I've spent so much time playing Dungeon Raid [$2.99] over the last few months that if I was doing anything else more productive I can't even imagine what I could have accomplished. Does this bother me? Heck no, Dungeon Raid owns. I basically drooled all over it in our review, and it easily made out Best iPhone Games of January '11 listing. I explained the gameplay in the previously-mentioned review-

By now you might be scratching your head wondering why I'm piling shovels full of praise on to a matching game with a matching component that's so simple that it usually doesn't take much skill to clear half the board in one move. Well, it's because of the layer on top of all this that makes Dungeon Raid the game that stole my entire day today. You see, each match you make serves a purpose, and deciding what you're going to match when seems to require quite a bit of strategy, and often some luck, as you never know what's going to replace the blocks you just cleared.

Strategy comes in to play because while Dungeon Raid may initially appear to just be a simple matching game, there's a fairly complex subset of RPG elements that drives everything you do. Enemies are represented by skulls on the game board. "Killing" an enemy involves matching skulls with enough swords to total up more damage than their hit points (which is displayed to the right of each enemy). After every match, every enemy on screen damages you, and special enemies also appear randomly which have increased hit points and other special abilities. One such ability involves their attacks "poisoning" you, at which point you take constant damage until you match healing potions. (Matching healing potions, as you can probably guess, heals you.)

Since our review, Dungeon Raid has had two substantial updates. The first one added playable classes which mix gameplay up further, and today's update adds two new game modes:

The down-side of Dungeon Raid (if I had to say it had one) is that games can potentially take a very long time. Both of these new game modes are very quick, and I really like how Dungeon Sprint mode actively not only shows your current score, but also what the match you're about to make would add to it. It's actually helped me learn quite a bit about how the scoring system in the game works. Pretzel Hero is kind of goofy, but I love how they've thought outside of the box and built a game mode around the crazy matches you can make in the game.

If you haven't yet, now is a perfect time to download Dungeon Raid. This is one of my favorite games, and I have nothing but good things to say about it especially with how much love the developers have given it through updates.

It was back in October of last year that we first learned of Gears, a new ball rolling game from Mobile Game Garage that was set to get the extreme graphical makeover treatment from fellow iOS developer Crescent Moon Games. Not surprisingly, the before and after screens were quite astonishing, and Gears was shaping up to be quite a beautiful game. After a longer than anticipated development time, we finally got a trailer for Gears in early February followed by a hands-on gameplay video a couple of weeks later. And at long last, Gears [99�] is finally available for download in the App Store.

First things first: Gears is gorgeous. Crescent Moon has worked some serious mojo on the graphics here, which are entirely rendered in 3D and utilize a fantasy/steampunk theme that suits the game well. Retina Display equipped devices will be treated to high resolution visuals, and there are additional special enhancements for the extra power of the iPad 2. Also, owners of older devices can choose from different levels of graphical quality to increase performance if need be. No matter which device you're playing on, Gears looks spectacular with a ton of detail and impressive effects throughout.

The campaign in Gears consists of 27 levels spread across 3 different themed worlds with 9 levels apiece. Each level has a set number of power gears to collect on your way to the finish. It's not necessary to collect them all, though higher scores and thus better medals are awarded based on how many you do manage to pick up. The levels are all really well designed, and the type of terrain you must traverse is what really sets Gears apart from other ball rolling games. Levels are rife with moving gears (naturally), stairs, narrow bridges, trampolines, gates, exploding boxes, and various other obstacles that can impede your progress.

The first set of 9 levels won't prove too much of a challenge, and in fact serve as a perfect introduction to playing the game without being a total cakewalk. In world 2 and beyond, however, the difficulty ramps up quite a bit. Thankfully this is handled beautifully with the ability to choose from 4 difficulty levels at any time during the campaign.

Easy is where I suggest starting from, as there is no time limit and you're free to take as long as you need to reach the finish. Normal gives a generous time limit that allows for making some mistakes while still being able to complete it, and Hard gives you a stricter time limit that requires a fairly flawless run. All 3 of these difficulties give you unlimited lives and take advantage of the many checkpoints spread throughout every level, transporting you back to the last one that was triggered should you see your demise (which you will, a lot).

