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Later this year in Japan, Namco Bandai plans to capitalize on fresh hardware fever with a launch iteration of Katamari on the PlayStation Vita. It’s also giving us iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch owners a little something, too, with Katamari Amore this Thursday. Slated to hit in both paid and free-to-play versions, this latest Katamari looks to put you in some familiar shoes: you’ll play as the Prince’s Katamari and, as usual, be tasked with wrapping up various items to increase its size.

Expect 24 missions at launch, six of which are “completely new stages.” Also, expect to play across four different modes, including a regular campaign, a time attack mode, “Exact Size Challenge,” and “Eternal Mode.” For you Pac-Man fans out there, Namco is rolling in a special themed level complete with dots, ghosts, and a controllable Pac-Man. Neat!

The free version of the title will include Time Attack mode, while the full $3.99 version (special price) will have all of the aforementioned launch content from the get-go. Namco has promised that more content is on the way, too, which is cool because if Amore is able to overcome the technical woes its predecessor I Love Katamari [$6.99] had, it should absolutely rock. I mean, the last one did until the framerate took crazy dives, at least.

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Developer Fractiv just introduced a new mechanic and a new character in a free and fresh update to its arcade racing game Lane Splitter [$.99]. New version 2.0 — which the studio says is the game’s most comprehensive update yet — adds Ricky, a character “who looks cooler than you because of his sweet [blue] chopper. Also, police. Yep! For the first time ever, you’ll be asked to avoid the long arm of the law as you switch lanes to and fro at silly speeds. From our tests thus far, escaping the police seems to simply boil down to "just keep driving fast," a conceit that jives with the whole game.

New animations, tweaks, and optimizations are also a part of the  free update. Interestingly, the studio has also added four more characters, but only as IAP. You can grab them one a piece for $.99 or in a bundle for $1.99. The latter is an introductory price for the moment.

Lane Splitter is stupid fun and we certainly got into it earlier this March. If you’d like to learn a little bit more about the crotch-rocketry that fuels this game, you should definitely give our review a read.

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Gameloft made a splash back in February when they announced that they were hopping on the Unreal Engine bandwagon. This summer it was revealed that March of Heroes would be their first Unreal-based game… And it'd be playable at E3. Naturally, we had our greasy hands all over it at E3, and we even took home some gameplay video:

This information comes courtesy of the Gameloft twitter account, mere moments ago:

With that out of the way, maybe it's the custom designed tin foil hat I'm wearing right now, but something seems a little fishy about this announcement. First off, Gameloft's Twitter is notoriously meticulous when it comes to capitalizing things, even to the point of capitalizing "GALAXY" in "Samsung GALAXY," using all the proper periods in "N.O.V.A." instead of just typing "NOVA" like the rest of the world, and more. Secondly, the link they're linking to is just their generic Facebook page which contains no information on the matter.

So is this a prank, hoax, publicity stunt, or a little of the three? Who knows. I was looking forward to Gameloft throwing their hat into the proverbial Unreal Engine ring, so this is a bit of a bummer if it's actually true.

Update: Well, it turns out my tinfoil hat was reading tea leaves again, something it really loves to do. Gameloft's Facebook was just updated with this snippet:

Hi everyone, we know we have a big community of FPS fans here… so we are very sorry to announce that we will not be releasing March of Heroes.

Our developers will be focusing on developing various awesome games in the months to come and working on making them even better. Fans of March of Heroes should definitely look forward to the powerful Modern Combat 3. We are however, not cancelling our work on the Unreal Engine! We are expecting to release these games starting 2012.

So, I suppose, now is the time for rampant speculation as to why it was cancelled instead of just released as-is. The version I saw at E3 seemed very complete.

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jAggy Race [99¢] arrived on the App Store without much fanfare, but this kart-racing game is an impressive debut release from Swiss developers SevenOnly. The goal is to race your little kart around the track within the allotted time. That sounds pretty easy, except the tracks are totally crazy.

