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“Promoting synergy” is a pretty common mantra in today's corporate culture. It encourages all employees to work together in harmony to be stronger and more productive as a unit than they each would have been by working individually. The new game Corporate Fury [$1.99] from developer Swinecrafters is the exact opposite of this type of thinking. Instead, you are encouraged to battle coworkers in violent 3D arena brawls in an attempt to take their jobs away from them. There are a ton of wacky characters, plenty of crude humor, and enough fighting to satisfy any gamers needs in Corporate Fury, and it stands out as one of the more unique offerings for the iPhone.

The game takes place in a semi-open world that acts a large hub connecting the fighting arenas and story-related locations together. You start off as a lowly production worker who awakens after taking a brutal beating from your boss. Your buddy Mike, who also acts as the point man for setting up fights, is there to help you on your feet and explain what is going on since you can't quite remember after being beaten senseless. The first order of business is to visit the in-game shop called Frank's Goods, then head back to Mike to fight in some low-level matches until you are strong enough to defeat your boss and take his job from him. You will continue this process as the storyline unfolds and as you defeat the team of increasingly higher ranked corporate executives, culminating with defeating the top CEO and taking over control of the company.

The overworld in Corporate Fury is fairly large, although not exactly as big as something you would find in a Grand Theft Auto or similar game. In this world the atmosphere has been rendered uninhabitable, so you are left with a large indoor city filled with plenty of areas to explore and crazy characters to talk to. An automap in the pause screen lets you pick from the key areas and set a handy waypoint that guides your character to them so you don't get lost. Graphically the game looks pretty decent, and runs fairly smoothly even on older devices. There are some jagged edges and characters aren't exactly rife with detail, but the overall style of the game works really well and looks good. Most impressive is that the entire game loads quickly upon booting up, and there is no loading at all while playing the game itself.

Fighting in Corporate Fury is fun and totally over the top. An analog stick controls your movement with a button each for jump, punch, kick, and using a weapon. Early in the game it's pretty basic, but as you defeat opponents you earn credits to use at Frank's Goods. Here you can purchase an assortment of weapons, armors, special moves, and increased attributes. Once you've beefed up your fighter a bit, fighting gets more complex and satisfying. It's reminiscent of fighting enemies in the newer Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry games, as you can pull off crazy multi-hit combos on the ground and in the air. The weapons you can use are truly awesome, from hammers and knives to explosives and plasma cannons. The armor and accessories are equally interesting, and change the look of your character when equipped.

While Corporate Fury is a ton of fun to play, there are some issues in the game that really bothered me. Some of the opponents you must face to advance the story can be incredibly powerful, and you're stuck grinding away fighting random opponents until you can level up high enough to compete with them. Luckily the fighting is enjoyable and the assortment of random enemies is varied, so it's not too much of an issue, but it can feel repetitive at times. Also, traveling around the city by foot can feel a bit arduous, and a quick teleport to the main locations in the game would be a welcome addition. Finally, while you can save manually at your apartment and the game saves automatically when exiting with the home button, in my experience this hasn't always been reliable and I've lost progress because of it. It doesn't seem to be a widespread problem, and the developer is already working towards fixing these issues, but it's worth mentioning.

Corporate Fury is an incredibly ambitious title for a mobile platform, and while there are some technical and game design related issues due to this fact, the good far outweighs the bad. With a competent fighting system, dozens of crazy characters, and an interesting world to explore, there is plenty here to keep you busy for quite a while. Just be prepared for the crude humor in the game that is full of sexual tones, foul language, and midget references aplenty. The trailer above will give you a great idea of what you're in store for, and could easily sell the game on its own. Players in our forums are loving the game, and Corporate Fury is one of those titles you just have to see to believe.

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A couple of weeks ago, we had a chance to get some hands-on time with the iPhone and iPad version of Puzzle Agent from Telltale Games. The story of FBI puzzle detective Nelson Tethers was coming together nicely for the iOS devices, and now the game is finally available. Puzzle Agent succeeds beautifully in the art style and story departments, but falls a little flat with the actual gameplay offered. If you go into Puzzle Agent expecting a robust puzzle game with a lot of content and replayability, you'll likely be disappointed. However, if you're looking for an excellent mystery to solve with humorous characters and an interesting plot, you'll find a lot to enjoy about the overall experience of Puzzle Agent.

