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Before I get started with this, please take everything in this post with a grain of salt. The accuracy of the Apple rumors community historically has varied widely between spot on, and, well, about as good as the ancient art of Tyromancy. That being said, because of how secretive Apple as a company is, following these rumors sure is a lot of fun– Regardless of whether or not they turn out to be true.

First off, since we learned about the Retina Display of the iPhone 4, the Internet has been rumbling with the potential of a similar "Retina" display in the successor to the iPad. According to Mac Rumors, this might not be as far fetched as originally thought. Apparently, version 1.1 of Apple's iBooks [Free] "accidentally" included some graphical resources that are twice the size of the ones currently in use on the iPad.

Now, depending on how you read these virtual tea leaves, this could mean one of two things: Someone at Apple knows that rumor hounds will dig through absolutely everything they can for any kind of hint, or the screen resolution of the iPad 2 will be double that of the current iPad. This would put the screen resolution at 2048×1536, sporting 260 DPI. It's not quite the pixel density of the iPhone 4's Retina Display, but you typically hold the iPad much farther away from your eyes. This means that even at a lower DPI this screen could potentially provide a similar "Retina" effect. (I suppose there's a third alternative that this means neither of these things, but how much fun is that?)

Things get even more interesting though when you consider that Global Direct Parts, the guys who had the "iPhone 5" parts video (which actually turned out to be the CDMA Verizon iPhone), also have their hands on a screen that fits the previously mentioned description. The price of this part? $218.19, compared to the original $144.99 the original iPad screen cost at launch from the same site.

But what does the higher price of the components have to do with anything? Well, as appleguy123 points out on the Mac Rumors forums, according to Apple's 2010 Annual Report:

The Company expects its gross margin percentage to decrease in future periods compared to levels achieved during 2010 and anticipates gross margin levels of about 36% in the first quarter of 2011. This expected decline is largely due to a higher mix of new and innovative products that have higher cost structures and deliver greater value to customers, and expected and potential future component cost and other cost increases.

Whether this refers specifically to the increased cost of the components in the iPad 2, or something else entirely is anyone's guess, but it is a curious coincidence. If the screen does turn out to be 2048×1536, there's an entirely new issue to be addressed: The sheer number of pixels the iPad GPU is going to have to push. For the sake of comparison, the resolution of a 30" LCD is only barely higher, at 2560×1600. Gaming at that resolution is a formidable task for even dedicated gaming PC's, much less a mobile device. That's higher resolution than what we consider "HD" these days as well, which only weighs in at a paltry 1920×1080 in comparison.

Mac Rumors has an answer to this too, courtesy of Apple Insider. If these rumors turn out to be true, both the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 will use a dual-core SGX543 GPU from Imagination Technologies. What makes this rumor hold more water than your typical bean spillage by an "industry insider" is the fact that the iOS 4.3 beta already includes drivers for this GPU. Odd coincidence, eh? What's even cooler is that not only do these GPUs boast some incredible performance figures, they also support anywhere between two and sixteen cores handled entirely by hardware, without a single change to any software required to scale performance.

Again, I'm not entirely sure how true these rumors are, but there is something strange afoot. It would make the most sense to double the iPad screen resolution, as it would allow graceful upscaling via pixel doubling much like running a non-Retina Display app on the Retina Display of the iPhone 4. If Global Direct Parts' pricing can be trusted, the component cost of the screen doesn't seem that far out of line. On top of all that, it's really hard to deny the coincidence between the GPU rumors and Apple actually including the drivers for that very GPU inside of their own operating system.

We'll have to wait and see what Apple reveals as the inevitable iPad 2, but if the Apple rumors scene is to be believed, it has potential to be an insane gaming machine.

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Check the “Updates” tab on the App Store, Rimelands [$1.99] owners. The brilliant turn-based RPG created by the dudes over at Crescent Moon Games and Diceworks has just been updated to include Retina display visuals (including higher-res cut-scenes and textures) and Universal support.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the teams have also rolled in a slew of new in-game content and various bug fixes and tweaks into this update. According to the official change list provided to us, after you beat the game, you'll get access to two new levels with six new enemies and several new items, as well as the opportunity to fight three brand-new "extremely challenging bosses." Crescent Moon has also wiped out some the game's horrendous crash bugs, adjusted the difficulty on some bosses to make them harder, tweaked enemy balance to reflect where you are in the game, and "tons of other smaller bug fixes" which doesn't include the new fix for the end game cut-scene, which wouldn't trigger previously for some.

