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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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iPhone developer Marco Mazzoli recently released a fresh new iPhone game called Spirit [App Store].

The $0.99 retro-styled game has been getting high praise in our forums for what is a relatively new game mechanic wrapped in a very nice package. The idea behind the game is somewhat similar to Upsi Looper (no longer available), but thankfully implements touch controls rather than tilt.

In Spirit you move your ship around the screen by simply tounching any part of the screen and moving around. The ship moves relative to your finger so it never has to be in the way. The goal is to destroy the enemies by looping them with your ship's trail. If successful, a vortex appears sucking them away to nothingness. Combos and chains improve your score, and all the while you need to avoid running straight into an enemy.

Check out the developer video:

Learning to move your ship accurately is a bit of a challenge, but in that "gotta try one more time" kind of way. The gameplay is also further enhanced by a great visual style and sound effects as well as a good variety of enemies. At only $0.99, if you're looking for a challenging new arcade experience, this one's easy to recommend. The current version does not have global leaderboards, but the developer has indicated Open Feint integration is on the way.

App Store Link: Spirit, $0.99

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Late last week we posted a preview of Vector Tanks Extreme, which was released just hours later through author (and retro lord) Peter Hirschberg's new operation, BlipTime Studios. As I had the final build in-hand a few days before its official release, I knew the game was something to get excited about, but since then I've spent a great deal more time with the title and, well, I haven't been disappointed. (I have, however, been blown to bits more times than I'd like to confess…)

First, let's step back a moment and take a look at the overall Vector Tanks situation. Peter's original Vector Tanks appeared in the App Store, published by Chillingo, just over one year ago. It delivered a stylized iPhone take on Ed Rotberg's 1980 arcade classic Battlezone, with a large helping of modern-day retro, thanks to the lovely glowing vector effects that make the iPhone's screen feel more like an Atari Quadrascan display than a 3.5-inch LCD. It's some of the best retro gaming to be found in the App Store.

Early this year Peter parted ways with publisher Chillingo and formed his own studio, the aforementioned BlipTime Studios. In that transition, he brought Vector Tanks along — and with an update — but was unable to provide said update for free to those who purchased the Chillingo Vector Tanks release.

As Peter explains it,

…I apologize that there isn't a way to upgrade. I worked with Apple to try and establish and upgrade path for my current customers but the final answer from Apple was that once you change the account under which an app is published, it will always appear as a "new" app and upgrading is NOT possible. I sincerely apologize. I did try and I know it sort of stinks. My hope is that the reduced price will serve as a good-faith gesture to my current customers who wish to pick up this updated version of Vector Tanks.

To soften the blow of the situation to those who purchased the original, and in honor of the release of Vector Tanks Extreme, Peter is offering the latest version of the original, Vector Tanks (Classic Version) [App Store] for free for one week. Everyone reading this post should just go grab it right now.

Now that we've got all that sorted, let's move back to Vector Tanks Extreme. I had, earlier, described the original Vector Tanks as Battlezone on crack. Given that, Vector Tanks Extreme can only be described as Vector Tanks on crack — squared (and on fire, screaming while giving out wedgies). It's one of the most intensive, white-knucle shooters I've ever played on any platform. And this is true even on the easiest setting. But, when you play at the INSANE difficulty level or in the game's unlimited-lives, balls-to-the-wall, 2-minute Rage mode, it's enough to necessitate a heavy dose of beta-blockers.

The game is basically an exercise in GO GO GO, watch the map to dodge enemy fire, swing behind an obstacle for shielding, and lay down the smack as fast and as hard as you can. And if the aforementioned obstacle is slowing you down, just blow it away. Like the original, Vector Tanks Extreme is controlled by left and right thumb sliders at the edges of the screen that guide the action of your tank's tracks. It's a tap to the screen to fire your weapons, and this time around there are more to be found lying about the battlefield. Canons, rapid fire turrets, rockets, rail guns, nukes — not a very good place to get caught in the crossfire.

Notching up the intensity of the virtual battlefield carnage are the encouraging quips of your in-game crew, consisting of the voices of both Jon St. John (the voice of Duke Nukem) and Jeff Straub. When I try to capture the essence of the game experience, I keep conjuring the image of the famous, '80s Memorex advertisement. It's pretty much like that, but on an iPhone. And with glowing vectors.

