One thing that I love about the App Store is that there's a lot about it that is highly reminiscent of the old 8-bit and 16-bit era of console gaming. Specifically, I'm talking about how seemingly everyone was just dying to make a character that could turn into a potential franchise, or better yet, a mascot for whatever console it might have been exclusively released on (for instance, Plok). There's a ton of these seemingly B-grade character driven games on the App Store, and Bean of Bean's Quest [$2.99] seems like a modern day Bubsy in that the protagonist has all the character it needs, however, will we ever be clamoring for another Bean game? I know I didn't really care about Bubsy's platforming career, that's for sure. But, I digress.

Bean's Quest is a strange beast. It's one of the shortest iOS games I can think of that I've played recently. So short in fact, that it's already over just about the time you start getting into it, which for most people will take around 5 minutes, but definitely no more than 10. Normally in a situation like this, I'd quickly move on to whatever other game I've got on my device and quickly forget about it until it gets deleted in my next mass-scale app purge. …But Bean's Quest is good.

The graphics are perfectly vibrant, and have just enough of that 16-bit era pixely-ness to them without going overboard. The original soundtrack by Flashygoodness is an excellent pairing, and the controls work great: Touching one side of the screen causes you to move left, while the other causes you to move right. Since you're a jumping bean, jumping is handled automatically, as in, you're always jumping.

Initially this always jumping mechanic seems to be a mixture of irritating and unwieldily. I reluctantly bounced my way through the first level, jumping on enemies to kill them, collecting various diamonds, and even coming across a mysterious axolotl. It wasn't until I bounced off the spring at the end of the level that things became clear- Bean's Quest pumps a flat out silly amount of replay value by counting the number of jumps it took you to get to the end of the level, as well as whether or not you've collected all the diamonds along with the (sometimes hidden) axolotl.

See, just bouncing around and cautiously going through the level resulted in me jumping 24 times. Bean's Quest challenges me to do it in less than 15, and I can't help but try. Hitting these jump goals involves some ridiculous levels of analysis of each of the levels, figuring out where you can jump, what to avoid, and what enemies you can bounce off of to potentially skip a obstacle that would take a few jumps to go over. Clearing each level with all the diamonds, the axolotl, and under par for jumps is going to be a serious challenge. I'm not even sure it's possible, or at least, it seems beyond my ability.

What absolutely slays me about Bean's Quest is how stupidly short it is. At the start of the eighth and final level I was really getting into the game, both focused on progression and going back and seeing how many jumps I could shave off once I got the gist of the level. But, just as quickly as I fell in love with the game it was over.

…Which brings me to the uncomfortable portion in this review where you find out whether or not Bean's Quest is a game I'd recommend. In its current form, I definitely feel like I've gotten $2.99 worth of entertainment out of the game because aside from the content included, it's an awesome package of graphics, sound, and undeniably sound gameplay. However, from a value perspective, Bean's Quest is a hard pill to swallow considering games like Soosiz [$1.99], League of Evil [$1.99] and even Pizza Boy [$1.99] provide similar gameplay with much, much more content.

The good news is, there is light at the end of the Bean's Quest tunnel. The developer's web site mentions an impending update coming next month that will raise the level total up to 24 levels. Their blog even teases what the second world will look like� But waiting for updates, and specifically buying a game based on promised updates can be a dangerous game that all too often seems to end in disappointment.

If you're willing to roll the dice on Bean's Quest and the developers following through with their update plans, Bean's Quest is an effortless recommendation. However, if you've already got an iOS device loaded with platformers you haven't finished, it's likely best to add this to your mental (or AppShopper) wish list until Bean's Quest actually feels like a proper quest, and not a cruel tease of a potentially awesome platformer. With that being said, people who have taken the plunge on our forums are happy they did, and Bean's Quest is even universal which always sweetens the deal.

Prison can't be that bad if you can develop video games from there, am I right? At least, that's the ongoing gag in the media about Julius Styles: The International, an upcoming game being developed by Lapland Studios and Wesley Snipes, a man who is doing hard time for tax evasion. While hilarious, that might not be an accurate picture of what's going on here: we're under the impression that the majority of Snipes involvement was pre-prison. But I'm not here to tell you about that. Rather, I want to point out that the fruits of the pairings labor will arrive�on August 11 on the iPhone and iPad, as was just revealed this afternoon.

