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It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than a year since Epic Games and Chair Entertainment released Infinity Blade [99¢], an Unreal Engine-powered sword battling RPG that redefined what we could expect from visuals on the iOS platform. They released the sequel, Infinity Blade II [$6.99], this past November, and basically improved upon everything in the first game. However, the original Infinity Blade is still really great, and I still find myself playing both titles regularly.

If you’re one of those people who haven’t dived into the whole Infinity Blade thing yet, now would be a good time to check out the series yourself without much risk, as the first game is on sale for its lowest price ever at just 99¢. Even if you don’t think the Infinity Blade style of game is for you, you at least owe it to yourself to drop a buck on it and find out for sure. I really didn’t think much of the game when it first came out, if truth be told, but I continued playing and somewhere along the line something just “clicked” and I found it almost impossible to put the game down ever since.

You can read our full review of the first Infinity Blade if you need some more insight, and if you like it and want some more, you can check out our review of Infinity Blade II as well. This sale is advertised as an April Fool’s sale, so be sure to grab it quick as there’s no telling how long it will last.

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Last October, indie developer Bertil Horberg released Helium Boy [$1.99], a colorful 3D platformer about a boy and his balloons. Helium Boy was a pleasant surprise with its cheery visuals and gameplay that revolved around filling up balloons in order to float the protagonist around each of the game’s levels. Unfortunately, an awkward camera made it difficult to properly navigate the terrain, which led to us being hesitant about fully recommending the title in our review.

Still, Helium Boy had flashes of brilliance, and we really wanted to enjoy it more. Now, Bertil is taking another stab at a platforming game with the upcoming Gunman Clive. This time around he’s sticking with a more traditional 2D side-scrolling gameplay while still retaining 3D visuals. Gunman Clive also has a really interesting sketchbook-style look, which you can see in the trailer (it’s also pretty darn funny).

Bertil says his main influences for Gunman Clive were Megaman and other classic platformers of that ilk, and he’s aiming for a more straightforward platforming and shooting game as opposed to the kind of gameplay that was in Helium Boy. I’m pretty much a Megaman fanatic, so hearing this really has me excited to see how it turns out. Look for Gunman Clive to launch with the usual slew of new releases later this week.

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Way back in the summer of 2010 (wow, where does the time go?), I was very pleasantly surprised with Oyatsukai’s Final Freeway [Free], an homage to Sega’s classic OutRun arcade racer. You could tell straightaway that there was plenty of love put into Final Freeway by somebody who absolutely adored the source material, and unsurprisingly this love translated into fun gameplay for those craving an on-the-go OutRun-alike.

While we praised Final Freeway in our review, it was missing a couple of core components that make an OutRun game, well, OutRunny. First was a lack of branching paths when you reached the end of a track segment, which normally would allow you to choose your own path to the end of the race. Instead Final Freeway was just a straight shot through its 6 environments.

The second big thing that was missing was the ability to crash and flip your ride. Sure, this is just a visual thing that doesn’t really affect gameplay, but it can’t truly feel like an OutRun game unless you can barrel into a tree at 160mph, flip your vehicle through the air several times while the passengers are ejected, and have both the car and the people come out completely unscathed. Also, where was the pretty blonde riding shotgun? Maybe she was there, but since the car wasn’t a convertible in Final Freeway, I’ll never know for sure (these things matter).

So there you have it, Final Freeway was an awesome OutRun clone with a few minor flaws. Fast forward to earlier this month, and Oyatsukai has taken all the feedback from the original Final Freeway and put it into the sequel, Final Freeway 2R [99¢], which truly is the OutRun game we’ve been waiting for. All the things we felt were missing from the first game? Those are in Final Freeway 2R, and it even does a couple of neat new things that really differentiates itself from OutRun while still retaining the feel of that series.

The first big thing in Final Freeway 2R is that there are now 13 different environments to race through in total. Each complete game has you racing through 5 of them, with a branching path at the end of each that lets you pick which route to take. It’s super OutRunny! Also, the graphics look a lot better this time around, with more detailed sprite work and a greater draw distance. The sense of speed in Final Freeway 2R is just ridiculous, and puts most other racers to shame. All the while it runs at a rock-solid framerate.

