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We've heard some rumblings lately about Order & Chaos Online [$6.99] accounts getting hacked, and the attacks were recently confirmed by our pals over at PocketGamer. Order & Chaos, if you're unfamiliar, is Gameloft's fairly blatant riff on World of Warcraft, complete with characters, monsters, and areas that might look a more than a little familiar to anyone who has played WoW before.

Anyway, the cause of this security breach as well as how deep this rabbit hole goes has yet to be revealed, although Gameloft says they're actively investigating. A thread on the official Order & Chaos forum indicates that players of both mobile and Facebook versions of the game have been hacked.

If you've ever played Order & Chaos and you're the kind of person who still uses the same password for everything, it's a good idea to change all your others. While you're at it, check out this New York Times article on creating strong passwords, and maybe even think about getting some password management software. I'm partial to 1Password myself, which basically exists for all platforms you'd ever want to access your passwords on and gracefully keeps all your data in sync via Dropbox.

Migrating from a single password you use for everything to a password management suite and different passwords for everything will take a little getting used to, but consider this: Once you start doing that, security breaches like this are entirely insignificant. Thanks to 1Password, I use a different password for everything. Order & Chaos getting hacked makes no difference to me, since all anyone would ever be able to access with those login credentials is my character… As opposed to desperately hunting down every login form that you've used your favorite password, "password", for.

Update: I was just reminded that Order & Chaos uses Gameloft's Gameloft Live service for logins, and if that is what was compromised, if you've ever created a Gameloft Live account it might be a good idea to get busy with the password changin' too.

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Back in August, we received the squeal-inducing news that Sega was readying a port of the classic Sonic CD for downloadable markets on home consoles and mobile. And by mobile, that meant it was coming to the App Store. But, this isn't shaping up to be just a mere port. Instead, Sega has enlisted the work of Christian Whitehead, a gifted software programmer who basically created his own game engine from scratch that was capable of running Sonic CD (among many other things, I'm sure) on multiple platforms with all sorts of optimizations and enhancements.

This Sonic CD project from Whitehead actually sparked off more than two years ago, and it's still crazy to me to think that it's actually finally materializing as a real, official release. Today, Sega has put out another trailer for the upcoming Sonic CD re-release, which you can see below:

The trailer pegs the release for Sonic CD as "late 2011", which is fast approaching. This is one release date that I really hope doesn't get pushed back, as I've been eager to get my manly hands on an iPhone port of Sonic CD ever since the first video of the unofficial port popped up back in 2009. And I know I'm not alone, as Sonic CD is revered as one of the best – if not the best – Sonic games to come out of the golden age of 2D platforming known as the 90s.

We'll keep a close eye out for any new tidbits of information on Sonic CD as the release date approaches, and you can join in on a discussion of the game with other like-minded Sonic fanatics in our forums.

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That's right, my retro-loving brethren, Bounty Bob has tunneled his way into the App Store thanks to Magmic's release of Miner 2049er [free] for the iPhone and iPad (universal).

For those unfamiliar, the original Miner 2049er is a platform game that was highly popular in the early '80s home computer scene. (See Owen Linzmayer's February 1983 Creative Computing review.) Released in 1982 by Bill Hogue through Big Five Software, the game puts you in the shoes of Bounty Bob on a mission to search through Nuclear Ned's abandoned uranium mines in search for the elusive Yukon Yohan. The treacherous mines, fraught with ladders, chutes and hydraulic scaffolds — not to mention the radioactive creatures that roam the levels — must be cleared by walking over every section of the platforms. There are 10 levels in all, which was quite a few, for its day. Miner 2049er was the inspiration for Matthew Smith's Manic Miner.

Magmic released a licensed, updated mobile version of the game in 2007, which received an IGN Editor's Choice Award and won the Best Revival category in the Best Of 2007 IGN awards. It features both a Classic mode with graphics similar to the Atari 800 original, as well as a vertically-scrolling Modern mode with new, rather more detailed visuals along with certain new twists, like an elevator fashioned from a girder dangling from a crane. Miner 2049er for iOS is an adaptation of that release, featuring tilt controls as well as several types of multitouch options.

Miner 2049er for iOS is a free download that includes 4 of the Modern mode levels, only. An in-app purchase of $0.99 unlocks the 10 Classic levels as well as all 10 of the Modern mode levels.

