Namco seems to be taking the iPhone platform seriously. They've just released another major title into the App Store: Time Crisis Strike [App Store, $5.99].

Time Crisis is a popular first person rail shooter that was first available in the arcades but has since made a move onto consoles as well as mobile devices. Wikipedia describes the gameplay well:

The franchise's signature feature is the presence of a foot pedal that controlled whether the player's character took cover (and was thus invulnerable but unable to shoot) or was commencing attack (and could thus attack but was vulnerable). A countdown clock, recharged by clearing an area of bad guys, forces the player to take risks and stay up and vulnerable most of the time, shooting quickly at any enemy on sight.

The arcade version of the game was a light-gun shooter which allows the player to actually take physical aim to shoot the enemies.

Obviously, on the iPhone, we are left without a gun or a foot pedal. Instead, ducking/reloading is performed by a tilt of the iPhone and shooting is naturally performed by tapping on the images of the enemies on the screen.

Namco has done a good job in providing a solid overall experience with the quality you might expect from a major franchise title. Gameplay is varied and surprisingly difficult, though there only appears to be 3 distinct stages in the Arcade mode of the game. Time Crisis Strike offers Arcade Mode (play through), One Stage Trial (try one of the stages individually), or Crisis Mission (special challenge modes). Most of the levels are locked and require completion of the earlier levels to move on.

But is it fun? I believe it may appeal to Time Crisis fans willing to overlook the lack of light-gun, as the game is well implemented and provides a reasonable challenge despite containing only 3 apparent stages. That said, the lack of a light-gun really reduces the gameplay to a rather simple mechanic (tapping on the screen) which didn't happen to hold my interest for long.

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Freeverse released a major update to their SlotZ Racer game [App Store, $2.99]

Major new features in version 1.1 include:

• New Track Manager page. Email custom designed tracks to friends, as well as send tracks directly over wifi.
• Scenery editing: Spruce up your track designs with grandstands, hills, bridges, tunnels, gravel traps; Grass and Dirt baseboard textures added.
• 5 new camera modes: plan view, helicopter view, 2 new moving views and driver view.
• Shake feature. In any menu, shake to return to the main menu. In the main menu, shake to start a quick race. In the editor, shake to undo.
• CPU Oops factor added. Adjust how often the computer players make mistakes and fall off the track.
• 4 New cars: CitruZ, TypeZ Drift, Mulsane and the Vontara XT.
• New "Strict" championship option. When set, doesn't allow players to restart individual races during a championship. Trophies won in strict mode unlock new car types.
• 4 bridge heights for serious multi-story fun.

Several of the new features are shown in this video:

Forum users are already trading tracks in our forums. A number of other minor additions also also detailed in their press release.

SlotZ RaceR has been very well received amongst the TouchArcade community and comes highly recommended.

App Store Link: SlotZ Racer, $2.99

Laminar Research has released their latest flying simulator for the iPhone in the form of X-Plane Extreme [App Store]. The newest version contains "four of the most unusual, fast, maneuverable, or advanced planes ever made" according to the developer. These include:

• F-22 Raptor - by far the most maneuverable and powerful fighter in the sky
• SR-71 Blackbird - the fastest airplane in the world, exceeding Mach-3, exceeding 70,000 feet
• B-1 'Bone' Bomber - this huge ungainly bird still has terribly high stall speeds and limited roll rate due to it's high weight
• B-2 'Jet' Bomber - The B-2 has.. umm... no tail. At all. No vertical stabilizer. No horizontal stabilizer. And no flaps.

Meanwhile, the developer has just released new updates to their other flight simulator applications: X-Plane 9, X-Plane-Helicopter, and X-Plane-Airliner. These latest updates include new instrument panel types, and new flying regions.

App Store Link: X-Plane Extreme, $9.99, X-Plane 9, $9.99, X-Plane-Helicopter, $9.99, X-Plane-Airliner, $9.99

Earlier this month we published screenshots of an upcoming space shooter called Circuit Strike.One for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The developers h.grenade have been kind enough to provide this early pre-release video of the upcoming game, and it looks pretty amazing.

