That's right, my retro-loving brethren, Bounty Bob has tunneled his way into the App Store thanks to Magmic's release of Miner 2049er [free] for the iPhone and iPad (universal).

For those unfamiliar, the original Miner 2049er is a platform game that was highly popular in the early '80s home computer scene. Released in 1982 by Bill Hogue through Big Five Software, the game puts you in the shoes of Bounty Bob on a mission to search through Nuclear Ned's abandoned uranium mines in search for the elusive Yukon Yohan. The treacherous mines, fraught with ladders, chutes and hydraulic scaffolds � not to mention the radioactive creatures that roam the levels � must be cleared by walking over every section of the platforms. There are 10 levels in all, which was quite a few, for its day. Miner 2049er was the inspiration for Matthew Smith's Manic Miner.

Magmic released a licensed, updated mobile version of the game in 2007, which received an�IGN Editor's Choice Award and won the Best Revival category in the Best Of 2007 IGN awards. It features both a Classic mode with graphics similar to the Atari 800 original, as well as a vertically-scrolling Modern mode with new, rather more detailed visuals along with certain new twists, like an elevator fashioned from a girder dangling from a crane. Miner 2049er for iOS is an adaptation of that release, featuring tilt controls as well as several types of multitouch options.

Miner 2049er for iOS is a free download that includes 4 of the Modern mode levels, only. An in-app purchase of $0.99 unlocks the 10 Classic levels as well as all 10 of the Modern mode levels.

The game plays pretty much as you may remember it � both in the Classic and Modern versions � but with iOS controls, and there you have a number of options. The default control mode is tilt, which can be switched over to a touch-to-go-there mode or a joystick-left or joystick-right mode. The controls work about as you'd expect, but I find joystick-left to work best. Magmic indicates that a soon to be released update will tweak controls a bit and make joystick-left the default control mode. An additional 20 levels "at-least" will be coming in an update for users who have purchased the level pack, as well.

Unfortunately, I experienced a bug on my iPhone 4S test device that Magmic hadn't yet seen reported: at the App Store password prompt to buy the additional levels, the keyboard would not pop-up, leaving me unable to do so on that device. It worked fine on the iPad 2, however. It's unclear right now whether this is a 4S-specific issue but, at any rate, the folks at Magmic say they will look into it right away.

For fans of the original, Miner 2049er is an instant grab. But, then, it's free � so it can't hurt to check it out if you're remotely intrigued. As mentioned, some things about the game are a bit shaky right now, but I feel that they will be worked out in short order, based largely on how responsive the folks at Magmic have been to my inquiries.

Miner 2049er developer Magmic also brought us The New York Times Crosswords Daily and Boulder Dash Rocks.

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Bumpy Road [$2.99] developer Simogo is peeling a corner of the curtain off its next big thing. In a new teaser trailer released this morning, viewers are shown the briefest of glimpses at an array of whimsical characters, clocks, and other items clad in crimson and plastered against a black background. In the text of the video, Simogo teases that this unnamed project will have rhythm, puzzle, and stealth elements.

On our interview podcast, Simogo's Simon Flesser mentioned this game, but he was careful with the few details he shared. Regardless, we came away from the whole of the conversation believing that the studio was primed for another App Store success. Simogo gets what makes an iPad and iPhone unique in the video games space, it understands simplicity, and it obviously has a ton of talent to spare. We're pretty stoked for this � whatever it turns out to be.

My guess? We're looking at game where you'll use music to guide an avatar sneakily through some sort of construct. Like, Metal Gear Solid Meets Rock Band. Or maybe this is actually Simogo's take on�Waterworld 2 and I totally convinced Simon to make the game happen.

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Rovio Mobile is setting its phasers to "tease" this week. After the release of a Halloween-themed video suggesting a new bird or something would be coming to Angry Birds Seasons [$.99 / Free /�HD], it has released an equally suggestive image of what looks to be a new bird on its Facebook page. "The Angry Birds have a big surprise for you," the photo posting exclaims, somehow. "Can you guess what it is," it asks, just before it also tasks users with sharing the photo with their friends in order to unlock more hints.

Yes, this is the picture. It's really big.

