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A few weeks ago, the joint venture from Revolutionary Concepts and Tangible Games Banzai Rabbit hopped onto the App Store. Taking the basic core gameplay of the arcade classic Frogger and adding a host of new elements, including exquisite 3D graphics, produced a game that we thoroughly enjoyed in our review apart from one major gripe – it was just too difficult for your average gamer. The developers heard this cry loud and clear and actually anticipated it to a certain extent. An easy mode had been created prior to release for the possibility that gamers found the game to be too hard, thus an update including this new mode and a few other tweaks was able to be submitted relatively quickly after release. The new update has now hit the store, and it addresses practically every concern we had over the initial release, giving no reason not to give Banzai Rabbit a spin.

The new easy mode, titled Cuddly Bunny, starts you off with more lives, extended time to rescue each infected human, slower traffic and hazards, and half the cost of buying continues with mutagen orbs. These changes do wonders making the game more accessible, and at the risk of sounding impossibly hard to please, it's almost too easy. Rarely did I get killed by a hazard, and when I did it was usually because I was trying to rush. Lives and mutagen orbs stockpiled as I played, and never did the timer count down more than about halfway. I don't want to spin this in a negative light, however, as it gives me exactly what I wanted in the first place, which was a way to see the game from beginning to end. Given that the cute storyline and cutscenes are a big part of Banzai Rabbit, I had no trouble enjoying them as I made my way through this easier difficulty.

Another noteworthy aspect to this update is the addition of checkpoints. Losing all of your lives and having to start completely over from the beginning was a point of frustration in the release version, and checkpoints alleviate that problem really well. The easiest difficulty offers many checkpoints should you have to restart the game, with medium difficulty having them as well although fewer and farther between. The hard difficulty remains for the truly hardcore, featuring no checkpoints whatsoever along with less starting lives and much faster traffic. Banzai Rabbit does a wonderful job at catering to a wide audience with this latest update, and if you were on the fence before due to the difficult nature you should have no problem playing the game in it's entirety now.

Also worth mentioning is the impending release of a separate iPad version of Banzai Rabbit. The game is already quite the looker on the iPhone, but with updated graphics taking advantage of the iPad's higher resolution it looks simply stunning. UI tweaks to the game's controls, optimization for the faster processor, and additional cutscene screens are in this version as well with the possibility of some exclusive iPad-only content. The iPad version should be submitted in the next few days, and barring any sort of complications with approval should be available in the next couple of weeks.

Above are some of the early iPad screenshots (click to enlarge), so you can get an idea of whats to come.

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SGN's Exo-Planet made its first appearance on the App Store in early April as Exo-Planet Elite for the iPad [$6.99], a few weeks ago Exo-Planet Elite [$4.99] was released for the iPhone, and it wasn't until a few days ago that the DLC-powered free to download Exo-Planet [Free] joined the ranks. Exo-Planet is an online shooter, somewhat similar to ngmoco's Eliminate [Free], but with a third person perspective, multiple game modes, and an always-equipped grappling hook.

The game is controlled similar to most shooters, and a brief tutorial tells you practically everything you need to know about playing. Movement is controlled with the left side of the screen, and sliding your thumb around the right side of the screen allows you to look around. Virtual buttons are scattered about that do things like allow you to view the scoreboard, switch weapons, and fire. Every player is equipped with a grappling hook that can be shot at most surfaces, and grappling is as simple as tapping where you want to fire it and waiting for your character to reel themselves in.

Exo-Planet takes place in space, and hopping around and sticking to magnetic surfaces with your boots is highly reminiscent of the zero-gravity extravehicular activity portions of Dead Space. The third person view is actually really nice for all the maneuvering you'll be doing, as you can really get a great look at both your surroundings and the locations of your opponents with the pulled back over the shoulder viewpoint.

Exo-Planet includes three gameplay modes, two online and one offline. Online modes include capture the flag and deathmatch, and both are 2v2 team based battles. The offline gauntlet mode is substantially less exciting, with players competing in timed sessions shooting a series of moving targets. I suppose this answers the common complaint of most online-only games in giving iPod touch users something to do when they're not near WiFi, but gauntlet mode doesn't provide much challenge and really only seems useful for grinding scrip, learning the controls, and killing time.

What's this "scrip" stuff? Well, like similar games, Exo-Planet uses an in-game currency system to purchase various upgrades for your character. Everything from tricking out your weapons to increasing your run speed or even making your grappling hook reel in quicker can be purchased with scrip. This seems to be the major division between the free and paid versions of Exo-Planet.

