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So here’s something cool you may not have noticed about the new iPad: If you’re playing an iPhone game (or using an iPhone app) that has Retina Display assets for the iPhone, it will use the higher resolution set of assets. On previous models of the iPad, this functionality required the jailbreak utility Retina Pad. It actually makes a massive difference.

It’s a little hard to do that accurate of a comparison without just looking at both devices side by side, but I’ve doubled the resolution of the iPad 2 screenshots on the left to be the same size as the new iPad on the right. It may seem exaggerated, but the difference is even more noticeable when you’ve got a game like Flight Control running on two iPads side by side.

If you remember, back when the iPad was first released to make up for the complete lack of iPad-specific apps, Apple added the pixel doubling functionality to allow iPhone-specific apps to run full screen. The results were always a pixelated mess, and while it worked, it was a pretty terrible overall user experience. Now, with (almost) every iPhone app coming bundled with Retina Display assets, this new fullscreen functionality actually results in surprisingly decent looking upscaling.

Of course, iPad apps and games that are actually designed for the Retina Display of the new iPad look tons better, but now you don’t need to essentially write off any non-universal app as being a huge pixel party.

UPDATE: Here are some shots of Real Racing 2, an iPhone-only game with Retina Display assets as well as Real Racing 2 HD which is optimized for the Retina Display of the new iPad:

iPad 2 running Real Racing 2 pixel doubled:

New iPad running Real Racing 2 utilizing iPhone Retina Display assets:

Real Racing 2 HD running on iPad 2:

Real Racing 2 HD running on new iPad:

There are differences in lighting between the screenshots since each version of the game seems to render the scene at a different in-game time of day. Also, the iPhone versions running full screen on the iPad have a slightly different UI so I tried to line things up as close as I could. Regardless, the jump in quality is just astounding, and it seems like the image quality between iPhone Retina Display-ready games and non-Retina Display iPad games is pretty similar.

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Yesterday I posted some basic details and then followed that up with some additional impressions as I made my way to level 10. At some point during the night, Gameloft threw the switch to make the game available internationally. If you've been anxiously reading our preview coverage and forum thread, download Order & Chaos Online [$6.99] as soon as you can.

And as soon as you do, disable global chat for the love of all things true and decent. To do so, bring up the text entry and instead of tapping the "Global Chat" button to talk in that channel, holdit down until it is blocked. For whatever reason, Gameloft apparently hasn't segregated servers at all, so Global chat is a mishmash of every language under the sun.

I'm not sure how much of a "review" I can even do for a game like Order & Chaos. I played basically all day yesterday, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. I've yet to really even make it outside of what feels like the starting area, and my talent trees haven't even breached the second tier of skills. This seems like a massive game, and the TouchArcade guild chat seems to have unanimously agree that Order & Chaos Online is "as good as vanilla World of Warcraft." I'm not sure I'd go that far, but there certainly is absolutely nothing else like this available on the App Store.

With that being said, as I mentioned in a previous post, Order & Chaos is definitely textbook Gameloft. They cloned the art, gameplay, and everything else that matters while leaving out a lot of the "soul" (for lack of a better way to put it) that Blizzard always has in their games. It's technically competent, but at times it feels like you're just going through the motions of an MMO, doing kill quests and running around while not really being invested in the game world itself. I've yet to really even come across anything I'd describe as "lore," which could be a fairly negative thing in the eyes of many.

There's also the legitimate concern that Gameloft might not keep Order & Chaos fresh with updates. A vital part of any MMO is a constant stream of content for your subscribers to play through, and Gameloft hasn't exactly had the best track record when it comes to providing additional content to their games at all. Without a fairly functional crystal ball, it's hard to say if this will ring true for Order & Chaos or not. Also, the WiFi-only limitation sucks. The game works just fine for jailbroken users with 3G Unrestrictor, and not being able to play on the go with my 3G iPad is seriously a drag.

Anyway, what I do know is I've been having a blast with the game. It's been scratching the eternal itch I've had for a WoW-like MMO on my iPad, and the fact that the client is universal is just icing on the cake. The TouchArcade guild seems to be having a blast too. Speaking of which, let's see if we can just take over the Arcadian Forest server. I was actively recruiting today for the TouchArcade guild, but it hit the 60 character limit in about 45 minutes… So we're going to need to make other arrangements. If you're a guildmaster looking for players, stop by this thread. Alternatively, if you're a player looking for a guild, feel free to post here.

