Details for a free-to-play Ultima game coming to PC and iOS courtesy of EA Mythic surfaced all the way back in July of last year, and the following month we got a few more details on the game, known officially as Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, by way of an interview with one of the game's executive producers. Most recently, in February, we got a taste of the game in action for the first time with a new trailer, along with the news that Ultima Forever was set for a spring release.

Well, spring is in the air and Ultima Forever is sort of finally here. Thanks to a heads-up from Ultima fan site Ultima Codex, we've learned that the game has soft-launched in the Canadian App Store. So if you're a real Canadian or just a fake Canadian with access to that country's App Store, you can download the free game and check it out for yourself.

I was never into the whole MMO or online RPG thing, but I've been interested in seeing a mobile one done right that would actually get me to stick around. I don't know if that game will be Ultima Forever, but I'm pretty excited to dive in and give it a try. I'd imagine that a full worldwide release won't be too far off either, so if you can't get a hold of the Canadian version then throw this bad boy on your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List to get an alert when more news of a full release becomes available.

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

One of tonight's more notable upcoming free-to-play offerings is Gameloft's Epic, a city building-meets-strategy game that plays pretty much like Clash of Clans [Free]. In Epic, you'll be tasked with building up a fantasy army and taking care of all the overhead that goes alongside this. Basically, you'll be obtaining minerals, refining minerals, and waiting for a bunch of timers to finish so you can obtain and refine even more minerals -- you know, the usual. I guess the hook with this one is in its tie-in with Blue Sky's film of the same name, which is apparently hitting a theater near you later this week. It has talking slugs in it, just FYI.

Combat is one of the few places where Epic threatens to be interesting, by the way. Your soldiers and machines of war are all elemental-based, much like the enemies you'll be fighting, making it seem as if producing the right mix of dudes and then matching them up against your opponents as counters is important. Unfortunately, in the early going, countering doesn't appear to matter. You win no matter what. Maybe down the line this stuff gets harder? These games tend to hold players' hands forever, so that's entirely possible. Regardless, this is the shell of an interesting system where choices could potentially matter.

Anyway, Epic will be available tonight. If you've played a free-to-play building game in the last couple of months, you'll be readily familiar with this one so give it a shot if you've been enjoying this genre.

International App Store Link: Epic, Free (Universal)

Brick breaking games like the classics Breakout or Arkanoid are pretty timeless, but they've also been done to death in the mobile space. Because of that it's hard to get too excited about a new brick breaker unless it really does something to stand out from the pack. I wouldn't say that the upcoming Hyper Breaker Turbo is trying to reinvent the genre or anything, but it does have a clean look and complex multi-screen levels which caught my attention. Plus, it has been a while since I've had a good brick breaker, so I was actually enthused to check this one out.

If you're at all familiar with this genre, then there's not a whole lot to explain about Hyper Breaker Turbo. You control a paddle at the bottom of the screen – the curved variety, not a flat one – and bounce a tiny ball toward the block formations in the playing area, breaking and clearing as many blocks as you can while you travel upwards towards an end goal. There are many different kinds of blocks, some of which have special requirements in order to be broken or just plain can't be broken at all, and a variety of bonuses and power-ups that fall from broken blocks that you can use to your advantage (or disadvantage, depending on the power-up).

It's all pretty typical fare, but very clean and polished. The part that stands out about Hyper Breaker Turbo to me are its elongated levels. As you break through a set of block barriers you can continue to go up in the level, with more block formations and obstacles for you to deal with. It's a nice change from the usual single-screen levels in similar games, and once you do end up making it to the goal your score is tallied and you're given up to a 4-star rating for completion. You don't have to break every block to complete a level, but doing so will earn you more points and thus give you a better shot at earning more stars, which are used for unlocking additional themes and sets of levels later in the game.

There's not a whole lot more to say about Hyper Breaker Turbo, it's just a very well-made brick breaking game. I will say that the physics feel a little lightweight and wonky at times, but nothing detrimental. Also I'm not a huge fan of using a curved paddle, I'd prefer a flat one, but I am warming up to the one here. The bottom line is that if you're ready for another brick breaking game, then Hyper Breaker Turbo appears to be a pretty great one. With 75 levels it should give you your fix for some time, so if interested stop by the forums for more impressions and add it to your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List to get an alert when it hits the US App Store later tonight.