If you didn’t catch my drift earlier, Rimelands is awesome. My main man Jared’s review, for example, was plastered with praise. He called it “one of the best RPG experiences you can have on the iPhone” and spit big game about its visuals, the underlining narrative, the combat, and the variety included in the package. It's a must-have, you know?

So, yeah, you’re missing out if you don’t buy this thing and, yes, now would be a good time to do it — it’s currently on sale for $1.99 (down from $4.99) until, at least, tomorrow. NEAT!

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Last Friday in Marseille, France, I got together with some dudes from Pocket Gamer, Orange, ARM, and a few other outfits to wade through the 200+ submissions to the International Mobile Gaming Awards. It was an incredible experience, and beyond cool to be waxing video games with fellow mobile gamers from all over the world.

After hours and hours of deliberation, we nominated five games in each of the six categories. Keep in mind that not all of these games are for the iPhone, and some are still in development. If you don't see one of your favorite games in this list, chances are the developer either didn't submit it, or my single American vote wasn't strong enough to overcome the rest of the world.

Best Casual Game

• Bird Strike – Gold Edition, 99¢ – [Review / Forum Thread]
• Bulba The Cat, 99¢ – [Forum Thread]
• Fruit Ninja, 99¢ – [Review / Forum Thread]
• Jenga, 99¢ – [First Impressions / Forum Thread]
• Plants vs. Zombies, $2.99 – [Review / Forum Thread]

Best Real World Game

• AR Invaders, 99¢ – [Forum Thread]
• Blaze – [In Development]
• Ghostwire – True Stories – [In Development]
• Pocket Critter
• Tourality

Best Sports Game

• Billabong Surf Trip, $2.99 – [Forum Thread]
• Championship Manager 2011, $4.99 – [Forum Thread]
• Ice Breaker – [In Development / Forum Thread]
• Let's Golf 2, $4.99 – [Review / Forum Thread]
• Snowboard Hero, Free – [Forum Thread]

Excellence in Design

• Galaxy on Fire 2, $9.99 – [Review / Forum Thread
• ilomilo - [In Development]
• Infinity Blade, $5.99 – [Review / Forum Thread]
• Real Racing 2, $9.99 – [Review / Forum Thread
• Zen Bound 2, $2.99 - [Forum Thread]

Excellence in Game Play

• Beyond Ynth, $1.99 – [Review / Forum Thread]
• Guns'n’Glory, 99¢ – [Review / Forum Thread]
• N.O.V.A. 2, $6.99 – [Forum Thread]
• Perfect Cell, $4.99 – [Review / Forum Thread]
• Pix'n Love Rush, 99¢ – Review / Forum Thread]

Most innovative Game

• Anomaly Warzone Earth – [In Development]
• EpicWin, $2.99 – [Review / Forum Thread]
• Finger Balance, 99¢ – [Forum Thread]
• Papa Sangre, $6.99 – [Forum Thread]
• The Line, $1.99 – [Forum Thread]

From here, we meet in Barcelona, Spain in late February to discuss the nominees again and vote on the winners for each of the categories which will be announced on February 17th. The IMGA is also running a People's Choice Award poll, which requires registration to vote in. If you feel particularly strong about any of the announced nominees, make sure you stop by their site and vote.

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Tired of trying to decide which games you can afford to buy? How does $10,000 in iTunes credit sound? As incredible as the figure is to believe, the App Store is nearing ten billion downloads. What's even crazier is the rate that apps are downloaded, which you can see by heading over to the 10 Billionth App Countdown site. Thinking about just how many people are out there downloading apps to make it spin by so fast is mind blowing.

Winning is as easy as downloading the ten billionth app, but the rules include some interesting tidbits. Namely, you need to be over 13 and be downloading something from the App Store for the country that you are a resident of. I'm not sure how they'd handle the contest if you're using a New Zealand account to download games early from somewhere else in the world… But wow would it suck to be disqualified.

