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It's been ages since we first posted about Godville [Free], over a year in fact. Since then, my character, Lil Buddy, has gone all the way from level 1 to level 25– With no interaction from me aside from some random encouragement on the way. If this is the first you've heard of Godville, let me explain how it works for you.

Godville is a game with no gameplay. You play as your character's god and watch over him or her as they go on their adventure. Along the way they'll fight monsters, come across towns, gather and sell loot, along with all the other activities that an adventurer that is adventuring, would be doing. Your interaction with the game, your hero, and the entire game world is limited to vague suggestions that you can give from the heavens. You can send your hero messages, as well as praise or punish him. There's some other very minor interactivity, but by and large Godville is a game that plays itself.

If you're thinking to yourself, "Well, that's pretty stupid," I assure you it's not. This game has kept my attention for an entire year, and I love checking in to see what Lil Buddy is up to. Think of it as a fantasy-based virtual pet that you can complete ignore for months at a time if you felt like it.

Since we first posted about it, Godville has gotten an array of updates. First off, it's universal now and "plays" great on the iPad. There are multiple themes for how the game is displayed, and it even switches automatically between night and day themes depending on when you play. Your character can have a pet companion now, such as my newly acquired level 1 firefox named "Behemoth". Items that can be activated with effects that range from useful to deadly are now in game, and you can even send your character off to duel against other heroes. Oh, at some point Game Center achievements were even implemented.

My favorite new feature (and the reason for this post) is the new "Third Eye" functionality. Since Godville is a game that plays itself automatically, you'll often miss a lot of the cool things your character might have done if you're not checking up on it often throughout the day. After your hero has completed 5% of its temple it is building for you (which will take quite a while if you're starting fresh) you'll be able to enter "Third Eye" mode. This displays the "most important" events of your character's life over the previous hours (or even days).

For instance, in the life of Lil Buddy these events include the duel that he won with someone named "Surfer Obeyer", coming across his new animal companion, and running into "a strange man with a floating exclamation mark above his head."

If it wasn't clear already, you've simply got to try Godville. It fits perfectly into the boredom rotation of checking your email, Twitter, and Facebook. Also, the content in the game is all community driven so your hero always seems to be doing something different. I'm also endlessly amused by the amount of depth they've managed to wedge into a game with no gameplay to speak of. If you downloaded Godville when I first suggested it last year, chances are, your character will even still be in game adventuring… Assuming you can remember the login and password you originally set up to retrieve him.

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This is one of the few times I’ll ever write the words “Oh snap” and mean them. Oh snap: more than likely, the next Kairosoft App Store release will be Mega Mall Story, the studio’s own spin on simulation tower games. Provided it’s actually worming it’s way through certification, it’ll hit at an odd moment in time where tower simulations have some actual steam. Yoot Tower [$7.99] was a nice re-injection, but Tiny Tower [Free] is putting the genre over the edge.

To be frank, half of my excitement at the moment is simply from knowing what Kairosoft’s next title is. The studio is generally pretty bad with its communication. I don’t think anyone saw Game Dev Story [$3.99] coming, but we should have, at least, received indications that Pocket Academy [$3.99 / Lite] and Hot Springs Story [$3.99 / Lite] were slated to be follow-ups in the US.

The reason why we know is thanks to the official Kairosoft web site. Tucked under it’s other iOS game banners is this message with a Mega Mall banner on top of it: “According to a well-informed source, a hot new app is bound for release soon… how about passing on the word via Twitter and other social media?” Done and done! Now, give me! Thanks!

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“Soon” seems to be the default for every iOS game release announcement, and that constant holds true for Forever Drive. In a conversation over e-mail, a representative from Supermono Studios told me that the open-world, sandbox-y racing game is about to enter certification, which can take weeks. “We’re very close,” he said.

While I can’t get you a release date thanks to Apple’s crazy complicated and often lengthy processes, I can try to paint you an accurate word picture of the online element of the game and how it informs everything in Forever Drive, including racing mechanic and its systems. It's just that vital to the experience.

So, here's the deal. Forever Drive's hook is that it has a distinctive and inseparable user-creation element. Like LittleBigPlanet, creative users will be able to tap out their own levels and then share them with the game's community at large. In Forever Drive, you'll be asked to create pieces of racing tracks, which is an important distinction to make, as each piece will eventually be procedurally combined into a much bigger, but singular “mad uber-highway" in the game's fast-paced driving component dubbed "DRIVE."