Of course, you can also now flip your ride in Final Freeway 2R, which as I’ve explained is incredibly crucial to the experience. You get a convertible faux Ferrari this time too, so you can actually see your blonde lady friend sitting in the passenger seat. In a cool twist over the original, you can now choose from 3 different drivers in Final Freeway 2R, each with their own set of stats. One of these drivers actually is the blonde cutie, and when you pick her one of the other fellas ends up riding shotgun. Equality!

One other interesting change from OutRun is now you actually have a rival of sorts shadowing you through each environment as you race towards the end goal. If you manage to reach the end of a track segment before he does you’ll get an additional bonus. It’s not integral to the overall experience, but it does add a nice bit of extra motivation to actually have an opponent to race against rather than merely trying to beat the clock.

Overall, Final Freeway 2R is a huge improvement over the original, and I just can’t believe how hooked I’ve been on it since it came out. It’s just pure, simplistic, fast-paced, arcade racing fun. If you’re not really an original OutRun fan but are curious if this sort of gameplay is your thing, then for today only you can grab the first Final Freeway for free to see how it grabs you. If you like that, then just know that Final Freeway 2R improves on everything from the first and will set you back just a buck.

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We don’t normally dabble in business-centric news. Let’s be honest, buyouts are rarely interesting, and lately they all seem to have to do with the free to play world which is often even less interesting. With that caveat, here’s a recent buyout that might be interesting, mostly because Fabrication Games has made actual games (and great ones at that). We’ve actually reviewed quite a few of them.

Fabrication is responsible for the steampunk racer Ionocraft Racing, a slick little augmented reality game called Piclings, the retro platformer Niko, the absolutely fabulous casual puzzler Sprinkle among other titles. Oh, and when we met with them at GDC, they’ve got some even cooler stuff on deck.

Co-Founder Tommy Palm explained to me this morning that his acquisition should hopefully give the Fabrication Games team the resources to take these sort of games even further with the development budgets afforded by having access to the comparably deeper pockets of King.com. So, potentially games of the quality level of Sprinkle with even bigger budgets?

Where do I sign up?

Also, if you haven’t yet, mash some of those links up there and check out some of the games they’ve released. They’re great.

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I’m a huge fan of rollercoasters. There’s something about the grandiose structures, raw speed and pure adrenaline that just appeal to me. Maybe that’s why I’m such a fan of Madcoaster [$0.99], an endless runner with a rollercoaster twist. Hitting all the major points for the genre, Madcoaster’s interesting premise is enough to put it ahead of other, more generic titles.

As an endless runner, Madcoaster doesn’t add too much to the genre in terms of innovation. Your rollercoaster moves from left to right on randomized tracks with the primary goal being to jump over track gaps and avoid the chasms. Meanwhile, you’ll encounter a wide variety of birds and animals sitting on the track that earn you extra points if you hit them. A few standard power-ups (such as a coin magnet, speed-up, and rollercoaster jetpack) are also occasionally placed throughout levels. There are also plenty of coins to collect, but they only add to the score and aren’t collected for anything else.

As you progress, the track layouts get more complicated and the rollercoaster (obviously) speeds up. Eventually, the game will end once you lose all your lives, with the game scoring you based on total distance traveled and total points (with leaderboards for both, respectively).

In addition to the standard score chase, Madcoaster also offers a leveling mechanic based on objectives. As you hit all the level’s goals, your rollercoaster gets a visual overhaul and the raw score multiplier goes up. Being able to permanently raise your score multiplier is an interesting feature, but it does take away some score parity and penalizes score chasers that don’t focus on objectives.

Visuals are cartoony and vibrant, and look great on a retina-iPhone. There’s no retina support yet for the new iPad, but Madcoaster looks fine regardless. While gameplay on both device sizes works well, I did find the iPhone screen to be a bit more cluttered with information than the iPad.

As a rollercoaster-themed endless runner, you’d expect the framerate to be fast and smooth and for the most part Madcoaster doesn’t disappoint. The game does a great job with its sense of speed, especially in the latter portions of a run. I did encounter some minor slowdown on a current generation iPod touch, but for current iPhones and iPads, I encountered no problems.

One area that Madcoaster does well is its colorful and varied backdrops. Every 1000m the rollercoaster enters a cave that serves as a gateway to a new location. Environments include a Halloween-themed twilight grounds, the innards of a volcano, deep within a jungle and even the pyramids of Egypt. Each region also has its own music as well as unique animals and birds, which become important with later objectives.

