Mojang has again updated their blog with the latest status of what direction the Minecraft - Pocket Edition project is heading. They admit that they mistakenly thought gamers would want something closer to Minecraft Creative while on the go, so that's sort of how Pocket Edition was designed from the start. Because of that, now that they want to go back and add in things like enemies, survival, and crafting it's going to take some pretty hefty rejiggering of the entire game.

And the beginnings of this rejiggering will be what's in the forthcoming update which Mojang plans to have submitted by February 8th. There will be some pretty heavy behind-the-scenes type stuff in the update which will allow for a smoother transition when survival mode is added in the future. Crafting is also coming, but since it requires a pretty extensive interface overhaul, it's still a ways out. Survival mode will most likely be hitting pretty soon this year, and the update lays the groundwork for that.

But just because this update is filled with a lot of boring technical foundation which you cannot see, there are still a few minor new content additions to look forward to. There will be some "neat looking animals" and some new blocks, as well as doors and fences. That's right, doors and fences! The best part of this update though is that with the behind-the-scenes grunt work out of the way then new content should be easier to create and updates should start coming much faster going forward.

We'll definitely be keeping our eye on how Minecraft - Pocket Edition evolves, and while you wait for the update that's coming next month you can hit up our forums for discussion of the game.

Those types of puzzles make their appearances here, but so does a lot of solid gameplay. Kaptain Brawe opens up with an intro to the title character, a big goofy dude who somehow managed to get hired as a space officer despite the fact he's clearly not the brightest bulb in the room. Already, we have a recipe for some laughs -- that's what adventure game fans are used to. You'll start out solo, but eventually meet new characters like Row Boat (a robot of few words) and Luna (a bit of a mystery all around) who you can swap between at different points in the game, offering a bit of new perspective.

What starts out as a basic exploration of a ship on a deserted island segways into Brawe stumbling headfirst into a complex conspiracy that will send him across the galaxy searching for answers. It's a proper adventure game story, and it never failed to entertain. The humor of the game is pretty spot-on, although I felt it fell a little short from time to time (but in that cheesy way that all adventure games seem to touch on at one time or another.)

Speaking of genre tropes, one thing that Kaptain Brawe also has nailed when it comes to adventure game homage is the difficulty level of the puzzle solving. While there are options here (Casual and Hardcore), some of the solutions to puzzles are so downright ridiculous that it reminded me of playing Myst back in the day. A hint system proves helpful if you get really stuck (Lord knows we never had THOSE back in the day), but there are times when it won't reveal missing something very small and you will just kind of be sitting there without a clue on how to proceed. In other words, get ready touse your noggin in the most creative of ways.

The interface and controls are pretty basic -- an icon rests in each corner of the screen, and all movement is produced by the touch of a fingertip. It makes the game easy to get lost in, but the visuals also take a hand in that, and they do a grand job. The game has a sweeping cartoon feel, but the style is very distinct and memorable. 2D backgrounds and 3D characters work together nicely, and there's a lot of locations to explore, all of them rendered in loving detail. I personally loved the world of Kaptain Brawe, as it offered a tone and setting that you can mostly only find in Telltale Games titles these days.

While Kaptain Brawe may not be the perfect intro to the genre due to its difficulty levels, it does offer an excellent story and clever writing that ought to draw longtime fans of adventure games into its clutches quickly. There's no denying the retro appeal, but overall this is a solid title even by today's standards. If you like the taste offered by the initial free download, you can unlock the full game via IAP, which will set you back $4.99 on iPhone and $6.99 on iPad. If you ever passed time on a game like Leisure Suit Larry or Space Quest, you will adore Kaptain Brawe and all of his fumbling attempts at saving the galaxy.

Civilization Revolution

Starting now, you can upload and sync your saves between iPad and iPhone, which allows you to rock out in the same conflict regardless of iDevice on-hand. Also, 2K Games has dropped in achievement support and added to the game's visuals. New resource and unit icons compliment all new environmental animations including moving water and animated seagulls and fish. Seems small, but you'll be surprised when you boot it up.

Civilization Revolution for iPhone, by the way, has also just received "Create Your Own Scenario" challenges, which brings it up to date with the iPad version. This mode in particular is the most entertaining and rich one that Civ Rev has to offer, so definitely give it a look. You'll be saying, "Oh, god, it's 2AM" in no time.

For the uninitiated, Black Ops Zombies is a first person shooter zombie survival game based off of the survival mode found on some console versions of Call of Duty. Zombies is map-based, with each map typically featuring numerous rooms and weapons that must be unlocked in order to provide the player with better weapons and defense. There are some small secondary objectives, but the primary goal of each play through is to simply survive as long as you can. Zombies come at you in waves, and you earn money for each one you take down, giving you the currency needed to unlock everything. There are also power-ups, such as extra ammo or double currency, which can randomly drop from the slain undead.

