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With the year coming to a close, I feel confident in saying with as much authority as I can muster that 2009 has been an amazing year. Soon we will be posting the results of weeks of deliberation on what we feel were the best games, a holiday buyer's guide for people who opened an iPod touch or iPhone this Christmas, and other year-end stories highlighting the various games we feel are the "must-haves" of 2009– But it hardly seems right to summarize the year in a few simple lists of game titles, brief synopses and links to reviews when so many remarkable games were created and events transpired that were still highly noteworthy or influential but fall outside of the rigid boundaries of "best of" listings.

When the App Store first launched on July 10th, 2008, very few people, myself included, realized the full potential of a reasonably open platform with a $99 entry fee that allowed developers building games in their bedrooms to be on equal footing with industry giants. The success of the pioneers of the App Store created a gold rush of talent, with new eager developers hoping to see even a fraction of the success of the stories that motivated their migration to the platform. 2009 was filled with even more inspirational tales of developers quitting their day jobs and building full-fledged businesses off of the App Store.

2009 also marked the year that the indie developer dreams of Imangi Studios, Bolt Creative, InMotion Software, Tiger Style Games, and many others were fully realized with titles created out of basements and on kitchen tables without a single cent of outside financing that were able to compete with the likes of EA, Activision, Sega, Namco, and other giants of the gaming industry. Everything they created was their own, a feat nearly impossible on any other platform.

Before 2009, no iPhone gamers cared about or likely even knew the name Tim Langdell, a man who has now become infamous amongst the community for relentlessly disputing ancient trademarks and consistently keeping Mobigame's EDGE off the App Store. We were impressed by the game when we first posted about it on January 4th, before anyone even had a clue of the legal battles to come. Since its was taken down, EDGE has briefly appeared for download several times throughout the year, but even as 2009 is coming to a close the fate of this game still is unclear.

Five days following the release of EDGE, Pocket God [99¢] made its debut on the App Store. At the time, not even Bolt Creative realized the cult following that the game would soon have. We didn't even post about it until months later, as in its earliest form Pocket God barely resembled what you would call a game– But the Pocket God phenomenon was growing too large to even attempt to ignore. Since then the game has seen 29 episodes, each representing a substantial content update and according to the Independent Games Festival trailer, Pocket God has over 1.6 million worldwide fans– A number easily confirmed by the blitz of forum members swarming each and every Pocket God thread posted on our forums along with countless other Pocket God fan-made spinoff sites.

February was an even bigger month than January for iPhone games, with Rogue Touch's [99¢] release and its continued dominance throughout the year with the developer consistently implementing community feedback, solidifying its position as the best implementation of Rogue on the platform. iDracula [99¢ / Free] was also released, and was the first dual-stick shooter to rise to the #1 position on the overall paid app sales chart– Its success no doubt inspiring countless other developers to throw their hats in to the dual-stick shooter ring.

In a sea of tower defense games, February also saw geoDefense [$1.99 / Free], a game that challenged fans of the genre with its brutal difficulty level which was designed from the ground up to never create a situation where the player is able to sit back and watch as waves of creeps are slaughtered by their defenses. Since then, geoDefense Swarm [$1.99] appeared on the App Store, after much anticipation from the fan base of the original game, which had grown so hardcore that they even challenged developer David Whatley to post the source code controlling one of the game's towers to verify its functionality.

On March 5th, Flight Control [99¢] hit the App Store with a bang, in essence creating the line drawing chaos management genre which was spawned an army of games with similar gameplay elements or control mechanics. Games like Harbor Master [99¢ / Free] were among the first in expanding on the Flight Control formula, but none of the spinoffs even saw a fraction of the success of Flight Control, a game which has held a firm position near the top of the paid apps listing since its release with a fan following of celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore challenging each other via Twitter.

Doodle Jump [99¢] was also released in March, a simple tilting game which has since seen several updates and to this day still hasn't left the second screen of my iPhone 3G, along with being among the very first batch of essential apps and games that were synced to my iPhone 3GS shortly after unboxing it on the day of its release. Doodle Jump has become the gold standard that most simple games are compared to on TouchArcade, and it seems impossible for us to record a podcast without mentioning it at least once.

