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Bummed that the Space Shuttle launch got scrubbed and need a pick-me-up? Have nothing to do this weekend? Are you totally out of iTunes credit and want a new game to play? Well, I have the solution to all three of these problems, and potentially any other problems you can cook up: Physics Gamebox [Free]

While you're waiting for the game to download (you are downloading it, aren't you?) you can check out our review. In a nutshell, Physics Gamebox comes packed with two incredibly popular games that got their start on various Flash game portals out there. Ragdoll Cannon has you shooting ragdolls at goals (and actually was the inspiration behind Ragdoll Blaster) as well as Roly-Poly Cannon which puts you in charge of firing your cannon at Roly-Poly bugs who have invaded. 300 levels in all are included, which should keep you busy for quite a while.

For more freebies, swing on over to AppShopper, or check out our price drops and freebies forum. It seems like there's always awesome stuff to be had for free (or very cheap).

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Earlier this week Epic Games reported that LucasArts signed a multi-year studio-wide licensing agreement to utilize Epic's awesome Unreal Engine 3 across multiple platforms. According to Epic Vice President Mark Rein, “LucasArts is now primed to capitalize on Unreal Engine 3’s ability to scale across platforms, from mobile, through PC and console all the way up to the next generation of games.”

Now, I'm not entirely sure just how excited to get about all of this. Epic Citadel [Free] and Infinity Blade [$5.99] have done a great job showing just what the Unreal Engine 3 can do on the iOS platform. Technically speaking, if games are developed in UE3 with multiple platforms in mind, targeting iOS devices could all be part of the same development process that would result in Xbox 360, PS3, and PC games. Rein does specifically mention mobile gaming too, and there's no disputing the fact that iOS is a main mobile platform currently.

However, LucasArts really has yet to get that involved in the world of iOS. Their App Store catalog is fairly barren, and only consists of Monkey Island remakes. I'd love to think that we're about to get a bucket of amazing LucasArts Unreal Engine 3-powered games dumped on the App Store, but if this is just being announced now, it will likely be quite a while before we see any of the projects utilizing this engine.

Keep your fingers crossed, iOS-owning LucasArts fans!

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Fishlabs' highly anticipated add-on to Galaxy On Fire 2 [$9.99 / Lite] recently hit the App Store, and is likely sitting in your pending updates listing if you already own the game. (Assuming of course you haven't already updated.) This update actually comes in two parts, a free component and the actual Valkyrieadd-on which is unlocked via a $4.99 in-app purchase.

In this update, everyone who owns Galaxy On Fire 2 will be granted access to three ships from the original Galaxy On Fire: The Phantom, Vol Noor, and Wraith. Also, you'll be able to get a personal space station to store multiple ships as well as all your loot, cargo, and other items that you want out of your ships' cargo holds.

The Valkyrie add-on picks up on Keith T. Maxwell's adventures, and is largely based around fan feedback. Aside from a new array of planets, ships, weaponry, and other equipment, there's also an entirely new extensively voiced over campaign. The repair robots and automated turrets sound particularly useful, and a new black market trading system will allow players to get even more involved in the galaxy's virtual economy.

For more information on our game, you can check out our review, the insanely active forum thread, or Fishlabs' own incredibly interesting developer diary for the whole add-on project. I've had a great time with Galaxy On Fire 2, and look forward to delving deeper into this new add-on. The cost of the game and this new add-on might seem expensive in App Store terms, but the amount of content in the original game and now this new add-on is nothing short of ridiculous. I'm not exaggerating at all by saying if Galaxy On Fire 2 sucks you in, it could keep you busy for months.

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Need more RPG fantasy action? Cool, because another big title based on these three things is now available for purchase on the App Store. The game I’m talking about here is Zenonia 3: The Midgard Story [$4.99], following Zenonia [$1.99 / Free] and Zenonia 2 [$1.99 / Free] as the third installment in the series.

This specific iteration offers a few new things — foremost being the “Fairy helper system,” which adds some additional depth to the leveling mechanic. There are also a total of four character classes, more special active and passive skills, as well as a new, more streamlined inventory and item management system. Oh, and if you’re down with some Words With Friends style asynchronous play, Zenonia 3 has that — there’s a special “Execution Room” which allows "co-op" play for loot, as well as PVP.

If you need a sense of what this game is about, check out this trailer. It's a little flashy, but there's some actual gameplay at the end:

The Zenonia games have always had a massive fan following on our forums, and the latest installment is no different. The thread has grown to an impressive size, and is worth checking out for the many impressions and gameplay tips left by readers.

