We've been following Chair's Infinity Blade [$5.99] like a hawk since we first caught wind of the game at the Apple Keynote. Through various interviews, trailers, screenshots, and other snippets of information, the hype surrounding Infinity Blade's release couldn't possibly be more intense. For what it is, it's an absolutely fantastic gesture-based fighting game that has without a doubt the best graphics we've seen so far on an iOS device. However, for all that it is, there are also many things that it's not.

The game opens with a cut scene with your character ascending the castle to come face to face with the God King. In a cryptic foreign language decoded with subtitles, they chat back and forth for a bit before the God King dispatches his guard to fight you. This begins a brief tutorial which ultimately ends in the God King slamming his Infinity Blade straight through your gut, draining your essence, and powering up the God King even further. This begins the infinite loop that is Infinity Blade, as 20 years later, your successor stands staring the very same castle in the face.

Navigating the castle is all done via a point and click interface, where you tap pulsating circles, watch a brief cinematic animation, and wind up where you tapped. At each stop you can look around, but you can never move anywhere but to the next waypoint. When an enemy appears, you can inspect them with a button in the bottom right corner of the screen, or tap them to fight them, which is when the real fun begins.

Infinity Blade is a game of technique more than anything else. Looking at the combat at its most basic level, you're able to swing your sword by swiping, block by tapping the block button in the bottom center of the screen, or dodge either direction by tapping the bottom right or left sides of the screen. Sure, you can randomly block, dodge, and swing wildly, but doing well really involves putting all these moves together to avoid taking any damage while dishing as much out as you can.

My favorite part of the combat system is parrying. When fighting enemies, you're able to parry attacks by swinging your sword in the direction to collide with the incoming strike. It's not that simple though, as different enemies all have different attack speeds, as well as different attacks which might be faster or slower. An immense amount of timing is required to successfully parry, especially as you progress in the game. For instance, you might be fighting an enemy who is winding up a slow but extremely powerful attack. If you swing your sword too soon, you'll just scratch the enemy. Too late, and you'll have already taken it to the face. Dodging works much the same way.

The truly neat part of all this is just how well the animation of your character translates to each swipe on the screen. If you swipe right, your character swings right, swipe left, and he swings left, and so on. What you begin to realize once you get farther in to the game is just how exact and deliberate each swipe needs to be. There isn't any way to cancel your current swing once you swipe on the screen, so swiping in the wrong direction or at the wrong time can leave you open for attack for the entire duration of the swing animation. It all works incredibly well, and is just ridiculously cool once you begin to grasp these kind of nuances.

Once you successfully progress through the castle, which will likely only take you around a half hour of solid play, you'll be face to face with the God King again. It seems like with perfect technique, beating the God King might be possible on your first play through, but it seems far outside my ability. Inevitably, you will die, which just like the beginning of the game leads to your essence being sucked out. Thankfully, the God King is a good sport, and seemingly allows your next of kin to retrieve your corpse, all your gear, and any experience you've accumulated.

After that, the next bloodline begins, with the successor of the previous victim of the God King overlooking the castle ready to try again. Why the God King keeps giving your loot to your predecessor and why your family doesn't just decide that killing God Kings just isn't for them isn't ever explained. If you don't kill the God King, you can send generation after generation of your bloodline to their death. Maybe I'm too much of a pacifist, but if I had heard that my great grandpa, my grandpa, and my Dad were all killed by the same God King, I'd explore a career in something other than revenge, but I digress.

The way the equipment, experience, and magic system works in Infinity Blade is awesome. You earn experience through items, and as you fight, items are filled with experience until they're mastered. For example, you buy a new sword from the in-game store with your gold coins that looks really cool. That sword has its own experience bar, and it gains a bit of experience after each battle. Any experience it earns, you also earn, and your character also has his own experience bar for leveling up. Once you fight enough with that sword to fill its experience bar, you master it. Mastered items provide an additional bonus, with the drawback that you can no longer gain experience through that item.

