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Developer MadFinger Games has just announced a followup to the popular hack 'n slash title Samurai: Way of the Warrior. We reviewed the game when it was released in September of last year and found it to be an incredibly stylish (and incredibly difficult) action game with intuitive swipe controls. With plenty of awards and high review marks from around the web, as well as three quarter of a million copies downloaded, a sequel to Samurai seems like a no-brainer.

Yesterday MadFinger started a thread in our upcoming games forum to dish out some new info and screens from the upcoming sequel, titled Samurai II: Vengeance. Here is the info straight from the developer, along with some work-in-progress screens from the iPad version (click for full size):

Samurai II: Vengeance boasts twice the gameplay of the first release and features larger levels

many new combo attacks and violent deaths

Samurai II also supports a virtual joystick for fans uncomfortable with the gesture control scheme.

Realistic violent battle sequences, more enemies equipped with new weapons including Samurai Musketeer or Archer, and epic battles with unique Bosses.

Improved gameplay and new features: solve puzzles, avoid dangerous traps, use discovered objects, and more.

Daisuke Shimada returns on a mission to avenge Kasumi's death. Follow his story through unique comic storytelling!

Samurai II also enhances its gameplay through new survival modes.

Samurai II is developed on the award-winning Unity 3D 3.0 engine supporting the latest technology.

Original soundtrack.

Samurai II: Vengeance is slated to be released this September for 2^nd and 3^rd generation iPod touch, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, and iPad. If this is the first you've heard of the Samurai series, you can check out the original Samurai: Way of the Warrior for your iPhone or iPad in anticipation of this upcoming sequel.

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If I had to list three things the App Store needs less of, fart apps, games with zombies, and line drawing as a control method would all be at or near the top. iPhone developer Mutant Games would apparently disagree with that statement, judging by their upcoming game which merges these three App Store cliches in to one unholy abomination of a game which oddly enough looks like it might actually be fun especially considering the sky high novelty value of the game.

In Farts VS. Zombies, you play as a Chuck Norris lookalike with your pants dropped in front of an endless conveyor belt of food with your butt pointed at an incoming swarm of zombies. The foods you eat determine what kind of fart you will generate, and these fart clouds can then be routed around the room by drawing lines for them to follow. The goal of the game is to protect japanese school girls, who you will need to make sure your fart clouds stay away from while you gas said zombies. Your ultimate attack of sorts seems to be some kind of projectile vomit, which can clear entire swaths of zombies and is aimed by tilting your device.

Farts VS. Zombies has both a survival mode and a story mode… And I can't wait to see how the plot unfolds as per the trailer the ultimate battle at the end of the game is against an evil unicorn who may or may not be responsible for sending hordes of zombies your way.

Farts VS. Zombies is still in development, and hopefully by the time it's released Mutant Games will have time to implement some form of doodle graphics as well. For more information, check out the thread in our forums.

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John Kooistra's games have been long time favorites around here on TouchArcade, with both Blue Defense and Blue Attack the topic of discussion during episode #5 of our podcast where we had Kooistra on to chat about his then upcoming but since released RTS game Red Conquest as well as the formation of his new development studio, Cat in a Box Games. We just received word that while a sequel to Blue Defense is still in the works along with episode 3 of Red Conquest, Cat in a Box plans on launching their next game, Fastar! on July 30th.

Fastar!, or Fight Angry Squares: The Action RPG, is set around the seemingly ridiculous premise of being an action RPG for when you don't have time for an action RPG. Set in an intentionally vague fantasy world, players fight nothing but squares which oddly enough seem to explode coins upon dying. 24 game modes are included, with many focusing on playing through the game as quickly as possible.

There's a magic system, an in-game shop to upgrade your character, and even online leader boards to post your various speed runs to. Fastar! sounds fairly clever, blending both the quick pick up and play game styles that have become so popular on the App Store with gameplay mechanics action RPG. If all goes as planned, Fastar! should be available on the 30th for 99¢.

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While we're all busy fiddling with multitasking and obsessively organizing our apps in to folders, developers are hard at work to fully utilize all the other things under the hood of iOS 4. Firemint and Secret Exit are among the first studios taking advantage of iOS 4's new anti-aliasing capabilities.

Anti-aliasing is used to minimize jagged edges found in curved and diagonal lines displayed utilizing the grid of square pixels that make up the displays we use today. Using anti-aliasing, the GPU of the iPhone intelligently decides what color to display on pixels that border the edges of 3D objects to make them blend in to the background and appear more crisp.

