From a presentation standpoint, Reckless Racing 2 makes some significant changes in comparison to its predecessor. Gone are the country themes present in the music and characters (although the latter still remains somewhat in the avatars and names of your AI opponents). In its place is a stylized, clean motif complete with fast-paced music reminiscent of 80s action movies (think Top Gun). Some folks may argue Reckless Racing 2 loses some of the ‘charm’ found in the original, but I think this is a great move that moves towards a more universal appeal.

Another area that receives an overhaul in Reckless Racing 2 is its core gameplay formula. A comprehensive career mode takes center stage in this sequel, complete with 18 different cars to purchase and a plethora of upgrades available for each individual vehicle. The career mode is actually pretty standard - players race through a variety of cups containing several courses. Money is awarded after each race, with a larger monetary bonus depending on your final position at the end of the cup.

Rather than forcing players to complete cups in a sequential fashion, Reckless Racing 2 employs a Performance Index (P.I.) restriction. The higher a P.I. rating is on a car, the ‘better’ it is stats-wise. Modify your car with new parts and its P.I. rating increases. Cups have a P.I. range that your car must fit into in order to play. While it is possible to upgrade your car so it can participate in progressively harder cups, eventually its P.I. max will be reached and you’ll have to buy a new car with a higher range in order to advance to more difficulty cups. It’s a disappointing restriction for folks that become attached to cars, but I thought it was an excellent way to balance upgrades and difficulty while nudging players towards trying new vehicles.

In addition to career mode, Reckless Racing 2 features an excellent challenge mode that supplies the player with a pre-determined car and track. Race against the A.I., place third or higher, and you advance to the next challenge. I found it a great distraction from career, as it allows you to quickly race while still having goals to work towards. Rounding out the modes are single race and wifi-enabled multiplayer. While online multiplayer was pretty fun, the lobby system was a bit rough around the edges (lots of players holding up games from actually starting). An auto-join with P.I. balancing would have been nice, as well as some improvement to the ‘ready’ system.

Racing mechanics also receive substantial changes in Reckless Racing 2, exchanging the ‘floaty’ and hectic feel of the original for a driving system that imbues much more control to the player. This is also reflective in the physics system which feels more suited towards a system requiring actual driving technique. The controls work well enough within this system, but not all control schemes are equal in this sequel. The new dynamic difficulty system, which raises and lowers the overall difficulty based on performance, is another addition that moves the game towards a semblance of realism (you can turn this off if it doesn’t work for you). In some ways, you can argue that these changes make Reckless Racing 2 a bit less, well, reckless. Despite this step away from its predecessor, I think the changes have created a game with more depth and challenge than the original. The upgrade system, for instance, allows you to customize your car to suit your driving style, somewhat preserving the original Reckless Racing style of play.

One of the areas Reckless Racing excelled in was its incredibly detailed visuals. Reckless Racing 2 ups the ante with an improved graphics system that just looks pretty damn amazing. Tracks are meticulously detailed and even effects like the dirt kicking up from your wheels on the off-road portions of the track are well done. Maneuvering my car around a curve with a giant gorge at the bottom or driving along an oceanfront watching the beautiful water effects are some of the nicest graphics I’ve seen on my iPhone 4S. Add in the fact that the game runs fast and smooth (at least on the latest hardware generation), and Reckless Racing 2 would give any game a run for its money in the visual department.

I've got to give kudos to Pixelbite – it’s pretty rare for a developer to take a chance and mix up the elements of a successful game in its sequel. However, in the case of Reckless Racing 2, that risk has paid off tremendously. The comprehensive career mode, wealth of maps, and tweaks to the arcade racing formula has made this game more enjoyable in the long term. Add in the amazing visuals and music, and there’s not much to dislike here. Folks have sounded off in our forums in regards to the significant changes to the core gameplay. Personally, if these changes result in an incredibly fun to play game, then what more can you ask for?

You don't even realize that you embraced it until it's an hour later and you hate that godforsaken disc launcher with the passion of many angry men. What renders you helpless has a lot to do with its infinite, looping structure and purity of play. This is a minimalist, throwback-style game that wants you to do one thing: capture crates for a high score. The hooks are in its constituent parts, which seamlessly blend into a cacophony of arcade action surrounding this pure purpose of play. It becomes hypnotizing, fast.

Your typical game goes a little something like this: on a flat plane, enemies tumble out of an invisible pipe in the opening of a level, and you, while they fall, capture crates and defeat those enemies with the weapons you pick up from said crates. If an enemy hits the lava pit because you didn't kill it, it pops back out of the top at double speed and joins the ever-growing conga line of even more brainless enemies.

Avoidance is key, but so is aggression. Each crate contains a new weapon that forces you to strategize distance versus time at the drop of a hat. As you play, you'll unlock even more weapons, all of which do something completely different and are often devastating. Laser guns, mines, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, the shotgun are just a taste of what's on the roster. Each has its own special kind of spread and weaknesses. Some even have big negatives, like the disc launcher, which is a single fire gun that has bullets that bounce back at you.

Whatever pacing you're imagining, multiply that by 11 and you'll get a sense of the raw madness that is Super Crate Box. One second you're charging up a laser gun to rid a platform of its occupants, the next you're dropping down to another level and using a mine in order to put a stop-gap on that side so you have enough free-time to grab a crate on another platform. The frenzy absorbs you, and the raw precision becomes a second nature thing. People say it's a mess, and it is, but I'm OK with it. I welcome all of it.

As you play, you'll steadily unlock more guns and more characters to use in the game. It's your usual incentive program, but where it departs is in the fact that it also rewards failure. If you die 500 times, for example, you'll unlock Super Meat Boy as a character. Simply gathering crates, no matter how many times you die along the way, is also a valid way to unlock stuff.

I'm surprised by how much I dig the virtual controls; Halfbot and Vlambeer did a heck of a job translating the action to the touchscreen and then making it feel as natural, and as split-second responsive as the game's PC and Mac counterparts. On iPhone, the two-button UI is a tad too bulky. On iPad, the game feels at home. Regardless, these guys nailed it. This game feels good.

Another place you can play is on the iCade. Currently, the controls have been flip-flopped inadvertently in an update, but when they're working ideally, they feel great. I think this is the way to play since you get that tactile feedback.

