It's been an App Store eternity since cross-platform CCG Shadow Era [Free] was released way back in 2011, where it got a fair amount of press in the gaming media, and some delicious kudos from us at TouchArcade.  Since, the free-to-play Shadow Era has released physical cards, held a national tournament, and released its first expansion, Dark Prophecies [Free] to little fanfare outside of Shadow Era's own forums.

This is possibly due to some...caveats with the current client. to put it simply,  in Shadow Era it's impossible to have more than one deck at a time. This isn't too big of a deal for PC players who have all manner of tools and tricks to importing deck info, but for iOS players it's problematic, especially if you feel the urge to experiment with your chosen play style.  There are other issues as well, including some sync issues and a really strange error that essentially acts like your wi-fi has disconnected and costs you a match. To their credit, the developers, Wulven, have at least attempted to salve a few of these wounds - server issues typically end the match in a draw, but you'll still earn some gold (to buy new cards) and EXP (to level  up) for your troubles.

But, rejoice! In a recent episode of  Shadow Era Radio, it was announced that a new update will allow for multiple decks.  Additional tidbits were hinted at, including a complete redesign of the net code to avoid disconnection and sync issues, as well as few other morsels aimed at getting Shadow Era fans salivating, and hopefully getting those who quit, or never started at all, into the digital CCG fold, hopefully before the World of Warcraft CCG, Hearthstone, comes out and blows everyone away.

For what it's worth, as a hardcore Shadow Era player, this news couldn't have come at a better time. Part of the reason I (and I would assume others) started playing Shadow Era is because it felt like I was getting in at the ground floor. There were only 100 or so cards, and really only 3-5 viable strategies, all of which could be countered fairly soundly, resulting in a pretty tight meta game.

The physical aspect of a collectible card game can be daunting. Besides managing dozens if not hundreds of cards, when it comes to playing the actual game, often times there’s a bevy of procedural nuance that can prevent a new-player from immersing themselves in the game completely - oftentimes a new Magic: The Gathering player will spend weeks if not months figuring out the little details of blocking, when to cast instants, the way certain spells affect other spells. Throw in some math, the need to turn over a D20 every time you take damage, and the fact that practically everyone you play is going to be better than you for a very, very long time - getting into a CCG in the brick and mortar realm is a tricky proposition. It was for me, anyway.

With the release of the most recent expansion the number of cards available to players has almost doubled - So now might be the best time to jump in before things get too bone-crushingly complicated.

The Tapping Dead [Free], a retro, free-to-play, one button platformer with more than a passing resemblance to classic arcade games like Donkey Kong and Burger Time hit the App Store recently and I decided to give it a go. Boasting 150 levels, five playable characters, and a steep difficulty, The Tapping Dead hopes to separate itself from similar games with its unique aesthetics. Does it?

Well, yes, actually. The description for the The Tapping Dead on the app store claims that it’s easy to use, easy to learn, and easy to die (followed by a mwahahahaha) - and they ain’t kidding. This game is tough.

In a given level you’re presented with a complex room filled with zombies in mine carts, zombies tossing rotten flesh, and zombies doing all sorts of other dastardly things that you need to avoid...by waiting. The Tapping Dead’s one button namesake stops your character in his tracks. Going down a ladder, in between the blast radius of falling projectiles, or right in front of a shopping cart if you’re feeling suicidal, you push and hold that button, you’re not going anywhere.

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Some companies like to release their games and apps in a market outside of the United States, to test the waters, gather feedback, and see how it performs. It's basically standard operating procedure for network-intensive games on the App Store.

That’s just what EA has done with Ultima Forever [Free]. Lord British is currently enjoying a soft launch in the Canadian App Store, with a worldwide launch expected by mid-June. As someone who currently lives in the Great White North, surrounded by hockey players on mooseback brandishing hockey sticks and maple syrup-filled squirt guns, I figured I’d give it a try. I was always a fan of the Ultima games, and this is the closest we’ll come to an Ultima Online 2 at the moment.

Character creation is pretty straightforward, with not too much variety. You have two slots available, and the game gives you a series of four questions, which dictate your personality. These four questions are always the same, and in the interest of science (well, gaming), I decided to go through each of them multiple times and see the outcomes. Sadly, after picking the same answer to all four questions twice in a row, the game gave me two different traits. Perhaps there’s something running under the random number generator that shouldn't be, or this is an intended choice. Either way, it seemed weird that choosing to turn a beggar in for his crimes, and telling a thief’s children what he did wrong, both resulted in a Compassion trait. Odd. Of course, you can skip all this and choose have a trait randomly assigned to you from the outset.

