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We first saw the beginnings of Freeverse's Flick Baseball at WWDC last year, and I can only imagine how long it had been in development before then. Much like the recently released Warpgate [iPhone: $4.99 / iPad: $7.99], it's immediately evident that a lot of time and effort went in to this game.

Flick Baseball is a full 3D baseball game that looks and plays a lot like a fleshed out version of Com2Us's Homerun Battle 3D [$4.99 / Free] with 3D players, tilt to aim batting, and some extra features such as being able to control your runners and where your outfielders throw the ball. Since Homerun Battle 3D is still one of my favorite iPhone games, I'm really happy with how Freeverse seems to have captured a very similar batting mechanic that works extremely well.

I've barely begun to scratch the surface of Flick Baseball, as we'll be saving that for our in-depth look in our full review, but this is a very complete baseball game. You can play both 3 and 9 inning baseball games in two different difficulty modes, and the entire game is driven by this crazy subsystem of player statistics. Some players bat better than others and as such have a much larger hit zone when they swing, and others require your aim to be practically perfect when batting to hit. There are tons of other stats that control every attribute of each player of your team.

34 teams are included, and you can build your own team with a custom name, lineup, uniform color, roster, stats, and everything else. You could likely spend hours doing nothing other than building custom teams in this game if you wanted to. There are full 11, 33, 66, and 165 game season modes with all kinds of stat tracking, a playoff mode, and the games even change from night to day depending on the actual time of day it is in the city you're playing at.

Here is a video of me playing a couple innings, which features a lot of strike outs and a beginner's luck home run:

Flick Baseball should be available May 3rd, so keep an eye out for a full review and another video of me (hopefully) hitting nothing but home runs with my tricked out custom baseball team. So far I'm really enjoying the game a lot, and look forward to getting deeper in to it.

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Ever since we first saw the game at our iPhone Launch Party at WWDC 2009, we've been dying to get our hands on Freeverse's galactic conquest and trading game Warpgate. When I visited Freeverse's Brooklyn studio back in February, they showed me a build of the game running on a large-screen dev station to demonstrate the high-res textures that have been in place through the whole development process. I was impressed.

Early this month, Warpgate HD [App Store] for the iPad landed, putting those high-res textures to good use, but leaving those without an iPad drifting still onward through the cold vacuum of space that is anticipation.

Well, at long last, late last night Freeverse beamed us all back aboard when Warpgate for the iPhone finally rendezvoused with the App Store [link]. (We could almost hear "The Blue Danube" playing in the background…)

Despite the iPad version making its debut two weeks earlier, iPhone space traders shouldn't feel like second class citizens — the iPhone was always the target platform for this title. Those considering blasting-off should have a look at our review of Warpgate HD (spoiler: we loved it).

App Store Link: Warpgate, $4.99

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At this point we've posted about Freeverse's Warpgate so many times that linking to the various previews over the last year just seems excessive. From its very beginnings at WWDC '09, Warpgate piqued my interest, and as information slowly leaked out of Freeverse regarding the game's development, it seemed like it was set to exceed even my wildest expectations– Provided they could live up to nearly a year of pre-release hype.

Warpgate HD [App Store] was among the initial batch of games available along side the launch of the iPad, and was the first game I loaded up following unboxing mine after waiting what seemed like an eternity to sync. Since then, Warpgate has sucked me in in the worst way. Describing games as "addicting" or "addictive" has become the absolute worst cliche of the App Store, both in descriptions and game reviews, but I'm having a hard time coming up with a better way to describe my attraction to this game.

To give some perspective, things I love in video games in no particular order includes anything to do with space, massive game worlds, warring factions you can take part in, an impressive sense of scale, and as much randomization as possible to provide endless replay value. Warpgate has all of these things and more.

Obviously set in space, Warpgate is host to a gigantic galaxy map that you slowly explore through a seamless set of campaign missions. Once you complete the initial tutorial, and start in on the "real" game, procedurally generated missions begin appearing that have you flying places, delivering things, getting in to battles with other ships, and other objectives. Because of this, the game never technically ends.

Warpgate is remarkably open, so much so that if you're the kind of gamer that requires a rigid goal structure with a concrete "end" to a game, it might just drive you crazy. The end goal of Warpgate is whatever you want it to be. If that means grinding up reputation with the space pirates and piloting the biggest, baddest battleship in the entire galaxy, killing everything in your path, you can. Or, on the opposite side of things, you can be completely lawful and play your cards so you're in good standing with all the factions of space.

Or, if you don't care about that, and you just want to have billions and billions of space bucks, Warpgate is conducive to that play style too. There's an entire dynamic economy in game and if all you want to do is ferry around commodities between planets selling low and buying high, you can. In-game news feeds will help you keep an eye on the pulse of the universe, and you can often make an insane profit by quickly delivering huge loads of much needed cargo to planets that show up in the news.

