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Back at WWDC we met with Fish Labs to see the sequel to Galaxy On Fire 3D [$2.99 / Free] running on the iPad. Before getting any deeper than this, it's important to know the roots of the Galaxy on Fire series so you can fully appreciate just how far the game has come. Both Galaxy on Fire and its sequel originated from J2ME games that weighed in at under 1 megabyte each in their original form. Galaxy on Fire 3D saw an incredible leap from the J2ME game, and its sequel makes even bigger advancements. Before looking at what the game has become today, take a good look at the original screenshot to the right, in all its J2ME glory.

Galaxy on Fire 2 is a space conquest game, with a massive galaxy map to explore, multiple factions to align yourself to, a dynamic economy, and tons of other neat features that all add up to an impressive amount of depth. The original Galaxy on Fire was something special, but the sequel seems to be exceeding the original in every way imaginable.

Generally speaking when we do a preview post like this, we'll just cherry pick two or three of the coolest screenshots that developers send us, but that isn't really possible with Galaxy on Fire 2. That just really wasn't possible with the batch that Fish Labs sent us, especially with them all being rendered at iPhone 4 Retina Display resolution:

Galaxy on Fire 2 is in beta testing right now, and Fish Labs expects to release both the iPhone and iPad versions of the game simultaneously in October. For more information check out their extensive developer blog or the thread in our forums. There is also some iPad gameplay footage in our last preview at WWDC, but that was so long ago it's hard to say how representative that even is of the game right now.

I can't wait.

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Originally released in 1985 by the now defunct Data East, Road Blaster is a LaserDisc game in the style of Cobra Command [99¢]. Road Blaster was one of the last LaserDisc games ever released, and is set in a Mad Max-like post apocalyptic world where you play as a vigilante on the road hunting down a biker gang in attempt to bring them to justice for the death of your wife. Along the way you will need to do all kinds of tricky driving maneuvers before finally facing off with the gang's leader.

The only time this game has been seen outside of Japan is in the Sega CD port which not only suffered from the same horrid video compression of all Sega CD games, but also got renamed to Road Avenger. Revolutionary Concepts have completely remastered the game, and when it is finally released, it will play at 60FPS at full iPhone 4 or iPad resolutions. They've also completely redesigned the dashboard of the car, added in tilt controls, and made a whole list of other tweaks.

Check out this comparison between the original arcade and iPad versions of the game:

Road Blaster is currently in the final stages of development, and is expected to be released on the App Store sometime next month.

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As we reported a few months ago, Square Enix's phenomenal iPhone exclusive RPG Chaos Rings was heading to the iPad. Game producer Takehiro Ando already had the game up and running on an iPad just days after the iPhone release, but wanted to take the time necessary to rework all of the graphical assets to take advantage of the higher resolution iPad screen. Now the day has finally come for Chaos Rings for iPad [$15.99] to be unleashed on iPad gamers everywhere. If you aren't familiar with the game take a look at our full review of the iPhone version and you'll see that we really, really like Chaos Rings. This sentiment should apply to the iPad version as well, just with crisper graphics and a larger area of play. From our review:

After putting the game through its paces, I can safely say it stands to not only meet any high expectations but exceed them in remarkable fashion. With stunning visuals and captivating gameplay that is tailored specifically for Apple's device, Chaos Rings defines what an RPG experience should be like on a mobile platform.

In the end, it's not really about how Chaos Rings does anything especially new, but rather how it takes all the pieces of a traditional role-playing game and packages it together in a way that feels natural to the platform. The result is something more akin to an action-adventure game with heavy RPG elements. The turn-based fighting is gratifying and never got old, and the story and character development remains immersive even in short play sessions. The entire experience feels like a high quality console offering shrunk down to portable size. Chaos Rings is executed brilliantly on just about every level, and has all the makings of a true classic.

Also, in celebration of the release of Chaos Rings for iPad, all of Square Enix's games are on sale in the App Store. You can check out all of their titles by clicking this iTunes link here, and there are some great deals to be had on some excellent games. At any rate, if you are an iPad owner and an RPG fan, don't hesitate to pick up Chaos Rings for iPad as it's not only one of the finest games available, but looks stunning on the larger screen. Hi res screenshots and player impressions can be found in the Chaos Rings for iPad thread in our forums.

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Last year, Capcom released an entry from its classic franchise Ghosts 'n Goblins to the iPhone, titled Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold Knights, which we reviewed on release. If you were a fan of the original series a couple of things really stuck out about the game. First and foremost was the change from 2D sprites and pixel art to 3D character models and backgrounds. It looked blocky and lacked detail, and just didn't have that charming, colorful look of the originals. Still, I could look past the graphical change as long as the game still played the same. The problem was… it didn't. Gameplay was sluggish, and the poor virtual controls made playing through the game an exercise in frustration. To top it all off, for one of the most notoriously difficult game series of all time, Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold Knights was a total cakewalk.

