In Plants vs. Zombies, Popcap takes the standard tower defense formula and greatly simplifies it. Instead of a path to build towers along, you drop seeds in your yard which then grow in to plants that have various offensive or defensive capabilities. The yard is organized in a grid, and zombies move straight across the row they spawn on, munching (or in some cases jumping or flying over) anything that they come in contact with.

A gauge on the top of the screen shows how close you are to the end of the level, with flags indicating when big waves of zombies are going to come. When you clear a stage, you're often awarded with the seeds of one more of the nearly 50 included plants. This seemingly constant progression does a great job of keeping you interested, as it always seems like you have a new toy to play with. To shake things up even more, mini game levels are mixed in, including a bowling game of sorts, a whack-a-mole game with zombies, and others.

Originally designed to be played with a mouse, Popcap did an excellent job of porting Plants vs. Zombies to the iPhone. The resource required to build your defenses is sunlight, and in the PC version feverishly moving your mouse around to click on the small suns falling from the top of the screen got tiring (especially when playing on a laptop with a touchpad). On the iPhone, the sunlight mechanic is also in place, but seems to work so much better when you only have to tap the falling suns to collect them.

Interface elements have been made smaller to dedicate more screen space to your yard, and some things have been moved around. Your available seeds have been moved from the top of the screen to the left, and to plant one all you need to do is tap it then tap the grid square of your lawn where you want it placed. Alternatively, you can tap the seed icon then drag your finger around your lawn. This causes both the X and Y axis of the square you're currently selecting to light up which effectively put an end to me accidentally placing seeds in squares I didn't mean to.

Plants vs. Zombies is absolutely loaded with high quality animations, excellent cartoonish zombies, and silly dialog between your neighbor/shopkeeper Crazy Dave and even notes from the zombies themselves. Throughout the game you'll defend your front lawn during the day, at night, then defend your back yard which introduces water plants that can only be planted in your pool.

As you advance through levels you will come across many more zombies than just the standard run of the mill mindless brain-muncher. There's a Michael Jackson zombie that causes others to rise from gravestones following a Thriller-like dance. There's also zombies that have armored themselves with screen doors, traffic cones, buckets, football pads, and other equally ridiculous equipment. 25 different zombies in all are included, and one end-boss. Each zombie even has their own profile inside the in-game almanac, and they're really worth a look once you unlock it.

Plants vs. Zombies performs well on both my iPhone 3G and 3GS. I did experience some slowdown when there were tons of zombies and projectiles on screen, but overall this didn't cause a problem playing through the game as the only time there was enough things happening on-screen to cause slowdown was at the very end of some levels where you already have your yard fully covered and are just waiting for the last wave of zombies to die.

On the iPhone, Plants vs. Zombies only includes the main story and a quick play mode that is unlocked once you've beaten the game that will allow you to play a few different scenarios and the various mini games you came across in story mode. The endless survival mode from the PC version is nowhere to be found, which is very disappointing, especially since I imagine quite a few people excited about Popcap porting the game to the iPhone have already completed the story mode on the PC.

There is only one difficulty level, and if you're a veteran of tower defense games, Plants vs. Zombies will likely be very easy for you. Personally, I love the tower defense genre, and being able to make it all the way through Plants vs. Zombies without much difficulty at all hasn't stopped me from playing through the game multiple times on my computer, and I'm enjoying the iPhone version just as much. I'm not sure what it is about Popcap games, but similar to Peggle and Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies never seems to get old.

The 88 Metacritic score of the original Plants vs. Zombies (complete with 100's from multiple sources) just goes to show how great this game is. The iPhone port is absolutely phenomenal, and even though it's lacking a few game modes, there's always hope for them to be implemented in the future either via an update or a DLC add-on. There isn't a lite version, but there is a free Flash demo that I highly recommend trying if this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies.

App Store Link: Plants vs. Zombies, $2.99

Every now and then a game comes along that just dazzles and blows you away by getting things exactly right. Such a game was released into the App Store yesterday by Venan Entertainment.  That game is Space Miner: Space Ore Bust [App Store].  In short, it's Asteroids meets the RPG. But that description really doesn't do the game justice.

Space Miner places you in the role of the nephew of good ole' Uncle Jebediah Gritstone, proprietor of the galactic Gritstone Mining Station. Uncle Jeb has hired you on to help with the ore mining and it's with much excitement that you make your way to his mining station in your veritable space jalopy. Once on board, things get complicated (it's a long story, enjoy it in-game) and Uncle Jeb is desperately counting on you to go out into the neighboring sectors, blast asteroids, and bring back the precious ore contained within. The more ore you collect, the bigger your cut of the profits. But the pitiful ship you start off with is hardly up to the task.

As you accumulate profits, the money can be spent in Uncle Jeb's shop, where more powerful ships, weapons, shields, ore collectors, power plants, and the like can be purchased. It doesn't take long to find yourself sitting in a decent ship with multiple ore blasters, a sizable cargo bay, and an ore collector that can get the job done. And the whole package is done up with a great deal of spot-on humorous dialog and even an amusing banjo-based audio track that fits ole' Uncle Jeb's operation to a T. (There's no doubt that he's got a still hidden somewhere on that rock of his.)

The game features highly configurable touch-screen controls (onscreen buttons, analog stick) that work nicely, 50 in-game achievements, and online score tracking via the Plus+ network.

Now, with all the heavy RPG aspects and the well done comedy, you might think the game is light on shooter action when it comes to dealing with those asteroids. Happily, that's not at all the case. The asteroid combat system is an example of shooter gold — for an Asteroids-like experience, it really couldn't be any better. And it's not just asteroids you're fighting. There are competing robot miners bent on stealing your ore that must be dealt with. Not to mention the occasional encounter with the daunting gasteroids… (Yea, they're about as bad as they sound.)

