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Rimelands: Hammer of Thor [$4.99] is a new tactical turn-based RPG from developers Dicework and Crescent Moon Games (of Ravensword [$3.99/Lite] fame). We previewed a hands-on video of the game about a month ago that explained how the turn-based combat worked as well as showcasing some of the games many items and weapons. With Rimelands now available, we've been able to experience these first hand, and came away impressed with how well the different elements of the game come together. The dice-rolling combat mechanic gives it an old school pen-and-paper feel, while the dungeon crawling and loot collection offers plenty to discover in the game. Couple that with an interesting story and top-notch visuals, and Rimelands is one of the best RPG experiences you can have on the iPhone.

Humans have squandered the resources of the world, throwing off the balance of the ecosystem and turning their once beautiful lands into an uninhabitable frozen wasteland. They are forced to move into underground vaults for a thousand years, and when they finally emerge they find that a new race called the Fair Folk have taken over the dominant role above ground. Humans try to reclaim their territory, and war ensues. An uneasy peace is finally reached between the two sides, and they are able to precariously coexist together above ground. This leaves countless underground vaults filled with treasures of the last millennium, ready to be explored and exacted by you, treasure hunter Rose Cristo.

The story in Rimelands sets the stage perfectly for a dungeon crawling adventure. You'll play the role of Rose as she travels to the many towns and vaults in Rimelands discovering treasures, completing quests, and evolving her character with the multitude of items and abilities available. The game is played from an isometric viewpoint and combat and movement are grid-based. This can take some getting used to as you're only able to move in four directions rather than being able to move around the world freely. Coming within striking distance of an enemy allows you to engage in the turn-based combat which is a mixture of long-ranged and melee attacks. An interesting dice mechanic determines your offensive and defensive effectiveness, and playing Rimelands feels like an interactive board game where all of the dull pen-and-paper stuff has been automated for you.

An overhead map lets you travel to the towns and vaults that you discover during the game. Quests are obtained by talking with characters around the world much like your typical RPG. There is a main storyline to follow as well as many side quests to pick up and complete. The dungeons in Rimelands are full of dangerous enemies, as well as many unique treasures. Traversing these dungeons feels very Diablo-esque, as there are many rooms to explore and a ton of loot to obtain, although with strategic turn-based combat instead of the hack 'n slash variety. Making your way through the dungeons is incredibly fun, and I found it hard to stop playing until I was sure I'd explored every nook and cranny of each in order not to miss any lucrative treasure chests.

One of the high points of Rimelands is the extensive variety of items and weapons in the game, as well as the various skill trees for your character. Defeating enemies earns you gold and experience points, and upon leveling up you can choose a new ability from one of three skill trees. Barbarian brings melee effects, Assassin boosts your ranged abilities, and Shaman covers magical abilities. There's quite a bit of diversity with how you want to build your character, and good reason to play through the game multiple times focusing in different areas each time. An engineering dynamic is in the game as well, allowing you to build different weapons with blueprints that you find. It's an interesting idea, but not totally necessary due to the many excellent weapons you're bound to come across in the game anyway.

Graphically Rimelands is a beautiful game. The characters and enemies are fairly detailed, and their animations are excellent. The environments are also very attractive, with snowy terrain when you are in the above ground areas and dark dungeons with nice lighting effects when you go underground. The in-game graphics do have a slightly jagged look to them, but nothing overly detracting. Retina Display support is a possibility down the road, as is a native iPad version, although nothing has been finalized. Rimelands runs just fine in 2x mode on the iPad, and players in our forums are definitely enjoying the game this way. The story is told via static illustrations and text, and by in-game dialogue between characters as well. There isn't any full motion video or animated cutscenes, but the story is engaging and the illustrated bits look great.

There are plenty of other nuances to Rimelands, and it really is a game with a grand scope. You can expect to get about 8-10 hours out of one playthrough, and there is good incentive to go through multiple times and try out different character builds. Plus, this should only be the first chapter in the Rimelands universe, as more content will be coming down the line via updates as well as planned sequels. Dicework and Crescent Moon have a winner on their hands here, and I'll be looking forward to seeing more from this series. I don't typically love turn-based strategy games, but Rimelands had me hooked almost instantly. It's easy enough to get into whether you enjoy the strategic combat, loot collecting, character leveling, or just want to uncover the story in the unique steampunk universe. For fans of these elements, or any gamer in general, Rimelands: Hammer of Thor is a solid choice.

