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It’s been over a year since the last update, and many in our forums were worried that the app had been abandoned, but I’m happy to report that Manomio has released an update to C64 for iPhone [App Store], the Commodore 64 emulator and game store (at over 50 titles right now) for iOS, that we’ve been tracking since way back in 2008.

Stuart Carnie of Manomio filled me in on the license tangles he’s been dealing with since late last year which stymied work on the app, but indicates all is now resolved and that he’s excited to bring this update, as well as return his focus to development and the acquisition of new licenses for C64-loving iOS gamers.

The big news in this latest version of C64 for iPhone, version 2.2, is the addition of support for the iCade and compatible devices (such as the iControlPad and Gametel controller we recently covered), which is huge news given the nature of the typical Commodore 64 game title. In this initial implementation, iCade support means joystick and fire button emulation — certain games with extended features, such as The Last Ninja, still require tapping the screen for key input and the like. This update also brings full support for iOS 5.

It’s worth pointing out that, presently, C64 is not a Universal application, and so using it on an iPad in the iCade means running the iPhone app at 2x video magnification. However, Stuart has big plans for the app and shared a short-list of what’s coming, down the road…

• A new, Universal app!
  • This is a rewrite in order to add all the required features
  • PRO: By not replacing the iPhone version, we can keep existing users with old hardware on the current builds
  • PRO: For compatible games, we’ll continue to add them to C64 for iPhone
• Activate your original C64 for iPhone purchases if you have it installed
• Cycle-exact emulation — will require ARMv7 devices
• Same OpenGL ES 2.0 retro visual effects currently in progress for iAmiga
• iCADE / iControlPad / Gametel support
• TV-out
• Network play
• More in-app purchases, including existing titles
• A big pack of free games to get you started
• Retina display support
• BASIC mode, with 1541 “disk” save support

We’re very glad to see Stuart out of the woods and moving forward with his efforts to bring retro fun to today’s gamers. We will keep readers in the loop on the latest from Manomio as the news unfolds.

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One of my favorite iOS games of all time is the dungeon crawler Rogue Touch from ChronoSoft. Here at WWDC 2011, I had a chance to sit down with the man behind the games, Kevin Hill, to discuss the latest on that great classic adaptation as well as some of his upcoming titles, including roguelike / RPG Dungeon Tactics: Spirit Hunter Mineko, which we first mentioned back in March of last year.

First off, Rogue Touch will be getting a major update sometime in July as it moves from v1.6, which arrived last summer, to version 2.0. Kevin worked am impressive series of updates to the game in its early days, but none of them have brought nearly as drastic a set of enhancements as the coming update.

Rogue Touch v2.0 will bring an entirely new set of tiles and monsters with much greater detail than those of the current release. What's more, the game will move to an OpenGL-based rendering engine (don't worry — it's still a 2D game), improving the visuals in several respects as compared to its current CoreGraphics-based engine. Game Center integration is also in the mix, as well as various, smaller tweaks and enhancements. I took a look at the tile and character sheets for Rogue Touch v2.0, and I can't wait to make the upgrade.

The coming Rogue Touch update isn't all that fans of the game have to look forward to. Rogue Touch EX is still on track to inject the dungeon crawler formula with a dose of arcade action. The game will feature pseudo real-time exploration, something akin to what we've seen in Solomon's Keep. Rogue Touch EX is expected to arrive as a Universal application for both iPad and iPhone, with Retina display support on the latter.

The biggest news of all out of our meeting with ChronoSoft is the preview I was given of Hill's upcoming Dungeon Tactics: Spirit Hunter Mineko. The game marries elements of the roguelike dungeon crawler with those of the traditional Japanese RPG.

We detailed the backstory in our first look but, in short, the game is the adventure of Mineko, a teenage girl and Spirit Hunter who lives with her family in a remote, mountaintop village. One night during a magical and terrible storm, she and her fellow villagers see a menacing castle materialize out of nowhere. The village council decides that her brother should be sent to investigate this new evil and Mineko, never one to mope about the house, follows after him to help save her village.

Hill has made a number of design decisions aimed at keeping the game experience as accessible and uncluttered as possible. For example, movement is a simple swipe with two swipes for an action. Stairs are automatically ascended / descended when encountered. Tidy inventory and potion selection panes can be swiped in from above and below. The entire system feels rather streamlined.

