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About a week back I had a chance to visit Gameloft's Manhattan studios and have a look at their upcoming racing simulator GT Racing: Motor Academy [App Store] for iPhone. Tonight, GT Racing has gone live in the App Store and we've got a chance to take a closer look.

GT Racing is a driving simulation as opposed to an arcade racer. Gameloft likens the title to Real Racing, which it considers the only other driving simulation in the App Store. Being a simulation-style racer, it starts off much like the definitive driving sim, Gran Turismo. You are presented with a few initial challenges (accelerate to maximum speed and then come to a stop between the lines, etc.) that must be completed before your achieve your first racing license. From there it's a Campaign journey through a variety of tracks around the world. Though, I will say the game is rather more forgiving than Gran Turismo, partially due to the integrated Break Assist system (like Real Racing), but more due to the overall control scenario.

The game features over 100 cars from 24 different manufacturers to choose from for a race to the finish across 14 different worldwide tracks. The better you rank, the more credits you accumulate, and the fancier cars and equipment you can purchase. Progressive tracks are unlocked in Campaign mode, and any unlocked track can be used for a quick spin in the game's Arcade mode.

GT Racing features three different control methods: accelerometer (default), screen keys (think Vector Tanks – kinda), and wheel. I find accelerometer to be my preferred method that, for what it is, really leaves little room for control improvement. Score tracking has handled through the integrated Gameloft Live network. Like Asphalt 5, Gameloft also offers an online multi-player component that we were unable to test at launch, but we're certainly a feature we're glad to see.

GT Racing is one of the most visually impressive racers in the App Store. On my iPhone 3GS test unit, the game exhibits an impressive, but subtle, HDR effect to the rendered scene and runs at a very smooth frame rate. Six different driving views are provided — three outside, three inside — to allow for the view that bests fits your driving sensibilities. All races can be seen in Replay mode which is, as well, an impressive thing to behold, and videos can also be uploaded to YouTube (example video). One notable issue with the visuals, however, is a noticeably short draw distance resulting in buildings abruptly popping into view which can be distracting.

There are a few other issues we ran across with the initial version. On occasion, my car appeared to aburbtly jolt into a nose-up position, half embedded in the track, with a warning of "wrong way" presented. (One of these incidents is recorded in our demo video.) As well, in-game language suggested that I had access to a particular track before it was supposed to be unlocked. Neither game breaking, but notable for early adopters.

See our brief gameplay video for a closer look.

Overall, GT Racer is probably one of the best racers on the App Store. In particular, racing fans looking for a realistic racer that offers nicely varied racing action wrapped up in a very pretty package should enjoy Gameloft's latest offering.

Impressions from early adopters on the forum have been similarly positive, but similar caveats:

• tadad1 – lots of control adjustments, including driving aids, amazingly crisp graphics, but short draw distance, no crash damage, massive content
• morphman – Lots of options, good but not stellar framerate on 3GS, pop-in apparent, graphics look amazing
• iPhondTouch3G – screenshots from iPod Touch 3G
• Diablohead – huge difference in FWD, RWD and oversteer is a big factor here, can do doughnuts very easily if you power out of corners
• nizy – nice graphics, real life tracks recognizable, pop-in noticeable but not too annoying. early AI not challenging
• howiedeano – handling and controls good, tracks better than NFS shift, best realistic type racing game on platform

App Store Link: GT Racing: Motor Academy, $6.99

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Every now and then a game comes along that just dazzles and blows you away by getting things exactly right. Such a game was released into the App Store yesterday by Venan Entertainment.  That game is Space Miner: Space Ore Bust [App Store].  In short, it's Asteroids meets the RPG. But that description really doesn't do the game justice.

Space Miner places you in the role of the nephew of good ole' Uncle Jebediah Gritstone, proprietor of the galactic Gritstone Mining Station. Uncle Jeb has hired you on to help with the ore mining and it's with much excitement that you make your way to his mining station in your veritable space jalopy. Once on board, things get complicated (it's a long story, enjoy it in-game) and Uncle Jeb is desperately counting on you to go out into the neighboring sectors, blast asteroids, and bring back the precious ore contained within. The more ore you collect, the bigger your cut of the profits. But the pitiful ship you start off with is hardly up to the task.

