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One of our favorite iOS puzzle games would have to be Big Pixel Studio’s Land-a Panda [99¢/Lite/HD/HD Lite], released last March. If you remember the cannon shooting sections from the Donkey Kong Country series, and can picture an entire game developed around that idea with tons of levels and a sugary sweet art style, then you have a good idea of what to expect from Land-a Panda.

We really liked the game in our review, and although it contained plenty of levels initially, even more were added in an update last May, increasing the panda-launching fun even further. Now, the adorable panda couple of Yang Guang and Tian Tian are flipping down their shades, making witty puns, and heading to Miami in a newly released update. Yeeeeaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

In this new update, which I’m dubbing LAP: Miami, you get another set of 20 levels to play through that include new elements like exploding cannons, dangerous moving cat blocks, and various special items. There are also a few new Game Center achievements as well as a new leaderboard for the Miami levels. Also, there is a new 99¢ IAP option to unlock all the levels, which you can just do naturally by progressing in the game but is a nice alternative if you’re feeling lazy.

If you like puzzle games and haven’t yet checked out Land-a Panda, it’s worth the one or two dollar investment. Gamers in our forums have been loving the game since its release, and with the latest update there’s now even more to love. Plus, there’s a space for another new world to come in a future update, which we’ll surely keep our eyes out for.

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I don't often reflect on why I want to progress in a game. The journey is usually enough — tell me that the hero wants the MacGuffin, and I will do what it takes to get him to it, no questions asked. Not so with Loopycube's Pickpawcket [$0.99]. Our stealthy feline protagonist wants to reclaim the classic paintings stolen from the cat art show, and dammit, so do I.

Not that the journey isn't fun — its stealth action puzzles are quite entertaining. But the paintings awarded by completing each of the game's 60 levels are a great motivator. Loopycube painstakingly recreated 60 classic paintings, one for each level, and then filled them with cats. Impressionist cats, dadaist cats, renaissance cats, pop art cats: you name it, and it's probably in there. The paintings range from neat — I'm particularly fond of The Kitty Night, a rendition of Van Gogh's The Starry Night — to disturbing, like the anthropomorphic take on Alphonse Mucha's "Dance." How do you put a game down when the next level holds a reward like that?

To earn your reward (conveniently wallpaper-sized on iPhone), you'll need to sneak a cat burglar into a guarded gallery, snatch the painting, and get out. Guard dogs are arrayed to stop you, and entering their field of vision means an instant level reset. Luckily, these dogs are pretty much blind. This is a puzzle game, not Metal Gear. You can see their range of vision at all times — all you have to do is stay out.

This is, of course, easier said than done. There are three type of guard dogs (schnauzers, bulldogs and pugs), and they each have their own pattern of movement and range of vision. In a given level you're likely to encounter several dogs, each following a set patrol route. Memorizing those patrols will get you through most of the early levels.

As you make your way from the Metrodogitan to the Doggenheim, Pickpawcket introduces more complex puzzles. The dogs get lasers, walls and doors, and the cat gets dog disguises, televisions and other distractions. These allow you to complete the levels with a bit of finesse — while following patrols relies on rote memorization, knowing when to trigger a television takes timing and precision. At around the game's midway point it also introduces stuns, and gives you three per level. You're better rewarded if you can do without them, but providing the option allows the game to get much more complex without leaving players too stuck.

It was in these later levels that the game's controls started to fail me at times. Pickpawcket offers two control methods. You can tap and hold to move, or you can turn on a virtual joystick. I found the joystick control abysmal, but some portion of players may prefer it. The tap control, on the other hand, is quite good – but there's no way to avoid occasionally having your finger block your view. Once you reach a certain point in the game, what you can't see definitely can kill you.

But that's a small inconvenience in a large, fun game. Pickpawcket succeeds where it counts, with challenging gameplay that rarely dips into frustration. When it does, knowing that something interesting (or hilarious) awaits you at the end of the level will keep you pressing onward. Check it out, and post your impressions in our discussion thread.

