Fans of CAVE's manic shooters get ready for some exciting news. The developer has just announced over their Twitter that their next iOS game will be none other than the oft-requested Deathsmiles. Deathsmiles is a departure from their traditionally vertical scrolling shooters, like Espgaluda II [$8.99/Lite] and Dodonpachi Resurrection [$8.99/Lite], and scrolls horizontally. However, the intense bullet hell, humongous bosses, and general over-the-top nature of their games is present.

We literally have zero information on what the iOS version will contain, but check out this trailer for the Xbox 360 Deluxe Edition that was just released in Europe to get an idea of what Deathsmiles is all about:

Keep your eye on this space as we expect CAVE to send out an official press release detailing their upcoming launch of Deathsmiles, but we were so excited for the news that we just had to get the announcement out there. CAVE is currently showing off the game in playable form at a media event in Japan, and they have also announced that a new mode called Bug Battle will be coming to their excellent dual-stick shooter Mushihimesama Bug Panic [$4.99/Lite] soon, and we'll have details on this as well just as soon as we get them.

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Yesterday, Telltale Games held an event in San Francisco where they announced a slew of new titles for this coming year. The main focus of this event was to offer hands-on time with the console versions of their upcoming Jurassic Park game (which looks fabulous, by the way), so unfortunately there wasn't anything actually running on iOS devices that isn't available already in the App Store. Still, there were some pretty exciting games announced, and as we march closer to events like Comic-Con and E3 we'll start to see more tangible bit from these games.

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Monkey Island Tales 2-5 � Back in December, Telltale launched Monkey Island Tales 1 HD [$6.99], the first episode in their Tales of Monkey Island series reboot. Like its PC, Mac, and console counterparts, the iPad version of Tales was well received by customers and critics alike. We awarded the game 4.5 stars in our review, and named it one of the Best iPad Games of 2010. So�not surprisingly, we'll be seeing the remaining 4 episodes of Monkey Island Tales trickle out onto the iPad over the coming months. Beginning in March we'll see part 2, and if everything runs smoothly with Apple's approval blessings, we'll see the remaining episodes released by May.

App Store Link: Monkey Island Tales 1 HD, $6.99 (iPad Only)

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Back to the Future Episode 2 � Get Tannen � Just a couple of days ago, an iPad version of Back to the Future Episode 1 [$6.99] launched in the App Store, and we thoroughly enjoyed it in our review. At right about that same time, Episode 2 was released for the PC and Mac version of the game. While there was no official word from Telltale or a playable version of Episode 2 running on the iPad, I think it's pretty safe to say we'll see it appear in the App Store soon. We'll let you know when we get official confirmation or a release date, but until then check out the trailer for Back to the Future Episode 2 � Get Tannen:

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The Walking Dead - The incredibly popular graphic novel series that was turned into a hit television show is now being adapted for the video game realm. Telltale has inked a deal with series creator Robert Kirkman to bring The Walking Dead to just about every gaming space imaginable, with multiple titles planned to span across the next few years. There's really no solid information about what the games will entail, but Telltale CEO Dan Connors promises that fans of the franchise will be really excited by how Telltale delivers such a rich story in video game form. Expect a lot more about The Walking Dead games when this year's Comic-Con rolls around.

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Hector: Badge of Carnage Series � Last June saw the release of Hector: Badge of Carnage Ep 1 [$3.99] for iPhone and iPod touch. Hector: Badge of Carnage is a modernized point and click adventure game that is full of raunchy dialogue, adult themes, and satisfying gameplay. We really liked Hector in our review, only noting that it was a fairly brief game with a cliffhanger of an ending, and we couldn't wait to see what happens in subsequent episodes. When we interviewed Kevin Beimers from Straandlooper (the creators of Hector) last year at WWDC, we learned that Episode 1 was in the works for the iPad and that Episode 2 production had begun as well, though with their somewhat small team and the nature of hand-drawn animation it might take a while before we saw more from Hector.

Yesterday, Telltale Games announced they have partnered with Straandlooper to help bring the Hector series to complete fruition. Since point and click adventure games, episodic content, and digital distribution are all things that are synonymous with Telltale Games' core beliefs, the Hector series seems a naturally fit for them. The first order of business is getting Episode 1 on the iPad, as well as PC and Mac, this Spring. By the end of the year we should be seeing Episodes 2 & 3 on iPhone, iPad, PC and Mac. I know I'm not alone in being excited to hear more from the Hector series, and I really can't wait to check out the future episodes. We'll let you know when Hector: Badge of Carnage Ep 1 drops on the iPad, and bring you any further information on the new episodes as soon as we get it.

