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I wish there were more details available than the headline, but that's it. SoMoGa is responsible for the bringing the similarly fantastic old-school RPG Vay [$4.99] to the App Store, and we're expecting Lunar: Silver Star Touch to be of similar quality. We briefly chatted with SoMoGa at GDC, and the one tidbit that we can offer about Lunar is that it won't be a shoddy port by any means, this is a complete from the ground up touch-based port of the game, not a ROM wrapped in a mediocre emulator like Sega's offerings.

(Video of the PlayStation remake of the game.)

Originally released in North America for the Sega CD in 1993 and the PlayStation in 1998, Lunar was chock full of animated cut scenes, voice overs, and all the other fun stuff that they were packing on CD-ROM games at the time. We had a ton of fun playing Vay, and are totally stoked for the future release of Lunar. As soon as we get more details, you can be sure we'll post them.

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I can't think of a better headline than this one. I love Puzzle Quest 2 [$4.99]… and I love seamless online multiplayer via Game Center. I doubt I'm alone in that, so make sure you grab the latest PQ2 update as soon as you can find some fast WiFi today somewhere that you can stick around long enough to download all 576MB worth of goodness. If you're not into playing online and would prefer to play locally with a friend, Namco has you covered too. In addition to Game Center multiplayer, you can also play via both WiFi and Bluetooth.

Multiplayer can be played two ways: With a hero of your own that you have saved from the single player campaign, or using randomly generated heroes of whatever class you chose. If you chose random heroes, you can select low, medium, or high level characters and in both game modes you can set a turn timer anywhere from 5, 10, 20 seconds or none at all.

Multiplayer works very well aside from two minor issues which sort of play off of each other to snowball into a major issue. First off, it seems like games take entirely too long. Even with low level characters and attentive players, chopping through the 100 or so hit points you start with takes 10-15 minutes and I can't imagine how long it would take to get through a game with high level characters who come loaded with upwards of 500 hit points. Currently, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of players playing online either.

These two things together make it very difficult to get matched up into a random game as it seems that the limited pool of players combined with the fact that there isn't much player turnover because you need to get involved in 10+ minute games to play. I'd love to see some kind of "sudden death" game mode or something like that which is limited to something like 5 minutes, or with characters that have even fewer hit points.

Either way, I'm just glad that Namco is still updating Puzzle Quest 2. And if you haven't played the game yet, check out our review and if nothing else, give the free version of the original a try. The Puzzle Quest series is a ton of fun.

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Early last month Team Phobic launched their newest title Undead Island, an action platforming game with a bad ass female ninja for a lead character, cleverly designed levels with tons of hidden areas to discover, and a robust physics system that made hacking up undead enemies a ton of fun. Due to a trademark issue, Undead Island has been renamed to Undead Ocean [99¢], which took effect with the update that just hit for the game. Also added in that update is the ability to swap the controls if you like and various other tweaks and bug fixes.

Far more interesting than the name change update is the simultaneous release of a free, ad supported prequel to the game called Undead Ocean Dojo [Free]. It features 5 levels not found in the full game, and tells the story of how our heroic ninja grew up training in her dojo and the events that lead up to Undead Ocean. It’s a pretty cool way to do a lite version, and offers a bite sized experience that current owners of the full game should still check out. It even features Game Center with 5 achievements and leaderboards for the included 5 levels.

To celebrate the release of Undead Ocean Dojo, the full version of Undead Ocean is currently on sale for 99¢. And to celebrate even further, Team Phobic’s wildly popular platformer Bounce On 2: Drallo’s Demise [Free] has gone free for a day. The sequel to their beloved first platformer Bounce On [$1.99/Lite], Bounce On 2 features a ton of content and is easily one of the best platforming games in the App Store. It’s a must download during the current free promotion, and while you’re at it, make sure to check out Undead Ocean Dojo and if you like what you see grab the full version Undead Ocean while it’s on sale.

[source]

Early this morning Atari released perhaps the most significant single retro gaming application yet to appear in the App Store. Atari's Greatest Hits [link] is a free Universal application for the iPhone and iPad that comes bundled with their first game ever, the 1972 classic Pong. And, while the games-for-free situation ends there, the fun certainly doesn't — not by a long shot.