Order & Chaos comes with free 3 month subscription, following that subscriptions are 99¢ for one month, $1.99 for three months, and $2.99 for six months.

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You may remember last October when a little app called iDOS snuck its way into the App Store. Every once in a while the review team at Apple falls asleep at the wheel and approves an app that probably shouldn't be allowed in the App Store. iDOS was one of those apps. It was a version of the DOSbox emulator that let you run DOS on your iOS device and load up all sorts of crazy old PC software.

Ah yes, I remember the iDOS day well. It was so much fun watching our article on iDOS constantly getting updated with whatever new feat of magic was discovered by the eager members in our forums. Many classic PC games ran incredibly well in iDOS, with full keyboard and mouse support, and the coup de grace was actually installing Microsoft Windows 3.0 on an iPad and playing the classic version of Solitaire included with it.

Like all good things though, the iDOS phenomenon quickly came to an end, and the app was removed from the App Store almost as suddenly as it appeared. Being able to load and run entire outside programs from within the iDOS app is a big no no according to Apple, and the thousands of people who had downloaded iDOS quickly backed up the app to their hard drives for safekeeping.

Then last night, iDOS surprisingly showed its face again in the App Store. In order to get it through the approval process, developer FAST Intelligence closed up the iTunes file sharing rabbit hole that was the gateway to loading whatever DOS programs you wanted, but has added some other nice functionality to try and compensate.

There are now 6 legal shareware games preloaded in iDOS which can be downloaded for free from the new “iDOS Store” within the app. The games can then be launched easily by selecting them from your collection, and no knowledge of DOS commands is necessary to get them going. For those that want to though, there is still access to the full DOS prompt for launching games.

Other additions include a full virtual joystick/d-pad and buttons rather than just a virtual keyboard, the ability to play on the iPhone/iPod touch in portrait mode just like the iPad, and Bluetooth keyboard support for text-based games. The virtual gamepad is actually really good, and makes playing games like Wolfenstein 3D a whole lot more enjoyable.

While it is pretty disappointing that you won't be able to go nuts running programs using the new iDOS, it's actually a pretty solid little emulator and still fun to play around with. Word on the street is that jailbroken devices can still load whatever games they want into this new version using file managing programs, but that doesn't seem very exciting to me since iDOS has been available as DosPad in the jailbreak App Store Cydia for a long time now, and offers that same functionality.

These screenshots show the new portrait mode gamepad controls for the iPad (left) and the iPhone (right). Click either image to enlarge.

If you missed out on iDOS the first time, it's still worth checking out this new version despite its limitations, especially as it's now free to download. Be warned though – if you have the original version of iDOS in your iTunes library, this new version is actually an update that will replace that one, so it's suggested that you back up the original app before downloading version 2.0. There's a brand new thread in our forums for discussing this rereleased version of iDOS, and hopefully this time Apple will let it stick around for longer than one day.

App Store Link: iDOS, Free (Universal)

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Ever since Apple eased up their App Store approval guidelines, all kinds of crazy things have been getting released like the fabled GV Mobile+ [$2.99] and other apps that have been stuck in approval purgatory for months (or even years). Some emulators slipped through the cracks either by appeasing Apple's wishes such as Commodore 64 [$4.99] and others that were inexplicably approved, then immediately pulled like Nescaline. Late last night iDOS [99¢] was released. Based on DOSbox, an open source DOS emulator, iDOS is a universal app that has PC keyboard support, mouse support, multiple screen modes, and more.

Forum member Menneisyys posted the following two screenshots of iDOS running Spellcasting 101 both on his iPad and on his 4th generation iPod touch (Yes, it even runs at Retina Display resolution.):

iPad left, iPod touch right. Click for full size.

Currently we've got a fairly active thread on our forums with people trying various games running in the emulator and there's another thread on the DOSPAD forums with even more compatibility testing going on. We're going to have our own retro fetishist Blake Patterson take a closer look at iDOS very soon, so if you've got any questions or want to see any specific games tested that aren't mentioned in the threads I linked, drop a comment and we'll try to include it in our followup post.

