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It's Labor Day Weekend in the U.S. and most every retail sector in the land is offering major product sales — and the App Store is no exception. So, without further ado, the following games are available for a reduced price through this three-day, holiday weekend.

Namco

• BurgerTime Deluxe $1.99 → 99¢
• Garters & Ghouls $1.99 → 99¢
• Ms. PAC-MAN $4.99 → 99¢
• PAC-MAN $4.99 → 99¢
• PAC-MAN Remix $2.99 → 99¢
• PAC-MAN (iPad) $4.99 → 99¢
• Pole Position: Remix $2.99 → 99¢
• Pool Pro Online 3 $1.99 → 99¢
• Rolling 5 Dice Poker $4.99 → 99¢
• Solitaire: Deck of Cods $4.99 → 99¢
• Star Trigon $1.99 → 99¢
• Tamagotchi: 'Round the World $4.99 → 99¢
• Lt. Fly Rise of the Arachnids $1.99 → 99¢
• Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima $4.99 → 99¢
• Galaga REMIX $2.99 → 99¢
• Dig Dug REMIX $2.99 → 99¢
• PAC-MAN Championship Edition $2.99 → 99¢
• I Love Katamari $4.99 → 2.99
• Ridge Racer Accelerated $4.99 → 2.99
• …among others

Sky Burger, Free (down from $1.99) NimbleBit’s Sky Burger is a fun exercise in burger stacking that’s seen a great deal of success since it recently went free; presently it’s sitting at #6 free title in the App Store. Now’s the time to grab it.

Glu Mobile

• Build-a-lot $1.99 → 99¢
• Transformers $1.99 → 99¢
• Build-a-lot 2 $2.99 → 99¢
• Mini Golf $1.99 → 99¢
• Transformers G1 $1.99 → 99¢
• Deer Hunter: African Safari $6.99 → $2.99
• Jump O'Clock $1.99 → 99¢
• Stranded: Mysteries of Time $1.99 → 99¢
• Deer Hunter 3D for iPad $4.99 → 99¢
• Glyder 2 for iPad $1.99 → 99¢
• Super KO Boing 2 for iPad $2.99 → 99¢

Robot Unicorn Attack, $0.99 (down from $2.99) If there’s any game in the App Store that is double rainbow all the way, it is without question Adult Swim’s Robot Unicorn Attack. It’s got unicorns!!

Electronic Arts

• Boggle $1.99 → 99¢
• CLUE $1.99 → 99¢
• Littlest Pet Shop $2.99 → 99¢
• MONOPOLY $2.99 → 99¢
• MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition $2.99 → 99¢
• RISK: The Official Game $4.99 → $1.99
• THE GAME OF LIFE Classic Edition $2.99 → 99¢
• Trivial Pursuit $2.99 → 99¢
• YAHTZEE Adventures $2.99 → 99¢

I Dig It HD, $4.99 (down from $9.99) InMotion Software’s I Dig It HD is an iPad take on the iPhone original that we — and most everybody else — loved. On the bigger screen, it’s bigger action and all the fun of the iPhone version.

The titles listed here represent a pretty good highlight of what's out there for less this weekend, and additional deals are being discussed in an active forum thread.

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We were huge fans of Rocketcat Games' original title, Hook Champ [$2.99 / Free], and love Super QuickHook [$2.99] even more– Especially with the updates it has been getting. Super QuickHook came loaded with the fast paced endless Avalanche mode at launch, and the latest 1.3 update added Eruption mode. Eruption mode is even more difficult and requires either playing through most of the game or scoring over 4000 in Avalanche mode to unlock.

In addition, 1.3 adds six new playable characters. Three are unlockable in-game, and the other three are available via in-app purchase. Free characters include Gnomey, Aldora, and Hookbot (the DLC character from Hook Champ). If you're willing to shell out a couple bucks, you can buy Jake and Gunny (also from Hook Champ) along with the new Super QuackHook, the grappling hook equipped duck. Each character comes with their own unlockable grappling hook and unique hats.

They've also packed some new achievements in to the game, with rewards for unlocking some of the difficult ones. In addition, if you've been having performance issues, there's now a toggle in the options allowing you to turn off a lot of the extra effects to improve frame rate. Some members of our forums have been reporting issues with some of the achievements, but the developers have been quick to respond and are already working on another quick update to address these problems.

If you've beaten everything there is to beat in Super QuickHook, make sure you download this update and give the new Eruption mode a try. If you've yet to download Super QuickHook and want to know more about the game, take a look at our full review.