International App Store Link: Hyper Breaker Turbo, $1.99 (Universal)

Zombie Fish Tank is yet another competent, level-based arcade action game with a three-star rating system being published by Chillingo. Its hook is a "devouring" mechanic. In the game, you play as a ghoulish fish and are tasked with eating other freakish fish. As you gobble these dudes up, your fish gets bigger. Eventually, he gets big enough to chow down on the larger fish swimming around in a given level. If you accidentally run into a bigger fish before your own is large enough to take him on, he'll eat you instead.

In grade school, I played a game similar to this on CD-ROM. I can't remember the name of it, unfortunately, but I do recall that it was meant to be educational. You controlled a bunch of actual fish. The goal was, I guess, to learn about the food chain. Zombie Fish Tank isn't so concerned with this. Surprising, I know! Instead, it leans more on scoring and raw progression. Get big, go to a new level, get big again, and so on. Here's a trailer that shows almost everything off:

There's also an actual fish tank component. You earn coins or whatever as you play and can cash those in to buy fish that swim around in a tank that's displayed prominently on the main menu screen. You can also buy power-ups and stuff in the game's market. Also, yeah, there's IAP.

By the way, you control your fish with the accelerometer. A double tap at any time will reset what the game interprets as the center of your device. All you have to do to eat something is collide into it. This all feels pretty good, which is neat.

Zombie Fish Tank hits tonight across iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You can catch it at about 11PM EST. Add it to our app's [Free] Watch List if you want notified when it's out. And you know you do! Zombies! They're a thing!

International App Store Link: Zombie Fish Tank, $0.99 (Universal)

Welp. Here we are with a game about going to the bathroom. It's called Men's Room Mayhem, and it's a line-drawing game where you must manage the traffic rolling through a men's bathroom, ensuring each patron is able to get a chance to relieve themselves, wash up, and be on their way. Isn't this the job you've always dreamt of? Well now you can live out that fantasy on your telephone or tablet, most likely while sitting on the toilet yourself. The future is amazing.

Men's Room Mayhem is a pretty straightforward line-drawing game. You're given a top-down view of a bathroom, with 3 urinals on one wall, a toilet stall down in the corner, and a couple of sinks near the exit. As people walk in they'll give you and indication of whether it's "number one" or "number two" and you simply draw a path from them to the appropriate facility.

When a person is all through, you can then score some bonus points by directing them down to the sink area so they can wash up before leading them to the exit. That's nice, bonus points for washing your hands. Pro tip: you should always wash your hands after using the bathroom in real life, too. You can also earn some bonus points for proper "etiquette" like not taking the urinal directly next to one that's in use if there's another one available. That's totally based on real life unspoken rules, too. After each wave is complete, you can score even more bonus points by cleaning up the facilities by frantically rubbing them clean.

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Man. I've been nibbling on some delicious crow. Combo Crew is A-OK and I kinda feel bad about writing off brawler-y games on FingerPads devices. This one proves this genre can work on touch, thanks to its utilization rad gesture-based controls.

To rewind a bit, Combo Crew is an everyday brawler that pits you against hundreds of bad dudes and several bosses along the way. The quest is to reach the top of a tower where a really bad dude named Mr. Boss resides. Sounds ridiculous, right? With a wink and a nod, Combo Crew embraces the cheesiness of old-school brawlers, constantly poking fun at the amount of stupidity these things threw at you. From the music, to the character designs, and to the story, Combo Crew's aware that everything you're doing is dumb. I like it for this, and the execution on the satire is pretty good.

Unlike most of brawlers, including ones we see on iPad and iPhone, Crew doesn't use virtual buttons. In fact, you don't even directly control your character's movement. You just swipe to attack between bad guys. Two finger swipes lead to bigger combos, holding down a swipe charges an attack that can break through defenses, while on-screen taps can counter-attack anyone taking shots at you. As the game ramps up, you start learning new ways to combo, as it integrates multi-directional swipes that can do things like, say, blast opponents into the air for a juggle. The touch controls, in general, are pretty robust considering the simplicity of the control method. I was surprised, at least.

