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At first glance you might dismiss Domino's Adventure [App Store] as being just another generic Rolando knock-off, and that's understandable as they do share similarities in look and gameplay. But beneath the surface lies a brilliantly designed platform experience that admittedly draws influence from many different areas, but melds them together in a way that's uniquely its own. An incredibly fun physics system, simple controls and a demanding test of your dexterity combine to make Domino's Adventure a pleasure to play. It's a pretty short ride, but at only 99¢ it's definitely one worth taking.

The protagonist, Domino, is a circular alien that has crash landed on Earth and must traverse 20 increasingly difficult levels to get back to his lost spaceship. Left and right arrows in the lower corner of the screen roll the character in either direction, while simple jump and spike buttons sit in the opposite corner. Which corners these controls are located in can be configured in the options. There's tilt controls available if you choose, but I far preferred the virtual touch controls. Domino jumps higher the longer you press down, and the spike button gives him a pointy circumference for clinging to walls and ceilings.

It's certainly taking a page out of Rolando's book, especially in regards to the Royal Spikey Commando character, but never comes across as a malicious rip-off. If anything, it's merely because these particular gameplay mechanics are so solid and entertaining. Any feelings of déjà vu are quickly forgotten anyway once you start making your way through the exciting level designs.

The physics in the game have a floaty and fun feel, and make for some pretty crazy experiences. For example, you may encounter a series of planks standing on end, set up like dominoes. You'll need to jump into them, knocking them down onto each other creating a bridge for you to cross. Even better are the many instances that have you knocking one of those planks over onto a line of rotating gears which propel the plank forward while you ride it like a surfboard, reminiscent of something from a Super Mario Bros. game. Each level is progressively more difficult and cleverly designed, and I found myself constantly being surprised with each new one.

It's very casual-friendly, with unlimited lives and checkpoints spread throughout the game. At the end of each level it tells you how many lives you used, the time it took to beat, and how many of the 5 gold stars you collected. Sadly, it doesn't do anything with these stats, and the game is just begging for some sort of online leaderboard or achievement implementation. There is incentive to collect the stars as you can unlock three more skins for Domino at set star intervals, but unfortunately nothing extra happens when you collect all 100. I'd really like to see something special if you can beat every level with just one life, which would be quite a task for anyone to complete.

I'm happy to say that Domino's Adventure is only “inspired by” like games, and not some dreadful rip-off. It feels like a lot of love went into it, and it turned out to be so much fun that I was sad when it came to an end. You can expect to get a few hours or so of playtime completing all the levels and collecting every star, which isn't bad but leaves you wanting more. There's just something so enjoyable about playing, I'm really hoping for some more levels sometime in the future. Still, there's more than 99¢ worth of entertainment in what's already here and if you enjoy platforming games like Rolando, Soosiz or Bounce On, don't miss out on Domino's Adventure.

App Store Link: Domino's Adventure, 99¢

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Every now and then a game is released that completely transcends the genre it's made for, elevating its possibilities to all new heights. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it results in something genuinely spectacular. And that is precisely the case with Dinofarm Games and Fusion Reactions's lovingly created 100 Rogues [App Store].

100 Rogues is an arcade-style dungeon crawler/rogue-like loosely based on classics such as our highly rated Sword of Fargoal. We say loosely based, because while it features the typical dungeon crawler elements of near-certain death, randomly generated maps and loot and a foray into the depths of an enemy-riddled pit, 100 Rogues delivers it in a way that makes you feel you are playing something else entirely.

Obviously, at first glance, this can be credited to its utterly gorgeous presentation and visuals. Typical dungeon-crawlers are recognisable by their dogmatic approach to gameplay over graphics, many of which are still ASCII-driven. That is definitely not the case here. To begin, 100 Rogues introduces its heroes — the Crusader and the Fairy Wizard– through two different, tongue-in-cheek cutscenes that reveal a surprising amount of context for each character and a dubious quest to eradicate Satan himself. It sets the mood for a game riddled with comical self-awareness.

This certainly plays second-fiddle though to some of the most incredibly animated 2D caricatures we have seen– period. Both the Crusader and the Fairy Wizard are brought to life by Dinofarm Games and Fusion Reactions, each with their own distinct personality and style. The Crusader is an armor-clad, righteous bastion of good who cuts a swathe through enemy hordes with his cape flicking behind him; standing in stark contrast to the Fairy Wizard, a withdrawn, misunderstood creature of magic that prefers to attack with guile and deception from afar.

