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With the NHL playoffs quickly approaching and after an amazing gold medal game at this year’s Winter Olympics a lot of people (and not just Canadians) are excited about all things hockey. I am one of those people, so when I found out that a new hockey game was coming out of the iPhone I just had to share it with you all.

Ice Hockey Nations 2010 is the first full hockey game to come to the iPhone. When I say full I mean, six on six hockey with all the trimmings. The developer, Distinctive Games, claims they will be able to pack all the action and strategy of the sport onto the small screen of the iPhone. They even went as far so to do live motion capture of real players for the game at Centroid 3D. We will not be able to see if that paid off until the game comes out, the developer has yet to release game play footage.

As you can probably already tell by the title, the game is not licensed by the NHL. So instead of playing with your favorite pro team you will have to pick your nation of choice out of the 14 nations featured in the game.

The game is set you be launched in March with a price tag of 4.99.

Features include:

• The first full 6 on 6 Ice Hockey simulation game on iPhone/iPod Touch.
• Take control using touchscreen d-pad and control buttons.
• Make line changes at the touch of a button.
• Sin-bin and powerplays
• Real player movement animation using motion capture.
• 14 National teams to choose from.
• Quick play, practice, tournament and league game modes.
• No waiting for the Zamboni in between periods.

Screenshots:

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As a child of the 80’s I grew up on Transformers. As a mobile strategy fanatic I’ve been in love with turn-based strategy games for years. It should come as no surprise then that Transformers G1 Awakening ranked pretty high on my most wanted list. But it also ranked fairly high on my list of concerns. After all – Transformers has had countless reinventions over the last few decades, none of which could hold a torch to the series that started it all. Likewise the series has had a number of video game spinoffs, nearly all of which have managed to disappoint. Could a Transformers game released more than 25 years after the series inception possibly live up to the expectations of series purists and strategy fans alike? As mobile gamers first learned in 2008, the answer is a resounding yes.

Originally available for mobile phones back in 2008, Transformers G1 Awakening is a solid strategy game that takes fan service to a whole new level. If you grew up on the original Transformers cartoon from 1984, you’re going to squeal like a 6 year old when you see some of the choices the game has made. The cast is comprised of series mainstays like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, but the game happily makes room for fan favourites like Grimlock and Ironhide. True to the television storyline, the story starts with the crash of the Ark and continues through to the Space Bridge built by the Decepticons. Jetfire’s first appearance is even true to his back story, starting out with the bad guys and quickly switching sides.

Gameplay here should be familiar to anyone who’s played turn-based strategy games like Rogue Planet or UniWar. Each unit will be able to move a certain number of squares, attack opposing forces, and capture important structures. Unique to Transformers however, is the ability to -– well -– transform. Every character can transform from robot mode to vehicle mode and back again. Vehicle mode offers a major advantage if you need to cover ground as you’ll be able to move around with much greater ease, but it also comes with a major disadvantage as you won’t be able to defend yourself from attacks.

Unlike many of the games that G1 Awakening draws inspiration from, the gameplay emphasizes strategy over sheer force. Certain levels play out more like puzzles than tactical combat situations. By offering up actual characters instead of generic unit types, you can never have more than one of a certain unit on screen at the same time. Like the morale boost Optimus gives his troops, but also enjoy his high attack rating? He can’t be in two places at once, so you’ll need to place him where he’s needed the most.

Some of the characters will share similar stats and abilities, but no two Autobots play exactly alike. Prowl and Sideswipe both utilize ranged attacks, but their distance and power are different. Ironhide had a great chance to deflect damage, but his mobility is severely limited. It’s very rare that you’ll ever have more than 4 or 5 characters on screen in any given level, so knowing the strengths and weaknesses of every character (including those of the Decepticons you’re trying to destroy) is essential to your success.

