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With the iOS 4.1 update that added Game Center out in the wild today, we're seeing an avalanche of new updates for older games that are utilizing these new features. Previously we've only seen games that received achievements and leaderboards, but now it seems that three games from Pangea Software are the first to offer real-time multiplayer. Here is the information for each game provided in the press release from Pangea:

Nanosaur 2, $3.99 Nanosaur 2 is a 3D action-adventure game where you pilot a time traveling pteradactyl from the future.  Previously, Nanosaur 2 was just a single player game, but new in version 2.0 are six new levels and three new multiplayer modes including Capture the Eggs, Battle, and Race.  Thanks to iOS 4.1, users with Game Center enabled devices can now play against each other by inviting friends or using Auto-Match to play against people around the world.  In Capture the Eggs mode players are on teams, and they have to retrieve all of their team’s dinosaur eggs before the other team.  Battle mode, on the other hand, is pure excitement as players collect weapons and blast each other out of the sky.  The race mode also involves a lot of heat seeking missiles, blasters, and cluster grenades, but your primary goal is to race around a track.  Up to four players can play together in Nanosaur 2, and the game uses the Voice Chat feature of iOS so you can smack-talk your opponents while you unleash a barrage of firepower on them.

Cro-Mag Rally, $2.99 Cro-Mag Rally is Pangea Software’s caveman racing game where you race primitive vehicles such as the Bone Buggy, Geode Cruiser, Logmobile, etc. around prehistoric and ancient racetracks.  The new 2.0 version of Cro-Mag Rally now supports multiplayer networked racing thanks to Game Center, so up to four players can race against each other using any of the vehicles in the game.  Additionally, version 2.0 is now a Universal Binary app so it runs on the iPhone / iPod Touch and the iPad.

Enigmo, $2.99 Enigmo is one of the all-time best selling iPhone games with well over a million units sold, and it is the winner of an Apple Design Award for Best iPhone Game.  Enigmo is a physics based game where you try to direct flowing streams of liquids to solve puzzles.  Version 4.0 of Enigmo adds a new multiplayer mode where up to 3 players can compete to solve puzzles.  Like Nanosaur 2 and Cro-Mag Rally, Enigmo also supports Voice Chat.

We've had a chance to try out these new multiplayer features and are really happy with the results. Connecting into an online game is incredibly simple as you can choose to search out a game against random people or very easily invite one of your Game Center friends. The voice chat also works really well, and trash talking while racing against forum moderator Zincous in Cro-Mag Rally was a ton of fun indeed. Voices are clear and there is a mute button if you get tired of hearing how badly you are getting beaten by your opponent.

We didn't experience any lag while playing, but this could be due to Game Center being so new, and it will be interesting to see how the experience holds up in the coming weeks as more and more games get online multiplayer. As of right now, the Game Center integration in these three titles breaths new life into the experience, and they are definitely worth checking out for the multiplayer and voice chat functionality. We'll be anxiously awaiting to see what other titles receive the Game Center online multiplayer treatment down the line.

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Following the fairly underwhelming first Game Center game Ms. Pac-Man, we're now starting to get into some of the good stuff. Updates with Game Center support for both Flight Control and Real Racing from Firemint have just gone live in the App Store. Each game will take advantage of achievements and leaderboards offered with Game Center integration.

Firemint's previous Cloudcell online integration will still remain, so even if you can't access Game Center you'll still be able to access achievements and leaderboards like before. If you can possibly tear yourself away from playing Ms. Pac-Man for a few minutes, make sure you grab these latest updates and check out the Game Center functionality in Flight Control and Real Racing. More Game Center updates are slowly trickling out, and you can follow this thread in our forums where a current list of Game Center enabled games is being maintained.

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So, Namco's Ms. Pac-Man is one of the first games to support Apple's new Game Center leaderboard system. As you can see from the screenshots, the game supports leaderboards and achievements through Apple's new social gaming network:

I'm sure we'll see more Game Center supporting updates shortly.

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Imangi Studios' Harbor Master HD has seen a number of additions since its original iPad launch in April. The base game includes a single map and can be downloaded for free, but they've since added four new maps for $0.99 each as in-app purchases. The map above is called the Bermuda Triangle and includes pirates, monsters and cyclones to make your line-drawing life a bit more difficult.

But with the latest updates, they've also added a clever rewind feature that lets you restart the game right before that last fatal mistake:

We've also added a really cool feature – rewinds. With rewinds, after you crash, you can choose to rewind (or undo) the crash, and continue playing where you left off. You can only use ONE rewind in a game, and you get a limited number of rewinds total. When we launched the update, we gave people 5 rewinds, and then they could earn 1 rewind for each 1000 pieces of cargo they ship. So they more you play, the more rewinds you earn, and therefore you can use a rewind more often.

