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Few games inspire more heartfelt nostalgia than the classic LucasArts adventure games of the late 80's and early 90's. While we've still got our fingers and toes crossed that we'll eventually see similar "special edition" treatments to Maniac Mansion and/or Day of the Tentacle, we couldn't be happier that the Monkey Island series is being re-released with the level of intimate care that we've seen so far both with the previously released The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition [$7.99 / Free], and Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge [iPhone: $7.99 / Free - iPad: $9.99 / Free] which just hit the App Store mere moments ago.

Monkey Island 2 takes place after the events of the first Monkey Island where wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood is introduced and meets the cast of characters included in the game as he seeks out the pirate leaders and attempts to prove himself through three challenges. A ghost pirate named LeChuck is thrown in to the mix, along with the beautiful Elaine Marley. Without spoiling too much, the game concludes with romance, root beer, and fireworks. Even though playing the original is by no means required to enjoy the sequel, Monkey Island is filled with great writing, silly characters, funny situations, and often extremely odd solutions to the problems that Guybrush must overcome which is really worth checking out– Especially considering the fantastic job LucasArts did on the iPhone port of the special edition release.

Monkey Island 2 opens with our familiar protagonist Guybrush Threepwood setting the scene for his next adventure. Now that LeChuck is no more, he decides to search for the treasure of "Big Whoop", and in typical Guybrush fashion, he has no idea where it is, has no way to get there, and doesn't really know if it even exists at all. Regardless, this hasn't stopped him in the past, and it certainly won't stop him now. Of course no LucasArts adventure game could ever be as straight forward as finding out where some treasure is, figuring out a way to get there, then digging it up, and it doesn't take long before you're toe to toe with Largo LaGrande, LeChuck's old henchman. One thing leads to another, and LeChuck returns, turning your simple treasure hunt in to yet another epic battle with the ghost (now zombie) pirate.

With a development team that was nearly identical to that of the original Secret of Monkey Island, the sequel shares all of the same fantastic writing and cartoonish charm. Monkey Island 2 is hilarious at times, and incredibly cheesy at others, but manages to maintain a highly entertaining witty atmosphere the whole way through. The port of the original to the iPhone was a load of fun, with the only real complaint being the control system which treated the touchscreen like a trackpad which you used to move the in-game cursor around. Thankfully, this has been replaced by a new default control scheme in the sequel which works like many other iPhone adventures games where you just touch areas in the game world that you want to move to, or objects you want to interact with.

Interactive objects highlighted on right.

The special edition of Monkey Island 2 also has several other refinements over the first, my personal favorite being the highlighting system that shows you objects and areas that you can interact with. Tapping the screen with two fingers makes everything interactive glow, easily allowing you to see things you've missed, or other things to try. This is an incredibly welcome change from the standard tap/click on absolutely everything once you get stuck in an area. This two finger tap also illuminates doors you can walk through, making it very easy to see where you're able to go so you don't miss anything on your journey.

If you do get stuck, Monkey Island 2 features the same great hint system found in the original where you can get hints which initially start out extremely vague to push you in the right direction which eventually ramp up to flat out telling you where to go and what to do. Having played quite a few classic adventure game ports on the iPhone, this really is the best approach as you never need to leave the game to check a walkthrough online, and it's usually much more fun to just get a small hint to send you in the right direction instead of just reading exactly what to do. (Of course, that's there if you need it.)

iPad top, iPhone bottom – Comparing both graphical styles.

Monkey Island 2 also has the incredibly superfluous yet amazingly cool classic graphics included which blew out mind when we first saw the previous special edition. By default you can play the game with its redone graphics, stellar voiceovers, and the toolbar of actions that Guybrush is capable of. Swiping two fingers across the screen causes the game to fade out in to its original pixelated glory with the top half of the screen displaying the original game with the set of actions below.

Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge launched with separate iPad and iPhone versions of the game, and while I would have loved there to be one universal version for both devices, the iPad game is definitely the one to have. Not only does it have the same adventure from its iPhone counterpart, but currently for an additional two bucks (assuming you own an iPad) you get high resolution graphics and audio commentary. On quite a few areas of the game, you're able to tap a microphone icon in the top right corner and listen to the creators talk about wherever you are in game. It's not exactly a killer feature that's worth getting upset over if you only have an iPhone or iPod touch, but it is a nice addition.

The one thing that is a bit of a disappointment is that LucasArts flaunts these fantastic looking high resolution art assets in the iPad version, but played on my iPhone 4, the iPhone version is disappointingly low resolution in comparison. It still looks good, but I would have loved to have seen some Retina Display support in Monkey Island 2, I'm hopeful for future updates that might beef up the graphics, but it seems doubtful that audio commentary will ever make its way to the iPhone.

I could go on and on about how great the Monkey Island series is, how wonderful any game build on the SCUMM engine is, and the genius of the original creators Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, and Dave Grossman, but really this is just a game you need to play. LucasArts is covering all its bases with this launch, with free lites corresponding to both the full iPhone or iPad versions. If you've never played an adventure game before, I can't think of a better place to start. The Monkey Island series is great, and the few minor refinements added to the sequel makes this one of the most accessible point and click (point and tap?) games on the App Store. Download the lite version and give it a try, if the game hooks you in, chances are you will enjoy the entirety of both Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2.

On the other hand, if you're ever played a Monkey Island game before, I doubt you even made it this far in this review before just clicking the first iTunes link you could find and downloading the game for whatever device you own.

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The original Missile Command was released to arcades in 1980, and aside from being played by John Connor in Terminator 2, Missile Command has provided a solid core gameplay element which has been either the direct inspiration of evolved upon in far too many video games than I could even attempt to list– Also, it just so happens that this gameplay mechanic works fantastic with the touchscreen of iOS devices, which explains why so many developers are eager to take their shot at a Missile Defense inspired game.

Fishlabs, the guys behind Rally Master Pro 3D [$4.99], Galaxy on Fire 3D [$2.99 / Free] (as well as its sequel) and many other games are soon bringing Earth Defender to the App Store. Earth Defender puts players to the task of, well, defending Earth. An array of aliens are attacking, and you've got to drop strategically placed bombs up in space for them to run in to and blow up. Enemies that explode will also cause chain reactions of explosions to other nearby enemies often creating massive and often unintentional screen-clearing combos.

Fishlabs mixes things up a bit with some fantastic graphics, cool sound effects, and multiple enemy types that require you to either tap them directly to fire a laser from Earth in order to destroy them, or tap and hold to fire a concentrated beam in some instances. Power-ups are plentiful which modify your default bombs in to having additional effects, such as the lightning bomb which seems to chain easier. Like any good Missile Defense game, there are also bigger bombs that clear the entire screen which are initiated by shaking your device.

You can see how all these things go together in the following gameplay video:

One final thing, and probably my favorite thing about Earth Defender is the introduction of bosses that take up the whole screen. Nothing makes a space game (or really any game) better than absolutely gigantic boss battles. Earth Defender is coming soon, and we will post more information as we hear it from Fishlabs. In the meantime, if you're like me and somehow can still have fun playing Missile Command style games 30 years later, make sure Earth Defender is on your App Store watch list.

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French development studio Coladia first crossed our radar back in December 2008 when they announced that they were developing an iPhone port of their Mac prehistoric point-and-click adventure Secret of the Lost Cavern [App Store]. The game went live last year, as did their iPhone port of point-and-click adventure Return to Mysterious Island [App Store].

We had a chance to meet up with Coladia here at WWDC and to hear about a few iPad titles they've got in the works.

The existing iPhone versions of Return to Mysterious Island and Secret of the Lost Cavern are rather abbreviated titles as compared to the PC originals (or Mac ports). CEO Frédéric Aloe informed us that his studio is currently readying iPad ports of both titles that deliver the complete original game experience to Apple's largest touchscreen device. Both iPad titles clock in at around 800MB in size.

