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It's always surprised me when considering both how many games there are on the App Store combined with just how well the iPhone's tilt controls lend itself to the genre that we haven't seen more combat-oriented flight sims. While we had fun with both Ace Combat Xi and F.A.S.T., it has been nearly 2 years since their respective releases, and it is more than time for something new. Z2Live Games has decided to capitalize both on the recent lack of awesome combat-centric flight sims and how popular freemium gaming has been lately with MetalStorm: Online [Free].

Like most (all?) free to play games, it doesn't take long to get introduced to the in-app purchase system that fuels the whole thing. In the case of MetalStorm: Online, in-game coins and tokens are the name of the game when it comes to buying the jets you'll be flying, as well as tweaking them out with upgrades. You'll start out with enough credits to buy yourself a starter jet, although you're really limited to one of three that you'll be able to afford.

After picking up your first jet, you'll be ready to fly. In its initial release, MetalStorm: Online includes 3 game modes to choose from. You can either fight against continuous waves of AI-controlled opponents in either single player or co-op modes, or take the fight online via Game Center. Each game you play awards experience points as well as tokens which allow you to buy new jets, upgrades, and more.

The game's simple HUD compliments the controls very well, with virtual buttons for the various functions of your jets oriented intelligently on screen. They're both simple enough, and feel standard enough that if you try out MetalStorm: Online and you've played any other iOS combat sim you'll pick things up instantly. Evasion is handled in a clever way in MetalStorm with swipe-based gestures to perform various rolls, dodges, and quick turns.

While the previously mentioned single player mode is a fun way to learn the game, as the title hints, MetalStorm: Online was made to be played online. Game Center matches work well, and aside from a seldom rogue disconnect, connections have been perfect. Online dogfights can feel a little slow at time, as each of you are circling each other, but few games can rival the rush of a great matchup of an opponent with equal gear and skill… Which really leads me to my one major gripe about the game.

Each weapon you purchase with tokens or coins has an ammo count. Once that ammo runs out you'll either have to re-purchase them again using the tokens you've earned or downgrade to the standard weapons, which compared to the upgrade options are far inferior. You can still win matches against bettter equipped opponents using the basic weapons, but it is very difficult and can get quite frustrating. The game's match maker also doesn't seem to take into account the equipment level of your opponent, so it's not out of the ordinary to find yourself substantially outgunned by players who have invested in IAP.

MetalStorm: Online seems to be truly free to play in that you really can get all the important upgrades by earning the various in-game credits just by playing, but doing so would require some serious devotion to the game. Currently, you receive one coin per level up. In the early levels of the game, this takes around half a dozen matches. The best plane right now costs 300 coins, and saving up for that just by playing just seems unrealistic– Especially considering the whole time you'll likely be outgunned by people who are buying upgrades instead of stockpiling coins.

$5 worth of coins let me get a new plane and some missile upgrades which allowed me to absolutely dominate the matches I've played since, even going three in a row without dying once. Sadly, it seems buying IAP is basically required if you're at all interested in playing competitively online. Comparatively, before I bought my upgrades, I basically just joined games and got owned. I don't feel like I got substantially better in the skill department between the pre-IAP and post-IAP games, and the vast difference in performance feels directly related to dropping five bucks.

This alone would be annoying enough, but you never really feel like you even can save up your freebie tokens earned by playing because you have ton constantly be buying ammo for your weapon upgrades. This ammo system makes it feel like every time you make two steps forward in saving up for something cool without paying, you need to take a step back and buy some ammo to remain vaguely competitive.

The good news is, the whole in-game economy and how games are matched can be completely rebalanced, likely without even issuing an update to the game itself if MetalStorm: Online is running on a similar infrastructure as other freemium games. If that happens, MetalStorm would be an entirely effortless recommendation. Gameplay (when you're not getting totally smoked by people who bought better equipment) is a ton of fun, the graphics are great, and the controls work incredibly well.

