Remember that stunning God of War-esque iPhone game shown off at the World Wide Developers Conference in January? The one that looked like a pretty amazing action game featuring a hammer-wielding barbarian? Well it's out on the App Store. I noticed Kroll last night while doing my semi-regular App Store check on my iPhone and immediately bought it.

In the game you play as a barbarian named Delon off to find Kroll, the Lord of Life, last of the seven mage lords, and use his power to return a loved one back to life. I'm sorta guessing here, because the plot is ultra light, though delivered inside the illustrated pages of a digital book.

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THQ today announces that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is now available on mobile handsets the world over. This includes the iPhone, where it has been lurking for quite awhile, Nokia's N-Gage gaming platform, and more than 850 different cellular handsets. Should you pick it up? Well Star Wars plus iPhone equals extra nerd chic of course, and Star Wars plus N-Gage equals you might as well, you obviously went out of your way for an N-Gage platform supporting phone.

As for the remaining 850 handsets, this is a good time to check and see if your phone needs upgrading. If yours isn't one of the 850 you obviously need to step up to a newer model, unless that military field phone is part of your whole campy, retro vibe.

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I don't need to be able to play Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on anything else, okay? It's already eaten away at my life on the DS, PSP, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, mobile phone, and PC to the point where every month I have at least one Puzzle Quest-related dream. Now TransGaming has announced their expansion into the Apple portable space with Puzzle Quest for the iPhone / iPod Touch.

"It has been a wild and exciting ride for us at D3Publisher to watch Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords progress from a unique release on handheld platforms to one of the most beloved puzzle game franchises of today, raising demand from gamers everywhere to be able to play it on their platform of choice," said Yoji Takenaka, President and Chief Executive Officer of North America and Europe, D3Publisher.

Gah! I just want to hug this man and punch him at the same time, but not as much as Crecente, who actually contacted both companies and harassed them about making the port. Thanks, Brian. Look for Puzzle Quest to hit the iPhone and iPod Touch later this fall, at which point I will begin spending all my time in the bathroom.

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Battlefield: Bad Company is getting four free multiplayer maps in the next month. That comes from Major Nelson's latest podcast "blogcast." The tidbit is in a 10-minute discussion with Gordon Van Dyke of developer DICE.

The maps are converted single player levels from the game's campaign mode, tuned up for conquest mode, Gordon says.

The rest of the zunecast "blogcast" deals with the GTA IV Live Weekend (about to expire) and about 30 minutes of major Zune pimpage, including a not-so-arch remark about how well it works with the 360 and how "other devices" don't because they "changed their protocol." Who knows, maybe all this cross-marketing is Microsoft tipping its hand toward bringing Zune Marketplace to Xbox Live. Remember, both services are down at the same time, beginning at 12:01 a.m. PDT tomorrow.

Show #294 [Major Nelson, thanks Nathaniel V.]

Spore Origins is a nifty little mobile take on the expansive Spore, but few may realise there is actually a special multiplayer edition of Spore Origins avaiiable that lets you and your multi-cellular fighting fish take on other real people in a global primordial ocean.

If you're on Telstra, you may have already realised all this, but if not it's certainly added reason to grab a copy of the mobile game. It's a rare beast to get some MP game on with a mobile, and facing user created beasties should certainly add plenty of long-term value.

Grab Spore Origins Connected Edition on a Telstra mobile for $7.00. It may not be reason enough to churn, but it does give Telstra phone users at least one reason to get a little smug grin.

Parallel Kingdom is a Mobile Multiplayer Trans-Reality Game (That's MMTRG, acronym fans) for the iPhone (obviously) and phones running Android (ooh!).

The game overlays a simple 2D medieval RPG on a map of the real world - tracking your position via your phone's built-in GPS.

You can do all the usual RPG -type-stuff - PvP, trading, item crafting and building strongholds, competing against other players who wander too close to your personal space.

This video gives you the gist - although it is slightly fanciful compared to the actual gameplay.

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Noooo! Anyone who has seen Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will tell you two things - 1) lady terminators are pretty and 2) if the bloody things can get on the internet they can hack anything and cause all kinds of hassle.

Fox has only gone and introduced the glow-eyed menaces to the iPhone. Great. Now death will be both swift AND stylish.

Terminator: Ambush is a mini MMO that can be played via the iPhone or a web browser. the idea is that players using the web interface hunt down and terminate those using the iPhone version. There is a GPS component to the game, so don't play if you actually are being hunted by a killer robot - this will lead them right to you.

FOX Launches 'Terminator'-themed, location-based MMORPG [Touch Arcade]

Oh, it's on now. The first phone loaded with Google's Android operating system launched yesterday with a decidedly underwhelming games line-up of, er, just Pac-Man.

Hang on, though - Gameloft has just announced that it will be launching 10 Android titles in the new year and Glu is rolling out a new Android-exclusive title - the Zuma Deluxe-like Bonsai Blast.