The game starts with Nelson sitting at his desk in the FBI headquarters. You can tell he doesn't see a whole lot of action, as he is surprised to receive a phone call asking him to go on an assignment in the field. The eraser factory in Scoggins, Minnesota has ceased production, and thus been unable to supply the White House with their required allotment of erasers. All inquiries as to what the problem is at the eraser factory have resulted in odd puzzle-related responses from the townsfolk in Scoggins, making Nelson the perfect candidate to have investigate the situation. You'll travel to Scoggins to question people, solve puzzles, and uncover a twisted tale of what has gone awry at the eraser factory.

Puzzle Agent functions similar to other point-and-click adventure games, giving you a scene with various interactive elements to investigate. A circle will emanate from wherever you touch on the screen, and an icon will show up within that circle if something can be interacted with. I love this mechanic as it allows me to easily check an entire area for clues without tapping on every square inch of the screen. Talking with characters in the game is definitely the high point of Puzzle Agent. Each character is fully voiced and has multiple points of conversation to engage in. The amount of personality and humor that the characters exude through the dialogue is phenomenal, and playing through Puzzle Agent is analogous to watching a well crafted animated film. The art style is also very pleasing, featuring the minimalist hand drawn style of Graham Annable who created the Grickle comics and animated shorts.

iPad screenshots (click to enlarge):

The actual puzzles you'll be solving in Puzzle Agent are a mixed bag. Some are interesting, intuitive, and fun while others are just plain awkward and frustrating. Many times it's just not clear what you are supposed to be doing in a given puzzle. A hint system is in place in case you get stuck, so it never really prevents you from progressing, but it can be annoying to spend time trying to solve a difficult puzzle with trial and error when you are immersed in the story. Another frustration with Puzzle Agent is the controls. The game is designed very well for touch screen, but the actual responsiveness when touching or dragging items is not so great. It feels like the game is optimized for the mouse and cursor of the Mac/PC version, and using the larger surface of a fingertip doesn't afford the precision needed to perform some of the basic actions in the game.

There also isn't much reason to go back and play the game once you've beaten it, as the puzzles and story don't change. One important point to bring up is that Puzzle Agent looks far better on the iPad than it does on the iPhone. Many of the textures are blurry and show signs of artifacting, and are a far cry from the App Store screen shots that look like they are optimized for Retina Display.  This leads me to believe that it's just a bug with the release version that doesn't allow it to display the game in the proper resolution, although I have yet to confirm this. It doesn't completely ruin the game, but it is a significant distraction. The iPad version doesn't seem to exhibit this problem, and hopefully the issue gets rectified with the iPhone version soon.

Even with these issues, Puzzle Agent is still a really enjoyable experience. And that's what it really boils down to – it's better served as an exceptional entertainment experience rather than an exceptional game. The art style, music, voice acting, and story are incredibly well done, but the controls and puzzles are pretty hit and miss. If you're looking for something akin to an enjoyable interactive movie, Puzzle Agent serves this purpose really well.

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All the way back in the middle of December of last year we first got our hands on EA's Mirror's Edge [$4.99] for the iPhone, but it came without any solid release date. Mirror's Edge then disappeared until the iPad launch when Mirror's Edge for iPad [$9.99] popped up once again. Back then, we figured the iPhone release was immanent, but once again, it never came. Tonight is finally the night, and after spending quite a bit of time with the game today, it seems remarkably similar to the iPad version, downsized to the iPhone. In fact, it's so similar to our preview from last year that everything I said back then is still relevant.

The world of Mirror's Edge is set in the future, where a totalitarian regime is in power and an underground resistance powered by runners move information around on foot to avoid to watchful eye of the government which have implemented intense levels of surveillance across all communication mediums. You play as Faith, one of these runners.

The game is controlled using very simple swiping gestures that all feel very natural. Swiping right or left makes you run in that direction, swiping up makes you jump, and swiping down makes you slide. When you run across opposition, you can also use similar gestures to take them out with a variety of moves such as sweeping their legs out from under them or jump kicking them. There are many other interactions with different obstacles you come across, like jumping off spring boards, sliding down zip lines, and wall-running across billboards.