Since it's free, you don't have much to lose by trying MetalStorm: Online. You might really enjoy grinding away in the game while slowly earning coins, making most of my IAP-related complaints a non-issue. I just can't escape the feeling that I'm being nickel and dimed for upgrades, ammo, and IAP doesn't seem anywhere near as optional as it should be in a PvP-driven online game where investing real-world dollars can make such a difference, essentially making the game less about skill and more about who has either spent more money or invested more time grinding up coins.

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Traditionally speaking, Ankama Games' Dofus series is best known for two iterations: the Flash-based MMORPG that was launched in 2004 and the Wakfu series of games which has seen iterations on Xbox 360 and an upcoming version for browsers. Dofus: Battles [$2.99 / HD] takes the pre-existing world and art style from the browser games and drops it onto iOS as a curious little tower, uh, dragon defense game with a set of RPG elements.

Despite the pedigree, you don't actually have to be familiar with Dofus to enjoy Dofus: Battles. Nor do you have to like MMORPGs, because this isn't one. It probably helps a bit to understand the character classes and items, but the uninitiated can pick it up quickly and without too much trouble.

Right out of the gate, after touching the horrendously designed icon, you'll be rewarded with a lavish visual style. The game takes the same three-quarters perspective, grid-based combat as its MMO lineage and despite a curious lack of retina support, character animations, menus and the interface are all well crafted, simple to use and nice to look at.

The game itself operates similar to Plants vs. Zombies, but the added RPG layer and the manner of unit variety means there is a different kind of strategy at play here. Instead of having a system where each unit counters the enemy evenly, you have a collection of twelve different heroes, half of which are support, the other offensive and you can choose any of them any time you want. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, level up over time, can be fully armored and outfitted, have gender options and varying areas of effect.

It's a bit complex, especially when you toss in an entire economy system where you can buy and upgrade armor, weapons and other trinkets. None of the units are remotely similar either — so choosing a unit type to use and when is integral to setting up your strategy.

At the beginning of each turn, you'll place your units on a grid. Enemies walk down the grid toward your side of the screen, where a dragon is hanging out — if they get there, it's game over. To stop the massive bestiary selection from infiltrating your personal space, your twelve heroes each have different abilities — from the grunt with a one-block range to chop with his sword, to the magician who can call down giant-teethed sheep, you'll have a huge diversity of tactical options and combos to choose from.

After you place your team on the grid, you'll push play and the first wave of enemies will come down for some automated real-time combat. There are two different modes, wave defense and timed defense. As your heroes kill off enemy units, you'll be rewarded with soul fragments — collect five and you can add another hero to the field.

There are 28 different levels in the game and before each match you can decide which of three difficulties you'd like tackle it on. Each difficulty will yield different amounts of experience points, monsters, soul points and rewards. It might seem like a cop-out, but the fact you can drop it down to an easier level in order to progress is incredibly helpful considering the game does seem to retain one facet from RPGs that people are likely going to love to hate: grinding.

It's not as bad as a traditional, fully-fledged adventure-RPG, but there are certain levels that are near impossible to get through without going back and cleaning up some of the earlier ones for a second or third time. That's not to say fans of knuckle biting strategy can't get through certain stages on lower levels, but for those looking to strategize less and use brute force instead, you can grind your characters up instead of overclocking your brain to get the strategy right. The difficulty levels change the gameplay enough to warrant these repeated attempts and you won't be able to use the same strategy on easy as you would on normal or high.

For fans of weird, tacked on mini-games, you won't be disappointed either. Almost without explanation the game also features an odd accelerometer mini-game where you dodge enemies and a rhythm/music game ala Simon Says. Thankfully you can skip those.

The only major complaint I have comes from the equipment screen. Throughout the game, you'll pick up weapons and items and you can buy them if you choose — but this is the only part of the game where the interface feels unhelpful. It's hard to properly compare items and their statistical difference is usually so slight it's hard to justify spending you money on a weapon that only adds one point to your attack score. To be blunt, it would be nice to have an auto-equip function for lazy people who don't feel like comparing stats for a hundred different items.