If you shell out some cash for Exo-Planet either for the iPhone or iPad, you get something called "scrip boost" which increases the amount of scrip you earn by playing matches and fighting in gauntlet mode. In the free version, you have the ability to buy scrip in increments ranging from 99¢ all the way up to $19.99.

Playing online is a lot of fun, although in my testing the quality of the games I get matched up with varies wildly. Some are fast paced 2v2 matches with little or no lag filled with players who know what they're doing (capture the flag is particularly fun in these situations) and others are 1v2 lag fests that either end with the timer running out while you return the flag over and over or kill inactive players, or just simply lagging out. There isn't any Eliminate-like energy system, so you don't really lose anything but the time it took to load in to the game when you get a bad match… Which oddly enough has made me much more willing to put up with intermittent connection and lag issues.

Few games match the experience Exo-Planet provides when you find yourself in a game with 4 solid players with good connections. Playing with skilled players amounts to constantly grappling while firing, grappling again to avoid incoming fire, and either trying to stay alive or capturing as many flags as possible which can be a lot of fun. Connection issues are a problem, and it remains to be seen how much post-launch support SGN is going to give Exo-Planet, as you can really only play the same maps and use the same weapons so many times before getting bored. People on our forums are really digging the game, and I really recommend at least giving the free version a spin if nothing else– Especially if you've found yourself even slightly enjoying games like Eliminate in the past.

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Mountain Sheep's Minigore [99¢] has been somewhat of a cult favorite on our forums, with legions of fans still willing to defend the honor of Minigore whenever a new dual stick shooter hits the App Store. The Episode 4 update was announced quite a while ago, with the developers promising a new level, new playable characters, a new weapon, and even co-op over Bluetooth and local WiFi.

Today they released a 30 second gameplay clip of co-op mode, and it's hard to not get excited at the sheer potential of playing Minigore with a friend:

We liked Minigore a lot when it first came out, and since our initial review, an onslaught of updates have been released adding all kinds of new characters and features. There's even a iPad Minigore HD [$4.99] if you're an iPad owner looking to get your 'gore on. Mountain Sheep isn't discussing any release date estimates for episode 4 yet, but if you want to stay on top of all things Minigore, follow the Minigore blog or stop by the thread in our forums.

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Back at E3 we first heard rumblings from Rovio regarding finally updating the iPad version of Angry Birds [iPhone: 99¢ / Free - iPad: $4.99]. It landed on the App Store not too long ago, bringing a bucket full of content that owners of the iPhone version have already been enjoying.

These additions include the new boomerang bird, 45 new levels across 3 different themes, golden eggs, some new menus, and Crystal updates with new achievements. Of course, we've still yet to really see any iPad specific feature that makes the HD version worth picking up other than higher resolution graphics, but we're always keeping our fingers crossed for something cool coming in the future.

If this is the first you've heard of Angry Birds, and haven't been curious enough to download it after seeing it at or near the top of the iTunes top ten charts for quite some time now, take a look at our review. Angry Birds is a catapult game where you fling one of an array of different birds, each with a unique ability, at a set of pigs on the opposite side of the screen. With an excellent physics engine, Angry Birds is a game of precision and planning as you fling each bird to decimate the opposing pig forces.

The iPhone version is highly recommended, but until they implement some iPad-specific feature set that set it apart from its 99¢ counterpart aside from higher resolution graphics, I'd just stick with running the iPhone version at 2x. Of course, if you already own the HD version, don't waste any time mashing "Update" in iTunes. There have been some reports of the new update crashing in the Angry Birds HD thread in our forums and Rovio posted suggesting to reboot your iPad if you have issues. I haven't run in to any problems myself, but it's just something to be aware of.

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Giana Sisters [$4.99] was originally released all the way back in 1987 for the Amiga, C64, and similar platforms of the era. Surrounded by legal troubles due to its similarity with Super Mario Bros., the game was pulled almost as soon as it was released– Making original copies of the game highly valued by vintage video game collectors. In 2005, Giana Sisters made the jump to mobile phones, and a few years later found a home on the Nintendo DS following an extensive graphical overhaul.

Earlier this year, the sisters hopped platforms once again to the iPhone, and on July 9th will be jumping, tossing fireballs, and smashing bricks on the iPad. Developers Bad Monkee sent us a bunch of screenshots, and we're really excited to see the game in motion on our iPads.

