We've had our eye on Tweet Land [$1.99] from Why Ideas ever since we spotted it as a curious Kickstarter project back in April of last year. The project was more than sufficiently funded, and last month we were treated to a new trailer and news that Tweet Land would be hitting at the end of January. As expected, earlier this week the game finally went live in the App Store.

Tweet Land was intriguing due to its unique real-time usage of tweets drawn from Twitter that would trigger elements into the game. It reaches out into the vast ocean of Twitter and utilizes special keywords from real tweets to create things in the game. It's a fantastic idea in theory, and Why Ideas did pull it off on a functional level just as they had promised. However, despite being really innovative, Tweet Land doesn't hold up as well in the gameplay department, and there were a couple of unintended side effects of using live tweets that left a sour taste in my mouth.

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Way back in 2010 when Monster Dash [$0.99] was released it felt a tiny bit lacking. Not that it wasn't a fantastic game, but it could have used a little more depth. You know, upgrades to earn, a complex mission system, maybe eventual retina support?

Now there's no need to worry about any of that. Not because One Epic Game [$0.99] brings any of that to the table, mind, but because Jetpack Joyride [Free] came out a year later and blew its predecessor out of the water. So why is it we're still seeing retreads of an older, lesser product? Could it be, she wonders, because Grip Games forgot their own game's roots when bringing it back from PlayStation Minis?

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My feelings on Kairosoft's new simulation, Venture Towns [$3.99 / Lite], are mixed, leaning on negative. My recommendation is rather weak: I'd say buy it... but only if you dug Oh! Edo Towns [$3.99 / Lite] a lot.

Venture Towns, for the most part, is a carbon copy of Oh! Edo Towns set in the modern day. You'll build houses and then people will buy them; you'll build buildings and then people will work in them; you'll buy cafes, and arcades, and pastures, and parks, and then people will spend money in them. A grid-based placing system keeps everything as neat and tidy as can be, and a UI choked with options and graphs and additional mechanics will be where you spend the most of your time.

Buildings, in order to be efficient enough to profit, need to be paired with other very specific buildings. People, in order to fair well in the workplace, need to earn bonus statistics given nebulously from these buildings. Special items, on the other hand, can increase the parameters of buildings, shops, and commerce.

All these systems feed into the overall research and build structure; buildings dish out research points at unpredictable intervals, and this gives you the power to research new buildings. Money gathered then goes into building the stuff you just researched.

This is all pretty simple in theory, but there's a huge, catastrophic catch: the only way to execute well and learn what works is to continually fail, and to fail so badly that you need to start new games over and over again. This is a code-red, oh-my-god-I-hate-this-game kind of stuff -- and nothing really saves it.

I've had to dump around five hours into deficit drowning towns in order to even figure out how to position houses and stores together efficiently. Worse, it has taken over four restarts to get a handle on the combination system -- what buildings go together to create the most profit -- and how to acceptably micro-manage my citizens and buildings with boosts. Venture Towns never gives you the tools to be successful. It fails to give you any kind of blueprint for success, and there's obviously one it wants you to use, or else it wouldn't punish you so much.

This is a problem that feeds into everything else just about as well as its structure feeds into the research and build model. Kairosoft's typically sluggish pacing feels even slower as you flounder, the hot-and-cold translation effort gets even more grating as you're forced to read bad tutorial bubbles, and the dumbphone-geared interface gets even more in the way as you knowingly suck at the game for hours on end.

Venture Towns uncharacteristic ruthlessness makes what's usually forgivable with Kairosoft's formula unforgivable. It makes me feel like the whole thing has been played out; that sly hesitancy to give me all the important information up-front comes off as underhanded, the cutesy visuals feels like a mask, the resemblance to other Kairosoft games conceptually and mechanically is grosser, and the mechanics are bulky and the systems brutal. Its just all so muddled. Confidence and fun come at a costly premium of tons of your time and patience.

For what it's worth, there is a decent-enough game buried in this mess. After wrapping my head around all of the unmentioned mechanics and systems and uncovering most of the title's great mysteries -- such as how to advance as beyond as a town, how to unlock cars as vehicles, and how to grid buildings -- the actual game part, the weighing and measuring of what to build and when, became magically entertaining.

