Back in early March we told you about Zynga's upcoming Temple Run-style game called Running With Friends, which was just entering a beta period in the Canadian App Store. Early today, Running With Friends [Free / Free (HD)] bid adieu to its limited beta launch and is now available in the US App Store and internationally. VentureBeat has uploaded an official trailer, check it out.

So, endless runners, ya'll. By now you know what they are, you've likely played many different kinds, and here's a new one from Zynga. I'm not really sure what else there is to say on the matter. Running With Friends is free for iPhone or iPad, so you can just download it and try it yourself if you're dying for a new endless runner, or check out the forums for discussion.

We've been following along with the development of iMech Online [Free] since its first unveiling at WWDC last year, and over the weekend the game quietly launched for free in the App Store. Actually, to back up a bit, iMech was a game originally released way back in 2009 and was among the first iOS games to feature full competitive online multiplayer for up to 8 players. It was extremely impressive for the time, and iMech accumulated a dedicated fanbase of online players.

As can happen, the original development team broke apart and eventually iMech was removed from the App Store and its servers were shut down. A phoenix rose from the ashes in a sense, though, as some of the original team banded together and purchased the iMech IP and set forth to revamp and rerelease the game. And that's where we're at now with the release of iMech Online.

It's free to download and try iMech Online, and there's really no reason why you shouldn't. It has a fairly robust selection of mechs to choose from as well as a ton of customization options so you can trick them out with special abilities and weapons. It's a free-to-play title, though, so expect to need to grind away to earn some of this stuff or pony up some real dough to do it more quickly.

However, the game's new developer Mobula has tried to ensure there's nothing that's "pay-to-win" about their upgrade system, so even if you are new to the game and not quite fully-equipped just yet you can still match up well with those who are. Also they're using a League of Legends-inspired rotating system which gives you a selection of different mechs to try out each week, so you can check them out before committing to investing time or currency into them.

So far I've only spent a small amount of time with iMech Online, but it feels like there's a lot of potential here. I like the amount of different mechs and customization options, but with just one arena and a simple deathmatch game type it feels very basic. We'll see how it continues to evolve, but for free I think it's definitely worth the time to check out. Also, there's a discussion thread in our forums if you want to drop your own thoughts or suggestions on iMech Online, or just find some folks to frag.

Hey, do you like Angry Birds? And do you have friends? Well you can finally combine these two major aspects of your life in one handy iOS game. Yes, as we've talked about previously, Rovio has just taken their ultra-popular Facebook social game and brought it to the App Store as Angry Birds Friends [Free].

Here's the thing, though: as snarky as I might try to be about yet another Angry Birds game, Angry Birds Friends is pretty darn fun so far. First and foremost, it uses Facebook to do pretty much anything meaningful, so if you're not down with that then you should probably just move on now.

If you are down to plug your Facebook into the game, Angry Birds Friends will pit you against your buddies in weekly high-score tournaments. A different set of 6 levels will appear with each weekly tournament, and you can play and replay each one trying to get the absolute best score you possibly can. Your total score for all levels is the bar used to measure who wins at the end of the week, and then the whole thing starts over again.

While there's nothing mind-blowingly different going on in Angry Birds Friends, it's still fun to have a smaller subset of players to compete against rather than the billion or so people who are playing the other Angry Birds games, and with a rotating set of new levels each and every week it should provide some variety if you've played the other games to death already.

I'm not crazy about having to use Facebook, and the connection to the social network seems kind of slow at times, but for a free download you don't have anything to lose by checking out Angry Birds Friends if you're looking to add a more competitive aspect to your bird-flinging.

If you imagine a venn diagram where one circle is people who read TouchArcade and the other circle is people who watch The Ellen Show on the reg', I'm really not sure what (if any) overlap there'd be. Regardless of whether you're an Ellen superfan or you don't even know who Ellen DeGeneres is, you need to check out the new iOS game she's throwing her proverbial brand muscle behind. It's called Heads Up! [$0.99] and I think the best way to describe it is Spaceteam you can play with your Mom.

