Realm of the Mad God is one of the only web-based games I care about. It's a dual-stick shooter with RPG and MMO trappings. You play as one of several different projectile-slinging, weapon-swinging character classes in a legitimate life or death adventure that revolves around collecting loot and killing monsters. In action, it's a delicious and chaotic mess of stat bonuses, furious collection, cutesy particle effects, trading, and quest taking.

The thing that I find so remarkable about it is how stripped-down it is. You don't need to engage with other players, there are no quest givers, and the loot flows like water as you scramble around the world putting beasts and boss monsters on ice. And while perma-death is a mechanic, it doesn't sour the experience. It enriches it. Your dude matters. He has a life!

You can check out the game in your browser right now and maybe, just maybe, as some point in the future, you'll be able to check it out on your mobile device.

This very afternoon, I got in touch with Rob and Alex at Wild Shadow, the studio behind the game. There are no short-or-long term plans to bring Realm of the Mad God to mobile, but there's still a chance it could come to the platform.

"We don't really have an long-term plans for mobiles either � it's mainly due to the twin-stick interface we're using," Rob told me. He mentioned that he recently gave a dual-stick shooter a go on his iPad and wasn't happy with the virtual stick interface. I totally get where he's coming from.

There's also the issue that Wild Shadow would need to contract a possible port out, but the main problem resides in the controls.

"We'd love to get Realm of the Mad God onto mobiles, if we could find someone willing to do the port who can solve the interface problem," Rob said before asking if me if I had any ideas on solving the interface issue. I bumbled about and said I would turn the question to you guys instead. So… have any good ideas? I'm desperate to have this game on my iPad or iPhone, so fire away, PLEASE.

[Big thanks to Rock, Paper, Shotgun for turning me on to this game]

Old games get news legs on mobile. Can we call that a fact, yet? Regardless, yet another aged and half-forgotten title is in the process of being translated to mobile platforms. In a chat with Joystiq, Bazinga Studios said that it's interested in reviving The Neverhood on new-fangled devices, provided it can wrestle the licensing from its IP guardians.

In 1996 I was too busy being wowed by Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, so I missed this particular CD-ROM adventure game, but as you can see, it has a fun art style characteristic of a time when there was a lot more clay than CG in mass media. Also, it's classic point-and-click just like our daddies made them.

It seems like the project is moving forward despite the legal conversation. The Facebook page for the game has several screenshots as well as tiny updates regarding the platforms its set to grace, which at this point are iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and Windows 7. According to this page as well, several of the game's original designers are on this project.

Looking good, right? We'll be keeping our eyes on this one, for sure.

[Via Joystiq]

Kotaku Japan is reporting that an official Pokemon game is on its way to the App Store and Android marketplace in Japan this summer. Provided the translations we've seen are accurate, it's called Pokemon Say Tap? Apparently, it's a rhythm game that has you tapping on Pokemon-themed cards in time with the game's music.

When it hits it'll be available for $0, which should strike you as an uncharacteristic move for a publisher who rails against the App Store when promoting the its comparatively high-priced 3DS and its high-priced games. But this probably isn't a Nintendo-published joint; rather, it appears to be a The Pokemon Company title. The Pokemon Company is an affiliate of Nintendo and has licensing and marketing power over the well-loved, well-travelled IP. So, not-official, but official. You see what I'm getting at?

This does seem to have some amount Nintendo backing, though, if a listing on the game's official JP page and a credit on the title screen itself is any indication of this kind of weighty stuff. I have a feeling the�accreditation�and promotion is more about "Hey, we're Nintendo; we do Pokemon!" than it says about Nintendo's plans for the App Store, which I'm almost positive there are none. Sorry, folks.

Either way, an official Pokemon app is on its way. I wonder if Nintendo or The Pokemon Company will start cracking down on the immense amount of unofficial Pokemon stuff on Android and the App Store?

[Via Kotaku Japan]

Back in January we heard the excellent news that Cope-Com would be bringing an exact port of their classic Amiga shooter Battle Squadron to iOS. Originally released for the Amiga in 1989 (arriving on the Genesis / MegaDrive the following year), Battle Squadron is widely considered one of the very best Amiga shooters ever released and is probably my personal favorite 2D shooter of all time. And, I know Arnold Kim spent plenty of time with this one on his Amiga 500, as well.

Since the original announcement, I've previewed several pre-release builds of the game and have loved every minute of it. I'm happy to report that, at long last, Cope-Com released the Universal application (for iPhone and iPad) Battle Squadron ONE [link] into the App Store. And, any self-respecting shooter fan (of a retro bent or no) needs to take notice.