As you can see from the above image, the A on the left has no aliasing, while the edges of the A on the right have been blended with the background color. This is a gross over-simplification of how anti-aliasing works, but if you weren't aware before it will at least give you an idea of what you're looking at in the following sets of screenshots:

The effects of the anti-aliasing is incredibly apparent when you focus on the bill of the duck in both images. Secret Exit also posted additional screenshots in our forums, and in a second post explaining the technical details of anti-aliasing in Zen Bound 2 which mentions the performance cost being too high to utilize the effect in older devices.

In somewhat related Zen Bound 2 news, they also announced that it will soon be available on multiple platforms. Joining the existing iPad Zen Bound 2 [$4.99] is an upcoming iPhone, iPod touch, PC, and Mac version. Recent MacBook owners will be able to use the multi-touch trackpad or even a Magic Mouse to control the game just like the iPhone.

Real Racing [$4.99] saw an update yesterday which not only made the game iPhone 4 friendly complete with high resolution graphics, but also brought anti-aliasing to the iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation iPod touch. It might not have been immediately obvious when you fired up the game since updating, but take a look at a screenshot I took today compared to a screenshot captured for our our review over a year ago:

Looking at the line following the top of the dashboard, the A pillar of the car, and edges of the banner over the makes the new anti-aliasing really pop out comparing the two screenshots. This is only the tip of the iceberg, too. Now that new features like this have been unlocked for developers, it should be really fun to see what they come up with.

Anti-aliasing being supported by the iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation iPod touch is also good news for people who might not be immediately upgrading to the iPhone 4. While you'll obviously be lacking the Retina Display, if developers start implementing anti-aliasing in all their 3D games, everything will look substantially better on your existing device without needing to do anything other than download some game updates.

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This morning Crescent Moon Games, creators of Ravensword: The Fallen King [$4.99] just pulled the curtain from their upcoming space-themed 3D / 2.5D platform game, Ultra Kid: Mystery of the Mutants.

Inspired by fantastic games like MegaMan, Kid Icarus, and Super Mario Galaxy and others, Ultra Kid will have players flying their rockets through space to land on different moons and planets, where they will find crazy creatures to fight and dark tunnels to explore.

With a mixture of both 2.5D and 3D platforming, you'll collect weapons and suit upgrades as you progress through the game to help you complete your main mission of saving the galaxy from Dr. Ridalin, who we've been assured is quite evil. Ultra Kid is still in development, and while details are vague right now, we expect to learn quite a bit more about the game in the upcoming weeks.

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Earlier this month we took a look at IUGO's amusing dual-stick survival shooter Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet. We liked the game, which offers solid shooter action and, unlike most other games of the sort, an impressive ability to interaction with obstacles in the environment. The game has an atmosphere straight out of a B-movie and features an array of ridiculous weapons along with humorous taunts and unlockable outfits for the voluptuous Daisy, each smaller than the next.

It all comes together to make for a fun romp of carnage, but that last seems to have stuck in Apple's craw after recent changes to the company's App Store approval policies. As IUGO informed readers in our forums, Daisy Mae has been pulled from the App Store.

And Daisy Mae isn't the only one to get a tap on the shoulder. A great many adult-themed apps have been pulled from the App Store. One such app is Wobble iBoobs from ChilliFresh, who yesterday received an email from Apple indicating that their popular iPhone app had been pulled.

The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately.

We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the necessary changes so that Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored) complies with our recent changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.

Sincerely,
iPhone App Review

And while a shooter with some risque elements would seem to not be in quite the same place as a "boob"-centric app, Daisy Mae seems to have found herself on the far side of Apple's newly-adjusted line.

IUGO intends to rework the game and bring it back to the App Store, but indicates it's unclear just how long that will take.

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Angry Birds [App Store]Current Version: 1.2.0
Our Review
Forum Thread

The newest update for Angry Birds is nearly worthy of being a standalone sequel, with 42 new levels across two new graphically unique worlds to play through. Crystal has been been added for leaderboard and achievement support for high score/points junkies, and changes have even been made to older levels, mostly in the form of bug fixes, but with some small graphical enhancements thrown in there as well. I fell in love with Angry Birds when I first reviewed it, so you can bet that I’ll be cranking up the game as soon as I get the chance.