In Spaceteam [Free] you're playing with a gang of nerds, each with their own iOS device, with everyone laughing and shouting random sci-fi-ish to everyone else. Heads Up! has a very similar party game vibe when you're playing, with two main benefits: You only need a single iOS device, and gameplay revolves around pop culture charades that anyone can get into. If you watch Ellen, you're probably totally familiar with the style of charades she does, if not, check out this video of the Heads Up! game being played on her show:

In a nutshell, you get a group of people together, load up the app, select a category, and then hold your iPhone (or iPad) up to your forehead. From there, you've got 60 seconds where a word will appear on the screen, everyone else shouts clues, and you try to guess it. If you get it right, you tilt your device down, if you can't get it and want to skip you tilt up. It sounds basic, but even beta versions of the game that randomly would appear at bars and restaurants of GDC was a ton of fun.

Cooler yet, Heads Up! utilizes the front camera of your device in a super clever way. As you're playing, it's recording everything, and showing the word(s) you're supposed to be guessing in the saved recording. So, if you have a particularly silly game, you're only a few buttons away from blasting that footage up to Twitter, your own Facebook, or even the Heads Up! Facebook page which I'm guessing will be used to feature the best videos on the actual Ellen show.

Here's the video exported from the play session seen in the previous video:

The only down side to Heads Up! is that outside of a social situation there's really not much for you to do, but, that's the case for all party games. Still, you should drop a buck on Heads Up! and keep it in the same folder on your iPhone that you keep Space Team in so next time you're out with friends you can bust this bad boy out and see how long it'll take you to guess "Captain Jack Sparrow" from your friends' terrible barrage of clues.

We're being trolled, right? Maybe? I honestly can't tell if the titling for this is an attempt to draw interest by capitalizing on a popular brand or just misguided confidence in a product. Either way, Better Than Portal [$0.99] invites a comparison that it can't live up to in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I'm not going to waste anymore of my time comparing the two because POPS Worldwide didn't bother to try to do anything remarkable with this game. It is just another run-of-the-mill 2D puzzle game with flat writing, uninspired art, oodles of fail states, and a portal gun.

In Better Than Portal, you control a kid with whacky hair and a portal gun across a host of chapter-based levels that range from a reactor to an underground lab to a forest. In each level, the goal is to reach a purplish orb thing, usually tucked well and away from the kid. Getting to the orb requires use of the portal gun, which when used, can create tears in the universe allowing for easy teleportation of the kid and other objects such as, say, boxes. As the game ramps up, it introduces obstacles like laser grids, which you'll need to turn off by, generally, finding a box to drop onto a switch.

Where the game starts running into problems is in the controls. Simple taps in the world make portals, but there's just one type of portal, meaning every time you mess up you'll need to make two brand new portals instead of just one. This is wicked frustrating in a lot of the later levels, as you'll have to repeat entire sections of a puzzle (or even have to restart) if you accidentally touch the screen while moving your character.

There's also the issue of just being plain unambitious. The puzzles I've seen so far are Standard Video Game type of stuff. Now, the game might take it to the next level in the last two areas, but nothing I've seen in the mechanical build-up so far indicates that it will. Regardless, the first hour I've spent with Better Than Portal has been lackluster at best.

Anyway, you can see it for yourself today if you'd like. It's available worldwide right now for iPhone and iPod touch. We'll continue plugging away, just like the folks in the game's thread.

GameVision's Mr. Runner [Free] series has proven popular on the App Store, garnering more than 5 million downloads across its normal and Plus [Free] versions. Yesterday a proper sequel to the original games appeared in the App Store, titled Mr. Runner 2: The Masks [$0.99].

Mr. Runner 2 is an auto-running game. Big surprise, right? However, unlike most typical runners that have you jumping over enemies and gaps in the terrain, you're actually tasked with controlling your character's speed in order to safely get through the very dangerously designed levels.

You see, as you run along, the ceiling will occasionally lower down to meet the floor. There are plenty of very fortunately-placed gaps in the ceiling though, so you'll need to slow down or speed up your character so that you're situated in one of these gaps at the time the ceiling decides to drop down, thus saving you from getting crushed.

