The App Store can be a silly place. Looking over the past year in games, trends have become incredibly apparent. One developer releases a hit game, which then causes everyone else to take notice, often using that hit title as inspiration for their own project. We've seen it time and time again, and even Imangi Studios' previous chart-topping game Harbor Master [$1.99 / Free / HD] leaned heavily on Flight Control [99� / HD] for the basis of their own twist on the line drawing genre.

When we first saw Max Adventure [99�], it was in secret at GDC at a time when it seemed like everyone and their grandmother was hard at work making a dual stick shooter. The game showed some serious potential, but I had no clue how Imangi was going to compete in the increasingly crowded dual stick shooter market and how Max Adventure would stand up against the onslaught of similar games of better and better quality. It turned out that Imangi's strategy (whether intentional or not) was to simply focus on the development of their game and let everyone else move on to the next trend on the App Store.

Now that many developers have moved on to making their own spin on Angry Birds, it's oddly refreshing to play a new dual stick shooter. It's a weird feeling, as I clearly remember how tired I was of the seemingly endless supply of dual stick shooter releases, and how much I dreaded attempting to review them. I'm really not sure what I would have thought of Max Adventure had it been released sandwiched in between Minigore [99� / HD], Guerilla Bob [$2.99], and others… But months later, it's great to once again revisit a game type that works very well on the platform.

The premise of Max Adventure revolves around an alien invasion, and you play as Max, a kid armed with a ray gun and a colander for a helmet. Your task is simply enough, and only involves saving the world. The game opens in Max's neighborhood where the mechanics you're going to be dealing with for the rest of the game are clearly laid out. Max Adventure controls just how you would expect a dual stick shooter to control, and in the middle of the two virtual thumbsticks is a radar screen that shows nearby kids to rescue, the level exit, and potentially even more depending on what upgrades you buy (more on that later).

Progressing through the game involves rampaging through maze-like levels where you'll need to do things like simply find kids and touch them to save them, escort kids, fight bosses, and more. Enemies spawn from pods that drop from the sky, and there is a wide variety of aliens that emerge that all behave differently for you to kill. Some aliens split in to smaller aliens when shot, some charge at you, and some bounce around among other techniques to kill you and/or avoid your ray gun. As you destroy baddies, power-ups are dropped which are then activated by tapping their icon on the top right corner of the screen.

Max can hold on to one power-up at a time, and these will do things like increase your firepower in many different ways, blow up all nearby enemies, make you invincible, heal you, and much more. Aside from power-ups, enemies also drop coins which can then be spent on permanent upgrades for Max. The upgrade shop is accessible in between levels, and by forking over your hard earned coins you can buy passive bonuses such as slowly regenerating health, running faster, having pods show up on your radar, and other things. Once you unlock them, Max has three slots for these bonuses, and figuring out which three you want adds a fun level of depth to the game.

The best part about Max Adventure is that it never really feels repetitive, which has been a major problem for me in many dual stick shooters where all too often exploration and customization takes a back seat to just killing everything that moves. The whole game is set in this extremely cute almost Zombies Ate My Neighbors-like kid-centric universe filled with cartoon style 3D graphics and the music does a fantastic job at setting the mood of the game. Aside from gearing up Max, you also get a good sensation of progression as you make your way through various locales until you're finally on the alien mothership itself.

Better yet, Max Adventure is totally universal and comes packed with Retina Display graphics. On the iPad, the field of view is pulled back a little bit allowing you to see even more of the game and the controls are slightly modified to be more iPad-friendly. Max Adventure isn't limited to the story mode either, there's also a familiar survival mode where you (obviously) see how long you can survive wave after wave of aliens. Max Adventure controls well, plays well, runs great, and the multiple game modes along with universal compatibility is the cherry on top of an already awesome iOS gaming sundae. It even has Game Center for both online leaderboards and achievements if that's your kind of thing.

