Ever since the moment as a child where I first saw Kyle MacLachlan crush a metal-underpantsed Sting with the force of a single word in Dune, I've wanted a game that gave me that same feeling of power. Any time I re-watch an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the holodeck is featured, I find myself wishing that spoken controls were a bigger part of gaming. I mean, TNG accurately predicted the tablet computer, why can't we have voice commands that work, too?

Discounting rhythm games like Rock Band where vocal input allows for no deviation, the only contemporary title I can think of that has tackled the problem with any degree of competency is Tom Clancy's End War. Unfortunately, voice controls in games are essentially like tequila shots. They sound like the best idea in the world at the time, but a few hours later you just end up disoriented, frustrated, and violently nauseous. It was in such a cavalier mood that I chose to pick up Starglow Magic Spells [Free], and I am now paying the price.

The game puts you in the role of an apprentice magician who must learn five different classes of spells in order to graduate from wizard school. Each spell is a series of words and syllables, where you must determine the correct phonetic pronunciation and then speak the resulting Simlish-like gibberish into your phone. The game then spits back how many of the words of the spell you got correct. Thankfully, there's a practice mode that allows you to suss out the correct emphasis and intonations prior to testing your diction with the teachers of the five classes of magic.

This game's only saving grace is that once you figure out what pronunciation a given spell is looking for, the voice recognition part of the software works fantastically. The problem is that the phonetic rules are often difficult to decipher and don't appear to remain constant from class to class (or even spell to spell). As such, you'll find yourself rapidly getting angrier and angrier with the game. You know those new-fangled automated customer service systems that have you slowly over-pronouncing words (i.e. "Billing. Bill-ing. BILL-ing. Bill-ING. Billing! BILLING!!! ARRRGHEGGHGAHGAH!") into your phone? That's essentially the entire experience of playing Starglow Magic Spells.

Then there's the issue of feedback and payoff. What's my reward for practicing until I get a spell right? I get to move on to the next spell! There's no reinforcement of success whatsoever. I just spent 5 minutes talking baby talk and you can't even show me a static drawing of the wall of flame I supposedly summoned? That's ca-ca.

I was done with the game after I completed two classes, which ended up being wildly convenient, as this is when the pay wall hit. In the interests of masochistic science, I attempted to hit the IAP to unlock the three remaining schools only to get an error every time. So, now I'm an involuntary magic school drop-out, and I feel like a better man for it despite the stigma I now face when socializing in professional mage circles. The game does have a multiplayer mode available to allow you to face off against other spellcasters, but unfortunately, I was never able to find an opponent to test my incoherent mutterings with. Maybe that's because Arcane U is out on summer vacation?

My wife walked into the office where I was playing Starglow Magic Spells a few days ago. At first, she stopped and looked at me cockeyed in confusion. Then, she stared at me blankly, not believing. Finally she shrugged, and walked away snickering and shaking her head. I can't think of a better summary of this game than that. I applaud the developers for trying to tackle a difficult game design problem and for the precision of their voice recognition work. That being said, I'd advise keeping your distance unless you like the idea of being that crazy vagrant outside the 7-11 who keeps arguing with his hand.

Spacelings [99c] is the new 2d action-puzzler from Hotgen, who previously released To-Fu: The Trials of Chi [99c/HD]. As you might have gathered from the name, their latest game is set in space. The naughty mechanical Roborgs have abducted all the Spacelings and deposited them in over 100 levels around the universe.� Your spaceship, the 'Liberator', has no weapons, so instead of attacking you use your ships tractor-beam to try and recover your fellow Spacelings. This game is a rescue mission.

If the Spacelings stood in a polite orderly queue, directly below your spacecraft, things would be super convenient� � just activate the tractor beam, suck them straight up to your craft and then continue to the next level. However, the Spacelings are actually positioned all over the level, so the tractor beam must be swiped, to turn corners, until it eventually reaches a captured Spaceling to suck back to the Liberator.� Some levels are larger than your screen, so you can drag the background with your finger, to pan around and plan your approach.

You're given a limited supply of "deflectors", so the tractor-beam can only turn so many corners. This forces you to carefully plan-and swipe the beam's route through each level, to ensure you reach a Spaceling within the tractor beam's limited range. Fortunately, once a deflector has been deployed, it can also be re-used, allowing the beam to snake across the level for one recovery, then by moving the deflectors, head somewhere else for another rescue attempt. This game is all about turning corners at the right times.