Vector Tanks Extreme uses the network to track global scoring, but things should get even more interesting when Peter releases the first major update, which will enable network competitive play. I'm quite anxious for that to land, but until then, single play against the game's vicious AI is definitely keeping my hands full.

If all that gets your juices flowing, go grab Vector Tanks (Classic Version) [App Store] – for free (for a few more days) — and give it a try. And if you want to take that experience a fair piece beyond the next level, you know where to look. Vector Tanks Extreme. Can you take it?

App Store Link: Vector Tanks Extreme, $1.99

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Eurocenter, who brought us the popular Cocoto Kart Online, has given us an exclusive preview of their upcoming iPhone shooting gallery game Cocoto Magic Circus, a conversion of the Wii original.

In Cocoto Magic Circus, you take on the role of Cocoto, Shiny, Neuro, or Baggy on a mission to save poor Fairy, the pixie, who has been kidnapped by a sinister and disturbing clown. In order to save her, you must progress through five different creepy carnival settings, wielding your dart-gun like a champ, tapping true on the clown's various minions to knock them into oblivion. There are seven shooting gallery-style mini-games in each of the settings, making for 35 challenges in all.

While it's true that shooting gallery titles are generally rather simplistic affairs — and there's certainly no lack of such games in the App Store — Cocoto Magic Circus is a surprisingly enjoyable little game. The visuals are very well done — cartoonish, cute, and atmospheric with a nice parallax effect to the scenes that adds a sense of depth to the game. Complexity is added to the title's tap-to-shoot dynamic by way of line-of-fire obstacles as well as floating bonuses and special effects that, when shot, trigger things both good and bad: double shot score, free hits, lights out, gun jams, flip screen, etc. It's a nice touch.

The game offers an Arcade mode, which is progressive play through the various settings and challenges, as well as a Training mode that allows you to jump in and play any challenge in the game. Online multiplayer is also included, allowing you to engage in real-time matches with players around the world. (Unfortunately I was unable to test this component as there is no community at present, since the game has not yet been released.)

I've enjoyed my time with the game, learning its ins and outs for this post. Getting through it requires some fast reflexes, especially in the later challenges, which ramp up the difficulty and pacing — it's no cakewalk. One thing to note is that it's not a particularly lengthy affair; most users could get through it in an hour or two, but that's helped a bit from a replay perspective by the three available levels of difficulty, with Normal presenting a decent challenge.

Cocoto Magic Circus is a shooting gallery title that delivers a good deal more than most games of its sort. It's a cute little game that's fun to play and, as IGN called it, "a surprisingly fresh breath of air." I'd wager most gamers out there would enjoy it more than they think.

Have a look at the gameplay video to help you decide for yourself.

Cocoto Magic Circus is set to debut in the App Store on Thursday, March 4th at a price of $0.99.

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Tag Games' much anticipated Astro Ranch has just come out. We previewed the game just last week.

The basic premise of the game involves the character you choose at the beginning crash landing in to a neighborhood filled with aliens who surprisingly enough are more than willing to get you started with a house to live in, a barn to keep all your stuff in, and a plot of land for you to raise your various crops and livestock. The interface is all touch driven, and works surprisingly well with how many different things in the game are controlled with very similar gestures.

During our early time with it, Astro Ranch seems to be a surprisingly deep game. Here's a hands on video of the gameplay:

We're spending more time with the title as we speak, but impressions are starting to roll into our forums.

App Store Link: Astro Ranch, $2.99

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Chillingo has just provided us with a new gameplay video of the upcoming musical shooter Radio Flare Redux by Studio Radiolaris, a sequel to the late-2008 iPhone original which was a finalist in the 2009 IGF Mobile and IndieCade competitions.

As with the original, Radio Flare Redux challenges you to battle extraterrestrial enemies while jamming to pumping background beats in a gaming experience that's more or less Rez meets the side-scrolling shooter. The developer suggests adding a few words to your vocabulary to prepare for the experience.

Hyperjump [hī'pər] – noun: Takes as long as the blink of an eye. The split-second of traveling through hyperspace, where the brain experiences a unique audio-visual sensation à Synchronicity.

Synesthetic [sĭn'ĭs-thē'zhə] – noun: A unity of the senses such as hearing colors and seeing music. à Players receive a synesthetic experience with Radio Flare REDUX’s tightly connected melodies and stimulating game visuals.