Max Adventure is launching for the temporary price of 99�. If you're like me, and built up a love/hate relationship with dual stick shooters as the market became more and more inundated with them, Max Adventure is a fantastic foray back in to the genre.

Any App Store gamer will tell you that there is no lack of iOS space shooters available. To be perfectly honest, when I first caught sight of the upcoming Red Nova [99�] from Celsius Game Studios, the developer of Chromodyne [99�/Lite/HD], it didn't look too different from any of the games that I had seen many times before. But after having a preview build of the game on my device for the past couple of weeks, and with the full version now available, it's clear that Red Nova actually does quite a few things to set itself apart from the pack. It has an interesting premise, one of the smartest control schemes I've seen, Game Center integration for high score bragging rights, and above all else it's just a blast to play.

The story goes that a hostile group of aliens is getting ready to invade your territory, but fortunately they have yet to notice the existence of your spaceship headquarters the Red Nova. Not so fortunate is that if Red Nova fires up its engines in an effort to bolt on outta there, the aliens will surely notice and blow it to kingdom come. Your job, as the brave female lieutenant Jules Morgan, is to distract the incoming aliens long enough to give the Red Nova a chance to escape and warn your people of the looming attack. It's basically a suicide mission, but in the process you'll save the many lives of the people on the Red Nova.

The story is a pretty cool way to put what is essentially a survival shooter into a believable context. Red Nova plays similarly to Asteroids in that you have to compensate for your ship's inertia, which will carry you infinitely in the direction you're moving until you change that direction yourself. The controls are absolutely spot on, and the way they are implemented is really clever. The screen is split into 4 equal quadrants. The lower left is a virtual stick that controls your ship's forward movement and turning. The lower right quadrant is a fire button, but you can also slide your thumb up from there to use a special weapon or to the left to lock on to enemies and fire homing missiles at them.

The special items and homing missiles require using energy from a meter which is filled up as you defeat enemies, so as to balance out their use. You can also use collected energy to directly repair your shield by tapping and dragging the upper left quadrant of the screen, or a similar gesture can be used in the upper right to turn an unwanted special item into a small amount of energy. The use of the energy bar adds a strategic element to Red Nova, as you have a choice in how to manage your different resources and can use this to get out of tight situations. Should you use your energy to detonate a bomb and take out a screen full of bad guys? Or maybe use the energy to repair your ship's hull and try to last just a bit longer using your regular cannons?

These kinds of decisions coupled with excellent controls and a frantic pace make Red Nova a complete joy to play. It is not a visual juggernaut by any means, but it does have a crisp and clean look to it, and supports the Retina Display. The real standout part of the graphics is the excellent design of the different enemies, who come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and each have their own unique way of attacking that you must familiarize yourself with. Red Nova is a pretty difficult game, even on the Normal setting, which actually suits its high scoring nature and pure arcade-style gameplay. Just be aware that you will need to spend some time playing before you become fully comfortable and start making some decent scores.

What I really like about Red Nova is that it doesn't try to do everything under the sun, but rather focuses on one thing and does it really well. In this case it offers some of the most fast-paced arcade survival shooting around, and has finely tuned it with a number of different gameplay elements to make the action interesting and fun without being overwhelmingly complex. There is a great foundation in place if additional modes or mechanics are introduced down the line, and indeed the official name of this release is Red Nova: Episode 1 so that is likely in the cards. For now, if you're looking for a nice take on the Asteroids formula, don't hesitate to give Red Nova a look, and swing by the forum thread for a discussion of the game.

Duke Nukem 3D, the game that spawned the greatest Ventrillo prank on the planet with it's oh-so-memorable bile-spitting quotes, is now free on the iPhone and the iPad [Free / HD] for an unspecified amount of time for an unspecified reason.

When we talk about DN3D, it's usually in the context of early shooters like DOOM [$6.99] or Wolfenstein 3D [$1.99]. The Duke represented a change of pace, as well as a dramatic shift in tone and style. DN3D for iOS is a very faithful port of that original PC version, so you'll probably be able to come to understand what all the brouhaha was about � if you decided to give it a download.

