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Apple has been doing a variety of crazy promotions on iTunes for, well, basically forever. Free songs given away in all kinds of ways, free apps through Starbucks, and now, apparently, promo code generation through Facebook? I don’t understand the dark rituals taking place behind the scenes to extract promo codes from the ether, but here’s what I do know:

Following this link and mashing a few buttons on Facebook will get you a promo code to download Halfbrick’s Jetpack Joyride [99¢] for free. It’s the first of a new promotion process courtesy of Apple, and I can’t wait to see what else they end up giving away for free. Now, I’ve got no idea either how long this promotion is going to last, when it’s going to rotate to something else, and how many promo codes there are to give away. This news is so hot off the press I burnt my hands.

Seriously, we love Jetpack Joyride and there is absolutely no reason to not take advantage of this offer. Also, it seems you can even generate a code if you already own the game, and then give that code to someone else.

Exciting times we live in.

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Last week ustwo™'s Whale Trail [99¢] hit the App Store. It was quickly featured as game of the week, and was met with tons of critical acclaim. We thought it was great in our review, and most other reviews online that I've seen mention similar feelings. Sure, the gameplay is a little on the basic side but Whale Trail's production values are absolutely through the roof.

A behind the scenes video from ustwo™ recently was released, and aside from the game's producers and designers providing their thoughts on the game, ustwo™ also revealed the staggering amounts of time, energy, and money that went into the project. "Chief Wonka" Mills also discusses the concept of a "succailure," citing previous apps Papercut [$5.99] and Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime [$3.99]. Both well received, with tons of support from Apple, but neither turning a profit.

Take a look:

Another interesting point raised in the video is the significant advantage that indie developers can have. Running a design firm like ustwo™ is expensive, and investing in the App Store is risky business when you've got a full office, staff of employees, and all the other expenses that come with that. The App Store is a curious place, as it really makes no difference to the end user if you're working out of your bedroom or releasing projects from a design firm that have invested over £500,000 into them. Every iOS developer has equal chances of discovery, visibility, and success– Assuming of course that they put out a good product.

We're anxious to see what ustwo™'s next move is going to be. Whale Trail is going to need to be downloaded a ton to break even, especially at a 99¢ price point. I'd love to say "hopefully this doesn't discourage them from iOS development," as I think it's outfits like ustwo™ that seem the most likely to push the platform forward, but how much of a financial hole can they dig themselves keeping their fingers crossed that critical acclaim and love from Apple eventually turns into the hundreds of thousands of downloads they need?

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We've already told you just how awesome Fish Labs' Galaxy On Fire 2 is in our review, which hit almost exactly one year ago. Since then, the original title has been updated a few times, and a DLC pack hit. In addition, Fish Labs had been teasing a high definition version of the game initially running on Tegra devices for way too long.

Well, that HD version hit earlier this month as Galaxy On Fire HD, released exclusively for A5-equipped iOS devices. It's even universal, to run on either your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S. Better yet, it can use either OpenFeint or iCloud to sync progress between devices. It launched with a few technical hiccups which kept us from sounding the alarm to go out and download it immediately, but those things have all since been fixed in subsequent updates.

Galaxy On Fire 2 HD is the exact same game as Galaxy On Fire 2, with substantially better graphics. If you already own Galaxy On Fire 2, there's basically no reason to "upgrade" to the HD version unless you just want some additional eye candy. However, since the game is so "old" (in App Store terms, anyway), it wouldn't surprise me if there's a bunch of people out there with 4S's or iPad 2's that never heard of it the first time around– In which case, there's no better time to hop on this awesome game.

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How much should a game punish you? This is the question that hangs over Mountain Sheep's Bike Baron [$0.99] but the answer is totally subjective. Me, I can take a bit of brutality. Sadistic level design appeals — to a point. You'll need at least as much tolerance as I have to enjoy this game, but if, say, Trials HD is your high water mark for cruelty to gamers, you'll find a lot to like here.

Bike Baron successfully merges an excellent interface with charming art and sound design. Those things pull you in, and then the game tries to break you. If you're looking for a casual biking experience where you'll spend a lot of time soaring through the air, look elsewhere. If you get gleeful at the thought of pixel-precise jumps, trial and error, and endless retries, well, you might be a bit mad. Not that there's anything wrong with that — those are the exact things you'll find in Bike Baron.

