Back in October, we posted a preview video of Bug Heroes from Foursaken Media, developers of the popular iOS title N.Y. Zombies [99�]. The aim of Bug Heroes was to provide a dual-stick shooter combined with elements of tower defense, as well as multiple playable characters who could also level up and upgrade in a somewhat RPG fashion. It sounded like a tall order for an iOS game, possibly too tall, and we were anxious to get our hands on the game to see how it would pan out. Today, Bug Heroes [$1.99] has launched in the App Store, and not only has Foursaken come through with all their promised gameplay variety but they have surprised me with just how remarkably well it all works together.

The bulk of Bug Heroes takes place in the Adventure mode. Here you battle in 4 different environments using a combination of three different characters as you defend a stockpile of food from an onslaught of hungry insect enemies. Money is collected as you defeat enemies which can then be used on various types of upgrades. You can add several different types of turrets to your food pile to protect it while you are away, or you can buy better weaponry to increase the offense of each character. Gameplay involves exploring each environment to collect additional food to add to your stockpile while simultaneously fending off enemies. The game ends when all three characters die or your entire food reserve is depleted.

The three characters in Bug Heroes each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and play quite differently from one another. There's the ant who has average strength and defense but can use an assortment of guns to dispatch enemies from a distance. Then there is a beetle and a spider who have a melee-based offense. The beetle is slow but heavily armored, and can damage a group of enemies in one blow. The spider is quick with powerful attacks, but isn't as well protected. Each of these characters can be changed to on the fly, and it's imperative to recognize which one to use in any given situation in the game.

There are a ton of different enemies in Bug Heroes, both large and small, who will react differently and must be dealt with accordingly. Some will come after your character directly, some will bypass you and go straight for your food pile, and some will sit stationary and use ranged weapons against you, forcing you to go to them. Enemies come in waves, with their strength and numbers increasing with each new one. Your heroes will earn experience as they defeat enemies which allows you to add attribute points to their various skills as they level up.

The combination of switching characters, dealing with the different enemies, upgrading and leveling up, and worrying about your stockpile of food ensures a constant stream of action as you play Bug Heroes. There is a lot going on in the game, but it flows really well and ends up being a lot of fun and not overwhelming. If this wasn't enough, there are also timed quests that will pop up as you play, like collecting coins or killing certain enemy types, that can earn you additional money and experience. Besides the Adventure mode, there is also a more standard survival mode called Coliseum. This mode has you picking just one of the three characters and taking on endless waves of enemies. You still level up, gain money, and can upgrade your weapons, but it's a more straightforward way to play Bug Heroes and feels different enough that it could almost be its own separate game.

Visually, the game looks fantastic, with dynamic lighting effects and a day/night cycle that changes the ambience as you play. The character designs in particular are really well done, and your heroes and the many different enemies all have a lot of personality. The nice graphics do bring up my only gripe with Bug Heroes though, which is that the game has a tendency to stutter at times when there is lots of action onscreen at once. The game is optimized for all devices, and you can choose to tone down the graphical effects in the options, but it still will occasionally hang even if you do.

There is just so much going on in Bug Heroes, it's amazing that it all blends so incredibly well. What I like the most is that Foursaken has put a lot of different gameplay elements into the game, but there is a wide range of personalization in how you choose to use them, allowing you to play the game the way that suits you the best. Bug Heroes reminds me a lot of Cave's Mushihimesama Bug Panic [$4.99/Lite] in that it adds a ton of skill and strategy to the dual-stick shooter formula, instead of the typical mindless killing, and it's going to be really hard to ever find a way to enjoy a typical dual-stick shooter again. Bug Heroes is receiving a lot of positive impressions from players in our forums, and Foursaken is actively addressing feedback and suggestions. If you have any interest in the various genres present in Bug Heroes, or you just like a solid action game, then it's definitely recommended to give Bug Heroes a look.

