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Back in June, we reviewed the follow up release to last years successful Battle Bears: Zombies! [99¢], titled Battle Bears -1 [99¢]. While this new prequel to the original game contained the same humor and silly antics that we love about the series, it fell short in a few areas, which kept it from being an entirely enjoyable gaming experience. It was still a fair amount of fun, but the awkward control scheme, repetitive levels, and overall difficulty and brevity of the main campaign ultimately sucked a lot of the joy out of Battle Bears -1.

Now, nearly two months since release and two updates later, pretty much all of these issues have been addressed and then some, and Battle Bears -1 has evolved into a much more competent game than it started out as. For starters, the game is now universal and contains higher quality graphics for the iPad, iPhone 3Gs, and iPhone 4. Both of the campaigns (the included Oliver campaign and the 99¢ IAP Riggs campaign) have been doubled in length, and where you would originally fight the final boss of the game you now receive a new weapon for each character before continuing on.

Oliver's new weapon is a deadly katana, and Riggs gets a huggable head-powered laser gun. The katana is especially fun as it delivers one hit kills to any huggable that gets in the way of Oliver's wild swinging. In addition, the game now allows you to switch weapons at will by tapping an icon in the upper corner (or a button by the right analog stick on the iPad), and carry up to three clips of ammo for each one. The 1.1 update that came out early July let you aim by swiping the screen, allowing you to look around without wasting any ammo, as well as a slider to adjust sensitivity. These changes have really done away with the control issues that plagued the initial version of Battle Bears -1.

The added campaigns for each character take place in different settings as well, alleviating the repetitiveness of the scenery from version 1.0. New cutscenes and voice samples were also added into the game with this new update, and the game has been optimized to run smoother on older devices. And the updates won't stop here either, as developer SkyVu is already planning on adding more weapons, new bosses and enemies, multiplayer support, more cutscenes, and a new downloadable third character with their own unique storyline and campaign.

I'm already much more satisfied with Battle Bears -1 after these last two updates, and it's really become one of my favorite games to play. Further additions can only make it even better, but if any of these previous issues held you back from checking out the game, now is a good time to give it a second look.

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When it comes to racing leagues, MotoGP is to motorcycle racing what NASCAR is to stock car racing and IRL is to indy car racing. It's the premiere league for street racing of the two-wheeled variety, and has a fairly long history as a video game franchise. The MotoGP series of games are known for being something of a hybrid of simulation and arcade racing, and this still rings true with the release of MotoGP 2010 for iPhone. The iPhone version of the game, however, really doesn't impress much visually, and there are several quirks that keep it from being a very good racer.

MotoGP 2010 features a Championship mode as its main single player component, and this takes you through the 18 official events of the real MotoGP season. Also, there are licensed bikes and riders to use in the game, so you can live out your dream of racing through a season of MotoGP just like in real life. This is about where the simulation portion of the game ends, though. Racing in MotoGP 2010 is strictly of the arcade variety. Turning is handled with tilt, and acceleration is automatic. Touching the lower right corner of the screen activates a limited boost, and the lower left corner is the brake. Besides a brake assist indicator that tells you when to brake as you approach a curve (which can be toggled on/off), there are no other control options available.

Racing boils down to boosting as much as possible without overheating while slowing to almost a stop for just about every curve. Running off the course doesn't really affect you very much, as you can just boost your way back onto the pavement. It's also impossible to crash into walls or other riders and fall off your bike. The courses themselves are well designed and interesting, mostly because they are based on real tracks, but racing on them feels pretty mediocre. Not terrible, just not very exciting. Like the gameplay, the graphics are pretty average as well. Jagged edges abound, and the game has a grainy overall look. Performance isn't the best either, as regularly the game would drop frames and stutter along during a race on my iPhone 4.

Even with all that, once I came to grips with the weird handling of the bikes, I did find myself having some fun with the game. It will take a good amount of play time to make it through the season, and each event has a qualifying race you can choose to participate in to get a feel of the track and earn a higher pole position before actually competing, which I thought was a nice touch. There's also a number of achievements and unlockable gallery art to be earned through play. MotoGP 2010 isn't the worst racing game that I've played on iPhone, but it's far from the best.

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Escalation Studios have been the men behind the curtains of two great iPhone games, Dr. Awesome [99¢ / Free] published by ngmoco as well as Doom Resurrection [$1.99] published by id Software. Today they released Splode [99¢] on the App Store as the first game published under the Escalation Studios name. Splode has gameplay very similar to other chain reaction games like Sneezies [99¢ / Free / HD] in that you tap on the screen to start a reaction, and that reaction (if initiated properly) can clear the entire screen.

Like Sneezies, Splode has both a challenge mode where you try to clear a set number of splodes in one tap, and score attack mode where you can tap multiple times to see how many splodes you can explode. What sets Splode apart from similar games is the crazy amount of additional flourishes in the game, both in the musical and graphical departments.

