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A few weeks ago we showed a new trailer for an upcoming gravity-based puzzle platforming game called GravBot from Team Phobic. They have since sent us a near-final build of the game, and after completing nearly all of it, I'm thoroughly impressed with just about everything that GravBot has to offer. Team Phobic has already proven that they know how to bring cute, colorful graphics and excellent level designs with Bounce On [$1.99/Lite] and Bounce On 2 [$3.99/Lite], and those skills have translated well into the creation of GravBot. The levels start out simple enough and ease you into the different elements in the game, but as you progress GravBot will really test your puzzle solving skills and force you to look at each level from every angle.

In GravBot, you'll play as a tiny robot who must collect all of the batteries on each perilous level. In order to accomplish this, you can spin the entire level either 90 degrees left or right or entirely upside down to change the direction of gravity. Your robot can travel left and right on its single tire, and will fall towards whichever way happens to be down at the time. Levels are filled with hazards like spikes, enemies, and lasers which will kill instantly if not avoided. The batteries can be tricky to get to, and a color-coded system of trapdoors, elevators, and various other obstacles will need to be triggered by switching a lever or pushing blocks onto buttons – all in the name of snagging every last battery on a given level.

While just completing each level is sufficiently challenging and fun, the real hook to GravBot is trying to obtain gold medals for each one. The game keeps track of how many times you switched gravity to complete a level, with bronze/silver/gold medals awarded for using it efficiently. What is really satisfying is when you figure out a way to win gold using fewer gravity switches than is required. Due to the physics engine in the game, you can sometimes make it to a hard to reach area without changing the gravity and instead gliding through the air or just barely catching the edge of a platform and hanging on. These types of moves can be risky however, and if you don't pull one off just right you can easily fall to your death. If you do happen to beat a level using a ridiculously low number of gravity switches, you will be immortalized in leaderboard form thanks to the Plus+ network, and there are a number of achievements to obtain as well.

GravBot looks and sounds absolutely great, with Retina Display enhanced graphics and catchy music and sound effects. I especially love the little blips and bloops that your robot will spout out during the game, and he has a ton of personality for essentially being a TV set with a wheel. GravBot has already been submitted and Team Phobic is shooting for a September 30^th release. The game will be free to download and comes with 12 levels, with two additional 20 level packs available as in-app purchase for 99¢ apiece. The 12 free levels aren't terribly difficult and serve mostly to get you familiar with the game, but the additional level packs contain some seriously challenging stuff that should keep you busy for quite a while. Make sure to head over to the upcoming thread in our forums to check out more about GravBot, and we'll take another look at the game when it hits the App Store later this month.

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It's Labor Day Weekend in the U.S. and most every retail sector in the land is offering major product sales — and the App Store is no exception. So, without further ado, the following games are available for a reduced price through this three-day, holiday weekend.

Namco

• BurgerTime Deluxe $1.99 → 99¢
• Garters & Ghouls $1.99 → 99¢
• Ms. PAC-MAN $4.99 → 99¢
• PAC-MAN $4.99 → 99¢
• PAC-MAN Remix $2.99 → 99¢
• PAC-MAN (iPad) $4.99 → 99¢
• Pole Position: Remix $2.99 → 99¢
• Pool Pro Online 3 $1.99 → 99¢
• Rolling 5 Dice Poker $4.99 → 99¢
• Solitaire: Deck of Cods $4.99 → 99¢
• Star Trigon $1.99 → 99¢
• Tamagotchi: 'Round the World $4.99 → 99¢
• Lt. Fly Rise of the Arachnids $1.99 → 99¢
• Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima $4.99 → 99¢
• Galaga REMIX $2.99 → 99¢
• Dig Dug REMIX $2.99 → 99¢
• PAC-MAN Championship Edition $2.99 → 99¢
• I Love Katamari $4.99 → 2.99
• Ridge Racer Accelerated $4.99 → 2.99
• …among others

Sky Burger, Free (down from $1.99) NimbleBit’s Sky Burger is a fun exercise in burger stacking that’s seen a great deal of success since it recently went free; presently it’s sitting at #6 free title in the App Store. Now’s the time to grab it.

