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If you're an ancient App Store RPG fan, you'll likely clearly remember the late 2008 release of Chronicles of Inotia. At the time, it seemed fairly amazing compared to the basic offerings of the early App Store, but in early 2009, Inotia was completely outclassed by Gamevil's Zenonia in nearly every way. In late 2009, Com2uS upped the ante by releasing Inotia 2: A Wanderer of Luone. We liked this sequel so much we even featured it in our 2009 Best iPhone games listing.

If you enjoyed Inotia 2, you can pretty much stop reading now and just pick up Inotia 3: Children of Carnia [$4.99] as after playing nearly four hours of it, the best way to describe it is more of the same. This isn't necessarily a bad thing either, as what made Inotia 2 really cool also makes Inotia 3 just as fun.

Gameplay is centralized around your initial choice of one of six classes ranging from different types of ranged, melee, and magic using characters. As you proceed through your adventure, you'll be playing in a party of three characters, each with their own completely customizable set of passive skills, active abilities, and equipment load-outs. You can freely switch between directly controlling one of your party members while the AI does a decent job of controlling the other two. This allows for a surprising amount of strategy, and customization as explained in our Inotia 2 review:

For the first part of the game, I controlled a mage (my main character) and a templar, the latter of whom served as both my healer and frontline. I controlled the templar and led the way into battle, creating a safe environment for my mage to attack from a distance behind me. At first, the only skill that my templar had access to was a basic healing spell, but with a broadsword and careful attention to the health bars of my party members, I was able to make it through most situations with ease. Later, I added a knight to my party, which added even more strategic options due to the fact that my templar was now freed for full time healing duty while my knight charged headfirst into enemies. The combination of class types in my party gave me a lot of wiggle room for experimentation with strategy, making the game much more than a simple hack-and-slasher.

Like its predecessors, Inotia 3 comes packed with what (so far) seems like an entirely predictable JRPG (or, KRPG, I suppose) storyline initially involving your character coming of age, accepting some small quests, and quickly stumbling in to the role of being solely responsible for saving the world. Dialog is also absolutely loaded with the dreaded ellipsis. Thankfully, combat and party system is fun enough that you won't really care that the protagonist really loves the ol' triple dot.

"…"

The quest system seems fairly extensive, and never really leaves you without something to do. The main quest line guides you from place to place, and every town has other people that want you to complete tasks for them. Unfortunately, a lot of these quests feel fairly grindy, and often involve killing things to farm quest items they drop or collecting things in the game world. Again though, the combat and party system is engaging enough that you often don't mind going out and gathering up ten bear skins, a skunk skull, and some rare mushroom at the whim of some random NPC.

I look forward to spending more time with Inotia 3: Children of Carnia. It's a solid action RPG from Com2uS, and while it doesn't feel very innovative, Inotia 3 is a good sequel that continues familiar systems from the previous games. Also, it comes packed with its own oddly elaborate original soundtrack which is where the above music video is from, so make sure you play the game with the sound on if at all possible.

"…"

Note: Inotia 3: Children of Carnia is presently being advertised on this site, but it has no influence on our choice of coverage or the outcome of our reviews. See advertising and editorial policies for additional details.

[source]

The App Store mouse seems to have hopped back on its wheel after the recent holiday freeze of iTunes Connect, and we're starting to once again see new games, updates, and price drops becoming available. Right off the bat there is a noteworthy sale that caught my eye, so if you still have a dollar left over after gorging on the massive list of holiday sales that we posted last week (many of which are still going on, by the way), you'll definitely want to pick up Game Dev Story [99¢/Lite] while it's at its lowest price ever.

Chances are pretty good that you've heard of Game Dev Story by now. This port of Kairosoft's 1996 PC game puts you in the role the manager of a brand new game development studio. You'll need to hire staff, come up with game ideas, and then bring those ideas to fruition all while staying within your budget and available resources. Then you market and sell your games, hopefully getting positive reviews from critics and bringing in a profit so your studio can expand and work on future titles. We were quite taken with Game Dev Story when we reviewed it, and it turns out we weren't alone as it subsequently went on to create quite a buzz across the gaming blogosphere.