If you do a side-by-side comparison between Black Ops Zombie and its predecessor, you’ll see a definite upgrade in visual quality and presentation. The graphics look much better, especially on the most recent iOS devices. Even the menu system looks great and offers personality that isn’t normally found in something of that low a priority in game design. Granted, it’s certainly not the best looking game we’ve seen on iOS, but it’s an improvement nonetheless. Surprisingly, I did encounter the occasional slowdown on my 4S, which seemed odd.

One of the most important questions in my book in regards to first person shooters is its controls. Black Ops Zombies adds additional control functions, such as crouching and sprinting into the mix. In addition, Black Ops Zombies brings back the same three control options (joystick, swap, and tilt) from its predecessor. Each one offers some advantage over the other, but I never found any of them to fully satisfy my expectations and not make me feel like I was compensating for playing on a touch screen. Extras such as various difficulties and auto-aim try to alleviate the problem, but it doesn’t fix it all the way. Also there were some questionable design decisions, such as not having a fire button on the screen and forcing the players to double tap to fire. While this may work on paper, I can’t count the amount of times I wasn’t able to fire my gun when I wanted to.

Another design choice I really don’t understand is the limited map selection in Black Ops Zombies.  Basically, as of release, you have access to one map, Kino Der Toten. While it’s certainly a good map, the fact that players only have access to one map at the onset is a little ridiculous. We have confirmation that there is at least one more map coming in a future update to Black Ops Zombies, but until then, expect to get tired of Kino Der Toten until that happens.

Thankfully, some of the potential tedium is addressed with the inclusion of Dead-Ops Arcade mode, a top-down arcade shooter with dual stick controls. The premise is very simple in Dead-Ops: enter rooms, kill zombies, collect weapon upgrades and score enhancing gems, move into next room, repeat. Even still, I had a blast with Dead-Ops and thought it was a perfect game fit for iOS controls. The weapon variety, fast paced gameplay, and nice graphics all work in tandem to create an incredible experience. In fact, with some modifications, it probably could have survived just fine as a standalone release. Still, I appreciate that it was included with Black Ops Zombies, especially with the current lack of map variety.

Finally we get to the multiplayer, which really is the main draw for Call of Duty zombie games. Black Ops Zombies brings back four player coop mode and ups the ante with support for voice chat. When you manage to get a game going and everything is smooth, multiplayer simply increases the amount of fun exponentially and is well worth the ticket price. Unfortunately for me, I found the majority of my games to be filled with lag and frame rate jerkiness, even when lowering the detail slider. I know it has something to do with the net code, because as soon as my companions would inevitably drop out, the game would run fine. Lag on its own wouldn't necessarily be a big deal, but when you combine it with the spotty controls, the problems just seem to compound. The included voice chat is nice, but in practice I’d usually end up muting my companions because I would just hear a lot of loud noise and static coming from their end. Dead-Ops multiplayer fared somewhat better, but I still encountered some significant lag, which is disappointing.

World at War Zombies was simply revolutionary for its time and, while Black Ops Zombies certainly improves on nearly every aspect of its predecessor, our expectations of what makes a great game have certainly changed. It’s not enough to simply add a new map and a better visual paintjob and call it a day. Yet, outside of Dead-Ops, that’s the sort of feeling I get while playing Black Ops Zombies. I think this feeling would have been far less prevalent if the game launched with just a bit more content than one map or if multiplayer wasn’t so laggy. In any case, if you were a fan of World at War Zombies, and you’re willing to be patient with content releases, you’ll love this sequel. For others looking for improvements in the general gameplay (or control schemes for that matter), you may want to wait for a content update or two.

Infinity Blade 2 [$6.99] is a step a step or two beyond what was accomplished in the original, adding in layers and layers of next-level environmental and character texture detail on top of a ton of fantastic ambient touches -- sharper shadows, stronger lighting, and a glut of atmospheric effects bolster what's already a visual delight, especially on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

In the game's opening, you'll be whisked to a Japanese garden where pink petals tenderly fall into a pond filled with koi. Later, you'll find a fountain with gurgling water creeping over two titanic figures, a crypt filled with gigantic, ragged rocks with glowing glyphs imbued into them, and you'll even observe plenty of nature again, as the game's new fortress has plenty of aerial life and environmental effects to share.

The added oomph of the presentation is a convenient parallel to what's going on under the hood. Design-wise, this is more Infinity Blade, except expanded. Beautiful vistas and artfully designed and detailed hallways compose that game's more expansive fortress; the "guided" walking scenes are always punctuated with many more items to loot and fights to be had against increasingly bigger and more complex opponents; also, the mystery as to who you are and why you're undying is unraveled more coherently, as the writing is now presented with confidence -- it actually wants to tell you a good story.

The story element in particular makes Infinity Blade 2 a more cohesive game. As in the first, you'll be once again stuck in a cyclical play loop, forever walking the halls of this new fortress as you puzzle out what it has to offer. But now the protagonist is as aware of his plight as you are, and you'll be doing things in this new place with this knowledge in tow. There's a sense of momentum and honest-to-Crom progression since not every re-birth is a simple game "reset;" plus, not just battle death triggers these this time around.

