Pocketball is a fresh new puzzler that takes physics and navigation and wraps them together in a tight little package. In each of Pocketball’s 30 stages, you’ll need to stretch pieces of rope across different pegs to guide a falling ball to a like colored bin. If there’s a blue ball it goes to the blue bin. If there’s a green ball it goes to a green bin. You get the idea.

Things get complicated fairly quickly. Some stages offer up 2 or 3 different colored balls that you need to guide to their like-colored bins. Other stages have items scattered around the playfield with boosters that will give your balls a toss in a certain direction or nukes that will incinerate any ball they come in contact with. With a good deal of variety and some exceptional level design, no two stages ever feel the same.

The mechanics behind the game may be simple, but that doesn’t mean the puzzles don’t offer up an incredible level of challenge. You may find yourself returning to the same puzzle a dozen or more times before finding a solution. There’s a certain degree of logic involved, but after awhile we just found ourselves testing the waters to see where different balls might land after setting up different ropes. Unless a puzzle has an obvious solution, there’s a real “trial and error” vibe to the gameplay. Thankfully Pocketball is incredibly forgiving of the “let’s see what this does” guess work that’s required. With no real penalties in the game, you can try each level over and over until you get it just right.

Pocketball is also forgiving in that it won’t force you to complete a level to proceed to the next. If you’re stuck on a level or two, you can walk away, check out some more levels, and unlock the rest of the game without ever going back to a certain over-complicated nightmare. Likewise you can always go back at a later time and see if you can finally best the harsh mistress that is stage 13.

Pocketball offers up a tremendous level of challenge in an "easy to learn but impossible to master" puzzler. Despite a few nitpicky complaints (such as lack of music), this game did the puzzle fanatic in our hearts good. If you’re a fan of genuinely challenging puzzle games that are about more than falling blocks, Pocketball is $1.99 well spent.

App Store Link: Pocketball, $1.99

Here are a few releases that have snuck by us over the past few weeks that are worth considering. Each game has its fans and both the gameplay video and forum threads are linked so you can dig deeper.

Chuck Norris arrives on the iPhone with an over-the-top side scrolling shooter. The controls aren't great, and the game reminds us of an old school side shooter, but Chuck Norris fans seem to be enjoying it. It's only $0.99 and you can join the discussion thread for more impressions.

App Store Link: Chuck Norris: Bring on the Pain!, $0.99

Demolition fans may enjoy IUGO's latest physics puzzler in which you place your quota of dynamic to see if you can level each building. There are 60 levels in all drawn in chalkboard style. The game is available for $1.99, comes with online leaderboards and new levels coming in the next update. Join the discussion.

App Store Link: Implode, $1.99

Fans of Matmi's beautifully styled Monster Pinball will be happy to see their latest pinball creation: Snowy's Christmas Pinball. The game is set across 3 distinct interconnected tables with various mini-goals per table. The game is a little early for the Christmas season and is available for $1.99. Join the forum discussion here.

App Store Link: Snowy's Christmas Pinball, $1.99

One of Gameloft's latest games that came out just the other night tries to breathe life into a very popular genre in the App Store: Castle Defense. Not to be confused with Tower Defense, Castle Defense games involve defending your castle from an endless onslaught of enemies that can be flicked away with the swipe of a finger. In the past, the gameplay of these have been so monotonously repetitive, you have to ask yourself why are people playing these games.

While there been some notable versions including as Monster Kill and Knights Onrush that have added their own twists to the gameplay, Gameloft's latest take seems the most ambitious with the use of 3D graphics that adds a surprising amount to the game itself.

