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By now I'm sure we all agree, Chillingo really have a soft spot for decaying dudes with a bad case of halitosis. They are Liches of the App Store, raising an undead army to swarm your iOS devices. For the most part, this is actually a good thing, as all their zombie offerings to date have been of a particularly high standard. So it's no surprise that they've championed Viqua Games' Zombie Escape [App Store], a game we were eagerly anticipating after our hands-on preview.

Zombie Escape takes the traditional line drawing experience and changes up the formula significantly. Rather than being the be-all-end-all of the game, where one misplaced line means instant death, the line-drawing mechanic is a means to an end; namely, directing survivors of the zombie infestation to a nearby chopper, filling it up, and waiting for the next to arrive. Sure, while your task each level might be rescuing each and every survivor, the zombies have to eat something right?

In this respect, Zombie Escape is a lot more forgiving than other line-drawing games, by allowing some casualties before outright failure, and permitting your survivors to fight back a little; in the form of a small window of opportunity for you to direct a survivor away if they are caught by a zombie– before their brains are eaten. This doesn't mean a less challenging game, but that the difficulty assumes a different form– something you'll appreciate when your screen is bursting with zombies and you're trying to thread your survivors through the most narrow of openings, all while avoiding your own airstrike.

The artillery at your disposal is crucial to staving off the zombie horde for as long as it takes for your lift-off to arrive. There are 7 items available to you, each unlocked as you work your way through the 28 levels and three different settings in the campaign mode. Items are peppered in-game through crate drops, covering the gamut of usual suspects; such as sniper rifles, bombs and airstrikes; as well as a few items unique to Zombie Escape such as the SOS helicopters, sleep grenades, hunks of meat (which attract zombies) and zombie-free tesla-coiled zones, the latter of which have a more utility role. Each item can be upgraded in different ways, some of which alter their purpose entirely, adding to its strategic value.

As well as your armament to consider, there are also varying zombie types which compound the danger your survivors are in. These include; a Seeker, which hunts your survivors down when in range; a Stinker, which leaves a toxic cloud behind it when it dies; and a Burster, a zombie that explodes after it is killed. Each of these super-zombies is more than capable of dispatching a hapless survivor in no time, so careful management of your survivors pathing and wonton destruction with your items is required. Oh, and carefully aim your SOS chopper pick-ups to land on a horde of zombies– it has the desired effect.

The level art in Zombie Escape gets the job done and is different across the 3 game worlds. Where Zombie Escape shines however, is in its 2D art, as all the zombies and survivors look great and are believably animated (I warmed especially to the survivors running around waving their arms above their heads). Unfortunately, I encountered a bug where the game's sound effects never worked for us, until I tried turning off and on the sound effects in the game menu a couple of times. Once I did, I was pleasantly rewarded with terrifying shrieks and groans that really helped sell their plight to us. Hopefully this bug will be addressed in a future update.

Zombie Escape's campaign missions are all driven by either the items available or the zombie types; you are frequently restricted to certain items to create a greater sense of strategy and difficulty, particularly in the later levels. The other tact that levels take are to throw at you large numbers of specific zombie types, a challenge that requires a combination of items and dexterity to keep your survivors alive. I was disappointed to see that Zombie Escape doesn't appear to support multi-touch, a feature useful in a game like this, though it never really became noticeable until the very last levels where micro-managing your survivors is essential.

With a further endless Survival game mode and the usual suite of achievements and high score tables provided by Chillingo's Crystal platform, Zombie Escape is certainly at the forefront of line-drawing games; up there with the likes of Boom Brigade in providing a guns-blazing, action-packed take on the formula. This one should provide for both line-drawing fans and action fans in general, as the pacing is good and the game notoriously difficult to put down. The couple of hours required to take down the campaign mode and the endless Survival mode should keep zombie-lovers entertained– just be sure to fiddle with the sound settings if you encounter the same effects bug I did.

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The wild popularity of Fruit Ninja [99¢ / HD] is a hard act to follow, but I think Halfbrick's next game is more than up to snuff. In Monster Dash {99¢], you play as Barry Steakfries, a man who loves two things in life: Running and killing monsters. Of course I don't know him personally, but I've been able to discern as much from spending the past week playing Monster Dash in almost every second of spare time I can find.