Combat has been expanded, too, and its constituent parts tweaked. Dodging, for example, is now monitored by an endurance bar. Dodge too many times in succession, and you'll take tick damage from narrowly avoided blows. Parries seem much more accurate, now, as well, and are much more encouraged by virtue of the dodge nerf. Oh! And say "hi" to weapon gems. In most cases, they act as weapon modifiers that add elemental damage to attacks. In others cases, they add bonus effects like, say, increased Titan Damage Upon Blocking. Gems can be found or purchased and attached to weapons with matching slots.

The game's currency system is still tied integrally to the combat. Buying new weapons is the key to leveling up, and you'll need to keep pumping your quarters into the virtual machine in order to compete since each re-birth sees the addition of more powerful enemies. Since you can straight-up buy gold via IAP, this element might turn you off, but in our play, we've yet to feel like IAP was anything more than optional.

More importantly, dual weapon and heavy weapon wielding have been added to the combat model and they do meaningfully change your combat approach. Two swords eliminates blocking from the equation and rely on your ability to chain together combinations flawlessly. Heavy weapons trade speed for power, but require a sure-hand. I'm not much of a fan of either of these new styles, but they work as they should.

The enemies you'll bludgeon not only look fantastic, but also boast, in most cases, more sophisticated routines and trickier blows to block, dodge, or parry. Just as an example here, let's talk about the monstrous dog-like thing you'll meet. It's heavy and blinded by the spiked cap covering its head, but its sluggish attacks are consistently hard to peg, as it feints with the aplomb of the nimblest creatures. Also, it has vicious quick-time-y attack where it attempts to swallow your dude whole. In order to stop this, you'll need to tap frantically to keep his vice-like maw from impaling your meaty bits.

Sometimes I'm tempted to see what'll happen if I let it take my dude, simply because of how awesome Infinity Blade 2 looks. Does your guy's head and torso explode into a plume of blood and bone? Probably not (for a variety of reasons), but what I'm absolutely certain of is that Infinity Blade 2 is awesome.

It's a consistently well put together visual feast that shows off what Unreal 3, and now your new devices, can do. And it's great that the core gameplay structure and action model still deliver. Basically everything that Infinity Blade does has been expanded on for Infinity Blade 2. There's so much more to do -- so much more to explore and see and learn as you hack-and-slash like a champ through a winding and much more complex environment. Straight-up, it's a great game.

As a side-bar here, while nothing is confirmed, the UI elements and Chair's track record with the original hint at many updates to come including a cool social twist to battle. We'll be keeping our thumbs and fingers at the ready for some time.

I'm guessing this eureka moment coincided with late night fitness-centric infomercials, resulting in a promotion that's so silly we couldn't help but post about it. Anyway, Chair has partnered up with musclebound bro Nate Green who is known for The Hero Handbook, a free fitness-oriented self-help eBook. Nate (who can be seen above working out at the local playground) put together a list of exercises which should help prepare even the weakest of hands for Infinity Blade 2.

So, without further ado, we present to you, the unedited Infinity Blade 2 workout in its entirety:

1. Rubberband Splay: This is the reverse movement of gripping something. Train the reverse muscles in your hands and wrist to strengthen them.

Take a rubber band and place it around your thumb and fingertips. Touch all of your fingers together. Splay your fingers as far as you can stretch them and fight the resistance of the rubberband. Touch all of your fingers together again. That's one rep. Do 20 on each hand.

2. Book Grip: Test your grip endurance. Can you hold for 20 seconds with just your index finger and thumb?

• Beginner: Grab two heavy books, hold them together, and grip them with your thumb and all of your fingers. Shoot for 20 seconds.
• Intermediate: Grip with your thumb and only your middle and ring finger. Shoot for 20 seconds.
• Hero: Grip with your thumb and index finger. Shoot for 20 seconds.

3. Quarter Toss: Improve your reflexes and hand-eye coordination.

Grab a quarter, lay your hand flat, and place it on your fingers. In one motion, flick your wrist, sending the quarter flying through the air. Grab the quarter mid-air quickly. That's one rep. Perform 10 reps on each hand.

4. Sandbag or Tennis Ball Dynamic Grip: Strengthen the muscles in your hands, fingers and wrists.

Hold a hot pad (shown) or a tennis ball in your hand with an underhand grip. Squeeze as hard as you can and hold for 2 seconds. Release your grip and repeat. Go for 30 reps on each hand.

5. Wrist and Forearm Stretch: After all that hardcore hero finger training, stretch your muscles in your wrist and forearms before you play Infinity Blade 2.

Put your hand flat in front of you. Grab the fingers of that hand with your other hand and gently pull your fingers toward your body, keeping your arm straight. You should feel a pull in your forearm and wrist. Hold for 30 seconds. Do 1 set for each hand.

Neat, right -- and all in the name of fun. Regardless if you're into pumping up your fingers and hands, Infinity Blade 2 hits in the next couple of days at $6.99. If you haven't yet, give our preview a look, and chat with fellow finger-working buddies in the Infinity Blade 2 forum thread.