Then there's Brutal difficulty, which is reserved for masochists only. Brutal gives you the same time limit as Hard but you only get 1 life, and rolling your ball off the path will result in having to start over from the beginning of the level. It certainly earns the title of Brutal difficulty, but playing on the harder difficulty settings will earn you additional bonus points at the end of a level which is key to earning high scores and competing on the Game Center leaderboards.

The number one thing that really stands out about Gears to me is the excellent touch�controls. There are many ball rolling games in the App Store, most of them meant to be played with tilt controls. This makes sense due to the accelerometer and gyroscope capabilities of iOS devices, and Gears too has a completely competent tilt control system should you prefer using that. But tilt controls is totally where it's at. There's never been a ball roller with touch controls this good, and once you're comfortable with the nuance of them you'll feel like you have solid control over your little shiny ball.

Gears is everything you would expect from a Crescent Moon release. It has fantastic production values, amazing graphics, brilliant controls, and a solid set of well designed levels to play through. What's crazy is that they took something as simple as a ball rolling game and made it feel like something more. The difficulty might be a little much for your average gamer, but thanks to the Easy setting, it's at least possible to complete the entire game with a little perseverance rather than limiting it to only the most hardcore and dedicated players.

Even if you're not a fan of the ball rolling genre (which aside from the classic Marble Madness, I'm not) Gears is totally worth a look as it feels much different from what's already out there. Players in our forums have been loving this one as well, and for the introductory price of 99� Gears is highly recommended.

It's been a busy couple of days with news coming from the Square Enix camp, and following the announcement yesterday that two new Chaos Rings titles were in the works the Japanese developer has now revealed the first trailer for Chaos Rings Omega. Andriasang.com has additional details for this prequel to the original Chaos Rings [$12.99/HD] straight from the Famitsu website:

According to the site, Omega is set 10,000 years before the events of the first Chaos Rings. You'll follow a story centered on the characters of Viegue his wife and daughter Vahti. Viegue appeared in the original game as Olgar.

This setup is different from the original, which had players select their main character and partner from four pairs. Here, the story is told just from Viegue's perspective, although battles are still fought in pairs.

Check out the video below of Chaos Rings Omega, though keep in mind it's entirely in Japanese so I really have no idea what's going on in it:

Chaos Rings Omega is looking pretty great so far, and appears to have many similarities to the original which actually falls right in line with the storyline of Chaos Rings. The game is set for release in Japan next month, and we'll let you know if they announce any information pertaining to a US release. Until then, check out our forums for a discussion on Chaos Rings Omega.

[Via Andriasang]

After a bit of an approval snafu earlier this month, the first title from PopCap Games' new edgier games division 4th & Battery has finally hit the App Store. Called Unpleasant Horse [Free], it's an endless high scoring game that stars � wait for it � an unpleasant horse. And let me tell you, this horse is a real jerk.

Gameplay is simple. Your horse leaps through the air traveling to the right, and can rest upon clouds spread throughout the sky. Pressing anywhere on the screen will cause unpleasant horse to jump to that spot, and the object is to leap from cloud to cloud for as long as possible. There are also cute birdies flying in the air, and jumping into these will give you an additional air jump to use when you need an extra boost in the middle of a jump to make it to your destination.

There are kind and gentle ponies flying through the sky as well, and this is where the unpleasantness comes in. Unpleasant horse can jump onto the backs of these majestic creatures, which are merely minding their own business I might add, and weigh them down sinking towards the ground. The "ground" in this case is a series of spinning saw blades, and you'll earn extra points by pushing the nice horses down and grinding them into the blades in a shower of gore reminiscent of so many Mortal Kombat games.

So yeah, it's pretty unpleasant, but it's also pretty fun. The game mechanics are solid, though it does take a bit of practice to get used to, but once you get a nice run going it's a very satisfying experience. Guilt-ridden satisfaction, due to all the ponies and birds you end up killing, but satisfaction nonetheless. The game's description explains that Unpleasant Horse was the result of a game jam where they literally drew words out of a hat and developed a game based around whatever phrase came from it. For this, I'd say Unpleasant Horse actually came out pretty well.

Best of all is you can currently download Unpleasant Horse for free and try it yourself, rather than listening to me blather on about it. When PopCap announced the new 4th & Battery label, they explained that their aim was to try out new experimental titles without having to worry about annoying things like development schedules or profitability. This relaxed take on making games means free games for you, Mr. or Mrs. Consumer, so if Unpleasant Horse sounds interesting to you at all and you can stomach the unpleasantness, then definitely give it a download.