One of the most memorable games for me of April (aside from Ow My Balls! [99¢]) was Hysteria Project [$1.99], a game that combined live action footage with simple gameplay elements reminiscent of Sega CD or LaserDisc full motion video games. Ultimately the game fell flat due to a short playtime and nearly non-existent replay value, but I still have to admire the amount of talent, planning, and production that went in to creating the many video clips and impressive horror/thriller atmosphere. Hysteria Project seems to be abandoned now with updates released only addressing existing bugs and iTunes reviews flooded by users requesting additional content. Regardless, if you're a fan of games like Dragon's Lair [$4.99], you will likely appreciate the direction Bulkypix attempted to go with Hysteria Project.

May brought Manomio's port of Flashback [$1.99 / 99¢], a game which curiously enough was only an interpreter of the original game files based on the REminiscence engine by Gregory Montoir. On the first launch of the game it downloaded 3MB of the original DOS data files in order to play the game. No one knew it at the time, but this mechanism foreshadowed the dramatic release and re-release saga of their Commodore 64 Emulator [$2.99], an app which sparked countless debates over the merits of Apple's approval process as its fate on the App Store slowly unfolded.

Sega's Sonic The Hedgehog [$5.99] was also released around this time, and it didn't take long for clever members of the community to pick the game apart and discover that it was little more than Sega's own emulator– And with a minimal amount of tweaking could be made to play any Genesis ROM file. Emulation on the iPhone was punctuated in late December with the release of Nescaline, a NES emulator based on NES v3 available on Cydia. Only available for a few short hours, retro fans willing to cough up $6.99 during this time are now among a small group of gamers capable of running any NES game on their device without jailbreaking.

While we were at WWDC, the talk of the town seemed to be InMotion Software's I Dig It [App Store], an amazing game that came completely out of left field and seemed to captivate anyone who got passed an iPhone with it installed during the event. After each night of the conference when our own Blake Patterson insisted on taking us to his favorite bar in San Francisco, The Tempest, I'd run my battery completely out searching for diggins while drinking gin and tonics. I Dig It eventually hit #1 on the iTunes sales charts, and in the wake of its success, InMotion Software released I Dig It Expeditions [99¢ / Free]– A sequel and vast improvement on the original.

After a tease at the WWDC Launch Party that was co-hosted by TouchArcade and MacHeist, Doom Resurrection [$1.99] was available for download. Launched at the premium price of $9.99, Doom Resurrection utilized the same assets as Doom 3, and while there were many 3D games available on the App Store prior to its release, Doom Resurrection was likely the first title that truly opened the eyes of iPhone gamers allowing them to see the true graphical potential of the platform.

SGN's F.A.S.T. [Free] also went live on the App Store in late June, and was among the first games for the iPhone to offer seamless realtime action oriented multiplayer. Following its release at $9.99, F.A.S.T. has slowly had its price reduced and is now free and funded by in-game downloadable content– A feature available to developers following the release of the iPhone 3.0 OS on June 17th.

The iPhone 3GS hit the street on June 19th, packing a faster processor, more storage, a compass, and most important to gamers: OpenGL ES 2.0 capabilities. It would still be some time before this new functionality would realized by developers, and 2009 is coming to a close without the compass being used for anything more than gimmicky augmented reality tech demo games and with developers only barely scratching the surface of OpenGL ES 2.0– With a select few games even taking advantage of the additional shaders and other graphical effects available on the 3GS and later released 3rd generation iPod touch.

The entire month of July was overshadowed by the release of Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢] an experience which polarized gamers in to two camps: Those who thought Enviro-Bear 2010 was the worst game that they ever played and couldn't understand why we would post about it, and those who agreed with me that it was the Citizen Kane of iPhone games. Featuring the most realistic simulation of a bear driving a car available on the platform, Enviro-Bear 2010 is still talked about on our forums and referenced in a few other games, most notably the recent Minigore [$1.99] update.

Also first available in July, Newtoy's Words With Friends [$1.99 / Free] joined Chess With Friends [$2.99 / Free] in providing the iPhone equivalent of correspondence gaming to the games of Chess and not-quite-Scrabble. CEO Paul Bettner later revealed some amazing usage statistics at GDC Austin in mid-September: the Newtoy games had 50,000 active players daily. While Pinch Media reported the average iPhone app user spent less than 5 minutes on an app per day, Chess With Friends and Words With Friends players spent an average time of 1.5 hours playing each day.

The most notable game to come out of August was by far Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99]. Released without a single preview, Spider instantly captivated our entire community. The allure of such a mysterious yet high quality game was irresistible as Bryce Manor itself held a mystery which the player could either follow their human curiosity choose to explore the story of the game, or simply enjoy the game as a spider catching bugs and completely ignore it. This was just many of the remarkably ingenious design decisions found in Spider, and the game's entire design process perfectly embodied the indie development spirit of the platform.

