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Last week we posted about Secret Exit dropping the price of Zen Bound 2 [$2.99] and submitting an update to add universal compatibility along with all kinds of new visual effects and other tweaks. Zen Bound 2 now uses full OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics on 3rd generation devices and newer which means even better shadows and lighting effects as well as even more detailed paint spread. When playing on the iPad, the random framerate drops have been completely fixed, and the game even performs a little better too. Also, third generation iPod touch and iPhone 3GS users will see incredibly smooth visuals with full anti-aliasing, and Zen Bound 2 looks simply incredible on the Retina Display of the iPhone 4.

If you were waiting for any reason, now is an absolutely fantastic time to pick up Zen Bound 2. It is filled with relaxing gameplay supplemented by one of the best (if not the best) soundtrack I've heard in an iPhone game, and the gameplay mechanic of rotating string around a 3D object to cover it in paint works phenomenally with the multi-touch controls of iOS devices– and even more so when you throw the gyroscope of the iPhone 4 in to the mix. Zen Bound 2 is the best looking game I've played on my iPhone 4, as Secret Exit's knack for creating lifelike textures and lighting effects is perfectly paired with the Retina Display to create an experience that looks nearly photorealistic, a term I never thought I'd ever use to describe an iPhone game.

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Back in April of last year we ran a story about mobile developer ZodTTD's announcement of the forthcoming platform puzzle adventure game Wizzley Presto and the Mysterious Time Machine. What made the project interesting was the fact that the developers set a goal to complete the development of the game within 30 days, publicly documenting their progress along the way at 30daygame.com.

A cool element of this project is the blog. We are doing this game in 30 days, from an idea to a finished product for AppStore. Best of all we’re showing all of what is involved along the way. Expect lots of interesting posts for all those who wonder what it’s like programming a game on the iPhone & iPod Touch!

Early this month the game (renamed Wizzley Presto and the Vampire's Tomb) went live in the App Store [link]. But hey — wait a minute — that's a lot more than 30 days! I contacted the developers to find out what gives.

I spoke with project programmer Craig Rothwell, who also happens to be the person behind the OpenPandora handheld and the iControlPad iPhone accessory. He indicates that he achieved "mission accomplished" within 30 days, as planned, but the decision was made to expand the title into something overall more complete.

We did indeed complete the 30 day game but it was rather nice and we decided rather than releasing it then as a 'tech demo' we would like to make it bigger and better.

Now one thing a lot of people don't realise is that 90% of 'full' games which have development started are never finished, team members get bored, people move to other projects, the steam runs out and the 'on no! real work!' syndrome starts. Fortunately I've worked on games before (for the Gameboy color and GBA) so I knew how to just knuckle down and get on with it, sleepless nights and all.

So over the space of 8 months we worked on a proper plot, scenes, monsters and dialogue.

By Christmas 2009, the game was ready to go — as developed and tested in the iPhone simulator — but, when it was loaded onto an actual device, it didn't work. (The simulator is not the perfect testing ground…) Work began to get the game running on actual metal, and in March a few extra features (such as egg throwing) were added in before submission to Apple. And, after a rejection / resubmission snafu, Wizzley Presto has landed in the App Store.

It's a pretty nice title, actually. It features extremely impressive oldschool artwork reminiscent of  by pixel artist Ruckage along with a nice audio track. The goal of the game is to traverse screen after screen of obstacle, puzzle, and enemy-laden platforms, by way of button touch controls, in order to make it through all three "chapters," each bringing a save point. It's not so much a Turrican or Mario affair, but more a modestly-paced puzzle solving experience reminiscent of the classic Dizzy series. Stand on a switch to activate a sliding bridge, find the appropriate tool to make it past an obstacle, etc. Less arcade action and more problem solving. Kind of a Babylonian Twins — without the twins, to reference an existing iPhone title.

Wizzley Presto and the Vampires Tomb is lovely, clever, and quite enjoyable. I'm pleased the team took the extra time needed to build the game up to its current form. And, if you have what it takes to be the first to finish the challenge, the developers have a $1,500 prize waiting for you.

