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Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time! [99¢] has everything a good zombie game needs: guns, girls, guts, green goo and a generous amount of cleaning equipment. Oh, come on. Don’t raise that eyebrow at me. You know it’s true. Every good shoot-out tends to leave an inevitable mess and Zombie Wonderland 2, unlike so many of its peers, is not afraid to acknowledge it.

Here, in this goofy little defense/time-management/real-time strategy title, you’ll have the dubious pleasure of playing as the redneck stereotype Chuck. Being the responsible Zombie Cleaner (and someone totally oblivious to the idea of job security) that he is, Chuck will stop at nothing to rid the world of the cannibalistic undead.

As you might have guessed, this isn’t a particularly easy task. You’re going to have to do everything from bringing a vegetarian vampire his lactose-rich treat to protecting pet goldfish in Medieval Japan.

Silly, eh? If that description hasn’t scared you off just yet, this might spell the beginning of a wonderful friendship. Much like the story itself, Zombie Wonderland 2 is a fair bit of mindless fun, the kind that can easily rob you of a few hours of your time. If what you want is a simple, silly hybrid of the aforementioned genres, stop reading and go download it already.

However, if you’re an Apple App Store connoisseur, this may be where you sit down and ponder the direction of your dollar a bit more. Like a serving of fast food, Zombie Wonderland 2 is both satisfying and unfulfilling all at the same time.

Gameplay here is relatively straightforward. Each stage consists of you being told to defend a certain item from zombies for a number of nights. Of course, as a Zombie Cleaner, you’re also going to have to do your best to ensure that there is no unnecessary gunk on the floors at the end of the night, something easier said than done.

To accomplish this, you’re going to have to make use of your trusty shotgun ‘Betsy’, cleaning implements, turrets, wooden planks, unusual bullets and a peculiar assortment of limited-use weapons. Controls are exceedingly simple. To attack a zombie, you touch it with a finger. To board up a window, you tap it with a finger. To summon your infant Death Worm, you – you get the picture.

Sadly, though, it isn’t quite as exciting as it sounds. Your nightly escapades will mostly consist of you boarding up windows and playing ‘whack-a-mole’ with the festering onslaught. Regardless of how many you purchase, you’ll only get access to one turret at a time. One. Uno. Satu.

To make things even worse, your turrets are about as impervious to zombie attacks as cookies are to the Cookie Monster. More often than not, you’ll find yourself attempting to fix it while corralling flaming cadavers. It’s the same with the limited-use weapons and the various bullet types. Sure, you might have a dozen but you’ll ever get to use one variety at a time.

All said and done, however, Zombie Wonderland 2 is still an enjoyable piece of work. The over-the-top silliness and the bright, colorful graphics feel reminiscent of an old Saturday morning cartoon. The game’s just difficult enough to make it challenging and simple enough to engage in without requiring too much of a forethought.

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Red Zebra Game’s Raid Leader reminds me a lot of Mika Mobile’s Battleheart [$2.99]. Like that game, it’s a real-time strategy RPG hybrid that seamlessly blends these two styles of play into a series of trying instance-based conflicts. Where the two depart the most dramatically is in the name: raid.

In Raid Leader, you’ll be taking a knight, a mage, and an archer, against a variety of damage-eating, MMO-like bosses that all appear to have special mechanical hooks. For example, there’s a yeti-like monster with a freeze spell that turns its target into a block of ice. In order to break out, you’ll have to tap on the screen. There’s also a worm that, much to the archer and mage’s chagrin, spawns mobs of life-sucking blood leaches all over the battlefield.

Speaking of the battlefield, battle is pretty simple — just click and drag. When you click on a character, you’ll be able to assign actions like healing or attacking to friend or foe. Some monsters have area of effect attacks, and for those, you’ll have to move the party around all over the screen, or figure out intricate formations to lessen the blows. It’s tactical-light, but effective as Battleheart proved.

One noteworthy thing I’ve learned in my time with Raid Leader is that you can’t go into auto-pilot during fights. You can wipe, and wipe pretty fast, if you (a) don’t honor things like blood leaches, (b) keep all of the party alive, and (c) master the game’s skill system, which lets you take two different skills per character into fights.

The latter point is particularly noteworthy: as you progress you’ll earn currency to buy new skills, and those skills will be essential to countering specific bosses actions and battle needs. Skills, then, are more of a mechanical extension of recognition and exploitation, as opposed to being strictly about preference. It’s a neat and entertaining change of pace.

