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Last month Taito announced that they were bringing a port of Dariusburst – a recent entry in the classic Darius series of shooters that was released in arcades and on PSP in Japan – to iOS. While it’s a bit of a straggler behind the normal round of new weekly releases, Dariusburst SP [$10.99] is now available on the App Store.

Originally Dariusburst was a PSP game, and featured the familiar horizontal shooting and brutal difficulty that the Darius series was famous for, but with beautiful 3D visuals. It was then released in arcades about a year later as Dariusburst Another Chronicle, and came with additional features not found in the PSP game as well as a crazy double wide screen.

Dariusburst SP on iOS is mostly based on the PSP version, but with some nice iOS-specific enhancements. It features the entire PSP campaign, an additional playable ship named Assault as well as two boss battles from the arcade version, an SP Mode with remixed enemy patterns and boss encounters, and some brand new music. Plus, it’s crazy customizable, with several options for screen position and size, the ability to reposition the virtual buttons, options to adjust the amount of lives and continues, and 3 difficulty modes.

I’ve spent a good amount of time with Dariusburst SP already and I’m totally digging it. The controls are tight, and there’s a cool upgrade system as well as a burst special weapon which can be used to counteract enemy fire and boost up your scores. There’s four different ships (two unlockable) and a branching level progression that lets you choose which path to take à la OutRun or Taito’s own Bust-a-Move games.

But really, it’s all about the graphics. The graphics in Dariusburst SP are bananas. The frame rate is silky smooth, and the 3D backgrounds are whizzing by while moving in all sorts of directions. It makes you feel like you’re moving really fast, and enemies often appear from the foreground or background, adding a feeling of depth to the levels. Boss characters fill the screen with their size, and are intricately designed and equipped with heavy firepower. Everything is crisp and high resolution, and along with the buttery frame rate it makes for an especially attractive game.

We’re gonna spend some quality time learning the intricacies of Dariusburst SP, and will report back soon with a full review. My gut instinct so far though is that if you’re into shooters you won’t want to miss this. I know Taito has you nervous because they released RayForce for $11.99 last month. Personally, I totally love that game and didn’t mind dropping the coin, but I could see how a fairly straight port of a nearly 20 year old game with very little enhancements might not be something everybody wants to pay at the higher end of App Store pricing for.

However, this isn’t that. This is a full blown PSP game that was previously only available in Japan, with enhanced visuals and additional features for iOS. This is the sort of release that we shouldn’t mind paying the extra money for. You can find more player impressions in our forums as we get back to diving into the nitty gritty of Dariusburst SP.

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There’s a reason MMORPG players use the term “trash” to describe the stuff that leads up to raid bosses: it’s missing all the great rewards, and it’s almost always lame. It’s junk, in other words, junk that pads the time between the good parts. Red Zebra Games clearly knows the score, because Raid Leader skips right past the trash to bring us nothing but the good stuff—intense, white-knuckled battles.

As we pointed out in our preview, the big picture will look familiar to Battleheart [$2.99] fans. But it’s the little details that get this recovering World of Warcraft addict’s heart a-fluttering. There was a time when damage number spam, health bars and massively telegraphed attacks were my bread and butter, and boy do they come out in force here.

Before I get your hopes up, though, let me be clear. This isn’t the next Battleheart, and it’s not raiding in World of Warcraft. It’s far, far simpler than either. If you’re looking for a deeply strategic RTS-RPG, this might be a bit casual for your tastes, but it’s a potent combo for those of us nursing fond memories of raiding.

Raid Leader lacks Battleheart’s big list of classes, levels and loot. Instead it has bosses, and the three things any proper team needs to defeat them: a tank, a DPS class, and a healer (in the forms of the Knight, Hunter and Priest). Each of them has a bevy of skills to unlock and choose from, and choose you must, because each character can only bring two skills into battle. You might want to deal damage, snare and buff with one character, but you have to pare that down to the skills you really need. That’s half the game’s strategy right there.

The other half is the battles themselves. There are fifteen levels in total, with 2 arenas, 8 original bosses and a powered-up heroic version of all but the last. These have minions, lasers, death zones and many other familiar tricks, requiring priority targeting, clever positioning and quick reflexes. Lest you think I’m being irresponsible with my WoW comparisons, by the way, one of those bosses is nearly a one-to-one clone of Karsh Steelbender from the most recent expansion. Not that I mind. It just feels a little too much like coming home, if you know what I mean.

