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Late last week Square Enix posted some cryptic details to their Facebook page regarding an upcoming game that allows players to generate characters with their voice. We presumed it was something similar to Song Summoner, and speculation ran wild both in our comments and forums. Voice Fantasy [$2.99] just hit the App Store, and after spending the morning with it, I'm really not sure what to think.

The main problem with everything that Square Enix brings to the App Store is that they have such an insanely awesome back catalog of games that anyone who was around for the Super Nintendo would likely love to play. The whole Final Fantasy series, Tactics, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, the list goes on and on. When we see things like this released, I think it's completely understandable to wonder why in the world they would choose to work on this game instead of say, porting Final Fantasy IV. What's truly strange about this, is that if any other developer released Voice Fantasy, I bet the overall reception would be substantially different.

Voice Fantasy is a very strange game in that it really seems to straddle the line between what I'd consider a "game" and what I'd categorize as an "entertainment app." The basic premise is as follows: After loading up the game, you're given a few different options for battling against AI opponents, or a local battle with another person. From there, you generate your party. This amounts to holding down a record button on screen and saying something, yelling, squealing, or really making any sound at all. Depending on the volume and pitch of the sound you make, different party members are generated.

These party members range from warrior-type monsters to human mages and everything in between. When they attack (or fall) in battle, the game plays back a distorted version of your initial recording. Depending on what you generate your characters with, the battles can sometimes be absolutely hilarious. In single player mode you battle against a few waves of monsters until finally squaring off against the Demon King himself. That's it. There's no gameplay or any interactivity beyond just recording your sounds, and at the end of the battle you're able to save your favorite generated characters.

Playing with other people and passing your phone around, with each person trying to come up with something even ridiculous to generate a character from actually is a lot of fun. So far my best character attacks with a slurping and tongue slapping noise, made even funnier by the fact that Voice Fantasy generated an extremely high-level paladin based off that. I just really wish there was more to do in the game, as the lack of interactivity really makes it boring to play by yourself.

Video by our friends at AppBank!

If you often find yourself in social situations where you're passing around your device with friends showing off whatever crazy apps and games you've found recently, Voice Fantasy will be an excellent addition to your "Hey, check this out!" arsenal. If you're looking for the next killer Square Enix RPG, stay far, far away.

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After taking a look at Lil' Pirates a couple of weeks ago, Capcom Mobile is keeping the casual social freemium game trend going with their recently announced Smurfs' Village. Smurfs' Village looks to mimic some of the same mechanics of other similar titles like We Farm [Free] and Farmville [Free], but wraps it up in gorgeous artwork based on the classic Smurfs franchise. While these kinds of games have proved to be insanely popular as of late, they aren't typically my kind of game personally. But as a fan of the Smurfs growing up, I must admit I'm intrigued by the concept of Smurfs' Village and can't deny that the screens are looking fantastic.

The game begins as the Smurfs' village has just been desecrated by their nemesis Gargamel. Papa Smurf guides you as you rebuild the village starting out with just a small house and plot of land. As the village grows, more specialized houses, gardens, and structures will become available. A crew of your favorite Smurf characters will join in as well, offering their own unique abilities. When you're not busy building your village you can partake in some mini games based on things like painting, baking and mixing potions with Papa Smurf. Facebook integration will allow you to share your Smurfing exploits socially with your buddies online. Click on any of the pictures below to get the full size high resolution image:

Smurfs' Village will be launching sometime in November, and will be free to download and play. As is the case with most freemium games, much of the progression will be constricted by timers, and you'll have the ability to purchase special Smurfberries that allow you to grow and construct your village more quickly if you choose. The sharp look of the artwork and allure of nostalgia has captured my interest for Smurfs' Village, and we'll be taking a closer look at the game when it launches for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad next month.

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Last night Chillingo's WackyLands Boss [99¢] hit the App Store, and turned gaming on its head by allowing you to quite literally play as the boss, slaying hordes of innocent knights, archers, wizards, and more leaving nothing but destruction in your wake. To sweeten the deal, you're not stuck with one boring old boss to play as either. Your boss is incredibly customizable with even more customization that unlocks as you play through the game.