It's not all eye-candy though, as 100 Rogues brings to the table 8 unique skills for each character. The Crusader for instance, can call on divine powers, knocking back enemies with his Whack of Glory, or Healing himself if things get rough. Also, in what is quite possibly the coolest and most hilarious ability that I have ever seen, he can call on God Himself, who appears in the form of a giant finger that descends upon the battlefield to smite a foe or heal our Hero in times of need. The Fairy Wizard on the other hand, is far more fragile, but is able to teleport to elude enemies and cast crystal attacks from afar. The Fairy Wizard is also capable of confusing enemies or calling on a giant crystal ball familiar to attack nearby enemies.

Though the skills themselves look great and varied, it is their thoughtful implementation that really makes combat in 100 Rogues something special. This is because many of the skills have a strategic use that once discovered, can really excel your combat ability. For instance, the Fairy Wizard can combine a dagger attack with Teleport (aptly named Telestab), popping up behind an enemy to deliver a lethal backstab, only to teleport away again. The Crusader on the other hand can Overheal, giving himself bonus life above and beyond his normal hit points. And though his Whack of Glory knocks back enemies, if they are against an obstacle already, it delivers a devastating critical attack instead.

These secondary functions are critical to advancing through the gruelling 10 dungeon levels included at release. But they aren't made obvious from playing the standard game, so to lend a hand the developers have included a Challenge Mode to highlight to players some of their uses. There are 10 challenges available at release which have you killing a number of enemies or escaping the level within a set number of moves, usually giving you only few hit points and one crucial ability to complete your task. They're a great way for players to familiarise themselves with the advanced strategies, though we're positive there are more to be found through experimentation.

It's an indication of the breadth of features to cover here that we're only now arriving at how well 100 Rogues handles. Foregoing any on-screen controls, your characters are navigated by tapping in any four directions around them. Similarly, enemies are targeted by simply tapping on them (if a range attack) or running into them by the aforementioned mechanism. Skills are activated by tapping on your character, which in turn reveals a skill palette from which your skill is chosen, and then a suitable target selected. There are two on-screen buttons on the lower left and right of the screen to open your inventory or issue a wait command respectively, and a 4-slot quick-bar for immediate access of items. It's worth noting that the game can only be played in Portrait mode, too.

Items and equipment play a big part in dungeon crawlers, and that's no different here. Players can equip a large assortment of weapons, from swords and axes to wands and bows (to name a few), together with a range of armor types and accessories. 100 Rogues runs the full gamut of item effects and stat bonus' too. What's more, some enemies can only be effective by certain item types– something that will have to be learned quickly by players in order to proceed through the depths. As well as weapons and armor, there are also spell scrolls and buff scrolls that enhance either your health, magic or strength, or can raise the item level of equipment. 100 Rogues also has a countdown of sorts in the form of hunger, forcing you to keep your belly full lest your hunger cause you to waste away– placing a significance on searching for safe meals to consume on your quest.

If hunger doesn't get you, enemies surely will however, as 100 Rogues is true to its origins in that it is challenging and unforgiving, with a vast array of enemies that all require a different approach to defeat. If you make one wrong move, you are dead. If you are unlucky, you are dead. If you don't manage to find food, you are dead. And if none of these kill you, then maybe the large-scale boss encounters found every 5 levels will. These are all grim realities of the dungeon crawler. Fortunately, by way of its versatile skill system and arcade-paced strategic action, 100 Rogues is still a highly accessible adventure. And in case you forget, the game regularly lets you know that death is a certainty, and that fun is to be had in achieving that high score and glorifying your name in the online leaderboards forever.

100 Rogues is as much about exploration as it is about move-by-move action and employing a careful strategy. Game sessions are generally short, but 100 Rogues still saves your game by the move, meaning interruptions are a thing of the past and lengthy game sessions are easily broken down into short bursts. Finally, 100 Rogues is rounded out by a catchy, retro-style, synthesised soundtrack that is of the same calibre as the rest of the game.