While the variety goes a way towards addressing the inevitable monotony of some endless runners, not every environment is created equal. Each location has foreground flora and fauna with some actually blocking the bottom rails, making it a bit difficult to time jumps and landings if you’re close to the bottom of the screen. Some may consider it a challenge, while others may find it simply frustrating. Another minor complaint is that some locations are locked behind IAP. However, considering that you can eventually unlock all IAP with a good enough run, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

As mentioned above, Madcoaster doesn’t stray too far from the endless runner formula, but it does do a good job executing most of the elements we love in the genre. Combine this with the rollercoaster motif and decent visuals and there’s little reason for you not to at least check it out.  Madcoaster may not have the lasting power of a Jetpack Joyride, but there’s still plenty here for an enjoyable ride.

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A new Chillingo puzzle game? You don’t say. Well, if there’s one thing we can expect from Chillingo, it’s a certain level of quality that all of their games exhibit. They may not blow us out of the water, but what they give us is normally a pretty solid product. Light the Flower [$0.99] falls squarely into this category, presenting an interesting puzzler that keeps you thinking, but doesn’t present too much frustration — usually a winning formula for iOS titles.

Most iOS games have fairly simple plots, but Light the Flower is even more pared down than the usual title, which I personally like (reminds me of old school gaming, in fact). Each level consists of a room with a happy flower inside (sometimes more than one).

Your job is to bring the flower back to life by directing a beam of light from a nearby window with your finger and making sure it hits the flower. While you are doing so, you can also aim carefully to make sure that the beam of light also lights up stars that are randomly scattered around the room. The number of stars you are able to capture dictates your score at the end of each level.

In the beginning, things will be simple, but Chillingo gives us plenty more to do as the game progresses. Later levels present colored filters for you to direct your light through, which you will have to match with the color of the flower you are trying to revive. You’ll learn that mirrors you use to direct the light are double sided, so that’s to your advantage. Throwing switches and splitting beams will also become part of your strategy to move forward.

Five “houses” of rooms are available to play, each with a dozen levels hiding inside. That’s a total of sixty levels to play, which should keep you busy for some time. You can unlock the houses as you progress, or if you are feeling impatient and want to see what later levels have to offer, you can skip the effort and unlock them all by paying a $0.99 fee. If Light the Flower was a harder game, I’d say this might be worth it, but I think it’s just challenging enough to keep you playing, but not to the point where it makes you miserable to try to get further.

Light the Flower has a cheerful, cartoon-inspired look, and it does present some replayability  if you want to try to snag all the stars in every level or improve your time. It’s also compatible with Crystal and Game Center, so you have achievements to aim for. I also noticed that there is an extra house with a ‘Coming Soon’ slapped on it, so apparently Chillingo is planning to release another dozen levels later down the line.

Some user reviews mentioned issues with the game crashing, but I never had the problem pop up once. Apparently, if you do, a delete and reinstall will fix it up just fine. Either way, I suspect you’ll be brightening up some poor flower’s day in no time. And people said you didn’t have a green thumb!

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Crysis developer Crytek’s interest in iOS has been long noted, but it’s still blowing our minds that the AAA studio’s name is now on the App Store. Late the other night, and months after the release of Crysis 2 on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, Crytek released Fibble — Flick ‘n’ Roll [$1.99 / HD] across iPhone and iPad respectively.

This is an interesting release on a couple of levels. For one, Crytek is a major player in a completely different circle, and it’s finally dipping its toes in our waters. Also, Fibble is managing to look like a Crytek game. This thing’s production values are off the charts considering what it is, which is to say, a fairly simple and cutesy puzzler. We’re giving this a good look for review, by the way, so expect that in the future. Until then, gives this teaser trailer a look… or eight.

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Behold! The kingdom of Kameloot! A great land plagued by literature-loving rats, ruffians, maddened herbivores and stupefyingly high taxes. It is here that Battleloot Adventure [99¢/HD] takes place. In this turn-based strategy/RPG hybrid, you’ll be taking command of a motley crew of mercenaries.

Unlike most titles within the genre, Battleloot Adventure will not have you galloping off to the castle in order to decapitate the state dignitaries. I mean, the local oppression is sort of what keeps you rolling in the dough. While, in theory, your purpose in life is to assist the city you’ve sworn fealty to in its attempt to win the ‘Grand Gossip Notoriety Prize’ , you’re really just in it for the gold.