Additionally, Coladia is bringing a feature-complete iPad port of Destination Treasure Island to the App Store. As the studio sets up the title,

Four years have passed since the end of the adventure recounted in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel. Jim Hawkins has become an upstanding adventurous young man, attentive to those around him. Imagine his surprise when, one morning, he sees a parrot enter his bedroom window : none other than Captain Flint, Long John's own companion. The bird brings him a message from his master. In the message the old pirate announces that he has buried a marvelous treasure on the secret isle where he retired : Emerald Island. Jim is going to have to hurry though. Pirates, old enemies of Long John, are on his trail.

The iPad version of Return to Mysterious Island should be appearing in the App Store any day now. Destination Treasure Island is set for a release late this month, while Secret of the Lost Cavern is slated for release in September. All titles are expected to launch at an App Store price of $9.99.

Coladia plans, in time, to bring most of the adventures of PC studio Cheops', responsible for the original aforementioned titles, to the iPad with full PC assets and a touchscreen interface.

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Capcom's Phoenix Wright [$4.99] started its life as a Japanese Gameboy Advance game all the way back in 2001. In 2005, a touchscreen-enhanced port of the game made it to the Nintendo DS and the rest of the world. Five years later, and the game is here on the App Store at a fraction of its original DS price.

We described the basic premise of the game following its announcement late last year:

Phoenix Wright games are a strange mixture of a visual adventure game that play a lot like mixture of a hidden object game and a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book. The game is segmented in to two portions, the investigation and the trial. While investigating, you visit various location and gather evidence by looking around and interviewing anyone who is around. When you're finished with that, you go to court where you cross examine witnesses, present evidence, and object to the arguments presented by the prosecuting lawyer.

Even just from looking at screenshots alone, it is amazingly apparent that this is a fairly direct port from the DS game, with the output of the two screens just stacked on top of each other on the iPhone. When playing through the game, the bottom half is loaded with all kinds of buttons and menus depending on if you're investigating or arguing in court, and these UI elements seem to be reworked from the original to be finger-friendly instead of built around the Nintendo DS stylus.

All of the Phoenix Wright games are a fun, and often silly adventure through crime scenes and court rooms. Successfully completing the game requires a keen eye both when gathering evidence and when arguing your case in court. Because so much of the game is based on finding/noticing little things between hidden evidence or inconsistencies in testimony, Phoenix Wright has little if any replay value.

Five cases from the original game are included, and each case should take you a few hours to go through depending on how quickly you read or how much you goof up in court. Phoenix Wright is an insane value at its launch price of $4.99, as when it first launched on the DS it was the kind of game you couldn't find anywhere in stock, and when you did, it was at least $40.00 because of how rare it was.

It would have been nice to see Capcom do more to the game in its port to the iPhone. It seems like Phoenix Wright would be the perfect kind of game to offer with a single case for free to act as a lite version of sorts, with the rest of the cases (and cases from other games in the Phoenix Wright series) available as individual DLC packs. Regardless, I'm just glad the game is finally here, as it was one of the best and most creative games I played on my DS, and a fantastic fit for the iPhone.

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Prior to today's release, Kyle Poole's adaptation of Battle of Wesnoth [iPhone: 99¢ / iPad: 99¢] existed only on the iPhone, and while the game was good, it really seemed like it was never intended to be played on a screen that small. Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based RPG with tons of user created content originally developed for the Mac and PC available for free. Since the game was designed to be played on a computer with a keyboard and mouse, we thought that quite a bit got lost in translation to tiny touchscreen controls in our review.

I'm happy to report that the interface issues found in the iPhone version have been completely eradicated thanks to the massive screen of the iPad. At 1024×768, the game is rendered just as it is on the Mac/PC client, and all of the various buttons and menus work great even with my fat, pepperoni greased fingers. The increased screen resolution also allows you to see much more of the battlefield at once, resulting in much less scrolling too.