Meanwhile, we're putting the finishing touches on our review which will go live with the launch of the game. Spoilers: It's awesome.

Gangstar Rio continues the tried and true gameplay of previous titles that closely mimics the gameplay of sandbox games like the Grand Theft Auto series. All the elements from previous games – from the mission based main story, to the large amount of collectibles, to even the side jobs attached to various vehicles – make a return. However, Gangstar Rio improves on its predecessors by making everything just a little bit better. For example, the Rio de Janeiro locale seems to be bigger and is a lot more unique compared to the previous locations. The entire world just feels more alive than previous titles. In addition, the developers have improved the controls by adding a few new options and tightening the existing schemes. However, I was extremely disappointed in the lack of cloud saving/syncing as that should be an essential requirement for lengthy games such as this (moreso since Rio is a universal title).

Another new feature to the series is the clothing system which works in tandem with the experience/level up system. In addition to gaining experience and earning 'Respect Levels', you can now also buy clothing which changes your appearance and provides additional perks beyond the typical stats that you increase with each level up. Some of the perks include ‘Luck,’ which increases the amount of looted money and ammo from enemies, and ‘Look’ which makes it harder to increase your wanted level. This is a significant leap forward from previous Gangstar titles, as there is now more motivation to simply enjoy the sandbox environment and earn exp and money in addition to playing the missions.

Graphics-wise, Gangstar Rio also improves upon the previous two titles. While Rio isn’t the nicest title we've seen on iOS, its visuals look much better compared to the previous Gangstar games. In addition, the game loaded extremely quickly and the framerate was relatively smooth (at least on an iPad 2 and iPhone 4S). Gameloft also did a good job improving the building pop-up, an issue we had in previous games. However, it's important to note that your experience may vary based on the model of iOS device you have, and things may not be as smooth on earlier generation systems.

Gameloft also does a good job in nailing the music in Gangstar Rio. There are several radio stations, each with a decent selection of music. Personally, I could care less about name recognition so long as the music simply sounded good in the flow of the game.  Thankfully, most of the songs succeed in that regard. I did think that the developers were trying a bit too hard with the fake radio commercials, but otherwise, the radio was definitely a plus.

(PSA: Some foul language in the trailer):

Unfortunately, despite all these improvements, one area that Gangstar Rio seems to take a step back in is in regards to its story and voiceovers.  The story is your typical riches-to-rags-to-riches-again novella that really doesn't have any originality. Granted, I'm not expecting a literary masterpiece while I'm planning a drive-by, but it is one of the weakest parts of an otherwise decent gameplay experience. The voice acting, meanwhile, is by far the worst part of Gangstar Rio. Horrid accents, low sound quality, and simply atrocious acting make the voiceovers so bad that it’s almost funny. In fact, I honestly don't know if the dreadfulness is a deliberate ploy or not. Either way, it's one of the few dark spots in Rio.

Regardless, I understand that most folks aren't playing these games for the voice acting or even for the story. The most important question is whether Gangstar Rio is actually fun to play. The answer to that is definitely a 'yes.' Rio's improvements to the core gameplay system, combined with better visuals and good music make this game the best yet in the series. However, much like the previous iterations, there are a few issues that prevent the game from living up to its full potential.

At the iPhone 4S press event, Chair announced Infinity Blade 2, and I'm not sure it's possible for another iOS title (aside from a potential Infinity Blade 3) to have this much pre-launch hype. It's well deserved, too. The original was fantastic, and really, all Chair would have needed to do is phone in a sequel with new monsters, new equipment, and maybe even a new setting and we all would have been happy. Instead, what they've done, it take nearly every element of the original and turned it up to eleven.

One of the few criticisms people had of Infinity Blade was the oddly cyclical nature of the game, which wasn't held up by any more than a vague shell of a story involving your entire bloodline serving the single purpose of throwing themselves at the God King. Penny Arcade nailed it in a comic, and Infinity Blade was a much better experience if you didn't focus on just how silly it was that you decided to take up the sword after your father, grand father, great grandfather, great great grandfather and however many "greats" you needed to add to get back to the original knight who foolishly decided to make this your family's purpose.

Infinity Blade 2 feels like it has an actual story, and this time it's told through actual voiceovers. It picks up where the first left off, and you've got the God King's Infinity Blade in your hands, and are off to find "The Worker of Secrets" now that every deathless in the world is interested in taking the Infinity Blade from you. The initial hook involves searching for Saydhi, an information dealer. Thankfully, Saydhi seems to love duels, and offers up prizes for winning. I won't spoil more than that (and this hardly counts as spoilers since it all transpires in the first cut scene) but the way things branch out from there is substantially more interesting than the original even though you'll be doing a similar series of loops through the game.

Combat, the main draw of Infinity Blade seems to be greatly improved. Chair must have either tweaked the combat animations themselves, how the swipe input is handled, or both as it feels like you have an even more direct control link to your character. This shines even further in the new combat options which become available, allowing you to trade your shield to either dual wield or carry a massive two handed weapon.

