TouchArcade.ru

Back at GDC we sat down with the guys from 99 Games who showed us an early build of The Jim and Frank Mysteries – The Blood River Files [99¢] which has since been picked up by Chillingo and arrived on the App Store. If you've played a Professor Layton game on the Nintendo DS before, The Jim and Frank Mysteries is a shockingly competent Layton lookalike with the professor and his sidekick Luke replaced by Jim and Frank, a team of teenage boys sent off on a quest by their grandfather as part of an odd 15th birthday celebration ritual.

Gameplay is identical to that of the Layton games in that Jim and Frank set out on a strange adventure, moving from screen to screen, talking to the various inhabitants of the game world, and solving 60 unique puzzles. Instead of the "hint coins" found in Professor Layton, Jim and Frank have "eurekas" which are similarly hidden in the game world and are collected by tapping on them. These eurekas are used as an in-game currency of sorts, which explains why Jim and Frank's adventure only costs a buck.

If you get stuck on a puzzle, you're able to unlock hints which will only cost you one of your eurekas for the first hint, and an additional eureka for the second. If you're still stumped, you can skip a puzzle entirely at the cost of many more eurekas. Of the two puzzles I've tried to skip, the first one would cost 15 with 20 required to skip the second. Aside from finding them in the game world, eurekas are currently available as an in-app purchase with 30 for 99¢, 75 for $1.99, and 120 for $2.99. Of course, if you're good at puzzle games, these are entirely optional and you could complete the entire game without burning a single eureka.

The included puzzles are your standard array of math and logic puzzles which you've undoubtedly encountered before somewhere, either in various childhood brain teaser books, similar video games, and other places. Old standbys such as figuring out how to separate liquid to a certain amount using three differently sized containers, sliding puzzles of all types, mazes, map puzzles, and others are all there. I've yet to come across a puzzle type that felt unique to this game, but as a veteran of the Layton series, that doesn't come as much of a surprise.

Mixed amongst the puzzles are several different mini games. For instance, the first one begins when you come across a creepy old man in the middle of the woods who needs help chopping wood. Naturally, this team of teenage boys fulfill the old man's desires and begin chopping away in a reaction-based mini game where you tap the screen to chop as a log scrolls from right to left. These mini games are fairly simple, but serve to offer an even wider variety to the things Jim and Frank will need to do on their adventure.

Jim and Frank includes some limited voice overs, which take over during important parts of the game. The whole beginning of your adventure is narrated, and as far as iPhone game voice work is concerned, it really isn't half bad. The story is silly as you would expect, with dialog that often left me raising an eyebrow. When we talked to 99 Games back at GDC, they seemed excited for the Jim and Frank Mysteries to continue past this first installment, so with any luck there will be many more mysteries for the teenage duo to unravel in the future.

Regardless of how you feel about the incredible similarities between The Jim and Frank Mysteries and Professor Layton games, we'll likely never see Layton on the iPhone, so a highly "inspired" game is just as good in my book. The amount of content included in Jim and Frank borders on ridiculous at its current launch price of a dollar. With hours and hours of gameplay (99 Games claims over 20), 60 puzzles, 8 mini games, and a cast of nearly 30 characters, this isn't a game you should miss.

Sure, it would be easy to get wound up over the in app purchases to buy eurekas, but these are entirely optional especially since it wouldn't surprise me if the Jim and Frank thread on our forums quickly turned in to a great place to go for when you get stuck in game.

[source]

Few games inspire more heartfelt nostalgia than the classic LucasArts adventure games of the late 80's and early 90's. While we've still got our fingers and toes crossed that we'll eventually see similar "special edition" treatments to Maniac Mansion and/or Day of the Tentacle, we couldn't be happier that the Monkey Island series is being re-released with the level of intimate care that we've seen so far both with the previously released The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition [$7.99 / Free], and Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge [iPhone: $7.99 / Free - iPad: $9.99 / Free] which just hit the App Store mere moments ago.

