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We’ve been waiting to see some solid evidence of a Mass Effect 3 companion app for some time, and while we haven’t heard anything new since series producer Casey Hudson let the cat ever-so-slightly out of its proverbial bag, we’ve been re-energized about the prospect  courtesy the latest public comments from the studio’s brass.

In an interview with BeefJack, Dr. Ray Muzyka praised mobile platforms and said that the idea of bringing what BioWare does best to them is an exciting idea. He also laid out a general plan. “So, we’re trying to adapt what we build and tune it to the needs of and desires of our fans across whatever platform they’re intending to play it on,” he said. “And always leave them with the feeling that they’re playing something that’s awesome, really high quality.”

Let’s just… forget about this one.

Mass Effect 3 for consoles and PC is shipping with a cooperative, but almost RISK-like online component. “This is a concept that has never been done before in games, ever,” Hudson said to CVG in October. “Not simply a story device, it’s fundamental to the game. For the first time, wherever you go — online, mobile, on social networks — you’ll be able to follow your progress. You’ll never have to leave the Mass Effect experience.”

Here’s to hoping the mobile hint is what we think it is — and hopefully it won’t end up stinking like Galaxy [$.99]. Seems like it won’t, if BioWare is taking mobile as seriously as it seems to be implying.

[Via BeefJack, via CVG]

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For whatever reason, there really aren’t that many snowboarding games available for iOS devices. X2 Snowboarding [$2.99] is my favorite of the currently available titles, and I really wish Sean White Snowboarding: Origins [99¢] was a better game, but other than that there’s slim pickings on the App Store. Free Range Games and Com2uS are on the verge of adding another entry to the snowboarding aisle of your local iOS games depository with SummitX Snowboarding. I’ve got my hands on a preview build of it, and I like what I see so far.

The graphics speak for themselves, check out the above trailer, the game really looks like that. What I’m really digging though is the control scheme that they’ve implemented. The preview I got was on my iPad 2, and games like this are usually controlled in one of two ways: Tilting, which I’ve never felt is ideal for the iPad, or with a weird virtual joystick setup which similarly never translates very well.

SummitX implements a two-thumb steering wheel sort of approach in that you slide your thumbs along both sides of the screen to control the board. I raised an eyebrow at the first loading screen that explained how it worked, but in practice, it’s really cool. When you go over a jump, the interface changes to focus on tricks, which will allow you to do all your standard grabs and flips while flying through the air.

If all goes as planned, SummitX should be available as a universal app sometime this December. Initially, it’ll come loaded with 14 different paths spread across 4 different mountainsides and an entirely licensed soundtrack with over 20 different bands. There’s also plans for an iPhone/iPod touch-only non-universal build sometime after launch. Neat, right?

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The Bearded One attended a somewhat clandestine Activision event a while back to see a very mysterious game. We didn’t know anything about it at the time other than it rhymed with “Mall of Beauty,” and we were especially not allowed to say anything about it. We weren’t sure when it was coming, so we’ve spent the time since waiting for the high sign that we can let the cat out of the bag on the whole thing.

Well, apparently it is coming tonight. Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies is the $6.99 sequel to Call of Duty: Zombies [$4.99 / HD] which as you may recall similarly just appeared on the App Store randomly one day. Kotaku has the skinny on all sorts of details on the game, and mirrors our experiences in that it plays like an updated version of its predecessor. The biggest improvement are in the controls, making the game feel a lot more playable. Oh, and there’s voice chat too, so you can scream at your teammates in true Call of Duty fashion.

Just like the original, Activision plans on supporting Black Ops Zombies with additional map packs and updates. Awesome, right?

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We put incredibly powerful devices in our pockets and on our laps daily, but rarely do we see games that utterly embrace this like Infinity Blade has. It’s a showcase piece; a technically and visually gifted game that consistently delivers eye-popping stuff.

Infinity Blade 2 is a step a step or two beyond what was accomplished in the original, adding in layers and layers of next-level environmental and character texture detail on top of a ton of fantastic ambient touches — sharper shadows, stronger lighting, and a glut of atmospheric effects bolster what’s already a visual delight, especially on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

In the game’s opening, you’ll be whisked to a Japanese garden where pink petals tenderly fall into a pond filled with koi. Later, you’ll find a fountain with gurgling water creeping over two titanic figures, a crypt filled with gigantic, ragged rocks with glowing glyphs imbued into them, and you’ll even observe plenty of nature again, as the game’s new fortress has plenty of aerial life and environmental effects to share.

