Just last week, we were filling your juicy brains with the knowledge that Kairosoft, the preeminent developer of cutesy mobile simulation titles including the highly lauded Game Dev Story [$3.99/Lite], was getting ready to release their latest title on US soil. We were fairly certain that his next title would be Mega Mall Story, as we spotted a banner for the game on their official website. And in fact, as of right now, our suspicions have been confirmed, as Mega Mall Story [$3.99] is now readily available in the US App Store.

Gameplay appears somewhat similar to the popular Tiny Tower [Free] where you are tasked with populating a fledgling mall building with various stores, staffing them up with qualified employees, and creating a successful and profitable mega complex of commerce where everybody wants to go to shop.

We'll of course be putting Mega Mall Story through its paces over the next few days, and will bring you a full review with our verdict. But, as is the case with any Kairosoft release, there are enough of you out there that have absolutely no problem picking up one of their new games sight unseen, and we totally support this reckless style of game purchasing by providing the App Store link for you below.

If you need some more input on what the game is like before our review, however, swing by the forum thread where our members are leaving their early impressions.

Back at Mobile World Congress, held in early February in Barcelona this year, Fish Labs was showing off some incredible looking version of Galaxy on Fire 2 [$9.99] running on Nvidia's Android-based Tegra 2 devices. Here's the demo video of the graphical tech they were showing off, which admittedly was much more impressive when you saw it running on an actual device:

Per the latest press release to come out of Fish Labs, it sounds like they've taken this Tegra 2 version, and turned the graphics up to 11 for the Mac and the iPad 2. Now for the bad news, Galaxy on Fire 2 Full HD will be a brand new game on the App Store, and won't be an update to the existing game. A Fish Labs post in our forums explains this is to solve issues like being able to show the high-resolution screenshots without confusing people, not forcing all non-iPad 2 owners to keep an extra 800MB of unutilized graphical assets on their device, prevent game save inconsistency, and it will allow them to price/update each version individually.

Here's the good news: This new version of the game looks awesome:

For the rest of the screenshots (and there are a bunch) head over to the Fish Labs site. This Fully HD version of the game is expected to launch this fall, and I can't wait to play through the whole thing again on my iPad 2.

In this week's bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show, we sit down with two of the men behind Incinerator Studios' elaborate curtains, chief creative officer Jeff Garsteki and chief technical officer Gary Wise. Card games and the creation of these kinds of games were the two biggest topic covered, but we also hit on where Incinerator started, what got it into mobile development, and even the future of the studio. You know, the usual.

If you'd like to give this listen, just hit those links just below. If you'd like to subscribe to The TouchArcade Show, you can do so right now for the price of $0 on both iTunes and Zune Marketplace. What a deal!

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-007.mp3, 17MB

As usual, our opening is provided by the wonderful Jim Guthrie. We went back to the Overclock Remix well for our break / pacing music. The tracks were all created by "Prototype Raptor," a man with a fantastic hacker alias (and a gift for remixing tunes). Here's the listing:

• Underground
• Miracle Matter
• Level BGM

One note: we had a lot of crazy technical problems during this recording. You'll hear one general fade-out and possibly a few level hiccups. Not big problems, but just wanted to let you know that we knew. If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to contact us. The e-mail address is: podcast@toucharcade.com.

Thanks for listening and we'll catch you again this Friday!

Trainyard [$.99 /�Free]creator Matt Rix is working on a new update to Trainyard. Over the weekend, Rix was posting images of an upcoming level editor that will be included in an update dubbed the "Engineer Update." From the images we've seen so far, we can tell that you'll be able to create and share your own user-created puzzles, as well as download others' creations. It appears as if there will also be some sort of ratings feature, too, as a promotional "Features" button figures prominently on this piece of UI in particular.

You could already share your Trainyard experience from the get-go by uploading videos to the game's official Web site. This, I suppose, is sort of a natural evolution of that side of the puzzle game's experience. In our review in particular, we lauded this additional element, but sadly, we haven't seen many games attempt to do the same thing.

Trainyard, by the way, is a wicked awesome game. If you're in the mood for a laid-back puzzle title, check it out. We don't think you'll leave disappointed.