Now, nine months after the first release, Arthur is back in Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold Knights II. Did Capcom learn from their mistakes and improve upon the fairly disappointing first game? Well, sort of. Visually, everything is practically identical to the first game, and running side by side they are almost indistinguishable. Game mechanics are also similar in regards to health, powerups, level progression, and so forth. In addition to Arthur, you do get a new character to play as in place of Lancelot from the first game. Perceval is also a sword wielding hero but plays much differently than Lancelot in that he cannot shoot at characters and has a much bigger focus on magical attacks. Also, he can dash attack through certain walls, which can affect what route you take through the game and is a cool addition.

Where Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold Knights II really improves over its predecessor is in performance and controls. The game now runs a great deal faster, and feels much closer to the originals when jumping from platforms and fighting with enemies. Best of all is the addition of an analog stick for movement rather than a finicky d-pad. Moving your character is much, much easier now, and you can even place the virtual controls wherever you want on the screen in the options. These changes improve the game drastically over the first, and I'm actually having a lot of fun playing through it this time around.

Game length appears to be about the same as the first, based on the scrolling map view you get before starting a level. The difficulty is still on the easy side, and hopefully this gets improved with an update like the first game received that added a Hard mode. There's also the same type of cheats that can be purchased for 99¢ each as IAP that the first game had, if you find the game isn't easy enough for you to begin with. It's still not the prettiest game around, but it's not the ugliest either, and overall Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold Knights II is a huge improvement over the first thanks to the overhauled performance and controls.

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Backflip Studios is a true indie success story that we've been following for quite a while now. They've had smash hits on the paid charts with Ragdoll Blaster [$1.99 / Free] and its sequel Ragdoll Blaster 2 [$2.99 / Free] as well as the free charts with both Paper Toss [99¢] and Strike Knight [99¢]. Recently, they've teamed up with fellow indie developers Team Phobic to release Tunnel Shoot [99¢], a fun little tunnel shooter that both is universal and supports the Retina Display of the iPhone 4.

NinJump, Backflip's latest fun and free game was released mere moments ago. The game plays a lot like Ninjatown: Trees of Doom [$1.99] in that you're scaling either side of the screens as a ninja like character. Tapping sends your ninja jumping from one side of the screen to the other, swinging his sword around attacking anything in his path. If you attack three of the same things in a row, you get powered up and soar even higher.

Like Backflip's other games, there's really not a whole lot of depth to NinJump. You climb as high as you can, submit your scores via OpenFeint powered leaderboards, and try again. The lack of depth doesn't make the game any less fun though, as I've found myself randomly firing it up to play since we got our first preview of the game. If you're a sucker for super-simple pick up and play high scoring games, you really need to give NinJump a try — and, it's free.

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After spending a considerable amount of time with Halfbrick Studios' upcoming game, Monster Dash, I've found my new favorite iPhone game. The games I seem to spend the most time with on my phone are pick up and play highly randomized games that are fun to play for only a few minutes at a time. Canabalt [$2.99] nailed it, and has been one of my go to games for nearly a year now. Monster Dash takes Canabalt one step farther, and instead of just running faster and faster jumping in between buildings, you're armed with a shotgun, and need to mow down an endless horde of monsters wandering about in your path.

Included in the game are multiple settings ranging from the zombie infested cityscape seen above, to an asian themed setting where you're running on top of a huge wall. While running around, you warp between these settings and your standard shotgun gets replaced with a number of other weaponry including a huge electric gun, a powerful pistol, and even a machine gun jet pack. With each monster or set of spikes you hit, you lose a heart, and once you run out of hearts the game is over. (There are also power ups to restore health.)

If you think the trailer for the game is awesome, it's nothing compared to actually playing the game. Halfbrick get so many things right with Monster Dash it's not even funny. There are OpenFeint online leaderboards, a ridiculous amount of achievements, stat tracking that keeps track of everything from how many mummies you've killed to how many times you've jumped and even your accuracy with weaponry. The game has great fast paced music, fabulous looking sprite-based graphics, and it even loads quickly. Monster Dash will be available on the App Store on August 19th, and that date really can't come quickly enough.

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Last week we posted the preview trailer of XMG Studio's Cannon Cadets [$1.99] which has since been released on the App Store. Riding on the undeniably successful coattails of Angry Birds [99¢ / Free / HD], Cannon Cadets provides similar physics-powered gameplay with some new twists that make it worth checking out if you're like many people who have beaten every level in Angry Birds and now just anxiously await the next content update.

Gameplay is fairly similar in that you're shooting things at various makeshift forts filled with enemies, only instead of birds and pigs, Cannon Cadets is home to robots and evil monkeys. By pulling back on a cannon you can shoot one of the cadets in to the robot base, and similarly, each level is completed by destroying all the robots. Gameplay is spiced up a bit with levels that are a bit more puzzle oriented, with moving obstacles to deal with and other physics gimmicks that go together like an odd Rube Goldberg machine.

