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If there were ever a genre in need of reinvention, it’s the marble shooter. As a genre it’s been around for nearly 15 years now, and the two big names, Luxor and Zuma, are pretty much indistinguishable. Swap ancient Egypt for the Inca Empire and you’ve pretty much got the same game. PopCap stepped things up recently with Zuma’s Revenge [$1.99 / $4.99 ], which added boss fights and made a few alterations to the formula. But Luxor Evolved [ $0.99 ], MumboJumbo’s answer to Zuma’s evolution, is feeling like the genre’s next frontier.

It shouldn’t be mind blowing that Luxor Evolved looks different from its predecessors, but it sort of is. Between a new setting in space and wild geometric art it hardly looks like the same game at all, making this the genre’s first serious face lift since 2003. Of course, it is the same game—it’s still about matching and destroying strings of colored marbles, and it even has Luxor’s usual ancient Egyptian theme. But this time it’s space Egypt, and space Egypt has a few new tricks.

Like the last two Luxor titles, you control a ball launcher that moves along the bottom of the screen. Strings of colored marbles follow complicated tracks toward your (space) pyramid, which is unusually prone to death by colored marble. You stop them by launching other colored marbles into the strings to match three or more of the same color. With the help of a little aim assistance, this can all be managed on a touch screen as easily as it ever was with a mouse.

Luxor Evolved has a ton going on at any given moment. Not only are you matching marbles, you’re grabbing the treasures and heart pieces that explode out of them. Treasures are tallied to unlock secret levels, and heart pieces add up into extra lives when you’ve collected a few. You also need to rock your score if you want to level up, because the better you do the more powerups you get.

The powerups are my favorite feature of Luxor Evolved. Every point you earn goes to filling up a progress bar after each level. Whenever it hits its limit something new unlocks. This might be a brand new powerup—and they can do a ton of things, like blow up marbles, paint them in a single color, reverse their path and so on—or it might be an upgrade to an existing powerup. They have a lot of room to grow.

The extra-nice thing about the way the progress is measured is that doing poorly on a boss level means unlocking a huge pile of things. The bosses are complicated. Taking inspiration from bullet hell shooters, they protect their weak points with huge streams of marbles. You have to clear away enough of them to reach the weapons, and then the central ring of marbles. The only problem is that they keep coming back. If you manage to shoot your way through everything you expose the core, and one more shot will destroy it.

This can all be a little challenging, especially if, like me, you aim poorly when it counts. But there’s a bonus: if you really struggle and take a long time on a boss, you’ll pick up a ton of extra treasures and hearts and points. When you finally succeed you’ll be well rewarded with a pile of upgrades and unlocks. If one of them is a secret level, you’re in for an even better reward: they’re built as homages to classic games like Pac-Man and Marble Madness.

And let’s not downplay the new aesthetic. With its intentionally retro stylings, it looks like nothing we’ve seen from any of the big marble shooters before. That new style extends to every part of the game, right down to the interface, and a collection of techno tracks really rounds out the package. For the choosy, Luxor Evolved includes a selection of aim assist options and control tweaks—all of them variations on drag and tap controls. There are multiple difficulty modes to play through, too, and the usual assortment of achievements and leaderboards.

It’s not all good, though. The game currently doesn’t work for anyone who isn’t on iOS 5 (a patch is in the works), and even there I ran into a few bad crashes. One took a good chunk of progress with it. There’s also a popup for MumboJumbo’s other games on load, so heads up to the ad averse. I’m not the biggest fan of the series of aggressive price drops that have occurred since launch either, seeing the game drop from $6.99 to 99¢ incrementally over just the first several days, but at least that means those of you hopping on now will get a great deal.

Honestly, this game surprised me. Marble shooters have a real been-there, done-that vibe for me. I love them, but how many times can you play the same game with a new name? Luxor Evolved isn’t a full reimagining, but it’s different enough to feel exciting again, and it’s hooked me thoroughly. The issues are worth being aware of, but if you’re on iOS 5 and you hop on now you should be just fine. And really, classic marble-shooting gameplay in a fresh new package? That’s an evolution I can get behind.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Eleven new sneak-tastic levels have been added to Spy Mouse [$.99 / $2.99] courtesy a content update, which also adds several new obstacles, new power-ups, a new item store, and a new breed of foe called the Jungle Cat. All of these news elements are being housed in a volcano-themed world that currently takes 150 points to unlock.

One note on the Jungle Cat: it uses poison darts. We’re not exactly sure how a tribal poison-slinging variety of jungle cat is able to even function in Spy Mouse’s new Volcano world, but we should probably pull over the Scrutiny Bus before we end up hurting ourselves. This is a game that revolves around a mouse who is also a spy, after all. Screens below!