People in general are really responding to Super Crate Box, and our community digs it. I love it. Its high-octane play married with its no-frills, arcade game design keeps me collecting crates and blasting enemies into delightful little pieces of monster. I'm thinking it'll grab you, too.

Occasionally a game will come out on Android that looks so good I slaver for a port. Wind-up Knight is one of those games. Released on the Android Market a couple months back, the side-scrolling adventure looked slick, adorable, and hard -- all the things I look for in a platformer. Now that it's arrived on iOS, I can finally confirm: this game is outstanding.

Like the Energizer Bunny, the wind-up knight keeps going, and going, and going. The only things he'll stop for are death and the end of a level. Otherwise he'll keep going one way until he hits a wall, and then he'll turn around and go the other way until his little clockwork bits wind down. Really, it's just another way for the poor fellow to die.

Not that there's any shortage of deaths to be had. Pits will get him, and must be jumped. Some need to be double jumped instead, but the wrong choice will again mean death. Then there are the rocks that fall from the ceiling. Those need to be blocked with a shield. Sometimes there are monsters, and they must be slashed or, occasionally, leapt over. And quite a lot of the time there will be spike walls or other obstacles perfectly placed at head height. Rolling will solve those.

Each of those commands is placed on a virtual button beneath one of your thumbs. They're spaced out comfortably, so you'll rarely mix them up. Precise controls are absolutely vital, because Wind-up Knight demands perfection. To complete a level, you have to be able to dodge, slash and block absolutely everything. Every obstacle is telegraphed in advance with coins or other indicators, so you'll never be completely surprised. Expect, however, plenty of do-overs, because seeing, processing and reacting correctly is a skill that takes practice. Knowing the level is half the battle.

But completing all 48 levels isn't the end. True knights need to master every single level. That means collecting every single coin, and finding the hidden card in every level. You can't always do both at once, since finding the card usually means taking an alternate, secret path that skips over some coins. So you'll be seeing each level a few times.

There are good reasons to keep going back. Collecting full suits of cards unlocks special equipment. Collecting most of the coins in a level will give you an A rank, and earning A ranks throughout an entire chapter unlocks an uber-difficult Knightmare level. Collecting absolutely everything will give you S ranks across the board. If that gives you anything other than bragging rights and a valuable Game Center achievement, I don't know about it -- there's not much chance I'll ever get that good.

I'm happy to keep trying, despite the many, many replays I undertook to make it through the main game. The presentation on display in Wind-up Knight is top notch. The game runs as smooth as silk (thankfully -- any slowdown would be murder). The music is compelling, and changes by chapter and tone. The knight himself is adorable, and the environments he travels in are lovely to look at. Even the menus look great.

You might be turned off by the presence of IAP. You probably shouldn't be. You can purchase Notes, needed to buy pieces of equipment. Most of the equipment is unlocked by playing the game. You can afford more with the Notes you earn in the game, though there's no opportunity to grind them. If you want to have absolutely everything you will need to pay, but the equipment just offers small advantages for certain situations. It's closer to a set of cheats than actual gear.

While there's no true story to speak of, there is a loose narrative to be discovered. I'd rather not get into details, because its slow reveal is one of the things that charmed me most about this game. I'd hate to spoil that experience. Suffice it to say that you should pay attention to the tips while loading each level. I've rarely seen them used to such Machiavellian effect.

Wind-up Knight was worth the wait. Though it can be extremely frustrating, it rewards the player who pushes through the painful parts. Each time you replay a level you'll learn more, memorize more, become better at the game. The rush you'll get when you finally reach the end of a challenging level is worth the trouble, every time. So get this game. When you're too frustrated to go on, take a break and visit our discussion thread; let us know what you think.

Sonic CD, or Sonic the Hedgehog CD was originally released in late 1993 for the Sega CD, Sega's CD-ROM accessory for the Genesis console. Sega CD had actually come out earlier that year, and many gamers (myself included) couldn't wait to get their hands on one as the promise of full motion video powered gaming seemed incredible. Unfortunately, both due to the many technical limitations of the system, as well as the games themselves just not being very good, the Sega CD never really took off quite how I imagined Sega wanted it to. (There's actually a bunch of reasons I could also get into, but I digress.)

Sonic CD represented a blazing torch of promise that I had hoped was going to give the Sega CD the boost it needed, serving as that ever-important position as "system seller." Again, unfortunately, the relative low popularity of the Sega CD accessory made Sonic CD a commercial failure, even though it was a critical success. In fact, I'd still say Sonic CD is the best Sonic game ever released. It was a particularly great Sega CD game, as it played to the strengths of the Genesis with familiar Sonic-style gameplay enhanced through a few tasteful full motion video scenes and some fantastic CD audio.

Fast forward nearly 16 years to a curious question that Sega posted to the iOS community. Previously, Sega's efforts on the App Store were limited to decidedly mediocre games, centralizing almost entirely around emulated Genesis games wrapped in an emulator that really wasn't that great, and still isn't that great. They asked gamers what they'd like to see on the iPhone next, and literally a day later Christian Whitehead revealed his idea. Check out the video from 2009:

While that video might not be that entirely impressive now, remember at the time we were busy wagging our finger at Sega for continuing to release emulated Genesis ports that played poorly, performed even worse, and just weren't any fun. Then Christian Whitehead comes along with not only a port of the best Sonic game, but also running at 60fps? The emulated Genesis games barely ran at a quarter of that. Our minds were beyond blown, but like all cool things utilizing IP of a larger company, we didn't expect this fan-made Sonic CD project to wind up anywhere other than in a cease and desist letter fired off from Sega's legal department.

We quickly got together with Whitehead, and conducted a fascinating interview where one thing started to become crystal clear: This is a project motivated solely by love for the game. Christian built an entire game engine specifically for porting retro classics, and he had aspirations of working with Sega to actually get his version of Sonic CD in gamers' hands. Following that, things went dark. The fan-made Sonic CD web site vanished and the above video disappeared from YouTube. We assumed the worst, as it seemed reasonable that Sega's legal hammer came down on the project.

Jump ahead another two years, and out of nowhere that Sonic CD was coming to iOS. We quickly confirmed that this was in fact Christian Whitehead's Sonic CD, and we couldn't have been happier. Sure, the particulars such as release date and other things like that weren't in the open yet, but it was coming, and that was enough.