In the App Store world, anything more than a dollar can be a hard sell to some gamers. After seeing the nearly 15 year old graphics that are used in Game Dev Story, I imagine that there were a lot of people that found it hard to part with the $3.99 that the game originally cost, despite the mountains of praise it received. Even with the recently launched lite version, I'm willing to bet that there are gamers that were steadfast in their willingness to wait for a 99¢ sale. To these people, your time has come! Game Dev Story is now just a buck, and you'll be hard-pressed to find more bang for that buck in practically the entire App Store. So stock up on food, buy a few cases of Red Bull, and get sucked into the divine addiction that is Game Dev Story, which will give you a chance to hone your skills for the upcoming Game Dev Story 2.

Update 1: It seems the price has been increased back to $2.99.

Update 2: For whatever reason, the price seems to be fluctuating from $2.99 to 99¢.

[source]

The App Store mouse seems to have hopped back on its wheel after the recent holiday freeze of iTunes Connect, and we're starting to once again see new games, updates, and price drops becoming available. Right off the bat there is a noteworthy sale that caught my eye, so if you still have a dollar left over after gorging on the massive list of holiday sales that we posted last week (many of which are still going on, by the way), you'll definitely want to pick up Game Dev Story [99¢/Lite] while it's at its lowest price ever.

Chances are pretty good that you've heard of Game Dev Story by now. This port of Kairosoft's 1996 PC game puts you in the role the manager of a brand new game development studio. You'll need to hire staff, come up with game ideas, and then bring those ideas to fruition all while staying within your budget and available resources. Then you market and sell your games, hopefully getting positive reviews from critics and bringing in a profit so your studio can expand and work on future titles. We were quite taken with Game Dev Story when we reviewed it, and it turns out we weren't alone as it subsequently went on to create quite a buzz across the gaming blogosphere.

In the App Store world, anything more than a dollar can be a hard sell to some gamers. After seeing the nearly 15 year old graphics that are used in Game Dev Story, I imagine that there were a lot of people that found it hard to part with the $3.99 that the game originally cost, despite the mountains of praise it received. Even with the recently launched lite version, I'm willing to bet that there are gamers that were steadfast in their willingness to wait for a 99¢ sale. To these people, your time has come! Game Dev Story is now just a buck, and you'll be hard-pressed to find more bang for that buck in practically the entire App Store. So stock up on food, buy a few cases of Red Bull, and get sucked into the divine addiction that is Game Dev Story, which will give you a chance to hone your skills for the upcoming Game Dev Story 2.

Update: It seems the price has been increased back to $2.99.

[source]

The App Store mouse seems to have hopped back on its wheel after the recent holiday freeze of iTunes Connect, and we're starting to once again see new games, updates, and price drops becoming available. Right off the bat there is a noteworthy sale that caught my eye, so if you still have a dollar left over after gorging on the massive list of holiday sales that we posted last week (many of which are still going on, by the way), you'll definitely want to pick up Game Dev Story [99¢/Lite] while it's at its lowest price ever.

Chances are pretty good that you've heard of Game Dev Story by now. This port of Kairosoft's 1996 PC game puts you in the role the manager of a brand new game development studio. You'll need to hire staff, come up with game ideas, and then bring those ideas to fruition all while staying within your budget and available resources. Then you market and sell your games, hopefully getting positive reviews from critics and bringing in a profit so your studio can expand and work on future titles. We were quite taken with Game Dev Story when we reviewed it, and it turns out we weren't alone as it subsequently went on to create quite a buzz across the gaming blogosphere.

In the App Store world, anything more than a dollar can be a hard sell to some gamers. After seeing the nearly 15 year old graphics that are used in Game Dev Story, I imagine that there were a lot of people that found it hard to part with the $3.99 that the game originally cost, despite the mountains of praise it received. Even with the recently launched lite version, I'm willing to bet that there are gamers that were steadfast in their willingness to wait for a 99¢ sale. To these people, your time has come! Game Dev Story is now just a buck, and you'll be hard-pressed to find more bang for that buck in practically the entire App Store. So stock up on food, buy a few cases of Red Bull, and get sucked into the divine addiction that is Game Dev Story, which will give you a chance to hone your skills for the upcoming Game Dev Story 2.