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I feel like I've said it a million times by now, and probably most recently (and most publicly) discussed the idea in a recent episode of the TouchArcade show where we got on the subject of how your iPad is basically as powerful (if not more so) than the PC's we played "classic" MMO's on a decade ago. So, where the heck are the shared experience MMO clients that let me take my game with me regardless of where I am or what client I'm connected with?! Sure, there's a couple of them (Spacetime Studios is particularly killing it.) but nowhere near as many as you'd think there'd be. The just-released Vendetta Online [$0.99 (HD)] seems like it's just what the doctor ordered.

It's a huge-scale space MMO that's giving me some serious Freelancer vibes, which is definitely a good thing. The payment model is cool too, as your initial 99¢ download gets your access to the game for a month, then after that it's just another dollar a month if you want to keep playing. That seems super-low risk, and really agreeable if you want to keep playing.

Oh, and there's even a "Player Contribution Corps," per the iTunes description, where you can directly contribute to content that gets added to the game if you become a hardcore member of the community. Getting started on a new MMO is intimidating, that's for sure, but this one is tickling all the right places for me and I'm stoked to spend some time with it. For more info on the game, check out the official web site which has downloads links for the Mac, Windows, and Linux clients as well as the thread on our forums.

It's Wednesday and while we're staring down the barrel of a whole heap of new iOS games hitting tonight, Duke Nukem 2 [$1.99] apparently decided to jump the line and just hit the App Store now.

It's crazy to think it's been so long, but Duke Nukem 2 was actually originally released as a shareware title twenty years ago. Unlike Duke Nukem 3D which you might be more familiar with, the first two Duke titles were actually sidescrolling platformer style games. The series wouldn't actually make the jump to the 3D glory everyone remembers until three years later in 1996.

If you're more fond of the 3D variety, that's cool, as Duke Nukem 3D [$0.99] has been on the App Store for quite some time now, although we aren't that crazy about the controls. They've been tweaked a bit since the initial release, but they're still not that great.

We're going to spend some more time with the game, as it just hit the App Store, but if this is something you've been looking forward to since we first posted it was coming... Get ready to kick ass and chew bubble gum?

When Hunted Cow Studios originally launched Battle Dungeon this past December, it seemed like a promising tactical turn-based strategy title with a heavy emphasis on online play. In fact, even the single player portion of the game relied on Hunted Cow's online servers, as that's where the computer AI lived too. No matter how you planned on playing it, Battle Dungeon required an online connection.

So when the game began to pick up steam in the pirating community, and those same servers began filling up with players who never actually paid for the game, it became financially unviable for Hunted Cow to continue to keep them running. That means the game was pulled from the App Store and servers were turned off, and thanks to how the AI was hosted it made Battle Dungeon useless even for an offline single player experience.

A sad story for a game that hadn't even been out for a week at the time, but Hunted Cow was very good at facilitating refunds for those who bought the game and they vowed to rework Battle Dungeon and re-release it as an offline, single-player only game. After a few months the team has finally reached that goal with the release of Battle Dungeon: Risen [$2.99].

Battle Dungeon: Risen features the same turn-based gameplay as the original game, but spread across 12 self-contained single-player scenarios. Each scenario has a 3-star grading system, and with the level of customization you're given to create a team and progress each character there is a lot of replay value in finding the best team and set of tactics for beating each one. And, as you can see in the comparison screen below, the graphics and lighting have been noticeably improved over the original Battle Dungeon.

While the absence of competitive online matches is a bummer, Battle Dungeon: Risen proves it wasn't a necessary requirement for having a thoughtful, challenging, and highly tactical turn-based strategy experience on mobile. If you enjoyed the original game or just didn't get a chance to grab it before it was removed, give Battle Dungeon: Risen a shot and check out our forums for even more positive impressions.

It looks like Twisted Pixel avoided being picked up in yesterda's coming tonight post because they decided to pull the "release everywhere at once" lever instead of letting the game drizzle out all over the world. Regardless, Ms. Splosion Man [$2.99] is now out in the wild. I saw it at PAX East and was totally impressed with what I saw.

Ms. Splosion Man got its starts on consoles, so the name of the game here is definitely "console quality."