Tonight, Sonic CD is released to the world, based on the very same demonstration we saw back in 2009, which I suppose brings us to the actual "review" portion of this review. Sonic CD plays like every other Sonic game in that you run from the start to the finish, collecting rings, and fighting bosses every few levels. One radical addition to Sonic CD is the addition of the "Past" and "Future" system. Running past either a "Past" or "Future" sign sends Sonic time traveling to a slightly different version of the level. Initially, the future will be a "bad" future, overrun by robots. However, if you go into the past first, and destroy the robot generator, you'll be able to enjoy the "good" future which significantly fewer enemies. Alternatively, you can just ignore time traveling all together, although I believe (If my memory serves me.) getting the best ending requires unlocking every "good" future.

In a word, Sonic CD is incredible. It redefines what gamers can expect out of retro iOS ports, while simultaneously making all of Sega's existing ports look absolutely horrid in comparison. The on-screen controls work great, the game performs even better than the original, and they've included not only the Japanese soundtrack, but also the American one. (Note: It defaults to the Japanese soundtrack, so if you're wondering where the familiar "Sonic Boom" song is, you'll need to toggle it in the options.) It's even Universal. I can't think of a single thing that's missing or lacking in any way, in fact, they've even added Tails, who wasn't even present in the original.

I'm not sure what else to say. Here we have the best installment of one of the greatest gaming franchises, which received both flawless review scores and game of the year awards when it was originally released ported with complete perfection to iOS. This is a game you flat out need to buy if you even vaguely consider yourself an iOS gamer. Not only because it's such an impeccable port of an important piece of gaming history, but because we need to vote with our wallets to tell Sega (and anyone else who might be watching) that this is the quality we demand out of retro games brought to the App Store.

International App Store Link: Sonic CD, $1.99

Note: Sonic CD will be available in the USA at 11:00 PM Eastern, it should be available everywhere else in the world right now though.

Do you know a dude who hasn't see Bejeweled yet? At this point, I'm pretty sure that the only people who aren't into Bejeweled don't have computers or phones, which pretty much eliminates them from reading this web site. So, I feel like there isn't much need to go on and on about how the match-three mechanic works or what makes Bejeweled feel good.

Let's talk about what's more relevent: what Blitz does differently.

In brief, Blitz is a super breezy and pyrotechnic take on the classic formula. Each session ends at the 60 second mark, and the goal is to score more points than people on your Facebook friends list.

What's remarkable is how well the game supports its structure; all the high-toned sounds and explosive colors feed into the dizzying time limit, reinforcing a sense of momentum that the other versions of Bejeweled straight-up don't have. Similarly, the off-the-wall points system bolsters the high-score aspect of the experience by giving you tons of opportunities to score ludicrous amounts of points.

Needless to say, the game part feels good as always, and the new aspects Blitz brings out in Bejeweled are solid and good, too.

Blitz has some other stuff. While not having Game Center to connect with friends and see their high scores, it does support Facebook -- and superbly at that superbly. From in-game, you'll see your friends Facebook scores or even app scores as naturally as you'd expect. It even talks to the Facebook app.

There are also some fun extra elements on the puzzle side that connect to a free-to-play or in-game currency system. Before each match, you can bring in different, multiple use abilities to change up the match. For example, there's a whirlwind power that rotates the board. This is purchased with credits that you earn in matches and can, of course, buy via IAP. I think you've got to be really, really dedicated to earn enough to bring these (awesome) abilities into each match, so be aware that the F2P element will always be winking at you.

So, yeah, Bejeweled Blitz is what it says it is, and it's smart about the whole "blitz" part, integrating some new elements while allowing the same core play to shine. While I'd love to see some official iOS Game Center love, the Facebook stuff is sharp enough to support the entire structure. Convince some friends to jump in and I think you'll have a good time.

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.

Not that it's entirely unique. We've all played any number of games that make use of SpellTower's main mechanic. Presented with a grid of letters, you spot a word and trace a path through its letters to select it. You can trace in any direction, loop diagonally back on your path, and make words of any length past two. And if that were all there was to it, this would be a yawn and a skip. But it's not.

SpellTower isn't bogged down with complicated rules or conditional abilities. The tutorial is only a handful of screens expressing a handful of simple rules. You can make a word as long as it's in the game's dictionary and it's at least three letters long. Words that are five letters or longer clear letters all around them. You can't make the same word twice, and if a letter has a number on it, it needs to be used in a word of at least that length. Finally, uncommon letters like Z, J, Q and X clear their rows if they're used in a word.

Those rules will carry you through SpellTower's four game modes, which change up how the board is presented. Tower mode gives you 150 letters to earn the best score you can. Puzzle mode adds a row to the board each time you make a word, and if any column hits the top your game will end. Extreme Puzzle mode follows the same rules, but requires longer words faster and more often. Rush mode adds new rows over time, putting you on the clock.

It sounds as though only Rush mode puts any pressure on you, but this is one of the tensest word games I've played. Tower mode can be played casually, certainly. You can just accept that you'll find a number of words, and then you'll hit the "done" button and wipe your hands of it. But can you just leave towers of letters standing there, unused? It's beyond me, so each move I make is a balancing act between finding good, high-scoring words, and ensuring I don't leave too many orphaned letters behind. At least you don't need to worry about making mistakes -- there's no penalty for words that don't work.

In Puzzle and Extreme Puzzle, though, this tension is ratcheted up to the nth degree. Since every move you make adds a new row to the board, you have to consider your moves very, very carefully. Almost inevitably you'll be stuck with one or more towers of single, orphaned letters, and as those add up it gets harder and harder to make a move that won't end your game prematurely. These modes aren't to be played quickly.

Rush mode, on the other hand, must be played at top speed. Except, of course, you still need to weigh the potential of your moves to leave those orphaned towers. But this is a cathartic mode after playing Puzzle for too long. It's tense, yes, but not every move has the potential to be fatal.

These four modes offer a variety of satisfying play styles, and it sounds like Zach Gage has plans for more to come. Also coming are Game Center achievements. Leaderboards are already in, but there's a need for achievements to mark things like fully clearing the board in Tower mode. If I ever pull it off, I'm going to want to be able to smugly show off my word superiority. A few other little touches could help the game, like a more obvious way to end Tower mode and a score breakdown.

