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Late last year Volkswagen teamed up with Firemint to bring us Real Racing GTI [Free], a cleverly disguised free demo of Real Racing [$4.99] loaded with VW cars and branding that is still totally worth downloading if you haven't tried out Real Racing yet.

VW's most recent collaboration was just released today, this time working with Fish Labs to bring us what appears to be some kind of crazy economical driving edutainment game that appears to share a similar game engine to their previously released Rally Master Pro 3D [$4.99]. In Volkswagen Think Blue. Challenge [Free], instead of racing as quickly as you can, players are forced to drive economically.

As silly as this sounds for a video game, doing well is actually quite challenging. You start the game with a small amount of gas, and with each checkpoint you come to, you're asked an often obvious question about fuel efficiency to get more fuel. You then try to drive as far as you can with the amount of gas the game gives you. This means intelligent throttle management, coasting down hills, taking turns properly to not lose speed, and other economical driving techniques the game explains for you.

When you finally run out of gas, your distance is submitted to a global online leaderboard showing how far the world's most economical drivers have gotten in the game. Initially I just wrote Volkswagen Think Blue. Challenge off as a marketing gimmick, but after playing a few games it's really kind of neat how the game encourages highly technical driving. So often in driving games you're able to just go all out, bounce through corners and off other cars with little if any penalty at all and this is a nice, albeit fairly odd, change of pace.

Volkswagen Think Blue. Challenge is free, and who knows, you might even learn something about economical driving that could end up saving you money on gas in your own car. If you like the graphics in the game and how it calls out turns for you, be sure to check out Fish Labs' game this seems to be based on, Rally Master Pro which we posted a review on when it was first released.

App Store Link: Volkswagen Think Blue. Challenge, Free

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It seems the developers of Raging Thunder 2 (which was published through PolarBit) are certainly not resting on their laurels following their recent AppStore release. Pixelbite have been very active in our own forums these last few days promoting their upcoming top-down, physics-heavy racer, Deliverace.

Though our early impressions of Raging Thunder 2 were very positive, it already seems Deliverace is set to impress us just as much, if not more. Pixelbite recently released a trailer that showcases an amazingly rich and extraordinarily detailed graphic engine that seems to trounce nearly anything we've seen on the AppStore to date. The developers have provided a summary of the game's features in our forums as follows:

"The game is a classic top-down racer, but with modern physics and amazing graphics. Naturally we also have multiplayer support over Lan and Internet, online leaderboards, several control options, ghost cars and much more."

Though the trailer convincingly sells itself, the impressive list of features available right off the bat has cemented Deliverace as one of our more anticipated titles. Deliverace is slated as 'coming soon' in early 2010 with no price point currently fixed. Pixelbite really seem to be making a name for themselves in the racing genre, and we can't wait to see what they have in store for us this time around.

Be sure to keep abreast of our Deliverace discussion thread for further updates and media releases by the developer.

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Polarbit's racing game Raging Thunder 2 [App Store] just appeared for download mere moments ago. We're still putting the game through its paces, but so far Raging Thunder 2 fulfills nearly everything on my checklist of what makes a fun arcade racer.

The sensation of speed is great, there's a boost system, tons of jumps, and even a car damage system. Five game modes are included ranging from the standard time trials and career mode to an "arcade" mode where you play through as many races as possible without the timer reaching zero. In total there are six cars and twelve different tracks, although most will need to be unlocked through career mode. It even has internet multiplayer.

Amazingly enough even with all the stuff packed in this game, Raging Thunder 2 only weighs in at the 3G download friendly 15MB. We're going to be spending some more time with the game, but after burning through a few races our initial impressions are very positive.

App Store Link: Raging Thunder 2, $4.99

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As someone who has spent more time than I'd care to admit playing both the first JellyCar [Free] and JellyCar 2 [99¢], I've been having an absolute blast with Chalkboard Stunts [99¢ / Free]. Featuring similar gameplay to the JellyCar series, developer Manta Research ups the ante by including a full featured level editor that not only allows you to create your own levels, but also upload them and download levels made by other players.

The object of the game is simple, you drive your little car across a track drawn out on a chalkboard to reach the finish flag. Buttons on each side of the screen control your movement and the rotation of your car for landing properly off jumps. You can also make your car bounce by tapping the screen. The included maps start out extremely easy, and slowly introduce more gameplay elements such as loops, ramps, and objects you can ram or otherwise interact with using your car.

Much like the JellyCar games, it doesn't take long for these courses to get amazingly difficult and you experience the same sense of satisfaction when you finally beat a level with your car spinning out of control and just barely crossing the finish flag. The levels you can download online vary in quality, but I've had a good time playing through the ones I've tried.

These silly physics puzzle racing games are among my favorite kind of iPhone games, and I've been having a great time exploring the various user submitted levels in Chalkboard Stunts. So much so that this review was delayed by nearly a week because every time I'd sit down planning to write something about it I'd fire up the game and lose an hour to it.