There's other stuff in the levels too, like mines, beam switchers (reverses the tractor beam so it pushes objects), lazer-turrets, teleporters and disruptor fields (which the tractor-beam can't pass through). You'll be taught some tricks, like how to slingshot objects into each other to remove obstacles, enemies, bombs or mines. Be gentle with those bombs once they're in your tractor beam though, as they detonate upon contact, even if it's an innocent Spaceling. Definitely don't let the tractor-beam bring a bomb back on board your precious spacecraft either. And much like the classic movie Ghostbusters, you'll be advised never to cross the beams!

A new gameplay mechanism is explained at the start of each level. These hints and instructions are helpful initially, but towards the end of the game, the hint screen and a pop-up message both display exactly the same hint and requiring two taps to close before you can play. And the earlier hints start repeating. Perhaps the developers got sick of writing so many hints.

Each level is rewarded by medals based on the number of rescues, enemies destroyed and time taken. There's also a special medal for achieving all the medals in the same attempt. There's 393 medals to earn in total, plus Game Center support for 20 achievements and high-score / medal leader-boards. And it's universal, so it runs on all your IOS devices.

After playing Spacelings for a while, I started wanting more of a mental challenge as most levels are pretty easy, with the solution immediately evident, so it's just a matter of getting the timing right. There are some harder levels near the end of the game, although some of these are given away by the help page, or by marks drawn on the level telling you exactly what to do. It's unusual to see such hand-holding near the end of a game. Still, Spacelings kept my interest, right to the final levels, with it's tractor-beaming action.

Most music-based games are based on the same premise: interaction with the rhythm or beat of the song in some form or fashion. That's why Say What?! [Free] seems like such an interesting take on the genre; rather than interacting with the musical composition, the game challenges you to interact with the actual lyrics. While I think that Say What?! is definitely one of the more interesting takes on the genre that I've seen, a very limited selection of music coupled with a lack of gameplay diversity leaves it somewhat wanting.

The premise of Say What?! is simple: as lyrics to a song are displayed at the top of the screen various images scroll across the bottom portion from right to left. When portions of the lyrics light up, you must tap on the image that corresponds to the highlighted lyric.

On easier difficulties the relationship between image and lyric is simple. However, as the difficulty ramps up, the relationships become more abstract and require greater thinking and comprehension. This is further amplified by the fact that a lot more images start going by faster on the harder difficulties.

Make no mistake, while Say What?! may be classified under the music genre, this is less of a music-based game and more of a puzzle/word comprehension title oriented around music lyrics. Fans of Rappin' Granny [$0.99] will be somewhat familiar with this type of gameplay and should enjoy it, as well as anyone that can handle games that require snap thinking. However, for everyone else this game will probably seem like a frustrating exercise in futility.

Until you play it a few times, that is. One of the biggest issues I have with Say What?! is that the highlighted lyrics and images associated with them appear to be set pieces. This means that, assuming you play the same song enough, you should be able to memorize the patterns for each song and thus raise your score with ease. Sure, the surrounding wrong images appear to randomize each time, but if you know exactly what image to look for, you really won't care about the other 'noise' images.

This is further compounded by the fact that Say What?! only has three free songs, with a paltry seven more songs available as IAP for $1.99 each. The IAP seems a bit expensive considering that there's not even any way to preview the songs being purchases (although I suppose one could just search online for a preview of them). Finally, while I don't have a problem with the songs I tried, I feel that the limited variety of genres will be a turn off for some players.

While I did enjoy Say What?!, it's a game of limited appeal and limited content. If you're looking for an interesting twist on the puzzle/music genre, I'd say give Say What?! a try. Unfortunately, even if you enjoy the experience, it ends up being way too short. Hopefully the game will continue to expand and add more songs of various genres, which would be a good first step of creating a�fan base�around this interesting game.

If you've never heard of Ragnarok Online, I'd have to assume that you've been living under a rock since about 2002. The popular Korean MMORPG came to American shores in 2003, but by that time it already had a rabid fanbase among Korean gamers (50,000,000 million players worldwide to date). The game originally started as a Pay To Play title, but a Free To Play version came along later down the line, which only amped its popularity. What more could you ask for from a fun little MMO like this? Why, to make it portable, of course … and with Ragnarok Violet [Free], that's just what you've got.