Monster Dash is a randomly generated survival platformer where you run to the right as long as you can, much like Canabalt [$2.99]. This is where the Canabalt similarities end, as between Barry Steakfries and wherever he's running to is an array of monsters which all must be either avoided or slain. Barry's default weapon is a shotgun, which has limited range, but along the way you will find weapon crates packed with sub machine guns, a powerful six shooter, and even a machine gun jetpack.

Barry's life is represented in heart on the top right corner of the screen, and you can regain health by picking up heart power-ups on your run. Colliding with an enemy or hitting spikes causes you to lose health, and when you run out of hearts or miss a jump and fall to your death your run is over. From there, your score is submitted to OpenFeint online leaderboards, and you start again. On your run you will randomly warp through four different settings, from an egyptian world filled with mummies to the rooftop ruins following a zombie apocalypse.

Monster Dash is host to oodles of OpenFeint achievements and also a ridiculous amount of stat tracking, keeping count of things like your total distance travelled, how many monsters you've stomped, most consecutive stomps, and a bunch of other things. Also, not only is there a leaderboard for single run distance, but you can also compete for total distance ran, total monsters killed in one run, as well as total monsters killed overall.

The graphics in Monster Dash consist of fantastically drawn sprites, and the fast paced music fits perfectly with the pace of the game. Overall, Monster Dash is just a ton of fun, the controls are simple and just consist of tapping either side of the iPhone screen to jump or fire, and I'm really having a hard time finding anything to complain about. Best of all, Halfbrick has had an amazing track record with updating Fruit Ninja with all kinds of additional game modes and content and all day people have been contributing their own ideas as to what would make Monster Dash even more awesome in the thread on our forums.

Halfbrick obviously hasn't committed to implementing any of these things, but it's not hard to imagine how well various power-ups and additional weaponry could fit in to the game. Regardless of whether or not these things ever happen, I'm happy as a clam with Monster Dash. If you like Canabalt-style gameplay and hate monsters, you basically need to download Monster Dash as soon as possible.

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Glu Mobile's latest foray into the App Store is a cheeky physics puzzler featuring what is essentially, traditional pinball mechanics à la Peggle. What Escape from Nom [App Store] does differently though, is that it supplements its standard levels with a comprehensive level editor and allows your creations to be shared online — but with a few deal-breaking catches.

The core gameplay in Escape from Nom involves getting Alan, a colored blob at the top of the screen, to the pool of colored goop at the bottom. Key to this endeavor is that Alan must be the same color as the goop when he touches it (or the level fails), and he has to avoid being eaten by the evil Noms along the way. To help Alan are a number of tools either fixed on the level already, or able to be dragged onto the level from your expandable toolbox at your discretion.

Continuing the pinball theme, bumpers, paddles, shunters and teleporters make up the range of tools at your disposal; each gradually unlocked as you progress through the game's paltry 30 levels (with a further 20 levels and the teleporter tool purchasable In-App for $1.99). Taking a leaf from Peggle's book, Escape from Nom also allows you to fine-tune where Alan is dropped through a scroll wheel at the bottom of the screen. In this way you can set up your drops precisely (aided with the help of a double-tap zoom feature) and line Alan up perfectly– a necessary feat for some of the more complex levels.

Compounding the difficulty are the Noms themselves, large creatures that can be static or motionary, but are always hungry. The only way that Alan can get by them is by either avoiding them entirely, or by touching a bumper of the same color as the target Nom– changing Alan's color and enabling Alan to pass through the Nom without harm. The need for particular colors, precision bounces, avoiding obstacles and eventually Portal-esque teleporting, equates to a routine of trial and error gameplay as you experiment to achieve the desired outcome. The colorful graphics and catchy jingles in Escape from Nom all serve to add to that fun-factor.

Unfortunately what wasn't as fun were the in-app ads that pervaded each level's loading and result screens. From my understanding these iAds will only presently show up for U.S. users, so whilst not all users will experience them, for those that do they are an eyesore that I'm certainly not happy about in an app already paid for. That doesn't appear to be the worst of it, though.