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Puzzle Agent 2 � With the surprise success of Puzzle Agent after it released on PC and Mac last June, and on the App Store with an iPhone version [$4.99/Lite] and iPad version [$6.99/Lite], it's not surprising to see that a sequel will be coming. But just because I'm not surprised doesn't mean I'm not incredibly excited. We really liked the iOS version of Puzzle Agent when we reviewed it in September, and the game's story ended in a way that left us wanting more. I'm a huge fan of Graham Annable who did the artwork for Puzzle Agent, and I loved the dark humor in the game. There aren't too many details about Puzzle Agent 2 other than it will be coming this Summer, but check out this teaser video to whet your appetite a bit:

App Store Links:

Puzzle Agent, $4.99
Puzzle Agent Lite, Free
Puzzle Agent HD, $6.99 (iPad Only)
Puzzle Agent HD Lite, Free (iPad Only)

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There are some other odds and ends to note from yesterday's event. Of course the Jurassic Park game is looking fantastic, but is currently only officially announced for Mac and PC. Telltale notes that it is planned for other platforms, but didn't get into specifics. Based on their history though, it's pretty safe to assume that this 5 part episodic game will appear on the iPad at some point, much like Back to the Future has. Telltale also announced another comic partnership with the Fables IP, but again no specific details were laid out for this and we'll definitely hear more come Comic-Con time. Finally, they briefly announced that their classic King's Quest franchise will be receiving a reboot similar to that of the Monkey Island series. As a huge fan of both King's Quest and Space Quest as a kid, I'm really excited for this announcement, and we'll bring you any solid information on this as it becomes available.

As you can see, Telltale Games will be mighty busy in 2011, and a lot of that should result in some exciting iOS titles. You can check out our Upcoming iPhone/iPod touch and Upcoming iPad sections in our forum where our members will likely be discussing these future games, and we'll keep you updated on new information about these titles throughout the year.

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Fruit Ninja [.99 / HD / Lite] is a popular game. The touch-based fruit slicing joint has been downloaded to the staggering tune of six million times over its lifespan on the App Store. That's a lot of fruit death, right? In fact, Halbrick has a number on said fruitricide: 150 billion fruits have met their Primordial Maker since the game's debut.

In a recent press release, Halfbrick announced the following, an inarguably cute way to make "amends" for all the fruit death: its teaming up with the non-profit Fruit Tree Planting Foundation and sponsoring a fruit orchard in a low-income community in order to help the people there live just a tad bit better. Halfbrick notes that we won't see the…fruits…of their charitable donation just yet, but it'll keep an eye on the orchard and give updates about it on its Web site.

Question: surely billions of aliens have been killed in the DOOM series to date. What can id Software donate to the Martians? Less taxing Phobos teleportation machines? Cadavers?

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This week, TouchArcade attended EA's "Swing Into Spring" game event in in New York and had a chance to spend a bit of quality time with some upcoming titles from both EA and Chillingo. And, while we can't (yet) talk about everything we saw, here's the goods on the open-for-discussion titles.

� Fight Night Champion from EA

Fight Night Champions is the first installment of the Fight Night series, which debuted on consoles in 2004, to appear on iOS. Incidentally, the Fight Night series is the successor to EA's 1998 console series Knockout Kings.

Fight Night Champions is a boxing title set for a simultaneous iOS and console debut on March 1st. The game presents a virtual boxing match, rendered in 3D with four possible camera angles (sorry folks, no photos allowed). You can create your own highly customizable boxer or rebuild a legend like Iron Mike and use this boxer to move up the ranks � fight to fight, ring to ring.

A very cool aspect of the game is its control system. The screen is invisibly divided into quad hit-zones, where a tap in each zone executes a different move, and a swipe from zone-to-zone triggers additional, directionally keyed moves. And there are hidden moves to � illegal moves. These you can specify for your character in its configuration screen, but you have to figure out the gestures on your own. How awesome is that?

There are several venues in which to compete: the Staples Center is for real, and the rest are fictional, some of which are rather elaborately arranged. Matches across these stadiums can be customized as far as number of rounds, round length, difficulty, etc.

Local WiFi and Bluetooth multiplayer is provided. But not so with online leaderboards.

Fight Night Champion looks awesome and is structured such that gamers that are a little more casual on the sports side � like me � can get enjoyment out of the title.

� Battlefield Bad Company II from EA

Not much to say here, but the game got an update last week that corrected various multiplayer bugs and upped the multiplayer games from four to six players.