You start off with 5 rewinds and can use one in any particular game. Rewinds are then earned for longer play time or can be purchased via in-app purchase ($0.99 for $2.99 for 20, $4.99 for 40).

Balancing in-app purchases is always a challenging problem for a developer. On the one hand, in app purchases need to offer a legitimate value in a consumable product. But that product can't be one that gamers feel is a necessary component of the game. I feel like the rewinds fill this sort of niche well, and I'd expect we'll see it more often in the future. As an added bonus, I've always thought the compelling feature of these chaos management games is the "oh no!" last second regret when death comes suddenly. Now you get a second chance.

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Back in April, a fantastic little title hit the App Store called Solomon's Keep [99¢/Lite]. It was a dual-stick dungeon crawler that had you ascending through randomized dungeon floors filled with swarms of baddies as you leveled up your wizard collecting loot and gaining new abilities. We really enjoyed Solomon's Keep in our review, and the game got even better with an excellent 2.0 update. Now, developer Raptisoft (who also gave us the currently free platformer Hoggy [Link]) has created an endless survival version of Solomon's Keep titled Solomon's Boneyard [99¢]. The game uses the familiar mechanics of Solomon's Keep but offers a different enough experience that warrants a look even if you already own the original.

Solomon's Boneyard takes place 23 years before the events of Solomon's Keep. An adolescent Solomon Dark is learning the ways of dark magic and disturbing the graves at a local graveyard, and it's up to a group of newly graduated wizards to put a stop to him. You'll start the game by choosing from one of seven characters (three of which are unlockable) who each have their own unique set of abilities. There's a wizard with a focus on lightning attacks, one focused in fire, one who deals with ice, and so forth. You can also choose to purchase some helpful items from a shop prior to entering the boneyard, like additional potions or abilities to help you on your quest. Fans of Solomon's Keep will recognize these items and offensive abilities as they are essentially the same here.

Once you've chosen your character and geared up, you'll head to the graveyard where you catch Solomon digging up graves. He then sends his undead minions after you, and you'll fight off the endless waves of increasingly difficult enemies while trying to last as long as possible. The same enemies you face in Solomon's Keep are here too, including various skeletons, zombies, and bouncing flaming demons. Defeating these enemies gives you experience, and each time you level up you'll be able to choose from three available upgrades to your weapons or abilities. Additionally, special items can be dropped by the enemies that can give you an instant upgrade or other special attribute. The main goal in Solomon's Boneyard is to defeat as many enemies as possible in a given game, but the gold you collect from them is persistent and can be used to buy items from the shop for use in subsequent playthroughs.

Solomon's Boneyard is also a very attractive game. There is only the one graveyard map, but it's fairly large with obstacles to deal with like open graves and headstones. A neat dynamic lighting effect similar to Helsing's Fire [99¢] is used that casts real-time shadows from the gravestones and enemies in the game, giving the whole graveyard a dark and foreboding feel. Each of the wizard characters also have their own unique look, with different colors and styles of clothing as well as different body types and genders. It's a nice bit of variation compared to the single wizard character from Solomon's Keep, and owners of 3rd generation devices or higher will notice a higher graphical fidelity due to anti-aliasing.

Solomon's Boneyard doesn't claim to be anything but what it is, an endless survival-style version of Solomon's Keep. The seven different characters are fun to play with, and each game doesn't usually last more than 15 or 20 minutes compared to the hour or so it takes to get through Solomon's Keep. There's also a nice high score dynamic, as upon dying in a game your score is based on total number of kills, character level reached, and the amount of time you lasted during that run. These are tracked through OpenFeint with a separate leaderboard for each character, as well as a number of interesting achievements to unlock. If you enjoyed Solomon's Keep, then you should also enjoy the distilled gameplay experience offered in Solomon's Boneyard. Impressions in our forums are overwhelmingly positive, and if you like dual-stick survival shooters in general this is one you shouldn't miss.

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iOS 4.1 was just released mere moments ago. It features Game Center, HDR photography for the iPhone 4, and a ton of other features. Also, if you've got an iPhone 3G, while you won't get Game Center, at least you'll get a little bit of a performance boost compared to iOS 4.0.

iOS 4.1 is a free download for all devices that support it.

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Apple recently unveiled a new Game Center web page detailing the features of the service and revealed that the 2nd Generation iPod touch will also be a Game Center-capable device. After delaying the Game Center release to iOS 4.1, Apple had previously announced that it would only be available on 3rd generation devices and newer. This latest development only leaves the first generation iPod touch and both the original iPhone and iPhone 3G out in the cold.

Game Center is launching soon with iOS 4.1 and already developers are committing to supporting it in their games. Forum member Project-79 has been maintaining a thread of assembled announcements and press releases from developers that will be supporting Game Center on (or soon after) launch. Notable titles include Flight Control [99¢], Angry Birds [99¢ / Free] and many others.