The added oomph of the presentation is a convenient parallel to what’s going on under the hood. Design-wise, this is more Infinity Blade, except expanded. Beautiful vistas and artfully designed and detailed hallways compose that game’s more expansive fortress; the “guided” walking scenes are always punctuated with many more items to loot and fights to be had against increasingly bigger and more complex opponents; also, the mystery as to who you are and why you’re undying is unraveled more coherently, as the writing is now presented with confidence — it actually wants to tell you a good story.

The story element in particular makes Infinity Blade 2 a more cohesive game. As in the first, you’ll be once again stuck in a cyclical play loop, forever walking the halls of this new fortress as you puzzle out what it has to offer. But now the protagonist is as aware of his plight as you are, and you’ll be doing things in this new place with this knowledge in tow. There’s a sense of momentum and honest-to-Crom progression since not every re-birth is a simple game “reset;” plus, not just battle death triggers these this time around.

Combat has been expanded, too, and its constituent parts tweaked. Dodging, for example, is now monitored by an endurance bar. Dodge too many times in succession, and you’ll take tick damage from narrowly avoided blows. Parries seem much more accurate, now, as well, and are much more encouraged by virtue of the dodge nerf. Oh! And say “hi” to weapon gems. In most cases, they act as weapon modifiers that add elemental damage to attacks. In others cases, they add bonus effects like, say, increased Titan Damage Upon Blocking. Gems can be found or purchased and attached to weapons with matching slots.

The game’s currency system is still tied integrally to the combat. Buying new weapons is the key to leveling up, and you’ll need to keep pumping your quarters into the virtual machine in order to compete since each re-birth sees the addition of more powerful enemies. Since you can straight-up buy gold via IAP, this element might turn you off, but in our play, we’ve yet to feel like IAP was anything more than optional.

More importantly, dual weapon and heavy weapon wielding have been added to the combat model and they do meaningfully change your combat approach. Two swords eliminates blocking from the equation and rely on your ability to chain together combinations flawlessly. Heavy weapons trade speed for power, but require a sure-hand. I’m not much of a fan of either of these new styles, but they work as they should.

The enemies you’ll bludgeon not only look fantastic, but also boast, in most cases, more sophisticated routines and trickier blows to block, dodge, or parry. Just as an example here, let’s talk about the monstrous dog-like thing you’ll meet. Its heavy and blinded by the spiked cap covering its head, but its sluggish attacks are consistently hard to peg, as it feints with the aplomb of the nimblest creatures. Also, it has vicious quick-time-y attack where it attempts to swallow your dude whole. In order to stop this, you’ll need to tap frantically to keep his vice-like maw from impaling your meaty bits.

Sometimes I’m tempted to see what’ll happen if I let it take my dude, simply because of how awesome Infinity Blade 2 looks. Does your guy’s head and torso explode into a plume of blood and bone? Probably not (for a variety of reasons), but what I’m absolutely certain of is that Infinity Blade 2 is awesome.

It’s a consistently well put together visual feast that shows off what Unreal 3, and now your new devices, can do. And it’s great that the core gameplay structure and action model still deliver. Basically everything that Infinity Blade does has been expanded on for Infinity Blade 2. There’s so much more to do — so much more to explore and see and learn as you hack-and-slash like a champ through a winding and much more complex environment. Straight-up, it’s a great game.

As a side-bar here, while nothing is confirmed, the UI elements and Chair’s track record with the original hint at many updates to come including a cool social twist to battle. We’ll be keeping our thumbs and fingers at the ready for some time.

International App Store Link: Infinity Blade 2, $6.99

Infinity Blade 2 will be available in the US App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern.

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Easily one of my favorite platforming games (and just plain favorite games period, really) is this past February’s League of Evil [$1.99/Lite] from Ravenous Games and WoblyWare. The game featured bite-sized levels of increasingly difficult platforming challenges in a similar vein to Super Meat Boy, with a great 3 star rating system for each level that begged you to replay over and over until you’ve perfected every one.

League of Evil became known as one of the top examples of tight virtual controls on iOS as well, and during the past year numerous content updates have added tons of new levels for more than 160 total along with new features like ghost replays and iCade support. In short, League of Evil owns, and is one of the best platforming games on the App Store.

With the positive reception and success of League of Evil, it’s no surprise that a sequel would be in the works and the developers have began to tease the first screens for League of Evil 2 in our forums. Ravenous Games and WoblyWare are once again at the helm for this new entry in the series, but this time have enlisted the help of Bulletproof Outlaws to completely overhaul the visuals, or “kick the graphics up to 11!” as Derek from Ravenous puts it. Eleven. It’s one louder. Think about it.

