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Back in the early days of March, we previewed an upcoming dual-stick shooter called Revolt. The video for Revolt showcased some very nice looking 3D visuals, destructible environments, and some incredible lighting. Even more impressive, however, was that Revolt was being created by just a three man development team. Revolt also looks to add a greater strategic element than what is found in most other dual-stick shooters, with careful weapon and ammunition management required to be successful.

Earlier tonight, Revolt [$1.99] finally went live in the US App Store. It features 8 story-based levels and a whopping 20 different survival arenas to blast through over 3 difficulty levels. A number of upgradeable weapons and armor are at your disposal to take out a range of different enemies and boss characters. In addition to these gameplay features, Revolt is a universal build with Retina Display support and Game Center/Openfeint integration.

Here is some early gameplay footage from a hands-on preview we did on Revolt back in March:

It should be noted that the developers don't recommend Revolt for owners of 1st generation devices, and warn that the game may not perform very well on anything lower than 3rd generation devices. Interestingly they also already have the first update completed for Revolt, as mentioned on their blog, and further versions will look to address performance on older devices as well as add new features to the game. We'll be taking a much closer look at Revolt once we've put it through its paces. Until then, you can check out the early impressions pouring into our forums that are so far fairly positive. Or you can just dive in head first and take advantage of the introductory price of $1.99.

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It's Halloween and that means lots of ghouls and goblins tricking or treating — and it also means discounts on games in the App Store.  Here's a quick and dirty list of notable titles on sale to give readers something to do while nursing that terrible stomach ache that will inevitably follow a strong night of door-to-door candy collecting.

• EA is running a Monster Sale on a large number of games, many dropped down to $.99.
• Jet Car Stunts from Tru Axis $1.99 → $.99
• Splinter Cell Conviction from Gameloft $6.99 → $.99
• Splinter Cell Conviction HD from Gameloft $9.99 → $6.99
• Let's Golf HD from Gameloft $4.99 → $.99
• Yslandia from Bulkypix $4.99 → $.99
• Minigore HD from Chillingo $4.99 → $3.99
• Seed 2 Vortex of War from Chillingo $2.99 → $.99
• PAC-MAN from Namco $4.99 → $.99
• PAC-MAN for iPad from Namco $4.99 → $.99
• Ms. PAC-MAN from Namco $4.99 → $.99
• I Love Katamari from Namco $4.99 → $2.99
• Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 $9.99 → $6.99
• Plants vs. Zombies from PopCap Games $2.99 → $.99
• Plants vs. Zombies HD from PopCap Games $9.99 → $4.99
• Battle for Wesnoth from Kyle Poole $4.99 → $.99
• Battle for Wesnoth HD from Kyle Poole $4.99 → $.99

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Id Software's Rage is high up on my list of games I can't wait to play. It's going to be released on the PC and home consoles on September 3rd, 2011, and spinoff game for iOS devices is also in the works that is coming this November. The Bethesda Blog posted a developer diary of sorts by John Carmack today which is filled with some great technical details and newly revealed information on their upcoming Rage-based iOS game, Mutant Bash TV.

Starting things out, John admits that mobile development at Id hasn't been on the top of the priority list, and it wasn't until the end of July that he even started writing the engine that would power the iPhone game. (We saw the results at QuakeCon.) In the post, Carmack also reveals that while with this engine it's technically possible to compile the full-blown PC/console version of Rage for the iPhone, he describes it as a "hopelessly bad idea," citing inappropriate performance tradeoffs and control differences.

He admits what they do have is fun, and unlike anything else available for the iOS. After seeing the success of Myst, which is a 700MB download, that became their target file size for the "standard definition" version of the game. The "high definition" version for the iPad and iPhone 4 will be twice that size. Carmack then goes on to explain that the full version of Rage weighs in at an incredible 20GB. Even more surprising, this game is going to launch at 99¢ for the standard version, and $1.99 for the HD. Carmack thinks "people will be very happy with the value."

But what is this game going to be all about? John explains in detail:

The little slice of RAGE that we decided to build the iPhone product around is “Mutant Bash TV”, a post apocalyptic combat game show in the RAGE wasteland. This is the perfect setup for a quintessential first person shooter game play experience — you pick your targets, aim your shots, time your reloads, dodge the bad guys, and try and make it through to the end of the level with a better score than last time. Beyond basic survival, there are pickups, head shots, and hit streak multipliers to add more options to the gameplay, and there is a broad range of skill levels available from keep-hitting-fire-and-you-should-make-it to almost-impossible.