I still prefer the original JellyCar (Mostly because of the awesome music) but if the community generated content in Chalkboard Stunts keeps up, I can easily see it living a long and happy life on my iPhone.

App Store Links:

• Chalkboard Stunts, 99¢
• Chalkboard Stunts Lite, Free

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Doodle Jump [App Store]
Current Version: 1.14
Our Review
Forum Thread

This new Doodle Jump update adds in a brand spanking new theme, a Jungle level in this case. The new theme is free to download and will be the third alternate theme added to the game. Lima Sky describes it as "THIS IS OUR MOST AMAZING UPDATE EVER!"

Glyder 2 [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2.1
Our Review
Forum Thread

If you're like me, every time you've booted up Glyder 2 in the past you've thought to yourself "what this game really needs is an Isle of Friendship!" Lucky for us, Glyder 2's developers have heard our call, and now players can earn friendship points by simply adding "Glyder friends." These points can be spent to unlock new wings, outfits, and other secrets, the latter of which probably isn't that exciting if they didn't name it explicity in the update description.

Eliminate Pro [App Store]
Current Version: 2.0
Our Coverage
Forum Thread

New multiplayer environments, new gear and enhanced matchmaking. The best news is that all of this is 100% compatible with Eliminate's soon to be released Co-Op mode. This update of Eliminate Pro comes Al Gore-approved, as you can now recycle extra gear for credits.

Jet Car Stunts [App Store]
Current Version: 1.3
Our Review
Forum Thread

Jet Car Stunts just got even more awesome. You can now engage in some friendly "ghost racing" through challenges and replays. Even better, replays can be downloaded directly from leaderboards. The menu system got a much-needed reworking as well, so this game is going to feel pretty fresh the next time you boot it.

Compression [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2
Our Review
Forum Thread

Compression is a great game, but even I'll admit that I was getting a bit bored its mechanics after playing the game for hours on end. The new "Blocked" mode is absolutely pefect for me, as it adds in a ton of variety in the form of obstacles and bombs. The game plays significantly differently in this mode, so everybody who thought they were done with Compression needs to go give it another run.

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We awarded True Axis's time trial and platforming racing game Jet Car Stunts [App Store] with five stars in our best iPhone games of November '09 listing, included it in our best games of the year buyer's guide, and the game has a perfect rating amongst our forum users which can be seen in the Jet Car Stunts thread that is coming up on 1,500 posts since the game was released on November 13th.

If that wasn't enough reason to give this game a shot already, it was just awarded OpenFeint gold status. When Fieldrunners went gold, we explained exactly what this meant:

Similar to our monthly game ratings, the OpenFeint Gold program aims to pick out games which are not only of the highest quality, but also make excellent use of the OpenFeint service. They seem to be setting the bar fairly high in nominating Fieldrunners as the first game to get their gold rating, and it should be interesting to see what games they choose in the future.

The latest Jet Car Stunts update that was released this evening includes even more OpenFeint functionality. You can now send and receive ghost challenges, along with download replays associated to the various entries of the online leaderboards. On top of that, they also tweaked the menu system and rolled in some bug fixes.

Jet Car Stunts is a great game, and this new replay download system is extremely cool. Since the update was just released, you have to search around for new scores that have replays attached to them, but it's really fun to watch how good (or poorly) other people do in the game.

For more information on Jet Car Stunts, check out our review.

App Store Link: Jet Car Stunts, $1.99

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If like me you've found yourself following all the events and drama surrounding this year's Winter Olympics, you really need something to keep you busy during those pesky commercial breaks. RealArcade's Vancouver 2010 [App Store] does the trick, and being the official game of the Olympic Winter Games, it's even loaded with all the olympic logos, mascots, and five events: Cross country skiing, speed skating, snowboard cross, biathlon, and freestyle moguls.

Each event is able to be played individually, or all together in the "Olympic Games" mode which has you doing one event after the other competing against a team of opponents. There's also a single device multiplayer mode that can support up to 6 people competing against each other by passing the device around.

Each of the five included games are controlled a little differently, some with on-screen buttons you need to tap and others that require tilting. For instance, when cross country skiing, you tap the buttons that appear randomly on either side of the screen to go faster, and in snowboard cross your board is controlled by tilting your device. Racing in the speed skating event involves holding and releasing on-screen buttons with precise timing. Three difficulty modes are included, an easy mode which comes unlocked, as well as hard and survival modes which are sequentially unlocked as you complete each difficulty level.

Vancouver 2010 looks and plays very similar to Playman Track & Field [99¢ / Free], RealArcade's other sports game that came out early last year featuring a set of summer events. There isn't a lite version of Vancouver 2010, but the free version of Playman Track & Field will give you a very good idea of what you're getting in to. There's also a video of the J2ME version which looks nearly identical to the iPhone game aside from the differences in aspect ratio.

I liked Playman a lot, and Vancouver 2010 is even more timing, tilting, and reaction-based mini games. Each of the events are fun, although I've found myself preferring the Snowboard Cross and Biathlon both in-game and in real life.

