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Realm of the Mad God is one of the only web-based games I care about. It’s a dual-stick shooter with RPG and MMO trappings. You play as one of several different projectile-slinging, weapon-swinging character classes in a legitimate life or death adventure that revolves around collecting loot and killing monsters. In action, it’s a delicious and chaotic mess of stat bonuses, furious collection, cutesy particle effects, trading, and quest taking.

The thing that I find so remarkable about it is how stripped-down it is. You don’t need to engage with other players, there are no quest givers, and the loot flows like water as you scramble around the world putting beasts and boss monsters on ice. And while perma-death is a mechanic, it doesn’t sour the experience. It enriches it. Your dude matters. He has a life!

You can check out the game in your browser right now and maybe, just maybe, as some point in the future, you’ll be able to check it out on your mobile device.

This very afternoon, I got in touch with Rob and Alex at Wild Shadow, the studio behind the game. There are no short-or-long term plans to bring Realm of the Mad God to mobile, but there’s still a chance it could come to the platform.

“We don't really have an long-term plans for mobiles either — it's mainly due to the twin-stick interface we're using,” Rob told me. He mentioned that he recently gave a dual-stick shooter a go on his iPad and wasn’t happy with the virtual stick interface. I totally get where he's coming from.

There’s also the issue that Wild Shadow would need to contract a possible port out, but the main problem resides in the controls.

“We’d love to get Realm of the Mad God onto mobiles, if we could find someone willing to do the port who can solve the interface problem,” Rob said before asking if me if I had any ideas on solving the interface issue. I bumbled about and said I would turn the question to you guys instead. So… have any good ideas? I’m desperate to have this game on my iPad or iPhone, so fire away, PLEASE.

[Big thanks to Rock, Paper, Shotgun for turning me on to this game]

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Back in April, we learned that developer SoMoGa was hard at work on an iOS port of classic RPG Lunar: Silver Star Story, and today we finally have the first screenshots from the game. SoMoGa was responsible for porting the Sega Saturn RPG Vay [$4.99] to the App Store in 2008, and did a pretty fantastic job doing so. While Vay was a somewhat obscure title, the Lunar series has a pretty dedicated following worldwide, and has seen several different releases and remakes over the years.

Originally, Lunar: The Silver Star was released for the Sega CD back in 1993. A remake of the game, called Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and featuring enhanced audio and visuals, came to the more powerful Sega Saturn console in 1997, but only in Japan.  This remake eventually did make its way to North America by way of the PlayStation console in 1999.

This leads me to one thing a lot of people have been wondering since the announcement of Lunar: Silver Star Story Touch, which is exactly what version of the game the iOS port would be based on. SoMoGa played it a bit coy in an email to us, explaining that the version these screenshots are taken from is based on the Saturn remake, but that the Sega CD version is getting ported as well.

I don’t know if that means there will be a completely separate release of the original or if there will be some sort of mode inside of the game that lets you play with the original graphics and sound. SoMoGa promises to clarify this further soon, but if you’re a purist looking for the original game experience it looks like you’ll be in luck one way or another.

Expect more news on Lunar: Silver Star Story Touch soon, and you can look for the game to hit the App Store sometime before the end of the current quarter, which basically means sometime before the end of September.

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I was really excited when Capcom announced at E3 this year that their wildly successful Street Fighter IV [$4.99] for iPhone would be getting a follow up title called Street Fighter IV Volt [99¢]. I’ve been a huge Street Fighter fan for the majority of my life, and the original iPhone version is easily my favorite fighter in the App Store. It was a pretty big deal when it first released back in March of last year, not only because it was such a huge IP but also because it proved that a traditional fighting game could be done well with virtual controls. Capcom fed a steady stream of updates to Street Fighter IV over the past year which have added new characters and features to the game, keeping it on top of the iOS fighting heap.

Now with Street Fighter IV Volt, Capcom has extended the long standing Street Fighter tradition of releasing an incremental update as a new game. What you’re getting with Volt is essentially everything that was already in the first Street Fighter IV, right down to mostly identical graphics and sounds, plus a few additional features and 3 new characters – Cody, Balrog and Vega. These minor enhancements are nice, but the big selling point of Volt is the inclusion of online competitive multiplayer over WiFi, which was easily the most requested feature of the first game.