Our forum members are digging the game too. We'll dive in a little deeper after GDC madness is over, but if you've been waiting for Ms. Splosion Man, mash that download link.

When Zen Studios originally announced Star Wars Pinball in early February, they had stated the three new tables based on the iconic series would hit as both DLC for the existing Zen Pinball [Free] app and as a brand new standalone game. Then when the Star Wars DLC finally hit Zen Pinball towards the end of the month, there was no sight of said standalone game.

For whatever reason it was running a few weeks late, but Star Wars Pinball [$1.99] has just launched in the App Store as its own separate app, and it comes equipped with widescreen support for the iPhone 5 to boot, something we can't say for its older Zen Pinball sibling.

For the $1.99 download of Star Wars Pinball you'll get the table based on Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, with the Clone Wars table and the one themed after Boba Fett available as in-app purchases for $1.99 each, all the same price as in Zen Pinball.

I'd like to see Zen Studios get widescreen support into the original Zen Pinball, and according to their Twitter it's on the to-do list. But if you held off on the Star Wars DLC before because you weren't interested in the whole package, or you're just dying to play with widescreen support, you can check out the standalone Star Wars Pinball right now. Oh, and just in case you missed it before, if you're like me and you love pinball but are completely terrible at it then check out this video series we came across to tighten up your game of silver ball.

By now everyone is familiar with the phenomenon that Temple Run has become. The original title was downloaded and played by millions upon millions of people since its release in 2011 and sparked off a deluge of similar games, basically creating its own genre of 3rd-person runner.

Last June, Imangi Studios partnered with Disney for Temple Run: Brave [$0.99], a version of the game based on the hit movie. You know you're big time when you're partnering up with freaking Disney. Temple Run: Brave wasn't drastically different from the original, but the style of gameplay fit well within the scope of the movie and it was still a lot of fun, which was refreshing as movie tie-in games throughout history have tended to suck.

Then this past January, we got a proper sequel in Temple Run 2 [Free]. Again, it didn't make many changes to the core formula, but it got a huge visual upgrade and lots of little nips and tucks that made it feel tighter than the first game. Like Brave, Temple Run 2 was well-received and has been on cruise control in the top of the charts since its release.

That was just six weeks ago, but today Imangi and Disney have confirmed what was accidentally leaked early last month with the announcement of yet another Temple Run movie tie-in game, this time based on the upcoming film Oz the Great and Powerful. I thought running through the woods away from a pursuing bear was a great fit for Temple Run: Brave, but running down the Yellow Brick Road in Temple Run: Oz [$0.99] might just be the ultimate perfect premise.

Temple Run: Oz is built on the same engine as Temple Run 2, so the visuals are top notch and there's a much more natural and flowing feel to the landscape in its levels. Like Temple Run: Brave and its arrow shooting mechanic, Temple Run: Oz also looks to add its own personal touch with a hot-air balloon flying segment, which is really just a tilt-based coin collect-a-thon but breaks up the action and has a cool epic feel. There are also dynamic hazards you need to be careful of, like a crumbling statue that will block your path or an enemy that swoops in from the sky that you'll need to quickly duck under.

Another interesting thing about Temple Run: Oz is that upon first boot-up it will detect your device and download additional assets for the higher end devices, so it still remains under the download cap of 50mb but you have the option of having a visually superior version if your device can take it and you don't mind the extra space. Also whole new environments are downloaded over the air, and you'll actually have the option of choosing which environment you'll run to next if you follow the directions of the signs.

It's all really rather great. I've been playing Temple Run: Oz since yesterday, and as strange as it feels to say this about a movie tie-in promotional game, I think this might be the best Temple Run yet. Granted, with the proper sequel launching just a short time ago, maybe you're on Temple Run overload, and I get that. But for a buck, if you have any interest in the upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful or are looking for more Temple Run goodness I think the Oz edition is a safe bet.

Also be sure to check out our TA Plays where Brad blows the exorbitant amount of $5 on in-app currency, or our forums where early impressions and discussion are rolling in. Temple Run: Oz is out right now for 99¢.