Only one control option is included, and every action in the game is performed via tapping or swiping gestures. For instance, holding one side of the screen causes your boss to walk that way, tapping in a direction executes a quick attack, and swiping in a direction performs a slower but more powerful swing. Rolling to evade is accomplished by swiping up on either side of the screen, and picking up in-game objects involves swiping up on your boss.

It all sounds good, but in action, it leaves a little to be desired especially later in the game when precise control of your boss is required. As much as I hate to say it, I almost wish there was a virtual D-Pad and button option. WackyLands Boss reminds me a lot of Samurai: Way of the Warrior [$1.99] in that way too many deaths result from game disagreeing with what you're trying to get your character to do as you wildly tap and swipe trying to stay alive.

Once you do get a hang of the controls, WackyLands Boss is a lot of fun. Gameplay can be a little repetitive at times since you're basically just walking to the right murdering swaths of defenders, but this is greatly defrayed by an experience system. Leveling up unlocks more and more weapons, armors, special abilities, and evolutions for your boss. Using coins that you take from your victims, you can really trick out your boss by buying swords, clubs, shoes, and all kinds of other items that boost your stats. In addition, as you progress through the story you also unlock three simple but fun mini games.

WackyLands Boss is a game that's dripping with charm. Whether you decide to customize your boss to look like a bloodthirsty killer or any number of other silly combinations, it's a great time rampaging through the countryside tossing barrels of poison, eating princesses to regain health, and punching down castles. I'd like to see some more control options, but other than that, this is a beat-em-up that's easy to recommend.

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Tonight Sega released their classic Dreamcast puzzle game, and huge fan favorite, ChuChu Rocket! [$4.99/HD] into the App Store. We had a chance to go hands-on with ChuChu Rocket! at Sega's offices last month and came away excited for the iPhone and iPad version of the game. Sega has taken the entirety of the original ChuChu Rocket! and reworked it for the touch screen, and the results are terrific. While the graphics are essentially the same, the UI actually feels much more natural than that of the Dreamcast. This game seems almost meant for touch screen controls, and whether or not you were a fan of the original Dreamcast release ChuChu Rocket! is a puzzle game that needs to be in your collection.

Starting the game forces you through a very short tutorial explaining how to play ChuChu Rocket! The tutorial is so short because this game is ridiculously easy to play. The core of the gameplay involves placing various arrows around a checkerboard-like playfield and then unleashing your crew of mice who will blindly march forward. The only things that stray them from their path are running into your strategically placed arrows or hitting a wall which will cause them to turn clockwise. Your mice must avoid running into hazards, like holes and cats, on their way to their escape rockets.

Placing arrows simply requires touching a square of the game board and swiping in the direction of the arrow you want. Tapping a placed arrow erases it if you make a mistake. A button in the upper left sets your mice in motion, and tapping that button again speeds up time if you're feeling impatient. And that's pretty much it. The controls are so intuitive and easy to perform that you can focus squarely on solving the fiendishly clever puzzles and frantic multiplayer in ChuChu Rocket!

The bulk of the content in ChuChu Rocket! is the 100 levels in Puzzle mode. There is no time limit in these levels, and the goal is simply to get all of your mice safely to the rockets. This mode starts out easy enough, but quickly ramps up in difficulty as some of the later levels had me nearly pulling my hair out trying to find the correct positions to place each arrow. It's a good kind of difficulty though, one that urges you to keep trying until you've figured out the solution to a puzzle you are stuck on.

Then there is Challenge mode which features 25 timed levels that each have a specific task to complete. These can be things like directing a certain number of mice to the rocket before time runs out, or even going against the very nature of the game and running them all into a cat as quickly as possible to be eaten. The Challenge levels are a nice diversion from the typical gameplay found in Puzzle mode, and the best time for each level is saved with your total time for completing all levels being tracked through Game Center leaderboards.