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If you've never heard of The Impossible Game [99¢ / Free]] go ahead and take a minute to clear your schedule because your going to need some free time. Released just over a year ago on the App Store, The Impossible Game is a port of the highly popular Xbox Live Indie game under the same name. While it's a platformer by nature, there's one major difference about The Impossible Game that really makes stand out from the rest: As the title might suggest, this game is hard.

The game's graphics consist of only 2 shapes, squares and triangles. The Impossible Game won't win any awards in the graphics department it makes up for it with some of the most original platform gaming I've ever experienced. The gameplay is simple and straightforward and consists of a square that moves automatically through a level at a blazingly fast speed while you try to tap on the screen to make your square jump over and onto other squares, all while trying to avoid smashing into them head on.

When you fail (and you will) and hit a box or land on some spikes you will automatically start right back at the beginning of the level and start over from scratch. Luckily there is a practice mode which allows you to place flags down as you progress through the the level so you can restart from your last dropped flag, but what makes this game so "impossible" is to truly beat a level you must make it all the way through from start to finish with only one life.

Even though it looks like a simple platformer from the outside this game still feels unlike anything I've ever played before, due in part to the way the levels are setup with the boxes in some crazy configurations with some needing to be climbed like an endless staircase and the rest needing to be precisely timed with the perfect jump or release of the screen, all the while moving at sonic speed.

The music consists of catchy techno beats that really tie in the precision jumping with the the frantic gameplay to perfectly produce a platforming package that I've yet to experience anywhere else. Even after a couple hundred plays through, the music still felt like a critical part to beating the game and not once did I want to turn it off as it seems to really help you to time jumps to sections in the song.

Because of the difficulty of this game, If you find you have the patience to finally beat these levels you will truly feel you have accomplished something amazing in a video game… Even if the reward at the end of a level is lackluster to say the least.

Keep in mind it will get quite frustrating to beat a level in one life, but once you do, it will be burned into your memory for life as a result of (potentially) hundreds of retries. This may somewhat diminish the games replay value, but I still continue to pick it up from time to time to see if I've still got it. Regardless, the game comes standard with two levels, each of which should take you quite some time to beat. If you're looking for more there's also a 99¢ IAP level pack to add an additional two levels.

Sure The Impossible Game came out quite a while ago, but it's still a ton of fun. If you liked the game on the Xbox 360, you'll likely enjoy it just as much on the iPhone. Otherwise, if you're the kind of person who gets into brutally difficult games and doesn't mind endlessly retrying levels until you get it right, look no further than The Impossible Game.

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I've spent so much time playing Dungeon Raid [$2.99] over the last few months that if I was doing anything else more productive I can't even imagine what I could have accomplished. Does this bother me? Heck no, Dungeon Raid owns. I basically drooled all over it in our review, and it easily made out Best iPhone Games of January '11 listing. I explained the gameplay in the previously-mentioned review-

By now you might be scratching your head wondering why I'm piling shovels full of praise on to a matching game with a matching component that's so simple that it usually doesn't take much skill to clear half the board in one move. Well, it's because of the layer on top of all this that makes Dungeon Raid the game that stole my entire day today. You see, each match you make serves a purpose, and deciding what you're going to match when seems to require quite a bit of strategy, and often some luck, as you never know what's going to replace the blocks you just cleared.

Strategy comes in to play because while Dungeon Raid may initially appear to just be a simple matching game, there's a fairly complex subset of RPG elements that drives everything you do. Enemies are represented by skulls on the game board. "Killing" an enemy involves matching skulls with enough swords to total up more damage than their hit points (which is displayed to the right of each enemy). After every match, every enemy on screen damages you, and special enemies also appear randomly which have increased hit points and other special abilities. One such ability involves their attacks "poisoning" you, at which point you take constant damage until you match healing potions. (Matching healing potions, as you can probably guess, heals you.)

Since our review, Dungeon Raid has had two substantial updates. The first one added playable classes which mix gameplay up further, and today's update adds two new game modes:

The down-side of Dungeon Raid (if I had to say it had one) is that games can potentially take a very long time. Both of these new game modes are very quick, and I really like how Dungeon Sprint mode actively not only shows your current score, but also what the match you're about to make would add to it. It's actually helped me learn quite a bit about how the scoring system in the game works. Pretzel Hero is kind of goofy, but I love how they've thought outside of the box and built a game mode around the crazy matches you can make in the game.

If you haven't yet, now is a perfect time to download Dungeon Raid. This is one of my favorite games, and I have nothing but good things to say about it especially with how much love the developers have given it through updates.