As you accumulate profits, the money can be spent in Uncle Jeb's shop, where more powerful ships, weapons, shields, ore collectors, power plants, and the like can be purchased. It doesn't take long to find yourself sitting in a decent ship with multiple ore blasters, a sizable cargo bay, and an ore collector that can get the job done. And the whole package is done up with a great deal of spot-on humorous dialog and even an amusing banjo-based audio track that fits ole' Uncle Jeb's operation to a T. (There's no doubt that he's got a still hidden somewhere on that rock of his.)

The game features highly configurable touch-screen controls (onscreen buttons, analog stick) that work nicely, 50 in-game achievements, and online score tracking via the Plus+ network.

Now, with all the heavy RPG aspects and the well done comedy, you might think the game is light on shooter action when it comes to dealing with those asteroids. Happily, that's not at all the case. The asteroid combat system is an example of shooter gold — for an Asteroids-like experience, it really couldn't be any better. And it's not just asteroids you're fighting. There are competing robot miners bent on stealing your ore that must be dealt with. Not to mention the occasional encounter with the daunting gasteroids… (Yea, they're about as bad as they sound.)

Aside from the standard goal of blasting asteroids to mine ore, there are a total of 24 missions to complete, such as rescuing helpless tourists floating through space (think Dave Pool), destroying a massive robot enemy in order to save a heartless CEO, and the like. There really is an impressive degree of gameplay variation here that just keeps things moving. In my experience, you really have to be careful not to lose track of time while playing this one. "Hard to put down" understates it.

See the developer's game trailer for a look at the action.

Space Miner: Space Ore Bust really is an App Store gem, given the unusually broad appeal I feel surrounds the title. Shooter fans definitely have a lot to be excited about, as do RPG fans — but even those that usually find themselves impatient in an RPG setting should enjoy Space Miner. The RPG layer is not only light, but easily manageable and delivered with a healthy dose of humor. It strikes a balance between two different gaming styles — shooter and RPG — like I've not experienced since playing Activision's Battle Zone, which married action and real-time strategy with similar elegance. Without a question, this is one of the best games I've played since the App Store went live over a year and a half ago. And you don't need to take my word for it; our forum readers are going nuts over this one.

Whatever sort of gamer you are, don't miss Space Miner: Space Ore Bust.

App Store Link: Space Miner: Space Ore Bust, $4.99

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Gamevil's latest entry into the App Store arrived last night with Vanquish: The Oath of Brothers.

This Three Kingdoms based game offers side scrolling hack and slash gameplay with a striking ink & wash art style. The game is reminiscent of their previous title Hybrid which was a side view action RPG which we were luke warm on, though the general reaction was divided.

Here's a video showing the game in action:

Early reactions to Vanquish have been mixed on our forums.

App Store Link: Vanquish: The Oath of Brothers, $2.99

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Reiner Knizia holds a PhD in mathematics, and is credit with publishing over 500 different puzzle games, many earning various awards worldwide. Developing his first game at the age of 6, Knizia left a job as a boardmember of an international bank in 1997 to pursue game designing full time. Since then, he has been admitted to the Gaming Hall of Fame and redeveloped several of his old games along with creating new games for the PC, home consoles, and iPhone.

His latest iPhone game, Topas [$1.99], tasks players with placing colored domino-like tiles on a game board in three included game modes. To place tiles, you drag them around with your finger, and tiles can be rotated by tapping on screen with another finger. Tiles are placed on the board following a few simple rules: They must be placed with the whole tile fitting on the game board, every tile must be placed next to another, and the aligned gems on the tiles cannot total more than 8. Points are awarded for the number of gems lined up with each tile placed, and Topas has Agon online leaderboards for each of the game modes.