Monkey Island 2 takes place after the events of the first Monkey Island where wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood is introduced and meets the cast of characters included in the game as he seeks out the pirate leaders and attempts to prove himself through three challenges. A ghost pirate named LeChuck is thrown in to the mix, along with the beautiful Elaine Marley. Without spoiling too much, the game concludes with romance, root beer, and fireworks. Even though playing the original is by no means required to enjoy the sequel, Monkey Island is filled with great writing, silly characters, funny situations, and often extremely odd solutions to the problems that Guybrush must overcome which is really worth checking out– Especially considering the fantastic job LucasArts did on the iPhone port of the special edition release.

Monkey Island 2 opens with our familiar protagonist Guybrush Threepwood setting the scene for his next adventure. Now that LeChuck is no more, he decides to search for the treasure of "Big Whoop", and in typical Guybrush fashion, he has no idea where it is, has no way to get there, and doesn't really know if it even exists at all. Regardless, this hasn't stopped him in the past, and it certainly won't stop him now. Of course no LucasArts adventure game could ever be as straight forward as finding out where some treasure is, figuring out a way to get there, then digging it up, and it doesn't take long before you're toe to toe with Largo LaGrande, LeChuck's old henchman. One thing leads to another, and LeChuck returns, turning your simple treasure hunt in to yet another epic battle with the ghost (now zombie) pirate.

With a development team that was nearly identical to that of the original Secret of Monkey Island, the sequel shares all of the same fantastic writing and cartoonish charm. Monkey Island 2 is hilarious at times, and incredibly cheesy at others, but manages to maintain a highly entertaining witty atmosphere the whole way through. The port of the original to the iPhone was a load of fun, with the only real complaint being the control system which treated the touchscreen like a trackpad which you used to move the in-game cursor around. Thankfully, this has been replaced by a new default control scheme in the sequel which works like many other iPhone adventures games where you just touch areas in the game world that you want to move to, or objects you want to interact with.

Interactive objects highlighted on right.

The special edition of Monkey Island 2 also has several other refinements over the first, my personal favorite being the highlighting system that shows you objects and areas that you can interact with. Tapping the screen with two fingers makes everything interactive glow, easily allowing you to see things you've missed, or other things to try. This is an incredibly welcome change from the standard tap/click on absolutely everything once you get stuck in an area. This two finger tap also illuminates doors you can walk through, making it very easy to see where you're able to go so you don't miss anything on your journey.

If you do get stuck, Monkey Island 2 features the same great hint system found in the original where you can get hints which initially start out extremely vague to push you in the right direction which eventually ramp up to flat out telling you where to go and what to do. Having played quite a few classic adventure game ports on the iPhone, this really is the best approach as you never need to leave the game to check a walkthrough online, and it's usually much more fun to just get a small hint to send you in the right direction instead of just reading exactly what to do. (Of course, that's there if you need it.)

iPad top, iPhone bottom – Comparing both graphical styles.

Monkey Island 2 also has the incredibly superfluous yet amazingly cool classic graphics included which blew out mind when we first saw the previous special edition. By default you can play the game with its redone graphics, stellar voiceovers, and the toolbar of actions that Guybrush is capable of. Swiping two fingers across the screen causes the game to fade out in to its original pixelated glory with the top half of the screen displaying the original game with the set of actions below.

Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge launched with separate iPad and iPhone versions of the game, and while I would have loved there to be one universal version for both devices, the iPad game is definitely the one to have. Not only does it have the same adventure from its iPhone counterpart, but currently for an additional two bucks (assuming you own an iPad) you get high resolution graphics and audio commentary. On quite a few areas of the game, you're able to tap a microphone icon in the top right corner and listen to the creators talk about wherever you are in game. It's not exactly a killer feature that's worth getting upset over if you only have an iPhone or iPod touch, but it is a nice addition.

The one thing that is a bit of a disappointment is that LucasArts flaunts these fantastic looking high resolution art assets in the iPad version, but played on my iPhone 4, the iPhone version is disappointingly low resolution in comparison. It still looks good, but I would have loved to have seen some Retina Display support in Monkey Island 2, I'm hopeful for future updates that might beef up the graphics, but it seems doubtful that audio commentary will ever make its way to the iPhone.