[Via @MattRix]

If you're not familiar with Venan Entertainment's Space Miner [$2.99], let me get you up to speed. In a nutshell, the game is incredible. So incredible in fact that it was our 2010 iPhone Game of the Year. It's an awesome modern spin on the Asteroids formula with light RPG elements, a lovable game world, and upgrades out the wazoo for your ship. Additional difficulty modes (including a super-difficult perma-death mode) add a silly amount of replay value, making Space Miner one of the few iOS titles I've ever replayed from start to finish multiple times across multiple difficulties. In other words, you need to check it out.

This weekend Venan released the game design document for the game, and while it doesn't really reveal anything new or exciting that we already didn't know, it's really cool to take a look at what was the foundation for one of our favorite iOS games. It's also totally worth a read if you're an indie developer, as a solid game design document like this can really ease development as it serves as such a fantastic reference point to keep everyone on the same page throughout the pre-release life of the game.

We're still torn up over Venan announcing that a Space Miner sequel was being shelved, but we've got our collective fingers crossed they eventually pick the franchise up again.

Late last month, we detailed an impending update to CAVE's bullet hell shmup Deathsmiles [$11.99/Lite], and over the weekend that update went live in the App Store. It includes a screen shifting option to give you more room to control the game on either edge of the screen, unlockable costumes for Tiara in iPhone mode, brand new background music hidden in the game, and a number of new DLC items including weapons from past CAVE shooters Guwange and Dodonpachi Resurrection [$11.99/Lite].

You may also remember us mentioning that CAVE was broadcasting a preview of the Deathsmiles update over UStream last Friday, and hinted that there would likely be other surprises in store as well. It turns out that there were a couple of pretty big announcements during the stream.

The first is that CAVE is bringing a version of their Japanese cellphone title Castle Creator to iOS. Castle Creator allows you to build up your own little empire in medieval Japan and then test out its durability in skirmishes against other peoples' empires. It sounds like there will be social and location-based elements built into the gameplay.

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There's a second game based on Castle Creator coming as well, though currently it's only going to be for folks in Japan. All we really know about this game is that it will feature slot machine style gameplay, but more details on both of these Castle Creator titles should be coming out this weekend when CAVE holds a press event in Japan.

The second big announcement during CAVE's live stream was that an iPad specific version of Espgaluda II [$11.99/Lite] is currently in the works. The game will feature enhanced graphics over its iPhone counterpart, and will be tailored towards the extra power of the iPad 2. TouchGen has captured a video from the stream of CAVE showing off the iPad version, though they seemed to have some zooming issues during the demo and it's hard to tell how drastic the differences will be over a video:

There's no release window announced for Espgaluda II for the iPad, but we'll hear more on Castle Creator during the CAVE press event next week, and just maybe they'll throw us some new nuggets of info for the iPad bound shooter as well. We'll keep you posted.

This past June at WWDC, we sat down with the folks from Illusion Labs to dish on all things Touchgrind�[$4.99] related, and the team revealed to me that their original iOS mega hit�would be coming to the Mac App Store this Summer. Illusion Labs showcased a proof-of-concept video in January of 2010 showing Touchgrind being played on a MacBook Pro using the multi-touch trackpad, which led to our speculation that the game would come to the Mac with the announcement of the Mac App Store last October.

It may have taken a while, but Touchgrind has indeed launched in the Mac App Store, and it's currently completely free. The game controls well with the multi-touch trackpad, though it definitely feels different than the iOS touch screen and does take some getting used to. The view is nice and zoomed out, similar to the iPad version Touchgrind HD [$7.99], which makes it a whole lot easier to tell where you are going while cruising around the skatepark.

If you're a trackpad-equipped Mac owner, there's really no reason not to head on over to the Mac App Store and grab Touchgrind while it's free.

Are you the kind of person who has such an extreme affinity to retro gaming that you've let your lust for games like Pac-Man and Galaga invade every aspect of your life, but you've often found yourself disappointed that they haven't taken over your social media feeds? Well, Namco has the answer for you, and it's not part of a twelve step program� It's PAC'N TWIT [Free]. This free Twitter client does what most Twitter clients do in that it allows you to view your timeline, replies, direct messages, and all that jazz. It even has push notifications, which I was more than a little surprised to see implemented.