Likely the thing that will keep you coming back to ChuChu Rocket! long after you've completed the rest of the game is the phenomenal multiplayer mode. Unfortunately there is no online multiplayer as was first announced, but the local and same-device multiplayer modes are crazy amounts of fun if you have friends to play the game with. The multiplayer gives each player their own rocket and up to three arrows to place. You're constantly trying to direct a stream of mice into your own rocket, while trying to direct cats into your opponents' rockets. Random events will trigger to mix up the action like switching the position of everyone's rockets or releasing a mega stream of mice into the game.

Multiplayer is a blast as everyone is simultaneously trying to screw each other over, and the lead changes hands suddenly and often. It supports up to 4 players over local WiFi, and if you have the iPad version you can play with up to 4 players all on the same screen. If you don't happen to have any friends around, you can set up to 3 AI bots to play with on any of the 24 multiplayer maps. Nothing can top talking smack to your buddies while playing in the same room, but the option for bots is pretty comparable and lets you take advantage of this mode even if you're solo.

I can't really think of too much that I don't like about ChuChu Rocket! It can be pretty difficult at times, but there's no real penalty for retrying levels that you get stuck on and it's really satisfying to finally nail it when you do. The graphics aren't Retina Display ready, but the game still looks quite sharp on 4th generation devices and it actually suits the retro nature of the game. The lack of online multiplayer is a disappointment, especially since Game Center is already integrated for leaderboards and achievements, but hopefully this can be added down the line. It will take quite a while before you're able to complete all of the Puzzle and Challenge levels, and the multiplayer mode could conceivably last you the rest of eternity. ChuChu Rocket! is just one of the best puzzle games around, much as it was 10 years ago on the Dreamcast, and with the new touch interface it actually succeeds at being the definitive version to own.

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Halfbrick Studios' Age of Zombies [$2.99] is a dual stick shooter that started its life as a PSP Mini all the way back in February. Starring the same Barry Steakfries and similar to Monster Dash [99¢], Age of Zombies doesn't really bring anything that incredibly new or exciting to the table, but that doesn't make it any less fun.

It's a little hard to review dual stick shooters, because like so many other crowded genres on the App Store, they all play very similar. Age of Zombies features the standard set of on-screen controls that work great, a variety of weapon power-ups, and even grenades to toss when things get hairy. Gameplay consists of what you would expect out of a dual stick shooter. You run Barry around, shoot everything that moves, and do everything you can to survive.

Halfbrick mixes things up a bit by changing the way health is handled in the game, as instead of a single hit resulting in death, Age of Zombies plays more like a modern first person shooter. As you take damage, the edges of the screen get red. If you're able to blast yourself a clearing and get away from whatever is chomping on you, your health regenerates and you're back to slaughtering everything in your path. I actually like this quite a bit because you only die when you're completely overwhelmed instead of biting the dust when you make a stupid mistake.

Terrain is very important in Age of Zombies, with levels having multiple paths you can run around avoiding and channeling enemies in to the spray of your shotgun or the splash of your grenade. Also, the number of enemies that can be on-screen at once is crazy. Seeing how long you can survive running away from everything, only to turn around and start lobbing grenades is a ton of fun.

The story mode is filled with swearing, toilet humor, and time traveling. In all, Barry will visit five different areas starting with battling prehistoric cave men zombies all the way up to the terrible zombies of the future. Each setting plays similarly, but it's nice to mix things up. Bosses also appear in game, but they don't really have any unique properties to them and instead just seem to serve as massive bullet sponges before finally falling over. The reward for playing through the single player is a survival mode for each time period, complete with online leaderboards using both Game Center and OpenFeint.

Sure, there are a ton of dual stick shooters on the App Store, but there's only one starring Barry Steakfries. If you have room for one more on your device, Age of Zombies is an excellent pick. Game Center support and the fact that Age of Zombies is launching as a universal app makes this bloodbath even easier to swallow. The only question left is what kind of trouble will Barry Steakfries find himself in next?