In my preview session, I didn’t push too far into the main campaign — which of course, revolves around a princess and her need for three heroes to defeat a great evil — but I get the sense that balance might be Raid Leader’s biggest hurdle. Hard and fun is great, but hard for the sake of it isn’t. MMOs seem to screw this up all the time, so Red Zebra needs to be extra careful here.

Raid Leader is being published by Crescent Moon Games as a Universal app, and it’s expected to be released “soon.” It’s currently in beta.

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After getting together to pick our official best games of 2011, we also had our writers take a look back at the last year and compile lists of their personal favorites along with their reasons why.

2011. What a year. The App Store has been online for over three years now, and it still feels like the future to me most days. Looking back on my life of gaming, it’s just crazy how far we’ve come, and not only in terms of the quantity and quality of iOS releases. When I was begging my mother to take polaroids of me as proof that I beat NES games, the very existence of devices like iPhones and iPads would’ve seemed like some sort of unattainable future eternally found only in science fiction. But, here we are, almost to the point that we’re taking being able to download ridiculously great games, wirelessly, from anywhere, often for a fiftieth (or less) of the price for granted. That’s crazy.

My responsibilities as Editor in Chief of TouchArcade here has me cycling a silly amount of games through my iOS devices, as I make sure to at least try every game we review to make sure I agree with what we post. I usually just don’t have the time to get incredibly invested in too many of these games, as serving as the gatekeeper for TouchArcade content really just doesn’t allow for it. There just aren’t enough hours in the day, as badly as I wish there were.

So, the games I end up playing for extended periods of time are an eclectic mix of titles that may have larger over-arching goals, but are totally conducive to quick pick up and play sessions. I’m not sure I’d call any of these games the best games of the year, but they ended up being my favorites, and the ones I spent the most time with:

Dungeon Raid, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Even though Dungeon Raid was technically released very late in 2010, it didn’t hit its stride until a few updates later in 2011. No other video game (including consoles) released this year even comes close to the amount of time I’ve invested in Dungeon Raid. I loved Puzzle Quest, but the way Dungeon Raid boils down that formula its core essence is pure genius. Unlockable classes, random abilities, and game balance that makes any strategy viable with some work has created not only one of my favorite iOS games, but one of my favorite video games in general. I can’t believe I’m saying that about a match three.

King of Dragon Pass, $9.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Since completely abandoning PC gaming at some point in the last ten years and becoming a full-fledged “Mac guy” I’ve missed out on so many of these obscure PC titles. At first glance, King of Dragon Pass might not seem that friendly to iOS style pick up and play gaming since it’s a shockingly involved game of managing a tribe that can go on for months (assuming you’re good enough, of course). Where KoDP wins me over is that it’s the perfect game to load up, make a few management decisions, close the game, and come back to it later. I’m in the midst of a game that I’ve been playing for close to three weeks total now, and while I’m not sure I’ll ever ascend to position of King of Dragon Pass itself, each game is random enough that it feels totally fresh. A universal update is coming too, which I’m beyond excited for.

NBA JAM by EA SPORTS™, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – The only series of sports games that comes with more nostalgia for me is the Mutant League games. I couldn’t even guess how much of my life I’ve spent playing NBA Jam between the ancient console versions, the four player arcade machines, and subsequent ports and re-releases. 18 years after NBA Jam’s original release, I still smile like an complete idiot as I shatter backboards, dunk on fire from a hundred feet in the air, and as the announcer exclaims, “BOOM SHAKA LAKA.” The iOS port is absolutely fabulous, although I really wish it had online multiplayer. I’ll keep my fingers crossed on that.

The Last Rocket, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – I’m all about games that feel like they offer a totally complete package that all meshes together in perfect harmony. It was this reason why I loved Sword & Sworcery so much, and I feel like The Last Rocket comes packed with similar magic. Too many games hinge on retro tropes, but don’t go “all the way” (for lack of a better way to put it). Pixel art and/or chip tunes with modern gameplay can feel a little disjointed at times, but The Last Rocket nails the whole thing to the point that you could load it on to a NES cartridge and blast it back through some wormhole to 1985 and it’d fit in perfectly on a shelf at Funco Land. The appropriately barebones story, the graphics, the music, the gameplay… Flawlessly nostalgic.