The high production values and ridiculously in-depth history, bestiary and other reading material alone is enough to make Dofus: Battles an easy recommendation, so it's nice the game itself is actually enjoyable. The difficulty spike can be frustrating at times, but as long as you enjoy experimenting with different strategies or grinding for XP, it won't be much of a bother. It's doesn't have the entry-level appeal of something like Plants vs. Zombies, but if you're looking for a bit more depth in strategy or slightly more open gameplay, you'll certainly get it here, even if it comes at the cost of a high bar of entry.

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At a glance, one might think Unit9's2 Nano Panda [99¢ / Free] is a not-so-subtle copy of Big Pixel Studios' Land-a Panda [99¢], but other than a striking similarity in the look of the icons and the existence of barrels in both games, they're wholly different experiences. Still, that one commonality — adorable animals existing in obstacle based puzzle games is an App Store trademark to say the least — but thankfully, Nano Panda rises above the clichés and offers something new.

Stylistically, it's a shoe-in for success based on its collect-three stars system, its adorable visuals and its single-screen puzzles, but even though it looks the part of so many games before it, Nano Panda offers enough innovation in its gameplay to keep if from disappearing among a sea of clones.

It might have been nice to get an absurd story to explain why you're tasked with launching pandas out of barrels and into evil atoms, but the game instead drops you immediately into it with little explanation as to why you're doing what you're doing –which is rocketing pandas to their death, either by accidently sending them flying into spikes or by tossing them into the atoms, which will complete the level for you.

There are two core systems at play here: a simple physics function where you launch the panda and it goes flying, and a magnet mechanic, where when two or more pandas are launched at once they'll attract each other and whirl around the screen with a slightly unpredictable rubber band effect. Sending the corpulent pandas on a suicide mission into the nasty atoms will net you a completion screen, but you'll also want to snag up as many stars as you can along the way. The more stars you collect, the more chapters you can unlock.

The main innovation is the magnet mechanic and when it works, it's a challenging, but entertaining play on the physics game. The problem is that for a large chunk of the levels you won't feel like you're solving puzzles so much as getting lucky. There is certainly a consistent system at work here, but you might not ever feel like you understand it well enough to use it predictably.

As the game progresses, more modifiers come into play and it starts to get a bit overwhelming. You'll have to quickly touch, slide and move objects on the screen to get good results, which on an iPad works well, but on the smaller iPhone screen things start to get a little difficult to handle. The fourth and final chapter in particular feels entirely based on luck.

Even with the trial-and-error style gameplay, Nano Panda does a good job of taking the increasingly standard, single screen, star based physics puzzler and adding in enough innovation to keep you entertained. It's well produced too, so for those who like small graphical touches, you'll find a lot of quirks throughout the game to keep you happy. Like many before it, the game features a mystery final chapter with a note that more levels are on the way, so if you manage to three star all 64 levels in the game and collect all the Game Center achievements, you can expect more in the coming months. Of course, if you've ever found yourself at a "Save the Pandas" rally, you might want to steer clear here, unless you happen to be cool with killing hundreds of adorable red, white and blue pandas.

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The first major content update to Order & Chaos Online [$6.99] is coming down the pipe, so says a new thread on the World of Warcraft-like MMO’s official message board.

Details on the complete patch and its eventual release are still cloudy, but we do know a number of key fixes, tweaks, and enhancements that it’ll package in. Foremost, expect to see a number of new quests in “the last two high-level regions” and a new teleport in the Greenmont region of world. Also, forget about killing dudes in cemeteries — with the arrival of this patch, these zones are to become hands-off, non-PVP areas.

Of course, there’s more. The ever descriptive “additional content and … fixes” has been promised and game creator Gameloft is still teasing new dungeon, PVP arena, and level cap add-ons.

“We'll notify you as soon as possible about the complete details of this update and its timing,” the post reads. “Be sure to check back regularly if you want more info about the progress that our development team has made.”