Beating EA to the punch by an entire month, Gameloft's NFL 2010 [$2.99 / Free] was the first fully licensed football game available on the iPhone which was soon followed by Madden NFL 10 [$5.99], a game we got an early preview of at the Penny-Arcade Expo in Seattle. Which is the better football game was hotly debated among sports fans on our forums, with both games competing in feature wars involving multiplayer, complete NFL rosters, stat tracking, and other things only hardcore sports fans cared about. Regardless, gaming franchise staples like Madden only further legitimized the iPhone as a gaming platform.

At the end of September, Hi, How Are you [99¢ / Free] hit the App Store, a game based on the life, art, and music of Daniel Johnston. When I first played the game, I had no clue who Daniel Johnston was, or why this game was so amazingly strange. All I knew was that it had a really cool cell shaded art style, and in researching the game I became aware of everything that was Daniel Johnston. As I explained in a blog post, this completely transformed the game for me. Much like the work of Daniel Johnson, Hi, How Are You is completely off the wall, and likely one of the most under-appreciated games on the App Store. In the few emails I sent back and forth with the developer, it seemed this realization was not at all uncommon and the game's single fault is that it may just simply be too strange.

In October, Canabalt [$2.99] was released, the iPhone port of a flash game playable online for free. Our community was wholly divided amongst players who were absolutely in love with Canabalt, and others who still leave comments on front page stories and post threads in our forums upset both with the positive reception it received and its $2.99 price point. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, it is a remarkable feat to be among among the few iPhone games that are not only noticed, but also talked about for months following their release. Canabalt was later updated with a few new obstacles and online leaderboards– Clearly quantifying exactly how bad I am at the game compared to the rest of the world.

Following Canabalt came another game with similar pixelated retro graphics: Hook Champ [$2.99 / Free]. Taking a similar swinging mechanic made popular by other games and introducing RPG elements in an equipment shop where virtually everything about your character can be upgraded, Hook Champ was an instant classic. Featuring among the best and most seamless integration of online leaderboards I've seen, Hook Champ provides a silly amount of replay value as each run through a level is timed, uploaded and compared to everyone else's performance.

October also saw what seemed to be one of the most substantial announcements from Apple since the unveiling of 3GS hardware: Changes to the downloadable content system on the App Store allowing free apps to have in-app purchasing. Previously, DLC was only available to developers who sold their apps, with the intention that free apps would always be free. Aside from substantially changing the dynamic of the top 100 lists, we also speculated that lite versions could be a thing of the past as developers migrated to free demo apps which were unlocked to the full version via an in-game microtransaction. Very few games ever actually implemented this purchase model, largely in part because appearing on the top 100 free list requires exponentially more downloads than what is required to chart on the top 100 paid listings.

What this new DLC change did usher in was games like ngmoco's Eliminate [Free], a free to play game with optional in-game purchases to buy energy, a sort of virtual currency used inside of the game. Touch Pets Dogs [Free] also utilizes a similar model, as do several of the Miraphonic Epic Wars games.

In November, Activision surprised us all with the release of Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [$9.99], the cooperative online multiplayer enabled port of the zombie-slaying game mode from Call of Duty: World at War for home consoles– Leaving iPhone gamers wondering what could possibly come next out of the industry giant.

Wheeler's Treasure [$1.99] also hit the App Store, following a thread with beta testers absolutely raving about the game. Featuring flick controls, and a really strange game premise where you're chasing a wheel down a hill, Wheeler's Treasure is yet another example of an extremely high quality game that really could only exist on the iPhone. The developer has already implemented a few new power-ups in game based on (and named after) forum members who provided feedback, and Wheeler's Treasure joins Hook Champ as another game that has fabulously seamless online scoring, marked by headstones that appear in game based on the distance other players travelled before their wheel was destroyed.

November and December were met with a blitz of games from Gameloft, who at the start of the year went from releasing a few mediocre games to the nearly becoming undisputed king of iPhone game production. Aside from the remarkably complete port of the PlayStation/PC classic Driver [$6.99], Gameloft delivered several other games including N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [$6.99], a Sci-Fi first person shooter with four player online multiplayer and among the best graphics of any iPhone game released this year.