Mountain Sheep has built over 40 levels that range in difficulty from easy to extreme. In more practical terms, they range from conventionally defeatable to unreasonably sadistic. All you need to do is get the Baron and his bike across the finish line. The controls are simple — stop and go buttons are positioned on the right, and buttons to tilt your bike are on the left. The levels are all quite short, and they're absolutely stuffed with checkpoints. You'll need 'em all before long.

Bike Baron comes from the cartoon school of physics. Levels are designed with a certain wackiness, with huge jumps, loops and explosions. But the Baron is slightly more realistic in design. Like most people, he's vulnerable to hitting his head, blowing up, smacking into ledges or crushing himself under his bike. Honestly, if you're going to participate in this kind of extreme biking, you really ought to be made of hardier stock.

But the Baron's fragility is only half the problem. The other half is the level designers at Mountain Sheep, who I've cursed several times an hour since starting their game. It doesn't take long to reach levels that require insane precision. Hit a jump at the wrong speed or angle and you're toast. Heck, a small dip in the road handled incorrectly can leave you little more than a smear across a ramp.

It's a frustrating approach to level design, and its exacerbated by touchy physics and stiff controls. Whether it's a good frustration or a bad frustration depends on how patient you are, how comfortable you are with repetition, and whether you're the sort that will throw your device after getting killed one too many times.

But for all that frustration, Bike Baron is exceptionally well-made. While everything about the game is set up to get you into the action as quickly as possible, it's also set up to ease frustration and charm players in the process. The menus are gorgeous, showcasing some of the game's excellent art. The sounds of fanfare echo organically to celebrate your successes and gruesome deaths. A comprehensive statistics screen shows you just how many times you've won or died, and you can enable ghost mode to compare your attempts.

For the casual player, the level-unlock system is a blessing. Each level costs one star to open, and at first you earn a star for every finish line you cross. Bike Barons doesn't let you off that easily for the entire game, though. Eventually, to earn a star you'll need to make it through under a time limit, collect all the coins, finish without a single crash or flip like a madman. Still, as long as you can pull off enough of those goals you can skip ahead to (nearly) any level you want. With up to three stars to be earned each level, there's (almost) no reason to keep bashing your head against anything you find too frustrating.

Only the best of the best will make it through all seven of the bonus Joker levels, though. Those are only unlocked if you earn three stars on every preceding level. I've only seen the first few, but I've heard that they crank the difficulty level up to 11. Enjoy?

Mountain Sheep is still planning for the future of Bike Baron, but in the meantime you can entertain yourself with user-created levels. The level editor is comprehensive and easy to use. Discovering levels is a bit tougher: you can only share them with level codes. Mountain Sheep has compiled some of the best on its website, and you can find more in our discussion thread.

Difficulty aside, the only serious issue I've had with Bike Baron is the lack of a quick level reset. It's easy to reset back to the previous checkpoint, but depending on the star you're trying to earn that isn't always enough. Occasionally checkpoints also position you in a spot you can't proceed from without awkwardly backing up. It's enough that going to the menu and resetting the level isn't ideal.

The Game Center integration is a sore spot, too. One leaderboard tracks your overall score for all the levels you've played, and there are only three achievements to earn, so all in all it's a bit bare bones.

Otherwise Bike Baron is solid, if you're into the difficulty it puts forth. It's not a type of difficulty that I'm particularly fond of, being as reliant as it is on pixel-perfect positioning. But that's not to say the game doesn't do a fantastic job of it. If you're looking for punishment, you can't do much better than this.

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Gameloft doesn't miss sales opportunities, so it's not much of a surprise to see a very select number of its titles get a price-slashing treatment this week in celebration of Make Kids Fat Night. Starting now and for a 'limited time,' you can save a bunch of dollars on decidedly un-spooky titles like Gameloft Action Pack, its MMO Order & Chaos Online, and Shrek Forever After: the Movie: the Game.

Here's the full list for perusing pleasure:

• Order & Chaos Online – $6.99 → $.99
• Gameloft Action Pack – $4.99 → $.99
• Shrek Forever After: The Game – $4.99 → $.99
• Shrek Forever After: The Game HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Iron Man 2 – $4.99 → $.99
• Iron Man 2 for iPad – $4.99 → $.99
• Driver – $2.99 → $.99
• Skater Nation – $2.99 → $.99

We're not 100-percent behind any of these, but we will note that the Gameloft Action Pack has a total of three decent titles bundled inside of it: Gameloft's answer to God of War, Hero of Sparta, its WWII shooter Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes, and its Mortal Kombat-ish homage, Blades of Fury. You could do worse with your dollar. For example: you could buy candy.

