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One of my real iPhone favorites — a game that I actually play for fun (a rare thing, given the number of titles we move through to find the gems among the chaff out there) — is Imangi's Harbor Master [link], which The Independent recently dubbed the third best app in the App Store. And the iPad version, Harbor Master HD [link] is the best Harbor Master experience to be had, thanks to the device's large display. Happily, Imangi's v2.0 Harbor Master update, which went live just a few hours ago, brings some of that big-screen detail to the iPhone 4's Retina display.

Imangi lists the enhancements in this update:

• Completely remastered high resolution graphics for the iPhone 4.
• New level! We adapted Cargo City, our most popular map from the iPad version, for the iPhone screen. It has 3 cargo types, so it takes "multitasking" to a whole new level.
• iOS4 multitasking support.
• Fixed twitter support so you can tweet your scores again.
• Rotation support, so you can hold your device however you want!
• A ton of bug fixes.

Imangi's current graphics guy, Kiril Tchangov, reworked all of the game's original art from scratch, putting his own, more "painterly" spin on the design, the studio tells us.

I think most people will be most excited about the new level, Cargo City. Cargo City is our most popular map from the iPad version, so we really wanted to bring a version of it over to the iPhone. It works really great on iPhone. With 3 cargo types, you have to turn on another part of your brain to control all those boats. You'll really like it. Here is the iPad version right next to the iPhone version, so you can see how we had to change it around to adapt it to the smaller screen.

The Harbor Master v2.0 update is a free download for current owners of the game.

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If you just bought a brand new iPod touch with a Retina Display or already have an iPhone 4, Square Enix's Chaos Rings [$12.99 / HD] is a game that is highly worth considering with the release of the latest update. Chaos Rings looked great before, and now looks even better with high resolution graphics, UI elements, and text. To sweeten the deal they even added multitasking support for instant switching between battling and whatever other apps you're using.

We liked Chaos Rings enough to award it five stars in our review, and really think it's a game that any fan of turn based RPG's should own. With this latest update, that's especially true if you have a Retina Display device.

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Frogatto is an open source platforming game available on the Mac/PC that was released to the App Store last month. We took a close look at the game when it came out, and though our impressions were mostly positive a couple of issues stuck out in an otherwise excellent retro-styled platformer, most notably the somewhat finicky controls and a lack of a save state when exiting the game. Both of these issues have been resolved in a new update, and Frogatto now features much tighter controls (especially when navigating underwater portions) and the game saves right where you left off when interrupted. In addition, other tweaks and optimizations have been included, as detailed in the update notes:

• Significantly improved controls, both functionally and graphically.
• Fixed auto-saving on iOS4 where multitasking is supported.
• Fixed bug where a dialog could repeat forever.
• Fixed crash in world map when you hold down while entering it.
• Added music and sound volume controls to pause screen.
• Added half-hearts.
• Minor level changes.
• Updated music.

If any of these issues have held you back in purchasing Frogatto before, now is the time to grab the game as not only have these problems been addressed in this update but the game is also on sale for 99¢ for a limited time (down from $4.99). I've played through this updated version and can confirm that it's quite a big improvement from the initial release, and Frogatto stands as one of the better platform games available for the iPhone.

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The Hero places you in the role of a superhero tasked with preventing crime and catastrophic events from befalling various cities in the world, all while maintaining a positive public image and keeping collateral damage to a minimum. You control your hero with a virtual stick that allows you to fly in any direction through the air, with a button for speeding your flight as you rush to save citizens from the many hazards in each city. These can be robbers in the street, bombs or fires in the buildings, rescuing falling babies, and of course defeating zombies. When not saving the citizens, you're dishing out high fives to them as you fly by, which increases your various special move gauges and promotes fame and good will.