We really liked Giana Sisters in our review, and later went on to award it a solid four star rating when we did our Best iPhone Games February 2010 round up. If this is the first you've heard of the game, if you like platformers with a classic feel, Giana Sisters is really worth checking out. If you own an iPad, hold off until the 9th to pick up the HD version.

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Earlier this month at Apple's WWDC 2010 in San Francisco, we had a chance to sit down with Julian Farrior and Dale Thoms of Backflip Studios, who brought us Ragdoll Blaster and Paper Toss, among others. The group has shown real App Store savvy, with eight of their 12 titles reaching the top five overall ranking. What's more, they're presently serving one million unique players per day.

In our time together, the folks from Backflip demonstrated four new titles — three free games along with the paid arcade shooter Tunnel Shoot, a collaboration between Backflip Studios and Team Phobic (Bounce On, Bounce On 2). We liked what we saw of them all, but it was the last that really had us excited — and now it's here. Tunnel Shoot [link] has recently gone live in the App Store.

Now, right off the bat — aside from anything relating to gameplay — Backflip / Team Phobic impress with Tunnel Shoot in that it's a Universal iOS game that graphically renders natively to all three iOS platform devices: the iPhone / iPod touch, the iPhone 4, and the iPad. Everybody wins, here.

Tunnel Shoot is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a tunnel shooter in the vein of N2O: Nitrous Oxide for the Playstation (and is somewhat reminiscent of the iPhone's own Boost 3D). The goal of the game is to survive as long as possible, travelling down a neon-vector tunnel while dodging obstacles, blasting enemies, and collecting green gems for points. You're placed in tilt-control of your craft — there are several to choose from, all of which can be visually customized — with a tap / hold mechanic for firing your blaster and bombs.

Your ship's blasters, when first activated, fire bursts of three bolts per shot, but as you hold down the fire "button," that soon drops to two bolts, and then to just a stream of single bolts. Let up on the button and your blasters quickly recharge and it's back to three bolts per shot. (Read: don't just lay on the fire button, folks.) You start off with one bomb which, when activated, flies down the tunnel destroying all enemies in its path. More are accumulated along the way. Your damage bar replenishes over time, and fairly quickly. A nice touch is that when you get blown up, the force of the explosion sends a destructive shockwave down the tunnel before you respawn.

The farther you go, the harder things get. After you get a little ways into the game, the obstacle layouts become rather complex. The arrangement of oncoming pylons and walls becomes difficult to visually comprehend between their appearance on the screen and their crushing impact with your ship. Here, I experience a definite advantage in playing on the iPad and, to a lesser extent, the iPhone 4 as compared to the earlier iOS devices. It's just easier to make out distant structures on larger and / or higher resolution displays. That said — the game is great on the older devices. I've, in fact, spent the most time with it on my 3GS.

As mentioned earlier, the game utilizes accelerometer-based tilt controls for steering. Tilt controls for fast paced shooters can often come up short, given their generally slower reaction time and lesser precision as compared to onscreen swipes. That's really not a problem in Tunnel Shoot as, although the action is intense, the velocity at which you're hurtling down the tunnel is a bit slower than that of some, similar games. I don't mean to indicate that it's some sort of "sluggish" or "laggy" affair, it's just that you're being challenged to dodge hither and yon, choosing your path and placing your shots wisely, as opposed to emphasis being on go, go, go!

The long and short of it is that Tunnel Shoot is a stylized shooter that feels very well implemented, delivers real challenge, supports all iOS devices natively, and costs $0.99. The only gripe I've got is that there's no real explanation as to the specifics, in-game — how the multi-blaster works, that green gems are good, that your damage repairs over time, etc. Nonetheless, it should be an instant buy for anyone that even approximates a shooter fan — especially if you've got multiple devices.

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As we mentioned late last month, everybody's favorite little yellow dot-eating friend just turned 30. Namco marked the occasion with a sale on most of their App Store PAC-MAN titles. Earlier this month the studio further celebrated the occasion with the release of PAC-Match Party for the iPhone [App Store], a PAC-MAN themed match-three title. This weekend an iPad version of the game, PAC-Match Party HD [App Store] landed in the App Store.

Now, if I had a nickel for every match-three title in the App Store, well, I'd have quite a few nickels. But PAC-Match Party stands out from the crowd thanks to a few nice innovations — and it's not just the retro gamer nut in me, giddy about the PAC-MAN tile set and spacey retro soundtrack. No, it's a pretty solid game, retro aside — as far as match-threes go.

