Yesterday at EA's Naughty or Nice event in New York, I sat down with Levi Buchanan of Chillingo to have a look at a few of the titles the studio has in the pipeline for iOS. One of the titles in question places iOS gamers in the role of a hero that is in no way wanting in the blue and red spandex department. Yes readers, the Man of Steel will soon be training his heat vision upon the App Store.

Superman, developed by Tiger Games, is an iPhone only game that puts you in the red boots of the son of Jor-El. It's a stand alone action adventure, not tied to any particular film outing, old or new. The story goes like this. Lex Luthor has taken it upon himself to launch a series of satellites to "help" with the whole climate change problem. Superman is understandably concerned by the bald villain's true motives. (Spoiler: they're bad.)

The game throws you right into the City of Metropolis, represented in side-scrolling 2D, with a good sampling of your superpowers available for use. The goal is to make it through 18 levels, defeating baddies by any of a number of different means, putting out fires with your freeze-breath, and working your way to defeating the evil Luthor and his orbiting offensive.

The game is designed to be played in mobile-friendly 3-4 minute sessions, each of which call upon most of Superman's superpowers to get the jobs done. As Superman flies about Metropolis, arrows surrounding his powerful self point directly to situations that need attention, color coded for urgency. The backstory is told via comic book-style panels, appropriately, and the whole thing is a touch-controlled race against the clock.

As long as your iPhone case isn't crafted from Kryptonite, you should have no problems taking a stab at the role of Kal-El in Superman later this year.

We sat down with EA at yesterday's Naughty or Nice games event in New York and had a look at a number of upcoming iOS titles, one of which should put a smile on the faces of all the real-world FPS fans out there. Coming this winter, for iOS only, is a spin-off of the imminent, big-news home console title Battlefield 3, entitled Battlefield 3 Aftershock, which we first covered back in August.

Battlefield 3 Aftershock is a single- and multi-player FPS that will feature a range of battlefield locations around globe. The early demo version I played with was set �in Iraq (only) and the additional play locations have not yet be revealed.

Single player mode, EA explained, is being built around powerful 3D visuals, great gameplay, ragdoll physics and a wave system of enemy attacks designed to provide the best mobile wargame possible � with an emphasis on mobile. The combat system is built around incoming hordes of enemies � 150 waves per map � designed to deliver relentless FPS action that can, on the go, be played just one wave at a time in 3-4 minute sessions.

There are four different character classes with heavy weapons variation (over 50 in all) and a high degree of player customization options. The multi-player game is expected to support matches with up to 10 players and character experience gained in single-player mode will translate over to multi-player, allowing for solo build-sessions between matches.

Battlefield 3 Aftershock�is controlled via two on-screen "sticks," movement on the left and aiming on the right. There is also an aim-assist button on the right that helps lock down targeting for those wanting a bit of help with the headshots. A few minutes of gameplay showed an impressive degree of detail and action on the demo iPad's screen. In this early build of the game, there's still room for some shader work, it seemed, but striking visuals are on EA's list of priorities for the final release, so I expect that will get tightened up before release. Even still, as is, it's one of the best looking iOS shooters I've seen.

Battlefield 3 Aftershock will arrive as a universal application (for iPhone and iPad) in late '11 or early '12 and will feature integration with EA's own Origin online network. You can count on a review of the title, closer in.

Yesterday, TouchArcade attended EA's Naughty or Nice game event in New York and spent time with a number of just-announced titles on the way from Chillingo. Perhaps the most stand-0ut game of the lot is Zombie Wonderland 2, sequel to the June 2010 release Zombie Wonderland [App Store]. As in the original, the upcoming sequel puts you in the shoes of Chuck, the renowned Zombie Cleaner of the pleasant little '50s Americana town, Niceville. While, before, your task was to keep the homes of your clients as clean and as zombie-free as possible, your new order of business is a bit more complex a proposition.