They curve down-and-under, so your vehicle ends up racing upside down with 360-degree gravity. You can do massive jumps on the track which send you flying for ages, even around corners, or to other sections of track. If you've ever played the snowboarding game iStunt 2 Insane Hills [Free] the tracks are just as crazy, but here you're on wheels.

There's no other karts in this game, as you're solely racing against the clock and trying to avoid crashing. A timer starts beeping if you're running out of time, which really gets the adrenaline going, but If you take the corners too quickly you'll fly off the track altogether. Fortunately, there's mandatory checkpoints which illuminate as you pass and act as a re-spawn point if you wipe-out. This is a game of skill and timing as you can't simply hold down the accelerator.

To makes things trickier, there's obstacles to jump, laser barriers in the air, and large rotating saw blades to avoid. If you ram into an obstacle at full speed the kart bounces back, using up precious time, although you can slam on the brakes and speed forward again. And this game delivers a great sensation of speed, on tracks which grow much longer and more complex as you progress.

There's 5 tutorial tracks, followed by 3 worlds of five tracks each. When you complete a level, the next level unlocks and you can unlock an additional 3 bonus tracks by scoring three gold wins per world (making 23 tracks in total).  But be warned: It's not easy to achieve gold results at first, and obstacles can sometimes appear too quickly to avoid if you're not familiar with the track yet. In jAggy Race, memory and quick reflexes come in handy.

The track is only one-lane wide (as wide as your kart) so there's no swerving left or right. Instead, there's buttons to drive forward and backwards on each side of the screen. Or tap both together for braking. Some tracks require a combination of driving forwards and backwards, but there's always arrows conveniently located  to show you which way to race.

Jump buttons are available on both sides of the screen. While you're mid-air, you can optionally tilt the device to do flips. If your kart tips over, or is racing along on two wheels, you can shake the device to upright it. Once you've mastered the controls, there's an option to remove the buttons altogether if you choose. The controls in general work really well, and your fingers never obscure the action.

The retina graphics look great and the "camera" panning is super smooth, starting with a wide view of the track and background, zooming in on the car at the starting post and then tracking the car nicely, despite the rapid turns, drops, jumps and loops.

If you look closely, you'll notice some attention to detail. The kart wheels rotate and Jaggy (which is the name of the driver) looks over his shoulder when in reverse and even blinks occasionally. And the backgrounds are layered with details. There are sheep grazing beside (or sitting upon) the track.  And when the voice says "Ready…go!" at the start, you can accelerate quickly to turbo.

jAggy Race is a fun casual game, but it's also an exciting and challenging game for competitive gamers who want to familiarize themselves with each track for better results. Game Center leader-boards are provided for each track, plus 46 Game Center achievements. jAggy Race is already a good deal for a buck, but the developers advise that new tracks, additional features and a universal version are being worked on already, which will make this game an even better deal down the road.

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One of my most favorite puzzle games that I played while growing up was Lemmings. Sure, there were plenty of games before that required thinking and coordination, but there was something about being in charge of a group of characters and having to lead them across maps of perilous obstacles that I loved.

BridgeTheGap [$0.99], a pirate-themed puzzle game, attempts to recreate a portion of the classic Lemmings formula while infusing it with even more strategy and precision than its spiritual predecessor. While BridgeTheGap certainly brings some good ideas to the mix through its bridge building mechanics, atrocious controls and poor execution prevent it from being little more than a subpar puzzler.

Your mission in BridgeTheGap is simple: a group of pirates need to get from one end of the level to the other. In your way are a variety of gaping chasms that require bridges to be built over them. The only tools you have at your disposal to build said bridges are barrels, which act as your weights, and bamboo rods, which allow your pirate buddies to cross those gaps. In addition, littered throughout each level are gold coins which can be collected by your pirate crew and typically require more complicated bridges in order to reach them. As you get towards later levels, you will also encounter ‘natives’ which will attack your pirate companions unless you take them out first with your pistols.