This requires you to balance your equipment load-out based on several factors. Obviously, experience is required to level up your character. Using all mastered items, or more than a few, flat-out stops or greatly reduces the amount of experience you're able to earn. If you've got a difficult battle coming up, you could equip all your mastered items to be more effective, but you'd be sacrificing all the experience you'd earn from the fight. Additionally, items have elemental properties to them for casting magic spells such as a fire spell, a lightning spell, and more. These are executed by tapping an icon when it's ready in the top right corner of the screen, then drawing the spell's gesture on the screen.

The equipment system adds a really great element of replay value to the game. While the looping nature of the game is a little silly, the RPG-loving experience bar filling side of me absolutely loves how you're constantly cycling new gear, leveling that gear up, and equipping something new. With each play through as your strength increases, so do the enemies you're fighting, and the rewards you're given.

If you were expecting Infinity Blade to be some massive open-world RPG and any number of other things I've seen people on our forums suggesting, you're going to be sorely disappointed. If all you were looking for is a fighting game with a really cool input method that fits perfectly with iOS devices, you're going to be in for a treat. The RPG elements are very light, but the fighting is solid, and the graphics are the best we've seen so far on the App Store. Infinity Blade is universal, and seems to play equally well on both the small screen of the iPhone and the big screen of the iPad. I cannot stress enough just how great the graphics in this game are. The bar has been raised, and anyone with a device capable of running the game needs to download Infinity Blade to see what the iOS platform is capable of.

Iteration is hard. In games, you can either tack on more mechanics on top of the original's foundation or you can choose to take it apart, brick by brick, and rebuild it into something familiar, but better. Most studios choose the former. Some choose the latter. And others choose to do a mix of the two.

Puzzle Quest 2 [$9.99] is a title that features a mix. It retains what made the original oh-so-good, but also boasts fresh ideas. New glove gems let you use weapons in battle and a more personal isometric viewpoint makes you feel like you're an active participant in both the game world and a narrative that would have Tolkien rolling in his grave.

That's rather broad, so let's dive into the basics. Puzzle Quest 2 is a match-3 title drenched in RPG trappings. You'll start the game by picking from a crop of traditional fantasy classes, each with their own abilities, and then be thrust into a medieval world with a lot of problems. People will want you to fetch them items, explore places, or kill monsters.

You can level up, equip weapons and items, craft even more, and navigate dungeons one grid at a time. Like in the previous Puzzle Quest, movement is restricted to following a developer-created path. You do not have complete control of your dude. But, really, that never matters. This is a game about killing, not meandering.

Most of the RPG stuff is tied to the battle system. Battle is where you'll spend most of your time and the most meaningful place where the match-3 ties component ties in. When you initiate battle with a foe, you'll be blasted to an interface filled with multi-colored gems, skulls, and gloves. Lining up three or more skulls does damage to your foe, while simple gem matches act as fuel for magical feats.

Battle is turn-based, so there's no time crunch.� You act and then the goblin, yeti, tiger-man, or whatever acts. But the fact that there isn't a timer is important; it gives you time to line up bonuses. If you match three or more of something, you get another turn. Start a cascade of several matches and get another turn.

RPG overlaps here. You can equip weapons and defensive items or even items that have an affect on how many gems you can collect. You also level up, so your HP, strength, and defensive prowess can change between battles. These elements act as a carrot, sure, but they're also crucial in keeping the match-3 play interesting, deep, and above all, entertaining.

The AI, to some degree, is balanced appropriately for battle. However, there are some humdingers that you'll need to grind out levels in order to beat. Puzzle Quest 2 is smart in that it has a one-off "Quick Battle" mode that allows to just fight, without the dungeon, in order to get precious experience points.

The majority of the time these systems play nice with each other, but every once in awhile you'll hit a vicious snag. Some AI monsters are poorly balanced. They'll either destroy you in just a matter of turns or frequently rip off brutal combinations. You can also see the virtual dice rolls favoring the AI in these conflicts.

I also think Puzzle Quest 2 suffers from system overload. There's just too many dice rolling at once, be it from the game negotiating your level, a critical hit, a defend, a combination, or whatever. It kills the simplicity of the play and often prolongs even the simplest battle for far too long.

And while we're talking about systems, I'll add that there are new mini-games in Puzzle Quest 2, all designed to make a simple task much harder. For example, in order to get loot, you'll have to earn it via a match-3 mini-game. The same goes for bashing in closed doors or disarming traps. I can appreciate the attempt here, as it does offer a chance of pace from monster conflicts, but these mini-games pop up much too often.