The premise of the game is described:

In CS.One Players control a highly maneuverable and lightning fast virtual ship in zero-gravity simulation inside an advanced computer Network. To hack each Node in the Network you must destroy the Shield Generators that power the Data Core defense system, then destroy the highly magnetic Gravity Orb before it goes into Self Destruct. The System Admin will send out everything to stop your progress including Turrets, Drones, Ships, Replicants, Trace Routes, Intelligent AI and the dreaded Black Ice Virus. The system will also try to use your own audio and video inputs against you, feeding back A/V noise to disorient you along the way.

Click on the embedded video to play. A low-quality YouTube version is also available. The current version of the video does not include final audio, which will include Rez-style synchronized AV effects.

The game incorporates a number of notable features. Highlights include:

• Real-time Music Visualizer Effects Synced to Gameplay (hits change tempo, add fills, trigger visuals, etc. in time with the music)
• Pulse Pounding Techno Soundtrack by DJ Vitamin Devo
• High Speed Inertia Based Physics + Gameplay
• Bullet-time Slow-Motion Game Mechanic

The game is going into final beta testing so hopefully we'll see this title soon.

New Drylands map and new Towers in v1.2

The Fieldrunners 1.2 update is starting to propagate across Apple's iTunes servers so users are starting to get update notifications for the latest update to Subatomic's popular tower defense game.

The latest version of the game offers a number of improvements and additions:

• Mortar tower. With a destructive payload & explosive force the mortar tower obliterates enemies in a single devastating attack.
• Flame tower. The flame tower is capable of incinerating multiple fieldrunners in a single fiery swoop.
• New Map: Drylands. With multiple paths snaking thru the dried-out canyon riverbed, it gives the fieldrunners ample chance to escape.
• New Fieldrunner: the P-47 Thunderbolt. These blazing fast planes tear through the sky over the fields at an incredible speed.
• Sell without penalty. A tower that is both purchased and sold while the game is paused will not incur a score or price penalty.
• Faster load times. The time required to start a new game or resume a previously saved game has been significantally reduced.
• Updated game icon. The game icon has been changed to reflect the color palette of the new map.
• Improved lightning visuals. The lightning bolt discharged by the tesla tower now emits light and animates more realistically.
• Autosave. The autosave feature saves your progress every round to protect you against crashes or freezes.

Additional Screenshots

Fieldrunners now offers 3 different modes for each map: Classic, Extended and Endless.

Classic offers the traditional Fieldrunners experience with the 4 original towers. Extended and Endless add the two new towers to the mix. Classic must be defeated in order to unlock the Extended and Endless modes.

Fieldrunners is one of the most popular Tower Defense games on the iPhone and was named amongst Time Magazine's Top 10 games of 2008. We also highly recommend the game, even for those who are unfamiliar with the Tower Defense genre.

App Store Link: Fieldrunners, $4.99 (1.2 update is free to existing customers)

Back in May we reported that IG Fun would be bringing 2K Games' highly acclaimed title BioShock to the iPhone as well as various BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) handsets.  Since then we've heard little.

At the end of March, the Game Developers Conference 2009 will take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.  (The Independent Games Festival Mobile will correspond with GDC 2009.)  Both Arnold Kim and myself, of Touch Arcade, will be on location for the duration of the conference week bringing iPhone-related game coverage.

A look at the GDC session schedule has revealed that Sean Malatesta, CEO of IG FUN, will be presenting a 45-minute lecture entitled "Bringing BioShock to Mobile." The session description:

This session will cover how IGFUN worked with Take Two Software to bring BIOSHOCK, the Xbox 360 Game of the Year, to the mobile phone. How did the deal come together? What went into bringing a massive brand and excellent game play to a mobile device? We'll discuss potential pitfalls and how they were resolved with attention to quality as the #1 job. In a post-mobile games market, how can you effective launch and market such a Title?

We hope to attend the lecture and share with our readers details of this undertaking.

As a bit of an update on the status of BioShock for Mobile, have a look at the BioShock mobile trailer posted by Pocket Gamer at the end of last year.  (We believe this video is likely of the BREW version of BioShock.)