Having a limited number of characters doesn’t mean you can’t introduce more into the battlefield, it just means you’ll need to be selective on who you introduce. New units can be purchased by spending Energon, which you’ll earn on each turn. The amount you earn depends on the number of pylons or power stations you’ve captured. As strange as it may sound, unit production became one of my favourite parts of the G1 Awakening – not for any gameplay reasons, but because it’s a shining example of the crazy amount of fan love that went into the game design. Units aren’t created in a factory or rolled off the back of a truck – they’re introduced into the battlefield by Metroplex, the Autobots living battle station. The only thing that could have been better is if Blaster was able to produce units like Eject and Rewind, and guess what? He can do that too. If anyone tries to tell you that G1 Awakening isn’t everything an old school Transformers fan has been waiting for, you just tell them to shut their lying mouth.

G1’s campaign is 17 missions long and should take the average gamer 3 or 4 hours to work through – not a bad package, but not necessarily as long as similar turn-based strategy games on the App Store. In addition to the story mode G1 Awakening also offers Showdown mode, a series of challenges that pit the Autobots against the Decepticons in a number of unique situations.

Rounding out the package is Cybertron Arena, G1’s fancy name for multiplayer. Cybertron Arena earns serious points for finally letting us play as the Decepticons, but it loses just as many for its limited gameplay options. You can’t play online, you can’t play over local wifi -– the only option for multiplayer is single device pass’n’play. It’s a good fit for this style of game, but on its own it just feels like too slim an offering. Still, if you don’t have another friend to play with sitting next to you G1 Awakening at least offers up a Cybertron Arena AI option.

Outside of the slim multiplayer options, the only real disappointment here came from the visuals. The game was ported from a 2008 mobile phone release and when you’re issuing commands on the map it really shows. It’s not just that the graphics are ripped from a mobile phone, it’s that the design decisions made for the mobile phone version just made no sense. Each character has a constant animation when standing still that has their torso and arms moving in a way that mimics breathing (which, I’m pretty sure robots don’t do), so we know they can do animations. Yet when characters move around the map in robot mode their feet don’t move. It’s like moving asthmatic chess pieces. The terrible command mode visuals are a stark contrast to the battle visuals which easily rank amongst the best in the genre. Cel-shaded graphics come to life in a quick battle animation that looks like it could have been ripped right out of the series. If anything, they reminded me a lot of the visuals in 2002’s Robotech: Battlecry for home consoles. If you’re not familiar with the game, trust me, that’s a compliment.

As a strategy game, Transformers G1 Awakening offers up enough twists to help it stand out in a sea of similar games. As a Transformers game, it offers up anything and everything an old school Transformers fan could want to see. G1 Awakening isn’t simply a great strategy game, it’s the greatest Transformers game I’ve seen to date.

App Store Link: Transformers G1: Awakening, $4.99

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Following a pair of really cool teaser trailers, we finally got our hands on a copy of The Hero, a game where you play as super hero doing various super hero-y things like flying around dispatching bad guys using three different super powers while high-fiving people hanging out their windows and catching falling babies.

The graphics of The Hero are absolutely incredible, all of the animations are extremely well done, and the landscapes are beautifully detailed. You control your hero by using a virtual joystick in the bottom right corner, and can speed up by mashing the on-screen button on the bottom right corner. The controls work well enough, although making precise movements can be challenging as you can't just stop in mid-air and turn around, your hero has to go through his whole turning around animation before you can go the other way. This is a minor complaint, but something I ran in to a few times while playing.

While I'm not very far in The Hero yet, the game seems to have a considerable amount of content with a full campaign where you fight crime in 15 different levels along with an unlockable survival mode. Two difficulty options are available, along with Chillingo's Crystal integration which brings online leaderboards and achievements to the table.

Expect a full review of The Hero when it's released soon on the App Store.

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We first got word of 100 Rogues late last year. Much like Sword of Fargoal, 100 Rogues seems to be taking the classic roguelike formula and sprucing it up quite a bit with colorful art, animations, and multiple character classes. Of course all the roguelike staples are in place such as randomly generated maps and permadeath as well as modern features like online leaderboards.

