We were pretty excited back in August when we got word that a compilation of games in the classic Raiden series of arcade shooters was coming to the App Store, especially since it was in the very capable hands of developer DotEmu who has done a killer job in the past porting older titles to the iOS platform. Well, bucking the trend of releasing on a Thursday, Raiden Legacy [$4.99] popped up in the US App Store last night and is now available worldwide.

The Raiden Legacy iOS compilation includes the original arcade versions of Raiden, Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2 and Raiden Fighters Jet. Four complete games in one package. They all come equipped with the additional features we've come to expect from DotEmu games too, like adjustable controls and screen sizes, optional video filtering, multiple difficulties, an auto-fire toggle, and iCade compatibility. Here's the official launch trailer for Raiden Legacy.

Other noteworthy features include Game Center integration for achievements and leaderboards, Universal iPad support, and widescreen display support for the iPhone 5 and newest iPod touch line. Players in our forums seem to be incredibly pleased with Raiden Legacy so far, so if you were a fan of the original games or just a newbie looking for some solid '90s shooter action then definitely check it out.

Interest in the retro gaming scene has really expanded in the last few years, thanks in no small part to the proliferation of capable mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad and the App Store behind them. As such, retro-minded iOS gamers have a wide range of games to choose from, such as retro-inspired new releases, retro remakes, as well as the actual games of olde brough forth through faithful emulation. It is in the last arena that, early this year, Rantmedia Games decided to toss its hat, sharing word of their upcoming Vectrex Regeneration, a one-stop-shop for fans of the much vaunted, early '80s Vectrex console.

We have been following Rantmedia's progress closely since then, and are pleased to have finally had an opportunity to put their Vectrex emulation / game library through its paces. Vectrex Regeneration [Free], a universal app for the iPad (2 and up) and iPhone (4 and up), is now live in the App Store, and here's the low-down.

First, some needed history. Released in late 1982 by General Consumer Electric (GCE), the Vectrex is a highly unique game system. Unlike every other console of the time, the Vectrex features an integrated CRT display -- but not of the standard, horizontal-scan variety. The Vectrex utilizes a vector monitor, which is similar to an oscilloscope and draws its graphics on the screen in a fashion similar to the display process of a laser light show. It's the only console from gaming's past defined by a complete lack of jaggies.

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We're sure by now you're plugged in to our regular "Coming Tonight" post about all the big games that get released each week, but dang it, this is freaking Jet Set Radio [$2.99]. A Dreamcast classic and ultimate fan favorite. It totally deserves it's own spot, just in case you happened to miss it.

As I said, Jet Set Radio (or originally Jet Grind Radio in the US) was a game on the Sega Dreamcast more than a decade ago, and was landmark at the time for its novel visuals and "urban lifestyle" thematics that had you racing around on in-line skates and blasting graffiti all over the city. It's extremely well-loved for standing out from the crowd way back when, but it's also a heck of a fun game, too. Now you can take the experience with you anywhere on your iOS device.

This new iOS version of the game boasts some additional features over the original, like Retina Display visuals, Universal iPad support, and Game Center integration. Aside from those standard features it also includes the ability to spray graffiti right on the touchscreen using swipe gestures as well as the ability to take photos with your device and spray them into the game itself. Sounds pretty cool.

Of course the big question mark is how the virtual button setup works for an old-school game like this that was designed for a console controller, but rest assured we'll be putting Jet Set Radio through its paces in the coming days. You can also check out our forum thread where early impressions have been rolling in since the game hit international markets earlier today.

Last week was sort of weird for new iOS releases. With the Thanksgiving holiday taking place on Thursday, the normal barrage of new releases actually hit on Tuesday night rather than Wednesday. But then, a few games came out on Wednesday night anyway! In the several days since, a couple other straggler releases have popped up in the App Store. So, here's a short list of some of the more noteworthy releases that might have flown under your radar during the holiday weekend.
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It was over a year ago that we first caught a glimpse of Bladeslinger, and were completely blown away by its stunning visuals. It was originally supposed to release later that year but word on the game fell silent, until this past March when we caught up with developer Kerosene Games and learned that Bladeslinger was still very much in production. Then late last month, Bladeslinger quietly launched in the Canadian App Store as a soft beta, so if you had access to a Canadian iTunes account you could get in on the action, for free no less.