I could go on and on about how great the Monkey Island series is, how wonderful any game build on the SCUMM engine is, and the genius of the original creators Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, and Dave Grossman, but really this is just a game you need to play. LucasArts is covering all its bases with this launch, with free lites corresponding to both the full iPhone or iPad versions. If you've never played an adventure game before, I can't think of a better place to start. The Monkey Island series is great, and the few minor refinements added to the sequel makes this one of the most accessible point and click (point and tap?) games on the App Store. Download the lite version and give it a try, if the game hooks you in, chances are you will enjoy the entirety of both Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2.

On the other hand, if you're ever played a Monkey Island game before, I doubt you even made it this far in this review before just clicking the first iTunes link you could find and downloading the game for whatever device you own.

[source]

One of our favorite games of April went free today, Babylonian Twins [Free], while its HD iPad counterpart, Babylonian Twins HD [$1.99] saw a price drop to $1.99. Regardless of which version you get, both are a lot of fun and the game has an amazingly interesting history involving extraordinary conditions during its development in Iraq with economic sanctions preventing its initial release.

As the title would hint, in Babylonian Twins you play as a set of Babylonian twins, with each twin having their own abilities which must be cleverly combined to complete levels. Gameplay is very similar to that of the classic Blizzard game The Lost Vikings, with only one twin able to be controlled at once. We loved how this gameplay mechanic was combined with challenging, well designed levels in our review:

These simple gameplay features form the premise for some of the most interesting and expansive level designs that we have seen to date on the platform. In many ways, Babylonian Twins does away with contemporary trends in gaming, and re-instates the old-school values of a challenging, explorative platformer that refuses to hold you by the hand. There are no directional arrows or maps to point you towards the golden palm trees you must collect each level. In fact, even crucial objects such as the aforementioned broken walls and floors are easily missed unless you're paying attention. And each level is enormous– an adventure in and of itself– many of our completion times clocking in at around 30 minutes each.

The iPad version of the game plays the same, with higher quality graphics as is the case with most "HD" releases. Give the iPhone version a try, and if you like it and own an iPad, Babylonian Twins HD is well worth the two bucks. Regardless of whether or not you pick up the iPad version while it's on sale, Babylonian Twins for the iPhone is a game everyone should download to try out while it's free.

[source]

Every now and then the App Store divulges something that actually surprises me; a previously unheard of game design that sinks its claws into me before I even know it. From its outward appearance, Doodle God [App Store] seems less of a game and more of a periodic table gone wrong, an experiment only of interest to scientists of questionable sanity. It's not until you experience it for yourself that you realise the true genius behind Doodle God's alluring gameplay.

The premise starts off simple: combine the four basic elements of earth, fire, water and air to create 140 objects (referred to within as elements, but not strictly so) in the world around us. Your job is to find the specific combination of two individual elements, or by-products of elements, or by-products of by-products, et cetera; to do so.

And elements don't always bond as you believe they should; the developers employ a far more abstract thought process than a logical one in creating the Doodle God universe. So while combining earth and fire to create lava might be logical, the combination of fire and water into alcohol requires a greater stretch (and that is a tame example). Dare I say it, but God knows what needs to be added together to create a Wizard, of all things.

The end result is that what seems like a relaxing, thought provoking experience, is instead a manic adventure of 'out of the box' thinking, with many results and accidental discoveries evoking laughter just as often as they do sighs of relief as a piece of the puzzle is secured. Because while Doodle God doesn't impose any time constraints on your discovery process, it will test the limits of your imagination and patience.

Elements are neatly categorised into 15 groups that are only made available when they are discovered. Pressing a group will open its list of elements to select from, displaying the groups again on the left of the screen. Selecting one of these groups will in turn display its list of available elements on the left. Choosing two elements from the selected groups will then attempt to fuse them together (if possible).

A successful bonding results in either a quirky or philosophical quote concerning the resulting reaction. Of course, chances are your selection won't succeed (there are literally thousands of possible combinations, after all) and that's where Doodle God's nifty hint system comes to the rescue. Hints are doled out on a timer, so you never feel too bad resorting to that oft-needed light bulb. They take two forms; either showing a feasible byproduct to work towards, or showing two possible groups that have an available reaction.

