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Men like hitting stuff. At least, the “manly-men” of the world do, according to EA. The studio has kicked off its own Fathers’ Day celebration on the App Store, slashing prices for several of its action and sports-oriented titles. Big names like FIFA 11 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Madden 11 have been reduced to pennies, while others are receiving generous discounts. Dead Space, for example, is now just $3.

Overall, there’s over a dozen EA-published games available at 85-percent off the normal rate. We’re not sure how much longer the “Many-Man sale” — no joke — will last, so it’s probably wise to grab any of these while they’re on the cheap.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – $.99
Command & Conquer: Red Alert – $.99
Command & Conquer: Red Alert HD – $1.99
Dead Space – $2.99
Dead Space HD – $4.99
Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp – $.99
FIFA 11 – $.99
FIFA 11 HD – $4.99
Fight Night Champion – $.99
Madden NFL 11 – $.99
Madden NFL 11 HD – $.99
Monopoly – $.99
NBA Jam – $.99
NBA Jam HD – $4.99
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit – $.99
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit HD – $4.99
Need For Speed Undercover – $.99
Need For Speed Shift -$.99
Need For Speed Shift HD – $4.99
Reckless Racing – $.99
Reckless Racing HD – $.99
RISK – $.99
RISK HD – $1.99
Sim City Deluxe – $.99
Sim City Deluxe HD – $.99
Tetris – $.99
Tetris HD – $1.99
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 HD – $2.99

If you’re interested in more deals, know that EA isn’t the only publisher hacking at its standard prices — Gameloft and Firemint have their own going on right now.

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Selling a million copies in the console and PC games space is a huge deal. A hair or two above five million is the watermark. Angry Birds [$.99 / Free / Lite / HD / HD Free], across mobile devices various services and even web portals, has been downloaded 250 million times. Talk about penetration.

Actually, let’s keep talking about penetration, because a new studio has announced that it’s hit the 200 million downloads threshold: Gameloft. In a recent press release, the App Store connoisseurs announced that it has served up its 200 millionth download on iTunes.

That’s a lot of games served.

I opened up with those traditional games space numbers just so you can see how much of a gap there is between these two markets. They’re different, of course. One pushes out a lot of $60 experiences, while the other 99-cent flings. Also, Gameloft is counting dozens of games’ individual sales to get this number, but the disparity is there regardless.

Gameloft is giving a special shout-out to the NOVA series, as well as the Asphalt, the Modern Combat, and the Let’s Golf franchises in the announcement, which implies that they are the actual workhorses fluffing the download number.

"We have been able to develop a truly massive fan base by offering high-quality games on the App Store," Gonzague de Vallois, SVP of publishing at Gameloft said in a brand new, congratulatory statement.

"For millions of people worldwide, Gameloft is now synonymous with amazing gaming experiences on their iPhone, iPod touch and iPad."

Gameloft has around 20 more games set to hit this year. I wonder how long it'll take before we see a "half a billion games downloaded" story? Five bucks says that we'll have one by next year!

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If you happen to be one of those people that has yet to check out the phenomenal Real Racing series on iOS, Firemint is going to temporarily make it a lot cheaper for you to do so. From now through the weekend, every Real Racing title is now on sale in some capacity. Here’s a quick breakdown of the price drops for each one:

• Real Racing, $4.99 → 99¢

• Real Racing HD, $6.99 → $1.99 (iPad Only)

• Real Racing 2, $6.99 → $4.99

• Real Racing 2 HD, $9.99 → $6.99 (iPad Only)

If you maybe aren’t a big racing fan but have always been intrigued by the Real Racing series because of its technical merits, then picking up the first Real Racing for just 99¢ or the iPad version for $1.99 is basically a no brainer. Neither of these games have ever been this cheap before. While the sequel Real Racing 2 is definitely a step forward over the first game, Real Racing still has plenty of legs with a ton of races to play through and online multiplayer.

If you are a racing fan then chances are you have already picked up at least one of these titles, but if for some reason you have not then this weekend’s sale is a great time to check out the Real Racing series.

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It’s written in the United States’ constitution that every holiday must be honored with a sale or two on the App Store. No joke — it’s a new law according to yet another wiki page that I just finished vandalizing. If you're interested, the law is sandwiched between the “freedom of press” thing and that other law about how all American babies should be named after me.