App Store Link: Vancouver 2010, $2.99

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On the last day of Macworld, I met with Allister Capati, founder of a new iPhone gaming company called Objectify, LLC. Capati actually works for Sony Playstation during the day, but over the past 6 months, his (and his team's) evenings have been occupied with the development of Drift Sumi-e an upcoming iPhone game which is trying to intersect art with racing.

The idea for the game was a collaboration between Capati and his friend Calvin Wan, a professional Drift racer. Drift Sumi-e caries the style of Ink and Wash (Sumi-e) painting throughout the game and incorporates it as a line drawing element to control your car. At first glance, the game is reminiscent of Draw Race, though with a far more elegant style.

The game will launch with 8 tracks and a single type of car, though iterative updates are planned. You must achieve a certain score in order to unlock the next track. Each track also carries a set of unlockables that can be obtained on subsequent repeat plays. These unlockables include a customizable signature stamp, the ability to take snapshots, as well as day/night and snow/clear sky toggles.

The game involves drawing a single stroke along the racetrack as the path for your car. You must try to hit and connect all the red clipping zones and try to make it through the course as fast as possible. After you draw your single stroke, you sit back and watch the playback in 3D as your car drifts around the corners. Multiple camera angles are provided along with drifting smoke effects. Your ultimate score is based on the smoothness of the line and speed of your run.

Here's a gameplay video:

Overall, the game really stands out for its style and presentation. Drift Sumi-e is expected in the App Store on Tuesday, February 16th.

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Halfbrick Studios has been quietly releasing underrated games since its establishment in 2001. With games on Xbox Live Indie Games, PSP Minis, WiiWare, and the DS (among many others), Halfbrick knows their way around quite a few different systems. Now, Halfbrick's own Phil Larsen has confirmed with us that the Australian-based studio is ready to officially announce the first of "a whole heap" of iPhone games: Blast Off.

Blast Off is an arcade-style puzzle game in which the goal is to rescue stranded astronauts and carry them through a warpgate to safety. Gravity from nearby planets will affect your rocket's flight path, and the trick to figuring out the best solutions to these puzzles is using this to your advantage.

Here's a trailer for the game:

Blast Off got plenty of favorable coverage when it was released for the PSP minis service, with IGN calling it "the best PSP mini yet." New features aplenty will be added for the iPhone version, including global leaderboards and a brand new "Endless Mode."

We think that Halfbrick has a lot of promise as a studio, especially if one takes a look at their past releases and future games. If you own a PSP, check out this trailer for one of their PSP Minis releases, an excellent little game called Rocket Racing:

While Rocket Racing hasn't been confirmed as one of the "heap" of games being created for the iPhone by the developer, it serves as a good example of their talent as a studio and their knack for creating high quality, smaller games.

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Nearly five months ago now Tapulous first announced Riddim Ribbon [App Store] on stage at an Apple keynote. Oddly enough, aside from graphical changes, the game that is available today is almost exactly what Tapulous promised at the event. Three songs from the Black Eyed Peas are included along with three additional 99¢ tracks available via in-app purchase. (Two by Tiësto and one by Benny Benassi.)

The objective of Riddim Ribbon is to guide a ball down a track, and tilt your device to follow a green line that moves left and right to one of the three songs you select on the main screen. When you stray from the track, the music begins to fade out until you're only hearing the faint backbeat to the song. Laid out on the green line are silver spheres to pick up, ramps to jump over, and hoops to jump through. All of these different pickups and obstacles are arranged so you're hitting them with the beat of the song, an experience that's actually pretty cool if you haven't played a similar racing rhythm game before.

As you're rolling down the tracks in Riddim Ribbon, you will be faced with both forks in the road and ramps that lead to secondary portions of track that allow you to mix the song by turning or jumping up on to the same portion of the song remixed by one of a number of different DJ's included in the game. By replaying individual songs and choosing different paths to take, you can come up with a number of different remixes of the same song.

Riddim Ribbon is a game that sounds really cool when you describe it, yet it somehow manages to be not that fun at all when you're playing it. The way the music is visualized is great, and the tracks are laid out very well to match each song. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to get bored of the three included songs, and the tilt controls are frustrating.

Instead of like most racing games where you tilt to move right or left, then hold your device level straight to go straight, the amount you tilt directly translates to your position on the track. This causes you to spend most of your time holding your device at an awkward angle instead of making small tilting movements to steer as you're probably used to if you've played many racing games on the platform.

As mentioned previously, the way you interact with the music in the game is really neat but by default an announcer is almost constantly talking over it telling you how "dope" and "ill" your performance is along with announcing the many checkpoints on each song. It likely won't take you long to turn this off in the options.

Riddim Ribbon is a great idea for a game that ultimately is ruined by frustrating controls and gameplay which is too easy to get bored of.

App Store Link: Riddim Ribbon feat. The Black Eyed Peas, $2.99

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