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Famous Japanese shoot 'em up developer Cave recently revealed that Do-Don-Pachi Dai-Fukkatsu will be released this summer, joining Espgaluda II [$8.99 / Free on the App Store. With similar bullet hell gameplay to Espgaluda II, which we enjoyed in our review, Do-Don-Pachi Dai-Fukkatsu will share the same limitations in only running on the latest generation of iPhone and iPod touch hardware, unfortunately leaving first and second generation iPod touch users as well as original iPhone and iPhone 3G owners left out once again.

Cave isn't discussing pricing yet, and they're not getting any more specific than "Summer 2010" for a release date. Either way, while I'm sure quite a few people have never heard of this game series before those who have, will likely be very excited.

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RatRod Studio, the creators of Mike V: Do or Die [$2.99] recently released their second game on the App Store. Drift Mania Championship [99¢], as the title would imply, is a racing game that emphasizes on drifting. If you've never played a game that requires drifting, or have never been an irresponsible freshly-licensed teenager behind the wheel of a car in an empty wet or snow covered parking lot, drifting is intentionally oversteering your car to lose traction in your rear wheels while going around a corner. When performed well, this results in awesome sideways sliding at high speed, or, when done poorly, ends in an embarrassing spinout.

Drift Mania Championship combines so many great things in to one racing game that I can hardly believe they're selling it at 99¢. Everything from collaborating with the DMCC Drift League, licensed music, a great physics engine, replays, online leaderboards, as well as multiple cars, difficulties, tracks, and a really well-done control system, makes picking up Drift Mania Championship should be a no-brainer to anyone interested in racing games.

Part of drifting any car, either in a video game or in real life, involves accurate control of your car's speed. Drift Mania Championship accomplishes this with a clever control setup where you steer your car by tilting, and control the accelerator by sliding your thumb up and down the right side of the screen. The lower left corner is home to a button to pull your car's hand brake, and keeping control of your car while maintaining speed and sliding sideways requires precise use of both. On your first race there is a brief tutorial that you read through that teaches you how to drift, and while it would be nice to have something a little more interactive, it does the trick. If you find yourself spinning out too often, just take it slow until you get a hang of exactly how much you need to steer in to turns to not lose control.

Three tracks are included along with three difficulty levels hidden away in the options. One car is unlocked initially, with an additional car unlocked for finishing first on each track as well as a fifth car for finishing first in all three tracks. Placement in the races is determined by your total score which seems to be computed by how long your drifts and how fast you're going with bonuses offered for style, chaining drifts together, and other things. At the end of each race you're shown a replay that highlights your best drifts, and you're given the opportunity to upload your score to the global leader boards which already seem to be loaded with scores that I'll never be able to beat.

The current down side to Drift Mania Championship is that while it's being sold as a universal game, it seems to be entirely broken on the iPad. As with the recent Trism update, Drift Mania Championship attempts to run at the native iPad resolution, but all the interface elements are out of whack which makes you unable to play the game. The game being released as universal seems to be unintentional, as the game's FAQ mentions a separate HD version being released later. Needless to say, if you plan on playing this game on your iPad, I'd avoid it for now.

If you don't care about the current lack of iPad compatibility, Drift Mania Championship is one of the better games I've played that rely on drifting your car around. The controls are great, and while it would be nice to have more than three tracks, there could be a sizable amount of replay value through unlocking all the cars and competing in the online leaderboards. Aside from the iPad issues, people on our forums are really enjoying the game, and as long as you plan on only playing it on your iPod touch or iPhone, Drift Mania Championship isn't hard to recommend, especially for 99¢.