It's that time of week again when the deluge of new releases finally land on the US App Store. It looks like a pretty decent week based on what's in our weekly Coming Tonight post, and all those games are now available with the links provided there. As we usually do, we're highlighting what is the most noteworthy release of the bunch and this week that game is Might & Magic Clash of Heroes [$4.99].

Clash of Heroes is a match-3 RPG hybrid in the loosest sense, and is wrapped in a massive single-player story-driven campaign. Typical RPG tropes are at play as you follow along with a ragtag group of young heroes as they try to save the world from certain doom.

Battles are centered around the matching style gameplay, and as we've talked about previously in our preview coverage of Clash of Heroes, this is the game's biggest strength. There are layers upon layers of depth to the fight strategies and mechanics, and while the story and presentation are key components if Clash of Heroes was nothing but battling I wouldn't complain one bit.

That's sort of what the multiplayer is there for, though. You can play against AI opponents, battle real-life friends locally, or take on the competition online in asynchronous bouts. The single-player campaign in Clash of Heroes should keep you busy for quite a long time, but the multiplayer options are what really give it long-term legs.

Might & Magic Clash of Heroes originally launched as a Nintendo DS title back in 2009, and was re-released and enhanced in HD for home consoles in 2011. The iOS game is based on the HD release, and because of that the file is nearly a full 2 gigs, so just a heads up. Other than that it appears to be a fairly decent touchscreen translation of an absolutely phenomenal original game, so check out our forums for more early impressions and watch this space for more on Clash of Heroes in the near future.

It seems it's a good day for good game design, as not only did the audio visual feast that is Wave Trip [$1.99] launch earlier today but we stumbled across another incredibly stylish little game called Wide Sky [$0.99] from developer and motion design specialist Marcus Eckert. In it you play as an adorable little hedgehog who must swing around each level trying to smash into an orb, breaking it into a bunch of shards, and then go around and collect those shards as quickly as possible. You're given a grappling hook-like rope that can attach to clouds and swing your hedgehog around to build momentum and launch yourself towards your targets. You tap and hold the screen to attach your rope and tilt your device to swing around.

They're really interesting mechanics, but also incredibly tricky. Like, I am terrible at this game so far. Unlike most other hooking games, in Wide Sky your rope will only launch from the top of your hedgehog, so you need to keep an eye on its rotation before launching so you can aim properly. It takes a certain kind of finesse that I just don't seem have yet to attach the rope where you're intending to. I'm just fumbling around at the moment, but I think it's one of those things that will eventually "click" and I'll improve. You can see Wide Sky in action in the trailer below, which I should add is one of the nicest game trailers I've ever seen in my life.

While I'm still figuring out the mechanics in Wide Sky, I can't help but marvel at just how thoughtfully everything else has been designed in the game. It reminds me of the kind of minimalism and ingenuity showcased in an app like Figure [$0.99] mixed with the whimsical audio and visual styles of companies like Simogo and Lucky Frame. It's also a hilarious game, as the description texts and tutorials are all colored with a ton of humorous dialogue.

Wide Sky is just oozing style all over the place, and while I'm still waiting to come around on the gameplay portion I'm enjoying myself a lot nonetheless. If you've got a spare buck lying around and can appreciate tremendous design, then I'd suggest giving Wide Sky a look and checking out our forums for more discussion and impressions while you're at it.

When Imangi Studios originally launched Temple Run [Free] in August of 2011, the small indie developer had no idea the kind of phenomenon it would go on to be. In fact it wasn't even a success right off the bat, and only after a switch to free-to-play about a month after release did it start to build up some momentum before flourishing late in the year and all throughout 2012. The latest tally is that Temple Run has been downloaded and played by more than 170 million people across all platforms. That's just insane.

Now with Temple Run a household name and the kind of bona fide success that can spawn a successful spinoff game with a major Disney movie in Temple Run Brave [$0.99], a proper sequel has stealthily landed in the App Store. Not a lot has changed in Temple Run 2 on a fundamental level, it still plays very much like the original game you know and love, but it has received a massive upgrade in the visual department along with a few new tweaks to the formula that make it a substantial improvement over the first game in just about every way. It feels like a fresh start, a new Temple Run that's geared towards the future.

