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Yesterday, TouchArcade attended EA's Naughty or Nice game event in New York and spent time with a number of just-announced titles on the way from Chillingo. Perhaps the most stand-0ut game of the lot is Zombie Wonderland 2, sequel to the June 2010 release Zombie Wonderland [App Store]. As in the original, the upcoming sequel puts you in the shoes of Chuck, the renowned Zombie Cleaner of the pleasant little '50s Americana town, Niceville. While, before, your task was to keep the homes of your clients as clean and as zombie-free as possible, your new order of business is a bit more complex a proposition.

Now, while we aren't allowed to get into to many details as far as the storyline goes, just yet, I can tell you that the rooms you will be defending (and cleaning) are, this time around, spread throughout time. From the local museum, which serves as a kind of time-hub, you will be traveling to medieval castles, ancient Egyptian crypts, Viking halls, and ancient Japanese dwellings — all riddled with zombies that make terrible stains when dispatched.

Some of the tasks that must be completed involve several stages set in different locations and / or times. For instance, one of your clients, Vlad the vampire, has given up drinking blood and moved over to milk. So you must travel through time to get him a glass of milk by milking a cow in a zombie-swarmed barn. Each of the temporally far-flung locales features its own mini-boss that appears and drives the zombies into attack frenzies that make the task of keeping the rooms clean and zombie-free quite a challenge.

While the original release featured four locations, four weapons, and five types of zombies, Zombie Wonderland 2 delivers 25 locations, 25 weapons, and 22 types of zombies, as well as a mega-boss zombie. Some of the weapons available are special bullets, medusa bullets, gnawers, turrets, lightning bottles, killer grass, the brain toy — even a Roomba(-like robotic vacuum). Weapons can be damaged by zombies, but can also be repaired. New weapons can be quickly bought via in-app purchases or unlocked through dedicated gameplay.

Some areas of the town's museum are visibly under construction, and serve as placeholders for additional areas that will arrive in updates, down the road.

We'll take a closer look at Zombie Wonderland 2 when it arrives sometime before Christmas, but, however we rate it, it's sure to is sure to take the crown as far as number of genres represented. This survival cleaning, time management, tower defense zombie shooter will be priced at $0.99.

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Who would've thought there was room for a new endless runner in the App Store? Imangi Studios, apparently. They surprised us in early August with Temple Run [link], an excellent new take on the formula that scored 4.5 stars in our review and was among the titles in our Best iOS Games of August 2011 roundup. I think our own Nissa best summed it up as, "the endless runner that makes you feel like an archaeologist with a penchant for deadly situations."

The only complaint I've had with the game is its lack of native iPad support. Well, I'm happy to report that the game's third update, which landed last night, takes Temple Run universal.

The v1.3 update brings the following enhancements, as listed by Imangi:

• Universal iPad Support! Run for your life on the big screen!
• Two new characters to unlock! Barry Bones, a city cop with an attitude, and Karma Lee, the fastest legs in the Far East. To unlock new characters, just go to the Store and scroll down.
• More objectives to increase your score multiplier!
• You can now Tweet your score at the end of a game! That way all your friends will know you're the Temple Run champ!
• More ways to get free coins! Go to Store > Get More Coins to check it out!
• Lots of performance enhancements and bug fixes! Temple Run should run smoother than ever!

I've been running this latest version of Temple Run for a while now and it's definitely more fun than ever. It's surprising how much richer an experience the game is on the iPad with its 10-inch screen. But, entrenched leaderboard kings watch out — I quickly found that playing on the iPad is conducive to much higher scoring.

A couple of weeks back, at the release of their v1.2 update, Imangi made Temple Run a free download, which is something iOS gamers seem to have appreciated. I recently managed to pull some stats from developer Keith Shepherd regarding the game's activity across its life-so-far in the App Store. As a paid app, in its first month, Imangi saw 10 million games played. Three days after going free, Temple Run hit 20 million games played, and after a week as a free app, it hit the 100 million games mark. All told, right now 350 million games of Temple Run have been played. Not a bad run…so to speak.

