Zen Studios has previously released Zen Pinball, Marvel Pinball and Pinball FX2 for the consoles. But their latest release, Zen Pinball [Free] brings some of these popular pinball tables to the App Store. You can either play a single player game, or compete with up to four friends on the same device in "local hot-seat" (pass-and-play) mode.

Zen Pinball for iOS comes with one free pinball table, named "Sorcerer's Lair".  It's a fully functional table, without any restrictions or adverts, so it's a great opportunity to try the game. If you enjoy it, there's two additional tables (Captain America and Wolverine) available as in-app purchases for $1.99 each, with more tables promised in future.  Sorcerer's Lair  is my favorite of the three tables, so by downloading the free game you're actually getting one of the best.

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As I write, I often consider whether or not my take on a game might be biased. For instance, I am clearly going to adore the idea of a game where I get to pilot a flying catmobile that spits screaming mice at grumbly enemies over a real-time war simulation. On that note, Don't Run With a Plasma Sword [$0.99] is clearly the kind of game that I gravitate towards -- its comic-inspired, it features an alien invasion, I'm basically running around with a lightsaber, and its got that modern retro feeling. In other words, I'm already smiling at the prospect. Biased? Maybe just a bit.

That being said, if a game sucks, it doesn't get my stamp of approval no matter how many hallmarks of my tastes it contains. I'm happy to report that Don't Run With a Plasma Sword not only features really cool, kitschy themes and humor, but it's actually a hell of a lot of fun to play as well.

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You'd think from the buzz that the gamification of daily life was a new thing. That we need expensive devices and fancy apps to build rewards into the tasks and chores that otherwise fail to motivate us. But as anyone who's spent time bagging groceries knows, you can turn anything into a game if you try. Bagging groceries is like Tetris -- and your goal is to fit everything into place just perfectly that the bag is full, the eggs are unbroken, and you can still lift the thing into your car.

Bag It! [$0.99 / Universal HD] puts those life skills to good use. Turns out bagging groceries is actually so much fun. Seriously. This little gem almost slipped by us, but I'm sure glad it didn't. In Bag It! you're tasked with bagging up a friendly collection of grocery items, like Sir Eggward and Sunshine the juice carton. Like their real counterparts, they have weight to them, and fragility. A carton of eggs is easily crushed, a watermelon less easily so.

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If you don't own an iPad 2 and you're about to skim past this post, let me interrupt you for a second. You can play most of Rebuild [$2.99] right now for free, as the Flash game Rebuild 2. And you really should. While the iPad 2 version comes with a few extra bells and whistles and plays gorgeously on a touch screen, this is a game that everyone should play whether they have the newest, shiniest gadget or not. Just be prepared to lose a few hours of your life to it when you do.

I don't wave around non-words like "unputdownable" often, but Rebuild deserves it. Though it's not an especially deep strategy game, it has the perfect mix of exploration, danger and difficulty to hook anyone for at least an hour or two, and maybe much longer. And yes, yes, we're up to our necks in zombie games, but this is a zombie/strategy/city builder and that's not something you see every day.

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Saving Yello [99¢] from Tactile Entertainment and published by Dreamfab is a new physics-based puzzler about a pet goldfish named 'Yello'.  Poor Yello has been plucked from his bowl and dumped on the floor by his young 7-year old owner who doesn't appreciate that fish are actually water-based creatures. Yello needs your help to return to his fishbowl, within a limited number of turns, but along the way he wants to destroy some of his owners toys as revenge. Since its release, this quality game has immediately shot into the top-40 on the US App Store.

You can fling Yello across the level, back towards his bowl, by stretching his tail to determine the trajectory and power, then releasing.  If you pull his tail back far enough, his little tongue pokes out, he gasps and his eyes go bloodshot from being stretched. Assuming you aim successfully, Yello eventually plops back into his glass bowl and swims around happily (and you score a star and the next level is unlocked).  If you don't reach the bowl within the allocated turns, or send  Yello into an out-of-bounds area, the level is over and the poor fish starts crying.