December also saw several fantastic classic games, starting off with Sword of Fargoal [$4.99], which is by far the most approachable roguelike and one of the best examples of a perfectly remade retro game. The previously released Space Ace [$4.99] was also joined by two other LaserDisc arcade classics: Cobra Command [$2.99] and Dragon's Lair [$4.99].

With 122,660 available apps on the App Store as of today, even this seemingly comprehensive listing of major events and releases barely even begins to scratch the surface. One could spend weeks analyzing the App Store notating the trends in sales, releases, genres, and borrowed/modified gameplay mechanics. The fact that this is even possible is amazing by itself, and when you consider that the App Store is only a year and a half old, it's hard to imagine what the year-end wrap-up of 2010 will include.

Notable things on the horizon include the Unreal Engine 3 coming to the iPhone, potentially unlocking countless ports of existing projects developed for the Unreal Engine as well as the unimaginable unannounced games from the industry leaders of the App Store. Looking at what Gameloft, ngmoco, Illusion Labs, and others have produced this year alone, it's impossible to even guess what they will have accomplished next year.

Apple seems to be updating the iPhone and iPod touch hardware on a yearly basis, and rumors are already rolling in on potential inclusions for next year's model. With the Nvidia Tegra-based Zune HD and numerous Android devices either released or due to be released soon, the iPhone's advantage currently lies in the power of its software rather than its hardware– A fantastic position to be in, especially as more apps are submitted to the iTunes App Store on a daily basis than the total number of apps available in the entire Android Marketplace. Not to mention you barely need two hands to count the number of games available for the Zune HD.

Depending on which rumors you believe, the legendary Apple tablet may also run a shared OS to the iPhone, and run the same games and apps available on the platform. If this turns out to be true, the gaming implications could be massive as a large problem with iPhone games is often how much of the screen is obscured by controls. It's still much too early to even begin to speculate what the future of the Apple tablet will hold, and you can drive yourself crazy attempting to piece together the opinions of industry insiders and analysts.

In regards to TouchArcade, we've grown substantially over 2009. At the beginning of the year Blake and Arnold were holding down the fort, I've since joined the team full time, and we've even acquired some new writers recently who are producing some fantastic reviews. At the various conventions and meetings we've attended throughout the year we've made some great friends, heard some amazing stories, and scored a lot of great previews. We've grown to just under 9 million page views a month, and since we started recording our podcast we've maintained a position in the top ten video game podcasts on iTunes. We even have some great things to come for TouchArcade, both in improving existing features of the site as well as a few top secret projects and partnerships in the works which will be revealed soon.

Our readers and excellent community are directly responsible for our success, and we'd like to thank you for your continued support. From everyone at TouchArcade, have a safe and happy holidays.

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Lots of readers along the Eastern seaboard of the U.S., myself included, are heavily snowed in this weekend. And, so, what better time to check out a few free, 'lite' titles to see what you might've missed? Here's a short list of lite releases definitely worth a look if you're still a stranger to them.

• iBlast Moki Lite (iBlast Moki, $1.99) — A fun, high quality physics puzzler with intuitive controls and a full level creation and online sharing system. iBlast Moki made it into our Best iPhone Games roundup for September — it comes highly recommended.

   

• The Settlers – Free (The Settlers, $6.99) — The iPhone installment of a real time strategy game series that's been evolving for two decades, The Settlers challenges you to build a community, establish means of income, and expand your territories by force. Setting it apart from many RTS games, The Settlers focuses more on strategic planning than hands-on micromanagement of resources — this can be a positive or negative depending on your particular taste in strategy games. The game offers a deep experience with beautiful graphics and elaborate world maps.
   
• Rogue Planet – Free (Rogue Planet, $4.99) — Returning home after a 35 year mission in space, the crew of the Nimeh discovers that Earth has been taken over by machines. Such is the plight of the characters at your command in the fast-paced, turn-based strategy game, Rogue Planet from Gameloft. The title delivers a solid play interface, lengthy battle sequences, and excellent enemy AI, in a game that's somewhat reminiscent of Advance Wars. The paid release is well worth the price of admission. Strategy game fans who haven't picked it up should have a look at the lite release.
   
• MiniSquadron Lite (MiniSquadron, $2.99) — Tak Fung's MiniSquadron can be most easily described (well…) as a side-scrolling, physics-based aerial dog-fighting game. In MiniSquadron, you take the stick of a cartoonish, fixed-wing fighter in a frantic bid for supremacy of the skies across eight different worlds — all set to a series of classical compositions. Local WiFi multiplayer is also supported. Action fans who haven't tried it, give the lite a try.