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Yesterday developer Chaoji Li unleashed iDOS to the world. For 99¢, you were able to download a surprisingly fully functional version of Dosbox, a cross-platform program that emulates an IBM compatible PC running MS-DOS, tweaked to ridiculous lengths to work with the touch interface of iOS devices. We posted about it late yesterday morning, and within a few hours the story was picked up by TUAW, Gizmodo, MacRumors, Engadget, and many other media outlets before Apple ultimately pulled it from the App Store entirely a few hours later.

Originally we suspected that this might be the first of many full featured emulators appearing on the App Store following Apple easing up on approval guidelines, but after spending some time with iDOS, it became clear that someone obviously was asleep at the wheel in Apple's approval department. First off, iDOS allowed root access to the file system of the iOS device it was run on via use of simple DOS commands to navigate outside of iDOS's app directory. Secondly, it allowed for execution of absolutely any external DOS-compatible code from games to compilers to entire operating systems. (Some have even installed Windows 95 within iDOS.) As if things couldn't get worse from there, iDOS also came bundled with Dig Dug and Ms. PacMan, two games that Namco not only owns, but is currently selling on the App Store for $2.99 and $4.99 respectively.

Even with the new approval guidelines those three things are in serious violation of the developer agreement, and as such it wasn't much of a surprise to see iDOS quickly removed from the App Store. However, chances are, this won't be the last time you hear of the project. Chaoji Li has already submitted an update to Apple removing Dig Dig and Ms. PacMan, and intends to restrict file system access if Apple also feels that's a problem. Of course that leaves the glaring hole of complete code execution of any random executable you download and drop in to iTunes. One could be quick to jump to the conclusion that this means that iDOS is doomed to forever live in jailbreak purgatory as the freely downloadable DOSPAD, but I'm not so sure. Simply put, iDOS doesn't follow the rules Apple set for apps that are listed in the App store; but this aspect isn't important to understanding why iDOS is important.

Nostalgia gaming currently is bigger than it's ever been before as more and more people who grew up with video games as a main part of their childhood come into adulthood, and don't seem to have any problem spending money to relive those memories in remakes, sequels, and re-imaginations of their favorite games of the past. The Monkey Island remakes are an excellent example of a game studio taking completely classic intellectual property, refreshing it, and releasing it to both a crowd of new gamers and old gamers anxious to once again accompany Guybrush Threepwood on his quest(s). Similarly, iDOS allowed both new and old gamers to play a nearly limitless supply of classic DOS games on their iOS devices.

Much like using Dosbox on your Mac or PC, quite a few games require a bit of tweaking to run optimally, but this is hardly any different from the original releases of these games. (Or as someone put it on Twitter, often times coaxing the game to run on your ancient PC via jumper settings and other wizardry was half the fun of playing it.) Regardless, quite a few games run phenomenally on iDOS right out of the box. The thread on our forums is full of people posting positive results when attempting to run all kinds of retro games and programs. I spent an embarrassing amount of time playing The 7th Guest on my iPad yesterday, with a stupid grin across my face the entire time.

Adding all these things together when leveraged with the power of the App Store, results in the ingredients for a true renaissance of iOS retro gaming. The rate at which our story yesterday expanded to other massive blogs and media outlets proves that there is an immense interest out there for a plethora of classic PC games that iDOS is capable of running on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Chaoji Li proved that playing these games is entirely possible via his iOS-customized spinoff of Dosbox, and, with a little tweaking, many of them run quite well. The current pool of retro remakes and other inspired titles on the App Store (as well as other platforms) and their associated success proves people are willing to pay for them.

This brings us back to the issues that Apple will have with iDOS. Frankly, it does too much, is way too open, and there's likely no way for Apple to look the other way in the entire purpose of the emulator: To execute whatever remote code you drag into iTunes. When emailing back and forth with Chaoji yesterday, I asked him what he thought about another possible alternative for the direction of iDOS.