If you don't like power gaming these kinds of games, and just want to have fun in space, that works too. Warpgate seems to be balanced in a way that both rewards power gaming the economy and in-game faction system as well as being conducive to casual gamers just bouncing between campaign missions without getting too involved in the other parts of the game. Mostly, playing the in-game markets is optional, and you might only have to participate in buying and selling commodities if you're low on money and need to buy an expensive quest item or want to further upgrade your ship's weaponry.

Alternatively, if you really don't want to grind up money to buy things, there's an in-game store where you can buy a huge battle cruiser and tons of space bucks for a few real dollars. Other than that, you can just follow the campaign missions and have a great time.

It seems like App Store gamers are always clamoring for depth in games, something that has become exceedingly rare as pricing across the board has hit rock bottom. Warpgate has depth on top of depth. To give you an idea of how much content is in the game, the galaxy map is host to 36 star systems. Those star systems are home to 120 different plants and space stations. While you're marauding around the galaxy, you can pilot one of 172 different star ships, and equip your ship with the 60 included weapons. It's really just insane how much is packed in to this game.

As far as an iPad game is concerned, Warpgate HD is great. Since the launch of the device, we've played almost everything worth playing, and it seems like the control method that I've been preferring the most is one where you can comfortably rest the iPad in your lap, holding it with one hand, and playing with the other. This is exactly how Warpgate works.

You control your ship either by touching anywhere in the game world to fly there, swiping in the direction you want to fly, or touching one of the icons on the side of the screen indicating the direction of a planet, warpgate, or other point of interest. Context sensitive buttons appear to allow you to warp through a warpgate, land on a planet, scan another ship, answer an incoming communication, or fight another ship.

The camera is controlled using all the same familiar multitouch gestures such as two fingers to rotate and pinching to zoom in or out. Speaking of zooming the camera, this is one of my absolute favorite things about the game. With a pinch of your fingers you can go from seeing the minute details of your ship, then instantly and fluidly pan the camera all the way out to show all the nearby planets. This level of zoom control and sense of scale is so cool that the first hour or two that I played the game I couldn't help myself but just constantly zoom in and out.

If you're looking for a fast paced action game, Warpgate is not it. While narrowly escaping from pirates as you just barely warp before getting hit with a missile that would destroy your ship can be exciting, by and large the game is fairly slow. You will spend a lot of time watching your ship flying from place to place, and when you're actually fighting, combat isn't anywhere near as interactive as I had hoped it would be.

When you tap the button to enter a battle, the screen zooms, twists, and blurs just like a Final Fantasy. The game then quickly loads in to a battle sequence where your ship will be flying in a swarm with the other ship (or ships) you're fighting. You don't have any control over your ship's movement at this point, and all you really do is choose when to fire what weapons by mashing buttons that appear on either side of the screen and select the target you're firing on. It gets the job done, but feels surprisingly remedial compared to the rest of the game. If there's one area that Warpgate needs improvement, it's in fleshing out this battle system to add some strategy beyond mashing your weapon buttons as they come online.

Originally designed as an iPhone game, the non-HD version of Warpgate will be available on the 13th, Warpgate will intelligently scale across the entire iPhone and iPod touch family, enabling the different graphical effects depending on what device you're playing on. If you're playing the game on a 3GS or 3rd generation iPod touch, you'll see all kinds of fancy shader effects. If not, the game should still look good without them and run at a great frame rate to boot. Aside from the smaller screen size and a reworked user interface, the iPhone version of the game will be identical to the iPad.

iPhone Warpgate compared to Warpgate HD.

While I'm having a great time with Warpgate, one thing really makes me nervous about a game of this scope. There's no way to manage your game saves, back up your game, or anything like that. I have invested hours upon hours in to Warpgate, and I'd hate to think that I could lose it all from some update SNAFU, iTunes sync weirdness, and the countless other things I've run in to in the past that have resulted in random save game data loss. Especially with an iPhone version on the horizon, there's nothing more I'd love to see than some kind of online Plus+ powered save game synchronization between devices, or anything else to add some kind of security that my massive space empire is here to stay.

Overall, in my eyes, Warpgate has completely delivered on the months of pre-launch hype. Playing the game on my iPad feels like the future, and something that you would see some space kid playing on a similar tablet device in an 80's sci-fi movie. The mood of the game is great, the graphics are phenomenal, the in-game soundtrack has an epic feel to it, and even the icon is cool. Sure, the battle system could use some work, but that is just a small part of an otherwise remarkable game.

Warpgate HD is currently my favorite iPad game, and if you've ever enjoyed a space conquest game in the past, this is a game you need to download. If you don't have an iPad, the iPhone version will be coming April 13th, so keep an eye out for that.

App Store LInk: Warpgate HD, $7.99 (iPad only, iPhone version coming 4/13.)

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We've been following the development of Freeverse's Warpgate for nine months now, and it sounds like the game's epic development cycle is coming to a close with Warpgate's impending release early next month.

We've posted about the game numerous times in the past, between its initial unveiling at WWDC, the appearance at the iPhone Launch Party, and other previews such as a early combat video and a demo of the graphics engine. Meanwhile, the thread on our forums has been building in anticipation, and the impressions I've managed to juice out of a few beta testers I've talked to have been remarkably positive.