By way of in-app purchases, Atari's Greatest Hits can deliver to your iOS device up to 99 more games from the historical studio's back catalog, a mix of both arcade and (then) cartridge-based VCS / 2600 releases that you just might've grown up with. These games can be had in four-title game packs available at $0.99 each, as well as in a 68MB lump download of the entire library for $14.99. (The path you take here will reveal to you just how much of a bull geek retro gamer you are, so choose wisely.)

One hundred vintage Atari games for fifteen bucks. It's quite a proposition. But, what are we talking about here?

I'm tempted to say "pardon the awkwardly long list," here, but I suppose this game's unwieldy list of titles is a rather high-class problem.

• Asteroid Pack
  • 1. Asteroid
  • 2. Asteroid Deluxe
  • 3. Asteroids 2600
  • 4. Canyon Bomber – Bluetooth Multiplayer
• Battlezone Pack
  • 1. Battlezone
  • 2. Red Baron
  • 3. Air-Sea Battle – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Submarine Commander
• Centipede Pack
  • 1. Centipede
  • 2. Millipede
  • 3. Centipede 2600
  • 4. Millipede 2600
• Black Widow Pack
  • 1. Black Widow
  • 2. Space Duel – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Desert Falcon
  • 4. Space War
• Crystal Castles Pack
  • 1. Crystal Castles
  • 2. Crystal Castls 2600
  • 3. Surround – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Maze Craze
• Gravitar Pack
  • 1. Gravitar
  • 2. Gravitar 2600
  • 3. Radar Lock
  • 4. Demons to Diamonds – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Star Raiders Pack
  • 1. Star Raiders
  • 2. Liberator
  • 3. Star Ship – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Human Cannonball
• Missile Command Pack
  • 1. Missile Command
  • 2. Missile Command 2600
  • 3. Fun with Numbers
  • 4. Flag Capture – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Lunar Lader Pack
  • 1. Lunar Lander
  • 2. Sky diver – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Video Pinball
  • 4. Code Breaker
• Super Breakout Pack
  • 1. Super Breakout
  • 2. Breakout – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Off – the – Wall
  • 4. Circus Atari – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Tempest Pack
  • 1. Tempest – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Tempest 2600 – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Outlaw
  • 4. Atari Video Cube
• Majar Havoc Pack
  • 1. Major Havoc
  • 2. Secret Quest
  • 3. Sentinel
  • 4. Yars Revenge – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Warlords Pack
  • 1. Warlords – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Warlords 2600
  • 3. Combat – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Combat 2 – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Adventure Pack
  • 1. Adventure
  • 2. Haunted House
  • 3. Return to Haunted House
  • 4. Save Mary
• Tic-Tac-Toe Pack
  • 1. 3d Tic-Tac-Toe
  • 2. A game of concentration
  • 3. Backgammon
  • 4. Brain Games
• Fatal Run Pack
  • 1. Fatal Run
  • 2. Dodge ‘Em
  • 3. Night Driver
  • 4. Street Racer – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Quadrun Pack
  • 1. Quadrun
  • 2. Slot Racers – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Stellar Track
  • 4. Math Gran Prix
• Casino Pack
  • 1. Casino – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Slot Machine
  • 3. Video Checkers
  • 4. Video Chess
• Sword Quest Pack
  • 1. Swordquest Earthworld
  • 2. Swordquest Fireworld
  • 3. Swordquest Waterworld
  • 4. Sprintmaster
• Championship Soccer Pack
  • 1. Championship Soccer – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Golf
  • 3. Double Dunk
  • 4. Basketball
• Football Pack
  • 1. Football – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Home Run
  • 3. Miniature Golf
  • 4. Bowling
• Real Sports Basketball Pack
  • 1. Realsports Basketball – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Realsports Boxing – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Realsports Tennis – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Realsports Baseball – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Real Sports Football Pack
  • 1. Realsports Football – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Realsports Soccer – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Realsports Vollyball – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Video Olympics – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Battlezone Pack
  • 1. Battlezone 2600
  • 2. Super Breakout 2600
  • 3. Super Baseball
  • 4. Super Football
• Hangman Pack
  • 1. Hangman
  • 2. Black Jack
  • 3. Steeplechase