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Recently, we mentioned that Space Tripper [$3.99] - the iOS version of Astro Tripper - has finally been released by True Axis the makers of the popular game: Jet Car Stunts [$1.99 / Free]. After being released on various other platforms over the past decade, it's finally our turn for an iOS port of this top-down arena-based shoot'em-up, which features a main campaign plus score attack and challenge modes to unlock.

Although I'm happy to recommend this game now, my initial impressions were less favorable. You see, Space Tripper offers tilt controls as the only option for movement, but strangely, it appears no auto-calibration occurs at the start of the game, so the craft was unresponsive to tilts and left sitting like a lame duck. However, after discovering the tilt calibration and tilt-sensitivity options and testing a few different configurations, the craft became very responsive, ducking and weaving around enemies.

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It's the little things that matter. You know what I'm talking about, right? It's not the bacon that he brings home, it's the breakfast he wakes you up with. It's not the fact that Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion [$2.99] is probably going to be one of the definitive names in turn-based strategy for the iOS, it's the way the commanders bellow at their troops to merit their wings.

Food metaphors aside, there's a lot to like about Witching Hour's debut title. If you're anything like me and have spent some amount of time bemoaning the paper-thin worlds that populate the App Store, Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion is going to make your heart beat faster. The setting is exhaustive. Every character has a detailed biography, every unit type a set of statistics and a matching description. There are social hierarchies, self-serving matriarchs and imperial ranks. There is history. There is substance.

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You know how around Halloween you bought five bags of Fun Size Snickers to give out to trick or treaters, but somehow only three bags made it into the candy bowl and now you’re feeling really bloated and gross and you really need to look good for upcoming holiday parties so you’re eating grilled salmon three times a day and that would be fine, except all you can think about is how you really want to eat a bunch of donuts and cake and candy? Yeah, uh, me neither. However, it’s obvious that the people at Com2uS were in throes of weight loss-related fantasy when creating their latest game, Chocohero [$.99].

Before we get too far, we need to establish whether or not you should play this game. Are you diabetic? Has your dentist recommended you stay away from sweet, delicious candy? If so, you shouldn’t have a problem, because this is a video game and not real life, duh. You play as Chipster, the Chocohero the game is named for, who must save his Chocobit friends from an impending milk flood in the land of Smoresdom. These Chocobits (which look a little like bunnies, except better because they are candy) are trapped on delicious pastry ledges made of things called Cakems, which you must destroy or work around in order to rescue your friends before the floods come.

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Playing Junk Jack [$2.99] for the first time, you may experience a strong sense of déjà vu. It brought to mind my first delve into Minecraft, with the feeling of overwhelming choice, the lack of any clear idea what to do next, the need to visit YouTube and wikis to learn exactly why I was punching all those trees. But while there are any number of blatant Minecraft knockoffs on the App Store, Junk Jack distinguishes itself in nearly every category -- but one.

One of Minecraft's biggest weaknesses (one that's improved over the course of its development) is its lack of direction, and Junk Jack takes that flaw and runs with it. For a game designed around crafting, building and exploration, Junk Jack is aggressive in its lack of assistance, leaving you without even a way to keep track of your craft notes (schematics) until you find the right note for the job. Luckily, developer Pixbits has already acknowledged that problem and is working up a fix as we speak, so we can focus on this game's charm and potential.

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Fantasy Flight Games is a company that's known for creating very complicated tabletop games from geek-friendly properties, like A Song of Ice and Fire, Battlestar Galactica, The Lord of the Rings, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft. One of their most popular offerings is Arkham Horror, a game with approximately 700 cards, tokens and markers to keep track of and a play time of up to four hours. Earlier this year, the company released Elder Sign, a game that takes the Lovecraftian horror of Arkham Horror and distills it down to about half the time and only 200 pieces or so.

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?