The three fighting styles feel substantially different, and help greatly in making the game feel not quite as repetitive. With two weapons in hand, you attack much faster and blocking with your shield is replaced with being able to duck. Two handed weapons are much slower, and your defensive abilities are swapped with blocking using the actual weapon itself. It's really cool how it all works out.

The item store is back, and just like the first game you'll be trading your gold for gear at regular intervals. A new gem system allows for higher levels of customization though, and it won't take long before your equipped set of gear has all sorts of slots that you can socket gems into which can do basic things like boost stats all the way up to imbuing your items with various magical properties. If coming across gold in battles is a problem, Infinity Blade 2 offers a similar IAP purchase system to buy more gold if you want. Although, like the original, there's really no reason to and buying gold to get the best items seems to just remove any drive to actually play the game since equipment upgrades play such a big role.

Outside of fights, the gameplay is nearly identical with a world you can explore in an on-rails fashion, panning the camera around and tapping to move to the next location. Hidden items are back, encouraging you to stop to look around on every screen so you don't miss anything. You'll want to, too, because Infinity Blade 2 looks gorgeous. While you might be rewarded with items for doing it, you'll also be taking in the scenery just to marvel at the graphics your iPhone is capable of pumping out.

The rest of the game can easily be summed up with, "It's Infinity Blade, but more." There are more enemy types to fight, more visual effects, more flexibility, more customization, and they managed to do all this while removing how repetitive the original felt after blasting through the game a few times. It's everything I wanted in a sequel, and I can't wait for it to be released.

Infinity Blade 2 will be available on December 1st as a universal app for $6.99. We'll have a full review then, so stay tuned.

And that's when the disappointments started rolling through the door. To be fair, I don't blame Mojang. If anything, they've done a rather masterful job at porting their world-famous IP onto the platform. Nonetheless, there's only so much you can do around technical constraints. Regardless of how you slice, the truth of the matter is that Minecraft just doesn't work here (not yet, anyway). To paraphrase the Genie from Disney's Aladdin, phenomenal cosmic power and itty-bitty living spaces do not mix.

Minecraft's familiar sense of scale is all but missing in Minecraft - Pocket Edition. Everything is forever frozen in a state of unnatural daylight. There is no day and night, no sunsets to behold, nothing to reinforce the feeling that we're in a world of our own. Instead, what we have is something that feels more akin to an open-air museum, a place to exhibit your mastery of multi-colored blocks. But even then, it's hard to be deeply impressed with a Big Daddy replica that someone has built when you find yourself running about in circles, struggling to take in every detail. Again, this has nothing to do with Mojang; small screens are small. You might as well complain that winter is cold.

Once you've grown acclimatized to the controls (it's your standard D-pad sort of thing), building is relatively easy. Blocks are placed by tapping the screen and removed by holding a finger over the cube. It's about as simple as it gets. Granted, you'll probably find yourself doing a lot of the latter. It could just be my lack of finesse but I found it a bit of a challenge to get the blocks exactly where I wanted them to go.

Asides from that, there's not much else to Minecraft: Pocket Edition. Building is everything. The game gives you an unlimited supply of blocks (there are about thirty or so to choose from) to play with. It also features cross-platform multiplayer. Don't get too excited. You won't be able to interface with your home server. For the time being, you'll only be able to sojourn to worlds built on the iOS and the Android.

Seriously, though. I could just be spoiled. I want my creepers. I want my skeletons. I want the ability to craft items. I want to be able to mine, damn it. Minecraft: Pocket Edition doesn't feel like Minecraft. It feels like something else entirely, something that may well be the point. And, for one reason or another, that just doesn't sit too well with me.

But if you're willing to take it for what it is and want nothing more than the ability to engineer pixelated utopias while you're on the go, Minecraft: Pocket Edition isn't exactly a lost cause. The developers appear to have a number of updates lined up. Minecraft: Pocket Edition could potentially be an awesome thing someday. Until that day comes, though, it is best purchased by the curious, the affluent and the hardcore fan.

The story takes place in Jurassic Park sans electrical fences -- basically, right after Dr. Hammond, Malcolm and the rest of the crew bail on Isla Nublar and its new occupying force, dinosaurs. You'll be following a new cast of characters, including a well-equipped ... contractor lady sent in to assist Nedry with his capture of the dinosaur embryos, a veterinarian, and the vet's daughter, who obviously has some issues with her family life.

Probably the coolest thing about the game is how hard the world hits you in the jaw. It is the place you remember from the movie, right down to the signs, Jeeps, and specific audio. I also love the fan service Telltale throws in; the Mr. DNA callback in the middle of a T-Rex fight is probably the most awesomely absurd of the bunch, but you'll also hear talk of Muldoon and Hammond from a new perspective.