Glu Mobile

• Build-a-lot $1.99 → 99¢
• Transformers $1.99 → 99¢
• Build-a-lot 2 $2.99 → 99¢
• Mini Golf $1.99 → 99¢
• Transformers G1 $1.99 → 99¢
• Deer Hunter: African Safari $6.99 → $2.99
• Jump O'Clock $1.99 → 99¢
• Stranded: Mysteries of Time $1.99 → 99¢
• Deer Hunter 3D for iPad $4.99 → 99¢
• Glyder 2 for iPad $1.99 → 99¢
• Super KO Boing 2 for iPad $2.99 → 99¢

Robot Unicorn Attack, $0.99 (down from $2.99) If there’s any game in the App Store that is double rainbow all the way, it is without question Adult Swim’s Robot Unicorn Attack. It’s got unicorns!!

Electronic Arts

• Boggle $1.99 → 99¢
• CLUE $1.99 → 99¢
• Littlest Pet Shop $2.99 → 99¢
• MONOPOLY $2.99 → 99¢
• MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition $2.99 → 99¢
• RISK: The Official Game $4.99 → $1.99
• THE GAME OF LIFE Classic Edition $2.99 → 99¢
• Trivial Pursuit $2.99 → 99¢
• YAHTZEE Adventures $2.99 → 99¢

I Dig It HD, $4.99 (down from $9.99) InMotion Software’s I Dig It HD is an iPad take on the iPhone original that we — and most everybody else — loved. On the bigger screen, it’s bigger action and all the fun of the iPhone version.

The titles listed here represent a pretty good highlight of what's out there for less this weekend, and additional deals are being discussed in an active forum thread.

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Last week we posted the preview trailer of XMG Studio's Cannon Cadets [$1.99] which has since been released on the App Store. Riding on the undeniably successful coattails of Angry Birds [99¢ / Free / HD], Cannon Cadets provides similar physics-powered gameplay with some new twists that make it worth checking out if you're like many people who have beaten every level in Angry Birds and now just anxiously await the next content update.

Gameplay is fairly similar in that you're shooting things at various makeshift forts filled with enemies, only instead of birds and pigs, Cannon Cadets is home to robots and evil monkeys. By pulling back on a cannon you can shoot one of the cadets in to the robot base, and similarly, each level is completed by destroying all the robots. Gameplay is spiced up a bit with levels that are a bit more puzzle oriented, with moving obstacles to deal with and other physics gimmicks that go together like an odd Rube Goldberg machine.

One thing that I like a lot about Cannon Cadets is the secret levels that are unlocked by hitting various targets in the game world. I thought the golden egg portion of Angry Birds was really awesome, and this just takes that a step further in providing some actual incentive to finding the secret levels to play them instead of just filling out a golden egg page for the sake of completion.

Cannon Cadets comes loaded with 80 levels, and there's even talk of a level editor on the way via future updates and an iPad version. The game hasn't swayed me from my love of Angry Birds as I think Angry Birds flat out just has more character to it and a better physics engine, but Cannon Cadets is totally a competent supplement with similar gameplay and more than enough content to keep you busy between Angry Birds updates.

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Back before John Kooistra was allowing players to beat the crap out of boxes in Fastar! [99¢], he was bringing clever game concepts to an App Store that was still in its infancy. His first iPhone game, Blue Defense! [$1.99], felt like a mixture of Robotron and Missile Command. Waves of enemies descended upon a planet full of people, and you were left to fend them off with a never ending supply of cannon fire. Your weapon was constantly shooting, and you tilted the device to spray bullets at the incoming threat. What really made Blue Defense! unique was how the view would dynamically zoom in and out, and change from portrait to landscape on the fly with each progressive wave. There was an elegant simplicity to the concept and visuals, and the title really showed what kind of games were possible with Apple's device. If there is such thing as an App Store classic, then Blue Defense! certainly qualifies as one.

Now, John's new development studio Cat in a Box Games has sent word of a sequel to Blue Defense! titled Blue Defense: Second Wave. While appearing to use the same core concept of the original game, Blue Defense: Second Wave adds some new gameplay mechanics to the mix. Here is a rundown of features from the developer:

• Same great gameplay as Blue Defense, but with some new twists!
• Four different modes, ranging from just seconds to infinite progression!
• All-new Gauntlet mode changes your strategy completely!
• Classic accelerometer controls alongside new multitouch targeting!
• A new "Planet Cannon" weapon, use it only in emergencies!
• Red and Green forces are both attacking, with over a dozen all-new enemies!
• 64 all-new levels to beat individually, or in the classic Infinite mode!
• Global leaderboards, 74 different lists to compete on!
• Over 200 awards to obtain
• Universal app
• Retina resolution support
• Runs smooth and fast even on the oldest devices!