Set in a fantasy world, the game offers 10 different types of invaders and 18 strategic upgrades. Gameloft's video shows off the gameplay really well and is worth a watch:

Readers who have already grabbed the game seem to be enjoying it and New England Gamer details its distinguishing features well:

There are different ways to kill your enemies with the fire ball, the ice ball, the griffon (how they spell it) and feeding them to the hydra. In addition you can purchase tornados and lightning spells. You can upgrade to the boulder spell which makes a boulder to roll over enemies. There is also the all powerful ghost army. There are ten types of enemies that each need to be killed in a different manner. Upgrades are available at the end of each day in the campaign mode. Catch an energy ball from a warlock for example and divert it back to kill other enemies. Redirect the bomb from the Bomb Goblin to kill enemies.

But there is also the usual dropping, slamming and throwing into the wall way of killing (though that won't work with some enemies). Feeding them to the hydra gains you life points that are needed in addition to the gold you earn for upgrades.

So there are lots of additions to the flicking and there is some strategy involved with the enemies – especially when hoards approach! Ice, fire, griffon, flick, bomb, etc. Its pretty frenzied at some points.

Some in our forums are calling it the best Castle Defense game so far, and even with our brief time with the game, we'd have to agree. So, if you've enjoyed these types of games before, Castle Frenzy is worth serious consideration.

App Store Link: Castle Frenzy, $1.99

True Axis has released its much anticipated Jet Car Stunts racer which has been described as "a fun, over the top, 3D driving game, with massive jumps, mid-air hoops, floating platforms, spiral roadways, outlandish maneuvers and impossible environments." The game offers two modes of play:

• Platforming – the player maneuvers the car from roadway to roadway, performing connecting stunts to reach the finish line.
• Time Trails – the player races around stunt-filled circuits to beat the lap records.

Here's a video of the time trial mode:

Reader impressions are trickling into the forum. We'll take a closer look soon, but our first impressions are positive.

App Store Link: Jet Car Stunts, $1.99

Towards the end of July this year we previewed a massive multiplayer online game set in space called Outer Empires [App Store] by Ironwill Studios. Aside from its new iPhone client, Outer Empires also works by pointing any modern browser to the game's web site at outer-empires.com.

The game is quite similar to a 2D version of EVE Online, and the game concept has remained the same since our preview:

Outer Empires takes place in a persistent galaxy where players can choose from a variety of different activities as you play in the intergalactic sandbox. There are tons of quests (or "Missions" as they're called in game) to complete that range from simple transport jobs to exploring and bounty hunting. Once you establish yourself in the world, you can set up colonies as well as run or join a guild (or "Factions" in Outer Empires).

There's a whole array of upgrades, ships, and other things to buy as you rank up in game. While the iPhone client costs $1.99, you can play the web version for free and neither version of the game has mandatory subscriptions. If you do choose to subscribe, you will get double the experience and space bucks of free users for completing the same missions. Subscription prices range from $3.99 a month with options for 3, 6, or 12 month discounts along with a $99.99 lifetime subscription.

Outer Empires is a cool concept, but like any online game how much fun you have with it will likely depend on the community inside of the game. I'd definitely at least give the free browser version of the game a try if the idea of a mobile space MMO interests you, and if you find yourself captivated by the Outer Empires universe, pick up the iPhone client.

App Store Link: Outer Empires, $1.99

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.

So, is it possible to fit another worthy line-drawing game into an already crowded market? Backflip Studios thinks so with their new game Harbor Havoc 3D [$1.99].

Like Flight Control, the objective of the game is to route your ships to their proper docks. Simply draw a line from the ship to the dock and you're on your way. Harbor Havoc 3D's claim to fame, however, is the incorporation of multiple layers of vessels that you must properly navigate. Depending on the map, this can include submarines, boats and helicopters or even submarines and ground rovers in the underwater map. Each type of ship can only collide with like ships, so keeping this in mind is critical for success.

The game comes with 4 maps: Far East, Atlantis, Arctic, and Lighthouse. Each offers a variant in gameplay. Far East is your straightforward Flight Control setup where you are docking different ships to their ports. Ships, however, don't have to be undocked as in Harbor Master. The game also adds an anchoring mechanism by tapping on a ship that will keep them in place. The Far East map is going to feel boring to anyone who has put in much time in any of the existing line-drawing games, but Atlantis and especially Arctic are where things get interesting.

