Seeing as how there's a gazillion iPhone pinball games already, the average gamer is probably wondering why there's any reason to get excited about this title with its spartan "toy-like cabinet (and) old-style mechanical score drum." Furthermore, it's easily the most primitive game released by a developer whose never budged from charging new-release prices even for titles that are 20 years old. ... more.

Summer's here, bringing with it that classic sport with balls and bats. Since most of us who play instead of watching it are on sandlots instead of in stadiums, there's also frequently rule tweaks to account for conditions/players/etc. The version we'll be playing on what we'll call Mark's Virtual Sandlot includes a few simple basics: • Everybody bats each inning. No strikeouts – players... more.

Looking for a way to get your creativity rolling? Look no further than  Aztec Quest. Aztec Quest allows you to take the elements of a puzzle and put them in their proper place to hit the ending diamond with your ball.  A ball comes out of the starting element, the dragonhead. The other elements of the game consist of  rollers, spring pads, tubes, hammers, catapults and teleport pads. Thes... more.

Portable gaming has come a long way. For the first time in its history, X-Men Arcade is appearing on a portable device. Coming soon to the Apple App Store, X-Men Arcade includes all 6 original X-Men characters: Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler  and Dazzler. The game supports drop-in multiplayer via Wi-Fi with up to four players. According to Konami, special attention was giv... more.

Maybe it was figuring out how teachers' passwords were encoded on my high school's typing tutor program. Or how to copy the code from a game cartridge on my computer to disk. Or recovering "eternally lost" files for eternally grateful people. But the dark portion of my soul is largely occupied by a cyberpunk. The truly sinister contemplations are restrained by that large reservoir of sanity ... more.

World in War going free May 6th to 8th to celebrate Victory in Europe Day PAN Vision is pleased to announce that our strategy game World in War will be available for free this weekend to commemorate Victory in Europe Day. This weekend in 1945 the Allied forces formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany thus ending the Second World War in Europe. M... more.

Hard to say if Jeff Minter actually likes his latest release, which returns to his long-ago success with mutant llamas. But I'm having a hell of time with it. Minotron: 2112 is Minter's iPhone remake of the 1991 Atari ST game Llamatron: 2112, which is a remake of Robotron: 2084, which is merely the greatest arcade game of all time. Many home versions of Robotron tried and failed to capture the ... more.

If an award for the best iPhone game of the past year were being awarded purely on my personal tastes, Word News would be it. It probably won't be received anywhere near as enthusiastically by the general gaming population, so an even-handed critique is as exercise in self-restraint as much as anything. It's edutainment, for goodness' sake. It focuses on the news, as the name suggests, which is... more.

Bane Games has released Flick Buddies Lite - a free version of the original iPhone/iPad game. The lite version contains all the action of the original (i.e. avoiding spikes, gravity wells and even the dreaded Vortex of Death). Flick Buddies Lite is now available on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/app/flick-buddies-lite/id425294724?mt=8 Website: http://www.flickbuddies.com Flick Buddies... more.

Fractal, a new puzzle game that is intuitive but still complex, will be available for iPad this Spring. Fractal promises to include 30 varying levels and 60 challenging puzzles. Players solve puzzles by pushing fractals - shown as rough or fragmented geometric shapes - into large clusters that will bloom and explode outward. "We are delighted to once again team up with the talented folks at C... more.