KiwiBox.com posted a floor interview video with Malatesta in which he briefly discusses BioShock mobile and the segmented download approach the company has in store for mobile gamers.

[ Thanks emb531 : forum link ]

While not one of the high profile games, IUGO's Zombie Attack! [App Store, $1.99] has developed a bit of a following amongst our forum users. Although it generated a bit of a lukewarm initial response, the game has since proven itself to offer hours of zombie mangling fun for many (discussion thread). IUGO has now released a free Lite version [App Store] so you can try it yourself.

Zombie Attack is a non-traditional Tower Defense game where you control the movements of main character with either touch or accelerometer controls. To build towers in a particular spot, you need to actually run to that spot while avoiding the oncoming onslaught of Zombies. This features adds a bit of action to an otherwise strategy-only genre.

The Lite version limits your arsenal to one weapon and one 'shack bomb' but gives you the idea of the basic mechanics of gameplay. High scores and strategies have been discussed in our forum.

App Store Link: Zombie Attack! Free, Free, Zombie Attack!, $1.99

As MacRumors reports, a recent study from ComScore reveals that iPhone and iPod touch users are far more likely to download games for their mobile device than other smartphone users, a truth that comes as little surprise to many iPhone developers out there.

ComScore indicates that gaming on mobile phones is up 17% over the previous year due to growth of mobile handsets such as the iPhone.

With its touch screen, robust processor, and 3-D graphics capabilities, it's no surprise that the iPhone 3G has been a hit with gamers. Apple iPhone owners accounted for 14% of mobile game downloads, ComScore said. Overall, 32.4% of iPhone users have downloaded a game, compared with a market average of 3.8%.

And it's not just games that are seeing huge downloads in the App Store.  Looking at the smartphone app landscape, Pelago CEO Jeff Holden determined that the current base of 13 million iPhone owners had already downloaded as much software as the equivalent of 1.1 billion owners of other mobile phones.

To a developer, what this means is that if he launches an app for non-iPhones (assuming he has deals with all carriers and has ported to every handset in distribution on which people can download apps), he needs to have a reach 94 times as large as the reach he needs in the iPhone community (which does not require any carrier deals and is via single platform, so no porting) to achieve the same number of downloads. In other words, the 13MM iPhone audience is equivalent to 13MM * 94 = 1.6 *billion* non-iPhones. Of course, we know there are only 250MM non-iPhones in the U.S., so there is no way to achieve the same effective reach inside the U.S.

According to AppShopper.com, there are already over 17,000 titles in the App Store--the largest category of which are games.  Noting that these apps have all appeared within the last six months, and looking at recent indications that Apple plans to take things to the next level by bringing a Premium Games area to the App Store, the future of mobile gaming--of iPhone and iPod touch gaming--is looking rather bright, indeed.

Pinball fans take note, Cowboy Rodeo has ported Digital Illusions' classic Amiga pinball game Pinball Dreams to the iPhone and iPod touch.

Pinball Dreams was an extremely well received game when it debuted on the Amiga back in 1992.  It took full advantage of the Amiga's (then) powerful graphics hardware and offered a realism and playability rarely--if ever--seen before in a computer-based pinball game.  A British reviewer of the Amiga version well describes the significance of the title on the platform.

Pinball Dreams was an enormous success; not only did it top the Amiga best-sellers lists, it's also responsible for selling a sizeable number of Amigas at the same time. But what was it that made the game so different from other pinball games? Attention to detail: Pinball Dreams emulated the real pinball feeling like no game before it. The ball's response is so much more realistic, the layout of the tables is carefully thought out and tied to the theme of the table...So careful were Digital Illusions to catch the real pinball feeling that the beautifully drawn tables (especially considering the colour limitation) even depict the screws that might conceivably be holding the table together. Add to this the great sound effects, the ability to give the table a quick shove (but not too much or you might affect the tilt sensors) and you've got a real classic. Unlike any previous game, you could really believe that there might be real pinball tables just like the four in Pinball Dreams.

