Note: This game is currently available in international markets where it's currently Wednesday or close to it. It will be available in the US App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern. Usually we hold our reviews for American releases, but as huge fans of the original we're very excited for The 7th Guest… So if you want to join in with the excitement, here's our early review:

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Let's rewind time back to 1993. You're sitting at your brand new (or Frankstein monster of upgraded components) DOS-based PC staring at this newfangled CD-ROM drive that you paid an insane premium for, wondering what in the world to do with it aside from listen to your DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince CD on repeat while marveling at just how cool your acid washed jeans were. One thing lead to another and eventually you found yourself staring at the shelf of CD-ROM PC games at the local Egghead Software trying to rationalize the $79.95 price tag. You haven't played a CD-ROM-based game before, and decide to give it a try.

After jumping through all the hoops that installing the game required, you find yourself knee-deep in one of the most impressive things you've ever seen your computer do: Display full motion video and offer a shockingly immersive atmosphere that your previous disk-based games couldn't even begin to touch. You then proceed to spend the rest of the day glued to your computer, endlessly attempting to figure out the puzzles the game contained within.

If you have similar memories of playing these classic CD-ROM based games of the early 90's, this is likely where you can stop reading this review. The 7th Guest [$2.99 / HD] offers the same awesome blast from the past as Myst [$4.99 / Free], and even hearing the music of the opening sequence will be more than worth the three bucks to you. If The 7th Guest was before your time, or you're not the kind of person to mash the download button for the sake of nostalgia, read on…

The 7th Guest is set in a mysterious mansion owned and operated by Henry Stauf, a drifter turned toy-maker, then puzzle maker, then creepy mansion builder thanks to a series of visions he experienced and acted on. I'm reluctant to get too involved in discussing the story of the game, because the way it is revealed through sets of ghostly cut scenes and puzzles is a huge part of the experience. You play as Ego, an amnesiac who finds himself at the mansion, traveling from room to room, solving various puzzles. These puzzles range from incredibly difficult word games, chess-based games, and other logic games.

What you will get out of The 7th Guest largely depends on just how much you rely on outside resources for solving the puzzles. Back in the glory days of CD-ROM gaming, you weren't instantly able to find the solution to any puzzle like you can now thanks to the wonders of Google. You were forced to utilize the in-game hint system, which amounted to a cryptic book found in the library that offers vague hints on how to complete puzzles. If you cheat to find (or remember) the solutions to these puzzles, you'll likely be able to complete the entire game before you know it. However, if you have the gumption to sit down and figure out the puzzles on your own, you'll be in for hours and hours of fun (or frustration).

The game is controlled via a curious conglomeration of the classic mouse pointer the game was originally designed for and the touch interface of iOS devices. When you touch the screen, the pointer appears near your finger. Dragging around and hovering the cursor over things reveals where you can go, where puzzles are, and where paranormal events you can trigger in the house are. "Clicking" is accomplished by lifting your finger off the screen. Whatever you had the pointer hovering over gets "clicked" which triggers everything from movement to selecting puzzle pieces inside of the puzzles.

The control scheme works, but feels far from ideal. The game was originally designed for the precision of a mouse pointer, so changing everything over to being touch sensitive without this workaround would likely require a complete redo of most of the game. In my play through, I didn't come across anything that was impossible to do with this control scheme, but many of the puzzles (especially the more intricate ones) can be downright irritating to complete. On the iPad, these controls work a little bit better thanks to the increased screen real estate, but they still aren't great. The good news is, even though the controls are annoying at times, the game runs substantially faster on the iPhone than it ever did on any other platform I've played it on.

One of the first puzzles you come across is a puzzle where you must divide up a cake evenly. I clearly remember that puzzle on my ancient computer taking forever to complete, because each clip came with its associated sound clip and animation that stuttered across the screen of my PC. On the iPhone, all of these animations are fast and silky smooth. Moving about the mansion is the same way, allowing you to practically run from one side to the other. If it wasn't for the crazy control scheme, this would be the best version of The 7th Guest yet.

As you play the game more, other issues rear their ugly heads. Like many retro ports that have made their way to the App Store, the best part about The 7th Guest is that it's such a faithful port. Consequently, this is also its biggest flaw as gaming has moved forward quite a bit since then, and the lack of any kind of modern gameplay conventions might turn off new players. For instance, the game lacks any kind of undo function in puzzles, forcing you to commit to every move you make, or reloading from your last save if you made a mistake.

Also, the menu system persists from the PC game, forcing you to navigate it with the odd cursor system, even forcing you to type out the names of your game saves with the virtual mouse pointer instead of the native iOS keyboard. The game also seems to have issues with looping music too, leaving you to complete puzzles in silence (aside from voices) once the track that is playing completes.

None of these things stopped me from having fun playing through The 7th Guest, but I would exercise caution if you have no history with and/or no nostalgia for the game. The 7th Guest is a classic early 90's CD-ROM game that still plays exactly like an early 90's CD-ROM game. While I totally appreciate that this port exists, I just wish a little more care was put in to making it into a good iOS game that would appeal to a broader audience to get more people interested in series, instead of merely a good game that runs on the iOS platform that seems catered specifically to lovers of the original.

App Store Links:

• The 7th Guest, $2.99
• The 7th Guest for iPad, $5.99

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First, a few sweeping generalizations about this modern era of gaming. Game designers are implementing better, more intuitive user interfaces and controls. Failure is not so much about punishment as it is disappointment. And complex systems and mechanics are much more streamlined, allowing us to just sit back and play, while still enjoying the various complexities of a given game without the mess and fuss.

