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Big Pixel Studios first cut their teeth in the App Store with Piyo Blocks [99¢/Lite] and its sequel Piyo Blocks 2 [99¢/HD], two highly underrated games and easily my favorites among the many, many match-3 games available. They then moved on to a more ambitious project, the wacky dual-stick shooter Meow Meow Happy Fight [99¢/HD], which we really enjoyed back in August when we reviewed it. With their library of titles thus far, Big Pixel has proven is that they are very capable of making games that feature solid gameplay, cute characters, and a colorful visual style.

This rings extremely true in their latest effort Land-a Panda [99¢/Lite/HD] as well. In Land-a Panda your goal is to get the male panda Yang Guang reunited with his sweetheart Tian Tian who is waiting at the end of each obstacle-filled level. You accomplish this by shooting him across the levels using a series of cannons, avoiding all manner of hazards along the way and trying to collect 3 coins on each stage for maximum scoring. If you remember any of the barrel blasting sequences from the Donkey Kong Country series, Land-a Panda is like an extreme homage to these.

There are 4 different worlds in Land-a Panda, each containing 20 levels, with an open spot for additional worlds to come in future updates. With 80 levels, there is a lot of gameplay here. The levels ease you into the mechanics in the game, starting with cannons that will automatically align to the proper angle and fire you in the right direction. As the game progresses, trickier cannons are introduced like ones that rotate and move back and forth, requiring you to fire at the correct time in order to launch to the next cannon. Enemies and environmental hazards like spikes add to the difficulty as well.

All of these elements blend together really well in Land-a Panda. Each level is like a puzzle in how you must figure out the best route to complete it, but the moving platforms and precision firing add a fast-paced component to the gameplay. If earning the highest score possible isn’t a big deal to you, then you’re free to take your time with each level and wait for the proper time to fire each of the cannons, which should suit you if you're typically more of a casual player.

Another big part of the game is predicting the trajectories of your cannon shots, which is something that has been attributed to the allure of games like Angry Birds. I think there’s something to this theory too, as there’s really nothing like firing your cannon and the exact right time to launch Yang Guang in a perfect arc up and over a set of spikes, narrowly between a set of enemies on the way down, and landing squarely next to his darling Tian Tian. One huge draw to Land-a Panda is that it’s incredibly fast and simple to retry a level, so it’s easy to experiment with different methods or endlessly retry a level in the hopes of topping your highest score.

Land-a Panda takes the simple concept of firing from cannon to cannon and builds a wealth of highly replayable content around it. Completing all 80 levels will take some time, and earning 3 stars for each will keep you busy even longer. Then, you can go back and perfect your techniques to earn higher scores and compete on the OpenFeint and Game Center leaderboards. And of course, this is all done using the lighthearted sights and sounds that Big Pixel are known for, with graphics that are crisp, colorful, and Retina Display ready. Players in our forums have been enjoying this game a ton, and if you’re in the market for a cleverly designed physics puzzler with a great sense of style then you can’t really go wrong with Land-a Panda.

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While we were out in San Francisco at GDC 2011, I had a chance to sit down with Xavier Liard of DotEmu to catch up on the latest from their studio. Part of the news gathered in that meeting we passed along last week in our story covering the upcoming arrival of Another World for iOS — DotEmu is the developer on that project. But there's more to tell from this retro revival studio.

The third release in DotEmu's Jaleco arcade series, an iPhone port of 64th Street: A Detective Story [link], has recently gone live in the App Store. The game is a Double Dragon-style beat 'em up arcade fighter that was originally released back in 1991. The iOS version of 64th Street is wrapped in an emulator, providing the original graphics and an authentic game experience as compared to the arcade release, but with customizations that make it appropriate for the iOS platform.

The next title slated for release as part of the Jaleco series is P47: The Freedom Fighter, an arcade side shooter released in 1988 that also saw release on the Amiga, C64 and various other platforms. The coming iOS version of P47 is delivered via emulation of the original arcade version.