PAC'N TWIT also has some strange mini game integration. You can spin a roulette wheel based on the number of tweets you've posted, and winning rewards a puzzle piece to a… iPhone wallpaper. Each skin has its own associated wallpaper to unlock, and apparently aside from the two included Pac-Man skins and two included Galaga skins there are more on their way via updates.

It seems weird for Namco to dedicate resources to developing and releasing a Twitter client, but it was also pretty weird for Taito to release a whole mess of utilities like Space Invaders Calculator [99�]. Myself, I'm a fan of Tweetbot [$2.99], although I suppose the one drawback that it has is a significant comparative lack of retro game skins.

We've seen a lot of physics-based puzzle games since Angry Birds hit its current pop culture status, but Bizango Blast [$.99] is one of a handful that has something new to share. Rendered in 3D and presented in first-person, creator Olivier Archer's game attempts to be a more in-your-face experience, while still being centered on perspective and angles of approach. Sadly, the only thing it knocks out of the park are its Unreal Engine visuals. The real meat of the game � the physics, the puzzle design, and the canon play � feels clumsy and unpredictable at the best of times, and flat-out bad the rest of the time. It's a unique attempt, but not recommended.

Like most fixed-turret games, the nuts and bolts are wildly simple. You control a turret and the trajectory of its ammunition. The goal is to knock down physics-enabled constructs which nest a special object or objects. In this specific case, you're firing balls at satellites sitting atop flimsy towers made of materials like wood or concrete.

The first-person perspective is actually kinda neat since it forces you to think around the 3D towers. Want to hit a satellite sitting behind a thick cement shield? You'll need to pull the trajectory of the ball way up and give the firing mechanism just enough steam to crest and then hit behind the wall. You can also employ brute force tactics, but where's the fun in that?

Within these physics-based mechanics is where the game falls apart. Bizango's engine is stupidly unpredictable. It's also prone to technical errors. I've run into issues with objects hanging in the air with no supports on several occasions. Also, balls can clip through barriers completely or take wild bounces off of supports and deal zero damage to what you hit initially.

While I can take a bug or two under normal circumstances, these are catastrophic. The entire game is built around the core conceit that the physics engine is reliable and there just isn't any actual reliability to be had. When the game introduces the egg (a breakable object that you're tasked to save from calamity), this unpredictability causes way to many problems. It becomes almost unplayable.

I'm also having trouble sussing out what the puzzles want me to do. Bizango isn't so great at telegraphing via design, which has led me into spirals of testing each individual little shot I take. A bit of direction isn't a bad thing, especially when you're laser-locked into first-person perspective and having to be brutally precise with the trajectories and angles of attack. On a positive note, the cel-shaded art direction displayed in its levels is pretty cool.

Bizango strikes me as a game that needed more time in the oven. When it works, it's satisfying and scratches a new itch that I never knew I had, but the times when everything clicks are rare. Skip this one for the time being, but also take note that more and more�independent�developers are starting to dabble in UDK. I don't know if this has anything to do with the significant royalty change or not, but it's appear as if we're finally hitting that influx of games we've been expecting.

Practically everybody is familiar with Super Mario Bros., the classic NES title that you could argue single-handedly dragged the video game industry out of the muck and into the living rooms of gamers everywhere during the mid-80s. What isn't always so widely recognized, however, is the original title that preempted that release � Mario Bros. Originally an arcade game, Mario Bros. took Jumpman, the protagonist from the popular Donkey Kong series, and named him Mario, teaming him up with his brother Luigi to rid the sewers of New York from nasty varmints.

Mario Bros. is pretty different from its older brother Super Mario Bros. mostly because it's not the traditional side-scrolling platformer that we've all come to know and love, and is instead a single-screen game with arcade-style platforming elements. In the mid-90s, a clone of Mario Bros. was released for the Mac called Bonkheads. Recently, developer Around the Clock Games brought that game to the App Store as Bonkheads HD [$2.99], and if you're looking for that Mario Bros. type of gameplay on your iOS device, or you were a fan of the original Bonkheads, this new version fits the bill nicely.

