This week, 2XL Games' highly anticipated off-road racing game 2XL ATV Offroad [link] hit the App Store.  The game is a follow-up to the studio's 2XL Supercross, a technically impressive dirt-track racing title that, physics and visuals aside, felt a little shallow from an overall gameplay perspective.  We're happy to report that this latest from 2XL Games takes all of the "good" from Supercross and combines it with highly varied tracks, a proper career mode, and Wi-Fi multiplayer to deliver one of the very best racers in the App Store.

ATV Offroad features three different track types in which to compete.  Supercross tracks, much like those featured in 2XL Supercross are represented but, in addition, an array of Nationals (outdoor tracks) and Freestyle (it's like stunt racing in a massive fossile pit) tracks have been added to the mix.  Whatever track type you're racing in, the visuals are breathtaking — especially in the two outdoor types.  From the impressive draw distance to the overall smoothness of the onscreen action to the clouds of dust kicked up by your competitors, the game is an iPhone eye-candy carnival that the PSP has reason to envy.  The visual experience takes me back to the ATV Offroad Fury series on the PS2, but with a better sense of speed.  Yes, this truly is one of the most visually impressive games available for the iPhone.  It is absolutely a full console experience.

The game features an Arcade mode, which allows racing among any of the 16 available tracks across Supercross, Nationals, and Freestyle, as well as a Career mode (which is really the core playmode) and a Wi-Fi multiplayer mode (with Bluetooth on the way).  Online leaderboards provide a skill incentive.

Career mode involves moving through a sequence of 11 Leagues which are events of varied track combinations.  Rank high enough and the next League is unlocked.  I've spent a great deal of time playing rather deep into the title and can tell you that, at Medium difficulty anyway, it's not a cakewalk.  The challenge is apparent and requires some real skill to League up.  But the journey to victory is a most satisfying one.  The requisite track replays to get the needed ranking are nothing but enjoyable.  Adding to the experience is an extensive achievement system that rewards players for skill on the track along the way.

The two available Freestyle tracks, in whichever mode you encounter them, are solo free-for-all's in a large, terraced pit.  The goal here is to perform as many tricks as possible to rack up points and medal up from bronze to gold.  It's kind of a Tony Hawk experience on an ATV.  The draw-distance and physics system exhibited here are impressive.

The game's default control mode is accelerometer tilt, but a virtual stick is available as well.  I find the former to be far superior to the latter in any mode of gameplay.  Tilt control in this title has been very well tuned and offers excellent vehicle control.

In any playmode you can choose from among 15 different drivers and 15 different ATVs to get the race done.  The variation that these choices provide are simply visual rather than physical, but it's nice to have choices.  And adding to the experience is an impressive sound system that does a great job of letting you know just where the encroaching competitors are on the track behind you.

See the developer's gameplay video for a closer look.

I am a particular fan of offroad racing games.  I enjoy the heightened in-game physics that they exhibit and don't at all mind a little travel on the Z-axis (jump, jump, jump).  That said, this is my favorite racing game available for the iPhone.  And the replay value is significant.  Anyone who enjoys a solid, well-rounded racer — and offroad racing in particular — would be a fool to let 2XL Offroad Racing pass them by.

App Store Link: 2XL ATV Offroad, $7.99

Jonathan Lanis has recently contributed a simple and fun bit of 3D obstacle-dodging tunnel madness to the App Store in the form of Boost 3D [link].

Boost 3D is about tunnels, and it's a rather simple affair.  You start out racing down the inside of an obstacle-laden tunnel and, before you know it, you're racing down the outside of an obstacle-laden tunnel, tilting left and right, trying to keep from careening into varying arrangements of colorful blocks.  There are boost pads that lend speed to your travel, as well as granting the ability to crash through an obstacle.  Granted, it sounds pretty same-old, same-old — I mean, there're plenty of hurtle-down-a-tunnel games in the App Store — but somehow, Boost 3D stands above the pack.  It has a certain stylized, simple charm that makes it feel unique.  Not to mention the glass-smooth framerate.

That said, it could be more of a game.  You start down the tunnel, racking up points the further you go.  The track and obstacles change along the way, but it's a one-shot run.  I think the addition of end goals and levelling would add significantly to the game.  But, still, among the iPhone tunnel games, Boost 3D is king, or close to the same.  It's genuinely hard to put down.

See the developer's gameplay video, which is silent, unlike the game.

App Store Link: Boost 3D, $1.99

Gameloft's Dungeon Hunter [App Store] is a hack and slash RPG easily comparable to either the Diablo or Dungeon Siege series. In the game you play as a prince who was recently resurrected to vanquish evil from your once glorious kingdom. The story doesn't come off as particularly deep or original, but it more than gets the job done.