A large goal of the project has been to make sure that the levels can be replayed many times. The key is making the gamplay itself the rewarding aspect, rather than story progression, character development, or any kind of surprises. Many of the elements that made Doom Resurrection good the first time you played it hurt the replayability, for instance. RAGE iOS is all action, all the time. I have played the game dozens of times, and testing it is still fun instead of a chore.

Carmack has built his life around making games that are not only technically impressive and beautiful, but also tons of fun to play. If gameplay is in fact the rewarding part of Mutant Bash TV, I can't wait to give it a try. This all is making the end of November seem even more far away.

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Back in March of last year Fish Labs rolled out their space trading title Galaxy on Fire, giving folks like me who missed out on the 1984 classic Elite a chance to make a name for themselves out there among the stars. It's a great game that debuted with some difficulty issues, but they were resolved in short order and its universe has been enjoyed by many. Tonight, the studio released a new challenge for space jockeys everywhere, the sequel Galaxy on Fire 2 [App Store] for the iPhone, with an iPad version to follow close behind.

The game places you in the role of space fighter pilot Keith Maxwell who encounters a space anomaly and ends up adrift through the galaxy, to be rescued by a benevolent miner who helps you get back on your feet. You'll quickly find you've not only been transported to to the other side of the galaxy, but that you've woken up 35 years in the future. Kind of like Sigourney Weaver.

Your goal is to get back to your home system on the other side of the galaxy, but achieving that goal is going to take some time, and what better way to fill that time than by taking on various missions across the region's 20 star systems. You start out with a relatively weak, modestly outfitted ship, but there's money to be made and upgrades to be had along the way. Jobs ranging from cleaning up space garbage to mining asteroids to transporting goods to hunting pirates to rescuing kidnapped officers can be had in the various stations in each system on the vast star map. And, if that seems too harrowing, money can be made in the simple buying and selling of simple commodities from one station to another. Like father of the genre Elite, it's a game you can take at your own pace.

Each star system consists of a handfull of planets, each with a space station — there are 100 in all — complete with a hanger in which to buy and sell goods as well as a Space Lounge. In each station's lounge can be found individuals of many sorts, most of whom are eager to do business with you. Some want to send you to a neighboring planet to do their bidding, while others seek to send you to other systems much father afield, requiring a multi-leg journey across the star map, involving jumpgates that can send you to strange and distant systems. And all this against the backdrop of the tyranny of the evil alien race known as the Voids.

Seeing real success in the game required careful ship and equipment choices. For instance, some ships offer up the valuable contents of their cargo holds when destroyed, but without a pricey tractor beam, you can't touch them. The same goes for asteroid mining — without the proper gear, that booty is beyond your reach. It's all about successful missions and wise income management.

The game offers a choice of virtual stick or tilt-based controls with contextual action buttons to fire primary and secondary weapons. In addition, there are two view modes: standard and free view, which allows for swipe-based, any-angle  camera controls of the battlefield action with pinch and spread zoom support. The free view mode is an opportunity to partake in some real eye-candy, allowing you to contrive cinematic aspects through which to view the game's impressive starfields and volumetric dust clouds which take advantage of the iPhone 4's Retina display, where available. (And a different vantage can actually be helpful in a heated battle against a swarm of space pirates.) An option setting offers three different detail settings, the default being the highest on our iPad test system.

Hitting various gameplay milestones (returning to base nearly mangled, talking to more than 20 traders, etc.) will trigger in-game achievements, which are tied to integration with both OpenFeint and Apple's Game Center.

While I enjoyed the time I spent with the original Galaxy on Fire, the sequel feels a more well-rounded and immersive. More polished. Everything just kind of flows together more smoothly this time around. And, while I've spent a significant amount of time with a pre-release build, I've really only scratched the surface of the gameplay the title has to offer.

The space trading / commerce genre is certainly not a sparsely populated one out there across the many available gaming platforms. And in the App Store, Fish Labs isn't the only gig in town. But of the games of this sort I've spent time with, Galaxy on Fire 2 is the most approachable and satisfying on the platform, so I highly recommend it.