In the meantime, if you're even remotely interested in emulating old DOS games, this is 99¢ you need to spend. While iDOS technically seems to comply with all the new approval guidelines, it's hard to say whether or not this was an accidental approval or if iDOS truly does have the blessing of Apple. In any case, I'd download it now in the interest of being safe rather than sorry if the powers that be change their mind.

UPDATE: Just for an idea of exactly how deep the iDOS rabbit hole goes, and what the emulator is actually capable of: After blasting this link out to everyone I know, my friend Sam successfully installed Windows 3.0 and is currently playing Windows Solitaire on his iPad:

This is unreal. The capabilities of this emulator is insane.

Update 2: Mark just posted the following video in our comments of him running Space Quest:

Update 3: It seems that Sierra adventure games work great in the emulator, here's a screenshot of Freddy Pharkas – Frontier Pharmacist sent to us by Fish of Four Player Coop.

Update 4: Assuming your monocle hasn't blown completely off your face yet, forum member Audioteknika just got Warcraft II running:

Update 5: Aaaaannnd just like that it's gone.

Update 6: Even though it may seem like the fun is over, if you're a jailbreaker you can download this same emulator for free. It's called DOSPAD and here's how to get it. Also, just for fun, one last screenshot of The 7th Guest running from a CDROM disc image, complete with music:

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Back in May when the first videos started appearing of jailbroken iPads playing SNES games, it definitely piqued our interest as few things would have blown my mind more back when the SNES hit North America in 1991. (Actually, come to think of it, just seeing the iPad 19 years ago would be a mind-blowing experience in itself.) The emulator in question in the original videos, as well as the one capable of pairing with a Wii controller is snes4iphone, but if you'd rather have an emulator that runs natively, SNES HD will do the trick, you just won't have Wii controller support.

The entire guide itelf with a bunch of photos and links is over on Lifehacker, and they've also explained the whole thing in the following video:

Keep in mind that according to Apple "unauthorized modification of iOS has been a major source of instability, disruption of services, and other issues", and obviously the jailbreak community completely disagrees. Either way, the entire jailbreak process is entirely unsupported, so just be sure to do some research to make sure you know what you're getting in to before blindly mashing the "jailbreak" button in Spirit.

[Lifehacker via TUAW]

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This short video uploaded to youtube shows off the ability to run an emulator on the iPad to play SNES games, while using the Wii Remote to control the character. The game being played is Super Mario World on snes4iphone [$5.99 from Cydia].

The jailbreak for the iPad has not even been out a week yet, and you can clearly see the great possibilities that can come out of this device. As the jailbreak community continues to release new iPad specific applications, that Apple does not allow in their own AppStore, expect to see some really creative ideas unfold.

If your not too sure what jailbreaking your iDevice means, Gizmodo has posted a great overview on what jailbreaking is, how easy it is, and some other common FAQ's regarding jailbreaking. But as always, like the Gizmodo article clearly points out:

And remember, be careful! Jailbreaking is unsupported and something that's very new to the iPad. If in doubt about a particular Cydia app, err on the side of caution. You're better safe than sorry, really.

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With the year coming to a close, I feel confident in saying with as much authority as I can muster that 2009 has been an amazing year. Soon we will be posting the results of weeks of deliberation on what we feel were the best games, a holiday buyer's guide for people who opened an iPod touch or iPhone this Christmas, and other year-end stories highlighting the various games we feel are the "must-haves" of 2009– But it hardly seems right to summarize the year in a few simple lists of game titles, brief synopses and links to reviews when so many remarkable games were created and events transpired that were still highly noteworthy or influential but fall outside of the rigid boundaries of "best of" listings.

When the App Store first launched on July 10th, 2008, very few people, myself included, realized the full potential of a reasonably open platform with a $99 entry fee that allowed developers building games in their bedrooms to be on equal footing with industry giants. The success of the pioneers of the App Store created a gold rush of talent, with new eager developers hoping to see even a fraction of the success of the stories that motivated their migration to the platform. 2009 was filled with even more inspirational tales of developers quitting their day jobs and building full-fledged businesses off of the App Store.