Your quest (and associated subquests) will have you venturing across the land and killing (almost) everything that moves in a variety of different environments. The dungeons and villages you come across are beautifully rendered, greatly adding to the fantasy atmosphere and dark mood of the game. Just like the rest of the games that Gameloft has been releasing lately, there were several moments where I experienced a "Wow, I can't believe this is running on my phone" feeling as dimly lit corridors lead into giant expanses lit by candle with legions of skeletons to be slain.

Your character movement can either be handled using an on-screen virtual joystick or touch controls. The joystick is self explanatory, but with the touch controls enabled a small red cross will appear anywhere you touch in the game world and your character will run there. I've found myself preferring the virtual joystick, although touch controls work just as well once you get over the learning curve of figuring out the nuances of the pathing your character chooses to take to reach the point that you touched.

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Korean game developer Gamevil released their latest entry in the Baseball Superstars series last night with Baseball Superstars 2010 [App Store]. According to Gamevil, the original Baseball Superstars is the best selling baseball game on the App Store, and given my experience with Baseball Superstars 2010 so far, it's safe to say they've got another hit on their hands.

Baseball Superstars 2010 is a full featured baseball game with multiple game modes ranging from simple exhibition games to full seasons or homerun derbies. What sets the game apart from the pack are the RPG elements that allow you to create your own pitcher or batter and build their statistics in "My League" mode.

Various exercises and social events are available to train your players along with items to purchase such as bats and shoes with your annual salary. Once you have built up your players (up to 4 batters and 2 pitchers), you can use those players in the full season mode where you will need to manage your team's ability to work together as well as their morale.

If this sounds crazy, that's because it is. Both Baseball Superstars games have this odd mixture of really solid Baseball gameplay and these strange RPG elements that seem silly at first but start to have the same allure as leveling up any character in an RPG. I've never really been a sports gamer, but the RPG elements in the original Baseball Superstars really sucked me in, and the sequel is doing the same.

There's an additional level to the lovable absurdity in Baseball Superstars 2010 with the included "super" players. There is a pitcher that's a robot, a batter who is some kind of nurse, and in a game I just played the opposing team's pitcher performed a super move turning all the baseballs they pitched into bombs. These crazy components to the game with the RPG elements mentioned earlier somehow really make this game appeal to me, and I'm not even a baseball fan.

Baseball Superstars 2010 also offers an interesting solution to online multiplayer. Everything is done via a asynchronous match mode where you can go online to search for teams to play. In this mode, you're essentially downloading the player statistics of the team you select and playing against them locally on your device.

Sure, it's not real-time multiplayer, but the ability to download your friend's team and play against them when you have time should fit in well with the portable gaming habits of a lot of iPhone gamers where you're only playing in small increments while you're on the go.

If you don't want to get involved in a full baseball game, the homerun derbies and missions are great for playing for a few minutes at a time. Competing in both of these game modes will earn points that you can then spend to unlock additional characters and buy items.

Gamevil released the following gameplay trailer:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Similar to how the Madden games work, Baseball Superstars 2010 is the annual evolution of Baseball Superstars. There are many small tweaks and refinements that make the 2010 edition worth owning if you enjoyed the original. If you haven't played a Baseball Superstars game, there is no lite version for 2010, but there is a Lite for the original Baseball Superstars [Free] that can give you an idea of what to expect out of the sequel.

App Store Link: Baseball Superstars 2010, $5.99

While Gameloft and EA are busy battling each other with their own respective full football games, NaturalMotion is taking a different approach in tackling the sport. Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley is part tech demo and part physics-based mini game that takes a fairly basic game concept and turns it in to something really fun.

The gameplay of Backbreaker is structured in to a series of challenges where you run down a football field juking, spinning, and sprinting past defenders attempting to tackle you. You run by tilting your device forward, and the direction you run is controlled by tilting left or right similar to how you would control a racing game.

The different levels start simple, initially only asking you to evade a few defenders on a wide open field. Backbreaker quickly adds a twist with the inclusion of red lines on the field that you must run between without getting tackled. Step across one of these lines and you have to start the whole level over.

The red boundaries are eventually joined by zones on the field that award extra points when you run across them and during the last half of the game you will be darting all over the field both to stay in bounds and to rack up extra points.

The best (and by far my favorite) way to rack up points is by showboating. After you evade the last defender in a level, the showboat button will light up on screen. Holding this button down makes your player start one of a few included showboating animations such as spreading your arms out or high stepping. It's not that simple though, as the defending players will still chase after you after they get back up from their failed tackle.

This creates a hilarious balancing act between showboating for maximum points, but still making it to the end zone without being tackled. Since you don't have a very good view behind you, it's not uncommon to need to switch from showboating to sprinting, only to barely score a touchdown without being taken down.