The music begins almost spooky sounding with the game entirely in black and white. As your chain reaction involves more splodes, a series of flower buds that frame the screen open, and the scene slowly turns from night time and black and white to daytime and colorful. It's really a cool experience, and vaguely reminds me of the transition to color in The Wizard of Oz.

Splodes is launching at 99¢, is universal, and even has high resolution graphics for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4. One thing that is sorely lacking in Splodes is online leaderboards, something that I feel is almost mandatory for any high scoring game, and achievements would be awesome too. Even though the gameplay isn't that original, the experience of the music, ascending chords as the splodes explode, and the color changing mechanic is totally worth checking out if you enjoy simple but beautiful games.

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In celebration of the recent release of Dark Nebula – Episode Two [99¢], developer 1337 Game Design has dropped the price of the original installment to free. If you don't own Dark Nebula – Episode One [Free] yet, you seriously need to stop whatever it is you're doing and download it. Unfortunately it's over the 20MB limit for 3G app downloads so iPhone users will have to find some WiFi, but thankfully the game will be free all weekend so you've got plenty of time.

On the surface, the Dark Nebula games are just tilt controlled ball rollers, but in actuality they are so much more than that. The production value of both games is flat out insane, with amazing graphics, excellent sound, and masterful level design. Episode One will likely only take you an hour to complete, but it will be one fantastic ride.

We have reviewed both Episode One and Episode Two if you want to check them out, but really, you should just download the first while it's free and immediately pick up the second if you enjoy it as I think the sequel is even better than the original.

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This afternoon at QuakeCon, John Carmack surprised everybody by pulling out his iPhone 4 and running a demo of id Software's upcoming title Rage. Rage is an upcoming console and PC title that has been in development for the last few years, and is a brand new IP from id. It will be a mixture of first-person shooting and driving, set in a post-apocalyptic world similar to something like the Fallout series.

Rage for iPhone uses the same id Tech 5 engine that they are using to build the console versions of the game, and the demo is quite possibly the most impressive looking graphics we've ever seen running on the platform. Carmack states that there will be one Rage title released this year as sort of a “show off” game for what is capable, with a more full fledged Rage game to be released next year to coincide with the console release.

Check out the video demonstration from the QuakeCon keynote over at Kotaku to see for yourself how impressive Rage looks running on the iPhone.  The game runs at a solid 60fps on an iPhone 4, but Carmack states that the game will be able to run well even on an original iPhone and up.  This is exciting news, and we'll be looking forward to hearing more information on these upcoming Rage titles, as well as whatever else id may be cooking up for the iPhone, in the future.

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QuakeCon 2010 is a free four day gaming festival that takes place down in Dallas, TX every year. QuakeCon is host to a massive LAN as gamers from all over bring their PC's to come play games locally, see the latest software and hardware from various vendors, and compete in various tournaments. I've never been able to make it to the event, but it's always been high on my to do list as friends of mine who go every year routinely rave about what an awesome time QuakeCon is.

…But just because we're not in Texas this weekend doesn't mean we're missing out on all the QuakeCon festivities, as to celebrate the event id Software has significantly dropped the price of all of their iPhone games. These games are all worth owning, and highly recommended.

DOOM Resurrection, $6.99 → $1.99 – Everything that is awesome about a modern Doom game applied to a rails shooter. The fact that the game is on rails was a point of tons of controversy when the game was originally released, but we thought it was absolutely awesome in our review and is still high up there among the best looking iPhone games to this day.

Wolfenstein 3D Classic Platinum, $1.99 → 99¢ – It's hard to get much more classic than Wolfenstein 3D when it comes to first person shooters. The iPhone port has a wide array of control options and since its initial release was update to Platinum which includes more maps, more bosses, and even custom map support. There's also a lite version to try.

DOOM Classic, $6.99 → $1.99 – This game hardly needs an introduction, but much like Wolfenstein 3D, this classic first person shooter is right at home on the iPhone with a ton of control options, along with 36 missions to play through across four episodes. Doom Classic has both deathmatch and cooperative multiplayer, but unfortunately you can only play with local players.

DOOM II RPG, $3.99 → 99¢ – This odd spin on the Doom universe still has you killing demons with huge guns, but this time it's in a turn based RPG setting. It's a little weird, but once you get past the whole Doom going from a first person shooter to an RPG, Doom II RPG is a ton of fun. For more details and gameplay video head over to our review.

Wolfenstein RPG, $1.99 – This isn't on sale as it's published by EA, but it's odd to mention the rest of id's lineup without Wolfenstein RPG. It plays very similar to Doom II RPG, although the plot and events that transpire in Wolf RPG seemed substantially more wacky. Check out our review for more information on exactly how many chickens you'll be kicking in this game.

QuakeCon goes all weekend, and these sales will only last for the duration of the event. If you've been thinking of picking any of these games up, make sure you do it by Sunday night.

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