We've been hearing about Julius Styles for a while now strictly courtesy of Snipes. Unfortunately, he's been saying something very similar to today's statement since January, when the game was first announced for XBLA, iOS, Android, and PSN:

"The concept for Julius Styles is an amalgamation of the 'international spy, security specialist characters' I've played in a couple of films," Snipes said in a new press release.

"Except unlike previous characters I've played, who often have military special ops, spy backgrounds, I needed a twist for him. Thus, Julius Styles was born."

Styles is some sort of amalgamation of an adventure / puzzle / third-person action game that puts you in the boots of the hero, Julius Styles. In the screens received today, we're thinking that the latter element is the actual driving force behind the experience, though it's entirely possible that we're whiffing on this assumption. To be frank, we've yet to get our hands on it and the marketing behind it likes to play buzz word bingo, so it's become pretty hard to judge what kind of game it actually is. Obviously, though, we'll be keeping our eyes on this as it creeps towards release.

Just so we're all on the same page from the start, Bravo Game Studios'�Xtreme Wheels [$3.99] is whole heck of a lot like RedLynx's�Trials series. Actually, it's almost identical, but while many have tried to bring the painfully difficult motocross physics-puzzle-style to iOS,�Xtreme Wheels is probably the closest to getting it right.

If you've played�Trials, you'll know what to expect from�Xtreme Wheels and it gets the job done confidently enough. If you haven't,�Xtreme Wheels is a physics based motrocross game that requires you to traverse an environment and get from one point of the map to the other by accelerating and leaning your character and bike in the correct directions to get through a series of obstacles.

That all sounds simple enough, but the joy (or rage) of�Xtreme Wheels is in the fact you have to finesse your way up and over exploding barrels, ninety-degree walls and across tiny platforms. Like its pedigree, this isn't a game for the faint of heart and while the first few levels are far too easy, the last ten are truly a pain to get through.

The goal of each track is to get through it alive once, then to head back and improve your time. You'll receive medal awards based on your time and the number of crashes. Usually, you'd spend your time beating friend's scores on the leaderboards, but right now the Game Center boards are pretty screwed up, with the top times listed as zero. For this type of game, fixing this needs to be on the top of Bravo's to-do list.

You'll have four different control schemes at your disposal, two styles of analog sliders, a digital pad and tilt controls. For the most part, the analog slider is going to be the go-to for�Trials fans, but newcomers might find the other controls more to their liking.

Whichever control scheme you chose, you'll be rolling with it over the course of 25 levels in five themed areas. Again, if you played�Trials, you know what to expect here � the level progression, although a bit slow at first, ramps up considerably and awkwardly at the mid-point (like�Trials, actually). If you haven't played a game like this before, you're going to run into some serious trouble early on because the game doesn't do a particularly good job of teaching you how to play it. Simple things like bunny-hops are going to frustrate newcomers pretty quickly and even old hands will have a little trouble getting the hang of them with the control schemes.

That actually brings up one of the problems with�Xtreme Wheels, the physics are a little loose compared to the responsiveness of the controls and since the level design facilitates some ridiculous situations, the physics don't always respond as you'd expect. It's only jarring because the controls are so reactive, your character will lean and move exactly as you'd anticipate, but the bike doesn't always respond. Then again, that might simply be the sixty-plus hours I've poured into�Trials HD tainting my view a little.

One of the other major problems comes in the form of framerate hiccups. Both on a 3GS and an original iPad the game has serious slowdown after explosions and in some of the more complex areas. This isn't a good thing in this type of game and it's almost impossible to recover from. There are a ton of checkpoints throughout each level to keep this from being too aggravating, but for those looking to go gold on every level it'll only make the game even harder. The same goes for your inevitable fail animations, which seem to drag on as the system stutters.

From early screenshots, the game looked like it was going to be a real stunner. The environments hold up to the screenshots and look great, but the animation on the rider is a little stiff. This only matters because your rider's position is key to getting through tougher parts and it's occasionally a little difficult to figure out exactly where he's positioned. Of course, I'd have preferred a steady framerate over fancy visuals any day, so we'll see if they can scale the graphics down to add some smoothness in the future.

