Remember Boost 3D? It came out in late 2009, and we absolutely loved it in our review. It's a tunnel racer with a sky high framerate and an elegant simplicity to it. The game is so simple, in fact, that we really didn't mind that it didn't get updated for close to two years. Some games are great just the way they are, and this was a perfect example of that.

When I first heard of this update which was so massive that it even required a name change to the whole game, I was completely apprehensive. I thought the game was perfect the way it was, and usually "massive update" means the introduction of power-ups, levels, and all kinds of other nonsense that would get in the way of the previously mentioned elegant simplicity.

Thankfully, this update manages to completely enhance the game, all the while maintaining everything we first loved about Boost 3D. Instead of a single game mode, there are now three: Time trial, survival, and even multiplayer which works via Game Center.

I've yet to be able to get a game going (since the update just launched, I assume) but here's how it's supposed to work� Players have 60 seconds to finish the race, at which point the player who has travelled the farthest wins. The blocks change color depending on your position in the race. Sounds awesome.

Aside from using Game Center for multiplayer, there is also total Game Center (and OpenFeint) for online leaderboards and achievements. Both the Retina Display and the iPad are now fully supported, and there are a number of other tweaks and fixes including a totally redesigned HUD.

Boost 2 is on sale for 99� in celebration of the relaunch. It was the best tunnel racer when it was originally released in 2009, and I'm having a hard time thinking of a better one that has been released since then� Especially with these new enhancements.

Those crazy geniuses over at ThinkGeek recently invited me to visit their Fairfax, VA Megaplex headquarters. (We're more or less neighbors, you see.) Today I headed over and spent an hour surrounded by an inspiring cloud of creativity.

And I brought my camera.

For those somehow unfamiliar, ThinkGeek is basically, in short, the best geek toy store in the world. They started off in the late '90s with just a handful of folks and have grown to about 70 in all, spread about an office space that rivals Pixar for complete awesomeness / workplace heaven. It's one of those rare places where, no matter how hard you might be working, it can't possibly actually feel like work. And, I'm quite sure the amazing atmosphere plays no small role in the amount of ridiculously fine products they create and send out the door.

Jamie, whose business card reads "Evil Schemes, Nefarious Plans," gave me the tour, along with "PR Manager / Righteous Dude" Shane. I saw recent products, long ago products, and products still in the design pipeline (that I wish I could talk about � they're awesome!). I also saw the offices, design shops, photo studios, and fun rooms that make them all possible. Everything I saw I wanted to take home with me, basically. But, of all the wondrous gadgets and gizmos, it's the original April Fools iCade unit that I most want to share with readers.

At the Megaplex I met Ty who originally envisioned the iCade, as well as Hans, one of the product designers. They showed me a mid-stage, two-button iCade prototype as well as the original April Fools unit, complete with slide-in, foam-and-paper iPad. (The iCade landed on ThinkGeek's 2010 April Fools page, after the original iPad had been announced, but before it shipped.) I was also treated to the original pen-and-paper design sketches that brought the unit to life. And, button count aside, the 'Fools unit looks pretty darned close to the shipping model.

Jamie explained that the iCade was designed to interface with the iPad in the guise of a Bluetooth keyboard for reasons of simplicity, as opposed to taking the route of tying straight into the unit as a custom control device. A bundle of example code and docs for developers working under various frameworks is coming, but it's true that a game can interface with the iCade by just looking for the keyboard codes that it sends � a pretty simple and straightforward arrangement.

ION Audio's fortuitous relationship with Atari has given early adopters a nice set of games to chew on, but Jamie made me aware of certain forthcoming titles that will support the diminutive cabinet's controls � and I promise that gamers won't be disappointed.

And, while it's not directly iOS related, one of the other stand-out items I saw during my visit was the April Fools Playskool Apple Store. It's genius and, well, who doesn't want one? I grabbed a few photos of the setup, but I'm afriad we probably won't be seeing this one spring to life, like the iCade did. [Sad face]

A visit to ThinkGeek's Megaplex. What a great way to spend an afternoon!

The last time I discussed the Back to the Future series, I noted that I've hit a creative wall of sorts in terms of coverage. The initial two episodes hit all the same notes that the third episode does, so it's hard to find something meaningful and fun to share. Of course, I'm also couching this in the opinion that every episode is well produced and their respective new, or even reproduced, mechanics are sharp and solid.

If you missed out on the first episode [Free] though, now is the time to grab it. It's free on the App Store until June 31, 2011. You have the entire month to push "download" and grab what is, easily, one of the coolest modern adventure games out there.

If the fact that it's free isn't enough to convince you to give it a download, go ahead and check out our review for it. Overall, it's an ambitious beginning to a serial that treats its source material with the proper reverence. It might lean on a more casual-level of skill, but it's still fun to play.

In other Back to the Future news, Episode 4 [$6.99] is now out on the App Store. We will, of course, continue our coverage of the series so look forward to our impressions down the road. Now, push "download" already. Jeesh.