I'm sure most everyone is familiar with how Temple Run works, but just for kicks let's go over the basics. You follow your perpetually running character from a third-person perspective as they're being chased by a humongous demonic primate. You see, your adventurer swiped the beast's precious idol and that didn't seem to go over too well, so now you've got to run for your life.

Control of your character is handled by swiping up or down to jump over or slide under obstacles, and swiping left or right to turn when necessary. Tilting your device moves the character back and forth inside the lane for collecting coins and avoiding additional hazards. That's about all there is to it, and it works great. Temple Run 2 is one of those perfect games to play with just a single free hand, for just a few minutes at a time or for hours on end as you tirelessly try to top your best run. Nothing has changed with the sequel in that regard.

The biggest improvement in Temple Run 2 is in the graphics department. The game has been built from scratch in Unity and boasts gorgeous lighting and colors as well as extremely fluid animations. My one gripe is that the draw distance isn't the best, which means environmental elements will pop-in right in front of your eyes. It doesn't really bother if you're focusing on not dying like you should be, but it's still kind of disappointing considering what iOS devices are capable of.

The original Temple Run didn't have that great of a draw distance either, but it was masked quite ingeniously using a fog effect that worked well with the dank jungle theme. In Temple Run 2 you're running in a temple in the sky, so everything is right out there in the open. This new sky temple is great though, offering a much more dynamic feel to the level design. The track will curve, dip and elevate in ways that the rigid straightaways of the first game never did. It feels like a more organic environment, and it also keeps you on your toes just a tad bit more since you never really know what's coming around the next bend.

Like I said before Temple Run 2 is a beautiful game, and there's a greater variety to the types of scenery you'll see, like various temple ruins architecture and forests with sunbeams poking through the leaves. There's a couple of new environmental elements too, like a zip line to ride and mine cart sections. These parts aren't drastically different from the rest of the game's normal running, but they do add some additional drama and excitement to your adventure.

Temple Run 2 brings back 4 playable characters from the original, and each one is associated with a specific power-up. As you unlock the additional characters beyond the default Guy Dangerous, their associated power-ups become unlocked too for any character. There's the standard set of upgradeable attributes too, like a Head Start boost and a coin value increaser, which are also shared across all characters.

The power-up you choose for your character can be activated with a double tap once you've collected enough coins to fill up the associated meter on your screen. The power-up itself can be upgraded too, using the game's premium gem currency. Both coins and gems are available as IAP and are also earned through play. The coins come at a relatively fast clip, especially if you splurge on the IAP coin doubler, but the gems are typically few and far between. It still feels balanced though as the number of gems needed for normal upgrading is gradual.

One other use for the premium gems and something that's a huge change in Temple Run 2 from its predecessor (as well as a point of contention with some of its fans) is the ability to continue your run after a death by spending gems. This essentially sullies the scoring as in theory you could drop enough cash on IAP gems that you could just continue on forever.

The cost to continue doubles in gems each time, and it's possible there's a limit to how much you can continue that I just haven't seen yet. Even so I'm not super interested in the leaderboards anyway so it doesn't really bother me, I just have fun playing for the sake of it. Still, adding a special "sudden death" leaderboard where continuing with gems isn't allowed would be a nice compromise. Really what's more annoying to me is the un-skippable continue countdown that plays after a run ends. It would be nice to be able to immediately retry.

If you weren't a huge fan of the first Temple Run then I doubt the sequel will drastically change your mind. Though, it's free, so I'd say just try it anyway just in case it clicks differently for you this time around. You don't have anything to lose. If you loved the original game then I think you'll love Temple Run 2 just as much or more so. Granted the continuing aspect is kind of suspect and there's some minor technical issues, but Temple Run 2's improvements far outweigh its flaws.

There are plenty of more complex runners out there, and the beauty of the App Store is that you're free to play any and all of them to suit your tastes. But Temple Run 2's simplicity and intangible "something" is what made its predecessor a game that I always went back to even in the face of a smorgasbord of alternatives, and it's what will keep this on my device easily within thumb's reach for a long time to come.