Battleheart, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Without a doubt my favorite iPad game of the year. Battleheart is one of the few games that seems to really just click on the iPad, as the touch interface allows you to control four characters at once to have these surprisingly intense battle sequences that feel like you’re micromanaging an entire party of players in an MMORPG. I really wish there was more to it, as I feel the end-game is a little lacking, but I’ve had a silly amount of fun over the year just re-starting the game over and over to level up a new party, relying on a vastly different class composition each time. I’ve really really got my fingers crossed for sequel treatment, similar to what Zombieville USA saw, as more than anything else Battleheart feels like the foundation for a game that could be beyond incredible.

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While the iOS device’s multitouch screen has introduced a whole new way of interacting with software and enabled game developers to rethink the fundamentals of game control, there are definitely areas where it falls short. One such area is in the on-screen approximation of a physical control stick or D-pad. Ever since we first mentioned the iControlPad, three and a half years ago, button mashers particularly frustrated by virtual controls began eagerly waiting for such physical controller accessories to arrive. This summer, the iCade and iControlPad did arrive and developers wanting to go that extra mile began adding in support for these controllers, where it made sense.

Gametel controller

In a short time from now, the controller market will be gaining another iOS-compatible unit for gamers to choose from in the form of the Gametel Bluetooth controller from Fructel AB. News on this one began spreading a couple of weeks back, but we only just learned of the device, likely due to the Android-centric PR that surrounds it; there’s scant mention of iOS devices on the product webpage. Luckily, C64 for iPhone [App Store] developer Stuart Carnie of Manomio pinged me to let us know that the unit works quite well with iOS devices (by way of an iCade emulation mode, the addition of which was driven by Stuart, himself), and that he is particularly impressed by the unit’s ergonomics.

The Gametel controller pairs with any iOS device, appearing to be a keyboard to the host unit. It has a spring-loaded arm / brace extending from the top of the unit that allows it to firmly grasp most any type of app phone, including all iPhone and iPod touch devices (not the iPad, of course). The unit sports a digital directional pad, four main action buttons, a Select and a Start button, and two shoulder buttons. (It lacks the analog nubs offered by the iControlPad.) The Gametel device delivers 9 hours of battery life — for itself only, not the host unit — and is charged via micro USB cable.

Jimmie Johansson, involved with the project, informs me that the 120mm x 67mm x 24mm unit is light weight and durable and fits easily into a pocket. Production of the first batch of devices is happening right now, as I post this, and it should be available at Amazon UK before Christmas for around £50.

Oh — and it has a super feature: pressing Select and Start together instantly toggles in the on-screen keyboard, to enter high scores or search for an app to launch. It’s an extremely welcome feature to anyone that’s used an iCade, which lacks such functionality.

iControlPad

The Gametel controller isn’t the only news from the iOS controller scene. The OpenPandora folks behind the iControlPad have been busy working on firmware updates to better the experience of iOS gamers.

Remember, back in the review of the iControlPad, how I mentioned that only jailbroken iOS devices and other platforms could utilize the sweet, dual analog nubs on the iControlPad? Well, I’m happy to have been proven wrong. Now, it’s not as wonderful a scenario as if Apple had begun allowing the type of iOS Bluetooth pairing that an HID device with a set of analog sticks really needs. No. Instead, the iControlPad firmware developers created a new interface mode called “special packet mode” in the latest test firmware that sends the coordinates of the two analog nubs as strings of characters — from the perspective of an iOS device, they’re being sent by a keyboard. It’s a pretty awesome workaround in the face of an Apple restriction that we truly wish the company would see fit to dissolve, and it lets legitimate games in the App Store take advantage of physical analog controllers.

A perfect example of this mode in action is Warner Skoch’s Vertex Blaster [App Store], a space shooter in the vein of (a retro and rather simplified) Super Stardust HD that we’ve not covered directly, but that has a lengthy thread in our forums where readers are enjoying it. It was in the OpenPandora forums that we learned of this little gem. Have a look at a fan video showing iControlPad analog nub gameplay on an iPad. (The video also shows D-pad play of Super Mega Worm.)

Oh, and that pop-in-the-onscreen-keyboard trick the Gametel unit brings — the iControlPad, with the latest test firmware, has that as well (it just takes a few more seconds of button-holding to kick in).

iCade

So, with all this exciting news about the Gametel controller and the analog stick support from App Store games for the iControlPad, I went ahead and contacted ThinkGeek to see if there is anything exciting on the horizon for the iCade. It turns out that while, sadly, the pop-up-keyboard trick isn’t a planned thing for the iCade right now, I did glean, from extremely vague terms, that there may be some interesting things to come in the iCade’s future. No specifics, unfortunately, but it’s something we’ll keep an eye on.