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While neither Run! [99¢] nor Canabalt [$2.99] truly invented the "run right forever" genre, they did quite a bit to popularize it on the App Store. In the last year tons of these types of games have been released, with recent entries including A Skeleton Story [99¢] and Monster Dash [99¢] among others. Two more came out this week which are worth considering if you can't get enough of running for your life on your iPhone.

Cave Run, $1.99 – As the title would hint, in Cave Run you run, in a cave. Along the way you tap the screen to jump over pits and avoid a few different obstacles such as little patches of lava that send you flying up in the air, puddles of water that speed you up, and rocks to trip on to slow you down.

As you notice from the gameplay video, there are coins littered all over this cave. Unfortunately, right now the coins don't serve any purpose other than being computed in to your final score to bump up your ranking in the OpenFeint online leaderboards. I'd love to see some kind of in-game store where you can use these coins to buy things, even if those things are only cosmetic upgrades as right now the coin system seems like an odd afterthought. Also, Cave Run is a universal app, and it's always nice to be able to play games on any device.

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Dead Runner, 99¢ – An interesting take on run forever games which changes things from running right to running straight ahead in a first person perspective. Set in a spooky forest, you tilt your device right or left to avoid trees, running faster and faster, hitting bushes when you need to in order to slow down. The game is simple, but works really well. It also doesn't take long before you're going ridiculously fast, a huge plus in any game like this.

Dead Runner also has a second game mode aside from just running for distance where you go for points. By collecting various colored orbs while running through the game world, you can work up huge multipliers which both increase your speed and award extra points. With OpenFeint leaderboards for both game modes and achievements, Dead Runner is really worth checking out.

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Just a couple of days ago we revealed DeceasedPixel's latest project, Super Mega Worm [$2.99], a game based on the original Death Worm concept by JTR, later made famous by the popular Flash game, Effing Worms. Super Mega Worm is a pixel-art take on the giant worm theme, and is now available.

Super Mega Worm opens with an 8-bit retro cutscene explaining how humans have consumed the earth, and how mother nature now has a bone to pick with us. She tasks her favorite pest exterminator, Wojira the Death Worm, with wiping humans from the earth and restoring balance to the force…you get the idea. It's a nice little setup for the mayhem that is the hallmark of the giant worm game, and an introduction to the glorious mario-like pixel art

In our preview we were ultimately left wondering as to whether Super Mega Worm included the levelling system that propelled Effing Worms to stardom, and we're pleased to find that it has in fact done so. In Super Mega Worm you start as a tiny wormlet, tasked with destroying a number of humans (indicated at the top right of the screen) by burrowing through the ground and erupting from under them (or over them, if you get enough height). To begin with, you can't really jump that high, but as you keep reaching your targets you level up and eventually can propel yourself higher and higher.

Wojira is controlled by either a slider or tilting option, but we found the slider option worked best. Additional buttons appear on your screen as you unlock your spitting attack, EMPs, fireballs, slam attacks and other abilities as you work your way through the worm's 24 levels. One problem we had with Super Mega Worm was that the pacing between levels felt a little off. To start with, you don't actually unlock your first ability until well into the game, and by that stage tedium has settled in as you essentially are attacking the same way over and over. When you finally unlock spit, you have another toy to play with, but this pacing trend persists between each new skill unlock. The game feels as though it has as many peaks and troughs as the path of your worm.

What does help this is the myriad of different food sources you encounter. From talking cows and horses, to elephants, birds, balloonists, moms with strollers (and flying babies), army men, police cars, tanks and airplanes to name a few. You can even reach orbit by propelling yourself from vehicles and chew through the earth's many satellites and UFOs hovering about. Many of these fight back too of course, with RPG-toting army men dropping mines and shooting rockets that are best avoided.

Though it is a lot of fun chewing through everything with a giant worm, we can't help but feel there's more that could be done with the game, particularly to address pacing issues and make it more gratifying early on. There are also no online high scores or achievements in Super Mega Worm; something we thought would have been staple in a game like this, considering its flash origins and focus on scores and multipliers. With the official Death Worm game by Playcreek on the horizon too– toting a number of added game modes, locations and features– we can't help but feel gamers may want to wait to decide for themselves which version is best.