But SpellTower is already a complete package, brought together by Gage's trademark use of cheerful colors, simple patterns and elegant typography. It's a shame that it's only for iPad owners for now, but if you can pick it up, you should. And if you have ideas for other modes you'd like to see, you can share them with the developer in our discussion thread. Assuming you can find the words, that is.

Tightly-constructed, well-executed, charming, different and entertaining are all words I feel like I can freely use when describing Zombieville 2. For the most part, it's a near perfect iterative entry to the franchise. It artfully hones in on and turns up the volume on the two best parts of the original: the shooting and upgrade models.

Zombieville 2 just gives you more -- more zombies, more weapons, more people to play as, and more to unlock as you rummage through levels collecting cash from boxes and other environmental items. The upgrade model in particular is a killer. Like a modern Call of Duty, this game has a tendency to inspire constant replays, as the next best weapon or character perk is always just a few more sessions away.

A smarter Xbox-like button system allows for up to three weapon switching on the fly, while the harder-hitting melee weapons ensures you're never up the proverbial creek and unable to defend yourself against the zombie hordes that populate each of its cutesy, though still post-zombie armageddon environments.

Zombieville 2 introduces several key changes, including a huge out-of-game item store. For me, the most impfactful change is its re-moldeled structure. Levels are now instance-based and timed and you move between them freely. For the most part, the free-form appeal of the action has been retained. Whatever you do during your time in a level, be it running steadily to the right or staying put, is up to you.

This puts everything that happens on your terms -- you pick the weapons, you pick the approach and you choose how and when to kill. You probably won't come out of the action with a ZombieVille Moment to share with friends since the core model isn't all that interesting from a strictly mechanical run-and-gun standpoint, but you'll end up molding your own strategies or tactics inadvertently. A lot of weapons in the game have varying amounts of knock-back or cause adverse side-effects on the undead, allowing you room for more sandbox-y and satisfying play.

You can meet your undead, uh, death quota with a friend, too. A Game Center co-op mode adds a second player to the action via Bluetooth or online. The core action doesn't pop like you think it with more than one dude pummeling zombies due to schizophrenic spawns, but it's a welcome reprieve to doing it all by yourself.

Most sophomore efforts in a franchise just see incremental refinements to what made the game a success enough to spin it off in the first place. While you'll see a lot of that with Zombieville 2, there are some great and impactful changes to check out, as well. If you had any doubts, stop. This is a stupid-fun game with some sharp features and systems that'll keep you invested and having a good time.

The idea is to make a sandwich by collecting ingredients from around the platform level. You can start with a basic cheese sandwich, but, you can add non-standard fillings like burgers, apples, oranges or hot-dogs. And then, what the heck, let's throw in: Wine bottles, flowers, tins, potted plants, beach-balls, and much much more. Each time you add another filling, your sandwich gets taller, until you're carrying around a giant towering treat filled with the craziest ingredients. A sandwich meter of sorts lets you know when your sandwich has grown large enough to please your alien master.

Soon, Gourmo starts placing more specific food orders: "Bring me ...1 sandwich with a cat!"  The particulars of his order are displayed as icons at the top of the screen which are ticked off you collect them.  To find the ingredients, you must explore the busy levels, which include buildings to climb, bouncy roofs, clothes-lines to cross and water hydrants to smash so you can ride the gushing water into the air. There's dissolving clouds, larger items to push around, locked sections that need a key and even hidden areas to discover. And all this time, you're still carrying around a massive sandwich, which expands and contracts depending where you are.

Once the food is prepared, you take it to a waiting alien representative, who transports it up to the obese invader Gourmo, who devours it hungrily. There's an indicator on the screen which always points towards the alien, so it's easy to find. As the game progresses, you're put to the task of building multiple sandwiches as well.

When you make a second sandwich, your slice of bread gets larger, so you can dump bigger fillings on it, like crates, televisions or satellite dishes. Apparently Gourmo isn't too fussy about his nutritional intake. When you make a third sandwich, you're given a VERY large slice of bread, which allows even larger fillings, like say, a fridge. I won't keep listing the ingredients, but according to the "Food Journal" in the main menu, there's heaps of fillings to discover.

After a while Gourmo starts asking for other things to eat; like cake. But food's not the only thing to collect. There's also 29 alien spaceship parts to discover (one per stage) and presumably these help you reach "the mysterious Planet Nuzz" mentioned in the iTunes description. There's also special pick-up items like the alien rocket pack for double jumping, or a food-magnet to attract out-of-reach items.

It''s not always easy to walk around with a towering sandwich. Birds and dogs are attracted to it and a protesting hippie might hit you with his protest sign, knocking  some fillings off your bread. Naughty children might fire slingshots at you and beware of dogs and nasty little girls on pogo-sticks. These hostile characters can all be slapped onto a large piece of bread and fed to the alien. Problem solved.

After being hurt five times, such as falling into a hole, your health meter is depleted and the stage ends. Although you can restart from a checkpoint, with the same score, stage time and sandwich percentage you possessed back at that point. Discovering a red heart will restore some health. Or, If you collect 50 coins, you earn one heart. With all the sandwich making, it's easy to forget this is also a platform game.

There are four chapters to play (USA, Mexico, Italy and Japan) with 29 stages in total, including four auto-scrolling stages which play like an endless runner in a platform game. Each chapter has one bonus stage to unlock. The chapters are all uniquely themed. For example, the Mexico chapter has a desert setting with prickly cacti and kicking donkeys, with Mexican-style music, bandits in sombreros and Mexican food items to collect, like tacos. The last stage in each chapter is a larger level, which can't be by-passed with the skip level function. Plus there's a special final chapter, at the very end of the game which you need enough spaceship parts to unlock.

Instead of a star-scoring system, three slices of gold bread are awarded for each level, based on specific targets for score, time taken and number of food spills. These three goals can each be achieved in different runs, which provides an incentive to replay levels. Although just by reaching the end of a level, you unlock the next level, even if you fail the time, score and spill targets.