One thing that I like a lot about Cannon Cadets is the secret levels that are unlocked by hitting various targets in the game world. I thought the golden egg portion of Angry Birds was really awesome, and this just takes that a step further in providing some actual incentive to finding the secret levels to play them instead of just filling out a golden egg page for the sake of completion.

Cannon Cadets comes loaded with 80 levels, and there's even talk of a level editor on the way via future updates and an iPad version. The game hasn't swayed me from my love of Angry Birds as I think Angry Birds flat out just has more character to it and a better physics engine, but Cannon Cadets is totally a competent supplement with similar gameplay and more than enough content to keep you busy between Angry Birds updates.

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For all the remarkable games we are seeing nowadays on the App Store, we are blessed with very few epic RPGs. It seems that developers are still unwilling to invest in the content heavy, quest-driven adventures that many other platforms routinely enjoy. Publisher Nate Games has thoughtfully identified this gap in the market and have given us the next best thing– a direct port of a critically acclaimed 2009 title for the PSP– Crimson Gem Saga [$9.99] by Atlus Games.

As the name would suggest, Crimson Gem Saga is indeed an epic by definition, weighing in at a satisfying 30-40 hours of story-driven, turn-based combat and exploration of a colorful, mythical world. Crimson Gem Saga makes no delusions, drawing strongly from the tenets of the Dragon Quest series in doing little to crack the molds of the genre, but focusing instead on bringing that traditional RPG experience in as fine a package as possible.

The wrapper to that package comes by way Killian, a tightly wound chevalier graduating from military academy and ready to embark on a new life in the big wide world. It's a setting told ad nauseum by RPGs, a factor that Crimson Gem Saga doesn't shy from. Wholly self-aware, Crimson Gem Saga instead colors that grey backdrop with a surprisingly well written, often humorous dialogue and a host of jaded protagonists alway at each other's throats– an interaction practically unheard of in JRPGs.

To look at Crimson Gem Saga, one would have to agree that it delivers abundantly in eye candy. The game is portrayed with a mixture of highly detailed and diversely animated sprites (for both characters and world objects) and painted, layered level design. In many ways, Crimson Gem Saga aspires to the likes of Star Ocean, with the same colorful and richly populated world and detailed anime dialogue sequences rounding out the game's visual spectacle.

Undoubtedly the meat of any RPG is in its combat system, where you'll be spending the majority of your time over the length of the story. And combat remains largely derivative in Crimson Gem Saga. You won't find any complex limit system or interwoven skill trees to get your head around; but on the iOS devices, that is actually a blessing. The most difficult concept to master is the eventual use of linked attacks, where certain powerful skills are only made available if particular characters have consecutive turns. Otherwise combat is straightforward but constantly challenging, maintaining its lustre throughout the game.

Where Crimson Gem Saga falls short is in its seemingly lazy port; something of a curse of crossing the platform barrier. The on-screen buttons are just plain ugly, something that could be forgiven (though we wish there was an option to hide them entirely) if the implementation was otherwise acceptable. But this is not the case, with the menu system providing a saga of its own to overcome. Context sensitive areas on the screen aren't readily understandable, and the swiping mechanic is backwards and overly sensitive. Granted, hours of playing the game does eventually train you to negotiate the UI's hitches, but do expect initial frustration.

Compounding these issues are a few major bugs encountered; from a game-stopping cutscene crash we experienced on our first play through (fortunately, not on our second), to a widely experienced upgrading item crash. And voiced dialogues are terrific when they do work, but also intermittently cut out and seem to arbitrarily skip sequences. The silver lining to all this is that the developer has already responded to complaints on our forums with a patch being worked on to address some of these problems.

Notwithstanding the above, Crimson Gem Saga is a well-rounded title whose whole certainly exceeds the sum of its parts. Its traditional approach to RPGs meshes well with its witty dialogue to deliver a surprisingly engrossing adventure. Though combat is simple, even the average encounter is never a push over and so remains fun and engaging. The characters too are infectious and constantly at odds with each other; giving rise to some very funny dialogue and pop gaming culture references. If you can endure the clumsily ported menu system, then Crimson Gem Saga will reward you with a notoriously rare, epic RPG on the iOS platform.

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This afternoon Gameloft announced the sequel to Gangstar: West Coast Hustle [$4.99 / Free] entitled Gangstar: Miami Vindication. Along with this announcement is a fairly extensive gameplay trailer compared to the teasers Gameloft usually releases which shows car chases, riding motorcycles, and even piloting helicopters. According to Gameloft, Miami Vindication is "the most ambitious crime simulation ever developed for handheld," which is a lofty claim considering the extensiveness of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / Free].

Gangstar: Miami Vindication should be available fairly soon, as looking at Gameloft's previous game releases they generally don't release this kind of trailer without the game being very close to being done. For more information on the original Gangstar, check out our review. Also, Gangstar: West Coast Hustle HD [99¢] for the iPad is on sale for 99¢ and for that price is totally worth picking up if these kind of open world crime games are your cup of tea.

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