In this week's bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show, we speak with Rocketcat Games' Kepa Auwae about Rocketcat's past, present, and future and discuss his studio's action RPG Mage Gauntlet [$2.99] in great detail. Kepa keeps it real the entire time. Dude spills the beans on the studio's plans for a trilogy, a free-to-play spin-off, and what it's probably going to do to improve on the current build of Mage Gauntlet. This was a spectacularly fun conversation, and if you're a fan of Mage Gauntlet, you'll undoubtedly leave it with some excitement.

If you'd like to give us a listen, go ahead and do so via streaming or direct download. You could also subscribe to use on iTunes or Zune to get every new episode the second they hit the Internet. If you ask me, this is the premier way to enjoy your TouchArcade orally.

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iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-022.mp3, 25MB

If you've got the time this week, we'd really love to hear your positive feedback on our iTunes reviews page. Also, feel free to fire us an e-mail: podcast@toucharcade.com.

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The mobile division of Nexon Co. is readying an iOS version of their popular free-to-play online first-person shooter Combat Arms. Known as Combat Arms: Zombies, the title has been developed using Unreal Engine 3 and is based off of the zombie themed cooperative Fireteam Mode from the original game. There aren't many details regarding Combat Arms: Zombies at the moment, but Nexon Mobile hints that they are interested in supporting the game post-release until it almost equals the full scale of the original Combat Arms online game.

I've never played Combat Arms, but this Zombies edition sounds like a cooperative survival mode similar to the popular Call of Duty: Zombies [$4.99/HD] that's been a pretty big hit on iOS the past couple of years. The first trailer for the game looks pretty darn impressive, and although it doesn't appear to show any actual gameplay, it does seem that the entire video was rendered using an in-game engine.

Combat Arms: Zombies will first be unveiled in playable form at the G-Star 2011 expo in South Korea on November 10th. The release date is expected sometime shortly after, though nothing specific has been confirmed. We'll of course be keeping our eye out for Combat Arms: Zombies as it gets closer to release, and bring you any new information or media as we get it.

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Retro gamers are about a week out from a true bundle of 8-bit gaming goodness, with a promise of much more to come. On the weekend of October 28th, Elite Systems will be releasing the Elite Collection and Elite Collection HD (for iPad) that bring a dozen 8-bit games to the App Store, and at a week-long introductory price of $0.99.

Last month I spoke with Elite Systems co-founder Steve Wilcox who took me through his studio's plans to bring a great number of notable 8-bit titles from years past to iOS gamers, using a new proprietary technology developed within Elite. This new system, or facilitator, brings these titles to iOS at near 100% accuracy and allows a great degree of control customization thanks to the studio's "iDaptive" control system. Elite's initial move in this effort involved ZX Spectrum-only titles, but it's worth noting that with this new collection, Elite has pushed beyond just the ZX Spectrum platform.

The first wave of titles in the Elite Collection effort arrived at the end of last month in the form of individual, stand-alone titles. The games released were Black Magic, First Samurai, and Enforcer � all in both iPhone and iPad "HD" versions.�The Elite Collection arriving this weekend brings 12 titles in all, as well as an in-app store through which additional games will be made available (and the plan is for over a hundred titles in all).

[ Also see - video links for: Black Magic, Enforcer, First Samurai ]

The bundled titles consist of:

• Elite Collection Vol. #1:
  • featuring ALTERNATE REALITY: THE CITY and also including
  • Black Magic
  • Alternate Reality: The Dungeon
• Elite Collection Vol. #2:
  • featuring URIDIUM and also including
  • Buggy Boy (a.k.a. Speed Buggy)
  • First Samurai
• Elite Collection Vol. #3:
  • featuring BUNDESLIGA MANAGER and also including
  • Denaris
  • Enforcer
• Additional 8-bit "Singles":
  • Battleships (a.k.a. Battleship)
  • Frank Bruno's Boxing
  • Batty

Released simultaneously with the Elite Collection will be the individual, stand-alone titles Alternate Reality: The City, Uridium, and Bundesliga Manager DE, each in both iPhone and iPad "HD" versions at $0.99 each.