Provided enough people create in the game, the track you race on might be the product of tens of thousands of user creators. I was told to think of this highway as a playlist of sorts where only the best and brightest will be added to the uber-track. Supermono plans to dish out rewards of in-game currency and unlockable items to the best creators, who will be, essentially, providing the Forever Drive experience to everyone.

“What we've tried to create is a very streamlined experience — something a little different from the "load a track, do 3 laps, stop, repeat" gameplay that's become almost universal in driving games,” he said.

“ We're trying to create something that feels more like an epic journey, with that feeling of discovery and wonder you get driving fast into an unfamiliar land…”

In our original coverage I almost used the word “MMO,’ and I wish I would have. If Forever Drive actually works well, it’ll have a sense of persistence that we only typically see in MMOs. I think the core conceit that will be displayed is really special and I can't wait to see it in action. Count me in, Supermono.

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Well, it seemed like this day would never come, but here we are. After being announced at last year’s E3, and missing several intended release windows, Square Enix’s highly tactical role-playing game Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions [$15.99] is now available for download for your iPhone or iPod touch.

For some backstory, the original Final Fantasy Tactics first launched on the PlayStation back in 1998 to critical acclaim. It marked the first time the Final Fantasy series branched out from its more traditional RPG style and ventured into the realm of highly tactical combat with an engaging storyline and RPG-like elements.

In 2007, the game was rereleased for the Sony PSP as Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, and contained a number of improvements. These included new storyline cutscenes, graphical improvements, new characters and classes, local multiplayer, and more. Unfortunately, with all these new enhancements, some negative issues rose up as well, most notoriously a slowdown bug that made combat flow at a snail's pace even compared to the nearly 10 year old original. For a game where you're engaging in combat a whole lot, this was an unfortunate problem.

The iOS version of Final Fantasy Tactics is a port of the PSP version, and although it loses the local multiplayer mode, the slowdown problem has been greatly improved. The problem isn't totally eradicated, but it's at least much more tolerable now. Other iOS-specific enhancements include a completely native touch interface for navigating menus and combat and an autosave feature that allows for the types of interruptions that you get when gaming on a mobile platform like the iPhone. Some of the artwork has even been redrawn for this version, as well, though the graphics overall are still retro and pixelated, especially some of the in-game text.

The pricing for Final Fantasy Tactics has been a hot topic ever since it was announced. It’s certainly on the high end of the price tiers of the App Store, but in terms of gaming bang for your buck, it’s nearly incomparable to anything else available. There are easily over 100 hours of gameplay time here, so if you like your tactical strategy games to last a while then you’re in luck. An iPad native version is planned for release in about a month’s time, so if you figure you’ll be playing on your iPad mostly then it might be worth waiting around for that version.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is an absolute classic, and it’s great to see a title of this caliber in the App Store. Some may not be down with the price, and if you’ve played the game extensively in the past it might be hard to justify buying the game again now. Of course, if you’re fanatical about this game like so many gamers are, then price isn’t even a question and chances are you’ve downloaded the game already.

You can check out further impressions of the game in our forums, and whether you’re a longtime fan or just now checking out the game for the first time, Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is a fantastic tactical RPG experience that works incredibly well on the iOS platform.

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App Store fads come and go, and I think it's safe to say that the endless runner has been on its way out for a while now. These days it's all endless flying, jumping and swimming. So consider me officially surprised that Temple Run [$0.99], a brand new endless runner by Imangi Studios, has captivated my attention for days.

As we noted in our time with the game at WWDC, part of the appeal is the third-person chase view. Temple Run isn't unique in employing this point of view, but it does add a delightful sense of urgency to the game. You never quite know what will be around the next corner — until it's about to smack you in the face.

Corners are something you see a lot of in Temple Run. The game eschews the more traditional one-button jumping control of most runners for a swiping method that still allows for one-handed play . You can swipe up to jump, down to slide, and left or right to turn. This control setup is risky — it's much easier to mess up a swipe than a tap — but it works. Though the world is randomly generated, the addition of twists, turns and crossroads makes it feel more organic, like more of an adventure.