The game plays pretty much as you may remember it — both in the Classic and Modern versions — but with iOS controls, and there you have a number of options. The default control mode is tilt, which can be switched over to a touch-to-go-there mode or a joystick-left or joystick-right mode. The controls work about as you'd expect, but I find joystick-left to work best. Magmic indicates that a soon to be released update will tweak controls a bit and make joystick-left the default control mode. An additional 20 levels "at-least" will be coming in an update for users who have purchased the level pack, as well.

Unfortunately, I experienced a bug on my iPhone 4S test device that Magmic hadn't yet seen reported: at the App Store password prompt to buy the additional levels, the keyboard would not pop-up, leaving me unable to do so on that device. It worked fine on the iPad 2, however. It's unclear right now whether this is a 4S-specific issue but, at any rate, the folks at Magmic say they will look into it right away.

For fans of the original, Miner 2049er is an instant grab. But, then, it's free — so it can't hurt to check it out if you're remotely intrigued. As mentioned, some things about the game are a bit shaky right now, but I feel that they will be worked out in short order, based largely on how responsive the folks at Magmic have been to my inquiries.

Miner 2049er developer Magmic also brought us The New York Times Crosswords Daily and Boulder Dash Rocks.

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Last week, we told you the (somewhat) surprising news that Rockstar would be bringing the classic Grand Theft Auto III to iOS and Android platforms to celebrate the franchise's 10 year anniversary of entering the world of 3D, and thus changing the open-world sandbox genre forever. At the time, Rockstar noted that the game was only planned for dual-core processor-based devices, due to the strain that running a huge open-world game would have on lesser mobile hardware. On the iOS side of things, that meant that only the iPad 2 and the brand new iPhone 4S would be able to run GTA III thanks to their dual-core A5 chips.

Of course, there are far, far more GTA fans than there are A5 device owners, and there was quite a backlash from gamers with older devices who were understandably upset that they wouldn't be able to get their carjack-on without upgrading their kit. However, over the weekend Rockstar has been showing off GTA III for mobile devices in playable form at the New York Comic-Con, and in fact they have confirmed to Kotaku that the dual-core processor requirement will only be a limitation at first, and that they're planning on having the game be compatible with single-core iOS devices sometime after launch.

Now, before you go getting too excited, they don't specifically state which single-core devices they intend to target. It may just be the iPhone 4, since it's the only other device with 512 mb of RAM, which could be a deal breaker for the iPhone 3GS and 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch. We really don't know at this point, but at least the compatible device listing will be increasing in some capacity, which is a good thing.

Speaking of GTA III at NYCC, one adventurous attendee decided to muster up some courage and take a little video of himself playing the game on an iPad 2 demo unit. So far, it looks like the GTA III that we all know and love from 10 years ago:

Chances are pretty good that this video was not taken with the permission of the Rockstar reps on hand at the convention, so don't be surprised if the video ends up disappearing sooner rather than later. But for now, it's a nice glimpse into what GTA III will be like on mobile. Also, though it's hard to tell from this shaky video, various other outlets' hands-on impressions of the demo build so far all state that the visuals have been given the high-res treatment, or at least as high a resolution as a 10 year old game can have. This leads me to believe that the GTA III we end up getting on iOS is based off of the superior Xbox version, though that's just a bit of speculation on my part.

GTA III is scheduled for a Fall release, and if it's anything like their launch of Chinatown Wars on iOS, we may be seeing the game incredibly soon, as that title popped up just a few short days after they were showing off preview builds to the media. That's more speculation on my part, but I remain hopeful. Until the game actually does launch, feel free to check out our forums where GTA III: 10th Anniversary Edition is getting a healthy amount of discussion.

[Via Kotaku and our forums]

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Aiko Island [$0.99 / HD] is, at first glance, just another physics puzzler in an endless procession. Is there anything we haven't seen from the vast selection of games where you balance one item while poking away at everything beneath it? Apparently, yes. IceFlame's opus may draw inspiration from sources both within its genre and beyond, but it has more than a few surprises left to share.

If you were to create a "best of" mix for physics puzzlers, it would probably end up looking a lot like Aiko Island. There are elements of most of the big names here. Let's not get hung up on calling it a knock-off of this or that, though. Instead, consider this: if I could play just one game in this genre, I'd seriously consider choosing this one.