The stars of this collection are the arcade titles, certainly. And there are some amazing games in here — Tempest, Major Havoc, Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, and Battlezone, among others. Many of these titles were originally vectorscope games, where the screen draws the images laser light show style, as opposed to in terms of scanlines and pixels. These games translate amazingly well to the iPhone 4's Retina display which renders them at over 300 dpi, with antialiasing to boot. But, then, the iPad's larger physical display is quite a boon for these titles, as well.

The arcade titles may be the stars of the show, but the bulk of the games in attendance are from the Atari VCS / 2600. And here, too, there are some awesome ones — Yar's Revenge, Battlezone 2600, Adventure, Star Raiders, and Combat, among the rest. But there are also some titles you probably didn't save your last dime to bring home from the game shop in decades past. Like Basic Math. But, hey, many of these oddball titles bring enough character to the table to be forgiven. These are titles from the very genesis of videogaming, after all.

A media gallery full of original cabinet art, manual scans, and various other bits of memorabilia accompany each game on the list. The arcade titles feature a settings menu that allows a certain degree of game customization. Settings on the VCS titles are handled by way of the (virtual) metal switches on the front of the console, of course.

Ok, so enough about the list — how are the controls? On this front, I am genuinely impressed with the iOS treatment Atari has given these titles, though it's not quite perfection they've wrought.

Games like Asteroids feature, not the awkward directional stick + thrust button, but a directional control that delivers thrust in the using. That's a huge design win. The trackball swipe control for Missile Command, Centipede, and the like has a nice sense of momentum and works quite well, with a surprisingly convincing feel. Battlezone features two sets of up and down buttons that do a solid job of standing in for the arcade cabinet's dual sticks, but they're not as lovely as Vector Tanks' dual slider approach. And, games that were originally paddle-based feature a single slider across two different presentations, which work just fine. But, I do wish that there was a sensitivity adjustment for the last as, to me, they could be just a little tighter. The weakest controls come with a number of the VCS titles, where the familiar 4-way D-pad has been used. What can I say — this has never the ideal route in an iOS title.

So, we're talking about a solid collection of games and a respectable set of controls. Thumbs up, right? Well, let's not forget to factor in the fact that many of these titles (see the unwieldy list) have been enhanced to allow local multiplayer gaming via Bluetooth. Read: Atari classics older than most of you reading this, finally getting the multiplayer treatment. Plus, we expect these titles to support the iCade retro gaming cabinet coming in June from Ion and Atari. Somebody pinch me — I must be dreaming!

Atari's Greatest Hits is absolutely one of the very best buys in the App Store. It will appeal to the oldschool gamer that calls pixellation his or her friend — obviously — but, really, this is also a historical treasure trove that the young gamer of today might just find surprisingly fun, while also delivering a worthwhile familiarity with titles that influenced basically everything we see in gaming today.

In short, I cannot recommend Atari's Greatest Hits highly enough. It is truly a collection not to be missed. Hats off, Atari — a most impressive offering.

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Last month we checked out the video for Mos Speedrun [$1.99], a new platformer from developer Physmos. Mos Speedrun looked unique with its emphasis on completing levels as quickly as possible, and for its use of the ghosts from previous failed attempts running along with you in the background. Today Mos Speedrun is finally available, and it’s every bit as much fun as we’d hoped it would be.

Mos Speedrun contains 20 levels, each with 4 distinct goals to attain. There’s simply completing the level, completing the level within the specified time goal, collecting every coin in the level, and searching out and collecting a hidden skull. The different goals are a great design decision, and give reason to play each level multiple times. You can leisurely explore a level collecting coins and looking for the hidden skull, but this also gives you a chance to familiarize yourself with its layout. Once you have a good feel for a level, you can easily go back on a different try and attempt the speed run with a better idea of what to expect.