By default you are set up to accept any online challenges that might be out there. This means that if you’re running through the arcade mode you might suddenly get interrupted with a challenge from a random player online who’s searching for a match. This ensures that there should always be a pretty large pool of players to match up with when you feel like throwing down online, and it also gives it that old-school arcade feeling of having a complete stranger walk up to your arcade cabinet unexpectedly and issue a challenge. Of course, it would be hard to even make it through arcade mode with constantly being interrupted with matches, so thankfully you can easily switch the auto-acceptance on and off at will.

As for the actual experience of competing online in Street Fighter IV Volt, so far it leaves a lot to be desired. Random matches are easy enough to find even in this early stage of the game’s release, but they are usually plagued with lag and are prone to randomly disconnecting. Sometimes the online works near flawlessly, and when it does it’s absolutely brilliant. But more often than not you’ll be subjected to jittery animations and momentary freezes that can really disrupt the flow of a game.

Even with the lag matches can still end up being a ton of fun, but it’s hard realistically gauge either players’ actual skill level when playing under those conditions. I’m hoping things will smooth out as more players pick up the game and jump online, but currently it’s hard to consider it anything more than just a novelty rather than a serious competitive online experience.

One pretty interesting new aspect to Street Fighter IV Volt is something called Wandering Warrior. This mode has you creating an avatar for your multiplayer profile which can be leveled up and upgraded in an almost RPG-like fashion. Then, while you’re facing an opponent in an online or local multiplayer match, your avatar will square up against your opponent’s avatar and they’ll duke it out as well. Special points are earned during multiplayer matches which can be put towards upgrading your avatar and unlocking new icons and badges which grant new abilities and enhancements. It’s a pretty cool little meta game that’s a fun side distraction to throwing down against people in multiplayer.

Despite its spotty online performance and content that is heavily recycled from the first game, Street Fighter IV Volt improves on what was already a successful formula and is the definitive version to own on the App Store. If you aren’t very interested in its online multiplayer or the 3 new characters, then you may be fine just skipping Volt and sticking with the original for getting your quick Street Fighter fixes on the go.

The one wrinkle to this advice is the fact that Capcom is currently running an introductory sale for Street Fighter IV Volt. It launched for just 99¢, and the price will increase by a dollar each day for the next several days before hitting its regular price of $6.99. Even if you already own the first game and the new features don’t totally interest you, I’d still suggest picking up Volt if you can snag for just a dollar or two. It may be a bit harder to justify the upgrade when it hits full price, however.

Street Fighter IV Volt is mostly just more of the same, but that’s not such a bad thing since the original release was so good. The highly anticipated online multiplayer isn’t quite up to par technically, but it can still provide some pretty entertaining moments. Hopefully the online performance can be improved over time, as there is plenty of potential for one of the best multiplayer experiences on the App Store.

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GameLab's D.A.R.K. [99¢] is game with a conflicting sense of self. It's trying to simultaneously be a tense, science fiction horror game and a dual stick shooter with RPG elements. It's a difficult line to toe and in a lot of ways, D.A.R.K. is leading with the right foot, even if it flounders a bit here and there.

The game centers on a space marine who kind of looks like one of the marines from Starcraft II, but with a mohawk, as he investigates the loss of contact with a ship called the USS Storm Bringer. As these things tend to go with science fiction narratives, he quickly learns that things aren't as they seem and he needs to blast his way through waves of zombies and robots to get to the ships black box to find out what happened.

If this is all sounding a little like Dead Space or Alien to you, you're right, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's a time honored sci-fi trope because it works. Unfortunately, D.A.R.K. never seems too sure what it's supposed to be doing, concentrating on the atmosphere in a slower-paced horror setting, or cranking up the action as a dual stick shooter. There are short moments spread throughout the hour long campaign that try to create a feeling of dread, but much of the game relies on standard shooter concepts where you enter a room, clear a room, go to the next room.

