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As a kid growing up with my NES and Super Nintendo, there weren’t many things that were as bad ass as the Contra series. These action platformers featured tough main characters, tons of sweet weapons, huge boss battles, and bullets flying everywhere – basically everything a 10-year old boy could ever want. Destructopus [99¢] developer Glitchsoft’s latest title Star Marine: Infinite Ammo takes heavy cues from that classic Contra series, as well as similarly strong action games like Rapid Reload and Metal Slug. And so far, it’s looking pretty awesome.

One of the biggest issues that pops up when talking about a game like this on iOS is controls, as the Contra games were brutally difficult back in the day even with physical controls, and they demand a degree of finesse that’s really difficult to achieve with virtual touch screen buttons. Glitchsoft hopes to avoid any control issues by using a clever dual-stick setup which will allow for a range of movement and abilities to the main character while still allowing him to fire in any direction at the same time.

Time will tell whether or not a game in the vein of Contra or Metal Slug can be accurately translated to a touch screen device, and I’m definitely eager to find out. Word on the street is that Star Marine is already approved by Apple and is slated for a launch sometime this month, and you can be sure we’ll check it out then. In the meantime, jump into some Star Marine discussion in our forums.

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Attention card geeks and all god slayers: the first expansion pack for the outstanding Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer [$4.99] is now available. After grabbing it via IAP, the cleverly titled pack, Ascension: Return of the Fallen, adds even more monsters, new characters, and even mechanics to the core play. Developer Playdek touched base with us on this the other day, and it seemed pretty stoked about how fans will react to it.

Not familiar with Ascension? We got your back. Earlier this summer, we reviewed the game and, obviously, explored its fundamentals. Here’s an excerpt:

The actual game of Ascension is a somewhat refreshing spin on fantasy-based card games in that instead of building a specific deck that you use in battles, you’re building your deck on the fly from game to game. Players start the game with identical basic decks of ten cards consisting of two militia cards which provide the “power” resource and eight apprentice cards which provide the “rune” resource. Using power and runes you’re able to interact with a common pool of cards to either acquire new cards for your deck or defeat monster cards. Most actions you do in the game award different amounts of victory points, and at the end of the game, the player with the most victory points wins.

You gotta love it when a sharp game sees the injection of a bunch of new content — and for a fair price. This expansion is $2.99, so grab it when you can.

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Zeboyd Games radical 16-bit parody RPG, Chtulhu Saves the World, is coming to mobile devices this year. And sooner than you’d think. On Twitter, lead designer Robert Boyd says the studio held this announcement until work was almost finished, and he expects the game to hit at some point this quarter. Nice guy!

Meaningful details, like, how this version will control, if it’ll include any extras, or its price point aren’t being discussed at this time. A note on the game’s blog does say that more information is coming in the next few weeks, but since we’re so nosey we’ve reached out to Zeboyd for more anyway.

If you’ve played Breath of Fire or an old-school Final Fantasy, you’ll be able to get your head around Cthulhu’s systems and mechanics pretty quickly. The awareness of what genre its in, the sharp improvements it makes, and the humor is what makes it pretty great. Here’s hoping the mobile ports rock just as hard.

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Looks like we’ve got one more big release to add to today’s list. Kairosoft has just released their latest simulation title called Pocket League Story [$2.99]. By now you’re probably familiar with Kairosoft’s method of operation: pick a theme and develop a simplistic but deceptively deep simulation around it, then fill it to the brim with cute and colorful retro-style visuals and mobile friendly gameplay.

Pocket League Story appears to be no exception. The theme of choice this time around is soccer, or football depending on which country you hail from. You’ll build up a team of players, train them, and then take on the rest of the league. You also have the ability to sell your team’s own merchandise, build a gym for training, and even build your own stadium. The goal is to increase your fan base as you progress your team’s abilities through competition.

It looks as though all the components are here of another solid Kairosoft simulation, especially if you’re a fan of footy. We’ll be digging in a lot deeper before passing final judgement on Pocket League Story, but if you’re generally a fan of Kairosoft’s work you probably can pretty much guess what you’re getting here. You can pick it up for $2.99 which is an introductory price, and at some point it will raise up to their usual $3.99.

We’ll have a full review of Pocket League Story in the near future, and until then you can check out impressions in our forums which are starting to trickle in.

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Ready for Dragon Shout [Free] 2.0? The independently developed Skyrim companion map app has recently seen its social update go live. Starting now with an IAP, you can add people to a “party” list and see their individual markers and journal entires. You can also chat with friends and people around the world from the comfort of the app, and view and drop public markers for people to comment on.

A new folder system compliments these additions, and so does a sharp new already annotated map. The latter should really help a lot of Skyrim noobs, we think. Skyrim is big and scary place. It helps to have a hand. Or sixteen.

We took a gander at Dragon Shout after release and were pleasantly surprised at its build quality. If you’re looking for a great companion app, this is it.

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Hey, guys, remember when Tamagotchis were a thing? I hope so, because a big part of why we’re so excited about Portable Pixels‘ Hatchi is directly tied to nostalgia. Our all-seeing eye recently caught a first-look posting of the app on our message board, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the find.

Hatchi is a fine-looking Tamagotchi-style, er, throwback that provides a similar same kind of experience. You’ll feed, teach, train, and clean your digital little animal and then, as a result, forge some sort of emotional bond to it. Basically, it’s like a dog that can’t do the annoying things like, say, pee on the carpet or drool.

Tamagotchis were huge for a spell and we had more than a few hanging from our keychains, so we’re pretty stoked to give this mobile iteration on the idea a shot. Portable Pixels has submitted the app for review, so it should hit within the week.

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Grand Theft Auto 3 [$4.99] is good and all, but wouldn’t it be better if you could, say, adjust the draw distance? Or turn up the Awesome on those muddy A4 chip textures? Some of our more technically savvy and adventurous message board users are doing just that right now, believe it or not, and without a jailbreak.

How? Turns out that Grand Theft Auto 3 on iOS and Android has the exact same file structure as their PC versions, which opens them up for modding after a bit of directory digging. The thread we mentioned is a guide of sorts if you’d like to get in on the action. If you’re looking for how to do it, or have questions along the way. That’s the place to go.

Cult of Mac speculates that modding could lead to Hot Coffee-type inclusions into this version, if modders wanted to go that far with additional content. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple would react to that. Guess: not favorably.

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