Aside from the standard goal of blasting asteroids to mine ore, there are a total of 24 missions to complete, such as rescuing helpless tourists floating through space (think Dave Pool), destroying a massive robot enemy in order to save a heartless CEO, and the like. There really is an impressive degree of gameplay variation here that just keeps things moving. In my experience, you really have to be careful not to lose track of time while playing this one. "Hard to put down" understates it.

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

Space Miner: Space Ore Bust really is an App Store gem, given the unusually broad appeal I feel surrounds the title. Shooter fans definitely have a lot to be excited about, as do RPG fans — but even those that usually find themselves impatient in an RPG setting should enjoy Space Miner. The RPG layer is not only light, but easily manageable and delivered with a healthy dose of humor. It strikes a balance between two different gaming styles — shooter and RPG — like I've not experienced since playing Activision's Battle Zone, which married action and real-time strategy with similar elegance. Without a question, this is one of the best games I've played since the App Store went live over a year and a half ago. And you don't need to take my word for it; our forum readers are going nuts over this one.

Whatever sort of gamer you are, don't miss Space Miner: Space Ore Bust.

App Store Link: Space Miner: Space Ore Bust, $4.99

Broken Sword, which was renamed Circle of Blood for its release in the USA, has been given a significant facelift. Whereas the original version of the game focused almost solely on the male character, George Stobbart, The Director's Cut does a better job of fleshing out the back story of the game's female protagonist, Nicole Collard. The game opens as Nicole prepares for an interview that unexpectedly becomes a murder investigation when the man she was set to interview is shot by a mysterious mime. Other modifications to the game include new puzzles that are specific to the iPhone platform and new art and animation from Dave Gibbons, who you might be familiar with through his work on Watchmen.

The story in Broken Sword, as in most point-and-click adventure games, is the most important element of the game, so those who haven't played a version of the game before will be pleased to find that Broken Sword's writing is excellent, and the story is quite gripping. I particularly enjoyed the self-depreciating sense of humor that Nicole occasionally displays with her commentary, and George is a comedic parody of an American from a European perspective, making him a fairly amusing character as well.

For a point-and-click adventure, Broken Sword does a lot to make itself easily accessible. In an intelligent move by the developers, a simple finger swipe will reveal everything that George or Nicole can interact within a single screen, preventing players from having to poke around the screen randomly until they find something that they can interact with. The game's many puzzles range from brain games wherein an abstract combination of collected items must be used to progress to a lock-picking game that's nearly identical to the iPhone's own Blocked to a ridiculously complex cypher that players must harness incredible code-breaking skills to crack.

Luckily, the game has a built-in walkthrough in the form of a hint system that can be easily accessed if players want to give up and find the answer to a puzzle. For each puzzle there are several hints, each one more explicit than the last, with the last one usually being a straight-up answer to the puzzle for players who just couldn't figure things out. The genius of both the "swipe-to-reveal" mechanic and the hint system is that it's possible to never use either if a player doesn't want to. Some of the hardcore fans of the original PC version of the game that're picking up the iPhone version will want a more "pure" experience, and that option is available to them, but softies like myself can still enjoy the game without having to resort to an online walkthrough.

Broken Sword's creative touch interface works like a charm on the iPhone screen, but it was the one-two punch of the game's fantastic soundtrack and art that really hooked me. The piano-heavy orchestral soundtrack is so good that I purchased it from the iTunes store so I could listen to it later, and the fact that every line of dialogue in the game is voiced makes this a game that must be experienced with headphones. Dave Gibbon's contribution to the art and animation was an invaluable addition, as the painted backgrounds and the fluid animation adds a certain appealing touch to the game.

Even though I've never been a huge fan of point-and-click adventure games, the story and all around high-quality production values of Broken Sword sucked me in like a good book. Whether you're an old fan of the original game, a newcomer to the series, or even someone who's never played a point-and-click adventure before, Broken Sword is a game with mass appeal that will draw you in.

App Store Link: Broken Sword: The Director's Cut, $6.99

The recently released iPhone Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars seems to be a hybrid of both the DS and PSP versions, with graphical quality that lies somewhere in between the two games, tutorial elements that reference PSP buttons, as well as some of the cell shaded graphics and all the stylus mini games from the DS. The main difference is how the controls have been adapted to the on-screen virtual joystick and buttons of the iPhone. Like other games that use a similar control scheme, there is always an inherent lack of precision without physical buttons that take a little getting used to, but this didn't hamper my enjoyment of Chinatown Wars in the least bit.

While on foot, a virtual joystick controls character movement, with a button for using whatever weapon you have selected (or your fists) as well as buttons to kick and leap over short fences. When you approach a car, a button appears on the bottom of the screen that you can touch to get in. If you're stealing a parked car, this will often trigger a timed touchscreen mini game where you need to turn a screwdriver in the ignition, twist some wires together, or even insert a PDA and crack the car's security system in order to get the car running without triggering its alarm.

These sequences are pretty neat the first few times you do them, and do an excellent job at adding suspense to police chases as you hastily hotwire a car before the cops converge on your location. Once you're in a car, one of five in-game radio stations start playing and the on-screen controls switch to buttons for accelerating, braking, firing your gun, and by default two buttons to steer right or left. Also available is an analog stick for steering, configurable in the game's options.

The biggest control hurdle new players will come across is learning how to cope with Chinatown Wars' driving assist system, which will automatically keep your car going straight down a road. This can be disabled, but without it perfectly lane splitting on a motorcycle seems to be nearly impossible. I've found myself preferring the default steering buttons over the optional joystick because very little control is required when driving. You really only need to hold a direction to turn, or just tap a direction to make minor adjustments to your position on a road. It feels a little strange at first, but after you make it through the tutorial missions you will be flying through Liberty City without issue.

