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Last weekend we posted a preview of Ratloop / Chillingo's upcoming illumination puzzler (well, that's really the best way to describe it) Helsing's Fire. This weekend the game went live in the App Store [link] and we've had a chance to spend some time with it.

Helsing's Fire sends you on a quest to destroy Dracula, placing you in 90 randomly generated, dungeon-like levels across three different worlds (The Abandoned Village, The Haunted Forest, The Cursed Castle), peopled by the 13 different monster types that comprise Dracula's horde. The challenge is to eliminate said beasties by moving your torch about the screen, which casts brilliant beams of light and dark shadows about the play area. Light up as many ghouls as you can and strike with a powerful tonic, banishing them to oblivion. But, be careful — not all that dwell in The Shadow Blight are creatures of darkness, and those that aren't must be spared. It's a highly innovative puzzle mechanic, which we've never encountered before.

In each level you control the placement of your torch by either dragging it about the screen with a finger or tapping on a new target destination. In the majority of the Story Mode at the core of the game, you use these controls to arrange your torchlight just so, and then trigger the colored potions when you're ready. But, as I came to find out after getting my hands on the title, at the completion of each world lies a boss battle, of sorts, that puts your fingers in motion at a rather quick clip. In these encounters, a sinister being of evil leaps from the top of one obstacle to another, firing at you all the while. Only during these brief jaunts can you illuminate and decimate, while dodging his attacks, of course. It's nice to find a touch of arcade action thrown into the mix, like this.

Survival Mode is a timed affair where the pressure's on to figure out the proper potion sequence and get your torch placed as efficiently as possible. Because enemy creatures are sometimes wrapped in several multi-colored layers of protection, it really can put your brain through the ringer to get the potion sequence and torch positions laid out in sound order. And, midway through the game, the arrival of ghosts — which can only be seen in shadow — are no help at all. Deliciously frustrating, it is.

Integration with Chillingo's Crystal social game network allows online achievement and score tracking.

While the screenshots and preview video definitely piqued my interest, Helsing's Fire is even better than I expected. Dark gothic creatures wrapped up in amusing sequences of Victorian dialogue and, not to be forgotten, that excellent light and shadow puzzle mechanic. It's one of the most unique games I've ever played and is a true App Store gem. Surely only a creature of darkness would let this one slip by them.

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If you've been following TouchArcade, chances are you've already seen this video, but like anything related to the Star Wars movies, it almost seems to be tradition to release things, then re-release them (and often times re-re-release them). This time, the video is narrated by Fluffy Logic designer Tomas Rawlings. Rawlings explains some of the strategies used in the game, such as building trenches and placing infantry in those trenches which offer them a defensive bonus.

Trenches also allow you to funnel enemy units, and the incoming attackers will also fire on your defenses instead of just walking by like most creeps in tower defense games. Star Wars: Battle for Hoth is scheduled for release on the 15th for $2.99, and you can expect a full review as soon as we get the game in our hot little hands.

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An ambiguous image has been making the rounds over the weekend as casual game development king PopCap has sent out save the date emails for August 2nd in San Francisco, CA. This is quite literally all we know right now, but judging by the wild success of both the original Plants vs. Zombies for the Mac and PC, as well as the chart-topping Plants vs. Zombies [$2.99] and Plants vs. Zombies HD [$9.99] for the iPad, it's no surprise that PopCap would be making a sequel.

If this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies, here's the gist of the game from our review:

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.

We awarded Plants vs. Zombies for the iPhone 5 stars, and the iPad game is worth a look too as it includes a survival mode, more mini games, and the graphics look simply fantastic on the iPad screen. PopCap seems to have a knack for creating fun games that appeal to everyone from the most hardcore FPS player to your grandma, and I expect Plants vs Zombies 2 to be no different. It seems a sequel is inevitable, I just hope they release it simultaneously on the App Store instead of making iOS gamers wait nearly a year for a port like the first Plants vs Zombies.

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If you've found yourself stricken with a severe case of the Mondays, why not give your life some perspective and appreciate the fact that unlike the citizens of The Raging Dead [Free], you're not currently running for your life in a city filled with zombies with some omnipotent finger deciding whether or not your life is sacrifice for the greater good. (Or, if you are in a situation like this, I'd wonder why it is you're reading TouchArcade instead of, well, not getting your brain eaten.)

We reviewed The Raging Dead when it was released earlier this year, and as someone who was always oddly captivated by the various Java-powered zombie infection simulators that made the rounds years ago, I thought the game was really cool. Much like said simulators, The Raging Dead uses similar AI to populate a game world which initially only has a few zombies (red dots) who instantly begin pursuing the humans (blue dots).