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Do you remember the Bullet Time Wars of the early ’00s? Every game had to have it, and not one of them got it right. We lost a lot of good games during that time; lost to the unnecessary addition of a dumb movie gimmick.

But then Max Payne [ $2.99 ] was released, and overnight the war ended. There was no disputing that, finally, a game had gotten bullet time right. That day was almost 11 years ago, and since then the world has changed. Games still implement bullet time, most of them successfully, but they all owe it to Max Payne.

For those of you who somehow missed out on it the first go around, Max Payne is revenge story wrapped in a noir coat that is so thick that the game occasionally comments on how warm it is. It serves as almost a noir for dummies book. Can’t sit through Chinatown? Max Payne will teach you all there is to know about noir.

But, for as silly as the writing occasionally is, it is still a good story. You will run into some truly gut-wrenching moments before you hit the 5 minute mark. But I wouldn’t dare spoil an 11 year old game, so I’ll stop right there. If you want to know more… Well, I assume you know what to do.

There is little sense in reviewing an 11 year old game that won nearly every award it could when it was first released. It’s well established that Max Payne is a fantastic game, but it is also ELEVEN years old. That means it comes with all the baggage that an 11 year old game has earned. So, rather than focusing on Max Payne the game, lets talk about Max Payne the iOS port instead.

This is the absolute best this game has ever looked. On the new iPad, the game sees resolutions and clarity that were pipe dreams when it first came out. Granted, the textures are low resolution, but they still look pretty good rendered on the iPad’s Retina Display. The between level “comic book” sequences are not Retina resolution, but it’s not a great mystery as to why.

I doubt anyone at Remedy envisioned people wanting to play the game at ridiculous resolutions, so it’s likely that they never created super high-resolution assets for anything. But, thanks to how well everything upscales, they still look pretty good. While it didn’t age as well as Grand Theft Auto 3 [ $4.99 ] did visually, it is still a great looking game. Bonus points if you can make it through the whole game without giggling at Max’s facial texture.

Controls are about what you would expect from virtual joysticks. Max feels a bit floaty when he moves, and looking around can be a pain, but the game is still very playable, thanks in part to a pretty competent auto aiming system. I know a lot of folks scoff at the idea of auto-aim, but it really does make the experience more cinematic and fun. When I turned off auto-aim, the results were decidedly less than fun (and often borderline frustrating), but your mileage may vary.

The real problem with the default virtual control layout is that the hit zones for buttons are too close to each other. Because you are aiming at a nondescript part of the screen, rather than a button, you will often find yourself jumping when you want to enter bullet time. A minor problem once or twice, but growing in annoyance significantly over the course of an 8 hour game. Like GTA3, you can move the buttons around on screen in the options, but you never really shake the feeling that this is a game made for a controller (or keyboard and mouse).

(Original E3 2011 trailer for PC version.)

Playing Max Payne to completion takes anywhere from 7 to 10 hours. If you intend to make that journey, please be sure to manage your own save files. Yes, Max Payne offers an auto-save, but I found it to be unreliable at best, and downright abusive at it’s worst. Unfortunately, games ported from PCs seem to bring more quirks than if they were ported from a console. Max Payne is from a time where we didn’t trust the game to save for us, so we took that responsibility upon ourselves. Max Payne for iOS has ported that feature spectacularly, so make sure you adjust your habits accordingly.

I’ll be the first to admit that I was super stoked about Max Payne coming to iOS. It was a game I loved on the PC 11 years ago, and I wanted to see how rose the colored glasses were. The answer is, surprisingly, not that rose. While it looks old, and has virtual joysticks, Max Payne is every bit the great game it was 11 years ago. I wish Rockstar had put more love into the port, but for costing me 1/25th of the original game, I’ll cut them some budgetary slack.

Now if I could just get rid of these war flashbacks, I’d be in business.

TouchArcade Rating:

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A lot of studios are turning to the casual market to expand their base and diversify portfolios speckled in viscera and splatters of crimson. League of Evil studio Ravenous Games is doing just that with its side-scrolling puzzle game Burger Cat. The result is unique: Ravenous is undoubtedly delivering something that feels like a Ravenous joint, but it’s appropriate for our little ones and game-challenged family members.

It accomplishes this by removing the barrier of entry, while maintaining the vibe and the high-level production we expect from a Ravenous product. In the game, you play as a cat on a quest to find hamburgers. Functionally, this adventures boils down to a bunch of instanced quests where you, as a maestro of landscaping, have to alter the 2D world the cat inhabits in order to get him to a burger. The movement is automatic, but your ability to add and remove blocks of land or introduce an item that changes the way the cat interacts with its world is manual.