BridgeTheGap can be separated into two different phases. In the building phase, you have twenty building supplies (either rods or barrels) to work with. Once you feel you have a legitimate path to the end goal, you activate the movement phase which has your pirates start moving forward indiscriminately (a la Lemmings). The only commands you can give them are to jump or shoot their pistol. Otherwise, they’re going to keep moving forward. I would have really preferred the option to continue building during the movement phase, as it would allow players to make on the fly adjustments and possibly bring more excitement to the overall game.

Initially, levels are extremely easy to get through. However, they quickly become harder and more complicated, especially if you’re trying to get to the gold coins. Considering that those gold coins are necessary in order to unlock future levels, you quickly learn that they’re less of an optional quest and more of something you have to take into consideration if you want to be able to play through the whole game.

Overall, BridgeTheGap manages to create a decent bridge building game. The later levels require some pretty complicated designs in order to collect all the coins. Thankfully, there’s an adequate tutorial, along with some instructional screens showing some recommended bridge designs (although I hate the fact that you can’t access these designs in-game). There’s definitely a feeling of accomplishment once you manage to get all your pirates safely across all obstacles in a level.

Unfortunately, what little enjoyment BridgeTheGap provides is outweighed by a multitude of design blunders throughout the game. First off is the use of a virtual gamepad for moving about the level during the build phase. I would have much rather have seen a two-finger scroll or some other multi-touch gesture, as the virtual pad definitely gets in the way when you’re trying to do some precise bridge placement. Relatedly, the button placements during the build phase just seem to get in the way of the action. I can’t count how many times I was trying to place a bridge and then I accidentally hit the ‘Ready’ button in the bottom corner. Since there’s no confirmation dialog, my pirates would just start moving and I’d have no choice but to reset the entire level and try again, which becomes increasingly annoying due to load times that really shouldn’t exist in a game like this.

There are also a few other annoying minor issues, such as the main menu being a blob of selection choices without much organization and the fact that the game won’t even automatically reset once all your pirates are physically unable to reach the finish line.

These design issues are really a shame, considering how much potential the underlying game actually has. Unfortunately, in its current state, I can’t recommend BridgeTheGap for anyone other than the most diehard of puzzle fans that are willing to look past all the problems. For everyone else, it’s best you steer clear.

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Just over a month ago, we checked out some screenshots for the upcoming fixed-turret battling game Siegecraft from Crescent Moon Games and Blowfish Studios. The goal here is to control the siege team for one of several different races and wreak havoc on your opponents using all manner of catapults, crossbows, battering rams, and more. As you do well in the game, you’ll earn cash that will let you purchase upgrades for your various weaponry.

Siegecraft was looking pretty darn good in still shots, and today Crescent Moon has offered up the first trailer for the game, showcasing what it looks like in motion. Spoiler alert – it’s looking pretty awesome so far:

Siegecraft is boasting some impressive bullet points for “the back of its box”, including 6 different campaigns over 27 unique levels, universal iPad support and specific enhancements for the iPad 2, and a same-device multiplayer mode exclusive to the iPad. Things seem to be shaping up well for Siegecraft, and if all goes according to plan the game should drop sometime in early October as a Universal app, so keep your eyes peeled for new information both here and in our forums leading up to release.

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4Towers: Onslaught [$1.99] is the latest tower defense game from LambdaMu, the makers of Infinight [$1.99/Lite] and Dice Soccer [Free]. If the name of this game sounds familiar, that's probably because it was originally released mid-2010 as 4Towers Combo TD: Classic Edition [99c] .

Onslaught is a reboot of their Classic game, as it delivers additional levels, bosses, an features, plus improved vector-style graphics and sounds. The first 22 of the 28 levels are taken directly from the Classic game, but look better and include the addition of equipment which grant special abilities.