That's another thing too — the game's description says, "Massive single-player campaign will have you playing for hours on end." That's simply not the case at the moment; the first episode included here will only take you around an hour to complete. Considering the game's low price it's not a big deal, but one might expect more content from the description. That said, starting a new game after finishing yields some different results, so it's worth rolling through twice. Judging by what's being said in the forums, a second episode, universal support and an arena mode are coming in future updates, so there should be more content on the way, as well as (hopefully) a resolve for the cliffhanger ending of the first episode.

D.A.R.K. does try to mix things up with a few RPG elements to spice up the dual stick mayhem as well. While it's not deep, it does get things mostly right. Weapons are upgraded automatically depending on how much you use them and you have a small set of stats you can upgrade as your level progresses. There are only four different upgrade paths, health regeneration, hit points, speed and power. I'm not sure what else one could be added here, but it would have been nice to have a little more character customization.

The main difference you'll see in D.A.R.K. compared to a lot of dual stick shooters is that it is trying to tell its story and it's doing so by pushing you through a series of rooms and offering the sense of exploration. In between the arena-style battles are short exploration bits, simple puzzles sections and the occasional big narrative moment. This is where D.A.R.K. is doing something new and it would be nice to see more of it in the second episode. The shooting bits are all well and fine, but there is a lot more opportunity for the exploration parts to really capture players and pull them into the story. The same goes for the audio design, which could use a little work, but considering the type of game it is, you'll likely have you'd hand covering the speaker when you're playing, so it might not be worth investing too much time in it.

The exploration pieces are certainly more geared to telling the story visually and D.A.R.K. can do so, even if it's not always pretty. The color palette is very much in the same realm as most science fiction and the style looks a lot like Starcraft if it was set on a ship. The game is incredibly dark too, which I guess shouldn't really be surprising — but don't plan on being able to play it outside either way.

I rather like the idea of D.A.R.K. and with more content promised to be on the way, I have hopes it'll settle itself and decide exactly what type of game to be and how to do it. There is a lot of potential in the idea alone, so if GameLab can deliver the second episode and the arena mode before upping the price, they might have something truly interesting on their hands as long as they're not scared to make the puzzles a bit more challenging and the shooting parts a bit more sparse.

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War Grimoire [$1.99 / HD] is a tower defense title with the trappings of a great genre-based game, but its execution of fundamental elements and basic design are holding it back.

Instead of lingering on the bad, I’ll note what drew our all-seeing eye to the project in the first place: its visual flair.

War Grimoire's world is a vibrant one, enriched by traditional fantasy and Japanese comics and cartoon tropes. In this genre in particular, it’s unusual to see a well-budgeted game shoot for something outside of space marines, bugs, and ravaged worlds.

Character has a place, too. Instead of traditional towers, soldiers of all builds — including archers, mages, and dragons — are the pillars of defense. While it does default to dull monsters, there are some creative enemies that end up attacking your armies in ways I’ve never seen in a tower defense title before.

One of the more remarkable aspects is tower placement. Most levels allow you free reign with placement. It’s like the wild west of tower defense titles in this regard. Enemies pile in from all over the place, and you’ve got to be wise with your limited resources, but near infinite placement of long-distance soldiers and close-up fighters.

I also want to make note of the RPG tie-in. As in most tower defense games, you can upgrade your ‘towers’ while a level progresses. In this, however, you can take it a step further by upgrading individual class weapons and skill trees with points earned from the battles you’ve won, or hey, even lost.

In the pre-release images for War Grimoire, we saw massive battles: huge numbers of enemies and soldiers smacking each other in a centralized area. It looked chaotic, but in the fun, manageable sort of way. There was reason to the placement, at least.

In execution, battles fall apart. They’re in fact, too chaotic. Enemy pathways are clearly enough defined from the get-go, but then they take odd turns that you can’t anticipate if you haven’t played a level before. Worst case, they take odd turns that you flat-out can’t defend because it’s impossible to earn enough in-level currency to defend these points.

Disorganized chaos is the tip of the iceberg in a title otherwise riddled with much smaller design issues. The UI is needlessly heavy, games don’t always save properly, the English translation is terrible, and in general, success is measured by trial-and-error.

I’d love to see this game patched with a couple of updates. It has a bright future if the core is tweaked and massaged.

