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Imagination’s PowerVR GPU’s have shipped in every iOS device since the release of the iPhone 3GS and the third-generation iPod touch. Those early devices used the PowerVR SGX, while the iPad and iPhone 4 moved on to the PowerVR SGX 535, and finally the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S came packed with the PowerVR SGX543MP2. At CES today, they got ever-so-slightly more specific regarding the Series6 family of PowerVR GPU’s, and it seems incredibly likely that we’ll see them included in future iOS devices, judging by Apple’s three-generation track record of utilizing Imagination’s GPU technology.

Per the press release, gamers will be able to expect 20 times the performance of current generation hardware, along with a 5x boost in efficiency. Imagination has announced that 8 different outfits have signed up to utilize these new GPUs, but curiously enough, only list 6 of the companies. If I were a betting man, I’d put Apple as one of the two unlisted chip makers.

Needless to say, the potential these new GPUs have is just crazy to think about. The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S are already graphical powerhouses capable of rendering beautiful games like Infinity Blade 2, and imagining the next generation of devices potentially being 20 times more powerful is incredible.

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Super Crate Box [99¢] finally launched yesterday to a fairly rousing reception. I caught tons of people praising the game all over the Twitters, in our forums, and probably in other social outlets that I’m not even cool enough to know about yet. With no other big releases this week, Super Crate Box has been the talk of the town for the past 24 hours or so, and has in turn been shooting right up the paid app charts, currently sitting just inside the top 40 overall.

But another clever way to see just how many people are engrossed in Super Crate Box is by the “total crates collected” counter on the main menu. Basically, it tallies up the number of crates that have been collected across all players on iOS, or at least the ones that have connected to the internet, since the game’s release. At the onset, developer Vlambeer had said on their blog that if players could grow the total crates collected tally up to 5 million then they would release the first content update for Super Crate Box.

It’s kind of a neat incentive, since we’ve all grown so accustomed to free content updates and most of the time just blindly expect to receive them. True, free updates are one of the coolest aspects about App Store gaming, but I don’t have a problem with having to work for it a bit in Super Crate Box, especially when the “work” is so much fun. Plus, as the counter continues to rise, it gives a pretty good indication that people are still actively playing your game, and that any time or effort you spend on making a content update will be justified.

However, I don’t think even Vlambeer expected that Super Crate Box would be so popular right off the bat. It’s been just over 24 hours since the game has been available and the total crates collected has already surged past the 3 million mark. At this rate, we should be hitting 5 million even before most of us get off work to start the weekend. It really is quite remarkable.

Vlambeer isn’t being very forthcoming with exactly what it is that will be in the 5 million crates update, but so far all requests I’ve been hearing have been for new arenas, new characters, and new weapons. So basically, more of everything. I can’t wait to see what makes it into the first major update.

On a similar note, the game unfortunately launched with a bug that caused it to crash on 3GS devices running certain versions of iOS, and already an update has been released that rectifies this. I’m glad to know that serious game crashing bugs don’t need to wait around for the 5 million crate mark, and am really impressed with Vlambeer’s quick turnaround with that issue. We’ll keep on contributing crates to the grand total on the way to 5 million and the first content update, and you can check discussion on Super Crate Box in our forums until we collectively hit that mark.

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Back in July I had the pleasure of welcoming one of my favorite shooters of all time, Cope-Com’s excellent Battle Squadron, into the App Store in the form of a native iOS port of the original Amiga game. Today I’m happy to bring news of a new, lower-priced iPad-only release of the title featuring two-player, split-screen action and Game Center achievements as well as an update to the original, universal release.

The new iPad-only release, entitled Battle Squadron ONE 2-player [App Store], allows two players to face off on the same device, thanks to a new split-screen, portrait play mode that lets you and a friend share in the action (for those equipped with a friend). In this mode, each player is able to choose their own control configuration, and gameplay is as smooth and fast-paced as it is in the one-player mode. What’s more, two-player network gameplay is planned for a future update.