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If you're anything like us and have been around through multiple device generations, tidal waves of freebies, 99¢ sales out the wazoo, and all the other contributing factors that have lead to the apps section of your iTunes library to be the same completely unmanageable pile of so many games you can barely scroll through them, you know how much of a challenge it is to keep up with the constant stream of updates to the various pieces of your app collection. While slamming a pepperoni-greased finger down on the "update all" button a few weeks ago, I missed a Sketch Nation Shooter [99¢] update which addressed my two major beefs with the game: I dislike anything that requires Facebook to work, as my Facebook is a holy place reserved for friends, family, and incessant Frontierville spam. Secondly, while the custom game sharing was amazing, finding anything quickly became impossible as more and more people submitted their creations.

If this is the first time you've read about Sketch Nation Shooter, you're in for a treat as it's a fantastic idea for an iPhone game. Basically, Sketch Nation provides the building blocks to create simple shooters and avoidance games. You literally draw your ship and the various enemies that will appear in game, photograph them, then as if through some kind of magic the game is able to analyze these photos and import your individual drawings in to the game world. Even if you're terrible at drawing, this entire process is a ton of fun.

If you're not interested in creating your own game (or have an iPod touch and are obviously incapable of photographing your drawings) there is an absolutely massive database of games that other people have created, freely available. Because the designers of these Sketch Nation creations are limited by the tools offered by the sandbox of the game itself, a lot of them feel very similar, but the creativity that has gone in to many of them (particularly the higher rated ones) is often astounding.

For more information on Sketch Nation Shooter, check out our review. You can get a ridiculous amount of play time out of this game if you get sucked in to the creations of others as well as your own and this recent update added a few DLC art modules so you don't even need to be able to draw at all if you'd rather just use the pre-packaged art for your games. With Facebook dependence a thing of the past, and an enhanced interface for browsing user-created games, Sketch Nation Shooter is now even easier to recommend.

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Late last week we reported that the new update to one of our favorite iPhone games, Jet Car Stunts, was in review and just waiting on Apple to give it the go ahead. Yesterday afternoon the update finally went live on the App Store, and as great as this news is for fans of the game, it also comes with some minor (temporary) disappointment.

First let's start with the good news, and that of course is the addition of 26 brand new levels that can be purchased within the app for $1.99. I've given the new levels a quick spin and they seem to be of the same high quality design as the original levels, and possibly even more so. There's no shortage of crazy jumps, loops, and even driving on ceilings in these new levels. Another nice feature is that the 8 levels that were previously exclusive to the lite version of Jet Car Stunts can now be downloaded for free in the full version. This may not be especially exciting to those who have played the lite version to death, but it's nice not having to have both icons taking up space on the springboard. Other improvements include iOS 4 support for anti-aliasing and fast app switching support for iPhone 3GS and 3^rd generation iPod touches.

As for the not-so-good news, the graphical enhancement that would have brought retina display support for iPhone 4 seems to have hit a bit of a snag in its journey to the App Store. While the other iOS 4 features are working flawlessly, something seems to have gone awry with the part of the update that was to add the retina display support. All is not lost though, as the developer immediately sprang to action, found and fixed the problem, and has already submitted a new update to Apple – all within a matter of hours. If all goes well with the approval process, this extra eye candy should be available within the next week or so.

One other very cool bonus with this latest update is the addition of a cheat menu. This menu gives you the option of a couple different vehicle colors, as well as the ability to unlock every level without having to beat all the previous ones. This is great news if you want to dive right into the different tiers of levels, and while I won't completely divulge how to access the cheat menu, I will say it's pretty easy to find if you “poke” around the right screen within the game. With the 36 levels of the original, 26 brand new levels available as DLC, and the 8 levels from the lite version, all together Jet Car Stunts has 70 available levels to test your platforming and racing prowess.

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Proud to be indie developer NimbleBit leaked some vague details to us this afternoon regarding their next iPhone game, Pocket Frogs. The story of Pocket Frogs starts back with their previous game, Dizzypad [iPhone: $1.99 / iPad: Free + DLC], a simple jumping game that we loved in our review which recently received an update adding in iOS 4 fast app switching and Retina Display support for the iPhone 4.

