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In May of last year Cyan Worlds released an iPhone version of their groundbreaking (in its day) point and click adventure Myst [App Store]. Earlier this year we got word that Riven: The Sequel to Myst would be arriving on the iPhone by early summer. And, while it's obviously not here yet, we do have an update for those who've been waiting anxiously for Riven's arrival.

Early this month, Cyan's Mark DeForest (or 'Chogon') made a post on the Myst online forums indicating that they are expecting Riven to be available in early Fall, with Riven HD for the iPod following sometime after that. What's more, Cyan today launched a simple Riven for iOS website that reveals certain details about the forthcoming iPhone version along with a screenshot gallery.

The original Riven sights and sounds have been meticulously re-assembled for a remarkable experience on the iPhone and iPod touch. Everything that you remember from the original Riven in a format where a simple touch or swipe moves you through the world.

According to the website, the install of Riven for the iPhone is huge — and it's not surprising; Riven for the Mac and PC was initially distributed as a set of five CD-ROMs. Cyan has worked to optimize the original game data for the iOS platform but, even so, the game is about a gig and a half in size (probably the largest iOS application out there) and requires over 2 gigabytes of free storage for a successful install.

Riven for iPhone features, as listed by Cyan:

• All the original Ages & gameplay
• High quality images
• Full music & sound effects
• Movies & animations
• Auto-save (when quitting or phone call)
• "Bookmark" system to save & restore progress
• Swipe to turn
• Zoom in anywhere for more detail
• “Hot Spot” hints
• Works with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

We'll take a close look at Riven when it arrives and share our experiences with our readers. But, that's not the end of the Cyan news…

A small ad banner has recently appeared on the Cyan Worlds website that reads, "never let your timbers be shivered!" A click on the banner takes you to a rather spartan "preview" page that shows a screenshot of a new iOS game entitled Stoneship. Now, the savvy Myst fan will recall that "Stoneship" is the name of one of the ages in Myst, and this forthcoming title, which looks as if it may be some sort of top-down naval combat / tower defense / puzzle game, was surely inspired by it.

Unfortunately, that's about all the details we've got at the moment on this forthcoming, new title from Cyan. We'll share additional news on this one as we get it.

[ Thanks Jordan ]

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By now I'm sure we all agree, Chillingo really have a soft spot for decaying dudes with a bad case of halitosis. They are Liches of the App Store, raising an undead army to swarm your iOS devices. For the most part, this is actually a good thing, as all their zombie offerings to date have been of a particularly high standard. So it's no surprise that they've championed Viqua Games' Zombie Escape [App Store], a game we were eagerly anticipating after our hands-on preview.

Zombie Escape takes the traditional line drawing experience and changes up the formula significantly. Rather than being the be-all-end-all of the game, where one misplaced line means instant death, the line-drawing mechanic is a means to an end; namely, directing survivors of the zombie infestation to a nearby chopper, filling it up, and waiting for the next to arrive. Sure, while your task each level might be rescuing each and every survivor, the zombies have to eat something right?

In this respect, Zombie Escape is a lot more forgiving than other line-drawing games, by allowing some casualties before outright failure, and permitting your survivors to fight back a little; in the form of a small window of opportunity for you to direct a survivor away if they are caught by a zombie– before their brains are eaten. This doesn't mean a less challenging game, but that the difficulty assumes a different form– something you'll appreciate when your screen is bursting with zombies and you're trying to thread your survivors through the most narrow of openings, all while avoiding your own airstrike.

The artillery at your disposal is crucial to staving off the zombie horde for as long as it takes for your lift-off to arrive. There are 7 items available to you, each unlocked as you work your way through the 28 levels and three different settings in the campaign mode. Items are peppered in-game through crate drops, covering the gamut of usual suspects; such as sniper rifles, bombs and airstrikes; as well as a few items unique to Zombie Escape such as the SOS helicopters, sleep grenades, hunks of meat (which attract zombies) and zombie-free tesla-coiled zones, the latter of which have a more utility role. Each item can be upgraded in different ways, some of which alter their purpose entirely, adding to its strategic value.

As well as your armament to consider, there are also varying zombie types which compound the danger your survivors are in. These include; a Seeker, which hunts your survivors down when in range; a Stinker, which leaves a toxic cloud behind it when it dies; and a Burster, a zombie that explodes after it is killed. Each of these super-zombies is more than capable of dispatching a hapless survivor in no time, so careful management of your survivors pathing and wonton destruction with your items is required. Oh, and carefully aim your SOS chopper pick-ups to land on a horde of zombies– it has the desired effect.