We posted a hands-on with this one back in December.

� Ultimate Mortal Kombat III from EA

An iPad version launched last week (iPhone version came pre-Christmas).

We reviewed the iPhone version of this one back in December.

� Collision Effect from Chillingo

Collision Effect is an iPad game that puts celestial objects of various colors on the screen and it's your task to merge the like colored balls together. In Action Mode, the balls are moving, and a collision between two blobs of differing colors is a bad thing. In Puzzle Mode, they start off stationary, and your tap upon one ball begins the gathering of its like-colored kindred � but clever strategy and timing is needed to keep balls of different colors from colliding. It's a simple, yet challenging, mechanic done up with nice particle effects.

We should see Collision Effect arrive sometime next month.

� Play Kalei from Chillingo

We took a look at this clever graphical matching title last month at Macworld and really liked what we saw.

The basic idea in�Play Kalei is that you're presented with a high quality photograph and a random point of the picture is highlighted in a circular window in the upper corner of the screen. The catch is that the window highlighting the point in the photograph is shown as if you're looking at it through a kaleidoscope, and you must find that particular point by matching the kaleidoscope view in a second window by sliding your finger around the screen.

Play Kalei is set to arrive in mid-March.

� Food Processing from Chillingo

Here's one for the iPad that takes inspiration from Fruit Ninja, but adds a bit of complexity and a dose of whimsy to the formula. The game puts you in front of a conveyor belt ferrying food across the screen and its your job to slice it up properly � and properly is the twist. Each item must be sliced in a particular fashion, a skill you'll need to learn along the way. And, all the while, a hard rock soundtrack keeps you bouncing.

Food Processing should hit the App Store later this month.

� High Speed 3D from Chillingo

High Speed 3D is a new racer on the way for both iPhone and iPad (universal) that offers glossy visuals and a variety of playmodes to mix up the action across 20 tracks in all. As far as playmodes, there's the standard Career mode, in addition to a number of Quick Play modes, including Get The 1st Place, a quick race to the goal; Drift King, a chance to paint the track with rubber; and Crash Them All!, a destruction derby of sorts.

We are told that there's about another month of performance tuning and polishing on this one before it lands in the App Store. Even so, High Speed 3D played very well and looks to be a fun time for fans of arcade style racers.

All of the Chillingo titles listed here will feature Crystal integration for score and achievements tracking.

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Last month we reviewed Mad Skills Motocross [99�], a fast-paced 2D side-scrolling motocross racing game. We enjoyed the title quite a bit as it had sharp graphics, plenty of different tracks, a nice online challenge system through OpenFeint, and above all else a stellar physics system. One problem many players commented on though was the immense difficulty of completing the single player campaign. The game started out simple enough as it eased you into the gameplay mechanics, but about a third of the way through the career mode the difficulty ramped up pretty quickly, and due to the requirement of completing every race in a division before unlocking a new division many players found themselves unable to progress.

Developer Turborilla heard these cries for help, and have rushed in to save the day with the latest update to Mad Skills Motocross. There is now an Amateur difficulty setting in the options that offers an easier AI opponent to race against, and your bike can withstand more damage before breaking as well. If you liked the original difficulty don't worry, as the Pro option keeps things the same as they were before. Also, a previous update made it so you only needed to beat all but 2 of the races in a division to unlock the next, thus making it easier to move on if you got stuck on a particularly hard race.

Besides these difficulty tweaks, Turborilla has added an interesting new feature that adds to the competitive nature of Mad Skills Motocross. Before, you could set a time on a race and then send off a challenge to one of your OpenFeint friends for them to try and beat. Now, you can actually choose any of the scores on the leaderboards and take a crack at beating that person's ghost. Or you can simply watch the replay of how that score was attained, possibly gleaning some tips from how they completed the course. This new functionality is a really nice addition to such a score-focused game, and it makes competing with the best players in the world more accessible to everyone.

I liked Mad Skills Motocross before, but I do admit I had my fair share of moments where I felt like throwing my iPhone across the room due to the difficulty. The new Amateur mode makes things significantly easier, and consequently more fun, and the Pro mode is still there for when I feel ready to take on that challenge. The new ability to challenge ghosts from the leaderboards adds a whole new layer of competitiveness to the game, and I even enjoy just watching some of the top times and marveling at the skill of those elite players. With these past two updates, Mad Skills Motocross has easily become my favorite racing game of this kind, and if you haven't checked it out yet now is the perfect time as it's currently on sale for just 99� for a limited time.

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