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P1XL Games, who brought us RPG Quest: Minimae [App Store], has just released an original collection of simple, C64-styled retro games entitled P1XL Party [App Store] — and it's a collection that retro gamers won't want to miss. The initial release brings three titles — Splatform, Wandererz, and Marz — but there's more on the way in free updates to come.

The first game on the list, Splatform, can best be described to readers as a side-scrolling take on Doodle Jump / Papi Jump — although it preceded both titles by years. It is a perfect recreation of the 2002 C64 title of the same name, 1st place winner of that year's Mimigame Programming Competition. In the iOS version, you tilt to send your bouncing ball from platform to platform in a quest for the greatest distance and highest score.

Wandererz is a mini-RPG, retro styled (of course), that puts you on a pixellated quest to rescue the seven lost daughters of the king. Your mission is to find the daughters, bring them back to the castle, and contend with the ghoulish creatures wandering the land along the way. There are potions, weapons, armor, treasure chests, dangerous swamps, and encroaching nightfall. It's a great little RPG experience packaged up for quick, mobile play sessions.

Marz is something akin to Space Invaders, but in reverse. You are in control of a space craft in a decaying planetary orbit. You will soon land, but you must first clear the surface of obstacles to avoid a crash. This involves precise timing and adaptation to your dwindling height from the surface. Once all the obstacles are cleared, it's thumbs up and you're planted firmly on the alien surface. A C64 color palette brings the nostalgia.

The developers indicate that coming titles in this collection include puzzle games, strategy games, racing games, and more. I'm pretty anxious to see where this goes. If you dig the retro, don't miss P1XL Party [App Store].

P1XL Games was formed in 2009 by Robin Harbron who worked with Jerri Ellsworth to bring the C64 DTV to market, and designer Sam Washburn. Harbron made the jump from Nintendo DS to iOS development in late 2008.

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There's so many games coming out tonight that I don't even want to waste time on a witty introduction to this post. It's like this is the Wednesday before the Christmas App Store freeze, this is a veritable stampede of games. Anyway, the way this works is a little like this: Developers can set their release dates on the App Store for a specific date in the future. Since the App Store is a worldwide market, things are released in the various regions as it becomes that date in said region. New Zealand's proximity to the International Date Line makes them first, followed by Australia and eastern Asia, then slowly the rest of the world. All of these games should be available in the US App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern time!

Without further ado-

1-bit Ninja, $1.99 – Forum Thread – We've been looking forward to this game since we first heard about it. 1-bit Ninja combines old-school platforming with a slick 3D gimmick where you can rotate the camera to see what appears to be a 2D plane in 3D, potentially revealing secret platforms. I've been lucky enough to spend some time with a pre-release copy of the game, and it's awesome. You can't move backwards though, which takes a little getting used to.

BackStab, $6.99 – Forum Thread – What do you get when you combine Pirates of the Caribbean and Assassin's Creed? Well, you're looking at it! I spent some time with BackStab at E3, and while the pirate universe definitely seemed cool, it was a little weird to be doing missions that were fairly obviously lifted directly out of Assassin's Creed. Regardless, it's being released as a universal app, which is something I can totally get behind.

Battleship for iPad, $2.99 – Forum Thread – Another game we saw at E3. This is a technically competent port of Battleship, but it boggles my mind why EA releases games like this without online multiplayer. I mean really, with how successful Words With Friends has been, imagine how much more successful similar push-based online multiplayer would be with a recognizable IP behind it.

Circus City, Free – Forum Thread – Have you grown tired of building farms, tending livestock, and other similar tasks? Well, Glu hopes running a circus is something that will entice you into Circus City a try.

Continuity 2: The Continuation, 99¢ – Forum Thread – This game looks really slick, as they've combined platforming and sliding puzzle games into one. It's universal too, making the whole thing even more appealing.

D.A.R.K., 99¢ – Forum Thread – I got a super-early look at this game back at PAX East, and while it looked awesome then, it looks so much cooler now. D.A.R.K. is an action-oriented Sci-Fi RPG with tons of enemies, upgrades, and content to blast through.