From our review:

As you might imagine, entire cities can be completely overrun with zombies unless the undead are stopped quickly, and that's where the player comes in. Tapping on the screen will drop a bomb (or fire the machine gun, if that's your preference), killing all zombies in the impact area. That impact area is painfully small at first, and that combined with the extremely zoomed out view in each level makes precision a bit difficult. Luckily, weapons can be upgraded with money earned at the end of each level to allow for a more forgiving blast radius, so players will be able to eliminate the zombie threat quickly and efficiently.

The interesting part of the game becomes apparent when you realize that your weapon has limitations like reload speed time, and you must sacrifice some civilians in order to prevent the infection from hitting everywhere in the city at once. The strategy is to quickly eliminate all the scattered zombies at the start of the level, and by the time you've done that it's likely that the one or two that you missed have created a small army around their locations. That's just the sacrifice that you'll have to make if you want to be successful, because the only way to win is the eventually get all the zombies in a corner where they have no more civilian targets to infect and wipe them out all at once.

22 levels are included, as well as two weapons which you can upgrade in between levels. At the end of each level you're graded, earn money for said upgrades, and potentially unlock in-game medals based on how many humans survive as well as how little damage you did to the surrounding city. I fully realize there are entirely too many zombie games on the App Store, but if you've got room on your device for just one more, The Raging Dead is worth a try especially while it's free.

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Just last week we reported that Halfbrick Studio's popular iPhone fruit slicing game Fruit Ninja [99¢] had surpassed the 1 million download mark, and that a separate iPad version was on the horizon. Yesterday, a video showcasing the iPad version was released, and it's definitely looking impressive. The screen on the iPad allows for a larger play area and some frantic multitouch slicing, and the beefier processing power ensures everything runs at a silky smooth framerate – even in the new same-device multiplayer mode.

The multiplayer mode looks to be a huge draw for Fruit Ninja HD and it appears that at least one facet to this will be sending bombs over to your opponent, which should make for some heated two player battles. Take a peek at the new video for yourself:

To be perfectly honest, I think the guys at Halfbrick just like to tell their boss they're going to do some “work”, dress up in ninja and fruit costumes, and run around a playground all afternoon karate kicking each other. But you can't deny that they've come up with some high quality and humorous trailers for their games, which is always a nice treat beyond just straight in-game footage. This latest video has us really excited for Fruit Ninja HD, which if all goes well should be releasing this week.

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Ever since we spotted the online first-person shooter Archetype in limited release, we'd been dying to try the game out. At long last, Archetype was released to the global App Store this past week to much fanfare and a huge marketing campaign. After finally getting our hands on it and spending some quality time playing, we can safely say that Archetype is one impressive game, and developer Villain has, for the most part, followed through on their promises for the title. That's not to say there aren't a few issues with it, or a wish list of things we'd like to see added, but all said, Archetype delivers one of the most robust, beautiful, and most importantly fun FPS experiences that can be had on the iPhone.

For starters, if you have Apple's new iPhone 4 then you are treated to some unbelievably crisp graphics. The textures that make up the levels and player models aren't the most detailed — which is fine, as this allows the game to run at an ultra-smooth clip — but, on the retina display, it really approaches a high definition console game running on the small screen. For all other devices, including the first generation of iPhones and iPod touches, the game is still very graphically impressive and maintains a solid framerate. The five stages available in the game are also visually quite nice, and are all indoor arenas with a high tech industrial look similar to games like Eliminate or the Halo series. It's not a groundbreaking style, but it gets the job done while maintaining good performance across all devices.

Controls in Archetype are a familiar dual analog stick setup that works well, though doesn't leave many options for players that prefer different control schemes. The two sticks are visually situated in the usual spots in the lower corners, but can actually be activated by touching nearly anywhere on either half of the screen. This lends itself well to people who like the “touch anywhere” or “swipe the screen to aim” mechanics of similar touch screen FPS games. Your weapon can be very quickly changed by touching the upper right corner and grenades are thrown by touching the upper left corner. A melee attack is performed by touching the bottom of the screen anywhere in between the two analog sticks, which is also where the radar is displayed. Minor options to invert the aiming axis or adjust sensitivity are available, but the default control scheme described is basically all you get. This isn't really a bad thing though, as they do work very well and are semi-flexible, but surely won't suit every single gamer.