The gameplay in Bonkheads HD consists of ridding creatures that enter from the sides of the screen by jumping and bopping the platform they are standing on from below. Once you've knocked them silly from under the platform, you must then get to where there at and touch their paralyzed body to rid it from the screen. Take to long to do this and they'll eventually wake up and start coming after you some more. As the game progresses over its 144 levels, more and faster enemies will appear with various types of attacks and patterns. Bonkheads HD also introduces some new elements, like special powerups and boss battles, which add some variety to the familiar formula.

The original Mario Bros. was at its best with a second person playing simultaneously with you, and Bonkheads HD on iOS remembers that and includes a neat local multiplayer mode. It's a split-screen same device multiplayer, which gives each player their own view of the action on their own side of the device's screen. This mode works really well and is a lot of fun with a second player. Many iPad games include a same device multiplayer mode like this, but interestingly, Bonkheads HD also supports this mode for the iPhone and iPod touch. Things are pretty tiny on the smaller screen of those devices, but it's doable, and I appreciate that they give you that option even if you aren't an iPad owner.

The above developer video gives you a look at the game in action, as well as the default swipe-based control scheme. I really like these controls, as you don't have to worry about keeping an eye on where you fingers are placed while playing, but a standard virtual button scheme is available as well for those that don't end up digging the swiping.

I can't really think of any better options if you're looking for a Mario Bros. type of game on the App Store. Bonkheads HD has nice high resolution graphics, good controls, tons of levels, and OpenFeint achievements and leaderboards, though sadly no Game Center currently. It's also a universal app, and the same device multiplayer is a cool addition no matter which device you're playing on. Players in our forums seem to really like the game too, and since we're not likely to see the original Mario Bros. on the App Store any time soon, Bonkheads HD is the best option available to scratch that particular itch.

Limbic Software's Zombie Gunship [$.99] is a fascinating change-of-pace game. In it, you pilot an AC-130 and drop hot metal on the undead, similar to how you butcher regular infantry in its iconic aircraft sections in the Modern Warfare games. From an overview level, this is a cool, compact twist on zombie genre which has struggled of late for a creative spark.

When we first praised the game, it was only available for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Now, it is a Universal game courtesy of a new (and free!) update. I went hands-on with the iPad version this morning and came away pretty impressed. The game looks stellar on the bigger screen, and it plays just fine, too.

Provided no-one makes a Zombies Vs. Dinosaurs game in the near-to-mid future, I think we'll continue to struggle to find new experiences in this genre. I'm glad that Zombie Gunship exists, first of all, but I'm stoked that it's actually fun, too. Check out the iPad version already!

Last September Namco released Time Crisis 2nd Strike [$6.99/HD], a game that offered a technically competent experience akin to their classic arcade light gun game series, but also one that lost most of what made it fun in the transition to the touch screen. Light gun games just aren't as good without the, well, light gun. Time Crisis, along with most every other gallery shooter on a touch screen, isn't quite as satisfying when all you have to do is tap directly on a target to shoot it.

A few weeks back though, Namco released the iGunCon [Free], an interesting app that tries to replicate the experience of using a physical controller in Time Crisis 2nd Strike using a second iOS device. At a time when peripherals like the Joypad Game Controller [Free], the iCade, and the iControlpad are offering cool new ways to play iOS games, the idea of a clever option for a light gun really interests me. In practice, the iGunCon certainly works, just not well enough to offer the type of solid experience that you would want. But, it's still a neat novelty to play around with, and if the tech improves it could turn into a real alternative for Wii-like motion controls in iOS games sometime in the future.

First off, the iGunCon can only work with devices equipped with a gyroscope and a digital compass. So basically, just an iPhone 4 or iPad 2, for now. It uses these parts of the hardware to track the movement of an onscreen cursor when aiming by pointing and moving your device. The setup is extremely easy, just involving selecting the iGunCon from the options screen when both devices are on the same local WiFi network or connecting over Bluetooth. The iGunCon can be used to play Time Crisis 2nd Strike on an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or in the Mac App Store version of the game.

While the setup is really simple, actually using the iGunCon to play the game isn't quite as successful. You can recalibrate the aiming reticule at any time right from the same screen you use to play, which is great, but the cursor movement is pretty choppy and doesn't always feel totally accurate. It's easy to adapt to with a few minutes of practice, but don't expect the same precision you would have with a real light gun or even the default tap-to-shoot option. But, if you can accept that things aren't totally perfect, it can actually be pretty fun to use the iGunCon.