The plot of the game is classic Grand Theft Auto, with an asian spin, made obvious by the game's title. You play as Huang Lee, the son of a recently murdered Triad boss who comes to Liberty City and unsurprisingly enough winds up knee deep in gang drama. Initially you complete tasks assigned by your Uncle, but it doesn't take long for you to meet other contacts who also require your services. The game continues like any GTA game with missions that involve killing people, stealing cars, driving people around, and other often illegal activities.

Of course, like other games in the series, once you complete the short array of tutorial missions you can disregard the main storyline entirely and instead spend your time roaming around the city, completing the various submissions, seeing how long you can survive with a high wanted level, and dealing drugs to increase your net worth.

Chinatown Wars is packed with a surprisingly fun and full featured drug economy that is highly reminiscent of the Texas Instruments calculator game Dope Wars (Originally a DOS game released in the mid-80's.) that I spent an embarrassing amount of my teenage life playing. As you drive around the city you will meet drug dealers, who are all selling or buying various drugs at different prices. Prices change depending on whose turf you're in, but you have to exercise caution because if you get busted with a car load of coke, you lose it all.

Drug dealing is just one of the many other activites that exist inside the game. Of course Chinatown Wars also has the standard taxi, ambulance, firefighter, and other driving games along with tons of secret items and locations to find. There are scratch off lottery tickets you can try your luck on, and random encounters with pedestrians who will also have various things to ask of you. The amount of depth in Chinatown Wars is unbelievable.

Since the inception of the App Store, quite a few developers have tried their hand at making an open-world crime game. Without much serious competition, most of these games seemed quite good– But even the best pre-Chinatown Wars iPhone games pale in comparison to a real Rockstar Grand Theft Auto. The level of depth is completely unmatched, but most importantly, Liberty City feels alive.

Games like Gangstar are far too sterile, with spotless city streets, stereotypical characters with no personality, and very little to make the environment the game takes place in feel like anything more than a basic sandbox. The streets of Liberty City are filthy, filles with cars, pedestrians, trains, people fighting, and emergency vehicles racing through the streets responding to randomly spawned traffic accidents. The mood and lighting of the city changes with the clock in-game, and even though the story and characters you come across aren't really anything revolutionary compared to other Grand Theft Auto games, the people you meet are usually amusing and of course the game is absolutely loaded with expletives and other racy material that the GTA clones haven't dared come close to.

There are a few issues with Chinatown Wars, the most serious being the lack of a solid targeting system. When you hold down the attack button to shoot or punch, you simply attack whoever you're facing. There isn't a way to cycle through targets, and the only way to stay locked on one target is by holding the attack button which often results in quite a few wasted bullets. It seems like there is a lot of lost potential in not having a touch-based targeting mode.

Chinatown Wars also doesn't have any kind of save state system to save your progress if you get a call or need to answer a SMS when you're in the middle of a mission. Instead the game just quits, and the next time you launch it you're back at your apartment. This can be annoying, but thankfully Chinatown Wars was designed to be a portable game, and as such the missions are usually never more than a few minutes long so the amount of progress you lose is fairly minimal.

One of my favorite things about Grand Theft Auto games is the soundtracks, but the radio stations in Chinatown Wars are fairly limited and it seems that all the pedestrian chatter was also cut. However, once you get sucked in to the game these problems fade away as you immerse yourself in Liberty City.

Chinatown Wars is a massive game, so much so that the few things I've mentioned in this review barely even scratch the surface of what there is to do and all the different features that help you to do them. An excellent in-game GPS system guides you around the city, periodic email messages tip you off to new missions and other things to do, safehouses scattered around Liberty City can be purchased once you're wealthy enough, and there's even multiple save slots so more than one person can play the game on a single device.

Performance on my iPhone 3GS is absolutely outstanding, and according to forum members, Chinatown Wars also runs without issue on the entire iPhone and iPod touch product line. The game is restricted and won't install on the first generation iPod touch, but apparently with a little tinkering can be played just fine. Something worth mentioning is while the download itself is only 188MB, Chinatown Wars requires a little over 600MB free on your device to install.

There is so much to do in Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars that completing the whole thing will likely necessitate a trip to GameFAQs to consult the various guides and maps to find every hidden object and complete every mission– A task that will likely take days of concurrent playtime. For $9.99 App Store gamers can get their hands on a game that sells for two to three times as much on other platforms, representing a substantial value even at a price point reserved for "premium" games on the platform.

Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's vice president of sales and marketing described Chinatown Wars' sales on the DS as "frustrating", and sadly the PSP version didn't perform any better. In less than 24 hours following its release on the App Store, Chinatown Wars is already the #1 top-grossing app– Something that hopefully other giants of the gaming industry are noticing, as I doubt I'm alone in hoping even more of these "full" console games make their way to the iPhone.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

If you're at all interested in open-world crime games, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is by far the best available on the platform and simply cannot be passed up. The sheer amount of content, the amazing graphics, and gameplay that will keep you coming back for more whether you choose to follow the story or rampage through Liberty City on your own is absolutely fantastic.

Now, if you'd excuse me, I've got $50,000 worth of heroin to unload.

App Store Link: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, $9.99

At the core is a card-based strategy/adventure game where battles take place by making poker hands on a 5×5 grid. When each game starts, nine cards are dealt in to the center of the grid and you take turns with the AI opponent placing pairs of the four cards you're dealt on the perimeter of the game board to form hands down, across, or diagonally. Jokers are wild, and as you play more hands a gauge in the bottom left slowly fills which allows you to swap a card for a joker as well.