Now, while we aren't allowed to get into to many details as far as the storyline goes, just yet, I can tell you that the rooms you will be defending (and cleaning) are, this time around, spread throughout time. From the local museum, which serves as a kind of time-hub, you will be traveling to medieval castles, ancient Egyptian crypts, Viking halls, and ancient Japanese dwellings � all riddled with zombies that make terrible stains when dispatched.

Some of the tasks that must be completed involve several stages set in different locations and / or times. For instance, one of your clients, Vlad the vampire, has given up drinking blood and moved over to milk. So you must travel through time to get him a glass of milk by milking a cow in a zombie-swarmed barn. Each of the temporally far-flung locales features its own mini-boss that appears and drives the zombies into attack frenzies that make the task of keeping the rooms clean and zombie-free quite a challenge.

While the original release featured four locations, four weapons, and five types of zombies, Zombie Wonderland 2 delivers 25 locations, 25 weapons, and 22 types of zombies, as well as a mega-boss zombie. Some of the weapons available are special bullets, medusa bullets, gnawers, turrets, lightning bottles, killer grass, the brain toy � even a Roomba(-like robotic vacuum). Weapons can be damaged by zombies, but can also be repaired. New weapons can be quickly bought via in-app purchases or unlocked through dedicated gameplay.

Some areas of the town's museum are visibly under construction, and serve as placeholders for additional areas that will arrive in updates, down the road.

We'll take a closer look at Zombie Wonderland 2 when it arrives sometime before Christmas, but, however we rate it, it's sure to is sure to take the crown as far as number of genres represented. This survival cleaning, time management, tower defense zombie shooter will be priced at $0.99.

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So far, the top note on my Things I Didn't Expect To Hear This Morning List is the that Grand Theft Auto 3 is poised to hit a smattering of high-end tablets and handsets later this fall. No, really � I have a list and, yeah, Rockstar Games announced plans to port its once-technical marvel to touch devices at some point in 2011 in celebration of its 10th birthday.

We don't know anything about Grand Theft Auto 3 for mobile, including what it'll look like or what price it'll launch at. The blog post announcing this seemingly 'big deal' bit of news is strangely focusing more on a new and limited run of $150 12-inch Claude toys with "30 points of articulation" instead of the game. But, hey, pre-orders for the toy are open now!

I've got a fantastic and equally unfulfilling love and hate relationship with GTA3, just as I do with every other GTA title. I love the bluster, the scale, and a good deal of the content, but the controls and general technical wonkiness of Rockstar's open worlds drag everything down. It'll be interesting to see if this tenth anniversary edition on handhelds will debut with an improvement or two. I guess we'll see.

Oh! And here's the devices you'll have to have in order to play it:

Apple iOS Devices: iPad 2, iPhone 4S
Android Phones: Droid X2, HTC Evo 2, LG Optimus 2X, Motorola Atrix, Samsung Galaxy S2
Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

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We're in the middle of a fluid and defining time in the games space as digital really takes hold, nontraditional payment models continue to prove viable, and expectations of how and where people play their games mutate. Things are changing, no doubt, and we've heard a fair share of doomsday scenarios for multiple platforms as a result. This one from Valve boss Gabe Newell is pretty juicy as far as these things go. Speaking at a tech panel the other day, Newell said that he suspects Apple might step into the living room and blow up that particularly isolated experience into a perspective-shifting one that'll spell the end of a 'separate' console platform.

For some context here, Newell believes there are four legitimate platforms at the moment: Internet, mobile, the computer, and the living room. Newell's also a noted not-fan of closed platforms, which was pretty apparent during the panel covered by The Seattle Times.

"I suspect Apple will launch a living room product that redefines people's expectations really strongly and the notion of a separate console platform will disappear," he said.

"I'm worried that the things that traditionally have been the source of a lot of innovation are going � there's going to be an attempt to close those off so somebody will say 'I'm tired of competing with Google, I'm tired of competing with Facebook, I'll apply a console model and exclude the competitors I don't like from my world.'"