In addition to the announcement of this sequel, the suite of previous titles from John Kooistra and Cat in a Box have all been updated in recent weeks. Blue Defense! [$1.99], Blue Attack! [$1.99], and Red Conquest! [$3.99] have all received iOS4 compatibility and other minor fixes, with the latter two titles also receiving Retina Display support. A release date and price have yet to be set for Blue Defense: Second Wave, but expect more on this title soon.

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TechCrunch posted today about 11 new startup companies to be funded by TechStars, a group that has provided seed money and mentorship for various startup companies for the last four years. Most of these companies seem to lead towards different web services, but GearBox is a "smart toy company" who have created a robotic ball which can be controlled via a smartphone using a simple API.

How this all works is summarized in a recent GearBox blog post:

So basically how HTC/Android/Apple make smart phones, we make smart toys. Our first smart toy is a robotic ball that you can move by tilting your phone in the direction you want the ball to roll. We are then leveraging the connectivity and computing power of the phone to create a fully interactive experience for the user. Our first app for the ball is Sumo. I throw my ball on a table, you throws yours on the table and then we can try and sumo each others ball off the table. However, while our physical balls are moving there is also an onscreen component with online stats, profiles, damage, powerups and other aspects of gameplay that aren’t possible with a regular remote control toy. For instance, when the balls collide they can sustain “damage” and roll slower or I could get a powerup to reverse your controls for a few seconds.

Other examples cited were a golf game where you swipe to "hit" the ball, curling where you roll the ball then "brush" on the screen, or even just control the ball to harass your cat. Currently all of the app development is being done on Android, but according to the guys at GearBox, iPhone development is totally possible and they're just using Android for prototyping. The Smart Ball is still in prototype phases itself, and it's hard to say when it will be available for sale. Either way, it seems that the Parrot AR.Drone isn't going to be the only toy in town to be controlled via a smartphone.

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In the hit-based market of the App Store, it's somewhat expected at this point to see developers building games which seem to be highly inspired by other extremely successful games– In this case, Angry Birds [99¢ / Free / HD]. When Flight Control [99¢ / HD] was burning up the charts, Harbor Master [$1.99 / Free / HD] was released, providing some variety on an incredibly popular game type which iPhone gamers gobbled up at the time. It's hard to say if Cannon Cadets will be able to duplicate the same phenomenon, but judging by the trailer it seems to have some very familiar physics-powered cannon gameplay with some new twists such as moving platforms and hidden levels accessible by hitting targets.

As someone who has completely obliterated every level of Angry Birds on both my iPhone and then again on the iPad, I can't wait for more content both from Angry Birds updates and any other developer who wants to deliver similar gameplay. If XMG Studio can provide that, all I can say is that I can't wait to play it.

Cannon Cadets is coming soon, and according to TUAW will come packed with Retina Display support as well as a version for the iPad following after the initial iPhone release.

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There are a lot of options for turn-based and real-time strategy games on the App Store, and plenty of quality role-playing games too. But if you're looking for a combination of the two, your choices are sorely limited (unless you want to count the Sega rerelease of Genesis classic Shining Force [$2.99] that just came out). That changed yesterday however with the release of The War of Eustrath [$2.99] for iPhone. iPad owners have been enjoying this title for almost two months now, since The War of Eustrath HD [$7.99] has been available since early June. Now that the iPhone version has arrived, owners of both devices can enjoy tactical turn-based battles wrapped in an intriguing anime storyline.

Since I missed the iPad version of The War of Eustrath the first time around, I was really excited to engage in some tactical battles with the iPhone version. What I wasn't expecting is to actually be engrossed in the storyline that accompanies the action. It certainly has some cliché elements, but the anime style character portraits and feelings of emotion they convey do a great job of keeping you interested in what's going on. The only major issue in this department is the many grammatical errors that plague the written text, but it's never to the point that you can't follow along or misunderstand what is trying to be said.

Besides the surprisingly good story, there are some excellent tactical battles in The War of Eustrath. Your team of characters in the game control giant mechs called GEARs which can be upgraded and leveled up as you play. Each GEAR can have elemental tendencies such as lighting or air that give them additional special abilities. Battles take place on an overhead grid in turn-based fashion, and engaging with enemies shows the battle play out in a zoomed in side view of the GEARs. The different terrains you travel to during the game are varied and play a big part in choosing your strategy for each battle. It's all pretty standard stuff for games like this, but is well done and enjoyable.

