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Last month we reviewed Mad Skills Motocross [99¢], a fast-paced 2D side-scrolling motocross racing game. We enjoyed the title quite a bit as it had sharp graphics, plenty of different tracks, a nice online challenge system through OpenFeint, and above all else a stellar physics system. One problem many players commented on though was the immense difficulty of completing the single player campaign. The game started out simple enough as it eased you into the gameplay mechanics, but about a third of the way through the career mode the difficulty ramped up pretty quickly, and due to the requirement of completing every race in a division before unlocking a new division many players found themselves unable to progress.

Developer Turborilla heard these cries for help, and have rushed in to save the day with the latest update to Mad Skills Motocross. There is now an Amateur difficulty setting in the options that offers an easier AI opponent to race against, and your bike can withstand more damage before breaking as well. If you liked the original difficulty don’t worry, as the Pro option keeps things the same as they were before. Also, a previous update made it so you only needed to beat all but 2 of the races in a division to unlock the next, thus making it easier to move on if you got stuck on a particularly hard race.

Besides these difficulty tweaks, Turborilla has added an interesting new feature that adds to the competitive nature of Mad Skills Motocross. Before, you could set a time on a race and then send off a challenge to one of your OpenFeint friends for them to try and beat. Now, you can actually choose any of the scores on the leaderboards and take a crack at beating that person’s ghost. Or you can simply watch the replay of how that score was attained, possibly gleaning some tips from how they completed the course. This new functionality is a really nice addition to such a score-focused game, and it makes competing with the best players in the world more accessible to everyone.

I liked Mad Skills Motocross before, but I do admit I had my fair share of moments where I felt like throwing my iPhone across the room due to the difficulty. The new Amateur mode makes things significantly easier, and consequently more fun, and the Pro mode is still there for when I feel ready to take on that challenge. The new ability to challenge ghosts from the leaderboards adds a whole new layer of competitiveness to the game, and I even enjoy just watching some of the top times and marveling at the skill of those elite players. With these past two updates, Mad Skills Motocross has easily become my favorite racing game of this kind, and if you haven’t checked it out yet now is the perfect time as it’s currently on sale for just 99¢ for a limited time.

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If you weren’t paying attention to iOS gaming last Summer, then you may have missed a total gem called Pix’n Love Rush [99¢]. The best way to describe Pix’n Love Rush is to say that it’s the platforming genre’s answer to WarioWare. The goal is to run, jump, and shoot your way through various bite-sized platforming sections that appear quickly one after the other. As you scored well and built up your multiplier, the “skin” of the game would change to one of 7 different retro-gaming themes.

The action was frantic and fun in Pix’n Love Rush, and we really enjoyed the game in our review from last June. We also recommended it as a game to get in our 2010 Buyer’s Guide, I chose it as one of my personal favorites of 2010, and Apple even recognized it as one of “The Best Games You’ve Never Played”.

So while pretty much everyone had been enjoying the heck out of Pix’n Love Rush, it never really got any of the updates that had been talked about by the developers in our forums. It was updated last September with Game Center achievements and leaderboards, and a native iPad version called Pix'n Love Rush DX [$1.99] was released in December that included a few additional features, but none of the promised additional modes were ever added to the timed 5 minute and endless modes in the game.

Now, more than 8 months after the initial release, the iPhone version of Pix’n Love Rush is finally getting some update love. The big new addition in this latest update is an endless runner type of game called Cursed Rush. Here you automatically move to the right as you jump from platform to platform as they disappear from under your feet. There are five difficulty levels in this new mode, each with their own set layout of platforms. Scoring is based on the percentage of the level that you complete, so in this way it doesn’t really seem “endless” though I’m not totally sure what happens when you reach 100%.

Besides the Cursed Rush mode which is proving to be a ton of fun, there are a number of other welcome additions in this update. The menus have been redesigned and are more streamlined, and the long-awaited ability to flip the screen has finally been added. Also the controls feel much tighter, and you can now pause the game and move the virtual buttons around to better suit you, which is fantastic as I’ve always felt the jump and shoot buttons were too far apart. Finally, and best of all, there are two blank options on the mode selection screen that hint at additional modes to come soon (and one “not so soon”), so I’m really excited to see what’s in store next for Pix’n Love Rush.