On the plus side, developers Deceased Pixel have also promised additional levels, enemies and modes in future updates, so it seems the battle for worm king has only just begun. In any case, be sure to play Effing Worms on Flash and check out the trailers to see what you're getting yourselves into and visit our forums for our readers' opinions on just how juicy this worm really is.

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It's about that time for many gamers to start heading back to school, and it can be a difficult task to say goodbye to the lazy days of summer. Your friends at Sega want to make this transition just a little bit easier by offering just about all of their App Store titles at a discounted rate until September 1st. And Sega's not alone, as developer Meridian is celebrating the one year anniversary of their popular dual-stick shooter Alive 4-ever by putting their entire selection of games on sale for the next three days. If you haven't had a chance to pick up any of these titles before, now is your chance to do so and save a bit of cash in the process.

Sega titles on sale:

• Sonic the Hedgehog, – $5.99 → $2.99
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2, – $5.99 → $2.99
• Super Monkey Ball, – $2.99 → $1.99
• Super Monkey Ball 2, – $5.99 → $2.99
• Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition for iPad, – $7.99 → $3.99
• Shining Force, – $2.99 → 99¢
• Ecco the Dolphin, – $2.99 → 99¢
• Streets of Rage, – $2.99 → 99¢
• Golden Axe, – $2.99 → 99¢

Meridian titles on sale:

• Alive 4-ever, – $2.99 → 99¢
• Alive 4-ever RETURNS, – $2.99 → 99¢
• Armageddon, – $2.99 → 99¢
• Abigale: Revenge of the Princess, – $1.99 → 99¢
• Ace Commando, – $1.99 → 99¢
• Against the Fire!, – $1.99 → 99¢
• Amy's Dessert Shop, – $1.99 → 99¢
• Are You Alright?, – $1.99 → 99¢
• Stick Dunk, – $1.99 → 99¢

Besides these specific sales, there's pretty much always other titles with price drops at any given time, as most App Store shoppers are aware of. Make sure you check out the latest price drops on AppShopper to stay on top of your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad bargain hunting needs.

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Not long ago classic iPhone tower defense game geoDefense [$1.99 / Free] version 1.5 hit the App Store, adding support for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4 as well as the framework for DLC level packs. The first of those level packs was just released this afternoon, and a 99¢ in-app purchase unlocks brand new set of 3 medium levels and 3 hard levels. Also, these levels are immediately playable once downloaded so you can dive right in without needing to play any previous levels. While a game as good as geoDefense getting more levels is totally newsworthy by itself, it also gave us an excellent opportunity to pester developer David Whatley who is quite literally floating around the Caribbean as we speak.

Last time we spoke with Whatley he was extremely excited about the potential of the iPad, and told us that a sequel to geoDefense was coming which would be exclusive to the device. Since then, several things have gotten in the way such as the release of the iPhone 4, a Facebook game called Fantasy University, launch day ports of geoDefense and geoDefense Swarm for Windows Phone 7, and the never-ending question of what will make a worthy sequel to a game with the notoriety of geoDefense.

According to David, the recent update to geoDefense had a lot of work done behind the scenes to eventually ramp up in to an iPad version of geoDefense which is going to be the next title to be released by Critical Thought Games. From there, they're going to be testing the waters of the iPad App Store to see whether or not sticking to their guns regarding the iPad exclusivity of geoDefense 2 makes sense or not. Whatley admits that not doing an iPhone version of the sequel would likely be a big mistake, especially given the size of the market.

When talking to David about geoDefense 2, he mentioned the amount of pressure he's under to deliver something that will impress gamers, but not stray too far from what everyone has since come to expect out of the geoDefense series. He wants to take geoDefense to the next level, but he's still not entirely sure what that next level is. The situation seems eerily similar to Galcon [$2.99 / Free] and its successor Galcon Labs [$2.99] which despite the popularity of the original saw a lackluster response from gamers as it felt too much like an expansion pack, and not enough like its own game.

If you've beaten every level in geoDefense over the last year and a half since its initial release, now is a great time to re-download the game and try out the new levels. Admittedly, I'm fairly rusty but so far the six new levels completely live up to the difficulty level we've come to expect of geoDefense and are highly recommended for any fan of the game.

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Quest of Knights Onrush [Free] was originally thrown together by developer MoreGames and Chillingo to spearhead a marketing campaign for their then primary focus, Knights Onrush [$0.99], a castle defense game. It turns out that their promotional app, a side-scrolling arcade beat 'em-up, was even better received than the game it was promoting, and in April we revealed that it was being made into a full fledged game. That game, Knights Rush [App Store] is finally here.