Imangi is working on iCade support for Temple Run and hopes to bring it in the next update.

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Mos Speedrun [Free] from developer Physmo is a retro-inspired platformer that was released this past April. I pretty much fell in love with Mos Speedrun when I reviewed it upon release, and the game has only gotten better since then with updates that have added things like new levels, a fun video replay feature, and support for the iCade.

So basically, Mos Speedrun has been one of my favorite platformers on iOS, and has only been getting more awesome with the developer’s commitment to updates. Now, for the first time ever, you can snag Mos Speedrun for the incredibly reasonable price of FREE.

It should go without saying, but if you somehow don’t have Mos Speedrun yet, then you need to run straight to the App Store and pick it up during this free promotion. It’s Universal, and plays wonderfully on either the iPhone/iPod touch or the larger-screened iPad.

Physmo has also hinted that another set of new levels is currently in the works, so even if you blast through the 25 included levels (plus additional web levels which can be found on the Physmo website) then you can look forward to some more in the very near future. At any rate, don’t miss your chance to pick up this gem of a platformer while free.

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Zero dollars is the final asking price for Forever Drive [Free], Supermono Studios' latest and easily its most ambitious project to date. The game cleared certification and hit the App Store just yesterday after an unfortunate setback or two kept the game from hitting as planned.

We’ve covered Forever Drive exhaustively over the last month or so, but it’s unusual approach to the racing genre still hasn’t lost its luster with us. In brief, it’s a game that leans a lot on its users, asking them to create all of its 2D tracks and colorful instances. Each and every race you participate within the game is a product of its sharp track editor, and you’ll be encouraged to make your own whenever you’re not busy with the driving forever part of the core experience. Here’s a little teaser from one of our pre-release report-y things:

With Forever Drive, Supermono Studios is taking a way smarter approach to user-created content design: instead of asking players to shape entire experiences, it asks that they mold a fraction of a blip of an infinitely expandable super-highway. By managing expectations before you even start creating, Supermono is freeing you from failure and the game’s players at wide from having to filter out tons of garbage. Most user-created content leaning titles, including Media Molecule’s venerable series, don't enforce any kind of control or creative constraint, which makes Forever Driveunique, and as we’ve been discovering, pretty fun.

Zero dollars isn’t a lot, so even if the idea of the game sparks some sort of reaction from your squishy grey matter, you may as well give it a spin. We’ll definitely get you a full review in the near future, though, if you’re the cautious type.

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Super Cyclone [99¢] is a challenging 2D dual-stick shooter released by Miniclip.com and UK-based developers PlayerThree.  It involves shooting aliens, dodging and blasting asteroids, collecting pick-ups and trying to stay alive long enough to protect the star-gates from waves of alien attack.

Whereas most dual-stick shooters occur within a rectangular playing area, the space battles in Super Cyclone are set within a circular zone. In the center of the playing area is a star-gate. The invading aliens want to breach the star-gate, to gain access to our planetary system. You're on patrol to ensure that doesn't happen, by shooting them all down. If any enemy-spawning alien nests enter the star-gate, it's game-over.

The main controls are a standard dual-stick shooter configuration, with the left stick used for navigation and the right stick for 360 degree firing. There's a button for launching missiles and another for weapon selection. A couple of users in our discussion forum found the navigation controls "twitchy", but personally I had no problems making the ship move and fire where I wanted.

When you destroy an alien craft, a yellow "heart" appears for collection (although it doesn't actually resemble a heart). These increase your score multiplier and are converted to coins once the level is completed, so grab them quickly before they disappear. If you don't collect the hearts, you'll have absolutely no chance of reaching the difficult scores required to achieve a three-star level score.

You can double tap (and hold) the right stick to make your ship spin around rapidly, like a …super cyclone. In this mode your ship can destroy enemies and attract any floating pick-ups or yellow "hearts" in the vicinity. The cyclone feature also causes overheating, as shown on a "cyclone meter", so if you spin too long your ship explodes, depleting one of your three lives.

