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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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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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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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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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Back in the depths of 2008, we had our hearts broken by I Love Katamari. The controls were problematic, there were performance issues, it was Katamari, but it was a mess. Now Namco is taking another shot at winning our love with Katamari Amore [Free].

Full disclosure: I'm a Katamari fan from way back. I got in on the ground floor with Katamari Damacy on PS2 and I've played every console release since. Over the years the formula has become a little stale, the craziness has started to feel a little forced, but I'm still a person who loves to roll things up. Sushi, cats, Ultraman, I'm not picky. So it's with a heavy heart that I tell you that Katamari Amore is a loveless thing.

Yes, yes, it's Katamari! On iOS! But that's not enough. The framerate gets choppy at times, especially on my 3GS. The controls are improved over the last outing, now offering one virtual pad, two virtual pads or tilt. The two-stick method is essentially the same as the console controls, if a bit stiff. The method for switching controls is awkward and confusing, but whatever. Technically this game is pretty much fine. It's just completely and utterly joyless.

The level design is the worst offender. One of the joys of the Katamari series is exploration. Strange scenarios can be found if you pay attention. You might find bears corralling humans at a campfire, or a hidden shrine to sashimi. It doesn't often make sense, but it rewards curiosity. In Katamari Amore, you'll find whatever random items are needed to make you bigger, strewn appropriately to allow you to progress. The most interesting thing I found in my travels was a space dog with an astronaut, and I guess the game thought it was interesting too because I got an achievement for rolling it up.

And that's emblematic of the whole problem with Katamari Amore. Nothing is there just for fun. To clear most of the Story Mode levels you'll need to roll up nearly every item available. This turns the game from a frantic size race to a tedious exercise in hunting down the one item you need to get just big enough to get the next batch of items. It's a bare-minimum philosophy that permeates everything — the King of All Cosmos's dialogue, the levels, the items and the entertainment value.

We mentioned that this game would have a special Pac-Man themed level, and it does. But don't get too excited. It's basically one level of the classic game, but with terrible controls and an obnoxious camera angle. There are better ways to play Pac-Man.

If none of this concerns you and you just want to get your Katamari on, here's what you need to know. The game is free to download, and contains one level of Time Attack mode. With an in-app purchase of $3.99, you can unlock all six currently available levels. Each has a Story Mode (in which the King asks you to roll up a specific item that always happens to be the largest item in the level), time attack, an exact size challenge and eternal mode. There are more packs on their way, but there's a reasonable amount of content here to start with.

It's not that Katamari Amore is completely terrible. There are a few technical speedbumps, but it's competent on the whole. Some of our forum users have decried the graphics, but simple art is a series staple. And it's a functional game, with plenty to do. It's just that it could be so much more.

Most of the things Namco has left out aren't the things that would push the limits of the platform – they're the humor and the spirit of the series. iOS games can be made with love and joy, they can be funny and charming. Those are things the Katamari series has had in spades, and it's a shame they're missing here.

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A few days back we posted word that John Calhoun would soon be launching an iOS version of his classic early Macintosh game, Glider, in the App Store. Glider Classic [link] is now available for download and I've had a chance to put it through its paces. Let me share my impressions.

The good news is that Glider Classic for iOS is just what Glider was for the early Macs: quaint casual gaming with nicely frustrating puzzle elements and a simple visual aesthetic.

That simple assessment should be enough to let those familiar with the original title know that it's definitely worth a grab. For the uninitiated, let me explain the magic of the formula. (But I'll go ahead and toss out a spoiler: you want this game, too.)

Glider was originally released by Soft Dorothy in 1988 as shareware. It presents a simple proposition: fly your paper glider through a house filled with obstacles, room to room, and get it outside. The only controls were (and are) "move left" and "move right." Air vents on the floor and sources of heat, such as lights and stereo equipment, keep your glider aloft. And don't land on anything. That's it. It's a task that sounds far simpler than it is, and giving it your best is a whole lot of fun.

The original game featured modest aesthetics — line drawn shelves, simple dithered object shading, etc. — and that was, in part, forced by the limitations of the original platform, which was a Macintosh with an 8MHz CPU and a 512×384 pixel black and white display. The developer made the best of it way back when and the result was a charmingly simple, yet complex, casual game. The formula worked, and worked well. And so, in bringing Glider to the staggeringly more powerful iOS platform of today, Calhoun has maintained the control and visual aesthetics — the former by way of left / right tap controls, and the latter by entirely re-creating the visuals, but doing so in an intentionally minimalist fashion. The result is a game that looks and plays like the modern analog of the original that it is.