A number of other improvements have arrived in this new release, as well. The game features 36 Game Center achievements and a new super-tough “Air Commodore” difficulty level (get it?) with a particularly intense level ending. Cope-Com has listened to player feedback and has tweaked every control mode and rolled-in a new one. The main user complaint was that it was “tedious” to have to move a finger all over the entire screen to control the ship. To address this, a drag control mode with 2x the movement vs. finger rate was added (with the original 1x control still available). Additionally, the joypad and tilt control modes have been adjusted to allow movement in all directions (analog) as opposed to the earlier release’s 8-way (digital) movement.

While the iPad-only Battle Squadron ONE 2-player is indeed a new release, the original, universal version of the game has been renamed Battle Squadron ONE [App Store] (from BattleSquadr1) and has inherited all of the enhancements that the new iPad-only release brings, plus the ability to run on both the iPhone (one-player only, right now) and the iPad, natively. What’s more, Cope-Com has lowered the bar on the minimum-spec supported devices, bringing support for the iPhone 3G and 2G iPod touch. An important distinction to iOS gamers just walking into this situation is that the iPad-only release is priced $1 less than the universal version.

As I’ve indicated in the past, Battle Squadron is perhaps my favorite scrolling shooter of all time. The Amiga version is superb, and the iOS version has been excellently translated. With this release, there’s even more goodness to be had. I can’t recommend Battle Squadron ONE highly enough to any iOS gamer out there.

And, my Amiga-using brothers and sisters, note the little bit of goodness pictured down in the corner of the options screen. We’ve mentioned it here before, but it’s a happy reminder — the precursor of Battle Squadron, the Amiga scrolling shooter Hybris from Cope-Com, will be arriving in the App Store sometime next year. Stay tuned!

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You don’t have to be an app hipster to be a little affronted when your favorite app hits the big time and everyone starts playing it. Really, are there many things more annoying than logging into Facebook only to see that your 11th grade lab partner has posted five hundred achievements from what was previously your favorite game? Instead of making passive aggressive comments on their status updates (“Wow, at least being unemployed gives you the opportunity to really master Angry Birds!”), channel that righteous anger into downloading Princess Punt [Free], a game that you are certain to be the first (and perhaps last) person on the block to be playing.

Before getting into the game itself, a warning is in order. There are plenty of things you will hate about this game. Endless popups after every level urging you to post every inane achievement to Facebook and Twitter, the out-of-place slot machine minigame that’s basically an in-app purchase cash grab, the agonizingly long loading times. Oh, and the eleven (eleven!!) in-game updates that have to download before you can begin (lord help you poor saps using a 3G connection to download them; wi-fi is definitely recommended!). Also, the default language is Japanese, so keep an eye out for the language options after installation—not that it really matters, because the loading screen text and tutorials don’t make any sense in English, either.

Long story short(ish): It’s confusing and difficult to get into. Why, then, is it worthy of a review?

Because it’s incredibly, weirdly fun. It’s supremely beautiful, frustrating, and clever, much like the game’s namesake, the lovestruck and violent Princess Punt. It’s a physics puzzler, but it’s far and above the zillions of pick up and go titles in the App Store because of the sheer depth of the gameplay.

You control the Princess, who is on her way to meet up with her hunky boyfriend. The road is full of dangerous enemies, including dinosaurs(!!) and angry acorns (yes, such a thing exists). In order to get past these obstacles, you kick (or punt, if you will) bombs and, more importantly, your minions.

There are several royal minions to punt into the fray, all with different abilities. There’s a mage who shoots ice bolts and rains down fire, a centurion who knows his way around a spear (um, not in the ancient Greek way, sheesh), an archer who can shoot arrows from a safe distance, and your Hero (the primary minion who is by your side at all times, and may have a slight crush on the Princess) who has experience with a wide variety of weapons (the trident is my favorite!).

As you kick your minions into danger, their various abilities set in. The exciting thing here is that they stay in play even after you’ve kicked them, through the entire level, so there is a fairly major element of strategy involved. For example, if you send your archer in during your first kick and make sure he’s out of the enemies’ reach, he can bombard them with arrows the whole round, even after you’ve also sent in the Hero and a bomb or two.

