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Vertical shooters are one of the oldest genres in gaming, and developers have been trying to figure out a way to create games that stand out amongst the crowded market for just as long. Eveningstar [App Store], developed by Divine Robot, does a good job of mixing up its tried-and-true gameplay with a unique element: a secondary weapon that's controlled in a unique and interesting way.

There is a backstory for Eveningstar that's accessible in text form through the main menu, but it's not really important. The important thing is that you are a dude in spaceship with a deadly magnetic ball called "the Eveningstar" orbiting you. The Eveningstar does major damage to anything it touches, and while it can't be controlled directly, it can be manipulated by moving your ship around to create a slingshot effect. Your ship is controlled by touching anywhere on the screen and dragging, and the Eveningstar follows behind. People in our forums found it quite difficult to control the Eveningstar at first, but reported becoming much better at it after spending a little time with the game.

Aesthetically, Eveningstar impresses. Each of the game's nine levels are set in different elementally-themed locations that draw from unique color palettes. These levels and the enemies that populate them are extremely well drawn, with animation that looks great and feels appropriate for the game's art direction. The occasional 3D effects on some objects seems a little strange, but despite the inconsistency in which items are 3D and which items are not, everything looks good. Complimenting Eveningstar's pleasant graphics is the orchestral soundtrack, which is of professional quality. The epic score makes headphones highly recommendable, as they can add to the overall experience in a way that really shouldn't be missed.

Unlike many other vertically-scrolling shooters, Eveningstar's camera is extremely slow to scroll, making the game intentionally slow-paced. This might be for the best, as there's a pretty cool physics system in the game attributed to some objects that can be manipulated by a well-placed whack with the Eveningstar. To keep levels at a reasonable length, most of the game's nine levels are extremely short (from a physical length perspective, not the time that it takes to beat them). It won't take long to beat the game, but completing all nine levels will restart players at the first level with their current score, encouraging endurance runs for those who wish to go for high scores.

Unfortunately, there is no online leaderboard support to speak of in Eveningstar, so players will be hard-pressed to find incentive to play through the game more than a couple times. The inclusion of easy, medium, and hard difficulty settings (the latter of which is a real challenge) was a wise move on the part of the developer that will add replay value to the game, but online leaderboards seem like an absolute must if Eveningstar is to totally connect with its audience. Even with the omission of leaderboards, Eveningstar is an attractive game that's well worth checking out.

App Store Link: Eveningstar, $1.99

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On the eve of what could be the biggest Apple announcement since the iPhone, Battle of Puppets [App Store] somehow is successfully holding my attention over obsessively refreshing every tech blog on the planet looking for more tablet tidbits. (A lofty accomplishment, to say the least.) While at the heart of the game it's little more than a castle vs castle battle, Battle of Puppets is absolutely oozing character and charm through its amazing art style and other really clever features.

If you've played one castle vs castle game, the gameplay mechanics will be instantly familiar to you. If not, here's the genre in a nutshell: Two castles are on opposing side of a battlefield, you need to manage various resources to produce units, often limited by a unit cap that may change on each level. You must formulate a strategy based on the different strengths of your units playing off the weaknesses of your opponents units to fight your way to their castle and eventually destroy it.

The battlefields in Battle of Puppets are amazingly cute stages with scenery that moves around depending on the time of day, and when a unit dies it's yanked off stage. Continuing with this theme, each of the armies in game are themed after a different classical opera, with everything from spanish forces themed after Carmen and to asian themed armies inspired by Madame Butterfly.

Compared to other castle vs castle games, the amount of thought and small touches developers Small Wonders put in to the game is awesome. The animations are great, each army feels a little different, and there's even three save slots so multiple people can be playing the game on a single device. The following gameplay trailer should give you an idea of the atmosphere of the game:

There are a bunch of castle vs castle strategy games on the App Store, but few can come close to rivaling the look and feel of Battle of Puppets. Playing as each of the different opera forces should provide a decent amount of replay value for people who become engrossed in the game, but under the hood it's still a castle battle game. If you haven't been interested in them in the past, the eye candy in Battle of Puppets likely won't be enough to sway you over.