Here's the scoop: the red Aiko have stolen all the cookies from the blue Aiko. As a result, you need to ruthlessly destroy every living red Aiko while carefully preserving all the blues. Let's hope peace talks were already attempted. As if your mission weren't going to be difficult enough already, the blue Aiko are hopelessly intermixed with their red fellows, so if you make one wrong move you'll probably end up toppling the whole mess of them to their deaths.

Initially, your influence is limited to one command: tap to pop. You can pop some of the red Aiko, some of the platforms they sit on, and so on. You'll need to make strategic decisions about the order you should pop them in, because you need to drop the reds and not the blues. You've probably played one of many variations on this theme already if you've spent much time in the App Store.

Aiko Island makes great use of this basic formula. The levels are designed with a great deal of imagination. Some don't go any further than requiring you to pop a few reds to carefully drop a blue. But others are vastly more complex. Eventually you're managing levels that span several screens, panning around while you work out the logic behind set ups with scattered Aikos, multiple machines, and carefully timed and tuned interactions.

There is a depth to Aiko Island's level design that often surprised me. Deep into the game's hefty list of 125 levels, some levels have a huge number of movable parts. You end up controlling cannons, sliding gates, explosives and more, while dealing with environmental factors like slippery ground and variable gravity. Such complexity could get overwhelming, but not here. Levels get quite challenging, but working through them with trial and error wins out eventually every time.

Slow and steady won't win this race, though. Each level has three cookies to be earned: one for completion, one for finishing under a set number of taps, and one for finishing under a time limit. Earning the extra two cookies can be difficult, but a quick time earns you more than a snack — the game's Game Center leaderboard tracks total completion time, so faster is always better. Meanwhile, collecting the cookies is good for more than feeling good about yourself. You'll need them to navigate the world.

Aiko Island takes place in four areas, each with its own distinct look, feel, and special features. Your journey through them is non-linear. A complex overworld leads you from level to level, but it's filled with branching paths and locked doors that take you from one area to the next, and back again later. The areas unlock as you complete levels, and paths within them unlock as you earn cookies.

This serves three purposes. You rarely bore of one area before you can start poking around the next. You can occasionally skip a level and certainly don't need to master them all to get by. You do, however, have a good reason to go back and improve your results at times, but you can pick and choose your battles. Thanks to the overworld, I always felt like I had a choice of where to go next. It's a great motivator.

On my first glimpse of Aiko Island, I thought it looked bland, and so very similar to all the other physics puzzlers out there. But not only does it look and sound far better than I expected, it's also strikingly imaginative. Not always original, but always fun, and often surprising. Even if you think you've already enjoyed everything this genre has to offer, you should give Aiko Island a look. And pop by our discussion thread with your impressions when you do.

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We’re in the middle of a fluid and defining time in the games space as digital really takes hold, nontraditional payment models continue to prove viable, and expectations of how and where people play their games mutate. Things are changing, no doubt, and we’ve heard a fair share of doomsday scenarios for multiple platforms as a result. This one from Valve boss Gabe Newell is pretty juicy as far as these things go. Speaking at a tech panel the other day, Newell said that he suspects Apple might step into the living room and blow up that particularly isolated experience into a perspective-shifting one that’ll spell the end of a ‘separate’ console platform.

For some context here, Newell believes there are four legitimate platforms at the moment: Internet, mobile, the computer, and the living room. Newell’s also a noted not-fan of closed platforms, which was pretty apparent during the panel covered by The Seattle Times.

“I suspect Apple will launch a living room product that redefines people's expectations really strongly and the notion of a separate console platform will disappear,” he said.

“I’m worried that the things that traditionally have been the source of a lot of innovation are going — there's going to be an attempt to close those off so somebody will say 'I'm tired of competing with Google, I'm tired of competing with Facebook, I'll apply a console model and exclude the competitors I don't like from my world.'"