A new update to The Hero adds 3 mini-games to the 15 level campaign and 4 level survival mode, as well as minor artwork/storyline tweaks and a revamped scoring system:

• A Fully revised gameplay and scoring model
• 3 Brand New minigames: Asteroids, Bomb Run, High-Fiver
• Levels are now packed with even more action
• New super bonus from high five streaks

The Hero was released back in March, and we really liked it in our full review, but for some reason it has flown under the radar since then and we haven't heard much of it in the past few months. Hopefully this new update will rekindle interest in this underrated title, and to help with that The Hero is also on sale for a limited time for 99¢ (down from $1.99). If you missed it the first time around, it's definitely worth checking out with the addition of more content and this temporary price drop.

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As someone who's been a gamer for 30 years now, I must say things have come a long way from those distant, humble beginnings.

A few crude black and white blocks turned into somewhat less crude color blocks, which became much nicer looking high-palette pixel art and — flash forward 20 years — we've got expansive 3D worlds rendered sharper than a high-definition feature film. Technology marches ever on and, along the way, has brought gamers a vast array of computers and consoles, each a step forward from the one that came before. And the largest single step forward along these lines that ever took place was unquestionably the arrival of the Amiga from Commodore.

At half the price of the Macintosh and a quarter the price of IBM's meatiest desktop, the Amiga, which PC World called the seventh greatest computer of all time, delivered vastly more capable hardware than either, along with a fully preemptive multitasking UNIX-like operating system. Nothing of the likes of its graphics and audio capabilities had ever been seen before. It excelled in gaming and this new sort of thing called "multimedia" that, at the time, people really didn't know what to make of. It really was 10 years before its time.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Amiga and a number of tech sites are taking the opportunity to pay tribute to this infulential platform with retrospectives and historical pieces. And, we're happy to report that Amiga and iPhone developer Rabah Shihab is honoring the occasion by dropping the price of Babylonian Twins for the iPhone [App Store] by 75% this weekend.

We took a close look at this reimagining of his 17-year old Amiga title back in April and found it to be one of the very best iPhone games out there (we gave it 4.5 stars). An iPad version is also available [App Store].

Babylonian Twins is s a puzzle-platformer with two-character tag-team type play. You control brothers Nasir and Blasir in order to solve each levels. Each character has some special abilities, but only one can be active at once. Switching between the two is as simple as tapping on a button — leaving the unplayed character as a statue. You'll find you need to tag team to make your way past puzzles and obstacles, and even use the other character as a springboard to jump higher. Blasir can jump higher, and dash into walls, while Nasir spin to break through weakened floors. The game is a collaborative effort between the two characters.

The game has been entirely revamped since the original Amiga version and includes all new graphics and audio.

And, while Babylonian Twins is a truly excellent title, it's not the only quality Amiga conversion in the App store. Not by a long shot. And, thanks to Manomio, among others, we're in for a lot more Amiga game goodness in the App Store later this year.

Related Amiga links:

• Amiga: 25 Years Later
• Shadow of the 16-bit Beast: an Amiga gaming retrospective
• Ars Technica's A History of the Amiga (parts 1 – 6)
• Amiga.org community

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As long-time readers are surely aware, I'm a retro gaming nut and, within that classification, am a particular fan of the roguelike / dungeon crawler genre. Gamers like me were handed real treat early last year when ChronoSoft released Rogue Touch [App Store], an iPhone adaptation of / enhancement to the 1980 genre-defining Rogue. One of my absolute favorite iPhone games, Rogue Touch really takes me back to those long hours spent in front of Rogue on my Atari ST back in 1987.

Developer Kevin Hill has done a great job of updating the game since its initial release, and in ways strongly shaped by the user community in the Touch Arcade forums, Kevin tells me. He's just released version 1.52 of Rogue Touch [link] that addresses iOS 4 performance issues along with a number of other enhancements:

• Hotfix for daemon saving issue at home button press / incoming call answer
• iOS 4 speed improvements (any device will play faster now!)
• Nymphs no longer steal the *last* item of your pack, but a truly random magic item from you
• Venus Flytraps now prevent you from going down stairs if held in their vines
• Scroll of Safe Passage fixed- it would actually *hide* previously found traps without disarming them. Not anymore!
• Tweaks to search messages (scrawlings and gold in cracks will be less frequent)
• Slimes will no longer split when hit with a War Hammer
• Knockback Attacks! You have a chance to push back a monster with each successful blow you strike! The chance grows with increased strength and higher experience levels. Monsters that get pushed into a wall or another monster take additional damage!