This isn't your typical Telltale adventure game, by the way. It's much more focused on cinematics than usual and you never directly control the people the story is focusing on. The puzzle segments, for example, are simple search and find dalliances -- just point, click, and watch the characters interact. This never bothered me. The lack of control bolsters an overall cinematic purpose, as the core of the best mechanical action of Jurassic Park: The Game hinges on some insanely harrowing interactive scenes featuring plenty of dinosaurs.

These scenes, mechanically, are pretty similar to what you might have seen in Heavy Rain: you'll be presented with a fast-flowing scenario, and you'll need to hit a bunch of contextual prompts to replicate what a character goes through in a scene.

In Jurassic Park, for example, you'll need to rub, push, and pull on certain spots on the screen to hurdle through the jungle of an exhibit as spitting dinosaurs chase you, or, a little bit later, avoid a T-Rex as he hulks out on the cast. I'm not the biggest fan of these kinds of games in general, but I did find some fun with Telltale's scenes, and mainly because of the effective tension. Telltale absolutely nails the drama and emotion of being confronted by a house-sized lizard. Also, the repercussion for screwing up in a scene is always death, so there's a reason to be on your game.

The bummer with the game in general is that each of these heart-pumping sequences are sandwiched by much more laid back and fairly easy puzzle sections. They feel sluggish in comparison and just don't gel well with everything else the game offers.

But there's bigger problems with the iPad 2 version of Jurassic Park: The Game: it's on the borderline of unplayable due to a myriad of technical issues. We don't recommend that you bother with it, actually, despite the fact that this game delivers on a lot of different levels. On the Mac or PC, though? Check it out.

NOTE: Screenshots from other, much higher-resolution versions of the Jurassic Park: The Game. Also, we finished the first episode on a Mac after tiring of the iPad 2 version's clunkiness.

Jurassic Park: The Game 1 HD [$6.99] (say that three times fast) is the first installment in the series, and takes place during the events of the second half of the first Jurassic Park movie. I've always thought the Jurassic Park universe was fantastic, and am beyond stoked that I'll be able to delve into a new adventure on my iPad 2. It's unfortunate that Telltale has dropped iPad support, but if you've played any of their recent games on the device it'll be more than clear why they did it.

We'll have a review for the game as soon as we can sit down and spend some time with it, but in the meantime, if you don't feel like waiting feel free to mash the download link below.

Fantasy Flight Games

I love these games, but there's really no such thing as a quick game of, well, any of them. Between set up, tear down and the inevitable time taken to teach new players and reference forgotten rules, you're looking at a full evening's entertainment. So imagine my delight playing Elder Sign: Omens [$3.99 / HD], the first of Fantasy Flight's more mature games to arrive on the App Store. It's quick to play, can be learned (mostly) as you go, and can be played solo or hotseat with friends. What's not to like?

Elder Sign: Omens is harder to explain than it is to learn, but let's give it a shot. Azathoth, one of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, is showing signs of awakening. This would basically be the end of the world, filled with eldritch abominations and mindless gibbering, so you must assemble a team to stop this from occurring.

You can choose from a list of 16 investigators to create a team of 1 to 4 members. The investigators all have their own strengths and weaknesses. Some have more sanity, others more stamina, some get more items than others and all have unique abilities to help you on your mission.

Once you enter the museum in which Elder Sign takes place, you're faced with a selection of missions. Each one is horrifying in its own way, and your investigators risk losing their lives or their sanity by facing them down. In each mission, you roll the dice (proverbially in this game, and literally in the tabletop version) to see if you can match the symbols that come up, things like Terror, Peril and Lore, to the symbols needed to defeat the nameless horror you face.

If you do, you're well rewarded, earning items for your investigators that help you improve your odds and occasionally Elder Signs. If you don't, you fail the mission and suffer, losing sanity, stamina and sometimes gaining Doom. If the Doom Track moves up by twelve spaces before you collect the fourteen Elder Signs needed to seal away the Great Old One, Azathoth awakens and all is lost.

There are a few other details that can effect the outcome of your game. As you succeed at missions you earn trophies that can be exchanged for healing, items or expensive Elder Signs. Time passes on as you take your turns, and at midnight terrible things happen depending on how many monsters or Midnight signs you've left on the board. And occasionally portals open to Other Worlds, where the stakes are higher but so are the rewards.

As a result, success in Elder Sign is part luck, part strategy, but it's certainly weighted toward luck. If you fail at rolling the signs you need, there's little you can do. But making sure you pick the right investigator for the job, keep them alive and choose the missions you can defeat -- therein lies strategy.

For the most part, the transition to digital has been very kind to Elder Sign. Azathoth is the only Ancient One that features -- the others and their varied win conditions aren't present in Omens. But otherwise the game is intact and elegantly presented. The interface is superb, aside from a few small oversights. I would prefer to be able to see what items can do at a glance even when they're not usable, and I didn't discover that tapping the title of a mission would bring up more information about it even while you were in the midst of it until I was quite deep in the game. But on the whole, Fantasy Flight has done a fantastic job of making a complicated game simple and easy to play.