If I had to put my finger on what specifically appeals to me about Doodle God, it would have to be that insatiable 'just one more go' pull, with the knowledge that some other inane discovery is just around the corner.

If you're open to a new gameplay experience and not liable to just throw out a crazy concept from the get-go, then I recommend giving Doddle God a whirl. An online flash version is available to try first. And let your friends and family in on it too– you won't be short a laugh or two, that's for sure.

[source]

Per a recent posting on the Myst forums, Myst [$4.99 / Free] just had an update submitted to Apple to add iOS 4 compatibility. Interestingly enough, also mentioned in the same thread by Cyan employee Chogon is the fact that yet another Cyan classic is coming to the App Store: The Manhole.

The Manhole is a children's adventure game written by Rand and Robyn Miller, founders of Cyan (and creators of Myst). It was developed for the early Macintosh using Apple's HyperCard, one of the first available hypermedia authoring systems. The game was Cyan's first release and was published on floppy disk in 1988. In The Manhole, you open a manhole revealing a giant beanstalk which can either be climbed up or down with no real objective other than to simply explore the game world and have fun. The Manhole has since been re-released in a number of forms on various platforms, including Brøderbund's 1995 re-release, The Manhole: CD-ROM Masterpiece Edition, and its release on GameTap in 2007. According to Cyan, the graphics in the iPhone version of The Manhole have been enhanced even further than the Masterpiece Edition.

Per Chogon's post on the Myst forums, The Manhole was submitted on June 30th, so barring any issues it should hopefully appear on the App Store sometime next week. While I'm sure quite a few people have never heard of The Manhole before, I expect this announcement will be a delightful blast from the past for some.

[source]

The endless high score game is a popular genre in the App Store, as Doodle Jump and it's 5 million downloads will attest to. One of the more recent titles to catch our eye is Oddy Smog's Misadventure by two-man developer Medusa. At first glance you might just dismiss Oddy Smog as a clone of Glu Mobile's Jump O'Clock, and while true they share similarities at the very basic level Oddy Smog offers a pretty different experience that we're finding hard to put down.

Oddy is just a small bit of a much larger mass of smog working it's way upward to expel out of the machine that created it. He decides that he doesn't want to be a part of this pollution any longer, and so breaks out on his own ahead of the rest of the smog. He must use the different gears inside the vent to propel himself upwards faster than the mass can follow him, and one wrong move will engulf him back in the dirty blackness from which he came. It's a charming premise with equally charming graphics and music to accompany it. The vent you travel up is rendered in 3D giving it some depth, and Oddy himself is a billowing, lively little puff of smog that manages to have a lot of personality for being essentially a black circle with eyes. There's just something endearing about Oddy, and you find yourself rooting for him to escape his smoggy pursuer.

Holding the right side of the screen latches Oddy onto a gear he comes into contact with, and letting go launches him using the spinning gear's inertia. You don't shoot straight off the gear like you would in Dizzypad for example, and this aspect takes a bit of getting used to when you first start playing the game. Touching the left side of the screen makes Oddy jump in midair, and you can only jump once between touching either gears or the walls of the vent. If you do launch yourself into the wall, Oddy will climb a short distance and then jump off by himself and from there you can latch onto another gear or perform a midair jump to get where you need to go. Occasionally another errant smog blob like Oddy will be chained to the wall and if you jump into these guys you can release them. This acts as the score multiplier, and will multiply your total height by the number of prisoners you catch.

There are different types of gears to latch onto, some can only be grabbed for a short period forcing you to act quickly, and others will propel you high into the air letting you easily cover a good stretch of distance. Other special items do similar things, like a spaceship or teleportation pod that will advance Oddy for you. All these game elements combine to make for a really engaging experience. It's a great feeling to quickly hit a series of gears or narrowly escape the impending doom of the approaching smog, and the risk/reward aspect of trying to free prisoners adds a lot to the formula. There's some hints that this might not be such an 'endless' game, and that there's the possibility of Oddy actually escaping the vent, although I have yet to make it that far.