Since there are only a few players to be rendered on screen at once, Backbreaker has much better player models than Gameloft's and EA's football offerings. Also, with the addition of the impressive morpheme physics engine, no two tackles are ever the same. After each tackle you're offered an instant replay, and I oddly found myself watching them quite often. Like most games that rely on ragdoll physics, there can be some funny (and highly unrealistic) anomalies, but by and large the tackle animations really are fun to watch.

Backbreaker is an unlicensed football game, so there are no NFL teams or players to be found anywhere within the game. Instead, there are a few generic teams bundled in for you to choose from. Your player can also be customized with skin color, number, and even your name which actually appears in game on the back of your jersey.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Five different sets of challenges are included, with 10 waves of defenders in each challenge. Bronze, silver, or gold helmets are awarded depending on your score, and you can revisit challenges as many times as you'd like to get gold helmets in everything. Once you complete the challenge mode, you can take a crack at endurance mode where you have to run through all 50 waves of defenders for one score total. There is allegedly some secret content that is unlocked when you beat the endurance mode, but I've been unable to successfully do that yet.

So I suppose the inevitable question here is whether or not Backbreaker is worth owning if you already have Madden 10 or NFL 2010. I think there is room for both (or all three) on your iPhone if you're a football fan. While EA and Gameloft's offerings provide a more complete football experience, Backbreaker is a fun mini game with cool graphics and animations that seems more accessible for playing in short bursts due to the simplicity of the game.

The best way I've come up with to describe Backbreaker is that it's the Doodle Jump of football. There isn't anything overly technical about the gameplay, but it has a strangely compelling aspect to it, especially as you're high stepping to the end zone.

Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley has been submitted to the App Store and should be available soon.

Godzilab Games' new physics puzzler has finally arrived in the App Store tonight [$1.99]. We loved what we saw in our preview, and that sentiment carried through after we had more time with the game.

In iBlast Moki, the goal is to get the Mokis from point A to point B through the use of bombs, ropes, balloons, wheels and more as you traverse through the 6 worlds and 70 levels. The early worlds involve simply placing bombs in the proper location to propel your Moki to the goal. Soon, multiple bombs are provided that can be set to detonate on a delay. The proper combination of bomb locations and timings are essential to blast the Mokis to their goals. As you go through the worlds, more tools are introduced that can be combined to solve the levels.

In each level, you are given a limited number of these tools, so there is generally one intended solution. I find this approach more satisfying then some of the more open physics puzzlers where you're never quite sure if you're approaching it correctly. That's not to say the game is without challenge. There are certainly levels that require some thoughtful planning and trial and error to solve.

The entire interface is very iPhone appropriate with pinch/zoom and drag implemented to pan around levels. Bombs and tools are placed by a simple touch and drag interface and even adjusting the bomb timers is a very intuitive touch dial interface (see video). The game's interface, menu system and transitions also exude a very high level of quality and attention to detail that is typically only seen from the big name iPhone studios.

See our gameplay video for a sampling of some of the levels.

The game comes with 70 levels and many of them can be short. Perhaps the best part of the game, however, is that Godzilla Labs has already included a full level editor and a sharing system (powered by Plus+) that gives you access to a potentially endless supply of levels. As of this writing on launch night, there are already 53 downloadable user-created levels. User levels can be rated, so you can easily find the ones that others have rated highly.

Overall, iBlast Moki is a fun, high quality physics puzzler with intuitive controls and a full level creation and online sharing system for only $1.99. We highly recommend it.

App Store Link: iBlast Moki, $1.99

The iPhone is quickly becoming the premiere device to own if mowing down swaths of zombies is what you like doing in your spare time. Alive 4 Ever [App Store] joins the ranks of countless survival shooters and other games that revolve around slaying the undead, only with considerably more blood and gore than we've seen in other similar games.

Alive 4 Ever begins with the standard zombie epidemic plot, with the characters you're able to select being the few people who somehow are showing no symptoms of the infection. Each of these four playable characters have slightly different starting weaponry and statistics, but thanks to a RPG-like experience system and extensive selection of weapons to purchase, it doesn't really matter who you pick. With each level you complete, you will be awarded some experience and money. Gain enough experience to level up and you get ability points to spend to increase your character statistics such as adding to your total hit points or increasing your critical hit chance.

The controls work exactly like all the other top-down shooters with two virtual joysticks, one that controls your movement and one that controls your aiming and firing. Tapping your gun on the top right corner of the screen changes weapons, buttons on the left display your objectives and pause the game. Between the two virtual joysticks is a reload button which also serves as a progress bar for the time left before you can fire again when you do reload. When you're near an object you can interact with, such as picking up ammo, an additional button appears.