If you already own the game then hurry to your iTunes and grab this latest update. If you’ve never heard of Pix’n Love Rush, it comes highly recommended if you like platforming games, high scoring challenges, or awesome retro graphics.

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Last month at Macworld 2011 I spent some time playing with XMG Studio’s latest game Cows vs Aliens [99¢], and yesterday it became available for download in the App Store. Cows vs Aliens is a super casual high scoring game that uses a gameplay mechanic that struck me as especially unique. I enjoyed my ten minutes or so of playing Cows vs Aliens at Macworld, but now that I have the full game in my hands I’m liking it even more and finding it especially hard to put down.

In Cows vs Aliens, waves of cows will appear from the bottom of the screen and it’s your job to herd them into the barn opening located at the top of the screen. Touching the screen creates a circular barrier of sorts, and you’ll use these to push the cows along in the right direction. Making this task more difficult are aliens that begin to appear in saucers along with the cows at the bottom of the screen. You’ll need to weed these aliens out from the pack of cows and push them off the sides of the screen into oblivion, and if even one makes it into your barn then it’s game over.

Those are the basics, but there are additional aspects in Cows vs Aliens that add depth and strategy to the gameplay. Each wave requires you to herd a certain amount of cows into the barn all whilst a clock is ticking away. The clock resets each time you complete a wave, but the number of cows required increases with each wave and the timer can easily tick away if you’re not paying attention. There are also harder types of aliens that will begin to appear as you progress. The initial aliens are pretty slow and easy to shove off the side, but later aliens are quicker and more aggressive, and aren’t so willing to be pushed around.

The real hook in Cows vs Aliens is the scoring system. Cows come in several varieties, and are worth between 10 and 50 points each when wrangled into the barn. Herding a group of cows into the barn at the same time adds a multiplier to the scoring that increases with each successive cow captured. Being patient and letting a huge group of cows amass before herding them inside can earn you some insane scores, but it also gets decidedly more difficult to weed out the aliens when they’re in the middle of a big bunch of cows. Pushing cows off the sides while trying to dispatch aliens won’t count against you, but it does deplete the amount of cows you can use to score with.

The controls in the game just feel good, and there’s something very fun about pushing around a herd of cows. The natural inclination is to use two thumbs to push cows from the outer edges towards the middle of the screen, but Cows vs Aliens utilizes multitouch which can prove very beneficial if used wisely. You can create up to 5 points of contact on the iPhone, and up to 11 on the iPad. While I generally stick to the two thumbs approach it can be really helpful to stick an extra finger or two onto the screen when a pesky alien is trying to sneak into my barn. This can result in what resembles a game of finger Twister as things get increasingly more hectic. It’s definitely a lot of fun.

If I had to come up with one negative about Cows vs Aliens, it would be that it’s really just a one-trick pony. There’s only the one mode with wave after wave of cows where the goal is to get a high score. Still, it doesn’t make it any less fun and I’ve been hooked on trying to rise up the ranks on the Game Center leaderboards. Some of the best high scoring games around, like Doodle Jump [99¢] or Canabalt [$2.99], rely on a single type of gameplay and I think that Cows vs Aliens has found a similar winning formula. The game is also really cute, with colorful Retina Display graphics and a catchy tune. Coupled with the interesting control mechanic and compelling scoring system, Cows vs Aliens has totally reeled me in.

You can head over to our forums for a discussion about the game and further impressions, and if you’ve got an extra dollar floating around and enjoy high score-based survival games then I’d suggest hoofing it on over to the App Store and checking out Cows vs Aliens.

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Back in early December, Gameloft revealed the latest entry in their series of highly inspired takes on established franchises called Starfront: Collision, a real-time strategy game that takes more than a few cues from Blizzard’s insanely popular Starcraft series. After hitting a slight delay from its intended release date last week, Starfront: Collision [Free] is now live in the App Store. Like Gameloft’s previous release Sacred Odyssey [Free/HD], Starfront can initially be downloaded for free and provides a short taste of the game, with a $6.99 IAP to unlock the full version.

Typical of many RTS games, Starfront features 3 playable races who are all in a battle over the rare resource Xenodium that is found on the planet of Sinistral. There is the human race known as the Consortium, a hostile alien race called Myriad, and a sentient robot race called the Wardens. The full version of Starfront features a 20 level campaign that is split into 3 sections which has you playing as a different race during each one.