For those familiar with the earlier versions of Glider, Calhoun indicates that Glider Classic, from a gameplay perspective, is something of a mix of all of the titles from version 4, on down. He considers his commercial release of the game, Glider Pro from Casady & Greene, to have strayed a bit from the solid formula of the earlier releases, and so it was not a basis for the iOS version.

The house in Glider Classic features five different floors plus a basement level to fly through. The first floor is a pretty easy run, but the challenge ramps up notably as you progress. The developer not only hopes to add more houses to the game in a future update, but may also bring the classic Mac OS "house editor" to Mac OS X Lion, which would allow users to create their own play areas for the iOS version as well as the possible Mac App Store version that he indicates is likely to arrive at some point.

The current v1.0 release of Glider Classic runs on the iPhone 3GS and 3G iPod touch devices, on up, including the iPad (it's a universal application). Calhoun let me know, however, that he has already submitted the v1.0.1 update to Apple, which enables support for earlier iPhones and iPod touch devices, and squashes a few minor bugs, as well.

Glider is just a great little game with a lot of personality. And whether or not you've spent time with it in the past, it's a treat to play on modern iOS devices. The only criticism I can make. based on my time with the title so far. is the lack of online leaderboards. However, I discovered in a recent conversation with the developer that Game Center integration is on the list for a future update.

As indicated in our earlier post, John Calhoun recently left Apple after 16 years in order to bring Glider Classic and other titles to iOS. Last month he released Lab Solitaire [App Store], a photo-realistic version of Free Cell. For a bit more history on his days as a Mac game maker, I recommend checking out Bitmob's article entitled "Dreaming of a thousand-room house: The evolution of Glider," as well as MacScene's two part interview.

Glider Classic is currently available for a limited time at an introductory price of $0.99.

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I want to love Madfinger's Shadowgun [$7.99]. I really do. It's a lovely looking game, one of the best on iOS, but it's so riddled with holes, crashes, bugs and repetition, it's easier to walk away frustrated than in awe of it.

You play John Slade, a brute with a gun hired to bring back a mad scientist. There's a whole back-story about how corporations rule the world and whatnot, but none of that makes a difference to the core of the game. It's basically you and your A.I. making bad jokes at each other while a mad scientist is on the loose causing havoc.

Shadowgun is a looker in all respects and running it on both an iPhone 3GS and an iPad produces amazing results (although, text is incredibly blurry on the 3GS). If you look closely, you can see some of the tricks Madfinger used to make it run and look the way it does, but as far as the environments go, it's hard not to sit with your mouth agape in awe.

There has been a lot of speculation that this is a Gears of War clone, but it's not as blatant as it appears. Yes, it's a cover-based shooter with enemies that appear to dig bondage, but the comparisons pretty much stop there. The guns aren't as fun to play with as Gears and the lack of any squad mechanic ensures Shadowgun won't be confused as a Gears clone by anyone who's actually played it. The weapon variety is stagnant, all feeling relatively similar and none of them standing out from the usual suspects in action games — shotgun, SMG, rocket launcher, grenade launcher — you get the point.

For movement, the controls work well and cover is handled automatically when you get near a wall. However, I was either running into a bug or an odd feature on both devices that would lock my gun in place while shooting a little over half the time. It was never consistent when it would decide to do this, and was amazingly frustrating during portions of the game that had enemies who actually moved. Maybe it's supposed to be like this, but if it is, it doesn't work well.

It's a good thing the enemies don't move much. Most of them will be content appearing on screen, running to cover, then popping up to shoot at you. There are a few different types of enemies who don't do this, but their movement is mechanical and predictable throughout. They're not stupid so much as programed to only follow a set path, regardless of where you are or what you're doing.

Then there are the crashes. So many crashes. In around four hours, the game had crashed around twenty times on my iPhone 3GS, then, after the third hard-reset, it decided to delete my save game on the second to last level. Full disclaimer: I didn't bother going back to it at this point.