The Mac App Store is upon us, or, those of us who own a Mac, I suppose. After spending the day fiddling with it, buying various games, and trying out other things, there's a lot of potential here but still room for improvement. What sticks out as one of the immediate best things about the Mac App Store is how wonderfully open it seems to be. Back when it was first announced, many DRM doomsday theorists proposed that this was going to lead to the Mac being just as locked down as the iOS platform. So far, this couldn't be further from the truth.

Setting up a Mac App Store account is easy, and using that account on multiple computer is as simple as logging in and verifying your billing information. For me, this meant filling in the CV2 code from my credit card and verifying my county for tax purposes. From there, both of my computers have had full access to the same Mac App Store account, which is made even easier thanks to the "purchases" tab on top.

I hope this "purchases" functionality makes its way over to the iOS App Store, as it is absolutely phenomenal to see all the things you own, and be given the option to re-download and install them. Currently on the iOS App Store, the only way to check if your account owns something is by attempting to leave a review and/or digging through convoluted receipt listings. It's also much nicer to have the Mac App Store as its own standalone application, as many of the features in functionality of iTunes feel like they have been shoehorned in over the years (to say the least).

What's also great about the Mac App Store is just how portable everything you've downloaded is. Since Mac apps are stored inside of tight little application bundles, you can store them wherever you want. This includes dragging them over to external hard drives, and even USB flash drives. From there, you can take those same apps you purchased through the Mac App Store on portable storage and run them on any other computer authorized to your account.

The down side of this is that your saved game files are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/, so while you can play games on any computer authorized on your account that you plug your storage device in to, synchronizing save data will take some Dropbox (or similar) trickery.

The Mac App Store is even recognizing things purchased outside the store. I purchased Transmit 3 from Panic a while ago, entirely through their payment and serial key system, and the Mac App Store shows it as one of my installed applications. I will be interested to see what effect this has on the update process, and if Transmit (or other outside software) will be updatable via the Mac App Store.

What I'm not liking so much is how purchasing something automatically adds it to your dock. I understand that this is a great user interface method to make it clear that you're buying something, where it's going on your computer, and its download progress as the bar fills up. It would be nice to be able to turn this off, as I imagine most serious OS X users like managing their docks themselves, and don't appreciate the Mac App Store barfing icons everywhere.

The initial offers of the Mac App Store seem a little lackluster. I fully understand that many of these games are just iOS staples that were relatively easy to port to the Mac, but so much is lost in a game like Flight Control when you strip away the multi-touch drawing interface and replace it with a mouse pointer. Sure, it's still technically the same game, but it was that line drawing mechanic that worked so well on the touch screen that made Flight Control the classic game that it is today.

It's also a little annoying how so many games initially force full screen mode, and don't offer any kind of interface element to switch back in to windowed mode. Thankfully Command F kicks everything I've tried back in to windowed mode without issue and other OS X system-wide shortcuts work fine such as Command Q to quit whatever it is that you're playing.

Overall the Mac App Store shows a ton of potential, and I really can't wait to see how it evolves over time. The iOS App Store didn't get as awesome as it is now overnight, and I expect that there will be a lot of changes on the Mac App Store as developers figure out what works best on the platform, what price people are willing to pay, and other things like that. All in all, this is an incredibly exciting time to be a Mac user.

Last month it was revealed that the Mac App Store, which was announced by Steve Jobs last October, would be opening for business on January 6th. A quick glance at your lock screen should tell you that that day is today. While it was rumored that the Mac App Store wouldn't officially become available until 12pm EST today, it appears that the folks at Apple just couldn't wait to let everyone through the front door. Mac owners running OS X Snow Leopard can check their Software Update option for the newest version 10.6.6 which will add the Mac App Store to their dock.