After you’ve beaten a level, you get experience powerups that you can use to make the Hero’s abilities level up, making his weapons more powerful and allowing him to withstand more hits. Additionally, the mostly-bogus slot machine that pops up between successfully completed levels occasionally grants you new weapons for your other minions, meaning your mage can have an upgraded staff or your archer might get a new power attack.

That’s what makes Princess Punt so hard to put down, despite being difficult to get into at first. It’s a puzzle game that also happens to be an RPG, and while the combination might seem weird at first, after a round or two it’ll be hard to imagine playing a similar puzzle game that’s missing the added strategic elements of Princess Punt. And while the game might feel piecemeal at times, the sheer number of ways that you can play the game more than makes up for all the (eleven!!!!) in-game updates and unabashed pleas for in-app purchases.

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I had expected to hear my geriatric iPhone 3GS to croon its swan song when I loaded up Minecraft: Pocket Edition [$6.99] for the first time. It didn’t. To my surprise, Mojang’s inaugural iOS title actually got along swimmingly with my hardware. Was it a sign of good things to come? Perhaps. Deeply pleased with this turn of events, I went ahead and generated my first world.

And that’s when the disappointments started rolling through the door. To be fair, I don’t blame Mojang. If anything, they’ve done a rather masterful job at porting their world-famous IP onto the platform. Nonetheless, there’s only so much you can do around technical constraints. Regardless of how you slice, the truth of the matter is that Minecraft just doesn’t work here (not yet, anyway). To paraphrase the Genie from Disney’s Aladdin, phenomenal cosmic power and itty-bitty living spaces do not mix.

Minecraft’s familiar sense of scale is all but missing in Minecraft – Pocket Edition. Everything is forever frozen in a state of unnatural daylight. There is no day and night, no sunsets to behold, nothing to reinforce the feeling that we’re in a world of our own. Instead, what we have is something that feels more akin to an open-air museum, a place to exhibit your mastery of multi-colored blocks. But even then, it’s hard to be deeply impressed with a Big Daddy replica that someone has built when you find yourself running about in circles, struggling to take in every detail. Again, this has nothing to do with Mojang; small screens are small. You might as well complain that winter is cold.

Once you’ve grown acclimatized to the controls (it’s your standard D-pad sort of thing), building is relatively easy. Blocks are placed by tapping the screen and removed by holding a finger over the cube. It’s about as simple as it gets. Granted, you’ll probably find yourself doing a lot of the latter. It could just be my lack of finesse but I found it a bit of a challenge to get the blocks exactly where I wanted them to go.

Asides from that, there’s not much else to Minecraft: Pocket Edition. Building is everything. The game gives you an unlimited supply of blocks (there are about thirty or so to choose from) to play with. It also features cross-platform multiplayer. Don’t get too excited. You won’t be able to interface with your home server. For the time being, you’ll only be able to sojourn to worlds built on the iOS and the Android.

Seriously, though. I could just be spoiled. I want my creepers. I want my skeletons. I want the ability to craft items. I want to be able to mine, damn it. Minecraft: Pocket Edition doesn’t feel like Minecraft. It feels like something else entirely, something that may well be the point. And, for one reason or another, that just doesn’t sit too well with me.

But if you’re willing to take it for what it is and want nothing more than the ability to engineer pixelated utopias while you’re on the go, Minecraft: Pocket Edition isn’t exactly a lost cause. The developers appear to have a number of updates lined up. Minecraft: Pocket Edition could potentially be an awesome thing someday. Until that day comes, though, it is best purchased by the curious, the affluent and the hardcore fan.

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If you’re not an O.G. iPhone (or maybe even a original 3G) owner, chances are Apple’s own Texas Hold’em never even appeared on your radar. There wasn’t much reason for it to, either. It was originally released in late August of 2008, updated a few weeks later, then totally abandoned. Even though the presentation at the time was a major step above the other offerings on the App Store, Texas Hold’em was quickly outclassed by third part developers that included things like online multiplayer, multiple game modes, and more.