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Games based on comic books have been almost as hit or miss as games based on movies in the past, so I think my cautious optimism for Gameloft's recently released Spider-Man: Total Mayhem [$6.99] was well deserved. Sure, there are some absolutely fantastic comic book games such as the quarter-sucking X-Men Arcade Game, and a few others over the years. Unfortunately, many fall in to the same pit that movie games fall in to where they lean far too heavily on whatever intellectual property the game is based on instead of actually having good gameplay. This is true to some extent in Spider-Man: Total Mayhem, but the whole package is comprehensive enough that it doesn't even seem to even matter.

Like all Gameloft games, many parts of Spider-Man are clearly borrowed from other titles of theirs, and Total Mayhem is no different. A lot of the combat feels like a mix of James Cameron's Avatar [$4.99 / Free / Free] and Iron Man 2 [$4.99 / Free / HD]. Spider-Man is host to the same wall climbing and rail sliding sections as nearly every other 3rd person action Gameloft game, and just like almost all of their other titles, the voice work is laughable at best and face palm worthy at worst. They even managed to sandwich the upgrade system from Hero of Sparta II [$6.99 / Free] in that nearly everything in the game drops orbs of various colors which are then used to upgrade Spider-Man's various abilities.

What saves the whole game is that even though they recycle all these different elements, they seem to combine extremely well to create a game that just feels like a Spider-Man game should. There are endless thugs for you to bash, a heavy reliance on the spider sense, and a surprising array of extremely recognizable bosses that anyone who has read a Spider-Man comic or watched a Spider-Man cartoon will know. The levels included are fairly linear, but feature a great mix of fighting standard enemies, bashing mini-bosses, swinging around, climbing, and the varied events leading up to the boss encounter.

The combat system works well, and even though it feels a little button mashy at times, it's a lot of fun to watch Spider-Man execute his combos filled with punching and web slinging. However, even fighting bosses is a little too easy because of how well the spider sense evasion system works. Whenever you're fighting, when there's an incoming attack you're able to slam your thumb down on a virtual button that appears just to the left of the joystick. A successful button mash kicks the game in to slow motion, and Spidey evades the incoming blow and counter-attacks. It all flows together great, and these spider sense moves usually look really cool.

There's a surprising amount of content in Spider-Man: Total Mayhem, including a hefty amount of unlockables to boost replay value. Twelve levels are included, and in each of the levels are tokens you can pick up to unlock bonus art to look at. In addition, there's an "ultimate" difficulty to unlock as well as a boss rush mode. There's even the black Spider-Man symbiote suit to unlock to play through the game again with Spidey powered up. Also, when fighting bosses you have opportunity to take photos of them, and these photo opportunities seem fairly easy to miss. If you're a completionist, you will be playing through Spider-Man: Total Mayhem many times.

Total Mayhem is loaded with high resolution graphics that look absolutely fantastic on the iPhone 4. It's not universal, but like most Gameloft games it wouldn't surprise me if an iPad-specific HD release was on the horizon. Gameloft did a great job of making a game that plays like a Spider-Man game needs to. The spider sense seems entirely overpowered in combat, and it won't take long for you to get tired of the spider sense quick action sequences that are liberally used in cut scenes, but beating up an endless array of nameless thugs is just as fun as it should be.

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There is nothing worse than getting a FedEx tracking number late on a Thursday, knowing full well that your package will not arrive until Monday. Even as an adult, I'll still obsessively refresh tracking information, even when I know something won't be delivered for days. Still, that didn't stop me from tracking the Parrot AR.Drone all weekend, or getting up and looking out the window when I even thought I might have heard the sound of tires on gravel in the distance all day today. Surely any self respecting geek knows the feeling as they anxiously await their newest techno-toy.

The AR.Drone arrived mere moments ago, and after carefully opening the packaging I was greeted with the wondrous quadricopter that we've been drooling over since we first caught wind of it back at CES in January. Since then we've had a brief hands-on and later discovered that it would sell for $299.99 available for preorder through Brookstone.

In the demos we've been given in the past, we've never actually been able to touch the unit, only fly it around for a few seconds inside of the controlled environment of the Parrot booth at conventions. My first impression as I took it out of the box was just how amazingly light and delicate the whole unit feels. I suppose it makes sense that it's light because it has to fly, but it feels like nothing.