The developer's gameplay video shows how crazy things can get and even shows the locked Lighthouse level which gives you a partially obscured view of the play area.

For advanced players who have gotten bored of Flight Control and are looking for more of a challenge, Harbor Havoc 3D manages to provide added layers of challenge without necessarily being different just for the sake of being different.

App Store Link: Harbor Havoc 3D, $1.99

Games with a similar gameplay mechanic to IUGO's Cliffed [App Store] will always have a place in my heart, as I burnt through countless sets of AAA batteries in my TI-83 through school playing a calculator game called Falldown which consisted of little more than navigating a small grayscale ball through sets of obstacles trying to fall as far as you could before being pushed up the top of the screen.

Cliffed takes this exact game premise, adds unlockable characters to play as, online multiplayer, global leaderboards, obstacles, and the ability to dash right or left to make it to the next level of platforms. Controls are delightfully simple, with giant arrow buttons on each side of the screen to control your character's movement. Double tapping makes you dash in that direction.

Online multiplayer works great, although sadly at this point there isn't much of an online community to speak of. I've managed to arrange a few games with friends online, but just trying to find a game with random opponents is easier said than done. That being said, when you do actually arrange a game, the multiplayer is fun and lag free. Cliffed would greatly benefit with the inclusion of some kind of friends system with push alerts, or some other way to get people in to your online games.

Cliffed is a great example of yet another iPhone title that takes an amazingly simple gameplay concept and fleshes it out with unlockables and online functionality to create a much deeper experience. If you're tired of all the games that have you jumping up, maybe it's time to give one a try that has you falling down.

App Store Link: Cliffed, $1.99

While we all wait for Doom Classic to be approved in the App Store, id Software has released a major update to their popular Wolfenstein 3D Classic game which adds a ton of new content.

Features include:

• Now with the Spear of Destiny levels – 21 total new maps
• 5 new Bosses
• New enemy – Ghosts
• Download custom made maps
• Double tap to Zoom in-game map
• id Software trivia section
• Scrolling map selection menus

The update is free for existing Wolfenstein 3D Classic owners and remains at only $1.99. The map download instructions are detailed here. Instead of in-app downloads, id allows you to distribute .map files through Safari which load the maps directly into Wolfenstein 3D on the iPhone. To create levels, you will need to download a Wolfenstein 3D map editor for your computer.

App Store Link: Wolfenstein 3D Classic Platinum, $1.99

Early this month Empty Clip Studios gave us an exclusive preview of the upcoming iPhone port of their download / retail Wii rhythm puzzle title, Groovin' Blocks. Those anxious to get their hands on this one can now try the full [link] or lite [link] version, which went live in the App Store yesterday.

Each of Groovin' Blocks' 50 levels is played to a pumping techno soundtrack with scrolling beat-indicators on either side of the screen.  Block clusters slide onto the playfield in a Tetris-like fashion, and will ultimately come to rest at the bottom of the screen.  A tap on the 'drop' button will quickly drop the piece into place — but if you "hit a beat" (tapping the drop button during a beat of the soundtrack) the blocks will be bigger, brighter, and worth more points.  Hitting consecutive beats without a miss increases your score multiplier — but miss a beat and it drops back to zero.  Hitting the occasional Superbeat, shown brighter in the scrolling beat display, will double your current score multiplier.

Certain blocks contain power-ups that can be collected only if you hit a beat when placing said block.  Power-ups are unleashed when the successfully placed block is destroyed by a match-three scenario.

See our preview video for a closer look.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

GameSpot calls the Wii version of Groovin' Blocks "a music-based game like no other."  As we said in our preview look, there's no shortage of match-three puzzlers in the App Store, but Groovin' Blocks' musical / rhythm component really does set it apart from the pack.

App Store Links: Groovin' Blocks, $1.99, Groovin' Blocks Lite, Free