The game features multiple environments including houses, sewers, cellars, caves, forests and castles as well as an active weather system and day and night modes. In addition to weapons and potions, there is a magic system handled via glyphs on a scroll that can slide in from the side of the screen. Additional side areas become available upon completion of the main mission, allowing some bonus post-victory dungeon crawling fun.

I had a chance to play an in-progress version of the game here at WWDC and it seems extremely well put together. Have a look at a brief video of the game in its current state.

We can expect Dungeon Tactics: Spirit Hunter Mineko to arrive sometime this fall. After that, it's on to work on the next title for Hill, an as-yet unnamed, futuristic strategy game in the vein of Advanced Wars and Super Robot Wars. I took a look at the character sheets and they look quite promising.

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On Thursday, prior to the launch of the iPad 2, we posted a look at some early numbers from a suite of benchmarks run on a pre-launch, iPad 2 media unit. These included a custom benchmark written by Guy English to gauge the graphics performance of an iOS device, which showed Apple's new tablet to boast a dramatically improved fill-rate as compared to the original iPad.

For example, on my original iPad, with 200 on-screen sprites, the framerate dropped to 45 fps. On the iPad 2, with 400 on-screen sprites, the framerate remained at 65 fps. On the iPad 1, Guy’s demo app dropped below 60 fps with about 100 animated sprites; on the iPad 2, it didn’t drop below 60 fps until there were over 750 animated sprites.

Since then, we've seen the iPad 2 land in stores and additional performance reports start to surface, now that folks can get their hands on one. One such report was posted by AnandTech who has put the iPad 2's graphics processor through its paces using GLBenchmark 2.0, an application written to gauge OpenGL ES 2.0 performance. They are also indicating that Apple's new A5 system-on-a-chip contains a dual-core configuration of Imagination Technologies' graphics processor, the PowerVR SGX543MP2, which comes as no surprise.

Architecturally the 543MP2 has more than twice the compute horsepower of the SGX 535 used in Apple's A4. Each shader pipeline can execute twice the number of instructions per clock as the SGX 535, and then there are four times as many pipes in an SGX 543MP2 as there are in a 535.

The full report of the benchmark results can be seen over at AnandTech, but I've compiled the key numbers for quick review, below.

As you can see by the results, the iPad 2 markedly outperforms both the original iPad as well as Motorola's new Android-based Xoom tablet with its Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset. GLBenchmark shows it moving nearly 5x the number of triangles per second as the iPad and fetching textures nearly 7x faster than the Xoom. Truly impressive results.

Coinciding with the launch of the iPad 2, we've seen a number of developers release updates to their titles that take advantage of the new device's muscle. (And, most every existing title is benefitting from the extra horsepower as well, we're seeing.) But, really, it's going to take some time before we see the power of the iPad 2's A5 truly exploited, as developers have a chance to really test the limits of the new hardware and craft titles that are dramatically more complex than anything we've yet seen in the App Store.

And, of course, we'll keep you posted.

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Early last month we posted our exclusive preview of Manomio's much anticipated iAmiga emulation system that will shortly be used to bring a list of old school Amiga classics to the iPhone and iPad. In the time since that post, developer and CEO Stuart Carnie has provided us with a number of new builds of the iAmiga development test system which have each brought various fixes and improvements to the environment.

I wanted to list some of the changes that we've seen in these recent builds, for readers who are waiting anxiously for iAmiga to do its thing in the App Store.

• Basic iPad support now working (display appropriately scales to the device's screen)
• TV-out is now supported on Retina display devices and iPad. Hot plug / unplug handed gracefully.
• New mouse control system implemented — greatly enhances the feel of mouse-based titles (behaves nearly identically to a trackpad, now)
• CPU is more stable
  • Shadow of the Beast no longer crashes
  • IK+ no longer exhibits graphics glitches during intro
  • CPU tracing system implemented, able to generate gigabytes of log data for issue tracking, at need
• Audio now pauses properly when switching between Game / Settings tab (no looping)

Carnie has also shared with us a list of near-term "to do's" that we can look forward to, shortly:

• Finish integrating the CRT effects OpenGL ES engine (using GLSL shaders). List includes: No effect, 50% scanlines, aperture 1×2 RB and aperture 1×3 RB
• Aspect ratio selection (full screen, 4:3, whole pixel)
• Save / Resume support
• Defender of the Crown cabinet shell and graphics

It's been loads of fun testing out a slew of Amiga games on the iPhone with these new builds, and I can't wait for everyone out there to get the chance to enjoy so many Amiga classics, delivered through Manomio's emulation system. We'll bring more news from the studio as iAmiga development continues.