2009 also marked the year that the indie developer dreams of Imangi Studios, Bolt Creative, InMotion Software, Tiger Style Games, and many others were fully realized with titles created out of basements and on kitchen tables without a single cent of outside financing that were able to compete with the likes of EA, Activision, Sega, Namco, and other giants of the gaming industry. Everything they created was their own, a feat nearly impossible on any other platform.

Before 2009, no iPhone gamers cared about or likely even knew the name Tim Langdell, a man who has now become infamous amongst the community for relentlessly disputing ancient trademarks and consistently keeping Mobigame's EDGE off the App Store. We were impressed by the game when we first posted about it on January 4th, before anyone even had a clue of the legal battles to come. Since its was taken down, EDGE has briefly appeared for download several times throughout the year, but even as 2009 is coming to a close the fate of this game still is unclear.

Five days following the release of EDGE, Pocket God [99¢] made its debut on the App Store. At the time, not even Bolt Creative realized the cult following that the game would soon have. We didn't even post about it until months later, as in its earliest form Pocket God barely resembled what you would call a game– But the Pocket God phenomenon was growing too large to even attempt to ignore. Since then the game has seen 29 episodes, each representing a substantial content update and according to the Independent Games Festival trailer, Pocket God has over 1.6 million worldwide fans– A number easily confirmed by the blitz of forum members swarming each and every Pocket God thread posted on our forums along with countless other Pocket God fan-made spinoff sites.

February was an even bigger month than January for iPhone games, with Rogue Touch's [99¢] release and its continued dominance throughout the year with the developer consistently implementing community feedback, solidifying its position as the best implementation of Rogue on the platform. iDracula [99¢ / Free] was also released, and was the first dual-stick shooter to rise to the #1 position on the overall paid app sales chart– Its success no doubt inspiring countless other developers to throw their hats in to the dual-stick shooter ring.

In a sea of tower defense games, February also saw geoDefense [$1.99 / Free], a game that challenged fans of the genre with its brutal difficulty level which was designed from the ground up to never create a situation where the player is able to sit back and watch as waves of creeps are slaughtered by their defenses. Since then, geoDefense Swarm [$1.99] appeared on the App Store, after much anticipation from the fan base of the original game, which had grown so hardcore that they even challenged developer David Whatley to post the source code controlling one of the game's towers to verify its functionality.

On March 5th, Flight Control [99¢] hit the App Store with a bang, in essence creating the line drawing chaos management genre which was spawned an army of games with similar gameplay elements or control mechanics. Games like Harbor Master [99¢ / Free] were among the first in expanding on the Flight Control formula, but none of the spinoffs even saw a fraction of the success of Flight Control, a game which has held a firm position near the top of the paid apps listing since its release with a fan following of celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore challenging each other via Twitter.

Doodle Jump [99¢] was also released in March, a simple tilting game which has since seen several updates and to this day still hasn't left the second screen of my iPhone 3G, along with being among the very first batch of essential apps and games that were synced to my iPhone 3GS shortly after unboxing it on the day of its release. Doodle Jump has become the gold standard that most simple games are compared to on TouchArcade, and it seems impossible for us to record a podcast without mentioning it at least once.

One of the most memorable games for me of April (aside from Ow My Balls! [99¢]) was Hysteria Project [$1.99], a game that combined live action footage with simple gameplay elements reminiscent of Sega CD or LaserDisc full motion video games. Ultimately the game fell flat due to a short playtime and nearly non-existent replay value, but I still have to admire the amount of talent, planning, and production that went in to creating the many video clips and impressive horror/thriller atmosphere. Hysteria Project seems to be abandoned now with updates released only addressing existing bugs and iTunes reviews flooded by users requesting additional content. Regardless, if you're a fan of games like Dragon's Lair [$4.99], you will likely appreciate the direction Bulkypix attempted to go with Hysteria Project.