The levels in Mos Speedrun are well designed, with all the usual trappings of a typical platform game. There’s environmental hazards like laval pits and spikes as well as various enemy types which must be avoided. You can’t kill enemies, and a single touch to an enemy or hazard will kill your little guy and end your current run. There’s only movement and jumping to worry about, and in this way Mos Speedrun is platforming distilled to its purest form. There’s even extensive underwater portions, which harken back to classic Sonic the Hedgehog levels where you must keep an eye on your oxygen meter and search out bubble areas to breathe from.

It’s actually nice to have such an uncomplicated take on platforming, but it wouldn’t mean anything if the controls didn’t work. Thankfully, the controls in Mos Speedrun are great. The default scheme is a quirky setup where you touch anywhere on the left side of the screen to move left, anywhere on the right side of the screen to move right, and touch them both together to jump. I can see the value of this particular control scheme, as with some practice it would likely offer you quicker reaction times than standard virtual controls. Personally, though, I just could not wrap my head around it.

My much preferred control scheme is a simple virtual button setup, with left and right arrows for movement and a single button for jumping. This scheme works great, and approaches the tightness and responsiveness of the current King of platformer virtual controls League of Evil [99¢/Lite]. My one small criticism is that I feel the area around the jump button could be enlarged, as I occasionally will fat-thumb it and miss the button altogether, but it’s not really a huge issue.

The only other negative I can think of for Mos Speedrun is that there just isn’t enough of it. The first half of the game won’t take long to breeze through, including earning every goal for each level. The second half of the game ramps up quite a bit in difficulty though, and while you’ll likely be able to at least complete each level doing so within the required time limit will be a real challenge. Still, I can’t help but wish for more levels, and the developer has confirmed that more are on the way in future updates. There’s also the ability to unlock special levels by visiting certain links through the Safari browser on your device, but I haven’t had a chance to try out this feature yet.

Another point about Mos Speedrun is that while the ghost aspect is a neat idea, I didn’t really feel like it added anything to the game and in fact found them to be distracting most of the time. They can be turned off, but I’d like to see options for seeing just the ghost for your current best run or maybe even a single previous attempt rather than all of them at once. Some players in our forums really seem to enjoy the ghost aspect though, so your mileage may vary with this particular feature.

Mos Speedrun is definitely another solid entry in the iOS platforming genre. The levels are interesting, the controls are spot on, and the game uses adorable pixel art graphics and an awesome chiptune soundtrack. Plus, despite not having a huge number of levels, the ones that are there will put up a good fight and are a joy to play through. If you’ve found yourself enjoying the many other platforming games in the App Store, and you’re intrigued by the speed run aspect and the retro style of this title, then don’t hesitate to give Mos Speedrun a try.

[source]

Retro gaming junkies, you may want to sit down for this. In a launch that's sending pixellated shockwaves across the App Store, Atari has just released Atari's Greatest Hits [NZ App Store], a Universal app that brings 100 (yes, one hundred) Atari games, along with the original cabinet and box art, to your iPhone and iPad.

The app is a free download that comes bundled with PONG, with the additional titles — 18 classic arcade games, 92 Atari 2600 games — available as in app purchases. The additional titles can be downloaded as 25 separate game packs at $0.99 each or at a price of $14.99 for all 100. Some titles have been enhanced to provide Bluetooth multiplayer modes.

This news is made even sweeter considering our earlier report that Atari and Ion have teamed up to bring forth the $99 iCade iPad-based retro game cabinet, which should be available shortly. We had only heard a few titles specifically mentioned, but the indication was that Atari would be publishing "a huge suite" of classic games with support for the device. We're gonna go ahead and call the 100 titles in Atari's Greatest Hits' "a huge suite," indeed.