Despite those flaws, the game is a faithful rendition of a�Trials-style game, but it would have been nice to see a little more innovation in the environmental art or at least more of its own style instead of a nearly direct clone of�Trials. Even still, if they can get the framerate up, it'll be one of the better renditions on the App Store, even if it's lacking it's own constitution.

Dene Carter, co-founder of the development house Big Blue Box that worked with Lionhead Studios to create the first Fable title for the Xbox, is currently heading up his own company Fluttermind which released Flaboo! [99�] on the App Store in late 2009. If you happen to follow the Fluttermind blog at all, then you should be aware that Dene has been hard at work on a new iOS title called Incoboto ever since the release of Flaboo! a year and a half ago. And even if you have been following the development of Incoboto for that entire time, chances are that you still aren't totally sure what the heck the game is about.

By Dene's own description, Incoboto is a "puzzle/adventure/exploration/story/weird game", which actually sounds totally interesting to me. Dene then goes on to explain:

It's an open world; and you can go back and forth as you see fit. None of this linear level nonsense. Most important to me, though, is that it's the story of the last living thing in the universe: a small boy named Inco, and slightly insane sentient sun called Helios. Together, they travel the cosmos finding weird machines left over from dead civilisations, and find clues to what happened to everyone, which ultimately reveals the nature of both Inco and Helios themselves.

As for the actual gameplay, we know that there will be a physics system and you'll be able to touch to interact with objects and even drag to throw them, which will be a big part of the puzzles in the game. We also know that you'll be able to direct the shine of your solar companion Helios' sun rays, which you can see in the screen above, though I'm not exactly sure how that factors into the gameplay just yet.

I may not fully understand what is happening in Incoboto, but these teaser shots for the game are more than enough to pique my interest. The visuals have a really neat style, and from reading Dene's blog I can see that he is really invested in making sure there is a distinct moodiness to the game that people will feel when they play. Fluttermind has been hinting at putting together a video to show some of what Incoboto will be like, which I think would be a great idea. We'll keep our eye out for this video or any other new information for Incoboto, and there's currently a discussion for the game you can get in on in our forums.

Alawar's�The Jolly Gang's Spooky Adventure [$1.99 / HD], is the type of game you're either going to love or hate after a single glance. There likely isn't going to be much of an in-between here, but thankfully there's a lite version for people to test out first, as well as tons of options for a PC demo since the game was originally released a couple years ago.�The Jolly Gang's Spooky Adventure, like many of Alawar's previous offerings, is something of a mash-up between puzzle, hidden object, escape the room and adventure games with an often cringe-worthy style of humor.

You play as Moxxie, a rather androgynous girl who just got a job at a local ghost-hunting tabloid. Upon starting the game, your first task is to assemble together a series of objects you'll need before heading off to the office by touching various parts of the screen. It sounds like your typical hidden-object game, but�Jolly Gang does a good job of mixing things up. You don't just need to find the objects, you need to complete tasks with them as well. You'll use the umbrella on the handbag to get it off the shelf, or you need to find the passcode to open a locked bag. As far as those sections are concerned, it's essentially a hidden object game mixed with some room escape elements.

There are other components tossed into it that make it a different kind of experience, including some mini-games, most of which will be familiar to fans of these types of puzzle games. It's certainly a more casual experience, but it's also exceptionally weird in both its humor and its puzzle style. It uses a lot of the traditional adventure tropes to get its puzzles across, but it throws in enough fresh ideas to keep it interesting, even if it never gets too difficult.

The elements that are going to polarize people are the art style and the sound.�Jolly Gang has that lazy, poorly drawn look about it, certainly on purpose, but intentional or not, you'll either love it or hate it. The same goes for the voice acting, which sounds like one person did everything and pushed it through a pitch-shifter and called it a day. Chances are, you'll be muting it within the first few minutes. Depending on your own leaning, the game is aesthetically the ugliest thing you've ever seen or it's a fresh take on animation.

The look is a little troublesome for one reason that's hard not to deny, it looks like a kid's game. It most certainly is not and although the humor is never overtly adult or offensive, it's clearly geared toward an older crowd.

