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Back in the arcade fighting game heyday of the ‘90s, 2D heavyweights like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat had to contend with a new brand of brawler on the block: the 3D fighter. Games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken forewent 2D sprites and single-plane gameplay in favor of 3D polygonal character models and a full range of movement within the combat arenas. Happily, it turned out that there was room for both kinds of fighters to coexist, with gamers enjoying 2D and 3D fighting games in harmony.

One of the most popular 3D fighting franchises to come out of this era was Namco’s Soul Edge, and more prominently its sequel SoulCalibur, both of which were noteworthy for their focus on weapon-based combat. SoulCalibur hit arcades in 1998, and was then ported to the Sega Dreamcast to launch alongside that system in 1999. The Dreamcast version was remarkable, featuring even better graphics than the arcade version and a wealth of additional modes and characters. In 2008 SoulCalibur was again resurrected for Xbox Live Arcade, boasting a high definition makeover but lacking any sort of online play.

And now in 2012, almost a decade and a half after the original arcade release, SoulCalibur [$11.99] is now available in the palm of our hands on iOS devices. The iOS version appears to be based off of the most recent XBLA version, utilizing those excellent high definition visuals for Retina Display and iPad screens. The framerate and animation is also incredibly smooth, another hallmark of SoulCalibur, and everything looks bright and crisp running on iOS. For those that didn’t already know, you would never guess that this was actually an almost 14 year old game.

However, just because it looks pretty doesn’t mean the iOS version doesn’t have its share of drawbacks. Most glaring is the lack of any sort of multiplayer mode, an integral component of any good fighting game. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Namco Bandai would omit such a feature, but the iTunes description does state that additional modes are planned so I’m still holding out hope for multiplayer sometime in the future. For now though, it’s sorely missed.

As for single player content, SoulCalibur comes with quite a few modes. There’s the standard Arcade ladder, Time Attack, Survival, Extra Survival, and Practice. Sadly, the Team Battle and Mission modes from previous versions aren’t in this iOS version. There’s also a Museum mode where you can set up matches and watch two AI players battle it out or watch an Exhibition where you choose a character and watch them go through all their moves solo. Finally, there’s Game Center integration with leaderboards for Time Attack, Survival, and Extra Survival modes as well as 11 achievements to unlock.

A big factor when considering fighting games on iOS is controls, and SoulCalibur comes through in this department about as well as you could hope for. That is to say the virtual controls aren’t perfect, but they’re entirely workable and just as good as any other iOS fighters out there. If you don’t have any trouble playing games like Street Fighter IV Volt [$2.99] or King of Fighters-i [$6.99], then you shouldn’t have any trouble here either. The button positions and opacity can also be adjusted however you like, which is appreciated. One problem I did have though was with some of the menu UI being a bit too small on the iPhone screen, thus making it hard to make a selection sometimes. A minor complaint, but annoying nonetheless.

Whether or not you need SoulCalibur on iOS will depend on how fond of the original you are, and how important multiplayer is to you. It’s at the higher end of App Store pricing at $11.99, and that’s at a 20% off introductory price. But, I loved the original on my Dreamcast and think the price is absolutely worth it to be able to carry SoulCalibur around in my pocket. As for the lack of multiplayer, it’s a shame, but there’s still plenty to do by yourself. There’s the Game Center leaderboards and achievements, and half of the game’s 19 characters need to be unlocked first, as do several other goodies in the game, giving some good incentive to continue playing.

If you can deal with its shortcomings, SoulCalibur on iOS is actually an excellent port. It looks great, runs smoothly, controls as well as a fighting game can without buttons, and offers a decent amount of single player content to play through. If we can get some kind of multiplayer or other missing modes via updates in the future, then we’ll really be in business.

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We really like when a game can take a well worn genre and do something different to really turn it on its head. Such is the case with Simutronics‘ Tiny Heroes [Free]. It may look like your average tower defense title at first blush, but it actually takes much of those core gameplay concepts and mashes them together with the classic game Dungeon Keeper, providing a fresh take on the tired strategy defense genre. In Tiny Heroes, it’s almost like you’re playing as the dungeon itself. Your job is to set various traps and guards at key points in the dungeon to prevent heroes from coming in and swiping all of your treasure.

It’s a fun idea and works incredibly well, and right now you can find that out for yourself as Tiny Heroes has gone temporarily free. If you for some reason still need convincing to download a free game, then be sure to check out our 5 star review of Tiny Heroes and our bonus podcast interview with two of the developers at Simutronics. Also – and this is privileged information so try to keep it on the down low – during that podcast interview we find out the secret to unlocking the special TouchArcade level in Tiny Heroes. But shhhhhh, don’t tell anybody about that ok? It’ll be our little secret.

At any rate, definitely grab Tiny Heroes while it’s free, you won’t regret it if you’re a fan of good strategy games.

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Way back in April of last year, we caught wind of an interesting looking Kickstarter project called Tweet Land. The idea was that Tweet Land would create randomly generated gameplay events based off of certain keywords sent out over Twitter. So essentially, real people tweeting would power what happened in the game.

It’s a really clever concept on paper, but we were a bit skeptical about how it would pan out in an actual game. Well, it looks like we’ll be able to find out later this month as Tweet Land is set to launch on January 31st.

It sounds like the overall plan for Tweet Land will eventually include different styles of games, but when it launches this month the game will center around controlling a car that’s racing down Route 140. As you drive along, tweets from all over the world will trigger events in the game, like a meteor crashing into the road or a giant Godzilla foot stomping down. Your job is to avoid these kinds of hazards and even fight back against them with an array of weapons, which are also generated from tweets.

It’s hard to tell how well this is going to work, but when I think about a game like Scribblenauts Remix [$1.99] with its bank of more than 20,000 words and seemingly infinite possibilities, I’m hopeful. If Tweet Land has even a fraction of the depth that Scribblenauts has then I think it will be a winner. From what the developers have said on their website and on their Twitter, it sounds like the game will have a whole lot of items to generate. Keep your eyes out for Tweet Land when it launches on January 31st for $1.99 with a free lite version to follow sometime after.

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Boot Snake Games’s radical puzzle title, Containment: The Zombie Puzzler [$4.99], has just been updated with a new survival level and several smaller tweaks including an improved user interface for Survival mode. “The new free Survival level is 10 blocks long and takes place in Franklin graveyard,” Boot Snakes tells us. And since it’s half the size of a normal romp, Boot Snake figures it’ll cater to the on-the-go crowd much better.

That new Survival mode UI, by the way, incorporates “improved Win / Loss” score screens and general score persistence. The other notable tweaks include performance boosts for the original iPad.

If you haven’t seen Containment yet, you totally should get to it. It has some fun takes on the usual match-game formula, but it also delivers story content in an incredible new age kind of way. We think you’ll dig it.

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Dungeon Raid [$.99 / Lite], a match-3 that TouchArcade President-in-Chief Eli Hodapp freely argues is the greatest game ever created, has been updated on Android. You probably don’t care about that considering this is an iOS-centric web site and all, but here’s the twist: in a tiny celebration of the fact that DR has made the platform leap, the iPhone version’s price has been reduced to $.99 from $2.99. Neat!

The RPG component is what hooks people as hard as Eli Hodapp. The integration of items, abilities, equipment upgrades, and character classes is seamless and super clever; they end bridging a gap you didn’t even know existed in the well-worn genre. Our glowing review, which pours over all of the game’s fine details, is available here if you’d like to learn more before taking the plunge.

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