And there you have it — a round-up of physical controller news. The introduction of a new controller, the Gametel unit, will only sweeten the proposition for developers to support for such devices in their games down the road, and that’s definitely a good thing for iOS gamers. Stay tuned for more controller news as it unfolds.

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Recently, we mentioned that Space Tripper [$3.99] – the iOS version of Astro Tripper – has finally been released by True Axis the makers of the popular game: Jet Car Stunts [$1.99 / Free]. After being released on various other platforms over the past decade, it’s finally our turn for an iOS port of this top-down arena-based shoot’em-up, which features a main campaign plus score attack and challenge modes to unlock.

Although I’m happy to recommend this game now, my initial impressions were less favorable. You see, Space Tripper offers tilt controls as the only option for movement, but strangely, it appears no auto-calibration occurs at the start of the game, so the craft was unresponsive to tilts and left sitting like a lame duck. However, after discovering the tilt calibration and tilt-sensitivity options and testing a few different configurations, the craft became very responsive, ducking and weaving around enemies.

The decision to implement only tilt controls will immediately put some players off, but it actually works rather well (after you play with the settings). The developers conducted some trials with touch-based controls early on in their development process, but decided that touch controls obscured the action and weren’t responsive enough.

Tilting moves your craft, while tapping the left side of the screen changes weapon and tapping the right side flips the craft around, to face the opposite way. When you flip direction, the craft also slides back a little, which is a subtle movement, but it’s often life-saving when you spin to face an enemy that’s too close. This game requires careful approaches rather than always rushing in, however there’s also time limits for each level, so you need to keep attacking.

The weapons shoot left or right, so you need to move alongside an enemy to attack, but there’s no fire button as your selected weapon fires automatically, non-stop. Your ship is equipped with two weapons: red and blue. The blue lazer fires a direct forwards-facing beam, while the red weapon fires a three pronged blast, covering a wider range. When you collect a red or blue power-up, the weapon of that color is leveled-up, so you could potentially have a very strong red weapon, but a weak blue one, or vice versa.  These level-ups are definitely worth grabbing, as the extra fire-power is helpful for destroying enemies, but importantly, it also looks cool.

Whereas many shoot’em-ups are set in a rectangular play-field, Star Tripper uses various different shaped arenas, with 3D features like ramps which you can jump off. You can’t fly beyond the arena, but your enemies can enter from outside, shooting at you even before you can get to them. To keep track of their position, you constantly refer to a handy radar, which shows the position of all enemies on the level. The green enemy blips on the radar turn red when they become aggressive and accelerate towards you, which helps prioritize your targets.

There are four unique worlds, each with their own graphics, enemies and objective. Sometimes it’s all about shooting down enemies, but other times you’re destroying generators or knocking down pillars (while also blasting enemies!). The enemies are nicely varied, including tanks, helicopters, heat-seeking missile turrets and even swarms of insects, fizz wheels and killer-worms.  Plus there are big boss fights to reward your efforts. Like a massive yellow spider that crawls and jumps, a big fat tank or a massive one-eyed sea creature. You need to find and exploit each bosses weak-spots to take it out.

When your three ships are destroyed, you’re presented with two options – either stop playing and record your score, or continue playing but forfeit your score from the high-score rankings.  At first, this seemed like a great feature, as it allows less competent players to continue their game without being forced to restart from the very beginning. However, the continue option only gives one additional life at a time – which is sometimes lost within 30 seconds. This forces you to frequently re-choose continue. It would be better if “continue” granted another set of three lives.

There’s three levels of difficulty: Normal, Hard and Hardest. Although one member of our discussion forums joked the levels should be named: “Hard, Yeah right  and LOLWUT”.  Fortunately, there’s some cheats built into the game (as described in the App Store game description). The cheat menu offers unlimited lives and/or invulnerability and the ability to skip levels. The unlimited lives option is great, as it’s still a challenge to complete the levels, but you can keep re-trying and your weapon power-up’s don’t reset when you die. As soon as you enable a cheat, all leaderboards, achievements, game mode unlocking and progress saving are disabled until game over, or you quit. This means legit players can still aim for ranks on the Game Center or OpenFeint leaderboards, without worrying about competing against “cheats”.

Star Tripper is a fast-paced, nice-looking and challenging game which will appeal to any hard-core shoot-em-up fans, but anyone can progress through the levels to try the boss fights thanks to the “continue” option and cheat modes. It’s taken several years for this game to reach our iOS devices, so perhaps we’ll end up seeing Space Tripper 2, sometime around 2018!