It's not just us who think a new bird is on the way � the posting is brimming with fans who agree that a new character is coming. But before we jump off speculation cliff with our safe bet, we should note that it's totally possible a new enemy-type or pig could happen, too, in any iteration of the stupid-popular game. Sure, it's unlikely considering the Halloween tease, but hey, crazier things have happened. Like the self-flushing toilet. Who saw that coming? The answer is no-one, I think. Except the dude who invented it. Good dude, I bet. Probably a little messy.

Anyway, one of the Earth's most popular franchises might be receiving a new character. I'm guessing you're already grumbling in the comments column, but as an FYI here: a lot of people really care about this stuff and it's not like Angry Birds is a bad game. It's pretty fun.

[Via App Advice, Pocket Gamer]

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There has been a rush to get casual versions of more complex game-types onto the App Store since it launched, and in the case of BlowFish Studios' and Crescent Moon Games'�Siegecraft [99�], the goal seems to have been to create a casual RTS game with Angry Birds-esque physics.

You take control of one of two weapons throughout the campaign, a catapult and a crossbow. To shoot, you need to slide your finger to move and aim the crossbow, or touch and pull back to shoot the catapult. This works considerably better on an iPad than an iPhone since you have more room to pull back and aim. You'll have a set number of tasks to complete throughout the campaign, but most fall in two categories: attack and defend. That said, you'll always essentially be defending, since you can't move your weapons. Even the attack portions mostly just require you to kill off enemies so your soldiers, which you don't control, can get through.

That's the basic essence of the game and it continues throughout with little deviation. As you progress, you'll unlock coins to purchase weapon and ammo attachments�via in-app purchase or campaign-grinding, but the core of the game doesn't shift, nor does the strategy you need to employ to win. You can, for all intents and purposes, think of this as a slightly more strategic Angry Birds and you'll get the general vibe. You'll get six campaigns from three different races, but they're all the same when it comes to how you'll be playing.

The nice part is, you'll be able to play any level in any campaign at any time. While some of them are easier if you buy weapon upgrades, they're all available to you at any time. The downside is that the menu screen is a bit confusing and it takes a few more taps than needed to get back to your place in the campaign. It also means it's not a linear experience, so despite there being words like "races" and "campaign," it's not a story-driven affair.

It's a simple game with simple ambitions, but it can get�repetitive�quickly because it never feels like you're progressing through it.�That doesn't mean the game doesn't get challenging as it moves on, because it certainly does, but the basics of the level design and the skills you need to win aren't as diverse as they could be.

There are also a few iOS 5 specific features, including cloud saving and online multiplayer. The cloud saving only marks stars received and doesn't seem to transfer coins earned as far as I can tell, which makes the feature a bit of a bust, since that's the only reason you'd really want to hop across devices unless you're concerned with your place on the leaderboards. The multiplayer isn't exactly what you'd expect from playing the campaign � where the single player is real-time, the online component is turn-based and asynchronous. This makes for much slower gameplay, but it also means you can pick up and play at any time without worrying about staying around the whole time.

More interesting is the iPad specific, single-screen multiplayer, which is far more entertaining. It takes the simple gameplay from the single player and pits you against someone on the opposite side of the screen. It doesn't take much to get into it and it's incredibly entertaining for short bursts of time. This is the one facet where it's nice the gameplay doesn't require a lot of headwork because anyone can start playing immediately, simply point and shoot and you're done.

The game looks great, with a few added tweaks to the graphics for iPad 2 owners, and it's nice it's available in one single universal version. Even on older devices, the visuals are well done and although the areas are small, the scope is presented in a way you feel like the battles are larger than they really are.

By the end of it all, Siegecraft feels like it could have been much more. While the easy to pick up and play gameplay is nice, I can't help but think there was more that could have gone into the campaign to create a better sense of progression. Where you start is essentially the same place as where you'll end up, which is too bad, because the core of the game is interesting enough to warrant a look.

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The arcade shoot'em-up Crossfire was released for Xbox in July 2010, followed by Crossfire 2 a few months later. Now Radian Games and their publisher, Chillingo, have released Super Crossfire [99� / HD] for our iOS devices. This game plays like a colorful version of the classic 1978 game�Space Invaders, with one key difference: When a wall of bullets and lazers rains down on you, leaving you boxed in the corner and about to be destroyed …your spaceship can flee to safety by warping between the top and bottom of the screen.