It just sucks that Venture Towns sucks until you invest massive, massive amounts of time into failing and discovering what the game is actually offering. As a whole, it doesn't feel like a fully fleshed out title -- there's too much hanging in the breeze.

Oh! Edo Towns has a similar kind of approach, so I think that game's fanatics might find something they might like in Venture Towns. I gotta say though, the modern backdrop doesn't do this game any favors; it's bland, SimCity type of stuff with Kairosoft's characteristic wrapper.

Judge Dredd vs. Zombies [$.99] is what you think it is, which is to say, it's an over-the-top dual-stick shooter that pits the equally over-the-top dystopian cop against hordes and hordes of the undead. Despite all signs of the End Times have come pointing to "Yes," Dredd is as moronically meat-headed as ever. The slick Versace-wearing, line-slinging judge, jury, and executioner has his hands full with himself throughout the entire experience. It's as if, in a weird twist, this game is more about Dredd's need to stroke his own ego than his desire to purge his precious and pure Mega-City One of zombies.

Hearing "I am the law" or some other ridiculously chest-puffing line every 15 seconds isn't this game's biggest problem, though -- the free-to-play model is. It comes across as much too pushy and needed and, as a result, it consistently strikes me as gross.

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Today I saved the citizens of Metropolis from a missile launched from an unknown location. I flew into the sky and intercepted it in midair, then beat it to pieces. It exploded harmlessly over the city. But no time to wait for thanks -- a car full of criminals was escaping down the stretch of road in front of the Daily Planet. I handled them with my laser vision, if you know what I mean. Then that dastardly Lex Luthor unleashed a bunch of sticky bombs in the city. While I was gathering those up, fires started up on a nearby building. Then the meteors fell.

But hey, Superman [$0.99 / HD] can handle all that. All in a day's work, as they say. It's just too bad he couldn't be doing it in a better game. One that plays a bit less like The Hero, by Traplight Games, perhaps?

It's not that Superman is a total knock-off of The Hero. The Hero has style, charm and humor, and Superman has laser eyes, optional retina assets and the ability to beat up missiles while riding them. But the similarities are abundant.

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On your first look at Snoopy's Street Fair [Free], you'll probably feel a warm glow of nostalgia. It might be for Charles Schulz' classic Peanuts comic strip or television specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas. But you also might be thinking of something a little more recent. Like, say Beeline Interactive's big hit, Smurfs' Village [Free].

The apps have a lot in common, you see. Both of them are fantastic at bringing back the properties we know and love. Both flawlessly emulate the look of the classics. Both are missing a few key features. And both are cripplingly tied into IAP and grinding mechanics.

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I had expected to hear my geriatric iPhone 3GS to croon its swan song when I loaded up Minecraft: Pocket Edition [$6.99] for the first time. It didn't. To my surprise, Mojang's inaugural iOS title actually got along swimmingly with my hardware. Was it a sign of good things to come? Perhaps. Deeply pleased with this turn of events, I went ahead and generated my first world.

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.

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I expected to love Evertales [$0.99]. Its trailer is stylish and charming, it looks a tiny bit like Trine, and it's by Thunder Game Works, the folks who made the Trenches series, and Crescent Moon Games, the studio that brought us Pocket RPG, Aralon, Gears and other great games. We were optimistic in our previews. But here's the thing about expectations -- sometimes they leave you disappointed.

Despite its impressive pedigree, Evertales falls totally flat. It's short, and it's got a few kinks that still need working out. It's excessively straightforward. But far worse than any of that, it's just not very much fun.

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Dark Incursion [$1.99] had all the makings of a decent ‘Metroidvania’ title for iOS. Everything from its classically-inspired pixel graphics and music to even its overarching story created a compelling atmosphere for playing. Most importantly, Dark Incursion also did a good job of somewhat emulating the Metroidvania style of gameplay while attempting to improve upon it with its different take on equipment upgrades. However, despite all these positives, Dark Incursion’s horrendous control scheme simply ruins almost all of the fun.