Just as a minor note here: the game still suffers the same problems we complained about in our write-up back in August 2009. Simply put, the controls suck. I would normally use words like "unacceptable" and "cringe worthy" to describe them, but those seem a tad too critical considering DN3D's current price of zero dollars.

Need a bit more Duke in your life? Require a refresher before Duke Nukem Forever hits other platforms in 2011? Might as well give this a try. In the words of the Duke: "What are you waiting for? Christmas?" Indeed, sir. Indeed.

Big box games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero (or their App Store equivalents) aren't so different. At the end of the day, they have you strumming or drumming along with the beat of a song. Recent App Store rhythm game release WINta [Free] is different. It has you pounding out beats to the vocals of a given track, meaning the beat isn't all that critical to your success. Freedom from the norm!

The vocal-first mentality of WINta won't strike you as much of a surprise when you take the time to consider who made the game. This is a product of visionary game creator Masaya Matsuura's imagination. Matsuura-san is responsible for the creation of the Parappa the Rapper series, as well as Major Minor's Majestic March for the Wii.

It doesn't take long to master WINta. Its UI is cold and efficient. During each vocal segment of a song, a pattern of psychedelic squares are presented. Whenever the singing starts, you simply press a corresponding square that begins filling up with his or her words.

Sadly, you won't be able to do much with WINta unless you're willing to put down some cash. The game comes with a light, yet informative tutorial and just one song. Other songs can be added at a price, of course, making this a freemium title of sorts.

Interested? Give it a try. While WINta is not my cup of tea, I can see a fair few music game fans having a good time with this. Plus, it's free. Download it already, silly head. What have you got to lose?

If you thought last week's onslaught of releases was nuts, it's starting to look like this week will be even more insane. Aside from all the other games coming out this Thursday (or Wednesday night for us Americans), you can also add Gameloft's NOVA 2 to that list. Also, since this is the last Thursday before the pre-Christmas iTunes Connect lock out, it's safe to assume any game you've heard rumblings about being released this holiday season will also be appearing for download.

This new NOVA 2 trailer shows quite a bit of vehicular combat, which has always been my favorite part of Halo games. Of course the NOVA 2 thread in our upcoming games forum is going crazy with anticipation, and we'll do our best to provide an in-depth look at the game as soon as its released.

If you were looking forward to spending this holiday season curled up next to a fire with a goblet of eggnog in one hand and your iPhone in the other playing Square Enix's upcoming tactical RPG Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for iPhone, you're going to need to come up with alternate plans. According to a recent note posted on Facebook, the game now has an incredibly vague release window of "spring 2011". If they stick to releasing this upcoming spring, the soonest we'll see Final Fantasy Tactics is somewhere in between March 20th and June 21st , the official beginning and end of the 2011 spring season.

This marks the second time that Final Fantasy Tactics has been pushed back, as originally the game had a release date of September 15th. The good news of all this is, unlike some big-name developers who seem to hold game releases to coincide with marketing plans and release schedules, Square is delaying the release to make the game better. Comparing the last screenshot released to these new ones today shows a considerable improvement.

The Facebook page is rather vague, but it sounds like the game now has full 3D maps which can be panned and zoomed around using standard iPhone swiping and pinching gestures. Also, the entire UI has been redone to be touch friendly. It's hard to say how much these screenshots represent the final version of the game as well, since they're sized at 720x480px, a resolution not found on any iOS device. Either way, Final Fantasy Tactics is high up on my list of games I want to play next year.

