Living more than 5000 miles away, it's hard for me to imagine the tragedy that struck Japan this past week. A devastating earthquake rocked the country from top to bottom, followed by a tsunami that reached practically every Pacific Ocean coastline. Many different organizations have set up channels to offer relief to Japan, and even in our tiny iOS corner of the world two Japan-based developers are doing their part as well.

Sega has dropped the price of every Sonic the Hedgehog game from now until March 20th, with 100% of the proceeds going to the Red Cross Disaster Relief in Japan. 3 of these 4 Sonic titles are emulated Genesis games, with Sonic Spinball being the one that works the best with virtual controls. Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 don't fare as well, as they require the precision of physical controls, but honestly they work good enough to give you a quick nostalgia fix if you were a fan of the original titles. Sonic 4, on the other hand, is a brand new Sonic game which has been tailored for the touch screen. It's a bit short overall, but we really liked Sonic 4 a lot in our review.

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Capcom has also lowered the price of one of their flagship titles, Street Fighter IV. From now until March 22nd Street Fighter IV for iPhone will be just 99� with all sales going to charity. This version of Street Fighter impressed everybody when it released a year ago with how well it translated to the touch screen for a game that has traditionally relied on physical button controls. Our original glowing review doesn't even tell the whole story, as the game has been updated many times since then adding new characters, modes, and functionality. It's practically twice the game it originally was, and if you're even remotely a Street Fighter fan, this needs to be in your collection.

It's not always easy to offer support to tragedies like this, especially when many iOS gamers are too young to have a reasonable means of donating to a relief fund. This special promotion gives an easy way to do a small part towards helping, even if all you have is a spare few dollars of iTunes credit to spend. In fact, last month Street Fighter IV dropped to 99� for the first time ever and claimed the #1 spot in the App Store charts, so there is definitely potential to rack up a good amount of donation money for Japan. And it's not such a bad deal for yourself, either, as all of these games are worth owning anyway. If you happen to already have them for yourself, now would also be a great time to gift them to family or friends with iOS devices.

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Big Pixel Studios first cut their teeth in the App Store with Piyo Blocks [99�/Lite] and its sequel Piyo Blocks 2 [99�/HD], two highly underrated games and easily my favorites among the many, many match-3 games available. They then moved on to a more ambitious project, the wacky dual-stick shooter Meow Meow Happy Fight [99�/HD], which we really enjoyed back in August when we reviewed it. With their library of titles thus far, Big Pixel has proven is that they are very capable of making games that feature solid gameplay, cute characters, and a colorful visual style.

This rings extremely true in their latest effort Land-a Panda [99�/Lite/HD] as well. In Land-a Panda your goal is to get the male panda Yang Guang reunited with his sweetheart Tian Tian who is waiting at the end of each obstacle-filled level. You accomplish this by shooting him across the levels using a series of cannons, avoiding all manner of hazards along the way and trying to collect 3 coins on each stage for maximum scoring. If you remember any of the barrel blasting sequences from the Donkey Kong Country series, Land-a Panda is like an extreme homage to these.

There are 4 different worlds in Land-a Panda, each containing 20 levels, with an open spot for additional worlds to come in future updates. With 80 levels, there is a lot of gameplay here. The levels ease you into the mechanics in the game, starting with cannons that will automatically align to the proper angle and fire you in the right direction. As the game progresses, trickier cannons are introduced like ones that rotate and move back and forth, requiring you to fire at the correct time in order to launch to the next cannon. Enemies and environmental hazards like spikes add to the difficulty as well.

All of these elements blend together really well in Land-a Panda. Each level is like a puzzle in how you must figure out the best route to complete it, but the moving platforms and precision firing add a fast-paced component to the gameplay. If earning the highest score possible isn't a big deal to you, then you're free to take your time with each level and wait for the proper time to fire each of the cannons, which should suit you if you're typically more of a casual player.

Another big part of the game is predicting the trajectories of your cannon shots, which is something that has been attributed to the allure of games like Angry Birds. I think there's something to this theory too, as there's really nothing like firing your cannon and the exact right time to launch Yang Guang in a perfect arc up and over a set of spikes, narrowly between a set of enemies on the way down, and landing squarely next to his darling Tian Tian. One huge draw to Land-a Panda is that it's incredibly fast and simple to retry a level, so it's easy to experiment with different methods or endlessly retry a level in the hopes of topping your highest score.