TouchArcade Rating:

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In honor of the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim today, tons of iOS developers have dropped the price of their games. I suppose this sale could also be for Veteran’s Day, but that seems to be just as weird of a reason to slash prices of iOS games as the release of Skyrim. So, since everyone else has abandoned me for Skyrim, I’m just going to assume that these sales are some kind of consolation prize to give me something else to do today other than be forever alone.

Out of all the things on sale, this is the ten bucks I’d spend:

Cowboy Guns HD, $0.99 – [Review] – Sure, there’s a billion dual stick shooters on the App Store, but I’ve got to tip my hat at any that have an actual story-driven single-player campaign to play through instead of just throwing you into a pit full of monsters to see how long you can survive.

Flapcraft, $0.99 – This game was a little hard to recommend when it first came out because of how short and linear it was for a “see how far you can fly” kind of game. But, for a buck, it’s totally worth picking up just to see how incredibly detailed the graphics are on the Retina Display.

Grand Prix Story, $0.99 – [Review] – My latest Kairosoft obsession. Take the gameplay of Game Dev Story and apply it to racing. It works really well, and unlike other Kairosoft games features gameplay which seems fairly clear-cut and sensible. Upgrade cars, do better in races, trick out your garage, etc.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, $0.99 – [Review] – We didn’t think a whole lot of this game when it was originally released, it was expensive, buggy, and felt awkward as an iOS game. Well, a price drop and a few updates fixed the first two problems, but I’m not sure what can be done about the third.

Peggle, $0.99 – [Review] – Is there a person on this planet who owns an iPhone and doesn’t have Peggle on it? I certainly hope not, but if you fall into that group I’d seriously fix that as soon as possible. Peggle is amazing.

Scribblenauts Remix, $0.99 – [Review] – The Scribblenauts games for the Nintendo DS were incredible, so naturally, when you take those two and cram ‘em together into one iOS game that’s also universal and supports iCloud syncing? …Yeah, you need to get this game.

SHADOWGUN, $0.99 – [Review] – Like Madfingers’ other games, Shadowgun is very heavy on the eye candy and a little light on gameplay. Regardless, if you’ve got a recent iOS device, for a buck you should totally check out the graphics Shadowgun can make it pump out.

Super Crossfire™ HD, $0.99 – [Review] – This is what happens when you take the classic game of Space Invaders and crank it up to 11 with bright colors, particle effects, and a really cool warping mechanic that puts a new twist on the whole thing.

World of Goo, $0.99 – [Review] – I wouldn’t really say the small screen of the iPhone is the ideal way to play World of Goo, but this game is so good that you should try it anyway. Although, if at all possible, check out the HD version on the iPad.

WORMS, $0.99 – [Review] – Even though I still don’t think the port is the best, it’s still really rad to be able to play Worms on your phone. A recent update added Bluetooth multiplayer, so if you’ve got local iOS gamer friends, this is a solid purchase.

Also, just like most holidays, there’s tons of other games on sale (and quite a few even free) for the release of Skyrim. I’ve written up a handy-dandy guide for finding everything that’s on sale or free. Alternatively, you can check out our price drops and freebie forum to see what forum members have found.

Happy Skyrim release day everyone!

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There’s something dodgy about Ninja Pong’s [99¢ / HD] premise. You’re telling me that professional ninjas would jump a huge gap onto a tiny platform that has to be manually controlled? And that they’d do it wearing any number of silly hats? I just don’t buy it.

You might want to, though. Silly and simple as it might be, Ninja Pong is a fun bit of arcade play that boasts a surprisingly in-depth list of upgrades. Save ninjas, earn shinies, buy things that let you save more ninjas. Sound good?

As master of the platform, you control life and death for your tiny ninja buddies. They need to get from the building or cliff on the left of the screen to its fellow on the right, and you control the only bridge for the gap between. It’s one-sided Pong and you control the paddle, dragging it back and forth along the bottom of the screen to bounce ninjas and dodge bombs.

The army of ninjas absolutely refuses to go easy on you. They jump at different speeds, for different distances. When night falls, they all jump at once. It’s madness. Some of them jump like jerks, floating in place and falling unpredictable. And all the while, the platform on the right is shelling you with bombs and flaming arrows. It’s super hectic, but quite fun.