Your survival depends on two things: how well you’ve chosen and upgraded your skills, and how well you can pay attention and perform. It also helps to have a basic understanding of MMORPG-style battles. You’ll have an easier time if you already know that the tank should keep the enemies’ backs to his team, or when to toss a heal-over-time and switch targets. Admittedly, though, knowing too many tricks takes a little fun out of figuring out the right strategies for each fight, especially when kiting works so effectively.

Because of this, the game sometimes fails to straddle the line between too easy and too hard. Executing a strategy is often fairly simple, because the bosses never have more than three or four plainly timed and well-telegraphed abilities. You’ll never have serious trouble figuring out how to handle an encounter when anything tricky is explained on screen.

You’ll still run into plenty of difficulty, though. Two things will conspire to stop you no matter how well you can plan. The first is the somewhat-awkward touch controls. Like in Battleheart, you drag one hero to another to heal or attack, and drag your heroes around the screen to move them. Because those two actions are so similar, you may occasionally find the game mixing up your intent. Worse, though, is the way the controls sometimes lead to deaths-by-Notification-Center. Those probably can’t be helped, but that doesn’t keep them from being frustrating.

The second big roadblock is the enrage timer most bosses sport. This isn’t a problem, it’s a classic MMORPG mechanic. Three or four minutes into a fight, the boss becomes immensely more powerful. This isn’t designed to kill you instantly, but it does keep you from flinging yourself at a boss for ages if you’re not powerful enough to defeat it. In Raid Leader, you’re not going to run down the clock because you haven’t leveled enough or hit the right gear level. Instead, it’s your skills that can fall behind.

The three classes each get eight or nine skills to play with. These include a healthy mix of class-appropriate heals, attacks, buffs, debuffs and so on. You can pay out the coins you earn from defeating bosses to upgrade them up to four times each. If you’re a better player than I am you might be able to get by with nothing more than the coins you earn from each boss. I rather doubt it, though. It gets seriously tough to pump out enough damage to beat the enrage even when you’re doing well. If you hit a wall and decide you need more coins, you have two options: grind or pay.

It’s kind of a lame choice. Grinding is actually fun in Raid Leader, but it’s hard to turn down the comparatively massive number of coins you can get by putting down an extra dollar or two. If you do, you can earn a decent rate in two arenas fighting waves of minions, or you can replay completed boss fights. You can earn Game Center achievements and leaderboard rank for beating bosses quickly, so this isn’t a bad way to go.

I just wish there was more of everything. I want a reason to pull out more skills and level them higher. I’d dread putting hours into WoW at this point, but the few brief hours I put into Raid Leader left me craving a lot more. That’s not a bad thing, assuming there’s more to come. While we’re talking updates, Red Zebra, could you work out the spelling errors and put some clothes on the poor Hunter? She’s literally fighting in a bikini. Not even a chainmail bikini, just a few flimsy scraps of nothing.

Raid Leader isn’t perfect, and it’s not perfectly original. That said, it sure is fun. Any recovering raider will find plenty of great nods and familiar concepts, and anyone who’s wondered why folks make such a fuss about raiding will get a low-impact introduction. Drop by our discussion thread to let us know what you think, and point out how much you want more levels while you’re there. For me. Because even though I can quit any time, I really don’t want to quite yet.

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Rebuild [$2.99] for iPhone and iPod Touch is actually happening — and soon. Tomorrow will see the debut of the post-apocalyptic strategy title on smaller devices, courtesy a big-time Universal update for the iPad versions of the game. Developer Northway tells that the update will also roll in retina support, too.

This is easily one of our favorite strategy games on the App Store this side of Civ Rev [$6.99 / HD], and we’re stoked that a “maybe” porting scenario as of a couple of months ago has become a reality. If you haven’t read anything about Rebuild check out our review. Or just pick it up on the App Store at its sale price of $.99 starting tomorrow through this Sunday.