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Fall 2011 is the unofficial season of anthropomorphized penguins. Don’t believe me? Between the penguin sweater craze and the release of Happy Feet 2, adorable penguins are everywhere. Now, a third entry into fall’s penguin lineup is here in the form of BulkyPix’s super-cute new game, Crazy Escape [99¢]. And this one answers the question on everybody’s mind: Can penguins drive tiny penguin cars, and if so, is it extra-adorable?

It’s a story as old as time itself: Two penguin buddies have to take to their Jeep (err, low-emission 4×4 of indeterminate branding, I should say) to save their sheep friends from being kidnapped and eaten by wolves. As these penguins race along the winding road, they must collect sheep, stars (ostensibly because penguins like shiny objects?), keys (to unchain locked-up sheep, of course!), and avoid stationary wolves, roaming wolves, chasing wolves – basically wolves of all kinds, all right?! You can run into fences (good) and trees (bad!), and the less road you cover to complete the level, the better.

Your finger acts as a simultaneous road-creating device and penguin-steerer. You drag your finger across the screen to create the path your penguins take. Ideally, you devise the shortest route possible to collect your stars and sheep friends, as this results in the highest score.

At first, it’s not particularly challenging because there’s no element of speed involved. However, as the game progresses, wolves start out on the road behind you, following your every movement, and if you dawdle too long you’ll be busted for sure. Additionally, things like oil slicks and trees get in your path which, if hit, cause you to swerve (at best) or force you to restart the level (at worst). Here’s hoping everyone was wearing their seatbelts!

The levels go by lightning-fast, so it’s perfect if you have a short attention span or a short period of time in which to play. The graphics are also pretty cute. However, as it’s a line-drawing game, the most important part is the drawing element. The worst part of so many drawing games is an imprecise, over-sensitive or otherwise less-than-ideal drawing mechanic.

Luckily, that’s not the case with Crazy Escape. The drawing was perfectly in-sync with my finger; at times, perhaps a little too in-sync, as I have shaky hands (particularly when being chased by hungry wolves). My only real complaint is that on an iPhone or iPod touch screen, it’s hard to see what you’re doing. My chubby fingers kept blocking my view, which made it difficult to navigate around the increasingly challenging obstacles the game threw at me as I progressed.

Still, despite my fat fingers, I found this game to be extremely fun. For only a buck, there’s really no excuse to not download this one. You get a seemingly-endless number of levels and a fun diversion, and it’s Universal to boot. Besides, you don’t want to find yourself ill-prepared for the fall penguin craze, do you?

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Coming early next year, developer FarSight Studios will be bringing a massive collection of some of the most classic pinball games from throughout history to just about every single gaming platform imaginable. Of course, the one that matters most to us is the iOS platform, which the upcoming Pinball Arcade is indeed slated to hit. You're likely familiar with FarSight's previous pinball work, the Pinball Hall of Fame series, with The Gottlieb Collection and The Williams Collection, each of which has landed on various platforms over the last several years. With The Pinball Arcade, they look to take a similar "collection" approach, only with far more licensed tables.

The Pinball Arcade lays claim to more than 50 different tables from classic companies like Williams and Gottlieb (naturally), Bally, and Stern. FarSight is calling the game "the most comprehensive pinball video game ever created" which it certainly will be if they can really achieve their lofty goal of included tables. Details are scarce at this point, but it sounds as if the game will initially ship with at least the tables mentioned in the above trailer, and possibly more, with a steady stream of additional tables being made available as downloadable content post release.

We'll look to dig up some more information on The Pinball Arcade as the new year approaches, but the prospect of having dozens of virtual representations of classic pinball machines available right in your pocket has players in our forums drooling in anticipation (myself included).

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In 3D Pixel Racing [$1.99] the car graphics look extremely blocky – there's simply no anti-aliasing (or smoothing of the edges) …but that's not a bad thing, because it's completely intentional! This car racing game uses 8-bit pixelated graphics to depict the 3D cars, tracks and menus, so they look like they're constructed from tiny blocks of Lego. You might think this sounds like 8-bit Rally [99¢], but no, this is far more pixelated than that.

