These castle versus castle games are all over the App Store. Some are fantasy based, a whole heck of a lot of them use stick figures, and one even uses puppets. The gameplay of these games are all strikingly similar: You have a set of units which cost a particular amount of whatever resource it is that the game uses. Once you stockpile enough of that resource to produce a unit, you tap the button, and said unit comes rushing out of your castle to battle to the death. (Or, if things are going your way, make it all the way to the other castle and destroy it.)

This also aptly describes the core gameplay found in Liv Games' Legendary Wars [$2.99], but there's so much variety and so many things to work towards that I've been having an absolutely fantastic time playing through it. The game begins with an entirely cliche fantasy setting of a kingdom in chaos, and you're in charge of collecting Sunstone fragments in attempt to rid the world of evil. The path the story takes you through involves fighting all sorts of different enemies on levels with varied objectives.

While many levels consist of the standard castle vs castle battle, Legendary Wars breaks up the monotony with levels where you'll control a single unit that play like a sidescroller, or battles where you're given an extremely powerful hero unit which must survive, and more. The actual castle vs castle fights are great too, as instead of simply sending an array of units to their doom, successfully surviving a battle requires a bit of strategy.

Battles begin with you dispatching a miner (aptly named "Miney") to your mine in the background to collect crystals. He saunters off to the mine, appears a few seconds later with a massive chunk of crystal in his hands, and you've got to tap it to collect it. Once you've got enough crystals to train additional units, much like other castle vs castle games, you tap the icon for said unit and it comes barging out of your castle. The main difference here is that there are three distinct lanes in the game world that you can spawn your dudes in and that enemies can come running down.

Units can be tapped and directly controlled, allowing you to make them change lanes, engage an enemy, or retreat back to your castle. This basic level of control actually gives you the power to do a surprising amount of micromanagement in your battles. For instance, if you've got a set of enemy archers incoming, moving your units to different lanes will avoid their attacks until they get within melee distance to start fighting. Enemies will change lanes too, so you've got to do some quick finger work to keep your army from getting pelted with arrows.

Similarly, the different units of your army compliment each other and must be used intelligently to win. Knights who do little damage but can take a beating need to be deployed in front of archers, who can bring the pain but quickly die if any pain is brought upon them. Killing enemies fills up a mana bar of sorts, and you're able to do a special attack for bonus damage by selecting a unit and tapping the button in the bottom corner of your screen. Oh, and while you're doing all this, you need to be constantly collecting resources from your miner(s).

Following a successful battle, you'll be able to return to your armory where you can upgrade various statistics for each of your units, as well as your castle itself. The rate at which these upgrades are unlocked seems to be perfectly tuned, as each battle affords you a small set of upgrades, while dangling that dreaded virtual carrot in front of your face to play just one more battle to soup your forces up even more.

There are endless defense, side scrolling, and survival game modes which can be unlocked which add replay value to the game, and the campaign mode itself is pretty massive. If you have it in your heart to play yet another castle vs castle game, Legendary Wars is an easy pick. Even if you've grown tired of these types of games, it does enough differently that it feels remarkably fresh, which is a real accomplishment in any over-saturated genre on the App Store. The only real down side this game has it that it doesn't come with Retina Display-friendly graphics. If you're playing on a newer device, the game (like most non-retina games) looks fairly blurry, but this didn't stop me from enjoying it.

The original Hysteria Project [Free] was released in early 2009, and still sticks in my head as one of the more memorable iPhone games I've tried. It's free right now, and you really should give it a try… But, if you're in a place where it's not feasible to quickly download a 150MB iPhone game, here's the gist: Hysteria Project plays surprisingly similar to those old Sega CD era full motion video games in that you don't have very much interaction and you're mostly just watching a video with branching points. During the game you'll have an opportunity to tap certain objects to interact with the game world, decide where your character runs, or other things like that.