[source]

We don't have any new details on what the Mac App Store is actually going to be like, but as of this morning, we at least know when it's going to be here. On January 6th the Mac App Store goes live, and we've already heard from a few developers that they're seeing their Mac App Store submissions approved and ready to go in iTunes Connect. We're still not sure how the Mac App Store is going to pan out from a gaming perspective, but we've heard from a number of big-name developers that they plan on investing substantial development resources both in bringing their existing popular iOS titles over, as well as potentially developing new titles.

We plan on doing previews of some great Mac App Store games that we've heard of closer to launch. If you're a Mac user, the 6th is going to be an exciting (and likely, expensive) day.

[source]

Today is the eve of the final Thursday in December before the pre-holiday iTunes Connect freeze. Starting on December 23rd and running until the 28th, developers won't be able to release new games or updates, or change any of the prices of their games. Last year the top sales charts also got frozen, and no one knows if that's going to be the case again this year or not. What we're seeing now is the mad rush to get everyone's games released before the freeze. If you were looking forward to a game with a holiday release date that isn't in this list, it's still possible that it will get released, but it's looking more and more unlikely as we get closer to the 23rd.

All of these games should now be available worldwide. Get mashin' that buy now button-

Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – The highly anticipated collaboration between Crescent Moon Games and Galoobeth Games is almost upon us. We were impressed with the depth of the game in our preview last week, and the excitement for Aralon couldn't possibly be higher in its massive thread in our upcoming games forum.

Real Racing 2, $9.99 – [Forum Thread] – Last week Firemint revealed the full details on just what to expect in Real Racing 2. A career mode, licensed cars, and tons of track are all some of the goodies that we're going to be in store for. Oh, yeah, and there's also 16 player online multiplayer that basically rewrites what to expect of iPhone online multiplayer gaming.

World of Goo for iPad, $9.99 – [Forum Thread] – As mentioned in our recent review, World of Goo on the iPad is simply incredible. It was a remarkable game before it hit the App Store, winning buckets full of awards and scoring many 10/10 reviews… and the touch interface only serves to make the game even better. I've been unable to put this game down since we scored our preview copy. If you have an iPad, you need this game.

Dungeon Defenders: First Wave, $2.99 – [Forum Thread] – This is the second game available on the App Store that utilizes Unreal Engine 3, but the graphics aren't what's impressive about Dungeon Defenders. What's truly awesome about it is the Game Center-powered multiplayer that allows four players to play together in a cooperative mix of tower defense-like gameplay mixed with an action RPG. It's even universal.

N.O.V.A. 2 – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – Gameloft is back again with a second installment in the N.O.V.A. series. This one will have you battling through 12 chapters in the singleplayer campaign, which I have a feeling will take a back seat to the 10 player online multiplayer. 10 maps are included for online play with 5 different game modes which include standard and team based deathmatch, capture the flag, freeze tag, and instagib.

Geared 2, 99¢ – [Forum Thread] – We loved the original Geared, and its sequel seems better in every way. Gameplay amounts to figuring out how to place gears to make the target gears spin, and unlike other gear-based games there isn't any kind of grid for the gears to lock on to, allowing you to place them wherever you like. Oh, and to make things better, it's launching at a buck and is universal.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, 99¢ – 15 missions are included as well as 4 player online multiplayer. In comparison to other games being released today, that doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it's a game from a popular franchise that's also launching at 99¢– A price I'm not sure many expected.

Shadow Guardian, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – Gameloft's take on the Uncharted series. Gameplay involves lots of running, gunning, jumping, climbing, and of course, treasure hunting.