If you haven't caught on by now, I'll make it plain. Puzzle Quest 2 for iOS appears to be a picture perfect port of the console and handheld versions of the game, which hit digital and brick-and-mortar shelves earlier this year. It's also optimized for iOS, offering simple to use and intuitive touch controls. On my iPad, it's a brilliant game and it does hold up on an iPhone 4 as well.

This is in start contrast to the first game, Puzzle Quest Chapter 1 and 2 [$6.49 / Lite] which initially served as a shining example as a terrible iOS port. It got better over a series of updates, but even now it's a little rough around the edges.

Let's just forget that game ever happened because Puzzle Quest 2 is a superior product in every imaginable way and a great game all on its lonesome. Sure, it can get repetitious and, yeah, sure, it has its issues, but it's still an entertaining game and a full-featured one on iOS. Give it a shot.

Is the video game killing the board game? I don't know, man, but I think you can argue that tabletop licensors themselves are doing a brilliant job driving nails into their products' respective caskets. Take a look at digital storefronts and you'll see classic tabletop-properties-turned-video-games like Carcassonne [$9.99] and Connect 4 [99�] lined up next to non-traditional games like The Maw or Battlefield 1943. It's weird.

I think the reason why licensors choose to peddle digital versions of their games extends beyond obvious cold business realities. Games like Connect 4 translate well to digital, first of all. But more importantly, these games operate as touchstones. You remember sinking your sister's Battleship [99�] battleship. This stuff has emotional weight.

For me, no other game conjures as many memories as Monopoly [$9.99]. This is why I buy the game so damn much. And while it's oft been digitized, until this afternoon, the game hasn't been put on the platform that makes the most sense: The iPad.

So, let's talk about it.

Foremost, this is a faithful recreation of the board game. All the pieces, all the house rules, the buildings, and the properties are present and accounted for. Furthermore, the game's presentation nails the actual board, making for a nostalgic and satisfying experience. Seriously, look at this thing. It's a perfect and slick recreation.

What's missing is all the tactile stuff: piece movements, money exchanges, card pick-ups, and property flip-flops are automated. This isn't a huge deal, but there is a small part of me that still wants to move my Top Hat Of Doom across the board and I just can't get that from this version of the game.

The die, however, aren't automated. You'll need to grab and roll the dice with a touch and a swipe in order to progress. It's a cool touch, but also one that shows off how wonky the game's physics engine is. When rolled, the dice respond like rubber balls surround by an invisible wall, needlessly bouncing off its unseen surface. The bad dice physics also showcase a bad camera that needlessly attempts to follow the die's ridiculous bouncing. It's jarring in that "The Blair Witch Project" sort of way.

Other unautomated actions include auctions and trades. These, of course, require some bits of intuitive UI and active participation. Surprisingly, the AI holds up pretty well in both these realms � it's savvy without being too know-it-all. It's also pretty good at housing up its properties on top of getting what it needs, so look out.

Monopoly has several game modes. There's a "Play Now" option that lets you play with up to four AI. And there's also a "Tabletop Mode" which offers pass-and-play opportunities with others. On an iPad, this is almost perfect since the touch screen is so large. I had a good time with another, at least.

I'll mention that there's a "Teacher Mode" that instructs how to play the game while you actually participate in a session. There's also a "Local Network Play" option that operates as implied.

It feels funny to talk about all this tech voodoo about Monopoly. This version does such a great job at recreating the feel of the game, conjuring up those memories, and sating that itch to play the actual board game, that you tend to forget that it's just an iOS title. Come to think of it, this is what really matters. Go buy it already.

According to Kotaku, gaming guru Graeme Devine has left Apple. Devine got his start in development in the late 70's on the TRS-80 before being hired at the age of 16 to work at Atari, helping to bring Pole Position to various home computers including the Commodore 64 and Apple IIe. From there, he went on to co-found Trilobyte Games which then went on to release both The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. After leaving Trilobyte, he worked with Id on many games, including Quake III Arena and Doom 3. More recently, he was lead designer for Halo Wars, an RTS set in the Halo universe.