100 Rogues is an evident labor of love for the developers, who already have a long list of planned features including at least two additional classes (the Dinoman Bruiser and the Skellyman Scoundrel), 10 brand new levels, an item shop, many more monsters and items, in-dungeon NPCs and an Endless game mode. All considered, 100 Rogues is an effortless recommendation to anyone remotely interested in the genre, being one of the most captivating, refined and rewarding games on the App Store. Heck, we're not even sure we'll ever find Satan's lair, but it certainly won't be for want of trying as 100 Rogues is simply brilliant.

UPDATE 1: A number of forum members in the 100 Rogues thread are experiencing random crashes. We haven't had issues in our play throughs of the game, but the developers are looking in to the cause currently. It may be worth waiting to see what they find out before picking this up if you're concerned.

UPDATE 2: Developer Wes Paugh posted in the comments that the crashes are related to equipping some shields. An update is being submitted immediately to address stability issues.

App Store Link: 100 Rogues, $4.99

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Back in February we reported the formation of mobile studio AppStar Games by legendary game designers David Crane and Gary Kitchen. The founders' mission in creating the studio is to focus on "small footprint" games for various connected devices, the iPhone among them.

“Garry and I have worked together on a number of successful ventures over the years, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for investors and stakeholders. We’re very excited about the dramatic shift that is occurring in the game industry with the advent of direct-to- consumer distribution of our titles. AppStar Games is committed to taking a leadership role in that transition by delivering the highest quality product in the marketplace”, said Crane, CTO of AppStar.

The studio has just released their first iPhone game, Iron Horse [App Store], which is a reaction / timing game that challenges you to couple stationary rail cars to a passing train by tapping on the connection point at exactly the right moment. At first, while the train pushes along at a leisurely pace, it's a snap. But, once things get a little more full-tilt, you'll find that you need to "lead" your taps, to account for the sluggishness of your own reflexes. There are straight rounds where a set number of cars must be attached to a given locomotive as well as bonus rounds where it's proceed as long as you want — but miss a car and it's no bonus for you. The game features OpenFeint integration for achievements and score tracking.

According to the developers, Iron Horse strives to capture the beauty of the American railroad — and it does an admirable job. The parallax scrolling scenery is well drawn across the various provided settings and the game as a whole is well rendered. Several tain designs are represented, including the General, the Zephyr, and the Chief.

Iron Horse actually made it's App Store debut on the iPad early last month as The Iron Horse [link], which features graphics appropriate for the device's larger screen. And, while the games are otherwise identical, the iPad provides a better play experience as there's more onscreen track, which results in extra time to calculate your link-up tap. It's a good bit of pick-up fun for either device size, though.

The Iron Horse Lite [App Store] for the iPad gives owners of Apple's latest iDevice the opportunity to try before they buy.

App Store Link: Iron Horse, $1.99 (iPhone), The Iron Horse, $0.99 (iPad), The Iron Horse Lite, Free (iPad)

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Mobigame, creators of Edge and Cross Fingers, have submitted a fresh game to the Apple according to a recent tweet from their official Twitter account.

"Sent a new game to Apple review team today," the tweet, which was sent roughly an afternoon ago, simply reads.

As for what this new game is, the studio is remaining tight-lipped. In a response to a follower asking for a preview build, Mobigame said the studio plans to wait until the game clears the approval process before handing it out. Mobigames didn't divulge what the title actually is.

In another tweet, though, it was promised that the new game will "be one of the funniest iPhone games ever."

Update: Mobigame's David Papazian responded to our request for comment and told us that the studio is working on two games at the moment. One of those titles is a "very ambitious" 3D game. The other is this title — "an old school game with a lot of fun."

Papazian gave us the pitch via e-mail.

"As Jack the lone truck driver, (you) take control of an 18-wheeler as you dash through American landscapes in true Russ Mayer fashion. The game puts you in very hot pursuit of Alpha Chick, a blonde bombshell in a red corvet. Honk the horn, dodge vehicles, get bonuses and race for the ultimate price: the girl.

"The cartoon animations, the sounds, tunes, and the general atmosphere of this game make it one of the funniest game on the iPhone."

Mobigame's last game Cross Fingers [App Store / 1.99], a click-and-drag Tangam-style puzzle title, won over purchasers. We liked it's chilled atmosphere, simplistic visuals, and grounded design.