While the unusual "pixel" graphics are definitely the main draw, there's also quite a few other features, including 5 game modes, 11 cars, 10 tracks, and various weather conditions, which all sounds really good on paper. However, this game has received mixed feedback in our discussion thread, with the menu system in particular being singled out for criticism.

The developers advise the menu system was ported across from the Wii version and it is, quite frankly, one of the worst menu interfaces I've encountered on any iOS game. Basically, two buttons labeled "1" and "2"  are assigned different purposes depending on the screen.  It's astounding that after investing in a game, producing such interesting graphics, and delivering multiple game modes that anyone would implement a user interface that's so obviously unpleasant to navigate. As a rule of thumb: If you need to display instructions for your menu buttons, it's too complex.

Having condemned the nasty menu system, let's examine the gameplay. The five different game modes provide a nice range of racing formats, including single race, championship races over five random tracks, and a "capture-the-flag" mode where you gain points by stealing or driving with the flag. There's also a "Hot Pursuit" mode where you play either a fleeing criminal or a chasing policeman, just like Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit [$4.99 / HD]. And finally, there's a time trial mode. There's no multiplayer mode, but five game modes is still a pretty decent offering.

Each of the 11 cars has speed, grip, and handling attributes, with one model being a Formula One vehicle. In addition to day-time / night-time racing, the cars are affected by the weather conditions, including sun, snow, rain and fog, which all affect the amount of tire grip and visibility. Although according to the help screen, rain causes very low visibility, while there's good visibility in foggy conditions. Remind me not to go driving with those guys!

Pitstops are available in Championship and Single race modes, for changing tires and refueling.  An indicator tells you how damaged your tires are, which reduces their grip.  You also have a fuel gauge. If the fuel tank is empty, the car emits smoke and moves jerkily. Pitstops can be turned off in the settings, if you prefer.

The control systems differ depending on which device you're using. iPad users can choose either virtual joystick controls, or tilt.  There's no need to select one option or the other, you simply start tilting, or using the on-screen controls. The infamous "1" button is used for brake and reverse, while "2" is your accelerator. Any iPhone / iPod users are limited to tilt controls.

The virtual stick controls are reasonable, but not perfect. If your finger moves too far off the pad, it stops controlling the car. And the tilt controls felt awkward on the iPad, with no option for adjusting tilt sensitivity.  On my first race my driving seemed pretty decent, as I managed to hold an almost reasonable racing line, but apparently I was playing easy mode, with the "drive assist" option set to high by default (Off, Low, Med, High). The car was almost driving itself around corners.

(Trailer from the original WiiWare version)

There were a couple of other issues:  There's no high score leaderboards, which is unusual for a racing game. This is crying out for Game Center. Also, some options like drive assist, CPU difficulty, and number of laps should really be presented as options when starting the race, not hidden away inconveniently in the options screen. And lastly, the English is confusing at times, like when you press a button and it says "Confirm or continue?"

3D Pixel Racing is a winner in the categories of graphical creativity and delivery of plenty of game modes, but it comes last for user-interface design due to cluttered menus and buttons which make it unpleasant to navigate. This game seems to polarize people, with some loving it and others wanting to delete it. Personally, I'm in the middle.  If you survive the menus and adjust to the controls, there's certainly some fun to be found, at a lower price than many big-name racing games.

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In this week's bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show, we speak with Rocketcat Games' Kepa Auwae about Rocketcat's past, present, and future and discuss his studio's action RPG Mage Gauntlet [$2.99] in great detail. Kepa keeps it real the entire time. Dude spills the beans on the studio's plans for a trilogy, a free-to-play spin-off, and what it's probably going to do to improve on the current build of Mage Gauntlet. This was a spectacularly fun conversation, and if you're a fan of Mage Gauntlet, you'll undoubtedly leave it with some excitement.

If you'd like to give us a listen, go ahead and do so via streaming or direct download. You could also subscribe to use on iTunes or Zune to get every new episode the second they hit the Internet. If you ask me, this is the premier way to enjoy your TouchArcade orally.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-022.mp3, 25MB

If you've got the time this week, we'd really love to hear your positive feedback on our iTunes reviews page. Also, feel free to fire us an e-mail: podcast@toucharcade.com.

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