The level art in Zombie Escape gets the job done and is different across the 3 game worlds. Where Zombie Escape shines however, is in its 2D art, as all the zombies and survivors look great and are believably animated (I warmed especially to the survivors running around waving their arms above their heads). Unfortunately, I encountered a bug where the game's sound effects never worked for us, until I tried turning off and on the sound effects in the game menu a couple of times. Once I did, I was pleasantly rewarded with terrifying shrieks and groans that really helped sell their plight to us. Hopefully this bug will be addressed in a future update.

Zombie Escape's campaign missions are all driven by either the items available or the zombie types; you are frequently restricted to certain items to create a greater sense of strategy and difficulty, particularly in the later levels. The other tact that levels take are to throw at you large numbers of specific zombie types, a challenge that requires a combination of items and dexterity to keep your survivors alive. I was disappointed to see that Zombie Escape doesn't appear to support multi-touch, a feature useful in a game like this, though it never really became noticeable until the very last levels where micro-managing your survivors is essential.

With a further endless Survival game mode and the usual suite of achievements and high score tables provided by Chillingo's Crystal platform, Zombie Escape is certainly at the forefront of line-drawing games; up there with the likes of Boom Brigade in providing a guns-blazing, action-packed take on the formula. This one should provide for both line-drawing fans and action fans in general, as the pacing is good and the game notoriously difficult to put down. The couple of hours required to take down the campaign mode and the endless Survival mode should keep zombie-lovers entertained– just be sure to fiddle with the sound settings if you encounter the same effects bug I did.

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Yesterday we showed off some screenshots of Top Gun 2 [$2.99], the Freeverse developed sequel to last year's Top Gun [$1.99/HD] iPhone game based on the the hit 80's movie. The screens looked really nice, and being rather fond of the first game I was really looking forward to Top Gun 2. After spending the last couple of hours with the game however, I'm fairly disappointed. While the visuals in the game are a pretty big improvement, most of what I liked about the first game is gone. It isn't necessarily a bad game, just more of a step sideways than a step forward compared to the first game.

The first thing that struck me as odd about Top Gun 2 is that there's no title screen. The game boots up with the Top Gun logo and familiar music, and then sends you right to an overhead map. From this map you can choose to go to an aircraft carrier to upgrade any of the 3 available planes, or choose a jet icon to enter the first mission. There's nothing that explains any of this, nor is there any help screens in the options menu or anywhere else that tells you how to play the game. Granted, the map options are easy enough to figure out on your own, but if you aren't already familiar with the gameplay from the first Top Gun then you might have a hard time finding your way here as there's no tutorial.

Another thing missing is any kind of progressive story, aside from a small blurb generically explaining what you are doing before each mission. It doesn't feel like a cohesive experience, rather just a collection of missions to play with nothing to really tie them together. I imagine this was intended to streamline the game, but it ends up making it feel disjointed and hollow instead. In essence, Top Gun 2 feels like a no frills arcade game where the focus is on scoring and chaining together combos in a series of dogfights and boss battles.

The gameplay in Top Gun 2 is pretty good, but it leaves out some of the aspects that I enjoyed from the original. Controlling your craft works the same by tilting the device, and you have the same vulcan cannon and lock-on missiles, but there are a couple of cool additions as well. Each of the 3 jets (the F-14, F-16, and F-18) have their own unique weapon and special move, like a barrage of missiles, a speed boost, or a shield. All of the different functions of each plane can be upgraded using money earned during missions. Gone are the “danger zones” of the first game, which seems more realistic but makes it hard to tell where you are getting shot from. I actually enjoyed that part of the original game and thought it was fun to be aiming and shooting at enemies while dodging incoming fire from these danger zones.

Top Gun 2 isn't terrible by any means, but it just may not appeal to people who enjoyed the first game. The planes you can fly are awesome, and I enjoyed the upgrading aspects. The missions are also chock full of action, and there is some satisfying arcade-style dogfighting to be had. But the game lacks soul and personality, and with no real storyline or any kind of tutorial to guide you through the game, it diminishes the overall experience. If you're just looking for some frantic jet fighting action, you may enjoy Top Gun 2, just don't expect much beyond that.

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The wild popularity of Fruit Ninja [99¢ / HD] is a hard act to follow, but I think Halfbrick's next game is more than up to snuff. In Monster Dash {99¢], you play as Barry Steakfries, a man who loves two things in life: Running and killing monsters. Of course I don't know him personally, but I've been able to discern as much from spending the past week playing Monster Dash in almost every second of spare time I can find.