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Only in the indie space do we see games like Pizza vs. Skeletons. Bright and humorous, as well as off-the-walls, it’s a 2D action game that stars a 10-foot tall pizza. It has a knack for catching you off guard by design; delicately crafted to avoid the mechanical monotony so common in its space, it’s an adventure that re-imagines what it is in almost every level. Sometimes you’ll save puppies. Other times, you’ll ski. Or butt heads with gigantic skulls. Or just bash skeletons because, hey, that’s fun.

You just can’t pitch this game to a major publisher. This will never be a blown-up, $60 retail title. It’s too free-wheeling, too idealistic. It’s too … different.

I’ve had my paws all over a pre-release build for the last week or so, and I’m OK with saying that it’s looking every bit as awesome as its name implies it will be. Sure, it might not have any ultra-familiar trappings to draw connections to, but that’s kind of the point: this thing is bananas, man. It’s as far-out as a quasar.

Take the mechanics, for example. In the game, you control a house-sized pizza that can roll, stomp, and jump. Rolling requires a simple tilt of the device. Tap the screen and the pizza jumps. Tap again while in the air and the pizza unleashes a devastating stomp.

Rolling automatically obliterates enemies into plumes of grave dust — provided they aren’t hoisting an over-sized, pizza-skewing spear in front of their bodies. If this is the case, a physics-bending jump and stomp will do the trick. As you play, you’ll start running into a few enemies that twist this basic combat model. There’s a flying skeleton that requires a bit more touch, as well as other minor iterations on this specific idea.

If that was the game, I’d still be as into it since, you know, you’ll be controlling a giant, grimacing pizza on a quest to kill all the skeletons ever. But that’s not all there is. Pizza vs. Skeletons is like a conga line of levels and different systems, each one bolting onto the back of the last and making the stream stronger and crazier.

In the first chapter, you’ll be introduced to a skiing mini-game that doesn’t task you with killing. Instead, the objective is to hit the ramps perfectly in order to collect the most currency possible. Later, you’ll be balancing the pizza on the top of a huge skull while crossing a pit of spikes, pummeling telltale Angry Birds structures into oblivion, or even bouncing on rocks in a timed adventure that has you knocking skulls off of the tiny platform you’ll be forced to work with.

There’s a lot more, and I won’t spoil it all. I will say, though, that nothing I’ve been doing is striking me as particularly interesting. Everything in the game exists in the service of fun, kinda like a Rock Band. You’re just playing to act out weird power fantasies, and that’s cool.

Also, while there’s a level of schizophrenia inherent in this kind of design, Riverman ties all of the bits and bobs together into a coherent whole; the sound design is as kooky as the game, and the art direction? It’s like something Tim Burton would do if he could (a) draw and (b) chill out every once in a while. The game is bent, but lightly so; its style and its tone fits well with the oodles of off-the-wall content.

There’s a good story about this game’s design in this week’s show. Riverman is composed of two brothers, Jacob and Paul Stevens. Jacob, the art dude, dreamt up the scenarios. Paul, the programmer, then had to figure out a way to not only make it work technically, but also make them fun.

The prototyping phase took awhile and the duo had a lot of back and forths on the subject of dreams vs. the reality of having to make solid, fun-to-play content within the technical parameters of the game.

“There are a few levels that have the theme of your sort of crushing a structure in a way like how you fling birds in Angry Birds at something and destroy it. We thought could we make that fun as a pizza? Well, if you actually physically control your character and just crush, say, the Great Pyramids, that could be interesting.” Paul told us earlier this week.

“Jake’s ideas probably come from a totally different place than mine do. In mine, I was thinking what’s fun being a huge, powerful character? Crushing structures.”

Another fun thing that comes hand-in-hand with the conceit of driving around a huge pizza is topping customization. As you beat levels, you earn currency which can be dropped into extra vegetables or meats, new faces, new glasses, and even hats. Each is lovingly animated, and most are pretty hilarious. I’ll go on record here and say that nothing comes close to being as cool as a 10-foot tall pizza with a top hat.

I’ve held back my progression in the game so I wouldn’t get too review-y in this, but I think it’s pretty obvious that I’ll be embracing the game with open arms when it hits a little later this month on the 16th. We’ll be bringing you more around that time, too.

For now, though, keep your eyes on this and Riverman. The studio has never attempted a game this ambitious, this out-of-the-mold, and it seems like it has hit a new stride in the process. I’m excited, and I think you should be, too.