Apple just pulled Texas Hold’em from the App Store, which was the only game they ever released for iOS devices. If you’ve got a copy of the .ipa laying around, it’s probably a good idea to back it up somewhere if you at all care about keeping it. If you’re into reading tea leaves with every minor move Apple makes, this could signal them withdrawing entirely from first-party iOS game development. Although, you could really argue that they’ve already been withdrawn anyway.

If you’re curious what Texas Hold’em was all about, Apple’s web site for the game is still online, although don’t expect it to be there for long.

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One of my favorite thing about the iOS world is how many AAA industry veterans are returning to their roots of indie development, potentially bringing decades of experience with them. This is the case with Glenn Corpes, whose 20+ years in video games has had his hands in Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and a ton of other great games. On the App Store, he’s released Ground Effect [$2.99] and is hard at work on Topia: Age of Creation.

Anyway, in a recent interview with PocketGamer.biz Glenn explains that even though the iPhone 4S looks identical to the iPhone 4 on the outside, the internals represent an even bigger leap than the one between the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. Corpes calls A4 devices “irritating,” as they had tons of potential utilizing shaders, but were ultimately too slow at processing the actual pixels. Things were only made worst by the Retina Display, as App Store customers quickly became disinterested in anything that didn’t push all 614,400 pixels.

He explains that some of the cool shaders we’ve seen in Infinity Blade 2 could be done at a lower resolution, but you just can’t release games like that. A5 devices, on the other hand, are powerful enough to use shaders that would have only been useful on PC’s and current-generation consoles before. While fully utilizing the 3GS required code rewrites, developers can take advantage of the 4S by simply using better shaders. Even more spare horsepower can be utilized with anti-aliasing, post processing effects, and other things A4 devices weren’t capable of.

I imagine just like the 3GS, it’ll take some time for developers to actually start taking advantage of all the new capabilities iPhone 4S. I can’t wait.

[via PocketGamer.biz]

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This past August, Firemint brought us its first release since being acquired by Electronic Arts, called Spy Mouse [99¢]. Taking their expertise in the line-drawing genre that the developer almost single-handedly popularized with their premiere iOS offering Flight Control [99¢/Lite/HD] and applying it to a stealth-heavy action/puzzle game, Spy Mouse offered an incredibly enjoyable and straight forward experience that we highlighted in our review.

The task at hand was to direct the game’s mousey protagonist Agent Squeak safely through a level, staying out of the path of roaming cats and collecting cheese and powerups along the way. It’s a formula that proved quite successful, and most importantly, fun.

Today, Firemint has released the latest update to Spy Mouse which adds in the often requested online leaderboard functionality. You’ll need to sign up with EA’s Origin service which is built into the game and then can track your level scores with fellow Spy Mouse-ers across the globe.

Also part of this update is the addition of 5 brand new Challenges to be found in Agent Squeak’s Backpack. Additionally, Firemint has lowered the required Squeak friends requirement to unlock additional elements in the Backpack to just one. If you find yourself having trouble passing certain levels, Kiska’s assistance is now available once per hour instead of just once per day, and Firemint has posted an online help video on getting past the game’s first boss, and I’d imagine they’ll have similar videos coming out in the future.

Spy Mouse was definitely a fun game to begin with, and a fresh mix on both the line-drawing and stealth genres. Plus, it’s just plain cute pretty much all around. Be sure to grab this latest update to Spy Mouse and check out the new features for yourself.

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Last week, we told you the (somewhat) surprising news that Rockstar would be bringing the classic Grand Theft Auto III to iOS and Android platforms to celebrate the franchise's 10 year anniversary of entering the world of 3D, and thus changing the open-world sandbox genre forever. At the time, Rockstar noted that the game was only planned for dual-core processor-based devices, due to the strain that running a huge open-world game would have on lesser mobile hardware. On the iOS side of things, that meant that only the iPad 2 and the brand new iPhone 4S would be able to run GTA III thanks to their dual-core A5 chips.