Sure, I’ll check back regularly, but only if there’s a new mount in it for me. Gameloft gives out mounts, right? It should. For the record, I want a space snapping turtle with rocket boots. Make it happen, Gameloft. Make it happen.

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Bungie Aerospace has made its first public move: the company recently filed a trademark for “Crimson,” a bit of “computer game software for use on mobile and cellular phones,” according to the official USPTO filing. Color us red. I mean, intrigued.

We don’t know what Bungie Aerospace is, but we do know that Halo developer Bungie is responsible for its incorporation in Delaware and Washington. It might be a front or the start of another memorable ARG. Either way, the company has made a move to secure a trademark for mobile devices, which I fancy is entertaining to be aware of.

As Game Informer notes in its report, Bungie has recently made it clear that it wants to do something in the mobile realm; the studio is hiring for several positions linked to mobile phone development. What this project actually is, however, is still shrouded in a cloud of secrecy and, presumably, really hardcore non-disclosure agreements.

My gut says Bungie Aerospace and “Crimson” are connected to the studio’s next project, an original IP set to be published by Activision. Word on the street is that this game is a shooter MMO — an MMO that might just offer increased connectivity via mobile apps.

Bungie’s recent talks certainly suggest that connectivity is something the studio values with this new IP. At GDC Online 2010, Bungie staff writer Joseph Staten posed the question "Wouldn't it be great if we could make a world that was always there for you, with lots of stories to tell, like a big, infinite storytelling horizon?”

He then said, “Man, that would be great,” which is the PR equivalent of “Yeah, we’re going to try our best to do just that.” But, shhh, everything is secret now.

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Let's start by making one thing clear, MaxNick's Spider Jack [99¢ / HD] is Cut the Rope [99¢ / HD] reimagined slightly enough that it will appeal to the rope-cutting fans out there who've been dying for new levels, but certainly won't convert anyone who isn't a fan of physics based puzzlers. It's also impossible to get through this review without comparing them to each other every step of the way.

It's probably easiest to look at the few differences between the two games first before moving onto the similarities. Where Cut the Rope tasks you with delivering a piece of candy to little Om Nom's mouth, Spider Jack wants you to deliver Jack the spider to his dinner. To do this you'll be spinning you spider web out to knobs, using physics to swing around and eventually cutting the web to capture your dinner. The main difference is that you have to create the ropes before they're cut here. Other than that, you'll find a remarkably similar experience.

Spider Jack's commonalities with Cut the Rope don't just lay in its gameplay. The visuals are remarkably close, albeit not nearly as polished and the music is the same, quirky and upbeat style. There are also differently themed rooms where you're tasked with completing puzzles by grabbing up to three stars scattered across the level. Before anyone cries out that it's a clone, consider that Chillingo published both games, so clearly someone out there seemed to think the differences were strong enough, or maybe just didn't care if they weren't.

Unfortunately, the one thing the two don't share is solid level design. Cut the Rope was imaginative and capable of introducing new techniques to keep the game interesting. Spider Jack's 75 levels are considerably easier, which for anyone who struggled with Cut the Rope might be good news, but if you've already three-starred everything and are looking for more, you'll be able to blaze through Spider Jack in around an hour with little trouble. That's partially due to the lack of multi-touch puzzles — no two-finger swipes are necessary here and that alone makes it a considerably easier experience. Of course, in Chillingo style, more levels are supposedly incoming shortly.

If you played Cut the Rope, you're not going to be surprised by the puzzle variety. Blowing air, electricity, timers, portals — they're all here. The tutorial portions are nearly identical too. That said, it has some annoyances with its mechanics. Since you're controlling a spider and not a falling ball of candy, some puzzles rely on you climbing up the web, but Jack moves so slowly and unpredictably it's harder than it needs to be to get your timing right and it ends up feeling like luck more than skill when you do.

For those looking to show off their skills, there is full Game Center and Crystal support as well as the ability to gift levels to friends. This means you'll be able to unlock five levels per stage for your friends if you're in the giving mood.

