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By the time you read this, my big problem with Letris 2 [Free] might be resolved. That’s the beauty of modern gaming: what is broken can be fixed. But indulge me for a second before I get to the good stuff (and there is quite a bit of good stuff to be found in this freemium title): Letris 2 uses what might be the worst dictionary I’ve had the pleasure of bashing my head against.

Ivanovich Games has already assured us there is an update coming in that adds 25,000 words players have submitted. That leaves a question, though – why were at least 25,000 words left out in the first place? Worse, how is it that the game accepts every common curse and racial slur I tried, a smattering of proper nouns, and at least a few non-English words in their place? The dictionary is the backbone of any word game, and this one is more than a little fractured. Let’s hope the update fixes it, because aside from that one glaring issue there’s a lot to like in Letris 2.

The game is split into two sections, each one unlockable with a separate in-app purchase of $0.99 after you try a few levels. On one side is Letris, a game that doesn’t have as much to do with Tetris as it sounds like it might. On the other side are two puzzle modes, Acronymus and WordMatrix.

In Letris mode, letters continuously fall from the top of the screen into tidy rows at the bottom. You can tap letters to form words with any of them – only in the highest difficulty mode do you need to use letters that connect. Each level of Letris gives you a goal to reach. Collect that many letters in the words you make and you move on to the next. Longer words give better scores, clearing the screen is worth a bonus and you’ll fail if the screen fills up.

Though this mode is time-sensitive, it’s also pretty mellow to start. Once you unlock the paid content for Letris mode, you can keep progressing to higher and higher levels with higher and higher scores to reach, but the levels, as they are loosely defined, are never the same twice.

Acronymus is more of a classic puzzle mode. You’re given a set selection of letters that you need to use up completely. There’s always a solution planned, and you can use hints (that you can also purchase) if you get yourself stuck trying to find it. WordMatrix is an extension of the same idea – a full screen of letters that you need to use more and more of each level, until eventually you’re forced to come up with a collection of words that use up every single letter on screen.

Because these modes aren’t timed, you can play around freely to try to come up with outrageously long or obscure words. It’s fun, and pleasantly relaxed – when the dictionary cooperates, of course.

There are a couple oddities aside from the word selection, though. For one, it doesn’t seem to be possible to unlock the premium content until you work through the free levels of at least one mode per pack. This means that even if you’re sure you want to buy the game, you’ll need to sit through ads for a while before you can disable them with the purchase of either IAP pack. For another, it’s surprisingly easy to abandon a game without your score being saved – the ability to resign is hidden beneath the hint button, and using the obvious home button instead will abandon your game and leave your score off the Game Center leaderboards.

Neither of these things is enough to ruin an experience which is, at the very least, worth trying with a mind to buy. I’d try it out after the update before pulling the trigger, though. Unless you take great delight in playing a few forbidden four-letter words, the updated dictionary should be worth the wait. In the meantime, our discussion thread is a good place to get a bit wordy.

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The first batch of new game releases in 2012 last week was relatively quiet, but Lunar Racer [99¢] from NoodleCake Studios (the makers of Super Stickman Golf [99¢/HD] ) have got things off to a positive start by releasing a new lo-gravity racing game with plenty of jumps, heaps of flips and a couple of weapons.

Lunar Racer starts with a basic driving test, to secure your lunar license. During your rookie training, you learn that tapping the left half of the screen activates “gravity assist” to pull your vehicle towards the ground, while tapping the right side activates nitro boosters for a burst of speed. There’s no steering controls, as this game is all about timing your speed-boosts and jumps to beat your opponents.

Once you’re airborne, tilting the device left or right does a backwards or forwards flip. These flips are essential as each flip replenishes your nitro tanks, allowing you to pass opponents, jump higher, flip more and hopefully win. But if you don’t land safely on your wheels, you’ll crash, incurring a slight delay. The further you turn the device, the faster your racer spins and the more nitro you earn. There are also coins (MoonBux) to collect, both on the ground and floating, which is another incentive to go aerial.

You can use the MoonBux you collect to unlock 16 different vehicle chassis and a similar number of wheels, canopy colors or nitro styles (eg: perhaps you want pretty stars or a green flame shooting out when you turbo?). I believe that adds up to 16 x 16 x 16 x 16 possible combinations, which equals… a lot! The customizations don’t actually improve the attributes or performance of your vehicle, but it allows you to personalize its appearance.

The racing, jumping, flipping and customizations are all fun, but there are also weapons. You can use mines or missiles to attack your three opponents and deploy bubble-shields to protect yourself from their attacks. Once you pass over a generic power-up icon, a specific upgrade is randomly chosen and appears as a button to activate. Some users found this button uncomfortable to reach on the larger iPad screen, but it works fine on the iPod touch or iPhone.

The first race occurs on a space-station near Earth, but by winning races you gain the stars needed to unlock additional moons around Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The developers plan to release more moons in future, to cover off the rest of our Solar System. The last two moons currently require local multiplayer wins to unlock, which isn’t ideal for those playing alone, but the developers plan to remedy this in an update, perhaps by allowing those levels to be unlocked by stars just like the other levels.