   

• Low Grav Racer 2 Lite (Low Grav Racer 2, $2.99) — CobraMobile's futuristic racing title, Low Grav Racer 2, is the closest thing in the App Store to the classic Wipeout. Control any of six futuristic racing craft across 18 different planet and space-based tracks. With more track complexity and tighter action, LGR2 is an improvement on its forerunner. If you like racing and it need not be all about rubber on asphalt, Low Grav Racer 2 might be for you.

   

• I Dig It Expeditions Lite (I Dig It Expeditions, $1.99) — InMotion Software's I Dig It Expeditions picks up where the original release left off, after your farmer avatar paid off the bank thanks to the subterranean treasures gathered with his tractor-turned-digger. That sorted, he's decided to travel the world with his digger seeking more treasure. With particularly impressive graphics and various improvements over the original, including an in-game map and waypoint system, I Dig It Expeditions is one it's hard not to dig.

  

Sometimes, being trapped in the house can be a good thing.

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Few games have generated the amount of hype that Gameloft's N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [App Store] has, and even fewer have managed to live up to that same hype. NOVA is one of those rare instances where a upcoming game is everything we wanted and more. It's not perfect, but there aren't many games to even compare it to on the platform. NOVA feels like a complete video game experience, something which is quite rare indeed on the landscape of bite sized games that make up the App Store.

In Nova you play as Karl Wardin, an ex-space marine who has been reactivated to investigate some strange alien activity in a futuristic setting where the Earth has depleted its resources and no longer can sustain life, forcing humanity to live on nearby orbiting colonies. Admittedly, the plot isn't anything to write home about and the voice acting ranges from passable to downright cringe-worthy at times– Especially whenever Karl himself speaks. Thankfully, the gameplay itself more than makes up for these shortfalls.

The first series of levels will leave you wandering around on a space ship while you're guided by various characters communicating over the radio. An arrow guides you from objective to objective, and gameplay amounts to simply following this arrow, killing anything that moves, and flipping switches to activate or unlock different objects and areas. Deadspace fans will feel right at home when the game asks you to traverse the hull of the space ship, even going as far as to mention enabling your magnetic boots. What do you do while you're outside the ship? Run from pressurized area to pressurized area while avoiding incoming asteroids of course. (If you haven't played Deadspace, you do exactly this several times throughout the game– The hull is even laid out similarly.)

Eventually after fixing a few different parts of the ship and killing oodles of aliens, you will make your way to the bridge to initiate the self destruct sequence and escape back to your ship. You then fly down to a planet with beautifully rendered lush forests which also happens to be infested by these same (although slightly different colored) aliens. The rest of the game continues in a similar fashion, with different characters telling you where to go and what to do across 13 different levels that take place in five distinctly different environments.

The run and gun action is broken up by mini games, a level where you man the turrent on a warthog-like truck from Halo, and even a couple boss fights. Scattered throughout the levels are locked crates which must be opened by playing a brief mini game where you move different objects around on a grid to solve a puzzle where you're directing a laser beam from its source to the target. None of these are particularly difficult, and depending on how you feel about mini games you will either find these to be enjoyable distractions or just too annoying to bother with. Thankfully, it seems like there is enough ammo dropped by enemies and laying on the ground that the crates are optional but you will be forced to solve a few of these puzzles throughout the game as you "hack" things to progress.

Similar to Halo, your life is measured by a shield meter at the top of the screen which depletes when you take damage and recharges slowly afterwards. Your shield gauge also serves as your oxygen supply when you're in space, and your super abilities also take off a chunk of your shield's power. Super abilities? Oh yes, straight out of Metroid Prime you will slowly gain new abilities such as the ability to freeze enemies, shoot a charged up energy beam, and even run faster with speed boots.

If you've played Modern Combat: Sandstorm [$2.99 / Free], the controls in NOVA will be instantly familiar to you. If not, the game uses a virtual joystick on the left side of the screen for movement, and moving your thumb around the right side of the screen changes your view around. Different buttons frame the screen that do things like fire your weapon, toss a grenade, change weapons, reload, etc. There are two other included control schemes, one where the screen is split in half and moving your left thumb anywhere controls your movement while your right controls your view (essentially just removing the virtual joystick) and another with two virtual joysticks where you tap the screen to fire. I've found the default controls to be fine, although I did spend some time fiddling with the sensitivity.

