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Swedish studio Illusion Labs likes to stay on the bleeding edge of new Apple hardware, so it’s no actual surprise to learn that it has already updated three of its games in its current stable for the new iPad’s much higher resolution display. Touchgrind BMX, Foosball HD, and Labyrinth 2 HD have all received the 4X treatment in preparation for the device’s release later this week, and we’ve got the images to prove it.

In the grand tradition of these pre-new iPad posts, we’ll show you the old version and then the new version to get a taste of what’s changed. Illusion seems stoked about the new hardware, too. We wish ours would ship out of Nashville already.

Touchgrind BMX pre-new iPad update

Touchgrind BMX with Retina visuals

Labyrinth 2 HD before the update

Labyrinth 2 HD with Retina visuals

Foosball HD before the Retina update

… and Foosball HD with Retina visuals

Click on, and then zoom in on these images to really see the difference. For the most part, we’re thinking new iPad’s screen won’t be a life-changer for most studios. Good looking games will continue to look good on either device, much like the transition between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.

Studios that want to capitalize on the hardware are more than welcome to do so, of course. We’re ready for the extra layer of fidelity this thing will bring to our world.

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Last fall we took a look at Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion [$4.99 / Lite], and it absolutely knocked our socks off. If you’re into strategy RPGs and have been holding off for any reason, now is the perfect time to jump in. A huge content update just hit that nearly doubles the length of the game, and it brings a few user-friendly features along with it.

The defining feature of Ravenmark may well be its carefully crafted world and the compelling characters that inhabit it. It’s a game you can sink your teeth into, and the characters are worth caring about. The Suneater Campaign, new in this update, brings in a whole new cast and more lore to digest. It turns the story of Ravenmark on its head and brings the perspective around to the nation of Kaysan, formerly the villains of the piece. Rather than defending the lands of Estellion, the new campaign sees players striking out to take their land back from the Empire of the Raven.

The update adds eleven new chapters, bringing the expected length up to somewhere near the 20 hour mark, no small feat. It also mixes up the gameplay, as the swarming Kaysan must use different tactics than the organized armies of Estellion.

There are several other big changes in this update, including iCloud support and a lower difficulty mode. The latter increases the health of player-controlled units, making it a little easier to stomp all over the enemy. There are also new challenges to complete in each chapter for players looking for more difficulty instead of less.

Witching Hour Studios has mentioned two crash bugs that slipped into the Suneaters update. If you get either of them, simply load the chapter you’re trying to access from the Campaigns menu. The studio has already submitted a fix, so you’ll be able to get your epic strategy RPG on without a hitch in no time.

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We were lucky enough to piggy back on the back of the tiny press event at GDC for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, which is this really fabulous remake with a conglomeration of content from the first two Tony Hawk Pro Skater games set to be released sometime this summer as a downloadable title for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Jared and I are massive fans of both Tony Hawk and the Tony Hawk series of games, so we totally fanned out. How hard did we fan out? This hard:

We had a great chat with Tony, and learned that it was actually him that pushed through the iOS port of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 [$1.99] after seeing the original fan video we posted which turned out to be totally real. He’s really excited to potentially see the rest of the Tony Hawk series on iOS devices, but openly admits that at the end of the day it all comes down to Activision. With the success Sega saw with the similar fan-made Sonic CD [$4.99] we’re hoping Activision wakes up and smells the coffee sooner or later that there’s a whole group of gamers out there hungry for these classic THPS games on our iPhones.

And if Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD ever got ported? Jared and I would be in heaven.

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There are many ways to envision Mars. It could be a barren world, perhaps host to life once but certainly no longer. It could be a thing out of science fiction, teeming with hostile life we haven’t yet met. Or it could be the future of our species, our best hope to leave a planet growing ever-smaller.

Tiger Style imagines a future that brings us to Mars to discover the truth. As the developers of Spider, The Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99], the company has a lot to live up to, but they don’t falter. In creating Waking Mars [$4.99], they have crafted another game built around storytelling. It is a brave game, one that is willing to think the best of us: that we could discover new life and seek to learn from it, not exploit it.