Possibly Escape from Nom's most exciting feature was the level editor; a simple but powerful tool that enables users to fully re-create any of the included mission packs. It's easy to use and testing and saving your levels is a breeze, though uploading them does require Facebook. So why Glu Mobile chose to further monetize their most anticipated feature is beyond us– yes, you have to pay to download other users' creations. For $0.99 you are given 30 credits, which allows you to download 30 levels that others have made. And there is no way to preview each level either. After purchasing a level, it can be rated and recommended to other users, but the simple fact that you are largely in the dark about your purchase is still unnerving.

Ultimately, what Escape from Nom amounts to is a baffling corporate experiment that has tarnished an otherwise fun action puzzler. Beyond the initial purchase price, asking users to swallow pervasive iAd in-game advertising, an initial level offering that can be finished in an hour or so, a further 20 level expansion pack for $1.99 and then still charging them for user-created levels seems absurd.

Note: To add insult to injury, the game has dropped to Free from $2.99 for the day, successfully pissing off early adopters who paid full price in that early launch window.

(In-App Level Purchases, In-App Advertising and Paid User-Creations)

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Bumps is a new physics-based puzzle game from developer Utopian Games with a cute style and clever mechanics. Aliens have captured most of the population of a circular race known as bumps, and it's up to the few who haven't been caught to collect the keys on each level in order to release their friends from imprisonment. Don't let the lighthearted style of the game fool you, however, as some of the levels will really test your puzzle solving fortitude. With 54 unique levels and a number of interesting mini-games to play, Bumps will keep you entertained for quite some time.

To play each level, you'll strategically place bumps at various spots around the screen. Hitting a button then enables gravity, allowing the bumps to fall down and hopefully collect all the keys that correspond to each ones color. Oftentimes you'll even have to “bump” into another bump to push them and get them rolling towards a key. Other elements like springboards and moving platforms can help you accomplish your goal. There's even anti-gravity switches in certain levels, so once you drop the bumps to collect keys they will then hit the switch and have to float up to grab the others. It's a bit hard to explain but easy to get the hang of, and a nice tutorial introduces you to the concepts in Bumps. The levels are all really cleverly designed and will often have you smiling once you figure out the intended solutions.

Bumps is split into six differently themed worlds, with nine levels in each for a total of 54. Medals are awarded based on how many tries it takes you to complete a level, but every level can be retried as many times as needed if you get stuck. In a nice twist, each world begins with its own distinct mini-game to break up the action, and there are four other mini-games independent of the level structure that can be unlocked as well. The mini-games include variations on iPhone mainstays like air hockey, pinball, brickbreaker, and more. They're pretty simplified versions of these games but are a nice distraction from the puzzle solving.

While the gameplay in Bumps is well designed and fun, a couple issues about the game stick out as annoying. Hitting the retry button during a level resets the position of the bumps, so if you're just trying to make a small adjustment to one bump you'll have to reposition all of them over again. Also, by default the game zooms in when you touch a bump to give you a closer view. I didn't really like this zooming feature, and it can easily be disabled with an icon in the upper corner, but the game fails to remember that you disabled it from level to level, so it must be disabled each new level you play. These are relatively minor issues that don't affect the enjoyment of the game, and Utopian Games has already stated in our forums that both issues will be fixed in the next update, as well as adding a new world with nine brand new levels.

Overall, Bumps offers a good amount of gameplay wrapped in charming sound and visuals. The bouncy, floaty physics engine makes for an interesting way to solve puzzles, and is a lot of fun. iPad owners can look forward to a native version of Bumps coming to that device in the next couple of months. This version won't be a direct port, and will feature all new levels and graphics to take advantage of the extra screen size and higher resolution. The mini-games in the iPad version will have same device multiplayer for up to four players, which should make for some hectic fun in between solving puzzles. Until that time though, the iPhone version of Bumps is a blast, and is recommended if you're looking a new puzzler with some unique ideas.