Your craft is protected by a shield system, which weakens with each attack or collision. To restore the shields power you need to find a quiet area and stop shooting briefly. This forces a quick change of pace, which is a nice interlude from the often frantic and crowded battles.

Your ship is also equipped with a radar system, which displays small icons around your craft, which are color coded to represent different enemy types, pick-ups, or appearing enemy nests. The direction to your star-gate is also shown, to keep you orientated. Asteroids don't show up on the radar, so you need to stay alert to dodge or shoot incoming hunks of space-rock. If you shoot asteroids, they break into smaller pieces, as in the classic Asteroids game.

The enemies evolve as you progress, learning new behaviors and acquiring new technology (such as stealth technology, so they don't appear on the radar), making them harder to beat in later levels. Some enemies become more aggressive as you progress, while others turn cautious, but more deadly.  One example of enemy evolution is that the alien nests gain the ability to fire weapons in 360-degrees, in addition to spawning multiple aliens to chase you around. There's reportedly 24 different enemy evolutions of behavior in total (not to be confused with 24 different enemy ships, which there's not).

The star-gate starts to spin when it's about to release a special pick-up item. This might be a new type of weapon and ammunition, such as a barrage of heat seeking missiles or rapid fire. You need to grab any pick-up's quickly before they float off into space.

You can purchase weapons and ammo-packs in an in-game store, using money earned by collecting yellow hearts or via in-app purchases (which are not necessary).  Your default weapon is a plasma cannon, but you can also buy or pick-up heat seeking missiles which cause splash damage, pulsar shots with fast and wide spread, or ION bolts with extra range. The store includes some "coming soon" slots, which the developers plan to fill with additional weapons, new ships, and possibly a wing-man.

There's four sectors to play, each with seven levels, making 28 levels in total. Each time you clear a level by surviving the waves of attack, the next level is unlocked. By the time you reach sector B, things are frantic and several enemies will be swarming around you. Fortunately, this game is level-based, so you're not starting from the very beginning each time.

Although Facebook integration is provided, they haven't included Game Center leaderboards, which is unusual for a points-based shoot'em-up which already has Game Center achievements. Also, they seem to have forgotten a Game Center achievement for completing sector D. However, the developer advises leaderboards will be added in a coming update and in the meantime the best scores are being recorded.

The current version has a few teething problems. It erratically freezes when the pause menu is accessed and achievements are sometimes awarded more than once, but the developer is releasing fixes for both of these issues. Also, the tutorial pages flick by automatically and there's no option to replay it, unless you erase the game data and re-start from scratch. The pick-up items have labels which are too small and disappear quickly, leaving you wondering what you picked up. And lastly, a vague  "Achievement achieved" message appears when you satisfy a Game Center achievement, but it doesn't say which achievement. These notifications overlap the left stick and appear inconveniently under your fingers, so the message is partially obscured.

Super Cyclone has some fun ideas, such as the star-gates and alien nests, which ensure the gameplay is more interesting than simply shooting enemies endlessly. This game is available on the Miniclip website so you can try it in your computer browser for free; although rest assured it handles much better on our touch screens.

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Remember WAAYYYYYY back, oh I don't know, like, 9 hours ago when we told you that the Unreal Engine powered first-person shooter Warm Gun was hitting the New Zealand App Store and slowly worming its way throughout the world? Well, those sentiments have just a bit more meaning now for those of us in the good ol' US of A as Warm Gun [$4.99] and its free spinoff Carnival of Bullets [Free] are now available in our little neck of the woods.

In fact, the release has hit a few bumps in the road, as a representative from the game's developer Emotional Robots has explained in our forums that an old version of Warm Gun was accidentally loaded up into iTunes Connect and for a good chunk of its international release customers had been unknowingly buying this incomplete early version. Emotional Robots took swift action and have replaced that pre-release build with the proper one, so things should be all good with downloading the correct game going forward. If you happen to be one of those who downloaded the improper version earlier, you might benefit from deleting the game entirely and re-downloading the new version which is up in the App Store right now.

