Almost every single day for breakfast, I eat sausages, eggs, waffles, and strawberries.  Occasionally though, I do start to include some strips of bacon along with some other pig products.  I love eating pigs, though, and I must say that whoever decided to chop those babies up may well be on their way to the Hall of Fame.

So when an evil chainsaw-wielding menace is out to chop up a jet pack-wielding pig, I can totally understand where that bad boy is coming from.  Flying knives, saws, and spikeballs are just the few methods of murder the Butcher Bill uses to try and destroy the little piglet.

Likes

Artwork: They weren’t kidding when they claimed to have designed the Chillingo website, Trenches, and other works of art.  The artwork is probably the main selling point for most people, and I must say that this is one of the best-looking Copter clones I’ve seen.

The perfect casual game: They’ve included everything for the makings of a great, casual game: OpenFeint, addictive gameplay, and easy-to-learn controls.  If you’re looking for some great time-wasters, this is one game that should atleast be considered.

Dislikes

Repetitive: It does start to get repetitive, and you won’t be playing this for hours on end.  Still, this is a casual game that only has one purpose.

One game mode: It would have been nice to include more than just one game mode; something other than the light story mode included.  I just didn’t feel that the game had enough meat to it; it’s just so simple that for the more complex types of people, this may just be out of their league.

I enjoyed Super Turbo Action Pig; I love the name, game, and artwork.  Gameplay is a bit unoriginal, but The Joystick Generals did a solid job of reinventing gameplay that hasn’t exactly done well on the iPhone.  The more hardcore gamers may want to pass on this one, but for those looking for some stress-relieving time-wasters, this is one that should be added to your wish list.

Super Turbo Action Pig was developed by Joystick Generals, and I played through version 1.0 on my iPhone 3GS.  The price is $0.99.

So why hasn’t it been successful on the iPhone?  I know there have been many such as iFighter, Sky Force Reloaded, and Siberian Strike; but I’ve never enjoyed any of them as much as I have Assault Squadron.  Wowza, this is one shooter that should definitely be on your wish list.

The build I received was still well into the beta stage, but still, I had a lot of fun with it.  The included controls were touch, and while I had some slight problems with them, I still enjoyed the game very much.  There weren’t tilt controls included in the options, but of course, the game is still a ways off from being submitted.

One of the most impressive features or things that I noticed about Assault Squadron were the voiceovers.  The voiceovers sounded professional, clean-cut, and extremely… intense.  You can hear some guy talking over a walkie talkie (or whatever they have in the future), and I was more than impressed with the professional voiceovers.

Along with that, Assault Squadron is extremely polished.  There are dozens of impressive cutscenes along with wonderful 2.5D graphics.  I couldn’t help but think to myself, “What a good looking, professional looking game.”

Only one word can describe Assault Squadron: impressive.  Of all the top-down shooters that I’ve played on the iPhone, this one seems to be one of the best.  I had a blast with it, and with tons of content, boss battles, and an interesting weapon upgrade system; I can see this becoming a home run.

But it’s not all about top-down shooting.  While I enjoyed the top-down aspect much more, there are levels in which you must take the side view of all ships, or in other words, a side-scrolling shooter.  At first, I thought the developers were trying a bit too hard to make the game different from the rest, then I realized that it’s not too bad after all.

Even with the beta build I played, I was more than impressed.  Look for this bomb to drop into the App Store late this month or early April.  And when I mean look, I mean it.  It can also be assumed that Assault Squadron will implement Chillingo’s Crystal social platform.

Personally, I love racing games.  I play a lot of racing games on the Xbox 360, such as PGR Gotham Racing, and I never seem to tire of them.  And while the iPhone has a select few that I quite enjoyed, Raging Thunder 2 seems to be smack dab in the middle.  Everything is present, from the cars to the powerups, but the difficulty seems to be the factor that’s holding this game back.

And while the difficulty needs some tweaking, there’s that x-factor that keeps me coming back for more.

