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We’ve had our share of decent endless runners lately, and Defiant Development’s Ski Safari [ $0.99 ], looks to continue that trend. With adorable graphics, great controls, and a decent amount of content, hits all the right notes for the genre and should be checked out.

Ski Safari challenges you to last as long as you can against an impending avalanche while you race down an eternal slope. In order to accomplish this, you’ll need to build up your speed (and score multiplier) and keep it up as long as possible. You can gain speed by performing a wide variety of tricks or by picking up ‘vehicles’ that range from penguins and yetis to hawks to even a snowmobile. Of course, several types of obstacles (rocks, ski cabins, e.t.c.) stand in your way to slow you down. It’s an interesting system that plays out like a constant tug-of-war between you and the never-ending avalanche. In some ways, the speed system is a bit vaguer than other endless runners but I think it adds to the tension and enjoyment.

Of course, Ski Safari wouldn’t offer much in the replayability department if it only offered a simple race against inevitability. Thankfully, a decent objective/leveling system similar to the likes of Jetpack Joyride is always in play, offering nice distractions during the race. Completing sets of missions raises your rank and multiplier, allowing you to gain more points (and speed). While the mission system doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the table, it’s still a welcome addition.

Like many endless runners, Ski Safari’s controls are a simple mixture of taps and holds. A quick tap will have your skier jump while holding down on the screen starts a backflip. Your backflip speed depends a lot on your velocity and vehicle, adding a bit to the strategy of whether or not to actually start a move. The control scheme definitely hits the mark for being accessible while offering just enough potential for strategy to keep you coming back.

You’ll notice that once you get the hang of the gameplay runs can take quite a bit of time (relatively speaking) before they get hard. However, I don’t really see this as an issue as there are plenty of objectives to complete while you’re skiing and the ever-increasing multiplier means that you’ll eventually be able to reach those higher scores faster.

I’m a fan of Ski Safari’s lighthearted and playful presentation. Everything from the initial runs while asleep in bed to the mischievous music and cartoony visuals just illicit an amusing feeling. This continues with the pun-filled trick names and animal/vehicle companions. Obviously competent gameplay is an important facet for endless runners, but having well executed presentation goes a long way towards keeping me coming back. Thankfully, Ski Safari succeeds in all those aspects.

There are a few minor issues that I think keep Ski Safari from elite status. I really would have liked to see some sort of in-game use for all the coins you collect in a run. Even if it only offered cosmetic changes, an in-game shop goes a long way towards replayability. For that matter, while Ski Safari does a great job with its randomly generated runs, I hope that scenery changes are in the works for future updates. I really love the vehicle system and hope to see more options as well.

Still, Ski Safari definitely deserves to be put into the upper echelon of endless runners. The great presentation, well-implemented control scheme and overall enjoyable gameplay simply lead to a game worth playing. If you’re looking for the next great (and cute) endless runner, look no further and check out Ski Safari.

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Contre Jour [99¢] and its Universal HD brother, Contre Jour HD [$2.99], has always been a looker, but it’s now even more impressive on new iPad. Thanks to a late (but welcome) retina update, the HD version puzzle game is fully embracing Apple’s new high pixel density screen. As you’ll see below, this version is sharper and crisper and cleaner than it ever has been, which is saying something since it looked great pre-update anyway.

No update for a puzzle game is complete without new levels. A brand new jungle-themed chapter has been added to both versions of the game, ushering in some twists on the game’s pre-existing moveable tentacle and platform mechanics. Also, a new “bonus” ending has been added for those who can collect the game’s (now) 300 lights. Sounds like you’ve got some work to do, guys.

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Riverman Media is making good on its promise of content updates to its bizarre side-scrolling action game, Pizza vs. Skeletons [99¢, Free]. A complete chapter, filled with a total of ten new missions, was added this morning alongside a festive topping and even some new iPad tweaks, which ratchet up the game’s visuals for users with Apple’s new tablet.