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Back in June, we reviewed the follow up release to last years successful Battle Bears: Zombies! [99¢], titled Battle Bears -1 [99¢]. While this new prequel to the original game contained the same humor and silly antics that we love about the series, it fell short in a few areas, which kept it from being an entirely enjoyable gaming experience. It was still a fair amount of fun, but the awkward control scheme, repetitive levels, and overall difficulty and brevity of the main campaign ultimately sucked a lot of the joy out of Battle Bears -1.

Now, nearly two months since release and two updates later, pretty much all of these issues have been addressed and then some, and Battle Bears -1 has evolved into a much more competent game than it started out as. For starters, the game is now universal and contains higher quality graphics for the iPad, iPhone 3Gs, and iPhone 4. Both of the campaigns (the included Oliver campaign and the 99¢ IAP Riggs campaign) have been doubled in length, and where you would originally fight the final boss of the game you now receive a new weapon for each character before continuing on.

Oliver's new weapon is a deadly katana, and Riggs gets a huggable head-powered laser gun. The katana is especially fun as it delivers one hit kills to any huggable that gets in the way of Oliver's wild swinging. In addition, the game now allows you to switch weapons at will by tapping an icon in the upper corner (or a button by the right analog stick on the iPad), and carry up to three clips of ammo for each one. The 1.1 update that came out early July let you aim by swiping the screen, allowing you to look around without wasting any ammo, as well as a slider to adjust sensitivity. These changes have really done away with the control issues that plagued the initial version of Battle Bears -1.

The added campaigns for each character take place in different settings as well, alleviating the repetitiveness of the scenery from version 1.0. New cutscenes and voice samples were also added into the game with this new update, and the game has been optimized to run smoother on older devices. And the updates won't stop here either, as developer SkyVu is already planning on adding more weapons, new bosses and enemies, multiplayer support, more cutscenes, and a new downloadable third character with their own unique storyline and campaign.

I'm already much more satisfied with Battle Bears -1 after these last two updates, and it's really become one of my favorite games to play. Further additions can only make it even better, but if any of these previous issues held you back from checking out the game, now is a good time to give it a second look.

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Escalation Studios have been the men behind the curtains of two great iPhone games, Dr. Awesome [99¢ / Free] published by ngmoco as well as Doom Resurrection [$1.99] published by id Software. Today they released Splode [99¢] on the App Store as the first game published under the Escalation Studios name. Splode has gameplay very similar to other chain reaction games like Sneezies [99¢ / Free / HD] in that you tap on the screen to start a reaction, and that reaction (if initiated properly) can clear the entire screen.

Like Sneezies, Splode has both a challenge mode where you try to clear a set number of splodes in one tap, and score attack mode where you can tap multiple times to see how many splodes you can explode. What sets Splode apart from similar games is the crazy amount of additional flourishes in the game, both in the musical and graphical departments.

The music begins almost spooky sounding with the game entirely in black and white. As your chain reaction involves more splodes, a series of flower buds that frame the screen open, and the scene slowly turns from night time and black and white to daytime and colorful. It's really a cool experience, and vaguely reminds me of the transition to color in The Wizard of Oz.

Splodes is launching at 99¢, is universal, and even has high resolution graphics for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4. One thing that is sorely lacking in Splodes is online leaderboards, something that I feel is almost mandatory for any high scoring game, and achievements would be awesome too. Even though the gameplay isn't that original, the experience of the music, ascending chords as the splodes explode, and the color changing mechanic is totally worth checking out if you enjoy simple but beautiful games.

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Frogatto is an open source platforming game available on the Mac/PC that was released to the App Store last month. We took a close look at the game when it came out, and though our impressions were mostly positive a couple of issues stuck out in an otherwise excellent retro-styled platformer, most notably the somewhat finicky controls and a lack of a save state when exiting the game. Both of these issues have been resolved in a new update, and Frogatto now features much tighter controls (especially when navigating underwater portions) and the game saves right where you left off when interrupted. In addition, other tweaks and optimizations have been included, as detailed in the update notes:

• Significantly improved controls, both functionally and graphically.
• Fixed auto-saving on iOS4 where multitasking is supported.
• Fixed bug where a dialog could repeat forever.
• Fixed crash in world map when you hold down while entering it.
• Added music and sound volume controls to pause screen.
• Added half-hearts.
• Minor level changes.
• Updated music.