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Last week we posted about the Indie iPhone Holiday Sale, a joint effort from six developers, each with fantastic indie titles, to raise money for Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity. It really doesn't get more win/win than this. For $6, you get six great games, and some of the proceeds go to helping improve the quality of life of kids in hospitals across America.

The following games are still on sale until the 2nd of January:

• Canabalt, by Semi Secret Software – Review
• Solipskier, by Mikengreg – Review
• Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, by Tiger Style Games – Review
• Osmos, by Hemisphere Games – Review
• Eliss, by Steph Thirion – Review
• Drop7, by Area/Code Inc. – Review

To celebrate raising so much cash for kids in need, Semi Secret Software made a substantial announcement: Canabalt is now totally open source via the MIT license. This is the full latest version of the game that hasn't even been approved yet on the App Store which features some pretty sick OpenGL optimizations I've been told, allowing the game to run at 60fps on recent devices.

If you're a pioneering iOS developer, check out the source here. The license they're using is open enough that you can basically use the game engine for anything you want, provided you're not redistributing the game code, graphics, or sound. This really makes me wonder if we'll see a Canabalt spinoff that features all the unanswered suggestions from our forums.

Either way, this is great news for the developers participating in the sale, developers who are interested in looking under the hood of Canabalt, and most importantly: The kids benefitting from these donations.

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Indie development studio Manomio, whose proud motto is "in retro we trust," first grabbed our attention last summer when their Commodore 64 for iPhone [link] emulation app was rejected by Apple, putting some of the App Store's boundaries under the spotlight. Happily, though, C64 eventually got the green light and has been warming the hearts of retro gaming enthusiasts for just over a year, now. It's beautifully executed and is a favorite here at Touch Arcade.

Early this year, Manomio let us know that they had a whole lot more retro heart warming in store and shared details of their upcoming Amiga emulation system, now known as iAmiga, that would allow them to license and release various classic Amiga titles to be faithfully rendered on your iPhone screen. On hearing this we were — readers and editors alike — thrilled at the prospect of enjoying some of the true gaming gems that sit among the vast library of Amiga releases. A short tech demo video was provided in short order, showing two games in play, that served as quite a teaser, making us very anxious to get our hands on the studio's latest.

I'm happy to report that, yesterday, Manomio CTO Stuart Carnie was merciful enough to finally put an end to our suffering and provide us with an exclusive early build of the iAmiga system, packed with a bundle of sample games, to put through its paces. Yea, it's dirty work, but somebody's got to do it.

After spending some serious time with the iAmiga system, I can tell you that, for an early build, it is truly impressive. While it's true that a few of the games that I tried glitched at some point, the vast majority ran perfectly and buttery smoothly on my iPhone 4. I'm talking about totally accurate sound, flawless graphics, glass smooth animation — just as if the games were being played on the standard config Amiga 500 that iAmiga emulates. Right now there are keyboard, mouse, and joystick input systems that can be activated with a tap, but (especially in the case of the keyboard) they are quick and dirty solutions that will be replaced with much more refined components before anything lands in the App Store, Stuart assures me. The overall portrait / landscape control mechanics, like those found in the studio's C64, will be preserved, however.

As for what's under the hood of the iAmiga system, Manomio has taken the UAE4All Amiga emulator and tied it to Stuart's own ARM assembly optimized, emulated 68000 CPU core. In the name of performance, the core relies upon the ARM7x architecture and, as such, only iPhone 3GS / 3rd gen. iPod touch devices and up can play. iPad support is coming, as well.

The original plan was to take this emulator and wrap it around various licensed Amiga titles and release them as stand-alone games. That's still part of the plan, but as certain App Store restrictions have loosened a bit of late, there will likely also be a sort of Amiga shell app released that that allows the stand-alone games to be played in a richer Amiga emulation environment that may offers things like OpenGL ES 2.0 shader effects to add scan-lines, CRT glare, and even TV-out and iPad play using a tethered iPhone as a controller. Just the kind of things that make die-hard retro nuts rather weak in the knees.

Stuart has given the okay for us to record and share sample gameplay footage of his emulation system, and so I've put together a fairly lengthy mix of 10 Amiga games that you just might remember.