Gameloft have not revealed what their titles will be, but they have a load of decent licenses to choose from. Midnight Pool and Lumines, anyone?

Game on with Google, Gameloft and Glu

Ah, so this is why Atari went and attacked the developers of iPhone Breakout clones. Nothing sucks more than having to compete against better versions of your own product. Up now on the Apps Store are brand new versions of Atari classics Super Breakout and Missile Command, both redone with an added Xbox Live Arcade-style glossy finish. The missile command, seen above, looks particularly nice. Super Breakout, on the other hand, looks like Super Breakout, which basically amounts to all the cool clone versions Atari put a stop to without all the nifty bits that made them cool. Both games support two players as well as streaming your own music while you play.

Atari calls the games "true evolutions of the original hits", and promises more to come in the near future. Both games retail for $4.99 and are available now via the App Store. Nice, but not quite for me. I've bought Missile Command too many times already, and I've always been more of an Arkanoid man.

Atari fires onto App Store [Casualgaming.biz]

Look, three home consoles to look after, that's OK. It's doable. Throw a PC in there, still doable. A couple of prominent handheld platforms, you're stretching it, but we can manage. The iPhone, though...well, that was almost a bridge too far. So we're less than thrilled to hear that there's now another major mobile device on the market that'll support games. Launched yesterday to quite a bit of fanfare, Google's Android phone may just give Apple a run for its money in the "do everything" phone market. May. Won't with its initial games lineup, though. Where the iPhone's app store launched with a range of big-budget titles from the likes of Sega and EA, the Android has...Pac-Man. Uh, great, thanks. On the bright side, the phone's meant to be an open source dream, so hopefully it's not too long before some more interesting titles come along. That or someone gets SCUMM working.

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Rockstar might bring GTA Chinatown Wars to the iPhone!

Well they might, who knows? Mike Hickey, analyst for Janco Partners, thinks that he does. He told Game Daily,

"We expect GTA will likely be ported to Apple's iPhone platform, leveraging the device's touch screen technology and accelerometer."

Well, it was either that or leverage the Home and Wake/Sleep buttons, I suppose.

Grand Theft Auto for iPhone? [GameDaily]

Do you know what day it is? Tuesday! But not just any Tuesday — it's iPhone erotic game Tuesday. The shame! Here are two embarrassing fan-made games that feature natto-eating 14 year-old Yoshika from manga/anime Strike Witches and main heroine Yuno from Hidamari Sketch x 365. The NSFW Strike Witches one is above, and the very (yes, very) NSFW Hidamari Sketch x 365 is after the jump. There's rubbing, it's somewhat censored, but still rather suggestive. You've been warned.

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Zen Bound is ostensibly a game, although appears to be more like a toy.

It runs on the iPhone (PC and Mac versions to follow, apparently) and seems to be an accurate simulation of.. twisting a rope around an inanimate object. As the developers say,

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Remember Trism? It's the clever triangular puzzler from Steve Demeter of Demiforce, a Bejeweled-style iPhone app that uses the hardware's touchscreen and accelerometer for innovative play. Well, that little five dollar game has made Demiforce a cool $250,000 since its July release; not bad for someone who isn't Sega and comes armed with pre-established franchises like Super Monkey Ball. Start whipping up your apps quickly, kids, while the gettin' is still good — and make sure you don't make any Atari clones.

Trism, Made $250,000 since July 11th [FingerGaming]

Atari has fired off some stern letters to iPhone games developers, citing infringement of their Breakout intellectual property.

Bootant has received a takedown for Break Classic and BreakTouch 3D and SpiffyWare was given a talking to for SuperPong 2 - citing both Breakout and Pong infringements.

Thing is, while the Tetris clone Tris was pulled, this was due to the too-similar name - the gameplay was almost certainly not actionable. If Atari are applying the same legal principles, shouldn't they also be going after the producers of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo?

Atari's Legal Team Attacking iPhone "Breakout" Clones [Touch Arcade]

In the same spirit as our ultimate guide to iPhone games we did back when Apple launched its game initiative, I give you the Ultimate Video Guide to the Zune Launch Games. I cover everything from Hexic to Texas Hold 'Em, and everything inbetween...which is technically nothing.

It's nice to see them try, really, but I'd rather have had something a bit more spectacular to kick things off instead of an older game and cards. Still, I suppose when you find yourself in a really comfortable public restroom somewhere it's just the sort of stuff to keep the lines outside going for hours.

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Laminar Research has released an iPhone version of its well regarded Flight Sim X-Plane 9.

X-Plane 9 is a cross-platform (Windows, Mac OSX and Linux) flight sim that uses blade element theory to model flight characteristics in real time.

Although the iPhone release is scaled down (it weighs in at 6.2MB, the desktop version is around 25 GB), Laminar claim that the physics engine is intact with around 95% the accuracy of the full version.