Monster Dash is a randomly generated survival platformer where you run to the right as long as you can, much like Canabalt [$2.99]. This is where the Canabalt similarities end, as between Barry Steakfries and wherever he's running to is an array of monsters which all must be either avoided or slain. Barry's default weapon is a shotgun, which has limited range, but along the way you will find weapon crates packed with sub machine guns, a powerful six shooter, and even a machine gun jetpack.

Barry's life is represented in heart on the top right corner of the screen, and you can regain health by picking up heart power-ups on your run. Colliding with an enemy or hitting spikes causes you to lose health, and when you run out of hearts or miss a jump and fall to your death your run is over. From there, your score is submitted to OpenFeint online leaderboards, and you start again. On your run you will randomly warp through four different settings, from an egyptian world filled with mummies to the rooftop ruins following a zombie apocalypse.

Monster Dash is host to oodles of OpenFeint achievements and also a ridiculous amount of stat tracking, keeping count of things like your total distance travelled, how many monsters you've stomped, most consecutive stomps, and a bunch of other things. Also, not only is there a leaderboard for single run distance, but you can also compete for total distance ran, total monsters killed in one run, as well as total monsters killed overall.

The graphics in Monster Dash consist of fantastically drawn sprites, and the fast paced music fits perfectly with the pace of the game. Overall, Monster Dash is just a ton of fun, the controls are simple and just consist of tapping either side of the iPhone screen to jump or fire, and I'm really having a hard time finding anything to complain about. Best of all, Halfbrick has had an amazing track record with updating Fruit Ninja with all kinds of additional game modes and content and all day people have been contributing their own ideas as to what would make Monster Dash even more awesome in the thread on our forums.

Halfbrick obviously hasn't committed to implementing any of these things, but it's not hard to imagine how well various power-ups and additional weaponry could fit in to the game. Regardless of whether or not these things ever happen, I'm happy as a clam with Monster Dash. If you like Canabalt-style gameplay and hate monsters, you basically need to download Monster Dash as soon as possible.

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This isn't a game by any means, so if you're looking for the next cool iPhone game to download, keep on scrollin'. If you like games, RPG's specifically, and have always wondered what would happen if you combined the functionality of a to do list app with an experience bar, Epic Win [$2.99] is right up your alley. Created by Rex Crowle, responsible for the visual design of Little Big Planet, and Tak Fung, the developer behind MiniSquadron [$2.99 / Free], Epic Win is a list keeping app by gamers for gamers.

On your first launch of the app, you choose one of five avatars. Three are unlocked initially, with the other two available via in-app purchase. Which avatar you choose has no bearing on how the rest of the app works, and you can change them at any time in the options. Tapping the pencil icon opens up a new task, at which point you set its "epicness" and date along with what type of feat said task is. These feats range from feats of strength, stamina, intellect, social, and spirit.

As you complete items off your to do list, you're awarded experience for the level of epicness you set and your avatar gains a point on your profile page for the type of feat the task was. When each task is completed, your dude travels down a curvy road, and eventually is awarded various pieces of ridiculous loot… And that's really all there is to Epic Win. Sure, there are more full featured gettin' things done apps on the App Store, but how many of them have loot or experience bars?

Yeah, you can technically "cheat" in Epic Win really easily by just constantly making and completing tasks, but the "game" portion of Epic Win really has no competition, and only serves as a neat little bonus for checking things off of a list. If you've found yourself looking for some more motivation to get things done on your to do list, and filling an experience bar is your carrot on a stick that will actually lead you to do things, Epic Win is what you need.

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Last week during the QuakeCon keynote address, John Carmack pulled an iPhone 4 out of his pocket and shocked the audience by showing a demo of id Software's next game, Rage, running on the device. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Rage will have elements of racing games and first person shooters. There's also said to be RPG elements in the game as well, making it sound similar to both the Fallout series and Borderlands. Information is still limited as the game isn't slated to launch until 2011, but either way the following demonstration is beyond impressive:

We've spoken at length with John Carmack at length in the past, where he's mentioned potential upcoming id Software titles such as Doom 2, Quake Classic, and the rest of the id back catalog coming to the App Store. Wondering what the state of all these projects were, we once again pow wowed with Carmack to see what he's been up to since we last spoke.

According to John, id has restructured a lot last year and several people from the mobile team has since been sucked in to other big projects, and they've only recently got the mobile team staffed back up to the proper size for iPhone development. Carmack admits that after releasing Doom Classic [$6.99] he hadn't even opened up Xcode until last month to start working on Rage technology.

