the Words With Friends player database for friends of yours you want to start a game with, and if the game can't find them it will offer to send them an email invitation. Everything about the game is implemented so amazingly well that you owe it to yourself to at least try the free version if you're even remotely interested in word games, especially with the recent update adding push notifications. If you need people to play with, stop by the Words With Friends thread on our forums.

Following an extremely positive preview earlier this week, Wheeler's Treasure [App Store] was released this evening. Wheeler's Treasure is a pirate themed high scoring game with randomly generated levels, so no two play-throughs will ever be the same. Packed with items to discover, treasure to collect, and bad guys to stomp on, the game brings a surprising amount of replay value to the table which is only enhanced by the inclusion of online scoring via OpenFeint.

The goal of the game is to see how many yarrds (get it?) you can accompany a wheel through a sidescrolling environment filled with all kinds of obstacles. You can use the wheel to shield yourself from enemies, avoid hazards, swing, jump, and more. Your character is moved using simple swiping gestures, and buttons in the bottom corner of the screen control the use of your items.

The game has a feel of part mini-game and part platformer when you first start playing, and is certainly one of the more original games we've seen in the App Store. It takes more than a few tries to learn the game's unique gameplay mechanic and how best to utilize your character's jumps and equipment to make it further along each time.

What makes the game really stand out from just another "make it further" casual game is the ability to unlock up to 16 different pieces of equipment that can be equipped prior to your gaming sessions. Each of these items give you a special ability that can aid in your run. For example, the standard pirate hook lets you hold on to the top of the wheel to avoid ground obstacles. Meanwhile, this video shows an unlockable Voodoo Pocketwatch which slows time down:

Choosing which equipment to use obviously dramatically changes each gameplay session. This keeps the gameplay evolving and makes you come back for more.

The developer plans on supporting Wheeler's Treasure with free content updates, and has already been polling our forums on what to include next. The game may suffer a bit from being a bit too different, as it doesn't really fall into an easily recognizable category. But I still adored the game in our preview and all the initial reactions from forum members in the game's thread are overwhelmingly positive.

App Store Link: Wheeler's Treasure, 99¢ – Introductory sale ends Monday.

One of the first must-have iPhone games to appear in the App Store was PapiJump.  Not long after, Doodle Jump took the simple, accelerometer-controlled concept of ascending a wall of platforms to the next level.  Since then, many other takes on this addictive play mechanic have appeared in the App Store, the vast majority of which are really not worth your time.  Happily for fans of these games, another such title has just appeared in the App Store, and this one brings a twist.

GTProduction's Spring Fling [App Store] is a jump-up-the-platform-wall game where you take on the role of a spring.  Being a spring, it's not just a matter of tap to jump straight upward — you can compress the string and set the angle of your jump by way of a tap and drag mechanic.  And the integrated PhysX engine makes the experience rather convincing.  Choose an angle to shallow or severe and it's a platform miss with a plummet to your end.

Each jump uses up a supply of Power that doesn't get recharged until the next checkpoint. So, the game is a more deliberate physics/power management game than the fast paced action of other platform jumping titles.

Along the way rockets, balloons, parachutes, and pogo sticks help you scale the wall. The game includes five different worlds, some static and some downward scrolling. And achievements, online leaderboards, and Facebook / Twitter integration provide incentive to reach the highest height.

See the developer's gameplay trailer for a look at the action.

App Store Link: SpringFling, $0.99

RetroVenture has released a port of the old 1982 Apple II game Transylvania. Originally developer by Antonio Antiochia, RetroVenture has collaborated with the original author to bring this classic game to the iPhone.

In Fall 2009, Roe Mobile Development will release Transylvania for the iPhone. Transylvania is an adventure game that was originally released for the Apple ][ in 1982. Back then it was quite successful and spawned two sequels (Crimson Crown and Vanquish the Night: Return to Transylvania). The iPhone version is a joint work between Kenneth Roe and Antonio Antiochia who is the original author. The iPhone version will add a new touch interface and sounds.

If you ever played the original version, here's your chance to get it again for free. Even if you miss the Halloween sale, the game will be available for only $0.99.

App Store Link: Transylvania Adventure, Free (Halloween)

Craneballs Studios, who brought us the unique iPhone shooter Blimp – The Flying Adventures, has just released 33rd Division [App Store], a combat-themed tactical line-draw game in the ilk of Flight Control.

Set in World War II, 33rd Division offers gameplay across four different European battlefields.  The goal is to guide soldiers, medics and sergeants entering the battlefield to each of their designated destinations without being seen (shot and killed).  This is done by drawing a course across the battlefield (Flight Control style) in and among obstacles and roving patrols.

Sounds just like all the other line-draw games, right?  Well, 33rd Division has some interesting variations up its sleeve.  The aforementioned roving patrols have a limited field of vision, indicated by a highlighted sight cone that moves as they turn about the battlefield.  As long as you stay out of their sight area, you're fine, but enter that cone and, well, let's just call it the cone of death.  What's more, if you're trapped and about to be seen, you can lie down, rendering you invisible…unless the patrols walk right up to you, in which case they render you full of lead.