In Ragnarok Violet, you will play the young hero who hopes to become a knight and eventually gets drafted to stop the Dark Lord from reawakening. Okay, I know that that doesn't sound particularly new or creative, but hey, it's an RPG. Sometimes you just have to breathe your way through the cliches and get on with the gameplay. Speaking of, the game goes with the good old top down format that you'll fondly remember from so many Super Nintendo RPGs of old.

If you love grinding, leveling your character, boosting stats and doing the whole fight in the fields/go back to town schtick, Ragnarok Violet's got you covered. You'll be given quests right off the bat and soon be on your way to exploring. The control scheme works just fine, although the D pad on the left bottom corner of your screen is a bit large and will impede your vision on occasion. Slots for quick spell access on your right bottom corner are particularly handy and make it easy to start using those skills you're racking up.

Fighting is … well, it's pretty standard hack and slash stuff that consists of hitting the same button over and over. Leveling happens pretty quickly, which means you can start getting comfy with the stat and skill point systems. Unlike many of the retro titles that likely inspired it, Ragnarok Violet doesn't torture you to get your character stronger in the beginning, which is a blessing as far as I'm concerned. Who wants to be murdered by a slime before you even hit level three? That does not make you feel like a hero, I can tell you that.

Ragnarok Violet does feature one thing which most RPGs don't, and that is a pet system. You can tame these guys at a pet shop in town and they will offer little benefits to your quest, such as aiding HP or gathering items, as long as you remember to keep them fed. They also offer chatty commentary and are just generally cute. No doubt this feature is a great hit with fans of ultra cute characters in RPGs (in other words, all of Asia), but let's face it: If �you're playing Ragnarok Violet in the first place, you obviously already have a soft spot in your heart for cute stuff.

You can earn money in-game to buy stuff to beef up your arsenal, or you can hit a little shop button in your top right corner and make In-App Purchases with real money. A lot of the stuff is just for fun, like hats for your pet, but there are also useful items for sale like instant revives. I'm not a fan of buying items in games personally, but if you are, I think you'll find there's a decent selection of fun, inexpensive things to choose from.

There are a few major weaknesses in Raganarok Violet. Firstly, the skill tree is just kind of sad and underdeveloped-looking, and doesn't offer a lot of exciting skills to get. I also found the minimap more or less useless, as it just looks like a tiny sprite map with an icon of your head on it and does not really point you in the direction of any destination you might need to find. Lastly, the dialogue hovers somewhere right below average, and on occasions is downright awful. It feels really rushed, and I spotted a lot of�misspellings. Also, our hero has an attitude that makes me want to kick him into next week, but that's just my opinion, mind you.

Regardless of any weaknesses, however, fans are sure to go rabid for Ragnarok Violet, even if it's based just on the nostalgia factor of having played Raganarok Online in the past. Although it has its flaws, it still offers a huge world to explore and plenty of solid (if not terribly innovative) gameplay. Some of that might make you pause and consider whether it's worth your hard earned dollars, but wait � it's free. No reason to hesitate now, yes?

While some traditional publishers are resisting the trends towards lower-cost software in the handheld gaming space, others are actively working to figure out how to make these sorts of experiences work on their existing platforms. While not a shining beacon of success, the PSP Minis campaign does demonstrate a good faith effort on the part of Sony to cater to the direction that portable gaming seems to be heading. A few growing pains are part and parcel of adapting to a changing market, and there have been a few notable early wins scattered through the program.

One of the largest of these successes has been Frima Games' A Space Shooter for Two Bucks, which recently reported a healthy figure of 150,000 downloads over PSN. Given the type of game they made, and its popularity on PSP, it's no surprise that the developers worked to port the title over to the iPhone. Making its debut on iOS as A Space Shooter For Free [Free/HD], this game retains all the good elements from its PSP origin and joins a catalog of solid shmups available on the platform.

A Space Shooter For Free is the story of P. Jefferson, an optimistic and nerdy kid who is relentlessly tortured by bullies at school. Much like our own Brad Nicholson, Jefferson turns to obsessive weightlifting and unjustified xenophobia as a means of dealing with his repressed rage issues. Equal parts bravado and libido, he's essentially a mash-up of Zap Brannigan and Duke Nukem.