I often wonder if Apple's hobby project, the Apple TV, is ever going to become this possible hardcore games device� Or at least a vital part of the puzzle along with iOS 5 AirPlay mirroring. I'm not sure if that'd be enough to realize what Newell is thinking here, but it's a good start.
[Via The Seattle Times]

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Somehow, at some point, it became public yet-still-unofficial knowledge that Criterion Games' Burnout Crash was coming to the iPad. It's official now. In a new blog post, publisher EA has confirmed that the top-down racer is headed to our favorite tablet in 2011. It's also coming to the iPhone and iPod touch, too, during the same "holiday" release window. Neat!

We haven't seen this version in action yet, but the features EA is noting makes it appears as if it'll stick pretty close to its XBLA and PSN source material:

Use intuitive taps and swipes to steer vehicles, trigger explosions, and rack up ridiculous scores across three game modes, 18 traffic junctions, and six unique locations. In addition to a rocking 80s soundtrack featuring Vanilla Ice and Gloria Estefan, you can look forward to Autolog support to connect, compare, and compete with friends and rivals.

Basically, Crash is a critically middling top-down version of pre-Paradise�Burnout's uber-popular crash mode. Like vehicular pinball, you wreck your tiny car into traffic and hope to pull off various multipliers and chain effects with explosions. We think it'll actually be better on touch devices, but we'll have to wait to see.

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Yesterday , TouchArcade attended EA's Naughty or Nice game event in New York and got some hands-on time with a host of new titles on the way to the App Store from EA, Chillingo, and PopCap Games. We'll be sharing details on these titles across several posts, but first up is the new one from PopCap, Popcorn Dragon.

Popcorn Dragon is a fun little game full of the cute and also the whimsy. It puts you in touch control of Ignatius Flamb�, a little dragon with big dreams. Ignatius is something of a cinephile and, as such, he flies about 10 different levels, each themed with different classic movie backdrops � there's westerns, sci-fi, mysteries and more. Along the way, Ignatius must ch0w-down on as much popcorn as possible by using his fiery breath to pop the hale of corn kernels that float across the gamescreen. The more popcorn he eats, the longer his tail becomes. Sadly, various baddies seek to thwart Ignatius' popcorn popping progress, so the player must be on the lookout for vultures, velociraptors, luchadores and the like. Luckily, Ignatius' fiery breath can singe more than just popcorn, and that long tale is good for a few whacks at the baddies.

While flying and popping and eating and whacking, movie tickets can be collected to buy Ignatius stylish outfits to wear to the cinema. Strong play earns experience points and achievements, and various power-ups can be unlocked to crank up the face fire.

Popcorn Dragon has that clean, colorful, charming aesthetic we've come to expect from PopCap and will be available for both the iPhone and iPad sometime in November at an as-yet undisclosed price.

Madfinger Games is continuing to tinker with Shadowgun [$4.99] after its shaky late September debut on the App Store. For starters, the game is cheaper. For a limited time, you can grab it at $4.99 instead of its usual upper tier price tag of $7.99. It's also less buggy. An initial patch run has sealed up its iPad 2 crashing issues, the Driller bug in the fourth level, and 'optimized' memory on lower-end devices.

These things combined present an interesting value proposition for anyone who read our review of the original build and remain on the fence. While we loved its technology, we weren't too big on its level design or a handful of its mechanics.

Here's a snippet:

If Madfinger can fix the crashing and save-game deletion issues with a patch, they're still left with a repetitive, but lovely looking shooter. There are hints of true quality in the boss fights and some minor sections of the campaign, but the majority relies on a simple, corridor design that's hard to find engaging for very long.

We've seen Madfinger say that it's continuing to work on the game post-release and that's great news. Its also still planning for an Android release later this month. We've been told that the Android iteration will support anything with a Tegra chip in it, so make sure you've got the right hardware for the job if you want in.