All this is to say that Spider Jack does get the job done and if you find yourself itching for more slicing, cutting physics-based games, it won't be a disappointment. The final chapter introduces the portal mechanic and even though it's similar to Portal and Cut the Rope's magic-hats, it's probably the strongest part of the game. Hopefully in future updates MaxNick will take the unique portions and expand on them to create something wholly their own.

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Our ratings for games we reviewed April are now in place, and we now present to you the ones that are on the top of the heap. Each game reviewed receives a 1-5 star rating relative to the other games from that month. Generally, a 3 or higher is considered a "good" rating.

Our final scores are not the product of any traditionally objective measures such as graphics or sound, but simply reflect the games we would most recommend to others.

5 Stars

Gears, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Crescent Moon Games has made a name for themselves on the App Store peddling high quality RPG's, but it turns out they can make simple casual games just as well. Gears is a ball rolling game, a genre that works fantastically with the tilt-based controls of the iPhone. But, if you don't like tilt, the game can also be controlled by touch which I almost find myself preferring.

Tactical Soldier – Undead Rising, $4.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Tactical Soldier is a pleasant surprise for fans of tactical turn-based strategy games. It’s incredibly challenging, but as such it’s also incredibly satisfying when you figure out the best way to deal with the many scenarios in the game. A player in our forums described the game as Resident Evil Tactics, should that game actually exist, and I think that totally nails it.

Death Rally, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Death Rally actually came out in March, but we've been playing it so much and it has gotten so much better through updates that we decided to up it to 5 stars and feature it again in our April game listings. Don't miss this crazy vehicular combat racer.

4.5 Stars

Snuggle Truck, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Even though its controversial subject matter was stripped out to appease Apple, Snuggle Truck is still a ridiculously fun physics-based side-scrolling racer. It might even be better that the original theme was removed because it's causing us to focus on the game being fun rather than the point it's trying to prove.

Coin Drop!, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – If you're the kind of person who has played through both Peggle and the Peggle Nights add-on and are chomping at the bit for even more, Coin Drop! is just what you need. The game does a wonderful job of taking the things that made Peggle the worldwide sensation that it is while providing a new spin on gameplay to make Coin Drop! feel like something almost entirely new.

Atari’s Greatest Hits, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Without a doubt the single most significant retro title to hit the App Store yet, Atari's Greatest Hits comes packed with 100 different games, 18 from arcades and an additional 92 from the Atari 2600. Some of them even feature bluetooth multiplayer for two player head to head play. Original cabinet and box art is included, and each game has been wonderfully adapted to be touch controlled.

Mos Speedrun, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Mos Speedrun is definitely another solid entry in the iOS platforming genre. The levels are interesting, the controls are spot on, and the game uses adorable pixel art graphics and an awesome chiptune soundtrack. Plus, despite not having a huge number of levels, the ones that are there will put up a good fight and are a joy to play through.

Special Mention

Order & Chaos© Online, $6.99 – [Initial Impressions: Part 1 / Part 2] – [Forum Thread] – It's hard to really rate an MMORPG since so much of what makes a game like this good is the community and developer support, neither of which have had a chance to mature yet in Order & Chaos. Regardless, the game is an incredibly accurate clone of World of Warcraft, and being able to get your WoW fix on your iPhone or iPad is both appealing and appalling. If you haven't yet, join the TouchArcade guild as playing the game is infinitely more fun with tons of helpful guildmates.

The rest of the game ratings can be seen in their respective rating categories (also found in the sidebar navigation): 5 Stars, 4.5 Stars, 4 Stars, 3.5 Stars, 3 Stars, and 2 Stars.

As always, we expect there will be some debate about relative scores, but keep in mind that everyone's personal ratings may vary based on individual tastes.

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Sometimes promotions never end. At least, that’s the case with Pocket Legends. In April, developer Space Time Studios kicked off an anniversary celebration that dished out free access to six areas for the generous asking price of $0. Now, the studio is announcing that those areas will remain free FOREVER — or until we all die in 2012, one or the other.

