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Right now there are 250,000 apps in the App Store. One of the biggest categories of apps are games. And happily, for folks like me, there's no shortage of retro inspired / remake titles among them. Apple recently setup a retro game section of the App Store, in fact.

For those that haven't really explored this side of the App Store, I point you to a nice little roundup that Mashable recently put together. Ten titles — all of which we've covered in the past — that won't disappoint (though, we might urge folks towards Rogue Touch or Sword of Fargoal for their Rogue fix, as opposed to Gadnreas' never-updated, 2008 release featured in the roundup). Of course, ten games is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the list of great retro titles available for iOS devices, but if you're just beginning to taste the awesomeness of these classics — baby steps.

Those looking for more recommended retro titles can have a look at our list of Retro-related game stories.

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The interactive fiction section of the App Store has grown quite a bit since our original post on both the Fighting Fantasy and Gamebook Adventures series of RPG eBook apps. If this is the first you've heard of them, these game books are an evolution of sorts on choose your own adventure books that you may or may not have read as a kid. Instead of simply choosing between two forks in a book and turning to that page, they have you roll dice to determine the outcome of the story. For instance, the main character might lose his footing, at which point you're faced with a dice challenge to see whether or not you fall in to some treacherous pit or manage to grab on to something and pull yourself out. The random nature of these game books make them a lot of fun, and give them quite a bit of replay (reread?) value as the story forks a different way with each reading.

These game books all play similarly, but I've found myself leaning towards Big Blue Bubble's adaptation of the Fighting Fantasy series, as they're universal and look great on the iPad as well as existing previously as published game books. Definitely look in to Fighting Fantasy if you're planning on playing the books on an iPad, as pixel doubling works on the others, but isn't a very good experience.

Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, $2.99 Deep in the caverns beneath Firetop Mountain lies an untold wealth of treasure, guarded by a powerful Warlock – or so the rumor goes. Several adventurers like yourself have set off for Firetop Mountain in search of the Warlocks hoard. None has ever returned. Do you dare follow them?

Fighting Fantasy: Citadel of Chaos, $2.99 The Citadel holds a dark and dangerous peril for anyone foolhardy enough to venture through its gruesome gates. And yet venture you must for your mission lies at the heart of the Citadel, with the dread sorcerer, Balthus Dire!

Fighting Fantasy: Deathtrap Dungeon, $2.99 Countless adventurers before you have taken up thee challenge of the Trial of Champions, but not one has survived. Devised by the devilish mind of Baron Sukumvit, the labyrinth is riddled with fiendish traps and hideous creatures of darkness to trick and test you almost beyond the limits of endurance!

Fighting Fantasy: Creature of Havok, $2.99 You begin this adventure not knowing where you are or who you are. All you know is that you are some kind of creature of instinct, understanding little. During the course of the adventure, it may be possible for you to begin to control your bestial nature, to find out more about yourself, and even to learn your destiny. But even if you know all this, success is by no means certain, for the traps and terrors of Trolltooth Pass are many … Are you ready — to become the Creature of Havoc?

Next are Gamebook Adventures by Tin Man Games, a completely original series written by S.P. Osborne and illustrated by Pirkka Harvala. I like the presentation of the Gamebook Adventures series a lot, and I really hope they're eventually updated to be universal.

Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes, $4.99 Set within Orlandes City, nobles are being systematically murdered by a ruthless assassin no-one seems able to catch. Finding yourself thrust in the middle of a large conspiracy, you must make decisions that may put yourself and one other most precious to you in great danger. Can you locate the Assassin in Orlandes before it is too late?

Gamebook Adventures 2: The Siege of the Necromancer, $4.99 Set in the coastal town of Myr, you have returned home after a long Summer in the mines of Durath Tor to find your hometown besieged by strange creatures. A dark presence has taken over the town and you are the only one who can rid the stronghold of Erid Buul, the mysterious new Lord and his ghastly cohorts.

And last but not least, Bright AI brought the first installment Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series to the App Store. Jackson is one of the original authors of the Fighting Fantasy books, and wrote the Sorcery! series along side them targeted at an older audience as they're much longer and more complex, even offering a choice of class to play while reading the book. Unfortunately, this isn't universal either.

Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! The Shamutanti Hills, $2.99 The Shamutanti Hills is Book One in Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! series. Your epic quest will take you across the mysterious hills to the cityport of Kharé, but only if you outwit the creatures, traps and wizardry you encounter along the way.

Since all of these game books basically play the same, you can pretty much just choose whichever one(s) sound interesting to you based on their description as reading previous installments in the series to enjoy later ones isn't required either. As mentioned, if you intend on reading them on an iPad, I'd gravitate towards the Fighting Fantasy books, but any of them will be highly enjoyable to any fan of fantasy fiction.

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MapleStory is a 2D MMORPG developed by South Korean company Wizet which has well over 100 million subscribers across the world. The MMO itself is completely free to play, and is monetized by selling various customizations and enhancements from an in-game shop purchasable with real money or gift cards which are even sold at Wal-Mart. MapleStory works like most MMORPG's where you fight monsters, earn experience, and otherwise develop your character while chatting, trading, and forming guilds with other players. Unfortunately, the social aspect is missing in the single player iPhone game, but otherwise the gameplay (or as much gameplay as I'm familiar when I had dabbled in MapleStory) seems intact.