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At first glance, Candy Boy [99c / HD] by Colorbox looks like a regular one-screen platform game – and to some extent it is. You control Casper, who runs, jumps and long-jumps around the level, climbing over blocks, collecting three coins and trying not to fall into water or holes. And in later levels there's enemies to avoid. Yup, that certainly sounds like a platform game. But, at its core, Candy Boy is actually a puzzle game, based on completing match-3 puzzles . There's no standard rectangular match-3 game-board though, as the blocks are often distributed around the platform level.

Here's how it works:  Casper walks around carrying a colored block of candy above his head, which he can drop anywhere on the level. If he places the candy next to two other candy blocks of the same color, they disappear. In many match-3 games the goal is to achieve a certain number of matches, or to move objects to the bottom, but here the goal is to destroy three "hateful worms" which have invaded Candy Boy's sugary homeland. The worms are colored too, and hide amongst the blocks, so by matching them with candy of the same color, you destroy them. They are stylized square worms, with wide open mouths!

To make things tricky, candy blocks can't be moved once dropped, so some thought is necessary to ensure your candy is placed wisely. Also, you receive a set number of blocks to solve the puzzle and have no control over the order they're released, which adds to the mental challenge. Sometimes the blocks must all be used in exactly the right places, so one mistake and you have to restart the level. However, the upcoming block colors are displayed at the top of the screen as a hint, much like how Tetris displays pending blocks before they appear so you know what's coming.

Candy Boy delivers a whopping 100 levels across 4 worlds, with Game Center / OpenFeint integration for rankings and 13 achievements. This will provide hours of game-play, although it would be nice if the achievements had more rewarding titles than "Achievement 1" up to "Achievement 13". If you get stuck you can skip ahead to the next level by exiting from the pause menu, although a certain number of coins is required to unlock each world. The first few levels are extremely simplistic, involving only a few blocks as you learn, but then the difficulty curve slowly increases, as the candy blocks pile on top of each other.

The controls are alright, but not perfect. There's buttons for left, right, jump and drop block. Climbing over the piles of blocks works perfectly fine, but when jumping up to small ledges or moving platforms, it's frustrating to fall multiple times where I wouldn't normally. And I'm blaming the controls and specifically, the jump button. Fortunately this doesn't happen too often.

If you're specifically looking for a regular platform game, this one's probably not for you. This is not a side-scrolling game and the emphasis is mostly on the puzzles. Try something like League of Evil [99c / Lite], Mos Speedrun [$1.99 / Lite] or Max and the Magic Marker [99c / Lite] (and there's plenty more great regular IOS platformers out there, some of which are mentioned in this thread). But, if you love match-3 puzzles then this cute and colorful cross-genre platform / puzzle game may tickle your fancy. This may not be the first game to mix these genres, but it's always wonderful to see creative experimentation in the AppStore.

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A month ago, I posted a hands-on preview of Manomio's iOS version of the classic Cinemaware strategy game Defender of the Crown. I'm happy to report that the game has finally landed as as Universal application (for iPhone and iPad) in the App Store [link].

Defender of the Crown was originally released for the Amiga in 1986 — but that's really not saying enough. The Amiga will always be remembered for, among many other things, being one of the most notable gaming platforms ever created. And, for a long while, Defender of the Crown was the system's undisputed flagship game title. I will quote Brian Bagnall from his excellent book On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore, to help convey just how actually jarring an experience it was to see the game for the first time on the Amiga back in 1986.

[Amiga co-creator R.J.] Mical saw artist Jim Sachs push the Amiga to its full potential. "Jim Sachs, what a God he is," marvels Mical. "Jim Sachs is amazing. These days everyone sees graphics like that because there are a lot of really good computer graphics artists now, but back then, 20 years ago, it was astonishing to have someone that good."