Dinofarm Games recently released a new gameplay video highlighting the crusader class with complete narration from the developers detailing the gameplay and interface elements in the game:

I'm a huge fan of the roguelikes, and I really like that developers are taking such an excellent genre and making it approachable to people who likely don't even know what a roguelike is. Getting used to permadeath takes a bit of adjustment, especially with how many video games lately have been trending towards regenerative health systems (Such as nearly every first person shooter released recently.) but few gaming experiences are more rewarding than retrieving whatever magical item you're searching for at the bottom of a treacherous dungeon without dying.

If you're looking for a great roguelike to play while you wait for 100 Rogues, check out both Rogue Touch [$2.99] and/or Sword of Fargoal [$4.99].

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Like Wolfenstein RPG before it, id Software’s latest venture into the world of Doom has more in common with turn-based dungeon hacks of the 80’s than with the shooter genre from whence it sprang. Don’t get me wrong – there are guns aplenty here – but instead of relying on twitch-fingered accuracy and eagle-eyed precision, Doom II RPG [App Store] shifts the series focus to strategy and exploration. It’s a strange direction for the franchise to explore, but it works.

In each of the 9 levels presented here your goal will be the same; explore your surroundings until you’ve managed to uncover the exit. How you’ll go about that, however, can really differ from level to level. In some instances you’ll need to find hidden keycards. In others you’ll need to power up doorways or use a robot to explore gas-filled rooms. Level design offers up enough variety that things never really begin to feel stale.

The bulk of the gameplay offers up what you’ve come to expect from the Doom franchise – killing demons with big ass guns. Unlike the rest of the series though, you’ll really need to think about which guns to use in which situations and how best to approach your opponents. Sure you could go in guns blazing, but in a turn-based situation with no ability to gain cover you’re just asking to get yourself killed. Little tricks like hiding around a corner after you’ve been spotted to coax an enemy in front of you, or sending in a robot helper to get a good look at a situation before you walk into it, can make all the difference in the world.

Controls are fairly simple and will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played Wolfenstein RPG. You’ll be able to rotate your character 90 degrees in any direction with the aid of an on screen D-pad and sidestep by swiping your finger in the direction you want to move. Weapons can be cycled through by tapping your weapon icon, and shooting is done by tapping the screen. If you want to activate your inventory to restore some health or apply some armor, just tap on the health indicator. Everything is kept incredibly approachable, with every action requiring only a single touch.

Like all Doom games before it, the story here is essentially Aliens meets The Gate. Hell has once again opened up in space – this time on the moon – and you’re part of the team sent to investigate. There’s a good deal of sophomoric humor in the writing, yet I was surprised at the effort that was actually put into making the story interesting and providing the world with some depth. You’ll encounter different survivors that provide key information on what you’ll need to do to advance through a level. Computer terminals are found around the complex with emails open that give insight into the events that unfolded before you arrived. They’ve really done a bang up job of framing the story in a way that will keep you more engaged than you might suspect.

I was also taken aback by how well they managed to keep me on the edge of my seat with anxiety and occasionally jumpy with fear. When you remove the real-time components of a game like this and opt to keep the visuals campy and old school, your expectations in terms of nail-biting excitement are set relatively low. Yet time and time again, the level design would lead me into a situation where I was surrounded by demons with seemingly no way to get out.

The game also managed to have a few cheap carnival-ride thrills. In one instance I walked into an empty bathroom to refill my holy water gun in the toilet. Let me stress again — the room was totally empty. But when I looked in a large mirror on my way to the exit there was a zombie standing right behind me! Sure these are cheap carnie thrills here, but it made me jump nonetheless.

Silliness also manages to sneak its way into the game more often than I’d expect. Shooting a demon with holy water, for example, will make his eyes bug out like a Looney Tunes animation. Searching the corpses of demons will occasionally turn up useless items like human fingers and pocket lint. It’s the sort of stuff that would have made me laugh when I was 12, and for some reason it still manages to illicit a chuckle out of me. This is a game where you can throw toilets at hellspawn — who wouldn’t crack a smile at that?