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Being so involved in video games, I fully admit that I'm often woefully unaware of really awesome board games and it isn't until they get an equally awesome port that they even pop up on my radar. A couple of days ago I hadn't the slightest idea what Neuroshima Hex! was, but after watching the trailer and checking out the game, it's high up on my most anticipated game list. Neuroshima Hex! is a tactical hexagonal board game set in the Neuroshima tabletop RPG universe. This universe is host to fantastic things like nuclear war, rebellious sentient artificial intelligence, carnivorous vegetation, mutants, and humans that are just trying to survive in the middle of all this.

The board game is playable by up to four players (or single player against AI opponents), utilizing four different factions each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The goal of the game is to take over the enemy headquarters by placing tiles on the board. There are a number of videos on YouTube detailing exactly how the game is set up and played, and it sounds wonderfully complicated.

Neuroshima Hex! is being released this month, and after seeing exactly how awesome board games could be on the iPhone with Carcassonne [$4.99], I'm really excited for the game. It's fully licensed, features all of the original art, and there's even plans for an iPad version in the works.

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Slice It! from developer Com2uS is a new puzzle game where you must dissect various shapes into equal parts. It may sound painfully simple, and can be if you're just dealing with straight circles and squares. But Slice It! throws some seriously crazy shapes at you that will have you scratching your head in how to approach them. A hint system helps prevent you from getting stuck on some of the harder shapes, and a nice five star scoring system urges you to retry puzzles in an effort to get a perfect score. With 60 levels to tackle, and room for more to be added in the future, Slice It! provides a surprising amount of slicing fun.

Right off the bat you'll notice that Slice It! has a very nice presentation, utilizing a hand drawn colored pencil look with graphics enhanced for iPad and Retina Display. Levels are displayed in groups of twenty on a stage select screen, and are unlocked one after the other as you complete them. There are five tabs on the side to select the different groups of levels, though only the first three currently have content. Tapping the fourth and fifth hints that more levels should be coming in future updates. It's slightly annoying to see these empty tabs in the game, but the 60 levels are more than enough to occupy most gamers attention for a good amount of time.

When you select a level, the shape that must be sliced is drawn for you. Touching a point outside of the shape anchors a starting point for the slicing line, and dragging across the shape gives you a dotted line of where the slice will take place. The real trick to Slice It! is that you must slice the shape into the required amount of segments for each level, as well as use up all of the slicing lines. This can call for some more creative thinking, even with basic shapes. Once you've fulfilled the segment and slice line requirements, the shape is sliced up, and you are graded on how accurately you can get each segment to be the same percentage of the entire shape. For example, a square cut into fourths would require each segment to be as close to 25% of the entire shape as possible to earn 5 stars.

If you slice too many segments, don't use all your slices, or have segments that are a much different proportion than the rest then you will fail the level and have to retry. If you do well and get 5 stars on a stage, you earn a hint to be used on one of the future stages. Each hint will tell you where a slice line needs to go to get you started, and in my experience with some of the more odd shapes, the hints can be invaluable.

A couple of small issues stick out in Slice It!. For starters, it can be hard to accurately place the anchor point on the iPhone's smaller screen, and I sometimes found myself having to try multiple times to get a line started where I needed it to. Related to this, if you draw a line and decide it's not where you want it to be, you can drag the end point of the line back to the starting point to not draw a line at all. Unfortunately the game often ends up drawing the line anyway, which can easily be erased with the undo button but is annoying nonetheless. Finally, sometimes multiple slice lines can intersect in the middle of a shape and cause a very tiny segment to be made, unbeknownst to you until you actually try to complete the level. This causes you to have to retry the level since that extra segment goes over the requirement.

These are all minor issues in an otherwise fun game, and merely serve to annoy rather than ruin the overall enjoyment of Slice It!. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed playing, and there is a strong “one more try” factor when aiming to get the most equal segment proportions possible. Even when I had already achieved 5 stars, I found myself retrying a level anyway just to see if I could get exactly equal segments purely for my own satisfaction. Players in our forums are enjoying the game as well, and if you're looking for a new type of puzzle game with a charming style that's easy to pick up and play, take a look at Slice It!.

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Today Gameloft tipped us off to their next title in what I suppose is now appropriate to refer to as the Modern Combat series. Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus is the sequel to Modern Combat: Sandstorm [$4.99 / Free / HD] and while we don't know many specifics about the game yet, it's probably safe to assume it will come loaded with the same military-centric Call of Duty inspired gameplay that made the original so much fun.

We liked Modern Combat: Sandstorm quite a bit in our review, and I expect that the sequel will be fun as well especially with how much Gameloft has evolved their graphics engines and gameplay mechanics since then. If you've been looking forward to another Modern Combat game, you might not have to wait too much longer.

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