Currently, id is completely focused on Rage, and John isn't sure when they will get back to the classic games "even though it makes a lot of sense." He also explained that while both Doom II RPG [$3.99] and Wolfenstein RPG [$1.99] have done well on mobile phones, their performance on the App Store has been less than ideal, leading to the decision to not bring the Orcs & Elves games over to iOS.

Carmack admits he's had a lot of fun working with iOS 4 recently, and wished he had more time to devote to it. And while it's more than a little disappointing that we won't see the classic id games anytime soon, with how impressive the Rage demo was, I'm A-OK with John Carmack and the rest of the id Software team working on the forefront of iPhone development instead of focusing on porting retro hits– I doubt I'm alone in that.

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The dreaded curse of the movie game has been in existence since the 1982 release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. Similar to many other famous curses, such as the curse of the Bambino or the curse of the Billy Goat, the curse of movie video games is just something you could almost always count on in that video games based on movies are generally mediocre if not much worse. In the rare instance that a game based on a movie isn't terrible, it needs to be celebrated– And Jaws [$2.99] for the iPhone is cause for celebration.

If you somehow have never seen the movie Jaws, here's the gist: Amity is a New England summer town with beautiful beaches whose local economy depends on tourism. Not too far in to the movie the bloody corpse of one such vacationer washes ashore and serves as the first clue that there may be something in the water. They suspect it is a shark attack, but the local mayor refuses to close the beaches as the 4th of July is approaching and doing so would be a financial disaster for Amity. Needless to say, they don't close the beaches, Jaws attacks, and the rest of the movie involves the hunt for the massive shark.

One of the most memorable things (for me anyway) from Jaws was the use of music in the movie. The iconic Jaws theme ramped up in the movie perfectly with the suspense of being on the open ocean looking for the massive shark, and the developers of the Jaws game have implemented this same audio cue in the game with the real Jaws theme… Which I feel really is the most important part of any Jaws-based game.

Gameplay amounts to doing everything you can to save the swimmers of Amity in a variety of different scenarios. Ten levels are included, and the early ones will just have you flicking swimmers to send them swimming towards the beach while avoiding Jaws who comes marauding through the water whenever the shark fin meter at the bottom reaches the swimmer icon. Eventually this makes way to open water levels where you're able to flick swimmers around to avoid Jaws, and the only way to get them out of the water is by picking them up with boats that are controlled by drawing lines similar to Harbor Master [$1.99 / Free / HD]. There are also boats with guns on them that you target by dragging a crosshair around, and while I won't spoil the end of the game, if you've seen the movie you can likely guess what happens.

While Jaws doesn't really bring much new to the table, it combines gameplay elements that have been proven to work well with the touch controls on the iPhone in to a fun little game that really nails how a game based on the movie Jaws should feel. The later levels are downright frantic, and Jaws himself looks great– Especially when he leaps out of the water to turn a swimmer in to a pool of blood. Levels are scored based on how many swimmers you're able to save, and each level has a limit as to how many Jaws can eat before you fail.

Jaws is a little light on content, with ten levels that shouldn't take you more than an hour or two to play through and unlock everything. The game comes with OpenFeint integration for online leaderboards and achievements, but I really wish there was something more to do once you beat the game such as unlocking endless modes for each of the levels that allow you to play as long as you can before Jaws munches on a swimmer. Either way, if you enjoyed the movie, you'll likely have fun playing through the game at least once.

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Tiger Style's Spider is a game that we really just can't say enough good things about. The iPhone game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99] was our game of the year in 2009, and Spider HD [$4.99] is great on the iPad. There's also the pseudo-lite version of the game, Spider: Hornet Smash [Free] which is totally worth checking out if you've yet to try Spider just to see how the mechanics of being a spider in the game work. We loved Spider in our review, and the development of the game itself is also fairly interesting which was covered in both an interview and a talk at GDC Austin.

An update just hit the App Store for Spider that among other tweaks finally adds Retina Display support which has made the game look even more amazing. One of my favorite things about Spider always has been the great hand drawn art style that encompasses the whole game, and the high pixel density of the Retina Display now makes Spider even more visually impressive.

Spider has been out for just over a year now, so if you've had it chilling in your iTunes library instead of synced to your device, now is an excellent time to do so if you own an iPhone 4. Otherwise, if you're looking for another game to show off just how great things can look on the Retina Display, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor is a worthy pick.

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