4Towers: Onslaught features 13 different varieties of enemy (or "creep"), each with different health, speed and abilities. Creeps travel in waves, along a set path. You set-up towers to destroy them, before they reach the end of the path. Anyone who plays tower defense games will be completely familiar with this concept. The creeps have abilities such as turning invisible, spawning swarms and healing other creeps. And each level features one unique boss to defeat, so that's 28 bosses.

This game is quite similar to GeoDefense [$1.99/Lite/Review], which is an excellent tower defense game from early 2009, although there's three main differences. Firstly, there are set positions in Onslaught where you can install a tower, rather than being able to position towers anywhere. Secondly, some of those positions are specifically allocated for combining two towers together, as a combo-tower.  And thirdly, instead of failing once 10 creeps escape, the remaining health of each escaping creep is removed from your own health, causing you to die if your health reaches zero.

This game is named "4Towers" for a reason. The four basic towers are red (blast tower), blue (slow tower), green (weaken tower) and purple (cannon tower). By combining two towers together, you can create 18 stronger combo-towers, with new abilities, to fight off the swarm.

Here's a couple of examples:  Two linked red towers form a rapid fire tower, blue and green towers form an immobilizing stun tower, while red and green towers form a sniper tower which specifically targets creeps with the highest health points (HP). Four of the combo-towers are achieved by placing towers on special charge platforms, for extra powerful attacks once charged up, although these have a long cool-down period.

The gameplay controls are simple and intuitive. Towers are built by tapping an available marked position, then selecting the tower type. You can tap an existing tower to upgrade or recycle it. Recycling means you get an instant refund for all money spent on that tower so far, enabling you to create a new tower elsewhere. This redeem-and-relocate technique can be used strategically mid-game, to move towers back in front of a wave of creeps after they've passed by.

There's a "fast-forward" button, to make the action play out faster, or you can press pause to make your moves without pressure. A radar shows the next approaching wave of creeps, and tapping it causes the next wave of creeps to spawn immediately. This allows expert players to confront two waves of creeps simultaneously for higher scores. You can also unlock Veteran and Elite modes for more difficult and prolonged game-play.

When you complete a level, you're rewarded with biomatter (in-game currency) and the next level is unlocked, even if you didn't manage to defeat the boss. However, it's only by killing the boss that you collect the items it drops.  Collecting equipment will give you abilities or tower modifications, boosting your stats. You can unlock items using biomatter or if you're impatient, via in-app purchases. Game Center rankings and a healthy 51 achievements are included.

This release was originally planned to be an episodic tower defense game, like their Classic game which features two episodes, however ignore the current iTunes description and game trailer, because the developers have scrapped that approach. Instead, they advise that a future update is likely, but not expected to require an in-app purchase.

If you already have the Classic version, you may not want this game unless you don't mind repeating most of the levels, but otherwise 4Towers: Onslaught is a solid tower defense game which rewards intelligent play, has a lot of depth and improves on the aesthetics of its earlier version.

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Settlers of Catan [$4.99 / HD] is considered, rightly, as one of the best board game-to-digital ports on the App Store. But other than just generally being sharp, it's also infinitely expandable, which is a great thing for the fans. Capitalizing on this is developer Exozet, who just shot Pocket Gamer a note that a new expansion is slated to hit later this year.

So, what is this upcoming expansion? Cities and Knights, which is easily one of the most aggressive expansions of the bunch. In it, you’ll develop cities while using knights to attack other players as well as help opponents defend the world from barbarians from across the ocean. The expansion also ushers in new cards that bolster the overall vibe of the experience.

Overall, there are a lot of fine details in this package, so if you're really interested in Cities And Knights, the Wikipedia article on it should sate your hot desire to learn more.

It’s unknown at the moment whether this will be an IAP or simply a free update, but our dime is on the fact that it’ll cost some dough. And, really, why wouldn’t it considering the amount of stuff it adds to an aging game. Speaking of that, actually, Catan was updated earlier last month with a new graphical pass and several optimization tweaks. Obviously, the developer is still very much behind its product.

[Via Pocket Gamer]

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