Everything in the game, from the movement of the enemies to the firing of your ship, is synched to the beat of the licensed techno, club, and house tracks. The game features fast-paced shooter action and "club style" visuals across 33 unlockable levels that, the developer assures us, combine to deliver a truly "synesthetic" experience.

Radio Flare Redux features both drag and virtual stick controls for negotiating the side-scrolling battlefields. Online leaderboards through Chillingo's social network let you compete with friends. And, in a zen / psychedelic twist, there's an unlockable Musical Toy sequencer that allows you to arrange sound effects, create rhythms, and experience a Visualizer mode that takes you through an enemy-free level where it's all about the eye candy.

Radio Flare Redux is expected to appear in the App Store sometime in the next few days.

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Early this morning Vimov provided us a sneak peek at their iPhone port of Hexen II. It's a work in progress, as currently there's no music yet, the menu system hasn't been implemented, the controls are basic and nowhere near final, and they've got a bunch of performance tweaks to implement to make it run across the whole iPhone and iPod touch device family. But other than that, it's all there.

Hexen II is, obviously, the sequel to Hexen (which was the sequel to Heretic) and was developed by Raven Software and published by Id for the PC in 1997. This first person shooter utilizes a modified version of the Quake engine to add a roleplaying element to the game where players could choose from multiple classes, and increase statistics by earning experience throughout the adventure.

Like the other games in the series, Raven eventually released the source code for Hexen II, which is what is powering the following gameplay video:

The sticky situation that the developers of this Hexen II port face is that, while the actual game source itself has been made open source, the data files that make Hexen II more than just a modded Quake engine are not open source. The preview version we were given is utilizing assets from the free Hexen II demo, but the game itself can't hit the App Store until the developers work our some kind of licensing agreement with Activision.

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If there's one thing that PopCap is really good at aside from making impossible to put down games that appeal to hardcore gamers, grandmas, and everyone in between it's having those game smash sales records.

The original Plants vs. Zombies [App Store] release for the PC was PopCap's fastest-selling video game, and per a press release this morning, the iPhone release is performing just as well.

Since its release, there have been over 300,000 units sold on the App Store, making Plants vs. Zombies the highest grossing launch in App Store history. PopCap is no stranger to greatness on the App Store, as Bejeweled 2 was the first paid app to reach 3 million downloads, and they're responsible for three games that have been #1 on the paid app charts as well: Bejeweled 2, Peggle, and obviously Plants vs. Zombies

If this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies, you absolutely must check out our glowing review:

The 88 Metacritic score of the original Plants vs. Zombies (complete with 100's from multiple sources) just goes to show how great this game is. The iPhone port is absolutely phenomenal, and even though it's lacking a few game modes, there's always hope for them to be implemented in the future either via an update or a DLC add-on. There isn't a lite version, but there is a free Flash demo that I highly recommend trying if this is the first you've heard of Plants vs. Zombies.

Now that Plants vs. Zombies has decimated App Store sales records, hopefully PopCap will throw iPhone gamers a bone and somehow implement the missing game modes found in the PC version. I've still got my fingers crossed at least.

App Store Link: Plants vs. Zombies, $2.99

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As a child of the 80’s I grew up on Transformers. As a mobile strategy fanatic I’ve been in love with turn-based strategy games for years. It should come as no surprise then that Transformers G1 Awakening ranked pretty high on my most wanted list. But it also ranked fairly high on my list of concerns. After all – Transformers has had countless reinventions over the last few decades, none of which could hold a torch to the series that started it all. Likewise the series has had a number of video game spinoffs, nearly all of which have managed to disappoint. Could a Transformers game released more than 25 years after the series inception possibly live up to the expectations of series purists and strategy fans alike? As mobile gamers first learned in 2008, the answer is a resounding yes.

Originally available for mobile phones back in 2008, Transformers G1 Awakening is a solid strategy game that takes fan service to a whole new level. If you grew up on the original Transformers cartoon from 1984, you’re going to squeal like a 6 year old when you see some of the choices the game has made. The cast is comprised of series mainstays like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, but the game happily makes room for fan favourites like Grimlock and Ironhide. True to the television storyline, the story starts with the crash of the Ark and continues through to the Space Bridge built by the Decepticons. Jetfire’s first appearance is even true to his back story, starting out with the bad guys and quickly switching sides.

