Surprise! RAGE HD [$1.99], id Software's graphically off-the-walls tie-in shooter to RAGE, has been updated with two additional levels in a brand new update that also throws in higher resolution models, video output support, and various other enhancements and bug fixes. The house cleaning additions are free as always, but these levels, Kraken and Aqueduct, come at a cost: $.99, to be exact, via in-app purchase through the in-game Store.

We've spent a few minutes with each and can happily report that they are, indeed, levels that have been added to RAGE HD. One thing we didn't expect, though, is to be floored all over again by this game's look. Goodness, it's gorgeous. Get the same feeling below by glancing at some of the new levels:

The just-released Paper Monsters [99¢], co-developed by Robots Vs Wizards and Crescent Moon Games, has been in the works for a long time. In fact, development originally began way back in mid-2010, and we didn’t learn until well into 2011 that Crescent Moon had actually jumped into the project to give it a graphical makeover (as they’ve been known to do from time to time).

With such a long development cycle, it’s easy for the hype over a game to do one of two things: either people start to lose interest as the months drag along, or the hype builds up to the kind of level that would be hard for any game to deliver on. Well, Paper Monsters finally has reached the App Store, so if you’re part of that first group then it’s time to start paying attention again.

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That Epoch [$.99] update that Uppercut Games teased on our show a couple of weeks back is on its way out and will be available at the generous price of $0, while the game itself is celebrating the new update by going on sale for $.99. That's dollars off, y'all -- the usual price is $4.99.

In brief, the update rolls in an "ultra difficulty" mode that introduces harder to kill dudes as well as "trickier enemy variants." It also adds some needed visual tweaks that show off your robot's armor and weaponry and introduces new story content via new in-game pick-ups. Uppercut has updated the game's trailer to reflect all of this, so check it out if you don't dig the word picture we're painting you. Lookin' good!

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Star Warfare: Alien Invasion [99¢] is a first-person arena-shooter from Freyr Games, which features wave after wave of relentless attacking alien creatures. The aliens emerge from holes in the wall and from underground, or come flying, bounding or waddling straight towards you from all sides. And once you've shot them, the next wave arrives immediately. It's almost as if you don't even need to explore, as the aliens will come straight for you.

The single player campaign includes five maps, each with six levels of increasing difficulty to unlock (30 levels in total). A progress bar indicates how many of the enemies have spawned and if you survive to the end, your reward is currency to spend in an in-game store. The sixth level of each map is a "survival" level.

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Buckle up; Adventure Bar Story appears to be pretty radical. I just spent a good chunk of time with a pre-release build of the PSP port, and while I do have a reservation or two about its virtual controls, I couldn't be happier with the overall port job and its core play, which is satisfyingly genre-bending.

Imagine if your everyday 16-bit JRPG hooked up with a management sim. In Adventure Bar Story, you control a young girl attempting to save her bar from being stolen or bought out by a renowned and rival neighborhood restaurant. In order to prevent this, she'll need to learn how to cook, buy or gather ingredients in RPG-like zones complimented by random battles, assemble the ingredients into a dish, and then profit.

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Last month developer Mountain Sheep released Ice Rage [99¢], a simple arcade title that looked like ice hockey but played a lot closer to a game of air hockey. It nailed the simple, fast-paced gameplay but fell a bit short in terms of content, offering just one-off quick play matches against the AI or a same-device multiplayer mode. Granted, the multiplayer mode was a stupid amount of fun, especially on the large screen of the iPad, but Ice Rage still lacked that single-player staying power.

Over the weekend, an update was released that looks to improve this situation with a new single-player Tournament Mode. Here you'll take on the 9 opponents in the game one after the other, and their AI increases in difficulty as you progress. Make it through them without dying and you'll square off against Skar, the new boss character you can see in the icon above. Also, a very simplistic stat upgrade system lets you increase your character's speed, power, and technique with each subsequent win.

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If you're looking to game on the cheap this week, you're in luck: a couple of big-time publishers and studios are offering a healthy swathe of their catalogues for $.99 right now. For example, Telltale is throwing yet another free-for-all. Until the end of this month, you can grab the Puzzle Agent and Hector series at a more wallet-friendly price. Gameloft is celebrating the Chinese New Year by killing the prices of nine of its premium offerings, while EA is still rocking price tags with its Daily Deals program.

Here's a list, and note some of the odds and ends, too -- Bard's Tale and Puzzlejuice are in the mix, as well as a few other cool notables. This, by the way, is by no means a comprehensive list. We're just highlighting.

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This weekend was a big one if you're a fan of NFL football, as the final 4 teams in the playoffs battled it out to see who's going to the Superbowl this year. Sadly, I'm still feeling like I was punched in the stomach after my Niners played an amazing defensive game only to fumble a punt return in overtime and set up the NY Giants for a piece of cake winning field goal. It sucks to see two teams play such a great game only to have it end on such a sour note.

However, as bad as that was, it was far from the biggest blunder of the conference championships this weekend. Ravens fans, you know where I'm going with this. After taking the fight to the mighty Patriots all afternoon, the Ravens put together an impressive late game drive to put them within a short field goal distance to tie the game and send it into overtime. Seriously, this field goal was basically a chip shot that 99% of the time any NFL kicker could make blindfolded. Unfortunately for them, the Ravens kicker fell into the other 1%, when he shanked the kick and missed the field goal - sans blindfold.