The final game was a landmark in video game production values. As game designer Bob Lindstrom recalls, "The shock of seeing Defender for the first time was one of those experiences that changed the gaming stakes for all of us."

Compared to other video games of the time, Defender of the Crown established a new level of quality. IBM had Kings Quest by Sierra On-Line, a decent but primitive adventure game. The Macintosh had games like Checkers or Backgammon, or board games like Risk. Defender of the Crown had richer graphics than any computer, console, or even arcade game could boast in 1986. It was a revelation.

Of course, the above seeks to convey the magic of the title as seen 25 years ago, but despite the passage of a quarter century, the visuals still look magnificent and are a testament to both the Amiga's then-revolutionary graphics hardware and the pixel savvy of designer Jim Sachs. The accompanying audio score is superb, as well.

The game was originally mouse-based and, in this iOS release, is running under Manimio's iAmiga emulation system. As such, completely native iOS controls were not possible, but the studio has done an admirable job of converting the iPhone and iPad screen into a virtual track-pad for swipe and tap controls. Given the extra screen real estate, the game is best played on the iPad, but it's still a great experience on the iPhone and iPod touch.

The preview I posted last month is basically a review of the release version of the game, as all that was left to finish at the time of that post was the in-game documentation. I'd urge anyone who's never played the game to give it a read. I think it's safe to assume that anyone who has played the game before already jumped right to the download link on seeing the story title.

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Back in February, Sticky [99c / HD] developed by Gamistry, was released for the iPhone. This month and the recent release of the iPad version made the game re-appear on our radar, and it still has some good things and not so good things about it.

The game opens with an entirely ridiculous storyline: Two scientists with ironic names – Dr. Bunsen and Dr. Globule – were trying to create the perfect energy source, but their experiment went terribly wrong and accidentally created an orange jelly creature, named 'Sticky'. Dr. Bunsen decided to adopt Sticky as his own son, and in a remarkable coincidence, their next experiment also had unexpected consequences causing Dr Globule to lose his mind and become evil. He's now locked in his laboratory where he's creating grey monsters, called 'toxins', to pollute the world.

So Sticky ends up in an underground cavern, surrounded by orange jelly, where he's confronted by evil toxic sludge-monsters.

The controls are based on dragging the jelly to catapult poor Sticky around. There's jelly on the ground, walls and roof, so you fling yourself around the level, trying to head-butt toxins, before they reach the exit pipe. You can use walls to your advantage, by bouncing off them or rebound off multiple enemies to string a combo together.  Some crushed enemies turn into a tap-able icon, which earn you an ability, such as transforming into a large sticky ball to crush enemies or gaining a targeting system that let's you tap toxins directly without any flinging required. You can also acquire a powerful rock-shield, which wraps around you, so you can fearlessly bash into anything toxic.

There's three game-modes: Story, survival and time attack. Most of the game is based around story mode, which has 40 levels.  There's a decent variety of enemies, with ten different toxin variants, including 'Hop toxins' who stick to your face, like in the movie aliens and must be peeled off with a swipe. Some toxins actually consume you and then spit you back out. The 'Extras' menu contains some "Toxiary' notes about the specific behavior of each sludge-monster. New enemies appear every few levels, which keeps the story-mode levels fresh. The levels environments also vary, sometimes including wind or altered-gravity, which affects your movements.

Survival mode has four levels, to test how long you can contain the toxins. It's better to play story mode first, as survival mode throws various new toxins at you without any explanation of their behavior.  This mode has a couple of flaws, as it keeps interrupting game-play by repeating the same dialog messages. And when you use the pause menu to change survival level, it incorrectly opens the level selection screen for story mode.  The third game-mode is "Time Attack" which gives you a set duration (eg: 2 minutes) to maximize your score. Unfortunately, the survival and time attack modes feel like rushed, last minute additions, taken from story mode.