In the box with the unit is a brief quick start guide which explains to first charge the battery, how to install the battery, and the basics of getting the Parrot AR.Drone in the air. Like any impatient man child, I immediately installed the battery, and paired it to my iPhone which was as simple as downloading the free Parrot AR.Drone Free Flight app and connecting to the WiFi network it creates. After that, you launch the app, it connects to the quadricopter, and you're met with a screen that looks like this:

Unfortunately, since I skipped that whole "charge the battery first" step, the AR.Drone only flew for about 45 seconds before it ran out of juice. I'm currently impatiently waiting the light on the charger to flip from red to green, and daylight is fading fast. I hope to have some extensive video of how the unit works, how it is assembled, and flying it in the not too distant future. (All depending on how long it takes to charge of course.)

Following that, I'll be doing a full review of the Parrot AR.Drone, so if you have any questions that you'd like answered or anything you want me to do as I put it through its paces, post a comment on this story.

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Update: With the sun about to set I grabbed the battery with as much charge as the charger was able to give me and headed out to shoot some video. The companion app initially showed that I was at around 30% battery, which seemed to last for about 10 minutes of outdoor flight time. Here's a video of my first real flight outdoors with the Parrot AR.Drone:

Something that immediately struck me was how awesome the device is at steadying itself, even with the breeze outside. In the video I am actively trying to get it to lose control, by having it bank in to the wind and the onboard flight controller just automatically leveled the quadricopter without any issues at all. Also, it's really cool how low it will fly to the ground, automatically adjusting its height as it goes up or down hills. Buzzing over the grass at about a foot off the ground was a truly impressive display of how accurately the AR.Drone can hold its altitude. While none of these things are really new revelations from our previous hands-ons at conventions, all of those were always indoors in a very small controlled environment with no winds at all. A part of me was expecting everything to fall apart once the AR.Drone got outside of the calm 10×10 Parrot tent on the show floor… But it performed flawlessly.

The strangest part about flying the AR.Drone is trusting the iPhone display over just watching it fly through the air and controlling it like a normal RC helicopter. This is even more disorienting when you notice that you can see yourself in the image. The AR.Drone is always controlled from its viewpoint, creating a brain-bending situation where you can see the device with your eyes, you in the devices eyes, and everything is backwards as you're facing it.

At demos in the past, controlling the AR.Drone seemed really easy, and it is when you're limited by about 10 feet in any direction. When you actually get outdoors, and have tons of obstacles to fly around, piloting the device actually seems to take a bit of skill– Even with all the automated flight systems it has.

Just as I was getting good, I was met with this yet again:

So far I'd really advise anyone who already had one of these preordered to buy as many extra batteries as you feel comfortable purchasing. Flying the AR.Drone is really cool, but having it run out of battery, then sitting and waiting for the battery to charge sucks just as much as it did when I was a kid waiting for the NiCD batteries of my various RC cards to juice back up before I could play again.

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There is nothing worse than getting a FedEx tracking number late on a Thursday, knowing full well that your package will not arrive until Monday. Even as an adult, I'll still obsessively refresh tracking information, even when I know something won't be delivered for days. Still, that didn't stop me from tracking the Parrot AR.Drone all weekend, or getting up and looking out the window when I even thought I might have heard the sound of tires on gravel in the distance all day today. Surely any self respecting geek knows the feeling as they anxiously await their newest techno-toy.

The AR.Drone arrived mere moments ago, and after carefully opening the packaging I was greeted with the wondrous quadricopter that we've been drooling over since we first caught wind of it back at CES in January. Since then we've had a brief hands-on and later discovered that it would sell for $299.99 available for preorder through Brookstone.

In the demos we've been given in the past, we've never actually been able to touch the unit, only fly it around for a few seconds inside of the controlled environment of the Parrot booth at conventions. My first impression as I took it out of the box was just how amazingly light and delicate the whole unit feels. I suppose it makes sense that it's light because it has to fly, but it feels like nothing.