Likes

Speed: The sense of speed is wonderful, and while it’s not as good as Fastlane Street Racing, it’s still enough to make you feel like you’re going full throttle.  The sense of speed here is perfect though, and I felt quite at home while driving my unknown vehicle.

AI: This is one of the best AI I’ve seen in a racing game, and they actually attack you.  They ACTUALLY tackle you.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when the AI actually took my car out of the race for a few seconds, and throughout the race, they were neck and neck.  While this does attribute to the difficulty, I believe that Polarbit built quite an AI here; one that I was impressed with.

Bang for the Buck: There are a total of 6 game modes, with 4 being actual variations to the gameplay.  Along with that, the career mode has enough content to justify the $4.99 price tag.  And with online multiplayer included, I think it can be justified that Raging Thunder 2 is well worth the price.

Dislikes

Control Options: It would have been nice to include some touch controls, as that’s the method I usually prefer.  Tilt controls work well though; it just would have been nice for some more options.

Difficulty: Some people may find this game a little too difficult.  I know that when I was starting the game, the first cup was extremely difficult for me pass, and I had trouble motivating myself to keep playing.  Of course, once I started to learn the flow of the game, beating each level was quite easy.  But still, these cars will be neck and neck with you throughout the entire race, and some may find it difficult to keep keeping on.

Multiplayer: Multiplayer was smooth, smooth as can be.  So what exactly is wrong with it?  Well, for one, there’s no point to it.  There’s no keeping track of your record, how many times you win or lose, and it’s only one track (from what I can see).  The multiplayer is smooth and all, but it’s sorely lacking when it comes to competitiveness and online multiplayer game modes.  Don’t depend on the multiplayer to be phenomenal, because well, it’s one of the worst multiplayer experiences I’ve ever played.

While Raging Thunder 2 has its flaws, it’s still one of the best arcade racers on the iPhone.  I can’t recommend it to everyone as it is quite difficult at times, but I must say that I was more impressed by it than Asphalt 5.  Polarbit did a solid job of bringing Raging Thunder 2 to the App Store, and I’m more than happy with it.

Raging Thunder 2 was developed by Polarbit, and I played through version 1.0.2 on my iPhone 3GS.  The price is $4.99, and there is a lite version available.

Air Hockey Gold: It’s basically air hockey on your iPhone.  There’s bluetooth multiplayer implemented along with OpenFeint, a social networking platform very similar to Xbox Live.  It’s definitely worth a download, as it’s one of the only and one of the best air hockey games to date.

Quizarium: If you loved Charadium, then you’ll definitely love Quizarium.  Quizarium is an online multiplayer game in which you compete against others in trivia.  There are three difficulty modes along with other features such as the Plus+ social networking platform.  This should be on your top priority list for what to download today, as it’s fun and VERY addictive.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand: This is yet another game that should be on the top priority list of what to download.  Recently reviewed with the Must Have rating, Spartacus: Blood and Sand proved to be one of the finer beat-em-ups on the App Store.  The price drop from $4.99 proves to be quite huge, and you’ll be sitting on your couch for hours with this one.

Mole: You may have missed this game from our initial review, but Mole has gone free.  While it’s one of the better games on the App Store, we had some slight problems with it.  Other than that, it’s definitely worth your opinion and download.

But with Activision becoming more and more active in the App Store, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 seems to have received the green light.  Along with a d-pad control method, the game seems to have changed a lot since the last video.  While the current screenshot looks a bit drab, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that that is not the final product.

And if you’re still doubting, Tony Hawk has even announced it on his Twitter about the game coming to iPhone.  We’ll have more information as they become available.

In all honestly, the app store is the perfect home for the game. Nintendo is nothing if not the house of Mario, and on a Nintendo system the sisters will always live in the plumbers’ shadows. It would be so even if the game did not share so many similarities with the Italian brothers’ adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom. And that the game does share so many similarities — from jumping on bad guys’ heads to smashing bricks and collecting gems instead of coins — only puts it further into that shadow. In the iPhone, Giana Sisters has found a platform where it can enjoy some time in the sun, and what Giana Sisters lacks in originality, it makes up for in polish and personality.