All of these things can be seen in the following gameplay video:

If you are like me and enjoyed the idea behind the console version of Mirror's Edge, but didn't really like the first person viewpoint and all the issues that caused in a platforming environment, you will love the iPhone version of the game. All of the visibility problems are gone thanks to the 3rd person view, and the game as a whole has been transformed in to a fun reaction game instead of an often frustrating and sometimes motion-sickness inducing first person experience.

New additions to Mirror's Edge since last year include new leaderboards that track your time through every level along with a whole heap of achievements to soak up and artwork to unlock. The whole game is optimized for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4, and looks really great in motion. This doesn't mean it won't run well on older devices, as forum members are reporting that Mirror's Edge even runs just fine on the first generation iPod touch.

Mirror's Edge is an effortless recommendation, and while I'm not sure waiting all this time has made the game any better, I'm glad it's finally here. Sure, there have been tons of running games in the past year but Mirror's Edge still is able to stand on its own, even after all this time. Playing through the game is a really cool experience, the controls work well, and just like the iPad game EA did a fantastic job of nailing the look and feel of the Mirror's Edge universe.

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Big name developers just love setting their iTunes Connect release dates to Thursdays. Every week around this time we start seeing new releases slowly pop up in international markets, then filter out to the rest of the world as the Earth spins and it slowly becomes Thursday across the planet. This week is no different, and tonight at 11:00 PM EST all of the following games will be available for download in the US App Store. (Or even sooner if you're east of us.)

Mirror's Edge for iPhone, $4.99 – We first previewed this game in late 2009, and spent months wondering when it was going to be released. We found our answer as Mirror's Edge for iPad [$9.99] landed on the App Store as an iPad-only launch title for Apple's (then) new device. Back in April we thought it was inevitable that the game would be released for the iPhone yet, but we never suspected it would take nearly six months to happen.

Here's the gameplay video we shot from our preview last year:

From my brief time with Mirror's Edge on the iPhone, it plays just the same as the iPad version and is seemingly identical to the preview we did before of the iPhone version. Mirror's Edge for the iPhone comes packed with Retina Display friendly graphics and looks outstanding on the iPhone 4.

Puzzle Agent, $4.99 / HD – We had some hands-on time with this game not too long ago, and it's definitely something any fan of Professor Layton style games needs to pick up. In the game you play as Nelson Tethers, an agent of the FBI Puzzle Research Division and need to investigate the happenings of an eraser factory in Minnesota.

Puzzle Agent has already been released for the PC on Steam, and has been well received by most gamers. We thought it was a decent port in our preview, but we're going to spend more time with it to see if that still holds true as we get deeper than a brief preview allows.

Other potentially noteworthy games being released tonight include two new offerings from Namco who apparently have no problem juicing poor old Pac Man for all he's worth. PAC-CHAIN [$4.99] is an action puzzle game for the iPad where you tap groups of similarly colored ghosts from the game board with all kinds of Pac Man themed power-ups. Their other release tonight is Mishap [$4.99] a hidden object game for the iPhone that at least looks slightly intriguing with the inclusion of mini-games.

Finally, there's a new Chillingo iPad game on the verge of being released. Lamp of Aladdin [$4.99] is another hidden object game, but the matching mini-game looks like it could be interesting and there's something about the above trailer that's oddly alluring.

We're going to spend the day playing through as many of these games as possible, and like every Wednesday, plan on having reviews available by the time the games appear for download in the US App Store.

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There is nothing worse than getting a FedEx tracking number late on a Thursday, knowing full well that your package will not arrive until Monday. Even as an adult, I'll still obsessively refresh tracking information, even when I know something won't be delivered for days. Still, that didn't stop me from tracking the Parrot AR.Drone all weekend, or getting up and looking out the window when I even thought I might have heard the sound of tires on gravel in the distance all day today. Surely any self respecting geek knows the feeling as they anxiously await their newest techno-toy.

The AR.Drone arrived mere moments ago, and after carefully opening the packaging I was greeted with the wondrous quadricopter that we've been drooling over since we first caught wind of it back at CES in January. Since then we've had a brief hands-on and later discovered that it would sell for $299.99 available for preorder through Brookstone.