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We’ve been keeping close tabs on Bumpy Road [$2.99] developer Simogo’s upcoming rhythm-based stealth puzzler Beat Sneak Bandit since they originally teased it last October. We’ve even had some extensive hands-on time with a limited preview version of the game, and that’s just served to make us even more excited for the final release. And today, Simogo has revealed that Beat Sneak Bandit will be hitting the App Store February 16th. Hey that’s just a week away! To celebrate, they’ve released a slick new trailer for the game:

You can bet we’ll be all over Beat Sneak Bandit like fingerprints on touch screens when it surfaces next week, and until then there’s a discussion thread you can check out in our forums.

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EA announced an iOS version of the latest console release of their massively popular Battlefield franchise way back in August of last year. Since then, we’ve gone hands on with early preview versions of the game this past October and again the following month. At both events the game felt extremely early in development, and despite Battlefield 3 launching on consoles in late October, EA really didn’t seem to have any idea when the iOS version would hit. And then today, pretty much out of nowhere, Battlefield 3: Aftershock [Free] popped up in the US App Store.

Unfortunately, early impressions of the game aren’t pretty. Well actually that’s not quite accurate, as the one thing that everyone can seem to agree on is that Battlefield 3: Aftershock’s visuals are indeed quite pretty. However, it doesn’t seem to contain any of the previously promised features or modes. There is no single player to speak of (only online multiplayer), no “Horde-like” wave mode, and there is a paltry 3 different weapons to choose from (4 if you count the knife).

I might not mind an online multiplayer only game, but so far the actual online performance is underwhelming. It takes forever to match with someone, and even when you do the match that follows lags to the point of it being completely unplayable. I’m almost certain this is just due to the game being new and there not really being a decent pool of people to play against yet, but what should I do while waiting for the lobbies to fill out? There’s no single player component to speak of, and not even a local multiplayer option.

However, the most baffling thing about Aftershock is its pay model. The game is free and comes with the online multiplayer mode, and that’s it. There does not seem to be anything more to buy in the game (yet at least), and there are ads in the menu screens which it does not appear you can pay to disable. Apparently the game is sponsored by ‘Act of Valor‘ (you know, that movie that uses real Navy Seals as the stars) and if you watch an in-game trailer for it you can unlock an additional weapon.

So, that’s really what I don’t get about Battlefield 3: Aftershock. It feels strange that EA would relegate the mobile version of one of their biggest franchises to an advergame for an upcoming movie. The lack of modes makes it feel woefully incomplete, and all I can really think is that there’s a ton of new content waiting in the wings to be released as future updates or in-app purchases. If not, then Battlefield 3: Aftershock stands as a considerable step down from 2010’s Battlefield Bad Company 2 [$2.99/HD], which itself was fairly average.

Battlefield 3: Aftershock doesn’t seem to be in international markets just yet, but if you’re in the US you can give it a try for free if you’re curious and can spare a few hundred MB of space, and be sure to leave your thoughts in the game’s thread in our forums.

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When Reckless Racing [$0.99 / HD] hit the scene back in October 2010, we praised it for the incredible top-down racing experience it offered. Now, the folks at Pixelbite Games are back again with Reckless Racing 2 [$4.99], the long awaited sequel to this arcade racer. Improving on nearly every facet of its predecessor, Reckless Racing 2 is hands-down one of the top arcade racers I’ve ever played and is well worth the price of admission.

From a presentation standpoint, Reckless Racing 2 makes some significant changes in comparison to its predecessor. Gone are the country themes present in the music and characters (although the latter still remains somewhat in the avatars and names of your AI opponents). In its place is a stylized, clean motif complete with fast-paced music reminiscent of 80s action movies (think Top Gun). Some folks may argue Reckless Racing 2 loses some of the ‘charm’ found in the original, but I think this is a great move that moves towards a more universal appeal.

Another area that receives an overhaul in Reckless Racing 2 is its core gameplay formula. A comprehensive career mode takes center stage in this sequel, complete with 18 different cars to purchase and a plethora of upgrades available for each individual vehicle. The career mode is actually pretty standard – players race through a variety of cups containing several courses. Money is awarded after each race, with a larger monetary bonus depending on your final position at the end of the cup.