Crystal and Game Center integration are included (a healthy 50 achievements), with leader-boards provided for each game-play mode and level, although strangely, levels 22+ don't seem to have ranking tables listed in Game Center.

Sticky creates a mixed impression. On one hand, the levels, creatures and power-ups's are varied and creative, the artwork is hand-drawn and the controls are interesting and work really well.  But survival and time attack modes seem rushed, simply for the sake of adding extra modes. Some of the smaller levels are much harder than others. And the character Sticky, despite his cute name, isn't particularly cute or lovable, so I'm unsure why Dr. Bunsen adopted the little scientific side-effect.

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If you’ve turned your attention from Tiny Tower [Free] to check out the other tower simulation game on the market, Mega Mall Story [$3.99], here’s a solid reason to jump back in: new content. Nimblebit has updated its free-to-play joint to version 1.3, adding a lot to the personality to the mix via a free update. The headliner is the new citizen dress-up menu, which allows you to change the costumes of your dwellers whenever. Along these lines, it’s also unleashed a new Web tool that gives you the power to creator your own custom citizen.

On the more mechanical front, version 1.3 has added a new residential floor and has increased the dream job bonus to 2 “bux.” Also, business floors can now be upgraded to hold more junk, VIPS now fill all empty bedrooms in a given floor, and a new elevator has been introduced. A few rare-ish crash bugs have been addressed, too.

I fully expect Tiny Tower to continue to grow and change as user demands and habits inform the evolving F2P model and where designers’ efforts go. That said, I think our original (and glowing) review still stands — this is an awesome F2P game with a lot to offer and very few hassles. Check out that write-up if finally you want to dive in but need a few more specifics beforehand. And if you're one of those people crawling back after Mega Mall Story… you've made a brothers' Marsh cry with your deviance.

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Back in January, Liv Games released Legendary Wars [99¢/Lite/HD], a game that took the tired side-scrolling castle defense genre and reinvigorated it with new gameplay ideas, a ton of variety, and a great sense of style and humor. Now, they’ve collaborated with developer subzero.eu to once again enter war game territory, though this time as a revamped take on the classic Rampart strategy game formula with the just released Zen Wars [99¢]. It nails the Rampart gameplay too, and offers a sufficiently lengthy single player campaign and survival mode as well as a fantastic online multiplayer system through Game Center for up to 3 players.

The basic gist of Zen Wars involves choosing one of three towers to place a barrier around, creating a protective base. You then place cannons within this base, and when finished use those cannons to fire on an approaching enemy threat. Enemies come in timed waves, and when the time runs out you’ll repair the parts of your barrier that were damaged during the battle as well as expand your base even further, or create new barriers around your other two towers. After repairing things, you’ll once again place your weaponry and then square off against the next wave of enemies, and thus the entire process begins again.

What really forces the action along in Zen Wars is that everything is timer-based. You’ll only have a few short seconds to decide which tower to start building around initially, and then just a short time to place all your weapons. Cannon fire is also timed, so you’ll need to wait for a cool down period for each one before firing again to prevent endless spamming of cannon fire.

Finally, the repair round is also timed, and this is where things can get really frantic. You aren’t able to choose which shape your repair blocks are, you’re just given them in random order. Shapes vary from single blocks, to long wall pieces, to Tetris-like angled segments. The perimeter wall around your tower can’t have any breaks in it in order to use the cannons placed within, and it can be incredibly difficult to use the pieces you are given to patch things up properly. The timer just compounds this, and can send you into a state of panic if the clock is ticking down and you’re not being given any of the proper pieces that you need.

This panic will increase due to the one big downfall of the game, the finicky controls. You can pan and zoom around the battlefield using swipe and pinch gestures, and items are placed simply by dragging them where they need to go. On the smaller screen of the iPhone, things are pretty cramped, and with a timer ticking down there really isn’t much room for error. Constantly having to drag to scroll the view or erroneously placing items can eat up precious time, sometimes resulting in failure.