Lunar Racer currently has single player mode (racing against  3 AI-controlled opponents) and local multiplier mode (Bluetooth or WiFi for up to four players). The developers are already investigating the feasibility of an online multiplayer mode, however there’s issues with all the flipping and lag to deal with and NoodleCake told us they won’t release it unless it runs flawlessly, so it’s still an investigation in progress. They also revealed that they’d like to add an ‘endless’ arcade racing mode, where the terrain on the moon is generated procedurally.

Once you win a race with three stars, it unlocks a PRO tour mode for that moon with harder competitors.
This gives you an opportunity to earn three more stars for unlocking new moons. There’s also three specific goals listed for each moon, like: “Do 10 or more back flips”  or “Get 15 perfect landings”. If you complete all three goals for a level, you get to play a special bonus round which focuses on collecting as many MoonBux as you can, without any opponents. Game Center and OpenFeint are both integrated for high scores and achievements.

Lunar Racer is already a fun title which I’ll be playing for a while, but it feels like it could be much more. Here’s hoping for more levels coming, an extra game mode planned & the possibility of online multiplayer mode. If they’ve got any spare time, perhaps they can put iCloud synching on their to-do list too.

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Super Crate Box’s [$.99] five million crate update is now available as a free download for all of its crazed, crate-nabbing fans. Starting now, Vlambeer and Halfbot are giving us all the power to pick and play with our favorite characters. Also, it has added a total of five more to earn through rigorous killing and crate obtain-ation.

Another milestone-tied update is being teased in the game’s patch notes. According to the notes, at 20 million crates users will receive another update that’ll “unlock more iOS-exclusive content & features!” Oh, and speaking of exclusive, check out the game’s new virtual control functionality — it’s been tweaked and now allows for customization. Neat!

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Whoa! World of Goo [$2.99 / UHD], a game that we’re always stoked to talk about, has hit one of those benchmark download numbers. According to developer 2D Boy, the physics-puzzler has hit one million downloads across the App Store and the Mac App Store. That’s a lot of loving for an indie game that doesn’t have a toy line.

2D Boy, as it usually does in its sales post, highlighted some interesting facts. Like, these, for example: about 69 percent of this million have come from the more expensive Universal version of the game, while 29 percent came from its regular version. The rest come from the Mac version, which in our experience, is every bit as delightful as the touch ones.

World of Goo won our game of the year award in 2010. We highly suggest you join the million or so people and get in on this action.

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In an attempt to convince people that Internet Explorer 9 paired with Windows 7 is a good thing, Microsoft and Zepto Labs are offering a free HTML5 version of Cut the Rope with special features exclusive to the browser and OS. You don’t need either, though, to experience what is essentially the mobile Cut the Rope experience at the game’s web site — Chrome, Firefox, or Safari all work fine.

As TechRadar explains, the point of this is to show off the pinning component between the OS and IE9. When you pin the web site, you’ll be given a set of special levels. Isn’t it nice when things work together like friends?

Of course, we know Om Nom best from our times spent with it on the phone. After a few minutes of this web version, we’re thinking that touch is still the ultimate way to play. On the other hand, teaming up with Microsoft increases awareness, which isn’t a bad thing if that also increases the chances of new iOS follow-ups.

If you haven’t yet played Cut The Rope, give this free version a try. If you like it (which you likely will) strongly consider downloading the real iOS versions of the game.

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If you happen to be one of the millions of people who forked out to be a Call of Duty Elite founder because of how cool the thought of changing out your weapon load-outs on the fly on your phone was, here’s your chance to finally do it. The Call of Duty Elite App [Free] launched overnight, and even though it’s missing a few features, I already like it better than the actual Call of Duty Elite web site. Admittedly, a lot of that has to do with the novelty of the whole thing, but still.

As mentioned in our post yesterday, Activision looks at this as a foundation for things to come later. I hope they eventually include the heat maps functionality, as that’s the only thing I use which isn’t in the app yet. Regardless, I really am digging these official companion apps, and hope this trend continues.

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Scribblenauts [$.99] developer 5th Cell isn’t one-and-done with iPhone and iPad. This Thursday, actually, will see the release of its second game, a “micro-platformer” called Run Roo Run. It looks remarkably 5th Cell, and according to exclusive details given to Joystiq, it certainly sounds like a game we’ll definitely be getting into.

In a nutshell, Run Roo Run is an extremely cutesy and heavily instance-based runner — think, Canabalt [$.99] but with levels and a kangaroo. The experience is sliced and diced into a series of 420 individual levels that are, also, divided cleanly into chapters that all introduce new obstacles or other new elements, like, items. Each week 5th Cell plans to push 10 more additional levels to the game without the need to update.

One really interesting thing that popped up during the Joystiq interview about Run Roo Run was the subject of its inspiration. The initial idea came from Space is Key, an insanely awesome flash game that you’ve got to play right now.

[Via Joystiq]

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