But warping to the top of the screen doesn't necessarily ensure your safety, as the aliens can shoot upwards too. Some enemies have shields and can only be hit from one side, which necessitates warping up and down to get a clear shot. By collecting the gems dropped by destroyed aliens, you can charge up segments of your super-fire meter, then briefly shoot anything, even if it's shielded.

The warp drive is an interesting twist, as it forces you to pay attention to both parts of the screen. The developers blog mentions that they once considered having enemies move like another classic arcade game, Galaga, but they decided against this as it interfered with the warping. Still, it would be nice to see some different movements or perhaps a boss appear. That said, the game� throws 19 enemies and more and more bullets at you, until it almost feels like a bullet-hell scenario, which works really well.

Periodically, a UFO flies across the screen, which is another familiar concept from Space Invaders. The flying saucer drops a power-up when destroyed. For example, it might drop a bubble shield or slow-down the enemies movements. To collect a pick-up you simply warp across it. Unfortunately the pick-ups aren't super exciting and it doesn't announce what they are when collected.� Although the bubble-shield is very handy amongst all those bullets.

The game has a fast and exciting pace, with wave after wave of vector-graphics style enemies. There's a camera tilt effect which displays the entire game on an angle which changes each time you warp. You can select high or low angle tilt, although I personally found the angled perspective off-putting and turned this option completely off, so it's great that these options were included.

After every five waves of alien attack, your ship is repaired and you're given the opportunity to upgrade it using the points you've acquired. The upgrade system works really nicely. There are ten upgrade categories, including:� Armor, speed, shot frequency / power, firing rate, shot spread / speed, super power, super segments and gem magnetism. You can also downgrade these categories mid-game and re-allocate the points to different abilities. An auto-upgrade option is available, but it's fun to customize it manually.

Super Crossfire offers hundreds of control options (or to be more precise: 9). This includes 3 button, 3 tilting� and 3 slider lay-outs, with additional options for multi-touch. Unfortunately, none of these control options felt nice on the iPad, as the left and right buttons are too far apart. If you're going to put that much effort into controls, it's probably better to let the user customize the button positions themselves. Fortunately, it's far more comfortable, enjoyable and cheaper to play on the smaller iPhone or iPod touch screen, where the buttons are closer together.

The main menu has an "Unlockables" section, listing nine items to unlock with earned victory points. For example, the "doubler" makes enemies and gems worth twice as much, "Musician" enables the music-player option on the main menu, with sliders for tweaking filter and pitch, while "perfection gives you extra victory points for each perfect wave.� The most expensive unlockable is "Super Blast" which gives you a wider superfire.� You can also use your victory points to unlock chapters early. And you can buy victory points as in-app purchases.

There are five chapters to play through, with 150 unique enemy waves and three difficulty levels to unlock. The leaderboards are managed using Chillingo's Crystal as well as Game Center, along with 16 achievements. There's high score tables for 1-life and composite scores, plus a leaderboard for each of the five chapters. When you die, you can continue an infinite amount of times, without needing to restart from the very beginning, thankfully.

Personally, I didn't enjoy playing Super Crossfire on the iPad as the main left / right controls are too far apart. However, after switching to the smaller iPod screen, it was an enjoyable classic-feeling arcade experience. After 33 years, shooting space invaders is still fun! The developer advises the first update will include the "Dark Chapters", delivering some even faster-paced action and offering higher upgrade points, with an alternate background color scheme. The first update will also include additional leaderboards and achievements.

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There's just something about word games that make you feel like you're accomplishing something in your free time. You're not simply killing time; you're expanding your very mind. Perhaps this is why games like Text Twist and What's My Word have gone down in the annals (uh, it's a real word, which you would know if you played more word games, you pervert) of my favorite apps of all time. And just when I had given up hope of finding another worthy addition to that club, Spuzzle, Inc.'s Word vs Word [$.99] has earned its way onto the list. Felicitations all around!

I'm not going to sugarcoat it � this game is going to frustrate you. But if you're like me/into punishment, you're going to love it. It's not only because the words are particularly challenging (finally, another chance to use that SAT dictionary!), but because this is really a logic game disguised as a word game. Words With Friends this ain't.