Rather than forcing players to complete cups in a sequential fashion, Reckless Racing 2 employs a Performance Index (P.I.) restriction. The higher a P.I. rating is on a car, the ‘better’ it is stats-wise. Modify your car with new parts and its P.I. rating increases. Cups have a P.I. range that your car must fit into in order to play. While it is possible to upgrade your car so it can participate in progressively harder cups, eventually its P.I. max will be reached and you’ll have to buy a new car with a higher range in order to advance to more difficulty cups. It’s a disappointing restriction for folks that become attached to cars, but I thought it was an excellent way to balance upgrades and difficulty while nudging players towards trying new vehicles.

In addition to career mode, Reckless Racing 2 features an excellent challenge mode that supplies the player with a pre-determined car and track. Race against the A.I., place third or higher, and you advance to the next challenge. I found it a great distraction from career, as it allows you to quickly race while still having goals to work towards. Rounding out the modes are single race and wifi-enabled multiplayer. While online multiplayer was pretty fun, the lobby system was a bit rough around the edges (lots of players holding up games from actually starting). An auto-join with P.I. balancing would have been nice, as well as some improvement to the ‘ready’ system.

Racing mechanics also receive substantial changes in Reckless Racing 2, exchanging the ‘floaty’ and hectic feel of the original for a driving system that imbues much more control to the player. This is also reflective in the physics system which feels more suited towards a system requiring actual driving technique. The controls work well enough within this system, but not all control schemes are equal in this sequel. The new dynamic difficulty system, which raises and lowers the overall difficulty based on performance, is another addition that moves the game towards a semblance of realism (you can turn this off if it doesn’t work for you). In some ways, you can argue that these changes make Reckless Racing 2 a bit less, well, reckless. Despite this step away from its predecessor, I think the changes have created a game with more depth and challenge than the original. The upgrade system, for instance, allows you to customize your car to suit your driving style, somewhat preserving the original Reckless Racing style of play.

One of the areas Reckless Racing excelled in was its incredibly detailed visuals. Reckless Racing 2 ups the ante with an improved graphics system that just looks pretty damn amazing. Tracks are meticulously detailed and even effects like the dirt kicking up from your wheels on the off-road portions of the track are well done. Maneuvering my car around a curve with a giant gorge at the bottom or driving along an oceanfront watching the beautiful water effects are some of the nicest graphics I’ve seen on my iPhone 4S. Add in the fact that the game runs fast and smooth (at least on the latest hardware generation), and Reckless Racing 2 would give any game a run for its money in the visual department.

I’ve got to give kudos to Pixelbite – it’s pretty rare for a developer to take a chance and mix up the elements of a successful game in its sequel. However, in the case of Reckless Racing 2, that risk has paid off tremendously. The comprehensive career mode, wealth of maps, and tweaks to the arcade racing formula has made this game more enjoyable in the long term. Add in the amazing visuals and music, and there’s not much to dislike here. Folks have sounded off in our forums in regards to the significant changes to the core gameplay. Personally, if these changes result in an incredibly fun to play game, then what more can you ask for?

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I have no shame whatsoever in telling you that I was literally obsessed with Myst when it came out in 1993. The mystical adventure that dared me to tumble into an unknown world and explore beautiful oversized tomes to unlock its secrets had everything that I wanted from a game at the time. It gave me a solo adventure, puzzles that were hard as hell to solve, and atmosphere for miles. I just might have played Myst (and all the clones of it) a rather embarrassing number of times.

So, it was really kind of a given that I was going to be thrilled to see The Lost City [99¢], which at a glance seemed to be aimed like a notched arrow at the heart of the Myst-era adventure game lover. Of course, anyone who was with me on the long ride through the adventure clones that Myst spawned knows that there were a handful of decent ones, but mostly many, many bad ones.

I’m quite pleased to report that this is not the case with The Lost City. Far from it, in fact. While the storyline behind the game is not quite as fleshed out as that of Atrus and his wayward sons, Fire Maple Games really nailed it in terms of atmosphere. But even more importantly, they got it right with the puzzles – and added a few extra things that Myst itself could have really benefitted from back in the day.