Warpgate is a space conquest game with tons of ships to pilot, factions to fight with, planets to take over, and a string of missions that expand the plot of the game which are supplemented by randomly generated missions that players can accept and complete as many times as they want to always have something to do.

First off, the cinematic trailer sets the scene of the game:

And a gameplay trailer from the iPhone:

I've been looking forward to this game since I first got wind of it last year, and I cannot wait for it to be released. Following the previews we've done, it's amazing how far the game has come since we first saw it. At WWDC, the game was little more than a tech demo where you could zoom the camera in and out. Judging by the response on our forums, I doubt I'm alone in being really excited to finally play the full version of the game.

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PAX East officially came to a close this evening, following three solid days of gaming insanity. The Penny Arcade Expo originally started as a small gaming convention on the west coast in 2004 has grown in to an unstoppable juggernaut that is by far the convention to go to if you're a gamer. The entire event actually has a fairly interesting history behind it, especially considering its meager beginnings with only a few thousand attendees. But, like most things Penny Arcade touches, (such as the Child's Play charity) it's not entirely surprising what a runaway success the event has become.

PAX East is a spinoff of the main west coast PAX (affectionally referred to as "PAX Prime") and as such, was a much more intimate event. This didn't stop anyone from having a great time, whether you're in to pen and paper RPG's, card games, board games, handhelds, or console and PC gaming, PAX East had something to offer. If you're an iPhone developer, there are much better events to go to such as GDC or WWDC, but if you're a gamer of any kind, you really owe it to yourself to at least give some serious consideration to attending the nearest PAX.

Attending the event with a media badge is a little awkward, since as someone who loves every subcategory of gaming, there's nothing I would have liked more than to spend the whole weekend playing Magic: The Gathering, D&D, and every pick up game of Settlers of Catan I can get my hands on… But, in the age old TouchArcade tradition of taking one for the team, I did everything I could to meet up with everyone who contacted me including fan favorites like Venan Entertainment as well as fans of the site who just wanted to talk iPhone and forum drama.

We're going to have more followup posts in the upcoming week as everyone gets back home and starts sending us assets for things from PAX, but in the time being, here are some things to look forward to:

Space Miner is getting a substantial update. We absolutely loved the game in our review, forum members are crazy about it, and it's one of the few iPhone video games I've played in a very long time that I enjoyed so much I immediately restarted on the next higher difficulty upon completing the game.

If you're like me, and have almost extracted everything possible out of Space Miner, you'll be happy to know that they're expanding the end-game to include more licenses, weapons to buy, new alien tech to find, and new Plus+ awards to earn. They're calling this a "HD update", as in addition to the gameplay tweaks, they've also implemented new shaders and other graphical effects to make the game look even better.

But wait, there's more. If the included difficulty modes weren't enough for you, they're also implementing a HardcORE perma-death mode. While there's no doubt that perma-death gameplay modes aren't for everyone, I really like the thrill that comes from the potential of losing everything from dying, and judging by the popularity of iPhone rogulikes, I doubt I'm alone on that.

But wait, there's even more. (I realize I'm starting to sound at Billy Mays at this point.) Space Miner Blast is in the works, a spinoff game that they hope to be done in a month or so. Venan is taking the basic framework of Space Miner, and turning it in to an arcade style action game where you fight an onslaught of robots and asteroids and get upgrades on the fly. Details are scarce right now, but I can't help but give a massive thumbs up to turning Space Miner in to a pick up and play action game.

Best of all, Space Miner 2 also apparently is currently on the whiteboard at Venan. Right now we know even less about the sequel than Space Miner Blast, but I've been assured it will be even more awesome in every way imaginable. Finally, Venan is looking forward to the iPad, but really want to get physical devices to test on before committing to anything.

Overall, PAX East was amazing, and as I mentioned earlier, you've really got to figure out a way to go to one regardless of what kind of gamer you are. If you have the choice, I'd attend the main PAX Prime, but if traveling across the country is an issue, PAX East is just as good. Stay tuned to TouchArcade, as we will have more details on the games I've mentioned in the PAX posts as soon as we get them.

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PAX East started this afternoon, and after crowd surfing my way inside the convention center, I met a bunch of cool people and saw a few neat iPhone games. The craziest thing about PAX, compared to the conventions we usually go to, is that this is a convention for gamers by gamers. GDC, WWDC, and the other events we go to are all a great time, but unless you're a developer, there's not much reason to go. Anyone who likes games of any kind will feel at home at PAX.

So because this isn't specifically a "show off your iPhone game" event, my meetings today were mostly brief, and resulted in making some great contacts and waiting for everyone to get back to their hotels (or back home in some cases) to send over some preview versions, screenshots, or gameplay video.

Two games to look forward to finding more about are DrNanoX and Galactic Keep: Dice Battles. Mission Critical Studios' DrNanoX is a third person shooter with some puzzle elements set inside of the human body. The setting of the game reminded me a lot of the 1987 sci-fi comedy "Innerspace", as the game focuses on being shrunk down and solving medical problems from the inside of the body. Levels range from wandering around arteries to saving a patient's brain.