Another neat thing: Crew has a neat social hook in its endless "arena" mode. If you bite the dust, you can opt to send your score to a friend via Facebook or e-mail. If he or she manages to beat that score, you'll be healed with your friend's score converted into life points for you. It's a wild idea, and while it doesn't use Game Center, this seems like a pretty healthy way to integrate some sort of multiplayer.

If you're wondering why this looks so good, it's because Squids maker The Game Bakers is behind it. The art and production elements, as always with this crew, are top-notch.

There's a lot for us to see, still, in Crew -- there's an entire boost system which gives your characters extra powers, a character unlock system, and upgrades. I'll have to spend a lot more time to really evaluate if this stuff works and feels fair, but just so you know, no, this thing doesn't have IAP.

Combo Crew will hit tonight at around 11PM EST. If you've got our app [Free] , you can add it to your Watch List to be notified when it's released. We'll have more on this one as we dig deeper into it.

International App Store Link: Combo Crew, $1.99 (Universal)

According to some accidentally revealed evidence spotted by IGN, it looks like BioWare and LucasArts' classic Star Wars role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic is getting set for release on the iPad. The snippet of info comes by way of an email newsletter announcing a sale on Call of Duty games. In the header is the text "The critically-acclaimed Star Wars RPG is now available on iPad..." which seems most likely to be referring to a Knights of the Old Republic game. Here's a screen cap of the newsletter taken by IGN:

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The newsletter is from Aspyr Media, and as IGN notes they're no stranger to Knights of the Old Republic as they ported the game to the Mac previously and also they have a presence on the App Store already with Sushi Mushi [Free]. So by connecting the dots, it doesn't seem like that big of a stretch. We'll be keeping an eye out for more details on a possible Knights of the Old Republic port to the iPad as soon as they become available.

[IGN]

Back in March it was announced that Games Workshop was teaming up with Slitherine to bring a then-unspecified Warhammer game to PC and mobile, and today the developers have released the first concrete information on the upcoming title. Officially titled Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon, the hex-based turn-based strategy title will take place in the "Battle for Armageddon" setting in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

More specifically, it's set during the Second War for Armageddon and you'll lead the Imperial Armageddon Steel Legion, along with help from various Space Marines, against the evil Orks. There will be more than 30 major scenarios that make up the single-player campaign, complete with more than 100 different kinds of upgradeable units and a set of maps designed specifically for multiplayer bouts. Here is a promo image that accompanied the announcement:

You'll likely recall that there's an assortment of Warhammer-related games on the horizon, including Space Hulk from Full Control, Warhammer Quest from Rodeo Games, and an unspecified Warhammer game from Roadhouse Interactive. For their part, Slitherine are masters of strategy titles and you may have already enjoyed their current iPad offerings Battle Academy [$19.99 (HD) / Free (HD)] or Slitherine's Legion [$9.99 (HD)], so it's exciting to see what they'll bring to the table in the Warhammer universe.

Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon is slated for a Q1 2014 launch, so settle in and expect much more on this title as we draw closer to then.

Heads up: Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded isn't hitting at the end of this month, as was planned. Instead, it'll hit towards "the end of June," creator Replay Games confirmed via the game's Kickstarter page. This latest delay comes courtesy of bugs, as is the usual case with these kinds of short-ish postponements.

Here's the skinny, ripped from that update:

Here’s the problem, and thus this un-scehdule Kickstarter update: due to the pure number of bugs found in the PC version alone (the Mac version is being tested now, but not via Steam), we’re having to delay the game, yet again, until the end of June.

I can’t tell you how many phone calls, arguments, and heart breaking conversations I’ve had with my advisors on this. I SERIOUSLY wanted this game out by the end of May because we’ve postponed it more times than Larry’s been rejected. Ok, well, maybe not THAT many, but still... we’ve had some delays.

While a bummer, delays are usually a good thing. Who wants to play a buggy game? For this one in particular, a buggy release could be pretty catastrophic. If bugs keep folks from enjoying this one, there's really no incentive for them to play the next re-make in the series. Plus, there's that whole "re-introducing Larry to people who have never played the original" thing, too.