In the box with the unit is a brief quick start guide which explains to first charge the battery, how to install the battery, and the basics of getting the Parrot AR.Drone in the air. Like any impatient man child, I immediately installed the battery, and paired it to my iPhone which was as simple as downloading the free Parrot AR.Drone Free Flight app and connecting to the WiFi network it creates. After that, you launch the app, it connects to the quadricopter, and you're met with a screen that looks like this:

Unfortunately, since I skipped that whole "charge the battery first" step, the AR.Drone only flew for about 45 seconds before it ran out of juice. I'm currently impatiently waiting the light on the charger to flip from red to green, and daylight is fading fast. I hope to have some extensive video of how the unit works, how it is assembled, and flying it in the not too distant future. (All depending on how long it takes to charge of course.)

Following that, I'll be doing a full review of the Parrot AR.Drone, so if you have any questions that you'd like answered or anything you want me to do as I put it through its paces, post a comment on this story.

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The 1986 arcade classic OutRun, with its easy to pick up gameplay and simplistic mechanics, seems like it would be a perfect fit for the iPhone. It's strange then, given the wealth of racing games on the App Store, that no one has taken a serious stab at an OutRun-inspired game yet. Now, developer Oyatsukai.com has risen to this challenge with their first iPhone game Final Freeway, and delivered in fairly impressive fashion. Final Freeway does an excellent job at capturing the feel of the original OutRun, while offering tight controls with multiple configurations and a terrific sense of speed that runs well even on older devices.

Just as in OutRun, Final Freeway is a point-to-point racing game, where instead of trying to beat other cars to the finish you're trying to reach each checkpoint in the given amount of time until finally reaching the end. In total there are six different sections to race through, each with their own unique scenery, but unfortunately there aren't the branching paths at the end of each section as in OutRun. The racing is simple and arcadey, with the focus being to race each leg of the track as fast as possible while avoiding traffic and staying on the track. You don't crash in the game, but will slow down a lot if you hit another car or go off track. If time runs out before you reach the end of the track segment, it's game over.

In another nod to OutRun, you can choose one of three different tunes to listen to while you're racing in Final Freeway. Also, your ride looks suspiciously like a Ferrari, which is the staple car in the OutRun series. The graphics in Final Freeway are very nice, with added support for the higher resolution iPhone 4 and iPad displays. The framerate is ultra smooth, even on my iPod touch 2G, and makes for a blazingly fast sense of speed. There are touch and tilt control options, with various other configurations of onscreen button placement. Either control option works well, but I found myself preferring the touch controls. There isn't the option for auto-accelerate, only separate gas and brake buttons, but this actually benefits the game as it can pay to merely let off the gas when approaching turns rather than slamming on the brakes.

Really, the only fault of Final Freeway is that there just isn't that much of it. The six track locations are decent, and can be played on a normal or expert setting, but I would love to see more. It sounds like that just might happen too, as the developer is active in our forums and has hinted that more levels are on their way, as well as taking note of other suggestions from our forum members for future updates. With a few updates, Final Freeway could evolve into something truly special, although what is here already is quite competent for the price. The bottom line is that Final Freeway is fun, plays extremely well, looks great, and will scratch that OutRun itch whenever you need it to.

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Back in June at Apple's WWDC 2010 in San Francisco, we had a chance to sit down with Natalia Luckyanova of Imangi Studios, the folks who most recently brought us Harbor Master HD [free], to take a look at their upcoming dual-stick shooter Max Adventure, which we first previewed earlier in the year.

Max Adventure paints a friendly end-of-the-world scenario where all the adults have been abducted by aliens. That leaves you, young Max, as the only one who can save the other children and the world, in general.

We recently checked in with developer Keith Shepherd to find out how the game is coming along. As it turns out, a lot of progress has been made on the title since we saw it back in June. The game engine is now basically complete and the focus is currently on levels and content. Imangi is shooting for around 20 levels in Story Mode, with a handful of Survival maps available at launch. According to Keith, they're halfway there, with a mix of mission types currently in place:

• Rescue missions, where you go around saving kids trapped in the neighborhoods
• Escort missions, where you have a lead a particularly scared friend to safety while battling off enemies
• Area clearing missions, where you have to get rid of all the enemies in the area
• Bonus levels, where you get to run around and collect as much treasure as you can in a limited time
• Survival missions, where you have to fend off waves of enemies
• Boss battles

To give gamers an idea of what goes into putting a Max Adventure level together, Imangi recently released a time-lapse video that condenses four hours of level building footage into just three minutes. The video shows progress from a blank slate to a rough, playable draft, all within their own, custom-built, Mac OS X-based level editor. The accompanying score is taken from original, in-game music that Natalia is presently working on.