However, unlike the Duke, this universe does not celebrate his misogyny or misbehaviors, making the character much more tolerable. The story and dialogue are snappily done in comic-book panel style, and Jefferson's pathetic attempts to "court" the older woman who runs the upgrade store were just cheesy enough to keep me coming back to see if the idiot could pull it off.

Let me start off the gameplay discussion by stating that this game is no Cave title; if you're looking to have your socks blown off by god-tier bullet hell action, this is not the one for you. That being said, Frima blends a cornucopia of strong elements into ASSFF that give the game tons of depth and replay value.

In standard vertical-scrolling space shooter fashion, enemies of varying types will converge on your ship from all directions. Memorizing their attack patterns and behaviors will be the key to your success, as will scooping up the power-ups that destroyed baddies leave on the screen. The usual suspects are all here: shields, missiles, and main gun bumps give your ship a temporary boost in fighting power. Some missions will be against standard waves of aliens, and some will feature boss characters to defeat. Clearing a boss stage will provide your ship with one of five special weapons that is persistent throughout the rest of the game.

Speaking of persistent, along with your temporary power-ups, you'll be collecting scrap/currency that you can use in-between missions to purchase permanent upgrades to your ship. There's a great deal of variety here, and the desire to grind out enough scratch to get the next upgrade kept me motivated to pew-pew bravely on. Adding spread to your main cannon, magnets to pull scrap in for you, devices to increase the power or reduce the energy cost of special weapons, and items that maximize the efficiency of temporary power-ups are all options.

Difficulty between stages can vary wildly, and so if you play solely in the campaign mode you'll find yourself needing to grind in order to upgrade enough to tackle later sectors. This is the perfect time to take a break and check out the survival mode. It's your standard wave-after-wave affair, but the high-score push is a draw, and Frima smartly allows any currency you earn in survival mode to carry back over into the campaign.

ASSFF falls into the same control traps that many iPhone shmups do. The touch controls feels right and auto-fire helps the cause, but especially when the difficulty begins to mount you'll be covering vital parts of the action with your finger. The position of special weapons also make them difficult to activate without leaving your ship unprotected in a sea of murderous plasma bolts while you trigger them.

The game (as you'd rightly expect by the title) is free to download, and there's more than enough content before the pay wall to help you make up your mind. If you find yourself sucked in like I did, a reasonable $.99 IAP will unlock the rest of the campaign content. Additional IAPs are available for those who want all the ship upgrades from the get-go. A Space Shooter For Free does a lot of different things, and juggles them very well. For the quality and quantity of shooter on display here, the value proposition is dynamite. For an initial price of free, I'd definitely encourage downloading and checking out this title.

Let's talk about big money (no big prizes) for a second. Financial news site Bloomberg is reporting that�Angry Birds creator�Rovio Mobile is 'considering' taking a strategic investment from an 'entertainment company' to expand their wares to China and fund the upcoming movie. If it goes through, unnamed sources indicate that this investment would give Rovio the value of about 1.2 billion. I love it!

These mysterious sources aren't indicating what parties are interested in investing. We agree with analyst superstar Michael Pachter when he suggests that EA, Zynga, or even Disney are the likeliest possible investors. All of these companies have a huge stake in the mobile space, and obviously wouldn't mind getting a piece of the Angry Birds action. Disney definitely needs the most cred out of all of these publishers.

Fake, but you get the idea.

If you needed an indication of how popular Angry Birds is outside the world of the App Store or Android, look no further than your local Wal-Mart. Kiosks with Angry Birds plush toys are starting to appear. Also, several stores are carrying shirts with the iconic catapult games' various winged mascots.

Love it or hate it, you already knew Rovio's bird game is a powerhouse. I wonder how much longer this can last, though.

[Via Bloomberg, Joystiq - Image 1 via A Kid's Pencil, Image 2 via Gadget Sin]

Since its debut in 1995, the Heroes of Might and Magic (HOMM) game series has been synonymous with deep, turn-based strategy gameplay. While some may argue that the more recent titles have somewhat strayed from their roots, none will argue with the general appeal and sheer depth of the classic titles in the series.