Powerups can make things a bit easier, but you need to catch them. Do so and you might find your paddle extended, or the ninjas slowed, or a precious life restored. Coins also fall and need collecting if you want to buy yourself something nice.

“Something nice,” in this case, is a selection from a list of cosmetic (and adorable) hats for your ninjas, upgrades to your powerups and paddles, and a few things that change the gameplay pretty substantially. Three of the items you can unlock add tapping mechanics to the game, and let you tap the screen in a variety of ways to speed your ninjas up, make them worth more points and destroy bombs.

These modifications (and many of the other unlockables) can absolutely affect your final score, and since you can purchase coins with IAP as well as earning them in game big spenders can give themselves a serious advantage.

Alien Worm has come up with a clever way around that: separate Game Center leaderboards for playing with or without shop items. There’s also a leaderboard for the folks who are really into grinding or spending money — access to the Ninja Diamond League leaderboard is only available to those who pony up 2000 coins, about two dollars or a couple hours worth. It’s an interesting strategy for dealing with IAP abuse in a game that’s all about earning the highest scores.

There are two ways to play Ninja Pong: Arcade mode and Endless mode. Endless gives you six lives to play with. You can play as long as you want, but let six ninjas die without replenishing your lives and you’re toast. Arcade puts you on a 60 second timer during which you’ll need to try to earn the highest possible score.

Several factors affect your score. Saving ninjas is good, of course, and saving them in streaks is even better. You can grab multiplier powerups and score powerups. Whipping ninjas to the other side earns you a bonus, as does saving special ninjas and destroying bombs. And most of these things have achievements associated with them, too. At the end of each successful attempt (bombs give you a “game over” without a high score), you also earn bonuses based on meeting milestones.

There’s enough going on that it feels like you can improve in any number of ways. If you can get good enough to avoid dropping any ninjas, you’ll do well. Do that while collecting all the powerups and you’ll be even better off. But even if you don’t manage to improve your score, you’ll earn coins toward buying the next tempting item in the shop. It’s a compelling formula.

Ninja Pong is a simple game. But like many arcade classics, it inspires a desire to improve that will keep it entertaining long after you’ve seen all it has to offer. If you’re the grinding sort, the checklist of an item shop will also prove motivating for quite some time. The simplest games on my phone are the ones I keep coming back to, and I think Ninja Pong will end up on that list in the long run. So check it out, and pop by our discussion thread to let us know what you think.

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I have a weird amount of respect for the Worms franchise because not only has it lasted for almost two decades, it has consistently been a solid, albeit unchanging experience. The problem is, I've never actually been able to really get into the games, but with Team17's Worms Crazy Golf [$2.99 / HD], it's the first new experience that takes the oddness of the franchise and converts it into something a little easier to pick up and play.

If you've ever played any of the Worms games dating back to the Amiga, you should have a good idea of what to expect with a golf game. The difference is that you're only controlling one worm instead of a battalion and your goal isn't to crush the opposing team, it's to hit a ball into a hole. The same control scheme from other Worms iOS ports comes into play here, you can slide your finger around for a better view of the course and you'll move a small aiming reticle to line up the trajectory of your shot. You'll hold a button to set the strength and whack it as far and accurately as you can.

Perhaps you've already been clued in by the "crazy" in the title, but just so we're all on the same page, this isn't a set of normal golf courses. They're essentially tricked out, massive mini-golf style puzzles, with exploding sheep, suicidal worms, cannons, magnets and more.

Worms Crazy Golf has a ton of content too, with three 18-hole courses to play through, along with special challenge rounds. iPad users also get an additional 18-hole course, which is a nice added bonus to come with the extra cost of the HD version. There's also a hot-seat multiplayer component where you can pass the game between friends. This is where it really excels, as it's more entertaining to try and screw up the course for the person taking a turn after you than it is to get the ball in the hole.

You'll get to upgrade your clubs and other options through an in-game currency system. Each course has a few different goals to it — you can either play it like a real golf game where you need to get the ball into the hole at or under par, or you can whack the ball around collecting as many coins as possible. The game seems to keep track of everything you can think of for scoring, but other than a leaderboard, your score on each course doesn't seem to matter much.

For casual players, the golf club purchases and other upgrades are going to be confusing and hardly worth the trouble, but thankfully you can jam through the game without worrying much about it. The interface is a bit troublesome as well. You'll need to double-tap certain selections to choose them, which makes for an awkward experience as you learn the ropes just to get a game started.