Figuring they'd make the various Plus+ awards a little more fun than just increasing your overall Plus+ gamer score, NimbleBit linked these awards with unlocking differently colored playable frogs. The unexpected side effect of this for NimbleBit was it turned out that for many players, the goal of playing Dizzypad for them was to unlock every frog rather than shooting for high scores as originally intended. NimbleBit released several updates to the game which added even more frogs, so when searching for inspiration for their next game, it seemed only natural to make a game with the sole purpose of collecting as many frogs as possible.

Pocket Frogs is a game of raising, breeding, and trading frogs. Each of your frogs will have three specific genetic traits that they inherit from their parent frogs, which according to NimbleBit will result in "many thousand possible emergent species." There are going to be multiple customizable habitats to raise your frogs in, and players will be responsible for keeping the frogs healthy, happy, and well fed by taking them out to explore the Pocket Frog pond.

Aside from breeding frogs, players will be able to get new frogs by ordering them in-game as well as trading frogs with friends via Plus+. There are also plans to have various challenges to breed certain frogs which rotate on a weekly and monthly basis and the frog store will rotate on a daily with new frogs to buy with in-game currency. NimbleBit is still hashing out plans on exactly how they're going to monetize Pocket Frogs, but have assured me that players will be able to access absolutely everything in game for free and whatever in-app purchases they finally decide on will be intended for serious frog breeders and otherwise entirely optional.

One of the core features of Pocket Frogs that NimbleBit feels has been missing from some many of these free social games is a full featured offline mode. If you're an iPod touch user, you will be happy to know that you can play Pocket Frogs without ever connecting to the Internet, you just won't be able to buy any of the in-app purchases or participate in frog trading while offline. Otherwise, you can breed your own little frogs to your heart's content, buy new frogs, and even participate in all the breeding challenges.

Pocket Frogs is currently being developed for all iOS platforms and will include Retina Display support. NimbleBit isn't getting specific with release dates yet, and instead have just told us to "expect to have a handful of little frogs this summer." We've yet to hear whether or not players will be able to release their army of frogs on unsuspecting virgin ecosystems, but for what it's worth, I've got my fingers crossed.

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Ever since we spotted the online first-person shooter Archetype in limited release, we'd been dying to try the game out. At long last, Archetype was released to the global App Store this past week to much fanfare and a huge marketing campaign. After finally getting our hands on it and spending some quality time playing, we can safely say that Archetype is one impressive game, and developer Villain has, for the most part, followed through on their promises for the title. That's not to say there aren't a few issues with it, or a wish list of things we'd like to see added, but all said, Archetype delivers one of the most robust, beautiful, and most importantly fun FPS experiences that can be had on the iPhone.

For starters, if you have Apple's new iPhone 4 then you are treated to some unbelievably crisp graphics. The textures that make up the levels and player models aren't the most detailed — which is fine, as this allows the game to run at an ultra-smooth clip — but, on the retina display, it really approaches a high definition console game running on the small screen. For all other devices, including the first generation of iPhones and iPod touches, the game is still very graphically impressive and maintains a solid framerate. The five stages available in the game are also visually quite nice, and are all indoor arenas with a high tech industrial look similar to games like Eliminate or the Halo series. It's not a groundbreaking style, but it gets the job done while maintaining good performance across all devices.

Controls in Archetype are a familiar dual analog stick setup that works well, though doesn't leave many options for players that prefer different control schemes. The two sticks are visually situated in the usual spots in the lower corners, but can actually be activated by touching nearly anywhere on either half of the screen. This lends itself well to people who like the “touch anywhere” or “swipe the screen to aim” mechanics of similar touch screen FPS games. Your weapon can be very quickly changed by touching the upper right corner and grenades are thrown by touching the upper left corner. A melee attack is performed by touching the bottom of the screen anywhere in between the two analog sticks, which is also where the radar is displayed. Minor options to invert the aiming axis or adjust sensitivity are available, but the default control scheme described is basically all you get. This isn't really a bad thing though, as they do work very well and are semi-flexible, but surely won't suit every single gamer.