The available game packs include:

• Asteroid Pack
  • 1. Asteroid
  • 2. Asteroid Deluxe
  • 3. Asteroids 2600
  • 4. Canyon Bomber – Bluetooth Multiplayer
• Battlezone Pack
  • 1. Battlezone
  • 2. Red Baron
  • 3. Air-Sea Battle – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Submarine Commander
• Centipede Pack
  • 1. Centipede
  • 2. Millipede
  • 3. Centipede 2600
  • 4. Millipede 2600
• Black Widow Pack
  • 1. Black Widow
  • 2. Space Duel – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Desert Falcon
  • 4. Space War
• Crystal Castles Pack
  • 1. Crystal Castles
  • 2. Crystal Castls 2600
  • 3. Surround – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Maze Craze
• Gravitar Pack
  • 1. Gravitar
  • 2. Gravitar 2600
  • 3. Radar Lock
  • 4. Demons to Diamonds – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Star Raiders Pack
  • 1. Star Raiders
  • 2. Liberator
  • 3. Star Ship – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Human Cannonball
• Missile Command Pack
  • 1. Missile Command
  • 2. Missile Command 2600
  • 3. Fun with Numbers
  • 4. Flag Capture – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Lunar Lader Pack
  • 1. Lunar Lander
  • 2. Sky diver – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Video Pinball
  • 4. Code Breaker
• Super Breakout Pack
  • 1. Super Breakout
  • 2. Breakout – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Off – the – Wall
  • 4. Circus Atari – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Tempest Pack
  • 1. Tempest – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Tempest 2600 – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Outlaw
  • 4. Atari Video Cube
• Majar Havoc Pack
  • 1. Major Havoc
  • 2. Secret Quest
  • 3. Sentinel
  • 4. Yars Revenge – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Warlords Pack
  • 1. Warlords – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Warlords 2600
  • 3. Combat – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Combat 2 – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Adventure Pack
  • 1. Adventure
  • 2. Haunted House
  • 3. Return to Haunted House
  • 4. Save Mary
• Tic-Tac-Toe Pack
  • 1. 3d Tic-Tac-Toe
  • 2. A game of concentration
  • 3. Backgammon
  • 4. Brain Games
• Fatal Run Pack
  • 1. Fatal Run
  • 2. Dodge ‘Em
  • 3. Night Driver
  • 4. Street Racer – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Quadrun Pack
  • 1. Quadrun
  • 2. Slot Racers – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Stellar Track
  • 4. Math Gran Prix
• Casino Pack
  • 1. Casino – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Slot Machine
  • 3. Video Checkers
  • 4. Video Chess
• Sword Quest Pack
  • 1. Swordquest Earthworld
  • 2. Swordquest Fireworld
  • 3. Swordquest Waterworld
  • 4. Sprintmaster
• Championship Soccer Pack
  • 1. Championship Soccer – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Golf
  • 3. Double Dunk
  • 4. Basketball
• Football Pack
  • 1. Football – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Home Run
  • 3. Miniature Golf
  • 4. Bowling
• Real Sports Basketball Pack
  • 1. Realsports Basketball – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Realsports Boxing – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Realsports Tennis – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Realsports Baseball – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Real Sports Football Pack
  • 1. Realsports Football – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 2. Realsports Soccer – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 3. Realsports Vollyball – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
  • 4. Video Olympics – BLUETOOTH MULTIPLAYER
• Battlezone Pack
  • 1. Battlezone 2600
  • 2. Super Breakout 2600
  • 3. Super Baseball
  • 4. Super Football
• Hangman Pack
  • 1. Hangman
  • 2. Black Jack
  • 3. Steeplechase

Atari's Greatest Hits can currently be had in the New Zealand App Store, and should be available in the U.S. store late tonight. We're digging into this pile of retro goodness right now and will post a close look, in a bit.

App Store Link: Atari's Greatest Hits, Free (New Zealand link)

[source]

Last week a little gem of a game was released into the App Store called Tactical Soldier – Undead Rising [$4.99]. Now, I know what you must be thinking, and yes the whole zombie thing has totally been done to death (undeath?). But the highly tactical turn-based gameplay in Tactical Soldier will have you forgetting all about that, and the zombie theme is actually used to great effect in telling an interesting story and creating tension in the game.

You play as a soldier in a military base where an experiment has gone awfully wrong. Scientists have developed a chemical in an effort to create super soldiers, but instead it ends up turning them into bloodthirsty zombies. Yeah, it’s a bit cliché, but it fits the game well. The graphics are entirely rendered in 3D, and although the character models aren’t the most detailed, the environments have a wonderfully creepy mood to them. The story unfolds with comic book-style cutscenes which do a good job of telling the gritty tale.