Dark Incursion is a 2D side scrolling adventure game with a touch of platforming mixed into the gameplay. You play as Anya, an underground resistance fighter attempting to infiltrate a secret military laboratory. The game plays exactly like the recent 2D iterations of Castlevania or Metroid. Dark Incursion even preserves the standard ‘find power-up, backtrack to previously inaccessible area’ sort of gameplay (hence the term Metroidvania). Dark Incursion’s similarities don’t end with gameplay, as even the graphics and music are very similar to those spiritual predecessors. Even though Dark Incursion isn’t particularly original when it comes to its presentation, it still does a good job integrating a visual style that has proven to be popular in similar games.

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I have such a love-hate relationship with High Flyer Death Defyer [$4.99 / HD]. On one hand, I love the visually striking graphics which I think complement the sky-diving gameplay beautifully. On the other hand, the poorly done tutorial and lackluster controls hold back High Flyer Death Defyer from being even an above average addition to the genre. Whether you actually decide to pick up this skydiver is going to depend on how much you love graphics over, well, everything else.

At its core, High Flyer Death Defyer is a sky/cave diver with a heavy dose of exploration and collection quests thrown into the mix. You play as Arreon, a member of the Death Defyers: a group of skydiving explorers charged with discovering new islands (and treasure) in a post-apocalyptic world in which the only human cities reside in the sky.  At the onset, High Flyer’s story is a bit convoluted and confusing, but as you continue playing through the story, you’ll get a better glimpse of what the heck is going on through the game’s comic book style cutscenes.

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One of my most favorite puzzle games that I played while growing up was Lemmings. Sure, there were plenty of games before that required thinking and coordination, but there was something about being in charge of a group of characters and having to lead them across maps of perilous obstacles that I loved.

BridgeTheGap [$0.99], a pirate-themed puzzle game, attempts to recreate a portion of the classic Lemmings formula while infusing it with even more strategy and precision than its spiritual predecessor. While BridgeTheGap certainly brings some good ideas to the mix through its bridge building mechanics, atrocious controls and poor execution prevent it from being little more than a subpar puzzler.

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By all rights, Drawin' Growin' [$0.99] should be a good game. It was released by Taito, who ought to be riding high off the acclaim they've earned with Groove Coaster [$2.99]. It looks cheery and sweet, with a hand-drawn art style that charms. So how has it ended up so completely bland?

Things began well. Drawin' Growin' has a premise I can get behind. The plants of the kingdom have withered away, and Meu, a plant-loving sprite, is tasked by the King to fill the world with greenery. To regrow all the plants, you need to use line-drawing tactics to funnel sun to the sun-loving flowers, rain to the damp types and so on. You need to tap to keep them free of bugs, use your lines to protect them from lightning and volcanoes, and generally babysit them until they grow. It's a frantic formula, but not a bad one.

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In the great scheme of iOS gaming, Darkness Escape Deluxe [$0.99 / HD ] isn’t a horrible game. In fact, Darkness Escape does an adequate job representing the platform runner genre that has become more prevalent on the App Store in recent years. Unfortunately, adequate isn’t enough, especially when compared to some of the other heavy hitters in the genre. There are simply too many missteps, mainly a lack of content and questionable asset design, that prevent this game from rising above the rest of the competition and actually earning your play time.

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One thing about Shift 2: Unleashed [$5.99/HD], just real quick: Don't bother. If I had to summarize EA's latest Need for Speed sim, it certainly wouldn't involve the word "unleashed." This is about as misleading a subtitle you could attach to something so tame and afraid to do anything outside its comfort zone.

I'm still high off the faster, crazier NFS: Hot Pursuit and the dialed back Real Racing 2, I think. Shift 2 exists in a limbo-like spot somewhere in between those titles, with a slightly heavier weight toward the realistic racing, which is something the franchise has only recently started dabbling in. We loved the first Need for Speed: Shift because it nailed what we wanted from a console approximation and it was a convincing, competitive iOS sim-racer. This sequel hits those same notes, but the standard, and thus what I expect, has raised since.

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