They've done such a good job, in fact, that you don't need to worry about learning much at all before you play. I'd recommend watching the tutorials so you don't get lost, but this is a game you can muddle through and understand within a single playthrough. That's outstandingly intuitive for this sort of thing. Playthroughs are much quicker than in the tabletop game, too, though not as speedy as they could be -- a bit too much focus is placed on fancy but slow scene transitions.

You can play Elder Sign: Omens alone, using up to four investigators to explore the museum. You're given a local high score when you finish the game, win or lose, and it's endlessly satisfying to try to defeat that score with different teams and strategies. Alternately, you can play hotseat with friends -- assign each person to a single investigator and pass your device around. The game doesn't change, but it works brilliantly both ways.

Best of all? Win or lose, no one has to clean up the table when you're done. There's no overstating how much I'd like to see more of Fantasy Flight's catalog brought to iOS. If you agree, voice your support in our discussion thread. And do try to keep your sanity intact while you wait.

This release is named "Fallen Nation" because America is under attack. The enemies are KPR (Korea, Pakistan and Russia), who have declared war on America and invaded US cities, reportedly destroying Chicago. Anyone familiar with the earlier games will find more of the same non-stop action in this military shooter, but Gameloft have extended their previous efforts to ensure this latest release is the best in the series.

Because this game has so much going on, we'll focus primarily on highlighting the new features. If you're not familiar with the earlier games, you might want to read the review links above.

The single player campaign has 13 missions and four levels of difficulty, with combat in different vehicles, settings, and six different countries. There are plenty of cinematic cutscenes between gun-fights to shape the story-line, some of which require swipes when directed. The voice-over acting sounds good considering Gameloft's previous efforts, and the graphics and level of detail in the levels is already being praised as "better than MC2" in the games busy discussion thread.

The highlight for many players will be the expanded multiplayer mode which is available via local WiFi or online via Gameloft Live. It now supports up to 12 players, compared to 10 previously, and delivers six much larger maps, which is more maps than MC2 had at release. Bluetooth multiplayer mode, which was available in MC2, has now been removed. Some users have experienced lag at times, which has caused stuttering graphics, but the general indication is that it's nothing unreasonable.

Seven multiplayer modes are provided. The four MC2 modes are still present (Battle, Team battle, Capture the flag and Defuse the bomb), but now there's also "Manhunt"  where you hold a flag for as long as possible, "Zone control" where you capture and hold locations, and "Destruction" where one team defends multiple devices from an attacking team. Multiplayer mode also has a list of challenges to complete, like achieving a certain number of head-shots, beating each game mode, and achieving the required number of kills with each weapon / attachment.

By killing other players and completing objectives and challenges, you'll gain the experience points (XP) necessary for promotions to higher ranks. This is important because your rank now determines which new weapons, attachments, equipment, and skills are available in the armory.

In multiplayer mode, you can pick one skill per weapon kit. A gun expert loads his weapons quicker, an athlete runs faster while an anatomy scientist heals in half the time. The meanest skill is "One more thing", which drops an incendiary grenade upon death, as a good-bye present to anyone nearby, like the person who shot you.

The expected diverse arsenal of weapons is available, plus equipment like remotely activated C4 explosives, sensors to display position of enemies, radar jammers, mines, and camouflage to avoid satellite scans. However, the process for unlocking weapons has changed, with guns being unlocked progressively once your character reaches certain levels while in-game currency is used to buy ammunition or attachments. That's right, you can now add various attachments to customize your weaponry, like: Red dot sights, thermal scopes, and suppressors, which help you stay invisible on enemies radar while shooting.

There are two forms of in-game currency: Blue credits are used to buy or upgrade items in the single player shop, or to unlock items in WiFi multiplayer. Gold credits are used in online multiplayer, to unlock items in the online armory. You can buy additional credits as an In-App Purchase, but this is not really necessary as playing the game can yield the same results without extra cost.

Kill signatures have been added, so you can unlock and choose a message, picture, background and sound to be displayed to your victims after you kill them.  So when your opponents die, they might get a message like: "PWNED!" or "Would you like fries with that?"  along with a flatulence or baby crying sound effect. It's a final slap in the face for your dead opponent.

Gameloft has added rewards for killing sprees this time around as well. In multiplayer mode you can earn "kill-chains" by killing multiple enemies without dying. These kill-chains can be used to buy military support. For example, three kill-chains will get you a satellite scan, showing all hostiles briefly. You can also request air strikes, turret deployments or helicopter / bomber support. With 20 kill-chains, you can obtain the much coveted nuclear missile and drop this WMD to end the conflict in 15 seconds.

There are three different control options, including "Classic Controls" like MC2 (but with a new sliding move by pressing crouch when running), but this set-up is not the default.  You can adjust the sensitivity of the controls, which was handy as I didn't like the default controls at all, finding them too fast and floaty and the sprint button was in an uncomfortable position. Fortunately, there's an option to customize the position of each control individually, although this is hidden away in the pause menu. It's worth taking a few minutes to get the controls right for you.