An important thing to note is that this game is meant to be strictly an online affair, so if you are looking for a single player campaign or don't have any interest in online multiplayer then Archetype is not for you. There's a very basic offline mode where you can run through a timed training level taking out stationary cardboard cutout style targets — but that's it. Everything else is matchmaking against live opponents over a WiFi, 3G, or EDGE connection. If you're the type of person that loves online FPS multiplayer, then you're in for a treat. Archetype runs and plays near-flawlessly over all of these connections.

Starting the game will launch you into a lobby that is connected to the server closest to your region, although you can choose to play on any server you wish. The current servers are US East, US West, Europe, Asia, and South America. Matchmaking allows just under a minute to find opponents to match you with, and once the timer runs out the game will start with whatever number of players are in the lobby by that time. Archetype boasts up to five-on-five team matches, but in my experience this is a somewhat rare occurrence. More often I'd get into two-on-two or three-on-three matches on a regular basis, with a fair amount of four-on-four as well. The good news is that I haven't had any trouble quickly picking up a match during my time with the game (US West).

Actually playing matches in Archetype is a blast. The five maps are designed well and feature a nice mix of different elevations, passageways, teleports, and weapon drops. As with any good FPS game, learning the ins and outs of each map is really beneficial. Player movement is fast, and by default your weapon will auto-fire when an enemy enters your aiming reticle, although this can be disabled in the options. A radar at the bottom of the screen shows the position of enemies and teammates (and can also be disabled if you wish). The six weapons in the game run the usual gamut of assault rifles, a shotgun, a sniper-type weapon (minus the zooming capability), and a rocket launcher. Grenades are here as well, with a normal frag grenade as well as an awesome grenade that splits into multiple parts when thrown.

Rounding out your offense is the ability to melee with any weapon available, or even pick up a brutal battle axe that can be used exclusively for close combat. Melee can feel overpowered at times, as you can rush up on opponents and spam the button wildly usually ending up in a kill, although this can also leave you open to an easy counterattack from savvy players. The precision rifle feels a little too strong as well, able to kill players with only one or two shots across an entire map, thanks to auto-firing. While rockets and grenades are also strong, the proximity damage of these will kill you just as easily as the opposition, if you aren't careful. So, there may be room for improvement in the balancing of the weapons, but there are tradeoffs with each, so it's not been a huge issue and gameplay doesn't suffer much for it.

Matches are incredibly fast paced and combat heavy. The match length is determined by the amount of players, so a one-on-one match goes for just one minute, a two-on-two for two minutes, and so forth. Since the matches are so brief, there's not a lot of reason to camp or lie in wait to get the drop on other players. Instead, you'd better keep moving if you want to get a decent amount of kills.  The setup is also really well suited to mobile gaming, as you can quickly pop in and have a match or two with just a spare few minutes. The only available game type is team Deathmatch, with no sort of free-for-all or objective based gametypes like capture the flag available at this time.

With all the great fun to be had in Archetype, it's not without its issues. For the most part it runs incredibly well online no matter what type of connection you're on, but there's inevitably instances of minor lag or even games completely locking up and dropping out altogether. The lobby shows you your current ping rate, so you can have an idea of how solid your connection and that of other players will be. The two biggest points of contention I'm hearing from players in our forums is over the auto-firing nature of the weapons and the ability to actually do damage to your own teammates. Auto-fire can be disabled, but this can just put you at a disadvantage to everyone else who uses it. Teammate damage cannot be disabled, so you'll need to learn to be careful around your own team, especially with tossing grenades around.

My biggest complaint about the game, personally, is the lack of options in setting the parameters of matches. It's very easy to add friends in Archetype, either from the post game lobby following a match or by searching out usernames and sending requests. From your friend list you can then issue a direct challenge to up to 9 other players to engage in a private match together. It works extremely well, giving other players a push notification inviting them to the game, and accepting that notification launches the game and sends you directly into the lobby very smoothly. I would love to be able to set longer matches in these instances, or adjust other variables like weapon types and frag limits. To be expected, match performance can be hit or miss when trying to play with friends in other countries. As it is, the private match feature is extremely basic but is still a nice addition to the overall package.

See our gameplay video for a closer look.