Every time I try to describe this game to my friends, they end up with puzzled looks, but I will attempt to convey how it works anyway. (I'm just cool like that.) Basically, you have to figure out a secret word in the least amount of guesses. You can play easy (3- or 4-letter words), medium (5- or 6-letter), or hard (7- or 8-letter). The game gives you two keypads. The first is where you enter your guesses; the second keeps track of which letters are valid and which letters have been eliminated.

Let's say the secret word is 'cat,' and you guess 'tug.' The game would tell you that you got one letter correct. As you can see, it won't tell you if you have the order of the letters correct, adding to the challenge. From there, you need to determine which of the letters was correct, so you might guess 'get.' At that point, it would confirm again that one letter was correct, so you could eliminate the 'u' and 'g' of your first guess. It goes on from there until you solve the puzzle or give up.

You can play the game either solo or multiplayer. In multiplayer, you can create matches with your friends or let the game match you up with somebody online. In either case, you pick a secret word for them to guess, and they do the same for you. You take turns guessing until one of you figures out the other's word and wins the game.

The issue with multiplayer (as in pretty much every other turn-based game) is that taking turns is, well, incredibly dull. Sometimes your partner will not respond for hours (or, uh, ever) so if you're looking for fast-paced, action-packed wordplay you are probably going to want to have several games going at once, or play solo.

Oh, solo mode! Maybe it is a testament to my loser loner-ness but I prefer solo mode to all others. In solo mode, the game picks the secret word, and there's no incentive to solve the word in the least amount of guesses (but I have my pride, OK?). That last part is important to note, because sometimes this game is going to throw the most ridiculous words at you, and it's going to sandwich them in between rounds of elementary school vocabulary words.

Seriously, the game gave me 'hay' and 'eon' then busted out 'mEq' on me. Game, that is not even a word, it's an abbreviation! What would Scrabble have to say about this?! I thought maybe it was just a fluke, but then after 'rails' it gave me 'haem.' HAEM. "A complex red organic pigment containing iron and other atoms to which oxygen binds." I am beginning to suspect that this is all part of an elaborate ploy by my high school chemistry teacher. This is punishment for turning in all those assignments late, isn't it?

The almost-comically varied nature of the secret words it picks for you really helps keep the game challenging. There are some elements that need work (what, so 'fart' isn't in the game's dictionary but 'barf' will win the round?) but honestly, those elements are minimal. If you're a fan of word games or logic problems, this is well worth the download, and the fact that it has a well-developed multiplayer system really puts it over-the-top. Serendipitous endeavors, friends!

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Ah piracy. Forget the days of violence, scurvy and the constant threat of hanging. We're talking about the freedom of the high seas, questionable fashion choices and incredibly anachronistic language, savvy? Plunder and the open ocean, that's the pirate's life for me.

Powder Monkeys [$0.99] goes blessedly light on the pirate-speak, but otherwise it's the perfect pirating experience. You can travel the seas, hunt down rivals, capture towns, plunder to your heart's content and dress up your ever-more ludicrous ship. And you can do it all as a, erm, monkey.

To be fair, Powder Monkeys has a surprisingly thorough back story that delves into the reasons your captain and crew are monkeys and not people. I would have accepted "because monkeys are cute" as sufficient cause, but you won't have to settle for such shoddy explanations here.

Monkey business aside, Powder Monkeys does an excellent job of dishing up the feeling of freedom that goes so well with playing pirates. The bugs have wronged monkey-kind and you're on a mission to hunt them down, but you can get to that at your own pace. The rest of the time you can sail your ship around, tapping from a bird's-eye view, wandering, fighting and plundering at will.

Or, should I say, mostly at will. It's a dangerous world in this game, and everyone you encounter is up for a fight. Ship-to-ship battles play a bit like handling four games of rock-paper-scissors at once. You have four cannons, as does your enemy. To load them, you select your ammo and tap on your cannon of choice (this works best if you play with both hands). The ammo loads, fires, and either hits the enemy ship if the path is open or smashes against opposing ammo if not. That's where the RPS feel comes in: your ammo can miss the enemy's shots entirely, they can collide and both be spent, or they can collide and one can be defeated. It all depends on their relative strength.