The game offers two playmodes, Life, in which it's game over after you lose all your lives, and Time, where it's an all out race against the clock. Helping you out along the way are eight different power-ups that can be collected on the battlefield, including invincibility, bonus life, extra time, double speed, and frozen enemies. The WWII-era menu music, complete with crackles and pops, adds nicely to the effect, as does the ambient battlefield sound during gameplay.  OpenFeint leaderboards provide incentive to hone your skill.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

There are a number of line-draw games of this general sort in the App Store.  I do have my favorites.  And as it turns out, 33rd Division is among them.  The temptation to shortcut your way across the battlefield, cutting dangerously close to the patrols and dropping to the ground at the right moment, adds a great sense of danger and exhilaration to the gameplay.  But, be careful, you don't want to get stepped on!

App Store Link: 33rd Division, $0.99

Oddly enough, the App Store has no shortage of hunting games. Quite a few of them have flirted with positions high up on the overall sales charts, but none (until now) have come from such long-standing hunting game franchises as the Big Buck Hunter arcade machines and the Deer Hunter series of PC and console games.

Real Deer Hunting, 99¢ – The eighteenth installment in the Deer Hunter series offers a fairly in-depth hunting experience that takes place in the woods of Indiana and the plains of Texas. The game is packed with all kinds of deer luring actions, along with the choice between a shotgun, scoped rifle, and compound bow. Out of all the hunting games I've tried for the iPhone, this one seems the most technical, although having never actually hunted deer I can't say for sure how accurate the developer's claims of ultra-realism are.

Big Buck Hunter Pro, $2.99 – We extensively previewed this game last week following the Big Buck Hunter World Championship in Chicago where the game was originally unveiled. It's a fantastic port of the arcade machine, and provides a remarkably similar experience, only without the plastic shotgun. Big Buck Hunter machines are becoming as much of a bar staple as Golden Tee in my area, so if the iPhone game can tap in to the existing fan base it should be a huge success. However, if you've never drunkenly pumped quarters in to the real Big Buck Hunter game, the iPhone version likely won't have much appeal.

One game that we neglected on its initial release was Undead Attack Pinball — an interesting combination of a defense game and pinball.

The goal of the game is to avoid damage and ultimate destruction of your gate at the bottom of the board from hoards of zombies. You can take out these zombies through the use of the pinball itself and collect money for upgrades.

While hardcore pinball fanatics may find these gameplay changes a bit gimmicky, I find the inclusion of these in-game goals (smashing Zombies, in this case) holds my interest much more than compared to traditional pinball games. The initial version of Undead Attack! generated criticisms for the quirky ball physics, but the game has since been updated to address this issue.

The developers also recently released a Lite version so you can give the game a try yourself. The latest update of the full version released today also adds a Halloween theme and provides some additional bug fixes.

The game has also seen a price drop from $2.99 to $0.99 in celebration of Halloween, so give it a shot.

App Store Link: Undead Attack! Pinball, $0.99, Undead Attack! Pinball Lite, Free

I’m always on the lookout for new twists on puzzles. Sometimes these new twists or elements work and often times, they don’t. Besides the degree of fun which is highly subjective, the ideas that generally work and succeed are the ones that add complexity without complicating the game. When I first started playing Wriggle, I was lured in by the fun looking graphics, but what’s kept me playing is the mind benders that at first glance look simple enough. As you play with Wriggle, it becomes a test of logic all presented in a lighthearted package.

Wriggle is all about squirmy worms that come in a variety of colors. The only one you really care about is the blue one that must get to the exit within a certain number of moves. While the goal sounds mundane on paper, in practice, Wriggle is brain teasing at its best.

The control scheme involves your finger and the ability to drag Blue and the other worms in whatever direction. Wriggle has 4 levels of difficulty—easy, medium, hard and expert—with 80 total puzzles. In order to unlock the puzzles at the higher difficulty, you must complete 50% of the puzzles at the previous difficulty.

Each puzzle has a number of moves in which you must get Mr. Blue to the exit if you’re to receive an award. This involves strategically moving the other worms out of your way. Worms can be moved by dragging the head or the tail, and moves are counted when you drag a new worm. In terms of other features, once you’ve unlocked a set of puzzles in a difficulty level, you can choose to play any of the puzzles, skipping forward or replaying previous puzzles. Within each puzzles, a handy undo button is available so you can re-think your strategy without having to start from scratch. Plus, the game has auto save so your progress is saved regardless of where you left off.

Wriggle fits in that category of “simple to play but difficult to master”. It provides enough puzzles with a range of difficulty levels that novice and advanced puzzlers will enjoy, and provides enough to keep you coming back

App Store Link: Wriggle, $0.99, Wriggle Free, Free

And now for a change of pace.

If your first reaction to this app is "Why would you let your toddler play with your $300 iPhone?", well, it's pretty clear you don't have kids, so you can skip this story.

For those who do have children in the 2-5 year old range, Whizzit 123 seems to be the functional equivalent of Doodle Jump that has them coming back again and again. The game simply consists of different objects that are presented in quantities of up to 10 or 20 based on a user selectable option, and the child simply taps on each one as they are counted out loud. Each item displays a brief animated flourish as they are counted. Each tap offers a small animation and the final tally is repeated out loud at the end. That's pretty much it.

It's fun, educational, and strangely rewarding. My daughter rates it as "Yay!"

App Store Link: Whizzit 123, $0.99