Hook Worlds, 99¢ – [Forum Thread] – Evolving the Hook Champ and Super QuickHook world even further is Hook Worlds, a swinging game that Rocketcat Games is calling four games in one. Four game worlds are included, and while they all rely on swinging of some sort, each world looks and plays different thanks to four different characters with their own abilities.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – An incredibly unexpected release by Square Enix, especially as I (and I doubt I'm alone on this) were expecting their next games to be their classic ports of RPG's they've been talking about forever now. Sadly, the port leaves much to be desired as mentioned in our first impressions post. Definitely wait for an update to fix critical issues before buying.

Altered Beast, $2.99 – [Forum Thread] – My mother would literally murder me if she had any idea just how many quarters I pumped in to the local Altered Beast machine. I'm surprised it took Sega this long to release this game, as in my eyes it's just as classic as Sonic. Either way, it comes loaded with their new bluetooth multiplayer compatibility for two player beasting.

Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror: Remastered, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – The continuation of the Broken Sword series, in a universal app. We loved the first installment, and are expecting great things from its sequel.

The Game of Life for iPad, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – While The Game of Life is nowhere close to as near and dear to my heart as Monopoly is, I love board games on the iPad. This version has a few exclusive features such as being able to view the whole board and local multiplayer with up to 6 players at once. I'm still waiting for my iPad version of Mouse Trap!

Pix'n Love Rush DX, $3.99 – [Forum Thread] – I still can't get enough of the original Pix'n Love Rush for the iPhone, and the iPad version seems to be dripping with even more high scoring retro charm.

ZombieSmash HD, $2.99 – [Forum Thread] – We thought the original was great in our review, and from the looks of it, the iPad version provides even more zombie punishing action. The HD version adds multitouch controls for even more zombie mayhem.

Pocket God: Journey To Uranus, $4.99 – [Forum Thread] – This not-so pocketable version of Pocket God comes with an awesome new space interface, two new minigames, and other fun things. And of course, Bolt Creative is promising tons of updates.

Space Miner HD, $2.99 – [Forum Thread] – We absolutely adored the original Space Miner in our review, and while it would be cool if the game was universal, this is one HD we don't mind re-buying.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – Mortal Kombat with Retina Display graphics? Street Fighter proved that a fighter could work well on the iPhone, and hopefully Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 continues that tradition.

[source]

Today is the eve of the final Thursday in December before the pre-holiday iTunes Connect freeze. Starting on December 23rd and running until the 28th, developers won't be able to release new games or updates, or change any of the prices of their games. Last year the top sales charts also got frozen, and no one knows if that's going to be the case again this year or not. What we're seeing now is the mad rush to get everyone's games released before the freeze. If you were looking forward to a game with a holiday release date that isn't in this list, it's still possible that it will get released, but it's looking more and more unlikely as we get closer to the 23rd.

All of these releases work just like they do every week. They appear for download in New Zealand first, then as the Earth slowly spins around and it becomes Thursday in more regions the games slowly filter out. For those of us that use the US App Store, all of these games will be available at 11:00 PM Eastern.

Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – The highly anticipated collaboration between Crescent Moon Games and Galoobeth Games is almost upon us. We were impressed with the depth of the game in our preview last week, and the excitement for Aralon couldn't possibly be higher in its massive thread in our upcoming games forum.

Real Racing 2, $9.99 – [Forum Thread] – Last week Firemint revealed the full details on just what to expect in Real Racing 2. A career mode, licensed cars, and tons of track are all some of the goodies that we're going to be in store for. Oh, yeah, and there's also 16 player online multiplayer that basically rewrites what to expect of iPhone online multiplayer gaming.

World of Goo for iPad, $9.99 – [Forum Thread] – As mentioned in our recent preview, World of Goo on the iPad is simply incredible. It was a remarkable game before it hit the App Store, winning buckets full of awards and scoring many 10/10 reviews… and the touch interface only serves to make the game even better. I've been unable to put this game down since we scored our preview copy. If you have an iPad, you need this game.

