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Developer Cyan Worlds, who have previously brought their classic graphic adventure game Myst [$4.99/Lite] to the iPhone, have just released their newest iOS game Stoneship [$2.99] into the App Store. We first brought word of Stoneship last month, followed by a gallery of exclusive screenshots and a look at a teaser trailer provided by Cyan Worlds. Just over a week ago, coincidentally on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, we took an extensive look at a near-final build of Stoneship that the developer had sent us. Here are a few excerpts from that preview that explain the gameplay found in Stoneship:

Stoneship sets you and your first mate on the high seas, charged with exploring, controlling, and protecting vast oceans and islands, under continual threat of pirate sieges and tangles with ghastly monsters from the deep. The game is played by moving about any given level, uncovering obscured blocks of both land and sea in an attempt to discover ports, and temples (and, as a result, weaponry) as well as rafts of men lost at sea who will join your forces, as well as the location of any pirate ships that make your forces necessary in the first place.

Once you find a port, it becomes your own…as well as a target for pirates in the area. Each level has a set number of moves you're permitted to execute before the inevitable pirate onslaught ensues. Multiple ports can be linked together to allow resource (battle-ready men) sharing, which is all about shifting men from port to port in the 10 second count-down before the pirate attack comes. Of course, you can only set things up to your advantage here if you've uncovered the location of the lurking pirates in your set number of turns. If not, the pirates come from one of the remaining hidden blocks on the map (which is pretty much a bad thing).

The core play mode is Campaign, which is a round-to-round push through the eighty three included levels (with additional levels to come later via update). A Challenge mode is also offered, which is a sort-of pick and choose affair.

In the following video from our preview, we detail practically the entire tutorial to give a thorough idea on how the game works. It's a bit slow-going, although highly  informative, and if you like you can skip ahead to the 6:00 minute mark to catch some footage of in-game battles playing out in Stoneship:

Make sure you take a look at our entire preview for even more information on Stoneship, and as always you can find impressions of the game in the Stoneship release thread in our forums.

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Last month, Handmark released the 3D object manipulation puzzler Blaze: Fire Puzzle for both the iPhone [link] and the iPad [link]. We didn't cover the title at the time, but I've spent a good bit of time with the title this weekend and have had a pretty good time of it.

The first thing you might notice upon seeing our gameplay video or trying your hand at the title is its similarity to Zen Bound. Indeed, the game is basically Zen Bound, but with fire and candles instead of a paint-soaked rope (and classical tunes instead of ambient audioscapes accentuated with plucks of the koto). It's a definite derivative title, but given the ridiculous amount of time I've played the Zen Bounds, it's an interesting variation on what's undisputedly Secret Exit's formula.

Blaze takes you through 45 different candle-adorned 3D objects with the objective of lighting every single candle — and fast. This is done by way of touch controls — one finger to twist, two fingers to rotate — just like Zen Bound or, in the case of the iPhone 4, using the integrated gyroscope if you choose. (I recommend not choosing, though — it's a far inferior method of manipulation as compared to straight-up touch.) You start off with but one of the many candles on your object lit. From there, the goal is to manipulate the object such that all candles become lit, with a gold medal achieved for completing the task in a stated (and short) number of seconds. The physics of fire-lights-what's-above is an interesting twist (ugh…) on the Zen Bound formula.

The iPhone version of Blaze utilizes the Retina display for high resolution rendering, while the iPad version takes full advantage of its screen real estate. Both versions feature social networking integration with OpenFeint, Twitter, and Facebook.

So, if you're a seasoned Zen Bound veteran, is this game for you? I consider myself a member of that camp and have had a great time with Blaze. If you're all wet behind the ears and have clocked zero time behind either title…and have to choose just one, I would probably urge you towards Zen Bound, as it feels a bit more polished, more refined — but the enjoyability of both titles is quite similar.