This problem is greatly reduced playing on the larger screen of the iPad, and soon Zen Wars will be updated with universal iPad support as well as iPad exclusive modes and features. Until then, the game plays in full resolution in 2x mode on the iPad, and if you own one then I’d suggest playing on that device. You get used to the quirkiness of controlling things on the iPhone and iPod touch screen, but Zen Wars seems like a title that’s tailor made for the iPad, and I’m really looking forward to the native iPad support.

While there is a ton of content and challenge on offer with the single player side of things, Zen Wars really shines in the multiplayer mode. Up to 3 players can connect locally or online through Game Center. Each player has a set of 3 towers, and the wall building and weapon placement plays out just like in the campaign, with the goal being to demolish the other players’ bases. Every player gets 3 lives, and the last player standing wins.Things can get pretty crazy with 3 players in the mix all trying to blow the snot out of each other, and voice chat is included for proper smack talking. Matches tend to run pretty long, sometimes upwards of 20 minutes, which is an eternity for a mobile title. But, if you have the time set aside to play, there aren’t many better multiplayer experiences on iOS than Zen Wars.

If you were a Rampart fan back in the day and have wanted a portable version on the go, nothing else in the App Store even approaches Zen Wars. Even if you aren’t familiar with Rampart, the mechanics in Zen Wars are easy enough for anybody to grasp, and the strategy needed to be successful runs deep. Controls can be an issue, not because they’re poorly implemented but mostly due to the small screen real estate and the looming threat of timers. It’s far from a deal breaker though, and for one of the better and unique strategy offerings in the App Store, Zen Wars is a solid choice.

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Tero [99¢] – the new by-the-numbers platformer from Studio Yomi featuring the titular pilot who, oddly enough, runs and jumps instead of piloting anything — is ostensibly about saving lives. But don't be fooled by the 24 gorgeously detailed naturescapes or the Fern Gully-inspired cautionary tale about the dangers of using science to exploit the environment. Tero is about death, about dying over and over and over again.

The thing about Tero's difficulty (besides the fact that it ramps up in, oh, the fourth level) is that it's borne out of a perfect storm of bad implementation and great design. On the one hand: Tero's accelerometer-based controls are finicky at best (tilt to run, swipe up to jump and down to attack, etc.), and its hit detection is equally spotty.

On the other hand, Tero would be a difficult game even with tighter controls, and its this idealized version that's so interesting. Despite it's slick presentation and lack of pixel art, Tero's aesthetic and design hark from an older era — blind jumps lead to nothingness, and enemies appear out of nowhere to attack Tero mid-jump. Success in Tero depends on players' ability (or willingness) to repeat themselves, to memorize patterns, to rely on muscle memory instead of intuition.

This difficulty is mitigated by short levels, generous checkpointing, and by Studio Yomi's decision to reward almost every player action with extra "lives" for Tero: collecting flowers and killing enemies yield "hearts," and Tero can be hit once for each heart in his stockpile. But despite these concessions, Tero remains a punishing game.

The result — if you have the patience — is that every death is a small lesson, another opportunity to nail the timing on this or that jump, to learn more about an enemy's pattern, to find a secret ledge, or to rack up enough hearts to bulldoze your way through. This learning process is, I think, essential to Tero, because it's after each lesson has crystalized that the game really begins to shine.

At its best, Tero is a delightfully kinetic experience — there's something triumphant about letting Tero run at full-tilt, confident in one's ability to time his jumps, kill his enemies, and collect his hearts with precision that can only be learned through repetition. Letting Tero run, dash, and spin his way through a well-memorized and well-worn level is the sublime catharsis that makes all the dying and all the frustration worth it.

