Oh, snap, we almost missed this one: Kairosoft is in the third day of a “limited time” sale for two of its more recent releases, Grand Prix Story [$1.99] and Pocket Academy [$1.99]. As of right now, you can grab them at $1.99 instead of their usual $3.99 price tag. If you’ve been holding out on either until their prices took a dive, now’s the time to flip a couple of bucks at the simulation gurus at the studio. This is about as low as its prices go, in general.

Grand Prix Story and Pocket Academy are two of the studio’s most inventive releases. They adhere to the same basic formula of Game Dev Story [$3.99 / Lite], sure, but they also hit notes that GDS couldn’t. Pocket Academy manages to make people important, while Grand Prix stresses team management, iteration, and consistent success from every pore. We recommend both, too.

Oh! And before you leave us -- we’ve got a feeling that this sale is leading into another release this month. Specifically, we wouldn’t be surprised if Kairosoft’s answer to SimCity cropped up on the US' App Store around the 8th.

While Apple keynotes themselves are always a lot of fun, I actually almost like the day immediately before the keynote more. Speculation on what's coming reaches a climax, and all you've got to do is wait a day to see who was right and who was wrong. MacRumors provides a rundown of possibilities from the hardware lineup, and subsequent rumors make an iPhone 4S seem even more reasonable as more and more vague leaks of "iPhone 4S" branding appear. Following case leaks and a few other shaky rumors, there hasn't been a very strong indication that the redesigned iPhone 5 is coming at all-- At least not yet.

Regardless of what the new iPhone looks like, the addition of the A5 processor should make the iPhone 5 (or 4S) a pocket-sized power-house. Anandtech recently posted a set of benchmarks of mobile GPU's, and the GPU in the iPad 2 is still blowing the doors off the competition:

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Wanna be a baller? I can't help you there, but you might want to take a look at PikPok's Slam Dunk King [Free] for a bit of inspiration. You might have all the coordination and slick moves of a sloth, but if you've got nimble fingers you're most of the way there. And, honestly? You don't need to care a whit about basketball to love this game.

Slam Dunk King is all about the trick shot. Balls are sent your way, and you've got to dunk them like a pro while racking up some crazy combos. Flick them into the net, flick away bombs, and sneak a few tricks in and you'll be well on your way. There are twelve tricks to learn, from the humble Juggle to the Air Gordon, and each will rack up your points. Tie them all together and you'll fly off the charts.

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If you're constantly disappointed by the knockoffs, cash-ins and "me-toos" of the App Store, then Nicolai Troshinsky's Loop Raccord [$2.99] is the game for you. Best described as a game of video editing, it's strikingly original, much like another iOS game Nicolai designed called UFO on Tape [99¢]. On PC, it's been a finalist at the Independent Games Festival and at IndiCade and was featured at the Experimental Gameplay Sessions at GDC. And now it's available on your iPad.

Loop Raccord is all about motion. In playing, you'll queue short video clips so that the motion of one flows into the other -- a raccord, by the game's terminology. In one clip, a letter might be dropped on the ground. In a clip below, a finger will stroke a hairbrush. It's your job to line those motions up so the finger begins its movement the moment the letter hits the ground, creating a chain reaction of sorts. It's strange and slightly cerebral, but also very compelling.

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FlipShip [99¢/Lite] from ByteSize Games is a 2D dodge and shoot'em-up game, which at first glance seems to resemble a bunch of other titles, like Tilt to Live [$2.99/Lite/HD], Geometry Wars [99¢], Hyperlight [$1.99] and Infinity Field [99¢/HD].  However, once you start playing it's immediately apparent that FlipShip features some interesting ideas, adding a strategic element which differentiates it nicely from those other games.

In FlipShip, your craft is maneuvered using tilt controls and automatically fires when an enemy is within range, so there's no fire button. Where it differs from your typical shooter is that the color of your spaceship is important, because you can only destroy enemies the same color as yourself. This is reminiscent of the color-based Japanese shoot'em-up Ikaruga from 2001. For example, if your ship is red, you can destroy any red enemies, but you'd better be careful to avoid the blues.  Over time more and more of the different-color enemies appear, making them increasingly difficult to avoid.

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Simply put, Rescue City [Free] is a worthy addition to the line-drawing genre that has long since been dominated by the prowess of Flight Control. Rather than directly mimicking the open-world environment of the flight-landing title, Rescue City succeeds at implementing a more structured approach to vehicle management that not only still requires strategy and management, but also manages to simplify the core gameplay experience.  A tough difficulty curve and a lack of variety in environments are the only significant obstacles that hold Rescue City back.

Rescue City places you in charge of the police, firefighter, and ambulance services for a section of a city. As various incidents pop up, you must dispatch the appropriate emergency services by drawing a route to the location. Each incident has a countdown timer attached to it, and the game ends if you do not respond to the incident in time. In addition, the game also ends if any of your vehicles collide with each other while on the road.  Obviously, the crux of the gameplay becomes effective route management as you will be trying to respond to each incident as fast as possible while preventing any vehicle crashes.

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This past week we posted a preview of the first three games set to hit the App Store, marking the launch of the Elite Collection of 8-bit home computer games from noted and long-running studio Elite Systems. The games have just gone live and are available in both iPhone and iPad "HD" versions.

The initial Elite Collection titles that have arrived are Datasoft's 1987 magical platformer Black Magic, Image Works' lovely 1992 release First Samurai, and the frantic 1992 space shooter Enforcer from Manfred Trenz. Every one of these titles is very well implemented in iOS and is among the top tier of games to be found on the 8-bit platforms of decades past.

The Elite Collection is Elite Systems' initiative to expand their ongoing retro rebirth efforts by utilizing a new proprietary system -- a facilitator, of sorts -- that was designed in such a way as to not incorporate, reference, or in any way rely upon third-party property and that is able to deliver, to iOS, games that originated on platforms other than just the ZX Spectrum (Elite's original source platform) in near-100% original form. For more details on these titles (including videos), see our preview.

Elite will soon be following up these three initial titles with an additional six Elite Collection releases.