Anyone on the fence can try out the limited, free version of the game for both devices:

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We've been following Gameloft's upcoming Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus very closely, as the original Modern Combat: Sandstorm [$4.99 / Free / HD] was a game that we enjoyed in our review and served to further raise the bar for first person shooters on the platform. Gameloft released a launch trailer today, which shows quite a bit of gameplay including a glimpse at what appears to be ten player online multiplayer– Complete with an experience system.

Normally I'd groan at such blatant "inspiration" from Modern Warfare 2's online multiplayer system (right down to how it pops up in the middle of your screen) …But, I played Modern Warfare 2 online like a maniac, and I'm not sure what it will mean for my social life if Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus allows you to prestige. I guess we'll see when the game is finally released early next month.

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Yesterday, developer Capcom announced that  they are having a 99¢ blowout sale on eight of their App Store titles. My personal picks of the bunch are Resident Evil 4 which is a scaled down version of the console title that still retains much of the same content and gameplay, and Dark Void Zero which is an 8-bit "demake" of the console title Dark Void and completely nails the feeling of playing an old NES game (right down to blowing in the cartridge when starting it up). Check over the list, and if there's something on there you've been waiting to pick up now would be a great time to do so.

Resident Evil 4, – $4.99 → 99¢

1942: First Strike, – $1.99 → 99¢

Mega Man II, – $2.99 → 99¢

Dark Void Zero, – $2.99 → 99¢

Cash Cab, – $4.99 → 99¢

Cash Cab: Las Vegas, – $1.99 → 99¢

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? 2010, – $1.99 → 99¢

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 2010, – $1.99 → 99¢

The sale is set to last through the coming weekend, so make sure to grab any titles you want before they return to their original prices. As always, you can keep an eye on all the price changes throughout the App Store using AppShopper.com or the recently released AppShopper [Free] app for your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

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A little more than a month ago, iPhone giant Gameloft first announced a sequel to Gangstar: West Coast Hustle [$4.99 / Free / HD], an open-world crime game which we liked quite a bit in our review despite a few disappointments. Gangstar: Miami Vindication [$6.99] was released this evening, and while several of our annoyances from the first have been tweaked or massaged to be less problematic, there's still a few things keeping Miami Vindication from being our favorite thug simulator.

Much like the original, Gangstar: Miami Vindication features a full city to explore, a wide variety of vehicles to steal, weapons ranging from baseball bats to flame throwers, and a heap of missions to complete. (75 to be exact.) The game plays exactly how you'd expect it to play if you've ever played a Grand Theft Auto or similar type of open world crime game. You can play through the series of missions which vary wildly from something as simple to going to a particular point in the city to stealing a specific car or even racing. Alternatively, you can just disregard the missions entirely and instead just drive around the city, stealing cars, running from the police, or really doing whatever you feel like doing.

While there isn't a whole lot of innovation to be found in Miami Vindication, it has been improved in some ways over the original. For instance, the game is fully voiced over and the voice acting actually seems to be a little better than your typical Gameloft game– at least for major characters. Gameloft also has been boasting the fact that the game was written in part by one of the writers from the TV show The Wire. This story consists of dabbling in the various sectors of the Miami criminal underground on the hunt for your missing brother. I don't see it winning any awards, but by and large the dialog in Miami Hustle is substantially less cringeworthy than West Coast Hustle.

Controls seem to be a lot tighter than the original, offering three different options: Tilt, a virtual steering wheel, and a slider which I've found myself preferring. When on a motorcycle, tilting your device back and forth executes wheelies and stoppies although riding a wheelie for any length of time usually seems to result in a spectacular crash. Lighting is improved as well, resulting in some fairly spectacular views during sunset and sunrise as the entire city is bathed in warm sunlight.

Unfortunately, even though the lighting is better, Miami Vindication is home to some heinously low polygon models. Cars look decent, but character models look absolutely dreadful. Animations are extremely limited, faces lack depth, there are no fingers to be found anywhere, and no lips move when anyone speaks. Instead, they just flail their arms about and bop their heads back and forth. With how much of the game is spent watching two characters talk to each other, this soon becomes incredibly distracting.