There is a surprising amount of strategy in placing cards, as you need to look at what you've been dealt to try to determine the best order to play them as your opponent could also have plans for the same squares you hope to utilize on your next turn. Furthermore, as the game board fills up, you can potentially form multiple hands. A well-planned hand placed on the diagonal could also form many other hands going down or across.

The "Sword" portion of Sword & Poker comes from the roleplaying game layered on top of these poker battles, which could practically stand alone as its own game. Instead of just playing poker battles of increasing difficulty, the games are structured as floors in a dungeon and the challenge differs based on the type of monster you're fighting.

The various monsters have different amounts of coins, which is how your life is measured in game. Forming a hand like a flush subtracts far more coins from your opponent's coin purse than a simple pair, and when either you or the monster you're fighting runs out of coins the battle is over.

As you get farther in the game, the shop eventually unlocks where you can use the money you win from battles. Aside from upgrading your coin purse to increase your stamina in battles, you also can buy a number of different weapons. These weapons change your damage output, and some of the later ones you come across also have special abilities when you form particular poker hands.

Weapon selection adds yet another layer of strategy on top of Sword & Poker, as some weapons are bottom heavy, and do more damage when you form simple hands like one or two pairs. Other weapons are top-heavy, and while they do very little damage when you match pairs, they inflict devastating strikes upon laying down hands like straights or flushes.

In addition, certain weapons (along with some monsters) have special effects associated with certain hands. For instance, the thief's knife I'm using now steals a card from my opponent's hand when I form any kind of straight. Other special effects include shielding yourself from damage, causing your opponent to skip a turn, and more.

This is barely scratching the surface of Sword & Poker, a game which nearly defines the term "a hidden gem of the App Store." There are a few things that are strange about the game, such as there seems to be a huge benefit in passing your turn to make sure you are able to play the last two cards of each game board as you're often guaranteed more than one poker hand.

Also, as you progress in the game, poker battles can drag on for quite a while especially when fighting harder "boss" monsters. These fights can be a lot of fun, but the battle music is a painfully short loop that quickly becomes very repetitive as it has a very clear start and finish. However, these are merely minor complaints for an otherwise fantastic game.

If you like poker, RPG's, or just strange games that actually turn out to be a lot of fun you owe it to yourself to at least try the five levels in Sword & Poker Lite [App Store]. We discussed the game on our last podcast, and there is a thread on the forums where several people have posted about how much they're enjoying it if you need any more reason to give the game a try.

App Store Link: Sword & Poker, 99¢ – Sword & Poker Lite, Free

In Nova you play as Karl Wardin, an ex-space marine who has been reactivated to investigate some strange alien activity in a futuristic setting where the Earth has depleted its resources and no longer can sustain life, forcing humanity to live on nearby orbiting colonies. Admittedly, the plot isn't anything to write home about and the voice acting ranges from passable to downright cringe-worthy at times– Especially whenever Karl himself speaks. Thankfully, the gameplay itself more than makes up for these shortfalls.

The first series of levels will leave you wandering around on a space ship while you're guided by various characters communicating over the radio. An arrow guides you from objective to objective, and gameplay amounts to simply following this arrow, killing anything that moves, and flipping switches to activate or unlock different objects and areas. Deadspace fans will feel right at home when the game asks you to traverse the hull of the space ship, even going as far as to mention enabling your magnetic boots. What do you do while you're outside the ship? Run from pressurized area to pressurized area while avoiding incoming asteroids of course. (If you haven't played Deadspace, you do exactly this several times throughout the game– The hull is even laid out similarly.)

Eventually after fixing a few different parts of the ship and killing oodles of aliens, you will make your way to the bridge to initiate the self destruct sequence and escape back to your ship. You then fly down to a planet with beautifully rendered lush forests which also happens to be infested by these same (although slightly different colored) aliens. The rest of the game continues in a similar fashion, with different characters telling you where to go and what to do across 13 different levels that take place in five distinctly different environments.

The run and gun action is broken up by mini games, a level where you man the turrent on a warthog-like truck from Halo, and even a couple boss fights. Scattered throughout the levels are locked crates which must be opened by playing a brief mini game where you move different objects around on a grid to solve a puzzle where you're directing a laser beam from its source to the target. None of these are particularly difficult, and depending on how you feel about mini games you will either find these to be enjoyable distractions or just too annoying to bother with. Thankfully, it seems like there is enough ammo dropped by enemies and laying on the ground that the crates are optional but you will be forced to solve a few of these puzzles throughout the game as you "hack" things to progress.

Similar to Halo, your life is measured by a shield meter at the top of the screen which depletes when you take damage and recharges slowly afterwards. Your shield gauge also serves as your oxygen supply when you're in space, and your super abilities also take off a chunk of your shield's power. Super abilities? Oh yes, straight out of Metroid Prime you will slowly gain new abilities such as the ability to freeze enemies, shoot a charged up energy beam, and even run faster with speed boots.

If you've played Modern Combat: Sandstorm [$4.99 / Free], the controls in NOVA will be instantly familiar to you. If not, the game uses a virtual joystick on the left side of the screen for movement, and moving your thumb around the right side of the screen changes your view around. Different buttons frame the screen that do things like fire your weapon, toss a grenade, change weapons, reload, etc. There are two other included control schemes, one where the screen is split in half and moving your left thumb anywhere controls your movement while your right controls your view (essentially just removing the virtual joystick) and another with two virtual joysticks where you tap the screen to fire. I've found the default controls to be fine, although I did spend some time fiddling with the sensitivity.