According to the folks at tech gadget site KnowYourMobile, yes it is. They have posted a video on YouTube showing a very playable version of the game running on iPhone, which they apparently caught a glimpse of during a visit to EA Mobile's offices in London. The video is shot from kind of far away, and doesn't really show a whole lot, but is unmistakably Mortal Kombat on an iPhone. As a huge fan of the 2D Mortal Kombat games, I would be immediately skeptical of controlling such a game with a touch screen, but the video shows a virtual stick and button setup that seems to perform pretty well, and the game is running at a decent speed.

With the long-awaited Mortal Kombat franchise reboot slated for early to mid 2011, a version of the series on iOS would make sense. EA Mobile also recently released a version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for JAVA, so it's conceivable that they could have had an iOS version in the works as well. It's not known whether this is a port of the Ultimate Mortal Kombat that hit the Nintendo DS a few years ago, or possibly a version of the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection HD for consoles that was leaked a few months back but has yet to actually surface. If it does end up being a collection of the first 3 arcade games, then consider me overjoyed.

Feel free to speculate about the game with members in our forums, and we'll be eagerly anticipating any additional information or official word from EA Mobile on this release. KnowYourMobile has said the game will be launching in December, and with nearly half the month already gone I'll be interested to see what becomes of Ultimate Mortal Kombat on iPhone in the next couple of weeks.

The Polar Express-like train of Christmas editions just keeps on chugging, as developer Deceased Pixel has now announced a version of their popular Super Mega Worm [99�/Lite] that will feature ol' St. Nick himself, titled Super Mega Worm Vs. Santa. For those not in the know, Super Mega Worm is a game we reviewed last August that has you playing as a gigantic worm who leaps from the ground destroying as much of modern humanity as possible. It draws inspiration from the original Flash version of Death Worm [99�], but has some slightly different gameplay mechanics and great 8-bit pixel art.

Super Mega Worm Vs. Santa will be a separate release from the original, and feature 15 brand new levels that take place at the North Pole. Apparently Santa has made it to the naughty list of Wojira the Mega Worm, and now him and his army of toy making elves are in for a world of pain. The Mega Worm will have 3 new super abilities and there are over 15 new items to eat and destroy in two different game modes. Of course, the end of the game will feature a boss fight against Santa himself.

Super Mega Worm Vs. Santa has been submitted and is expecting to launch sometime this week for 99�. It will be a universal app and features Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements. More information and additional screens can be found in the upcoming games thread in our forums, and if you've grown tired of all the stories about saving Christmas, be on the lookout for Super Mega Worm Vs. Santa this week for your chance to finally destroy Christmas.

Back in September developers Krabl and FDG Entertainment released the follow-up to the quirky platform puzzler Ynth [$2.99] titled Beyond Ynth [$2.99/HD]. The game used some interesting mechanics, tasking the player with rotating boxes of various sizes and shapes in order to get Kribl, the protagonist bug in the game, to the end of each level. Beyond Ynth had a wonderful art style with Retina Display graphics, clever level designs, and unique gameplay, all of which we noted in our review. About the only thing we didn't like was the oft-frustrating trial and error aspect of the game, something that was mostly remedied with a nifty rewind feature that was introduced in an update last month.

Now, in lieu of a proper lite version of Beyond Ynth, the developers are following in the footsteps of Angry Birds Seasons [99�/HD] and Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift [Free] and have released a free holiday themed version of their game called Beyond Ynth Xmas Edition [Free/HD]. This free ad-supported version features a nice slice of what you would be getting with the full version. There's an entirely new Christmas story that takes place across five levels, Game Center integration, Retina Display support, and the new rewind feature.

The 5 levels in Beyond Ynth Xmas Edition don't last very long, but they do give you an idea of the types of gameplay you'll encounter should you choose to purchase the full version. The short Christmas story is fully voiced with cute hand-drawn cutscenes, and appropriately some of the levels take place in the snow, though the full version features desert and fire levels as well. There are separate versions for both iPhone/iPod touch and iPad, and if you've been wanting to get a taste of Beyond Ynth before deciding to plunk down the cash then give Beyond Ynth Xmas Edition a download.