Well, it looks like the beta period is over as Bladeslinger Ep.1 [$2.99] has just gone live in the US App Store. Oh, and it ain't free this time around, the game will run you the still very agreeable price of $2.99. Here's a brand new trailer for Bladeslinger to get you all pumped up for the release.

We're going to be putting Bladeslinger through its paces to see how it holds up, so check back with us soon to get the full skinny on this highly-anticipated title. Until then you can take the $3 gamble and download the game with the link below, or check in with our forum folk who are excitedly discussing Bladeslinger and offering impressions as I type this.

Back in late September we told you that Matmi's whacky, fast-paced pinball title Monster Pinball was getting a well-deserved HD makeover and Universal support in the form of a new app called Monster Pinball HD [$1.99], and that game is now available on the App Store.

The original Monster Pinball launched way back in May of 2009, and was among my favorite games of the time. It's ultra-fast physics and absolutely insane table designs (there is one that's literally a concave bowl) would make the hardcore pinball simulation enthusiast shudder, but that's also what made it so unique and fun. Monster Pinball was also noteworthy for its fantastic art direction, which to me always felt like the cheery world of Pixar met with the dark tones of Tim Burton.

All of this translates quite well to the new Monster Pinball HD. It looks fantastic on widescreen displays like the iPhone 5, and feels even more at home on the larger screens of the iPad mini and full-sized model, though it doesn't appear to be running at full Retina resolution on the iPad. You'd be pretty hard-pressed to tell though, as it still looks fantastic. Another neat addition is the ability to play in landscape orientation on the iPad, which feels much more comfortable to me.

Other big new features in Monster Pinball HD include Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements, and the ability to unlock each of its 6 tables for individual play. Monster Pinball was always really unique for having 6 different tables that were interconnected, and it's a whole different experience playing them as individual tables. You'll need to complete a table unlocking mission for each of them before you can play them individually though, which isn't always so easy.

I'm having a total blast reliving my love for Monster Pinball in a modern package, and just hearing all the zany sound effects and music is taking me back to a time when I poured countless hours into this game. I'm already on pace to do so again, and I'm loving it. If you like pinball games, and aren't necessarily worried about realistic physics, then Monster Pinball HD will make your head spin… in a good way. Definitely give it a look, and stop by our forums to leave your thoughts.

Rovio has been teasing us for the past month, but the wait is finally over for Angry Birds Star Wars [$0.99 / $2.99 (HD)], which is now available worldwide, a wee bit earlier than expected. In this crossover title, one of the most iconic movie franchises of all time, Star Wars, mashes together with the poster child of mobile gaming, Angry Birds. The result is a game that plays very much like the Angry Birds games of the past but with all the sights and sounds of the Star Wars universe.

Not just that, though. The protagonist cast of birds and the antagonist fleet of bad piggies have special new abilities based on the Star Wars universe, like Force Pushing, Lightsabering, and firing off lasers with the iconic "pew pew" that's a hallmark of the franchise.

One thing that you can count on is that we'll be playing the heck out of Angry Birds Star Wars over the next few days to see how it holds up against the rest of the entries in the series. If you've played an Angry Birds game before then chances are you know what you're getting into here, but if you're a Star Wars fan too then it looks like there's all sorts of neat fan service and cool ideas that make great use of the IP.

As is typical of Rovio, there are separate versions of Angry Birds Star Wars for the iPhone and iPad and you can grab either or both from the links below. Also don't forget to check out the iPhone version forum or the iPad version forum for even more impressions from early buyers.

This afternoon, Eli and I spent some time with tonight's other game Wraithborne [$2.99]. It's an isometric brawler that shares a lot of features and mechanics with dungeon crawlers. In the game, you play as big dude tasked with hacking and slashing goblins, werewolves, and other fantasy oddities on a magical quest. With either touch or virtual controls, you'll string together devastating combos and activate special magic powers by tracing runes.

Split across easily digestible chunks, this is a breezy game built for mobile through and through with its accessible controls and goals. It's also a looker, as you'll see.