EDGE, Mobigame's other app, is even better. The trademark spat revolving around the title's name, however, often overshadows its components and design.

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I stumbled across Wiki Hunt [99¢] accidentally looking for something completely unrelated on the App Store, and after spending a surprising amount of time playing it this weekend, I can't help but recommend it to everyone who has ever found themselves hopelessly lost browsing random articles on Wikipedia for an entire afternoon.

The basics idea behind Wiki Hunt is that you start on a Wikipedia article and try to make it to the target article in as few clicks as possible. You can play a completely random game where Wiki Hunt chooses your start page and your end page, a custom game where you pick the start and end, or my personal favorite: Six clicks to Jesus.

The completely random article mode sometimes results in the two pages being so frustratingly different that you can go forever trying to link them together. You can almost always get to the Jesus article inside of a few clicks from even the most random starting article. Of course, if you get stuck, you can always view the solutions which often are extremely amusing by themselves as getting from one article to another often involves the absolute strangest links.

Wiki Hunt is a universal application, and while it's playable on both devices, not having to use the mobile browser Wikipedia pages makes playing the game on the iPad a much better experience:

Wiki Hunt is surprisingly fun to play with friends, usually involving lots of shoulder surfing and arguing over whether or not you can get to the Christopher Columbus article by clicking through the 1950 Boston Red Sox season article or not. Also, since the game objective requires you to read each of the articles you're clicking through to figure out how to go next, you find yourself learning all kinds of interesting facts, all while playing a game.

I really can't believe how much more fun Wikipedia is when you add an extremely basic link searching game on top of it. If you're a fan of reading random Wikipedia articles, you really need to give Wiki Hunt a spin.

App Store Link: Wiki Hunt, 99¢ (Universal)

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A few weeks ago, the App Store was graced with its first official ice hockey game, Hockey Nations 2010. While the graphics were fairly impressive and the controls worked admirably, braindead goalkeeping and a frustrating opponent AI extinguished most of the enjoyment out of playing. Creator of the game Distinctive Developments took this to heart, and immediately started work on an update based on user feedback, even opening up a beta pool of experienced testers and knowledgeable hockey fans alike. The result is the now available 1.1 update that delivers a far better experience, but unfortunately still leaves some things to be desired.

The goalie AI has been greatly improved and they seem to move a bit more quickly and intelligently, although can still let through some iffy goals. The movement of the puck is thankfully a lot more forgiving now. It's much easier to retain possession of the puck while attempting an offensive push, and passes to teammates are more accurate. There's no more of the constant possession changes that plagued the first version. It's still somewhat difficult to get clean shots off, but it gets easier with some practice. Another big addition is line changes which are easily called with a button at the top of the screen. It adds a great deal to the strategy and authenticity of the game, and works really nicely.

The biggest problem with the initial release of Hockey Nations was that it just didn't flow very well, and this latest update goes a long way in addressing that problem. It's now much more playable, and more importantly much more fun. If you weren't impressed with the 1.0 release, give this new update a spin. Hopefully further updates can improve the game even more down the line, so far this first one is a huge step in the right direction.

App Store Link: Hockey Nations, $3.99

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It seems that Freebie Friday is spilling in to the weekend, with another set of games to download. The games from yesterday will likely still be free for a little while, so be sure to grab those as well as the following four games:

Chop Chop Runner

The ninja from Chop Chop Ninja [99¢ / Free] is back in this fast-paced single-button sidescroller. See how far you can go while unlocking a hand full of achievements and finally submitting your best scores to the game's OpenFeint-powered online leaderboards.

StickBound

Another see how far you can go to the right platforming game, StickBound has an interesting control mechanic where instead of jumping you're using some kind of intergalactic pole to pole vault across the platforms that make up the game. Where you touch to aim your pole controls how far you jump and where you end up. It takes a bit of getting used to, but is a lot of fun once you do. StickBound also comes loaded with OpenFeint leaderboards.

Tune Runner

Appy Entertainment's Tune Runner is also free for a limited time. This rhythm game puts you in control of Groov-EE, a robotic boom box of sorts and the game generates levels for any song in your iTunes library with shapes for you to trace to keep Groov-EE dancing. Each song also has its own online leaderboard, and it's fun to see which songs have the most in-game competition online.