The selection of content present in these new levels is dizzying. In the first, you’ll be flying a WWII-era biplane. Later, you’ll fight skeleton rabbits in an arena, destroy a cloud city, bowl through skeletal cricket players, and fight a boss on a suspension bridge who uses new “gust” ability.

In celebration of all this new content, Riverman has slashed the price of PVS. Through this weekend, you’ll be able to grab it at 99¢ instead of its usual $1.99. It’s a steal at this price, and all of these skeletal rabbits aren’t going to kill themselves, so consider acting on our glowing recommendation.

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Flight Control Rocket [99¢] now boasts more content courtesy a content update that hit this morning. Ten new “motherships” (or landing pads) have been added, subtly changing up the action by offering groovier ways to park your spaceships. Four new bots and a fresh game mode called “Rescue” fill out the rest of the meaningful offerings.

Rescue is probably the most interesting add: in it, you’re tasked with saving floating astronauts by ramming similarly colored ships into them. After you guide a ship and a victim back to the space harbor, you’re awarded with points. We would be equally stoked about the ten new motherships, but most of them require some major in-game scratch in order to use. We’re not too sure why this basic feature add has been tied to the game’s financial model either, but that’s kind of the story of Flight Control Rocket in a nutshell — beautiful, but weird.

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I’ll be honest, I’m wary of any games I download onto my phone these days that promise any sort of physics-based fun. I’m burned out on that scene, plain and simple. However, I do like cats, as you may know from my past reviews, and I like the idea of forcibly launching a cat out of a cannon (in safety gear, of course, folks). So I caved for Cannon Cat [ Free ], and I admit, now I’m really glad I did.

Cannon Cat has a flimsy premise, as most iPhone games do — something about skyfish being imprisoned in bubbles by a guy named the Evil Emu. I think that it’s cute fluff, but I didn’t pay it much mind before I jumped headlong into the game. We’re not here for deep stories, after all – I came here to put a cat in a cannon and rocket him across the skyline. I mean, who doesn’t want to do that?

Good news: that, my friends, is exactly what you are going to do, over and over. Cannon Cat is diced up into into two worlds, Kapalua Islands and Cedaria Reef. Apparently a third world called Stratos is coming soon as well. Each of these worlds holds roughly 40 levels to work your way through, which sounds like a lot, but if you factor in that each level takes you less than a minute to play, you could finish Cannon Cat in just a couple of hours. And I found that mildly frustrating, because I wanted to play more.

Each level contains a series of cannons, and your job is to guide Cannon Cat from one to the next, collecting the skyfish along the way. As you can imagine, this starts simple and becomes challenging with the addition of obstacles. Each cannon moves when you are inside of it, so you can choose the directions to send your cat flying in. Choosing alternate paths may mean collecting all the level’s fish, so you don’t always want to go in a straight line, as you could be missing out. You go through a ring at the end of each level to complete it.

When you finish each level you’ll be ranked on whether you got all the fish, and if you didn’t, you lose out on bonuses that would have improved your score. You also have a handful of cool powers at your disposal, such as a shield, an option to use “cannon time” (which causes slow motion), a boost that makes the skyfish bigger so they are easier to pick up along the way, and an autosave that automatically zips you back to the last cannon you were in before you failed.

These are all optional power-ups, and you can use an in-game currency called sparks to buy them. At first you’ll have some free ones, but if you use them all, you’ll need to spend some real life money to get more. It’s not at all necessary to enjoy the game, though.

I think the best way to appeal to a gamer who grew up in a time period when games were at their most challenging is to use some of the same structure in current games. It hooks us, and I admit that little touches like that really work on me. Cannon Cat is not radically unique, in fact it’s very similar to another iOS title Land-a Panda [$0.99 / $1.99 (HD)], but there’s something about the structure of it that also reminds me a bit of golden era platformers like Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog.

That’s probably because like those games, Cannon Cat is precise and easy to play, it’s fast, and it’s a lot of fun. Also, it’s free, and it looks like the developers plan to expand on it, so it’s well worth your time to grab this game and spend some leisure time sending your feline friend in search of flying fish.