In the demos we've been given in the past, we've never actually been able to touch the unit, only fly it around for a few seconds inside of the controlled environment of the Parrot booth at conventions. My first impression as I took it out of the box was just how amazingly light and delicate the whole unit feels. I suppose it makes sense that it's light because it has to fly, but it feels like nothing.

In the box with the unit is a brief quick start guide which explains to first charge the battery, how to install the battery, and the basics of getting the Parrot AR.Drone in the air. Like any impatient man child, I immediately installed the battery, and paired it to my iPhone which was as simple as downloading the free Parrot AR.Drone Free Flight app and connecting to the WiFi network it creates. After that, you launch the app, it connects to the quadricopter, and you're met with a screen that looks like this:

Unfortunately, since I skipped that whole "charge the battery first" step, the AR.Drone only flew for about 45 seconds before it ran out of juice. I'm currently impatiently waiting the light on the charger to flip from red to green, and daylight is fading fast. I hope to have some extensive video of how the unit works, how it is assembled, and flying it in the not too distant future. (All depending on how long it takes to charge of course.)

Following that, I'll be doing a full review of the Parrot AR.Drone, so if you have any questions that you'd like answered or anything you want me to do as I put it through its paces, post a comment on this story.

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Update: With the sun about to set I grabbed the battery with as much charge as the charger was able to give me and headed out to shoot some video. The companion app initially showed that I was at around 30% battery, which seemed to last for about 10 minutes of outdoor flight time. Here's a video of my first real flight outdoors with the Parrot AR.Drone:

Something that immediately struck me was how awesome the device is at steadying itself, even with the breeze outside. In the video I am actively trying to get it to lose control, by having it bank in to the wind and the onboard flight controller just automatically leveled the quadricopter without any issues at all. Also, it's really cool how low it will fly to the ground, automatically adjusting its height as it goes up or down hills. Buzzing over the grass at about a foot off the ground was a truly impressive display of how accurately the AR.Drone can hold its altitude. While none of these things are really new revelations from our previous hands-ons at conventions, all of those were always indoors in a very small controlled environment with no winds at all. A part of me was expecting everything to fall apart once the AR.Drone got outside of the calm 10×10 Parrot tent on the show floor… But it performed flawlessly.

The strangest part about flying the AR.Drone is trusting the iPhone display over just watching it fly through the air and controlling it like a normal RC helicopter. This is even more disorienting when you notice that you can see yourself in the image. The AR.Drone is always controlled from its viewpoint, creating a brain-bending situation where you can see the device with your eyes, you in the devices eyes, and everything is backwards as you're facing it.

At demos in the past, controlling the AR.Drone seemed really easy, and it is when you're limited by about 10 feet in any direction. When you actually get outdoors, and have tons of obstacles to fly around, piloting the device actually seems to take a bit of skill– Even with all the automated flight systems it has.

Just as I was getting good, I was met with this yet again:

So far I'd really advise anyone who already had one of these preordered to buy as many extra batteries as you feel comfortable purchasing. Flying the AR.Drone is really cool, but having it run out of battery, then sitting and waiting for the battery to charge sucks just as much as it did when I was a kid waiting for the NiCD batteries of my various RC cards to juice back up before I could play again.

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There is nothing worse than getting a FedEx tracking number late on a Thursday, knowing full well that your package will not arrive until Monday. Even as an adult, I'll still obsessively refresh tracking information, even when I know something won't be delivered for days. Still, that didn't stop me from tracking the Parrot AR.Drone all weekend, or getting up and looking out the window when I even thought I might have heard the sound of tires on gravel in the distance all day today. Surely any self respecting geek knows the feeling as they anxiously await their newest techno-toy.

The AR.Drone arrived mere moments ago, and after carefully opening the packaging I was greeted with the wondrous quadricopter that we've been drooling over since we first caught wind of it back at CES in January. Since then we've had a brief hands-on and later discovered that it would sell for $299.99 available for preorder through Brookstone.