A couple of small gripes about the game are present, and the most notable is the lack of high score tracking. A game like this is just meant for such a thing, although the ability to post your scores to Twitter helps somewhat. The dev has conceded in the game's forum thread that this is due to waiting and seeing how Apple's Game Center will turn out, and likely a social platform of some type will be added down the line. Another problem I had was due to the random generation of the level, and every so often a section would be too barren for me to latch onto any gears and I'd helplessly fall back into the pursuing smog. Finally, there's no screen flip option which can be pretty annoying for a game that encourages the use of headphones. None of these issues should deter anyone from trying Oddy Smog's Misadventure, and for randomly generated high score game enthusiasts this is one that's not to be missed.

[source]

If our App Store Gaming Guide that we posted yesterday wasn't a big enough list of awesome games worth checking out on your new iPhone 4, it would appear Apple has thrown their own hat in to the game listing ring with their The Best Games You've Never Played list.

50 games are included in said list, and while they cover quite a bit of games that we hit in ours, there are quite a few games we left out. Here are just a handful of the games from the Apple list that we think are worth checking out that we haven't already mentioned in either the recent App Store gaming guide or our 2009 buyer's guide:

Critter Crunch – This game was released all the way back in 2008, and I only discovered it recently as it's made by some of the same guys behind Sword & Sworcery. Critter Crunch reminds me of classic Neo Geo stacking puzzle games, and gameplay amounts to feeding smaller critters to larger critters to score massive combos and clear the game board. (Review, App Store)

Dungeon Scroll – Developed by the same person responsible for the classic BBS game Legend of the Red Dragon, Dungeon Scroll is a marvelous twist on word finding games. In the game, you crawl through dungeons fighting monsters by casting spells. The strength of the spell you cast is directly related to the word you spell from your random tiles, creating an awesome amount of strategy as you save big words for tougher enemies and work out smaller words for weaker ones. (Review, App Store)

HECTOR: Badge of Carnage Ep1 – This point and click (point and tap?) adventure game really pushes the boundaries of the App Store approval process. Filled with dirty humor and raunchy references, Hector won't take you more than a few hours to beat… But those few hours will be amazing. (Review, App Store)

Pix'n Love Rush – I really don't think this game could come packed with any more stylized pixel art. With graphical themes ranging from the classic Gameboy to the Virtual Boy that change on the fly depending on your performance in the game, Pix'n Love Rush is a high scoring game that not only looks great, but is really hard to put down once you get going. (Review, App Store)

Robot Unicorn Attack – An iPhone port of Adult Swim's extremely popular free Flash game, Robot Unicorn Attack preserves everything from the original, including the fantastic Erasure soundtrack. If you like survival platformers, you need to at least give the Flash version a spin. (Review, App Store)

These are just five of the fifty games included in Apple's listing, so be sure to load that up in iTunes and give it a peek if none of these games suit your fancy.

[source]

If you're one of the lucky ones you managed to secure themselves an iPhone 4 today (or even the past two days if you're really lucky) you've no doubt marveled at how thin it is, how crisp the Retina Display is, and maybe you've even found someone else to do a FaceTime call with… but what about loading it up with some games? Since we haven't gotten our own iPhone 4's yet, we haven't really been able to put together a "games that are really awesome on the iPhone 4" listing, but I figured we'd start out by compiling a list of some of our favorite games in the App Store.

If you think this looks a lot like our 2009 Buyer's Guide, that's because it does. However, we've updated the list with some of our recent favorites and kept some of the old ones. In the interest of space, we had to drop many off the list, but that doesn't reflect the quality of those games. If you're looking for more suggestions, please check out the 2009 Buyer's Guide for additional titles we also loved.