The developers are putting the final touches on a new gameplay trailer, which I'll post as part of a PAX East followup. The game is still in development, but it sounds like they're on the home stretch and it should be available on the App Store soon.

If you're a regular reader of the TouchArcade forums, you will likely already be aware of Galactic Keep: Dice Battles. We've mention the game numerous times on the front page, and there's a massive thread in our forums with the developers keeping everyone updated on the game's status. I saw Galactic Keep in motion today, and while the screenshots of the game look cool themselves, it's even better in motion.

We should have more details on Galactic Keep: Dice Battles early next week, and maybe even a gameplay trailer or actual hands-on footage. From what I saw today, the game is turning out to be even more than I was hoping for, and likely will be a required purchase for anyone interested in old school dice-powered RPG's.

Finally, I met with Namazu Studios and they showed me their recently launched iDuel Online [Free]. The game seemed similar to games like Epic Pet Wars, My Brute and other online battle games that have become so popular, but iDuel Online seems to have much more interactivity to it as you battle against players in real time. The game even was able to work via the absolutely abysmal 3G connection I had at the convention center.

There's all kinds of character customization, online leaderboards, items to equip your dude with, and everything else you'd expect out of a game like this. iDuel Online is free to play, and is supported by in-game advertisements and entirely optional micropayments to buy in-game items for a slight edge over your opponents– Although the developers assured me players who don't buy these premium items will still remain competitive with those who do.

It was nice meeting everyone today, and I'm really looking forward to the next two days of PAX. I still have room in my meeting schedule, so if you're in the Boston area (either for PAX or not) and want to show off your iPhone game, don't hesitate to contact us. Send an email to tips@toucharcade.com or shoot me an IM on AIM if you want to meet up.

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PAX East started this afternoon, and after crowd surfing my way inside the convention center, I met a bunch of cool people and saw a few neat iPhone games. The craziest thing about PAX, compared to the conventions we usually go to, is that this is a convention for gamers by gamers. GDC, WWDC, and the other events we go to are all a great time, but unless you're a developer, there's not much reason to go. Anyone who likes games of any kind will feel at home at PAX.

So because this isn't specifically a "show off your iPhone game" event, my meetings today were mostly brief, and resulted in making some great contacts and waiting for everyone to get back to their hotels (or back home in some cases) to send over some preview versions, screenshots, or gameplay video.

Two games to look forward to finding more about are Dr. Nano and Galactic Keep: Dice Battles. Mission Critical Studios' Dr. Nano is a third person shooter with some puzzle elements set inside of the human body. The setting of the game reminded me a lot of the 1987 sci-fi comedy "Innerspace", as the game focuses on being shrunk down and solving medical problems from the inside of the body. Levels range from wandering around arteries to saving a patient's brain.

The developers are putting the final touches on a new gameplay trailer, which I'll post as part of a PAX East followup. The game is still in development, but it sounds like they're on the home stretch and it should be available on the App Store soon.

If you're a regular reader of the TouchArcade forums, you will likely already be aware of Galactic Keep: Dice Battles. We've mention the game numerous times on the front page, and there's a massive thread in our forums with the developers keeping everyone updated on the game's status. I saw Galactic Keep in motion today, and while the screenshots of the game look cool themselves, it's even better in motion.

We should have more details on Galactic Keep: Dice Battles early next week, and maybe even a gameplay trailer or actual hands-on footage. From what I saw today, the game is turning out to be even more than I was hoping for, and likely will be a required purchase for anyone interested in old school dice-powered RPG's.

Finally, I met with Namazu Studios and they showed me their recently launched iDuel Online [Free]. The game seemed similar to games like Epic Pet Wars, My Brute and other online battle games that have become so popular, but iDuel Online seems to have much more interactivity to it as you battle against players in real time. The game even was able to work via the absolutely abysmal 3G connection I had at the convention center.

There's all kinds of character customization, online leaderboards, items to equip your dude with, and everything else you'd expect out of a game like this. iDuel Online is free to play, and is supported by in-game advertisements and entirely optional micropayments to buy in-game items for a slight edge over your opponents– Although the developers assured me players who don't buy these premium items will still remain competitive with those who do.

It was nice meeting everyone today, and I'm really looking forward to the next two days of PAX. I still have room in my meeting schedule, so if you're in the Boston area (either for PAX or not) and want to show off your iPhone game, don't hesitate to contact us. Send an email to tips@toucharcade.com or shoot me an IM on AIM if you want to meet up.

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One of the first highly successful games in the App Store was Majic Jungle's Chopper [App Store], a side-scrolling aerial shooter that's an adaptation of his original Mac release. The game has seen well over one million downloads since its release and is a pretty fun time on your iPod or iPod touch.