It's great to see the game continue to evolve and, in fact, Kevin indicates that the version 1.5.3 update will be submitted this week, offering Retina Display text-support, Fast App Switching / Multitasking support, even faster speeds under iOS 4, and maybe a new magic item or two. But that's not all the news he had to share from the world of Rogue Touch…

The developer, alongside his forthcoming Spirit Hunter Mineko, is presently working on Rogue Touch EX, a take on the formula that should have greater appeal to more casual gamers than the original.

Rogue Touch EX is a side project. It is planned to be a more slick, streamlined experience utilizing knowledge gained in working on Spirit Hunter Mineko this year. The “EX” stands for enhanced and extended. Core gameplay will remain “Rogue”, but the presentation will be unlike any version of Rogue ever seen. The fact is most people find rogue-likes unappealing to look at, but may actually enjoy the game if given a chance. Rogue Touch EX and Spirit Hunter Mineko are different takes on the idea of making a more appealing experience.

Major features of Rogue Touch EX, as listed by the developer:

• Professional sprite artwork and more animation, improved lighting effects, everything presented on screen using OpenGL for fluid motion
• It will be a universal app, with high resolution support on iPad and iPhone 4 Retina Display
• An analog / swipe anywhere control scheme, improved context actions, and inventory system
• Gamecenter support

Rogue Touch EX is in the early stages right now, and should see an App Store release sometime later this year. Fans of the original can rest assured that it will continue to evolve alongside the new title. We'll keep readers informed as more details emerge surrounding all of ChronoSoft's works in progress.

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A little over a year ago Paul Pridham of Madgarden, who teamed up with Jeff McCord to bring us the iPhone / iPad roguelike Sword of Fargoal [App Store], released an iPhone version of his own take on Dan Gorlin's 1982 Brøderbund classic Choplifter. The developer's v1.3 free update to the game has just gone live in the App Store [link], turning the title into a Universal application that takes full advantage of the iPad's large display, among other enhancements.

In Saucelifter, gameplay involves flying your tilt-controlled saucer to various Earth prison barracks, blasting open the doors, picking up your captive crewmates, and dropping them off at the transporter where they're beamed safely back to your alien world.  This is made challenging by evil Earth forces, including tanks, laser turrets, fighter jets, and flying attack drones.

There are a lot of nice touches to the title. The stylized, vector-based 2D graphics lend the game impressive visuals, with a day-into-night changing skyline that adds nice variation to the scene. A letter-box effect alters the aspect of the play area to provide early warning of incoming enemies. It's very well done.

The full list of the enhancements that v1.3 brings, as listed by the developer:

• New saucer!
• New reptoid super weapon!
• Saucelifter is now a universal application
• iOS4 multitasking support
• Support for both landscape orientations
• Fixed sound that was too quiet
• Gameplay tweaks

It's a nice list of enhancements, but the developer has already submitted the v1.3.1 free update to the App Store that brings iPhone 4 Retina Display support as well as control refinements. I'm presently playing v1.3.1 on my iPhone 4 and it looks beautiful.

See our video of the initial release version of the iPhone original.

Choplifter was the first game I fell in love with on my first Apple computer, an Apple //c, back in 1984. Saucelifter is a superb enhancement on the formula and pays faithful homage to the Dan Gorlin masterpiece. Since its release, I've counted Saucelifter among my five absolute favorite iPhone games and, after enjoying the Universal build of the game for several weeks now on my iPad, I don't expect that to change anytime soon. Whether or not you've ever played Choplifter, Saucelifter is one not to be missed.

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While we're all busy fiddling with multitasking and obsessively organizing our apps in to folders, developers are hard at work to fully utilize all the other things under the hood of iOS 4. Firemint and Secret Exit are among the first studios taking advantage of iOS 4's new anti-aliasing capabilities.