For example, in the game’s first level, you’ll need to add a block of land to the corner of a hill so the cat can scramble up the hill as if it were a stairway. In the next, you actually build a similar stairway with three blocks of land, two of which will need to be stacked on top of each other. As the game progresses, you’ll get much more imaginative items: a mouse that re-directs the cat’s attention, a spring that rockets the cat into the air, a pick-axe that removes pieces of the environment, and so on. Actual obstacles that add repercussions, like spinning cogs with blades, are added steadily. The items you’ll receive have a hard cap in each level, and I had the most fun really playing with what I could do with the least amount of stuff, though creating conga lines of items has its simple pleasures, too. In fact, Burger Cat seems to encourage experimentation, as it often gives you way too much.

It’s a different game from the folks who made League of Evil, but it feels similar from a production standpoint. The art is bright and bubbly like the new visuals in League of Evil 2, and the animation work is on par. Music, on the other hand, is exceedingly epic. It almost rewards you before you do anything. Excuse me, but I want my Ode To Joy when I get my hamburger, and not before.

If this looks familiar by the way, it’s because it existed on Flash before. Burger Cat is a new-look port of a WobblyWare title you can play for free right now. In this shot of the original below, take note of how smooth this new iteration looks: no more grids, a less clumsy UI, and less mess in general.

“We updated the graphics to be more cartoony and made some design changes to make another one of our polished iOS releases,” Ravenous told TouchArcade. “The game just felt more suited to touch screen controls and has a lot of potential with the casual market.” And it does play exceedingly better. This game is a breeze to control with your fingers. I’ve zero complaints with what I’ve played so far.

And that’s the thing: we haven’t seen everything Burger Cat has to offer, so stay tuned as we obtain a final build and deliver our final thoughts. My gut says, though, that this is something we’ll be pretty happy with, even though we’re not its market. Look for this to hit April 12 across iPhone and iPad.

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InMotion Software is here at GDC this week, and they stopped by our makeshift TouchArcade headquarters here in the Marriott lobby to show off an upcoming update for the Nickelodeon-published Monkey Quest: Thunderbow [99¢/HD] as well as tease a brand new title.

First off, Monkey Quest received a nice update in early February. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed the game in our review, and the February update added 20 new levels and a boss battle, as well as some new monsters, new weapons, and new control options. The upcoming update is set to add another 30 new levels and should be hitting before the end of March.

In addition to that update, InMotion has also announced a brand new game called Tiny Tails. At first blush, you might write off Tiny Tails as a Farmville clone or something similar. However, the team was vehement that they are not fans of timer-based games like that, but they do want to include a town building-style component for Tiny Tails.

Your main character is a mouse, so everything in the world is comprised of tiny items repurposed as other things. Like buttons attached to a sardine tin to create a wheelbarrow to store food in. While creating a tiny world gives you somewhere to play in, the bigger emphasis will be on actually crafting items, combat, and exploration.

Tiny Tails is still at a pretty early point in development, with nothing beyond some concept art and some early screens. But, the art style is fantastic and I’m curious to see how the crafting and combat pans out in the final game. InMotion is hoping to have the game released in the 3rd quarter of this year, and we’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on it as it gets further along.

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Ever been BASE jumping? Yeah, me neither. The closest I’ve come is with AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! (Force = Mass x Acceleration) [$2.99] by Dejobaan Games and Owlchemy Labs (the folks behind Snuggle Truck [Free]). This is the latest in a series of extreme BASE-jumping titles from Dejobaan, but it’s the first to come to iOS. As we mentioned in our preview, it’s a somewhat shortened port of AaAaAA! for the Awesome, and it’s pretty fantastic.

I’ve messed around with the PC AaAaAA! titles, but they’ve never really clicked for me. Now I know why: I wasn’t playing with tilt controls. There’s a world of difference between controlling a fall with a joystick or mouse and peering down over a massive drop, diving over and holding your fate in your hands. Not quite the difference between playing a game and actually jumping, but it’s still pretty great.

Tilt controls are a turn-off for a lot of people, and I’m no exception. I like the idea of being comfortable playing a game while out in public, and that’s a lot less possible when you’re thrashing around like someone who’s never held a controller before. I set that prejudice aside for AaAaAA!, and I have no regrets. The tilt controls are precise, kinetic, and massively immersive.

AaAaAA! is BASE jumping in a fantasy land. The acronym stands for buildings, antennas, spans and earth, and those are the things you’ll jump from here, but they’re structures designed by a madman in a world without physical constraints. Hundreds of towers floating and merging on top of one another, highways that spiral in and out and around each other in endless stacks, ventilation shafts with dozens of fanblades leading into great tunnels of rings – these are just some of the pathways and obstacles encountered during the game’s many journeys to the ground.