The games shown in the video are the following, in order: Defender of the Crown, Battle Squadron, International Karate +, R-Type, R-Type II, Speedball, Stunt Car Racer, Shadow of the Beast, Virus, and Xenon 2: Megablast. It should be noted that this list does not represent the list of games that will necessarily be coming to the App Store through the iAmiga system — these are games simply used to test the system in its developmental state. (In fact, some of these I added from my own collection of Amiga disk images.)

As far as what we will be seeing in the way of iOS Amiga releases, Manomio has licensed various titles from Cinemaware, so Defender of the Crown, It Came from the Desert, Wings, and others are on the way. The studio is currently in licensing discussions with several other IP holders to secure additional titles for iOS release, including Factor 5 (Turrican I, II, III), The Bitmap Brothers (Xenon II: Megablast), Magnetic Fields (Supercars), Cope-Com (Battle Squadron), and Archer MacLean (IK+). Additionally, they are in talks with an unnamed major mobile publisher that's very interested in putting Amiga classics in the hands of today's gamers.

As you can see from the video, what we're in for is a wave of excellent games that are retro, true, but not so retro that they lack mainstream appeal. (Yes, the Amiga was that advanced 25 years ago.) This is big news, not only for iOS gamers, but for mobile gaming in general. In my personal experience, Amiga emulation has been quite a bit more difficult to manage than other age-old platforms on proper Macs and PCs due to the complexity of the original hardware. The thought of having easy access to these games in a tap-and-go fashion — even standing in line at the bank — is just amazing. I call this some of the very biggest news in iOS gaming that we've ever covered and can't wait until all of you out there get a chance to enjoy these great Amiga titles on your iOS devices, as well.

For readers unfamiliar with the Amiga, it is a 16-bit computer released by Commodore in 1985. A far more complex system than the C64, the Amiga featured a powerful central processor (the same found in the early Macintosh), various custom co-processors, and a multitasking operating system that, together, enabled audiovisual feats previously unseen in a consumer system at that point in time. While it did not see enormous popularity in the United States, it was wildly popular in Europe and is considered by many to be one of the very best game platforms ever created. InfoWorld called the Amiga the "third milestone" in computing after the Apple II and IBM PC.

We'll be tracking Manomio's iAmiga project closely and will pass along any further details that emerge, as we get them.

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Yesterday we chatted with Id Software's John Carmack, a gaming legend who has been pumping out popular video games and next generation graphics engines for over 20 years. His latest title, RAGE [99¢ / HD], hit the App Store late Wednesday night, and since then discussion regarding the game has exploded on our forums.

To start things off, we picked up where we left off with John in our last interview, asking where in the world the previous games he mentioned were in Id's release schedule. Carmack told us that he badly wants to get back to releasing Quake Classic, adding even more to Doom Classic, and potentially even bring QuakeLive to the App Store but he's just not sure where to find the time to do it.

In order to get some perspective into what goes into making a game like RAGE, John explained that it was built by an entire new mobile team put together at Id, and during the two full-time months he worked on it, he was the most involved he has ever been in a mobile project. They wanted to be extremely careful, since this was the first taste that gamers were going to get of a much larger RAGE universe, and everyone at Id is both very happy with how it turned out, and anxious to roll their experience with the title into another even better game.

We had to ask the inevitable question that has been burning up our forums– Why the game is on rails when other developers such as Gameloft have seen phenomenal levels of success and staying power on the top selling charts with full free-roaming first person shooters. John began by saying that he thinks they could do a great job with a full first person shooter, but there are many reasons why RAGE is the way it is.

First off, it's really pushing the limits of the entire iOS device lineup from a technical standpoint, and they wanted to create an extremely approachable curated experience that everyone interested in the RAGE universe could get a taste of. He explains that what they wanted to make was a fun pick up and play game that leaves you with a "Wow!" feeling, and he believes they accomplished that goal. John went on to say, "You can't ever be everything to everyone. You can't please everyone," and mentioned that the game was designed from the ground up to be a rails shooter. According to Carmack, the question of why is RAGE on rails istead of free roaming "is almost the same as saying, 'Why isn't it a tower defense game'?"

When asked what about enabling a free roaming mode like some on the forums have suggested, John went on to tell us that there are many things in the game that wouldn't work out as well once you take the train off the rails, so to speak. For instance, all of the textures in game have been sampled from the perspective that you see it from on the rail. If you jumped off the track, and went to look at a rock in the corner, the texture which appeared sharp from a distance would now look blurry. Of course this is all possible to correct, but it involves a massive increase in file size which likely isn't realistic for the iPhone as every texture included is high resolution, and performance could even suffer. John also explained that many of the cool things about RAGE involve scripted sequences and enemy movements that either wouldn't work, or wouldn't look anywhere nearly as good if the player were able to sneak up on a batch of mutants from the side.