App Store Link: Battle of Puppets, $1.99

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From Revolution Software, the same people who brought the iPhone the fantastic remake of Beneath a Steel Sky, comes Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars: The Director's Cut [$6.99], a remake of a point-and-click adventure from '96 that many consider to be one of the greatest games within its genre. As we covered in our preview two different versions of this remake were already published on the DS and Wii in March of 2009, and the new iPhone version is a bit of a mixture of the two, adding full voice acting and other features that the DS version lacked.

Broken Sword, which was renamed Circle of Blood for its release in the USA, has been given a significant facelift. Whereas the original version of the game focused almost solely on the male character, George Stobbart, The Director's Cut does a better job of fleshing out the back story of the game's female protagonist, Nicole Collard. The game opens as Nicole prepares for an interview that unexpectedly becomes a murder investigation when the man she was set to interview is shot by a mysterious mime. Other modifications to the game include new puzzles that are specific to the iPhone platform and new art and animation from Dave Gibbons, who you might be familiar with through his work on Watchmen.

The story in Broken Sword, as in most point-and-click adventure games, is the most important element of the game, so those who haven't played a version of the game before will be pleased to find that Broken Sword's writing is excellent, and the story is quite gripping. I particularly enjoyed the self-depreciating sense of humor that Nicole occasionally displays with her commentary, and George is a comedic parody of an American from a European perspective, making him a fairly amusing character as well.

For a point-and-click adventure, Broken Sword does a lot to make itself easily accessible. In an intelligent move by the developers, a simple finger swipe will reveal everything that George or Nicole can interact within a single screen, preventing players from having to poke around the screen randomly until they find something that they can interact with. The game's many puzzles range from brain games wherein an abstract combination of collected items must be used to progress to a lock-picking game that's nearly identical to the iPhone's own Blocked to a ridiculously complex cypher that players must harness incredible code-breaking skills to crack.

Luckily, the game has a built-in walkthrough in the form of a hint system that can be easily accessed if players want to give up and find the answer to a puzzle. For each puzzle there are several hints, each one more explicit than the last, with the last one usually being a straight-up answer to the puzzle for players who just couldn't figure things out. The genius of both the "swipe-to-reveal" mechanic and the hint system is that it's possible to never use either if a player doesn't want to. Some of the hardcore fans of the original PC version of the game that're picking up the iPhone version will want a more "pure" experience, and that option is available to them, but softies like myself can still enjoy the game without having to resort to an online walkthrough.

Broken Sword's creative touch interface works like a charm on the iPhone screen, but it was the one-two punch of the game's fantastic soundtrack and art that really hooked me. The piano-heavy orchestral soundtrack is so good that I purchased it from the iTunes store so I could listen to it later, and the fact that every line of dialogue in the game is voiced makes this a game that must be experienced with headphones. Dave Gibbon's contribution to the art and animation was an invaluable addition, as the painted backgrounds and the fluid animation adds a certain appealing touch to the game.

Even though I've never been a huge fan of point-and-click adventure games, the story and all around high-quality production values of Broken Sword sucked me in like a good book. 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.

App Store Link: Broken Sword: The Director's Cut, $6.99

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This weekend, Revolution Software released an iPhone version of Broken Sword: The Director's Cut. The game franchise dates back to 1996 but the most recent release is a remake of the original title and was released on the Nintendo DS and Wii in 2009.

Broken Sword: The Director's Cut is a loving update to the adventure which introduced George Stobbard, Nico Collard and the conspiracy of the Knights Templar in an epic narrative spanning the globe. A massive smash on its original release, the Director's Cut includes a significant amount of content not featured in the home computer version, adding approximately 20 per cent to the total play time.

The game is a traditional point and click adventure game but has been updated to adopt the wonderful iPhone interface also found in Beneath the Steel Sky. The iPhone version also contains new cut scenes and animations.

The game has been getting positive reactions in our forums, and we've been really enjoying it. Our full review will follow shortly.