We spent some highly enjoyable face time with Dave Frampton, the man behind Majic Jungle, at MWSF '09 and WWDC '09. As such, I've been following him on Twitter and have long been seeing the occasional tweet about the progress of his upcoming sequel, Chopper 2. Yesterday I pinged Dave and demanded a solid update on this title that we've been quite anxious to see. Happily, with minimal threats, he agreed to give us the latest details and an exclusive set of screenshots of the in-progress title, as well.

Chopper 2 is a complete re-write, with full 3D graphics, numerous different landscapes and a realistic Chipmunk based physics system. It still retains the classic side-scrolling shooter gameplay, however. The control system in the game has been completely overhauled, allowing for touch based aim control independent of the tilt based flight control. There's also the option to use a touch based flight control method with a virtual D-pad.

Chopper 2 has eight different enemies with unique weapons and AI. There are also allies in some missions who will help by firing at the enemy. Some enemies fire homing missiles, and some fire multiple missiles in rapid succession. The missions themselves are also much more diverse than in the original Chopper. In one mission, you and your allies defend a base while a long line of enemies attack from both sides. In another mission you pick up a bomb disposal expert, take him to disarm a bomb in an office tower, and defend his position from attacking enemies until he's done. Sometimes you have to kill a certain enemy but are free to ignore others, and sometimes you must not kill any enemies. There is limited ammo and a new health meter that allows you to take a certain number of hits before you die. Most missions have a base or two where you can regain health and/or ammo, but there is a time bonus you'll be sacrificing to do so.

Chopper 2 will be utilizing the OpenFeint network for online scores, with a high score tracked for each of the 12 locations. Each location has three missions, and there will be three difficulties to play through. This makes for a total of 36 missions in each difficulty setting. The progression structure is non-linear, with a map based system where you unlock new locations and missions to choose between.

The story is not yet complete but, similar to the original Chopper, there is instructional story dialog before each mission. However, Dave tells us that Chopper 2 has a unique and impressive way of delivering this dialog, which makes the story a lot more engaging. We'll hear more about that as the title approaches release.

If all this isn't enough to pique your interest, Dave is also working on an iPad version of the game that will be part of the single-app release — one version for both iPhone and iPad. Having planned to release a Mac version of Chopper 2 following the iPhone release, Dave has had high resolution graphics at the ready all along. He indicates that the work involved in fully utilizing the enhanced features of the iPad is fairly minor and feels that it makes little sense to charge gamers again for it.

Dave was kind enough to provide us with an early iPad simulator screenshot of Chopper 2 in action. The shot doesn't feature all of the graphics of the final iPad version, but it does give some idea of what the device's extra screen real estate offers.

Click for full-sized iPad screenshot

Chopper 2 is not too far from completion, but Dave indicates it won't make the April 3 iPad release. There's no solid release estimate right now, as the developer wants to make sure the game is fully ready in all respects before it lands in the App Store, but he tells us it's coming along quite nicely. Price is yet to be solidly determined, but Dave indicates that it will fall somewhere below $5. Stay tuned for more details on Chopper 2 as we get them.

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With less than three weeks to go to the release of the iPad, ngmoco CEO Neil Young revealed to Computerworld at GDC that they have six games on their way to the device. While Young was rather vague at the time, we've since talked to both Freeverse and ngmoco and have the complete list of games that should be available around the launch of the iPad.

Freeverse's highly anticipated space conquest game Warp Gate was specifically held back for the iPad launch. We first revealed Warp Gate at our iPhone Launch Party at WWDC last year, and since then have done an additional sneak peek of the game. Also, we've got a huge thread on our forums where Freeverse Senior Producer Bruce Morrison has been participating in the discussion about the game.

Freeverse classics Flick Fishing and NBA Hotshot will also be making their way to the iPad in addition to a fourth new game, CastleCraft, an MMO strategy game where players build and manage one or more cities, then stockpile resources and military units to wage war on hundreds of other players online. We will have more details on the game soon, but here are a few screenshots of the iPhone version for the time being:

Ngmoco themselves will be contributing iPad versions of both GodFinger and We Rule, two freemium titles that recently saw limited releases in Canada. It also seems likely that both games will be released for the iPhone worldwide at the same time.

We should have many more details on all of these iPad games as April 3rd approaches. In the meantime, I've been assured that Warp Gate looks absolutely amazing on the device, and out of all the games I've heard about so far for the iPad, it's by far the one I'm most excited to fire up.

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With the year coming to a close, I feel confident in saying with as much authority as I can muster that 2009 has been an amazing year. Soon we will be posting the results of weeks of deliberation on what we feel were the best games, a holiday buyer's guide for people who opened an iPod touch or iPhone this Christmas, and other year-end stories highlighting the various games we feel are the "must-haves" of 2009– But it hardly seems right to summarize the year in a few simple lists of game titles, brief synopses and links to reviews when so many remarkable games were created and events transpired that were still highly noteworthy or influential but fall outside of the rigid boundaries of "best of" listings.

When the App Store first launched on July 10th, 2008, very few people, myself included, realized the full potential of a reasonably open platform with a $99 entry fee that allowed developers building games in their bedrooms to be on equal footing with industry giants. The success of the pioneers of the App Store created a gold rush of talent, with new eager developers hoping to see even a fraction of the success of the stories that motivated their migration to the platform. 2009 was filled with even more inspirational tales of developers quitting their day jobs and building full-fledged businesses off of the App Store.