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We spied Oh! Edo Towns [$3.99/Lite] on the App store in early September, and ever since, I've been wringing my hands in anticipation at the thought of a new Kairosoft game to fill up my free time. After all, Game Dev Story earned our coveted five-star score, and we've enjoyed the clever and cute take on the pleasures of city sims every since. Throw in my slight obsession with historical Japan, and then tell me I get to build my own town in Edo-period Japan, and here you have a very excited gamer. Can I be a shogun? Paint some ukiyo-e? Maybe even thwart Saigo Takamori before he reaches the borders of my humble town?

In all seriousness, though -- if you have ever played a Kairosoft title, you will know what to expect here. Oh! Edo Towns follows the formula of the previous games by kicking it off giving you your own plot of land to build up into something spectacular. Considering the theme, everything plays on Japan's Edo period, from the ability to build things like Public Baths and Dumpling Shops to small details such as character dress and design. If you're a fan of Japanese history, as I am, you are sure to have a soft spot for this one.

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Bit Blot's 2D side-scrolling adventure game Aquaria [$4.99] for the iPad is a gorgeous and well-produced title with a sharp emphasis on world-building and character growth. It's good, and I think the reason why it strikes me as such a quality download has more to do with its atmospheric allure than anything else. Aquaria begs you to explore with every ounce of its being by consistently introducing mechanical novelties, alien setpieces, fascinating creatures, and drip-feeding a not-quite-but-totally convoluted story that keeps you thinking that you're on the precipice of figuring out what's going on with your mercreature in the game's beautiful underwater world. It has a few minor problems, though.

One of the bigger missteps in Aquaria is tied to the limitations of its new platform. Indie developer Bit Blot and its partners have masterfully replaced the cursor with finger, allowing for complete character movement without virtual pads. But the shooting and "singing" components? Those require virtual buttons and that sticks out. Also, when these actions are coupled with the need to evade, you may inadvertently start playing Finger Twister instead of Aquaria.

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There's something particularly apt about the timing of the iPad release of Greed Corp HD [$4.99]. While Occupiers around the world freeze and protest sociopathically greedy behavior by major corporations, Greed Corp explores the ultimate end of that behavior. What happens when you're so bent on profit that you'd destroy even the ground under your own feet to keep the other guy from getting it? Greed Corp has the answer.

It's a turn-based strategy game that encourages players to engage in something one step shy of mutually assured destruction. You destroy the lands you harvest, and firing on your enemies crumbles away the ground beneath them.You win as long as you have at least a single unit on a single hex and your enemies don't. This brutally aggressive game first made its debut on Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network in the early months of 2010, but it's hardly aged in the time it's taken to arrive on iPad. It's also extremely well done for the most part, offering a natural touch interface and both single and multiplayer content.

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First there was Modern Combat: Sandstorm [$4.99 / HD] which we described as one of the most impressive gaming experiences on the App Store at that time.  Next came MC2: Black Pegasus [$6.99 / HD /  Free], which we called " A new standard in online multiplayer". Now, Gameloft has released their much anticipated third installment, MC3: Fallen Nation [$6.99], which although not revolutionary, is easily one of the best first-person shooters available for iOS devices.

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.

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Ah, the inevitable movie tie-in. In the tradition of Angry Birds: Rio and Doodle Jump: Hop comes Halfbrick's Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots [$0.99 / HD]. Apparently animated films go with popular iOS properties like peanut butter and jelly.

But let's not jump to conclusions. This Fruit Ninja is no lame license cash-in. It's no replacement for the original game, but it's a great complement. As we mentioned in our preview, it introduces Bandito mode, a fantastic addition to the family of Fruit Ninja's [$0.99 / HD / Lite] game modes. And it adds a ridiculously popular feline mascot, for the folks who swoon at the idea of a swashbuckling kitty with a Spanish accent.

Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots boasts two game modes. Desperado, the first, is the classic game most of us know and love. You swipe the screen to slash fruit as they're tossed up. Let one fall unslashed and you lose one of three lives, hit a bomb and it's game over. The longer you go and better you perform, the higher you'll place on the leaderboard in the end.

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