App Store Link: Broken Sword: Director's Cut, $6.99

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The iPhone has attracted a notable number of Amiga game ports since the App Store went live. Worms, Pinball Dreams / Fantasies, Krypton Egg, Beneath a Steel Sky — the list goes on. For those unaware, the Amiga was an extremely innovative platform, released in 1985 by Commodore, that saw rather limited success outside of Europe. It featured a lean yet powerful operating system and a great deal of custom hardware that made it the choice gaming platform of the day (for those that were aware of its existence). Despite Commodore's demise in 1994, a few stragglers still carry the Amiga torch.

In an App Store first, the iPhone is about to receive a port of a highly praised Amiga game…that never was.

In 1993, Iraqi developer Rabah Shihab, part of the Mesopotamia Team, began work on the Amiga title Babylonian Twins (with basically no budget), inspired by what he saw of other games' depiction of Iraq. As he explained in an interview with Amiga Games That Weren't,

…My real dedication for this theme came during the early nineties after I saw a computer game in which you control a warplane with the goal of bombing Iraq. Putting the bombing aside (I was in Baghdad during the first gulf war and I saw the human suffering that resulted from the real bombing ), I didn't like the way they depicted Iraq in the game, as a primitive and uncivilized place. I wanted to build a game that counter that image, a game that shows the vibrant history of Mesopotamia. In Babylonian Twins, the game takes you to different historical places, from Babylon to Assyria. We relied on authentic history books to design many of the graphics in the game.

Shihab was impressed by the smooth scrolling of Team 17's Amiga title Superfrog and set out to deliver similar visual finesse in his title. Another inspiration was Konami's MSX release Maze of Galious. The team released a very well-liked demo version of the game, but no full Amiga release ever came. And although he, later, targeted the Xbox Live Arcade, it's the iPhone that will at long last receive the final release. And, befitting the game's history, the full Amiga release is also imminent.

The forthcoming game is a puzzle platformer with an authentic historic feel and unique two-character gameplay. It features the puzzle elements of Maze of Galious with the multi-character control of Lost Vikings, along with the glass-smooth animation of Superfrog. The author indicates that the iPhone version features an original soundtrack, excellent graphics, and over a dozen large levels.

See the developer's trailer video for a look at the updated version.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Videos of the original Amiga demo version can be seen here, here, and here. Amiga screenshots are also available.

UPDATE: In putting together this post, we sought further information from the developer, but he got back to us a bit after the post went live. Shihab wants to make sure readers are aware that the iPhone version of Babylonian Twins is an entirely new game that borrows no graphics or audio from the Amiga version. He assures us that all aspects of the game have been enhanced specifically for the iPhone by a dedicated team (and this time around on a healthy budget) over the course of the game's six-month development cycle.

We're quite anxious to get our hands on the final product and will bring further news of the iPhone release of Babylonian Twins as we get it. Stay tuned.

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The iPhone has attracted a notable number of Amiga game ports since the App Store went live. Worms, Pinball Dreams / Fantasies, Krypton Egg, Beneath a Steel Sky — the list goes on. For those unaware, the Amiga was an extremely innovative platform, released in 1985 by Commodore, that saw rather limited success outside of Europe. It featured a lean yet powerful operating system and a great deal of custom hardware that made it the choice gaming platform of the day (for those that were aware of its existence). Despite Commodore's demise in 1994, a few stragglers still carry the Amiga torch.

In an App Store first, the iPhone is about to receive a port of a highly praised Amiga game…that never was.

In 1993, Iraqi developer Rabah Shihab, part of the Mesopotamia Team, began work on the Amiga title Babylonian Twins (with basically no budget), inspired by what he saw of other games' depiction of Iraq. As he explained in an interview with Amiga Games That Weren't,

…My real dedication for this theme came during the early nineties after I saw a computer game in which you control a warplane with the goal of bombing Iraq. Putting the bombing aside (I was in Baghdad during the first gulf war and I saw the human suffering that resulted from the real bombing ), I didn't like the way they depicted Iraq in the game, as a primitive and uncivilized place. I wanted to build a game that counter that image, a game that shows the vibrant history of Mesopotamia. In Babylonian Twins, the game takes you to different historical places, from Babylon to Assyria. We relied on authentic history books to design many of the graphics in the game.