Three control options are provided, including tilt, touch (choose one half of screen for running and the other half for jumping) or buttons. The developers even get bonus points for implementing buttons that can each be individually re-positioned on the screen. Although strangely, when the game starts you're presented with two control options to choose from, as this wonderful button option is not mentioned. Although it's available, in the options menu. My only criticism is that the jumping is a bit awkward when bouncing off someone's head, sometimes requiring multiple attempts. Apart from this the controls work perfectly fine.

We gave the last wacky game from Adult Swim, Monsters ate my Condo, a five star review, and Sandwiches!! is another quality well-constructed release, with similarly vibrant graphics. It's amusing, varied, highly entertaining and excellent value for a dollar.  Also, for you hopeful iPad owners out there, while an iPad version isn't available (and also isn't currently in the works, per the developers) it also hasn't been ruled out as a future possibility.

This is where Mage Gauntlet [$1.99] comes in. I think the best way to describe the game is as a dusty old Super Nintendo cartridge you just discovered and didn't even know you had after your parents threatened you into coming back home and cleaning your old video game crap out of the attic before they "clean" it themselves. (And by "clean" of course they mean "throw away.") It's a lot like The Last Rocket [$2.99] in that they take the 16-bit inspiration to such deep levels that it could pass as a SNES game, instead of just utilizing pixel art and chip tunes because it's in style.

Mage Gauntlet focuses on a single-player story mode that puts you in charge of Lexi on a quest to initially prove yourself to a local wizard named Whitebeard. Without spoiling too much of how it all plays out, you're quickly equipped with a magical gauntlet that allows you to command various magical spells. Throughout your adventure you come across a cast of other characters, journals, and notes which progress the story while accomplishing your typical rid-the-world-of-evil quest which manages to strike a great balance between funny, delightfully cliche, and totally classical without ever being overwhelming or trying too hard.

The game is controlled as you'd expect it to be, with a series of buttons as well as an invisible virtual joystick for movement. They work great, and I really like how you can touch basically anywhere on the left side of the screen to move Lexi around. Lexi has a basic melee attack which swings whatever weapon you're equipped with, as well as a dashing attack that's activated by holding the attack button down. You can also momentarily sprint by tapping another button, and while both of these maneuvers feel fairly optional early in the game, as you encounter enemies, you'll need to do much more than mash attack.

The truly unique twist of Mage Gauntlet is the magic system. In the game world you'll come across both magical urns of sorts as well as some enemies which will spew magical energy when destroyed or defeated. You can hold up to four spells at once, and using them is as simple as tapping a button in the top right corner of the screen which pauses the action and brings up a magic sub-menu. You select your spell, target it (if applicable), and the game resumes. The spells you get are random, but can be made less random using equipment (more on that later).

This whole system works fabulously. I love how magic feels rare, which forces you to value having a spell on deck much more than similar games which allow you to just blast away with whatever your favorite or most effective spell is to your heart's content or your mana bar is empty. In addition, since spells are randomized, it's really cool how you're forced to come up with clever solutions to a battle, utilizing a spell that might not be optimal for the situation by any means but still works by mixing up your strategy. One such instance, for example, was when I was getting mobbed by orcs, with a few spell casters. A chain lightning spell would've really helped, but charging through, silencing the casters, and hacking all the orcs down with my sword worked too.

Loot is plentiful in the game, and aside from looking cool also offers various benefits. For example, you can equip trinkets to increase the likelihood of a particular spell (or set of spells) appearing, and if you're really decked out you might even have a complimentary suit of armor that does something like up the critical strike rate of that spell. Swords have all different kinds of effects from doing more damage, to potentially restoring health or even providing a magical spell randomly. Pets provide constant passive bonuses, and of course, it wouldn't be a Rocketcat game without a healthy array of hats to collect.

Taking all this into account, gameplay is what you'd expect out of a typical action RPG with a very basic stat-based level up system, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. A overworld map display serves as a level select screen of sorts, and you make your way through each area until finally fighting the local boss. Each area has several sub-sections that must be progressed through as well. How long it takes you to get through Mage Gauntlet will largely depend on what kind of gamer you are. If you square off against every monster, search for every secret, and leave no area of the map unturned, you can spend a significant amount of time in the game. Alternatively, if you're the kind of person who just powers through things from beginning to end, dashing past monsters, and ignoring secondary pathways, Mage Gauntlet can be completed in only a few hours.

After beating the game, you'll unlock master mode which mixes up the levels, adds some new secret areas, fresh loot, double the enemies, and other variants. Beating the master mode earns you a second ending, and after that you can go back and replay individual levels for a higher rating to unlock in-game pets. An arena mode is planned as well for the game's first update, although details on that are fairly vague currently. Also, since Mage Gauntlet is all pixel art, it scales beautifully on the iPad in 2x mode-- In addition, Rocketcat plans on making the game universal as well.

Rocketcat games has had a fantastic track record for releasing games on the App Store. Their previous three games, Hook Champ [99¢], Super QuickHook [$2.99], and Hook Worlds [99¢] all relied on a very similar hooking and swinging mechanic which made us wonder what else they were capable of. Well, it turns out that they can absolutely nail making an action RPG, and you wouldn't hear me complain at all if they similarly turned Mage Gauntlet into a vaguely derivative trilogy of games.

I feel like people who were around to enjoy the original 16-bit-era action RPGs likely will appreciate Mage Gauntlet the most, but there's plenty here to love even if that doesn't apply to you. Like other Rocketcat titles, Mage Gauntlet is launching at a special price, and early buyers also get a promotional pack of hats (and a pet). If you miss this release window, don't worry, you'll be able to buy those items through in-app purchase. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, there's other IAP items you can buy, but they genuinely feel so optional that there's basically no reason to buy them unless you just want to support Rocketcat further than just buying the game.

So seriously, go download Mage Gauntlet. The time you spent reading this review could've been much better spent playing this incredible game.

5th Cell

If you said Remix is a Best Of port of Super Scribblenauts and Scribblenauts, you wouldn’t be wrong. Remix is the sum of those core experiences with added touch controls that can, in some instances, feel inorganic. It strikes me as more of an upgrade, though. The game engine has a noticeably sharper look and feel, extraneous movements and navigation elements have been stripped or streamlined, the play is generally snappier, and some new levels have been thrown in for good measure. While 5th Cell didn’t re-invent the wheel with Remix, it did bother with the balance, weight, and treads on the thing.