The multi-platform Palm Heroes series looked to capture and recreate the gameplay of older HOMM titles in portable form, and managed to succeed to some degree. Now, with Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe [$4.99/HD/HD Lite], it looks like the definitive version of classic HOMM gameplay has finally arrived on iOS. Featuring a ton of missions, factions, as well as a hot-seat multiplayer mode, Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe will satisfy any strategy gamer's appetite for quite a while.

For those unfamiliar with the HOMM-style games, Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe is a game of resource management, military prowess, and tactical superiority. Players control heroes that in turn command a wide variety of creatures under their banner. In addition to moving about the overworld map and collecting resources, fighting baddies, and gaining experience for the hero, players also can capture cities which bestow a wide variety of benefits. Using the resources generated by the cities and captured on the field, players can then build additional structures in the city which either bestow abilities on the hero, generate new resources (which can then be used to build more structures) or recruit new creatures that can be assigned to heroes out on the field.

The end goal of every scenario is to conquer all the opposing heroes and conquer all enemy cities. For newcomers to this type of gameplay, the learning curve may be steep, as there's a lot of gameplay elements to monitor and control. Also, while tutorials do exist, they only scratch the surface. If all this sounds complicated, that's because it is. But, that's exactly what makes games like Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe incredibly compelling.

I'm amazed at the fact that�Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe manages to cram all the gameplay into playable form on the iPhone. When fighting other heroes, combat is performed on a hex grid which would, at first glance, seem to be hard to control on the iPhone's small screen. Yet, the developers took the time to implement iPhone specific controls to make sure that every move on the field is done correctly and accurately. An iPad only version of Palm Heroes 2 also exists and, in my opinion, controls better than the iPhone version. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that iPhone-only users can't enjoy the game just as well.

For experienced HOMM gamers looking for those classic epic battles that take hours to complete, Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe features scenarios of all sizes and will certainly satisfy everyone's tastes. In fact, the only complaint I have is the lack of a cohesive campaign mode. Instead, every map is self-sustaining and not part of an overarching story (if the map even has a story). This shouldn't make a difference for most fans of this genre, as the gameplay itself is the compelling element and not necessarily any background text. But for some, I imagine it's a disappointment. Also, while I'm grateful for the hot-seat multiplayer, I really wish some sort of online multiplayer could have been built in, as much of the fun in these types of games was in participating in long term epic matches with other people.

In addition to the twenty maps included in Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe, the game also offers a built-in store that offers over 100 different maps available as IAP. While some will inevitably argue that the extra content should be free, I think the game does a fair job of offering a decent amount of content while providing the opportunity of buying more maps at a reasonable price. In addition, a free iPad "non-deluxe" version of Palm Heroes 2 also exists, but it only comes with two maps, doesn't offer as many maps on its in-game store, and it actually charges more for the maps that are on there. If you're looking to preview the gameplay, I suggest checking it out. But, if you plan on making an investment into Palm Heroes 2, I highly suggest picking up the Deluxe version.

At its core, Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe does an amazing job bringing over classic turn-based strategy gameplay to iOS. Some folks may look at the simplistic graphics and immediately turn away, but they'll be passing on one of the better strategy titles on the App Store. If you have any love at all for turn-based strategy games, and you're looking for a game that has enough content to keep you occupied for a good deal of time, check out Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe, you won't be disappointed.

Bean's Quest [$2.99] was a pretty okay platforming game. The core problem we had was its almost total lack of content � we could traverse everything it had to offer in about five minutes, which, you know, isn't quite up there. BUT, as was promised, the game has since been updated with more levels. Specifically, World '2' has been added in a free update, bringing up the meagre level count up by 9 for 16 total.

This update also packs in some hip tweaks. Game Center support has been added, as well as alternate control methods and brand new fancy-pantsy 3D audio. On the bug front, the game has now been optimized for older devices, and several nebulous fixes have been made.

This isn't it for Bean's Quest. On our message board, the developers have stated that it will bring in four worlds total. The third world, "The Sky Ruins," is in dev right now. We've no ETA on the fourth release, but we do know that the third should hit sometime this September.

Infinity Field [$1.99], a pretty standard Geometry Wars-ish dual-stick shooter, is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Developer Forze Field Studios unveiled a new trailer teasing as much with a big fat Chillingo logo sitting in front of the glorious ensuing lo-fi, particle-laded action.