Iceland-based CCP Games is best known for EVE Online, a ruthless, Byzantine MMO set in the cold, vast reaches of a universe called New Eden, where player-led factions and alliances vie for political clout, territory, and the resources necessary to power their massive war machines.

EVE is a relatively niche MMO -- it breached 500,000 subscribers only recently, after ten years of operation -- but its players are devoted and loyal, and the game’s revenue has allowed CCP to expand consistently. They just released Dust 514, a free-to-play PlayStation 3 shooter that ties into EVE’s universe and in-game economy, and they’re working on World of Darkness, an MMO based on White Wolf’s legendary Vampire: the Masquerade pen-and-paper game.

CCP’s newest frontier, however, will be mobile development.

“We’ve been dabbling in mobile for a long time,” erstwhile EVE Online executive producer Jon Lander told me last month during CCP Fanfest 2013 in Reykjavik, Iceland. “But we’ve never really focused on it. We’ve never taken the time to put a clear strategy together about how these things fit in with our universe.”

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Back in March, renowned game designer Ron Gilbert left Double Fine Productions in order to branch out and do his own thing. Following that, Gilbert revealed that he was working on a new iPhone game called Scurvy Scallywags in The Voyage to Discover the Ultimate Sea Shanty. Seriously, that's the name. It almost seemed like a joke at the time, but Scurvy Scallywags was actually a real thing – a match-3 style game with RPG trappings.

Looking to differentiate itself from the glut of matching games on the App Store, Scurvy Scallywags uses an interesting mechanic where after a match is made the game board collapses in the direction of the match to fill in gaps, rather than just dropping all the blocks downwards like most matching games. Seems like a small change but a potentially significant one, and you can tell that Scurvy Scallywags has a ton of personality in its first official trailer.

Gilbert is not alone on Scurvy Scallywags, either. He has partnered up with Clayton Kauzlaric, the designer of the 2003 Xbox title Voodoo Vince. Gilbert and Kauzlaric have teamed up in the past too, for the 2010 action-RPG DeathSpank and more recently for the quirky and enjoyable iPad game The Big Big Castle! [$0.99 (HD)] last July. Can a proven developer power couple like Gilbert and Kauzlaric reinvigorate a tired genre like match-3? I hope so, and I'm looking forward to finding out when Scurvy Scallywags launches sometime in the near future.

Horn [$6.99] creator Phosphor Games is working on a World War Z movie tie-in game, IGN reports on its mobile blog. It's scheduled to hit mobile devices this May 30. Details on this one are few and far between, but the teaser trailer IGN secured does shed some light on what this thing will be packing. Notably, it'll have zombies. Also, helicopters. And human arms. And crowbars. Here's the trailer:

Bad movie tie-in games (and even worse zombie games for that matter) are incredibly common on the App Store, so it's probably very wise to keep your expectations in check on this one. Don't get us wrong, it'd be neat to if Phosphor can pull this off, but it seems like time and money are always short on these sorts of projects especially given the typical scope of mobile games and the relatively low development budgets that App Store price points even allow.

Fingers cautiously optimistically crossed!

[via IGN]

Last year, Jordan Mechner teamed up with Liquid Entertainment to create a modern remake of his 1984 beat 'em up classic, Karateka. The modern, 3D recreation of Karateka [$1.99] (which we reviewed in December) does an excellent job of conveying the tragic tale of the poor, imprisoned princess Mariko and the bold quest to rescue her to today's gamers using modern visuals, an original score, and unique, new fight mechanics. Another thing it does is give old school gamers a real itch to go back and play through the 8-bit original. Happily, as of tonight, that itch is easily scratched.

As word of the Karateka remake hit the news towards the end of last year, Mechner began hearing from lots of these gamers expressing a desire to replay the original game on their modern devices. And, so, he teamed up with Olivier Goguel of FTA to bring the original Karateka to iOS (and Android) by way of Goguel's Apple IIgs emulator, ActiveGS (which we first highlighted back in 2011). (more...)