What's really nice about The War of Eustrath is that the UI has been built lovingly around the touch interface. Accessing menus and moving your team around the maps works really well, and the extra screen real estate of the iPad provides an even less cluttered experience (although at a substantially higher price). Things feel a little cramped on the iPhone, but not overwhelmingly so. There's also a ton of content in the game with over 50 campaign missions, some of which can play out with multiple results, altering how the story flows. Players in our forums are loving the game, as iPad owners have for the last couple months in that versions game thread. If you like tactical turn-based battling, giant upgradeable robots, and compelling storytelling, take a look at The War of Eustrath for either iPhone or iPad.

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Semi Secret Software seem to be making a name for themselves as developers of games with great pixel art graphics, fantastic music, and high-score centric gameplay that in the case of Canabalt [$2.99] has kept me coming back for just one more try for the better part of a year now. Gravity Hook HD [$2.99] hit the App Store tonight, and provides much of what I loved about Canabalt, only in a vertical climb instead of a side scrolling run. In the game you play as a lovable little robot with a grappling hook who ascends to, well, wherever he's climbing to, by grabbing on to a randomized series of orbs, reeling himself in, then flinging to the next one. Unlike Canabalt which you could hand to anyone with it running on your phone and say "tap the screen to jump," Gravity Hook HD has a bit of a learning curve as you get used to the physics of the game.

The different orbs you can latch on to have different properties, ranging from the green orbs which you can touch without issue, grey orbs which are chained together and fall if you hold on to them too long, and blue orbs which turn in to bombs and explode if you get near them. You're also able to kick off the wall if you can swing your robot towards one, and mastering wall jumping as well as how to handle the different orb types are all required to get very far in Gravity Hook HD.

Just like Canabalt, Gravity Hook HD is playable in its entirety online for free in any browser with the Flash plugin. We've even embedded it below, just make sure you either have your speakers muted or are in an area where you can play sounds before clicking:

Gravity Hook HD is universal, and looks great on both the iPhone and iPad, although I've found myself leaning towards preferring it on the bigger screen. Scores are tracked online via Semi Secret's proprietary system which breaks scores out in to top daily, weekly, and monthly submissions as well as the best scores of all time. Gravity Hook HD translates very well to touch controls, and while you can play the whole game for free with a mouse, it really is a much better experience with your finger.

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If our App Store Gaming Guide that we posted yesterday wasn't a big enough list of awesome games worth checking out on your new iPhone 4, it would appear Apple has thrown their own hat in to the game listing ring with their The Best Games You've Never Played list.

50 games are included in said list, and while they cover quite a bit of games that we hit in ours, there are quite a few games we left out. Here are just a handful of the games from the Apple list that we think are worth checking out that we haven't already mentioned in either the recent App Store gaming guide or our 2009 buyer's guide:

Critter Crunch – This game was released all the way back in 2008, and I only discovered it recently as it's made by some of the same guys behind Sword & Sworcery. Critter Crunch reminds me of classic Neo Geo stacking puzzle games, and gameplay amounts to feeding smaller critters to larger critters to score massive combos and clear the game board. (Review, App Store)

Dungeon Scroll – Developed by the same person responsible for the classic BBS game Legend of the Red Dragon, Dungeon Scroll is a marvelous twist on word finding games. In the game, you crawl through dungeons fighting monsters by casting spells. The strength of the spell you cast is directly related to the word you spell from your random tiles, creating an awesome amount of strategy as you save big words for tougher enemies and work out smaller words for weaker ones. (Review, App Store)

HECTOR: Badge of Carnage Ep1 – This point and click (point and tap?) adventure game really pushes the boundaries of the App Store approval process. Filled with dirty humor and raunchy references, Hector won't take you more than a few hours to beat… But those few hours will be amazing. (Review, App Store)

Pix'n Love Rush – I really don't think this game could come packed with any more stylized pixel art. With graphical themes ranging from the classic Gameboy to the Virtual Boy that change on the fly depending on your performance in the game, Pix'n Love Rush is a high scoring game that not only looks great, but is really hard to put down once you get going. (Review, App Store)

Robot Unicorn Attack – An iPhone port of Adult Swim's extremely popular free Flash game, Robot Unicorn Attack preserves everything from the original, including the fantastic Erasure soundtrack. If you like survival platformers, you need to at least give the Flash version a spin. (Review, App Store)

These are just five of the fifty games included in Apple's listing, so be sure to load that up in iTunes and give it a peek if none of these games suit your fancy.