If you want to play games on your new iPhone, you're in for a treat.

iPhone Classics

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor – We choose Tiger Style Games' Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor for our 2009 Game of the Year first and foremost because it's a great game, but also because it perfectly represents the promise of iPhone gaming. Spider is an original concept built specifically for the iPhone by a small self funded team. It's this low barrier to entry which provides customers with a huge selection of games including unique and polished gems like Spider. You really should experience this one. (Review, App Store)

Doodle Jump – While we have to give props to PapiJump as the clear inspiration for Doodle Jump, Lima Sky has managed to take the game to a whole new level and succeeded in creating a true iPhone classic. Doodle Jump has sold over a million copies to date and even been casually referenced on primetime TV sitcoms. Every day we hear from up and coming developers who claim they have come up with "the next Doodle Jump" but so far Lima Sky's title hasn't truly been dethroned. (Review, App Store)

Flight Control – Another iPhone game that will go down in history as one of the classics for the platform. Firemint's CEO Rob Murray took some of his free time during last year's Christmas break to whip up a prototype of a game that eventually became Flight Control. The game has single handedly defined a genre on the iPhone of "line drawing" games and has been endlessly imitated. Flight Control is also one of the few games available at the iPhone 4 launch with high-resolution graphics for the Retina Display. (Review, App Store)

Fieldrunners – One of the original tower defense games on the iPhone, and still the best according to many. Fieldrunners was named one of Time Magazine's Top 10 video games of the year in 2008, and since then the game has seen updates adding OpenFeint support as well as additional maps. (Review, App Store)

Angry Birds – We really liked Angry Birds when it was first released, since then it has become a complete App Store sensation with amazing staying power near the top of the top 10 paid app listing. In the game you fling an array of angry birds with different abilities at pigs. Of course it isn't that easy, as the pigs have fortified themselves in makeshift forts. Angry Birds has seen many updates, and now comes loaded with a surprising amount of levels to play through. (Review, App Store)

Only on iPhone

Zen Bound – Ok, technically this started life as a PC Game, but Zen Bound didn't really come into its own until it became an iPhone game in 2009. The game just came to life on the iPhone with multi-touch and tilt controls along with mood and music to perfectly and completely engross you as a player. An experience as much as a game. (Review, App Store)

Eliss – A multi-touch masterpiece. Eliss delivers a unique, challenging and undeniably iPhone experience. Pinching and combining on-screen planets without letting them touch make for some frantic and riveting gameplay. (Review, App Store)

Sway – The unique multi-touch "swinging" controls of Sway may have ultimately been its downfall. If you can master the steep learning curve of the game's controls, an amazing iPhone platforming experience awaits. (Review, App Store)

Space Ninja – A great use of the iPhone's accelerometer that allows you to dodge enemy fire and invoke slow motion "bullet time". Since its original release, 3GS enhancements have been added as well as a new "magnet fluxor" that allows your ship to briefly repel bullets. (Review, App Store)

Arcade

Tilt to Live – Tilt to Live is a game that draws you in with its edgy personality and inescapable 'just one more go' gameplay. It is gorgeously crafted and presented and has a wicked sense of humor to boot (just take a look at the loading screens to see what I mean). Completing its challenges and unlocking weapons has the added benefit of enabling you to achieve even higher scores and multipliers, meaning even those not normally counting themselves as completionists may be eager to experience the width and breadth of what Tilt to Live has to offer. An update added two new game modes since its initial release, making a great game even better. (Review, App Store)

Espgaluda II – Bullet hell at its best on the iPhone. Even not being a huge fan of the genre, we fell quick and hard in love with Espgaluda II. It is the best 2D shooter experience in the App Store with great touch controls. Note: It will only run on the latest generation devices. (Review, App Store: iPhone 3GS, 3rd Gen iPod Touch, or pixel-doubled on iPad)

Cubed Rally Racer – This fantastic racing game features retro-inspired 3D graphics and completely randomized tracks which range from a walk in the park to iPhone-smashingly difficult. If you were a fan of RC Pro Am back in the day, pick this one up. (Review, App Store)

Platformer

Babylonian Twins – Sixteen years in the making, Babylonian Twins delivers an amazingly challenging yet satisfying iPhone and iPad puzzle platformer. In many modern platformers, I've felt like I'm just mindlessly going through the motions to make it to the end of each level. Babylonian Twins, however, really keeps you enthralled throughout. (Review, App Store: iPhone, iPad)

Super QuickHook – A sequel of sorts to Hook Champ, Super QuickHook utilizes a similar swinging mechanic with updated "16 bit" graphics and a brand new completely randomized survival mode. If you love this one, don't miss out on the original Hook Champ (Review, App Store)