In case you've missed it before, here's the trailer for Warm Gun followed by the trailer for the free Carnival of Bullets single player demo:

As we've said previously, we'll be hopping online in the next few days to dig into the multiplayer-centric gameplay of Warm Gun and will bring you a full review of our findings soon. The reaction to the game in our forums has been decidedly mixed. Some players are having a blast, with the game performing well technically and matches online being mostly lag free. A larger group of players are feeling the opposite of that. Many are complaining of performance issues on devices lower than iPhone 4 or iPad 2, with laggy framerates plaguing both online and offline matches. These issues could be due to Emotional Robots having to make some pretty extensive last minute changes to the game right before release, and they have already committed to addressing all feedback and updating the game frequently to make sure it can be the best that it can be.

While the negative issues are troublesome, they also aren't completely unheard of when dealing with such a technically intensive game like Warm Gun. However, I feel confident in Emotional Robots' pledge to give the game plenty of tender lovin' in the coming weeks. If you find yourself intrigued by Warm Gun but aren't sure how your particular device will handle the load, your best bet is to check out the free Carnival of Bullets to gauge performance.

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On this week’s bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show, The Bearded One joins me in a delightful conversation with Simutronics’ David Whatley and Nathan Lutz. At the top of the show, we dig into the past of the St. Louis-based studio and look forward as it embraces iOS and expands its inaugural App Store game, Tiny Heroes [$1.99]. We also have a hearty discussion about free-to-play models before we dig into a very special TouchArcade-themed unlock in Tiny Heroes.

This was a really, really fun interview and we think you guys will like it. If you’d like to listen, go ahead via direct download or in-browser streaming below. If you’re feeling froggy, go ahead and subscribe to us on iTunes and the Zune Marketplace.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-020.mp3, 25MB

We’ll be back in your earholes this Friday for another regular episode of the show. Also, be prepared for another bonus next week on top of yet another regular show. Content! Oh! And hey, send us your e-mails: podcast@toucharcade.com.

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On the heels of an epic price-slashing maneuver that saw Pocket Academy and its latest game Grand Prix Story go for a paltry $1.99, the simulation gurus at Kairosoft have murdered the original asking price of Mega Mall Story [$1.99 / Lite] and Hot Springs Story [$1.99 / Lite]. Both titles are $1.99 for a “limited time.” They usually sit at $3.99, so you’ll save a couple of bones if you decide to take the plunge.

And plunge you should, as both of these titles are totally worth the reduced asking price. Earlier this summer, I called Mega Mall Story the most “complete simulation” from the studio yet. Hot Springs Story, though it requires some effort to push beyond the cultural barrier, is solid, too.

As a side-note, it appears as if we’ll be missing out on a new game from Kairosoft this month. Last month, we speculated that it’s SimCity-like title, Edo Town, would make it out of the door worldwide in early October. It's still a possibility, but we're thinking that these sales are an indication that a new game isn't coming.

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Spilt Milk Studios’ Hard Lines [Free], a fun line-racing puzzle game with a touch of Snake thrown in for good measure, has received a big ol' new update. Starting now, the game boasts four additional power-ups on top of the pre-existing assortment, two new game modes, a brand-spankingly fresh in-game currency, and an in-game shop to boot. Oh! It’s also free at the moment, though that’ll probably change in the next few hours.

As is the norm nowadays with huge updates, a lot of the new additions speak to a pricing model change for Hard Lines as whole. The in-game currency, “Hard Cash,” can be purchased straight-up with IAP or found in the game as pick-ups. With it, you can upgrade the new power-ups for use in whatever, including presumably the game’s two new modes: Daily Challenge and Lionel’s Hard Cash. The latter mode is an optional paid mode that offers a lot of Hard Cash in return for your investment. The full update notes, which mention several smaller improvements, can be seen here.

We loved Hard Lines and will continue to post this update. If you still haven’t seen it, we’d suggest just grabbing it now while it’s silly cheap. Our glowing review, however, is located here if you want some reading material before going in.

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