At its core, Battle Squadron ONE for iOS is an exact rendition of the Amiga original; it is a line-by-line C/C++ adaptation of the original 68000 assembly code. The game features four scrolling level environments, huge numbers of enemy craft, 24 different weapons (four types with six power levels each), Nova Missile smartbombs, four powerful end-bosses, and three different levels of difficulty. Three different control modes have been worked into the iOS version: direct touch (at both "Amiga speed" and "keep up with my finger speed" modes), tilt, and virtual joypad. Game Center integration and daily leaderboard updates are there, and a simultaneous two-player mode is coming in a free update.

Have a look at Cope-Com's gameplay video, with co-creator Martin Pedersen narrating. A longer demo that I captured of a recent, pre-release build of the game can be seen here.

To ensure solid performance, the developers have limited�Battle Squadron ONE to iOS 4 and the iPhone 3GS, 3rd-generation iPod touch, iPad or better.

Amiga Computing magazine, way back when, gave the original Battle Squadron a 109% review rating. Battle Squadron ONE is excellent gaming, folks. Do not miss it.

Back in April, we learned that developer SoMoGa was hard at work on an iOS port of classic RPG Lunar: Silver Star Story, and today we finally have the first screenshots from the game. SoMoGa was responsible for porting the Sega Saturn RPG Vay [$4.99] to the App Store in 2008, and did a pretty fantastic job doing so. While Vay was a somewhat obscure title, the Lunar series has a pretty dedicated following worldwide, and has seen several different releases and remakes over the years.

Originally, Lunar: The Silver Star was released for the Sega CD back in 1993. A remake of the game, called Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and featuring enhanced audio and visuals, came to the more powerful Sega Saturn console in 1997, but only in Japan. �This remake eventually did make its way to North America by way of the PlayStation console in 1999.

This leads me to one thing a lot of people have been wondering since the announcement of Lunar: Silver Star Story Touch, which is exactly what version of the game the iOS port would be based on. SoMoGa played it a bit coy in an email to us, explaining that the version these screenshots are taken from is based on the Saturn remake, but that the Sega CD version is getting ported as well.

I don't know if that means there will be a completely separate release of the original or if there will be some sort of mode inside of the game that lets you play with the original graphics and sound. SoMoGa promises to clarify this further soon, but if you're a purist looking for the original game experience it looks like you'll be in luck one way or another.

Expect more news on Lunar: Silver Star Story Touch soon, and you can look for the game to hit the App Store sometime before the end of the current quarter, which basically means sometime before the end of September.

When I think about excellent but underrated games on the App Store, Marco Mazzoli's Spirit [99�/HD] immediately comes to mind as a prominent example. Launching back in February of last year, Spirit is a neo-retro arcade game that uses a control mechanic that's perfectly suited to the touch screen. You control your tiny "Spirit" with your finger, and as enemies appear on the screen they are dispatched by quickly circling your Spirit around them, creating a vortex that sucks them in.

Things get increasingly hectic as more enemies show up and you try to encircle them in a vortex without also running right into them. Ultra-responsive controls ensure that it's never the game's fault when things eventually go sour, and a nuanced scoring system adds layers of strategy to the gameplay. Last November a new Pulse mode was added into the game which basically turned the core game on its ear and offered a completely new way to play. It almost felt like Pulse could have been its own separate game rather than a free update to the existing Spirit app, but I didn't complain.

So, Spirit is pretty brilliant, and I like it quite a bit in case you couldn't tell. It's also been a well-supported game, receiving quite a few updates in the past year and a half since its release. However, one thing Spirit has been missing is high resolution visuals, and the colorful neon lines in the game look a bit jaggy on newer devices. Thankfully that problem has been rectified with the latest update to Spirit.

The developer has redrawn all the graphics in the game to utilize Retina Display and iPad resolutions. Like its classic arcade inspirations, Spirit has pretty minimalist visuals, but the extra fidelity of the high resolution art definitely makes a big difference. Aside from the visual improvements, this update also brings a slew of minor optimizations and tweaks, most notably better performance on older devices. Also, Spirit has a snazzy new icon.

If this is the first you're hearing of Spirit and you enjoy a good arcade-style high scoring game, then you should definitely give it a try. Both Spirit and the iPad native Spirit HD are currently on sale for just 99�, and are easily worth every penny. There is a dedicated group of players in our forums who would agree, and when it comes to original arcade experiences they don't get much better than Spirit.