What if developers leveraged the power of iDOS, or, more accurately, the open source nature of both Dospad and Dosbox to release individually tailored versions of iDOS with a specific game embedded and the emulator extensively tweaked to run that game well? id Software is already using Dosbox in this exact way to re-release both Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D on Steam. Sega has used their own Genesis emulator to release Sonic and other classic games on the App Store. The only thing stopping developers from doing the same thing with any number of classic PC games is tracking down who owns the rights to them, licensing the IP for distribution on the App Store, and tweaking iDOS to exclusively load that content. Chaoji told me he's even willing to help making the entire wrapping process easier in any way he can.

If you're an iOS developer out there trying to come up with what your next project will be, consider looking up who currently holds the rights to your favorite retro game. Since most of these games are freely distributed as abandonware, you might find that the owners may be willing to strike an amazingly reasonable deal with you, or just give you their blessing to breathe some new life into their projects of the past for nothing at all. As mentioned previously, the market is there, the software is there, the distribution network is there.

All we need to start the revolution is developers willing to answer the call.

Thanks to IzzyNobre for the awesome photos, and forum members for screenshots.

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Back in March of last year Fish Labs rolled out their space trading title Galaxy on Fire, giving folks like me who missed out on the 1984 classic Elite a chance to make a name for themselves out there among the stars. It's a great game that debuted with some difficulty issues, but they were resolved in short order and its universe has been enjoyed by many. Tonight, the studio released a new challenge for space jockeys everywhere, the sequel Galaxy on Fire 2 [App Store] for the iPhone, with an iPad version to follow close behind.

The game places you in the role of space fighter pilot Keith Maxwell who encounters a space anomaly and ends up adrift through the galaxy, to be rescued by a benevolent miner who helps you get back on your feet. You'll quickly find you've not only been transported to to the other side of the galaxy, but that you've woken up 35 years in the future. Kind of like Sigourney Weaver.

Your goal is to get back to your home system on the other side of the galaxy, but achieving that goal is going to take some time, and what better way to fill that time than by taking on various missions across the region's 20 star systems. You start out with a relatively weak, modestly outfitted ship, but there's money to be made and upgrades to be had along the way. Jobs ranging from cleaning up space garbage to mining asteroids to transporting goods to hunting pirates to rescuing kidnapped officers can be had in the various stations in each system on the vast star map. And, if that seems too harrowing, money can be made in the simple buying and selling of simple commodities from one station to another. Like father of the genre Elite, it's a game you can take at your own pace.

Each star system consists of a handfull of planets, each with a space station — there are 100 in all — complete with a hanger in which to buy and sell goods as well as a Space Lounge. In each station's lounge can be found individuals of many sorts, most of whom are eager to do business with you. Some want to send you to a neighboring planet to do their bidding, while others seek to send you to other systems much father afield, requiring a multi-leg journey across the star map, involving jumpgates that can send you to strange and distant systems. And all this against the backdrop of the tyranny of the evil alien race known as the Voids.

Seeing real success in the game required careful ship and equipment choices. For instance, some ships offer up the valuable contents of their cargo holds when destroyed, but without a pricey tractor beam, you can't touch them. The same goes for asteroid mining — without the proper gear, that booty is beyond your reach. It's all about successful missions and wise income management.

The game offers a choice of virtual stick or tilt-based controls with contextual action buttons to fire primary and secondary weapons. In addition, there are two view modes: standard and free view, which allows for swipe-based, any-angle  camera controls of the battlefield action with pinch and spread zoom support. The free view mode is an opportunity to partake in some real eye-candy, allowing you to contrive cinematic aspects through which to view the game's impressive starfields and volumetric dust clouds which take advantage of the iPhone 4's Retina display, where available. (And a different vantage can actually be helpful in a heated battle against a swarm of space pirates.) An option setting offers three different detail settings, the default being the highest on our iPad test system.

Hitting various gameplay milestones (returning to base nearly mangled, talking to more than 20 traders, etc.) will trigger in-game achievements, which are tied to integration with both OpenFeint and Apple's Game Center.