Another nice feature is the ability to move all of the elements of the game's UI around. I've moved the reload button closer to the fire button because I'm a compulsive reloader in first person shooters, but you can customize it however you want. (Although currently this option only seems available by adjusting your controls mid-game, and not from the main menu.) Strangely enough, even though it seems that Gameloft has put a great deal of thought in to different control options and customizations, the ability to invert the Y-axis of the camera control is notably absent. What will leave you scratching your head even more regarding the lack of invert look is that Modern Combat: Sandstorm, a game which shares a similar engine to NOVA includes Y-axis inversion. You can however flip the screen orientation, something that should make iPod touch users happy.

The performance of the game is phenomenal on the iPhone 3GS with fast load times, high frame rates, and everything else you could ask for in a first person shooter. Meanwhile, reader reports all the way down to the slowest device in the iPod family have been said to be smooth. Even while playing online in NOVA's four player deathmatch mode, which surprisingly enough seems to be working just fine for everyone, a nice change of pace from Gameloft's recently released Modern Combat: Sandstorm multiplayer update.

Playing online requires both WiFi and a Gameloft Live account. Registering for Gameloft Live is easy, and once you're online you will have the option to play deathmatch or look at the worldwide leaderboards of players with the most points and kills. When creating a deathmatch game, available options include choosing one of the five maps, as well as enabling or disabling weapon stay and aim assist. Games can be set with a time limit or a frag limit, and both can be set to none to play for as long as you'd like.

When joining a game, you're thrown in to a lobby which lists available games that have open slots for you to join. Those of you waiting for an Eliminate "killer" will be disappointed to discover that currently there doesn't seem to be any random matchmaking, or the ability to have friends-only private matches. All you can do is create a game and hope that three of your friends join it before other people do.

Despite its limitations, online multiplayer (as well as local bluetooth/WiFi multiplayer) is a lot of fun and performs surprisingly well. I haven't come across any lag or connection issues, and so far it just works– Although the true test of NOVA multiplayer will be how well it holds up once players start getting good at the game and scrutinizing the weapon balance. It's too early to say how large the online community will get and what kind of staying power NOVA's online presence will have, but it seems quite enjoyable right now.

If you're a fan of first person shooters, or any of the previously mentioned console classics that NOVA is obviously inspired by, then you too will also likely really enjoy NOVA. It's one of the most ambitious iPhone games I've played so far, and despite the questionable originality of the game I've really got to hand it to Gameloft for creating such an amazing iPhone experience.

App Store Link: N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99

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The highly anticipated sci-fi action first person shooter N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [App Store] was released mere moments ago much to the excitement of forum members in the NOVA thread. With a single player campaign that reportedly takes around 8 hours to finish, four player online multiplayer, and online leaderboards tracking performance both in game and (apparently coming soon) on the NOVA web site, NOVA does not disappoint.

We'll have a review out shortly, in the meantime, check out the thread in our forums, with posts regarding the American release starting here.

App Store Link: N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99

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Gameloft's NOVA is probably the most widely anticipated game at the moment. After first being announced in September, excitement has been high for this Halo-like first person shooter.

Gameloft released an impressive new trailer today and finally gave us a release date.

NOVA will launch on December 17th. In related news, Gameloft also released a new GT Racing trailer showing even more in-game footage. See our hands on preview for other early details.

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Gameloft's Avatar was just released last night, and the early adopter response in our forums has been overwhelmingly positive. Avatar is an action adventure game based in the Avatar movie universe.

The game tells the tale of the events leading up to the movie as a sort of prequel to the film itself. Gameloft apparently had complete access to all of the assets behind the movie, as well as recording some original voicework by the cast for use within the game. Avatar appears to use an advanced version of the engine used in Hero of Sparta but with improved visuals and 3GS specific enhancements.

Avatar plays much like a 3D platformer throughout much of its course, but also manages to mix in other play elements. Platform jumping, swinging, climbing and basic fighting are represented throughout the early levels to a much greater degree than Hero of Sparta. Controls include a virtual joystick with on-screen buttons for attack, jump and special attack. Fighting, itself, remains rather shallow and is a matter of rapid fire attacking while maneuvering around enemies (at least on medium difficulty).

Later areas of the game offer a more open world in which you explore while performing quests for villagers, and even a segment where you are playing the back of a banshee avoiding obstacles and taking out enemies. Both these elements are shown in the second video below.