Anti-aliasing is used to minimize jagged edges found in curved and diagonal lines displayed utilizing the grid of square pixels that make up the displays we use today. Using anti-aliasing, the GPU of the iPhone intelligently decides what color to display on pixels that border the edges of 3D objects to make them blend in to the background and appear more crisp.

As you can see from the above image, the A on the left has no aliasing, while the edges of the A on the right have been blended with the background color. This is a gross over-simplification of how anti-aliasing works, but if you weren't aware before it will at least give you an idea of what you're looking at in the following sets of screenshots:

The effects of the anti-aliasing is incredibly apparent when you focus on the bill of the duck in both images. Secret Exit also posted additional screenshots in our forums, and in a second post explaining the technical details of anti-aliasing in Zen Bound 2 which mentions the performance cost being too high to utilize the effect in older devices.

In somewhat related Zen Bound 2 news, they also announced that it will soon be available on multiple platforms. Joining the existing iPad Zen Bound 2 [$4.99] is an upcoming iPhone, iPod touch, PC, and Mac version. Recent MacBook owners will be able to use the multi-touch trackpad or even a Magic Mouse to control the game just like the iPhone.

Real Racing [$4.99] saw an update yesterday which not only made the game iPhone 4 friendly complete with high resolution graphics, but also brought anti-aliasing to the iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation iPod touch. It might not have been immediately obvious when you fired up the game since updating, but take a look at a screenshot I took today compared to a screenshot captured for our our review over a year ago:

Looking at the line following the top of the dashboard, the A pillar of the car, and edges of the banner over the makes the new anti-aliasing really pop out comparing the two screenshots. This is only the tip of the iceberg, too. Now that new features like this have been unlocked for developers, it should be really fun to see what they come up with.

Anti-aliasing being supported by the iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation iPod touch is also good news for people who might not be immediately upgrading to the iPhone 4. While you'll obviously be lacking the Retina Display, if developers start implementing anti-aliasing in all their 3D games, everything will look substantially better on your existing device without needing to do anything other than download some game updates.

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We mentioned earlier that Firemint was one of the first on the scene with "Retina"-display enhanced versions of their game. We managed to get some full-size iPhone 4 screenshots of the game which are included below.

Firemint lists the following features for the free update:

• Gorgeous new graphics perfect for showing off the Retina display with high resolution textures, more detailed car interiors, improved track corners, beautifully updated menus and exceptionally smooth graphical performance on iPhone 4
• Even more responsive and accurate controls on iPhone 4, with three-axis gyro support in addition to accelerometer
• Smoother graphics on iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3 with iOS4 anti-aliasing
• Support for iOS4 multitasking on compatible devices: switch effortlessly between your favourite apps

Screenshots off of an iPhone 4 (click for full size):

In many ways, its silly to be posting these screens since most of you are viewing them on a standard monitor. The appeal of the iPhone 4's display is said to be the extremely high dots per inch (DPI) that it outputs that results in a particularly smooth image. Still, we were just as curious to see the full size screens even if we can't fully appreciate them until Thursday.

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Today is the day that all the wonderful things we heard about during the WWDC keynote regarding the future of the iPhone OS, now officially dubbed iOS 4, are available to everyone. This update is completely free, and only requires you to plug your device in to the computer you usually sync with then waiting for it to download and install in iTunes. There are over 100 new features in iOS 4 according to Apple, but so far my favorite two are folders and multitasking.

With folders, you can now have up to 2160 apps on your device, and multitasking now allows for apps like Pandora Radio [Free] to continue playing in the background. For a listing of the other features, take a peek at the Apple iOS 4 Software Update page.

One unfortunate thing to come out of this update is that first generation iPhone and iPod touch users are being left in the dust. If you have an older device, you will be stuck in 3.0 land, and only the third generation iPod touch, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 are capable of multitasking.