This take on BASE jumping also ratchets up the difficulty from reality. The sport is incredibly dangerous, but much of that sense of danger would be lost in a straight digital translation. Most levels would be a quick fall with a brief landing. Instead of being ranked by distance traveled, here players are ranked by how much risk they can take on without breaking every bone in their virtual bodies. Scores are determined by kisses and hugs: a kiss is a structure near-missed, and hugs are earned by holding close to any single structure. This is, as one might imagine, extremely likely to end in maiming, and should never be tried at home.

The result is a very tense game. I found myself gripping my phone tightly, jerking it out of the way of this oncoming girder or that platform I hadn’t noticed. A prayer under the breath seemed suitable after some tight escapes. It was more than enough to convince me I’m not cut out for BASE jumping, but I sure enjoy the facsimile.

AaAaAA! comes equipped with a few dozen levels, and you can choose how you want to approach them. You begin with a small supply of teeth (and has there ever been a more disturbing currency name?). These aren’t a premium currency, you earn them in-game. You can unlock any level beside, above or below one you can already access, using a thousand teeth or so to open each of the first few. The costs increase from there. So do the rewards: you earn up to 1300 teeth per star, and each level awards up to five stars.

To get top marks, you’ll need to use the unlockable tools you can find scattered in the level map. One gives you the ability to interact with spectators. Fans stand on blue girders in some levels, and protesters stand on red ones. You can give your fans the thumbs-up for extra points, and you can flip off your foes. It’s a particularly satisfying way to earn bonus points. There are also bonuses to be earned for spraying graffiti on government buildings, if you want to be a little extra subversive.

Otherwise earning the big scores just requires good performance and a bit of understanding of the level layout. Each level comes with a training blurb to help you find the best approach. Sometimes that’s whipping around collecting kisses, other time it’s aiming for bonus score plates. Once in a while it’s hitting birds on the way down. The game can be a touch gruesome, but the looks are always sterile and unbloodied.

You don’t need to do extremely well to unlock all the levels—an average of three stars or so should do. It’s just more fun to go for five. Also worth noting is that 21 of the levels are leaderboard levels. Game Center’s restrictions don’t allow for all the levels to come with leaderboards, but there’s a nice representative mix that you can compete on.

There are a few extras to be found in the journey, but I won’t spoil them. Suffice it to say that Dejobaan has a quirky sense of humor, and there are oddities to be found around every corner. Some are obvious, like entertaining splash screens and odd vocal cues. Others can be unlocked, and ought to be experienced at least once.

In fact, I’ll go ahead and say the whole game ought to be experienced at least once. I’ve had a ridiculously good time with it. AaAaAA! is an excellent game, and for me, at least, this is the definitive way to play it. The quirkiness goes overboard from time to time, but it’s easy to skip past to get to the good stuff: the white-knuckled dives straight down to near-certain death. It’s almost enough to make one want to BASE jump. Or maybe skydive—if AaAaAA! taught me anything, it’s that my extreme sport career would be short-lived. If you’re also into armchair sports you should pick this game up, then drop by our forum thread. We’d love to hear about all your close calls.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Some former developers from True Axis and Firemint have banded together to form a new studio called Ninth Ninja and are readying a release of the classic dual-stick shooter Mutant Storm for iPad. Mutant Storm was originally released by PomPom Games for the PC, Mac, and Xbox, and was amongst the first to spark off a rebirth of retro-style arcade games in the past 10 years or so. It was also remastered and re-released as Mutant Storm Reloaded on Xbox Live Arcade in 2005.

You may remember that another PomPom Games release called Space Tripper [$3.99] made its way to iOS last year thanks to the porting efforts of True Axis. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that the Space Tripper iOS project was filled with trials and tribulations before it finally ended up on the App Store after more than 3 years of development. The wait seemed to be worth it though, as Space Tripper’s gameplay held up strong on iOS and the performance was rock solid.

Andy Coates, the former one half of developer True Axis, was responsible for a majority of the Space Tripper iOS port. He’s putting all that previous hard work to good use by using the same engine for the Mutant Storm port, and again the game is running at a solid 60fps on the iPad 2 and is running respectably smooth on the original iPad as well. Check out the developer’s hands on video of Mutant Storm running on the iPad.

Development on Mutant Storm is said to be going a whole lot smoother than it did with Space Tripper, so chances are we won’t be waiting 3 years to get our hands on the game (hopefully I didn’t just jinx it). In fact, Andy says that the game is basically finished, and that all that remains is some work to do on the menus and online integration. Ninth Ninja is hoping to have Mutant Storm out in April or May of this year.

Ninth Ninja has also announced that they are currently working on a brand new iOS project in addition to Mutant Storm. Adrian Moore, who had previously worked on Firemint’s Spy Mouse, will be handling the design. Artwork will be Paul Mitchell’s job, and he most recently has worked on the Real Racing series, also from Firemint. And of course, Andy Coates will be handling the programming of this mystery title.