Mini Golf Wacky Worlds Free

This mini golf game, as the title may indicate, is fairly wacky. 45 holes are included and each one comes with obstacles such as snow, lava, cheese, police helicopters, and all kinds of other strange things. This is a new ad-supported version of the game, but there's also the ad-free Mini Golf Wacky Worlds [$2.99] if the advertisements bother you. Otherwise, if you can put up with some ads, this is the full game.

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Here are some temporarily free games that are definitely worth a download.

Captain Ludwig

Similar to Dizzypad, the trick to Captain Ludwig is to time your one finger tap just right to direct Ludwig to the next planet. If you overshoot your mark or mis-time your flight, your hero will find himself lost in the ethers of space and minus a life. In many ways, Captain Ludwig is an improvement over Dizzypad, with a number of traps and pitfalls introduced to make your solitary task that little bit harder. See our full review.

Tiptop

TipTop: The Last March has a fun core gameplay mechanic, and is oozing with style between the excellent art and sound design. If you've been looking for a good Lemmings-like game on the iPhone, look no further. See our full review

Underworlds

If something to satisfy a craving to hack and slash your way through hordes of monsters is what you seek, look no further than the twisting catacombs conveniently located just off the cellar of the Happy Cadaver Inn. See our full review.

Get 'em while you can.

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Last Gladiators Ver.2010 is a port of a 1995 pinball game for the Sega Saturn. In a world where there's so many different options to satisfy your pinball needs available on the App Store, some aspects about this release will stick out like sore thumbs. The price, the dated graphics, a lack of features, no online scores… the price. It can be kind of a hard sell on the surface. But make no mistake about it, this is hands down the best pinball gameplay available for your device. If I'm going to be trapped on a desert island with my iPhone and can only have one pinball app, I want it to be Last Gladiators.

Let's get right to the elephant in the room, the cost. The app itself is $4.99, and comes with the Gladiators table. The other three tables that make up the original Saturn game are sold separately as DLC for $4.99 apiece. Yep, $4.99 for each additional table. I know that most of us who were fortunate enough to have grown up during the arcade era have probably spent well more than five bucks playing a good table for a couple of hours. So asking that much for a table you can play infinitely that fits in your pocket doesn't sound unreasonable. In the App Store economy, however, it's equivalent to an arm and a leg. The pricing alone means this game won't be for everybody.

Pricing aside, Last Gladiators does everything right in the gameplay department. It's amazing that with all the different pinball games that have been released on iPhone, none of them have ever quite felt like playing a real life table. This one's different, this one feels right. The physics of the ball and the design of the tables are nearly perfect. I'm not going to go into specific table detail (a video of each one can be seen in the thread in our forums) but all four feature multiball and more rounds and missions than I can even count. The instructions run 30+ pages for each table so you can familiarize yourself with every scoring nook and cranny, and also get an idea of just how much depth is on offer here.

This isn't the most visually impressive pinball game, after all it is 15 years old, but it still manages to have a great look that functions well. The table designs are more akin to the pinball tables of the late 80's and early 90's, rather than the highly complex mechanical behemoths of the later 90's. A neat effect is a scaling ball, so it looks smaller while in the back of the table and quite a bit larger as it's near the flippers. Handy on-screen indicators point you towards active goals, and it's always clear what you're supposed to be doing even for a beginner. There aren't really any iPhone specific features, and as far as ports are concerned this is pretty bare-bones. This is basically the Saturn game reworked with touch screen controls, and that's about it.

If you're a pinball fanatic, and just want the best experience regardless of price, then you owe it to yourself to drop $5 on the initial Gladiators table. It will keep you busy for a long time, and you can always decide to splurge on the extra tables sometime down the line when you're ready for something new.

There's no official lite version available, but you can try Ultra Legend Pinball which is basically the Gladiators table with slightly reworked functionality and Ultraman artwork. I hesitate a bit recommending this, as it's entirely in Japanese and the Ultraman version of the table isn't nearly as good as the original, but at the very least it gives you and idea of what the Last Gladiators tables are like. Whatever your feelings on the pricing of Last Gladiators, it's a stellar game that shouldn't be missed if you're looking for an accurate simulation of pinball.

App Store Link: Last Gladiators Ver.2010, $4.99

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