The setup goes like this: you, as a curious boy named Max, are thrown into dozens and dozens of puzzles or challenges that all revolve you satisfying certain objectives with nouns or the use of adjective and nouns. The progression is incoherent -- in one level you’ll tune a race car, in others you’ll carry around a dead man, set up a school for the first day of class, or hide a lion in front of a magic show’s audience. The constant is the gleaming Starite, which is your reward for fulfilling all what is required.

The majority of scenarios aren’t really the hotbed of creativity that I’d love for them to be. Sure, you could conjure a winged dragon or a vampire in the school house level, but what the game is going to credit you for are the basics: chairs, desks, podiums, and all of that rather dull school-y stuff. There are some significantly more open experiences to be had. The first level, for example, simply charges you with sniffing out the actual Starite in a tree filled with impostors. I used a flamethrower against the tree to burn everything out of it because I’m a jerk, but it totally worked.

I can go either way with the duller scenarios. Most of the time, I use them as extra encouragement to think outside the box. Sure, I could give the hairdresser scissors, but wouldn’t it be a funnier if I gave her an exceedingly more creative object to snip her client’s hair? Some of the more open levels, on the other hand, do require critical thought. Creating a mass extinction event without asteroids is harder than you think. If you ever get stumped, the game does a decent job with its hint system giving you all the teases you need to succeed while still not robbing you of those glorious “A-Ha!” moments.

Like in other Scribblenauts titles, you’ll need to do a measure or two of moving, probably most often to mount that flying dragon you just created. The touch controls function well for the most part. A simple tap to the levels borders steers Max, while shakes remove everything you created and two-finger swipes allow you to look at the map. Actions like jumping and climbing are automated to maximize your leisure and sharp radial menus handle all the “remove or give object” kind of functionality. The iPad’s regular virtual keyboard is your magical conduit to the game and noun creation.

Probably the best thing about Remix is that movement is important; it’s the creation. And what you can do almost magical. Want to watch God fight a T-Rex? Make it happen. Want to see what happens when you throw a caveman or a toaster into a pond with a shark inside of it? Go ahead. The casual disregard of the actual objectives is actually an empowering side-mechanic that really, somehow and someway, allows you to experiment and conjure alternative solutions to the fairly simple problems the game might throw your way.

The introduction of adjectives and the adjective-leaning puzzle levels really flesh out the experimental play. In one level, for example, you’ll be asked to make a man into a dragon with some mad genius potions. Thinking of which attributes you think are important to dragons and then applying them to potions is nothing short of entertaining, just like the game’s open and sandbox-y world. If you want to do it, you probably can. It’s insane and great all at the same time. It’s indescribably fantastic to wield so much power.

It’s pretty cliche to write in a game review, but I really think you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not checking out Remix. It’s an utterly fascinating game that isn’t afraid to put significant power in your hands. It utterly embraces creativity and brims with extremely satisfying moments and stories to share as a result.

Publisher WBIE could have easily had this phoned in and still made stupid amounts of money, but it didn't; this is a rock-solid pseudo-port that plays extremely well on mobile and displays a measure of technical and mechanical grace none of us expected it to. Oh, and it's Universal and supports iCloud saves across devices -- icing on the cake, folks.

It was worthing playing on the PC two years ago, it will be worth playing on the PlayStation 3 later this year, and it's worthing playing on your iPad 2 right now.

The "story" of Machinarium -- Amanita Design's first full-length effort -- is unobtrusive and elegant, told entirely through the unnamed protagonist-bot's thought bubbles and context clues. There is no human speech to parse, no dialogue trees to navigate, no lengthy exposition to ignore -- Jakub Dvorsky and his team have a laser-sighted focus on puzzle design.

And what puzzles they are! Machinarium features a mix of traditional logic problems and modern, multi-step inventory manipulation puzzles that, by and large, fall into the range where challenge and critical thinking intersect. The result is a game that feels organic and internally consistent, with none of the arbitrary, "guess-what-the-designer-wants" logic that so often plagues puzzle games.

If you do happen to get stuck -- and that's ok! -- there is a two-fold hint system that should give you a nudge in the right direction: a hint system, and a full-blown (and beautifully illustrated) in-game walkthrough. The rub: the hint system is generally pretty limited, and access to the walkthrough is blocked by an intentionally awful LCD-screen shmup, which is boring and time-consuming enough to discourage the mentally lazy. (One of the iPad 2 version's quirks is that it's, y'know, impossible to alt+tab to a walkthrough, adding yet another barrier for those inclined to cut corners.)

When touch screens became a viable input device for the games industry, the consensus was that point-and-click adventures would be a natural fit. This is particularly true for Machinarium: Amanita decided to limit players' range of motion to a few actionable hotspots in each area. In other words, Machinarium dispels the need for super-precision touch controls -- the game is designed to require as little movement as necessary.

Machinarium, as a whole, is remarkably tidy. It begins with an unnamed protagonist being dumped, rather unceremoniously, on the outskirts of a city whose skyline is dominated by an ominous spire; it ends with a flashback of the events that set the game in motion in the first place. The puzzles employ a similar rolling structure: each puzzle is discrete and self-contained, but the game as a whole is tightly paced and given momentum by a set of smart, complementary design choices.

First: solving any given puzzle in Machinarium generally results in the acquisition of another inventory item that -- unbeknownst to the player -- will be critical to a later scenario. Secondly: though the town square acts as a hub for the gameworld, the bulk of Machinarium's puzzles take place inside individual rooms or buildings, i.e. on a single screen. The result is that players enter each area already armed with the necessary tools and aren't forced to travel very far to solve puzzles. Like a shark, Machinarium thrives because its design encourage progress, not stagnation -- every step.

My only real hiccup with Machinarium's high-level dynamics is that the gameworld doesn't always do enough to inform or motivate the player. For example, an early puzzle tasks players with helping a group of musicians fix their instruments, but the player has no real reason to help them except that they happen to exist in the gameworld. The game's sparse narrative components are great when it comes to contextualized story telling, but they don't particularly account for the player's need to, say, fix someone's didgeridoo. Instead, it's design by tautology: Machinarium is a puzzle game, so it should include puzzles.