Navigating your way through The Lost City is as simple and pleasant as can be: the touch of a fingertip navigates you through the hidden city your grandmother promised you really did exist (apparently, she wasn’t kidding). Your inventory is neatly tucked into a small briefcase in the bottom left corner of the screen, and touching it pops up a small row of all the items you’ve collected. Items for what? For solving puzzles, of course!

But The Lost City doesn’t do that inane thing where you have to figure out the item that makes the least sense to use, cram it into another item and then use it to magically unlock some door that had no keyhole in the first place. No, these puzzles actually make sense, which as anyone who ever played a Kemco adventure game back in the NES days can tell you, was rarely the case.

Speaking of things that adventure games should have thought of a long time ago, another welcome one here is the map. Each scene of the game you encounter is represented by a numbered panel if you hit up the map screen, which you can move around with your fingertip so you can get an overview of the entire area.

You also have a journal which logs important notes you’ll need for future puzzles, and it just so happens to contain (gasp!) a hint guide, so if you get stuck you can consult it. I know, it’s not proper hardcore. And I don’t care, because the days I spent crying and pulling at my hair in front of my computer because I couldn’t solve that one puzzle were so bad that I don’t mind one bit that this game doesn’t want me to go mad with frustration.

One little touch about The Lost City I really adored was the addition of puzzles affected by seasons. You will encounter stone angel statues which you can place a heart item into to change the seasons, which affects which puzzles you have access to solve. This fit in beautifully with the overall coziness of the game, and it simply brought a smile to my face.

In the end, I found myself trying to slow down and simply enjoy being in the game’s atmosphere. I really didn’t want the game to end, and I suppose that’s the best compliment I can give anything I play. If you’ve ever loved an adventure game of the Myst persuasion, then you’re going to love The Lost City. But not because it’s a clone, or even a really good clone. This one’s got a magic that’s all its own.

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Fly With Me [99¢] from Electronic Arts may resemble a cute kids game about a flying bird, but it’s not actually as simplistic as it seems. You tap the screen to make the little bird fly and try to collect three stars and reach the birdhouse at the end of the level. This may sound easy, but the catch is you have a limited number of wing-flaps available.

Each time you tap the screen to flap your wings, your flap-meter decreases slightly. Once that meter is depleted, you’ll literally fall out of the sky with an amusing animation as you splat into the ground. So, you quickly learn to be more conservative with your flaps, and glide whenever possible. NOT flapping is a key part of this game. Your flap-meter must also be replenished by eating bees, otherwise you won’t have enough flaps to reach the end.

At the top of the screen is a progress bar. This shows your position within the level, but also marks the location of three stars so you know when to watch out for them. These stars are used to unlock chapters. There’s also one golden gear to collect per level. One you’ve found 45 golden gears a more powerful metallic robot bird is unlocked, or you can just buy it right away as an in-app purchase.

There’s three chapters to play (fields, trees and tropical), offering 45 levels in total. You can play using four different birds, but first they’ll need to be unlocked. There’s also three challenge modes (one per chapter) which are unlocked once you gain enough stars. The challenge levels involve trying to fly as far as possible, and your score in that mode is measured in distance (meters).

Each level contains good winds to ride and bad brown air to avoid. These bad winds might do a loop-the-loop or carry you through an underground tunnel, which is interesting to watch but you can’t control the bird while being blown along. While bee’s are good to eat, the sick bugs should be avoided. As should predators, including big dangling bird-eating spiders, hungry fish and carnivorous plants.

Fly with Me has two disappointing features. First off, the frequent adverts for the games IAP offerings feel intrusive. After a couple of attempts at the same level, a full screen message appeared asking if I wanted to buy a robot bird (no thanks). Slightly later it asked if I was interested in paying to unlock all levels (Err, no thanks). Perhaps I want to purchase the easier kids mode? (No. Thank. You.) Then it starts over, trying to sell the IAP previously declined.

Secondly, the game reports back to EA, sending them data about game statistics, settings, incident or event data and feature preferences. I have no problem with this “usage sharing” functionality, except that it’s enabled by default. If players don’t check the “Info” screen, they may not realize their device is sending out data. I turned this setting off on principle.

Despite these drawbacks, Fly With Me is a solid title that’s more challenging than it looks. The limited flapping mechanic sets it apart from the many similar simplistic arcade games on the App Store, and it’s a good value for a dollar – assuming they don’t eventually talk you into additional in-app purchases.

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