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It was back in October of last year that we first learned of Gears, a new ball rolling game from Mobile Game Garage that was set to get the extreme graphical makeover treatment from fellow iOS developer Crescent Moon Games. Not surprisingly, the before and after screens were quite astonishing, and Gears was shaping up to be quite a beautiful game. After a longer than anticipated development time, we finally got a trailer for Gears in early February followed by a hands-on gameplay video a couple of weeks later. And at long last, Gears [99¢] is finally available for download in the App Store.

First things first: Gears is gorgeous. Crescent Moon has worked some serious mojo on the graphics here, which are entirely rendered in 3D and utilize a fantasy/steampunk theme that suits the game well. Retina Display equipped devices will be treated to high resolution visuals, and there are additional special enhancements for the extra power of the iPad 2. Also, owners of older devices can choose from different levels of graphical quality to increase performance if need be. No matter which device you're playing on, Gears looks spectacular with a ton of detail and impressive effects throughout.

The campaign in Gears consists of 27 levels spread across 3 different themed worlds with 9 levels apiece. Each level has a set number of power gears to collect on your way to the finish. It’s not necessary to collect them all, though higher scores and thus better medals are awarded based on how many you do manage to pick up. The levels are all really well designed, and the type of terrain you must traverse is what really sets Gears apart from other ball rolling games. Levels are rife with moving gears (naturally), stairs, narrow bridges, trampolines, gates, exploding boxes, and various other obstacles that can impede your progress.

The first set of 9 levels won’t prove too much of a challenge, and in fact serve as a perfect introduction to playing the game without being a total cakewalk. In world 2 and beyond, however, the difficulty ramps up quite a bit. Thankfully this is handled beautifully with the ability to choose from 4 difficulty levels at any time during the campaign.

Easy is where I suggest starting from, as there is no time limit and you’re free to take as long as you need to reach the finish. Normal gives a generous time limit that allows for making some mistakes while still being able to complete it, and Hard gives you a stricter time limit that requires a fairly flawless run. All 3 of these difficulties give you unlimited lives and take advantage of the many checkpoints spread throughout every level, transporting you back to the last one that was triggered should you see your demise (which you will, a lot).

Then there’s Brutal difficulty, which is reserved for masochists only. Brutal gives you the same time limit as Hard but you only get 1 life, and rolling your ball off the path will result in having to start over from the beginning of the level. It certainly earns the title of Brutal difficulty, but playing on the harder difficulty settings will earn you additional bonus points at the end of a level which is key to earning high scores and competing on the Game Center leaderboards.

The number one thing that really stands out about Gears to me is the excellent touch controls. There are many ball rolling games in the App Store, most of them meant to be played with tilt controls. This makes sense due to the accelerometer and gyroscope capabilities of iOS devices, and Gears too has a completely competent tilt control system should you prefer using that. But tilt controls is totally where it’s at. There’s never been a ball roller with touch controls this good, and once you’re comfortable with the nuance of them you’ll feel like you have solid control over your little shiny ball.

Gears is everything you would expect from a Crescent Moon release. It has fantastic production values, amazing graphics, brilliant controls, and a solid set of well designed levels to play through. What’s crazy is that they took something as simple as a ball rolling game and made it feel like something more. The difficulty might be a little much for your average gamer, but thanks to the Easy setting, it’s at least possible to complete the entire game with a little perseverance rather than limiting it to only the most hardcore and dedicated players.

Even if you’re not a fan of the ball rolling genre (which aside from the classic Marble Madness, I’m not) Gears is totally worth a look as it feels much different from what’s already out there. Players in our forums have been loving this one as well, and for the introductory price of 99¢ Gears is highly recommended.

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After a bit of an approval snafu earlier this month, the first title from PopCap Games’ new edgier games division 4th & Battery has finally hit the App Store. Called Unpleasant Horse [Free], it’s an endless high scoring game that stars – wait for it – an unpleasant horse. And let me tell you, this horse is a real jerk.

Gameplay is simple. Your horse leaps through the air traveling to the right, and can rest upon clouds spread throughout the sky. Pressing anywhere on the screen will cause unpleasant horse to jump to that spot, and the object is to leap from cloud to cloud for as long as possible. There are also cute birdies flying in the air, and jumping into these will give you an additional air jump to use when you need an extra boost in the middle of a jump to make it to your destination.

There are kind and gentle ponies flying through the sky as well, and this is where the unpleasantness comes in. Unpleasant horse can jump onto the backs of these majestic creatures, which are merely minding their own business I might add, and weigh them down sinking towards the ground. The “ground” in this case is a series of spinning saw blades, and you’ll earn extra points by pushing the nice horses down and grinding them into the blades in a shower of gore reminiscent of so many Mortal Kombat games.