Knights Rush takes the formula of the original game– what was essentially a limited, endless mode-only beat 'em up– and breathes the life of an entire campaign into it. Not shying away from that very definition, developer MoreGames envisioned an 'entire campaign' to mean 40 sizeable campaign levels over 8 unique worlds, and a battallion of 50 different enemy types and 8 giant bosses to clog the daylights out of. Not to mention two very different endless modes that improve greatly on its origins thanks to the huge library of art assets now available.

The campaign begins with a short in-game cinematic where your knight, after a little soul-searching, gets pulled into an alternate dimension. It's a no-fuss opener designed to get you into the action as soon as possible, as it's clear this is where the developer has spent most of their time. You start with a tutorial level, where you are soon introduced to two other knights to battle with. Before beginning each mission, you spawn in a portal room, where you can select from one of the three characters: a human Roman-esque knight, an other-world looking, dual scythe wielding knight, and a dwarven, hammer wielding knight. They each play very differently and have their own set of skills and perks to unlock.

The skill system itself needs some explanation, as it may not be apparent how it functions when first picking up the game. Each level, you begin by choosing a character, which is then spawned at level 1. Even if you come out of the first world at level 14, you'll still spawn in world 2 with your character reset. At first, this put me off, as I was having lots of fun with the progressive empowerement of my knight. In retrospect however, this seems to be a very clever implementation. Firstly, it allowed me to explore the breadth of each characters abilities over the campaign, mixing them in ways that I was not able to do in my first attempt. And secondly, it gave a nice sense of character scaling as I sliced through the 5 levels that make up each game world, leveling periodically without maxing out each and every skill.

Ultimately, each character has only 2 active spells that can be unlocked. Abilities are sorted into 'skills' and 'perks', and each level up you have access to 1 skill and a couple of perks. Perks supplement skills and your standard attacks, by adding benefits such as fire or ice to your attacks, or by increasing the rate at which you level or critical strike, or how much health is restored when you pick up health potions (or even how many additional skills or perks you earn each level). Skills on the other hand, include your two active abilities and several other passive abilities, such as attack strength or health bonuses. Each ability has 5 levels, and over the course of a world you'll generally be able to max out 3 or 4 of the reasonably lengthy list before having to reset.

As well as your active skills, the game includes a variety of consumable spells, from a crazy fox strapped with dynamite to your standard room-clearing freezes, proximity mines, or giant balls of energy. Though combat suffers a little from a tendency towards a truckload of frantic attack button mashing, the 3 skills nearly always at your disposal are crucial to surviving anything after about world 3. At this stage, the odds you face will progressively become more and more overwhelming and any previous thoughts of encroaching monotony are quickly swept away in the chaos. Unfortunately this doesn't extend to the huge, great looking boss enemies, who after the horde of enemies you have to wade through to get to, largely seem like pushovers. I would have liked to see a little more strategic varience to these encounters.

In any case it is clear that alot of time has been spent on the enemies in Knights Rush. Having 50 different enemy types is no small feat– but having them all looking unique and with their own individual abilities and attacks is simply astounding. You'll encounter a host of different enemy knights, swamp monsters, giant crabs, giant spiders, the undead, wizards, vikings, golden scorpions, jumping iron-maidens…and more. These are then backed up by the legion of mechanical devices that are littered across each of the worlds. Worlds are replete with spiked traps, falling blades, rotating saws, raining arrows, giant boulders that fall from the sky, cannons, ballistae– you name it, it's there. And in an interesting twist, these enemies can only be defeated by standard attacks (if at all).

Knights Rush has to be one of the most gorgeously detailed and painstakingly created game worlds we have seen on the iOS device. Each character and enemy is inked in a stylized fashion closely resembling that of Castle Crashers on XBL. The backdrops are equally lovingly rendered, richly detailed and set-off in layers to give a pseudo-3D effect that I absolutely love. Playing through the Super Endless Mode– where worlds and enemies are randomly generated as you progress– is a visual treat.

Finally, the standard Endless Mode rounds out the Knights Rush content, where levels you unlock in the campaign can be played endlessly. High scores for both endless modes are recorded in Chillingo's Crystal social platform, which offers additional replay value above and beyond the Campaign's 3 or so hours of game time (which can effectively be doubled or tripled if you decide to attempt Hard or Insane difficulties).