Of the 30 levels included in the game, objectives are varied between a limited set of possibilities and every level is set within a large arena setting. Some levels have goals that simply involve killing X number of zombies or surviving for Y seconds. Other levels have you rescuing survivors or picking up a brief cases full of vaccines. On levels that you need to rescue survivors or pick up vaccines, an arrow guides you to where they are, then back to the safe zone where they need to be dropped off. To make things harder, when rescuing a survivor, you need to guard them from zombies as they slowly follow you to the safe zone. Meanwhile, when you are carrying the briefcase of vaccines, you can only use your pistol instead of your much more powerful two-handed weapon.

Also included are a few different boss levels that mix things up a bit by pitting you against a massive zombie or other creature that has a few special attacks it can use against you. Along with the standard objectives, each level also has a challenge objective. For example, the goal of the first stage is to kill 60 zombies, the secondary challenge asks you to do it in under 3 minutes. Going back and completing all the challenges should provide a decent amount of replay value, especially since as you progress in the game just beating the main objective alone can be difficult enough.

The graphics and sound in Alive 4 Ever greatly add to the overall experience of the game. The environments are highly detailed as are the zombies and the blood splatters that appear every time you shoot one of them. The musical score and sound effects also fit perfectly with the mood of the game.

My favorite thing about Alive 4 Ever is that it really feels like a complete game. So often on the App Store and especially in the 99¢ market, games are released entirely unfinished with missing features promised via updates. Yeah, it would be nice if there were some more variety to the missions, but overall the game feels very solid and most importantly like a finished product. The RPG elements are well done, there are tons of weapons to buy, and there's even coop bluetooth multiplayer which according to early reports works great.

Alive 4 Ever has a load of similarities with Left 4 Dead available for the PC and Xbox 360. There are fat zombies that explode and another zombie that is virtually identical to L4D's Smoker zombie that ropes you in with its tongue. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if you're going to pick something to imitate, the game widely regarded as 2008's game of the year seems like good source material to me.

If you've enjoyed survival shooters like Minigore or iDracula, Alive 4 Ever should also suit your fancy. At the promotional launch price of 99¢, the game provides a substantial value over the competition given the depth of the included RPG elements, multiple levels and multiplayer capability.

App Store Link: Alive 4 Ever, 99¢

One of my favorite things about the App Store is the sheer amount of games that are based on a concept that is so far out there that you would sound like some kind of maniac pitching the idea to someone else. Dungeon Scroll [App Store] joins the ranks of really weird game ideas that just work, and work well, on the iPhone.

Created by Seth A. Robinson, an award winning game designer also responsible for the classic BBS game Legend of the Red Dragon, Dungeon Scroll is a role playing word game that resembles what I imagine the bastard video game son of Underworlds [App Store] and Textropolis [App Store] to be like.

In Dungeon Scroll, you fight the various monsters you come across in your dungeon crawl by forming words, or "casting spells", as the game puts it. Each dungeon has a set of foes you must vanquish to move on to the next, and each monster has their own set of hit points. Larger words do more damage, but you can only use each word once per dungeon. Because of this, there's a significant amount of strategy in the words you play in each fight. If the monster you're fighting only has a few hit points left, you want to use three letter words to finish them off, saving your bigger words for more powerful creatures.

When you slay a monster, they drop treasure in the form of various bonus tiles. The most common type of treasure tile is an additional single-use letter, but there are also tiles which add damage to words, multiplies the damage of words, or in the case of the oracle tile, show you the best word you can form with your current tile set. According to the game's help screen, these special tiles are twice as likely to appear when you aren't holding on to any, so it's in your best interest to use them to get more.

Each monster you fight comes with its own time limit, cleverly disguised as your hit points bar which gets refilled after every fight. Find enough words to kill a monster before it kills you or it's game over. There's even more to the game though, certain enemy types like turtles are heavily armored and only four (or more) letter words will hurt them and there apparently are some super difficult dragons that appear later in the game with tons of hit points. Also, as you make your way through dungeons you will find books which will give you a choice of a statistic to increase, such as +5 to your health bar or +1 damage to each word.

Wrap all this up with a global leaderboard (that I'm currently #9 on, although not for long I'm sure), and you've got a game which is way more fun than I was expecting it to be when I first downloaded it. If you like word games, Dungeon Scroll is one that you really need to add to your collection. The RPG elements create a really unique experience, and the individual monster battles will have you finding words and strategizing when to play them instead of just playing absolutely everything you find like most word games.

There isn't a lite version available, but there is a free demo of the Windows version of the game available on the Robinson Technologies web site. It's also worth mentioning the PC version of this game sells for $6.95, so the iPhone port at 99¢ is being sold at a substantial discount from the original.

App Store Link: Dungeon Scroll, 99¢