By tweaking and tuning the formula that made last year’s entry such a rubber-burnin’ blast, Asphalt 5, despite hitting one major bump in the road, positions itself as the platform’s premier racer.

Loved
Garage Full of Features:A gorgeous, full-featured title, Asphalt 5 nearly rivals even the best PSP racers. Three modes-quick race, career, local and online multi-player-33 cars, 12 tracks, vehicle customisation and unlockable stat-boosting babes — yes, you heard right! — combine for a robust arcade racing experience. Additionally, three intuitive control schemes complement gameplay that blends Burnout’s adrenaline-amping crashes and Ridge Racer’s wind-in-your-hair thrills. Matching the content-brimming package is a pop-off-the-screen presentation encompassing colourful environments and great details such as planes flying overhead, day/night races, and changing weather conditions.

Turn Up the Tunes:While racing to your own soundtrack is nothing new to the genre, it’s damn cool to be able to lap the competition while your iPod library blasts in the background; the slick little Alpine stereo interface is also a very nice touch. My only regret is that I didn’t have the Benny Hill Show theme loaded onto my play-list to accompany my more crash-tastic races. That said, listening to the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa while hurtling towards the finish line at mach speed is super satisfying.

Hated
The Short Arm of the Law:While most of Asphalt 5’s career challenges — Time Trial, Drift, Duel, Escape etc — yield a well-balanced blast, Cop Chase, where you play the boys and blue and “eliminate” opponents by crashing into them at top speed or forcing them off the track, is about as entertaining as a snipped brake line. The event gets easier — and is often skippable — later in your career, but the very first one tasks you with tackling seven eliminations in three laps. I reached “Where is my mind”, the last track on the aforementioned Pixie’s 30+ minute debut album, four times — yup, two hours — before reaching this frustrating goal. Any game, no matter how good it is otherwise, is docked a few points if its gameplay can actually make me dread hearing one of my favourite bands. Hopefully Gameloft will alleviate this headache in a future patch.

Tons of content, fun-as-hell gameplay, great visuals, and the ability to rock your own tunes make this one the iPhone’s top performer on the race circuit. That said, those who lack the patience to complete that very first, brutally difficult Cop Chase won’t get to experience much of what the title offers. If you can get past that hurdle, though, this one’s definitely worth buckling-up for.

Asphalt 5 was developed and published by Gameloft for iPhone on November 2nd. Retails for $US6.99/$AU8.99. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Completed the game’s campaign and played online modes.

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Despite being streamlined and stripped-down for portable play, Command & Conquer: Red Alert for the iPhone still manages to pack in much of the series’ signature style and addictive strategy-driven gameplay.

Loved
Style to Spare:From its live action cutscenes to its crazy-ass battle units, the C&C series is famed for its intentionally cheesy excess. And while the silly cinematics didn’t make it into the iPhone version, the title still retains much of the franchise’s wacky trademark charm. Screen-swallowing Russian zeppelins rain death from the skies, armoured war bears charge enemy strongholds, and the sexy-accented Natasha quips “You like my scope?” and “The pleasure’s all mine.” while laying waste to never-had-a-chance infantry. Impressive explosions also engulf the tiny display, and all units, despite their shrunken presentation, are drenched in eye-pleasing detail. Furthermore, a crunchy guitar score keeps the action-and your adrenaline-appropriately amped.

Tactile Warfare:While the RTS genre still struggles to find its sweet spot in terms of control schemes that match traditional mouse-and-keyboard set-ups, there’s no question the iPhone’s touch screen is a good fit. Like a general positioning pawns on a war map, you’ll delight in the tactile satisfaction of fighting with your fingertips; simply touch units, then their target or destination, and watch them go to work. You can also draw a small box around multiple units to move them together, and save specific groups to tabs to easily access them again. Additionally, a swipe of your finger on a mini-map swings the camera to any desired location. Everything, from commanding and training units, to constructing buildings and navigating the map, is a simple intuitive touch away.

Hated
Minus the Multiplayer:Given the platform’s limitations we can totally forgive the omission of some units and even the Empire of the Rising Sun faction (only Russians and Allies are available.) However, the absence of multi-player is sorely missed considering the competitive nature of the genre. I generally think of any RTS’s solo campaign as a warm-up to the online action, so, while C&C’s handful of solo play chapters and two skirmish maps are a blast, they only feel like half the total package. Thankfully, EA is reporting that a future download will remedy this, adding the much-missed multi-player mode. Despite the shrunken presentation, Command and Conquer: Red Alert retains much of the series signature style and charm. Additionally, the touch controls make for a satisfying tactile RTS experience. Give us some multi-player, and we’ll happily jump back into this fight.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert was developed and published by EA Mobile for iPhone on November 1. Retails for $US9.99/$AU12.99. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Completed the game’s campaign and played skirmish modes.