Gameplay here should be familiar to anyone who’s played turn-based strategy games like Rogue Planet or UniWar. Each unit will be able to move a certain number of squares, attack opposing forces, and capture important structures. Unique to Transformers however, is the ability to -– well -– transform. Every character can transform from robot mode to vehicle mode and back again. Vehicle mode offers a major advantage if you need to cover ground as you’ll be able to move around with much greater ease, but it also comes with a major disadvantage as you won’t be able to defend yourself from attacks.

Unlike many of the games that G1 Awakening draws inspiration from, the gameplay emphasizes strategy over sheer force. Certain levels play out more like puzzles than tactical combat situations. By offering up actual characters instead of generic unit types, you can never have more than one of a certain unit on screen at the same time. Like the morale boost Optimus gives his troops, but also enjoy his high attack rating? He can’t be in two places at once, so you’ll need to place him where he’s needed the most.

Some of the characters will share similar stats and abilities, but no two Autobots play exactly alike. Prowl and Sideswipe both utilize ranged attacks, but their distance and power are different. Ironhide had a great chance to deflect damage, but his mobility is severely limited. It’s very rare that you’ll ever have more than 4 or 5 characters on screen in any given level, so knowing the strengths and weaknesses of every character (including those of the Decepticons you’re trying to destroy) is essential to your success.

Having a limited number of characters doesn’t mean you can’t introduce more into the battlefield, it just means you’ll need to be selective on who you introduce. New units can be purchased by spending Energon, which you’ll earn on each turn. The amount you earn depends on the number of pylons or power stations you’ve captured. As strange as it may sound, unit production became one of my favourite parts of the G1 Awakening – not for any gameplay reasons, but because it’s a shining example of the crazy amount of fan love that went into the game design. Units aren’t created in a factory or rolled off the back of a truck – they’re introduced into the battlefield by Metroplex, the Autobots living battle station. The only thing that could have been better is if Blaster was able to produce units like Eject and Rewind, and guess what? He can do that too. If anyone tries to tell you that G1 Awakening isn’t everything an old school Transformers fan has been waiting for, you just tell them to shut their lying mouth.

G1’s campaign is 17 missions long and should take the average gamer 3 or 4 hours to work through – not a bad package, but not necessarily as long as similar turn-based strategy games on the App Store. In addition to the story mode G1 Awakening also offers Showdown mode, a series of challenges that pit the Autobots against the Decepticons in a number of unique situations.

Rounding out the package is Cybertron Arena, G1’s fancy name for multiplayer. Cybertron Arena earns serious points for finally letting us play as the Decepticons, but it loses just as many for its limited gameplay options. You can’t play online, you can’t play over local wifi -– the only option for multiplayer is single device pass’n’play. It’s a good fit for this style of game, but on its own it just feels like too slim an offering. Still, if you don’t have another friend to play with sitting next to you G1 Awakening at least offers up a Cybertron Arena AI option.

Outside of the slim multiplayer options, the only real disappointment here came from the visuals. The game was ported from a 2008 mobile phone release and when you’re issuing commands on the map it really shows. It’s not just that the graphics are ripped from a mobile phone, it’s that the design decisions made for the mobile phone version just made no sense. Each character has a constant animation when standing still that has their torso and arms moving in a way that mimics breathing (which, I’m pretty sure robots don’t do), so we know they can do animations. Yet when characters move around the map in robot mode their feet don’t move. It’s like moving asthmatic chess pieces. The terrible command mode visuals are a stark contrast to the battle visuals which easily rank amongst the best in the genre. Cel-shaded graphics come to life in a quick battle animation that looks like it could have been ripped right out of the series. If anything, they reminded me a lot of the visuals in 2002’s Robotech: Battlecry for home consoles. If you’re not familiar with the game, trust me, that’s a compliment.

As a strategy game, Transformers G1 Awakening offers up enough twists to help it stand out in a sea of similar games. As a Transformers game, it offers up anything and everything an old school Transformers fan could want to see. G1 Awakening isn’t simply a great strategy game, it’s the greatest Transformers game I’ve seen to date.

App Store Link: Transformers G1: Awakening, $4.99

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