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Crescent Moon Games has a lot going on recently between the price drop of Ravensword: The Fallen King [99¢ / Free], the upcoming Ultra Kid: Mystery of the Mutants, and two different collaborations with other studios: Aralon: Sword and Shadow with Galoobeth Games, and Rimelands: Hammer of Thor with Dicework Games. We've been following Rimelands for a while, and have made mention of both their teaser trailer and web site which features oodles of information both about the gameplay of Rimelands and the lore behind the game world itself.

Today a new video was released showing a surprising amount of gameplay footage as developer Josh Presseisen goes over the various parts of the game including the battle system, inventory management, skills, and even a boss battle. The video is a little long, but will show you more than enough to get you excited about this turn-based RPG:

Rimelands: Hammer of Thor development is nearing completion and is expected to be available for download inside the next month or so. Of course, when the time finally comes, you can expect a full review from us. In the meantime, swing by the official thread on our forums where the developers are actively participating in discussion about the game.

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One Man Left has been hard at work improving Tilt to Live [$2.99] since its initial release earlier this year. Tilt to Live is a tilt-controlled survival game where you must avoid and/or eliminate an endless onslaught of red dots. We loved the game in our review, and since then there have been two substantial updates to add even more content in to the game. The previous update included code red and gauntlet mode, and the latest update added the new frostbite mode.

When playing Tilt to Live in frostbite mode, red dots fall from the top of the screen but they're frozen as if they had been hit by one of the freeze bombs. You must run in to them to shatter them before they hit the bottom of the screen and are thawed. This new mode also introduces a new power-up which will allow you to shoot a wall of fire across the screen and burn any dot that floats through it. The latest update includes an array of various tweaks and iOS 4 bug fixes as well.

If you have yet to pick up Tilt to Live, now is a fantastic time to do so. I fully recommended this game when it was first released and only included the classic mode. With three additional game modes thrown in to the mix since then along with some new power-ups to play with, I really don't see Tilt to Live ever getting deleted from my phone.

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Developer MadFinger Games has just announced a followup to the popular hack 'n slash title Samurai: Way of the Warrior. We reviewed the game when it was released in September of last year and found it to be an incredibly stylish (and incredibly difficult) action game with intuitive swipe controls. With plenty of awards and high review marks from around the web, as well as three quarter of a million copies downloaded, a sequel to Samurai seems like a no-brainer.

Yesterday MadFinger started a thread in our upcoming games forum to dish out some new info and screens from the upcoming sequel, titled Samurai II: Vengeance. Here is the info straight from the developer, along with some work-in-progress screens from the iPad version (click for full size):

Samurai II: Vengeance boasts twice the gameplay of the first release and features larger levels

many new combo attacks and violent deaths

Samurai II also supports a virtual joystick for fans uncomfortable with the gesture control scheme.

Realistic violent battle sequences, more enemies equipped with new weapons including Samurai Musketeer or Archer, and epic battles with unique Bosses.

Improved gameplay and new features: solve puzzles, avoid dangerous traps, use discovered objects, and more.

Daisuke Shimada returns on a mission to avenge Kasumi's death. Follow his story through unique comic storytelling!

Samurai II also enhances its gameplay through new survival modes.

Samurai II is developed on the award-winning Unity 3D 3.0 engine supporting the latest technology.

Original soundtrack.

Samurai II: Vengeance is slated to be released this September for 2^nd and 3^rd generation iPod touch, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, and iPad. If this is the first you've heard of the Samurai series, you can check out the original Samurai: Way of the Warrior for your iPhone or iPad in anticipation of this upcoming sequel.

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Treehouse Ltd. has just released a new take on the top-down aerial shooter formula in the form of 1951 – World War One [App Store] for the iPhone. The game takes place in an alternate history where, on June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip's gun jammed, letting Archduke Franz-Ferdinand live to see another day.

With this single mechanical failure the seed of First World War was never sown, and without the humiliation of Versaille's there was no wind to fan the flames for a second one. Adolf Hitler had to make his living as a mediocre marketplace artist at the streets of Vienna instead of becoming the dangerous, dictatorial dreamer he would otherwise have been. But without two global wars to drive the technology forward the world of 1951 remains much like the world at the turn of the century – colonialism upholding imperial economies and withering alliances cemented with royal marriages. It's Imperialism iced with biplanes and rock'n roll!