Additionally there is a skirmish mode with 7 maps to play on and a multiplayer mode that features both local and online play for up to 4 people. Unfortunately, since the game has only been out for a few hours I haven’t been able to find an online match to test it out. Hopefully in the coming days the servers will fill up as more people buy the game. While a decent sized campaign and a skirmish mode are nice features on the single player front, strong multiplayer is what will really give Starfront longevity.

One of the biggest issues with RTS games on the iPhone is being able to have controls and UI that work on such a small screen. I’ve only spent limited time with Starfront, but it seems that they’ve nailed it pretty well on this front. Navigating the terrain and setting up any of the 8 different structures is a snap. There are 10 different unit types for each race, and for the most part they are easy to control. It can be a bit difficult to select certain units because they appear so tiny on the screen, but there are some nice advanced features like assigning units to groups for quick selection or creating a selection box by pinching the screen with two fingers. With a bit of practice and some forethought, navigating and commanding your army isn’t a problem.

A game like Starfront is really hard to judge off of brief impressions, since it will take many hours of play to determine how balanced each race is and stress test the online multiplayer servers. That said, my first impressions of Starfront are really good. We’ll definitely put the game through its paces in the coming days, but seeing as it’s free to download initially I can definitely recommend checking it out. Just be aware that it’s a 680mb download and requires a 3rd generation device or above.

The free version of Starfront gives you access to 4 tutorial levels that do a wonderful job at explaining how to play, and the first mission of the campaign. A $6.99 in-app purchase will then unlock the remaining 19 campaign levels, skirmish mode, and multiplayer. There are a ton more impressions rolling into our forums which have been largely positive, and there is a dedicated thread to finding online opponents and discussing strategies. I like what I’ve seen of Starfront so far, and it’s worth trying out the free version if you’re a fan of real-time strategy games.

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Well it's Wednesday again, which means many things, but in the world of iOS it means one thing: A tidal wave of game releases. If you recently picked up a Verizon iPhone, and haven't yet experienced a App Store Wednesday, here's how it works- Developers can set specific release dates for their various games and apps on the App Store. Games released today had their dates set to 2/17/11. The trick is, these games are released internationally, as the clocks in each region tick over to actually being the 17th. This allows us to get an early heads-up on what's coming out, before things are actually released on the US App Store at 11:00 PM EST.

Here's what's going to be available:

Starfront: Collision, Free + $6.99 IAP – [Forum Thread] – I've spent many sleepless nights hoping for Blizzard to actually release a legit iOS port of StarCraft, and while I hate to continue using the "Well, at least I appreciate Gameloft bringing a game we'll never see on the App Store as a clone!" excuse… I have to. I'm a little more excited for the eventual and inevitable release of Starfront: Collision HD, but impressions for the iPhone version of the game have been positive so far in our forums. I can't wait for people to start downloading and playing this game, as the online four player multiplayer sounds like it could be excellent.

Back to the Future Ep. 1 HD, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – Words can't fully express how much I love the Back to the Future trilogy, so naturally, any video game (save that horrible NES game) based on the series gets me totally excited. This game has already been released on both the Mac and PC, and has additional episodes in the pipeline. We're going to be reviewing this ASAP to see how the iOS port is, as Telltale's track record of iOS releases hasn't exactly been spotless.

The Blocks Cometh, 99¢ – [Forum Thread] – We posted a preview earlier, but this game plays similar to The Incident in that your goal is to avoid falling blocks, and climb as high as possible. There is a free Flash version, but it looks like the iOS port is going to be great.

Volcano Escape, $1.99 – [Forum Thread] – This 2.5D platform-shooter has an interesting premise in that in each level you're trying to escape from a volcano. There seems to be a ton of weaponry, power-ups, and even online leaderboards and achievements.

Bug Wars, $1.99 – [Forum Thread] – An arcade style first person shooter of sorts where you must save the world from an invasion of… bugs? (Well, at least it's not another zombie game.) It looks like there's an impressive amount of weapons to use, and I admit, I'm a total sucker for any game that has massive bosses like the one found in the above trailer.

Ridge Racer Accelerated HD, Free + IAP – [Forum Thread] – Well, it's Ridge Racer, on the iPad. I would have hoped that a little more care would have gone in to this port, but judging by the screenshots, these are some seriously low resolution textures for a "HD" game. Regardless, if you can't get enough Ridge Racer, now you can have it on your iPad.