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Back in the prepubescent days of console gaming, the leap from the 8-bit to the 16-bit generation was monumental. More colors, scrolling backgrounds, gimmicks such as Mode 7 and Blast Processing… and twice as many bits. What were bits? I didn't know, I was just a kid, but it didn't matter. I now had twice as many of them, and they made my video games look better and do things that I could have never imagined. Since those days, I've been just as devout a gamer as I was back then, but have yet to ever really feel that same magic of entering into the 16-bit generation. Little did I know that nearly two decades later I would capture that feeling again with Super QuickHook. The followup to developer Rocketcat's inaugural game Hook Champ, Super QuickHook takes everything great about the first game and expands upon it in every way. If you were a fan of Hook Champ already, then you most likely instantly purchased this game. But if you were like some people who never quite got into it, Super QuickHook makes some smart changes that may just win you over this time around.

Hook Champ was said to be inspired by 8-bit graphics, and Super QuickHook takes it a step further and adopts a beautiful 16-bit style. But it truly is merely “inspired by”, as the game produces graphics that would have never been possible on the 16-bit machines of the 90's. It looks simply stunning in motion. There's so much life in the little details of this game that even if you aren't a fan of 8 or 16-bit graphics you'll find it hard not to be impressed with Super QuickHook. It's bright and colorful, and the levels are nicely varied. Small touches like a flock of birds scattering from a tree as you pass by, or objects on the ground getting kicked up as you trot over them contribute to make the game come to life. The characters are all interesting and well designed, with no shortage of hats to adorn upon them. There's even a couple of extra playable characters you can unlock, with more coming down the line via updates. The music is also superb, fitting with the retro style of the game, and thankfully there's much more variety in music and sound effects than there was in Hook Champ.

Gameplay-wise, the same general concept from Hook Champ is carried over to Super QuickHook. You'll swing your character from left to right using a grappling hook, collecting coins along the way to spend in the game's shop on upgraded equipment and fabulous hats. While it seems mostly the same on the surface, two very important changes have been made to cater the game to a more casual audience. First and foremost, there is nothing chasing you through the levels (at least in the story mode) that forces you to either keep moving or suffer instant death. You're free to explore the levels at will and take as much time as you need to complete them. The other big change is the addition of checkpoints throughout the levels, so if you have a fatal mishap you don't have to start all the way over from the beginning as long as you've crossed one of these checkpoints.

These were the two biggest complaints from people that didn't end up liking Hook Champ, and it's great to see them rectified here. But it thankfully doesn't dilute the experience for the hardcore players either, since your final score for each level is based on time and coins collected. There's still plenty of incentive to find the perfect line through the level in order to net every coin, or figure out a new trick that can shave off a fraction of a second from your time. Another complaint you'd hear about Hook Champ was the brutal difficulty of some of the later levels, requiring pinpoint accuracy with the grappling hook to complete. Well, those type of levels are still here but are infinitely more tolerable thanks to the changes made. There's also reason to go back and replay each level, as you'll earn medals based on collecting all the coins, beating a developer's score, and finding the secrets stashed in each one.

And then there's Avalanche Mode. In addition to the 18 freestanding levels that are included, Avalanche Mode is an endless high score level that's randomly generated from over 60 different smaller set pieces each time you play. Unlike the normal levels, you have the constant threat of the avalanche chasing you as you go, much like the ghost from Hook Champ. You can also collect coins in this mode, making it a nice way to earn some extra cash for the shop. Avalanche Mode could easily sell as a completely separate game by itself, and has just as much depth and replayability as similar high score games like Canabalt or Robot Unicorn Attack. Rocketcat has also hinted that a second, harder Avalanche mode will be added to the game in the coming weeks. This mode will likely get the most play time from gamers, as it offers near-infinite replay value.

I haven't been this impressed with the evolution of a game of this nature since the original Metroid spawned the phenomenally brilliant Super Metroid. It won't alienate previous fans with the changes it's made, as it still retains the great feel of Hook Champ, but also intelligently caters to casual and hardcore gamers, offering the best of both worlds. The graphics are gorgeous, and despite the retro inspiration Super QuickHook is visually impressive even by today's standards. It offers so much content and such high production values, it's as near-perfect as any iPhone game I've played thus far, and is bound to be an even greater cult-classic than even Hook Champ was. It's a shining example of how a sequel should be done, and will live a long happy life on my device forever.

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