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Announced way back in February of this year, Beast Boxing 3D is a new first-person iOS boxing game from Goodhustle Studios. Said to be inspired by the classic Punch-Out! series and the more recent PC and Xbox Live Arcade first-person fighting game Zeno Clash, given the excellent video preview released by Goodhustle I'd say that Beast Boxing 3D is looking very close to hitting that mark.

Beast Boxing 3D will have 9 different opponents to square off against, all of which are wild and menacing looking characters. There will be 4 arena locations to fight in initially, and Goodhustle hints that additional characters and arenas may be created for future updates to the game. There will be a story driven career to play through as you face each of the 9 fighters, with the ability to rematch previous opponents to earn extra cash. This cash can be spent in a gym to upgrade your equipment and abilities in pursuit of becoming the best boxer in town. The career can be played on three difficulty settings that Goodhustle promises will each offer a different experience and cater to gamers of any skill level.

This video shows the impressive looking graphics and smooth animations of the crazy boxers in Beast Boxing 3D:

There have been a number of boxing games released on the App Store, and some very good ones at that. But it always seems that the touch screen interface holds them back from greatness as these kinds of games traditionally work best with physical buttons. The one thing I'm dying to see is how the controls will work out in Beast Boxing 3D, as I'm already sold on the visual style of the game.

Beast Boxing 3D has already been approved by Apple and Goodhustle is just waiting for the lite version to be approved so as to release them both at the same time. More info and screenshots can be found in the upcoming games thread in our forums, and we're looking forward to going a few rounds with Beast Boxing 3D when it hits the App Store hopefully within the next week or so.

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Reckless Racing [$2.99/HD] is one of those games that almost needs no introduction. Ever since we posted the first video back in early March, when it was called Deliverace, gamers were impressed with the incredibly detailed graphics engine and arcade-like physics in the game. Later that same month, our hands-on video and an additional gameplay video only served to intensify the fervor of anticipation for the game now known as Reckless Racing. While initially developer Pixelbite Games had pegged the game for an “early 2010” release, suddenly everything went quiet regarding news on Reckless Racing. The weeks past with no word from Pixelbite on the status of the game or a release date, and fans in our forums started to doubt if the game would even be released at all.

Then in late July, nearly five months after the game's announcement, we finally learned that EA Mobile had picked up Reckless Racing and would be publishing the title for Pixelbite. This was good news as it meant the game hadn't been cancelled, but we were still left without a solid release date. Meanwhile, the hype continued to swell in our forums to an astronomical degree as the weeks again began to pass without any sign of Reckless Racing. Then, just this past week, EA announced that the game would finally be coming out on October 21st, and there was much rejoicing.

Common sense would tell us that practically no game could match the incredible amount of hype that Reckless Racing has garnered in the past 7 and a half months, but casting that aside now that the final game is in our hands we can at least say that this is an incredibly enjoyable top-down arcade racing experience – just as we had hoped it would be. It definitely feels lacking in terms of track and vehicle options, especially taking into account the long development time, but what is here is super high quality and becomes an easier pill to swallow thanks to a really reasonable price point. Like many of the best games on a mobile platform, the biggest problem with Reckless Racing is that there just isn't enough of it.

Upon starting the single player game, you are thrust into a simple but very useful tutorial. Here you can choose from one of the five different control schemes (that include various onscreen buttons, virtual steering wheels, or tilt controls) and test them out to your heart's content on a practice track until you've found the one that suits you. Quitting the tutorial takes you to the main racing menu where you can choose either Dirt Rally, Hot Lap, or Delivery mode and pick from 6 different cars and 5 different tracks to race on.

Dirt Rally is like a championship mode where you'll race 3-4 laps on each of the 5 tracks on bronze, silver, and gold medal difficulties. Once the first 5 tracks have been completed, a reversed version of each one must then be played. The Hot Lap mode has you racing your choice of track over and over again trying for the very best lap time you can get, with medals earned by beating certain time requirements. The ghost from your best lap races along with you to give you something to compete with, and any of the ghosts from the online leaderboards can be downloaded and raced against as well.

Delivery mode is fairly different from the rest of the game, and is quite a lot of fun. It takes place on its own map that is both larger and more open than the regular racing tracks. You're given either 3, 5, or 8 minutes to complete as many deliveries as you can before time runs out. A package will be picked up at one point on the map and taken to another to complete each delivery, with a handy waypoint guiding you in the right direction at all times. The dollar value of each delivery decreases the longer you take to complete it, and at the end of the time limit your total number of deliveries and cash earned serve as the score for Delivery mode.