Anyway, it’s with great honor that I tell you about Gameloft’s massive $.99 Father’s Day sale, a sale meant to stir your loins and your wallet. I can’t pin down a rhyme or reason for what games are being offered at their discounted rates, but hey, they’re cheap and I think that’s all that matters at the end of the day.

Here’s the list. The first link you’ll see is connected to a write-up of ours about the game, while the second will take you straight to the App Store:

Eternal Legacy – 99¢
Eternal Legacy HD – 99¢
Fast Five: The Movie: Official Game – 99¢
Fast Five: The Movie: Official Game: HD – 99¢
Fishing Kings – 99¢
Gangstar: Miami Vindication – 99¢
Gangstar: Miami Vindication HD – 99¢
NFL 2011 – 99¢
NFL 2011 HD – 99¢
Order & Chaos Online – 99¢ [Universal]
Real Soccer 2011 – 99¢
Real Soccer 2011 HD – 99¢
Spider-Man: Total Mayhem – 99¢
Spider-Man – Total Mayhem HD – 99¢

You know, maybe these are supposed to be games that father's dig? My dad refuses to play anything without the words "King's Quest" or "Hearts" in the title, but to each his own I suppose.

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Last week at WWDC, I met up with the guys from Get Set Games to talk about the success they’ve had with their game Mega Jump [Free] as well as what the future holds for them on the App Store. First of all, they revealed that Mega Jump has just passed the 15 million download mark, which is an impressive milestone to say the least. You might remember that just over a year ago, Mega Jump launched as a 99¢ paid app. It saw a brief sale period at one point, but last August the team decided to make the game permanently free and try to make their money by selling a huge selection of IAP goodies from within the game.

Love it or hate it, this freemium pay model has done extremely well for them in the past 10 months, and they have no plans to revert to a paid app anytime soon. Mega Jump has also received a steady stream of updates during its lifespan, and the newest one that is set to hit any day now will be the game’s 15th. It adds a huge new feature to the back end of the game which will allow the developers to send new content to the game through OpenFeint without actually submitting it as an official update. This means that things like new level skins and coin patterns can be pushed out to the game even more frequently and with less hassle. If you’re a Mega Jump fan, expect new content to be hitting the game at an even faster pace from update 15 on.

Next, they filled me in on one of their upcoming new games which will be starring the main character from Mega Jump, who I’ve come to learn is named Redford. Called Mega Run, it will be an endless running style of game using a similar art style from Mega Jump. The version of Mega Run I was able to try is currently just a functioning prototype, but already felt pretty good. The developers are planning to utilize a similar freemium pay structure and update schedule for Mega Run as they have with Mega Jump. It will also include the new back end feature that lets new assets be pushed to the game without an update, so they assured me that there will be plenty of fresh content coming to that title after it launches as well.

One bit of interesting news that came up during my meeting was finding out that Rob Segal of Get Set Games is one of the brains behind the Toronto Game Jam, or TOJam, and that the entire development team participates in this 3 day game jam every year. During the latest TOJam this past May, members of Get Set Games created a game called Seven Jamurai under their pseudonym Team Awesomo. Seven Jamurai was easily one of the most talked about games at the jam, and it’s pretty incredible to think that such a high quality effort can be created in just a few short days.

The exciting part of all this is that the team was so happy with how Seven Jamurai turned out that they are in the process of readying the game for an iOS release. Gameplay could be described as Castle Crashers meets Smash TV, as Seven Samurai is a frantic dual-stick shooter that relies heavily on cooperative play with up to 4 players. They are really fine tuning how all of this will work out in the iOS version, but you can check out this early video of Seven Jamurai from the game jam to get an idea of what it will be like:

Both Mega Run and Seven Jamurai are being developed at the same time, and the developers hope to have them both out on the App Store “in a few months”. My big takeaway from my meeting with Get Set Games is that this is a crew of video game-loving friends who have all defined their own roles in the company, which allows them to work together really well. They also have a near endless supply of amazing game ideas, and I could easily write twice as much about their previous game jam titles which were never fully realized but all have immense potential.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed that will see these games materialize in some form someday, but for now I’ll be looking forward to plenty of new Mega Jump content and both Mega Run and Seven Jamurai hitting the App Store sometime this year.