When I was a kid I loved RC cars. My cousin was a little more hardcore, and would order the various kits from catalogs and actually build his own, and while those were incredibly awesome they were also quite expensive. For me, I was usually content with just snatching up the pre-made Nikko RC cars from my local Toys R Us and zipping around my yard and neighborhood.

That's what caught my eye about Nikko RC Racer from Paladin Studios, who you might remember as creators of the awesome Momonga Pinball Adventures [$2.99]. This is an official Nikko-endorsed racing game featuring 10 actual RC cars from across the company's 55 year history. The download itself is free and comes with 2 cars unlocked and 1 unlocked via "Liking" a Facebook page. The other 7 cars are 99¢ each to unlock or you can unlock the whole bundle for $2.99. You can also get a promo code to unlock cars by buying an actual Nikko RC car in real life, so there's that too, I guess.

As for the game itself, it seems fun enough but it's also pretty underwhelming. The visuals are bright and colorful, and the 9 different tracks all take place in neat environments and feature lots of neat design elements. It's just that actually racing doesn't feel all that special. There's also no real cohesiveness as it's just a series of single races without any sort of tournament or campaign to speak of. Just race a track, set a time, and that's pretty much it.

You can connect with Facebook in order to save ghost data and race against friend ghosts, but I'm not crazy about using Facebook for gaming so I doubt I'll bother. Thankfully there are Game Center leaderboards at least if you really want to compare track times, but this doesn't appear to involve any sort of ghost racing which is a shame. Also, there aren't any achievements, in case you were curious.

Nikko RC Racer definitely isn't a bad game, but it didn't bowl me over either. It's obviously very well-crafted, but it feels like it lacks purpose. Even if I was willing to link up with Facebook I don't think it would add all that much to the experience. At the very least it's free to download and check out, so add it to your TA app [Free] Watch List to get an alert when it hits later tonight and see what people are saying about it in the forums.

International App Store Link: Nikko RC Racer, Free (Universal)

The original Gravity Guy [Free / Free (HD)] popularized the whole "gravity flipping" mechanic on mobile back in 2010, but the long-awaited sequel does away with that entirely in favor of a more traditional – though still innovative – endless runner formula. Gravity Guy 2 won't have you frantically switching between running on the ground or the ceiling in order to get through its puzzle-like levels, as in the original.

Instead the Guy in Gravity Guy is running across rooftops of varying size and height, and it's your job to literally "raise the roof" of each one to the right level in order to get Guy safely across each rooftop gap, collect coins and avoid hazards. Guy can also do a short jump either from the ground or in mid-air, and skilled use of both the roof raising and the jumping will be needed to be successful.

It's interesting because aside from the ability to jump you have no direct control over Guy, and instead you're manipulating the environment around him to do what you need to do. A quick roof raise at just the right moment will bop Guy into the air, and after a bit of practice you feel like you're conducting an orchestra with all the fast-paced roof raising and jumping. It's one of those things that's just subtly different enough from a typical runner that makes Gravity Guy 2 feel fresh.

However, just because it's got some neat new mechanics to master, it's still pretty puzzling that Gravity Guy 2 ditches the gravity flipping entirely. It makes this feel less like a sequel and more like it could have just been any other game. I would have enjoyed seeing something more closely tied to the original game but just taken to the next level, as that's usually what constitutes a good sequel. Then again, it is refreshing to see a developer take a risk with a popular IP in an effort to do something different. A double-edged sword, I guess.

Anyway, Gravity Guy 2 is definitely a good game, different as it may be. I'm already hooked on playing and replaying run after run just trying to get a little bit further, or unlock another meta-goal. There are also a bunch of unlockable characters and special items to use, typical of pretty much any other runner game. So far my coin-earning has felt pretty generous too, so it doesn't feel too forced towards making you hit up the IAP.

As long as you don't have your heart on the gravity flipping of the first game, Gravity Guy 2 seems like a solid title to check out when it launches later tonight. As I know you know by now, add it to your TouchArcade [Free] Watch List to be alerted of its release and check out the forums for even more on the game from the community.

International App Store Link: Gravity Guy 2, $0.99 (Universal)