So what's all this sports talk have to do with iOS gaming you ask? Well, Full Fat Games has just released NFL Flick Kicker [99¢/HD], which, if you so choose, will allow you to reenact the biggest missed field goal of the entire NFL season. If you're a Ravens fan, this sort of thing might be akin to rubbing salt in the wound. So, you can go the other way with it if you want – play as the Ravens and pretend he actually made that field goal, and then daydream your way to the Superbowl. You're always a winner, as long as it's in your mind.

Don't worry, if you're not an NFL fan there's still plenty to enjoy here. Full Fat has basically perfected the flicking sports genre over the past couple of years, starting with Deadball Specialist [99¢/HD] back in 2010 and extending to many additional titles across several different sports since then. They've even previously utilized their NFL license on the opposite end of the spectrum with NFL Flick Quarterback [99¢/HD], which put you in the roll of the ball thrower rather than the ball kicker.

I've been having fun with NFL Flick Kicker so far. It doesn't really do anything drastically different than previous flicking games, but it does have a nice character progression system and several different modes to play through, as well as Game Center achievements and leaderboards.

If you've enjoyed any of their previous games, chances are pretty good you'll enjoy NFL Flick Kicker as well, especially if the official NFL licensing does something for you.

If you enjoy Tetris, match-3 games and Boggle, then Puzzlejuice [99¢] from Colaboratory might be right up your alley. That's because this falling-block, color-matching, word-finding mash-up combines these things into a nice-looking bundle of pleasure.

Puzzlejuice starts with falling puzzle-blocks, just like Tetris. You can rotate each falling block by tapping the screen or drag it left or right. A ghost image of the block shows where it will end up at the bottom. When you're happy with the position of the block, you can swipe it downwards to speed up its descent. And the idea is to form a solid row. That should all sound fairly familiar for anyone who knows Tetris, but that's just the start of this game.

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We previously covered smuttlewerk interactive when we took a look at Companions [$4.99/Lite], a well-done top-down role playing/strategy title. Now the developers are back with Time of Heroes [$0.99], another great addition to the genre. Ditching the top-down sprite visuals for a 3D-look, Time of Heroes still maintains smulttlewerk’s reputation for gameplay depth while successfully transitioning to a classic turn-based strategy game.

If you’ve ever played the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics, you’ll feel right at home with Time of Heroes. The game takes place on a series of maps, with players choosing heroes, units and their placements at the beginning of the battle. The game then plays out via turn-based gameplay with the goal being to accomplish all the objectives of the map (typically kill the opposing heroes while keeping your own alive). Time of Heroes is classic turn-based strategy, and I think it gets a lot of things right.

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Dungeon Raid [$.99 / Lite], a match-3 that TouchArcade President-in-Chief Eli Hodapp freely argues is the greatest game ever created, has been updated on Android. You probably don't care about that considering this is an iOS-centric web site and all, but here's the twist: in a tiny celebration of the fact that DR has made the platform leap, the iPhone version's price has been reduced to $.99 from $2.99. Neat!

The RPG component is what hooks people as hard as Eli Hodapp. The integration of items, abilities, equipment upgrades, and character classes is seamless and super clever; they end bridging a gap you didn't even know existed in the well-worn genre. Our glowing review, which pours over all of the game's fine details, is available here if you'd like to learn more before taking the plunge.

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When I play a music game, the most important things I’m looking for are good music and approachable gameplay. Cytus [$0.99] by Rayark manages to nail both of those and even adds a little bit of visual flair on top of it. While Cytus does have a few small issues and miscues in regards to a few elements, it’s still great to play and is a worthy addition to the iOS rhythm genre.

Cytus plays similarly to Elite Beat Agents – note bubbles appear on your screen and must be tapped to the rhythm of the song. An ‘Active Scan Line’ moves up and down the screen to the beat of the song and helps you time the hits on each note. In addition to normal notes, the game also features holds and slides which add some variety to the gameplay. Hits are scored on a system ranging from ‘Perfect’ to ‘Bad’ with a final ranking at song completion dependent on the length of your hit chain and the amount perfect hits.

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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.

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Games like Monkey Quest: Thunderbow [$0.99/HD] disrupt the feel-good media narrative we like to tell about the App Store. It's a low-risk way to capitalize on experimental games like Sword & Sworcery [$4.99], a place where Andreas Illiger, the one-man dev team behind Tiny Wings [$0.99], can sell thousands of copies. It's also where a giant corporation like Nickelodeon can sell us an Angry Birds [$0.99] clone to advertise its kid-friendly MMO, Monkey Quest.

It would be easier to find Thunderbow distasteful if it weren't so radical, born out of the same  mid-90s fever dream that brought us anthropomorphic turtles who were also ninjas. The hero of the game is a nameless monkey who carries a bow-and-arrow. After you beat the 30 available levels -- more are, supposedly, coming soon -- you can play a few bonus rounds with a girl-monkey who shoots lightning bolts out of her electric guitar-bow. It's incredible.

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Woody Woodpecker has his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame, his own famous theme song and a distinctive laugh (ha-ha-HA-ha!   Ha-ha-HA-ha!), but old Woody hasn't had much press coverage in recent years. So he's trying to make a comeback, with his new iOS game published by Chillingo.

Woody Woodpecker [99¢] is basically Tiny Wings [99¢] turned into a side-scrolling race between five cartoon characters across a curvaceous landscape. And like most Chillingo releases, it's nicely presented. You choose which of the five characters to race as, with each having their own "vehicle" and special weapon.

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