If you've actually managed to read this far, chances are you're really interested in this type of game and, with that, I can wholeheartedly recommend Archetype to you. It does have a few issues, some of which only amount to personal taste, and it does want for variety or progression somewhat, as it is just team deathmatch over and over again. But it's still incredibly fun. It gives you a game that you can quickly jump into and play practically anywhere in a reasonably reliable fashion. It also avoids the two common complaints about its closest competitor, Eliminate, in that you just pay for the game when you buy it, without any sort of in-app purchasing involved, and you don't have to worry that other players' equipment will be more upgraded than your own. Everyone plays on a level field here and, although it's a bit simplistic, it does work wonderfully. If you're liking the sound of what Archetype has to offer, then don't hesitate to check it out. It's personally become my favorite iPhone FPS to date.

Note: Archetype is presently being advertised on this site, but it has no influence on our choice of coverage or the outcome of our reviews. See advertising and editorial policies for additional details.

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One of the first top-down shooters worth playing to appear in the App Store was Lazrhog's iPhone port of Kenta Cho's 2003 "bullet hell" shooter rRootage. This weekend, Miko Wohlgemuth released his own iPhone adaptation of Cho's vector-based shooter, rRootage Online [App Store].

rRootage Online is, of course, rather similar to Lazrhog's early App Store offering, but comes packed with a number of additional bells and whistles. It features music and sound effects, multitouch controls, online scoreboards, and a number of different playmodes, which really notches up the experience.

• Normal Mode — This is the standard playmode. Your special weapon (two finger tap) is a bomb that wipes out enemy bullets.
• PSY Mode — The trick here is to closely graze enemy bullets. With each graze, an onscreen graze meter increases. Once full, your ship becomes invincible for a short period. Your special weapon is the ability to roll, slowing the ship and widening the range with which your ship can graze bullets.
• IKA Mode — A nod to Ikaruga, in this mode your ship is either black or white. The special weapon is to change your ship's color. Bullets, as well, are black and white and those the same color as your ship cause no damage upon impact.
• GW Mode — In this mode, your special weapon is a reflector, which reflects enemy bullets away from your ship, tied to an onscreen reflector meter.

In each mode, the overall goal is to shoot shoot shoot and dodge dodge dodge. And, perhaps the most noteworthy feature of this release versus the earlier App Store version is full playability under iOS 4.

Anyone who enjoys a nice 2D shooter should grab this one instantly. After all, it's free, funded by iAds on the high scrore screen. Our forum readers are loving it.

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Very rarely, an absolute gem flies under our radar, as seems to be the case with Jagex Games Studio's Miner Disturbance [App Store]. Based on a PC game by the same name, Miner Disturbance is an alternate take on the classic Dig Dug formula.

In Miner Disturbance, you take control of a very Mario-esque miner, whose job it is to pick a rather hazardous mountain clean of all its precious metals. Part platformer, part puzzle game, Miner Disturbance has you haphazardly negotiating a series of deteriorating, volcanic, gassy and waterlogged mine-shafts…filled with nasty critters no less.

Your miner is directed via a virtual thumbstick and on-screen buttons. One button enables you to dig through rock and the other is your life-saving jump button. Though the controls are simple, Jagex Games Studios (of Runescape fame) have put a considerable amount of thought into making your mining life as easy as possible. Pressing in a direction while pressing your dig button will stop your miner from tumbling down precarious drops, enabling you to easily pick at rock on the other side of the gap.

Once learned this becomes an essential tool, as in order to successfully complete each of the 25 levels' objectives and achieve a gold rating, you will need to dig yourself an elaborate maze to avoid or negotiate the pitfalls you encounter. These stem from simple water-logged areas, where digging around submerged areas realistically spreads the water, to dangerous lava-filled caverns, or areas where poisonous mushrooms emit a toxic gas when disturbed. Add to this the necessary rats, moles, spiders and bats that naturally inhabit these areas, and you're never short an obstacle or three.

Completing each of the level's objectives has the added boon of rewarding you with coins, which can be spent upgrading your miner's abilities. These are essential to reaching the lowest depths and returning alive (the latter a requisite of each and every level) as they improve things such as jumping height, health and water and gas breathing time. Equipment can also assist you to walk over lava, climb sheer rock faces, and locate enemies and artefacts.

To complement the core missions, Miner Disturbance uses these artefacts in a meta-game of sorts, displaying the artefact pieces you've collected in a museum accessible via your overworld map. A volcano is also unlocked after the inital few missions that is essentially a randomly-generated survival mission that records your highscores to compare with your friends.

The volcano is peppered with the same dangers as the standard levels, with the added peril of triggering a volcano if your digging makes the volcano unstable. This commences a mad back-track as you attempt to out-run the forthcoming eruption; some of the best fun to be had with the game. And your results are all recorded in OpenFeint or able to be shared with your friends via Twitter or Facebook.