At Apple, Graeme held a key position making sure that gaming on iOS devices was as good as it could be. In an interview with Kotaku, he explained some specifics of his responsibilities:

"My job there was basically to make gaming on the iOS devices fantastic," Devine said. "Basically that meant looking at the technologies involved and making sure the software played well with the hardware, to look at upcoming hardware/API and say 'Yup, that is a good thing'.

"Apple didn't have an in-house game designer before me so I think it was pretty unique, game technologies touch everything from the graphics stack to touch latency to push notifications. No other app type covers so many technologies and having someone there to validate and help shape that was basically my day job. It was pretty kick ass."

His reasoning for leaving Apple lies in his desire to return to game design, specifically targeting the iPhone and iPad. He even provided the following hint for his next title, which is going to be for the "Mac desktop".:

We're not sure if this means it will be appearing in the Mac App Store or not, but we hope so. Either way, we're sad to hear that Apple has lost such fantastic game design talent, but at the same time it's great to hear that Graeme Devine is getting back to building games.

[via Kotaku]

Industry Gamers reports on the results of a new survey from market research firm Interpret revealing that users of handheld games are increasingly moving away from dedicated devices such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP in favor of smartphones such as the iPhone.

The report, "The Phone Gaming Revolution: Do the DS and PSP Stand a Chance?," found that 43.8% of the phone/DS/PSP gaming market plays games on phones, which represents a significant 53.2% increase over the past year. At the same time, Interpret says that the proportion of those who play on the DS or PSP has fallen by 13%.

But while that data could indicate that the market for handheld gaming is simply expanding with the increasing capabilities of phones, other data shows that users of dedicated gaming devices are in fact abandoning those devices in favor of their phones.

The company notes, "Gamers appear to be defecting from their handheld gaming devices to phones to get their gaming kicks: a full 27.2% of consumers who indicate that they play games on their phones only (and not on the DS/PSP) actually own a DS or PSP, but do not actively use the device(s)."

With existing dedicated gaming devices being forsaken in favor of all-in-one smartphone devices, some analysts are questioning whether dedicated devices have a significant role in the future portable gaming market. Sony at least appears to be responding to the threat with a "PlayStation Phone" of its own that appears to be an Android-based device offering many of the features of a smartphone while also including hardware buttons akin to those found on traditional handheld gaming devices.

[Originally Posted on MacRumors]

2D Boy's World of Goo has a ton of history behind it. It was originally released completely DRM and license-free for the Mac and PC (as well as the Wii nearly a year later) and saw amazing reviews from the gaming press. This is where you'd expect the story of the game to then end in 2D Boy making tons of money and everyone living happily ever after, as PC gamers are constantly harping on developers about restrictive copy protection (like StarForce) or cumbersome CD key systems is what drives them to piracy. Sadly, not long after its release, despite all the critical acclaim and awards, 2D Boy's publisher filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy as only 1 out of 10 people playing World of Goo had paid for it.

The good news despite all that is 2D Boy is still around, and they've been hard at work on an iPad version of World of Goo that's scheduled to launch on December 16th for $9.99. If you've never played the game before, you're going to be in for an absolute delight. The goal of each of the levels is to use the various goos to construct structures to reach the end pipe of each level where they're sucked up in to a huge tank. It isn't a new gameplay mechanic at all, as tons of developers (even on the App Store) have built strikingly similar structure building games before.

Where World of Goo pulls ahead of the pack is in its remarkable presentation. Everything in this game flows together flawlessly, from the difficulty curve to how the graphics combine with the music, to the various silly cut scenes and introductions of new goos, and more. This is all enhanced by the new multitouch interface which allows you to drag around multiple goos, build and move the camera at the same time, and more. It feels so natural that I'm not sure how I played the game with a mouse before.

Next week is going to be insane with even more pre-holiday releases than today, but if you own an iPad, make sure you save ten bucks to download World of Goo. Even if you've played through it before, it's such a substantially different and better experience on the iPad that I cannot recommend it enough.