May brought Manomio's port of Flashback [$1.99 / 99¢], a game which curiously enough was only an interpreter of the original game files based on the REminiscence engine by Gregory Montoir. On the first launch of the game it downloaded 3MB of the original DOS data files in order to play the game. No one knew it at the time, but this mechanism foreshadowed the dramatic release and re-release saga of their Commodore 64 Emulator [$2.99], an app which sparked countless debates over the merits of Apple's approval process as its fate on the App Store slowly unfolded.

Sega's Sonic The Hedgehog [$5.99] was also released around this time, and it didn't take long for clever members of the community to pick the game apart and discover that it was little more than Sega's own emulator– And with a minimal amount of tweaking could be made to play any Genesis ROM file. Emulation on the iPhone was punctuated in late December with the release of Nescaline, a NES emulator based on NES v3 available on Cydia. Only available for a few short hours, retro fans willing to cough up $6.99 during this time are now among a small group of gamers capable of running any NES game on their device without jailbreaking.

While we were at WWDC, the talk of the town seemed to be InMotion Software's I Dig It [App Store], an amazing game that came completely out of left field and seemed to captivate anyone who got passed an iPhone with it installed during the event. After each night of the conference when our own Blake Patterson insisted on taking us to his favorite bar in San Francisco, The Tempest, I'd run my battery completely out searching for diggins while drinking gin and tonics. I Dig It eventually hit #1 on the iTunes sales charts, and in the wake of its success, InMotion Software released I Dig It Expeditions [99¢ / Free]– A sequel and vast improvement on the original.

After a tease at the WWDC Launch Party that was co-hosted by TouchArcade and MacHeist, Doom Resurrection [$1.99] was available for download. Launched at the premium price of $9.99, Doom Resurrection utilized the same assets as Doom 3, and while there were many 3D games available on the App Store prior to its release, Doom Resurrection was likely the first title that truly opened the eyes of iPhone gamers allowing them to see the true graphical potential of the platform.

SGN's F.A.S.T. [Free] also went live on the App Store in late June, and was among the first games for the iPhone to offer seamless realtime action oriented multiplayer. Following its release at $9.99, F.A.S.T. has slowly had its price reduced and is now free and funded by in-game downloadable content– A feature available to developers following the release of the iPhone 3.0 OS on June 17th.

The iPhone 3GS hit the street on June 19th, packing a faster processor, more storage, a compass, and most important to gamers: OpenGL ES 2.0 capabilities. It would still be some time before this new functionality would realized by developers, and 2009 is coming to a close without the compass being used for anything more than gimmicky augmented reality tech demo games and with developers only barely scratching the surface of OpenGL ES 2.0– With a select few games even taking advantage of the additional shaders and other graphical effects available on the 3GS and later released 3rd generation iPod touch.

The entire month of July was overshadowed by the release of Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢] an experience which polarized gamers in to two camps: Those who thought Enviro-Bear 2010 was the worst game that they ever played and couldn't understand why we would post about it, and those who agreed with me that it was the Citizen Kane of iPhone games. Featuring the most realistic simulation of a bear driving a car available on the platform, Enviro-Bear 2010 is still talked about on our forums and referenced in a few other games, most notably the recent Minigore [$1.99] update.

Also first available in July, Newtoy's Words With Friends [$1.99 / Free] joined Chess With Friends [$2.99 / Free] in providing the iPhone equivalent of correspondence gaming to the games of Chess and not-quite-Scrabble. CEO Paul Bettner later revealed some amazing usage statistics at GDC Austin in mid-September: the Newtoy games had 50,000 active players daily. While Pinch Media reported the average iPhone app user spent less than 5 minutes on an app per day, Chess With Friends and Words With Friends players spent an average time of 1.5 hours playing each day.

The most notable game to come out of August was by far Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99]. Released without a single preview, Spider instantly captivated our entire community. The allure of such a mysterious yet high quality game was irresistible as Bryce Manor itself held a mystery which the player could either follow their human curiosity choose to explore the story of the game, or simply enjoy the game as a spider catching bugs and completely ignore it. This was just many of the remarkably ingenious design decisions found in Spider, and the game's entire design process perfectly embodied the indie development spirit of the platform.