We expect to have lots more on Mutant Storm and the mystery game from Ninth Ninja, especially with GDC just a couple of weeks away, so keep your eyes on this space.

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Each year before Christmas we’ve put up a buyer’s guide listing the best iOS titles of the year. Looking back at the 2009 Buyer’s Guide and the 2010 Buyer’s Guide, we’ve come a long way. Below you’ll find all of 5 star rated iOS titles, as well as the standout 4.5 star games.

If you just opened an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad for Christmas, this is a great place to get started. To make this list a little easier to digest, we’ve broken these games into a few very vague categories. Oh, and if you also opened an iCade this Christmas, don’t forget to check out our list of iCade supported games.

Casual

Tiny Wings, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – It’s not every day that Angry Birds gets knocked to the #2 position on the top sales charts, but Tiny Wings did it. It comes packed with delightfully simple single button gameplay that even kids could enjoy along with increasingly difficult goals that even hardcore gamers will find challenging. Get this game, now.

Angry Birds Rio, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – As easy as it is to groan at Angry Birds Rio getting a 5 star rating, it’s a fantastic game. It obviously takes the original Angry Birds formula and builds on top of it with the Rio tie in, boss battles, and some spruced up interface elements. There’s also a few extra layers of parallax scrolling that really make this version of Angry Birds look much better than the others as well.

Bumpy Road, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – It’s not often that a game comes along in the App Store that makes you think, “Wow, why didn’t someone think of this sooner?”. Bumpy Road is just that kind of game. The control system to control the game world rather than the car is remarkably clever, and since its initial release it’s even seen some update love from the developers.

Tiny Tower, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – NimbleBit set some sky high expectations with Pocket Frogs [Free], their previous (and first) foray into the free to play world. I’d go as far as to say that Tiny Tower is even better, as it has completely taken over my household.

Temple Run, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Imangi Studios doesn’t release games all that often, but when they do, they sure are good. Temple Run takes the endless runner formula, adds a third person chase viewpoint, some tilt mechanics, and heaps of power ups to cheat death. Additionally, Temple Run was voted the forum game of the week when it was first released.

Platformer

EDGE Extended, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – We thought the original Edge was incredible, and Extended somehow takes that same game formula, applies a substantial layer of awesome, then knocks it out of the park. Clever platforming mechanics combined with fantastic music really just create an experience that you can’t miss.

Bring Me Sandwiches!!, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Adult Swim is batting 1000 lately with fabulous iOS games, and Bring Me Sandwiches!! keeps that tradition going strong. It’s a cross between the collect-everything-you-see gameplay of Katamari Damacy with a platformer game. Additionally, tons of control schemes make the game great to play no matter what your control preference might be.

Sonic CD, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Here we have the best installment of one of the greatest gaming franchises, which received both flawless review scores and game of the year awards when it was originally released ported with complete perfection to iOS. This is a game you flat out need to buy if you even vaguely consider yourself an iOS gamer. Not only because it’s such an impeccable port of an important piece of gaming history, but because we need to vote with our wallets to tell Sega (and anyone else who might be watching) that this is the quality we demand out of retro games brought to the App Store.

Whale Trail, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Most games you can plot along a line graph with “gameplay” on one end and “presentation” on the other. The best games wind up somewhere in the middle, and Whale Trail definitely sits deep into the “presentation” side of things. Still, the game looks fantastic, and the incredibly vibrant graphics almost make you forget the gameplay is so simple.

Wind-up Knight, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Picture Super Mario Bros. Got a nice image in your head? Good. Now imagine Mario could never stop moving and would only change direction if he hit a wall. A little tougher. And what if absolutely everything could kill him in one hit, and there was no such thing as a checkpoint? That sounds like the sort of game that would have you cursing, spitting, and contemplating throwing your controller, and it also sounds a lot like Wind-up Knight.

Adventure

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, $4.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This is the closest thing to what we’d call a “system seller” of a video game since the iPad was originally released. Sword & Sworcery is an absolutely incredible experience, a thought that has not only been shared by the gaming press, but also the mainstream media as well. If you have an iOS device and $5 to your name, there’s no excuse not to spend it on this game. If you don’t want to fork over a couple bucks more for the universal version, Sword & Sworcery Micro [$2.99] is just what the doctor ordered.

Machinarium, $4.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This game generated a heck of a lot of controversy when it was revealed that it’d only run on the iPad 2 only, which had us more than a little worried about its performance if it requires top-end hardware. It turns out, Machinarium runs fantastically, despite its Adobe Air-based innards. If you’ve got the hardware, don’t miss this remarkably clever adventure.

Aquaria, $4.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Imagine if a Metroidvania went underwater with a fantastic touch-based control scheme. That’s what Aquaria is in a nutshell, but you’ve got to appreciate its fine touches and vision even if its formula doesn’t jive with you.