All of these single player modes include online leaderboards, and there is also an excellent online multiplayer mode that lets you race in Dirt Rally or Hot Lap modes with up to 3 other players over WiFi or 3g. The online portion works really well in my experience, always remaining smooth on my end although occasionally other racers would lag and teleport around the tracks. Overall the online high score tracking and multiplayer mode add a ton of incentive to keep playing Reckless Racing after you've earned every medal in the single player portion.

The two things that really stand out about Reckless Racing are the stunning Retina Display graphics and the fun physics system. The attention to detail in the game is incredible, with dust and dirt flying behind your vehicle's tires, tire tracks that remain on the course until the race is over, environmental objects like street signs and fences that can be destroyed, and excellent use of lighting and shadows to really bring the game to life. Driving is a blast as you drift around every turn on tracks comprised of both cement and dirt portions that both behave quite differently from one another. The tracks are designed really well, with plenty of jumps or small shortcuts to take and dangerous cliffs to fling yourself off of if you aren't careful. Racing around is just flat out fun, and it's hard not to be impressed with how beautiful everything looks while you're doing so.

Really the only thing I don't like about Reckless Racing is that it's all over too soon. The online leaderboards and multiplayer mode go a long way in lengthening the experience, but inevitably you'll have every nook and cranny of every track down pat before you know it. Owners of the iPad version get 3 additional tracks (each with a reversed version) on top of the original 5 included in the iPhone version. If you have a choice between the two, Reckless Racing HD is worth the couple of extra bucks for the added content. Player impressions in our forums are largely positive, despite being short on content. I sincerely hope that EA and Pixelbite continue to add content to the game with future updates, as the core of the game is done so well, but even as is Reckless Racing is a fun ride that is well worth taking.

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If you're looking for an iPhone motocross game to get excited over, this very well may be it. The Quadsphere, creators of Icarus-X [$1.99] announced on our forums this morning that their next iPhone game is going to be an online multiplayer enabled motocross game called FMX Riders. We don't have anything right now other than a set of screenshots and a feature list, but FMX Riders looks (and sounds) incredibly promising.

FMX Riders will come packed with four game modes: Race, freestyle, time attack, and hotlap time attack. There will be a career mode with 9 tours and over 40 events. The best part, it will utilize Game Center for online multiplayer with auto-matchmaking. Game Center integration doesn't stop there, there's over 15 different leaderboards, achievements, and you'll even be able to save and share replays with your Game Center friends. Oh, and the cherry on top– Retina Display graphics.

We'll be closely following FMX Racers, but in the meantime, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to keep an eye on the thread in our upcoming games forum.

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Alright, so here's the story behind Skycat and The Starchildren [99¢]– Two cats who were the best of friends were just chilling outside one summer day when Fatcat (Yes, that's his name) went galavanting off and found a massive rocket that was prepared to launch. Like any curious cat, he decided to wander in and investigate. Moments later the rocket went soaring skyward, leaving Ordinary Cat (Yes, that's the other character's name) sad and without his buddy. Out of nowhere, Mother Star appears granting Ordinary Cat a magical scarf which then transforms him in to "Skycat, the star born herald of the sky."

This is all told through an incredibly cute series of animated story pages, which serve as a teaser for the surprisingly detailed graphics that encompass the rest of the game. Gameplay consists of very similar platforming to classics like Robot Unicorn Attack [$2.99 / HD] in that you're constantly running to the right and (utilizing your magical scarf) are capable of jumping and dashing. However, instead of having a button to dash, you just swipe on screen in the direction you want to dash. This allows you to dash upwards to jump extra high, as well as forwards to speed up.

The platforming in Skycat and The Starchildren is fantastic, as controlling which direction you dash really allows you to have some pretty great control over your scarf-powered kitty as shown in the above video. While you're running through the levels, you collect small stars which serve to lower your overall completion time at the end of each level. Game Center is integrated to track times against everyone online, and once you play through the game a time trial mode is unlocked to allow you to continue to hone your speed runs.

The issue with Skycat is that it is short. Nine levels in all are included, which will barely take you any time at all to complete. Now, I don't really take issue with short games, as a lot of the time a game can be short but feel like a complete experience. (No, Human is a great example of this.) However, Skycat is over before you even feel like you're getting started.