In the demos we've been given in the past, we've never actually been able to touch the unit, only fly it around for a few seconds inside of the controlled environment of the Parrot booth at conventions. My first impression as I took it out of the box was just how amazingly light and delicate the whole unit feels. I suppose it makes sense that it's light because it has to fly, but it feels like nothing.

In the box with the unit is a brief quick start guide which explains to first charge the battery, how to install the battery, and the basics of getting the Parrot AR.Drone in the air. Like any impatient man child, I immediately installed the battery, and paired it to my iPhone which was as simple as downloading the free Parrot AR.Drone Free Flight app and connecting to the WiFi network it creates. After that, you launch the app, it connects to the quadricopter, and you're met with a screen that looks like this:

Unfortunately, since I skipped that whole "charge the battery first" step, the AR.Drone only flew for about 45 seconds before it ran out of juice. I'm currently impatiently waiting the light on the charger to flip from red to green, and daylight is fading fast. I hope to have some extensive video of how the unit works, how it is assembled, and flying it in the not too distant future. (All depending on how long it takes to charge of course.)

Following that, I'll be doing a full review of the Parrot AR.Drone, so if you have any questions that you'd like answered or anything you want me to do as I put it through its paces, post a comment on this story.

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The 1986 arcade classic OutRun, with its easy to pick up gameplay and simplistic mechanics, seems like it would be a perfect fit for the iPhone. It's strange then, given the wealth of racing games on the App Store, that no one has taken a serious stab at an OutRun-inspired game yet. Now, developer Oyatsukai.com has risen to this challenge with their first iPhone game Final Freeway, and delivered in fairly impressive fashion. Final Freeway does an excellent job at capturing the feel of the original OutRun, while offering tight controls with multiple configurations and a terrific sense of speed that runs well even on older devices.

Just as in OutRun, Final Freeway is a point-to-point racing game, where instead of trying to beat other cars to the finish you're trying to reach each checkpoint in the given amount of time until finally reaching the end. In total there are six different sections to race through, each with their own unique scenery, but unfortunately there aren't the branching paths at the end of each section as in OutRun. The racing is simple and arcadey, with the focus being to race each leg of the track as fast as possible while avoiding traffic and staying on the track. You don't crash in the game, but will slow down a lot if you hit another car or go off track. If time runs out before you reach the end of the track segment, it's game over.

In another nod to OutRun, you can choose one of three different tunes to listen to while you're racing in Final Freeway. Also, your ride looks suspiciously like a Ferrari, which is the staple car in the OutRun series. The graphics in Final Freeway are very nice, with added support for the higher resolution iPhone 4 and iPad displays. The framerate is ultra smooth, even on my iPod touch 2G, and makes for a blazingly fast sense of speed. There are touch and tilt control options, with various other configurations of onscreen button placement. Either control option works well, but I found myself preferring the touch controls. There isn't the option for auto-accelerate, only separate gas and brake buttons, but this actually benefits the game as it can pay to merely let off the gas when approaching turns rather than slamming on the brakes.

Really, the only fault of Final Freeway is that there just isn't that much of it. The six track locations are decent, and can be played on a normal or expert setting, but I would love to see more. It sounds like that just might happen too, as the developer is active in our forums and has hinted that more levels are on their way, as well as taking note of other suggestions from our forum members for future updates. With a few updates, Final Freeway could evolve into something truly special, although what is here already is quite competent for the price. The bottom line is that Final Freeway is fun, plays extremely well, looks great, and will scratch that OutRun itch whenever you need it to.

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The human intellect is a remarkable beast. Just when we think that all possible Zombie concepts have been duly wrung out from our collective minds, developers renderPaz go and throw us a curve-ball. Picture this: you're driving down the post-apocalyptic interstate, weaving through abandoned vehicles strewn everywhere– when you see a hitch-hiker. Naturally, this being post-apocalyptic America, the rule of thumb (think Zombieland) is to just keep on driving. In Zombie Highway [99¢] you aren't afforded that luxury.

The object in Zombie Highway is to just keep on driving– pedal to the metal, you have only one speed– faster. That's not to say you're get very far, as zombies don't generally take kindly to your brains being cocooned inside an SUV's hard exterior. And unlike the variety in Zombieland, these zombies are willing to work to get them.