Besides being used as a light gun controller, the iGunCon app itself can also be used as a toy gun, similar to something like the iGun [99�] and its many derivatives, and makes the different firing sound effects that are used for the weapons in the game. There are also options to use different graphics based on the various GunCon peripherals from the arcade and console versions of Time Crisis games over the years, which is actually a pretty cool nostalgic touch.

While it doesn't work completely perfectly, the iGunCon app is a neat peripheral that gives you a different way to experience Time Crisis 2nd Strike, and it's actually pretty fun, too. Best of all it's free, so there's no reason to not at least give it a try to see what it's all about. With some refinement, the tech could lead to some interesting gameplay experiences in the future. For now it remains mostly just a novelty, but definitely one that's worth checking out.

I distinctly remember the feeling of unwrapping and loading up Square Enix's Final Fantasy Tactics on my Playstation as a kid, unsure of exactly what it was, but I knew it had something to do with the Final Fantasy series and it was enough for me. I was, to say the least, confused and disappointed for the first couple hours of the game. But I got used to it and ended up purchasing it again on PSP and yet again on iOS as Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions [$15.99]. I had the same feeling loading up the iOS version as I did the first time on PS1 � puzzled and unsure of exactly what to think about it.

First, a quick primer for those who haven't been following along at home since 1998: Final Fantasy Tactics was originally released for Playstation and created by most of the team behind the Super Nintendo classic,�Ogre Battle. It was the first of what would end up being a billion Final Fantasy offshoot titles and subsequently, for a confused sixteen-year-old consumer, a strange, turn-based strategy version of Final Fantasy. It has since spawned a Gameboy Advance version, a DS sequel and finally, a PSP remake of the original, with the added War of the Lions subtitle. The PSP version is the one ported over to the iOS. It is often cited as one of the best turn-based strategy games in existence for its complex RPG elements, intelligent AI and its labyrinth of tactical options.

Gameplay wise, you'll be taking over a squad of characters and battling on grid-based maps in a turn-based system. As you play through, you'll be able to level up your characters, equip weapons and effects and change jobs. Since the iOS port is based on the PSP version, you'll also get an updated story, a better translation than the PS1 version and a few fancy cutscenes.

For those who haven't played it, that's really all you need to know walking in as there are plenty of reviews that go in-depth into the game's systems out there. If you're already a fan, you're probably playing it right now, possibly still cursing under your breathe about the price point and the wide range of issues. Those issues can make or break the experience depending on how dedicated you are to getting something out of it.

Your enjoyment is going to come based partially on which generation of device you own. On a 3GS, performance is incredibly sluggish and the tiny text can be difficult to read at times. It looks and plays better on an iPhone 4, but lacks dedicated retina support, so the text is still blurry and hard to read. You'll likely still experience some slowdown during more complicated bits. Double-sized on an iPad is probably the smoothest experience, but if you're going to do that you might as well hold off for the HD release this fall. Still, both the PS1 and PSP versions suffered from the exact same slowdown, so for those who played every iteration, it should come as no surprise Square Enix still hasn't cleaned it up.

As far as the touch implementation is concerned, it's a mixed bag. The game features a rather horrendous user interface, accented by the fact everything is so small. It really could have benefited from redone or resized menu screens. The same goes with the newly added camera movement, which, although you can pinch and zoom and slide to move, it doesn't feel like a lot of thought was put into it. Movement works about as well as you'd expect on the small screen, meaning you'll occasionally be tapping the wrong square or hitting the wrong box.

You're also losing the multiplayer of the PSP version, which is only going to matter to a small group of people, but it's a notable loss for anyone who wasted away hours in the ad-hoc wireless battles.

That's par for the course for nearly every aspect of the game. It's a quick and dirty port of the four-year-old PSP version of the game, which itself was based on a thirteen-year-old Playstation game. For fans of the original, you'll get pretty much the exact game you expect, albeit with some performance issues on some devices. If you haven't played either of the previous versions, you'll run into a steep learning curve, but you'll be rewarded with a massive, complex game that happens to be in a crappy wrapper. It would have been nice to get a truly iOS-optimized port, with redone menu screens and text, but no matter how you cut it, if Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions on your phone is all you want, you'll be able to deal with all the issues.