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It's been sort of a strange week for new iOS releases. First off, several developers opted to release their games earlier in the week than usual in order to coincide with the release of the shiny new iOS 5 software update. Second, TouchArcade's trusted Captain Hodapp is off gallivanting around at GDC Online in Austin, so was a little too tied up to bust out the usual midweek roundup of Wednesday new releases. Thus, the burden has fallen upon yours truly, The Bearded Night Watchman of TouchArcade, to put together a list of what has come out today.

But hey, this post coming later than normal has a nice side effect � if there's a game on here you weren't expecting, then it's already out right now, and you don't have to suffer in anticipation as you wait for it to filter through the various international markets and hit your own local App Store. Ok, enough blabbering, on to the releases, and we should be back with your regularly scheduled Wednesday release post next week.

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Espgaluda II HD, $10.99 � Lite � Forum Thread � CAVE has made quite a few fans by bringing their bullet hell shooters to the iOS platform in excellent fashion, but many people have been clamoring for native iPad versions of their games. Today that finally happens with Espgaluda II HD. One interesting twist to this release is that you can actually buy each of the two modes from the full game as their own separate apps with Espgaluda II HD Arcade Version, $6.99 and Espgaluda II HD Smartphone Version, $6.99. Kind of a cool idea if you're interested in some CAVE shootery goodness but aren't interested in the full package. Just keep in mind, if you pick up any of these games, you're going to need an iPad 2 to play them.

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Galaxy on Fire 2 HD, $9.99 (Universal) � Forum Thread � Fishlabs' epic scifi space shooter, now with insane visuals tailored specifically for the increased horsepower of the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S, either of which are necessary to run the game. Content-wise you're essentially getting the same game as the regular Galaxy on Fire 2 which launched just about a year ago, but with all sorts of technical enhancements like completely rebuilt ship models, increased texture resolutions, additional lighting and shader effects, and tons more. This just might be the most advanced game visually on the iOS platform to date, and it sure doesn't hurt that it's also one of the deepest, most satisfying gameplay experiences either.

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Steambirds: Survival, Free � HD � Forum Thread � After jumping the gun and accidentally releasing the iPad version earlier this week, and then quickly having to pull it from the App Store, today marks the official release date of Steambirds: Survival and both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad versions are all once again available for sale. Steambirds: Survival takes everything about the original Flash version of Steambirds (which was also ported to iOS last year) and cranks it up to 11. There's now a more meaty campaign structure, survival levels, plane power-ups, and more. Plus, the wonderful turn-based mechanics of the game would make for a perfect fit with the new asynchronous multiplayer options in Game Center, which the developer hopes to implement in the near future.

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Pocket BMX, 99� � Forum Thread � I've been excited for this little title since we first caught wind of it back in early September. I'm a pretty big fan of the Stickman Skater and Stickman BMX games, with their simplified 2D side-scrolling take on those "extreme" sports. Pocket BMX looks to take that basic concept to the next level, offering much more control over your character as well as the ability to string together a bunch of tricks into a combo, highly reminiscent of the old Tony Hawk Pro Skater games. The one question mark I have is about the controls, but if those are solid enough then this should be a winner.

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Advena, 99� � Forum Thread � Gamevil's latest action RPG title. The big features of this one are the ability to play with up to 5 party members and switch between them on the fly, as well as the ability to pick from multiple character classes. I've pretty much had my fill of these hack 'n slash-heavy side scrolling RPGs, as they usually end up being quite repetitive, but so far the impressions in our forums are quite good, and you can't really beat the price if you're looking to get your action RPG fix.

Descend RPG, $3.99 � Forum Thread � Harkening back to the days of old-school, turn based, first person, grid based dungeon crawling RPGs of yesteryear, Descend RPG attempts to keep the classic gameplay intact while bringing the visual style into the current age. And, it seems to accomplish that pretty well, especially for a game that was created by just one guy. Inspirations for the game include classics like Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, so if you were a fan of those games back in the day then you just might have an affinity for what Descend RPG is offering.

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