Retro

Forget-Me-Not, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – In our review we called Forget-Me-Not the “retrolicious lovechild of PAC-MAN and Rogue,” and I’m really struggling with a better way to describe the game. An amazing scoring system combines with fantastic retro graphics that only bolster how much fun Forget-Me-Not is to play. If the thought of PAC-MAN combined with dungeon crawling at all piques your interest, stop what you’re doing and download Forget-Me-Not immediately.

The Last Rocket, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Retro-inspired games are fairly common on the App Store, but The Last Rocket is one of the best examples we’ve seen of a modern-day title that could have easily passed as an absolutely fabulous NES game. The Graphics and music are all delightfully 8-bit, but even without all these retro trimmings the gameplay could stand on its own.

Velocispider, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This fantastic tilt-controlled shooter has sucked up entirely too much of our time. With nods to retro shooters like Space Invaders, awesome pixel art, and universal compatibility Velocispider is simply fantastic.

Another World – 20th Anniversary, $4.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – It’s hard to find a game on the App Store with more history behind it than Another World. Touch-based controls (as well as an optional virtual D-pad) along with both original and remastered graphics make for an outstanding port of this classic adventure game.

Role Playing

Infinity Blade II, $6.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – We put incredibly powerful devices in our pockets and on our laps daily, but rarely do we see games that utterly embrace this like Infinity Blade 2 has. It’s a showcase piece; a technically and visually gifted game that consistently delivers eye-popping stuff. The gameplay is great, too.

Mage Gauntlet, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Almost too many games lean on pixel art and chip tunes just because it’s in style, but Mage Gauntlet draws inspiration from that era and allows it to permeate every aspect of the game. If you have any fond memories of Super Nintendo-era action RPGs, don’t miss this game.

Pocket RPG, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Crescent Moon Games’ latest is this awesome spin on entirely randomized Roguelike gameplay mixed with the action-packed style of a dual stick shooter. It’s a combination that works incredibly well, and being entirely randomized, is infinitely replayable. If you don’t feel like springing for the universal version, there’s also a cheaper Pocket RPG iPhone Edition [99¢].

Strategy / Sim

King of Dragon Pass, $7.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – No lie, I’ve spent more time playing this game than all the other games that we reviewed in September combined. If my exhaustive review wasn’t clear enough, here’s all you need to know: If you like simulation games, you needed King of Dragon Pass on your iPhone yesterday. I’ve still got my fingers crossed for an iPad version, but I’m more than happy managing my clan whenever I’ve got a few seconds to spare on my iPhone.

Great Little War Game, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – As mentioned in our review, this game is anything but little. Great Little War Game is a turn-based strategy game that we consider a must have for anyone even vaguely interested in the genre. The developers are remarkably active in our community, and thus far GLWG’s updates have been fantastic, both in implementing new features as well as forum feedback.

Pocket Academy, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – It seems like ever since Game Dev Story [$1.99 we just can't get enough of Kairosoft simulations. This one in particular puts you in charge of a school, and while many of the mechanics might not be immediately apparent, once the game grabs you, it doesn't let go.

Tiny Heroes, $1.99 - [Review] – [Forum Thread] – geoDefense and geoDefense Swarm cranked tower defense on the App Store up to 11, and, dare I say it, Tiny Heroes makes a great attempt to crank it to 12. Or, at least, 11 and a half. This fantasy-based tower defense title should not be missed by anyone who even vaguely fancies the genre.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! for iPad, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This pirate sim is a game with a ton of history behind it, and 2K Games did a marvelous job of porting it to the iPad. It has depth on top of depth, and will keep you busy for quite some time if it manages to suck you in. We’ve got our fingers crossed for more ports like this of incredible games that work phenomenally on the iPad.

Anomaly Warzone Earth, $0.99 / HD – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Who knew that turning tower defense in reverse would make for such an incredible game? If you’re even vaguely interested in anything to do to tower defense, Anomaly: Warzone Earth needs to be on your iOS device. The mechanics are solid, the atmosphere is cool, and it’ll leave you wanting for a sequel.

Action / Shooter

Dead Space™, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – “Console quality” is a phrase that’s thrown around a lot to describe portable games, and really, it’s a fitting title for this iOS-exclusive version of Dead Space. We tend to prefer Dead Space for iPad [$9.99] over its iPhone counterpart, but both are fantastic games that should be a part of your collection.

Battleheart, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This single player game perfectly combines everything that’s good about complex party-based realtime battles found in MMO-style games with wonderfully simple and intuitive touch controls. Multiple character classes are included, as well as equipment upgrades. It’s incredible just how much flexibility there is for tweaking your party and how you play the game. Battleheart is fantastic on the iPhone, but you can’t miss it if you own an iPad.