[ See our WWDC Max Adventure interview / hands-on footage. ]

Keith stresses that four hours to build a level may seem short, but it doesn't factor in the work put into the art assets by designer Kiril Tchangov, programming time, and play testing and tweaking time, which can take up to days for a single level.

And the latest addition to the game? Keith tells us that, recently added, is Max's ability to take over the flying pods of groups of aliens that attack on the wing, giving him the ability to take advantage of a pod's powerful weapons and to fly over low obstacles.

We'll post a close look at Max Adventure when it goes live in the App Store. Stay tuned.

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The human intellect is a remarkable beast. Just when we think that all possible Zombie concepts have been duly wrung out from our collective minds, developers renderPaz go and throw us a curve-ball. Picture this: you're driving down the post-apocalyptic interstate, weaving through abandoned vehicles strewn everywhere– when you see a hitch-hiker. Naturally, this being post-apocalyptic America, the rule of thumb (think Zombieland) is to just keep on driving. In Zombie Highway [99¢] you aren't afforded that luxury.

The object in Zombie Highway is to just keep on driving– pedal to the metal, you have only one speed– faster. That's not to say you're get very far, as zombies don't generally take kindly to your brains being cocooned inside an SUV's hard exterior. And unlike the variety in Zombieland, these zombies are willing to work to get them.

Zombies in Zombie Highway will pounce on your car's side rails as you speed past them, doing all they can to bring the car to a stop– generally by using their superhuman undead strength to wrestle it till it topples over. There are 7 types of zombies all up, from the skinny fledgling variety, to the stronger, health-regenerating, weightier monsters that do a world of hurt to your center of balance. As zombies stack up on one side, this is only compounded, with your only recourse being to get the buggers off as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, your own driving prowess and an arms dealer friend in the back provide all the tools you need to get through the zombie horde…at least for a couple of miles. Zombies can be exited from the vehicle by tilting your device to sideswipe them onto one of the many ruined cars littered across the highway. Each zombie has a health bar, and whittling that to zero will ensure they won't be sticking around. To help, your aforementioned friend riding shotgun (ho ho!) has a formidable arsenal that is gradually unlocked as you accumulate collective mileage across all your games. Weapons are fired by touching the corners of the screen– if a zombie is on the right near the front of your car, tapping the top right area will fire at it.

It's a straightforward formula that creates a fun and remarkably gratifying zombie slaying experience. It's also quite challenging, as zombies are super aggressive, and your car's physics are fantastic. For instance, don't expect to steer out of a lean by driving the other way– it'll only tip it further. Instead, a bit of load balancing and fast firing fingertips are required to keep the rubber on the road.

Our only gripes with the game are that for all the great 3D models and presentation there is a notable lack of any real sound effects. Your car is effectively muted until it's being weighed down, and then the creaks it makes are whisper quiet. Not hearing the engine at all detracts from the experience dramatically. In fact, the only sound you'll really hear from the car are the squeaks of your tires as you slide around the road. There is absolutely no music to be found either, which would have done a world of good to further build atmosphere and character.

We're also not quite sure why the developers didn't stick with Openfeint or a similar platform for its social functions, as their current Twitter implementation is rudimentary at best. And though the Facebook option results in a neat competition feature where you can track your friends, those who keep their gaming separate from Facebook are left on the curb. Thankfully neither of these platforms are required to access high scores.

Still, it's hard to stay disappointed with these drawbacks for long because running from hordes of zombies is just so much fun. The further you get, the more obstacles are thrown in your path, until you are eventually wrestling your device to fend off zombies, dodge roadblocks and keep your SUV from going belly up as you're two wheeling back and forth. It's a singular experience seemingly lifted right from classic zombie films and as such is effortlessly recommended. We just hope the developers look at the sound issue, as well as maybe add an achievements system ala Monster Dash [99¢] to pad out the survival game replayability.

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My favorite game that I played at the Glu iPhone Games event was Gun Bros. Gun Bros. is a top-down dual-stick shooter with a completely over the top style in just about every way. You play as one of two brothers, Percy or Frances Gun, as you destroy wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies. The game is set on a series of planets in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world, and each planet has 10 levels (called revolutions) with 50 waves of enemies per revolution. You'll earn XP with every enemy that you kill, which goes towards leveling up your character. You will also earn something called Xplodium, which is an unstable ore that can be refined after each level and sold for gold to buy new weapons, armor, and equipment.