Unfortunately, right now the iPad port is a little rough around the edges still. There's an annoying bug where the screen goes black momentarily when the iPad is rotated, but launching the game with the rotation lock enabled fixes this. Also, while you don't need to do much scrolling around anymore, panning about battles feels much slower and laggier than it should.

Developer Kyle Poole has been very active on our forums and has consistently been adding content, fixing bugs, and tweaking performance in the iPhone version since its release. Sure, the iPad Battle of Wesnoth has a few issues, but it's completely playable, and with the current 99¢ sale, you really should grab this game if you're a turn-based strategy lover with an iPad.

App Store Links: Battle for Wesnoth, 99¢ (iPhone) – Battle for Wesnoth HD, 99¢ (iPad)

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Owners of the original iPhone will remember the dark days before the App Store or even the original jailbreaks and third party software when games and apps consisted of nothing more than clever web pages, usually loaded to the brim with javascript. The games were basic, and the "apps" consisted of little more than simple database-powered applets and tip calculators, but they did the trick.

Akihabara is a HTML5 toolbox filled with all kinds of neat goodies that creative developers can use to make browser games. On the Akihabara web site there are five demo games ranging from a simple Tetris-like game to a basic Zelda clone. The cool part is, these games work on every modern non-Internet Explorer browser, including the browsers of the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and apparently even other touchscreen phones like the Palm Pre.

Depending on what platform you're playing on, all of the proper controls appear on screen or you use the keyboard and arrow keys. On the iPhone, virtual controls pop up at the bottom of the screen and while they're not as responsive as a native game, it's still pretty amazing to think you're essentially playing a web page– Without even a smidge of Flash.

All of the games on the Akihabara site are free, and really worth a spin both because they're really impressive pieces of web development but also so you can appreciate what things were like before the App Store came around.

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We all know that iPhone platform devices are capable mobile gaming devices. There are some real gems in the App Store that take particular advantage of the iPhone's unique capabilities, with more on the way. Apple knows it too — they've long been advertising the iPod touch specifically as a game machine. An Apple patent application that was made public on April 1 may indicate that Apple wants to take iPhone gaming to an even higher level.

First filed back in 2008, the patent in question, US20100081505, is entitled ACCESSORY FOR PLAYING GAMES WITH A PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE. The abstract follows.

Circuits, methods, and apparatus that provide user interfaces for playing games on portable electronic devices. One example provides a game accessory having input controls for playing video, audio, and other types of games. The game accessory can have input controls, such as buttons, joysticks, and D-pads. Another example provides a game accessory having a thumb pad or keyboard. Other possible features include microphones, cameras and camera lenses, speakers, a second screen, rumble, and motion detection. The game accessory may have a recess sized to fit the portable electronic device. Inserts or removable adapters can be used to fit portable electronic devices having different sizes. The portable electronic device can be held in the accessory using sliding covers, clips, or other engaging members. In other examples, the accessory can communicate with another accessory for head-to-head game play. The accessory may include circuitry for power, identification, and authorization.

The patent basically details enclosures or sleds of various configuration into which a mobile device can be inserted, enabling use of the device with several different types of attached or wirelessly-connected peripherals. In the most basic form, simple enclosures (both landscape- and portrait-oriented) featuring integrated D-pad and button sets are detailed. From there, things get much more elaborate, including integrated keypads, cameras, accelerometers, rumble-packs — even a second display.

In other embodiments of the present invention, it may be desirable to include a second screen on the accessory. In such a situation, where the screen of the portable electronic device is a touchscreen, the touchscreen may be used to receive commands and instructions from a user and to provide first graphics, while the second screen provides second graphics.

The iPhone, with its accelerometers, multitouch display, and powerful processing hardware is certainly a platform where non-traditional games can thrive — and have. But there's no disputing the fact that certain types of games — old-school shooters, for instance — suffer from the lack of physical controls. iPhone OS 3.0 enabled the use of such external devices. Will it be Apple that brings these gaming accessories to market for dedicated iPhone gamers?