But if you lose yourself in that sublimation, you'll fail to notice just how precisely crafted each level of Tero can be. Each jump, each enemy pathfinding routine, each floating lever and invincible ghost seem purposefully placed and timed with the assumption that Tero will be running as fast as possible. Under the best possible circumstances, that flame-throwing statue isn't designed to kill Tero, but to present him with the illusion of danger as he bounces past unscathed. The real meat of the game is in its speed, timing, and grace, not in stomping baddies or saving flowers.

At first blush, Tero seems entirely unremarkable in a sea of iOS platformers, a first impression bolstered by the sketchy controls. But, under the right circumstances, Tero synthesizes the visuals of Super Mario World, the physics of Yoshi's Island, and the death-cult gameplay of games like Mega Man and Super Meat Boy into a game that strikes the perfect balance between tension and release, between frustration and delight.

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11 Bit Studios decision to make a tower defense game set in a bombed-out, alien-infested world otherwise full of sand, bullets, and bombs doesn’t seem like an inspired design direction for a downloadable game from a new studio, but it totally is. Despite its over-saturated genre and its dull name, Anomaly: Warzone Earth [$1.99 / HD] has something new to share and its fresh conceits are executed in some of the most graceful, simple, and visually striking ways I’ve seen in a long time. It nails its strategy component by providing unique constructs, it nails its controls, and it nails its look, which is really is a treat on touch devices.

The easiest way to express what Anomaly does is with the phrase “tower defense in reverse,” which sorta sounds cheesy, but it’s pretty good approximation. Basically, you control the creeps in an environment laced with enemy turrets. Anomaly takes this idea a step further by giving you control over what kind of creeps you can build, the order in which you place your creeps,  and by also allowing you to plot out the course you’ll take dynamically during the mission.

Outside of this next-level take on tower defense, what’s really magical about this game is that the mixture of troops you deploy in the field — whether it be a combination of tank, APAC, missile launcher-thing, shield generator, or whatever else — changes the way you’ll approach each given mission, altering the paths you take in subtle, but important ways. If there was ever a game primed for replays, this is it. It's insane flexible.

You alter your direction, for the most part, because of the way the turrets are designed. Some, for example, only spit high-damage ‘bullets’ in one direction, while others blast electricity or throw out pulses that disrupt your approach. In other situations, it's the environment you'll need to plot around. All these obstructions ensures that your creep build is fluid, which makes for a very satisfying strategic experience. My lizard brain is still a little unnerved by how deep such a tremendously simple-looking game like this can be.

There’s a lot that goes into creep formations. Early on, you’ll get the ability to trade in-game cash for armor and weapon improvements on a per level basis. Later, you’ll receive the ability to buy other vehicles that flesh out a range of attack options. There's even one that can churn out one of Anomaly’s other remarkable — and ultimately satisfying — mechanics: power-ups. As you kill turrets, you’ll be able to retrieve powers that can mask your troops, heal them, or re-direct enemy fire. Eventually, you’ll get access to a bomb that’ll eliminate foes en masse according to your drop location. The implications of how you deploy  power-ups in a given situation has a huge impact on how you play, build, and move, too.

The decision to render the game in a top-down perspective was an apt one, considering this is almost a god game of sorts. You direct all the movement, the moment-to-moment action, and drop power-ups onto the field with direct touches into the game world. The touch in general is precise, fluid, and native-feeling, which is awesome, but also doubly-awesome considering that this is a port of a mouse and keyboard game.

One of my few issues with Anomaly loosely ties into the activation of power-ups. If you’re not on the ball, it’s very possible that you could accidentally drop one while scrolling through a level. And, hey, while we’re on the subject of bad — the writing and setup are both dreadful.

None of the writing really matters, though, as it’s really just a crutch for the premise of the next level, most of which bring a new design element to the table. One of my favorites is the one that has you killing specific power plants with live wiring scattered throughout the level. This premise revolves around identifying which plants to destroy first, while avoiding the lines you can't get to just yet.  In other levels, you’ll also find yourself doing the normal video game stuff like escorting, protecting, and stopping enemies from damaging specific goals. Outside of the campaign, there's a tack-on mode Horde-ish mode that adds wave-based play into the mix. It's okay, but not anywhere near as entertaining as the core experience.