The game is billed as cooperative, with dungeon level requirements and estimated times to complete them, but in the amount of time I played, I came across, at the most, five players. This is hardly enough to warrant a conversation, much less embark in a dungeon. Perhaps this is an issue of a soft launch, and clearly not many people had downloaded the game as of yet.

There are some weird oversights, such as the inability to buy or sell items, as there are no vendors in the world of Britannia. Oversight? Or design choice? I guess we’ll see. There are also some missing textures and character models, which are most noticeable during a conversation, as portraits appear at the bottom of the screen.

The combat is fun, if overly simplistic, and a lot of the boss fights tend to descend into a simple pattern:

• Tap on target to attack
• Stand still while autoattacking
• Move away when boss gets close
• Repeat from step one

As it stands, Ultima Forever is a fun grind, but missing aspects that are commonplace in many RPG games, and currently has a very limited social aspect. When the game is launched worldwide, hopefully the majority of these issues will be addressed. You can discuss your feelings of Ultima Forever in the forums, perhaps find some people to group with, and let us know what you think of the game. I’ll be sure to have a review ready for its full release.

Canadian App Store Link: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, Free

Zynga gets a lot of flack for a myriad of reasons. This is typically due to ripping off other people's original ideas, spamming your Facebook feed (and your friends) with useless requests, or making a game that primarily exists to be an IAP cash cow. Did the inevitable finally happen, and they actually delivered a game that at its core is designed to be fun and playable?

Running With Friends [Free / Free (HD)] has been out in Canada for a while and was finally released worldwide a couple of weeks ago. I decided to check the game out for myself since it's free, and much to my delight, Zynga has added a successful social component to separate this runner from other games in the genre.

A comparison to Temple Run [Free / Free] is quite unavoidable at this point, so let's address that elephant in this review already. Frankly, Temple Run is indeed considered the father of all iOS runners. However if anyone's going to have beef with this game, Subway Surfers' [Free] is definitely its rival. In its core, Running With Friends is a touch-controlled lane-based runner as a opposed to Temple Run's tilt-based method of moving side to side within the game's levels.

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You smash down into the outside of an airport. There are a swarm of yellow baddies attacking the place. J.A.R.V.I.S. tells you to get going while you can. You touch a button on your suit. You’re flying through the air.

This is how Iron Man 3 [Free] begins, the iOS game based on the $1B grossing film of its namesake. Gameloft’s latest casts you as the famous Tony Stark, on a quest to save the world from the evil ne'er-do-wells. While fun, the game sadly is in stark contrast to its business model, which partly goes against the protagonist.

The first thing you’ll notice are Iron Man 3’s graphics; they are outstanding. Gameloft has definitely gone to great lengths to make the game look good. Iron Man’s suit is reflective, which slightly shows off the world surrounding him. The environment is lush and detailed, making you feel like you’re actually in a living, breathing world, not laying in bed with your iOS device on your lap. However, the environments are also very limited, and you’ll quickly wish for some variety.

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Earlier this month, EA soft-launched a new version of the iconic block-clearing game Tetris in the Canadian App Store, called Tetris Blitz [Free], and we took the title for a spin in a TA Plays video to see what it was all about. Basically, it's the Tetris block-dropping-and-clearing that we all know and love, but stuffed into a fast-paced timed mode similar to Bejeweled Blitz [Free]. It's pretty good, despite being littered with all the freemium trappings that we've come to expect on the App Store.

Today, Tetris Blitz graduated from its soft-launch status and has released outside of Canada and into the world at large. Here's an official trailer showing the game in action.

Tetris Blitz is actually a great version of the classic game, and out of all the various Tetris games that have been released on the App Store over the years this one really nails the touchscreen controls the best. The downfall, of course, is the freemium-ness of the game, but at least it's not completely in your face and is pretty easily ignored. Anyway, it's free to check out, so if interested definitely give Tetris Blitz a look.

We recently mentioned how having a Minecraft style game, or even just sticking the word Minecraft into your title or search terms, is the flavor of the moment to try and snatch some downloads from mobile Minecraft fans. Sometimes, though, the block-building formula is actually used in a unique way that complements the game. Naquatic's recently-released Guncrafter [Free] is one of those games.

I never really understood the appeal of "gun apps" that let you either build, clean or just admire various types of 3D-rendered firearms, but they sure have been popular in the past. In Guncrafter you're given a grid and a set of block types that you'll use to build a firearm piece by piece. There are different size grids and different kinds of blocks that you'll slowly unlock as you play which will affect how large your weapon is and the kinds of attributes it has.

Once you've created a firearm in Guncrafter you can then take it into a shoot range scenario where you get to actually test it out by blasting away at various targets, also made up of blocks. This portion of the game actually pits you online against another player and their created weapon to see who can blast away more of the target terrain.