An Indiana Jones aesthetic extends that sense of adventure even further. You control an explorer who has just claimed an ancient idol. The guardians awaken and prepare to devour you — so you run. In your journey, you'll travel across the remnants of ancient temples, leap over flaming statues and dive beneath the roots of massive trees. A slip up can kill you, but even a couple minor stumbles can give the guardians the chance they need to catch you. It's basically a chase scene that would fit into any Indiana Jones film — though it probably wouldn't end with Indy's gruesome death in that case.

While you're dodging death, you can tilt your device gently to collect coins that appear on either side of the path. You'll collect hundreds each time you set out for a run, and they actually go to a good cause: powerups. There are four powerups to unlock, and each one adds something fun to the game like invisibility or bonus coins. They can each be upgraded to become stronger or more valuable. You can also purchase a resurrection item that you trigger by double tapping on the screen. Once you do, it will save you from your next death.

The coins you earn in-game should be more than enough to purchase powerups and upgrades at a reasonable pace. If you really want to get ahead of the pack on the Game Center leaderboard, you can pay cash for coins — but it isn't remotely necessary.

Any endless runner worth the name will give you high-tension situations and that "one more time" compulsion. But Temple Run is probably the only one that also makes you feel like a daring archaeologist with a penchant for deadly situations. So yeah, it's good. Check it out, and stop by our discussion thread when you do.

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If you've been waiting for Final Fantasy Tactics for the past few months… Tonight is the night. In fact, there's so many awesome games coming tonight that I'm just skipping the normal pleasantries of easing everyone into the game releases via a smart introduction.

Instead, I'll just go over how this works for first timers out there. iOS developers are able to set specific release dates for their games/apps. Since the App Store is a global market with tons of different regions, and time zones exist, that particular date arrives earlier in some corners of the world than it does other. New Zealand due to their proximity to the International Date Line gets first crack at new releases, followed by Asian markets, then European markets before things finally appear in the US App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern.

Arenas, Trial of Valor, $3.99 – Forum Thread – This universal online turn based strategy game has a feature list that has piqued my interest. There's both a PvP and PvE battle system, five types of arenas, ten available races, thousands of unique objects with more on the way, along with hundreds of different spells and creatures. We'll have to see how big of a component the online stuff is, as a $3.99 price tag combined with a (somewhat) obscure online game never seems to be conducive to building a large online pool of players.

Colosseum Heroes, 99¢ – Forum Thread – These sidescrolling beat 'em ups have been surprisingly popular on the App Store, and Gamevil seems to have nailed the formula very well. Multiple skills to use, along with several playable characters fighting their way through seemingly endless waves of varied bad guys. It looks like there's oodles of things you can customize, with 7 levels of 126 different spells.

Cut The Rope: Experiments, 99¢ / HD – Forum Thread – ZeptoLab seems to be following in the footsteps of Rovio's Angry Birds Seasons and are going it alone in self publishing this Cut The Rope pseudo-sequel. Anyway, it's safe to say that if you even vaguely enjoyed Cut The Rope, this is a game you need. More of the same with a few new twists is hardly ever a bad thing.

Desert Quest, Free – Forum Thread – I'm not entirely sure I'm sold on the gameplay of this game, but I think the art style is really slick. It's free too, so it seems worth checking out if for no reason other than it has a cool look to it.

Emberwind, 99¢ / HD – Forum Thread – This game puts you in charge of a gnome fighting off a legion of gremlins. It sounds crazy, and it looks crazy from the above trailer which seems oddly reminiscent of obscure 16-bit era action-centric platformers. We'll see how that all translates to gameplay, and I'm curious to see how the controls work.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of The Lions, $15.99 – Forum Thread – This game hardly needs an introduction. It's Final Fantasy Tactics… Finally on the iPhone after months and months of delays. We're overjoyed it's finally here.

Frankenstein Matchmaker, $1.99 / Lite – Forum Thread – This word game comes with the odd premise of needing you to match various words in order to make Frankenstein some love connections. Hopefully its difficulty level is adult-appropriate, as it seems like it could be a little on the simple side.

Kickin Mama, $1.99 / Universal HD – Forum Thread – If you've found yourself awake at night wondering what would happen if you combined Peggle-like gameplay with kicking babies… Well, here's what happens. This game.

Ninja Fishing, 99¢ – Forum Thread – Despite a hefty amount of drama with Radical Fishing, Ninja Fishing looks like it could be pretty cool– Especially if they deliver on all the planned updates mentioned in the iTunes description.