As of right now there only appears to be 74 apps available in the Games category, but here's a short list of some of those games which are also available on iOS, and a few games exclusive to the Mac App Store. If you're an iOS gamer, these new Mac games should be familiar:

• Chopper 2, 99�
• Angry Birds, $4.99
• The Incident, $2.99
• Flight Control HD, $4.99
• Pac-Man, $4.99
• Osmos, $9.99
• Zen Bound 2, $4.99
• Toki Tori, $4.99
• Compression, 99�
• Pinball HD, $2.99
• Splode, $4.99
• Ancient Frog, $4.99

There's quite a few others as well, and for iOS App Store faithfuls who are used to games costing just a dollar or two, be prepared for some sticker shock with some of these titles. Enigmo and Enigmo 2 are selling for $14.99 each, Peggle and Peggle Nights run $9.99 each, and Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 clocks in at $49.99. In the cases of Chopper 2 and Compression, these appear to be limited introductory sale prices, and those titles should eventually fetch a greater amount too. It will be interesting to see if the Mac App Store will incorporate the same race to the bottom pricing techniques that have been so prevalent on iOS.

We're going to poke our noses around the brand new Mac App Store a bit more, and will likely bring you some impressions of how these games translate to full blown computers. Until then you can stop in at our brand new Mac App Store Games forum to discuss this experience with fellow forum members, and if you're a Mac owner make sure you grab the latest software update so you can check it out for yourself.

Early last month we previewed Solar Minotaur Rescue Frenzy from noted psychedelic shooter author Jeff Minter. The game is basically a trippy combination of Asteroids and Space War! played on the screen of the iPhone or iPad and marks the first in a series of Llamasoft games that are part of the "Minotaur Project," an effort by the developer to release numerous titles featuring retro gameplay, progressing forward from the Atari VCS aesthetic to the VIC 20, Commodore 64, and beyond.

The game is now complete and, with a few additions and enhancements over the preview build examined earlier, is available for download in the App Store [link].

Minotaur Rescue, which is a Universal app that natively supports both the iPhone and the iPad, consists of an active starfield play area with a sun at the center. In its core gameplay mode, you control an ever-firing ship that can fly about this starfield (wrapping at the edges) and is affected by the intense gravitational pull of the aforementioned sun. And so, too, are the asteroids closing in from the edges. Your job is to blast apart these asteroids (as opposed to slamming into them), some of which contain minotaurs that must be rescued before they drift into the sun. If too many asteroids drift into the sun, it will turn into a black hole…which is bad. The closer to the sun a minotaur gets before you rescue him, the more points you gain for said rescue. And, the more minotaurs you rescue and the closer you are to the sun, the faster your auto-fire tosses out rounds. Just to keep you fully on your toes, the occasional enemy saucer passes through (and some are tiny), shooting at you and dropping mines.

A touch-anywhere control pad puts you in the pilot's seat, with perpetual auto-fire engaged, as mentioned previously.

In addition to the core gameplay mode,�Minotaur Rescue features four other playmodes, as well. There's Survival mode, where you've got just one life in a bid to score as highly as possible before obliteration. There's also Deep Space Minotaur Madness which is like the core gameplay mode, but with only the�Asteroids elements in place (plus minotaurs) � no sun and associated gravity. And, perhaps oddly, there's also the Tanks! and Jets! modes, which are like the simple playmodes of the pack-in Atari VCS cartridge�Combat. But, of course, with a heavy dose of psychedelia and floating minotaurs to pick up along the way.

The game features solo play, as well as (for those who have friends) two person play on the same iPhone and up to four person play on the same iPad. OpenFeint and Game Center integration are both in place, here.

See Minotaur Jeff demonstrating the game on an iPad.

Minotaur Rescue makes use of Llamasoft's new Neon 2 game engine for iOS, an evolution of the original�Neon "light synthesizer" engine, which powers the XBOX 360's�music visualizer and�Space Giraffe title.�According to Minter, Neon 2 is much improved as compared to the original, featuring a cleaner framework and a lot more bang-for-the-buck in terms of shader usage.

As fan of Minter's work, and of retro titles in general, I've had a blast with Solar Minotaur Rescue Frenzy, but also feel that the simple yet challenging gameplay may appeal to a wider audience, as well.