Even though gameplay was more than a little basic, I thought it was really well done and combined a cool little indie horror flick with some interactivity. The game is short, but was just long enough to leave you walking away from it saying to yourself, "Huh, that was cool." And really, games that make you think that seem to be entirely too rare these days. Hysteria Project 2 [$1.99] can be described in mostly the same way.

Like its predecessor, it's a full motion video game with a heaping helping of video to watch. There is significantly more interactivity this time around, but at its core the game is still a Sega CD style FMV game, which means interactivity is limited to some puzzles and other touch-based mini-games. Unfortunately, these puzzles and mini-games really aren't much fun, usually aren't explained very well (if at all), and the only hints you'll find are generally on the game over screen� A screen which you will get incredibly used to seeing while playing through the game.

Both Hysteria Project games kind of give me the same vibe as Papa Sangre [$4.99] which I reviewed yesterday. I'm glad they exist, and they're the exact kind of crazy indie games that I love seeing crop up on the App Store, but I'm not sure how strong of a recommendation I can give them. They're great experiences, but I wouldn't really describe them as "fun", which I think is what most people are shooting for when they're looking for a new game to play.

That being said, if anything above sounds even remotely interesting to you, you need to try the original Hysteria Project while it's free. If you play through that and are looking for more, dive into the sequel.

Just as Engadget gets its hands on the still-unannounced PlayStation Phone, SCE hits us with this new mobile phone project: the PlayStation Suite.

In a nutshell, PS Suite is an Android initiative that will open up the PlayStation library to a range of Android owners with "PlayStation Certified" devices like phones and tablets. Details are light at the moment, but publisher Sony has confirmed its intent to port over PS One titles to Android via this new vehicle, which looks more like an extension to its downloadable platform PSN than anything else.

Interestingly, if PS Suite will resemble PSN, or even tie-in to it, there's a good chance PS Suite subscribers might also get access to other forms of media like videos, themes, or even the Trophies achievement system. Sony isn't talk about stuff other than games yet, so consider this all speculation on my part. However, I'll note that Sony CEO Jack Tretton is teasing something in this PS blog post when he says, "we are also working with developers to create new and exciting content that will be available on both PS Certified devices and the NGP when it comes to market."

It's an interesting approach to the mobile gaming space that we haven't seen from the other big two publishers, Microsoft and Nintendo. Sony is taking its platform straight to a range of phones, while Nintendo is producing its 3DS and Microsoft is pumping its resources exclusively into the Windows Phone 7. As for what PS Suite means to us, the iOS user, is more competition on the phone gaming market, which is never a bad thing. If someone raises a bar, the other has to respond. If PS Suite catches on, we might see growth in terms of more full-featured, console-like offerings on iOS.

There's also a small chance that PS Suite could make its way to Apple's devices. Note that Sony isn't saying "exclusive" when it talks about Android, so its obviously leaving some wiggle room. Don't forget, last month we did report on Sony planning on bringing a curious official Sony app to the App Store with "tons more features" coming in the future.

And take double note of the PSP Minis initiative. Certainly, those will be part of the "exciting content" that'll see released on the NGP and PS Suite, right?

Oddly enough, our first look at what will surely become a PS Certified device came from Engadget earlier this week when it somehow got its hands on an ever-elusive Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (or the "PS Phone.) Their rundown is solid from a technical angle and a rather good read from an iOS-centric point of view for the reasons I just discussed. No official Sony content is available on the platform quite yet (the phone still hasn't been announced), but it performs well with emulation, so that's a good indication that it'll be able to run what Sony is talking about well.

In all, Sony made some cool announcements yesterday that'll bleed into our platform of choice if its moves are responded to by fans with Sony-branded devices. Obviously, we'll have to wait to see if Apple feels like these are significant enough developments to feel like it needs to answer in the 5th generation, but it's exciting nonetheless.

It's not hard to get excited about the second generation PSP or the "Next Generation Portable," as Sony calls it, especially if you do most of your gaming on the go. On top of a familiar button and doodad layout with an added stick for his comfort, the publisher is tacking on a kitchen sink's worth of tech, including tilt and touch, as well as two different cameras and 3G support. It's just about everything you'd want from a next generation portable device.