Control uses the accelerometer (the iPhone essentially becomes a flight yoke) and some onscreen buttons within the in-game HUD.

Flight Simulator 'X-Plane 9′ from Laminar Research

As we speak, I am excitedly staring at the progress bar for the download of the new Zune 3.0 software, as I am sure many of you already have, eagerly anticipating the launch of the Zune gaming era. The update adds various new features to Microsoft's device, such as the ability to read audio books, wireless marketplace browsing, the ability to tag songs you hear while listening to the FM radio for later download, and wow - a clock, but by far the greatest development of all is the gaming features. The update even comes with two games - Hexic and Texas Hold Em, offering a fresh new way to play slightly older games.

The download is almost completed. I would have done this sooner but I couldn't find the Zune under all that iPod Touch packaging. Installing. Wow, it's taking a long time to prepare my computer. Hmm. *gets distracted playing Spore on the iPod Touch, wanders off*

Icarus Studios make 3D virtual world software — they have made a soon to be released post-apocalyptic MMO, Fallen Earth, using their own Icarus Platform.

While we twiddle our thumbs waiting their game to come out, Icarus have announced that they want to support the Icarus Platform on the iPhone.

This may mean lots of always-on persistent shared world antics on the iPhone, which will be nice — although they also make virtual worlds for businesses, so there could be some non-gaming stuff in there too.

Icarus will demoing the iPhone client at the Austin Games Developers Conference, starting tomorrow.

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Typical. A week ago I got an iPhone at the urging of a friend and then, at the urging of the same friend, bought Pangea's Cro-Mag Rally ("I think it has multiplayer. It has this mode called "gather" but I've never been around anyone with the game to try it.") That was $5.99, now it is $1.99, along with a slew of other Pangea games (and the VR Pro utility) available for iPhone and iTouch. Just goes to show, even if you wait a year, you still can't buy anything new from or for an Apple device without seeing its price halved the next week. Full list on the jump. It's a limited time promotion, like the McRib.

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While the first iPhone games were announced earlier this year, today's Let's Rock event from Apple seems to have sharply defined gaming as a major focus for the mobile device. Hell, gaming is now listed as one of the main selling points of the new iPod Touch, but the biggest proof came today during the event, after Jobs had finished showing off Need for Speed Undercover and the new on-screen d-pad from Gameloft.

"Now you can make a pretty good argument that it is the best portable device for playing games on - and a whole new class of games"

You could make that argument, sure. I'd daresay Nintendo, Sony, and sales figures might have something to say about it as well, but feel free to make that argument all you want. Me? I'm still waiting for my Zune to blossom into a powerful gaming machine. *pokes Zune with stick and sighs*

iPod Touch is 'best portable device for games' says Jobs [Develop]

During today's Apple Let's Rock Event Gizmodo got a look at Gameloft's new soccer game: Real Soccer 2009. The graphics look fairly impressive though I have my doubts about ease of play.

The main reason I think the game may not do well is because it relies on a D-Pad and A and B buttons overlaid on top of the screen. I already have enough trouble guiding Frogger around with my chubby fingers, using two hands on the screen's gotta be problematic. But hey, it looks nice.

The game is already out on the App Story for $US 10, so I'll give it a try and write up something a bit later in the week.

By way of Gizmodo and their Live Blog of the Apple Let's Rock Event comes word that Need for Speed: Undercover is heading to the iPhone .

The game will allow you to customise your car, deliver packages cross town and, I assume, race people. Sadly the iPhone version will be lacking sexy, as they've not included Maggie Q. Dammit, I've always wanted her in my pocket too.

The game is due out to the iPhone and iTouch in November.

P.s. I know it's not iTouch, but I just can't help myself.

Developer Polytron is best known for the upcoming Fez, but Polytron's Phil Fish (pictured) says the dev has something else up his sleeve — namely, an iPhone game. Says Fish:

Right now I'm collaborating with Alec Holowka on a little iPhone game that will probably come out way before Fez. It's a bit early to commit to anything yet, but Alec and I are making this cool little game that's all about multi-touch. You play as a little dose of medicine inside people's bodies, and you have to cure them.

Alrighty, then!

Interview: Phil Fish (Fez) [Indie Games via Game|Life ] [Pic]

I knew the iPhone was powerful, but I had know idea it contained the sort of mystical energies needed to call for one of the Great Old ones. Mobile content developer Digital Jokers have just creating content for the Apple device, and their first effort shall be summoning the living embodiment of terror and madness in the form of Call of Cthulu: Darkness Within. It's exactly the sort of point and click adventure that the iPhone needs to help important, on-the-go people look like they're still on-the-go when they're actually just goofing off with the elder gods.

The company will be demoing the game later this month. In the meantime, here are the first, oddly non-threatening screens.

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