Your progress and ranking is stored on Gameloft's servers, so even if you delete the game, you can re-install it and resume without needing to start over. This means you can login from another device if the game is installed. And a multiplayer headquarters menu now presents all your stats, leaderboards, challenges, match history, and military support options. Finally, there's now an online armory where you can save your weapon sets (primary, secondary, weapons attachments and extras like equipment or skills). Additional weapon kit slots can be unlocked. This isn't as good as having direct access to all weapons, but it's still nice to have this ability.

A few teething issues have been reported, with some ranks being listed incorrectly / inconsistently or progress being lost altogether. This is a major inconvenience which Gameloft is likely to investigate as a priority. And if you have a hyphen in your Gameloft Live login (as one of our editors does) you may have trouble logging in for online multiplayer, so avoid using dashes if you're signing up.

This Universal game is larger than most and requires additional room for the install process, so gamers all over the world are busy deleting other large games to free up a couple of gigabytes. If you want to play first person shooters on your iOS device, Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation is a must-buy game, so start making room for it.  Although, with Gameloft  reportedly committed to releasing frequent updates sooner this time around (in contrast to previous versions), we may have to delete even more games for the future updates.

Straandlooper have achieved this by making each episode in the series structurally unique. Ep1 gave Hector three discrete objectives to complete while Ep2 led him through a long and meandering investigation. Episode 3, though, is very clear cut in its goals: Hector most stop a terrorist from using biochemical weapons on the Clappers Wreake fair.

This seems obvious enough, given the tone and the narrative arc we've come to expect from the Badge of Carnage series. Where Straandlooper really shine, however, is in the way that every single puzzle in Beyond Reasonable Doom buttresses that core objective -- the game isn't comprised of several small puzzles so much as it's one huge, multi-step inventory management bonanza. Literally everything you do pushes you closer and closer to stopping Barnsley the Terrorist, and because each piece is tied to the next, Ep3 constantly pushes players forward in a positive feedback loop.

Beyond Reasonable Doom is a deceptively short game, its length masked by the way the tension in the game builds over time. Hector successfully defeats Barnsley at least four times, by my count, each plot twist building on the last. As a result, the game's climax isn't just another puzzle, but takes place within the context of a unified, over-arching goal. Instead of feeling routine, Beyond Reasonable Doom's ending feels conclusive and satisfying.

And the puzzles themselves are the best of the series yet -- after three games, Straandlooper has had plenty of chances to respond to audience feedback and they seem to have taken advantage of the benefits of episodic content. (The flipside, of course, is that after three games, I just know what to expect from the series and don't find it as hard.)

Again, the puzzle design is complimented by the game's structure: because the majority of the game takes place at a fair, all of the puzzles are riffs on the bad food, long bathroom lines, carnies, and other general weirdness that you find any time the unwashed masses gather. Beyond Reasonable Doom uses its restricted geographical space to its advantage -- nothing is out of place, the player rarely has to wander aimlessly for the next inventory item, and each solution is intuitive and (more or less) logical in the context of the gameworld.

The trade-off, however, is that this entry lacks some of the notable setpieces that defined Senseless Acts of Justice [$4.99]. The climax aside, Beyond Reasonable Doom keeps its narratve and gameplay beats relatively flat -- it's probably the most refined and straightforward game in the bunch, but it's also the least ambitious.

Straandlooper have a knack for incorporating comedy tropes into their games -- the first two games make fun of buddy cop shows almost exclusively, but the last one is more domesticated and mundane, the game equivalent of "What's the deal with airplane food?" In other words: it's hard to create a fully-realized city, which is what Straandlooper tried to do with Episodes 1 and 2; it's a lot easier to really flesh out one common experience in one part of a city -- who hasn't been to the fair before? -- and Beyond Reasonable Doom is better and funnier for it.

That’s not to say the game isn’t without its faults. For all the subtle ways Straandlooper have tried to tweak the Hector series, Beyond Reasonable Doom still over-relies on long, branching dialogue trees to impart important information or plot exposition.

Nevertheless, I think Straandlooper have proven themselves worthy torch-bearers of the genre – they have a knack for comedy and clearly understand that their deft execution largely mitigates any complaints of old-fashioned or non-innovative design. The Badge of Carnage series has been good throughout, and Beyond Reasonable Doom is no exception.

And that’s not all -- iOS 5 is coming and so are a handful of features to Real Racing 2 that revolve around Airplay support. With the update, you’ll be able to wirelessly stream the game’s content to your TV. Also, if you’ve got friends with the game and an iPhone 4S or an iPad 2, you’ll be able to play with them in split-screen. “Party Play” mode will allow up to 4 players to compete on the same screen, provided the host has Apple’s new hotnesses.

Firemint isn’t known for missing a hardware launch, so we didn’t expect any less. Still, this seems like an absolutely spectacular deal for current and new owners of the game. Real Racing 2 was great to begin with, and now it’ll look even sharper than ever.