Liang, the star of the piece, is a Chinese astrobiologist who is part of a tiny team responsible for researching the red planet. This is done from a safe distance, with the help of rovers and computers. When the rover goes missing, it’s up to Liang to recover it.

This means descending into Lethe Cavern, a Martian cave system that has only barely been explored. What should be a brief jetpack jaunt becomes an incredible journey. Liang encounters the Zoa, and begins to bring Mars to life.

The Zoa are Martian lifeforms, essentially plants. Tiger Style has researched and weighed every aspect of the Zoa ecosystem: each plant has its own dietary needs, soil pH requirements, vulnerabilities and biomass. Each contributes to the system in some way: one’s seeds feed another, one releases spores that prepare the soil of others, one predatorily dines on lesser types. A careful balance is required at all times.

The caverns are protected by cerebranes, Zoa that react to nearby biomass. Just as many plants need to be pollinated or processed by other species to reproduce, the Zoa need Liang’s help, and the cerebranes ensure he must give it. By raising the biomass in each cave, he can keep progressing deeper.

In practice, this means collecting seeds and planting them appropriately. ART, Liang’s A.I. companion, keeps track of biomass, tracking it with a five star system. Three is often enough to pass through a cavern, but five is better for reasons that will become clear as you play.

As Liang travels deeper into the caves, a larger story unfolds. It’s the story of the Zoa, and of Mars. It is not the story of Liang. He is stoic, quiet. He rarely discusses his own experiences. He is here to learn, to explore, and to complete his mission.

Aside from ART’s occasional interjections, Liang has one more companion: Amani. She stays back at Base Camp, reaching out to Liang with encouragement and information.

If I have one complaint about Waking Mars, it is this: Amani’s portraits don’t feel appropriate. Where the art is otherwise excellent, Amani’s is bold and out of place. Her portraits look a little too much like a series of stock photos. This is a small problem, but a jarring one.

But Amani herself is a welcome distraction. Early in the game, ART and Amani interrupt Liang’s journey near-constantly, walking him through all the basics. As time passes, they pop in less and less. The solitude of the caverns is a wonderful thing, enhanced by the game’s gorgeous soundtrack, but it’s also lonely in there, deep below the surface of Mars. On those occasions when Amani’s signals break through, it usually begins a much-needed moment of human connection.

Otherwise, Liang is alone with the Zoa, working to build enough biomass to continue his journey. Each discovery he makes is noted in a research journal, each cave he visits is marked on a map. The only thing left to remember is the composition of each cave. At first, resources are plentiful. Later, you’ll need to revisit caves to find the seeds you need. 

Waking Mars is never truly difficult. Some of the Zoa are carnivorous and must be avoided, but there’s no real penalty to letting Liang’s health drop. Similarly, some of the Zoa are very vulnerable, and can be killed. Keeping them alive is rarely completely necessary, however, as most caverns can eventually be brute-forced into growing sufficiently with enough persistence.

In place of difficulty, Waking Mars has intelligence. A clever game, it pushes players to contemplate its mysteries while they solve its smaller puzzles of ecosystem and biomass. Most of your questions will be answered by the time the curtain falls; in fact, I’d consider this one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I’ve had on this platform. Most of that satisfaction is down to the story and its presentation.

In the end, you’ll be left to decide the fate of the Zoa. Though the story can play out in multiple ways, there isn’t a wrong answer among them. You can always reload your final save to try things out differently. This is a blessing, one that lets you find every answer before putting the game down for the last time. This isn’t a game that will stand up to being replayed for most people, but at 6 to 10 hours it should provide entertainment enough.

Waking Mars has everything: a compelling story, beautiful environments, a gorgeous soundtrack and gameplay worth playing. Though it is, in some ways, less risky than Tiger Style’s last game (though I’d argue a game about a Chinese astrobiologist studying Martian botany is not completely risk free), it’s a worthy successor. Spider was an amazing experiment in storytelling; Waking Mars raises the bar on quality in long-form iOS games. Neither should be missed under any circumstances. Get this game. Whether you adore it as I do or not, it’s worth experiencing.