I've learned to deal with a lot of technical issues with games in the past, but the one I have no tolerance for is a deleted save game. It's the gaming equivalent of blacking out at party and finding pictures of yourself making out with a goat in the morning. It's heart breaking, frustrating and there's nothing you can do about it.

Maybe if Shadowgun was a little more diverse I would be interested in pushing through it again, but the bulk of the game follows the same formula on repeat: walk into area, trigger event, enemies rush out, hide behind cover, shoot. There are enemies later on with different attack-styles, but most of your time will be spent in long corridors with unexplainable cover, shooting at grunts.

All of that said, there are a few interesting mix-ups throughout the campaign worth noting. Boss fights, for example, are well thought out and shift from combat to minor puzzle solving. There are also Simon style hacking mini-games spread throughout to mix things up, as well as light environmental puzzles here and there. They work as a nice respite from the game's shooting heavy tone, but are never challenging enough to offer more than a quick stop-gap in the action.

I have a whole list of pet peeves Shadowgun manages to break – poorly chosen checkpoints, unpredictable splash damage, and the bizarre choice of chapter ends – all things that will frustrate some more than others.

If Madfinger can fix the crashing and save-game deletion issues with a patch, they're still left with a repetitive, but lovely looking shooter. There are hints of true quality in the boss fights and some minor sections of the campaign, but the majority relies on a simple, corridor design that's hard to find engaging for very long.

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It's almost a certainty that no one who considered themselves a Mac gamer in the late '80s or early '90s could be unfamiliar with John Calhoun's Glider.

Perhaps the quintessential early Mac game, Glider was first released as a black & white shareware title in 1988. The game challenges you to fly your paper glider from room to room through a series of houses while avoiding a wide range of obstacles and using only basic controls and updrafts from floor air vents to keep yourself aloft. It sounds simpler than it was, and what it was was a whole lot of fun. After the original release, Calhoun followed with several new versions of the game — Glider 3 perhaps being the most well known — and finally, in 1991, partnering with now-defunct Casady & Greene for the commercial release of Glider Pro (which is now available for free).

We're happy to report that iOS gamers will soon have the chance to experience the magical little game that is Glider in Calhoun's upcoming App Store release of Glider Classic. I recently had a conversation with Calhoun, who left Apple after 16 years this past summer in order to bring Glider to iOS, to find out more about his coming release.

After parting ways with Apple, Calhoun wasted little time jumping into the iOS game scene, releasing Lab Solitaire [App Store], a photo-realistic version of Free Cell, last month. After that was out the door, his full focus moved to Glider Classic, which is now complete.

The iOS version, from a play mechanics standpoint, is something of a mix of several of the early versions of the game. (The developer, and a number of the game's fans, felt that Glider Pro deviated a bit too significantly from the spot-on formula of the original.) All of the graphics used in the game have been re-created with pen and paper, through a process that Calhoun details on his blog, giving the game a very clean look, evocative of the original's artwork.

Glider Classic features tap-based controls and is a universal application that runs natively on both the iPhone and the iPad. In the first release, iPhone 3GS and 3G iPod touch devices will be the minimal supported platforms, though earlier devices will gain support in an update soon to follow. Calhoun indicates that a Mac App Store release of Glider Classic is also likely at some point, given that Glider Pro for the Mac is PowerPC-only and will not run under OS X Lion. In fact, we might one day see a desktop "house editor" emerge, allowing players to create their own houses for both the iOS and the likely Mac OS X versions of the game.

Calhoun told me that, from the view of an old-school designer, he absolutely loves iOS as a game platform. He got out of game writing way back when largely because the "big guys" came in and basically stole the show from indie developers like himself. He sees iOS as an excellent opportunity for indies to get their work out there and embraced by gamers, and it's a notion backed up by so many one-man home runs we've seen since the App Store went live. Calhoun has a number of other iOS projects in mind to follow Glider Classic, and I'm anxious to see what we've got to look forward to.

In addition to Glider, Calhoun released several other games for the Macintosh in the distant past, including Glypha III (there's an iOS version by another developer), Pararena, and Stella Obscura. For a bit more history on John Calhoun's days as a Mac game maker, I recommend checking out Bitmob's excellent article entitled "Dreaming of a thousand-room house: The evolution of Glider," as well as MacScene's two part interview with the man in question.

Glider Classic is expected to arrive in the App Store this week at a launch price of $0.99. We'll post a closer look at the game when it lands.

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