2009 also marked the year that the indie developer dreams of Imangi Studios, Bolt Creative, InMotion Software, Tiger Style Games, and many others were fully realized with titles created out of basements and on kitchen tables without a single cent of outside financing that were able to compete with the likes of EA, Activision, Sega, Namco, and other giants of the gaming industry. Everything they created was their own, a feat nearly impossible on any other platform.

Before 2009, no iPhone gamers cared about or likely even knew the name Tim Langdell, a man who has now become infamous amongst the community for relentlessly disputing ancient trademarks and consistently keeping Mobigame's EDGE off the App Store. We were impressed by the game when we first posted about it on January 4th, before anyone even had a clue of the legal battles to come. Since its was taken down, EDGE has briefly appeared for download several times throughout the year, but even as 2009 is coming to a close the fate of this game still is unclear.

Five days following the release of EDGE, Pocket God [99¢] made its debut on the App Store. At the time, not even Bolt Creative realized the cult following that the game would soon have. We didn't even post about it until months later, as in its earliest form Pocket God barely resembled what you would call a game– But the Pocket God phenomenon was growing too large to even attempt to ignore. Since then the game has seen 29 episodes, each representing a substantial content update and according to the Independent Games Festival trailer, Pocket God has over 1.6 million worldwide fans– A number easily confirmed by the blitz of forum members swarming each and every Pocket God thread posted on our forums along with countless other Pocket God fan-made spinoff sites.

February was an even bigger month than January for iPhone games, with Rogue Touch's [99¢] release and its continued dominance throughout the year with the developer consistently implementing community feedback, solidifying its position as the best implementation of Rogue on the platform. iDracula [99¢ / Free] was also released, and was the first dual-stick shooter to rise to the #1 position on the overall paid app sales chart– Its success no doubt inspiring countless other developers to throw their hats in to the dual-stick shooter ring.

In a sea of tower defense games, February also saw geoDefense [$1.99 / Free], a game that challenged fans of the genre with its brutal difficulty level which was designed from the ground up to never create a situation where the player is able to sit back and watch as waves of creeps are slaughtered by their defenses. Since then, geoDefense Swarm [$1.99] appeared on the App Store, after much anticipation from the fan base of the original game, which had grown so hardcore that they even challenged developer David Whatley to post the source code controlling one of the game's towers to verify its functionality.

On March 5th, Flight Control [99¢] hit the App Store with a bang, in essence creating the line drawing chaos management genre which was spawned an army of games with similar gameplay elements or control mechanics. Games like Harbor Master [99¢ / Free] were among the first in expanding on the Flight Control formula, but none of the spinoffs even saw a fraction of the success of Flight Control, a game which has held a firm position near the top of the paid apps listing since its release with a fan following of celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore challenging each other via Twitter.

Doodle Jump [99¢] was also released in March, a simple tilting game which has since seen several updates and to this day still hasn't left the second screen of my iPhone 3G, along with being among the very first batch of essential apps and games that were synced to my iPhone 3GS shortly after unboxing it on the day of its release. Doodle Jump has become the gold standard that most simple games are compared to on TouchArcade, and it seems impossible for us to record a podcast without mentioning it at least once.

One of the most memorable games for me of April (aside from Ow My Balls! [99¢]) was Hysteria Project [$1.99], a game that combined live action footage with simple gameplay elements reminiscent of Sega CD or LaserDisc full motion video games. Ultimately the game fell flat due to a short playtime and nearly non-existent replay value, but I still have to admire the amount of talent, planning, and production that went in to creating the many video clips and impressive horror/thriller atmosphere. Hysteria Project seems to be abandoned now with updates released only addressing existing bugs and iTunes reviews flooded by users requesting additional content. Regardless, if you're a fan of games like Dragon's Lair [$4.99], you will likely appreciate the direction Bulkypix attempted to go with Hysteria Project.

May brought Manomio's port of Flashback [$1.99 / 99¢], a game which curiously enough was only an interpreter of the original game files based on the REminiscence engine by Gregory Montoir. On the first launch of the game it downloaded 3MB of the original DOS data files in order to play the game. No one knew it at the time, but this mechanism foreshadowed the dramatic release and re-release saga of their Commodore 64 Emulator [$2.99], an app which sparked countless debates over the merits of Apple's approval process as its fate on the App Store slowly unfolded.

Sega's Sonic The Hedgehog [$5.99] was also released around this time, and it didn't take long for clever members of the community to pick the game apart and discover that it was little more than Sega's own emulator– And with a minimal amount of tweaking could be made to play any Genesis ROM file. Emulation on the iPhone was punctuated in late December with the release of Nescaline, a NES emulator based on NES v3 available on Cydia. Only available for a few short hours, retro fans willing to cough up $6.99 during this time are now among a small group of gamers capable of running any NES game on their device without jailbreaking.