Now, first of all, I’m a big pixel art geek and I absolutely loved the pixel graphics in the first League of Evil. However, after seeing these gorgeous new screens for League of Evil 2 I have to admit that I’m really looking forward to this new visual style. Plus, the developers are talking up how silky smooth the new character animations are, and I really can’t wait to see this new game in motion.

Since League of Evil 2 is being built off of the same engine as the first game, you can expect the same type of bite-sized level design and tight controls that you’ve come to know and love. All of the original enemies and hazards will be making another appearance along with about a half a dozen new ones. Right at launch the game will feature more than 100 levels spanning 5 different environments, and more than likely it will receive post-release update love with new features and content similar to what happened with the first game.

Sadly, there is no word on a release date for League of Evil 2 just yet, but all I know is it can’t come soon enough. We’ll be pestering the developers for more details in the near future, and until then check out the thread in our forums for discussion of the game.

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Stories are hard to come by on the App Store. Most games don’t bother with even a pretense of a story, and those that do tend to be crammed in rather painfully. It’s understandable — most iOS games are created by tiny teams, often just a programmer and an artist, so there’s not much room or budget for writing.

Sometimes, though, a game comes by that shows that you don’t need to sacrifice to tell a good tale. Some stories are as simple and eternal as boy meets girl, and they can be told over and over in brand new ways. These Robotic Hearts of Mine [$1.99] is one of those games. It’s small, simple and charming, and it does an admirable job of bringing narrative to that least-storied of genres, the puzzle game.

Better still, the puzzles in These Robotic Hearts of Mine are successful and interesting. Games that really experiment with narrative sometimes tend to end up a little light on enjoyable gameplay, but this game does not. It plays out over 36 levels of Rubik’s Cube-inspired puzzling that boast a reasonable difficulty curve, entertainment and even a smidgen of replayability.

The puzzles are straightforward. Each level has a field of hearts and gears. You can turn the gears by tapping them, and they take adjacent hearts with them when they rotate. The goal is to rotate the hearts until all are right-side-up, sometimes moving them from one gear to another in the process.

Each level gives you a minimum number of taps to try to achieve, but you can keep going as long as you’d like without penalty. There are the usual controls — buttons to take you back or forward a move, buttons to reset the level, and so on. You’ll never find yourself frustrated by an inability to proceed.

After each level is completed, you’re shown your progress compared to that of others, whether you hit the par score or fell within the average or worse. Then you’re treated to a single screen of narrative, one sentence of the story.

To avoid spoilers, I won’t get into the story. It’s so short and sweet that there isn’t much to be said that won’t give it all away. Suffice it to say that it’s emotionally charged, if not especially original, and that it’s quite successful.

As to how it merges with the gameplay, my feelings are mixed. I like the slow reveal of the story, the way you need to work through each level. As the levels get longer and more difficult, the story feels similarly halting. Needing to work for it feels quite appropriate. But some mechanical choices get in the way. For one, that score page you’re presented with on ending each level if quite an intrusion into the game’s atmosphere. It’s a distraction to start thinking numbers and strategies when the story is presented so briefly.

A more serious problem presents itself: you can freely skip your way through the entire game if you want to, reading the story panels and then skipping the level. It’s hard to take the combination of the two seriously when they can be ripped apart like that. If the goal is that people will play for their narrative, letting them skip the game undermines the experience, and frankly the story isn’t quite enough on its own.

In the end, These Robot Hearts of Mine is good, but it isn’t great. As a game, it doesn’t go quite far enough to reward players for pushing through or to encourage them to play well. As a narrative, too many of the game elements get in the way of the presentation. A bit more commitment could strengthen the game, hopefully in the direction of its narrative. There are plenty of great puzzle games out there, but never enough strong stories.

Still, it’s a lovely game, and for the most part it works quite well. I consider my time with it well spent, even if a few tweaks could have made These Robotic Hearts of Mine much more atmospheric. Give it a look for yourself, and let us know what you think in the discussion thread.

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Clay’s Reverie [$0.99] is cute. Really, really cute. Cute enough to warrant a warning label. That’s how cute it is.

…And hard. In spite of the fleecy clouds and the pink dolphins, SuperGlueStudio’s physics puzzler isn’t a game for the faint-hearted. One false step and you’re dead or, well, whatever passes for dead with doughy-looking things like the protagonist. Here in Clay’s Reverie, death is synonymous with touching anything asides from the conveyor belt. It’s a tough life but those are the breaks when you’re a little, googly-eyed ball of white clay.