After being an Android exclusive for half a year, Pachinko Frenzy [Free], the latest from ngmoco, has arrived on iOS hoping to whet the appetite of Pachinko addicts everywhere. While that itch is certainly scratched with this game, Pachinko Frenzy's freemium underpinnings unfortunately detract from the overall gameplay to the point where only the most hardcore of Pachinko fans will continue to play the game for longer than a few sessions.

For those unfamiliar with the early 20th�century Japanese gaming device, we gave a good explanation of it in our review of the 2009 Pachinko [$0.99] iOS game. Essentially, small metal spheres are launched into the Pachinko machine with the goal of hitting as many stationary pins as possible, racking up points and generating more balls. Pachinko Frenzy takes this further by incorporating mini-games that can be earned when every pin on the board is lit up.

Mini-games range from trying to keep a single ball live for as long as possible, to trying to hit as many consecutive pins on one ball, and more. Do well in these mini-games and prizes can be earned, including collective trophies that can unlock new boards when enough of them are collected. Overall,�Pachinko Frenzy does a good job emulating a standard Pachinko board, assuming you aren't put off by the excessive anime motif. Just make sure that you have the latest generation of iOS devices, as�Pachinko Frenzy isn't compatible with anything earlier (and does occasionally slow down on the iPhone 4, no less).

Where the game starts to falter, unfortunately, is in its freemium implementation. The game starts out with only one board unlocked, and you can only unlock additional boards by "selling" 1000 balls or by collecting all the trophies associated with a locked board. Acquiring 1000 balls appears to be an exercise in futility, as you start out with 50, and it's extremely slow going trying to earn more than that (unless you're some kind of Pachinko Savant). The developers predicted this, and included the option to purchase additional balls as IAP, but as of this writing, IAP hasn't been implemented yet. This leads to trophy collection as the only other alternative to unlocking the additional boards, which is definitely possible but would take an extremely long time. Odds are most players would probably lose interest in the one board before any additional ones could be unlocked.

One of the goals of Pachinko is to feed the addiction of possible reward by playing a game based mostly on random chance. If you're looking for a time-waster that accomplishes that, or you're a fan of Pachinko, you can't go wrong with Pachinko Frenzy. However, don't think you're going to be unlocking new boards any time soon, unless you put in a good deal of time or money (once IAP goes live).

Just so we're clear, VOLV's Dawn of War [$.99] has nothing to do with Relic Entertainment's RTS series of the same name. While I'd imagine this will cause some legal woes down the road, it does present a cool contrast at the moment. This Dawn of War is a 2D side-scrolling strategy game grounded in the technology of modern warfare. Its backdrops and armies are also based firmly in our actual world. Relic's Dawn of War, on the other hand, is filled with thickly plated space imperialists and mutants tainted by a ruthless intergalactic nether realm.

Most strategy games we see are firmly entrenched in sci-fi or fantasy like Relic's game, so its neat play one that doesn't try to stretch the limits of the imagination. But, a slice of realism does not a good game make: Dawn of War is troubled, as it sports some woeful balance issues and some pretty rudimentary play that isn't back by meaningful depth. It's not a great game, but it's not a terrible one, either. It just sort of sits in the middle.

Speaking on a strictly mechanical level, most of what you'll do in Dawn of War is purchase tons of troops and hope that your ally waves can beat the AI's waves. The goal is, simply, the other side of an invisible wall on the 2D plain.

Dawn of War features soldiers with rifles and bazookas, and boasts vehicles like tanks, HMVs, artillery, and planes. Where it departs (aside from its grounded approach) is in its aerial deployments. Provided you have the cash, you can order in specific drops of troops, tanks, and even bombs. In fantasy games in this specific genre like Sword and Soldiers, this would be the rough equivalent of magic, as these attacks have serious range and areas of effect.

There is no finesse or overarching strategy to the moment-to-moment action, which is a fairly significant flaw working against Dawn of War. You can win any map by simple troop spamming and most of lower difficulty tiers are winnable with just infantry.

While we're talking about flaws, the lack of a camera is maddening. Dawn of War is so macro-focused that it neglects any ability to follow the action on a soldier or wave level. This is a bigger problem when you factor in area of effect attacks, as you'll need to slide to the wave you want to hit with them, which takes a lot of precious time.