Details on the 'port' are still startling light. The video mentions a campaign and six game modes, and directly states that Retina Screen visuals will be part of the package, but that's it � no launch date, price, or possible additions were pinned down. We're in the process of chasing down this information and will get back to you as soon as possible.�

Infinity Field first debuted on the iPad in January of this year. We dug the action, but were kinda turned away by how much it takes from Geometry Wars, an XBLA project from the now-shuttered UK developer Bizarre Creations. Infinity Field was recently updated to version 1.1.2 this June. The update reflected a name change to Infinity Field HD, which in hindsight makes this jump to the iPhone and iPod touch seem not very surprising. We'll check out this mini version of Infinity Field whenever it ends up dropping and let you know how it turned out.

In a lot of ways, if you've played one Korean RPG, you've played them all, and if you've played one 16-bit inspired action-RPG, you know exactly what to expect from another � but Minoraxis' Exitium: Saviors of Vardonia [$1.99] hopes its ideas about multiple narratives and play styles is enough to separate it from the abundance of action-RPGs in the App Store.

The majority of the gameplay elements are going to be familiar � the hack, slash, then loot formula is here in abundance as is the need to grind through respawning enemies to get enough experience and goods to tackle the next area. The game controls exactly like you expect, but the iPad offers enough screen real estate to keep the fully customizable interface from being overbearing.

The thing with the controls is, they feel weird � even after several hours, it never clicks in the way you want it to. That's partially because the directional pad is a little awkward, but it's also because the characters move incredibly fast, as if the whole game is overclocked. You can adjust the speed in the options menu, but it never snaps into a sweet spot that feels comfortable.

If you can get used to the controls, there is an amazingly deep game here. You'll be playing as one of four characters, from two different sides of the war, each with their own story, play style and class. The story isn't going to win any awards, but as far as heavy-handed RPG narratives are concerned, it's at least a familiar telling of two warring kingdoms infested with a harsh brand of evil and monsters running around. Considering the supposed weight of the narrative, the dialogue is rather light in some places, but it's unclear how much of that is due to translation issues.

Unfortunately, you also know what to expect from the quest system. Although there are hundreds of different sub-quests, nearly every single one amounts to a fetch quest, some of them are even simple enough they'll only take a few seconds to complete. The story missions don't differ much either, but thankfully, the massive map has a diverse set of enemies and locations to keep you from getting bored.

That's good, because you'll be grinding those enemies a lot. Even if you decide to go with the in-app purchases, you'll need to spend hours hacking away at enemies to level up. Most of that comes with a rewards system outside of gaining a level, as Exitium seems to want to award you for completing a massive variety of micro-tasks, from killing a certain number of enemies to using potions a number of times. For the obsessive compulsive among you, there is a ton of content to mine here.

Since each of the characters comes with their own play style, the game is going to feel different whether you pick the berserker, paladin, priestess or mage. The berserker and paladin are both all about close range combat, so if you're into the more classic feeling action-RPG, you'll be most comfortable with either of them. The paladin and mage are distance attackers, and since the game doesn't come with an auto-target, they can take a little longer to get used to, but each has their own merits.

Each character also comes with their own set of passive and active skills gained by either completing the micro achievements mentioned above or by leveling up. The skill tree isn't that deep, but each skill has several levels associated with it and they help diversify combat enough to keep it interesting across the course of the game.

As you'd expect, there is also a crafting system where you can make potions and enhance weapons. It's as deep as it needs to be, and you can get through the game without spending too much time on it if you don't want to. There is, supposedly, also a multiplayer aspect to the game, where you can trade items with other characters, but I was never able to get it working.

Exitium looks fantastic and nails the 16-bit style. It certainly stands out the most on iPad, where, with the exception of a few odd things that weren't optimized, the game looks wonderful. It certainly cribs a lot from its history, but you can see a lot of effort went into making it look the way it does.

As far as how it actually plays, Exitium: Saviors of Vardonia doesn't offer a whole lot of new ideas, but it does offer an interweaving story that begs for the game to be played four times and enough quests to keep you busy for a long time. It could use some tweaks to the controls and the dialogue will make you laugh for all the wrong reasons, but as an action-RPG, it nails what it's going for and has a lot of content. It's not up to par with the likes of KTH's Wild Frontier [$2.99], but the clean menu system, easy to understand crafting, multiple story lines, and the interface make it stand out in the genre.