Fortunately, the odds are somewhat in your favor. Clay’s Reverie benefits from simple and supremely responsive controls. Holding down on the conveyer belt allows you to move it on a vertical axis. Clay, on the other hand, does not seem quite as appreciative of such a hands-on approach. In order to control the blob-by hero himself, you’re going to have to make use of the iPhone’s accelerometer to roll him around the screen.

As easy and insipidly sweet as all this might sound, Clay’s Reverie demands a substantial amount of finesse as the worlds you find yourself visiting are … floating death traps, if you want to put it mildly. Bristling with spikes and all manner of metallic menaces, these worlds are all but friendly. For reasons unknown, they’re also filled with the stars that Clay seems to covet. What malleable white spheres with the ability to magically transform into random other shapes after the consumption of dodgy-looking seeds want with flaming heavenly bodies is beyond me but that’s how things goes. Come heck or high water, you’re going to have to acquire the maximum number of stars possible and reach the finishing line without expiring more than three times.

It’s a surprisingly tall order. Those with shaky hands should probably find themselves another diversion because Clay’s Reverie is rather shameless about punishing those with an unsteady grip. This, in turn, wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the fact that the check points are far and few in between, an issue that many will become intimately aware of after the initial few playthroughs. Given that a certain number of stars are necessary to proceed to the next world, the whole thing can result in a fair amount of frustration.

If you’re willing to overlook that little problem, Clay’s Reverie is a mostly satisfying experience. It’s challenging without being unreasonably so, complex but accessible. Your six-year old cousin, on the off chance they’re the precocious sort, would probably enjoy themselves with this one too. Friendly, straightforward and furiously adorable, Clay’s Reverie is a lot of fun.

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If you’re a fan of Red Dead Redemption and similar western-themed horse riding games with lots (and lots) of fighting, Gameloft’s upcoming Six-Guns might just be what you’re looking for. The environments look pretty impressive, although I’m not entirely sure which games Gameloft will be borrowing the combat mechanic from just yet. Take a look:

One curious thing that sticks out in the trailer is the whole “play for free” thing. Gameloft has been predictably vague in just how players will actually pay for the game, but hopefully whatever free to play model they settle on won’t be too offensive to gamers.

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If your iPhone or iPad’s memory still isn’t full after you gorged on the various Cyber Monday and Thanksgiving deals, know this: most of the celebratory sales are still active on the App Store. In fact, we’ve discovered a couple more that we couldn’t fit in before the holiday break. That’s what this post is all about — the leftovers.

For example, Telltale Games has lowered its games’ prices 55-80 percent from the usual. The savings began on November 23, but will continue until tomorrow, November 30. Arghata Studio also bashed the prices of its 1112 series in honor of our Turkey Day, and those sales are still continuing, too, well into this week.

Here’s a short list of some notables:

Odds And Ends

• The 7th Guest – $5.99 → $1.99 [Universal]
• Age of Zombies – $2.99 → $.99 [Universal]
• Burn the Rope Worlds – $.99 → Free
• Corpse Craft – $1.99 → $.99
• Fling A Thing – $.99 → Free
• The King of Fighters – $6.99 → $3.99
• Scribblenauts Remix – $4.99 → $2.99 [Universal]
• Spirits for iPad – $4.99 → $.99
• Split / Second on iPad – $6.99 → $.99
• XIII – Lost Identity – $3.99 → $.99

Agharta Studios

• 1112 episode 01 – $4.99 → Free
• 1112 episode 01 HD – $6.99 → Free
• 1112 episode 02 – $4.99 → $.99
• 1112 episode 02 HD – $6.99 → $1.99
• 1112 episode 03 – $4.99 → $1.99
• 1112 episode 03 HD – $6.99 → $2.99

Telltale Games

• Back to the Future Episode 1 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Back to the Future Episode 2 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Back to the Future Episode 3 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Back to the Future Episode 4 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Back to the Future Episode 5 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Hector Episode 1 – $3.99 → $.99
• Hector Episode 1 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Hector Episode 2 – $4.99 → $.99
• Hector Episode 2 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Hector Episode 3 – $4.99 → $.99
• Hector Episode 3 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Monkey Island Tales 1 – $6.99 → $4.99
• Monkey Island Tales 1 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Monkey Island Tales 2 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Monkey Island Tales 3 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Monkey Island Tales 4 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Monkey Island Tales 5 HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Puzzle Agent – $4.99 → $.99
• Puzzle Agent HD – $6.99 → $2.99
• Puzzle Agent 2 – $4.99 → $.99
• Puzzle Agent 2 HD – $6.99 → $2.99

Cool deals, right? As a side-note, if you feel like you’ve been left out of the initial extravaganza, App Shopper [Free] remains an incredible tool to keep on the up and up. You can read more about it here.

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