That's also where the RPS analogy starts to fall apart. There are around 40 types of ammo available to be unlocked. Figuring out what's best against what gets really complicated, and unless you want to grind you'll often struggle to have enough silver to keep your supplies of even the most basic ammo up. Of course, there's always the siren song of IAP to help smooth those struggles… but you can certainly do without.

Powder Monkeys also boasts a robust leveling system. You get experience for fights, plunder and missions, and as you level you unlock new ammo and new parts for your ship. Most are largely cosmetic, but better and stronger cannons are available periodically.

In between spells of fooling around on the openish ocean, you can take on the missions that make up the game's story and a slew of random side quests. Many of these involve revealing a map, plundering everything in sight and then defeating an enemy, but there's some variety to be had. Simple stealth and escort missions, timed mazes and other gimmicks pad out the experience.

There are a few oddities that interfere with the entertainment, but they're largely little things. You can surrender any fight without penalty, sapping a bit of the stress of being surrounded by foes. It's far too easy to switch to the powerup selection pane when tapping the bottom cannon, something that could easily be fixed. As you level, fights start to seriously burn more (or more powerful) ammo. And the game can get extremely grindy if you want to experiment with lots of different ammo types and don't feel like putting down more cash.

Otherwise, I've been downright delighted with Powder Monkeys. It's huge, varied, and lots of fun. If you have ever had a hankering for the high seas, this is a good place to start. Anchors aweigh!

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FakePup's Super Bit Dash [$0.99] is an interesting combination of endless running and platforming all wrapped up in a nice retro-bow. Despite its�incorporation of level randomization, Super Bit Dash's biggest weakness is the lack of content and variety within its gameplay. However, despite this shortcoming, this casual title still provides an enjoyable experience, assuming you're a fan of its (increasingly prevalent) retro heritage.

Like a lot of casual games, Super Bit Dash doesn't offer much of anything in the story department. You play the role of a caped pixelated hero moving through various rooms full of pitfalls and obstacles while collecting coins. Aiding your character is the ability to dash in any direction with a swipe. Each dash burns energy, however, which can only be replenished by collecting the coins that are littered throughout the playing field. You can use your dash ability to break through barriers, fly across chasms, or speed past spikes and other barriers trying to take you out. Since the dash is really the only special power you have (besides a normal jump), coin management becomes imperative as you'll need to make sure you have enough dash charges for those harder areas.

While Super Bit Dash contains a finite number of 'rooms' that make up a level, those rooms are randomly selected and combined together at the start of each playthrough. This creates a certain amount of replayability as your gameplay experience will not be exactly the same every time you play. However, there doesn't appear to be a lot of 'rooms' and you'll quickly start seeing repeats even if they fit together in different orders. Despite the repeats, I thought there was enough variety to enjoy the game for at least a few rounds. I also enjoyed its retro art style as it did a good job paying homage to classic games with its visuals and music while not making it a distraction. Super Bit Dash also offers two different difficulties, each with different sets of rooms depending on your preference, but I'm hoping that future updates will include more rooms (and maybe a different tile set or two as well).

In addition to the two difficulties, Super Bit Dash offers two main game modes: a 'Classic' mode which randomly creates rooms and has you trying to reach the end of the course with a set amount of lives, and an 'Endless' mode which has you going through every room (of both difficulties) with only one life until you die. The gameplay doesn't particularly change with either mode, but it's nice to have both options nonetheless. Otherwise, the vast majority of your motivation will be centered on the leaderboards, as each run will be scored based on long you last and how many coins you collect.� For folks that like this sort of play style, Super Bit Dash will keep you engaged. However, if you're the sort of gamer that needs a more concrete feeling of advancement, Super Bit Dash might not last longer than a few playthroughs for you.

In the end, Super Bit Dash is a nice little casual game that does a good job of filling the role of a title offering short bursts of quick gameplay with not much else. The combination of platforming and endless running, while not particularly innovative, still provides a good gameplay experience when combined with its somewhat randomized engine. Whether or not you'll actually enjoy Super Bit Dash depends on if you're willing to look past the limited variety of the gameplay (and the retro graphics, depending on your taste). If you don't mind these things, then Super Bit Dash may be worth checking out.

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