Wilcox indicates that Elite will be releasing four volumes of games, each consisting of one to six 8-bit home computer titles, each month. One of the titles soon to be released is a particularly excellent game that's sure to get many readers out there excited: Choplifter! At the time of its initial release, the Elite Collection in-app store is expected to have 13 additional titles available for download. We'll have more on those when the app goes live.

Some prospective additions to the Elite Collection's in-app shop, down the road, are:

• Audiogenic Software Vol. #1 featuring Emlyn Hughes International Soccer
• Free Fall Games Vol. #1 featuring Archon II: Adept
• Geoff Crammond Vol. #1 featuring Stunt Car Racer
• Ozark Softscape Vol. #1 featuring M.U.L.E.

Between their ZX Spectrum-based efforts and these new 8-bit titles, Elite is truly driving a massive campaign that I feel sure most every retro gamer out there can appreciate. We'll keep readers updated as new titles arrive, but in the meantime, enjoy these excellent games from a different time.

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I discovered tower defense late in my gaming career. I have no good justification for this. Perhaps I was too busy burying my face into all the RPGs and sidescrollers I could find. However, my intro game into the genre was PixelJunk Monsters, and if you gotta discover late, it may as well be with one of the genre's best entries. Ever since, I salivate Pavlovian-style every time someone murmurs the words "tower defense," and I had the same reaction when Gem Keeper [$2.99] was mentioned around the Touch Arcade office. I also was digging the fact that NCSoft made it, because I like them and I wanted to see how their skills would translate to iOS.

Like any proper tower defense title, Gem Keeper has plenty of levels to keep your building skills busy. 30 are available in total, and over the course of gameplay you have the ability to earn 14 different towers to use to strategically keep baddies out of your fortress. You'll start slow, with only a basic gunfire tower and a few bombs at your disposal. However, soon enough you'll be slowing em down with sticky goo and firing giant spiked cannonballs. I loved that you had the option to switch between Easy, Medium and Hard difficulty at anytime, even right before you start a level. Gem Keeper doesn't disappoint when it comes to the challenge either, but I'll return to that later.

Everything about the presentation of Gem Keeper has the potential to vault it to the top picks of this genre for iOS. It runs smoothly and has very cute animations, but it still has a mature enough feel that adults won't be turned off by the look of it. It does feature many of the hallmarks of tower defense titles: you'll plant towers to try to ward off waves of enemies, you can upgrade or rip down your towers at anytime, and it increases in difficulty as you progress. However, one thing that it does that is unique is allow you to build towers on sliding rails, so as the waves come by, you can move the towers with a swipe of a finger so they keep getting fired upon. This is an excellent way to keep the player engaged, instead of just sitting there watching to see if what you've built is enough. This extra little bit of action was enough to keep me much more engaged than I am in the usual tower defense title.

The three stages (each has ten levels) are Forest, Ice and Mine, so you'll be able to enjoy different "themes", as they call them. One thing I noticed was that NCSoft actually went out of their way to make the Normal level decently challenging. Usually I zoom through them without a hitch, but by the time I got to the Ice world, I had to replay levels several times each to get a feel for what was coming and what towers had to be built and ripped down at what intervals. The game keeps you busy, and I really enjoyed that. You won't be able to just build a bunch of towers and boost them � you'll need to use your brain to figure out exactly which towers work for what waves and stay on top of building and breaking down; otherwise, you won't pass the level. In other words, it will keep you busy, and is an ideal fit if you want a challenge.

Gem Keeper is simply a stunner in both execution and gameplay, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Whether you plow through the 30 stages of Adventure mode or go for Endless gameplay just to see how many waves you can fend off, this game is lovely to look at and even more fun to play. Tower defense fanatics, beware though � you're about to lose a lot of your free time.

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