As you can probably gather from the bulk of this review, Doom II RPG is a game that left me tickled pink from beginning to end. Still, we’d be remiss to not mention the few questionable design decisions that popped up from time to time.

I loved that enemy sprites were cut and paste from 1994, but they looked a little too fuzzy when you got up close. Couldn’t they have been cleaned up just a little for their 2010 re-introduction? Doom II RPG is also in desperate need of an auto-save feature. Each level would take a minimum of 30 minutes to complete, and on more than a few occasions I forgot to save and ended up having to replay huge chunks of the adventure. Also, for a Doom title, the game world is seriously lacking in the satanic scenery found in previous games of the franchise.

Still – with so few complaints, Doom II RPG is a game I enjoyed from beginning to end.

App Store Link: Doom II RPG, $3.99

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When Plants vs. Zombies [App Store] was originally announced on April 1st last year, PC gamers everywhere (myself included) were unsure if Popcap's newly revealed game was part of an elaborate April Fool's Day hoax or not. A little more than a month later, the game was released and not only saw universal acclaim from the gaming media resulting in an 88 on Metacritic, but also earned the title of Popcap's fastest selling game of all time.

In Plants vs. Zombies, Popcap takes the standard tower defense formula and greatly simplifies 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. The yard is organized in a grid, and zombies move straight across the row they spawn on, munching (or in some cases jumping or flying over) anything that they come in contact with.

A gauge on the top of the screen shows how close you are to the end of the level, with flags indicating when big waves of zombies are going to come. When you clear a stage, you're often awarded with the seeds of one more of the nearly 50 included plants. This seemingly constant progression does a great job of keeping you interested, as it always seems like you have a new toy to play with. To shake things up even more, mini game levels are mixed in, including a bowling game of sorts, a whack-a-mole game with zombies, and others.

Originally designed to be played with a mouse, Popcap did an excellent job of porting Plants vs. Zombies to the iPhone. The resource required to build your defenses is sunlight, and in the PC version feverishly moving your mouse around to click on the small suns falling from the top of the screen got tiring (especially when playing on a laptop with a touchpad). On the iPhone, the sunlight mechanic is also in place, but seems to work so much better when you only have to tap the falling suns to collect them.

Interface elements have been made smaller to dedicate more screen space to your yard, and some things have been moved around. Your available seeds have been moved from the top of the screen to the left, and to plant one all you need to do is tap it then tap the grid square of your lawn where you want it placed. Alternatively, you can tap the seed icon then drag your finger around your lawn. This causes both the X and Y axis of the square you're currently selecting to light up which effectively put an end to me accidentally placing seeds in squares I didn't mean to.

Plants vs. Zombies is absolutely loaded with high quality animations, excellent cartoonish zombies, and silly dialog between your neighbor/shopkeeper Crazy Dave and even notes from the zombies themselves. Throughout the game you'll defend your front lawn during the day, at night, then defend your back yard which introduces water plants that can only be planted in your pool.

As you advance through levels you will come across many more zombies than just the standard run of the mill mindless brain-muncher. There's a Michael Jackson zombie that causes others to rise from gravestones following a Thriller-like dance. There's also zombies that have armored themselves with screen doors, traffic cones, buckets, football pads, and other equally ridiculous equipment. 25 different zombies in all are included, and one end-boss. Each zombie even has their own profile inside the in-game almanac, and they're really worth a look once you unlock it.

Plants vs. Zombies performs well on both my iPhone 3G and 3GS. I did experience some slowdown when there were tons of zombies and projectiles on screen, but overall this didn't cause a problem playing through the game as the only time there was enough things happening on-screen to cause slowdown was at the very end of some levels where you already have your yard fully covered and are just waiting for the last wave of zombies to die.

On the iPhone, Plants vs. Zombies only includes the main story and a quick play mode that is unlocked once you've beaten the game that will allow you to play a few different scenarios and the various mini games you came across in story mode. The endless survival mode from the PC version is nowhere to be found, which is very disappointing, especially since I imagine quite a few people excited about Popcap porting the game to the iPhone have already completed the story mode on the PC.