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At WWDC this year, I sat down with Dave Castelnuovo from Bolt Creative to talk about what’s upcoming in the various entries in the Pocket God series. We’ve always been fans of Pocket God [99¢] around TouchArcade, but admittedly hadn’t quite stayed up to date with the series as of late. After Dave showed me some of the recent new features added into the games, I was really surprised by just how much they’ve evolved since I’ve been on Pocket God hiatus.

The biggest bit of news is that the previously iPad-only Pocket God: Journey To Uranus [99¢] is now a universal app and is currently on sale for 99¢, down from $4.99. This version of Pocket God lets you take your pygmies into space to various planets, each with their own unique features. You can also discover mini-games which are based on classic arcade games, like Bump ‘n’ Jump, Joust, and Tempest 2000.

These mini-games are so incredibly well done that they could practically be standalone games on the App Store, and Bolt Creative has plans for many more in the future. Journey To Uranus plays just fine on the smaller screen of the iPhone and iPod touch, and it has really come a long way since first launching for the iPad back in December. The developers plan to adopt a rapid update schedule similar to the original Pocket God game, so expect a lot more from Journey To Uranus in the future.

Speaking of the original Pocket God, the most recent update added a neat Challenge of the Gods feature to the game. There is a new Challenge Menu which offers a few tasks to discover and complete for each of the 39 episodic updates the game has received during its lifetime. This gives a great reason to go back and fiddle around in all of the previous episodes, and once all tasks for an episode have been completed you’ll unlock a God idol for that episode.

This leads right into what will be in the forthcoming episode 40 which is titled Battle of the Gods. You’ll be able to take any of the 39 God idols that have been unlocked in Challenge Mode and then pit them against each other in a battle arena to see who comes out on top. It sounds like a pretty interesting idea, and I’m looking forward to checking out how it works when it launches in early July.

In other Pocket God news, the Pocket God Comics [99¢] app has just received issue #7 of the digital comic based on the game characters. They are also planning on streamlining the comic creation process so as to pump out new issues at a faster rate than they are currently running at. There are more than 20 new issues already in the pipeline, and support for Pocket God Comics is planned for at least the next few years. Also, the Pocket God Facebook game is up to episode 8 and will continue to evolve with new features and gameplay unique from the iOS games.

If you’re like me and haven’t checked in on what's up with Pocket God lately, you should definitely give both the original and Journey To Uranus another look as I'm fairly blown away with just how far the series has come in recent months.

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Coming off the successful launch of Touchgrind BMX [$4.99], which we reviewed last month, I met with the folks from Illusion Labs here at WWDC 2011 to discuss their plans for the series moving forward. Speaking of that successful launch, Illusion Labs has revealed that Touchgrind BMX sold over 100,000 copies in just its first 10 days in the App Store, making it their fastest selling title to date. Combined with the original Touchgrind [$4.99/HD], the total sales for the series exceeds 1.5 million units. That’s no small potatoes!

As for the future of Touchgrind BMX, there are a few nice things in the works. Just last week, an update was released which added some much-needed Retina Display support for the game, but unfortunately it was at the expense of a smooth frame rate. Illusion Labs is furiously working the kinks out of this, and the new build I was able to play showed a vastly improved frame rate with Retina Display visuals enabled. They’ll continue to refine this and then plan to drop the optimization update in the next couple of weeks. Following the improved Retina Display update, the hinted at new level Polar Ridge will be released along with full Game Center support.

But it doesn’t stop there. Once all of these new features are finally launched, the next step will be adding a TV-Out feature to Touchgrind BMX that will allow the game to be played on a big screen while being controlled on your iOS device. They demonstrated this functionality to me by using a portable projector and projecting the game right onto the wall in front of me. It looks absolutely awesome, and plays just as good. The iOS screen takes the form of a bike silhouette and controls exactly as the game normally would. Here’s a developer video showcasing the functionality projected onto a big screen:

Pretty cool stuff, but that’s still not the end of the Touchgrind-related news. Way back in January of 2010, Illusion Labs demonstrated a proof-of-concept video that showed the original Touchgrind being played on a MacBook using the multitouch-enabled trackpad. They never actually released the game for Mac due to not really having a solid distribution channel, but when the Mac App Store was announced last October the Touchgrind MacBook demo was one of the first things that came to our minds.