The first thing Tactical Soldier does right is offering a great user interface for interacting with the game. Pinch and swipe gestures allow you to move the camera at any time to wherever is needed to give you the best angle. Gameplay is grid-based and a smart use of single and double tapping allows you to have great control with all of your movements. The touch detection can be a little finicky at times, but overall the game is incredibly intuitive and feels built from the ground up with touch screens in mind.

The single player story-driven campaign in Tactical Soldier requires a great deal of strategy to be successful. Careful conservation of ammo and deciding what weapons to equip your squad of soldiers is key. It’s a really challenging game, but thankfully there are fairly spaced checkpoints so you can retry areas if you’re tactics don’t work out for the best. And you will die… a lot. But it never feels frustrating, rather, it’s fun to rethink how things went wrong and retry a scenario with a tweaked game plan.

You start out controlling a single soldier, but will add more playable characters to your group as you come across survivors while exploring the huge military base. Experience is earned for defeating enemies, and you’ll gain skill points which can be used to increase various statistics in each of your soldiers. Weapon and equipment slots are also limited, and you’ll need to make some tough decisions as to how to equip and upgrade your team. Enemies also start out fairly tame but quickly ramp up in difficulty and ferocity, including several tough boss encounters throughout the game.

Tactical Soldier is a pleasant surprise for fans of tactical turn-based strategy games. It’s incredibly challenging, but as such it’s also incredibly satisfying when you figure out the best way to deal with the many scenarios in the game. A player in our forums described the game as Resident Evil Tactics, should that game actually exist, and I think that totally nails it. It’s a universal game, and although I’ve been mostly enjoying it on the larger screen of the iPad it’s also very playable on the smaller screen of the iPhone and iPod touch. If you’re looking for something new to scratch your tactical itch, then Tactical Soldier – Undead Rising is highly recommended.

[source]

Gobtron [$1.99] from Juicy Beast Studio started out as a Flash game a few years ago, and last week an iOS port made its way into the App Store. Gobtron is a type of castle defense game where you play as a gigantic pink monster who must fend off puny human attackers throughout 5 ages of history. The interesting thing is how the Gobtron goes about defending himself, primarily using a string of snot from his nose but also utilizing other bodily functions for additional attack types. It’s a bit on the gross side but done in a lighthearted way, and Gobtron actually offers some pretty fun gameplay with its unique control mechanics and weapon upgrade system.

Gobtron takes place over 18 levels in 5 eras, starting out in the Stone Age and moving to Ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, modern-day military, and finally a futuristic age. In each level enemies will approach the base of the massive Gobtron in waves, feebly attacking with their weapons which chip away at his health meter. The enemies’ attacks start out as small spears and rocks in the stone age, and evolve into more deadly weapons like guns, aircraft, and ground-based vehicles.

Gobtron deals with these enemies by flicking his snot at them like a whip, which sucks them up into his nose. This is accomplished by dragging a hanging booger upwards with your finger and letting it go, slingshotting it down and splatting on the enemies. It’s crude but intuitive, and it’s really fun to nail a group of enemies with a well placed snot sling. As you progress new weapons become available like a booger bomb, a defensive saliva wall, and a belch attack which inflicts damage to everyone on the screen.

Upon completion of each level DNA points area awarded which act as currency for upgrading your bodily offense. Each attack, as well as your health meter, can be upgraded several times. There’s even a special fart attack which can be unlocked after maxing out the rest of your moves. That’s right, a fart attack. It may be crude, but the upgrading aspect is engaging and the unique mechanics of performing your attacks works well with the touch screen. There’s just something really fun about growing your Gobtron stronger to take on the increasingly difficult swarms of enemies.