I often wonder if Apple’s hobby project, the Apple TV, is ever going to become this possible hardcore games device– Or at least a vital part of the puzzle along with iOS 5 AirPlay mirroring. I’m not sure if that’d be enough to realize what Newell is thinking here, but it’s a good start.
[Via The Seattle Times]

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Another physics-based puzzler with cute graphics and happy music in the App store, you say? NO WAY! Yes way, if you can wrap your mind around the uniqueness of that concept, then you just might get into Roll in the Hole [99¢/UHD].

You will play the roll of PoPo, a happy-go-lucky fat panda who hoards ice cream. When some jerk gorilla comes along and decides to take his sweets stash, he gets mad (although he doesn't show it) and goes on an adventure to recollect all his lost desserts. For some reason, precision physics also play a role there, even though that makes zero sense in a story context. But I don't play iOS games for the mind-blowing realism, and I'm guessing you don't either.

Each level is fairly simple: Just a few obstacles and a hole at the end that leads to the next level. At first platforms will be the only thing to navigate, but as you progress you will also use balloons for bouncing and other things. There are ice cream bars in each level to collect too, and the more of them you snag, the higher your score will be. The challenge comes in getting them all and not falling off a ledge, which is a lot harder than it sounds.

Control is an issue with Roll in the Hole, although at first it seems as if it's working just fine. The actual interface couldn't be simpler — before play begins, you'll be shown a dotted line which splits the screen between left and right. The only way you'll control your rotund friend is to tap the left and right sides of the screen. Even though I knew this, I found myself turning the phone the first few levels, just like I used to do back in the days of NES where I believed jerking the controller to the right or left would make Mario jump that much further. Some things never change, I guess.

In all honestly, I think turning the phone would have felt more natural than the actual mechanic the game uses. In early levels, it works fine, but when you need precision, it feels soft, as if you need more responsiveness than the game has to give you. When you need to maneuver through tiny platforms and then bounce on a balloon to get height to get to the goal, you really need to be able to control your character perfectly. I'd say that getting frustrated by level 12 is a bad sign for the majority of the casual audience, as they tend to want to have fun rather than struggle to get a game to control in a way that it cannot.

The good news is, if you do get too annoyed with one level to continue, the game won't allow you to stay stuck. You can choose to skip a level in the menu and come back to it later, which really will be a blessing in disguise if you feel like throwing the phone on the floor and stomping on it (and there were times when that happened to me.)

Roll in the Hole boasts 72 levels total and also has connectivity to Crystal, Facebook and Twitter, making it pretty easy to share your score with others if you like. It has some strong points when it comes to overall presentation and the quick play (you can finish a level in under 10 seconds), but I really missed the ability to tilt my phone to help control PoPo. It just felt like a feature that was missing, and while the game is good without it, it could have been great with it.

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Arcade Jumper [$1.99] by Black Hive Media is a retro side-scrolling platform game which feels like the old classic Mario. There's enemies to either shoot or jump on their heads, and the main character wears a red cap with red and blue clothes. Yup, that certainly sounds very Mario-esque, but fortunately there's plenty of innovation in this game too.

It's the 1980's and Eddy's brother Jimmy has been sucked into an arcade machine by 'Ghosty', the naughty child-abducting spirit with a friendly-sounding name. To save Jimmy, you need to complete 10 zones, each with three stages (30 stages in total).

Stages are completed by finding warp-tokens, then returning to the start of the stage to insert the token into the glowing arcade cabinet and warping to the next stage. There's a timer which counts down, so you need to keep moving. At the end of each zone (3 stages) you're confronted by the floating kidnapper, Ghostly, who must be chased down and then shot or jumped on before time runs out to complete the zone.

Along the way you collect fruit, like apples, bananas, oranges and cherries, coins (just like Mario) and invincibility stars. You'll also find tickets, which are used to buy game items or unlock playable characters. Sometimes these items are hidden inside crates which are revealed by head-butting into them, which is another mechanism borrowed from Mario.

If your health bar hits zero due to colliding with enemies, or you fall from the platforms, you immediately die and it's game over. Unfortunately, you're only given one life. And if you've finally managed to progress through a few zones, it doesn't matter – when you die, you'll still re-start from the very beginning, which despite the fun, can be frustrating after numerous restarts.

Each time you obtain 25,000 points you receive a "Continue" (maximum of 3), which is like a "life". This will help you progress further, but once they're used up, you still return to the very beginning in your next game. The worst part about dying is that there's six screens to pass through before restarting, followed by a slow "materializing" animation, which gets annoying, especially if you died within the first few seconds. An immediate restart should be available to avoid the frequent delays.