So… Get to downloading apps! Wait, you're doing that already? Well, I guess do it with your fingers crossed from now on?

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Well, that didn’t take long at all. DotEmu’s port of Earth Defense Force [$1.99], the classic horizontal shoot ‘em up that made an appearance in both arcades and on the SNES in the early 90's, is now available for purchase on the App Store.

Here’s a little synopsis if it doesn’t quite feel like 1991 was just yesterday:

The alien Azyma Empire, threatens to destroy the Earth with the Orbital Buster, a large computerized space satellite. The Earth's only hope lies in the recently developed XA-1 spaceships held under the organization known as E.D.F: Earth Defense Force. You are the pilot in command!

This iOS version features two game modes: Arcade and Freeplay, and also boasts support for both d-pad and touch controls. Online leaderboards are also a part of the package, as well as Game Center integration.

You’ll also notice that DotEmu has added a touch strip to the game as a part of the UI, allowing you to move the ship without obscuring the ship or parts of the game environment. It’s a decent solution to an age-old issue, but I feel like the strip is a touch too big, as if it's cutting off a chunk of what could be more play space. That's all in my head though — EDF is a 4:3 game, so the strip isn't taking anything away. Alternatively, you can play with a virtual joystick with EDF running at its native resolution.

DotEmu, by the way, specializes in these kinds of retro revivals. As we noted last week, the developer signed a deal with Jaleco LTD to bring a total of 17 of these kinds of games over to the App Store. We can't wait to play the rest of them.

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As was pointed out in our forums over the weekend, it looks as though the upcoming first-person shooter Warm Gun from indie developer Emotional Robots could be making it's way to iOS sometime this year. Warm Gun is set in a futuristic Wild West setting that looks something like Fallout 3 meets the Red Dead Redemption. Apparently the project has origins dating all the way back to 2007, with the game really taking shape in late 2009 and throughout 2010. The game is powered by Unreal Engine technology, and appears to be a multiplayer only affair.

The developer has been keeping a progress log over at the IndieDB website that contains news, screenshots, and videos of work-in-progress versions of Warm Gun. It also states there that the game is coming to PC, iPhone, and iPad. This is a gameplay video shot in November of last year and is presumably from the PC version of the game, but it gives you a great idea of what the gameplay is like in Warm Gun:

While there doesn't seem to be much information regarding an iOS release or any footage of Warm Gun running on iOS devices, it doesn't seem too far a stretch that we could indeed see an App Store release of the game given the inclusion of iOS support in the most recent release of the Unreal Development Kit. We've already seen the Unreal Engine in action on iOS with Epic Citadel [Free], Infinity Blade [$5.99], and Dungeon Defenders: First Wave [$2.99]. Still, with a small development studio likely working on a shoestring budget, I take them listing the iPhone and iPad as intended platforms with a tiny grain of salt for now.

You can follow along with the upcoming thread in our forums for discussion of the game, and we'll bring you any further news on Warm Gun for iOS as soon as we get it.

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Early last month we posted our exclusive preview of Manomio's much anticipated iAmiga emulation system that will shortly be used to bring a list of old school Amiga classics to the iPhone and iPad. In the time since that post, developer and CEO Stuart Carnie has provided us with a number of new builds of the iAmiga development test system which have each brought various fixes and improvements to the environment.

I wanted to list some of the changes that we've seen in these recent builds, for readers who are waiting anxiously for iAmiga to do its thing in the App Store.

• Basic iPad support now working (display appropriately scales to the device's screen)
• TV-out is now supported on Retina display devices and iPad. Hot plug / unplug handed gracefully.
• New mouse control system implemented — greatly enhances the feel of mouse-based titles (behaves nearly identically to a trackpad, now)
• CPU is more stable
  • Shadow of the Beast no longer crashes
  • IK+ no longer exhibits graphics glitches during intro
  • CPU tracing system implemented, able to generate gigabytes of log data for issue tracking, at need
• Audio now pauses properly when switching between Game / Settings tab (no looping)

Carnie has also shared with us a list of near-term "to do's" that we can look forward to, shortly:

• Finish integrating the CRT effects OpenGL ES engine (using GLSL shaders). List includes: No effect, 50% scanlines, aperture 1×2 RB and aperture 1×3 RB
• Aspect ratio selection (full screen, 4:3, whole pixel)
• Save / Resume support
• Defender of the Crown cabinet shell and graphics

It's been loads of fun testing out a slew of Amiga games on the iPhone with these new builds, and I can't wait for everyone out there to get the chance to enjoy so many Amiga classics, delivered through Manomio's emulation system. We'll bring more news from the studio as iAmiga development continues.