It's actually really fun, both to build a creative weapon and to see how it performs in competition. The formula really works in Guncrafter. However, there is one major negative that seems to be the sticking point for most players: the actual build of your weapon has no bearing on its performance. So, an elaborately-built weapon will fire exactly the same as one that's literally just a barrel.

That's too bad too, because Guncrafter could be a really deep title if the actual designs of your weapons had meaning. As it is now it's still a fun shooting gallery game, and there's something strangely compelling about creating crazy weapons of your own design, but at the end of the day the game just feels a bit too hollow to have much lasting appeal.

Like I said, though, it's still fun for what it is, and it's free-to-play so worth giving a look. I still need to spend some more time diving into it, but so far I've found that Guncrafter is way cooler than I originally thought it would be. People in the forums have been enjoying it too, so if you fancy making your own weapons and blasting away at stuff against online competition, check out Guncrafter.

If you're among the, like, 12 people who don't own Angry Birds Space [$0.99 / $2.99 (HD)], now's an awesome time to fix that. The outer space-themed take on the series is free to download across iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You got zero dollars, right? Get clicking!

My favorite thing to do in Space is watch my birds helplessly orbit objects without any hope of actually colliding into something that can break. It's funny in that troll-y kind of way. These brave birds braved space and, possibly, travelled light years to do a job, but can't because their operator is a jerk. Eli, on the other hand, found a couple of better things to like about Space, including the level design.

We hear folks really like Space, so chances are the remaining 12 of you will, too. We're guessing this is free courtesy Apple's own Free App of the Week promotion, so you've got seven or so days to jump on the game's new $0 price.

I have to admit my eyes glazed over a bit when I took my first look at Tomb Breaker [Free] It could probably look more like Bejewled with a little effort, but I've had my fill of straight Match-3s and then some. I probably wouldn't have given it a second look if I hadn't noticed it was from Kurt Bieg, creator of the delightfully frustrating Circadia [$0.99]. That bit of trivia caught my attention, and I'm glad it did.

Tomb Breaker has promise. It's clear Bieg's Simple Machine is catering to a more casual crowd, but it boosts the business of matching gems into something a bit more cerebral than we've come to expect.

If you've played Bejeweled Blitz, you've got the basics of the setup. Tomb Breaker gives you sixty seconds on the clock to pull in the highest score you can, and the option of competing with friends on Game Center. You can use up to three boosts per attempt, paying out of a pool of gems that you can earn or (more likely) buy. It lacks some of Blitz's more aggressive psychological tricks, but the bones are there.

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Baseball season is in full swing, and in celebration of the 2013 All-Star Game coming in July Major League Baseball has released MLB.com Home Run Derby [Free], a free-to-play game that puts you in the shoes of an actual MLB player as they try to become the winner of the Home Run Derby competition. While the core game at the center of Home Run Derby is solid, and visually it looks great, the whole thing is hampered by a stingy free-to-play model that pretty much ruins what would have been a fun little mobile game for baseball fans.

The game uses a dual-currency system, MLBucks and coins. At the onset you're given enough bucks to purchase one lower-tier player from all the players who have participated in the last three Home Run Derbys. You're then given the option to play either of the game's two modes: the Home Run Derby itself or Arcade mode. Both can be played in single player or in online multiplayer.

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Whether or not you even realize it, it's a safe bet that you've got at least one game on your phone right now that uses the Unity game engine. It's a really cool development environment that allows developers to essentially code their game once, then deploy it across a ridiculous amount of platforms ranging all the way from iOS devices up to the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4- Often times with either no or very few tweaks to make it work on each device.

In the scheme of game engine pricing, Unity was incredibly cheap at its initial free bundle when coupled with the $800 package license that allows developers to build iOS and Android games... But, $800 is still a lot of money for a indie developer dabbling in game development in their spare time. As of today, it's all free.

Unity CEO David Helgason explains the thought process in a recently released video:

If you want to fiddle with Unity, head on over to the download site. Exhaustive tutorials for anything you'd ever want to do (including tutorials that start with incredibly beginner-level stuff) are plentiful and merely a Google search away. I can't wait to see what kind of things comes of this shift in pricing.

[via Gamasutra]

There was a time when pretty much every movie tie-in game was just plain awful, but for some reason in the mobile gaming world there have been quite a few really good ones. Games like Temple Run Oz or Fruit Ninja Puss in Boots take an already proven formula for a game and weave the movie theme around it to make a natural fit.

One of the newest movie tie-in games released is a joint venture between PikPok and Dreamworks Studios for the upcoming movie Turbo. The movie is about a snail named Turbo who dreams of being a race car driver, and following a freak accident involving a nitrous oxide spill that gives him turbo speed he sets out to make his dream come true.