Before updating your device make sure you not only do one full sync to back it up, but you also check and make sure there aren't any issues reported with your favorite games running on iOS4. For instance, ngmoco just tweeted warning players of Eliminate [Free] and Touch Pets Dogs [Free] of potential performance issues while playing the game on iOS 4.

I've yet to encounter any serious issues in the games I regularly play, and many games and apps have had recent updates that have added iOS 4 compatibility. This is just something you should potentially be aware of before mashing that check for updates button in iTunes.

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Apple's surprise media event unveiling the iPhone OS 4.0 is set to begin shortly. We'll be providing live updates, and focusing on things that specifically pertain to iPhone gaming or things iPhone gamers might be interested in like all of our other keynote coverage in the past.

Steve Jobs just took the stage, and started things out by talking about the sales figures of the iPad. On Saturday they sold 300,000, and as of today they've sold 450,000. Apple apparently is making them as fast as they can, but notes that Best Buy is already out of stock. On the first day, 1 million paid apps were downloaded, and since then 3.5 million have been. (In addition to 600,000 eBooks.)

Photo courtesy of gdgt live.

Jobs also mentions that there are over 185,000 apps in the App Store, with over 3,500 iPad apps. He then took some time to show off the more impressive iPad apps in the App Store currently such as the ABC app, Netflix, the Marvel comic book reader, and others. Shifting gears to talk about the iPhone, Steve mentions they've won three JD Power awards for customer satisfaction, and currently holds 64% of the mobile browser market share. Apple has sold over 50 million iPhones, with 85 million combined devices between the iPod touch and iPhone.

iPhone OS 4.0 is coming this summer, with a developer preview available today.

Photo courtesy of gdgt live.

Photo courtesy of gdgt live.

Among the seven "tent pole" features of iPhone OS 4.0 is multitasking. Steve goes on to demonstrate how multitasking is going to work. With multiple apps running, double clicking the home button raises a window that looks a lot like the bottom dock of the iPhone showing what apps are running. Tapping an icon instantly switches to that app.

Photo courtesy of gdgt live.

To explain how this all works while preserving battery life and performance, Steve hands things off to Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone Software. iPhone OS 4.0 will provide seven multitasking services. The first of which is audio streaming, and Forstall specifically cites Pandora as an example of an app that will shine with this functionality. Developing applications to utilize this functionality is apparently extremely easy, as it only took the Pandora developers a day to make the app background aware. Skype also works fantastically with this new functionality, even allowing you to accept calls while running in the background.

Doodle Jump spotted:

Photo courtesy of gdgt live.

The next multitasking function is background location. Apps that use the GPS functionality such as TomTom will be able to continue routing while in the background. This raises obvious privacy concerns, and a new settings menu will be available to enable and disable location services per application, as well as showing a small arrow icon next to the battery indicator.

Moving on to push notifications, Forstall mentions they've sent over 10 billion notifications since the service went live. Building on push notifications comes local notifications, done entirely on the phone to see alerts from apps you have running in the background. One example mentioned was a popup when a photo was finished uploading to Flickr.

Photo courtesy of gdgt live.

Steve takes the stage again and announces folders to organize apps. The interface seems an awful lot like the various jailbreak app organization solutions. So far Apple is really knocking it out of the park with this keynote.

Photo courtesy of gdgt live.

The iPhone mail client is also getting enhanced, with a unified inbox for each email account on the device along with a threaded email view for reading conversations. Unsurprisingly, the iPhone is also getting the iBooks app which will sync pages and bookmarks with other devices that have the app.

Forstall just announced "Game Center", Apple's own gaming social networking service that seems to handle everything Plus+, OpenFeint, and others do with presumably one unified login tied to your iTunes account. Matchmaking, leaderboards, and achievements are all part of it.

Photo courtesy of Gizmodo.

Also mentioned was Apple's own iAd advertisement services, which we expect to see making appearances in many free games that have historically relied on AdMob and other advertising networks.

iPhone OS 4.0 will be coming this fall, and sadly, multitasking will not be supported for the iPhone 3G and second generation iPod touch. That's it folks, Steve is taking questions now.

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