Bird Strike [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2
Our Review
Forum Thread

Bird Strike was only released about a month ago, so it’s a nice surprise to see an entirely new game mode (in the form of “Endless Climb mode”) make its way into the game. The new mode really raises the value of the game, but the price hasn’t been raised to correspond with the update, so if you haven’t bought the game yet, now is a great time to do so. Those who’ve owned the game for a while and expressed complaints about 3GS performance and a nasty leaderboard duplication bug can breathe a sigh of relief as well, as Prodigy Design has addressed these issues with this update as well.

Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2.0
Our Coverage
Forum Thread

It’s been a long wait since Call of Duty: Zombies‘ initial mid-November launch, but a second map, Verrück, has finally been added for purchase in a massive update. Along with this update and new map comes nine new weapons (including FG-42, Gewehr-43, PPsh-41, M1 Garand, and the Springfield), 13 new achievements for Nacht der Untoten, 10 new achievements for Verrück, engine optimizations to make the game run more smoothly, leaderboard enhancements to track a wider variety of in-game stats, more customizable controls, a tutorial adjustment, network reliability enhancements, a “multiplayer point display” to track other players’ in-game progression, and even French-localized text. The new map and all the goodies that comes along with it will set you back $5.

Doodle Bomb [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2
Our Review
Forum Thread

Doodle Bomb’s newest update brings 10 new master missions and five new standard missions for players to play through, along with a new anti-gravity control that lets players reach new places and even roll bombs along ceilings. The master missions have been unlocked for everyone, so you won’t have to meet a certain Bomb Badge requirement to play them now, and a new “variable bomb tilt” feature should provide something fresh for those who’ve conquered the game.

Ghosts’n Zombies [App Store]
Current Version: 1.1
Our Review
Forum Thread

This update isn’t a large as many of the others on this list, but it’s notable for removing the AdMob banner ad that we complained about in our review. A couple of bug fixes have also been instituted in the 1.1 update, as has the newest version of OpenFeint. We commend the developers for listening to feedback and taking action on the problems that players were having with the game, and now that this update is out, I don’t feel like there’s much getting in the way of a hearty recommendation from us for this game.

Hook Champ [App Store]
Current Version: 1.40
Our Review
Forum Thread

Mingore’s John Gore has finally been added as a playable character in this newest update to the legendary swinging game, and he even comes with a usable machine gun (with unlimited ammo!). New levels have been created for playthrough with John, and a brand new control method has also been added and set as the default control scheme, but veterans of the game still have the option to switch back to the “classic” control scheme if they so wish. Naturally, a variety of bug fixes have been tossed in as well, so this might be an update that brings a lot of people back to the game for more.

Parachute Ninja [App Store]
Current Version: 1.1
Our Review
Forum Thread

Parachute Ninja’s 1.1 update is a small one, but it fixes what might’ve been a make-or-break issue that I had with the game when I reviewed it: the tilt auto-calibration that activates with the parachute. This issue really frustrated me during my playthrough of the game, but now that I know I can turn it off, Im extremely likely to return to this beautiful platformer for more.

Sunday Lawn [App Store]
Current Version: 1.10
Forum Thread

Sunday Lawn has never been a big seller for Donut Games, but I’ve always liked it quite a bit. This new update should’ve been called 3.0 instead of 1.10, because it literally triples the value of this game. A challenge mode (much like the main game in Comet Racer) has been added, as has a fun little minigame called “Sweet Dreams” in which you must keep Charlie asleep by bouncing sheep over fences. Global leaderboards have been added, and the game finally allows you to start the app with your own music playing to replace the in-game music- a feature that all App Store developers should implement. If you’ve never tried out Sunday Lawn, go purchase it now, because it’s finally on par with all their other awesome games.

Trenches [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2.6
Our Coverage
Forum Thread

I’ll admit it: when Trenches was first released, I hated it. I beat the entire game on its normal difficulty setting in less than 20 minutes, a task I completed by simply tapping the “spawn infantry” button over and over until the game abruptly ended. We didn’t give much coverage to the game due to its broken nature upon launch, but now that several updates have been implemented, I returned to Trenches to discover a truly fun, well-balanced game. The newest 1.2.6 update is nothing more than a bunch of bug fixes and further (necessary) unit balancing, but it also addresses the crashing that annoyed tons of people before now. Other past updates, however, have added new modes, length and variety to the campaign, and even improved control methods, morphing what was at first a broken novelty into a legitimately great game. If you’re like me and took a pass on Trenches before, it’s definitely worth revisiting now.

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