Carmack considers the game to be feature complete from a content standpoint, but is considering a mode that will allow you to pause your movement on the rail to look around because there's a lot of cool stuff that at this point you just pass by. He calls it a "tourist mode." In summation, John explained that there won't be a free roaming game with this generation of technology within the forseeable future. However, If Rage the franchise is a success, there are tons of elements of the console game that they could bring over to the iPhone in potentially more free-form games.

In regards to updates, Carmack plans on addressing game center support and some various tweaks and fixes from the thread, liked the mirror mode that was suggested, and even mentioned possibly running the levels in reverse as well. John also explains that some things (such as the battery meter display) were a direct result of the thread on TA. Aside from that, the RAGE team is moving on to their next project.

John openly admits that they're still experimenting with the App Store. So far Rage has been very successful in the few days it has been out, but they're still waiting to see the long-term results of a shorter, lower-priced game. He explained that it's still a point of discussion at Id as to whether the next games are going to be bigger and higher priced, or smaller and lower priced like RAGE. Id is anxious to see what kind of staying power RAGE will have on the charts which will likely weigh heavily on the direction of their next game.

Two more games are in the works that takes place in the RAGE universe, although it sounds like no final decisions have been made yet. John told us that the world of RAGE is vast, and home to extensive outdoor environments which could be used for numerous different types of games, citing a buggy racing game of sorts as an example.

Looking to the future, John is looking forward to seeing how many people with older devices are still buying games, since the HD version of RAGE is drastically outselling the SD version. Dropping older device support would greatly benefit their future titles as they could utilize OpenGL ES 2.0 across the board, resulting in even better looking graphics that flat out cannot be accomplished on previous-generation devices. Carmack was peeved that Apple wouldn't provide them with any kind of device specific data, as he wanted to make the call to drop support for the old devices for this RAGE release. He suspects he made a mistake by including legacy device support, because the game could have been "a little bit faster, a little bit better, and a little bit cooler by dropping the older devices."

At the end of the day, it seems that the resource Carmack lacks most is time. When asked what he'd like to do next and what he'd like to bring to the iOS platform, he explained that there are many things he'd like to do, but between all of his responsibilities at Id (which were are an incredible list in itself), Armadillo Aerospace, and his family, most of those projects are outside of his reasonable to-do list.

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I'll start out by saying that this is a bit of a curious post. The app I'm highlighting here isn't a game at all — not even sort-of a game. It's a music player, of sorts. But, a music player that should bring a smile to the face of many a gamer who sat in front an Amiga or PC, joystick in hand, back in the late '80s and early '90s. The app I speak of is French developer Yohann Magnien's Modizer [App Store]…and it's a MODplayer.

First, some history for those unfamiliar with MODs, trackers, and all that lot of sampled digital audio goodness. In 1985 the Commodore Amiga was released, bringing with it dramatic innovations on every front, really. And, among them, was its 8-bit, 4-channel, wavetable, stereo audio subsystem offering far better audio playback than any other consumer machine of the time. Digitized sound samples could be loaded into the Amiga's CHIP RAM and triggered for playback (and with zero CPU intervention), with highly realistic results. Two years after the Amiga's release, developer Karsten Obarski decided to create a program that would load samples into said RAM and trigger them for coherent playback using a simple script that's something akin to the scroll of a player piano. That program was called Ultimate Soundtracker. That script, plus its associated audio samples, all bundled together into a single file were called a module or MOD. Since then "trackers" of every sort, along with new MOD-like formats, emerged for platforms far and wide.

Demoscene coders were quick to adopt these trackers to create soundtracks to accompany their onscreen pixel magic and soon the "music guy" became a critical component of every demogroup. Noting this, game developers soon adopted MODs as their solution for in-game music. Back in the day of limited CPU resources, audio boards with real horesepower came onto the scene to enable efficient playback of not just 4 but 8, 16, 32, 64 channels. Demos and games benefitted mightily, and audio geeks had a new scene to drool over. (I was a GUS and CapaMOD man, myself.)

And plenty of iOS games have reach out to MODs, S3Ms, XMs, and other formats of the kind for their soundtrack solutions.