The somewhat gross subject matter of Gobtron is toned down by the cute and colorful graphics in the game. Gobtron himself is just a big, dumb, pink monster who is adorable in his own way. My biggest criticism of Gobtron is that it’s a fairly easy game overall, and I completed every level on the first try which didn’t take much more than an hour. It’s a fun time, but some reason to come back to the game after completion, like an endless mode or leaderboards, would be a nice addition. Gobtron does use OpenFeint and Game Center for achievements, but unfortunately my completed achievements failed to unlock on the Game Center side of things.

Gobtron is one of those games that could be recommended just based on the weirdness factor alone, but it’s also a unique take on a defense game and is really pretty fun anyway. It’s a bit too short and light on content, but what’s here is worth playing if you can deal with the low brow nature of the game. There’s further impressions in our forums, or you can check out the Flash version which is nearly identical, but if you’re looking for an interesting take on castle defense with silly graphics and crude humor then Gobtron is worth checking out.

[source]

I’m not as learned about The 7th Guest [$2.99 / HD], or as much of a fan of the iOS port as Fearless Leader Eli “7th Guest” Hodapp, but even I’m stoked about this latest shred of news relating to the fabled puzzle game: Trilobyte, the studio behind the original game and its well-received touch-based port, is doing an iPad spin-off called The 7th Guest: Infection, a title solely based around the ridiculous-hard microscope puzzle that had to be cut from the port of The 7th Guest when it came to iOS earlier in 2010.

The microscope puzzle earned its “maddening” descriptor because it was — and still holds up as — one of the most convoluted and stressing game puzzles of all time. And since Infection is based around this very puzzle, I’ll go ahead and let Trilobyte do the describing of the game and its mechanics. See if you can follow! It’s fun, I swear!

Infection is a strategy board game designed to be played by the user against the AI engine; or, by two players. The 7×7 square grid, featuring layers of animated microbial action, is divided into 7 columns and 7 rows of consecutive cells. The object of the game is to make your microbes a majority on the board at the end of the game, by infecting and converting as many of your opponent's microbes as possible…

During their turn, players move one of their microbes either one or two spaces in any direction. Diagonal distances are equivalent to orthogonal distances, e.g. it is legal to move to a cell whose relative position is two squares away both vertically and horizontally. If the destination is adjacent to the source, a new microbe is created on the empty departure square. Otherwise the microbe on the source moves to the destination. After the move, all of the opponent player's microbes adjacent to the destination cell are converted to the color of the moving player. Players must move unless no legal move is possible, in which case they must pass.

The game is over when every cell has been covered or all the microbes are gone. Now, if you’re still interested, here’s a couple more fun details: Infection will feature Game Center, a brand new soundtrack, and, hey, seven difficulty levels if you, somehow, manage to get bored by the “normal” AI.

Trilobyte tells us that Infection will premiere at $2.99. Speaking of that, the game should crop up on the App Store in the very near future — it’s in approval as you read this.

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Someone is listening when I pray. The other afternoon, 2D Boy flung some awesome news one the Internet, confirming that World of Goo [$4.99] is indeed coming to the iPod Touch and iPhone, And it’s coming, like, real soon, according to a post on studio’s blog that explains, additionally, that the title is worming its way through Apple’s approval process at the moment.

Before you get all stupid-happy, check what generation your device is. In the reveal post, 2D Boy warns that World of Goo will require 3GS or better, or in iPod Touch terms, a 3rd Generation Touch or newer. Certainly, this design decision will cut a few of you out of the fun, but I’m sure it’s all for the better, as World of Goo will be poised to remain a visual treat in addition to being a great physics-based puzzle game. Oh, and if you already have the iPad version you'll get this for free. World of Goo will become a Universal App.

As for price, you’re looking at standard premium-ish pricing: 2D Boy has gone on record stating that the game will be sold at $2.99 in the US. HOWEVER, for the first 24 hours, the studio will submit to the race to the bottom mentality and price the title at a measly 99 cents, or the same price you pay for a succulent McDonald’s cheeseburger.

I haven’t seen this version yet, but it’s hard to imagine it’ll be a mediocre offering. The iPad version blew my and my fellow staffs’ minds in regards to how well it was catered to the touch tablet, so chances are that this version will cater to the smaller devices seems good. We’ll let you know, for sure.

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