Men wiser than I have told me, though, that the specifications for the NGP that were revealed last night for the first time are good indications of the direction Apple will be going with its second generation iPad and 5th generation touch devices if rumors are to be believed. Manufacturers tend to pull from the same hardware shelf and then tweak components like brand new CPUs and GPUs so they cater to their own devices, meaning we might see comparable stuff from Apple whenever it reveals its next gen platforms.

Do note the NGP is using an ARM Cortex A9 which has been rumored as the potential foundation for the Apple A5 chip, the successor to the A4 found in current devices. It's also using a similar GPU to the one most people in the Apple rumors community expects to see in upcoming iOS devices as well.

So, what will the next round of Apple devices have in them? Only really, really special people (think: dudes who work for Apple) know for sure, so this is all speculation on our part. But what's so exciting about this � aside from being able to fill out some slots in our Apple press conference BINGO cards a little earlier this year � is that the NGP looks capable of rendering native PS3 games. If Apple were to actually put all this junk into its next handheld, we'll be fiddling with incredible machines with the power to output visuals and tech on the same level as current consoles. WILD, right? Oh, how those budgets will soar!

And speaking of wallets, Sony isn't talking price at the moment. But if the PS3 was any indication… well, you might have to get a second or third job. For more information on the NGP, swing over to Engadget.

One of the best run-and-jump fighters I've ever played is Sega's 1987 coin-op release, Shinobi. Several of us here at Touch Arcade spent hours in the local arcade together way back when, shoveling quarter after quarter into that Shinobi cabinet. We grabbed various home versions of the game, but none lived up to the excellent arcade experience. Happily, a number of sequels followed that targeted consoles specifically, and they provided some great ninja slashing action. The best of the lot in the eyes of many, myself included, is Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master. It was originally released for the Genesis / Mega Drive back in 1993, and tonight Sega has released the game, wrapped in their iOS Genesis emulator we've seen before, through the App Store [link].

In Shinobi III, you're back in the role of ninja warrior Joe Musashi as he fights to defeat the evil organization Neo Zeed, which is bent on world domination. You move through seven rounds of carnage, laying waste to scads of other ninjas with your shinobigatana, shurikens, and four magical ninjutsu techniques. You must brave a variety of hostile environments, including forests, caves, cities, laboratories, and factories. You even ride a horse. And surf! It's a harrowing affair, but the game is actually a bit more forgiving than the first in the series, employing a life meter that allows for accumulated damage as opposed to one hit kills, as did�Revenge of Shinobi which preceded it. It's a great game � a bit short on play time, but full of action.

…on the Genesis (and Wii Virtual Console), that is. Sadly, as has been the case with numerous straight arcade / console conversion from Sega and others in the past, much of the great experience of the original has been lost in translation to the iPhone. There is nothing to complain about as far as performance from the emulator � it seems Sega has been steadily improving it, and things run smoothly and at full speed for all intents and purposes on an iPhone 4 test device. The issue is with the controls, their arrangement and inflexibility.

Like other Sega iOS releases running in their emulator, there is both a full screen and a windowed view. The fullscreen mode, with its larger image, is the most desirable play mode, I would say, but it suffers from the fixed arrangement of the onscreen D-pad and three action buttons; very often a thumb on either completely obscures your character, making gameplay highly awkward. This can be avoided by using the windowed view which renders the game at it's native resolution (fullscreen is a scale-up, not the other way around) with D-pad and buttons below, but on a screen with a pixel density as high as any iPhone or iPod touch device, it's a strain to behold. It's possible that an option to reposition the touch points would help matters but, frankly, I can't imagine an arrangement that would be truly acceptable. As is, the gameplay will leave you longing for your old Genesis.

See a gameplay video of the original console version.

And so, again we have a truly excellent console title that falls sadly short of the mark in making its way to the iPhone. Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master is likely an App Store purchase that only the true Shinobi devotee could make with satisfaction.