Right smack in the middle of Macworld this past January, Liv Games released their first iOS title called Legendary Wars [99�/Lite]. It's a castle defense game similar to a plethora of other titles available in the App Store, but Legendary Wars made some smart design decisions that set itself apart from the rest. There are 3 different lanes to manage, which adds a layer of depth to the landscape as you send troops towards the enemy castle or deal with oncoming attacks. There are also a staggering number of different game types that afford a ton of variety to the gameplay. A full armory and upgrade system motivates you to keep on playing just one more game as you power up your offensive squad.

We were really surprised at just how much we enjoyed Legendary Wars in our review, and really the biggest negative we had was that the lovely artwork in the game didn't support Retina Display resolution, and looked pretty fuzzy on those devices. Today Liv Games has rectified this by releasing an update that includes Retina Display graphics and a number of other goodies. Check out these comparison shots below to see just how big a difference the higher resolution art work makes in Legendary Wars (normal resolution on left, Retina resolution on right. Click to enlarge):

In addition to the Retina Display support, this update to Legendary Wars also includes Game Center integration with 50 achievements and 5 leaderboards for Endless modes. There's also a brand new armory which unlocks upon completion of the Campaign, and several of the Hard and Legendary difficulty missions have been altered to be more balanced. There's also a host of other bug fixes and the game has been optimized to load faster and run more smoothly across all devices.

This update comes after last month's update which included a more casual-friendly control option and various other gameplay tweaks and balances. There is also a brand new lite version of Legendary Wars to try out which includes 7 exclusive levels not included in the regular version, and the full game is currently on sale for 99�. An iPad native version is in the works too, and Liv Games is hoping to roll that out in mid-April barring any complications.

Players have been loving the game in the very active forum thread, and if you own Legendary Wars grab this latest update to check out the new high resolution graphics and Game Center, and if you haven't picked up the title already check out the lite version for a taste of the gameplay.

Note: A memory bug has crept into this update for owners of 4th generation iPod touch devices which can cause crashes when several titles are in the multitasking memory. Liv Games already has a fix for this which should be submitted this weekend. Until then you can avoid the problem by clearing apps out of multitasking, and an update to officially address the problem should be out soon.

Vocal members of our community have long since written off ngmoco as a lost freemium cause, leaving us hardcore gamers in the dust as they move on to greener (and more casual) free to play pastures. The Rolando series seemed poised to become the Super Mario of the iOS platform when the original Rolando [99�] hit in in late 2008. In July of 2009, Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid [99�] was released, and is better than the original in every way imaginable.

Unfortunately, even though Rolando 3 was announced, poor sales of Rolando 2 combined with the wildly successful freemium-powered Eliminate [Free] seemed to be all ngmoco needed to seemingly give up on the Rolando franchise.

Check out the trailer to see what Rolando 2 is all about:

With a 99� price drop and a Retina Display update, I recommend everyone download Rolando 2, and you might as well snag Rolando while you're at it. Put simply, Rolando 2 is a fantastic iOS platformer that intelligently utilizes both touch and tilt to create one of the first "iOS-only experiences." It looks great with the new graphics, and the gameplay still stands on its own today. While we're incredibly excited that some of our favorite games are getting some entirely unexpected Retina Display treatment, it's still dreadfully disappointing that there hasn't yet been (and from where we're sitting likely won't be) a Rolando 3.