Land-a Panda takes the simple concept of firing from cannon to cannon and builds a wealth of highly replayable content around it. Completing all 80 levels will take some time, and earning 3 stars for each will keep you busy even longer. Then, you can go back and perfect your techniques to earn higher scores and compete on the OpenFeint and Game Center leaderboards. And of course, this is all done using the lighthearted sights and sounds that Big Pixel are known for, with graphics that are crisp, colorful, and Retina Display ready. Players in our forums have been enjoying this game a ton, and if you're in the market for a cleverly designed physics puzzler with a great sense of style then you can't really go wrong with Land-a Panda.

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Nostalgia is powerful. Also, stupid. No matter how faithful a re-release is to its source material, it'll never conjure the meaningful experiences that made you fall in love with the original in the first place. Context is the worst of bugbears.

I have no deep connection to Remedy Entertainment's top-down racer Death Rally, and I consider this a good thing. I can't feel bitter about new design choices that replace the old ones; I can't stomp around about wholesale exclusions; and I can't whine about a lack of spirit. I'm not chasing the dragon looking for that original, glorious high.

Instead, I can just enjoy my extended look at the title, which plays like it was indeed created in 1996. The catch is that it holds up in the iOS arena.

At its heart, Death Rally is a top-down shooter featuring cars. Sure, there are laps, tracks, opponents, and a finish line: racing game trimmings. But the game, perhaps to its own detriment, only dishes out meaningful rewards for violence, for doing things like blowing up other cars or boxes in the road.

It's a weird pretense, the racing, because it's also the weakest part of the preview build I've been playing. The AI is programmed in an obvious way: two cars are faster than you, no matter what, while the rest of the pack is glacially slow or average speed. This puts you in the position of needing to kill the two pack leaders at the beginning of the race to win because, otherwise, they'll just zoom ahead of you never to be caught up with. I've had many a race so far that consisted of, basically, just me going around a track three times after dismissing the slower cars. The fast cars tend to be so fast that they even left the camera's field of view.

Also, the racing is just a matter of turning your car around turns without getting caught on geometry. There's no nuance, no drifting, no power sliding, no split-second decisions.

But � and this is a big, tone-shifting kind of but � your car has guns. Shooting is a breeze and the weapons you'll receive dish out the kind of satisfying damage you'd expect. Enemies will dish it out, too, so you have to be weary of your position and then prepare to best exploit a given situation, which makes for some interesting strategies. I, for example, often don't take off on the starting line, just so I can more easily tackle the cars while they're in a pile in front of me.

For starters, your car is equipped with a basic, auto-firing machine gun. As you play, you can unlock a rocket launcher, mines, a shotgun, and a Gatling gun. Additionally, you can level up all of these weapons, as well as speed, armor, and handling attributes on your car, by earning points in races.

These EXP-based systems feel familiar, but the grip is ever real: Death Rally does a great job at making you want to do just one more race for just one more upgrade. This, married with the action it endorses, makes for some entertaining play.

I think where Death Rally excels is in its personality. It's got a mid-90s, southern developer beer-infused and grungy kind of vibe. It celebrates its violence and features many a brown tone, fire, broken objects, dingy environments and attitude, just like, say, Duke Nukem, a character who also appears in the game as an opponent.

I'm not sure if the racing issues are going to be hammered out by release. But these aren't deal breakers � the shooting feels good, the action can be tight if you play your cards right, the transitions to the next race are snappy, and the upgrades will have their way with you. Death Rally is also pretty imaginative as far as iOS titles go, which I think goes a long way in keeping someone engrossed and entertained.

I may not have an emotional connection with the 1996 version of Death Rally, but I don't want one. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the game as much as I have with the retro baggage in tow, I'm sure. And, yeah, Death Rally might have some core problems with the racing, but everything else appears to be solid. I'll be keeping my eyes on this one and we'll definitely be talking about this one again when the full release rolls around.

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