Shihab was impressed by the smooth scrolling of Team 17's Amiga title Superfrog and set out to deliver similar visual finesse in his title. Another inspiration was Konami's MSX release Maze of Galious. The team released a very well-liked demo version of the game, but no full Amiga release ever came. And although he, later, targeted the Xbox Live Arcade, it's the iPhone that will at long last receive the final release. And, befitting the game's history, the full Amiga release is also imminent.

The forthcoming game is a puzzle platformer with an authentic historic feel and unique two-character gameplay. It features the puzzle elements of Maze of Galious with the multi-character control of Lost Vikings, along with the glass-smooth animation of Superfrog. The author indicates that the iPhone version features an original soundtrack, excellent graphics, and over a dozen large levels.

See a video of the Amiga demo release of the game. (Screenshots in this article are also taken from the Amiga demo release).

Other Amiga demo videos can be seen here and here. Screenshots are also available.

We're quite anxious to get our hands on the final product and will bring further news of the iPhone release of Babylonian Twins as we get it. Stay tuned.

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When we took a look at the first Heavy Mach, we thought it was a fun side-scrolling shooter with room for improvement. Nearly a year later, developer IndieAn has released Heavy Mach 2 [App Store], a greatly enhanced sequel that abandons side-scrolling for a top down perspective among other changes and enhancements.

Gameplay in Heavy Mach 2 consists of taking various missions that seem to either have you killing things or collecting things, going out in to the battlefield to fight with your tank and returning with your spoils. As you earn credits and experience by defeating other tanks and completing missions, you can eventually buy tons of weaponry and different upgrades to your tank as you level up.

My favorite part of this game is how well the controls work. While the developers could have easily just used a typical virtual dual-stick control scheme, instead everything is done using different taps and drawing gestures on screen. To move your tank you can either tap on the battlefield, or you can draw a line with your finger for the tank to follow. Your tank will try to follow the exact course you plotted, so it will often get stuck if you try to make it cut corners or drive places it can't. This is easily solved by just tapping or drawing on the screen to move somewhere else.

Attacking enemies is as simple as tapping on them, and letting your weapons do the rest. Tapping on screen twice causes your tank to dash in that direction. There are buttons framing the screen to use special abilities (such as calling in air strikes) and changing weapons once you get more than the starting load out. The interface as well as the different tanks themselves and the terrain are extremely detailed, and the animations are great– Much like the original.

The only thing that really seems to be missing in Heavy Mach 2 is any kind of plot to follow. The highly detailed scenery does a great job of setting the futuristic war-torn the mood of the game, and I just can't help but wonder why you're just randomly taking missions to destroy things. Maybe that's just me.

Heavy Mach 2 combines the RPG elements of an experience and leveling system along with seemingly endless equipment upgrade and customization options. The controls work well, and I've had a great time rampaging through the countryside blowing up every tank I come across. While the original Heavy Mach was a great sidescroller, the sequel has translated well to the overhead view along with improving nearly everything from the first game. If you're a fan of tank combat, you really should give Heavy Mach 2 a shot.

App Store Link: Heavy Mach 2, $2.99

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I have a love-hate affair with tile-sliding games, so when I first discovered TileStorm [App Store, I had mixed expectations. Generally, tile-sliding games are pretty difficult (and TileStorm is no different), but the satisfaction that one gets from completing a puzzle is worth the rough path there. TileStorm faithfully delivers this tried-and-true gameplay with some nice, clean 3D visuals, soothing audio, and complete option set.

There are 100 levels in TileStorm, all equally split up between industrial, Egyptian, medieval, and jungle environments, which serve as really nothing more than a set up for some variety in the level-to-level color palette. Your goal as the player is to create a path for "Eggbot the robot" to make his way to the level's exit. This is accomplished by figuring out a way to move around the different tiles that happen to be laid out in a jumbled fashion in select areas of each level. While most levels only require players to solve one puzzle to complete the level, some feature numerous puzzles with pieces that must be re-used.

There's quite a challenge to be had with many of the levels in TileStorm, but players can take their time while playing as their is no time limit or other way to "lose." The game does track your time in the top-right corner of the screen, but this feature is merely included as an option for those who want to beat their own best times. There are no online leaderboards for the game, but I feel that TileStorm gets a pass for excluding this otherwise necessary feature because of the nature of the game; once players memorize the solution for a puzzle improving their own times would become an exercises in finger dexterity, not actual skill, to see how quickly they could mindlessly repeat the motions required to solve them.