Don't Fall Off, 99¢ – Forum Thread – This game puts you in charge of helping Rollie stay on his little paper boat floating down a river. For whatever reason, Rollie can't get wet, making his choice to travel by water extremely questionable.

Fish Odyssey, 99¢ – Forum Thread – I can't help but be pedantic with this game's title. Clearly it's called Fish Odyssey, but it seems the majority of the animals you're helping jump over waves by tapping are actually mammals. I suppose Mammal Odyssey doesn't have that great of a ring to it.

Hills of Glory: WWII, 99¢ – Forum Thread – I'm not sure describing this as a "castle defense" game is the most accurate, but it seems to fit. You defend your base from an onslaught of enemies using various military weaponry. Sure, your base isn't technically a castle, but it's similar.

Ionocraft Racing, $1.99 / HD – Forum Thread – This steampunky version of Wipeout features 13 tracks, upgrades, online leaderboards, and everything else you could ask of a steampunk version of Wipeout.

Kona's Crate, $2.99 / HD – Forum Thread – The above trailer makes this game look like a ton of fun, but I can't get over how weird it is to make a crate the main character that you have control of in this game. Regardless, there's over 60 levels for you to fly your crate through, online leaderboards, and all kinds of other goodies.

Lamebo VS Zombies, 99¢ – Forum Thread – Developers are really reaching these days to come up with things that haven't already been done before in the world of zombie games. This one in particular attempts to differentiate itself by having you control a, uh, sheep. Despite the weird premise, the art style of the game looks fantastic and I'm always a sucker for games with tons of upgrades to unlock.

Monkey Island Tales HD, $6.99 – Forum Thread – Currently, Monkey Island Tales HD Episode 1 [$6.99] is available on the App Store, and Telltale is wasting no time releasing the others. Here's iTunes links for the rest of the series coming tonight:

• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5

Powerslide Penguin, 99¢ / Universal HD – Forum Thread – This penguin-flinging game looks cool in the trailer, but it's another one of those mega-confusing split non-HD and HD releases like Red Ball 3. The HD version is universal, but the non-HD version doesn't include Retina Display graphics, so if you want those, you'll need to spring for the HD version.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, $1.99 – Forum Thread – This Mario Kart-esque game seemingly has it all. Tons of recognizable characters, universal compatibility, online multiplayer, and a reasonable price. I'm surprised!

Sunshine Cruise Lines, Free – Forum Thread – This free to play game has a fairly interesting premise that involves customizing your own cruise ship. There's also functionality in game to actually go on cruises, visit various ports, and all kinds of other cruise-related things. I admit, I'm intrigued.

Tiny Tower, Free – Forum Thread – NimbleBit fans have been waiting for this game forever, and it's finally here. They've applied the same free to play style of gameplay from Pocket Frogs where paying for anything truly does feel optional. It's a ton of fun, I had a blast with beta versions of the game and have been building my tower since I got my hands on the final version of the game last week. Don't miss Tiny Tower.

Trenches: Generals for iPad, 99¢ – Forum Thread – The Trenches series of games have been stupidly popular on the App Store, and now Thunder Game Works is bringing it to the iPad. The start of the show seems to be the single device multiplayer, seen above, which looks like a ton of fun.

Watch Out Danger Ahead, 99¢ / Lite – Forum Thread – This super-minimal platformer puts you in control of a simple ball. I'm digging the simple art style. Make sure you check out the above trailer.

War Grimoire HD, $2.99 – Judging by screenshots, this tower defense game has some crazy awesome art in it. 60 kinds of weapons (towers?) are included, as well as 30 different environments. The graphics look fantastic, and it's even got an entirely original soundtrack.

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The name Spiderweb Software is a bit misleading, after all, it's mostly the work of one man, Jeff Vogel, who has for almost twenty years given us some of the most intricate RPGs on PC and Mac. Until now, at least, these were often an inclusive, old-schooler affair. But Avadon: The Black Fortress HD [$9.99] is one of the first to be easily approachable — it's also the first to hit the iPad.