If any of these issues have held you back in purchasing Frogatto before, now is the time to grab the game as not only have these problems been addressed in this update but the game is also on sale for 99¢ for a limited time (down from $4.99). I've played through this updated version and can confirm that it's quite a big improvement from the initial release, and Frogatto stands as one of the better platform games available for the iPhone.

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The Hero places you in the role of a superhero tasked with preventing crime and catastrophic events from befalling various cities in the world, all while maintaining a positive public image and keeping collateral damage to a minimum. You control your hero with a virtual stick that allows you to fly in any direction through the air, with a button for speeding your flight as you rush to save citizens from the many hazards in each city. These can be robbers in the street, bombs or fires in the buildings, rescuing falling babies, and of course defeating zombies. When not saving the citizens, you're dishing out high fives to them as you fly by, which increases your various special move gauges and promotes fame and good will.

A new update to The Hero adds 3 mini-games to the 15 level campaign and 4 level survival mode, as well as minor artwork/storyline tweaks and a revamped scoring system:

• A Fully revised gameplay and scoring model
• 3 Brand New minigames: Asteroids, Bomb Run, High-Fiver
• Levels are now packed with even more action
• New super bonus from high five streaks

The Hero was released back in March, and we really liked it in our full review, but for some reason it has flown under the radar since then and we haven't heard much of it in the past few months. Hopefully this new update will rekindle interest in this underrated title, and to help with that The Hero is also on sale for a limited time for 99¢ (down from $1.99). If you missed it the first time around, it's definitely worth checking out with the addition of more content and this temporary price drop.

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Late last year we reviewed Dark Nebula [99¢], a game that called itself a "skill-based action game" that we described as "short but sweet." While the gameplay mechanic of utilizing the tilt controls to move a rolling ball around have been used since the earliest App Store games, the original Dark Nebula really took this to the next level– so much so that it was difficult to even group it in the same genre as other ball rollers on the App Store.

In the original Dark Nebula you controlled a ball through 10 levels that vary widely with all sorts of different obstacles including spikes, lasers, switches that needed to be tripped, and others. The graphics of the original were fantastic, and while there wasn't a ton of content in the game, what was there was top notch. The entire experience was good enough that I played through the first Dark Nebula at least twice, if not more.

The sequel, Dark Nebula – Episode Two [99¢] arrived on the App Store this afternoon, and is even better than the first installment. Episode 2 sports nearly twice as many levels across a variety of environments along with a new combat system that allows for boss fights. Yes, boss fights in a ball roller.

Aside from the usual dodging and weaving, in Dark Nebula – Episode Two, you can roll over pads which will equip your orb with a colored ball that orbits around it. Initially you use this to destroy matching colored objects in the game world to open gates, but it doesn't take long until you're fighting red swirling blades of death. A few levels later and Dark Nebula – Episode Two pits you against a giant boss with blades that wind up and go in to a massive slicing frenzy which you need to take down in a similar fashion by smashing it with your orbiting weaponry.

The production quality of Episode Two is absolutely outstanding. The visuals are remarkable, and incredibly detailed environments pair perfectly with all kinds of flourishes that flow over the screen when you restore your shield, reach a checkpoint, or do other things.

Just like the original, playing through Dark Nebula – Episode Two won't take very long, and if you're determined you will be able to complete the entire game in one sitting. But what's so refreshing about the game is the high quality of the levels. Unlike some games where you feel like you are playing the same level over and over again, the level design in Dark Nebula remains fresh throughout.

To add replay value, the developers have added in seamless online leaderboards to track your performance on each level, along with a ranking system and an expert mode. It's as easy to recommend Episode Two as it was to recommend the original Dark Nebula. Reactions on our forums have been remarkably positive, and overall it's really hard to imagine ball rolling games to get better than this– That is, until the inevitable release of Dark Nebula – Episode Three.