We haven't seen enough of Wraithborne to offer a firm recommendation, but there might be enough in this video for action game fans. Check it, see if it clicks, and if you're feeling it grab the game from the link below.

Heads up: Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube [Free] is now available in the App Store as a $0 download. Bang that link above if you'd like to get in on the action.

If you haven't been following along at home, Curiosity is an experimental release from 22 Cans, Peter Molyneux's new studio. The "game" presents users with a black cube made up of countless other, much smaller black cubes. With a zoom and a tap, you can chip away at these cubes and reveal images buried in the layers. You get a coin for each cube they clear and they get bonuses for clearing swathes of cubes.

With these coins, you can buy items that clear cubes faster. Firecrackers and bombs, for example, take out entire sections of cubes.

At the center of the cube is a secret -- one that Molyneux believes might change lives. The catch? Only one user will see this secret and it'll be delivered via video.

As of this moment the first layer of the cube is coming down fast, as users chip away. One side of the cube seems to be revealing a picture of green balloons. We can't tell what's going on in the others just yet, but we'll stay on it because we're finding it hard to pull away from the app for some weird reason.

Server issues have been a real bummer so far, especially at app start-up. Curiosity needs to be connected and that initial login constantly throws up errors. We've been noticing some oddities with the cubes. We'll be clearing stuff and then, all of a sudden, the server will catch up and reveal that the area has already been cleared.

Word on the street is that 22 Cans plans to use extravagant IAP as a means for users to get to the secret faster. We're not so sure if Apple is going to let the studio charge the sums it wants to, so we're not so sure this'll ever shake out. As of now, IAP isn't in the app -- or at least, in a place where we can find it.

Anyway, Curiosity, it's a thing and it's pretty cool. Check it out if you've got a few spare moments today.

Borderlands Legends [$4.99 / $6.99 (HD)] doesn't lean on enough of the series' strengths. Instead, it turns a lot of them on their heads to its detriment.

But even removed from Borderlands the series, it's still an unimaginative, often boring game with spotty controls and iffy mechanics that don't work so well together. In a lot of ways, Legends is kind of a mess.

To rewind, Legends is a top-down strategy game that puts you in control of the original four Vault Hunters across a series of randomized "missions." For the most part, missions are simple bag and tag kind of procedures, each consisting of four claustrophobic arenas that spew monsters and the series' psychopaths at you in a steady stream.

Fights go down in real-time, so you're in charge of directing each of the characters at once. The Hunters also have special abilities, and you're tasked with setting those off at the right time for the best effect. Brick, for example, can berserk and essentially act as a tank, so ideally you want to pop this skill in front of a mob. Mordecai is a sniper that can call in a bird. Ideally, you want to pop this from the back of a fight as often as possible. Pretty simple stuff.

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The studio that previously brought us the action-packed jetpack shooter Dark Void and the mind-bending puzzler Quantum Conundrum to consoles and PC, Airtight Games, has just released their first foray into the mobile space with Pixld [$0.99], which is now available on the App Store.

If you can think back all the way to this past Wednesday (that is a long time ago for some of us old folks), then you should remember that we went hands-on with Pixld and enjoyed it very much, making it all the more exciting that the game is now out there for the masses to consume.

Pixld is a fairly straight-forward matching game that's bolstered by its clean aesthetics and plenty of game modes, each with their own clever set of rules and designs. It makes for a great mobile title as the game is engaging to play as well as bite-sized enough to squeeze in to our many moments of everyday downtime.

Airtight sounds like they have plenty more planned for mobile platforms in the future, but it's nice to see them getting their feet wet with such a solid initial offering. If you have a hankering for a new matching puzzler then check out Pixld from the link below, and give our forums a look too for further impressions and information.

At the beginning of the week, we told you that Cave's Dodonpachi Maximum would be heading to the App Store, and as of today it is now available worldwide. Dodonpachi Maximum [$11.99] is an original shooter created specifically for mobile, arriving exclusively on the Windows Phone 7 platform back in April. It takes elements from previous Dodonpachi games and slaps them into a "bullet simulator" to offer sort of a best-of-Cave compilation.