Everything else in the game is beautifully realized. The puzzles, full of circuitboards, waterworks, and mechanical tinkering; the protagonist's evocative animation; the mournful soundtrack -- all of these things exist to sell the idea that a world populated entirely by robots could be plausible, and that this particular robot has something important to contribute to it. Nevertheless, there are several moments -- even after you discover the game's central conflict -- that are aren't necessarily tethered to any kind of narrative or in-game logic: puzzles are solved because they simply exist, not because it's clear that they somehow contribute to one robot's quest to save his city from ... well, bullies.

Bullies, of all things. How quaint, right?

And maybe that's why we had to help those poor, broke musicians -- because Amanita Design hopes that we're just nice people. That Machinarium is, give or take, a beautifully evocative story about playground bullying should indicate the kind of charming, understated game it is. Even the name, Machinarium, suggests a mysterious, whimsical place -- I do hope you explore it.

Four colored monsters are hanging around your residential high-rise. There's a blue unicorn called 'Reginald Starfire' who wears a leotard, a red crab with a boat on it's head,  a green Japanese business-man with one eye and a yellow chihuahua called Lord Ferocious with it's brain hard-wired into a robot-body.

There's always two monsters present, one standing on each side of your tower. You need to keep these monsters happy because when a monster's happiness meter gets low, its mood becomes increasingly agitated, until it eventually attacks your tower.

To keep the monsters happy, you can feed them a floor from your tower, by swiping it in their direction. For example, swiping a blue floor over to the blue monster, will help cheer him up. Whereas, swiping a mis-matched floor color onto a monster will make it less happy. As you swipe floors out of your building, new floors drop down from above. The only controls in this game are swiping floors left or right.

Keeping the monsters happy protects your building, but you still need to score points. By swiping certain floors out of your building, you can position three (or more) floors of the same color together, to earn a combo. The combos are evolutionary. First you place three floors of the same color together to  create a bronze floor. Once you have three bronzes together, they become a silver. Three silvers make a gold and three golds make a diamond. So you're always working your way towards the diamonds.

If you get three diamonds in a row... well, I haven't achieved that yet, but apparently your screen and score go crazy. Each combo earns you points, straightens the tower a little, and if your combo color matches a monster on the screen, that monster will be swapped out with a different colored monster.

Each monster has a special super-power, which is triggered by feeding them a "Shiny condo" (ie: a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Diamond floor). For example, the blue unicorn has the super-power 'Solid Tower', which straightens your tower with a rainbow and ensures it won't topple while the super power is active.  The duration of each super-power depends whether you swiped a bronze, silver, gold or diamond onto the monster.

Concrete floors and bomb floors occasionally drop into your tower, but these can't be swiped out (unless the unicorns power is activated). They need a combo formed beside or around them to be removed.  If you take too long to defuse a bomb, it counts down to detonation, which can destroy your tower, or leave it leaning precariously like the Tower of Pisa. But, if you match three annoying bombs / concrete floors together, it's actually helpful, as all of your shiny condos will upgrade.

As your tower gets more levels, it can become unstable. This forces you to be careful about which floors you swipe out, least you cause a collapse, ending your game. When your tower gets wonky, the trick is to complete a combo, or use the unicorns super-power, to straighten things out.

There's two game modes: Endless and Time-Attack, which are both based on the same game-play, with the later having a 2-minute time limit. This game is universal so will run on iPad, iPhone and Ipod.  OpenFeint and Game Center leader-boards are provided, plus there's in-game achievements / missions, but these are listed inconveniently on the game-over screen only. The first release has a bug with the leader-boards, but the developers are releasing a fix.

Monsters Ate my Condo is a casual, but clever game, because it gives you conflicting goals. For example, if you swipe floors away to form a combo, you often make the monsters less happy which puts your tower at risk. When you feed floors to the monsters to keep them happy, you're often throwing away combo scoring opportunities. And when you activate a monsters super-power, you're using up a shiny condo which could have been used to get a diamond. So you have to constantly choose which goal to focus on, to keep your condo upright and score millions and millions of points.

It was back during GDC 2011, during Eric Chahi's Classic Game Postmortem presentation, that we first learned that the French gamemaker would be bringing a 20th Anniversary Edition of his acclaimed classic Another World to iOS [App Store] with the help of DotEmu, through BulkyPix. A few days back, I interviewed Chahi and shared his thoughts on the coming App Store release and the iOS game scene in general. Since then, I've been playing through the release version of Another World for iOS and wanted to take the opportunity to post an early review of the title so readers know what they've got to look forward to on the game's September 22nd App Store launch day.

Another World (which was also known as Out of this World in certain markets) is a cinematic platform adventure originally released on the Amiga back in 1991. The game tells the story of physicist Lester Chaykin. As is illustrated in the game's introductory sequence, Lester returns to his underground laboratory one stormy night to continue work on a particle acceleration experiment. Shortly after the experiment is underway, a bolt of lightning strikes the laboratory, sending millions of volts into the accelerator and resulting in the freak teleportation of Lester to a far-away alien planet.

After close run-ins with razor slugs and a particularly intimidating muscular beast, Lester is taken prisoner by the humanoid aliens indigenous to the strange world. With help from a friendly, captive alien, Lester endeavors to escape from the underground prison to which he was taken, a feat which proves to be extremely challenging given the dangerous environments and creatures (and puzzles) that lie ahead.

Reviewing the iOS version of Another World is really a process of reviewing how it has faced translation from the desktop computer of years past to the multitouch devices with which we game, today. It's not so much a task of reviewing the game itself, and that is because, over the years, it has received such consistent exceptionally high ratings from gamers and the media alike. With its rotoscoped polygon-based animation overlying ethereal and stunning backdrop artistry (wrung from a mere 16-color palette), the game was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. And, crucially, beneath that oh-so-pretty face is real platform puzzle challenge. Many gamers, myself included, consider Another World to be one of the best games ever published.

Far from the 320x200 pixel, 16-color screens of the machines for which Another World was originally released are the Retina displays and 10-inch iPads we've come to enjoy. In bringing the game to iOS, the designers have introduced much more striking "HD" graphics that take advantage of our evolved technology and feel fully present-day. For those wanting to relive the more sparse and pixellated visuals of the original, a two-finger swipe down the screen will toggle in the oldschool graphics at any point in the game. All of the original sounds have been re-mastered, as well, for a deeper sensation of audio ambience.