An important thing to note is that this game is meant to be strictly an online affair, so if you are looking for a single player campaign or don't have any interest in online multiplayer then Archetype is not for you. There's a very basic offline mode where you can run through a timed training level taking out stationary cardboard cutout style targets — but that's it. Everything else is matchmaking against live opponents over a WiFi, 3G, or EDGE connection. If you're the type of person that loves online FPS multiplayer, then you're in for a treat. Archetype runs and plays near-flawlessly over all of these connections.

Starting the game will launch you into a lobby that is connected to the server closest to your region, although you can choose to play on any server you wish. The current servers are US East, US West, Europe, Asia, and South America. Matchmaking allows just under a minute to find opponents to match you with, and once the timer runs out the game will start with whatever number of players are in the lobby by that time. Archetype boasts up to five-on-five team matches, but in my experience this is a somewhat rare occurrence. More often I'd get into two-on-two or three-on-three matches on a regular basis, with a fair amount of four-on-four as well. The good news is that I haven't had any trouble quickly picking up a match during my time with the game (US West).

Actually playing matches in Archetype is a blast. The five maps are designed well and feature a nice mix of different elevations, passageways, teleports, and weapon drops. As with any good FPS game, learning the ins and outs of each map is really beneficial. Player movement is fast, and by default your weapon will auto-fire when an enemy enters your aiming reticle, although this can be disabled in the options. A radar at the bottom of the screen shows the position of enemies and teammates (and can also be disabled if you wish). The six weapons in the game run the usual gamut of assault rifles, a shotgun, a sniper-type weapon (minus the zooming capability), and a rocket launcher. Grenades are here as well, with a normal frag grenade as well as an awesome grenade that splits into multiple parts when thrown.

Rounding out your offense is the ability to melee with any weapon available, or even pick up a brutal battle axe that can be used exclusively for close combat. Melee can feel overpowered at times, as you can rush up on opponents and spam the button wildly usually ending up in a kill, although this can also leave you open to an easy counterattack from savvy players. The precision rifle feels a little too strong as well, able to kill players with only one or two shots across an entire map, thanks to auto-firing. While rockets and grenades are also strong, the proximity damage of these will kill you just as easily as the opposition, if you aren't careful. So, there may be room for improvement in the balancing of the weapons, but there are tradeoffs with each, so it's not been a huge issue and gameplay doesn't suffer much for it.

Matches are incredibly fast paced and combat heavy. The match length is determined by the amount of players, so a one-on-one match goes for just one minute, a two-on-two for two minutes, and so forth. Since the matches are so brief, there's not a lot of reason to camp or lie in wait to get the drop on other players. Instead, you'd better keep moving if you want to get a decent amount of kills.  The setup is also really well suited to mobile gaming, as you can quickly pop in and have a match or two with just a spare few minutes. The only available game type is team Deathmatch, with no sort of free-for-all or objective based gametypes like capture the flag available at this time.

With all the great fun to be had in Archetype, it's not without its issues. For the most part it runs incredibly well online no matter what type of connection you're on, but there's inevitably instances of minor lag or even games completely locking up and dropping out altogether. The lobby shows you your current ping rate, so you can have an idea of how solid your connection and that of other players will be. The two biggest points of contention I'm hearing from players in our forums is over the auto-firing nature of the weapons and the ability to actually do damage to your own teammates. Auto-fire can be disabled, but this can just put you at a disadvantage to everyone else who uses it. Teammate damage cannot be disabled, so you'll need to learn to be careful around your own team, especially with tossing grenades around.

My biggest complaint about the game, personally, is the lack of options in setting the parameters of matches. It's very easy to add friends in Archetype, either from the post game lobby following a match or by searching out usernames and sending requests. From your friend list you can then issue a direct challenge to up to 9 other players to engage in a private match together. It works extremely well, giving other players a push notification inviting them to the game, and accepting that notification launches the game and sends you directly into the lobby very smoothly. I would love to be able to set longer matches in these instances, or adjust other variables like weapon types and frag limits. To be expected, match performance can be hit or miss when trying to play with friends in other countries. As it is, the private match feature is extremely basic but is still a nice addition to the overall package.