The draw distance is decent, but pop-in is considerable. You can see buildings and terrain from far away, but trees and other small details all appear incredibly close to your character. Much like the original Gangstar, the city of Miami in Miami Vindication is terribly barren. Only a few cars will ever appear on screen at once, and pedestrians are rare as can be. Everything feels entirely too clean and empty. Gameloft did implement some varied areas to the city instead of being totally metropolitan, but all the subareas all feel equally lonely and empty.

If you can get past the relatively sparse graphical environment, there really isn't anything else like Miami Vindication on the App Store. Riding around on motorcycles and boats is a lot of fun, and if you can find a helicopter, flying around the city is really pretty cool. I still prefer Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / Free / HD], but if you don't like the top-down view and want a full 3D experience, Gangstar: Miami Vindication is worth exploring.

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Adult Swim's Robot Unicorn Attack [99¢] had an update hit mere moments ago to add full OpenFeint support with both online leaderboards and achievements. If you've been annoyed by your inability to truly boast about your best runs other than posting to Facebook or Twitter, make sure you grab this update ASAP.

If you still haven't downloaded the game yet, it's still on sale for 99¢ and I really recommend picking it up. It's a quirky take on the see how far you can go platform game type that has become so popular on the App Store, and it's even available online as a free Flash game. The inclusion of online leaderboards answers my only gripe about the game, and I really can't recommend it enough.

Illusion Labs' Labyrinth 2 [$4.99 / Free] also saw an update today which aside from high resolution graphics for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4 and new iPod touch also added Game Center leaderboards and achievements. There are 36 achievements in all to farm, and if you're looking to fill up your Game Center achievement listing, Labyrinth 2 is an awesome game to do it with.

We loved Labyrinth 2 in our review, and really recommend at least trying the lite version out if you've yet to play the game yet. With Retina Display graphics and Game Center support, this is an already awesome game that just got much more awesome.

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Open world crime games have been incredibly popular for years now, so it wasn't much of a surprise to see Gameloft release Gangstar: West Coast Hustle [$4.99 / Free / HD] which we liked quite a bit in our review. Following the success of Gangstar, Rockstar threw its hat in to the ring with Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / Free / HD] which really upped the ante with a real Grand Theft Auto experience with all the depth and complexity that players have come to expect of the series. It's going to be interesting to see what Gameloft includes in the Gangstar sequel to one-up Rockstar, but the good news is we won't have to wait much longer as Miami Vindication is set to be released on the 23rd.

If you're like us and are looking forward to stealing virtual cars on the streets of Gameloft's version of Miami, check out this new trailer:

Something that immediately pops out is how low polygon count everything is, but it remains to be seen how noticeable this is when you're actually playing the game. Thankfully, we don't have much longer to wait, and we should have a review available as soon as Gangstar: Miami Vindication hits the App Store late tomorrow night.

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Earlier this month we took a look at Neuroshima Hex [$2.99], the iPhone adaptation of a strategy-heavy boardgame based in the Neuroshima universe. This game world straddles several sci-fi cliches and includes things like nuclear war, a sentient robotic revolt, mutants, humans doing whatever they can to survive, and even somewhat intelligent carnivorous plant life. Adapted from the tabletop Neuroshima game, Neuroshima Hex features four of the main factions and is fast-paced enough that calling it an "action" board game seems appropriate.

Like many strategy games with unique rulesets, Neuroshima Hex is fairly complicated. Playing the game involves selecting one of the four factions, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, then playing with a 35 tile "deck". Players start by placing their headquarters on the game board, and the rest of the game revolves around attacking the enemy HQ while defending your own utilizing the tiles you draw at the start of your turn. Your deck of tiles consists of three different types, tiles that contain different types of units, modules which buff those units, and instant action tiles that do things like destroy or slide a unit, or even initiate combat.