THE KING OF FIGHTERS-i-, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Back in the day of the arcade fighter arms wars, it was Street Fighter versus The King of Fighters with as fierce of a rivalry among gamers as arguing Nintendo vs. Sega. KoF has arrived on the App Store, and it’s every bit as good as its Street Fighter, although it remains to be seen if they’ll match the online play found in Volt.

Jetpack Joyride, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This is our favorite game of the month, as this endless power-up packed single-button flying game is responsible for sapping days of productivity across the entire TouchArcade staff. There are so many hooks to keep you playing that you can do “one more game” for hours through achievements, missions, unlockables, and all sorts of cosmetic customizations.

Bug Heroes, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Much like how Dungeon Raid took typical match three gameplay and made it awesome, Bug Heroes takes the dual stick shooter to the next level. The core of the game is based around the typical dual stick shooter formula, but multiple playable characters (each with strengths and weaknesses) as well as elements of both castle and tower defense make this a game that everyone needs to check out. Just keep in mind, it will be very difficult to go back to your basic survival-mode dual stick shooter after this.

Zombieville USA 2, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Tightly-constructed, well-executed, charming, different and entertaining are all words we freely use when describing Zombieville 2. It’s a near perfect iterative entry to the franchise, as it artfully hones in on and turns up the volume on the two best parts of the original: the shooting and upgrade models.

Grand Theft Auto 3, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Even though GTA 3 wasn’t designed for virtual controls, you’ll have a great time with it, even if all you do is drive around Liberty City listening to the fantastic in-game radio stations. (My favorite is the talk station.) As you become more accustomed with the splattering of virtual buttons all over the screen, you’ll find hours upon hours of content to plow through. Having played GTA3 to completion many times in the past, I’m incredibly happy to be able to take it anywhere with me on my phone of all things.

Bug Princess, $4.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Aside from a few small quibbles, Bug Princess offers yet another stellar entry in CAVE’s series of iOS shooters. It’s probably the most straight forward and least complex out of them all, which makes it a great starting point for bullet hell newbies, but it does have its share of depth for those looking to master its strategies.

STREET FIGHTER IV VOLT, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Capcom is following their time honored tradition of relentlessly re-releasing Street Fighter with Street Fighter IV Volt. This time around there are three new characters as well as online multiplayer.

Dark Meadow, $5.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Atmospheric horror is a game genre that never really seems to translates to portable devices very well, but Phosphor Games did a great job of it with Dark Meadow. Set in a creepy hospital, and utilizing the Unreal Engine, the game looks and sounds great. A repetitive combat system drags down this otherwise fantastic title.

Puzzle

Where’s My Water?, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This super-fun liquid-centric physics game puts you in the driver seat of helping an alligator take a shower. Sure, it’s hard to come up with a more ridiculous premise, but maybe that’s part of this game’s charm. A wacky scrolling mechanic on some levels is the only thing we have to complain about, otherwise Where’s My Water is fabulous.

Dungeon Raid, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – As mentioned in our review of the game, with the number of fish in the match three sea, it takes a lot to make one that’s just as fun (if not more so) than the match three staples like Bejeweled 2 and other classics. Dungeon Raid accomplishes this by distilling the Puzzle Quest formula down to its basics, and providing match three gameplay that retains its simple nature while offering a shocking amount of depth via random equipment and character upgrades. Also, there’s much more to matching than just high scoring, clearing each type of block has a purpose, and the order you clear them in can mean life or death. This game has stolen hours of my time, I can’t recommend it enough.

Casey’s Contraptions HD, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – There are tons of contraption-building games on the App Store, but few are as good as Casey’s Contraptions. The theme of the game is gloriously whimsical, and you can spend hours delving through the clever and convoluted solutions your friends post via Game Center.

Gesundheit!, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This stealth-centric sneeze-powered puzzle game comes with fantastic controls, some of the best hand-drawn art we’ve seen in action on the App Store, and details like shadows moving relative to your iOS device’s gyroscope readings. We prefer the iPad version, but only because you’ll want as much screen real estate as possible to enjoy this game’s incredible art.

Wooords, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Games where you search for words within a pre-defined set of letters have some serious roots, heck, this kind of puzzle was published in newspapers before video games even existed, and there’s a zillion variations on the App Store. Words totally impressed us with its slick presentation that feels less like playing a word game and more like moving magnetic letters around on a refrigerator.

SPY mouse, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Firemint has managed to de-throne Angry Birds from the #1 position on the App Store with this line-drawing-powered stealth game. Collect cheese, evade cats, use various tricks, and even fight bosses. All the gameplay elements go together incredibly well, and Firemint even managed to remove a lot of things that have historically annoyed us about stealth games in the process.