See our gameplay video for a closer look.

If you've actually managed to read this far, chances are you're really interested in this type of game and, with that, I can wholeheartedly recommend Archetype to you. It does have a few issues, some of which only amount to personal taste, and it does want for variety or progression somewhat, as it is just team deathmatch over and over again. But it's still incredibly fun. It gives you a game that you can quickly jump into and play practically anywhere in a reasonably reliable fashion. It also avoids the two common complaints about its closest competitor, Eliminate, in that you just pay for the game when you buy it, without any sort of in-app purchasing involved, and you don't have to worry that other players' equipment will be more upgraded than your own. Everyone plays on a level field here and, although it's a bit simplistic, it does work wonderfully. If you're liking the sound of what Archetype has to offer, then don't hesitate to check it out. It's personally become my favorite iPhone FPS to date.

Note: Archetype is presently being advertised on this site, but it has no influence on our choice of coverage or the outcome of our reviews. See advertising and editorial policies for additional details.

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Back at E3 I sat down with the guys from TrueAxis to check out their upcoming game Space Tripper and get the low down on some upcoming Jet Car Stunts DLC. As you may recall, just before E3 was WWDC, during which Apple release the gold master for the then upcoming iOS 4 upgrade. Not long after, it was released, leaving TrueAxis now not only scrambling to finish the DLC pack, but also add in all the iOS 4 refinements they wanted to. After "some headaches," as they described it, the upcoming Jet Car Stunts update is currently in Apple's hands waiting for review.

This update is bringing an additional 26 levels available for a DLC purchase of $1.99, as well as the levels from the lite version being added to the full version for free. The previous impossible difficulty levels are now playable in casual mode. Best of all, Jet Car Stunts has been updated to not only have full screen anti-aliasing on both the 3rd generation iPod touch and iPhone 3GS, but also full Retina Display support on the iPhone 4.

If this is the first you've heard of Jet Car Stunts, you simply must check out our review. It's a platformer that's been cleverly disguised as a 3D racing game where you must use your jet car to overcome insane obstacles, jumps, loops, and other stunts. The visual style is delightfully retro, with extremely simple 3D models set on top of an endless sky. The game runs at an astronomical framerate, and is one of the few games we've awarded 5 stars since the inception of our ranking system.

You really can't go wrong with Jet Car Stunts, and with the addition of the upcoming DLC pack and other enhancements, this great game is getting even better.

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Last week we previewed developer Nine Pound Studios post-apocalyptic open world RPG Xenome: Episode 1, and the game has since been released worldwide. We've had a chance to give the game a spin, and while it's hard not to be impressed with the scope of the game, there was still a lot left to be desired. Xenome is an ambitious game, claiming 5 square miles of in game territory to explore with nary a load screen to be seen. And while this technically does hold true, it's at the expense of a poor framerate and occasional stutters while the terrain is being drawn.

In fact, due to the immense scale of the game, it's only currently playable on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, or 32 and 64GB 3^rd gen iPod touches. An update is in the works to make it playable on 2^nd generation iPod touches, but anything older than that will likely not be able to run Xenome. For those that are able to play, the gameplay wasn't particularly enthralling to me. Your character can equip different armors and weapons, and generally level up in traditional RPG fashion, though the combat seemed a bit tedious. There does seem to be a decent storyline to the game, but the presentation of this story amounts to walls of text. The draw distance is phenomenal but the landscape in general is somewhat barren.

This isn't to say that there aren't some good aspects about Xenome, and it's certainly offering a game unlike anything currently available for the iPhone. The developer's roadmap for the franchise is that Episode 1 and 2 of Xenome will be stand alone single player affairs, with Episode 3 being a full blown MMORPG, all set in this same game world. In that regard, Xenome: Episode 1 feels a bit like a working demo for what they have planned down the road.

The developers are actively discussing the game and further player impressions (both positive and negative) are being collected in our forums.

(Only works on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS or 32/64GB 3rd Generation iPod Touch)

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