On-screen controls move your little dude around and handle all the other functions in the game. There are two playable classes, both the thief and assassin with over 70 different pieces of swag to outfit yourself with. The graphics look like they're straight out of the original game, and in the brief time I've spent with it, it seems like there is tons to do with all kinds of quests to complete.

The appeal of MapleStory for me was always the sheer scale of the game world with tons of players, and Thief Edition just feels lonely in comparison without the constant chatter of other players in the game world. The game does play well enough with virtual controls, and I really hope that Nexon Mobile is just using MapleStory: Thief Edition to test the waters of the App Store before releasing a full MapleStory client because how awesome would that be.

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Back at WWDC we met with Fish Labs to see the sequel to Galaxy On Fire 3D [$2.99 / Free] running on the iPad. Before getting any deeper than this, it's important to know the roots of the Galaxy on Fire series so you can fully appreciate just how far the game has come. Both Galaxy on Fire and its sequel originated from J2ME games that weighed in at under 1 megabyte each in their original form. Galaxy on Fire 3D saw an incredible leap from the J2ME game, and its sequel makes even bigger advancements. Before looking at what the game has become today, take a good look at the original screenshot to the right, in all its J2ME glory.

Galaxy on Fire 2 is a space conquest game, with a massive galaxy map to explore, multiple factions to align yourself to, a dynamic economy, and tons of other neat features that all add up to an impressive amount of depth. The original Galaxy on Fire was something special, but the sequel seems to be exceeding the original in every way imaginable.

Generally speaking when we do a preview post like this, we'll just cherry pick two or three of the coolest screenshots that developers send us, but that isn't really possible with Galaxy on Fire 2. That just really wasn't possible with the batch that Fish Labs sent us, especially with them all being rendered at iPhone 4 Retina Display resolution:

Galaxy on Fire 2 is in beta testing right now, and Fish Labs expects to release both the iPhone and iPad versions of the game simultaneously in October. For more information check out their extensive developer blog or the thread in our forums. There is also some iPad gameplay footage in our last preview at WWDC, but that was so long ago it's hard to say how representative that even is of the game right now.

I can't wait.

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Originally released in 1985 by the now defunct Data East, Road Blaster is a LaserDisc game in the style of Cobra Command [99¢]. Road Blaster was one of the last LaserDisc games ever released, and is set in a Mad Max-like post apocalyptic world where you play as a vigilante on the road hunting down a biker gang in attempt to bring them to justice for the death of your wife. Along the way you will need to do all kinds of tricky driving maneuvers before finally facing off with the gang's leader.

The only time this game has been seen outside of Japan is in the Sega CD port which not only suffered from the same horrid video compression of all Sega CD games, but also got renamed to Road Avenger. Revolutionary Concepts have completely remastered the game, and when it is finally released, it will play at 60FPS at full iPhone 4 or iPad resolutions. They've also completely redesigned the dashboard of the car, added in tilt controls, and made a whole list of other tweaks.

Check out this comparison between the original arcade and iPad versions of the game:

Road Blaster is currently in the final stages of development, and is expected to be released on the App Store sometime next month.

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Freebies are universally awesome, whether they're free samples of pizza bagels at the grocery store or great iPhone games. We've favorably reviewed both of these games, but you might as well just download both of these and give them a try for yourself while they're free.

Truckers Delight: Episode 1 – While Mobigame is likely best known for the controversy surrounding Edge [$2.99], they've also brought both Cross Fingers [$1.99 / Free] and Truckers Delight: Episode 1 [Free] to the App Store as well. Truckers Delight is an episodic iPhone game based on the not at all work safe video of the same name. In the game, you play as a trucker driving down a highway pursuing a blonde girl in a red corvette. Your truck is controlled by tilting, and along the way you'll need to run police, motorcycles, and many other vehicles off the road with the help of an array of increasingly odd and vulgar power-ups.

We liked Truckers Delight: Episode 1 quite a bit in our review, and really can't wait for the rest of the episodes in the series. The game does a great job of preserving the feel of retro racing games while providing a good difficulty curve that gets really exciting as you're just barely making it to the next checkpoint with one second to spare. Don't miss this game while it's free.

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Luxor – Initially released in 2005, Luxor has lived a long life on many platforms including the Mac, PC, and several game consoles both through its initial release and subsequent sequels. The iPhone port is done well, and features gameplay similar to Puzzloop [$7.99 / Free] and many other marble shooting color matching games. Luxor has a bit of a notorious reputation on our forums due to the role that developer Mumbo Jumbo played in StoneLoops! of Jurassica's removal from the App Store, which explains the tsunami of negative reviews in iTunes despite the fact that the game is quite fun.

As mentioned when we first took a look at the game, Luxor is host to a heap of levels, power-ups, and achievements to inflate your Plus+ score. If you've been looking for a marble shooter, grab this one while it's free.