While we were at WWDC, the talk of the town seemed to be InMotion Software's I Dig It [App Store], an amazing game that came completely out of left field and seemed to captivate anyone who got passed an iPhone with it installed during the event. After each night of the conference when our own Blake Patterson insisted on taking us to his favorite bar in San Francisco, The Tempest, I'd run my battery completely out searching for diggins while drinking gin and tonics. I Dig It eventually hit #1 on the iTunes sales charts, and in the wake of its success, InMotion Software released I Dig It Expeditions [99¢ / Free]– A sequel and vast improvement on the original.

After a tease at the WWDC Launch Party that was co-hosted by TouchArcade and MacHeist, Doom Resurrection [$1.99] was available for download. Launched at the premium price of $9.99, Doom Resurrection utilized the same assets as Doom 3, and while there were many 3D games available on the App Store prior to its release, Doom Resurrection was likely the first title that truly opened the eyes of iPhone gamers allowing them to see the true graphical potential of the platform.

SGN's F.A.S.T. [Free] also went live on the App Store in late June, and was among the first games for the iPhone to offer seamless realtime action oriented multiplayer. Following its release at $9.99, F.A.S.T. has slowly had its price reduced and is now free and funded by in-game downloadable content– A feature available to developers following the release of the iPhone 3.0 OS on June 17th.

The iPhone 3GS hit the street on June 19th, packing a faster processor, more storage, a compass, and most important to gamers: OpenGL ES 2.0 capabilities. It would still be some time before this new functionality would realized by developers, and 2009 is coming to a close without the compass being used for anything more than gimmicky augmented reality tech demo games and with developers only barely scratching the surface of OpenGL ES 2.0– With a select few games even taking advantage of the additional shaders and other graphical effects available on the 3GS and later released 3rd generation iPod touch.

The entire month of July was overshadowed by the release of Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢] an experience which polarized gamers in to two camps: Those who thought Enviro-Bear 2010 was the worst game that they ever played and couldn't understand why we would post about it, and those who agreed with me that it was the Citizen Kane of iPhone games. Featuring the most realistic simulation of a bear driving a car available on the platform, Enviro-Bear 2010 is still talked about on our forums and referenced in a few other games, most notably the recent Minigore [$1.99] update.

Also first available in July, Newtoy's Words With Friends [$1.99 / Free] joined Chess With Friends [$2.99 / Free] in providing the iPhone equivalent of correspondence gaming to the games of Chess and not-quite-Scrabble. CEO Paul Bettner later revealed some amazing usage statistics at GDC Austin in mid-September: the Newtoy games had 50,000 active players daily. While Pinch Media reported the average iPhone app user spent less than 5 minutes on an app per day, Chess With Friends and Words With Friends players spent an average time of 1.5 hours playing each day.

The most notable game to come out of August was by far Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99]. Released without a single preview, Spider instantly captivated our entire community. The allure of such a mysterious yet high quality game was irresistible as Bryce Manor itself held a mystery which the player could either follow their human curiosity choose to explore the story of the game, or simply enjoy the game as a spider catching bugs and completely ignore it. This was just many of the remarkably ingenious design decisions found in Spider, and the game's entire design process perfectly embodied the indie development spirit of the platform.

Beating EA to the punch by an entire month, Gameloft's NFL 2010 [$2.99 / Free] was the first fully licensed football game available on the iPhone which was soon followed by Madden NFL 10 [$5.99], a game we got an early preview of at the Penny-Arcade Expo in Seattle. Which is the better football game was hotly debated among sports fans on our forums, with both games competing in feature wars involving multiplayer, complete NFL rosters, stat tracking, and other things only hardcore sports fans cared about. Regardless, gaming franchise staples like Madden only further legitimized the iPhone as a gaming platform.

At the end of September, Hi, How Are you [99¢ / Free] hit the App Store, a game based on the life, art, and music of Daniel Johnston. When I first played the game, I had no clue who Daniel Johnston was, or why this game was so amazingly strange. All I knew was that it had a really cool cell shaded art style, and in researching the game I became aware of everything that was Daniel Johnston. As I explained in a blog post, this completely transformed the game for me. Much like the work of Daniel Johnson, Hi, How Are You is completely off the wall, and likely one of the most under-appreciated games on the App Store. In the few emails I sent back and forth with the developer, it seemed this realization was not at all uncommon and the game's single fault is that it may just simply be too strange.

In October, Canabalt [$2.99] was released, the iPhone port of a flash game playable online for free. Our community was wholly divided amongst players who were absolutely in love with Canabalt, and others who still leave comments on front page stories and post threads in our forums upset both with the positive reception it received and its $2.99 price point. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, it is a remarkable feat to be among among the few iPhone games that are not only noticed, but also talked about for months following their release. Canabalt was later updated with a few new obstacles and online leaderboards– Clearly quantifying exactly how bad I am at the game compared to the rest of the world.