Zombies in Zombie Highway will pounce on your car's side rails as you speed past them, doing all they can to bring the car to a stop– generally by using their superhuman undead strength to wrestle it till it topples over. There are 7 types of zombies all up, from the skinny fledgling variety, to the stronger, health-regenerating, weightier monsters that do a world of hurt to your center of balance. As zombies stack up on one side, this is only compounded, with your only recourse being to get the buggers off as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, your own driving prowess and an arms dealer friend in the back provide all the tools you need to get through the zombie horde…at least for a couple of miles. Zombies can be exited from the vehicle by tilting your device to sideswipe them onto one of the many ruined cars littered across the highway. Each zombie has a health bar, and whittling that to zero will ensure they won't be sticking around. To help, your aforementioned friend riding shotgun (ho ho!) has a formidable arsenal that is gradually unlocked as you accumulate collective mileage across all your games. Weapons are fired by touching the corners of the screen– if a zombie is on the right near the front of your car, tapping the top right area will fire at it.

It's a straightforward formula that creates a fun and remarkably gratifying zombie slaying experience. It's also quite challenging, as zombies are super aggressive, and your car's physics are fantastic. For instance, don't expect to steer out of a lean by driving the other way– it'll only tip it further. Instead, a bit of load balancing and fast firing fingertips are required to keep the rubber on the road.

Our only gripes with the game are that for all the great 3D models and presentation there is a notable lack of any real sound effects. Your car is effectively muted until it's being weighed down, and then the creaks it makes are whisper quiet. Not hearing the engine at all detracts from the experience dramatically. In fact, the only sound you'll really hear from the car are the squeaks of your tires as you slide around the road. There is absolutely no music to be found either, which would have done a world of good to further build atmosphere and character.

We're also not quite sure why the developers didn't stick with Openfeint or a similar platform for its social functions, as their current Twitter implementation is rudimentary at best. And though the Facebook option results in a neat competition feature where you can track your friends, those who keep their gaming separate from Facebook are left on the curb. Thankfully neither of these platforms are required to access high scores.

Still, it's hard to stay disappointed with these drawbacks for long because running from hordes of zombies is just so much fun. The further you get, the more obstacles are thrown in your path, until you are eventually wrestling your device to fend off zombies, dodge roadblocks and keep your SUV from going belly up as you're two wheeling back and forth. It's a singular experience seemingly lifted right from classic zombie films and as such is effortlessly recommended. We just hope the developers look at the sound issue, as well as maybe add an achievements system ala Monster Dash [99¢] to pad out the survival game replayability.

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While neither Run! [99¢] nor Canabalt [$2.99] truly invented the "run right forever" genre, they did quite a bit to popularize it on the App Store. In the last year tons of these types of games have been released, with recent entries including A Skeleton Story [99¢] and Monster Dash [99¢] among others. Two more came out this week which are worth considering if you can't get enough of running for your life on your iPhone.

Cave Run, $1.99 – As the title would hint, in Cave Run you run, in a cave. Along the way you tap the screen to jump over pits and avoid a few different obstacles such as little patches of lava that send you flying up in the air, puddles of water that speed you up, and rocks to trip on to slow you down.

As you notice from the gameplay video, there are coins littered all over this cave. Unfortunately, right now the coins don't serve any purpose other than being computed in to your final score to bump up your ranking in the OpenFeint online leaderboards. I'd love to see some kind of in-game store where you can use these coins to buy things, even if those things are only cosmetic upgrades as right now the coin system seems like an odd afterthought. Also, Cave Run is a universal app, and it's always nice to be able to play games on any device.

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Dead Runner, 99¢ – An interesting take on run forever games which changes things from running right to running straight ahead in a first person perspective. Set in a spooky forest, you tilt your device right or left to avoid trees, running faster and faster, hitting bushes when you need to in order to slow down. The game is simple, but works really well. It also doesn't take long before you're going ridiculously fast, a huge plus in any game like this.

Dead Runner also has a second game mode aside from just running for distance where you go for points. By collecting various colored orbs while running through the game world, you can work up huge multipliers which both increase your speed and award extra points. With OpenFeint leaderboards for both game modes and achievements, Dead Runner is really worth checking out.

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