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This day of crazy deals just doesn’t seem to want to stop. Chair’s amazing sword fighter that has since spawned a whole series of games Infinity Blade [ $0.99 ] is on sale once again for 99¢. So, if you missed the last 99¢ sale that took place around a month ago, here’s another chance. Also, we’ve got a review of the game if you want to check that out first.

On the Infinity Blade II [ $6.99 ] front, an update just hit the App Store which addresses some issues people were experiencing with the new ClashMobs add-on. If you were having difficulty claiming rewards, that should be fixed along with “several other” mysterious issues that Chair wasn’t too specific about in the patch notes.

Aaaand if you’re looking for an Infinity Blade II review, it’s right here. Alternatively, if you’ve already got the game and are looking to find some dudes to join your clash mob, we’ve got that too.

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If you’ve been on the hunt for an incredibly elaborate fantasy-centric free to play sideways version of something along the lines of Bust-A-Move [ $4.99 ], the guys behind Pro Zombie Soccer [$0.99 / $1.99 (HD)] totally have your back. As it turns out, that game description sounds totally up my alley, and something tells me, after watching the trailer, you’ll be sold too:

The guys from Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team are very active in our forums fielding questions, but what we know so far is the game will be universal, sport 15-20 hours of gameplay, feature cooperative multiplayer, and tons more. They’ve described the free to play system as being similar to games like Jetpack Joyride [ Free ] which sounds great to me.

The developers aren’t getting any more specific with release dates than “soon,” but I’ve got my fingers crossed they mean “coming soon” as in, “very soon.”

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A couple of months back, Tiger Style Games released Waking Mars [ $2.99 ], the follow-up to our 2009 Game of the Year Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$0.99 / $0.99 (HD)], and we thought it was an incredibly unique and enjoyable experience in our review. About a month ago, Waking Mars was updated for the new iPad’s Retina Display, and we noted that the visual improvement really had a big impact on a game that is so much about creating a moody atmosphere.

But wow, as good as we thought the game looked after that last update it turned out to be just a partial Retina update and just a taste of what was to come. Today Tiger Style has released another new update which adds full Retina Display support for Waking Mars in addition to a set of new jetpack types for your character to zip around Martian caves with. Check out this screen from the new iPad, which Tiger Style has cropped in close in order to show off how much detail you can see.

In a blog post detailing this latest update, which is called the May Day Update by the way, Tiger Style notes that the iPad’s beefy hardware generates the 3.1 million onscreen pixels at 60 frames per second, and that all of their artwork had been drawn at an incredibly large scale to begin with so adding support for the new iPad resolution wasn’t terribly difficult. Screens don’t really do it justice though, you have to see Waking Mars running on a new iPad in person to fully appreciate just how gorgeous it is.

In addition to the update for Waking Mars, Tiger Style has also updated the iPad version of Spider with partial Retina Display support. Only select assets have been upgraded, but Spider is still one of the most beautiful games around. Also, all 3 of Tiger Style’s games are currently on sale for a limited time. Waking Mars is down to $2.99 from $4.99 in its first ever sale, and both the iPhone and iPad versions of Spider are just 99¢ each. Finally, you can grab the excellent soundtrack to Waking Mars for just a buck on its Bandcamp page, down from $5.

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If there’s anything that could completely wreck my plans and productivity, it would be a Super Crate Box [$1.99] RPG. I’d say a quick prayer of thanks to Vlambeer for not going forward with that idea, but it’s too late. FireFruitForge and Everplay Interactive have something against letting me work in peace, I guess, because Spellsword [$0.99] is that perfect storm of quick, one-more-try gameplay and RPG mechanics I can completely lose myself in.

Spellsword isn’t a clone of Super Crate Box (thankfully—Vlambeer really could use a break), but it has a similar starting point. It’s an arena game that’s designed around rapidly collecting weapon spawns to kill baddies. But where Super Crate Box focuses tightly on that mechanic to the exclusion of everything else, Spellsword takes a more expansive road. Along that road you’re going to find levelling, loot, and a lot of new ways to play.