TileStorm features a clean 3D isometric perspective, and both the environments and Eggbot himself all look great. The few bits of animation that Eggbot does have all play out without a hitch, and tiles slide along without any lag when prompted with a swipe of the finger. I always appreciate the option to turn a game's audio and listen to my iPod library while playing, and the game offers that up as well. One feature that TileStorm managed to fit in that I enjoyed is an incredibly detailed stat counter for players. By selecting "Game Stats" from its options menu, players of TileStorm can see how many puzzles they've completed, how much time they've spent playing the game and even the number of times that the screen has been touched during play. I think that being able to check out such statistics is a lot of fun, and I'm glad that TileStorm's developer included this functionality.

While I've had a lot of fun with TileStorm, there are a few problems that need to be ironed out. The biggest issue that I have with the game is its level-unlocking system, which requires players to complete all of the levels in one area before proceeding on to the next– Causing gameplay to come to a halt if you get stuck instead of skipping to a different level. Also, there are some interface issues such as requiring players to completely exit levels to restart them instead of simply having a button in a menu somewhere. However, the developer has been very active in our forums, and these fixes should be coming soon.

TileStorm is a fun, well-made puzzle game that offers up plenty of challenge and hours upon hours of gameplay for those who stick with it long enough to complete all 100 levels. While a few minor issues with the game may cause some annoyance, I don't believe that these problems will be nearly large enough to keep players from having a good time with it. This is not an easy game, but is definitely worth considering if you enjoy a good brain-teaser.

App Store Link: TileStorm, $1.99 – TileStorm Lite, Free

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It's no secret that the iPhone is a highly attractive target platform for developers, not only because of the excellent app distribution model that Apple has put in place with the App Store, but also because of the quality and accessibility of its freely-available development tools. They are great tools, indeed, but we wouldn't go as far as to say you could get a game out the door in a single day, or anything. Well, at least…we wouldn't have, until developers Alex Schwartz (who brought us Spring Fling) and Yilmaz Kiymaz (who brought us Rocket Monkey) did just that.

Schwartz and Kiymaz decided to try and develop a full-featured iPhone game, including all of the art, animation, music, sound effects, and everything, all within a single day — 24 hours. And before the starting pistol fired, the duo opened up the design to the iPhone gaming community.

The design will be based around one word: 'Absurdity'
You're the designer. Go.

After amassing ideas from the community, the timer started and the code began to flow. The team live-blogged the entire process in a thread in our own forums (which they've since summarized on their own blog).

And did they succeed in their mission? Well, despite delivering the game one entire minute late (we'll cut the guys some slack…), we'd definitely call the effort an impressive success. With the help of the online Touch Arcade community for ideas (forum member Sailor Jensen provided the winning concept) and a few developers from the Boston indie community for assistance with art and music (Matt Board, Beth Beinke, Steve Trenkamp), Super Ramen BROTHers quickly sprang to life, and is now available as a free App Store download [link].

And what's this hastily wrought title all about? Well, you control both of the Ramen brothers as they flee down the cashier's conveyor belt in an effort to avoid that laser scanning thing and, ultimately, two cups of boiling, stovetop death. In their flight, down the three-lane conveyor belt, they must jump or dodge (tap or drag) other grocery items, as every collision jolts the Ramen packs back one notch closer to doom. Soy sauce packets picked up along the way help the Ramen brothers edge back forward towards freedom. AGON community integration provides leaderboard tracking — an impressive touch for a one-day app.

See the devs' video for a look at the gameplay.

Super Ramen BROTHers is certainly not the best iPhone game we've ever played. But then, that wasn't really the point. Hats off to all involved in showing that it doesn't necessarily take a year of your life to get an iPhone game to the App Store. Surely their efforts here will inspire a number of would-be iPhone developers to give it a shake. What's more, the game is actually pretty fun to play. Give it a try.