UPDATE: For whatever reason, the first episode of Back to the Future is now back at $6.99. The press releases all mention that the game will be free until July 31st, so they might have potentially jumped the gun on setting it free. Either way, we're trying to get to the bottom of things.

Have you ever signed up for a cheap vacation, only to find the room is half the size you expected and the "beach-front" view is actually a back alley and a pile of dirt? That's pretty much what Fin, the pint-sized hero of Mighty Fin [$0.99], gets when he decides to sign up for Shady Sal's suspiciously cheap Round the World Tour. Instead of dirty sheets, he's dealing with sharks and frigid waters in a vacation he'll be lucky to survive.

Guiding Fin through the deadly waters involves the same sort of one-touch gameplay that made Tiny Wings [$0.99] such a winner. You can press down to make Fin dive, and release to make him jump. He swims toward obstacles full-speed ahead while you react to keep him safe. Along with spikes, jellyfish and other deadly foes, each level is filled with points bubbles. These boost your score and telegraph the best way around upcoming obstacles. Since each level is randomly generated when you play it, this extra assistance is handy.

Mighty Fin has eight levels, with regular and endless modes for each. That doesn't sound like much, but the levels are long and some are quite challenging. Each level also has three hats to earn � one found within the level, and two for getting gold-ranked scores on regular and endless. Game Center leaderboards add a little more replayability.

The levels that Fin visits on his vacation are mostly pretty bleak � Backwater Bay, Teacup Tempest and Shipwreck Strait are as grey and unwelcoming as they sound. So it's a good thing the rest of Mighty Fin has charm to spare. The art is top-notch, especially for Fin himself. He's a goofy, bug-eyed little fish, but he looks so joyous when he leaps out of the water that I just had to root for the little guy. The hats are a nice touch too�it's a little more fun to play with a fish in a top hat or a lady's bouffant. You'll also want to catch the witty quips scattered throughout the game.

Mighty Fin's charm helps to smooth out some of its struggles. The music really needs more variety, for one thing. Also, If you're at all skilled with the game, the first couple levels won't make a great first impression � the levels are a bit too long and a bit too easy to start. The challenge ramps up, but avoid the early endless levels if you're finding the game too easy. I had to kill Fin off intentionally a couple times after I cleared a few million points. The later levels fare much better.

If you're not motivated by the high score chase, the game's done once you unlock all the hats. I'd love to see achievements and maybe a (cheerier) future level pack to pad the game out. An endless mode that actually gets harder and faster as you progress would be a nice addition, too.

It's certainly no complaint that I'd like to see Fin safely through another undersea vacation. In the end, I was entertained and thoroughly challenged by Mighty Fin. Reactions are mixed in the forums, but I think this is a winner for Launching Pad Games.

Feed Me Oil [99� / HD], from�Chillingo and HolyWater Games, is�a game about petroleum.�Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas-tea. Bubbling crude. Your role is to guide the expensive black liquid from the broken pipe to the designated area, to clear each level.

Liquids are difficult to render realistically, so I wondered how well the oil effect would be delivered on-screen. And I wasn't disappointed. The oil looks and sounds like a thick, gooey, black substance, either flowing as a stream or breaking into separate globs. The oil is the main character of this title and it's depicted well.�While there's other physics-based games out there, the gushing oil effects make this one particularly interesting.�The rest of the graphics�appear to be heavily influenced by the popular World of Goo, which features similar large-eyed cartoon creatures, shown in profile.

To control the oil, you place objects such as rotating platforms, fans, wind, windmills or oil-magnets in it's path. Each of these objects pushes or pulls the oil in a different manner, such as flinging it across the screen. Scores are based on the number of objects used to help the oil reach it's destination (three stars per level). In most cases, there's no single solution, since you can position objects in any order or location, even on top of each other. However, a hints system is available. Each hint causes a 30-second delay before the next hint can be utilized on that level. Alternatively you can pay to have all hints unlocked immediately, as an optional in-app purchase, although most players won't need to bother.

The gameplay and controls closely resemble Enigmo. You select one of the available objects, then touch the screen to position it. Each object can be rotated and some can be set to turn clockwise or anti-clockwise. A double tap deletes the object. Once you're ready, you touch the oil pipe and watch the sloppy black goop flow, often in the wrong direction via an unforeseen leak, but hopefully towards your target.

The next step involves multiple adjustments and corrections. This game requires trial and error, which is reminiscent of games like Cat Physics from Donut Games, which similarly involves setting objects in place, then adjusting and tweaking them until you're successful. Sometimes the slightest movement of one object can make the difference between level completion or watching your precious oil supply disappear off-screen. The controls in�Feed Me Oil work well for making quick and frequent adjustments, then re-testing.

Feed Me Oil includes 49 levels. This includes three chapters, with fifteen levels per chapter. Each chapter is initially locked, until the previous chapter is completed. Four bonus levels are unlocked once 50, 90 and 130 stars are obtained or if you gift the game via the�Crystal network.�The bonus levels differ slightly from normal levels, but i'll leave that for you to discover yourself and of course, the developers have mentioned that more levels are coming soon. Chillingo has integrated their own social gaming network solution, Crystal, for 31 achievements and high scores which also piggybacks on top of Game Center like most of their recent games. Separate leader-boards exist for each chapter and for the bonus levels.