Much to our approval, Jagex Game Studios have already released 5 free levels featuring an entirely new arctic world; complete with new icy obstacles to overcome and a new artefact to discover.

Even without the added sweetener though, Miner Disturbance is a terrific action-packed puzzle platformer that should keep you entertained for hours as you pick your way through devilishly concocted mineshafts. The iOS version also benefits from a faithful but more detailed and glossy re-imagination of the original artwork. It is a diamond in the rough (or rock as it were) not to be missed, and certainly a must-have for puzzle and platformer fans alike.

For those still on the fence, or if you're simply interested in sampling the gameplay first, have a go at the free online Java version.

(Limited 50% Off Update Sale)

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Resolve Market Research recently conducted an online survey that solicited usage pattern feedback from users of mobile devices of various types, including a specific look at how users perceive the iPad both before and after owning the device. As it turns out, gaming is no small deal on the device.

According to the survey, 28% of iPad-using respondents indicated that gaming was one of their main uses on the device. What's more 23% said that between the iPad, smartphones and various portable gaming devices, the iPad is the most enjoyable for playing games. In fact, 38% of iPad owners responding to the survey indicated that they had no desire to purchase a different mobile gaming device.

The iPad is clearly a formidable mobile gaming device, sporting the same 1GHz A4 processor used in the iPhone 4. And, while we've seen a number of quality iPad game titles appear in the App Store, the iPad gaming scene is still young. We're anxious to see, down the road, just how game developers make use of the iPad's 1024×768 pixel display and powerful processing unit.

[ via Joystiq ]

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As long-time readers are surely aware, I'm a retro gaming nut and, within that classification, am a particular fan of the roguelike / dungeon crawler genre. Gamers like me were handed real treat early last year when ChronoSoft released Rogue Touch [App Store], an iPhone adaptation of / enhancement to the 1980 genre-defining Rogue. One of my absolute favorite iPhone games, Rogue Touch really takes me back to those long hours spent in front of Rogue on my Atari ST back in 1987.

Developer Kevin Hill has done a great job of updating the game since its initial release, and in ways strongly shaped by the user community in the Touch Arcade forums, Kevin tells me. He's just released version 1.52 of Rogue Touch [link] that addresses iOS 4 performance issues along with a number of other enhancements:

• Hotfix for daemon saving issue at home button press / incoming call answer
• iOS 4 speed improvements (any device will play faster now!)
• Nymphs no longer steal the *last* item of your pack, but a truly random magic item from you
• Venus Flytraps now prevent you from going down stairs if held in their vines
• Scroll of Safe Passage fixed- it would actually *hide* previously found traps without disarming them. Not anymore!
• Tweaks to search messages (scrawlings and gold in cracks will be less frequent)
• Slimes will no longer split when hit with a War Hammer
• Knockback Attacks! You have a chance to push back a monster with each successful blow you strike! The chance grows with increased strength and higher experience levels. Monsters that get pushed into a wall or another monster take additional damage!

It's great to see the game continue to evolve and, in fact, Kevin indicates that the version 1.5.3 update will be submitted this week, offering Retina Display text-support, Fast App Switching / Multitasking support, even faster speeds under iOS 4, and maybe a new magic item or two. But that's not all the news he had to share from the world of Rogue Touch…

The developer, alongside his forthcoming Spirit Hunter Mineko, is presently working on Rogue Touch EX, a take on the formula that should have greater appeal to more casual gamers than the original.

Rogue Touch EX is a side project. It is planned to be a more slick, streamlined experience utilizing knowledge gained in working on Spirit Hunter Mineko this year. The “EX” stands for enhanced and extended. Core gameplay will remain “Rogue”, but the presentation will be unlike any version of Rogue ever seen. The fact is most people find rogue-likes unappealing to look at, but may actually enjoy the game if given a chance. Rogue Touch EX and Spirit Hunter Mineko are different takes on the idea of making a more appealing experience.

Major features of Rogue Touch EX, as listed by the developer:

• Professional sprite artwork and more animation, improved lighting effects, everything presented on screen using OpenGL for fluid motion
• It will be a universal app, with high resolution support on iPad and iPhone 4 Retina Display
• An analog / swipe anywhere control scheme, improved context actions, and inventory system
• Gamecenter support

Rogue Touch EX is in the early stages right now, and should see an App Store release sometime later this year. Fans of the original can rest assured that it will continue to evolve alongside the new title. We'll keep readers informed as more details emerge surrounding all of ChronoSoft's works in progress.

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