One of my biggest problems with the Worms franchise as a whole is that they're often slow affairs. While obviously a turn-based game is going to be a bit slow moving, it always seems like everything takes a little too long. Worms Crazy Golf is no different. Your worm moves across the course to its next shot a little slowly, the ball's physics seem to drag on a little too long and the fact you can't simply reset a course if you screw up, means you have to play through even though you won't make par. It's not game killing, but it makes it hard to really engage with the eccentric play style of the game as whole.

For a game that's all about experimentation with the ridiculous environmental factors, it feels like it should get you hitting the ball as fast as it can. You're also punished by not making par and you have to replay the level, which discourages playing around inside of the puzzle-like layout of each of the courses.

In the end, it's a Worms game with a singular objective. The course design changes enough that you'll likely never get bored and the puzzling aspects make for an entertaining experience — it's just too bad the golf part of it seems to be getting in the way of what has always made Worms interesting — screwing around and aimlessly taking the chaotic approach.

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Starbase Orion [$4.99] is a space-based 4X strategy game from Chimera Software, the makers of Starbase Command [99c] . If you're not familiar with the 4X genre, it stands for "explore, expand, exploit and exterminate." You navigate your space fleet around the galaxy (on a map) exploring various star-systems and colonizing planets. Your planets can be customized with buildings, farmers, scientists, and/or workers. You research new technologies, spy on other races, design new spacecraft, and engage in space combat. Phew! There's plenty of stuff here for strategy gamers to totally geek-out on!

Two game modes are provided. There's a single player mode against AI players, or asynchronous turn-based multiplayer modes (1 vs 1, 2 vs 2 team-play, or free-for-all). It uses the cool new iOS 5 Game Center features to manage the asynchronous play, letting you play against an online opponent, each taking turns at different times during the day (or night) without necessarily being online at the same time. The game will automatically quick-match you with an online opponent or you can invite a specific friend to a custom match. It also supports the new iCloud functionality, so you can switch your iOS device and keep playing from where you left off. Starbase Orion does run on iOS 4, but without multiplayer or iCloud support until you're on iOS 5.

At the start of the game, you choose the size of the universe (small to huge),  the number of opponents (1-3) and the difficulty (easy to impossible), after which a random map of the galaxy is displayed. You can use your finger to pan around the galaxy, and then tap a star system to display its planets.

There are five predefined races available to play. The Isather are a tribal bunch who solve problems with brute force, the Cyban are robots with advanced researching abilities, Draske are winged serpents and skilled pilots, while the Vass are a shared-intelligence life-form which is dependent on its population size. The boring old human race are stereotyped as crafty smugglers. But if none of these races appeal, you can create your own custom race by selecting 10-points worth of racial attributes from a list. Your choice of race shapes your strengths and strategies.

You're given a small space fleet initially, although the vessels are different each time. There's a range of vessels like cruisers, frigates, and destroyers. There's also a ship designer, which let's you add weapons systems and ship systems (eg: fuel reserves) into slots on a few base models of ship. The number of slots varies depending on the base ship model. Or, if you need money, you can always scrap a ship for galactic credits.

To explore the galaxy, you tap on your fleet, then select specific vessels, before tapping on the destination star system. You might send a scout ahead to determine if any planets are viable for colonization, since they have more fuel. If something's suitable, you can send a colony ship to claim the planet and expand your empire. There's no story-line or missions to direct you, it's more like a sandbox game, where you choose what to do next.  If you research fuel technology or add fuel tanks, you can explore further afield.

Once you've colonized a planet, you can tap it to access its information and determine how to exploit it. Some planets are suitable for colonizing, some for mining, while others are inhabitable. The game shows a picture of the planet's surface and plays some environmental sound effects, like wild-life or wind, depending on the habitat. Each planet has a certain number of land plots depending on its size, where you can construct buildings like a marine barracks to create defensive ground troops and transports. You allocate the population of the planet to specific roles, including: farming (food), workers (buildings and ships) or science (technology), and they'll pay you taxes.

While exploring, you might make contact with other races and engage in some space combat. When a conflict situation arises, you issue the orders to your fleet, controlling the ships movement, formation, targeting or evasion. The targeting orders include attacking the closest, weakest, smallest or largest enemy ship. Orders are applied to one ship, a class of ships, or to the entire fleet. Once your orders are issued, the combat doesn't commence until you end your current turn.

During combat, you don't actually control the ships, but you watch them move and shoot at each other based on your earlier orders. You can tap a ship to see information about it, choose the playback speed or use a slider to move to any part of the battle you want to watch. Combat can span a number of turns and continues until all enemies are destroyed. Watching combat sounds boring, but it's actually interesting to watch the battles unfold and to see how they follow your instructions.