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I travel a ton, both for many of the conventions and events we cover on TouchArcade, as well as because staying in one place for too long is boring. Traveling a lot is liberating for many reasons, but mainly because you realize just how little of the stuff you own you actually need. Specifically, from a computing standpoint, I've got my entire infrastructure down to a single laptop bag which houses absolutely everything I need for TouchArcade and all other things I use my computer for.

When bag space is at a premium, you rarely have room for any "unitasker" as Alton Brown puts it, which sadly leaves many traditional gaming accessories without a place in my mobile arsenal. I've made a special exception for the Fling iPad joysticks, but I haven't had an actual USB gamepad for ages. Normally this isn't much of an issue, but since 2011 is the 25th anniversary of both the Metroid and Zelda series, I've taken it upon myself to replay both series in emulators as carting my originals (and associated consoles) around just isn't realistic.

This is where Joypad [$2.99 / Lite] comes in. Utilizing a small iOS app combined with a companion program running on your Mac or Windows PC, you can use your iPhone as a game controller. Setup is simple, and basically just amounts to having both your computer and iPhone on the same wireless network while having both the iOS app and the companion program running. In the Joypad Connect computer program you'll then select one of the pre-sets for mapping buttons to keys, then select your iOS device from the list of devices and you'll be good to go. If you're playing an emulator or game that uses different keys, you can create a new profile for that, and go to town mapping the controls it uses to the virtual buttons of Joypad. It all works really well.

This will be somewhat obvious if you've played the various emulated games that Sega has released on the App Store, and other classic titles released by other developers… but often times these classic games simply require the precision and tactile feedback of a real controller. So, how well Joypad works is largely dependent on two factors: 1. How good you are at handling virtual controls. 2. The control demands of the game you're emulating and whether or not those will even jive with Joypad. Specifically, games that require super-precise D-pad dancing aren't so great. Also, games that require you to hold down more than two buttons can be hit or miss depending on what buttons they actually use and how often you need to use that button combination.

Another issue I've randomly run in to is that Joypad is highly dependent on a low-latency WiFi network. It has worked great in most locations, but this week I've been staying in an area of Barcelona with so many WiFi networks that my menu to select them on my Mac scrolls for ages. With the local WiFi signal spectrum this jam packed, I've had issues just browsing the Internet, so it's not much of a surprise that Joypad also suffers. I don't expect this to impact most people, but if you live in a super-crowded urban environment just be aware that your game controls will only perform as well as your local WiFi climate will allow.

That being said, Joypad is without a doubt one of my favorite non-game apps that I've tried lately. Sure, it was released almost a year ago now, so it's very existence will likely be old news for some. However, if you're like me and never really had reason to look for something like Joypad before, now you know about it. $3 for the app is also considerably cheaper than any worthwhile USB gamepad, and while it is by no means a substitution for real physical controls, it sure is a great travel companion.

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If you were hanging around the arcades back in 1983 (and I’m willing to bet at least some of you were), then you probably remember the classic game called Tapper. In Tapper it was your job to man several counters in a bar and rapidly serve drinks to approaching patrons, while simultaneously collecting their empty glasses before they slide off the end of the counter and shatter all over the floor. Tapper was an extremely fast-paced game and notoriously difficult, and it is also well known for originally being sponsored by Budweiser and featuring their logo throughout the game.

This aspect of Tapper didn’t go over too well though, as it’s common knowledge that kids love video games (as do adults!) and placing a game laden with Budweiser branding in arcades that are crawling with children is generally frowned upon. The next year, Tapper was rechristened as Root Beer Tapper and featured nearly identical gameplay minus the Budweiser logos and with root beer as the beverage being served. Root Beer Tapper is the game that is more commonly recognized out of the two as it went on to receive various home console ports and has been included in numerous retro compilations.