With one Thursday to go before the iTunes Connect holiday lock out, tonight we're going to see the first of the avalanche of pre-Christmas releases. This Wednesday works the same as every other Wednesday on the App Store, but if you're not familiar, here's the gist- Entirely too many developers have banded together in some kind of secret Dr. Strangelove war room and have determined that releasing games on a Thursday is the best time to do it. When you set the release date in iTunes Connect to Thursday, games launch in international markets as the Earth spins and it slowly becomes Thursday in those areas. New Zealand is first, and us lucky Americans are last. All of these games will be available at 11:00 PM EST tonight, or earlier if you're in a region east of us.

Infinity Blade (Universal), $5.99 � [Forum Thread] � This game hardly needs an introduction anymore. Chair's epic sword fighter is on the verge of finding its way into the grubby hands of iDevice owners. We've been playing the preview version, and it's fantastic. Some will likely be disappointed by what Infinity Blade isn't, as it isn't an open-world game, you can't control your movement, and even calling it any kind RPG is a bit of a stretch. What it is is a really great gesture-controlled sword fighter based on the Unreal Engine that everyone with a recent device really needs to download.

Puzzle Quest 2 (Universal), $9.99 � [Forum Thread] � The original Puzzle Quest [$4.99] was a ton of fun, and Puzzle Quest 2 expands upon the same awesome matching formula with RPG elements layered on top. Try Puzzle Quest Free [Free] first if you'd like, but this game is a safe purchase for any fan of puzzle games with depth.

Illusia, $4.99 � [Forum Thread] � Gamevil is calling Illusia a "casual platform game", which looks an awful lot like Maple Story to us. There are multiple classes, tons of gear to collect, and a bunch of character customization to delve into.

Dead Rising Mobile, $4.99 � [Forum Thread] � We got really in depth with our preview of the game, and despite its flaws, I couldn't help but enjoy it. Dead Rising is one of my favorite zombie slaughtering series, and I'm surprised by how well Capcom managed to translate the game to the iPhone.

TXT Fighter, 99� � [Forum Thread] � Similar to Texting of the Bread [$1.99], TXT Fighter puts your typing skills to the test, to, well, fight. We thought the game was cool in our preview, which is filled with more information about the title.

Pogo Games, Free � [Forum Thread] � EA is bringing over some favorite free games from their online Flash game portal Pogo.com. This is totally free, but without a membership to the Pogo service you'll be viewing some ads.

A Moon for the Sky, 99� � [Forum Thread] � This looks to be a cool little jumping game with a control mechanic that involves drawing platforms for the little moon to bounce up. 18 levels are included, as well as an endless mode.

Hero Project, Free � [Forum Thread] � A freemium game that revolves around building up a super hero and fighting bad guys. It sounds like an interesting premise, but like all of these free to play games, it really comes down to the balance between playing and paying. I'm just glad developers are breaking away from incredibly tired building and farming game types.

Jenga, $2.99 � [Forum Thread] � A curious title to see on the App Store, considering how much of actually playing Jenga involves such precise finger work. Regardless, the developers build this with the help of Leslie Scott, the inventor of Jenga, so it should be interesting to see how it all works. Jenga comes with multiple game modes as well as pass and play multiplayer.

Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Zombies vs. Pandas, 99� � [Forum Thread] � Another take on the Angry Birds formula, this time with the injection of every cliche imaginable aside from farts. There are 4 campaigns across 45 levels, along with 8 different dudes to fling at the pirates, ninjas, zombies, and pandas.

Monopoly for iPad, $9.99 � [Forum Thread] � Finally, Monopoly for the iPad. I've had a ton of fun playing various board games and other local multiplayer games on my iPad, and I expect Monopoly to be just as good.

Eternal Legacy, $6.99 � [Forum Thread] � Gameloft's take on Final Fantasy XIII, featuring a curiously similar spiky haired protagonist and turn-based battle system. I'm anxious to see how much the story grabs me with this game, as while Gameloft games historically have been technically impressive, the plot and voice work (two things that are fairly important in a Final Fantasy-esque RPG) have left much to be desired.

Update: Oddly enough, Gameloft seems to have released this game early. Eternal Legacy seem to be available everywhere.

Dungeon Hunter 2, $6.99 � [Forum Thread] � We liked the first Dungeon Hunter [$4.99] quite a bit, as it had everything a good dungeon crawler needs: Tons of enemies, loot everywhere, and multiple classes to spice things up. The sequel is said to have all that, in addition to online coop multiplayer. I can't wait to try this out.