App Store Link: Super Ramen BROTHers, Free

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With the release of Shadow Complex on Xbox Live Arcade last August the genre created (and in the opinion of some, perfected) by Nintendo's Metroid series was revived. In the wake of that game's success, 3G Studios brings us The Deep [App Store], a Metroid-inspired game with a twist; players are thrust into the wet suit of a scuba diver exploring the depths of the oceans.

The Deep opens with the tale of a vacationing scuba diver on a tropical island. Some guy who is permanently stuck in the Captain Morgan pose briefs players with a text-based tutorial, and the scuba diver (who you'll come to find is quite sarcastic) is driven towards a local store where an eccentric store owner awaits with the first quest. Thus begins a pattern that will become quite familiar to players as they progress; there are three different islands in The Deep, and each one contains a single villager and a very unique shop owner, each of whom tout some very strange demands in quest form.

After accepting a quest, players can leave an island and drop out to a large map, where all of the levels that have been unlocked are selectable. Upon selecting a level, the actual gameplay starts and the exploration, light puzzle solving, and Metroid references can begin. Like Metroid, The Deep is all about exploring environments and finding important items that allow access to other parts of the map or give unique abilities to the main character. A large red boulder, for instance, can't be destroyed until a player has collected the level three bomb upgrades, so plenty of secrets are saved for second or even third runs through the many levels and areas in the game.

The scuba diver is controlled via a virtual thumbstick when using the default control scheme, and this works perfectly, unlike the alternative touch-based option. While there are numerous threats to the diver in the form of sharks, deadly swordfish, and giant alien brains (the game gets pretty crazy towards the end), there is no health meter to be monitored during play. Instead, the diver's air tank steadily runs out of air, which can be easily refilled by returning to the surface. Taking damage from the underwater creatures will take off precious seconds from the total timer, so avoiding them is a must if any progress is to be made, as dying will reset all of the progress in a level to the moment the diver entered it last.

In a particularly wise design decision by the developers, each level works as a sort of hub for about three separate areas, each of which is its own contained puzzle. In this way players can generally make it through one area, collect an important item, return to the surface, and then immediately head for the next in-level area. This gives the game a nice pace and makes for a great sense of urgency at all times, as a few mistakes in an area means that the diver will need to be especially quick in order to finish collecting all of the goodies in an area and make it out alive.

The various shops on the three islands offer tons of upgrades which can be purchased with the treasure that can be found so abundantly throughout The Deep's levels. Substantial oxygen tank upgrades, increases in swimming speed, better flashlights for those deeper, dark areas, and better suits to keep the diver from taking much damage from enemy encounters all add up to make a nice reward for finishing a level, as well as provide big incentive to explore areas and collect more gold.

There's something inherently fun about upgrading a character to make them faster or stronger for second runs through levels; I'm sure fans of Hook Champ will attest to this. The Deep successfully delivers that feeling of fun, all the while providing tons of enticing reasons to play more, like the allure of extra hidden gold or sidequests that span multiple levels.

Worthy of special note is the humorous, self-referential dialogue between the characters from the islands and the scuba diver. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion at the well-written quips from the island natives, and I feel that they give the game an extra layer of personality. While no text in the game is voiced, the music is pretty good (although it can be hit or miss at times), but it can't match up with the quality of the art, which is made all the more appealing by the high quality of the animation, especially in regards to the diver.

The Deep is not without fault, although its issues are not major. A little variation in some of the puzzles (which almost exclusively deal with flipping different colored switches to open doors) would have been nice, and I really wish that there was a way to check an individual level's stats to see if any of the hidden collectibles haven't been collected, but these are very small issues when one considers the fact that the game is an absolute blast to play. I do have one strong suggestion for the developers, and that's to change the design of some of the shops (the ones that require you to scroll right a really long ways for no real reason to get to the shop owner). That's just annoying.

All of my complaints against The Deep are absolutely trivial when I look back and consider the amount of fun that I derived from playing through the game. Unique level designs, the pleasant art, and that addictive, upgrade-focused exploratory gameplay kept me captive for hours. The comparison might be a slight stretch due to the fact that the levels are in no way interconnected, but I feel that fans of great games like Super Metroid or Shadow Complex will absolutely fall in love with this game. This is a hidden gem that should not be kept a secret.

App Store Link: The Deep, $3.99

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