And seconds are a big deal; Most levels end within one-to-two minutes with you as the victor or the fallen. Dawn of War sort of salvages its weak mission time with a cool 'perk' mechanic that allows for persistent upgrades based on cash earned in levels. If it hooks you like it did me, you'll find yourself grinding through the same locations over and over again.

Strangely, the game encourages this behavior outside of upgrades. Levels, including extra armies outside of the US and Britain are purchasable with in-game cash. Alternatively, you can buy a heap of in-game cash through IAP for 99 cents.

The extra levels, for what its worth, are really necessary to the experience. I should also add that they all boast a really cool water-color kind of look that mixes in well with the silhouetted art style of the vehicles and soldiers.

I don't want to get into value proposition territory here, so I'll just say that I had an okay time with the game. Its super simple and inarguably flawed, but its persistent upgrade system is a great carrot-on-the-stick and its modern war trappings do set Dawn of War apart. I hate this line, but if 'you're a fan of side-scrolling strategy games,' I can't imagine you'll come away wholly unimpressed with this effort.

Puzzle games don't have to be needlessly complicated. Usually, all it takes is a simple, approachable premise to make a game memorable. Glass Tower [$0.99]�managed to create such a foundation and ride its way to success as an online flash game, success that was somewhat duplicated when brought over to the App Store in the first two iterations of puzzle series. However, despite this accomplishment, excessive IAP, non-retina graphics, and the lack of online leaderboard support seemed to hold it back both titles. Glass Tower 3 [$0.99] looks to address all those issues while keeping its simple gameplay the center of attention. �After spending some time with this puzzler, notwithstanding a few issues, Glass Tower 3 is the definitive version of the series and should be checked out.

In Glass Tower 3, you are tasked with manipulating a tower full of multi-colored glass blocks sitting on a platform. Towers are comprised mostly of red and blue glass pieces, and your goal is to break all of the blue glass blocks without causing any of the red glass to fall off the platform. Increasingly difficult arrangements of glass pieces, as well as the game's physics system, are the primary obstacles in successfully saving all the red blocks. In addition, power-ups ranging from extra lives (you lose a life every time red glass falls off the platform) to a temporary suspension of physics, help the player in solving each level.

I love the fact that there are a variety of ways to solve each level in Glass Tower 3. A patient player can methodically eliminate each blue piece while predicting the physics of the rest of the tower, while other players (myself included) can also solve levels by quickly taking out piece after piece trying to quickly balance a mass amount of falling blocks while relying on power-ups to (hopefully) bail you out. Regardless of play style, I just found the game soothing to play, especially with its ambient soundtrack.

While I do enjoy the variety that the physics system brings to each level, some players may be frustrated by the occasional erratic movements of glass pieces. Also, some of the power-ups that appear during the game just aren't balanced correctly � an entire level can easily be won or lost based on the power-up picked up. Still, I'd rather have the power-ups exist than not, as they certainly add an additional element to the gameplay.

For those of you that have played the previous games in the Glass Tower series, this third title offers several significant improvements. Most notably, retina graphics were finally integrated in the series, which was a long overdue request. Similarly, Glass Tower 3 also includes Game Center support, as well as an overhaul of the scoring system to make it easier to track scores for each level. For players that may have felt put off by Glass Tower 2's [Free] IAP centered approach to delivering content, Glass Tower 3 has 150 levels which are all available without any additional purchases. Each of the additions above have significantly improved the overall quality of Glass Tower 3 and it's good to know that the developer has been listening to player suggestions. My only real complaint is that Glass Tower 3 is missing the level editor that was available (as IAP) in Glass Tower 2. Considering the enhancements to the overall graphics system, it would have been interesting to design some levels utilizing these improvements.

Whether you've played a Glass Tower game before or are new to the series and looking for a new puzzler, Glass Tower 3 should be a title worth looking into.� It's taken the success from earlier games, incorporated a ton of requested features, and then fleshed it out with enough new levels to keep you busy for quite some time. Physics-based puzzles aren't for everyone, and this game certainly won't change your mind if you're not a fan. However, if you're looking for something new, Glass Tower 3 looks to be a clear choice to check out.