In addition to all the above games, the following HD iPad versions are also being released tonight:

• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for iPad, $9.99
• Assassin's Creed Altair's Chronicles HD, $6.99
• Snood for iPad, $4.99
• A Moon for the Sky HD, $1.99
• Hero Project for iPad, Free
• Hooga HD, $2.99
• Jenga HD, $4.99

Holy cow, now that is a lot of games. Also, EA handles their releases in two different versions, an "international" version and a "US" version. The above links for EA titles are all the international versions, which we'll update with the US links as soon as they are available at 11:00 PM EST tonight.

Last month we posted some news about an impending update to Flight Control HD [$4.99] that would add an online multiplayer mode to coincide with the introduction of iOS 4.2 and Game Center to iPads. As planned, just a couple of days after iOS 4.2 was introduced several weeks back, the update to Flight Control HD was released. Earlier today, the original Flight Control [99�] for iPhone and iPod touch played catch up to its HD sibling and received a similar update adding online multiplayer using Apple's Game Center.

The multiplayer mode in Flight Control is actually quite a lot of fun. For those who haven't played it before, one player takes control of the red commercial planes and the other player controls the biplanes and helicopters. As you land the aircraft you're responsible for, you simultaneously send your opponents aircraft off the edge of your own screen to appear onto theirs. The trick is to not send a plane in the same spot that they are sending you one, as there's a high probability they will crash. It's more of a cooperative effort than a competitive one. As a nice touch, the new update includes support for voice chat which makes it very easy to strategize with whoever you are playing with.

In our testing of the Game Center multiplayer, everything worked pretty well, although with some hiccups. Games where I directly invited a friend from my Game Center friend list all worked flawlessly. When I searched for random matchups, however, it was a bit more hit or miss. Some games were just fine, but some lagged horribly to the point of being unplayable. Likely this is just due to the update being so new, and the fact that there aren't quite as many players online means I'm getting matched with people really far away from me. It'll be interesting to see how the multiplayer performs as more players update in the coming days.

At any rate, it's a welcome new feature to one of the most popular games on the App Store, and if you haven't already make sure to update your copy of Flight Control and hop online for some matches, or drop by the thread in our forums if you're looking for some people to play.

Alright Street Fighter fans, you've spoken loud and clear and Capcom has heeded your cries. Last month, we posted about the latest update to Street Fighter IV [$9.99] for iPhone. In this update, a brand new multiplayer mode was added that will auto-connect players into a match via Bluetooth if they are within range of each other. Also, two new playable characters were added to the roster of fighters, Sagat and Dee Jay. This is nothing new by now, as Street Fighter IV has been one of the most well supported titles in the App Store with a ton of new content and characters added in updates since the game was initially released last March.

Something was different about this last update though. Sagat was available right out of the gate, but in order to unlock Dee Jay one would have had to engage in 3 Bluetooth multiplayer matches with another device owner who also had the game. This made sense from the developer's perspective, as they had just come out with an interesting new multiplayer mode and would like to entice players to check it out by rewarding them with a character for doing so. The problem though is that many players in our forums and elsewhere didn't know anybody else with an iOS device, or if they did those people weren't avid gamers who owned a copy of Street Fighter IV. This left people frustrated as they had no way of unlocking Dee Jay, unless they happened to own multiple devices and could play versus matches against themselves (which is exactly how I ended up unlocking him).

Well, this is a problem no more, as the update released earlier today addresses this issue by allowing Dee Jay to be unlocked by beating Tournament Mode with every character or by the 3 versus matches requirement. Now, this isn't exactly a cake walk either, as it will take a significant amount of time to work through Tournament Mode with everyone. And I know what you're thinking, you clever player � that you will just change the round count to 1 to speed up the process. But not so fast, as Capcom figured you would try some shenanigans like that and requires that you keep the round count at 3 in order to unlock Dee Jay. At any rate, it's nice to know that even if it takes a little effort, you can now play as Dee Jay without relying on interacting with other human beings. If you have yet to unlock Dee Jay, make sure to grab the latest update for Street Fighter IV and hop into Tournament Mode to get started.