We've noted before how Cave's earlier shooters, like the original Bug Princess [$4.99 / Free], are great entry points for newbies since their scoring systems are generally less complex. However, I'd now argue that Dodonpachi Maximum is the best place for a bullet-hell beginner to start. Since it's an original title, it uses sharp, colorful visuals rather than the pixel art of their previous games, which are often designed for much different hardware and resolutions, so can look a bit rough on iOS screens.

This means that Dodonpachi Maximum has a nice contrast and fantastic clarity that can really help you see exactly where bullets are and exactly where to avoid them with your ship's hotbox. It may not have the same kind of charm that their pixel art games do, but it's definitely more functional and actually feels like a "bullet simulator" as the game implies. Plus, it's pretty cool to see a Cave game in such a different style.

That doesn't mean Dodonpachi Maximum is strictly for the beginner, though. There's still multiple difficulty settings and 16(!) different Game Center leaderboards to compete on, one for every level and a grand total leaderboard. Players in our forums seem to be really enjoying it so far, and we'll continue to put it through its paces. Right now it appears to be another winner from Cave, though definitely quite different from their past releases. The game will be on sale through the weekend for $6.99 before jumping up to its normal price of $11.99, so if you're interested you can save yourself a few bucks by grabbing it while it's on sale.

Back in May we got the first glimpse of Breach Entertainment's first iOS title Shardlands, a platforming/puzzle/adventure hybrid that had really impressive visuals, a moody soundtrack and a tremendous atmosphere. As of right now, ahead of the typical set of weekly releases, Shardlands [$1.99] is available in the App Store.

As you'll see from this newest game trailer, Shardlands is quite a looker. There are 20 levels to work your way through along with Game Center integration, as well as support for Retina Displays and the 4-inch screens. People seem to be loving Shardlands so far in our forums, and I'm rather excited to take it for a spin myself.

We'll have more on Shardlands soon, or if you think you've got a hankering for some puzzle-y adventures you can take the $2 gamble and grab it from the link below.

This past June Stainless Games announced that they would be releasing the cult-classic vehicular combat game Carmageddon to the App Store this year as a side bonus of their successful Kickstarter campaign for the upcoming franchise reboot Carmageddon: Reincarnation. We went hands-on with an early version of Carmageddon for iOS just last month, and felt that it was a faithful port of a game that hasn't exactly aged gracefully in many ways, but is still highly entertaining.

Well, Carmageddon [$3.99] launched internationally earlier today and has just become available in the US App Store. As promised, to say thank you to all the supporters of the Carmageddon: Reincarnation campaign, Stainless Games has made the iOS version completely FREE for the first 24 hours.

They're doing it right with this Carmageddon release too, as the app supports the iPhone 5 and 5th generation iPod touch widescreen Retina Display, iCloud save syncing, and is Universal. It also comes equipped with Game Center leaderboards and achievements, a slick YouTube replay exporting feature, and tons of control options. That's all on top of the fairly comprehensive content of the game itself, and oh yeah, it's FREE.

If you were a big fan of Carmageddon back in the day, then you are no doubt smashing the download button with furious vigor. If you missed out on it originally, there's no reason not to give it a try for free to see if senselessly killing pedestrians with your car in order to better your performance is your cup of tea. Hey, it isn't for everybody.

Also, our forums have been filling up with impressions throughout the day, which are skewing towards the positive, so be sure to check that out as well.

As expected, Rovio's Bad Piggies [$0.99 / $0.99 (HD)] popped up on the App Store in the middle of the night last night and early impressions on our forums seem remarkably positive aside from the somewhat expected complaints regarding separate iPad and iPhone versions of the game. Bad Piggies takes place in the Angry Birds universe, but you play as the pigs assembling various contraptions in a sandbox-feeling physics puzzler trying to reassemble your grand plans to steal the birds' eggs once and for all. (They blew away in the wind.)

If you want to see the game in action, check out the TA Plays video we put up yesterday.

I've been having a load of fun with Bad Piggies so far, and am getting close to completing the currently available content for a review which should be up on the site later today. Of course, like all Rovio games, there's a nebulous "coming soon" section indicating that Bad Piggies likely will also be the target of constant updates and bonus levels.