Of course, there are far, far more GTA fans than there are A5 device owners, and there was quite a backlash from gamers with older devices who were understandably upset that they wouldn't be able to get their carjack-on without upgrading their kit. However, over the weekend Rockstar has been showing off GTA III for mobile devices in playable form at the New York Comic-Con, and in fact they have confirmed to Kotaku that the dual-core processor requirement will only be a limitation at first, and that they're planning on having the game be compatible with single-core iOS devices sometime after launch.

Now, before you go getting too excited, they don't specifically state which single-core devices they intend to target. It may just be the iPhone 4, since it's the only other device with 512 mb of RAM, which could be a deal breaker for the iPhone 3GS and 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch. We really don't know at this point, but at least the compatible device listing will be increasing in some capacity, which is a good thing.

Speaking of GTA III at NYCC, one adventurous attendee decided to muster up some courage and take a little video of himself playing the game on an iPad 2 demo unit. So far, it looks like the GTA III that we all know and love from 10 years ago:

Chances are pretty good that this video was not taken with the permission of the Rockstar reps on hand at the convention, so don't be surprised if the video ends up disappearing sooner rather than later. But for now, it's a nice glimpse into what GTA III will be like on mobile. Also, though it's hard to tell from this shaky video, various other outlets' hands-on impressions of the demo build so far all state that the visuals have been given the high-res treatment, or at least as high a resolution as a 10 year old game can have. This leads me to believe that the GTA III we end up getting on iOS is based off of the superior Xbox version, though that's just a bit of speculation on my part.

GTA III is scheduled for a Fall release, and if it's anything like their launch of Chinatown Wars on iOS, we may be seeing the game incredibly soon, as that title popped up just a few short days after they were showing off preview builds to the media. That's more speculation on my part, but I remain hopeful. Until the game actually does launch, feel free to check out our forums where GTA III: 10th Anniversary Edition is getting a healthy amount of discussion.

[Via Kotaku and our forums]

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Steve Jobs unveiled iOS 5 back at WWDC this year. Since then, those of us with an iPhone 3GS or later device have been anxiously looking forward to the array of new features and functionality introduced in the update. At last week's Let's Talk iPhone keynote, Apple revealed that today was the lucky day for iOS 5, and if you've got a device that'll run it– Plug it into iTunes, make sure you sync, and mash that update button.

My favorite improvement so far has definitely got to be the entirely revised push alert notification system. That nasty blue popup that interrupts everything you're doing when you get a text message, your Tiny Tower is ready for something, or the zillion other things that used that type of been notification is a thing of the past. Now there's an incredibly elegant notification center where all these alerts are stored, and the actual popups themselves simply scroll in from the top instead of stealing focus.

If you've got an iPad 2 (or are getting an iPhone 4S in a few days), you'll be able to do display mirroring via AirPlay. Doing cool things with this is largely dependent on developers utilizing it in interesting ways, but so far Firemint is doing awesome things with Real Racing 2.

In addition, Game Center has seen a few tweaks. One I'm most excited for is turn-based support. If developers utilize it, Game Center can handle all of the matchmaking and turn data management between players. I've heard from developers that this functionality does not degrade gracefully to previous versions of iOS, but once iOS 5 adoption picks up we could see a rush of great turn-based games now that developers can offload their entire online infrastructure onto Game Center.

iCloud isn't something that should be underestimated. Out of the box it'll keep your device backed up to Apple's data centers and in the event of device failure, loss, theft, or whatever else you'll be able to re-download the entire contents of your phone regardless of the last time you synced. Also, once developers start embracing it, you'll be able to seamlessly sync save game data between devices. As someone who often plays games on both my iPhone and iPad, I can't wait for this to pick up steam.

iOS 5 is an incredible upgrade. I've been running the developer version since the gold master hit last week, and much like the upgrade from iOS 3 to iOS 4, my iPhone 4 feels like a totally new device. iOS 5 boasts a feature list of over 200 additions and improvements, so if you want to know everything that is new and different, check out this huge list over on MacRumors.

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