That’s a deal, but you have to wonder how Space Time plans to make money while a large swathe of its instance-based content is free. That’s where this comes in: the studio has just announced a brand new “premium” area called the “Sandstone Caves.”

It’s made for players around level 20 to 25 and includes what you want: a new town, a new series of quests, new enemies, new bosses, and new weapons, armor and items.

The price? 10 in-game Platinums, which should help satisfy the need for Space Time to fill its coffers. The lowest amount of Platinums that you can buy at the moment is 30 for $4.95, which is likely the catch here.

It’s also possible to earn free in-game cash in exchange for taking part in one of those now-infamous marketing loops. “Yes, you can still get free Platinum with Tapjoy in both Apple and Android devices," a representative told us.

Just for reference, the areas that are set to remain free are Balefort Castle, Fathom Crypts, The Lost Expedition, The Ancient Swamps, Balefort Sewers, and last but not least, The Alien Oasis Trilogy.

Pocket Legends is one of the deepest, most well designed mobile MMOs on the market to date. As we've previously noted, we reviewed the game last year, but a lot has changed since then, so you'd probably be better off reading the official "Quick Start" guide to get a good sense of what Pocket Legends is about. Oh, and if you're in the market for a more in-depth look at Sandstone Caves, these two articles wouldn't be a bad start.

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Grim Joggers [$1.99] from 10tons Ltd is an interesting endless running game that was released back in January. It featured many of the common traits of the genre, like jumping pits and avoiding hazards, but also put a wrinkle in the gameplay by having you control multiple characters at once. During play your crew would slowly die off as they inevitably ran into traps, but your score multiplier increased based on the number of your survivors while passing set distance markers. This ensured that you were always striving to keep as many joggers alive as possible, and combined with the task of managing all of the characters at the same time it made for some hectic fun.

We really liked Grim Joggers when we reviewed it in January, and the game was subsequently updated once in February and again in March, each time adding a new playable level among other features. Now a free version of Grim Joggers is available called Grim Joggers Freestyle [Free]. More than simply a generic lite version, Grim Joggers Freestyle is actually a competent little package on its own.

The full version of Grim Joggers features 5 different themes to play in, each with their own unique visuals, enemies, dangers, and Game Center leaderboards. Grim Joggers Freestyle is a single mode that features a new environment with a mixture of elements from all 5 of those themes, along with its own leaderboard and set of achievements. This means you’ll be running into life ending dangers like man-eating plants, polar bears, artillery shells, and aliens all in the same level.

Grim Joggers Freestyle is free to download and contains ads in-between games, but these can be instantly skipped so aren’t too much of a nuisance. The mashed up style of gameplay is worth checking out even if you own the original Grim Joggers, and I’d love to see this mode updated into the paid version of the game someday. If you haven’t yet given Grim Joggers a try, then Grim Joggers Freestyle is a great taste of what you’d be getting more of in the full version, and is definitely worth giving a download.

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Danish developer Kiloo, who you may remember as the collaborator with Manomio on the licensed Commodore 64 [$4.99] emulator app, inked a deal at the end of March with Wham-O, creators of the Frisbee, to develop a game based on the classic flying disc.

Called Frisbee Forever, you’ll send your Frisbee flying using a flick gesture and then direct it through the 100 different levels using either tilt or touch controls. Each level is rendered in colorful 3D graphics and filled with targets to fly through and items to collect. There will also be 100 different styles of Frisbees to unlock, collect, and use in the game, as well as an assortment of achievements to earn.

Frisbee Forever looks pretty sweet so far, and I’m a total sucker for the bright, cartoonish look of the graphics. The game is already approved by Apple and is scheduled to release this Thursday. There is a discussion thread in our forums for Frisbee Forever where Kiloo has already announced that an additional snow-themed level pack is near completion as part of the game’s first update, along with Game Center integration for the current set of in-game achievements.

Frisbee Forever will launch with universal iPad and Retina Display support, and we’ll take another look at the game when it launches later this week.

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