On top of being an adventure game with a plot to get through and puzzles to solve, there's also a scoring mechanic built in so you can compare on Game Center. It's a little strange, as it seems to be based on how quickly you find objects and complete a screen, which is clearly something you can bulk up over time, but as a needless add-on, it might offer enough incentive for super-fans to play again.

The Jolly Gang's Spooky Adventure isn't exactly what it looks like on first glance. There are certainly adventure game mechanics at play here, but the bulk of the game combines hidden object and escape the room tropes more than anything else. If you're fans of those two genres and you like the sloppy art style, you'll enjoy your time here, even if it is a bit short. If not, this certainly won't change your disposition.

A new sale is sweeping the App Store in light of the release of Zombie Gunship [$.99]. Creator Limbic Software is offering its Tower Madness games for $0 in celebration of this lightest morsel of awesomeness. This is a sale with a total of two middling-to-good titles that should keep you pre-occupied if Gunship isn't in your wheelhouse. If it is, well, I suppose that's icing on the cake.

Here's the quick hit sales list:

• Tower Madness � $2.99 -> Free
• Tower Madness HD � $7.99 -> Free

We checked out Zombie Gunship earlier at WWDC 2011 in San Francisco. It's basically an AC-130 game that has you defending key objectives from an endless zombie horde. If you're familiar with any recent Call of Duty titles, you'll probably appreciate the AC-130 action part of the title more than flight enthusiasts. It has a similar look and feel to those mini-game sections in Activision's uber-popular war franchise.

More is coming to Zombie Gunship, by the way. At GDC, we were told that more zombie types, more weapons, and even more locations are coming in a free update. Neat!

Back in February last year, details of a Pocket God comic emerged and we raised our collective eyebrows and said, "A comic book based on an iPhone game?" Well, it seems that the Pocket God Comics [99�] has been thriving, or, as close to thriving as an indie comic book series can be, over the last year. There's a bunch of issues now, both available in paper as well as IAP via the app, and it's actually been fun to watch how they've transformed what originally amounted to a simple sandbox game to a plot-driven comic book.

According to news fresh out of Comic Con, Zepto Labs' Cut the Rope [99�] is going to be the next iOS game to make the jump from the small screen to the… Well, I guess the digital comic will be on the small screen too. Anyway, a digital comic is in the works which will explore Om Nom's (the cute green critter) back story. It also sounds like other characters will be introduced, which will be making their appearance in future iterations of Cut the Rope.

I've always thought it's really neat to see popular IP expanded out to other mediums, and it seems like digital comics make a lot of sense, especially with lovable characters like Om Nom and the Pocket God pygmies. If nothing else, this is just a indicator that Ape Entertainment is serious about turning iOS titles into digital comics, which really makes me wonder what titles are next. I think a Space Miner [$2.99] comic could work really well, and a Canabalt [$2.99] comic where they explore what the hell is happening that has resulted in you breaking through a window running across rooftops would be rad as well.

Last March, Minigore [99�/HD] developer Mountain Sheep teamed up with Remedy and Cornfox & Bros. to bring us Death Rally [99�], a fantastic remake of a classic PC combat racing game. During Death Rally's development, Mountain Sheep also had another project being kept warm on the back burner that was again the product of a developer team-up, this time with Aqua Globs [99�/Lite/HD] creator Qwiboo with a little bit of Angry Birds [99�/HD] music composer Ari Pulkkinen thrown in for good measure.

The developers involved in the project announced in our forums last week that this new game will be called Bike Baron, and today we have the first trailer for the game. Bike Baron is basically a Trials HD-like motorcycle stunt game, but instead of an industrial themed art style it has more of a cartoonish, lighthearted vibe. The "Bike Baron" himself totally reminds me of Dick Dastardly crossed with Super Dave Osborne, which is a great mix if you ask me.

The trailer for Bike Baron pretty much speaks for itself, showing off a single play through of a level, and is looking fantastic so far:

There's no set release date for Bike Baron, though the developers have commented that there's only a few weeks left of final development and that the game should be out sometime in August at the latest. We also don't know what the price will be yet, but we do know that Bike Baron will be launching as a universal app and will contain a level editor, which you can see briefly at the beginning of the above video. You can check out more screens, concept art, and info in the thread in our forums, and we'll be sure to give Bike Baron a "trial" when it launches in the coming weeks.