As for screen swiping, it's not just about toggling graphics modes. The iOS version of the game features two different methods of control. The most basic is an on-screen D-pad and action button that can be positioned anywhere on the screen and works about how you'd expect. The developers spent a great deal of time engineering a much nicer method of control, as well. The "Touch" mode was designed to add virtually no clutter to the game screen. Lester's movements are controlled in this mode by tapping on -- or dragging outwards to -- the left or right side of the display. A double-tap sends him into a sprint, and sliding up or down initiates a jump or a duck. One difficulty the developers faced in engineering this mode was the number of simultaneous actions that Lester can perform, such as running and jumping. To make this work, once Lester is running, a swipe up the screen will send him into a long jump — there's no need to sustain a touch to keep him in motion. The Touch mode is by far the superior method of control. It's simple and succeeds in making the game feel as if it might have been originally written with a touchscreen in mind.

Getting through Another World is not a cakewalk; it's a difficult and challenging game. To mix this up a bit, the iOS version features three difficulty settings. There's Normal mode, which is easier than the original, with simplified movements that make toe-smashing razor slugs, for instance, a pretty fluid affair. Next is the aptly named Hard mode, which is equivalent to the original game. And then there's Hardcore mode for those veteran gamers that feel pretty proud of themselves for having made it through the original already.

The following video shows the entire intro sequence and a few minutes of early gameplay on an iPad 2 at Normal difficulty. The gameplay sequence has been intentionally diced up a bit to prevent spoiling some of the very early puzzles for those new to the game.

As a gamer who's not too proud to admit to having greatly enjoyed but never actually completed Another World, I am excited to have the chance to do so on my favorite game platform. I'm definitely more excited, however, that so many new gamers out there will have the opportunity to get to know this title in such a well-executed translation. And, that's absolutely what the iOS version is. It is immediately evident that a great deal of time and care went into making this 20th Anniversary Edition of Another World such a beautiful fit for the iOS platform, and I consider it to be one of the absolute App Store must haves.

I encourage anyone wanting to learn more of the game's history and early development details to watch Eric Chahi's GDC 2011 presentation Classic Game Postmortem: Another World / Out of this World, hosted at the GDC Vault. We will bring an "it's out" reminder when Another World lands on the 22nd at a price of $4.99.

In Tiny Heroes, you are the master of a dungeon rich with treasure. In classic Dungeons & Dragons style, where there is treasure, there are heroes. Are you going to sit back and let them take your treasure? Heck no! So you set up defenses in their way, and who can blame you if a few of those defenses are a touch lethal? You have liability insurance, right?

Once you push past the first few levels, which introduce you to the basics a bit too slowly, you'll find a game that has more in common with Plants vs. Zombies than geoDefense. The first clue is in the resource management: rather than profiting from killing heroes, you build mana stones that generate mana every few seconds. You use that mana to build your defenses, which are designed to block the oncoming heroes. Why politely leave a path for them to travel down when you can stop them in their tracks?

As you progress through the game, you unlock all manner of vicious defenses. Spike traps, catapults and barricades are just the beginning. You'll get so many that you won't be able to carry them all into battle. Instead, Tiny Heroes requires you to strategize and pick your poison before starting each stage. You'll need to learn how to combine your most brutal traps with static defenses and creatures to effectively guard your treasure, and you'll need to make sure you have the resources to pull your plan off.

But for each imaginative defense you set up, the heroes are ready to counter it. Knights march in with a single-minded appetite for destruction, thieves dismantle your traps from a safe distance and wizards take out your mana crystals, starving you for resources. Once you get a handle on defeating them, you'll find yourself facing epic versions of each. Your unbeatable combo may be able to take out basic knights with ease, but then an epic ranger will sweep in and keep things balanced.

It's the dungeon layouts and pathing that take Tiny Heroes from Plants vs. Zombies clone territory to something quite different, though. Each level has a unique layout, requiring an original strategy. The level layout can help or hurt the heroes, because they don't travel in the ways we've come to expect. In most tower defense games, enemies use basic pathing logic. They'll travel down the path that takes them to their goal most quickly, to hell with the consequences.

In Tiny Heroes, on the other hand, the heroes are a little more complicated. In their tiny brains they have a drive to explore, to find the best path based on what they can see. While this does occasionally lead to weirdness, like heroes wandering back and forth under fire, it also means that they put up a good fight -- and that you can trick them.

For a game about the wholesale slaughter of friendly adventurers, Tiny Heroes is surprisingly adorable. Big goofy eyes can be found on the heroes and more of the defenses than you'd expect, and the animations are similarly charming. The only thing that's missing is music. I've spent hours on end with this game and haven't minded the lack, but if you're auditorially inclined you'll certainly miss it.

But otherwise, Tiny Heroes is a complete package. The two included campaigns are huge and challenging, and there's a third coming as a purchasable update. The Game Center/OpenFeint achievements are done beautifully: you're rewarded with new defenses for completing groups of them, adding quite a lot of replayability to the game. You can play through in Campaign Mode, and then replay individual levels for higher scores and achievements in Quick Play. There are also challenge levels to be had, and these put your skills to a serious test.

There is one in-app purchase available, but let me stress that it's totally optional. The Defense Expansion gives you four new defenses that aren't available in normal gameplay. They are very slightly overpowered, but this is by design: they're there to help people who find the game too frustrating. If you're stuck and you'd rather not pay, the developers have a series of walkthrough videos available on their website, and forums to discuss strategy.

iPad users are currently out of luck, but according to the developers an iPad version is planned. It's expected to have it's own set of levels that take advantage of the extra screen real estate, so it should be worth the wait.

I can't say enough about Tiny Heroes. It's a fantastic game, with few flaws to speak of. Challenging, but rarely frustrating, it had me returning to levels again and again to improve my score. By turning genre conventions on their heads, Tiny Heroes succeeds brilliantly. And you don't have to take my word for it alone -- our discussion thread is packed with fans. Who wouldn't want to throw down against a bunch of greedy do-gooders, just this once?