So yeah, it’s pretty unpleasant, but it’s also pretty fun. The game mechanics are solid, though it does take a bit of practice to get used to, but once you get a nice run going it’s a very satisfying experience. Guilt-ridden satisfaction, due to all the ponies and birds you end up killing, but satisfaction nonetheless. The game’s description explains that Unpleasant Horse was the result of a game jam where they literally drew words out of a hat and developed a game based around whatever phrase came from it. For this, I’d say Unpleasant Horse actually came out pretty well.

Best of all is you can currently download Unpleasant Horse for free and try it yourself, rather than listening to me blather on about it. When PopCap announced the new 4th & Battery label, they explained that their aim was to try out new experimental titles without having to worry about annoying things like development schedules or profitability. This relaxed take on making games means free games for you, Mr. or Mrs. Consumer, so if Unpleasant Horse sounds interesting to you at all and you can stomach the unpleasantness, then definitely give it a download.

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It seems like only yesterday I was cruising around looking for a silly Wednesday-related image to include with last week's game release post. Time flies when you're having fun, I suppose. Anyway, if this is your first App Store Wednesday, here's the gist- Developers can set specific release dates for their games on the App Store. Since the App Store is an international market, these specific launch dates occur at different times in the world. Games launch in New Zealand first, then slowly appear in other regions as the planet spins and it slowly becomes Thursday in other parts of the world. For us Americans, this actually means 11:00 PM EST tonight. Here's what to expect tonight, or earlier, if you live to the east of North America:

Gears, 99¢ – [Forum Thread] – This hilariously epic trailer for a ball roller still makes me giggle, and we're only a few hours away from discovering whether or not Crescent Moon Games' Gears actually does all the amazing things its trailer suggests. I'm not saying a ball roller can't be epic, as I'd certainly describe the Dark Nebula games that way, but this trailer brings about an entire new era of epic ball rollers. People on our forums are excited about Gears, I'm excited about Gears, and really, you should be excited about Gears. It looks really good, and we've liked what we've seen so far in previews to say the least.

Zenonia 3: The Midgard Story, $4.99 – [Forum Thread] – The Zenonia series has a huge fan following on our forums, and with two Zenonia games already on the App Store we're expecting big things from the third installment. It seems Gamevil is prepared to deliver too, with four unique classes, three single player and two multiplayer modes, and they've even axed the annoying weight and hunger system of previous games. 227 unique maps and 136 quests are included along with 48 achievements, 200 monsters, and a ridiculous amount of equipment to earn. I'm just glad that mobile games like Zenonia 3 didn't really exist before I was, you know, an adult with a job and responsibilities… because wow I can lose myself in games like this.

Snuggle Truck, $1.99 – [Forum Thread] – Smuggle Truck seems to have gotten a cuddly makeover and now features a truck full of stuffed animals instead of the previously planned illegal immigrants. This shift in theme shouldn't make the game any less fun, as we had an absolute blast with it back at GDC and it seems people on our forums who have already picked it up are doing the same with the game. The iTunes description mentions community created levels coming in a future update, potentially allowing for nearly unlimited replay value.

Galaxy on Fire 2, $9.99 – [Forum Thread] – While the game itself is already available on the App Store (and has been for quite some time) the new Valkyrie add on should appear at some point today. It's going to be $4.99, and includes a ridiculous amount of new features and content mentioned in a previous preview post. I'd go as far as to say this addon is a must-have for anyone who has enjoyed Galaxy on Fire 2.

Streets of Rage 3, $2.99 – [Forum Thread] – I think it's about time we all pitch in together and hire one of those planes that tow the banners in the sky to circle Sega's offices to get them to start releasing more RPG's, puzzle games, and other games that actually work well within the constraints of their Genesis emulator. It's the same old song and dance here, yet another action-oriented button masher with virtual controls layered on top. I guess if you're just crazy about Streets of Rage games, this is worth downloading just for completion's sake of having all three games neatly arranged on your phone.

Burn it All – Journey to the Sun, 99¢ – [Forum Thread] – Have you had your fill with rope burning puzzle games? No? GOOD. We got a look at Burn it All back at GDC, and it's a great little game filled with a cool gameplay mechanic, colorful graphics, and tons of content. It's universal too, which is always awesome.

Unpleasant Horse, Free – Popcap's first released by their new studio 4th and Battery. This game is the result of a Popcap game jam, and while it sounds a little basic it's both universal and free. I'm not sure why you wouldn't download it to at least check it out.

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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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