And, so we come back to Modizer. Is it the only MODplayer in the App Store? No, it's not. But it appears to be the most full-featured. Modizer supports a dizzying array of audio formats thanks to its use of the MODPlug and UADE players (the latter of which actually emulates an Amiga 1200 computer), switchable in the settings menu. A variety of OpenGL-based audio visualizers can be enabled to accompany playback, a feature that will be much appreciated by those accustomed to hearing MODs running alongside a demoscene production's onscreen pixel magic. And it all runs smooth as glass without missing a beat.

Modizer is a universal application, natively supporting the iPhone 3G, iPod touch 2G, iPad and up, with specific optimizations for the iPhone 4 and iPad. The app includes a file browser that allows free access to the MODLAND and HVSC collections — about 215,000 tracks in all — that, when downloaded, are stored locally for quick access. The archives contain audio tracks from basically every demo ever made as well as most games for the C64 and Amiga.

See our iPad demo video. The developer provides a few iPhone demo videos, as well.

At a mere $.99, Modizer is a godsend for gamers with a fancy for digital music. And, while indeed not a game, Modizer for iOS seems worth a spot here at Touch Arcade.

UPDATE: We just got word from the developer that he's currently working on a v1.1 update that includes various bugfixes as well as a number of enhancements:

• Some optimization for browser (mainly when browsing modland/artists)
• Sharp X68000 support (mdx/pdx files) with updated Modland lib
• Addressing issue where some formats miss the last second of music
• And more to come, depending on user feedback…

Magnien indicates that he's also considering a network "user stats" sort of ranking system that would let users easily share the overall highest rated songs. We'll keep you posted.

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I'll start out by saying that this is a bit of a curious post. The app I'm highlighting here isn't a game at all — not even sort-of a game. It's a music player, of sorts. But, a music player that should bring a smile to the face of many a gamer who sat in front an Amiga or PC, joystick in hand, back in the late '80s and early '90s. The app I speak of is French developer Yoyofr's Modizer [App Store]…and it's a MODplayer.

First, some history for those unfamiliar with MODs, trackers, and all that lot of sampled digital audio goodness. In 1985 the Commodore Amiga was released, bringing with it dramatic innovations on every front, really. And, among them, was its 8-bit, 4-channel, wavetable, stereo audio subsystem offering far better audio playback than any other consumer machine of the time. Digitized sound samples could be loaded into the Amiga's CHIP RAM and triggered for playback (and with zero CPU intervention), with highly realistic results. Two years after the Amiga's release, developer Karsten Obarski decided to create a program that would load samples into said RAM and trigger them for coherent playback using a simple script that's something akin to the scroll of a player piano. That program was called Ultimate Soundtracker. That script, plus its associated audio samples, all bundled together into a single file were called a module or MOD. Since then "trackers" of every sort, along with new MOD-like formats, emerged for platforms far and wide.

Demoscene coders were quick to adopt these trackers to create soundtracks to accompany their onscreen pixel magic and soon the "music guy" became a critical component of every demogroup. Noting this, game developers soon adopted MODs as their solution for in-game music. Back in the day of limited CPU resources, audio boards with real horesepower came onto the scene to enable efficient playback of not just 4 but 8, 16, 32, 64 channels. Demos and games benefitted mightily, and audio geeks had a new scene to drool over. (I was a GUS and CapaMOD man, myself.)

And plenty of iOS games have reach out to MODs, S3Ms, XMs, and other formats of the kind for their soundtrack solutions.

And, so we come back to Modizer. Is it the only MODplayer in the App Store? No, it's not. But it appears to be the most full-featured. Modizer supports a dizzying array of audio formats and, to accompany them, offers a variety of OpenGL-based visualizations, which is much appreciated by those accustomed to hearing MODs running alongside a demoscene production's onscreen pixel magic.

Modizer is a universal application, natively supporting the iPhone 3G, iPod touch 2G, iPad and up, with specific optimizations for the iPhone 4 and iPad. The app includes a file browser that allows free access to the MODLAND and HVSC collections — about 215,000 tracks in all — that, when downloaded, are stored locally for quick access. The archives contain audio tracks from basically every demo ever made as well as most games for the C64 and Amiga.

See our iPad demo video. The developer provides a few iPhone demo videos, as well.

At a mere $.99, Modizer is a godsend for gamers with a fancy for digital music. And, while indeed not a game, Modizer for iOS seems worth a spot here at Touch Arcade.

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

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

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