As you might have guessed already, Battleloot Adventures is not a game that takes itself too seriously. It’s a game plagued with sheep, after all. Black sheep. Red-eyed, rabid-looking sheep. Be-tentacled, flatulent purple sheep. Battleloot Adventure has a sheep for all occasions. Can you honestly imagine something like this being grim and dark?

The bright, cartoony art style certainly enforces the light-hearted atmosphere. Characters are well-drawn and vividly colored albeit often encumbered with slightly overlarge heads, something that may not appeal to those who do not enjoy Japanese anime. In contrast, the watercolor backgrounds look as though they deserve a spot in a children storybook somewhere.

Now, let’s talk about the gameplay. Combat in Battleloot Adventure is wonderfully simple. To attack, you tap on your target. To defend, you tap on yourself. To utilize an item or a skill, you tap on the appropriate icon before tapping on the desired target. Simple, right?

Sort of. Once you dive into it, things start to get complicated. One of the things that you’re going to have to monitor is energy. Almost everything you do (item consumption being the notable exception here) requires expenditure of that precious resource. If you permit a character’s energy to drop below a certain percentage, they’ll be useless up till the point their bar replenishes. And no, you can’t block under these circumstances either, something that will be the cause of despair at least once.

There’s an element of ‘rock, paper, scissors’ to the fights. You see, each entity in the game is associated with one of four classes. Each class, in turn, is represented by a color. Bandits are red, soldiers are blue, healers are green and wizards are flamboyantly purple. As you might have guessed already, certain classes will do well against others. The rogues of the game, for example, do well against soldiers but fare poorly against a wizard’s assault. Needless to say, the ecosystem of colors is something you’ll want to keep in mind if you want to perform effectively in combat.

Skills have been done in a rather interesting fashion here. While most games demand payment in mana or energy, Battleloot Adventure wants payment in stars. Stars are what you acquire when you’ve inflicted sufficient amounts of damage on an enemy. Stars are also essential to some quests and provide bonus gold at the successful completion of a stage. Stars are great. Unfortunately, in order to use a skill, you’re going to have to spend a star. Will it be worth it? That’s entirely up to you.

On top of all that, you’ll also have to take passive abilities, talents, equipment, environmental effects, the fact you can rope your characters together to assist one another in attacks, and quest objectives into consideration. It’s a lot to juggle, but what makes Battleloot Adventure so neat is the fact that it’s not mandatory for you to know exactly what you’re doing. It is exactly as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. You can elect to finish everything in two rounds via a strategic usage of skills and physical prowess or you can work through each enemy slowly. It’s up to you.

One of the things that make me incredibly happy about Battleloot Adventure is the way they’ve handled IAPs in the game. They’ve done an excellent job with it. I think this is the first time I’ve said that about any game’s usage of the freemium model, but it’s true. Instead of ransoming your headgear or demanding money to unlock new quests, Battleloot Adventure will offer you in-game gold for real-life cash, and if you don’t want to, you don’t actually need to buy the gold. Things in Battleloot Adventure do not cost an arm and a leg. At most, they might cost a toe or an unimportant finger. It’s definitely a refreshing change.

That said, with Battleloot Adventure, patience is important. In spite of all the praise I’ve lavished onto it, Battleloot Adventure is one of those games that takes a little warming up. The dialogue isn’t atrocious but it’s certainly not the most impressive in the world. As for the first Act, well, the less said about it the better. I understand wanting to ease the new player into the world but the pacing’s slightly off for Act 1.

Nonetheless, for those willing to persevere, the game opens up when you reach Act II. Suddenly, there are things to do everywhere. There is equipment to unlock. There are feats to complete. With every quest you fulfill, more areas become unlocked. Speaking of equipment, I love the fact that all of the gear that you acquire will be visible on your party members in a wonderful display of attention to detail.

Battleloot Adventure isn’t perfect (I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth but that Witch is broken, guys. Broken. Also, there’s no Universal version. Why, Digital Tales, why?). Nonetheless, it’s still an impressive addition to the App Store and a game that belongs in your library. It’s immersive, it’s expansive (I’ve been playing it for a week), it’s simple, it’s something you can teach to your grandparents and your three-year old niece. As long as you’re OK with some minor quirks, Battleloot Adventure is one that you don’t want to miss.