You'd be forgiven if you've glanced at screenshots and balked at the idea of playing Avadon, it's not a pretty game. Visually, it falls somewhere in the '90s, pre-CD-ROM drive, which is to say it's an isometric RPG akin to something like Baldur's Gate, Ultima or even Fallout. It's filled with old-fashioned tilesets, hardly animated sprites and a locked camera that doesn't allow you to zoom nor rotate. While I'm getting things out of the way, I should probably also mention there is no musical score. The sound, when it does exist is hardly worth paying attention to and the amount of modern day polish slathered on here lays somewhere between murky and non-existent.

But none of that has anything to do with what makes Avadon a good game, because it's good based solely on the actual game, not the flair.

Avadon isn't as hardcore of an RPG as it might look on first glance and it's also considerably more approachable than Vogel's earlier games. You start the game by picking one of four pre-built classes and typing in a name. No complex stat sheets, no guessing what abilities you'll need and what you won't. You'll meet other adventurers along your journey who will join your party. You'll level up through your adventure, but it's done mostly through a small skill tree, not a vast collection of unknown abilities leading to more unknown abilities.

Combat is turn-based and works well, provided you enjoy turn-based combat. If you don't, consider this an ample warning. Depending on the difficulty level you chose, you'll need to concentrate on your strategy in different ways. There is, quiet literally, something for everyone here. A complete RPG-virgin can pick it up and walk through the game with little trouble on Casual, but the higher levels should provide adequate challenge for players of all backgrounds. Naturally, you'll pick up loot, outfit your team with different equipment and change around your stats. For the most part, this is all relatively self-explanatory, although the menus don't make things easy if you're swapping items between party members.

It's the story that really matters here more than anything else, it's what's going to keep you going through the night. That story bends to your will and your actions and like the best RPGs, you're not always aware of it when it's happening. The core of the narrative comes from you enlisting as a Hand to the Pact, a high-horse power created by a group of nations bent on protecting the good of itself and its people from a fortress called Avadon. This doesn't just mean they protect the borders, it also means they'll burn down villages, kill helpless creatures and lock people into prisons.

As with most of Vogel's games, the writing in Avadon is well done and sprinkled with enough wit and humor that you don't feel oppressed by the seriousness of it all. Within a few hours you'll have a good grasp on the Avadon's structure, the religions, your fellow fighters and a number of the NPC groups. You'll also start getting the sneaking suspicion the Pact and Avadon aren't all they're cracked up to be.

As you play through the game's 20-30 hour campaign, you'll start to notice how your actions are affecting the larger story, from minor quips in dialogue or descriptions to fully-fledged moments that couldn't have existed had you not done something earlier. The dialogue options aren’t the color-coded morally simple choices of modern RPGs, nearly every time you need to respond to a situation it will sit somewhere on a gray scale between good and evil and you'll never know for sure if you're making the right choice. The plotline is basically linear, save for a fair share of side quests, but you still feel like you're having an affect on the world, for better or worse.

The translation to iPad is relatively fluid. I had a few crashes and memory errors while playing, but nothing that set me back too much. The touch screen works well for this type game, although you'll occasionally accidently move your characters around when you mean to fight because you'll tap on the wrong part of the grid. The item screen, as mentioned earlier, is a bit unwieldy with a touch screen and requires an excessive number of taps to get to business, but you'll get used to it. If you've played Spiderweb's RPGs before, you'll know what to expect, but Avadon is considerably more linear and less open than much of its previous work. That's not a bad thing in this case; it's a good entry point into a deeper RPG for iPad players and a great throwback to people who've been playing for a long time. It's streamlined, yes, but not to the point where you feel like you have no control. You still have to read signs to get directions, take note of what people say and remember (in your head, not in an objective screen) where you're going and why you're going there.

Avadon: The Black Fortress HD might take a little while to sink in, but if you get enmeshed in the narrative and the world, it's hard to walk away from it. It's been a long while since I accidently stayed up all night with a game, but Avadon managed to do that without even bothering with fancy visuals or voiced dialogue. It's not going to be a game for everybody, but if you're weary of spending the completely fair price of $10 on the iPad version, I'd suggest checking out the demo for the PC or Mac versions. The experience is similar, although the iPad version will occasionally run into some frame rate drops and has a lower resolution. If you're a fan of '90s RPGs and have been craving something that doesn't hold your hand or guide you along on the iPad, this is the perfect game for you.