While the graphics and gameplay are successful, some of the music falls short. The music-box soundtrack became so irritating that I deployed the mute option. Another track is a few bars long and loops repetitively. Fortunately there's a few different sound tracks, some of which are relaxing and enjoyable, and better suited to the oily gameplay.

Overall, this game is definitely fun and it's always satisfying to watch your black oil slurp it's way into the mouth of a strange, big-eyed, oil-craving cartoon land-creature. Hopefully they deliver on the additional levels, but any game that mixes elements from�Enigmo,�World of Goo and�Cat Physics is sure to do well.

Yesterday, I was quite excited to see Konami release an iOS version of their classic arcade beat 'em up X-Men [$2.99], and I quickly downloaded the title as soon as it hit the US App Store. The good news is that this is a totally competent port of X-Men that's just how your remember it from 1992, and it plays just fine using virtual controls. The bad news is that once the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia wear off, X-Men is a simplistic and repetitive game at its core compared to modern offerings.That doesn't mean it isn't any fun though, and it's still a total blast to kick the snot out of legions of Magneto's henchmen using your favorite X-man or woman.

X-Men was always at its best played cooperatively with friends, with the pinnacle being the dual-screen arcade cabinet that allowed for all 6 players to play together simultaneously. This feature has been faithfully retained in the iOS version thanks to local WiFi cooperative play. I don't have enough devices to confirm whether you can play with all 6 players at once or not, but I did play through a 3 player game using an iPad 2, iPhone 4, and iPod touch. The connection was both easy to set up and reliable throughout the game, and cooperative multiplayer in X-Men is just as much fun as I remember it being.

Unfortunately, the solo gameplay doesn't hold up quite as well. Since continuing from exactly where you end up dying is both unlimited and doesn't cost any quarters, almost all of the risk or challenge is taken out of the game. It's easy to just mindlessly mash through the game, continuing as much as you need until it's all over. Sure, you can challenge yourself by restricting your own use of the continue option, but a more structured set of rules or goals would have been a nice addition. The inclusion of Game Center achievements and a leaderboard mitigates this somewhat.

Besides unlimited continues taking some of the fun out of the game, the actual brawler-style gameplay hasn't aged so well either. Your offensive move set is extremely shallow, and X-Men doesn't strive to be anything more than a mindless button-masher. The problem is that the visceral feel of physically mashing away at buttons on an arcade cabinet doesn't translate so well to the flat surface of a touch screen.

One nice addition to the iOS version of X-Men is the ability to move the onscreen virtual controls wherever you like, though I wish I could adjust the opacity of them as well. It's a universal game, and plays well on both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad. There is the option to play the game in a cropped window that retains the original 4:3 aspect ratio of the arcade game, or a "16:9" option that fills out the entire screen of whichever device you're using. I tend to go with the smaller window option as it retains the crispness of the pixel graphics, but it's nice to have the option of full screen too.

If you were a fan of the X-Men game in arcades nearly two decades ago, then you should easily get your three dollars-worth out of the iOS version just on the nostalgia factor alone. If you aren't familiar with the original game but enjoy a good arcade beat 'em up, then X-Men should still do the trick, it's just not the best the genre has to offer. The gameplay feels quite dated by today's standards, though it's not without its charms. If you have one or more iOS device-toting buddies with you, the experience improves dramatically in cooperative play.

I'm really happy that Konami decided to bring one of its classic arcade titles to the App Store, as are a ton of players in our forums, and I really hope that we continue to see more down the line. While the gameplay hasn't aged so well and there isn't an excessive amount of bells and whistles, the iOS X-Men is a totally decent conversion and an easy recommendation for fans of the original.

In the Fall of 2009, developer Godzilab released a new physics puzzler called iBlast Moki into the App Store. Back before the App Store was littered with physics-based puzzle games, iBlast Moki brought fresh gameplay ideas, an intuitive touch interface, clever level designs, and a fantastic visual style that really set the high-water mark for the genre. iBlast Moki drew critical acclaim from practically every outlet that covered it, including our own glowing review.

Back in April of this year, Godzilab started hinting on their Facebook page that they were working on a sequel to the first iBlast Moki. Yesterday, they officially announced that iBlast Moki 2 is on its way to iOS with a tentative release set for July or August.

Nothing is known about the gameplay in this new entry, though I imagine it will build on the foundation of the first game. Also, they've hinted that there is a brand new gameplay component which has to do with the bomb-shaped Moki above, and that the game is running at a rock solid 60 fps, which is an improvement over the original.

If you for some reason missed out on iBlast Moki the first time around, it's definitely worth a download while waiting for the sequel to drop. The game was recently updated with Retina Display support and Game Center, and just a couple of weeks ago the previously iPad-only version was updated to be universal. You can find links to the original iBlast Moki below.

We'll keep our eyes open for more information on iBlast Moki 2 as we get closer to its planned Summer release.