Another nice feature is the ability to move all of the elements of the game's UI around. I've moved the reload button closer to the fire button because I'm a compulsive reloader in first person shooters, but you can customize it however you want. (Although currently this option only seems available by adjusting your controls mid-game, and not from the main menu.) Strangely enough, even though it seems that Gameloft has put a great deal of thought in to different control options and customizations, the ability to invert the Y-axis of the camera control is notably absent. What will leave you scratching your head even more regarding the lack of invert look is that Modern Combat: Sandstorm, a game which shares a similar engine to NOVA includes Y-axis inversion. You can however flip the screen orientation, something that should make iPod touch users happy.

The performance of the game is phenomenal on the iPhone 3GS with fast load times, high frame rates, and everything else you could ask for in a first person shooter. Meanwhile, reader reports all the way down to the slowest device in the iPod family have been said to be smooth. Even while playing online in NOVA's four player deathmatch mode, which surprisingly enough seems to be working just fine for everyone, a nice change of pace from Gameloft's recently released Modern Combat: Sandstorm multiplayer update.

Playing online requires both WiFi and a Gameloft Live account. Registering for Gameloft Live is easy, and once you're online you will have the option to play deathmatch or look at the worldwide leaderboards of players with the most points and kills. When creating a deathmatch game, available options include choosing one of the five maps, as well as enabling or disabling weapon stay and aim assist. Games can be set with a time limit or a frag limit, and both can be set to none to play for as long as you'd like.

When joining a game, you're thrown in to a lobby which lists available games that have open slots for you to join. Those of you waiting for an Eliminate "killer" will be disappointed to discover that currently there doesn't seem to be any random matchmaking, or the ability to have friends-only private matches. All you can do is create a game and hope that three of your friends join it before other people do.

Despite its limitations, online multiplayer (as well as local bluetooth/WiFi multiplayer) is a lot of fun and performs surprisingly well. I haven't come across any lag or connection issues, and so far it just works– Although the true test of NOVA multiplayer will be how well it holds up once players start getting good at the game and scrutinizing the weapon balance. It's too early to say how large the online community will get and what kind of staying power NOVA's online presence will have, but it seems quite enjoyable right now.

If you're a fan of first person shooters, or any of the previously mentioned console classics that NOVA is obviously inspired by, then you too will also likely really enjoy NOVA. It's one of the most ambitious iPhone games I've played so far, and despite the questionable originality of the game I've really got to hand it to Gameloft for creating such an amazing iPhone experience.

App Store Link: N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99

Believe it or not, Need For Speed: Shift is the thirteenth in the Need For Speed series which originally debuted all the way back in 1994 with Road & Track magazine heavily advising on both the sound design and vehicle physics. Since then, the Need For Speed saga has been through many iterations covering everything from super cars to underground street racing to police chases.

With recent Need For Speed games taking sharp turns towards the arcade racing genre (Such as Need For Speed: Undercover [App Store] for the iPhone.) it's nice to see EA getting back on course with what feels much more like an actual racing simulation in Shift.

The 20 included real licensed cars can have both their visuals and performance upgraded. In the visuals department you can add a body kit, change paint colors, buy ridiculously huge spoilers, and change out your wheels. If you care more about your car actually going faster than looking cool, you can upgrade its top speed, acceleration, nitrous oxide system, as well as tires and suspension. Each of these upgrades come in multiple stages and once you've hit a car's limit to remain competitive in races you will need to buy new cars.

Cars in game must be bought with winnings from races, and available cars are slowly unlocked as you progress through the game. Initially, Chicago is the only locale you have access to, but both London and Tokyo are eventually unlocked granting access to all 18 different courses included in the game. In each locale you can participate in seven different types of events which range from standard races to drifting competitions, time trials, and the driver duel which pits you against a single AI opponent.

Each event has an associated set of stars that can be earned while racing to unlock additional events. You will always earn stars for being in the top three, with additional available stars for doing things like being in first place for an entire lap, never going off the track, and beating the track's lap record. These stars go hand in hand with the in-game score system which tallies points for both "precision" and "aggression" based on different actions.

Doing things like following a perfect racing line or taking a corner well will earn precision points, while actions like riding an opponent's tail or bumping them out of the way earns aggression points. At the end of each race, these points are totaled on your persistent driver profile that the game is constantly building along with a custom racing emblem which gets an additional component added to it as you level up.

While overall the whole aggression/precision system doesn't have much impact on anything in the game, it's still fairly cool that two people will likely never have the game build the same emblem based on their career. Currently I've been towards the precise side of the spectrum, and my emblem is a target with a pair of crossed spark plugs. If my racing style focused more on bumping in to people, my emblem would consist of things like crossed axes and other more aggression-oriented objects.

Aside from your driving style, "badges" also can be earned which act as Shift's achievement system. Badges come in multiple ranks, and are upgraded over time based on your performance. For instance, the Iron Man bronze badge is earned by placing first in three consecutive events, and can be upgraded to silver by placing first in five consecutive events.

Need For Speed: Shift features several different control options which should satisfy the needs of most racing fans, unless you prefer virtual joysticks to tilting to steer– an option that is notably absent. In rookie mode, the game practically plays itself. Your car accelerates automatically, brakes automatically, and there is a racing line made of arrows on the track for your car to follow. In rookie mode, it also feels like it's difficult to not follow this racing line, almost like your car falls in to some kind of groove that is difficult to steer out of if you want to overtake an opponent.

The next control option is the professional mode, which turns off all the assist options and actually allows you to drive your car around where you want. Unless you are just really bad at racing games, I'd recommend just immediately turning on the professional mode before you even start your first race. The next step up is expert mode, which takes professional mode and adds a manual transmission and there's also a custom mode where you can enable/disable each control feature as you see fit.