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The $9 game designed by John Carmack features customisable control schemes, 36 levels spread across four episodes, a bounty of weapons and multiplayer support.

Here’s the full break-down of game features:
Play the legendary first person shooter, DOOM, with an iPhone or iPod Touch
Fight through 36 missions in four action-packed episodes: Knee-Deep in the Dead, Shores of Hell, Inferno and Thy Flesh Consumed
Experience DOOM multiplayer on your mobile device, including Deathmatch and Cooperative play for up to four players via wireless internet
Choose from three different control types and customise the interface to suit your style
Explore the depths of Mars while utilizing the top down map to help your journey and save your game on the fly
Listen to the original soundtrack or disable it and use your own iPod music

Eliminate is a pretty straight forward online first-person shooter with average graphics. You play the game with twin virtual thumbsticks, using one to aim and the other to move.

We’ll have a full review of the game soon, but it’s worth pointing out the game’s take on pricing.

Eliminate is technically free-to-play, but to earn the money you need to upgrade your character and purchase new skins, armour and weapons, you have to earn credit. To earn credit you need to play matches using energy. While you get a free drip-feed of energy by downloading the game, if you want to excel you’ll likely want to purchase energy packs from the in-app store.

I haven’t worked out all of the details yet, but I believe that winning a match gives you some energy back, although I spent $US1 last night to purchase enough energy to play a half dozen matches or so. Seems a bit pricey. Of course I don’t need to buy energy, I could play and not worry about winning credits or I could just wait to get the free energy which is delivered over time to your account.

Like I said, very interesting.

Oh, anyone who gets the game and wants to play a bit, my username is Crecente.

I mostly-loved Mecho Wars when I reviewed it a few months ago. But one of the big things the game was missing was online multiplayer.

Earlier this week game developers Oyaji released an ad-supported free version of the game that allows players to battle one another over a Wi-Fi connection.

The game, which uses OpenFeint for online support, allows you to select turn time limits ranging from five minutes to 24 hours. There are also four game modes: Conquer, gold differ, assassination and annihilation.

If you’d rather not deal with the ads, which are pretty low-key, and want access to the full game, including several single-player campaigns, you can buy the full version of Mecho Wars for $1.19 which also includes the online play.

SteamPirates is described by Oyoji Games as a role-playing game for the iPhone and PSP Mini by the team behind Mecho Wars and Fried Green Apps.

The images show a woman and animals in steampunk Victorian garb. No date has yet been set.

And it probably wouldn’t hurt if it boosted paid subscriptions for the service too.

The app, which requires Wi-Fi to work, lists games by platform in a number of ways, allowing gamers to browse or search for their favourite titles. Once a person finds the game they’re looking for, they can check out the box art, look at game’s controls and even read through user reviews for the game.

The service also has channels that allow people to read a feed of video gaming news pulled from Shacknews, which Gamefly acquired in February. And of course log on to their Gamefly account.

Gamefly co-founder Sean Spector says he hopes to continue to expand the 5000 games included in the applications library and that he also plans to extend the reviews and news found on the program to include other video game news and review sources.

“The idea behind it is to be the all encompassing video game app for mobile devices,” he said. “This is for everyone who is a gamer, not just Gamefly subscribers.”

Released this June, the iPhone 3GS added a magnetic compass, video capture capabilities, more built-in memory and a faster processor when it hit.

But it hasn’t been until recently that games designed specifically to take advantage of the new guts have started hitting iTunes.

Gameloft’s Asphalt 5 is one of those games. While the racing title will play on an iPod Touch or any model iPhone, it plays best on the 3GS when it hits later this year.

That’s because when the game first runs the software detects which hardware it has been installed on and launches the appropriate software. The game pack includes different files to load depending on which handset runs it, a Gameloft told Kotaku.

It’s a clever way to hide the fact that the iPhone is starting to nose its way into the sticky issue of having a potentially fragmented audience, something that could have serious implications for developers and gamers alike.

Almost more importantly, it looks like EA Mobile has done a great job of maintaining the look of the classic real-time strategy title.

If you picked up the $US8 app and don’t want to wait for the patch to be abke play now, you can just disable your WiFi to get the game to run.

I’ve spent a bit of time with it and it’s fairly fun, though the biggest draw for me is the ability to play in local and internet multiplayer matches. Something it looks like I’ll have to wait for the patch to test out.