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If you're in the mood to indulge in something completely off the wall crazy, then you're in for a treat. Meow Meow Happy Fight [99¢] is a new dual stick shooter with an incredibly wacky Japanese style. Before you bemoan the existence of yet another dual stick shooter, this one actually throws some novel ideas into the mix to set itself apart from the pack. Oh, and did I mention you get to play as a cup of noodles? If that's not a selling point of the game, then I don't know what is. With multiple stages to play, a slew of diverse characters to unlock, and colorful graphics with a unique style, Meow Meow Happy Fight will bring happiness and destruction to your iPhone.

Happy Cat comes from the future, where everything is just too darn happy. He travels back in time to the present day to encourage the characters in the game to battle each other, and take the future happiness down a notch. While Happy Fight functions like most traditional dual stick shooters (left stick for movement and right stick for firing), rather than fighting off hoards of enemies in a survival marathon you'll be directly battling the other characters in the game deathmatch style. Each of the 24 levels in the game has you fighting against multiple opponents, and the character who has the most kills when the match time runs out wins.

There's 15 different characters in the game, including a hamster in a ball, a vending machine, and of course a cup of noodles. Defeating enemies causes them to drop a number of different happy pickups, which are just as odd as the characters themselves and include various food items, toiletries, and designer fashion accessories. It truly is bizarre, but in a good way. Some of these items will replenish a small portion of your health, and others contribute to your total of Happy Points at the end of a match, which act as the currency in the game for purchasing and unlocking additional characters.

The arenas in Happy Fight are all locations around Tokyo, and provide relatively small but adequate quarters to engage in battle. Each new location must be unlocked by coming in first place in the previous one, and they get progressively harder as you go. A number of cool powerups also begin to appear as you make your way through the game, and the arenas have interactive elements like teleports and explosive barrels to add strategic variety. Icons at the edges of the screen point you towards enemies and powerups, and battles are fast and action packed as you search out opponents to destroy or scramble to pick up a health pack as you're on the edge of death. It really is a lot of fun.

The one negative aspect of Happy Fight that sticks out to me is that you can only play against computer controlled opponents. This game is just screaming for some online play against real live human opponents, but sadly this is not the case. The AI is very good though, and the game is still a lot of fun, but I can only imagine how much better it could be with some sort of online multiplayer component. Still, it will take you a good amount of time to beat all of the games levels, and unlock every character. Plus there is OpenFeint integration for leaderboards and achievements, as well as some detailed stat tracking.

This is the first dual stick shooter in a while that's been entertaining enough to hold my interest, as the gameplay is fast-paced and the style is the most absurd I've seen since MUST.EAT.BIRDS. [99¢/Lite]. Players are loving the game in our forums, and the developers are there answering questions and collecting feedback on ways to improve the game. If you're looking for something that feels familiar but adds some interesting new twists, check out Meow Meow Happy Fight right meow.

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Last month we took a look at Helsing's Fire [99¢], an absolutely fantastic puzzle game by Ratloop and published by Clickgamer. We thought the game was great in our review as it sports a unique gameplay mechanic we had yet to see on the iPhone. Players position a torch in the game world, and from there are able to attack the baddies that are within line of sight using a variety of multi-colored tonics. Things eventually get complicated as new monsters are introduced with both behave differently and require different combinations of tonics and torch positioning to vanquish.

Since our review, one of the main criticisms I've seen of the game is how slowly the difficulty ramps up since most of the earlier levels required very little thought at all. Ratloop addressed this concern by both making the game harder faster and adding the "absurd" difficulty level, even warning players in the iTunes description that this new difficulty level is "way too hard." There are now multiple player profiles for those who share their device with other people, and they even added a new colorblind mode for those who had issue with the red, green, and blue palette of the enemies.

Performance has been tweaked for higher frame rates, and you can now listen to your own music while playing. Best of all, there's an entirely new victory animation– The Tomahawk. Overall, 1.1 is a fantastic update to an already great game. If you already own Helsing's Fire, make sure you grab 1.1, and if you need more convincing to download the game, take a look at <a href="our review or read the overwhelmingly positive responses in the thread in our forums.

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