The issue with all this is that the learning curve of the game is less of a curve and more of a wall, as the developers didn't do much to make the game approachable to newbies aside from including a brief tutorial video. There is a help section in the game, but is isn't convenient at all to refer to while you're actually playing. Once you get a hang of strategically using your hex tiles to attack the opponent as well as deal with their threats on the game board Neuroshima Hex is a lot of fun… But as suggested in the thread in our forums getting there requires reading additional material on the game or even printing out a quick reference guide PDF.

In comparison, Carcassonne [$4.99] features a fully interactive voiced over tutorial that did an absolutely fantastic job at introducing new players to the game. Carcassonne is also host to some great online multiplayer options while Neuroshima Hex only comes with single device multiplayer. Thankfully, the developers have posted in our forums acknowledging these issues and plan on addressing them in the future.

Neuroshima Hex is a fun fast paced strategy game, and if you already know how to play, you'll likely have a great time jumping right in to this iPhone port. If you're intrigued by hex grid strategy games, and this is the first you've heard of Neuroshima Hex, just be aware that you've got quite a bit of work in front of you as you climb the steep learning curve.

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Last week we reported that, thanks to Apple recently relaxing its iOS SDK agreement, Manomio submitted a major 2.0 update of Commodore 64, their C64 emulator / game system, to the App Store with BASIC reenabled (and fingers crossed). We're happy to report that the app has been approved and is now available for download [link].

I had a chat with developer Stuart Carnie yesterday, shortly after he received word from Apple that Commodore 64 v2.0 was approved, during which he shared further details concerning this notable update.

With BASIC back, so too is the full C64 keyboard. Carnie is excited about the prospect of users having full and complete access to every game presented, which, in some games, can only happen when a full keyboard is available. And, while it's here in v2.0, the keyboard hasn't gotten any attention since it was removed back in November and, as such, a near-term update will address the absence of a few missing keys (semi-colon, colon) as well as a lock mode for the RUNSTOP, C=, and SHIFT keys, to use in conjunction with others.

A bit further out will come cycle-exact emulation on newer hardware (ARMv7), to resolve digital sound issues with Space Taxi and enable a few free games from Beam Software, such as Exploding Fist.

We've seen a lot of anticipation from readers for an iPad version of C64, and Carnie tells us that it's big on the roadmap. Thanks to Apple allowing BASIC, he really wants to create a great experience for iPad users wanting to experiment with the language, including a finely tuned keyboard and even Bluetooth support. "Think 'full' C64 experience," says Carnie. Due to Manomio's work on the upcoming Amiga classic titles, these more significant upgrades are slated for release next year — and we can't wait.

As for additional games on the horizon, Carnie was able to reveal that they're in the progress of bringing several more Thalamus titles on-board: Creatures I and II and Retrograde. Also on the way is MYTH: History in the Making from System 3, which requires emulated 1541 floppy drive support and a disk-swapping user interface (which is already in the system).

Thanks to Apple for their relaxed stance on the SDK agreement and thanks to the folks at Manomio for giving retro fans like myself so much sweet candy to enjoy.

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Ending a week loaded with Monkey Island price drops comes The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition [$4.99 / Free] for the iPad. All of the other games are on sale per yesterday's post, but much like Monkey Island 2 for the iPad, the original Monkey Island looks just as awesome.

The premise of the game along with other details are explained in our review:

The game features Guybrush Threepwood, who washes up on the island of Mêlée™ and has high hopes of becoming a pirate. After meeting the pirate leaders in the SCUMM tavern, you're faced with a set of three challenges that involve swordfighting, thievery, and treasure hunting. These goals serve as your initial quests as your adventure begins.

Monkey Island for the iPad comes with the same direct tapping control input method as Monkey Island 2 and really is just a joy to play on the device. The art looks great on the iPad screen, and while the rest of the game is identical to the iPhone version, Monkey Island is a game I can play through over and over again. If you're tired of playing the iPhone game pixel doubled, or have just been waiting for an iPad native version, now is your chance.

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