Normally I'd say that's cause to just skip a game, but what kills me about Skycat and The Starchildren is that it's really good. The controls feel right, the opening and ending to the game are great, the music is good, and both the levels and Skycat himself are animated really well. I would absolutely love to see an endless mode eventually implemented in Skycat, or more levels, or anything. If you can disregard playtime for quality, I'd definitely recommend Skycat and The Starchildren. Otherwise, this is totally a game to keep on your watch list for potential future updates.

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Earlier this month Xeis Studio released Mariachi Giro [$2.99], a universal rhythm game that abandons the predictable set list of terrible covers of hits from the 80's and 90's in exchange for mariachi music. To say the game is a little rough around the edges would be an understatement, but the novelty factor of feverishly tapping notes and switching between the various instruments of your mariachi band to nine Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan traditional folk songs is just insane.

In the game, you take your mariachi band on the road performing at various Mexican locations that surely someone more culturally aware than myself will recognize. Once you unlock some songs, the true fun begins. A second game mode opens up where your mariachi band serenades a señorita from her window, and you're able to customize your band quite a bit. Everything from renaming them to changing their basic appearance or even upgrading their instruments. Check out this video put together by the developers:

There's a lot that is weird about Mariachi Giro, the polygon count of your band members is seriously low, and the crowd that comes to your concerts look like bouncing cardboard stand-ups. Also, there isn't really much feedback when you're hitting or missing notes, making learning the timing of the game to score well a little more difficult than it should be. Regardless, rocking out to some mariachi music is oddly amusing.

If you treasure the oddities of the App Store such as Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢], BieberHair [99¢], Hi, How Are You [$1.99 / Free], and others… Mariachi Giro is something you need in your collection.

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With the rise in popularity of free-to-play social games – whether through various online outlets, playing games over Facebook, or indulging in one of the many freemium titles available on the App Store – this new style of play model has carved out a significant market in pursuit of gamers' attention. The news last week that Japanese social gaming giant DeNa acquired iOS developer Ngmoco to the tune of $400 million dollars has pretty much sealed the deal – love it or hate it, freemium gaming is here to stay.

This makes the recently announced freemium social game Lil' Pirates significant in a number of ways. Lil' Pirates is a collaboration between developers IUGO Mobile Entertainment and Capcom Mobile, neither of which are especially known for having casual free-to-play titles. IUGO has dabbled with many different approaches to selling games on the App Store, from ad-supported versions of their games to freely downloadable trials with more content available as IAP, but never a fully featured free game with optional purchases to enhance the experience. Capcom is treading in even more unfamiliar territory, as they are widely known as one of the more "hardcore" game developers on practically every gaming system for the last few decades. For both of these devs to be entering into the casual freemium market with Lil' Pirates says a lot about how big a deal this business model has become.

As for the game itself, Lil' Pirates is a colorful pirate themed adventure with a huge focus on customization. You'll start out as a small-time scallywagger with just a basic pirate ship, and you'll import your friends from Facebook to amass a crew. Sending your crew on various types of missions will result in loot that can be spent on tons of different items to customize both yourself and your pirate ship. These missions are limited by timers that only allow you to complete them every so often. This of course adds the element of being "patient to see a payoff" that is the core of freemium games, and there will be ways to spend real life money in Lil' Pirates in order to speed up the process of getting bigger and better items. Your crew also operates on an energy system that can be replenished by completing various minigames on your ship. This process can also be bypassed by purchasing special Root Beer items in the game.

Another interesting part about Lil' Pirates is an island called Treasure Island where you'll be able to bury items from your inventory. These items will increase in value the longer they remain buried, but take heed as your friends also have access to this island and can sneak in and dig up the items that you've placed there. All is not lost though, as there is a chance that the item that replaces your stolen one will actually be of higher value than the original. This adds a neat risk/reward aspect to the game, as well as giving you an opportunity to playfully mess with your friends by stealing their items (and vice versa).

It's hard to get too terribly excited about most of the freemium games that get released, as they all seem to feature many of the same type of gameplay with just minor theme changes. Lil' Pirates actually looks a bit more interesting than most, and features an excellent art style and some novel game concepts. The ability to import friends from Facebook and have them join your crew could be fun for those that use Facebook for their gaming needs, but IUGO has told us that logging in will not be required to play Lil' Pirates and there will be an offline component to the game as well. We'll take a closer look at Lil' Pirates when it launches for free sometime next month.

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