Puerto Rico HD for iPad, $7.99 – Forum Thread – This game is based on a board game which I have no experience with but it's apparently won all kinds of international gaming awards. It's rated incredibly highly on boardgamegeek.com, which has a massive amount of information on the game.

Shift 2 Unleashed, $4.99 / HD – Forum Thread – We loved all the previous Need For Speed games for iOS devices that EA has released in the past, so it would stand to reason this one would be just as good. Like most EA franchises, this seems to include tons of incremental improvements and boasts Origin support as well.

Snowball Run, 99¢ – A simple looking endless running avoidance game, only this time you're running towards the camera instead of away from it… And you play as a yeti.

Super Granny, Free – Forum Thread – The iTunes description is a little vague on how the digging mechanic of this game works, but it sounds a lot like Lode Runner and it looks a lot like Lode Runner. And hey, I remember my grandma liking Lode Runner, so it makes sense in a roundabout way.

Taco Master, 99¢ / HD – Forum Thread – This time management game puts you in charge of making… Tacos! (If the title wasn't a big enough clue on that for you.) Also, the trailer seems to be voiced by the guy from Zombo.com.

Temple Run, 99¢ – Forum Thread – We've had our hands on Temple Run a few times in the past, and it's safe to say if you love endless runners this is a game you need to get.

Toss The Ball, Free – Forum Thread – Namco's latest foray into casual gaming involves, as you may have guessed, tossing balls. It's free, and offers different bonuses for coming back every day, but the question is, is tossing balls compelling enough for you to want to?

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Last month we checked out the trailer for an upcoming platformer called Roboto from developer Fenix Fire Games, and thought it looked pretty promising. You play as a hoverboard riding robot who is chasing his female robot crush all across the galaxy, in an effort to win her affection. Gameplay appeared to fall somewhere in between a traditional platformer and a fast-paced endless running game, which seemed like a good combination.

Then last week, Roboto [$2.99] was released in the App Store, and after playing through the game it mostly delivers on all the promise that was expected from the trailer. The visuals and level design are the brightest points of Roboto, but a couple of technical shortcomings and less-than-ideal controls hold it back from true greatness. Fenix Fire is already in the process of addressing these issues though, and with just a small bit of post-release update love Roboto could be one of the finest platformers available on the entire iOS platform.

Right off the bat you’ll notice that Roboto is simply stunning visually. The crisp and colorful graphics look fantastic on the Retina Display, and there are loads of little details that give the game a great sense of character. Gameplay is strictly on a 2D plane, but the entire game is rendered in 3D and the usage of the foreground and background give a great sense of depth as you play. Killing an enemy might shoot a gear right into the screen when it explodes, and background elements like huge wrecking balls will swing into the foreground, looking like they might burst right through the screen.

Roboto’s moves consist of running left or right, jumping, hovering, and shooting. Holding down the jump button will cause Roboto to hover for a short period, a la Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros. 2. Roboto’s actions will expend an energy meter at the top of the screen, which can be replenished by collecting various energy pickups spread throughout the levels. If you run out of energy and come across a point where you need to hover over a gap, you’re pretty much screwed, so it’s best to keep a close eye on your supply and not overuse any of your moves.

The real brilliance of Roboto lies in its level designs. They are each designed to be completed speed run style if you choose, but if you slow down and take your time there are plenty of items to collect or enemies to defeat. At the end of each of the 30 levels in the game, your score is tallied based on completion time, enemies killed, remaining energy, and whether or not you collected each of the 3 gears hidden in the level. This gives Roboto great replay value, as after merely completing a level it can be a nice challenge to go back and try to get 100% for everything and land a huge score. Game Center integration for achievements and leaderboards adds to this as well.

My biggest gripe with Roboto is the absolutely terrible control stick used for moving your character in the game. The stick is seriously temperamental, and sometimes will drop whatever direction you’re moving without you even realizing it. This can make the game infinitely frustrating, as you’ll literally be hovering over a gap and will suddenly drop right into it due to no fault of your own. I’ve easily died more times from this one issue than from any enemy or challenge in the game. Luckily, Fenix Fire has posted on their Facebook page that an update will hit soon that adds separate left and right arrows for movement, which I think will be a much better option. But right at this moment, the control issue drives me absolutely bananas.