Following Canabalt came another game with similar pixelated retro graphics: Hook Champ [$2.99 / Free]. Taking a similar swinging mechanic made popular by other games and introducing RPG elements in an equipment shop where virtually everything about your character can be upgraded, Hook Champ was an instant classic. Featuring among the best and most seamless integration of online leaderboards I've seen, Hook Champ provides a silly amount of replay value as each run through a level is timed, uploaded and compared to everyone else's performance.

October also saw what seemed to be one of the most substantial announcements from Apple since the unveiling of 3GS hardware: Changes to the downloadable content system on the App Store allowing free apps to have in-app purchasing. Previously, DLC was only available to developers who sold their apps, with the intention that free apps would always be free. Aside from substantially changing the dynamic of the top 100 lists, we also speculated that lite versions could be a thing of the past as developers migrated to free demo apps which were unlocked to the full version via an in-game microtransaction. Very few games ever actually implemented this purchase model, largely in part because appearing on the top 100 free list requires exponentially more downloads than what is required to chart on the top 100 paid listings.

What this new DLC change did usher in was games like ngmoco's Eliminate [Free], a free to play game with optional in-game purchases to buy energy, a sort of virtual currency used inside of the game. Touch Pets Dogs [Free] also utilizes a similar model, as do several of the Miraphonic Epic Wars games.

In November, Activision surprised us all with the release of Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [$9.99], the cooperative online multiplayer enabled port of the zombie-slaying game mode from Call of Duty: World at War for home consoles– Leaving iPhone gamers wondering what could possibly come next out of the industry giant.

Wheeler's Treasure [$1.99] also hit the App Store, following a thread with beta testers absolutely raving about the game. Featuring flick controls, and a really strange game premise where you're chasing a wheel down a hill, Wheeler's Treasure is yet another example of an extremely high quality game that really could only exist on the iPhone. The developer has already implemented a few new power-ups in game based on (and named after) forum members who provided feedback, and Wheeler's Treasure joins Hook Champ as another game that has fabulously seamless online scoring, marked by headstones that appear in game based on the distance other players travelled before their wheel was destroyed.

November and December were met with a blitz of games from Gameloft, who at the start of the year went from releasing a few mediocre games to the nearly becoming undisputed king of iPhone game production. Aside from the remarkably complete port of the PlayStation/PC classic Driver [$6.99], Gameloft delivered several other games including N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [$6.99], a Sci-Fi first person shooter with four player online multiplayer and among the best graphics of any iPhone game released this year.

December also saw several fantastic classic games, starting off with Sword of Fargoal [$4.99], which is by far the most approachable roguelike and one of the best examples of a perfectly remade retro game. The previously released Space Ace [$4.99] was also joined by two other LaserDisc arcade classics: Cobra Command [$2.99] and Dragon's Lair [$4.99].

With 122,660 available apps on the App Store as of today, even this seemingly comprehensive listing of major events and releases barely even begins to scratch the surface. One could spend weeks analyzing the App Store notating the trends in sales, releases, genres, and borrowed/modified gameplay mechanics. The fact that this is even possible is amazing by itself, and when you consider that the App Store is only a year and a half old, it's hard to imagine what the year-end wrap-up of 2010 will include.

Notable things on the horizon include the Unreal Engine 3 coming to the iPhone, potentially unlocking countless ports of existing projects developed for the Unreal Engine as well as the unimaginable unannounced games from the industry leaders of the App Store. Looking at what Gameloft, ngmoco, Illusion Labs, and others have produced this year alone, it's impossible to even guess what they will have accomplished next year.

Apple seems to be updating the iPhone and iPod touch hardware on a yearly basis, and rumors are already rolling in on potential inclusions for next year's model. With the Nvidia Tegra-based Zune HD and numerous Android devices either released or due to be released soon, the iPhone's advantage currently lies in the power of its software rather than its hardware– A fantastic position to be in, especially as more apps are submitted to the iTunes App Store on a daily basis than the total number of apps available in the entire Android Marketplace. Not to mention you barely need two hands to count the number of games available for the Zune HD.

Depending on which rumors you believe, the legendary Apple tablet may also run a shared OS to the iPhone, and run the same games and apps available on the platform. If this turns out to be true, the gaming implications could be massive as a large problem with iPhone games is often how much of the screen is obscured by controls. It's still much too early to even begin to speculate what the future of the Apple tablet will hold, and you can drive yourself crazy attempting to piece together the opinions of industry insiders and analysts.

In regards to TouchArcade, we've grown substantially over 2009. At the beginning of the year Blake and Arnold were holding down the fort, I've since joined the team full time, and we've even acquired some new writers recently who are producing some fantastic reviews. At the various conventions and meetings we've attended throughout the year we've made some great friends, heard some amazing stories, and scored a lot of great previews. We've grown to just under 9 million page views a month, and since we started recording our podcast we've maintained a position in the top ten video game podcasts on iTunes. We even have some great things to come for TouchArcade, both in improving existing features of the site as well as a few top secret projects and partnerships in the works which will be revealed soon.

Our readers and excellent community are directly responsible for our success, and we'd like to thank you for your continued support. From everyone at TouchArcade, have a safe and happy holidays.

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