If you’re already familiar with Super Mario Bros., you’re going to feel right at home with Giana Sisters, bashing bricks, stomping enemies, throwing fireballs, leaping bottomless chasms, and collecting gems for high scores and extra lives. Giana Sisters is a platformer inspired by the best. And while many games having ripped off the brothers Mario felt like hollow shams, Giana Sisters manages to capture the magic and make it its own. The game fills Mario’s shoes as if they were hand-me-downs, rather than stolen from his locker.

Likes:

Artwork: Armin Gessert’s Giana Sisters has been beautifully updated for the iPhone, and sports some of the finest artwork the app store has to offer. The game animates well, and the artwork looks almost like an oil painting in motion or claymation. And despite the game having borrowed so many ideas from Super Mario Bros., the enemies are original and spectacular. I love the way the crabs snap their claws at you, how the crawling jellyfish creatures splash out of existence when killed, how the eyeball monsters deflate and resemble melting ice cream in death, and how enemy bodies remain on the board.

Consistently, foreground objects stand out from the background, making paths and footholds easy to identity. And in every level the background layer is used to lend a sense of mood to the stage; the backgrounds are not disposable pieces of artwork here, as in so many games. Instead of flat black backdrops in caves, Giana Sisters instead features textured stone work, cave etchings, stalagmites and stalagtites, draping roots and fungal growth.

Even the brief loading screens and stylized buttons are attractive, and suit the overall tone of the game’s artwork. Giana Sisters is gorgeous, and most certainly outshines its genre peers Soosiz (in which everything just looked generic) and Plushed (which prides itself on its inconsistent and poorly animated artwork).

Control: By their very definition, platformers require precision control. This has ever been an issue for platformers on the iPhone, as the lack of physical buttons makes precise jumps and complex platforming extremely difficult. Giana Sisters is hurt in not having a physical control pad, but it’s not a grievous wound. In fact, given the limitations of touch-screen platforming, the game has some of the tightest platformer controls out there.

For buttons, players have left and right arrows, a jump button and a fireball button. They’re responsive and easy to use, and the jump button is contact sensitive, meaning that a quick tap will execute a low, short jump, while a longer hold will cause the jump to be higher and longer. This is important and ties strongly into gameplay, as too high a jump can get you killed in some circumstances — bashing your head on a ceiling, causing your jump to fall short and you to fall into a bottomless pit, for example. Having control over your jumps in this way is great, greatly improves the precision of the controls and keeps the platforming varied and interesting. It’s a small thing that makes a huge difference, and lots of other iPhone platformers have neglected it.

Stages: Giana Sisters includes 32 classic stages, reworked with updated graphics, sound, etc. from the original game, and then adds 80 brand new stages. Stages are generally short, making them a perfect fit for the mobile device, and longer stages usually have a mid-stage checkpoint from which you can resume your progress. Stages are well-designed both artistically and in terms of play, featuring plenty of enemies, obstacles and other challenges, as well has secret areas, hard-t0-reach collectibles and more. Stages are generally fun to replay in search of gems you might have failed to collect on the first time through. Collecting all of the red gems in an area unlocks bonus stages, so you will definitely want to scour each stage to find them.

Enemies: I’ve already shared a few examples of enemies and why I like them, but there are so many more, from peons encountered in early stages through boss creatures guarded the end of some areas. The enemy designs are excellent, each is well animated and it’s just plain fun to see the motions they go through when on the attack or in death. And it’s super cool how their stomped bodies linger in the stage after having been defeated. Several times I’ve found myself just messing with enemies, teasing them to see their animations. Got myself killed by the yellow crab the first time I teased him, but it was worth it.

Audio: The music is pretty peppy, overall, but has some nice melodies and hooks. It suits the tone of the game extremely well, and doesn’t feel repetitive. The sound effects are also pretty solid, with enemies making squishing, splashing and other sounds as necessary. The developers obviously put a lot of thought into producing a quality audio package and it shows.

Open Feint Support: We at NoDpad dig social achievement networking in games, and Giana Sisters scores for its Open Feint integration. Twenty-nine achievements await you, and  of course there are leaderboards (which only makes my gripes about the game’s scoring system harder to swallow; see below).