Total playtime is estimated at up to 7 and a half hours across 15 different chapters which is a sizable amount of play time for an iPhone game. One of our writers did run into some troubles with characters getting stuck in parts of the environment requiring a restart as well as some other bugs — though as far as we can tell these issues don't seem widespread. There are moments where you feel like the camera view or controls aren't cooperating properly, resulting in difficulties during the platforming portion. Generous checkpoints, however, prevent this from becoming a major issue.

While each of the individual gameplay elements isn't particularly groundbreaking, Avatar's major achievement is the sense of immersion and scale that Gameloft has managed to create in an iPhone game. Movie tie-in or not, this seems to be one of the most ambitious iPhone games to date.

App Store Link: James Cameron's Avatar, $9.99

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While there may be oodles of games based on all kinds of different physics gameplay elements, it seems like the one game type that is in severely short supply on the App Store is bridge/structure building games. Prior to this evening, the two main contenders were Moonlights [$1.99 / Free] and Tiki Towers [99¢ / Free]– Both fantastic games that I'd recommend to any fan of the genre. However, Gameloft's newly released Bridge Odyssey [$2.99] also is a very welcome addition to the bridge building landscape.

It should be obvious by now, but the premise of Bridge Odyssey is to construct a bridge from one side of the level to the other, using a set number of pieces indicated on the top left corner of the screen. Your bridge must be strong enough to withstand the traffic of the gang of animals that you slowly pick up as you progress through the game, and for bonus points you can build your bridge so said animals collect golden eggs which are distributed throughout the levels much like bananas in Tiki Towers.

As you can see in the gameplay video, everything in the game is accomplished using simple drags and taps on the touch screen and you can zoom in and out using the familiar iPhone pinching gestures. I did have some issues with piece placement and you can see me fighting with the game in the video, but since nothing is real-time, these problems only serve as minor annoyances because you can just easily fix any piece that didn't wind up where you want it to by using the undo button.

With so few quality bridge builders on the App Store, Bridge Odyssey, Moonlights, and Tiki Towers are all worth owning. It's hard to say which is the best of the three, since they're all good in their own ways.

App Store Link: Bridge Odyssey, $2.99

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If you haven't gone crazy with Avatar fever by now in the wake of what may very well be the most hyped movie in modern history, and are looking for a platforming adventure game set in the fantastic jungles of Pandora, an alien world inhabited by the blue skinned Na'vi, James Cameron's Avatar [App Store] for the iPhone may just be what the doctor ordered.

From our hands-on preview late last month:

The game itself merely takes place in the Avatar universe, and tells the tale of the events leading up to the movie as a sort of prequel to the film itself. Gameloft apparently had complete access to all of the assets behind the movie, as well as recording some original voicework by the cast for use within the game– Creating an experience that (to this skeptic of movie games) was quite shocking.

Avatar somehow manages to stand on its own, and instead of feeling like a game that was created for the sake of yet another marketing avenue for a movie, it feels like a game that just happens to take place in the same world as the movie. Controlled using a mixture of a virtual joystick and on-screen buttons, there are portions of the game that are reminiscent of traditional 3D platformer games like Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot, with a combo-friendly combat system straight out of games like Hero of Sparta.

The following video shows some highlights of the first couple levels:

Later in the game you come across a Na'vi village, ride some crazy six legged horse, and there's even a Panzer Dragoon-like flying level where you pilot a banshee which can be seen in this video (which regrettably doesn't have very good sound) that was shot at the Gameloft event in Paris:

We will have a full review soon, but in the meantime first impressions and other comments are being collected from forum members in this thread.

App Store Link: James Cameron's Avatar, $9.99

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When Driver [App Store] was originally released for the Playstation and PC way back in 1999, it was heralded by critics as a genuinely fun, challenging racing game. With the intense cop-chases, gang-centric story, and open-world exploration, Driver could be most easily described as "Grand Theft Auto without the on-foot parts." Flash forward to 2009, and Gameloft has just released their updated version of the game for the iPhone and iPod Touch via the App Store. Are slightly improved graphics, the addition of a much more tolerable difficulty level, and well-thought-out controls enough to make Driver a viable purchase for gamers, even 10 years later?

In Driver, you play as Tanner, a detective from New York who has been assigned a dangerous task: going undercover with the gangs that make up the criminal underbelly of New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. The "Undercover" mode serves as the single player campaign in the game and consists of about 40 missions. Missions do a good job of providing some decent variety in their structure; one minute you'll be attempting to keep up with a speedboat as it makes for an island hideout, the next you'll find yourself ramming into restaurants with the goal of busting up their glass fronts.