There's four characters to play, each with different weapon and jumping strengths. Initially only Eddie is unlocked, but once you unlock Destructoid (the robot) things become far more entertaining, as he can double jump which speeds up the whole experience. The best character, Mitch can double-jump and double-shoot.

Each time a stage starts, it's a surprise what the level will look like as Arcade Jumper cleverly displays different graphical themes (skins) for the backgrounds, levels and enemies. You might find yourself in a Mario-type level jumping on shelled creatures, in a space setting shooting at space invaders, in an urban environment capping thugs and dodging helicopters, or even facing shaggy pink 4-legged creatures wearing sunglasses and over-sized jewelry. Regardless of the level's appearance, the gameplay is the same in each theme, but it's quite nice to have this variety.

There's buttons for left, right, jump and shoot, which are responsive, although the player occasionally slides a little for no apparent reason. You can optionally unlock an alternate slider control using your tickets, which is an interesting idea, although after unlocking this I preferred the original controls. I also downloaded JoyPad [Free] to turn my iPod into a controller while playing on the iPad, which worked really well.

In addition to the main game mode, there's three mini-games you can play from the main menu to earn tickets. In 'Skeet Ball' you swipe a ball at targets. 'Pongchinko' involves dropping three balls down rows of pegs, hoping it lands in high scoring container at the bottom. While 'Space Frantic' appears to be a whack-a-mole variant, although there's no instructions. After each mini-game, tickets are dispensed based on your performance.

The tickets can be used to unlock "player assists" such as a flipper to rebound you back onto the platform if you fall or a helpful "cool space guy" who flys around you shooting enemies and is prepared to take a bullet for you, plus unlocking the three other characters.  If you can't be bothered collecting tickets from the platform levels and mini-games, you can optionally purchase tickets as an in-app purchase, although this really isn't necessary.

This game is universal, as it can be installed on any iOS devices. However, be warned: when it runs on the iPad, the game dimensions are about same size as the ipod, with the extra space being used to draw an arcade cabinet around the outside, like a large border.  The iPad version uses a fraction of the screen for actual gameplay.

Also, this game works on the iCade cabinet, which is becoming a selling point, however because the iPad version displays a cabinet on the screen you end up with:  The game surrounded by a picture of a cabinet, which is inside the actual iCade cabinet. Something about a cabinet within a cabinet just isn't ideal. This has been brought to the developer's attention.

Arcade Jumper is a fun game, especially once you've unlocked the double-jump. However, the restart delays are excessive and the constant returning to the beginning is wearing thin and may stop some players from seeing the  zones full of sloping and tilting platforms, asteroids and fireballs ….and probably other stuff I haven't seen yet, because of constantly returning to the beginning. Arcade Jumper has plenty of potential as some small tweaks could improve the player's experience dramatically, but as is it's still an interesting take on a Mario-like platformer that's worth having a look at.

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Poor Timmy is not having a good day. CB Labs’ The Adventures of Timmy: Run Kitty Run [99¢] starts off in the thick of Timmy’s misery: He’s a playground outcast in a cat costume whose only friend/probable true love, Kitty, gets snatched away and held prisoner in hulking bully Mitch’s tree house. Rather than accept this, however, Timmy puts his cat suit’s hood up and gets down to business—a rescue operation that spans 36 levels of 2D platforming awesomeness.

There’s a reason that some of our forum users compare Run Kitty Run to classics like Super Mario Bros. It shares a lot of elements, from the rescue angle to gathering coins. Probably the most important similarity, though, is the way you feel playing it. It’s challenging, sometimes frustrating, but often rewarding.

The story works because we’ve all felt like Timmy at some point. (Well, maybe not with the cat costume, but I’m not here to judge what you do in your free time.) It’s really refreshing for a platformer to have much of a story at all, much less a solid one like Run Kitty Run. The art style is also very nice, even if the levels can look a little repetitive at times. Since all the levels in a chapter share the same basic backdrop, you’re not going to notice much of a difference between, say, 1-1 and 1-9. However, it’s nice to look at, and it’s obvious that a lot of thought was put into the style and creative direction of the game.

