One of our favorite releases from earlier this year was The Blocks Cometh [99�] from developer Halfbot. This Flash game to iOS port had you controlling one of several characters who must dodge and stay on top of the endless stream of blocks inexplicably falling from the sky. The goal was to get as high into the air as possible while avoiding getting crushed by a falling block, and each of the 5 available characters had their own unique attributes such as special jumps or weaponry to destroy blocks with.

With its great pixel art, rocking chiptunes, and frantic gameplay, we had no problems recommending The Blocks Cometh in our review from February. As great as the game was though, there were still a few issues. Our major complaint was the difficulty, and it seemed that no matter how large our own Brad Nicholson's muscles grew, he just couldn't do very well in the game. There was also a substantial group of people in our forums and elsewhere who were calling for a landscape mode, since playing The Blocks Cometh in portrait was a pretty cramped experience.

In the just released 1.5 update to the game, Halfbot looks to remedy both of these major complaints, while at the same time adding in a whole bunch of other cool things to boot. Addressing the difficulty is the new Casual mode, which features slower moving blocks and the ability to get squished by blocks 3 times before it causes a game over. In addition to Casual mode, there is now an Arcade mode as well which gives you the benefit of the extra lives but the blocks move at regular speed.

The next big feature in this update is the ability to play in landscape mode at any time simply by turning your device. Landscape mode causes the screen to shrink considerably so as not to cut off any of the same area you would have in portrait mode, but it still remains large enough to play easily and there are nice borders on the sides for the virtual buttons to sit. Landscape definitely offers up a way more comfortable way to play the game. If I had to nitpick something it would be that none of the screens outside the actual gameplay are landscape friendly, but this is an extremely minor annoyance.

Another of the big changes is the addition of an in-game store with two 99� in-app purchase options. The first will unlock all 8 additional playable characters in the game, which includes the 4 new ones added in this latest update. Every character can be unlocked normally just by achieving certain goals in the game, but if you're not patient enough for that sort of thing then the option is there to spend a buck and get them all at once.

The second IAP is much more interesting. It's actually a whole new mode called GameBot which gives you a retro Game Boy inspired version of the game. GameBot can only be played in landscape mode, and the outside edges of the screen are mocked up to look like a classic portable system. Gameplay is essentially the same, though it does have a slightly different feel to it and you aren't able to choose a character. But something about it is just a lot of fun, especially if you ever owned an old handheld like the Game Boy.

The remainder of the update contains 30 Game Center achievements as well as general bug fixes and optimizations. Also, all 4 of the modes that are in the game now each have their own Game Center leaderboard to climb. If you picked up The Blocks Cometh before but couldn't hang with playing in portrait mode or thought it was too difficult, you should definitely give the updated version another spin. If you've been enjoying The Blocks Cometh since the beginning, then there are plenty of goodies in this latest update to keep you further entertained as well.

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Ticket to Ride [$6.99] is a tremendous board game-to-digital game translation. It looks and feels authentic and boasts a wide range of features. It's a sharp title through and through, but it was missing a couple of things at launch, namely a pass-and-play option. That has since been added. Developer Days of Wonder hit us up about the game's most recent patch, which adds the aforementioned mode for up to four friends or a mix of friends and AI. It even hides your cards when you pass the device, which is a super-smart design decision.

More was added in this update, though all take a backseat to pass-and-play. You can now mute voices if you don't want to hear them, as well as skip some animations. The buttons in the game's silly "Central Station" now have names so you know what you're clicking on, and hey, if you're colorbind, "better support" has been added in. Finally, there's been an update to the netcode for people with crappier connections. Most notably, if you drop out of a match, there's now an option to do a quick recovery and jump back into action.

That's a lot stuff addressed and there's still more. If you're interested in learning all, hit up the game's full patch notes at this iTunes link.

Ticket To Ride is easily one of the better board games turned digital, and this update only strengthens its position. If you'd like a more critical dissection of the title look no futher than our review. Spoiler: it's glowing.

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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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