Earlier this month, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Cowboy Rodeo, who lovingly ported the classic Amiga titles�Pinball Dreams [$4.99/Lite] and Pinball Fantasies [$5.99] to iOS, were getting set to release a brand new version of Pinball Dreams that was fully remade with 3D graphics. Just a few days ago that game, known as Pinball Dreams HD [$4.99], arrived in the App Store.

I was sort of confused as to why they would decide to remake the game seemingly out of the blue, but according to the developer they had been getting requests for iPad versions of their games ever since the iPad's release last year. But redrawing the old graphics to suit the new screen size and resolution would have been too large of an undertaking, so they started toying around with the idea of building the tables in 3D to solve those problems. After being happy with the results, they took the project full steam ahead.

Now, two and a half years after the first iOS release and nearly twenty years after the original Amiga release, Pinball Dreams HD breathes modern life into a retro classic. Purists tend to get up in arms when people go fiddling around with their classic games, but before you go blasting hatred over your IRC channel or start calling for Cowboy Rodeo's head over the Usenet boards, you should know that Pinball Dreams HD uses the exact same gameplay code as the original iOS version. And, in practice, it plays nearly identical to how you remember it. It also features all the original music and sound effects.

Although I'm not an original fan of the game from back in the Amiga days, I did fall in love with Pinball Dreams back in '09 on the iPhone, and it pleases me as well to see the game's integrity retained. It actually feels pretty surreal to be playing Pinball Dreams HD with fancy 3D graphics in your face but sweet retro sounds hitting your ears. It feels like I've entered some sort of bizarro time warp, but I'm loving every minute of it.

One thing to note is that because the game is in 3D, there is a dynamic camera that follows the ball around the table. It's not quite as dramatic as the camera in Gameprom's pinball games like War Pinball [99�/HD], so if you're prone to nausea from those then you're probably still safe with Pinball Dreams HD. But the lack of any kind of camera options is annoying, especially the absence of a single overhead shot of the table.

Thankfully this should be rectified with the first update to the game which Cowboy Rodeo has said in our forums will include additional camera options as well as a few other minor fixes. They've also pretty much confirmed that Pinball Fantasies will be getting this same HD treatment down the line too, and that Pinball Dreams HD will be hitting the Mac App Store soon. I am definitely looking forward to both of those.

One of our forum members has recorded this extremely lengthy video of Pinball Dreams HD so you can see what it's like in action:

If you're a fan of the original Pinball Dreams, whether on the Amiga or on iOS, then don't be scared of checking out Pinball Dreams HD. The game still plays and feels like it always has, but now it looks fantastic in high resolution on the iPad and Retina Display devices.�If you're new to the Pinball Dreams world, then know that you're getting 4 extremely well designed tables and one of the best digital representations of pinball ever released. It's not a very realistic pinball simulation, but in 1992 it was the pinnacle of video game pinball and that has held up incredibly well over the years.

Pinball Dreams HD is an excellent example of how to modernize a classic while still remaining true to its roots, and it's one that pinball fans shouldn't hesitate to pick up.

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Trendy Entertainment, creators of Dungeon Defenders [$2.99] on iOS, are currently working on a project tentatively titled Afterlife: Ground Zero. The game will be a survival-horror third-person shooter, and should contain some sort of cooperative gameplay. I use the word "should" because at this moment the Afterlife project is still in the very early stages, and nothing about the game has really been finalized.

Over this past weekend, an internal gameplay video of Afterlife was accidentally uploaded publicly to the vastness of the YouTube interwebs, and it didn't take long for members in our forums to take notice of the video and post it for all to see. The problem is, the video wasn't meant for public consumption, and was really only meant as a tech demo to show off internally.

Well, you can't fight the power of the internet, and instead of running around and trying to eradicate every version of the video that gets uploaded Trendy decided to just recapture the same footage in a higher quality and release it publicly. Keep in mind, this video is mostly just a tech demo running on an iPad 2 using the Unreal Engine, and many things can and will change before a final release:

One thing worth pointing out is that the virtual controls are definitely placeholder, and were whipped up quickly just for the purposes of this demo. Other than that, though, Afterlife looks pretty astounding. As was stated, the game is VERY early and will likely evolve quite a bit as it continues development, but this demo video shows a ton of promise. You can follow along with the discussion in our forums and we'll definitely have more news on Afterlife: Ground Zero just as soon as it's available.

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If you hang around TouchArcade pretty often, chances are you've heard us sing the praises of Bug Heroes [Free]. This dual-stick shooter features elements of tower defense along with a huge cast of characters, fantastic graphics, and tons of play modes. It's easily among our favorites in the dual-stick genre.

Bug Heroes developer Foursaken Media is looking to branch out with this successful brand, and announced back in May that they were working on Bug Heroes Quest, a full fledged action/adventure/RPG featuring the characters and world of the original Bug Heroes. It sounds like a pretty great idea to me, and today they've released the first trailer which shows Bug Heroes Quest in action:

The story-driven campaign will feature the original 3 characters from Bug Heroes and will contain more than 50 missions. The developer has said that the environments in Bug Heroes Quest are as much as 4 times the size of the biggest maps in Bug Heroes, some of which are pretty large. You'll be able to level up your characters and adorn them with tons of weapons, items, and equipment, and then take them into a survival arena to battle it out for a spot on the Game Center leaderboards.

With this video, Bug Heroes Quest is basically complete and is just going through the final play testing period. Foursaken is planning on submitting the game any day now, and hopefully it will release shortly thereafter. You can find additional screens and tons more info in the thread in our forums, and we'll be waiting with bated breath to get our hands on the final version of Bug Heroes Quest soon. You can check out the original Bug Heroes for free with the link below, which I'd highly recommend doing if you are a fan of excellent games.

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