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The third episode of Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space was originally released in 2008, on the cusp of the videogame industry’s zombie renaissance. Four years and three Dead Risings later the iOS port of “Night of the Raving Dead” [$4.99] may feel — to steal a quote from the game’s antagonist, the vampire Jurgen — “played, yo.” Still, Steve Purcell’s brand of silly humor gives “Raving Dead” life, even for those tired of zombies and vampires.

This season of episodic Sam & Max games comes into its own in “Raving Dead,” particularly if players have been keeping up since the first episode ”Ice Station Santa” : we can start to see how the central town and its inhabitants are changing over time. We now have access to Sybil’s shop, but Bosco’s Inconvenience has been shuttered since he went missing in the second episode, ”Moai Better Blues” ; Flint Paper takes a more active role in “Raving Dead,” and Sam and Max have all but stopped giving Stinky the benefit of the doubt in the mysterious death of her grandfather. This is one of the strengths of episodic gaming, and it’s nice to see Telltale Games’ writing come to fruition.

This type of self-referential writings has its limits, though. In-jokes that refer to players’ previous exploits feel natural to players keeping up with the series, but the second quarter of “Raving Dead” can be jarring for those who, like me, didn’t play Sam & Max Save the World. Not that “Raving Dead” is a literary giant, but there are a few levels of nuance in Sam and Max’ relationship with Jurgen that you’ll miss if you didn’t play the “Situation: Comedy” episode from that series, which isn’t currently available on the App Store. And this wouldn’t even be so bad if this plot point didn’t directly inform at least two of the puzzles in the first half of the game.

Nevertheless, “Raving Dead” features the strongest writing and characterization to date — I’ll never forget the way Jurgen hooks his thumbs into his nipple rings while he relaxes.

Whereas as “Ice Station Santa” and “Moai Better Blues” tend to meander along until a plot twist at the end, “Raving Dead” establishes Jurgen as the antagonist fairly early in the game, and most of the puzzles revolve around him. This gives Purcell room to stretch out and give the game a little more nuance, and I’d even argue that he re-imagines and modernizes the social commentary George Romero wrote into seminal zombie movies like Night of the Living Dead, from where this episode borrows its title. Sam & Max isn’t subtle stuff, by any means, but there are some threads of maturity to be found, not to mention that “Raving Dead” has a relatively bleak ending — I won’t spoil anything here, but it does seem heavy-handed for the series.

This episode is pretty clearly demarcated into two halves, the first of which is probably the most mechanically and thematically interesting of Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space to date. Unfortunately, that praise comes with a caveat: the first half of the game is murky in its goals, and you’ll likely stumble into the puzzle solutions instead of tactfully divining them. There are a few puzzles in particular that, even after having solved them, don’t seem to have much in-game logic behind them — brute force experimentation isn’t as satisfying as actual problem-solving.

The problem is that “Raving Dead” is narratively strict, often times depending on the player to trigger specific events to push the story forward. In older Sam & Max episodes, players generally had a handful of puzzles to solve at a time, giving them a reason to explore different areas, interact with different characters, and gradually amass the knowledge and items they need to move forward. “Raving Dead” is stingier with its progress, meaning that you’ll need to solve each puzzle in turn before you can move on.

The upshot is that the interplay between Sam, Max, and Jurgen is really neat once you figure it out. Dialogue hints have always been a big part of Sam & Max, but “Raving Dead” is almost impossible to figure out without taking the time to think about Jurgen’s character and motivations. (Again, having played “Situation: Comedy” helps.) Thankfully, the same general idea repeats itself a few times in a row — once you know what makes Jurgen tick and how his castle functions, the game starts to pick up steam in terms of narrative progress and player engagement.

The second half of “Raving Dead” is more straightforward and consists of traditional item management puzzles. The game does a good job of feeding players items, which keeps the game moving forward and pixel-hunting to a minimum. The final boss fight, too, is a return to form after some lackluster fisticuffs against Mr. Spatula in “Moai.”

“Raving Dead” ends on a somewhat dour note, but I can’t help be excited at the midpoint of Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space: different plot threads are coming together and the designers at Telltale consistently and effectively iterate on the mechanics and structure of the point-and-click adventure. “Raving Dead” is easily stronger than “Moai Better Blues” and more interesting than, if not executed as well as “Ice Station Santa.” Here’s hoping the last two episodes keep up the good work.

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