Beating EA to the punch by an entire month, Gameloft's NFL 2010 [$2.99 / Free] was the first fully licensed football game available on the iPhone which was soon followed by Madden NFL 10 [$5.99], a game we got an early preview of at the Penny-Arcade Expo in Seattle. Which is the better football game was hotly debated among sports fans on our forums, with both games competing in feature wars involving multiplayer, complete NFL rosters, stat tracking, and other things only hardcore sports fans cared about. Regardless, gaming franchise staples like Madden only further legitimized the iPhone as a gaming platform.

At the end of September, Hi, How Are you [99¢ / Free] hit the App Store, a game based on the life, art, and music of Daniel Johnston. When I first played the game, I had no clue who Daniel Johnston was, or why this game was so amazingly strange. All I knew was that it had a really cool cell shaded art style, and in researching the game I became aware of everything that was Daniel Johnston. As I explained in a blog post, this completely transformed the game for me. Much like the work of Daniel Johnson, Hi, How Are You is completely off the wall, and likely one of the most under-appreciated games on the App Store. In the few emails I sent back and forth with the developer, it seemed this realization was not at all uncommon and the game's single fault is that it may just simply be too strange.

In October, Canabalt [$2.99] was released, the iPhone port of a flash game playable online for free. Our community was wholly divided amongst players who were absolutely in love with Canabalt, and others who still leave comments on front page stories and post threads in our forums upset both with the positive reception it received and its $2.99 price point. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, it is a remarkable feat to be among among the few iPhone games that are not only noticed, but also talked about for months following their release. Canabalt was later updated with a few new obstacles and online leaderboards– Clearly quantifying exactly how bad I am at the game compared to the rest of the world.

Following Canabalt came another game with similar pixelated retro graphics: Hook Champ [$2.99 / Free]. Taking a similar swinging mechanic made popular by other games and introducing RPG elements in an equipment shop where virtually everything about your character can be upgraded, Hook Champ was an instant classic. Featuring among the best and most seamless integration of online leaderboards I've seen, Hook Champ provides a silly amount of replay value as each run through a level is timed, uploaded and compared to everyone else's performance.

October also saw what seemed to be one of the most substantial announcements from Apple since the unveiling of 3GS hardware: Changes to the downloadable content system on the App Store allowing free apps to have in-app purchasing. Previously, DLC was only available to developers who sold their apps, with the intention that free apps would always be free. Aside from substantially changing the dynamic of the top 100 lists, we also speculated that lite versions could be a thing of the past as developers migrated to free demo apps which were unlocked to the full version via an in-game microtransaction. Very few games ever actually implemented this purchase model, largely in part because appearing on the top 100 free list requires exponentially more downloads than what is required to chart on the top 100 paid listings.

What this new DLC change did usher in was games like ngmoco's Eliminate [Free], a free to play game with optional in-game purchases to buy energy, a sort of virtual currency used inside of the game. Touch Pets Dogs [Free] also utilizes a similar model, as do several of the Miraphonic Epic Wars games.

In November, Activision surprised us all with the release of Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [$9.99], the cooperative online multiplayer enabled port of the zombie-slaying game mode from Call of Duty: World at War for home consoles– Leaving iPhone gamers wondering what could possibly come next out of the industry giant.

Wheeler's Treasure [$1.99] also hit the App Store, following a thread with beta testers absolutely raving about the game. Featuring flick controls, and a really strange game premise where you're chasing a wheel down a hill, Wheeler's Treasure is yet another example of an extremely high quality game that really could only exist on the iPhone. The developer has already implemented a few new power-ups in game based on (and named after) forum members who provided feedback, and Wheeler's Treasure joins Hook Champ as another game that has fabulously seamless online scoring, marked by headstones that appear in game based on the distance other players travelled before their wheel was destroyed.

November and December were met with a blitz of games from Gameloft, who at the start of the year went from releasing a few mediocre games to the nearly becoming undisputed king of iPhone game production. Aside from the remarkably complete port of the PlayStation/PC classic Driver [$6.99], Gameloft delivered several other games including N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [$6.99], a Sci-Fi first person shooter with four player online multiplayer and among the best graphics of any iPhone game released this year.

December also saw several fantastic classic games, starting off with Sword of Fargoal [$4.99], which is by far the most approachable roguelike and one of the best examples of a perfectly remade retro game. The previously released Space Ace [$4.99] was also joined by two other LaserDisc arcade classics: Cobra Command [$2.99] and Dragon's Lair [$4.99].