In arcade mode, you have 36 tiles to place on the game board. Tiles are cleared by lining matching colored rows of gems up and down or across that add up to 7. If you place all 36 tiles, the board is cleared and you can keep going in attempt to get the highest score possible. In weakest link mode, you play 4 quick games placing 8 tiles, the second lowest score of the four games is your end score. Finally, in color play mode, instead of the board clearing when you place all 36 tiles, you only need to score 10 points in a single color, indicated by gauges at the top of the screen.

Like most of Reiner Knizia's games, scoring well in Topas requires quite a bit of strategy, and wile the basics of the game are quite simple, it took me a while to wrap my head around ideal tile placement for maximum point gain. Knizia has quite a few iPhone games available on the App Store now, and they are all quite good in their own ways.

Ingenious, $1.99 – Take turns tiles on a game board, scoring points by creating lines of tiles with similar colors. Play against AI opponents of three difficulty levels and place tiles to block opponents in and make as many matches as possible to increase your score. There's also a solitaire mode if you'd rather just place tiles to see how much you can score.

Money, $1.99 – Starting with six random bills from different countries, players try to exchange their money in to 2-3 currencies before the end of the game. There's a YouTube video explaining the entire game and also an interesting article on boardgamenews.com about adapting the card game to the iPhone.

Monumental, $1.99 – A Mayan themed matching game where players slide around tiles to form groups of 3 colors, symbols, or both colors and symbols for maximum points. Broken stones and dynamite mix things up, and as you progress in the game more colors and symbols are introduced to increase the difficulty curve.

Roto, $1.99 – Players must analyze a group of wheels with colored segments and match those segments by rotating those wheels as few times as possible for maximum points. Roto comes with arcade, puzzle, and action modes which all provide a different spin on gameplay.

Robot Master, 99¢ – Players take turns placing numbered cards down on the game board, scores are totaled by adding the numbers of all the cards, with huge bonuses awarded by lining up pairs and three of a kind on a row.

Knights of Charlemagne, $1.99 – Deploy knights and conquer estates by overwhelming the enemy forces. The strategy and gameplay can get a little complicated, but thankfully the game comes with a great tutorial.

Poison, $2.99 – A card game of brewing potions, players take turns placing numbered potion cards in to three different cauldrons. If a player over-fills a cauldron, they have to take all the cards (and any poison cards) that were inside the cauldron.

The above games are developed by several different developers, so the visual style quality of each of the games varies widely. All of them are faithful reproductions of Reiner Knizia games, require a great deal of strategy, and can offer an awful lot of replay value if you appreciate brain-bending puzzle games.

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Gamevil has posted a hands on gameplay video of their upcoming game iPhone game Vanquish: The Oath of Brothers which is due for launch this Friday.

The game's story is based on the Three Kingdoms and is set on horseback. The gameplay video and mechanic feels somewhat similar to Hybrid but in an ink-wash art style.

Vanquish will launch at $2.99 this Friday.

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Lately it seems that we've been collecting an increasing number of comments in the discussions of some of the more popular games we've covered from Android users hoping to see more iPhone games in the Android Marketplace. Homerun Battle 3D [$4.99 / Free], a game we reviewed back when it was called Baseball Slugger, was released early last month for Android devices, and features cross-platform multiplayer– Allowing existing iPhone players to face off against Android-equipped online rivals.

Com2Us sent us the following video of a match between an iPhone and a Motorola Droid:

As more and more iPhone games eventually make their way to the Android Marketplace, I hope developers decide to follow Com2Us's lead and implement cross-platform multiplayer. The more people playing online the better, regardless of what game it is.

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This weekend I had the chance to spend some time with Freeverse in their Brooklyn headquarters checking out a few of their imminent iPhone releases. The crew was kind enough to let me bring back a bit of demonstration video footage to give readers a feel for the action in these upcoming titles. Let's take a look.

Parachute Ninja

Parachute Ninja is something like Doodle Jump, but with rubber-band platforms and parachutes thrown into the mix. Basically, in Story Mode, you've got to use a series of elastic platforms to sling this little, round ninja, from start to endpoint through 30 different levels, picking up stars and avoiding dangerous obstacles along the way. There's also a Survival Mode which is an attempt to climb (or, be slung) as high as possible up a never ending scrolling wall of elastic platforms. To help with landings, a tap to the ninja activates a parachute that slows his descent, which can be guided by tilt.