While I enjoyed the time I spent with the original Galaxy on Fire, the sequel feels a more well-rounded and immersive. More polished. Everything just kind of flows together more smoothly this time around. And, while I've spent a significant amount of time with a pre-release build, I've really only scratched the surface of the gameplay the title has to offer.

The space trading / commerce genre is certainly not a sparsely populated one out there across the many available gaming platforms. And in the App Store, Fish Labs isn't the only gig in town. But of the games of this sort I've spent time with, Galaxy on Fire 2 is the most approachable and satisfying on the platform, so I highly recommend it.

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This isn't the first time that Fish Labs has dropped the price of Galaxy on Fire 3D [Free] to free, so if you missed it last time, here is your chance again. Galaxy on Fire is a space shooter that was really impressive when it was first released, but hasn't exactly aged well compared to similar recent game releases such as Gameloft's Star Batallion [$6.99] or even Freeverse's Warpgate [$4.99 / Lite / HD]… But it's still pretty awesome. If you're looking for something to do while you wait for Galaxy on Fire 2 to show up on your country's App Store, get crackin' on playing the original.

If you're in New Zealand, or other areas of the world where it's currently Wednesday, Galaxy on Fire 2 is already available for the equivalent of $6.99 USD. We'll have a review ready tonight after the game hits the US App Store at 11:00 PM EST tonight, but in the meantime you can check out the thread in our forums where anticipation has been growing all day.

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G5 Entertainment has recently released a new update to the iPhone/iPod touch version of their transport management simulation game Virtual City [$4.99/Lite]. In our original review of Virtual City last month, we found it to be a well crafted simulation that required keen skill and strategy to complete the many scenarios contained in the game.

A couple weeks ago, Virtual City HD [$9.99/Lite] launched for the iPad, and in addition to offering higher resolution graphics and a reworked UI to suit the larger screen it also boasted a sandbox mode with 5 different maps where you were free to build and maintain your own city from the ground up. This latest update to the iPhone version of Virtual City adds the same sandbox mode and 5 maps of its iPad counterpart. In addition, there is now Game Center integration and improved Retina Display support (as originally Virtual City only had partial Retina Display graphics).

If you own Virtual City then make sure to grab the latest update to take advantage of these new features. While the $2.99 introductory price for the game is now over, based on the many positive impressions in our forums the game is still a great buy at its current price of $4.99, and there are many happy customers of the iPad version in that forum as well.

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Earlier this month we previewed Linkoidz, a new arcade puzzle matching game from Retro Dreamer Games, developer of Sneezies [99¢/Lite/HD]. Based on that preview video, Linkoidz looked similar to Astropop or Magical Drop Touch [$2.99] in that you actually suck in orbs from the stacks in the playfield and place them strategically in order to create matches and combos, rather than being given brand new orbs to match each time as in a game like Bust-A-Move [$4.99/Lite]. Earlier tonight Linkoidz [$1.99] went live on the App Store, and after spending some time with the game it does strike me as very much like the aforementioned games offering some fast-paced arcade matching, sharp and colorful graphics, and an interface that feels right at home on a touch screen.

In Linkoidz your spaceman character huddles inside his half-dome shield at the bottom of the screen as stacks of enemies, called Linkoidz, build up in columns on top. The more stacks of Linkoidz that pile up the more stress gets put on the shield, represented by a gauge at the very bottom. As you match Linkoidz you can regain strength in your dwindling shield meter, but if it reaches zero then the shield breaks and the Linkoidz destroy you. There are various types of Linkoidz, rocks, ice blocks, and bosses to deal with as you frantically try to keep making matches before your shield destructs. The gameplay in Linkoidz is shown really well in the following video from Retro Dreamer:

Linkoidz is a universal app that will run on both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad, and comes equipped with Retina Display graphics for owners of 4th generation devices. There are a ton of different levels and game modes to play through as well as OpenFeint and Game Center integration for high scores and achievements. Our forum members are having a blast with the game so far, and our own impressions are really positive as well. In a marketplace that is overly saturated with color matching games, Linkoidz stands out from the pack by being designed to feel natural to the touch screen interface and offering some frantic matching fun.

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