Being a match-three title, the core mechanic is swapping tiles on the playfield to line up three-of-a-kind eliminations. But the whole thing is set against a ghost chasing PAC-MAN in the playfield border. Every match causes PAC-MAN to gobble a dot and move one space away from the ghost in pursuit. It's just a fancy way to present a timed match, but it's nicely done. What's more, a column of bonus tokens appears to the right of the playfield that, when tapped, performs certain power moves such as a row + column elimination and a sort of ghost attack.

The iPhone version of the game features a 5×8 play grid, while the iPad version sports a 10×8 arrangement, taking advantage of the device's larger display.

My only real complaint about the title is that, when next-move hints are enabled, they appear after just five seconds of idle time. That's offering up the goods pretty quickly. They can be disabled, happily, but it would be nice if the wait period there were 2-3x longer.

Those wanting to get a feel for the title can check out the free, Flash-based web version that lives here.

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Austin, Texas based iPhone developer Pangea Softwarehave been making video games since their inception in the late 80's. Originally targeting the Apple IIGS, Pangea has been hopping to each new Apple platform as they're released, this time tweaking their existing iPhone games to run at the native 960×640 resolution of the iPhone 4's Retina Display. As mentioned in our first impressions post on gaming with the iPhone 4, increasing the output resolution of existing games doesn't really add to gameplay at all… But it sure does look good.

Noteworthy games that have been updated include:

Enigmo – Starting its life as a Mac game, Enigmo is a physics puzzle game that was voted Best iPhone Game at WWDC in 2008. In the game you move various objects around the game board to direct water droplets to their destination. Levels start easy and get so hard you will be desperately searching Google for the solution. (App Store)

Enigmo 2 – This sequel takes the same basic gameplay of the original and adds a third dimension to the puzzles, which makes things even more difficult. Before long, you're not only routing water droplets around, but also laser beams. Both games are worth having, although you should probably start with Enigmo before adding the complexity of moving puzzle pieces in 3D in Enigmo 2. (Review, App Store)

Warheads – Warheads is basically Missile Command combined with one of those oddly elaborate 3D fireworks screensavers. The gameplay is classic Missile Command with four directions to defend from instead of just one. The eye candy combined with the frantic camera shaking as missiles are exploding make for a pretty cool experience, especially on the iPhone 4. (Review, App Store)

Nanosaur 2 – Also starting as a Mac game, Nanosaur 2 was ported to the iPhone in late 2008. It hasn't aged very well compared to Pangea's other games, but the premise of piloting a massive dinosaur from the future who is equipped with a massive arsenal of weaponry couldn't get much more ridiculous and/or awesome. (App Store)

I'm glad to see so many iPhone 4 Retina Display updates coming along, especially this soon after the launch of the device. These are just my favorite games of theirs, they have many other iPhone and iPad games on the App Store that are worth checking out as well.

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After an epic wait this morning, I managed to get my hot little hands on an iPhone 4. After rushing home and loading it up with every game I thought would be worth trying on the device, the results were somewhat predictable. The small handful of games that have been released or updated to with support for the Retina Display are gorgeous, and everything else both loads faster and performs better. If for any reason you were sitting on the fence trying to decide if upgrading to an iPhone 4 (or the presumed 4th generation iPod touch when it's released) is worth it for gaming, it absolutely is.

I know we're kind of beating a dead horse at this point, what with posting high-resolution screenshots of the few games that take advantage of the Retina Display already, but the quality of the screen is truly something you need to see with your own eyes to fully appreciate. I was at the WWDC keynote, heard everything Steve had to say about it first hand, spent the following weeks wondering what it was going to be like, and it still exceeded my expectations. The pixels are so tightly packed on the 3.5" screen that games running at 960×640 look more like screenshot renderings you'd see in some kind of a magazine advertisement than any actual game you've played before.

Being unable to distinguish individual pixels really does make things look like they're just printed on the screen. Flight Control [99¢] is unbelievably crisp, and while better graphics doesn't change the gameplay in the slightest, the difference is even more amazing when I run the game side by side both on my new iPhone 4 and old iPhone 3GS. 3D games like Real Racing [$4.99] look absolutely fantastic, and even run at a great frame rate to boot.

One thing that is apparent in these 3D games is that while the output resolution has been increased, the polygon count of the in-game models seems to have remained the same. This can make blocky models stand out even more, and while it wasn't much of an issue in Real Racing, the low-detail players in the recently releasedNCAA Football HD [$7.99] really do stick out like a sore thumb as their little 3D stick legs prance about the field. I expect this to improve over time, as both of these games were likely quick and dirty upscale jobs. 3D games designed from the get go with the iPhone 4 in mind in the future will likely be where the true eye candy is.