Since larger battles span multiple turns, you can adjust your orders during the battle, if you choose. You can also send in reinforcements, and if you've got a ally (2v2 multiplayer mode) they can come to your assistance, as space battles are not restricted to two empires. Combat is not your only option for foreign relations, as you can build an agent training camp to produce spies. Your agents can sabotage other empires or use espionage to steal their technology.

Also, you can research to improve your own race's technology. A list of astrophysics, military, and civil projects are proposed, but it's your decision which proposals are funded. You might study weapons, a star-base, or perhaps a hydroponics center as you progress through the technology tree. If a proposed research project is unfunded, it turns yellow, then red in the list, before eventually expiring and being replaced by new research proposals. If you build a research center and add scientists, your research occurs faster.

Once you've determined your various strategies, you tap the 'turn' button to action your commands. Instead of each player taking turns in sequence, the time speeds up and it's only your turn again when an event occurs in your empire, such as research or a new building being completed, a ship reaching it's destination or your population starving to death because you thought robots didn't need food! This means the seemingly daunting 18-turns required to research hydroponics might actually occur within a couple of presses of the turn button. In single player mode you can exit this "turn compression" whenever you want, to issue new instructions sooner.

Like many strategy games, Starbase Orion has an initial learning curve. There's help pages for the screens, which are helpful, but they don't explain everything. I had trouble deleting programmed vessel movements and also discovered a worm-hole but had no idea how to view or use it, as it didn't show up anywhere (apparently you can enter it). The developer is already extending the in-game help and writing a players guide, plus our useful discussion thread answers questions and includes video footage and a tutorial which is recommended viewing for new players.

When selecting a huge universe with 3 enemies and impossible difficulty, the turns were significantly slower, taking over a minute rather than seconds on an iPad 1, although most players would probably be selecting a smaller, less complicated galaxy which is far more responsive. And if you're playing asynchronous multiplayer, the impact of these delays would be less noticeable.

Starbase Orion has an "epic-feeling" as you strive to expand your empire across the galaxy. There's several facets to this game, as described above, but the interface pulls it all together nicely, so everything is easy to find. Once the help screens are expanded and a user guide produced, this will be a solid game from Chimera Software. However, the true measure of this new game's success won't be known until more people have had time to play the multiplayer modes.

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Remember WAAYYYYYY back, oh I don't know, like, 9 hours ago when we told you that the Unreal Engine powered first-person shooter Warm Gun was hitting the New Zealand App Store and slowly worming its way throughout the world? Well, those sentiments have just a bit more meaning now for those of us in the good ol' US of A as Warm Gun [$4.99] and its free spinoff Carnival of Bullets [Free] are now available in our little neck of the woods.

In fact, the release has hit a few bumps in the road, as a representative from the game's developer Emotional Robots has explained in our forums that an old version of Warm Gun was accidentally loaded up into iTunes Connect and for a good chunk of its international release customers had been unknowingly buying this incomplete early version. Emotional Robots took swift action and have replaced that pre-release build with the proper one, so things should be all good with downloading the correct game going forward. If you happen to be one of those who downloaded the improper version earlier, you might benefit from deleting the game entirely and re-downloading the new version which is up in the App Store right now.

In case you've missed it before, here's the trailer for Warm Gun followed by the trailer for the free Carnival of Bullets single player demo:

As we've said previously, we'll be hopping online in the next few days to dig into the multiplayer-centric gameplay of Warm Gun and will bring you a full review of our findings soon. The reaction to the game in our forums has been decidedly mixed. Some players are having a blast, with the game performing well technically and matches online being mostly lag free. A larger group of players are feeling the opposite of that. Many are complaining of performance issues on devices lower than iPhone 4 or iPad 2, with laggy framerates plaguing both online and offline matches. These issues could be due to Emotional Robots having to make some pretty extensive last minute changes to the game right before release, and they have already committed to addressing all feedback and updating the game frequently to make sure it can be the best that it can be.

While the negative issues are troublesome, they also aren't completely unheard of when dealing with such a technically intensive game like Warm Gun. However, I feel confident in Emotional Robots' pledge to give the game plenty of tender lovin' in the coming weeks. If you find yourself intrigued by Warm Gun but aren't sure how your particular device will handle the load, your best bet is to check out the free Carnival of Bullets to gauge performance.

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