Driver isn't all about the story mode. There are numerous minigames, referred to as "Driving Games," on the game's main menu. In "Pursuit" you'll be tasked with chasing down another vehicle and dealing enough damage to take them out as quickly as possible. In "Getaway" you'll switch roles, attempting to evade and lose the trail of the police. Other minigames failed to catch my interest, like "Cross Town Checkpoint" or "Trailblazer", the latter of which involves randomly driving around knocking down 100 traffic cones.

Despite the weak first half of the "Driving Games" list, the second half of the minigame collection is much better and includes several fun games, my favorite of which being "Survival" mode. In Survival, players are brutally attacked by an unending legion of cop cars. The utmost skill in evasion techniques will be required in order to even stand a chance at lasting over a minute in this mode, and it makes for an extremely compacted session of what I consider to be the best parts of Driver. I also loved "Dirt Track" (a rally-style time trial game) and "Carnage" (an extremely fun mode that's very similar to the "crash" mode in the Burnout series).

Visually, Driver doesn't really hold up to other racing games on the App Store, but it comes close. The dated, PS1-era graphics benefited tremendously from the face lift that Gameloft gave them in this port, but the fact remains that there are better looking games on this platform. The worst part about Driver's visual style is undoubtedly the cutscenes, which are weirdly dark in an attempt to hide the unimpressive human 3D models in the game. At first, the constant use of darkness and shadows seems cool and stylish, but I quickly got tired of not being able to see anything in the cutscenes, losing almost all of my desire to watch them.

The audio in Driver is similarly disappointing, with what seems like only a few musical tracks that play themselves to death on your car's in-game radio, only interrupted by even fewer lines from the radio DJs. You'll hear the same tired jokes three-dozen times before you complete the full story mode in Driver, and if you're like me, you'll eventually just give up and turn off the noise altogether.

The most important part (arguably) of a vehicle-based game on the iPhone/iPod Touch are the controls. While I usually prefer accelerometer controls in such games (which Driver does indeed offer), I have to say that the on-screen touch controls that are set as the default control method in this game are some of the best on the platform. Trying them out for yourself is the best way to see what I mean by this, but the D-pad layout simply works; you'll forget you're playing on a device without any real, physical buttons to speak of.

In what may sound like a flaw but is actually a feature, the cop A.I. in Driver is completely nonsensical. Simultaneously vicious like wolves and stupid like sheep, police officers can be witnessed doing things worthy of national media attention about every 5 seconds in this game. The cops of Driver do not believe in the right to pull over and surrender oneself to the law; in their minds, the only way to stop crime is to ram into it repeatedly until it explodes.

Cops will work together in intelligent, inhuman fashion to slam you into a building at full speed, but when you put any sort of physical object in between yourself and them, prepare for fireworks. Driving around obstacles is just not an option for the fine officers in Driver. Instead, they will drive at full speed into civilians, trees, and even units of their own force in a desperate attempt to crush you with pure inertia. This makes for some of the most hilarious moments that I've had with a game in recent times, and I honestly think that Driver is a much better game for it.

There is no option to view replays in this version of Driver, and there is no multiplayer. If these two things were to be fixed in a future update, I would be absolutely in love with it, but even without that, this is an easy recommendation. The story mode is entertaining, but it's the great controls and supremely fun minigames that make Driver worth it. The game may have its flaws, but Gameloft has done a great job in making what could have been a quick and dirty port into a legitimately fun piece of software.

App Store Link Driver, $6.99

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The second installment of Gameloft's video podcast went live this morning, and much like the first episode revealed a bundle of in-game footage along with their plans for the future. Notable things in this podcast include:

• Driver side by side comparison between iPhone and PSone.
• A brief overview of the plot behind H.A.W.X.
• Avatar's producer Jon Jandau discussing the iPhone game.
• GT Racing Motor Academy's career mode and new Jaguar XKR.
• A look at NOVA's local and online four player multiplayer.
• A quick mention of the already-released Modern Combat: Sandstorm update.
• Guitar Rock Tour 2 DLC – 99¢ for 3 song packs.
• Real Soccer 2010's upcoming graphical update.
• Let's Golf now has Gameloft Live and Oregon Trail is getting Facebook Connect.
• NFL 2010 will be available worldwide.
• The unveiling of a new game, Bridge Odyssey which appears to be a physics-based bridge builder that looks similar to Tiki Towers.

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