Visit Patently Apple for a easy-to-grasp layout of the patent with additional images.

Reading the description of the devices in the patent may, for some readers, bring to mind the iControlPad device, long in development, which we first covered back in May 2008. News of Apple's patent has come as surprise to the iControlPad team, causing great concern. Team member Craig Rothwell has been tweeting about the situation (@craigix) and is in the process of approaching Apple on the matter.

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With the NHL playoffs quickly approaching and after an amazing gold medal game at this year’s Winter Olympics a lot of people (and not just Canadians) are excited about all things hockey. I am one of those people, so when I found out that a new hockey game was coming out of the iPhone I just had to share it with you all.

Ice Hockey Nations 2010 is the first full hockey game to come to the iPhone. When I say full I mean, six on six hockey with all the trimmings. The developer, Distinctive Games, claims they will be able to pack all the action and strategy of the sport onto the small screen of the iPhone. They even went as far so to do live motion capture of real players for the game at Centroid 3D. We will not be able to see if that paid off until the game comes out, the developer has yet to release game play footage.

As you can probably already tell by the title, the game is not licensed by the NHL. So instead of playing with your favorite pro team you will have to pick your nation of choice out of the 14 nations featured in the game.

The game is set you be launched in March with a price tag of 4.99.

Features include:

• The first full 6 on 6 Ice Hockey simulation game on iPhone/iPod Touch.
• Take control using touchscreen d-pad and control buttons.
• Make line changes at the touch of a button.
• Sin-bin and powerplays
• Real player movement animation using motion capture.
• 14 National teams to choose from.
• Quick play, practice, tournament and league game modes.
• No waiting for the Zamboni in between periods.

Screenshots:

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Studio Radiolaris has released their followup title to Radio Flare this morning. Radio Flare Redux promises a side-scrolling multi-touch shoot'em up experience.

Pilot your ship to the beat of the universe and blast a galaxy of invaders out of the sky. Weave through an intense sensory onslaught as you dispatch swarm after swarm of enemies, tapping the touchscreen, and your toes, as you go.

Redux contains over 30 levels of varying visual styles and licensed techno, club and house music. The latest gameplay video shows much enhanced visuals from the original release:

We'll post thoughts/impressions about the game in the near future.

App Store Link: Radio Flare Redux, $2.99

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It's no big surprise that when it gets close to a big conference (Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco) that developers will taunt us with new screens.

Earlier today EA released some details on their upcoming port of “Skate It” to the iPhone. If you’re not a console gamer, Skate It was the skate board for the Wii and/or DS that has gotten high marks. The iPhone version's release date is set for May 2010.

Here's the video for the DS version of the game:

If the screenshots are any indication it’s going to look impressive, but we will have to wait and see how it plays.

Key Features

• FEEL IT & PICK UP AND PLAY LIKE IT'S FOR REAL: We've maxed out the potential of your accelerometer and gesture controls. Get a real feel of a true skate experience as you conquer the skater nirvana that is "San Vanelona" or roll through real-world locations.
• FLICK- IT & LAND YOUR TRICKS: Use the revolutionary touchscreen Flick-it controls to pull off ollies, kickflips, heelflips, Pop Shuvits, and more.
• BE IT & LIVE THE LIFE OF THE PROS: Freeskate as a selected pro skater, or as your own customized guy or girl. Score Personal Bests in Career mode, and get sponsorships and perks galore.
• KILL IT & UNLOCK STUFF: Own challenges and KILL them to get the really good stuff — from new boards to outfits. Unlock fresh skate spots, too. Gain enough gear and create your own killer skate park.
• FILM IT & SEE YOUR SKILLS IN ACTION: Capture every sick line or epic bail on camera. Replay footage to view your mastery or just for your own amusement.
• KICK IT TO YOUR OWN TUNES: You can even shred to a soundtrack from your own music library.

Screenshots

The expectations on our forums are high with most people hoping for better controls then other the skate games on the iPhone.

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