George Washington's name day came and went without the dozens of celebratory App Store sales we associate with federal holidays. I'll admit it; I was ticked about this at first. Not only was George the US' first president, he was also the tallest, strongest, and best endowed. A dude as great and beautiful as he was�needs to be honored by price-slashings. But, hey, now I'm not so sore about the situation. Gameloft realigned my humours and tamed my choler with this beauty of a sale, which sees 30 of its games reduced to less than a dollar.

Here's the list:

Asphalt 5
Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles HD
Blokus HD
Brain Challenge HD
Chess Classics HD
Driver
Dungeon Hunter HD
Fishing Kings
Frankenstein � The Dismembered Bride HD
Gangstar: West Coast Hustle
Hero of Sparta HD
Hero of Sparta 2 HD
Let's Golf
Modern Combat: Sandstorm
NFL 2010 HD
NFL 2011 HD
NOVA
NOVA 2 HD
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within [and its HD version]
Real Soccer 2010 [and its HD version]
Real Soccer 2011
Real Tennis HD
Secrets of the Vatican HD
Shrek Forever After HD
Shrek Kart
Skater Nation
Star Battalion [and its HD version]
UNO HD
Tom Clancy's HAWX
War in the Pacific
Zombie Infection HD

That's a lot of games, and a lot of iPad HD versions for sale, right? Oh, and to be clear, I've no idea what Gameloft is throwing a sale for… but I'll go ahead and keep pretending that its celebrating the greatest man (not named Tesla) who ever graced this Earth.

One of the big news items of 2010 in the world of iOS was the unveiling of the Unreal Engine on the platform. Epic Citadel [Free] was the first taste we got of this fantastic engine, with Infinity Blade [5.99] hitting the scene a little later as the first real game using the engine. Since then, there hasn't been a whole lot of activity with the Unreal Engine on the App Store. Trendy Entertainment released both Dungeon Defenders [99�] and Chicken Coup [99�] but that's about it as far as UDK games on the App Store is concerned.

Why so few games? Well, it all comes down to licensing. Previously, the Unreal Engine was free to use until you crossed the $5,000 mark in sales. This made using the Unreal Development Kit a little hard to swallow for most developers, especially as the proverbial pie was sliced so many times between Apple's percentage, any potential publisher's percentage, and Epic's percentage. This didn't leave much left for the actual developer, and unless you could guarantee that your game would be wildly successful, it didn't make much sense to use.

Mark Rein recently announced that this royalty threshold has been increased to $50,000, which hopefully will be much more enticing to developers. We'll still need to see how this all plays out over the next year, but from we're sitting, the Unreal Engine seems even more appealing now. If you were a developer that previously wrote off using the UDK because of royalty fees, it may be time to reconsider.

Last month Gameloft teased us with an announcement trailer for their upcoming game based on the Tom Clancy franchise Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard. Unfortunately, as is the nature of teaser videos, very little of the actual game was shown. In fact, there was no gameplay in that video at all, making it frustrating if you're a fan of the Rainbow Six series and were curious to see what the iOS version would be like.

Today Gameloft is easing that pain a bit by releasing the first screens for Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard on their Facebook page, and unsurprisingly they look pretty fantastic (click to enlarge):

Based on the screen shots, Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard should offer up the same sort of tactical espionage that the series is known for. Unfortunately we still don't know a solid release date, but if these screens are any indication then it should be arriving fairly soon. There is a lively discussion of the game in our forums, and we'll bring you any new information on Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard just as soon as we get it.

It really has to have been a crazy last few days for Andreas Illiger, the developer of Tiny Wings [99�]. His first iOS game hasn't even been out for a full week yet, and it was just two days ago that we gave it a glowing 5 star review and have basically been glued to it since. Over these past two days, the buzz surrounding Tiny Wings has been swelling like an epic tidal wave. It's all anybody has been talking about on Twitter, it's been one of the busiest discussion threads in our forums, and every iOS toting device owner I've run into in real life I've recommended the game to.

For having zero marketing, Tiny Wings has been doing some incredible things in the top paid charts in the US App Store. It's been steadily climbing the last couple of days, and I was floored when I looked up and noticed that it had broken into the top 25 of total paid apps. It didn't stop there, though, and shortly thereafter broke the top 10. I was genuinely amazed by this, but it still kept climbing. For most of yesterday it spent a lot of time in both the 3rd and 2nd top positions, dethroning top 3 mainstay Fruit Ninja and pushing past the incredibly popular Camera+ app.

And then it happened. The unthinkable. Tiny Wings took the top spot from the King of the App Store charts for nearly a year, Angry Birds. Many members in our forums were confident that this would happen eventually, and some felt that it could never be done, despite how good Tiny Wings was. It just didn't have the brand recognition or marketing muscle to push it to the very top. It has happened though, and for one of the most unique, fun, and beautiful games I've played in a long time I think it's well deserved.

This isn't the first time Angry Birds has been knocked off the top, as several different games or apps have bumped it from its position over the past year. But usually it's a short-lived victory, as within just a few days Angry Birds is right back at #1. We'll have to see how long Tiny Wings can maintain it's #1 status, but surely there has never been such an unknown IP with no marketing campaign whatsoever that's risen in popularity as fast as Tiny Wings has.

Based on our review, the positive words of everybody who plays it, and this very article you're reading right now, it should go without saying that you need to pick up Tiny Wings if you haven't already.

Fruit Ninja, $0.99 Fruit Ninja has been one of the most well-supported games in the entire App Store, and has lived a long healthy life at the top of the paid charts because of it. Today, both the iPhone and iPad versions of Fruit Ninja received yet another update which adds even more content to the game. There are now 5 new blades to unlock in the Dojo, which are described as follows by Halfbrick themselves:

SHADOW BLADE � This super sweet blade was forged in darkness, void of all good.
PIXEL BLADE � Show how cool you really are with a blade that harks back to the days of 8-bit gaming.
BAMBOO SHOOT BLADE � Made in the forest that Sensei himself grew up in, this is one awesome blade that is bound to impress!
PARTY TIME BLADE � Every swipe will feel like you're partying like it's 1999.
PIANO BLADE � Make some sweet, sweet music as you destroy fruit with this groovy slicer.

In addition to the new blades, there are now weekly online leaderboards for the Classic and Zen modes following the great success of the Arcade mode weekly leaderboard. Last but not least, Fruit Ninja is now fast-app switching enabled so you can bounce in and out of the game with ease. If you have either full version of Fruit Ninja, grab the latest update and give the new content a spin.

Max Adventure, $0.99 Last December, the husband and wife team that makes up Imangi Studios released their most ambitious title to date, Max Adventure. This dual-stick shooter managed to stand out from the many cookie-cutter releases in the genre with ultra cute characters and graphics, great controls, excellent music, and solid shooting action.

We liked Max Adventure quite a bit in our review, and less than a month after release the game was updated with some new content that made it even better. An option for video-out was added which let you play Max Adventure on a big screen using technical wizardry explained in our post on the matter. In addition a brand new farm-themed survival map was added, giving the game a total of 2 survival maps.

Today's update is mostly a bug fix and performance improvement release, but it does add yet another survival map � The Arena � for a total of 3 now. Also, one of the welcome fixes in this update is a confirmation dialogue if you wish to exit a level so that you don't lose your current progress, which is a problem that had been plaguing a few players in our forums. Releasing in tandem with this latest update is a free lite version of Max Adventure, so if you haven't yet picked up the game now is a great chance to take it for a test drive. If you already have the game, make sure and get the update to check out the new Arena survival map.