Recently, it was announced that Warner Bros. and developer Square One would be releasing a brand new version of the Tapper franchise for iOS called Tapper World Tour. Tapper World Tour will retain the same basic gameplay elements of the original Tapper and Root Beer Tapper but will have you working in bars around the world, and instead of just serving your average beer to patrons you’ll be serving drinks that are appropriate to the locale that you’re working.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the original Root Beer Tapper 1984 arcade game and Tapper World Tour on an iPhone 4 (click images to enlarge)

Perhaps the most exciting development from Tapper World Tour is that the game is being drawn and animated by the legendary Don Bluth, who has worked on countless classic animated films for studios such as Disney and Fox but is immediately recognized by gamers as the artist behind classic laserdisc arcade games Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace. You can check out Tapper World Tour in action in the first trailer for the game:

The developers aren’t getting any more specific about a release date beyond “within the coming months” but we do know they will have a playable build of Tapper World Tour at GDC which starts at the end of this month. We’re eager to get our hands on the game to see how the new version plays out on iOS. Personally, a touch screen seems like a perfect place to slide beers down a counter towards thirsty drinkers, but I have no idea if that is actually the mechanic used in the game. Make sure to check out the official Facebook page for Tapper World Tour and we’ll bring you more information on the game just as soon as we get it.

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This might be a long shot, considering this event seems to be overrun by Android and other non-iPhone mobile devices, but I will be at Mobile World Congress all week this week in Barcelona, Spain. In addition, I will be on two panels of sorts this coming Thursday, one announcing the winners of the International Mobile Gaming Awards and a second "live pitching session". If you happen to be in Barcelona either for the event, or just because you happen to live in the area, I'd love to meet up with you if you've got something new, cool, and/or exciting to show off.

If you'd like to schedule a meeting, send an email off to tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include "MWC 2011" somewhere in the subject so it properly gets filtered in my inbox. Keep in mind, I'm very much a typical American and really only speak fluent English. If you don't (wait, how are you reading this?) I'm still totally willing to meet up, but communication might be difficult.

For everyone else not at the event, I'm really not sure what to expect. I've been told this is the "CES of mobile phones". I sort of thought CES was the CES of mobile phones, but you never know. If I see anything neat on the show floor that pertains to iOS on any level, you can look forward to finding out about it on TouchArcade. The show hasn't even started yet and I've already seen some flat out insane Tegra 2 tech demos, and I seriously can't wait to see what is coming in the next round of Apple hardware if it's anything like that.

Here's Galaxy on Fire 2 running on the Tegra 2 chipset:

That's just crazy for a mobile device.

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Here's another one for the oldschool gamers out there, especially those on the other side of the pond. Elite has just released Matthew Smith's well loved UK home computer platformer Jet Set Willy for the iPhone and iPad in the form of the emulator-based, standalone titles Jet Set Willy: ZX Spectrum [link] and Jet Set Willy: ZX Spectrum HD [link].

Originally released for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1984, Jet Set Willy is a sequel to the similarly popular UK classic Manic Miner and involves guiding Miner Willy around his massive mansion (60 screens in all) in an effort to clean up the place, collecting various items strewn about it during a party the previous night so that his housekeeper will let him into his bedroom to get some much needed sleep.

The game was typically played via keyboard directional controls way back when, and on iOS devices is controlled via tap (below the action in portrait, overlaid in landscape), but with a bit more flexibility than the typical iOS D-pad touch game, thanks to Elite's customizable "iDaptive" control system. Both iOS versions of the game offer the standard play mode as well as an infinite lives mode for the weak.

In addition to these standalone versions of the game, Jet Set Willy will soon be arriving as part of a downloadable content pack for Elite's ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection [iPhone, iPad], as did Manic Miner [iPhone, iPad] following its standalone iOS release. TV-out is expected for all of the mentioned Elite titles in a future update.

Jet Set Willy, in all of its color clashing goodness, is certainly not much to look at today, but rendered out in those 15-colors are some insanely difficult platformer challenges. And, after the first few minutes, you're eyes will stop bleeding, I promise.

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DeceasedPixel has just dropped the price of their universal iOS game (for iPhone, iPad) Super Mega Worm [App Store], a pixellated take on JTR's Death Worm, to zero for a limited time in celebration of the release of the game in the Mac App Store [link] and the launch of the Verizon iPhone.

Super Mega Worm opens with an 8-bit retro cutscene explaining how humans have consumed the earth, and how mother nature now has a bone to pick with us. She tasks her favorite pest exterminator, Wojira the Death Worm, with wiping humans from the earth and restoring balance to the force…you get the idea. It's a nice little setup for the mayhem that is the hallmark of the giant worm game, and an introduction to the glorious mario-like pixel art.

We enjoyed the game in our review back in August and are happy to report that most of the issues we encountered way back when have been addressed in updates from the developer.

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