Another item worth mentioning from DotEmu is the v2.0 update to their iPhone port of the MSX / Sega Master System RPG Golvellius – The Valley of Doom [link]. New in this release are a redone interface, adjustments to the control system, Game Center intregration bringing around 30 achievements, as well as optimizations to the code for smoother gameplay.

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On a gloomy and rainy day in Boston, I stood around with hundreds of other people to secure myself an iPad 2. It had potential to be miserable, but thankfully Apple provided some really awesome umbrellas in addition to the normal array of beverages and snacks they usually give to people standing in launch day lines. There have been a number of review on the device already, so I'll just focus on how the device works in games. (Although, I will say you must get a smart cover, they're awesome.)

Unsurprisingly, everything I've tried seems to run substantially better across the board. Games that previously chugged on the iPad now run at or near a solid 60 FPS. In fact, I've yet to play a single iPad game on my iPad 2 that didn't perform phenomenally. It's fantastic, as over the last year of talking to developers I've heard many tales of woe regarding the poor graphical performance of the original iPad.

If you just got an iPad 2 and are looking to stretch its legs, the device launched with four games that have been "optimized" for the device. Only one of them is even a new game, the rest of them all had free updates land today to beef up the graphics (and the file size, unfortunately) for the iPad 2.

Real Racing 2 HD, $9.99 – There's not a whole lot to say about this game that we haven't already other than it runs on the iPad and looks fantastic on the iPad 2. We loved the iPhone version in our review, and RR2 HD almost feels even more immersive because of the increase of screen size. One thing though, with the bigger screen, just how flat the cockpits of the cars look is much more noticeable. I'd love to see some bump mapping or other depth given to them, as once you notice it, it's kind of hard to un-see. Obviously, it runs much better on the iPad 2 than the original iPad as well.

Dead Space for iPad, $6.99 – We reviewed this game when it was first released and liked it then, and now it's even better with some heavy anti-aliasing. Check out the crisp border of the sign in the above screenshot, on the original iPad that's jaggy as all get-out. This new iPad 2 version of the game looks good enough that it's worth re-playing the whole game over again just to see it.

Asphalt 6: Adrenaline HD, $6.99 – This is the most underwhelming of all the "optimized" games. It runs great on the device, and the draw distance is crazy, but after playing Dead Space or Real Racing 2 HD, the lack of anti-aliasing really sticks out. Also, while the draw distance is far enough out to completely eliminate pop-in, power-ups and other cars still seem to pop-in even though the scenery doesn't. It's a good effort I suppose, but if you're only going to pick up one of these iPad 2 games, don't let it be this one unless you're just crazy about Burnout-style games.

Infinity Blade, $5.99 – As we said in our initial review, "It doesn't get much more 'must-have' than this." That goes double if you've got an iPad 2. This gesture-based sword-fighter looks nuts. So nuts I posted a completely separate comparison post between the iPad and iPad 2. Infinity Blade is such an impressive display of what the iPad 2 is capable of that it should have come preloaded on the device.

These four launch day games are very impressive, and I doubt I'm alone when I say that I can't wait to see what developers come up with on this substantially faster device.

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With the iPad 2 launching today, many developers are trying to catch the wave of new customers who will be looking for things to try on their shiny new device by putting their iPad games on sale, which is typical of any iOS product launch, holiday, or really any other reason they can think up to throw a sale party. The usual suspects are here, with big sales from both EA Mobile and Gameloft, and there's a number of other enticing sales on miscellaneous titles from big and small developers alike.