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Last month, Backflip Studios unleashed Army of Darkness Defense [Free/HD] into the App Store. Based on the campy B-movie Army of Darkness, a particularly popular entry in the cult classic Evil Dead franchise, the video game incarnation is a castle defense game with some very light RPG elements. The castle defense premise plays perfectly into the movie plot itself, and Army of Darkness Defense is filled with plenty of fan service.

Now for a limited time, you can grab Army of Darkness Defense for free. There is an IAP component to the game that will allow you to advance your character building more rapidly if you choose, but it’s certainly not necessary to enjoy the full game. Gameplay is a bit on the shallow side, but everything is done so well with the art style and sound effects that it’s actually a really enjoyable experience.

You can check out our full review for more information, but really if you're a fan of the movie in any way, or even just a fan of arcadey castle defense games, Army of Darkness Defense is an easily recommended download while free.

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Pavel Tsarev's iDaTank [$1.99 / Lite] was released a few weeks ago but had some troubles, namely some crashing issues and a lack of a save function when the home button was pushed — thankfully an update thrust out last week fixes those problems, meaning all of us can sit and enjoy the unique experience without having to worry about saving issues.

Nailing down what it is that makes iDaTank enjoyable is difficult. At its core, it’s a resource-hoarding exploration game where you're controlling a small tank as it moves around a small, three dimensional planet collecting resources and killing enemies. Somehow it also manages to feel a bit like a rogue-like, where permadeath can end your game quickly (although you can purchase more lives through the in-game economy), weapon upgrades are slowly seeded out and an RPG system lays underneath the hood to increase the tanks properties.

It doesn't fit into an easily definable genre-box, which is what makes it all the more appealing. The game play doesn't stretch much further than what you'll get from the outset — you drive around, stripping planets of resources and killing enemies, but you still feel like you have to see what's at the end.

You control the tanks movement by sliding your finger in the direction you want to go — there is no virtual joystick, but it feels similar, perhaps even better than one. The firing is done automatically, so even though it might look like a duel stick shooter, it's not. Somehow, the constant upgrades keep it interesting and as the game progresses, you can actually feel it change underneath your fingers. You get more control over your tank, more speed, weapons, storage — the progression feels spot on, even though you'll have to grind a bit to get through later levels.

There are a total of 26 different levels, each subdivided into different subsections based on planet type. Each planet has its own alien life, is shaped differently and a few even have bosses, which if you run into unprepared, will absolutely slaughter you. That's made all the more difficult by the fact you can't back out and leave a planet if you find it too tough, which means you'll need to grind the early levels before you jump into some of the later ones, providing a serious challenge even if you're fully prepared. The goal of each planet is to capture a certain amount of resources, sometimes this means running over and delivering some blue crystals, other times you'll need to kill enemies or blow up giant egg things. You'll often need to make several trips from the resources to the delivery platform before you're finished with the level.

Picking which upgrades to use on your tank and your weapons is integral to your success in each mission. Weapons are handled by the same in-game economy as the lives, so you have to choose between the two. Tank upgrades are dispersed out when you reach a new level by gaining XP from killing aliens. There's also the whole permadeath thing that might turn some people off — when you're out of lives, you have to start over at the very beginning of the game.

iDaTank is built in Unity and looks the part. The 3D graphics are simple, but they work with the overall atmosphere of the game, which is to say it's a minimal, but well-planned and well-executed idea. That said, the enemy animation is top-notch and the tank looks great as well — like something pulled straight out of Jonathan Ive's brain if Apple suddenly decided to start making space-tanks. The interface continues the minimalist trend, almost to a fault as it takes a couple of taps to figure out what a button does instead of just one, but the uncluttered look works well with the rest of the game. It's a universal build, but it looks a little better on the iPhone's smaller screen then it does on iPad. However, the controls are a little smoother on iPad, so pick your fancy there if you have a choice.

Despite the ambiguous name, iDaTank is a surprisingly in-depth adventure game with a thin, but adequate layer of RPG elements added on top to keep you coming back for more. Like the best rogue-likes, it works like crack in that you'll manage to inch further and further into space through each playthrough before suddenly realizing it's three in the morning.

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