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Last October we took a brief look at Pocket RPG, the upcoming title being developed by Tasty Poison Games and published by Crescent Moon Games. Pocket RPG is a dual-stick dungeon crawler with a focus on shorter play sessions and randomized games. There are 3 different character classes to play as, each with upgradeable items and abilities, and there will be a ton of loot to collect in the game.

Tasty Poison has been hinting at having a gameplay video for months, and at long last they have given TouchArcade an exclusive first look at Pocket RPG in action. This video shows each of the character classes in the game – the Dark Ranger who can fire projectiles, the Blade Master who is melee-focused, and the Battle Mage who wields magical abilities.

And here are a couple of screenshots from the game that have been posted in our forums over the past month or so:

Pocket RPG is looking gorgeous so far, and I'm really excited to check it out. Tasty Poison and Crescent Moon are shooting to have the game out in February on the iPad, with a universal update planned that will make it compatible with 4th generation devices. After this, they hope to optimize the game for older devices if possible, but are focused on playing to the strengths of newer devices for the initial release.

There's an upcoming thread in our forums where members are discussing the game and the developers are popping in with additional bits of information as well. We're anxious to get our hands on the game, and we'll bring you more of Pocket RPG as it gets closer to release, hopefully next month.

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Children of the 80s arcade era get ready, the classic laserdisc arcade game Road Blaster [99¢] has hit the App Store. Developer Revolutionary Concepts, who have experience bringing classic arcade titles to iOS with the likes of Cobra Command [$1.99] and Karate Champ [$1.99/Lite/HD], have given this iteration of Road Blaster a shiny new makeover from its 1985 arcade counterpart. It features remastered FMV sequences that are optimized for Retina Displays, a choice of two different redrawn in-game dashboard consoles, a new soundtrack and plenty of new sound effects, and optimizations over the original.

Road Blaster follows a campy story of revenge (not totally unlike many action movies from the 80s) where you are out to get justice against an evil biker gang who murdered your wife. You'll hop into your modified sports car and go after these heartless thugs across 9 different levels, with the option of 3 difficulty settings. Operate your vehicle using a virtual steering wheel or the brand new tilt controls. Here's a video showing Road Blaster being played on an iPhone:

An iPad version of Road Blaster is also in the works, although a firm release date hasn't been set yet. Owners of older devices should know that the developers have optimized the game to run well across all models of iPhone and iPod touch. Also, Game Center is integrated for leaderboard and achievement tracking. As a special promotion, Road Blaster is launching at just 99¢ for the first week. Impressions are rolling into our forums, and we'll take a closer look at this title after we've had a chance to pump some quarters into it.

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Looking for something to spend your weekend doing? How about playing Geared 2 [Free] for the low, low price of free. Much like It's Just a Thought, Geared 2 was crushed under the might of the EA holiday sale.Geared 2 obviously is the sequel to Geared [99¢ / Lite / HD], a gear-grinding puzzle game which has enjoyed millions of downloads during its life on the App Store. I explained what makes Geared 2 awesome in our review:

Each level is composed of a set of gears, one yellow gear and one (or more) blue gear(s). Utilizing gears of different shapes and sizes, you must connect the two so everything spins. Neither Geared or Geared 2 have any kind of grid the gears snap to, which allows you to place the gears anywhere you want inside of the game.

The challenge comes from the limited set of gears available for each level, in addition to obstacles in each level such as crossed off areas where gears can't be placed but the can be dropped in to. While it all might sound fairly easy, it won't take long until you're flat out stumped on a level, and are left sitting there desperately trying to figure out how in the world to position the two gears you're given with the five you have to spin. Thankfully, the Geared games allow you to skip forward a few levels in the event that you're really stuck.

Both Geared games are totally worth downloading, and I cannot think of a single excuse not to download Geared 2 while it's free aside from "I already downloaded Geared 2."

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