EA Sales:

• Dead Space for iPad, $9.99 → $6.99
• Reckless Racing HD, $4.99 → $2.99
• Need For Speed Shift for iPad, $9.99 → $6.99
• Need For Speed Hot Pursuit for iPad, $9.99 → $6.99
• Mirror's Edge for iPad, $9.99 → $2.99
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for iPad, $4.99 → $2.99
• Rock Band Reloaded for iPad, $9.99 → $4.99
• Command & Conquer Red Alert for iPad, $4.99 → $2.99
• Madden NFL 11 for iPad, $12.99 → $4.99
• Fifa 11 for iPad, $9.99 → $6.99
• Tetris for iPad, $7.99 → $5.99
• SimCity Deluxe for iPad, $6.99 → $4.99
• Monopoly for iPad, $9.99 → $6.99
• Yahtzee HD, $4.99 → $2.99
• The Game of Life for iPad, $6.99 → $4.99
• Scrabble for iPad, $9.99 → $6.99
• Risk: The Official Game for iPad, $6.99 → $4.99
• Pictureka! for iPad, $4.99 → $2.99
• Snood for iPad, $4.99 → $2.99
• Clue: Secrets & Spies, $4.99 → $2.99

Gameloft Sales (All Games 99¢):

• Star Battalion HD
• Prince of Persia: Warrior Within HD
• Spider-Man: Total Mayhem HD
• Dungeon Hunter HD
• Brothers In Arms 2: Global Front HD
• Iron Man 2 for iPad
• Shrek Kart HD
• Real Golf 2011 HD
• Real Tennis HD
• UNO HD
• The Settlers HD
• Brain Challenge HD

Miscellaneous:

• Spider: Bryce Manor HD, $4.99 → 99¢
• Pix'n Love Rush DX, $1.99 → 99¢
• Meow Meow Happy Fight HD, $2.99 → 99¢
• Pro Zombie Soccer Apocalypse Edition, $1.99 → 99¢
• Babylonian Twins HD Premium, $4.99 → 99¢
• Psychoban HD, $2.99 → FREE
• Worms HD, $2.99 → 99¢
• Homerun Battle 3D for iPad, $4.99 → 99¢
• Enigmo 2, $2.99 → FREE
• Pocket God: Journey to Uranus, $4.99 → 99¢
• TowerMadness HD, $7.99 → FREE
• Inotia 3: Children of Carnia, $4.99 → 99¢
• The 7th Guest for iPad, $5.99 → $1.99
• Speedball 2 Evolution, $3.99 → 99¢

As with all sales on the App Store, these prices are good as of this writing but are subject to change at any time. Your best bet to keep up with the constant price fluctuations in the App Store is to download the universal AppShopper app which allows you to maintain a wish list of games and notifies you of price changes or updates with push notifications. You can also just use the plain old AppShopper.com website or our price drops and freebies forum where our members do an excellent job of keeping on top of the latest discounts.

Whether you're upgrading to an iPad 2 today or just hanging on to your last year's model, definitely take advantage of all these great sales going on for some excellent iPad titles.

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As of a few minutes ago, PAX East is underway at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in Boston, MA. Passes are completely sold out, but if you're resourceful you might be able to dig one up on the PAX East forums. Penny Arcade's PAX is an interesting spin on gaming conventions as instead of being marketing and business focused, it's an entire event put on by gamers for gamers.

Because of this shift in focus, iPhone coverage can be entirely hit or miss. I've got some promising meetings lined up, but it's nothing like GDC 2011 mania (thankfully, for the sake of my sanity). If you're around PAX East (or the Boston area) and want to meet up, feel free to send me an IM via AOL Instant Messenger. My screen name is ioburn [Status: ]. If you don't have an AIM account, signing up is easy and only takes a second. Alternatively, AIM is even connected to Facebook and Google Talk, if you would rather use that. AIM forwards to my phone, so I should be reasonably responsive when it comes to meeting requests.

Of course you can always email at tips@toucharcade.com just make sure to include "PAX East 2011" in the subject somewhere for the sake of my inbox.

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We're just one day away from the iPad 2 launch, as every schoolchild knows, but early reviews of the unit have already begun to appear, and they all indicate that the iPad 2 is notably faster than its predecessor. No surprise there, given Apple's claims that the iPad 2 features "up to 2x faster CPU" and "up to 9x faster graphics," as compared to the original iPad.

But, how fast is it, really?