While some may initially be deterred by the few active skills available or the kitten-soft boss fights; you can't dispute that the sheer weight of content here resembles something more like what we'd expect from an expensive console downloadable title. That there are three very different knights to fight with further compounds the game's fun factor as you delve into their individual skill sets. All up, Knights Rush is a highly recommended addition to any action fan's game library, and should be a no-brainer pickup for beat 'em up fans. (Note, we did encounter a small bug where reloading the campaign following an endless mode sessions resulted in the wrong skill tree for our chosen knight, something we expect the developers will address soon but certainly not game breaking.)

If you're still on the fence, head over to our forums to read other readers' opinions and be sure to check out the (slightly outdated) gameplay trailer above as the game looks infinitely better in action.

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Back when Sega was releasing games like Sonic the Hedgehog [$5.99], Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [$5.99], and Streets of Rage [$2.99] wrapped in their Genesis emulator we were increasingly critical of the poor performance and mediocre controls. These types of games were built to be played at a high frame rate, with gameplay that basically requires the precision found in the original physical Genesis controller and just flat out didn't work that well on the iPhone. With every one of these games that Sega released, people posted in comments and on our forums asking where in the world Sega's massive back catalog of RPG's and other games that would work phenomenally within the constraints of the emulator.

Sega finally responded by releasing Shining Force [$2.99], an effort that was hard to say enough good things about in our review. Tonight they've released Phantasy Star II [$2.99], and much like Shining Force, the slow pace of the game completely negates any performance issues of control inaccuracies and instead just provides an awesome classic RPG in your pocket.

Phantasy Star II is the sequel to Phantasy Star, a Sega Master System game which didn't see another release in North America until it appeared on the Gameboy Advance and then the Wii Virtual Console. Playing the first is by no means required to enjoy the second, as the plot of Phantasy Star II follow the now entirely cliche story of ridding the world of ultimate evil while the backgrounds of the various characters that make up your party develop. Phantasy Star II has made it on to several greatest games of all time list, and it really should be played by any fan of turn based RPG's.

Really the only thing I could ask of this port is some further refinement to the emulator. Phantasy Star II badly needs a way to speed the game up as your movement is more than a little slow by today's standards, a "problem" other PC emulators have solved by allowing you to crank the speed of the game up. I somehow doubt Sega would ever implement these kind of tweaks, but enough complaining did get them to release two fantastic RPG's so far, so who knows.

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Developers seem to love scheduling their release dates for Thursday, causing their games to slowly leak out over the world over the course of the day on Wednesday and we're in for another onslaught of releases tonight. These games should all appear for download in the US App Store at 11:00 PM EST unless you download your games from the various European or Asian App Stores, in which case they will be available much earlier (possibly even as you're reading this).

R-Type, $1.99 – We've covered R-Type a number of times in the past, including getting a sneak peek at it at the recent EA pre-holiday event. R-Type is a sidescrolling shooter that hardly need an introduction filled with huge bosses, tons of power-ups, and everything else that makes a shooter awesome. For more information, and impressions as the game trickles out over the world, check out the thread in our forums.

Dodonpachi Resurrection, $4.99 – Another bullet hell shooter from Cave which unfortunately only runs on 3rd generation devices and later due to the sheer amount of things happening at once on screen. We've been following this game closely, and bullet hell fanatics are already debating Dodonpachi Resurrection versus Cave's previous game, ESPGaluda II [$8.99 / Free] in the forum thread.

Phantasy Star II – Sega's classic Genesis RPG should be available on the US App Store tonight, although it doesn't yet appear to be available internationally. Sega often releases two versions, one American and one international, and while it seems unlikely it's possible that the international version simply hasn't been approved yet. Regardless, we're keeping our eyes peeled for it.

Knight's Rush, $2.99 – From the developers of Knights Onrush [99¢ / Free] and A Quest of Knights Onrush [Free] comes a full featured arcade style hack and slash which sounds like it has a ton of content. 50 enemy types, 8 bosses and 40 levels across 8 different worlds have people pretty excited in our forums.

Cave Run, $1.99 – Randomized survival platformers seem to be the name of the game lately between Monster Dash [99¢], A Skeleton Story [$1.99], and others. Cave Run is universal and has generated quite a bit of buzz in our forums, packed with an Indiana Jones-like theme and tons of obstacles to avoid.

We're going to spend the day working up reviews for as many of these games as possible, and if you've been looking forward to any of them in particular be sure to stop by the threads linked with each game as international forum members almost always post first impressions throughout the day.

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