Swiping up or swiping down on screen shifts the gears of your manual transmission, and while I'm sure there are people out there who will be in love with this game because of this functionality, I've never been one for changing gears in racing games. Regardless of which control mode you choose, acceleration is handled automatically and touching the screen applies the brakes. If you've upgraded your car to have a nitrous oxide system, tapping a button in the bottom right corner engages and disengages the nitrous. There's also a button on the top of the screen for changing the view from cockpit, hood, first person, and third person views.

With so few truly high quality 3D racing games on the App Store, comparisons are inevitable, and we've already had some heated debates on our forums regarding Need For Speed: Shift versus Real Racing [App Store]. In my opinion, both games are worth owning. Shift edges ahead of Real Racing due to the inclusion of real licensed cars instead of generic sports cars and Volkswagens as well as having a better career mode.

But, on the other hand, Real Racing seems to have better, more realistic, and much more aggressive AI opponents. Shift seems to fall victim to the same problem as many other racing games on the platform with opponents that just seem to want to follow their own little racing line and generally just ignore you entirely. Also, while I can't completely confirm the existence of irritating rubberband AI in Shift, I been in a few races where I've pulled very far ahead of my opponents only to see them zooming up behind me on the mini map from out of nowhere. I suppose it's always possible they decided to dump their nitrous tanks to catch up to me, but it does seem suspect.

Both games include local multiplayer, although I haven't been able to test this functionality in Shift. In the multiplayer mode, you're able to select both WiFi and bluetooth as connection options, as well as choose from many of the different tracks and included game modes. Online multiplayer would have been nice, although it's not unexpected to see EA preferring to stick with local multiplayer.

At the end of the day I think Need For Speed: Shift's greatest flaw is that it shares the same title and likely a lot of the same expectations of the XBOX 360 and PS3 console versions of the game. Having spent a great deal of time in the XBOX 360 game, what I was looking forward to most on the iPhone wasn't tons of cars or tracks, but only the insanely immersive sense of speed. On the 360, as you go faster and faster the edges of your screen slowly start to blur along with other visuals that make you feel like you're going very fast sitting on your couch– Also, there are all kinds of great visual effects when you crash. Out of all this, the only thing that made it to the iPhone is a vaguely reminiscent red tinge to the screen when you hit something.

Regardless, Need For Speed: Shift is a remarkable iPhone racing game. With licensed cars, control options that should make most people happy, and a very cool yet mostly superfluous driver profile and performance tracking system, Shift is a must-have for fans of the genre. Looking to the future, and seeing how much EA has tweaked and refined the racing experience between Need For Speed: Undercover and Need For Speed: Shift, I doubt I'm alone in being very excited to see what's next in the Need For Speed series on the App Store.

Need For Speed: Shift is coming soon.

In a nutshell, the Sword of Fargoal places the player within the top level of a deep series of dungeons with the quest of seeking out the legendary "Sword of Fargoal" and escaping with it from the depths of said dungeons. Complicating matters is the fact that the layout of each dungeon level is randomly generated when the player enters it, and that the dungeons are all initially bathed in darkness, revealing themselves only as the player explores. Those lucky enough to locate the sword have only 2,000 seconds to find their way out of the dungeons which, even on the way up, are also randomly generated.

The iPhone version features completely redone graphics utilizing OpenGL ES to add depth to the stony visuals. It allows for pinch-and-spread zoom control to focus on the action at hand and features an optional on-screen mini map to aid in negotiating the twists and turns of each dungeon level. What's more, the developer has implemented a full, real-time music synthesizer system for the game which delivers sound that, while ringing of retro, surpasses the quality of the C64's SID-based score.

But, really, what makes the game so well suited for the iPhone is its casual nature as compared to the typical roguelike. And that's not to say the game is shallow or light on dungeon crawling action, but rather we feel it's simply a bit more accessible to the typical gamer than, say, Nethack, Moria, or Rogue thanks to an economy of controls, spells, and the like. Those who've never played a dungeon crawler before might just find themselves drawn in to Sword of Fargoal.

Early impressions from our readers are also quite positive, including great first impressions from the Rogue Touch developer as well as from at least one skeptic. The game is on sale 40% off during its first week.

App Store Link: Sword of Fargoal, $2.99

As explained by the developers in our earlier interview, the clean-lined track design is created by a flat-shading of solid colors that really draw the eye to the engine’s pre-calculated lightmaps. Each of the tracks are set over detailed, eye-catching skymaps that act as contrasting backdrops- the effect culminating in one particular level with a breathtaking sunset casting shadows all over the race track. The developers have previously stated in our forums that as well as looking terrific, this design has allowed them to achieve an impressive 60 frames per second on 3rd generation devices, and a smooth 30 fps on all previous models.

All the visuals in the world however cannot sustain a lacking gameplay design or frustrating controls; two unfortunately common traits of many AppStore releases. Fortunately, Jet Car Stunts sports neither, its simple name belying a surprisingly feature and content-rich racer. There are two markedly different gameplay experiences to be had in Jet Car Stunts; a Platforming mode and a Time Trial mode, with 36 individually crafted tracks to complete between the two.

Platforming mode sees you carefully managing your rocket boost and brake-flaps to perfectly land mind-boggling jumps and death-defying drops. There are 25 tracks to master here, ranging in difficulty from ‘Just learning’ to ‘Impossible’, the latter of which is very true to its name. Platforming, and to a lesser extent, Time Trial mode too, is not something that you will expect to complete on your first or even fifth attempt. To pass each level you must complete the track without retrying more than 10 times. That may sound lenient, but Jet Car Stunts sees you careening off-course at blistering speeds more often than not, until you’re adequately familiar with each turn and have gauged each jump. Fortunately, there are regular checkpoints throughout each level that make each new feat manageable and prevent the game from ever getting frustrating.