As a result, it’s not quite as clean as Super Crate Box’s more minimalistic approach allows. It has a few problems, and things get sloppy from time to time. I’m not saying you shouldn’t play it, though. It’s crazy-fun, and you really shouldn’t miss out.

You start out as a quippy hero with a spellsword. It’s not worth much on its own, but it can be enhanced with cards that litter the arena. Each one powers up the sword in some way—with fire, ice or poison damage, for starters—and each one also sets off some sort of effect. The ice card sends out wheels of ice, the fire card launches fireballs, and the poison card poisons every enemy on screen. And that’s just the start.

So while you can certainly run around killing things with your sword, it’s dangerous. Better to collect every card you can, and lean on those one-time effects to do the killing for you. This is where the game feels most like Super Crate Box, dodging enemies to get to the next card and never stopping to rest. Still, the differences are pretty huge.

For one thing, enemies drop rupees. In fact, the whole game is pretty much built around the rupee economy. Play well to earn more rupees, which you can use to level up your cards, your sword, and even your rupee drop rate. You can also use them to buy gear that adds to those same skills. And before you ask, no—there isn’t any IAP.

Mission mode is another big difference. Each of the three current arenas come with 20 missions. These ask you to do a bunch of different things. You might need to survive some waves, kill some baddies or collect some cards. In exchange you’re given big payouts of rupees, new cards and the occasional piece of gear.

Endless mode is more familiar, with nonstop waves of baddies until you burn through all your hearts. There are three difficulty tiers of endless mode for each arena. In them you’ll grind rupees, and you’ll also find the leaderboard competition.

When it comes to the little things, Spellsword goes the distance. The look is great, very much like Terra Noctis [$0.99], FireFruitForge’s other big title. The sound is no slouch, but it doesn’t really stand out. Love it or hate it, the real flavor rests in the hero’s quips. There’s one for every mission, and nearly ever single one is a reference to a show, game, or movie. They run the gamut from modern and obvious to old and seriously obscure. Me, I find ‘em charming.

As I mentioned, there are also some problems. The controls aren’t great, and on iPad they’re worse. There’s already a fix incoming for that—along with adding new control types, it will let you reposition the iPad controls. There’s also some clumsiness in the arena design. It’s easy to get caught on edges, or mess up platforms. There are also ways to abuse positioning and let enemies wander off to their own deaths. These things aren’t remotely dealbreakers, but they can be irritating.

Overall, though, the game is outstanding. The RPG mechanics add a whole new layer of compulsion to an already inviting sort of game. It’s not easy to call it quits, especially when there’s one more level to earn, or one more piece of gear you can almost afford. Those things make it less of a pure skill game—you’ll need to put in a bit of a grind to cap out— but they also add a bit of strategy. There is real value in carefully choosing your gear and putting your rupees to good use when leveling.

With some elbow grease and a good once over, Spellsword could easily earn a permanent spot on my iPhone. It’s really that good. And Everplay Interactive seems dedicated to hitting those heights, if the developer’s comments in our discussion thread are anything to go by. I don’t see how you could possibly go wrong here. This a game that’s fun, full-featured and ridiculously cheap, with a developer that’s working hard to keep fixes and content coming. Looks like a winner from here.

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This just in: people like Angry Birds. In a new blog post on developer Rovio’s site, the studio announces that its latest Angry Birds jam, Angry Birds Space [$.99 / HD], has hit 50 million downloads within 35 days. Rovio says that this is the “fastest growing mobile game yet,” and it is shattering all of the studio’s previous records. No-one could have predicted this. No-one.

In all seriousness, though, Space is easily the best entry in the franchise so far, so we’re guessing the download numbers are only going to get crazier as the game receives more support down the line. And speaking of that actually, Rovio teased something interesting in the post: a new “bigger” thing is on the way.

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