Dungeon Defenders: First Wave, $2.99 – [Forum Thread] – This is the second game available on the App Store that utilizes Unreal Engine 3, but the graphics aren't what's impressive about Dungeon Defenders. What's truly awesome about it is the Game Center-powered multiplayer that allows four players to play together in a cooperative mix of tower defense-like gameplay mixed with an action RPG. It's even universal.

N.O.V.A. 2 – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – Gameloft is back again with a second installment in the N.O.V.A. series. This one will have you battling through 12 chapters in the singleplayer campaign, which I have a feeling will take a back seat to the 10 player online multiplayer. 10 maps are included for online play with 5 different game modes which include standard and team based deathmatch, capture the flag, freeze tag, and instagib.

Geared 2, 99¢ – [Forum Thread] – We loved the original Geared, and its sequel seems better in every way. Gameplay amounts to figuring out how to place gears to make the target gears spin, and unlike other gear-based games there isn't any kind of grid for the gears to lock on to, allowing you to place them wherever you like. Oh, and to make things better, it's launching at a buck and is universal.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, 99¢ – 15 missions are included as well as 4 player online multiplayer. In comparison to other games being released today, that doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it's a game from a popular franchise that's also launching at 99¢– A price I'm not sure many expected.

Shadow Guardian, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – Gameloft's take on the Uncharted series. Gameplay involves lots of running, gunning, jumping, climbing, and of course, treasure hunting.

Hook Worlds, 99¢ – [Forum Thread] – Evolving the Hook Champ and Super QuickHook world even further is Hook Worlds, a swinging game that Rocketcat Games is calling four games in one. Four game worlds are included, and while they all rely on swinging of some sort, each world looks and plays different thanks to four different characters with their own abilities.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – An incredibly unexpected release by Square Enix, especially as I (and I doubt I'm alone on this) were expecting their next games to be their classic ports of RPG's they've been talking about forever now. We don't know a whole lot about this right now other than it's a cooperative spin on a Tomb Raider game with an isometric viewpoint. I admit, my interest has been piqued.

Altered Beast, $2.99 – [Forum Thread] – My mother would literally murder me if she had any idea just how many quarters I pumped in to the local Altered Beast machine. I'm surprised it took Sega this long to release this game, as in my eyes it's just as classic as Sonic. Either way, it comes loaded with their new bluetooth multiplayer compatibility for two player beasting.

Note: Since there is so much stuff coming out today, I'm just posting this early and will be updating it with all the major releases over the next few hours. This list isn't anywhere near complete yet. There is so much more.

[source]

2D Boy's World of Goo has a ton of history behind it. It was originally released completely DRM and license-free for the Mac and PC (as well as the Wii nearly a year later) and saw amazing reviews from the gaming press. This is where you'd expect the story of the game to then end in 2D Boy making tons of money and everyone living happily ever after, as PC gamers are constantly harping on developers about restrictive copy protection (like StarForce) or cumbersome CD key systems is what drives them to piracy. Sadly, not long after its release, despite all the critical acclaim and awards, 2D Boy's publisher filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy as only 1 out of 10 people playing World of Goo had paid for it.

The good news despite all that is 2D Boy is still around, and they've been hard at work on an iPad version of World of Goo that's scheduled to launch on December 16th for $9.99. If you've never played the game before, you're going to be in for an absolute delight. The goal of each of the levels is to use the various goos to construct structures to reach the end pipe of each level where they're sucked up in to a huge tank. It isn't a new gameplay mechanic at all, as tons of developers (even on the App Store) have built strikingly similar structure building games before.

Where World of Goo pulls ahead of the pack is in its remarkable presentation. Everything in this game flows together flawlessly, from the difficulty curve to how the graphics combine with the music, to the various silly cut scenes and introductions of new goos, and more. This is all enhanced by the new multitouch interface which allows you to drag around multiple goos, build and move the camera at the same time, and more. It feels so natural that I'm not sure how I played the game with a mouse before.

Next week is going to be insane with even more pre-holiday releases than today, but if you own an iPad, make sure you save ten bucks to download World of Goo. Even if you've played through it before, it's such a substantially different and better experience on the iPad that I cannot recommend it enough.

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