Retro Games

Karate Champ – Revolutionary Concepts' iPhone conversion is done superbly. The dual-stick control mechanism is handled via on-screen joysticks which, while no match for physical controls, work rather well. As far as I can see, aside from the necessary control alterations for the iPhone's touch screen, Karate Champ for the iPhone is a perfect conversion. (Review, App Store)

Broken Sword – The remake of this 1996 point and click adventure was wonderfully brought to the iPhone. The story and all around high-quality production values of Broken Sword sucked us in. Whether you're an old fan of the original game, a newcomer to the series, or even someone who's never played a point-and-click adventure before, Broken Sword is a game with mass appeal that will draw you in. (Review, App Store)

Racing / Driving

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars – A great adaptation of a DS/PSP game, Chinatown Wars offers a level of depth rarely seen on the App Store. If you complete everything in game, playtime will need to be measured in days, not hours. The weapon targeting system can use improvement, but barely detracts from an otherwise phenomenal game. (Review, App Store)

Jet Car Stunts – A remarkably fun jet car racer/platformer that had us coming back again and again due to its great controls, fresh visual style and mind boggling levels. The only real complaint we've seen voiced has been the relative difficulty of the game, but, honestly, that's what made it so addicting. (Review, App Store)

Real Racing – Perhaps we should have categorized this as a "classic", but Real Racing was the first iPhone racing game that really blew us away. The great graphics, perfect controls and AI all combined to make this one of the best iPhone racing games that still holds up today. Like Firemint's other game, Flight Control, Real Racing also has been recently updated with high resolution graphics for the iPhone 4's Retina Display. (Review, App Store)

Casual

Fruit Ninja – This oddly popular game puts players to the task of slicing all kinds of fruit that is thrown up from the bottom of the screen. Swiping with your finger controls your virtual sword, and combos are awarded based on how many fruit you can slice in one swipe… Just look out for bombs. (Review, App Store)

Canabalt – This isn't a particularly deep game. In fact, the average gaming session is probably measured in seconds rather than minutes. But with its simplicity and style, it managed to keep us coming back again and again. You can try out the identical Flash version for free at Canabalt.com. (Review, App Store)

Boost 3D – We might not have been too over the top about the game when we first reviewed it, but over time we realized that Boost 3D is a game that we love to play. There's something hypnotic about this tunnel runner that had us coming back to play it again and again. (Review, App Store)

Harbor Master – Among the first of the avalanche of Flight Control inspired games, Harbor Master mixes things up by having the player dock cargo ships and send them back out to sea on a variety of different levels– Each with a different layout and some with additional gameplay elements such as pirate ships to shoot or sea monsters to fight off. (Review, App Store)

Word

Bookworm – A game that should need no introduction, Popcap's word searching classic fits great on the iPhone. The touch controls work effortlessly, and the gameplay is perfect for the casual play style of many iPhone gamers. (Review, App Store)

Words with Friends – Asynchronous online multiplayer not-quite-Scrabble that can either be played for free with in-game ads or without for a couple bucks. A recent update added push notifications to tell you when it's your turn and according to Newtoy, the average player spends 1.5 hours each day playing. (Review, App Store)

Strategy

Carcassonne – A fantastic rendition of the classic board game, Carcassonne can be played with 8 different AI players, locally, or online with push notifications. It also has high resolution graphics already in-game to take advantage of the Retina Display. (Review, App Store)

Plants vs. Zombies – Popcap's breakout hit for PC has come to the iPhone — and it's great. Popcap took the standard tower defense formula and greatly simplified it. Instead of a path to build towers along, you drop seeds in your yard which then grow in to plants that have various offensive or defensive capabilities. While it does lack a few gameplay modes from the original, the iPhone adaption is very well done and highly recommended. (Review, App Store)

Land Air Sea Warfare – There are quite a few options for RTS fans available on the App Store, but all of varying degrees of quality and none that felt "just right". That all changed last month with the release of Land Air Sea Warfare. LASW gets it “just right”, offering a full console-like RTS experience with brilliantly executed, easy to use touch screen controls.(Review, App Store)