All-ages Fun: Giana Sisters is totally kid friendly, but not so kiddie that it cannot be enjoyed by adult gamers as well. It walks that fine line very well, and parents should have no issues handing the game off to their youngsters to play, nor feel guilty for indulging in it themselves. The game is especially friendly for young girls, which is nice to see as so many games are male-oriented. But I’m a guy, and I really enjoy the game too; it’s not just for girls.

Dislikes:

No Penalties: Stages are short and often have mid-stage checkpoints, meaning that you will never have to replay long sections of any stage because you died. That’s actually nice. What bothers me is that your score carries over when die, and even when you lose all of your lives and continue. Most games will reset your score after a continue, meaning that competitive gamers wanting to make the high score boards really have to get good at the game to do so. In Giana Sisters, you never lose your points, and so there’s not much incentive not to die. By correlative reasoning, there’s not much reason to compete for high scores either.

No Story: Even the original Super Mario Bros. offered a simplistic story of rescuing the princess from the big, evil turtle monster. Giana Sisters doesn’t even give you that much. The game is a blast to play, but it’s never clear why the girl is risking her life to collect so many gems. I guess she’s living in a material world, and she’s just a material girl …

Getting down to brass tacks, Armin Gessert’s Giana Sisters is the single best platformer on the iPhone. If you want a better game, you’ll have to lay hands on a Nintendo DS to play New Super Mario Bros. And even then, Giana Sisters stacks up for its fantastic art direction, unique creature designs and the fact that the entire game world isn’t the product of a bizarre acid trip.

With 112 stages promising hours of gameplay, solid controls and some of the best art direction on the app store, traditional platforming is alive and well with the sisters. We should all feel extremely lucky to have them on the iPhone, a platform where they can finally step out of brothers’ shadows and carry the platforming flag. Yes, the game borrows aplenty from its inspiration, but more than makes up for its lack of originality in genuine charm, slick presentation and being gobs of fun to play. If you have only one platforming game on your iPhone, this is the one.

Armin Gessert’s Giana Sisters ($4.99) is a good game published by Bad Monkee. Reviewed on an iPhone 3G.

But enough with the small talk, what exactly is coming to iPhone?  According to Pocketgamer, EA Mobile will be releasing 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa onto the iPhone, and it could be assumed that it will pit you as a country playing in the World Cup brackets.  Some expected features should also include local multiplayer via WiFi or Bluetooth.

We’ll have more information as they become available, as it seems that EA does not want to reveal details until a bit later; closer to the April 27th release date.  It’s still a bit far off from now, but I’m excited to see EA bring yet another footy game to the App Store.

[via Pocketgamer]

Included in the iPhone itineration is a cameraman and/or a journalist, both of which must survive the zombie apocalypse.  There are a little over 10 levels included, with the weapon choice being a pistol, shotgun, grenade launcher, and machine gun.  And as it is a Resident Evil clone, you will not be able to shoot and move at the same time.

The controls consists of a virtual joystick along with some action buttons on the right side; buttons that handle anything from melee attacks to shooting down a slobbering zombie.  While it seems like the controls work well, we’ll have to get our hands on a final build to put down some final words.

And along with the campaign mode, it seems as if Gameloft will be adding an ‘Arena Mode’, which is basically survive as long as possible with zombies swarming everywhere.

This is yet another Gameloft game I’m excited for, and after quiet months of January through March, Gameloft is starting to bring the thunder.  Zombie Infection is due by the end of this month.

I, personally, am quite excited in Gameloft bringing yet another shooter into the App Store after releasing awesome third-person shooters such as Terminator Salvation.  According to Gameloft, Splinter Cell will be using a next evolution of the engine that was used to run NOVA, which makes the game look quite fantastic.

There will be 10 levels instituted into the final version of the game, and the environments will vary from night missions to desert shootouts.  I would assume that Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell will arrive on the iPhone sometime near April 13th, as that is the date the console versions will arrive.