With 122,660 available apps on the App Store as of today, even this seemingly comprehensive listing of major events and releases barely even begins to scratch the surface. One could spend weeks analyzing the App Store notating the trends in sales, releases, genres, and borrowed/modified gameplay mechanics. The fact that this is even possible is amazing by itself, and when you consider that the App Store is only a year and a half old, it's hard to imagine what the year-end wrap-up of 2010 will include.

Notable things on the horizon include the Unreal Engine 3 coming to the iPhone, potentially unlocking countless ports of existing projects developed for the Unreal Engine as well as the unimaginable unannounced games from the industry leaders of the App Store. Looking at what Gameloft, ngmoco, Illusion Labs, and others have produced this year alone, it's impossible to even guess what they will have accomplished next year.

Apple seems to be updating the iPhone and iPod touch hardware on a yearly basis, and rumors are already rolling in on potential inclusions for next year's model. With the Nvidia Tegra-based Zune HD and numerous Android devices either released or due to be released soon, the iPhone's advantage currently lies in the power of its software rather than its hardware– A fantastic position to be in, especially as more apps are submitted to the iTunes App Store on a daily basis than the total number of apps available in the entire Android Marketplace. Not to mention you barely need two hands to count the number of games available for the Zune HD.

Depending on which rumors you believe, the legendary Apple tablet may also run a shared OS to the iPhone, and run the same games and apps available on the platform. If this turns out to be true, the gaming implications could be massive as a large problem with iPhone games is often how much of the screen is obscured by controls. It's still much too early to even begin to speculate what the future of the Apple tablet will hold, and you can drive yourself crazy attempting to piece together the opinions of industry insiders and analysts.

In regards to TouchArcade, we've grown substantially over 2009. At the beginning of the year Blake and Arnold were holding down the fort, I've since joined the team full time, and we've even acquired some new writers recently who are producing some fantastic reviews. At the various conventions and meetings we've attended throughout the year we've made some great friends, heard some amazing stories, and scored a lot of great previews. We've grown to just under 9 million page views a month, and since we started recording our podcast we've maintained a position in the top ten video game podcasts on iTunes. We even have some great things to come for TouchArcade, both in improving existing features of the site as well as a few top secret projects and partnerships in the works which will be revealed soon.

Our readers and excellent community are directly responsible for our success, and we'd like to thank you for your continued support. From everyone at TouchArcade, have a safe and happy holidays.

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Emulation has long been the forbidden fruit that has lured many iPhone gamers in to jailbreaking. None of the emulators on Cydia that I've tried have been that impressive, providing gameplay experiences that range from poor to mediocre. But for some people (myself included to an extent), being able to just barely play The Legend of Zelda is good enough.

Nescaline [App Store] was released on to the App Store this evening by Jonathan Zdziarski, creator of NES v3 available on Cydia. Nescaline comes with a basic load out of free games, but to play the games you actually want to play you will need to point the emulator to a .nes ROM file URL. It then downloads the ROM in to the emulator, and you can play it whenever you want.

Multitouch on-screen controls make up the D-Pad and controller buttons, and as you probably could guess, the controls aren't that great. They work, but don't expect to be making your way through Battletoads or any other game that requires fast reactions or the precise controls that come from a physical controller.

When you rotate the orientation of your phone the emulator flips from portrait to landscape, which seems to make controlling games much easier. The performance of the emulated games I've tried ranged from decent to slightly laggy on my 3GS, with some odd bugs such as musical glitches in Zelda and the title screen not displaying correctly in Super Mario Bros.

If you've been looking for a basic NES emulator for the iPhone, but haven't wanted to jailbreak, now is your chance– It's hard to say how long Nescaline will remain on the App Store, especially considering Apple's stance on emulators in the past, its questionable icon, and Nescaline's ability to both download and execute third party code that hasn't been approved by Apple.

Update: And just as fast as Nescaline appeared it was removed from the App Store. If you were lucky enough to grab it while it was available, be sure to back up the .ipa file as you won't be able to download it again until it reappears on the App Store.

App Store Link: Nescaline, $6.99

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