PikPok's take on the movie is called Turbo Racing League [Free], and follows Turbo's escapades on his way to becoming the fastest snail in the universe. Is that even something to be proud of? That's like being called the smartest dumb person in the world. But I digress.

Turbo Racing League itself is actually a very fun kart-style racing game. By that I mean it's very casual and arcadey, with a heavy emphasis on drifting and hitting turbo pads spread along the track. The game's 9 courses are all made out of real-life mini locations like a kitchen table or a garage, and you can trick Turbo out with spoilers for his shell that give him improved attributes.

It's all pretty standard racing game stuff, but it's very well done, like most PikPok games. What sort of blew my mind is that in conjunction with the release of Turbo Racing League, Verizon has stepped in to throw a competition called the $1,000,000 Shell Out and are giving away a million dollars in prize money. For the next 8 weeks the top 10 racers per week will each win prizes from a $500,000 pool, then all 8 of the 1st place winners will fly out to Los Angeles for the finals and a chance to win the grand prize which is the other half of the million.

A million dollar prize for a mobile movie tie-in game seems nuts to me, but here we are. You can get the full rules and all that jazz from the official $1,000,000 Shell Out website if you're interested in entering, but even if not, Turbo Racing League is a pretty neat racing game that's free to check out. People in our forums have been enjoying it as well, and as for the actual movie, that'll be opening in theaters in July.

Gangstar Rio: City of Saints, $6.99 - Gameloft is offering up a couple of freebies this weekend on two games which have never been free before. First up is Gangstar Rio: City of Saints [$6.99], their take on the whole Grand Theft Auto open-world sandbox game. We reviewed Gangstar Rio when it released back in late 2011, and despite some typical Gameloft-isms like terrible voice work and a paper thin story, we thought it offered up a fairly robust open-world crime game experience.

It's been pretty regularly updated too, adding in new content and most recently widescreen support for the iPhone 5.

N.O.V.A. 3 - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99 - The second game being offered up for free is N.O.V.A. 3 [$6.99]. Previously, the N.O.V.A. series had been mostly a riff on the Halo games, but this most recent entry more closely resembles something like Crysis. Either way, expect lots of sci-fi first-person shooting action and impressive visuals. As with most Gameloft entries, there's a robust online multiplayer offering in N.O.V.A. 3, and as such we gave it its own review back when the game released in May of last year. We also reviewed the single-player campaign, which is pretty excellent as well.

Gameloft has been flirting more with free-to-play games as of late, but both N.O.V.A. 3 and Gangstar Rio are premium-priced games that you can snag for zero dollars right now and through this weekend. Don't miss out.

The introduction of airplanes changed the face of warfare. The same could be said of Firaxis' entry to the iOS gaming scene: when a Triple-A studio headed by the cherished game designer Sid Meier starts putting out iOS exclusives, you just know things are never going to be the same. Only, instead of bringing about unparalleled death and destruction, this watershed moment marks a new era of quality mobile gaming.

Firaxis has stormed on to the mobile scene: first came last week's spooky strategy game, Haunted Hollow [Free] (see our review here), and later this summer should see the release of the much-anticipated iOS port of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Sid Meier's Ace Patrol [Free] completes this strategy trifecta, and is the first iOS exclusive to bear the legendary designer's name. His involvement shows: Ace Patrol is a fantastic, meaty title well-deserving of your time and gaming dollar.

Ace Patrol sees the player leading a squadron of pilots in World War I, witnessing the infancy of aerial combat. Ace Patrol is a premium game masquerading as a freemium title: the free download serves as a demo and gives you a portion of the British campaign to play. The full British, French, German and American campaigns are unlocked as IAP for $0.99 a piece.

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With the recent announcement that Diablo would be making its way to consoles, gamers have been looking for something to satisfy their hack-and-slash needs on their iOS device. Gameloft recently released the fourth installment of their dungeon crawler, Dungeon Hunter 4, and less than two weeks after, Gamevil has come out with their first foray into dungeon crawlers with Dark Avenger [Free]

Dark Avenger is all action with little in the way of overall substance. As of this review, there is only one playable class, the Templar, with a second class “coming soon”, the Ranger. Despite having only one type of character at the moment, the game gives you three save game slots. You're tasked with killing bad things from bad places because... well, it's a game without a story. Perhaps because some evil convenience store clerk looked at your grandma the wrong way and now you're exacting sweet revenge.

Delving into the game proper is as easy as choosing your character and selecting your mode. Single player consists of progressing through multiple levels, all within the same basic environment. The virtual joystick is dead simple to use; one joystick on your left controls movement and direction, while the icon on your right controls attacks. Tap it once for a basic attack, tap it up to three times for a combo attack.

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