As gamers, we're quite anxious to see just how well Apple's new tablet can push the pixels and polygons with its A5 processor. This new system-on-a-chip features 512MB of RAM, two (dynamic-stepping) 1GHz CPU cores — ARM Cortex A9-based — and a new graphics subsystem, which almost certainly utilizes at least one Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX543 core, the same GPU used in Sony's upcoming NGP (in quad-core GPU configuration).

Until game developers widely get their hands on the new device, we can only look to early benchmarks taken on the few press evaluation units Apple has provided to key media, in order to try and glean a feel for the iPad 2's performance as a game platform. Happily, developers will be able to grab their iPad 2 just over 24 hours from now, but as those are going to be a long and painful 24 hours, let's take a look at some benchmark data.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball has posted one of the aforementioned iPad 2 reviews, in which he shares his reactions to the device as well as some benchmark numbers. And, Gruber's suite of benchmarks is a little more interesting than most that we've seen so far.

He posts the results of the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark that everybody with an iPad 2 has been running, for both the iPad and iPad 2, showing the latter to come out on top due both to improved hardware and, more directly, iOS 4.3's bundling of Apple's Nitro JavaScript engine into the iOS 4.3 version of Mobile Safari. He posts Geekbench results, as well, which show the iPad 2 performing 159% faster than the original iPad, overall. But, what's rather more interesting are the results of a benchmark custom-coded by Guy English of Kickingbear (who did some work on Tap Tap Revenge), written to measure specifically the graphics capabilities of the iPad 2, from a developer's perspective.

The custom benchmark in question renders thousands of sprites moving about the screen, with gravity, while tracking up to three touch points. The results show the iPad 2's graphics improvements to go well beyond simply those of the dual-core CPU.

For example, on my original iPad, with 200 on-screen sprites, the framerate dropped to 45 fps. On the iPad 2, with 400 on-screen sprites, the framerate remained at 65 fps. On the iPad 1, Guy’s demo app dropped below 60 fps with about 100 animated sprites; on the iPad 2, it didn’t drop below 60 fps until there were over 750 animated sprites.

After I showed him the results, Guy told me, “The results show that the iPad 2 is easily about twice as powerful as the original and that this speed gain is a freebie — you don’t need to change your code structure in order to see significant gains. The differences in the amount of time spent rendering indicates that the GPU is really much faster than the original."

English indicates that the original iPad has a comparatively weak fill-rate and that the new device's much more powerful graphics subsystem should allow for some really incredible visuals in games and applications written (or updated) to take advantage of the native hardware.

"Up to 9x faster graphics"? Based on what these benchmarks are showing, it doesn't seem that Apple's claim is too wide of the mark. And, I'm guessing that there's more than one PowerVR core in that A5. (I tried, but was unable to squeeze any clarifying info out of the Imagination Technologies folks on the GDC expo floor.) We'll find out soon enough. But, whatever the case, it's clear that the iPad 2 is going to be an iOS gaming powerhouse. Developers, your work is cut out for you.

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Last week at GDC 2011 I sat down with developer Booyah! to take a look at their new game DJ Rivals [Free]. In the game you will create your own DJ and cruise around a city battling rival DJ’s using rhythm-based gameplay mechanics. You can choose any real city in the world which will use Google Maps information to populate it with real locations, and as you win DJ battles you’ll earn experience and money which can then be used to level up your character and buy a ton of different items to trick him or her out with.

I quite enjoyed DJ Rivals when I previewed it, and today the game has launched for free in the App Store. There is a story mode to play through with 4 different chapters and dozens of different kinds of quests to complete. You can also obtain “house DJ” status at the various locations by performing well, and then battle the ghost characters of other real life players to either defend your house DJ status or take theirs from them.

DJ Rivals is a freemium title, and as such there is an IAP component called “ice” in addition to the regular currency in the game. I’ve only spent a short time playing so far, but for the most part it appears that you get a good chunk of playtime without ever having to spend a dime if you don’t want to, but you’ll need to have a lot of patience.