Time Trial mode presents 11 tracks of lesser vertical challenge, but which are far more capable of maxing out the speed potential of your jet car. Checkpoints award a much needed time bonus and boost recharge as you wildly drift and rocket your jet car around precarious bends and stomach-wrenching leaps to complete each lap. It’s pleasing to see a racer capable of two very different yet still exciting game play approaches.

Considering the break-neck pace at which Jet Car Stunts is played, it is a credit to the developers that they have managed to fine tuned the accelerometer steering. Acceleration and braking is controlled separately from the boosting and brake-flaps, meaning four buttons must be considered at all times. When in the air, tilting the device up or down alters the pitch of the jet car to achieve desired distance and trajectory, whilst left and right tilting affect the roll of the vehicle. Proper use of air-braking and tilting is critical for success especially in the Platforming levels. Though every now and then you may find your jet car the wrong way up, you never feel as if it is a result of the game controls, but simply due to the need for extra practice with the track. It is also worth noting that there are a variety of different on-screen button configurations available depending on your personal preference.

In addition to all this, Jet Car Stunts boasts OpenFeint integration, with 39 achievements to unlock; gained through feats such as somersaulting, barrel rolling and spinning your jet car, as well as through mastering each track on offer. Online leaderboards for each track in both Platforming and Time Trial will see that the competitive types continue to play Jet Car Stunts for a long while to come. For those simply interested in completing Jet Car Stunts, the time needed to memorize and master the 36 tracks available will certinaly be satisfactory.

All in all, we've been having a great time with this game and highly recommend it. Early impressions pouring in from readers in our discussions forums are also overwhelmingly positive. If you are vaguely interested in a challenging rocket-paced racer with attractive and crafty level designs then you owe it to yourself to check out the break-neck paced racing and fresh visual design of Jet Car Stunts.

App Store Link: Jet Car Stunts, $1.99

If it wasn't apparent by now from reading our other coverage on the game, we really enjoy Eliminate. The classic four player deathmatch gameplay is enhanced with an RPG-style progression system which adds a great deal of depth to an otherwise simple game. Power-ups littered throughout the maps spice up battles, and when it's working as intended, the matchmaking system seems to do a decent job of making sure the game you get thrown in to is reasonably matched.

While we did feel obligated to review Eliminate Pro, since you can download and experience everything in the game for free, there isn't much reason for me to dwell much on the gameplay. Instead, I'll try to clear up some common misconceptions I've seen in comments and in forum posts, along with offering some helpful tips and hints for new players.

Credits and Power

First off, credits make the world go round in the world of Eliminate. In order to buy weapons and equipment upgrades, you need to spend credits and your overall earnings act as your experience point total. As you earn more credits, you increase in level, unlocking more powerful weapons and armor to buy along with available upgrades for your existing equipment.

In order to earn credits, you must be energized. The first time you load the game you will start out with a full energy bar, and while you have energy every opponent who dies in a match will drop credits which can be picked up by anyone nearby. After each match, your energy decreases until you're eventually out, at which point you have three options: Wait for a recharge in 240 minutes, buy energy via an in-game microtransaction, or continue playing for as long as you want without earning credits.

An extremely common misconception is that you can no longer play when you're out of energy. The fact of the matter is you continue playing Eliminate for as long as you want, your character's progress will just be stopped until the next recharge and it will take a few seconds longer for you to get matched in to a game. That's it. If you're happy just playing a few matches each day while earning credits and the rest of the time just playing for fun, you never need to spend a cent on Eliminate.

When the matchmaking system is working well, it should match you up with people of somewhat similar skill. Because of this, not having the best equipment shouldn't detract from your overall performance as much as you'd think. Skill can overcome gear, as forum moderator and iPhone gaming superstar Zincous illustrated by killing a higher level forum member in a heavily armored suit and rocket launcher ten times in a row without dying once using the default (through presumably upgraded) armor and rifle.

So again, you do not need energy to play Eliminate or eventually buy character upgrades in Eliminate. You can play for free as long as you'd like, your progression will just be slowed– And just because someone has better gear than you doesn't mean you can't mop the floor with them.

Tweaking Options

The first thing I recommend you do when you download Eliminate is make your way to the options. Changing the look sensitivity is absolutely vital to enjoying the game. I've been preferring a higher sensitivity, but you should try out a few different settings while fighting against bots locally to find a setting you like. From there, you can pretty much disable tap to zoom as more often than not you will only trigger the zoom functionality in the game on accident. Being able to snipe is rarely very useful in the fast paced games of Eliminate.

If you prefer the controls flipped, there's a checkbox for that along with a checkbox for showing or hiding the on-screen directional pads in game. These obviously are personal preference settings and seem to have no effect on gameplay performance. The final option seems to be highly contested on our forums regarding whether or not to enable it, and that is auto-fire.

With auto-fire turned on, you will automatically shoot whenever an enemy is inside of your crosshairs. If you're having trouble getting comfortable with the controls, this can make the game much more accessible early on. While this may be friendly for beginners, you should try to get used to firing on your own with this turned off as soon as possible. To fire manually, you tap your right thumb once to begin firing, then briefly lift your thumb off the screen again to stop.

Auto-fire can unintentionally reveal your location and waste bullets. This is especially important once you've ranked up enough to be able to buy the rocket launcher, as every single shot you make with that needs to count and it takes so long to reload that you can't just have the game automatically firing rockets whenever an enemy crosses your path.