As far as the gameplay itself goes, it’s a mixed (but mostly good!) bag. If you’re, um, not very good at platformers, you are going to find this game challenging to say the least. Most of these are good challenges like progressively more difficult jumps, timing, and techniques, with a compelling story and fun enemies to keep up the pace. Levels are short, which is good because the further you go, the more you are going to die. A lot. In like every conceivable way. Spike pit? Fireballs? Psychotic bunnies? Run Kitty Run has all that and more, baby.

Of course, it has its share of not-so-fun challenges, too. Like so many games, these challenges are mostly related to the way the controls handle. Run Kitty Run has a simple two-button floating setup; right thumb jumps, left thumb sends you forwards or backwards. Seems pretty basic, but it proved to be diabolically challenging as the game progressed. I often found that my pudgy thumbs were incapable of the finer aspects of platforming.

Sometimes it seemed like I had too much momentum from leaning forwards; other times I had none at all and poor Timmy plunged helpless into spike pit after spike pit. And of course, the more you progress, the more challenging the platforming gets, which sometimes made ledges just a little too precarious given the control scheme. As time went on I found I developed a bit of a rhythm and I stopped dying as much, but there were still plenty of moments where the controls failed me and I plummeted to my doom.

That said, the game is compelling enough that even the sometimes-imprecise controls can add to the overall sense of accomplishment when completing levels. With 36 levels and incentive to replay (you get stars and achievements based on how well you perform), it’s well worth the $.99. And besides, don’t you want to know whether or not Timmy gets the girl?

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Robotriot [99¢] from Glowing Eye Games and Retrobyte, is a Universal 2D sci-fi platform game with retro graphics where you control an armed, hovering, debt-collecting robot, named SLUG. And frankly, each part of that sentence sounds appealing.

SLUG's job description involves helping to repossess spaceships when citizens are late with their tax payments. To do this, he must enter each section of a spacecraft to locate and destroy the power generator. Once all sections have been powered-down, the craft is left disabled and defenseless, allowing a tow-ship to easily tow it away for impounding. And you'll be paid a wee bounty for your efforts, by your boss, Commander Krupp.

There are three ships to disable in this game. The easy ship has two sectors (levels), while the medium and hard ships have five each, making 12 levels in total. This isn't a lot of levels or duration compared to some other platformers, but the developers are currently working on a new ship for the game with more levels, apparently set in a classy Vegas-style robo-strip joint.

The controls include buttons for moving left and right, jumping and shooting. Each time you shoot, SLUG is repelled backwards a little by the recoil from his weapon. And he'll need that weapon, as the on-board defense systems of the ships are still active, so the worker bots and autonomous lazer-turrets will try to protect their vessel.

To locate the power generators, you'll need to fully explore each section, riding on gravity lifts or hover-platforms to move to higher areas and jumping over bubbling pools of plasma. Colored key-passes can be found to unlock doors of the matching color. And there are switches to destroy in order to gain access to new areas, or to disable laser beams. Along the way, you'll activate doors which act like checkpoints and become your re-spawn point. This prevents you from having to repeat hunks of the level when you die.

Some crates can be destroyed to find pick-ups. This includes spanners (repairs), rapid fire weapons and bubble shields. Alternatively, you can keep the crates intact and use them as cover, or to sneak up on enemies. If you're lucky, you might also find a 1-UP icon, which grants you an extra life.

Once you complete a section (level), your total score is based on several factors, including the number of power shards collected from around the level, time taken to destroy the power core, number of remaining lives and points scored by collecting jewels. There's also a special bonus for completing the level perfectly.

Whereas many platform games let you re-play the levels you've already beaten, Robot Riot locks each completed ship, until you start over from the very beginning. This may not be the best approach, as it discourages players from replaying levels for higher scores and prevents easy access to earlier levels the player may have enjoyed.

Robotriot is a nice-looking retro platform game, with a catchy soundtrack, which delivers the standard things you'd expect to see in a platformer. It's reasonably slow paced, but fun to play, however it doesn't really deliver anything new or innovative, except the occasional boss fight and debt-collecting storyline.

Mostly, it could do with more content, in terms of levels (some of which are coming). If you're not sure about buying, there's also a free Flash version you can try on your computer, which looks and sounds the same as the iOS version.

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