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One game that I've been having a ton of fun with since this past weekend is DungeonCore from developer GAEWOOL. It takes the concept of the “fall down” type games (like Cliffed [$1.99] / Free] or, well, many other games), and adds an RPG element to the mix. The result is a game that I haven't been able to put down, and when I do I usually find myself coming right back to it before long. It's a fairly difficult game, and does have it's share of minor issues, but the RPG progression and utter simplicity is totally engaging.

DungeonCore starts with your hero dropping in from the top of the screen literally only equipped with his underwear. You control his left/right movement with tilt as the level continuously scrolls upwards. If you end up too far off the top or bottom of the screen, it's game over. What makes this game much more difficult than similar titles is that the hero is constantly walking forward, and tilting merely changes which direction he walks. So you can't just stand in one place for a bit while you get your bearings, as he's always on the move. You may love this aspect of the game or hate it, but there's no doubt that it brings constant action to the game while you're playing.

Also different from games like this is the fact that there's actually an end point to the chasm that you are traversing down. If you reach the bottom there is a giant boss to defeat, although getting that far would be a truly amazing feat for any gamer. I've personally only made it about one tenth of the way down, according to the game over screen that gives you a little diagram of how far you made it. This doesn't deter me from continuing to try though, as it's a great feeling to even just get a bit farther than the last time, and the RPG elements add a lot of strategy to the game.

Killing enemies is as easy as touching them, and they'll drop a coin for your efforts. At set points in the dungeon play will stop and your hero will automatically enter a door to the shop where you can use your collected coins to purchase new weapons and equipment. Many of these items are locked initially and are unlocked by performing certain feats in the game. Once unlocked however, they remain that way for subsequent playthroughs. There are items that will increase your defense, give you more coins per enemy, make you move slower (and more manageably), and many others. It's a ton of fun deciding what items to buy and weighing the pros and cons of each, and certain items must be purchased in order to progress in the game.

It all comes together in a really great way, and DungeonCore has much more going on than your typical endless high score endeavor. It could use some work some areas, and my biggest request would be difficulty options to make it easier to see more of the game. There's a starter strategy guide at the GAEWOOL website here, but even with those tips this is one of the harder games that I've played on my iPhone. It's still a really compelling offering though, and I really love the cute pixel art style. Gamers in our forums are enjoying the game as well, and if you like the simplistic play mechanics in games like these but are looking for one with more depth, definitely check out DungeonCore.

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Fishlabs' latest addition to the App Store is a modern take on the arcade classic, Missile Command. While we've seen a few games adopt this formula, none have looked as darn pretty as Earth Defender [99¢]. Earth Defender's interpretation of Missile Command on the iOS devices dispenses with the missiles launching from Earth, and opts for a more responsive explosion-on-touch mechanic. The swarms of multi-colored aliens descending on our fair planet won't know what hits them when a well placed bomb explodes in their faces. Of course, where would Missile Command be without chaining; Earth Defender ensuring that explosions from one alien will in-turn kill others nearby, allowing for well placed screen clearing multipliers.

Earth Defender is host to a variety of weapons and a horde of aliens to use them on. Weapons include a few very different effects that will need to be used differently to adapt to the circumstances. The black hole bomb for instance, will suck up the smaller critters, but are usually limited in number. The electrical bomb will zap any enemies near the blast radius and is used almost as a mine to pre-empt attacks. Weapons are gradually updated in size and power too, level-to-level, to accommodate for the greater difficulty.

Enemies generally take the form of two types– those that can be killed by bombs, and those that can't. For the latter, you need to hold your finger over the enemy to charge an electrical bolt from Earth, slowly whittling them down. There are 14 different enemy types in the game; with some of the more interesting ones cloaking at random, or combining to launch a suicide attack against your shields.

To defend against the onslaught, the Earth has 3 shields barriers divided into multiple segments. Enemies target these segments, either with their own bombs, or by very damaging kamikaze runs. If they happen to pierce through any part of the 3-layered shield, an invasion warning begins, indicating the descent of the alien mothership. It's up to you to kill enough enemies to then generate a shield power-up in time, or risk losing the Earth entirely. Power-up drops are fortunately frequent and forgiving, so this really only becomes an issue when you are seriously in trouble.

For all that the Earth Defender description touts its boss fights, we found this to be the weakest area of the game. Essentially, one snake-like boss attacks multiple times (until the final boss), narrowly escaping you each time until you finally dispense with him. We would have liked to see different bosses with different attack patterns that require a more measured use of the various bombs at your disposal. This is a criticism that may be leveled at the game as a whole too, though– as bombs are not selectable and power-ups simply replace the bomb in your possession– allowing for no real strategic use of weapons.

Earth Defender looks and sounds fantastic, and plays just as frantically as Missile Command of old. You will quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies launching at your shields, and the difficulty of the last few levels is considerable. Unfortunately, Earth Defender doesn't escape the feeling that after the first few levels you've seen it all; with the basic gameplay simply increasing in pace. Instead, we would have loved to see levels or bosses that require you to fully explore your arsenal. Still, Earth Defender is a true-to-its-roots Missile Command inspired game; and with 5-finger multi-touch and OpenFeint, should really appeal to fans of the genre.

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