There is only one difficulty level, and if you're a veteran of tower defense games, Plants vs. Zombies will likely be very easy for you. Personally, I love the tower defense genre, and being able to make it all the way through Plants vs. Zombies without much difficulty at all hasn't stopped me from playing through the game multiple times on my computer, and I'm enjoying the iPhone version just as much. I'm not sure what it is about Popcap games, but similar to Peggle and Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies never seems to get old.

The 88 Metacritic score of the original Plants vs. Zombies (complete with 100's from multiple sources) just goes to show how great this game is. The iPhone port is absolutely phenomenal, and even though it's lacking a few game modes, there's always hope for them to be implemented in the future either via an update or a DLC add-on. There isn't a lite version, but there is a free Flash demo that I highly recommend trying if this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies.

App Store Link: Plants vs. Zombies, $2.99

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If you're a long-time gamer, there's a good chance you've heard of David Crane.

Widely considered to be one of the most influential video game creators to have ever laid down code, Crane is responsible for some truly groundbreaking classics. Among his more notable creations are Pitfall! (the first platform game), Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, Ghostbusters and Little Computer People. Another of his creations you may have heard of is a little game publishing and development house known as Activision. Very recently, he was honored by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences who, later this month, will present him with its first Pioneer Award, which recognizes videogaming visionaries who paved the way in the industry's early days.

Last week, Crane issued a press release announcing the creation of a new game studio, AppStar Games, a joint venture with noted game developer Garry Kitchen. AppStar will focus on "small footprint" games for connected devices, the iPhone being among the studio's targeted platforms.

“Garry and I have worked together on a number of successful ventures over the years, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for investors and stakeholders. We’re very excited about the dramatic shift that is occurring in the game industry with the advent of direct-to- consumer distribution of our titles. AppStar Games is committed to taking a leadership role in that transition by delivering the highest quality product in the marketplace”, said Crane, CTO of AppStar.

Crane and Kitchen leave behind Skyworks Interactive, which they co-founded in 1995, that has been focused heavily on the iPhone platform since the App Store opened in 2008, with a notable number of releases including the very successful Arcade Bowling and Arcade Hoops Basketball.

AppStar Games expects to publish its first game titles in Q2 of this year, but is priming the pump with a few reference app releases that — while not actually games — may be of extreme interest to retro gaming fans.

AppStar has just released the second app in Crane's Technical Wizardry Series, entitled Dragster Magic [App Store]. It details the extremely obscure technical tricks that were used to make Activision's first game release, Dragster for the Atari 2600 / VCS, possible. This comes on the heels of the release of the initial volume of the series, 2600 Magic [App Store], which seeks to explain the highly bizarre (by today's standards) internal video circuitry of the Atari 2600 console. Both titles are comprised mainly of text and static graphics, but there are animations and interactive elements in some areas. Crane designed and programmed both iPhone releases himself, and more volumes are on the way.

We're quite anxious to see what the new studio has in store. Stay tuned.

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When the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine was released in the late '80s it failed to make the splash that its creators had hoped for. The console sold around 10 million units over the course of its lifetime, with only 2.5 million of those units making their way into US households, so it's no suprise that the original Military Madness [App Store] never became well-known. Hudson has updated the turn-based strategy franchise several times over the years (including XBLA, PSN, and WiiWare ports in 2009), and this newest iPhone adaptation makes MM a series that has seen releases across four decades. The iPhone's touch screen is a natural fit for the IP, so Neo Nectaris just might be the best version of the game yet.

The short cutscene that plays at the beginning of a new campaign in Neo Nectaris would lead you to believe that this is a sequel to the original game, but this is essentially the same tale told all over again. A ragtag band of rebels were defeated by the union forces at their base on the moon in 2089, and peace was abundant. That was the first game. Now, however, in 2099, that same group of rebels is developing weapons on (you guessed it!) the moon. Thus, you have been sent in with a special forces batallion to clear out the rebels. Despite the sloppily rehashed story, the 48 missions in this sequel are actually all-new, so old-timers need not worry about playing through the same old 32 levels from the first game.