SpellTower, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Word games can still be fun. Elegant, clever and fun, SpellTower a complete package, brought together by Gage’s trademark use of cheerful colors, simple patterns and elegant typography.

iBlast Moki 2, $2.99 / Universal HD – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This game sets the standard of what gamers should expect of sequels. It’s got familiar puzzle-centric physics mechanics of the original with tons of new features that add complexity and all kinds of new ways to solve puzzles. Additionally, a perfectly integrated solution system can show you how your friends completed a level if you get stuck.

Monsters Ate My Condo, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Adult Swim and Pik Pok joined forces to bring us one of the craziest matching games we’ve ever seen on the App Store. The game requires matching similarly colored floors while appeasing nearby color-coded monsters, each with a more ridiculous super-power than the last. Also, you can score billions if you’re good. Billions!

Scribblenauts Remix, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Originally released on the Nintendo DS, Scribblenauts is a game that’s so unique that you simply must play it. Remix combines the best elements from both of the DS games along with 10 iOS-exclusive levels. In addition, it’s even universal and boasts complete iCloud save syncing support.

Bejeweled Blitz, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Popcap takes the glorious match-three mechanic of the classic puzzle franchise, pumps up the volume on the jewel and match bonuses, and then condenses it all down into frantic, one-minute bursts of eye-gasmic, point-laden play.

Sports

NBA JAM by EA SPORTS™, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – iOS gamers really couldn’t ask for much more when it comes to EA’s port of NBA Jam… Multiplayer was even added in an update! All of the massive dunks and secret modes are intact, making this a surprisingly faithful port. EA even recently updated the game’s roster, bringing it in line with this NBA season.

Pocket HalfPipe, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This incredibly awesome skateboarding game is highly reminiscent of the halfpipe in the classic NES series Skate or Die, but with much better graphics and crazy dual stick controls that allow you to pull off all kinds of moves. The game could easily be described as basic, but it’s so much fun that we don’t care. The tricks you’ll be able to pull off after a bit of practice are cool, and stringing a massive chain together is hugely rewarding.

Fight Night Champion by EA Sports™, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – A surprisingly competent boxing game that feels like an equal to its console counterpart instead of a typical watered-down mobile version. Great touch screen controls combine with different game modes to create a boxing experience that is among the best that the App Store has to offer.

Music

Groove Coaster, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – There have been a ton of rhythm games released on the App Store, but none have the amazing presentation of Groove Coaster that almost makes it less of a game and more of an experience– And this is one experience you really can’t miss especially if you enjoyed its creator’s other game, Space Invaders Infinity Gene.

Radballs, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – We fell in love with RadBalls inside of the first few seconds of the trailer, and by the time it was over we were ready to yield our first born to its creator. Oh, yeah, the game is fun as hell too. It’s a music-centric matching game that even allows you to use your own tracks. Check it out.

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Let’s wind back the clocks a bit so those of you who weren’t around for the great iDOS fiasco of 2010. It all started with Apple ever-so-slightly easing up on their approval guidelines which opened the floodgates for quite a few apps (such as the Google Voice apps) that seemed to eternally be trapped in approval limbo. Whether this had anything to do with iDOS or not is debatable, but it seems awfully coincidental otherwise. Anyway, on the morning of October 26th last year, iDOS hit the App Store. It was a shockingly full featured DOS emulator complete with keyboard and mouse support, as well as a basic virtual gamepad, multiple screen modes, and so much more.

The crazy part about iDOS is there seemed to be nearly no limit to what it was capable of. If you scroll down on this story you’ll even find someone successfully installing Microsoft Windows, within iDOS, on their iPad. iDOS was quickly pulled, then re-appeared in late January of this year with quite a bit of its functionality stripped. Regardless, people quickly figured out how to load things into iDOS, utilizing utilities like iExplorer and other Mac/Windows programs that allow you to fiddle with the file system of your iOS device. Once again, iDOS was removed from the App Store.

Yesterday, iDOS hit the App Store once again, this time as Aemula Oldies [Free] for the iPad and Aemula Oldies S [Free] for smaller screen devices. There’s also the Aemula Gamepad [99¢] which works a lot like the other gamepad apps and pairs with an iPad playing a game. It seems that the functionality has been stripped even further, as all the previous command line access has been traded for a simple menu to load the included games.

The freebies packed in with Aemula Oldies are Mille Bornes, Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle, Duke Nukem, Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, Scorched Earth, CD-Man, The Catacomb Abyss, Bio Menace, Monster Bash, StarMines II: Planet of Mines, 4D Prince of Persia and CHAMP Kong. They all seem to work decently well, too.

I sort of think third time is the charm for iDOS, err, Aemula Oldies, as I’d imagine that there aren’t any holes for slipping other things to emulate in left anymore. Of course, I could be totally wrong on that, so if anyone figures out any tricks, be sure to let us know.

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