Scores and achievements are globally tracked, thanks to Plus+ integration. Parachute Ninja is a great game that's a whole lot of fun and should have big appeal to any fan of Doodle Jump. It is expected to make it's worldwide debut tonight at a price of $1.99.

Zombie Cannon Carnage, developed by h.grenade who brought us Circuit Strike One, is an inflict-most-damage-to-self type game that was somewhat inspired by the classic destruction game Burnout (though it reminds me much more of Ow My Balls!).

Basically, you control a little guy that you fire out of a cannon (which can be aimed by dragging) in hopes to do the most damage to him possible by way of impacting various city-skyline obstacles. You've got a jetpack with limited fuel that can be triggered to help keep you aloft (don't fly too high or you'll feel the sting of an air strike), and every so often you can self-destruct, just to mix things up a bit. For the squeamish, the level of blood and carnage can be dialed down from Buckets to Yes Please to No Thanks.

It's is a simple game with a single mode of play, but maximizing the damage inflicted as your poor, little onscreen avatar soars through the mesh of obstacles definitely takes some skill.  Destruction fans should have fun with this one.

Zombie Cannon Carnage should be finalized in the next day or so and appear in the App Store within a few weeks.

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We've been tracking Chillingo's forthcoming 3D adventure shooter Vampire Origins since April of last year. The studio has just given us word that the game is approaching its App Store debut — though no solid date has been set — and has provided a series of screenshots along with a new demo video to help whet the appetite.

Vampire Origins should appeal to fans of Gothic adventures. It pits Dracula's arch-nemesis Van Helsing against a vast horde of underworld creatures. The game features a Diablo-like battle system, dispensing with more complicated inventory and weaponry systems in the name of fast-paced action. Chillingo indicates that, while puzzles and exploration of the game's vast Gothic environs are part of the mix, the focus first and foremost is on action and killing enemies.

We'll bring further information about this upcoming title as we get it.

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Late last month we got a sneak peek at Sega's Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games [App Store] and its official release this afternoon seems to be very similar, if not the exact same game we played in December. You can compete as Sonic or any of his included friends in four events: Skeleton, curling, figure skating, and snowboard cross. However, with only four events the game feels like a stripped down version of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games for the Nintendo DS, which not only has many more events to compete in, but also Nintendo characters.

Skeleton is a basic tilt-based pipe racing game of sorts where you pick up rings and hit areas on the track to gain speed. Figure skating plays a lot like a very slow-paced version of Elite Beat Agents with areas to tap and drag along with the music. Snowboard cross is a very basic snowboarding game, that also feels way too slow.

The best event in the entire game is curling. From our preview:

Curling is a team game where two teams of four players take turns sliding polished stones down a stretch of ice towards a target. Two sweepers walk in front of the stone sweeping the ice to change its direction and speed. It seems that curling has gained a curious amount of popularity in recent winter games, but if you haven't heard of it before I recommend reading the Wikipedia entry, as it downright crazy how complicated such a seemingly simple game can be.

The implementation of curling is really quite good, and it works well with the touch screen controls to control your throw as well as the sweepers. Curling can be seen in the following gameplay video:

Overall, Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games does little more than remind me of how great any game with Sonic in the title used to be, and how bad recent Sonic games have been. If you're not interested in curling, there really isn't much reason to pick this game up, as the other three events aren't much fun at all.

App Store Link: Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, $4.99

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IUGO is the latest developer to throw their hat in to the dual-stick shooter ring with Daisy Mae’s Alien Buffet, a game where trailer park resident Daisy Mae fends off an alien invasion. Included in the game are tons of different aliens (and some huge boss aliens), a bunch of different weapons, unlockable costumes, and online leaderboards. There's also a taunt system, but it isn't very clear how it works from the video:

Daisy Mae’s Alien Buffet comes with three different control options where the game will either auto-shoot for you, provide a button to mash to shoot, or the more traditional dual-stick approach. IUGO expects to see Daisy Mae on the App Store sometime in February.

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