Another issue worth considering is that for such a graphically intense game, performance has been spotty for some players. It’s not really consistent, either, as I’ve had almost no issues running the game on my iPhone 4, except for very minor stutters when a ton of things happen onscreen at once. Conversely, some members in our forums cannot even play the game at all due to an abysmal frame rate grinding things to a halt or the game simply crashing on them. The developers also mention on their Facebook that performance optimization is coming in an update as well, but again, as of this writing you may or may not have any luck getting the game to run consistently well, or at all.

Roboto has all the makings of a classic platforming game. It’s one of the most visually impressive games I’ve seen in some time, and the gameplay itself is well designed and a lot of fun. If the controls and performance issues can be ironed out sufficiently, then Roboto will fall into the “must have” category of iOS platformers. Right now though, expect to be frustrated with the touchy control stick and potential for some technical hangups that might prevent your from playing the game. If you’re on the fence, it might be worth waiting to see how the update resolves these issues.

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Here’s something I wish I had on-hand when Phosphor Games and its partners announced its FPS-slash-horror game, The Dark Meadow: an actual web site that you can go to and then see videos and images of the game in action. I’ll let that beef slide though, now that there is an actual web site and it happens to be so handy. After gazing at the newly released teaser trailer and the images, I feel like I know the game a little better and that’s always a plus, for good or bad.

In this case, it’s for the better. The Dark Meadow has a wonderfully moody look, which will do wonders for its horror underpinnings. I’m still not so sure on how the marriage of long-range combat and Infinity Blade-inspired [$5.99] melee action has been implemented, buy hey, I guess you can’t have it all early in a marketing cycle no matter how much you stomp your feet.

One thing we didn’t know last time we covered The Dark Meadow was how it would manage movement in the world. Turns outs, Phosphor will be using nodes to help guide the player, similar to how Chair implemented movement in Infinity Blade, I’d imagine. I can hear you groaning from here already. Stop it. It’s not that bad, especially since there will be some sort of open-ish exploration element.

Dark Meadow is scheduled for a release this month. Wait, what? Neat! We'll of course have more from the title as soon as we can get our greasy but relatively germ-free hands on the game. There is a thread in our forums where you can get in on some Dark Meadow discussion, and keep your eyes peeled towards the App Store for the game to drop sometime in the next several weeks.

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As I write this, you could be designing your own Snuggle Truck [$.99 / HD] levels in the brand new update to the physics-based driving game. Owlchemy Labs’ dropped us an e-letter this morning stating that Apple had blessed the titanic update, and it also revealed that, in celebration, Snuggle Truck will be sold at 30-50 percent off the normal price. For the next 24 hours, you can grab the game on iPhone and iPod for $.99, or on the iPad for $1.99. That’s a cool deal! I think!

Just as a light re-cap if you missed our previous coverage, the level editor is a drag-and-drop deal, similar to the one in LittleBigPlanet. Also, like LBP, you’ll be able to upload your creators or play, share, and rate other peoples’ levels through a new web portal. This update also rolls in a much-needed UI flip, some balance tweaks, and other little fixes.

We’ve seen a lot of crazy updates in our time, but rare are the ones that change the face of a game. Granted, Snuggle Truck will continue to be a title about cute animals that you need to escort back to the zoo, but now it can also boast a previously unexplored sandbox aspect that really tries to tickle the creation itch. What’s next? A built-in text editor?

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Mika Mobile’s third-person, side-scrolling shooter Zombieville USA [$1.99] hit the App Store in early 2009. Considering the growth of the App Store and the amount of different handhelds Apple has released since the game’s initial launch, I think its safe to call it prehistoric. To put another spin on that: I remember reviewing the game at another outlet as part of a new initiative to cover the budding platform. Wild! But anyway, I’m bringing all this up to pound home the point that Mika Mobile isn’t done with the game quite yet despite its relative age. Intriguing, yes?

In a new update, the studio has added fancy retina display graphics, as well as support for “fast app switching,” which is another indication of its advanced age. Also, Universal support has been added, ensuring that you’ll, from now on, get two copies of the game for the price of one. Zombieville has been 2011-ized, in other words.

I’d imagine all of this work ultimately serves the purpose to promote Zombieville USA 2 and perhaps comfort new fans who might flock to the old title. That’s right; Zombieville 2 is a thing that was announced alongside this update and, according to Mika Mobile, it’s coming as soon as this ‘summer.’ Neat!

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