Speaking of EA's NCAA Football HD, having yet another platform for developers to target could lead to an even messier App Store. It's too early to really tell how this is going to play out, but currently it seems EA is content splitting their releases in to a normal release for the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and the iPod Touch along with a "HD" release for the iPhone 4, and finally a "for iPad" release for the iPad. This gets even more confusing when you consider how many developers are already labeling things as "HD" for the iPad even though technically speaking neither the iPhone 4 or the iPad are a HD device. Let's all just cross our fingers that developers eventually just settle on single universal releases of their games as I'm sure everyone would rather deal with larger file sizes than potentially purchasing the same game three (or more) times.

Currently the best demonstration of the new gyroscope controls available on the iPhone 4 is ngmoco's Eliminate: Gun Range [99¢]. While the game is just a basic shooting gallery, controlling your aim both by tilting the iPhone 4 as well as moving it about in 3D space is worth 99¢ for the novelty alone. Real Racing also has gyroscope controls but overall they didn't make much of a difference compared to the regular version.

After fiddling around in both games, however, I was really am impressed with just how precise the sensor inside the iPhone is… Although the current implementations feel a tad gimmicky at this point instead of really adding any real benefits to gameplay similar to the iPhone 3GS compass-controlled games. To be fair, we don't believe either Firemint or ngmoco had actual devices in hand to test these games with, and it stands to reason that each implementation will improve once they're able to work outside of the iPhone simulator.

Just like 3D games that fully harness the power of the A4 chip, I expect it will also be a while before developers realize what's possible with the gyroscope. There's definitely some amazing potential waiting to be unleashed here, and maybe not even by using the gyroscope strictly as an input method. For instance, I suspect using gyroscope data could even allow you to play tilt controlled games in a moving vehicle, though haven't gotten confirmation on that possibility.

As far as older games running on the iPhone 4, they load tons faster, so much so that many of my favorite simple games (obligatory Doodle Jump [99¢] plug) have almost no load time at all. Also, unlike the iPad where running games in 2X mode makes most games look blurry or blocky, since the screen size in the iPhone 4 is identical all the old games look just like they did on the previous iPhones. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say they look a little better as often times text is rendered at the higher resolution, and the Retina Display has better color reproduction.

In my initial tests, the battery life on the iPhone 4 seems in line with what Apple has been boasting, and I've both been able to play games and use my phone for other tasks with substantially less drain on my overall battery percentage. None of my tests have been that scientific, but practically everyone with an iPhone 4 is reporting similar battery experiences. A bigger battery obviously means more play time, and who doesn't want that?

Overall the iPhone 4 is most definitely a worthy upgrade for any serious App Store gamer. I'm sure we'll see a similarly specced out iPod touch this fall (or potentially even sooner) that might be worth waiting for if you dislike AT&T, but overall I've been extremely happy with my day of gaming on the iPhone 4.

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In the midst of the excitement of the iPhone 4 launch today, EA launched its NCAA Football game for iPhone. In a somewhat surprise move, EA has released two different versions to the App Store. One for the usual iPhone/iPod touch market and one that's specifically rendered for the iPhone 4's high resolution Retina display. The iPhone 4 version of the game costs a dollar more ($7.99) than its standard counterpart ($6.99).

We're not sure why they choose to confusingly name the iPhone 4 counterpart as an "HD" title which has up until this time been reserved for iPad versions. One interesting side effect of having two different versions like this is that we are able to do direct screenshot comparisons of the "pixel doubled" regular version and the full resolution version on our brand new iPhone 4s.

We haven't yet had a chance to delve too much into the game, though on first blush it appears similar to their Madden NFL 2010 title.

Now, as for the screenshots and comparison. First, everything you've heard about the iPhone 4's Retina display is true – it looks amazing. And games optimized for it also look amazing. The problem is it's impossible to really tell based on screenshots, you need to see it in real life. But, absent that, these comparison shots are probably the next best thing.

Left: Pixel Doubled on iPhone 4, Right: Native resolution on iPhone 4

You need to click to the full size versions to appreciate the difference. But the blockiness apparently in the standard versions are apparent when playing on the iPhone 4. It'll be hard to go back to regular iPhone gaming after you start playing on an iPhone 4.

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