The greatest thing about Gun Bros. is the huge arsenal of crazy weaponry. Sure, we've all played games with a shotgun or a spread gun, but what about a triple barrel shotgun or a gun that spreads in seven directions? If you fancy gatling guns, why not up the ante and add three together for a triple gatling gun. Don't even get me started on the Shuricannon (cannon that shoots shurikens) or the Machete Mayhem (a dual pistol that shoots – you guessed it – machetes). These are all realities in Gun Bros., and it makes mowing down enemies a ton of fun. In all, there will be 30 different weapons across 6 different weapon classes, and your character can carry two weapons at a time and switch freely between them.

Besides the regular weapons in Gun Bros., there's also a number of special items and tons of different armors. The special items can be pulled up in a small window during play and give you benefits like health refills, increased damage for a short time, or powerful full screen attacks. The armor in the game is almost as cool as the amazing weapons, and give you many options for enhancing your attributes and customizing the look your character. There will be over 40 different pieces of armor, each capable of upgrading your character in areas like defense, strength, and speed. With the right combination of armor pieces you can choose which areas you are most effective in, and look bad ass while doing so.

Another key element to Gun Bros. is the social aspect of the game. Since you are a pair of brothers, there is always an AI controlled partner blasting away at baddies with you while you play. You'll have the ability to add friends in the game, and then import their specific character to play as your AI companion in your own game. If your friend happens to have some seriously upgraded gear compared to yours, you'll get the benefit of his extra firepower on your computer controlled character. You will also both keep all the XP you earn, which will transfer back to your friend's game when you're done playing. There is extra incentive to play with your friends as you can earn daily bonus items by doing so. Perusing the in-game friend list allows you to check out what bonus items are available for each friend, as well as how their various characters are equipped.

Much like Glu's other game Magic Life, Gun Bros. will launch fully featured for free, but of course there is a way to spend money on the game if you wish. You can purchase additional types of chambers for refining your Xplodium at the end of levels, thus earning more cash per unit and getting to buy weapons and armor much more quickly. This isn't necessary, however, and those who don't want to pay and have patience can still see everything the game has to offer. Gun Bros. was the game I played the most at Glu, thoroughly enjoying every minute of it, and I'll be impatiently waiting for its late October release.

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One of the more interesting titles I was able to play at the Glu iPhone Games event is called Magic Life. Imagine the colorful, cartoony world and customization aspects of Animal Crossing; add in heaps of RPG elements, quests, and magical spells; and top it off with a strong social integration and you will start to see what Magic Life is all about. You'll begin the game as an amateur magician, but can slowly learn new spells as you complete quests and level up your character. New spells have a certain “recipe” and you must find or buy the ingredients while exploring each world, and then combine them in cauldrons in the Guild Hall of whichever town you are in. There will be plenty to do in the single player portion of Magic Life as you evolve your character, get new items and spells, complete quests, and explore multiple environments.

A major aspect to Magic Life is the personalization of your character and living space. There are quite a few different options for body and clothing customization, and many more can be added during the lifetime of the game. You also have a living quarters that can be adorned with various furniture, windows, and other décor to make it personalized to your tastes. Sadly, these rooms aren't 3D spaces like the rest of the game, and are more single-plane side views of a room. The feng shui factor of placing objects and furniture in Animal Crossing was one of my favorite parts, but the room and character customization in Magic Life still seems really cool.

The social part of Magic Life lets you import your friends from Facebook into the game. Even if they don't actually play the game, it will import their name and generate an in-game avatar for them, so you can see your buddies roaming around the world as you play. If they do play Magic Life, then it will import the actual character from their game into your own. You can cast a spell on one of them, then they will get a Facebook notification that they have been turned into a toad or whatever the case may be, and will be able to fire up their own game and turn themselves back (and most likely retaliate against you as well). Also, you'll be able to visit your friends living spaces and check out how they are decorated, and vice versa.

As a huge fan of Animal Crossing on the DS, I really liked what I played of Magic Life as it definitely had a similar feel. The one thing that worries me is that the game did not run very smoothly on the iPod touch unit that I played it on, but there is still plenty of time for optimization before release. The game will be free, with optional IAP for people who wish to progress faster, but it is in no way required or limits the game for those that don't wish to pay. Keep your eyes out for Magic Life to be launching in early October.

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