Pinball Dreaming: Pinball Dreams [App Store] for the iPhone, like the original, features four themed tables, all of which are available to play from the start:

• Ignition: Rocket launch, planets, and space exploration theme
• Steel Wheel: Steam trains and the Old West theme
• Beat Box: Music Industry, Charts, Bands and Tours theme
• Nightmare: Graveyard, ghosts, demons, and nightmares theme

The tables are laid out exactly like those in the original but feature mildly improved graphics (thanks to the iPhone's much greater color palette).  The graphics are detailed 2D bitmaps shaded to suggest 3D.  The developer provided us further details in this area:

Everything is basically 0.999:1 to the original Amiga version to the point that we ported all of it from the original Amiga 68k Motorola assembler source code that we got from the original coder, Andreas Axelsson - line by line.

Music and sounds naturally are all original. The only thing we've done is that we "remastered" the table graphics with more colors - you can play in the all-original graphics by entering the setup menu and selecting them from there.

Pinball Dreams features touchscreen controls; a tap to the left or right side of the screen activates the paddles and a tap to a newly emerged ball in the well fires it onto the table.  A quick jerk of the iPhone gives the virtual table a nudge--but be careful, nudge to hard and it's TILT city.  Rotating the device changes the orientation of gameplay.

I am a huge fan of the original and its various sequels and, years ago, spent days playing them on various Amigas.  I can say with authority that the iPhone version is actually more enjoyable than the Amiga original.  All of the nice elements of the original are here, but in a far more convenient (pocketable) package.  What's more, while the iPhone and Amiga feature the same horizontal pixel resolution, the iPhone's display is twice as tall (pixel-wise) as the Amiga's, and so only slight vertical panning of the table is needed to track the ball on the iPhone (where the vertical panning in the Amiga version was extreme [video]).

All that said, it's important to remember that this is a classic title from 1992.  While it provides great gameplay, it's visuals and table theatrics cannot compare to more modern titles such as ZEN's Pinball: Rollercoaster for iPhone and Pinball FX for X360 or Crave's Pinball Hall of Fame for PSP.  And although it does have a retro feel to it, Pinball Dreams does not feel like "an old game."  It offers fast, smooth pinball action that's hard to put down.

Pinball Dreams has already seen a rather positive reception from our forum members, many of whom are now replaying an old favorite on their iPhones and iPod touches.

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Just in time for Superbowl Sunday, Macworld has posted a roundup of the current football games that can be found in the App Store.

Macworld had already given high marks for LED Football [App Store] and LED Football 2 [App Store], but also took a look at these remaining titles in their roundup:

• Paper Football (Free)
• Finger Football (Free)
• X's & O's ($1.99) - fun to a point. becomes repetitive (pictured above)
• PocketSports Football ($4.99) - traditional football experience. some shortcomings.
• QB Pass Attack Football ($1.99) - good casual fun

Solus Games' PocketSports Football seems the most promising traditional title with 3D gameplay. The game uses the accerometer to control movement of your players and multiple camera angles. The main shortcomings listed included difficult passing and little control over defense.

Our discussion thread comments from the developer seems to indicate these may be addressed in a future update.

This gameplay video gives you an idea of the game:

Meanwhile QB Pass Attack Football earned high marks for pure fun. The game is one of Skyworks' sports games which offers an arcade recreation with great touch controls. A gameplay video from the developer offers you an idea of the game.

Team Phobic has just released Bounce On Lite [App Store], a free "lite" version of its Mario-style 2D platformer that offers a subset of the features of the original Bounce On [$3.99 App Store].

In Bounce On, a red ball has accidentally fallen out of someone’s pocket and it’s the player’s job to guide it home while picking up gems and power-ups along the way and avoiding (or squashing) enemies, Mario-style.  The ball is controlled via tilt with a tap to the screen to bounce.  The graphics are simplistic, cartoony and colorful, also evoking a Mario-esque feel.

We took a look at Bounce On last month and found it to offer an enjoyable 2D platform experience that helps fill the dearth of such titles in the App Store rather nicely.

See our demonstration video of the paid app, Bounce On.

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App Store Link: Bounce On Lite, Free, Bounce On, $3.99