Now, at long last, Illusion Labs is releasing the original Touchgrind on the Mac App Store. The best part? It will be launching for free. You heard that right, for free. Illusion Labs isn’t known dropping prices or giving away things for free, but this is something they wanted to do for their fans as a thank you for making Touchgrind such a success. You’ll be able to grab Touchgrind for your Mac sometime in July. The announced features for Touchgrind BMX will slowly release over the course of the next several weeks or so, and I can’t wait to see what else Illusion Labs has up their sleeve for the future.

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The Fling joysticks for the iPad are fantastic little contraptions. Two suction cups, a conductive joystick, and a cleverly designed plastic spiral all work in perfect harmony to provide a tactile gameplay experience that is absolutely incredible in dual stick shooters. (Or, really, any other game with a virtual joystick.) Also, it seems like every time I post about this we get comment threads full of naysayers. To that I say, if you have any doubt about the Fling, you really need to give 'em a try at any Apple store.

With that out of the way, ever since we originally posted about them for the iPad, gamers with iPhones and iPod touches have been asking when there will be a smaller version for their devices. That day, apparently, is today. The Fling Mini is currently available for preorder. A pair will run you $24.95 and they should start shipping in mid to late July.

We'll have a hands-on of the Fling Mini at some point next week. With all the WWDC and E3 insanity, I'm not entirely sure when we'll have that hands-on, but it's very high on my list of things to check out.

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Develop, a super industry publication that focuses mainly on development topics and inside baseball, has just released its annual “Develop 100” article, a listing that ranks the top 100 game developers of the year. Normally, we wouldn’t cover this kind of thing, but 2011’s list is remarkable in that it ranks several smartphone-focused studios at the tiptop of the gargantuan list brimming with behemoth houses with hundreds of staffers.

If you take a gander, you’ll see that 2D Boy, the creator of World of Goo [$2.99 / HD], is sitting at number two. Zepto Lab, the creator of Cut the Rope [$.99 / HD] sits at number three just below God of War developers SCE Santa Monica, while Media Vision, The Coding Monkeys, 1337 Game Design, and Rockstar Leeds round out the rest of the top ten. Respectively, these houses built Chaos Rings [$12.99 / HD], Carcassonne [$9.99], Dark Nebula [$.99], and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [$9.99 / HD].

Nintendo grabbed the number one position, if you’re wondering.

That’s a lot of surprises in just the top ten, so I did a little digging. The digital version of the list notes that, for the first time, Develop is using Metacritic data “for the backbone” of the rankings, which means that numbers at the end of reviews and not sales are dictating the listings.

If that sounds weird to you, we’re on the same page. Smartphone press and popular enthusiast games press are two different beasts and their respective games are wildly different in terms of scale, depth, complexity, mechanics, and markets. Also, Metacritic used in this way isn't the best measure of quality, either — niche games tend to only be reviewed by niche reviewers.

But anyway, at the end of the day here, we’ve got a listing that is composed of 50 or so iPad and iPod Touch developers included with studios like Rockstar North. I think that’s neat, though I’m not sure the metrics used here is something I can get behind.

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Remember Boost 3D? It came out in late 2009, and we absolutely loved it in our review. It's a tunnel racer with a sky high framerate and an elegant simplicity to it. The game is so simple, in fact, that we really didn't mind that it didn't get updated for close to two years. Some games are great just the way they are, and this was a perfect example of that.

When I first heard of this update which was so massive that it even required a name change to the whole game, I was completely apprehensive. I thought the game was perfect the way it was, and usually "massive update" means the introduction of power-ups, levels, and all kinds of other nonsense that would get in the way of the previously mentioned elegant simplicity.

Thankfully, this update manages to completely enhance the game, all the while maintaining everything we first loved about Boost 3D. Instead of a single game mode, there are now three: Time trial, survival, and even multiplayer which works via Game Center.

I've yet to be able to get a game going (since the update just launched, I assume) but here's how it's supposed to work– Players have 60 seconds to finish the race, at which point the player who has travelled the farthest wins. The blocks change color depending on your position in the race. Sounds awesome.

Aside from using Game Center for multiplayer, there is also total Game Center (and OpenFeint) for online leaderboards and achievements. Both the Retina Display and the iPad are now fully supported, and there are a number of other tweaks and fixes including a totally redesigned HUD.

Boost 2 is on sale for 99¢ in celebration of the relaunch. It was the best tunnel racer when it was originally released in 2009, and I'm having a hard time thinking of a better one that has been released since then– Especially with these new enhancements.

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