It's a rather interesting premise and — who knows — it might not be too far off the mark in that particular "what if" scenario. What I can tell you is that this game is definitely right on the mark as far as a title that's absolutely worth its 20MBs on your device. This game is just great.

1951 is a top-down aerial shooter something akin to the arcade classic 1942, but with such striking graphic realism that's it's something of a flawed comparison. The game places you high above Europe in a biplane with the simple goal of kill-or-be-killed. The scrolling landscape far below and the clouds and other artifacts of the varying weather patterns look amazing and the 3D aircraft (and the plumes of smoke that they'll soon be streaming) render in very nicely. It's a definite looker, but there's more than looks that set this one apart.

The game's entire system of control, response, and damage is much more of a realistic affair than something like 1942, which is a more "standard" shooter. Incoming enemy aircraft, which are marked with a directional star at the edge of the screen when they're out of view, do not hang about in an ever-present swarm. Rather, you need to seek them out and chase them, and it takes work to stay on their tail. It also takes work to shoot them down. Rather than simply shoot-hit-boom, in 1951 you must fire volleys of shells, smattering the target with maybe 10 to 15 direct hits before smoke gives way to flame and an earthward death-spiral.

And, of course, the enemies are shooting back at you all the while. But, I find you're much more likely to be done in by direct collision with incoming enemy aircraft than by way of their shells. As they fly onto the screen, they're usually headed straight for your fixed, centered position and it takes some maneuvering to avoid a crash which, depending on severity, inflicts a range of damage to your biplane. What's more, you need to contend with the barrel-rolls and Immelmann maneuvers the enemy pulls off mid-battle. Luckily, as you level-up, you too can acquire these special abilities, among others.

1951 features two single-player play modes: Wave Mode and Survival. The former, as the name might suggests, moves you through wave after wave of enemies, each larger than the one before, while the latter sends you on a bid to simply stay alive as long as you can. Success here is tracked via OpenFeint. The game uses tilt controls to rotate your craft left and right, with tap controls for fire and activation of certain special abilities such as repair and a sort-of auto-destroy weapon. A throttle slider to the far left regulates your speed, and successfully avoiding collisions requires frequent adjustment, here. The onscreen control response feels very smooth and precise as opposed to a "twitchy" affair — and it's a good thing too, as precision is what it takes to track an enemy and fill him with 15 pieces of lead.

1951 – World War One is a very nice variant on the 1942 shooter formula that's extremely well put together. It's visually quite impressive and works you a bit harder than a more typical fire-and-forget shooter. Bear in mind that a twitch-shooter, this is not — it's much more about precision and accuracy. I'd urge all the shooter fans out there to take a good, close look at this one.

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Yesterday, Fun Guy Media released Entombed for the iPhone [App Store], an exploration puzzler set in the labyrinthine underground tombs of ancient civilizations. The game is something of a grave-robber scenario, but the other way around.

You play the role of Blake (indeed), whose father, a heroic archeologist in his time, has recently died in a freak accident, leaving you with a dread family legacy. During his life, your father explored the ancient tombs of long lost civilizations — the Egyptians, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Persians, and the like. He stripped them of their treasures for display in museums around the world, but, known only to his closest family members, he secretly kept a number of precious items for his own, personal collection. Over the years, your family has seen many a dark and tragic event befall them, your father's recent demise among them. Upon consulting an Egyptian mystic, you learn that the only way to avoid the same unfortunate end as your father is to return the artifacts in the secret collection to their rightful resting place.

And, so the adventure begins. As you move through the levels of this game, your goal is to return the artifacts in question, which requires solving various puzzles that riddle these subterranean labyrinths to get to your final destination. Along the way you will find various objects and obstacles that must be collected, moved, or crumbled in order to gain access to closed off areas of the tomb. There are pits, dart traps, sliding walls, and sketching challenges that test your observation skills as an archeologist.

You negotiate the many twists and turns of these catacombs by tapping where you'd like to move. Certain objects can be tapped to trigger interactions and a pinch / spread mechanic is used to zoom in and out of the play area. The angled top-down 3D graphics are simple but nice, with great, moody lighting accompanied by a similarly atmospheric audio track.

See our demo video that shows bits of early gameplay.

I, along with several forum readers, encountered a few glitches here and there in the game which required a level restart. It's an unfortunate blemish on a clever and enjoyable game, but I expect the developer to address these in a near-term update. Despite the glitches, our forum members are rather enjoying this one.

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