Military Madness's similarities to Nintendo's Advance Wars series become quite obvious upon setting foot upon the battlefield. The mix of long-range units like rockets, mid-range units like artillery squads, and numerous close-combat tanks are nearly identical to the units in Advance Wars, and the games share a quite similar terrain advantage system. The first version of Advance Wars was released as Famicom Wars in Japan a year prior to the debut of Military Madness, so I'm not quite sure which series influenced which, but there are enough differences to make them unique in their own rights.

The most noticeable difference between MM and quite a few other strategy games is its use of a hexagonal grid system. This system can be confusing, initially, especially for players who've gotten used to quadrilateral-based grid systems in their turn-based strategy games. The spaces adjacent to units fall within that particular unit's "zone of control," which prevents enemy soldiers/tanks from progressing through the areas surrounding it and allows players to strategically set up roadblocks to force the enemy into a position that could potentially turn the tide of a battle in their favor.

Another feature of the game is the "stars" system, which rewards individual units with increased stats for every encounter they fight in. The ability to heal these units after a single turn spent in a factory (which cannot produce new units and must usually be captured by an infantryman) creates an incentive to retreat with units who've seen a lot of fighting to allow them to come back fully powered and enhanced later in a battle.

In-game tutorials and a unit description screen that can be pulled up at any point during battles makes the game extremely user-friendly, and I checked out all the old tutorials despite my long history with the franchise as a quick refresher. I was a bit disappointed that Neo Nectaris doesn't use 3D visuals like the recent WiiWare, XBLA, and PSN release, but the iPhone port does feature an updated soundtrack that sounds great and fits the game well.

There are a few issues that keep Neo Nectaris from greatness, most notably the omission of any multiplayer- local or online. Another problem I had with the game might sound a bit more nitpicky, but it's niggling: there is no real animation for unit movement; soldiers and tanks just "blink" their way over to their destination when moving. This is a problem that usually doesn't afflict modern games, so it could (and really should) be fixed in an update.

Military Madness: Neo Nectaris isn't much of a departure from the now 20-plus-year-old original game, but it holds up extremely well, especially with the new touch controls. Multiplayer seems too crucial to exclude, so I desperately hope that Hudson decides to support the game with the addition of those options in the future, but I'll admit that the single player campaign is so much fun that it can keep most people happy for now. If you've ever played Military Madness before, I probably don't need to convince you to check out this version, but for newcomers to the franchise I cannot stress enough how much pure fun this game is.

App Store Link: Military Madness: Neo Nectaris, $4.99

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In 1941, Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges published the first book featuring decisions the reader could make to change the way the story ended through two different branching points that asked readers to flip to a particular page depending on which option they choose. Several other early game books were released over the years, but it wasn't until the late-70's that the genre exploded with several different series of varying complexity– The most popular of which was undoubtedly Choose Your Own Adventure with over 200 titles that were almost always checked out of my local library.

Fighting Fantasy

Fighting Fantasy is a similar series that was released around the same time that distinguished itself from the rest of the game books by implementing a single player dice rolling system to determine the outcome of fights and other situations (like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons).

The first entry in the Fighting Fantasy family of books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone hit the App Store recently and is a phenomenal fit for the iPhone. Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain [$2.99] sends players on a treasure hunting quest to locate the treasure of a powerful warlock, who as you may have guessed, stashed it deep inside of Firetop Mountain.

Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

Throughout the journey players collect keys, fight orcs and dragons, and finally face the warlock himself. Getting to the end is easier said than done, and much like the game books of my childhood, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is filled with sudden death and countless ways to make mistakes, even if you're rolling your dice well.

Gamebook Adventures

Even though Fighting Fantasy books have nearly a 30 year lead on the recently released Gamebook Adventures, the team at Tin Man Games have put together an equally remarkable and entirely original virtual game book for the iPhone. Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes [$4.99] is the first in of an up and coming game book series by author S.P. Osborne. Much like the Fighting Fantasy books, throughout the adventure you will need to use dice to determine which fork in the story you take by winning battles and succeeding in various challenges.

Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes

The premise of An Assassin in Orlandes involves an assassin who is on a killing spree eliminating the nobles of the city of Orlandes as a part of a massive conspiracy that is slowly revealed, assuming you make the right choices along the way. Gamebook Adventures features much better illustrations and dice animations, which honestly make very little difference in the overall experience since most of your time is actually spent reading.

Tin Man Games also released the following trailer:

Both titles play comparably and are both worth consideration, so if you're looking to try just one, simply pick the plot that most appeals to you. I'll be looking forward to new entires on the App Store from both series of books, and have my fingers crossed on both hands that we'll see iPad-optimized versions as both game books are practically begging for a bigger screen to be displayed on.

App Store Links:

• Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, $2.99
• Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes, $4.99

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Assassins's Creed 2 was extremely well-received on the PS3 and X360, numbering amongst the stand-out titles of 2009. It's no surprise then that Ubisoft would want to strike while the iron is still hot, and capitalise on the popularity of the franchise. Assassin's Creed 2: Discovery [App Store] is their (somewhat late) answer to that, but does it do justice to its bigger brother?

The Assassin's Creed universe is undoubtedly one of the more unique intellectual properties to hit the gaming world, and offers a rich source of story and background to draw from. The iPhone off-shoot of Assassin's Creed 2, as in the console version, focuses on the protagonist Ezio and his battle against the Templars throughout Italy and Spain. The story operates as an aside to that of the console storyline, and follows Ezio as he tracks down another threat to the Assassins; a hunt that takes him across the seas to Spain.

Assassin's Creed 2: Discovery is essentially a 2D platformer that employs the Assassin's formula of deception, agility and deadly force. There are a few types of missions to complete in Assassin's Creed 2: Discovery; some which require stealth, where being discovered too many times will see you caught; others that throw Ezio into an acrobatic chase sequence; and those where Ezio must simply reach a predefined target. At the end of each level you are (quite ruthlessly) graded for the time you have taken and kills made, and awarded synch points which can then be used to unlock a number of "animus hacks", such as hard mode and a number of cheats.

Ezio is controlled by a left and right slider dictating his walk/run speed and a number of context-sensitive thumb-buttons to control his aerial and combat abilities. Ezio has two speeds of movement: a stealthy creep and an all-out sprint; the latter of which is responsible for some concerns with Assassin's Creed 2: Discovery.

In the first few missions the high speed at which Ezio runs simply means a few important leaps are missed, requiring you to traverse to the top of the level again, resulting in heavy hits to your time score. This would be fine if we were playing a Sonic-of-old where such speed is encouraged by the level design, but when the chase missions begin Ezio's blazing speed will see you unwittingly running into guards, falling over blind jumps into deadly pits, or scaling walls when you intend to drop down them — failing the mission time and time again until you have memorized the level in its entirety. One of our early frustrations with the game was a lack of clear goals at the start of each mission, resulting in some excessive trial and error as you learn about the different types of levels.

Despite it being a 2D platformer, the levels are crafted in 3D, and the attention to detail in both the levels themselves and the characters that populate them is outstanding. The animations, particularly the many 'kill' and counter animations that Ezio performs, are terrifically life-like and a delight to watch; easily some of the best we've seen on the platform to date. The combat mechanics are simple but effective, utilising two buttons to attack and counter in order to dispatch your foes. In fact, if the game didn't tie you so strictly to a timer in many levels, the combat itself may have presented a more enjoyable distraction, rather than something to be avoided.

Assassin's Creed 2: Discovery features 8 memory blocks (read: missions), each comprising a few different sequences. There is a solid amount of content on offer here. While there are some things in Assassin's Creed II that make the game feel like it could have been left in the oven a little bit longer, it's still easily one of the better platformers on the App Store. Be forewarned that the performance on the 3G is rather lackluster, but the game is a visual treat on the 3GS and has a few enhancements (graphics, audio, extras) over the DS version.

App Store Link: Assassin's Creed 2: Discovery, $9.99

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