Sword & Poker 2 – This strange game is the sequel to the original Sword & Poker <a href="which we loved in our reivew. In the game you play an RPG battling monsters by placing poker hands on a 5×5 grid. The concept sounds crazy, but works very well. If nothing else, give the lite version a try. (Article, App Store, Lite)

Chess with Friends – The iPhone equivalent to snail mail correspondence chess– You can play the ad-based version for free, or upgrade to the premium version to play without ads. Recently added push notifications that alert you when its your turn and an endless supply of human opponents makes this the best chess game available on the platform. (Article, App Store)

Role Playing

Chaos Rings – One of the most ambitious RPG games we've seen so far for the iPhone. The graphics and gameplay are exactly what you'd expect out of a Square Enix RPG. Battle in parties of two in classic turn-based battles as you make your way through a story that's just as ridiculous as any other Japanese RPG. (Review, App Store: iPhone)

Space Miner – It's probably no surprise that this game topped our list for February. Space Miner: Space Ore Bust has an unusually broad appeal successfully mixing shooter and RPG genres into a humorous and well scripted package. Whatever sort of gamer you are, don't miss out on this one. (Review, App Store)

Pocket Legends – This free online multiplayer game for both the iPhone and iPad that is a ton of fun and playing in a party with your friends is especially impressive while you're playing via 3G as the netcode does a great job in providing a lag-free experience. Additional content is available via in-game DLC, but you can really get a good feel for the game before you ever need to buy anything. (Review, App Store: iPhone, iPad)

Sports

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 – A surprisingly competent port of the classic skateboarding game. Everything is included from the original, and once you get used to the virtual controls, you'll be performing endless combos in no time in the many included skating locations.(Review, App Store:iPhone)

X2 Snowboarding – X2 Snowboarding from Exient is a highly enjoyable romp on the slopes that sets itself apart from the crowd in graphics, controls and gameplay. With a great sense of speed and immersion, this is our snowboarding game of choice for the iPhone. (Review, App Store / Lite)

X2 Soccer 2010 – The followup title to their 2009 title, X2 Soccer 2010 is one of the top soccer game experiences right now on the App Store. X2 Soccer 2010 is complete with great AI, impressive 3d graphics and solid controls. (Review, App Store)

To see other iPhone games we've rated, check out the sidebar where you can find: 5 Stars, 4.5 Stars, 4 Stars, 3.5 Stars, 3 Stars, and 2.5 Stars. All of what we have considered to be the best iPhone games are filed under Best iPhone Games, and I'm sure this post will be filled with comments from people suggesting their own favorite iPhone games that we left out of this list.

Good luck to everyone in line today looking to get an iPhone 4, we'll have much more iPhone 4 coverage as soon as we get ours in our greasy little hands.

[source]

EA is holding a massive $0.99 sale on over a dozen titles. The sale will only last 48 hours, so you have to act quickly. The games have been nicely organized by niezam into games that have never been $0.99 before, and ones that have (U.S. Links):

$.99 for the first time

• COMMAND & CONQUER™ RED ALERT™ (was $6.99)
• FIFA 10 by EA SPORTS™ (was $4.99)
• MADDEN NFL 10 by EA SPORTS (was $6.99)
• Need for Speed Shift (was $6.99)
• Need For Speed™ Undercover (was $4.99)
• SimCity™ (was $2.99)
• Dragon's Lair (was $4.99)
• JEWEL QUEST MYSTERIES: CURSE OF THE EMERALD TEAR (was $2.99)
• Trivial Pursuit (was $4.99)

$.99 once or several time before

• NBA Live by EA Sports (was $2.99)
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® BY EA SPORTS™ (was $2.99)
• BATTLESHIP (was $1.99)
• CONNECT 4 (was $2.99)
• Surviving High School (was $2.99)
• THE GAME OF LIFE Classic Edition (was $1.99)
• CLUE (was $1.99)
• YAHTZEE™ Adventures (was $2.99)

While all the games are good values for only $0.99, we'd probably say Need for Speed: Shift is the "must get" game from the list. It has frequently been cited as one of the best racing games for the iPhone, so it's a good one to have.

[source]