Knowing is Half the Battle

While browsing the store, you can easily see all the available weapons and armor, but what isn't immediately obvious is that you can also upgrade the individual features of your existing equipment. Tap "Gear Up" then "Inventory" to see what you own, and available upgrades. Spending credits upgrading your existing weapons and armor can be more effective than upgrading to new weapons and armor.

Like most death match games, knowing the maps is key. Playing against bots locally can be a great way to familiarize yourself with maps that you haven't spent much time playing in case they come up in rotation while you're energized. While you're exploring these maps, look for places that you can easily get cover and where you can retreat to look for health. As you play more you will begin to learn the locations of the spawn points on the map where players reappear after they die, and the locations of your favorite power ups. With only five included maps, it won't take you long until you have an accurate mental map of everything in game.

Power Ups

Speaking of power-ups, here are the included Eliminate power ups, and how to effectively use each one-

• Damage Amplifier – Similar to Quad Damage in Quake games, this substantially increases the amount of damage your weapons do. While your damage is amplified, it's best to switch to weapons that have a wider attack like your rocket launcher or plasma cannon, as even enemies in the outside of their blast radius will be heavily damaged. While playing, if you see someone's weapon glowing blue, it is probably best to run away from them until their power up wears off as they will be able to kill you much easier than you can kill them.
• Berserker Shield – With this active, you become invulnerable for a brief period of time. You can also shield-slam people with the berserker shield, which instantly kills anyone. The most effective thing to do while having this power up is to obviously shoot whoever you can while you're getting close enough for shield slam to fire inside of melee range. Like the damage amplifier, the berserker shield will make the whole body of whoever has it glow blue. If you see someone with this graphical effect on their character, it's probably best to run.
• Cloaking Field – My least favorite power up, when you pick this up your character turns mostly translucent. Unfortunately, firing gives away your location and your score doesn't benefit from hiding so it is rarely very useful– Especially when playing against skilled opponents. Keep your eyes peeled and opponents who are cloaked won't be much of an issue.
• Health Recharge – This seems to be the best power-up to have, when you pick it up your health will slowly recharge to 175 for its duration. Whenever an enemy is killed, be sure to grab the health recharge before the credits because you can't pick up credits if you're dead. If you see someone with a slightly red glow to them, they have this power-up active and will require a constant stream of bullets to kill.
• Jet Pack – Take to the skies with this power-up, jumping or looking up and moving forward will send you flying around the map. Useful for credits that get stuck in weird places or chasing opponents across large gaps. If someone is flying, they have the jet pack active. It can be a little disorienting when you first pick it up, so if you see someone flying around try to pick them off before they get a handle on their trajectory.
• Acceleration – This power-up greatly increases your movement speed. Useful for stealing the credits from other peoples' kills and running away from enemies with strong power ups active. Opponents with this activated are obvious as they will be moving very quickly. On the up side, at least you know they're not regenerating health so they should be easy to kill.

Keep in mind, only one power-up can be active at a time, and picking another one up cancels out the previous effect. The duration of power-ups can be increased by upgrading the power-up functionality of your armor, which is at the bottom of the list in the inventory page that has armor upgrades. Generally speaking the best power-up seems to be the health recharge followed closely by the berserker shield and damage amplifier depending on the situation.

Maximizing Damage and Credits

Eliminate uses basic hit box detection, so aiming for the head does more damage than the body. Whenever possible try to aim at the heads of your opponents for maximum damage. If you're in a hallway with an opponent and you're shooting their head while they're shooting your body, you will win and be able to recharge back to full health when you pick up their health power-up.

When starting out, it seems to be the most effective to save your credits to just upgrade one or two guns before other weapons. Even though the auto-rifle is your default weapon, it can pack quite a punch once you sink some credits in to it. Similarly, even though armor skins may be attractive to buy to make your guy look cool, they're a waste of credits early on when you could be increasing your overall effectiveness to earn more credits. Don't underestimate the power of upgrading the stats of your weapons and armor.

Taunting awards additional credits while energized, so make sure you shake your iPhone when you're on top of any corpse. When you hear your character say "Yeah!", you've successfully taunted. Also, speaking of credits, once an enemy has died anyone who is energized can pick up the credits they drop. If you're trying to maximize your income, be as crafty as possible and let other people do much of the killing only to sweep in, kill them, and clean up all the credits.

Like other death match games, framerate is important. Eliminate runs best on newer devices, but runs well enough to play on the entire line of iPods and iPhones. If you're having performance issues, you can try restarting your device, disable automatic email checking, or even turn on airplane mode and re-enable WiFi to avoid being interrupted by calls and text messages.

Since energy is a limited resource, I recommend playing games while you're energized while connected to reliable WiFi. Eliminate works fine over 3G, but with only a few recharges per day it's usually best to use an internet connection that you trust instead of depending on the often questionable performance of the cellular network.

Have Fun

Like any video game, practice makes perfect. The first few times you play Eliminate, you will likely get owned. Play against bots locally until you have a good feel for the controls, and then expect to die quite a bit while you're learning how to best play against human opponents. Most of all, don't get discouraged because of a string of a few bad matches. Whenever you're in a game where you're being dominated by your opponents, try to observe what they're doing to kill you so effectively and try to turn your defeat in to a lesson on a play technique you may not have thought of.

Eliminate is a great game, and I've really got to hand it to ngmoco for not only creating such an action packed multiplayer experience on the iPhone, but also doing it in a way that can be enjoyable for casual players who just want to dabble in the game for free along with hardcore players who have made Eliminate part of their daily routine. If you've read this far and haven't already tried Eliminate, what are you waiting for? Further questions can be answered in the massive discussion thread or in our Eliminate tips thread in our forums.

App Store Link: Eliminate Pro, Free