Freemium experiences on iOS just keep getting better. It wasn't long ago that gamers looking for a free game to play could choose from a variety of -ville and -war titles and very little else. Now, as free-to-play titles regularly hold the top of the charts, we're seeing freemium models worked into all sorts of games.

The latest to catch my fancy is Startales [Free], a darling game about a lonely star seeking the one he loves. Not only does Startales have engaging gameplay, borrowing the hook-and-swing mechanic of games like Hook Champ [$2.99], it also offers something of an emotional experience.

In Startales, you play a small star who has fallen in love. Tragically, you aren't bright enough to be seen by the object of your affections. She simply shines too bright. The other occupants of the sky dedicate themselves toward helping you win your lady love, lending their brightness to you until you shine bright enough.

In practice, this means that you hook your way from cloud to cloud, using your momentum to fling you forward and up into the night sky and collecting the other stars from the sky. Once you have enough, you have a chance to fly with your beloved. If you can keep close to her for long enough, you'll win her over and win the game.

After your first two attempts, which introduce you to the game with everything Startales has to offer, you are faced with a stripped-down version of the game. As you collect stars they're pooled together to act as currency. You can use them to activate a selection of power-ups that allow you to collect more stars, to build up your score or to fly with your love. You have to choose how you want to play � do you want to get the highest score and fly the furthest? Or do you want to win the heart of your love? You'll probably end up doing both, realistically, working on your high score until you have enough stars to fly with your love, and doing it all over again when you fail to win her over.

That was the point where my heart broke, just a tiny bit. I'd worked hard to shine brightly enough to find her, and then I only had a few moments to fly with her at my side. But it was hard to keep up with her and she got away. I followed the on-screen indicator to catch her, but tragedy struck. I launched myself badly and lost her. As I flew, the indicator grew smaller and smaller, then disappeared completely. She was gone. Defeated, I let darkness come up and claim me. I'll be honest � it was actually kind of sad.

If you can't stand the heartbreak, you can purchase extra stars and just keep trying. I prefer to earn my way into her heart, and it helps that the rest of the game is quite a lot of fun. You can choose power-ups that complement your strengths and keep using them as long as you earn enough stars to pay for them. While you're at it, you can use the game's robust multiplier system to work your way up the leaderboard (which will hopefully use Game Center at some future date).

Intrigued? Check it out � Startales is free, after all. And don't forget to share your impressions in our discussion thread.

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Just a couple of months or so ago, we were properly confused by Bungie's mysterious "Crimson" trademark, its "Bungie Aerospace" trademark, and its move to put an official stat-tracking app (and more) on the storefront. Now, we feel a little bit better, as we've been piecing the puzzle together thanks to a reveal or two. Crimson is a game, Bungie Aerospace is a new label from within the studio, and that app was made to support games down the line.

Now that you're all caught up to, I'll hit you with this: Crimson, a co-production between the aforementioned label and Harebrained Schemes, is a pirate game slated to hit the iPad at $0 on September 1st. It'll hit the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android phones at a later date.

We know this because of a brand new�handy-dandy website dedicated to the game, which also makes note of the full name, Crimson: Steam Pirates. According to the blurb on the side of the page, Steam Pirates is a turn-based strategy game that somehow blends moment-to-moment action into the equation, too.

From what we gather, you'll control a fleet of ships across a total of eight possibly story-led "voyages" and use over a dozen different kinds of ships, "over 20 unique crew members" with special powers, and be linked into Bungie.Net's super slick stat-tracking.

If you get the itch to play more of the game beyond these eight missions, you'll be able to grab eight more on launch day for $1.99 (cheap!). Eight more voyages are being planned for a release later.

Harebrained Schemes has its own page for the game, too, which really fleshes out the story, the mechanics, and the game's systems. The FAQ, which is probably more relevant to your interests at the moment is located here. I link to that realizing it's really hard to come to grips with�precisely�how a strategy game play by reading about it in little chunks like this, so we'll definitely do our best to get our hands on it and bring you a cohesive write-up. My gut says this will end up being a sleeker, more controlled approach to Pirates! action.

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An expansive new update is now available for Red Nova [$.99], the super-sleek survival-based space shooter that had us going gaga way back in the year 2010. Naturally, the headliner of the new stuff is a brand new episode (Mercy) that'll have you repelling waves of enemy fighters in a vehicle dubbed the "Raven Heavy Transport." This very vehicle has also been added into episode one of the game, too, if you're really into big ships. A new turret power-up, the Gun Pod, has also been added for big destruction opportunities.

This update also throws in your traditional tweaks and fixes. Specifically, load times have been improved and so has the performance of the rendering engine. The HUD has also seen some additional scrubbing, alongside the radar markers, which now scale for distance. Menu fixes have been introduced, too. Neat!

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If Red Nova is alien to you, you can check out our review. Also, take note that the game's creator is definitely into supporting his title. This is the second big update that we've covered thus far, and I'm fairly confident it won't be the last.

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As the mega-fans of UNO recoil in horror and one-star the game's latest update, Gameloft is preparing a patch to address two of their core issues: the ads and the crashes. In an e-mail floated to us this afternoon, we get the impression that the development team behind the game has identified what the crash problem stems from. More importantly, though, it's fixing it.

The same goes for the ads, which were essentially links to other Gameloft titles. As of this upcoming update, they'll be removed from the main menu and the loading screen, which were the two places they appeared in the first place.

As for the IAP cards… well, apparently there's been a misunderstanding on the user end, as you can disable bonus cards before every match. We've also been told that the game doesn't allow you to use bonus cards that other players don't have access to, which makes a lot of sense from a competitive design standpoint, but has us scratching our heads over the reviews that game has been seeing post-multiplayer update.

As for an ETA on the fixes, we don't have one yet. We've touched base about that and I'd imagine we'll be able to get that to you at some point in the near future.

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