It’s ridiculous how much Anomaly has to offer and how natural it feels on touch devices. I don’t think it’s out of line to call it one of the best games on the market at the moment, as its easily one the visually sharpest, most well-produced, and executed out there. If you want a tower defense game that does things differently, or if you just want a solid strategy title that gives you near complete control over the experience, this is it.

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Texas Hold'em is one of those games that's better in person. It just isn't the same if you can't pull out your best poker face. But as we mentioned in our preview, you can now get that experience from the comfort of your couch if you've got an iPad 2, because Full Deck Hold'Em [$2.99] includes video chat integration in its multiplayer gameplay, and it works beautifully.

For those who aren't on the latest, greatest hardware, it also has nearly everything else you could ask for in a Hold'em app: sixteen AI players to compete against, up to four-player multiplayer through Game Center, eight tables with a range of buy-ins and a lot more. There are some rough spots in the interface, but the core experience is great.

The video functionality is awesome. I haven't played a game that makes this kind of use of the iPad 2's front-facing camera before, and I'm impressed with how well it works. The video quality is limited by the hardware, of course, but it's more than sufficient for keeping an eye on your opponents and chatting freely. Since this review was written before release we only had the chance to test it with two players, which worked without a hitch, but the game supports it for up to four players, which sounds super cool. The experience is like playing face to face with friends, and it makes things so much more fun. On the other hand, if being on camera sounds like the worst thing ever, the game offers granular control for who you want to see and who's allowed to see you — if anyone.

If you'd prefer to go solo, you'll be happy to know that there's a great mix of AI opponents in the game. According to GRL Games, each of the opponents has a unique personality, and they also model their behavior from your play style to improve over time. It's a bit hard to actually see the nuances of that at work, but I can say from experience that the different AI players feel distinct from each other, and they're all fairly convincing. They won't play stupidly, but some play more aggressively than others, and some like to bluff when they can. Most of them are quite cautious, though, and tend to fold on a dime. Still, while it can't replace the intensity of playing with other people, the AI certainly puts up a good fight.

For players who find the game a bit too challenging, there are plenty of opportunities to keep from busting out. The game will bail you out if you run too low, and each day you can take a spin on the slot machine for a chance at bonus winnings to keep the cash flowing. If you need a big influx of cash because you want to hit one of the higher-end tables, you can also buy chips with real money. If you're good for cash but need a little assistance in taking down the AI, Full Deck Hold'Em offers free, sponsored powerups that let you stack the odds just a tiny bit in your favor.

Though the game starts you off with a $200 buy in and $10 bet limits, you can work your way up to no limits tables and eventually a $20 million buy in for the big spenders. You can also rank on the Biggest Hand leaderboard and collect Game Center achievements for beating the AI, winning with specific hands and winning or losing big. It's enough to keep the biggest Hold'em fans busy for a long time.

Early on, however, don't be surprised if you have some trouble with the game's interface. It's largely lacking the little considerations that help players orient themselves. A more obvious turn indicator would be nice, for instance, and with such a big screen to play with, it's strange that the betting controls are jammed into the lower right corner. It would also be nice to be able to see how much you're betting, even in limit games — especially since new players may not immediately understand how betting differs when there are limits. There's a lot going on in Full Deck Hold'Em, and a little hand holding really wouldn't hurt.

But those things are fixable, and according to the developer we should see improvements to the interface in the first update. The big stuff is all in place, with AI that's up to a challenge and online multiplayer that's made even better with video chat. If you have even a basic understanding of how to play Texas Hold'em, you won't have any trouble digging deep into Full Deck Hold'Em — and if you don't, I'm sure the sharks kind people in our discussion thread will be happy to help you out.

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