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Prepare for a new, much more modern version of Myst [$4.99 / Lite] to hit this spring. Earlier this morning, we caught an awesome video from Cyan Worlds demonstrating the first footage of its next release, “RealMyst.” In brief, it’s a fully 3D, real-time version of the title being made exclusively for iPad 2. The version of Myst currently on the App Store is a straight-up port of the original title, which only sports static images and some pretty limited navigation. Back when Myst first hit, it’d take a supercomputer to render to do what this newer version is doing, and it’s coming to a device that fits in our laps.

In the below, you’ll notice some improvements. The lighting model seems better, as well as the texture filtering and all of that kind of jazz. We’re stoked, though also a bit frightened by the prospect of getting stuck in Myst all over again. What was the formula for the circuit breaker puzzle again?

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One of Apple’s more “magical” features in the past year is AirPlay, which allows you to stream the screen from  your iPhone 4S or iPad 2 wirelessly to an Apple TV and right onto your HDTV. Soon, the new OS X Mountain Lion will allow you to do the same thing with your Mac, beaming whatever is on its screen to your TV wirelessly. In terms of gaming, AirPlay offers an additional avenue for playing iOS games – wirelessly on the living room TV – and some titles like Real Racing 2 HD have taken it a step further and offer a custom interface or additional features for playing the game that way.

While Apple has made it incredibly easy to beam the latest iOS devices to a television, and soon will be able to beam a Mac to a television, it’s strange that there’s not also the ability to stream an iOS device right onto a Mac. Someone else must have thought that was strange too, as there is now a new Mac app called Reflection that allows you to do just that. Streaming to a Mac using the Reflection app is just as simple as streaming to a television with an Apple TV. Just run the program on your Mac, and choose the AirPlay option on your iPhone 4S or iPad 2 and just like that it’s on your computer screen.

This sort of functionality has all types of useful applications, but the first thing on my mind was how well games would play using Reflection. For the most part it works pretty good, and it will largely depend on which game you’re playing whether you have a good experience or not. This is mostly due to the slight lag that is present when using Reflection, where your actions on your iOS device translate to your Mac just a tad off from real time. This tad can make a big difference in games that require precise and timely touches, and I shudder to think of playing something like Beat Sneak Bandit with that slight delay.

For lots of games that lag won’t matter though, and it is pretty cool playing iOS games on my MacBook Pro. Another thing I noticed is that the frame rate in Reflection isn’t as smooth as what’s on the actual device, but it isn’t terribly noticeable. Reflection also comes with the options to view the game in an iPhone or iPad frame, much like the simulator in the iOS SDK, or play in frameless or full screen modes. Reflection reacts accordingly when changing your device’s orientation, and you can lock it in either portrait or landscape if need be.

Reflection is a neat piece of technology, I can see it being incredibly useful to some. But for gaming it feels more like a novelty due to the sluggishness of the performance, but it’s still pretty neat and I think that performance will improve over time. If you own a Mac, you can grab a trial version of Reflection for free to test it out. It gives you just 10 minutes of time per day to mess around with it, but that’s enough to see how it works and decide if it’s something worth buying. If you do, the full version of Reflection will set you back $14.99 for a single license.

Product Website Link: Reflection App, $14.99 / Free Trial

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Lost Mars, or as its known now, Waking Mars, is on its way to iPad and iPhone this March 1, and will hit at an agreeable $4.99. That’s kinda old news, but no worries. We’ve got something a little fresher to share today: the game’s expertly produced teaser trailer, which, conveniently, does more than stoke your fire. It also shows off what developer Tiger Style’s Metroid-ish game is all about.

About that name change, by the way. According to Tiger Style’s blog, Tiger Style got a little worried about a trademark dispute, so decided to switch from Lost Mars to a name that it could totally own. We would have went with Martha Mars, but hey, we’re not in the titling business for a reason, we suppose.

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Buying an episodic game is equal parts gambling and Kickstarting. “Moai Better Blues [$4.99],” the second game in Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space, takes place right after the delightful “Ice Station Santa [$4.99],” which means the entire series is meant to be taken as a whole. Telltale is banking on its audience’s willingness to buy every episode, hoping that they feel invested enough in the series’ overarching framework to not skip episode two, even though it’s weaker than the first.