Games are just… easier now than what they were before. I think no other genre has benefitted more from modern design than the simulation. Your ten-year-old, for example, can probably enjoy Firaxis' Civilization V just as much as you do, despite the fact that you undoubtedly have a better grasp of it intricacies. It's more playable now, which is quite the change from previous iterations.

But when I look at SimCity Deluxe for iOS [$2.99 / HD], I don't see that new level of polish and refinement, streamlining, and kneading that a lot of modern games showcase. It's just SimCity, except on a touch-based platform. You start with nothing, as usual, and then build a huge, hopefully thriving city with roads, bustling industrial and residential districts, parks, and other constructs ripped from life.

There's no denying that it has a certain magic to it � creating something out of nothing is still as compelling as ever and SimCity is one of the best, most complex series' to do this in. But Deluxe isn't accessible. At all.

I feel like we all know what this franchise is about, so I'll keep this specifics discussion brief: in Deluxe, you need to build roads, water pipes, power lines, dumps, and then manage all of these various bits of infrastructure before you can even start running your city's simulation. And then when you do get to the point of simulating, you'll have to start negotiating these bits and pieces, weighing them against each other while carefully watching a resource meter drain or rise as your city � and it's interesting parts like industry � grow. Later, you'll be able to add money-sucking civic buildings, monuments, and parks, provided you've the infrastructure in place.

And you're always just a few missteps from failure, provided you don't hit the self-destruct button on your own civilization first via alien attack (a real mechanic).

What I'm getting at here is a long-winded way to say that Deluxe is a very traditional SimCity game. It has a few modern bells and whistles, sure. The UI is rather clean and the distinctions between components are crystal clear. Also, it doesn't burden you with ticky-tacky stuff like building houses or non-important buildings. But in most other regards, this is an old-school simulation that requires a lot of time, patience, and Chess-level think-ahead logic for city planning, zoning, and taxing.

The iPhone version of Deluxe launched earlier this summer and received a decent bit of acclaim, though it had a fatal flaw: the screen was too tiny for the abundance of UI elements and the thousands of tiny little grids in which you can build were hard to access as a result. Deluxe, however, is available on the iPad starting today.

Just as you'd expect, it's better for it � it's easier to click within the game and the UI has a lot of breathing room. I still find myself struggling to connect roads and keep things in an orderly fashion, though, I'm thinking this is more a result of the isometric camera than anything else. Working at a slight angle isn't easy for a city planner in the early stages of the game.

Aside from that, we're looking at a picture perfect port with a platform-specific flaw: it tends to chug. The iPhone version of Deluxe is pretty snappy, but the iPad version, for whatever reason, suffers frame drops or otherwise general slowness.

I think I can sum up my impressions of Deluxe with this: the game never entices me to stay in it too long, and I wish I could play it with a mouse and keyboard. The precision isn't there despite the spacing and there aren't enough carrots leading me through.

If you're a card-carrying member of the SimCity Elite Club who has spent many a sleepless night in torturous anticipation of a SimCity for the iPad, you're in a position to enjoy Deluxe. You'll be able to put up with the archaic design, in other words. For those of you out there who aren't familiar with the series and Deluxe would be your first plunge, this isn't the title to start with. For Deluxe, you need a good sense of how SimCity works and what the game demands, or else you'll risk getting lost and frustrated.

Just a couple of mode notes: Deluxe boasts a tutorial that does an OK job of walking you through the basics, but fails to really dive into what it takes to create an uber-successful, bustling city. Starter cities are available, too, for those who can't quite break through the rags-to-riches play or handle Deluxe's much-too-steep learning curve. Additionally, several scenarios are available for the advanced player who wants to hit an end game goal or needs a challenge.

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By this point in time, after two and a half years of the App Store, I find it hard to get excited about a new Papi Jump/Doodle Jump/Mega Jump/(insert word here)Jump game. There's been some great ones to be sure, but it's also one of the most overdone genres in the entire App Store.

But given the pedigree of developer Team Phobic, who have given us popular titles like GravBot [$1.99/Lite/HD] and Bounce On 2 [$3.99/Lite], I was definitely curious to see their take on this particular game type. Pleasantly, Bounce On Up [Free] is actually one of the best examples of an endless high jumping game, with some strategic twists on the formula and the lovable Bounce character from the Bounce On series.

Bounce On Up starts out familiar enough, with a Santa hat adorned Bounce tasked with jumping skywards up a series of multicolored platforms. Tapping the screen makes him jump, and each platform can only be bounced on twice before disappearing. Bounce can also collect various powerups, such as a limited use jetpack or a ninja bandana that gives him a limited number of super jumps.

One of the clever aspects of Bounce On Up is using the different colored platforms to build up a score multiplier. Jumping on 3 of the same color in a row creates a 3X multiplier, and each additional same-colored platform jumped on after that keeps on increasing it. This adds a great risk versus reward element to the game, as sometimes you will go for a more dangerous maneuver in an effort to keep your combo going with the potential of falling into the abyss and ending it all in an instant.

With cool powerups, a strategic multiplier element, and charming graphics, Bounce On Up is worth taking a look at even if you've previously had your fill of this type of game. It's a universal app that's ad-supported and free to download, and for 99� you can disable the ads through IAP. Also, there's Game Center integration for achievement and high score tracking. Players in our forums are really enjoying the game as well, and for free there's no reason not to give Bounce On Up a download.

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