Ice can be earned just through playing and so is not strictly IAP, but battling other DJ’s costs stamina points and you’ll either need to spend ice to instantly refill it or else wait for it to slowly refill over a cool down period of 10 minutes per stamina point. This can considerably slow down the pace of the game, but I can’t imagine playing so often that it would be a problem and I wouldn’t be opposed to spending a couple of dollars here and there if I was anxious to keep going.

DJ Rivals is free to download and try, and if a rhythm-based game with RPG-esque elements sounds interesting to you then it’s worth checking out. The rhythm battling is pretty fun, and there’s loads of things to collect and do in the game. And at the very least it’s a more fun and interesting freemium title than your average farming sim.

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When I’m not roller blading or lifting weights, I like to pretend like I can understand big words and tackle complex questions. For example: Why is Angry Birds [$.99 / HD / Lite] such a big deal and what in its usability speaks to people in such a profound way? Ah, allow me to start clicking “more” and arranging pages and pages of information. Almost done…

Crap! Someone else beat me to it AND they’re not even looking for page hits! But, really, check out Pulze UX’s teardown of the Angry Birds user experience. It’s a great article filled with spectacular insights into the draw of the title, from its mystery, to its wonky physics, and even its birds.

Let me give you an example. In the following passage author Charles L. Mauro talks about the game’s response time to user inputs. He argues that the seconds and seconds of teetering blocks after you make contact is a good thing that adds a certain depth to the experience that otherwise wouldn’t be thereif Rovio sped up the tumbling process (or straightened out its physics engine). He also discusses the leisurely firing rate of the birds. From the post:

For example, in Angry Birds, it was possible for the programmers to have made the flight of the birds fast — very fast, but they didn’t. Instead they programmed the flight of the angry flock to be leisure pace as they arc across the sky heading for the pigs’ glass houses. This slowed response time, combined with a carefully crafted trajectory trace (the flight path of the bird), solves one huge problem for all user interfaces — error correction.

… In Angry Birds game play the pigs also take a long time to expire once their houses are sent to bits. In many play sequences, seconds are consumed as the pigs teeter, slide and roll off planks or are crushed under slow falling debris. This response time of 3-5 seconds, in most user interfaces, brings users to the point of exasperation, but not with Angry Birds.

Neat, right? Mauro also digs into the game’s smart taxing on our short-term memory, the game’s sound design, and even its visual appeal. If you ever wanted to read something fun about Angry Birds, well, this is it. (Alternatively, if you're a developer and want some insight on why your grandma can play Angry Birds, this offers some insight.) Now, excuse me while I grab my smoking jacket and cigar. I’ve got some learnin’ to do.

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It’s that time again! Apple has released OS update 4.3 for the iPhone, iPod Touch, Apple TV, and the iPad, bringing some cool new features to the respective devices. I could gab for centuries about iTunes Home Sharing and the addition of personal hotspots, but I’ll can that chatter in favor of more game-related stuff about the latest update. Specifically, I want to note the enhanced AirPlay offering.

In brief, the 4.3 version of AirPlay connectivity gives both Web apps and App Store apps the ability to output video to the Apple TV. I think you can see the possible gaming kickbacks from this move. If, say, Imangi was feeling froggy, it could theoretically update Imangi: The Game [Free] to output to Apple TV, thus allowing you to play from your couch on a big screen as opposed to alone and on a toilet. That’s cool, right?

Obviously, we’ll need to play a wait-and-see game on this feature. Surely, adding in this functionality will take time, tweaking, and testing, which means we’ll likely see a lackluster adoption rate initially. Plus, who owns an Apple TV? Even at its lower price point, it doesn't seem to be exactly flying off the Apple Store's shelves. Regardless, this is exciting stuff. Guess I really need to think about putting that plasma by the toilet after all.

So what are you waiting for? Download 4.3! Also, if you happen to have an Apple TV and want to check out this new AirPlay functionality, give Air Video [$2.99 / Free] a try. Sure, it's not a game but playing videos converted real time on my computer, streamed to my iPhone, then relayed to my TV feels like magic.

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