“Moai Better Blues” is still a good iOS port, and the presentation, stability, and touch implementation that made the first episode so successful are still featured. Unfortunately, the clunky, tepid mini-games from ”Ice Station Santa” also return to the fold.

Like “Ice Station,” “Moai” requires a certain amount of preternatural gymnastics: the Freelance Police travel through the Bermuda Triangle to Easter Island, where they’re tasked with appeasing a vengeful, volcanic deity. It’s silly, sure, but it suits Sam & Max’s particular brand of clunky, in-game logic.

The beauty of Sam & Max, though, is that this logic rarely feels unfair or internally inconsistent: “Moai” is a classic inventory-management type of point-and-click adventure, but all of the puzzle solutions are backed up diegetically by conversations with other characters.  If you pay attention, “Moai Better Blues” is more than happy to tell you the solution to each puzzle.

This dovetails nicely with Telltale’s efficient use of space, as each area is densely packed with items and off-hand bits of dialogue. Interacting with items and gathering clues is vital to Sam & Max, which creates a sort of self-sustaining momentum: the puzzles force players to search for clues, experiment with items, and talk to people, which in turn reveals the world’s humor and charm. As a result, “Moai”’s Easter Island feels vibrant and well-realized, even though it consists of only five or six screens.

If “Moai” exceeds “Ice Station” at all, it’s that it, mercifully, keeps aimless wandering and backtracking to a minimum. The Bermuda Triangle allows Sam and Max to travel freely between their office and Easter Island, but “Moai Better Blues” is pared down and focused enough that most most of the game is self-contained on the island.

Nevertheless, whereas “Ice Station” was particularly good at allowing players to chart each puzzle to its conclusion, “Moai” trends toward murkiness.I found myself solving puzzles in “Moai Better Blues” simply because they were there, waiting to be tinkered with, but not because I could tell how they would help me in the larger scheme of things. In “Ice Station,” each puzzle has an obvious context in the game as a whole; “Moai” often lacks this context. This might not a problem per se — design by tautology has been a genre staple for a long time by now — but “Ice Station Santa” was refreshing in its clarity, and “Moai Better Blues” is much less explicit in its expectations.

The game’s middle section may stumble about, but its climax is deft: the identity of “Moai”’s volcano-deity antagonist is a perfect marriage of Steve Purcell’s surrealist vision and his acknowledgment that Sam & Max fans need to feel that each episode is connected for the series to work. I don’t want to spoil the big reveal, and it’s a terrible shame that “Moai” deflates all that good will with a particularly boring final puzzle. “Boss fight” puzzles have become a staple of the episodic Sam & Max games, but “Moai”’s finally is derivative, logically obtuse, and awkwardly executed.

“Moai Better Blues” skates by on its pedigree and the humor and charm of Purcell’s vision, and its simplistic final puzzle does little to inspire confidence for the inevitable release of episode 3, “Night of the Raving Dead.” Still, Telltale are skilled craftsmen, and they’ve been refining Sam & Max’s episodic content for a whopping seven years by now — even at its worst, it’s hard to go wrong with “Moai Better Blues.”

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Besides Illusion Labs’ Touchgrind [$4.99/HD] and a fairly solid port of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 [99¢], the skateboarding genre hasn’t seen a whole lot of love on the App Store. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some decent skateboarding games released, but nothing that ever felt like it gave you a full on experience like what you would be able to get on a home console. Jet Car Stunts [$1.99/Lite] developer True Axis is hoping to change that with there just-announced True Skate game which is heading to the App Store soon. Check out the first rendered artwork for True Skate below.

There aren’t a lot of details for True Skate just yet, but True Axis explains that the game is similar to Touchgrind but uses a pulled back perspective so you can actually see where you’re going. I love Touchgrind a lot, but its strictly top-down perspective made it pretty awkward to effectively put together strings of tricks or adequately aim for the various obstacles in the skate park. True Skate is also said to boast more realistic physics, and should be “much easier” to pull off lots of different tricks, according to True Axis.

True Skate will launch with the one level which you can see in the screens above, presumably with more planned for future updates. It will be coming out later this year for “cheap” on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. We’re extremely eager to check it out and will have some more details soon, and until then you can check out some discussion of True Skate in our forums.

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